"Hm! Well that's on the whole probably good news, I suppose, given our goals." He inspects the corpse pile's surroundings for signs of loose scales, magical trails, literal footprints, etc. "I guess unless there is an entirely unrelated necromancer? ...on a scale from 'generational calamity' to 'pop up everywhere constantly like rats' how common are necromancers generally." 

"More like rats than like manticores, unfortunately. People turn up with a talent for it, sometimes, or just think it sounds like a good path to power without as much risk to their own skin."

"Ah. Presumably some of the ones with the talent are using it for things that are harmless and just getting caught in the stigma but obviously that's not who's going around turning plague corpses into murder weapons. And if that sort of thing is common we... can't assume this just now was relevant enemy action but it is at least some evidence that the object of our quest may be among the metaphorical rodents..."

Wait. Shit. He is talking to a completely nonmetaphorical rodent. Did he just do a microaggression? Bad university professor, no cookie.

"... uh. Is your species in an important sense a type of rodent such that that's a super rude metaphor? Sorry about that. Common idiom, weaseled its way into the language due to-- wow that's also an idiom that treats small furry creatures as presumptively bad which I've never noticed before, what the hell, English-- due to humans being generally discomfited by the reproduction rate of r-selected-- tangent. Sorry." It is so easy to do that when you have this much academia stacked on top of itself in the six-century-deep backyard storage shed of your brain. 

Compass following? 

Jojo laughs, following along. "I'm less a rodent than you are a monkey." Then his nose twitches. "Sorry, that came out wrong. I'm not a rodent, either way. Beastkin come from magic on kith, not on beasts."

"Hah, no offense taken, humans sure are a little bit monkeys."

He would have been pretty offended two centuries ago - or really even one century ago, as at the time he was busy doing somewhat-less-evil capitalism and getting inordinately excited about airships and not super paying attention to natural sciences news - but the current scientific consensus is that humans aren't magically created and neither are most known alien species. For that matter neither are wizards, which is somehow weirder. How do you evolve that and not have it dominate the planetary gene pool instantly? Some sort of bullshit has occurred if you ask Hob and he is definitely not in any way biased by how envious he is of the cool magic powers. Probably some dick with an extremely specific crystal ball is assassinating every wizard who would have had too many grandchildren because he thinks not having magic builds character or something. 

"Your species is magically created?" he wonders as they walk. He should not get bogged down in a ramble but idle conversation makes you look less like you're paying attention and that's a good way to catch your enemies off-guard. "The kind where ongoingly each individual one of you gets made out of components that were not previously alive and then a miracle occurs, like Amazons, or the first were artificial and then they could reproduce, like ligers? --that's a cross between a lion and a tiger, apparently you can do that."  

"The first of us were artificial," Jojo confirms. "Nowadays we reproduce with each other. Any beastkin, not just of the same animal – I could mate with a wolf-kin just as easily as another mouse-kin, and the pups would come out each one kind or the other."

The trail leads them to the burnt-out shell of the Academy building, the air around it still clouded with ash after less than twenty-four hours. Jojo's tail swishes anxiously.

"Huh! Neat." Follow follow. Squint. "...that's weird. Was there something else in the building she wanted that she'd've come back for? Do you know if she had any notable possessions on her person when she was originally arrested?" 

"I have no idea," Jojo apologizes.

Their trail is blocked at times by collapsed rubble, but Jojo is able to lead the way around by his memory of the floorplan. Eventually, they reach... a small pond. Into which Gulnan appears to have swum.

Jojo casts a nervous glance at Hob's breastplate. "Ah."

"Oh shit is she an aquatic lizard species. Ah... I can swim," he can swim in this much armor better than an average person who's had swimming lessons could in a wetsuit, actually, "and will if necessary recover from inhaling too much water," it sucks so so so bad though, "but probably not fight well?" 

Jojo squints. "I don't think she is. Usually if something can breathe water it needs to be immersed in water on at least a daily basis, I think? And she was kept in the stables with the others, and I doubt Lady Aribeth was in there every morning with a washtub. So I doubt she's, I don't know, buried herself in the silt. There might be a grotto. I can make the dive first, and check for it, if you'd rather minimize your time in the water."

"Oh, I hope so. This," he gestures with the polearm, "is not a fishing spear." 

Hm. Well. That's sure a suggestion. He does not particularly want to let the teenager go into certain danger by himself but Jojo is in fact a perfectly competent fast melee combatant and will be rightfully offended if Hob suggests he needs babysitting for a scouting mission. Also the unarmored stealth mouse is probably genuinely a way better scout than him, which he is...... 80% sure is not a post-facto justification of how much he really does not want to dive into an enclosed body of water of uncertain depth. 

"...yes, please. Roughly how long can you hold your breath, d'you know? I will unfortunately probably get unproductively anxious really fast all alone in the spontaneous zombies zone if I don't know how long it'll be but I do have a clock." He tilts his wrist toward Jojo to show him the face of his wristwatch, the second hand ticking merrily along. 

