Those of you who have been keeping up with your daily quests will find that you have been given a polished woooden staff by the scout. This special, resetting, permanent item will give you the ability to curse an enemy so that he becomes a zombie when he dies.

First, the staff must be powered up. You can power it up by killing undead while the staff is in your inventory. You can see the staff's current level of power by probing it. You must power the staff up by killing 100 undead. The staff will lose 1% of power every 30 minutes, so once it is at max power, you must use it quickly.

You curse your enemy by pointing the staff at him. The next time that he dies (such that the death leaves a normal corpse) after the staff has cursed him, his corpse will rise up as a zombie. So long as that zombie is alive, the target will have decreased health gain. The zombie will decay after 10 minutes.

Alternatively, if you're some kind of pansy that doesn't like zombies, you can trade the staff in for 20 credits. Do ARTIFACT <staff #> TRADEIN to start the trade-in process.

Penned by my hand on the 11th of Halitus, in the year 6 AM.