It's hard to get an exact count, there's the occasional intact roof between her and the thing, but there's definitely more than their group. There's at least forty humanoid things, and some of the plants might be animate, too. All of the humanoids move with the same slow, stuttering gait, and look rotted, their clothes and flesh slowly sloughing off. Numerous bones, mostly of animals but some of humanoids, lie bleached in the sun.

She relays all this, plus the fact that she really doesn't like the odds of fighting forty-plus creatures at once, to Grendyne and Emes.

The team discusses it, then Emes returns with, "Sounds like zombies, mostly. Possibly a few more powerful variants, maybe an abhominal or several, but - our group could manage it. I could solo forty plain zombies with only minimal difficulties. The only problems that might crop up are if there's some more powerful animate skeletons. Both Lirhan and I can do a burst of holy damage that'll harm only undead within thirty feet of us, bad enough to kill weaker zombies. Tess can create a path of fire through them. Raena can handle anything we don't outright kill with that. And... Lirhan wants to lay this village to rest, so their spirits can move on. If there's plant creatures, 'lots of fire' remains an option, as does more exotic magic. This might also be a good chance for you all to get a sense of our abilities and tactics, at least in massed combat."

"Picking a fight we don't need to seems a bit stupid to me, but I'm getting paid to follow orders here."

"Laying the dead to rest isn't stupid. And she's right about getting a feel for each others' abilities. They say this is a relatively unchallenging enemy? All the better to get us introduced to local hazards, so we're going to help them fight. Now, I think us Witches are all best as ranged support. Magical blasts, our bows, the guns if we need them, flight. We don't train in melee combat, really. Sparky and I can both use lightning, if they're grouped up. I think we should all come together and talk out a detailed plan of attack."

"That works for us."

They meet up. Ghost is very good at scouting, drawing a detailed map of the area, locations of enemies, walking patterns, and so on from memory.

"...Now I admit when I plan engagements they're usually much bigger and with far more room for maneuvering so tell me if I suggest something stupid, but here's what I was thinking..."

Going in up close and personal will be important for Lirhan and Emes, since their bursts are centered on them; Raena can tag along within sprinting range of anything big. Tess decides to show off their wildshape, and fly above the village controlling a flaming sphere (which they have to stay within two hundred and ten-ish feet of right now) in the shape of... a large air elemental, why not, they were originally thinking a bird but an elemental will be able to handle the chance of aerial combat better. If the witches can do any low-cost area-of-effect spells, the time for that's in the early stages of the approach, before the fighters enter the melee. (Lirhan cautions against using anything too powerful right now; they want to conserve spells and energy in case there's more combat later).

They don't really have low-cost spells, they're all fairly expensive - or in the case of the bombs, non-renewable.

So Gren and Elanor will open up with a single blast of lightning, then reserve power and fly around firing on targets of opportunity with arrows.

Lirhan and Emes will be the leading and central force. Raena follows behind them, supporting. Tess flies above with Gren and Elanor.

Ghost will lurk invisibly in reserve and attack any enemy that the others seem unaware of or unable to handle.

"If things get too hot to handle, I bet we can pick you all up and fly off, or at absolute minimum cover a retreat. Mobility is probably a witch's best comparative advantage here."

"That would be helpful, other than Tess we're not exceptionally mobile."

"So we should identify lines of retreat on Ghost's map before going in, just in case."

"'Out the way we came in' will be easiest, undead are rarely intelligent enough to plan ambushes, or lurk in wait. We should probably start soon, we have the advantage while there's light."

"Useful, but we should still identify the approaches just in case. Old growth along this creek, so that's bad for running away. Looks like a clearing here, a road here, and another exit here to the north between this church and that barn if we somehow end up over there. Okay, okay, I'm done."

The team memorizes the map, then it's go time.

Lirhan and Emes do not make a point of hiding their approach, wading into the midst of the town, holy symbols raised, bursts of light rolling off of them and turning most of the zombies to dust. Raena tears through the more durable ones before they can reach the siblings. Tess turns into a vaguely humanoid ball of air and conjures an enormous ball of fire that they set to rolling among the buildings.

A dense flock of raven-like creatures, their bodies half decayed, erupts from one such building, scything towards the flyers. Tess sends a blast of fire into their center, destroying easily half of the ravens in one go.

The branching lightning bolts that Sparky and Copycat pour into the first line of non-trivial-looking creatures is certainly impressive enough. And the lightning she sends at the flying zombies- well, she has practice at zapping flying targets, though usually larger ones. The scent of charred zombie fills the air. After a few volleys they switch to arrows, mostly aiming for heads.

(Some of the arrows seem to come from nowhere, hitting enemies at the edge of the fracas. That'll be Ghost's doing.)

The arrows aren't as effective as they should be, and the zombies don't seem to notice the difference between being shot in the head or the abdomen, but they do enough damage to slow things down.

The ground team finishes clearing the easy targets within twenty seconds.

The tough targets barely take any longer (especially since several of them are on fire courtesy of Tess).

And/or blasted to bits courtesy of the Witches.

When nothing in sight and hostile is still moving anymore, ever diligent, Grendyne commands, "Witches, circle and check for stragglers!"

Lirhan concentrates, feeling for the aftershocks of evil, the auras like slime against his skin, and runs a loose search pattern.

Between him and the witches they're able to flush out stragglers, mostly immobile ones, or ones damaged by Tess's fires but not killed.

When they're not maybe about to be ambushed by hostiles showing up late, she relaxes a lot. "That went well! You guys are very good at fighting groups, it seems. We have more experience chasing down single targets."

"Yeah, most of the time what we're dealing with is hordes of undead attempting to pour over the border. We can do massive individual damage, and my smite ability is actually more useful for a few big targets, but the easiest thing is groups."

"Witches are snipers, chasers, assassins for the fastest Neuroi. The ground-pounders with their artillery guns and mine fields are the ones who fight groups, in our world. Specialization, you know."

"We do have bombs if we need to hit a group of something very hard. It's just that we can't get any more so it'd better be worth it."

"Yeah, I suspect unless we're near the end it won't be worth it. ...It might be worth it to return to the capitol and find an alchemist to arm you with something similar. They don't do much compared to high level spells, but dropped from on high they'll be good for thinning out masses without wasting spells."

"We're carrying most of a full load already, between bombs and bullets and other gear. If we have to use a lot of it, then that will be a good idea - but until then probably not."

"...Do you guys have bags of holding? The smaller kind aren't too heavy."