"Oh, that's an excellent clock. Um..."

He holds his breath, keeping an eye on the watch face, and jogs lightly in place to simulate exercise.

"Three minutes, it looks like," he says on exhale. "I knew all of those breathing meditations were good for something."

Whistle. "I can do.... half that, maybe." He'll plant himself in a Keeping Watch position next to the pond. "See you in three minutes?" 

Teenagers need independence and for you to believe in them and not to die of Hob being a coward and opportunities to use their talents productively. This is fine. 

Jojo slips into the water.

He's back in two and a half minutes. "Nothing yet. The pond isn't too deep, though, this shouldn't take long." And he dives back in.

Two and a half minutes later: "I think I saw a fish swim through a wall while I was down there. I'm going to investigate."

Three minutes pass.

Tick tick tick tick keeping an eye out for more zombies tick tick tick "Oh good," tick tick tick watches are such a good technology, he loves technology very much tick tick tick tick "Yeah that sounds very likely relevant, well done," tick tick tick tick tick he's being so normal about this and everything is fine tick tick tick tick tick tick everything is fine tick tick tick tick shit. 

For a horrible few seconds he seriously considers just leaving. Go get Fenthick, report Jojo concerningly missing, ask for backup, he'll feel bad about it but he's regretted many worse things-- 

He can unfortunately vividly picture the disappointed-but-not-surprised look on Aribeth's face. He... really doesn't want to have to go back and admit that he's exactly as untrustworthy as she had every right to expect. 

"...saint adjutor please, for the love of fuck, at least once let me have this," he sighs, and takes a deep breath, and dives. 

Jojo is currently not visible. However, there is a slimy treebranch sticking out of a large rock in the side of the pond, intersecting its surroundings very conspicuously. The rock glows illusion-purple.

Fuck he should've given Jojo the glasses. That is obviously what you do when someone is scouting. Why is he a complete gibbering idiot. 

He cannot hold his breath long enough to pause to try to learn any other facts. Directly into the illusory rock goes Hob, leading with the blunter end of his polearm. 

Behind the rock:

some drowned corpses, bloated and bobbing in the water! No Jojo corpse, though. The underwater passageway leads up into a grotto, as expected.

That... sure could be worse but it's also not great. Where is his small furry son Perfectly Competent Young Adult Who Needs A Normal Amount Of Team Support. 

Hob finds himself moving with excruciating care as he exits the water, nervously aware of every tiny difference that might turn a step into a damp squelch or a twist into a jangle of metal. He's several steps across the ground, silent as a very worried grave, before it even occurs to him that he'd been so busy thinking about his feet he'd skipped right past the scheduled panic attack. 

There's a moaning sound coming from a passageway leading off of the grotto, like someone who can't move their mouth trying to scream.

Don't like that!!! 

Thataway with Hob, tense with readiness to apply instant violence should it be called for. 

Down the passageway: it's Jojo! He's being carried by some drowned corpses like the ones Hob saw earlier, totally limp and moaning through his jaw hanging slack and his tongue lolling out.

Oh violence is incredibly called for. 

(Somewhere in the back of Hob's brain, several risk assessment modules are now having a vicious fight about whether they might need to be worried about long-term consequences even if Jojo lives - they have magic healing so normal you can buy it in bars here, Fenthick fixed a fairly serious spinal injury for him this morning, but people sometimes survive car crashes with modern medicine and they also sometimes die of tripping over a rock and landing wrong, he doesn't know which things sound bad and which things are? - but they all agree that if he needs to be worried about that, it gets promoted to conscious thought later.) 

The great thing about paying attention to your feet is that if your enemy doesn't see you coming and you are holding a two-handed polearm you can do quite a lot of damage to them before they even finish turning around. 

The zombies-or-whatever don't stand much of a chance against Hob, but that doesn't mean they won't try to fight, dropping Jojo to claw and bite at any flesh not covered by plate. One lands a deep scratch, and Hob can feel the wound trying to sap his strength, leave him boneless on the damp stone like Jojo – but after a moment, the feeling fades.

When they drop him, Jojo starts twitching, and by the time the last one is down he's on his feet, trembling but mobile. "Th– more of them! Behind you!" Then he launches into a flying kick at yet another shambling corpse.

Ow?? Some manner of magic bullshit has occurred??? Hob is going to stab that one extra hard just to be sure, in case it's Different Somehow.

Then he's wheeling around in response to Jojo's yell -- Jojo is ambulatory and making deliberate noises!!! -- later, he will feel relieved later -- and engaging yet more zombies. They smell like silt and death and it kind of makes him want to throw up or possibly hide under a rock, but he presently needs his lungs to do a strenuous activity and so that, too, is going to wait for conscious attention.