Aporeu chronicles Issue 84: Recovering Surron's Body
Stories from the adventurers
This week
Not to spoil anything, but what an ending.
Recovering Surron's Body by Custous
After my visions, I’ve placed my quest at the guild, hoping I will have some help finding Surrons body and do what needs to be done. The people who have taken his body and desecrated so foul, will have to deal with me one way or another. I’m once again accompanied by Jade and Noaz, who seem to have gotten a good night’s rest from the Colosseum yesterday. Quen has also chosen to help us out, and someone new has decided to join us. Mister Sigvald Marduk. A flamboyant figure I must say, and with some unusual interests. He says he’s just passing through, to gain experience and stories to entertain. As long as he has a good skill set, I don’t really care at the moment. The guild sends us to Lore, a man of knowledge in the basement of the guild, he may have information. So we meet Lore, whose office is littered with petty items and a big impressive grandfather's clock, while he is sitting silently in his big comfy chair with his eyes faded away. He is a handsome man with exquisite clothing, and a top hat. Seems like he is more than a man of knowledge. He tells us the following while handing out some journal to Jade, who I send off to the corner because she keeps interrupting us pointing out things in the book. Lore has sent scouts to the last location where they knew Surron’s body was, the watchtower. But it seemed abandoned. That’s where they found the journal, from Zekash, a necromancer. His group of cultists are called the Shadowclad and are made up of assassins and criminals. It seems that a string of disappearances is linked to them, and he thinks he has found their new hideout. In the journal they mention something of collecting bodies and experimenting with Necromycelium. I'm not sure what that means. A Camilla has arrived in Arnheim, which Noaz seems to have encountered before. And he’s not happy about it. So we set out to where Lore has pointed us towards. Arriving at the street we hole up in a back alley and Quen looks ahead to investigate, he mentions one Conspicuous man on the opposite side of our target. We take a wide angle, and Noaz sneaks up to where he was last seen, but he has moved and starts running as soon as he sees Noaz. I bellow out a command to stop, he slows down but then resists and wants to keep running before being hit by an arrow from Jade. Noaz moves towards him and tells him friendly that he is here to help him, but as soon as he does that the person tenses up and stops moving. We bring him to an alley where Noaz and Jade beat the crap out of him until he loses consciousness. We realize we can't really interrogate him here, so all of us except Noaz take him to the guild. Noaz will take watch and see if anything else happens. In the guild, our prisoner just keeps snarling at us, without giving us anything helpful. He seems to have several scars on his face and his eyes are that of someone surely mentally ill. He spats something about being immortal and us not being able to do something. “I’m done with this' ' I tell them, and with a murmur and hand gesture blood drips out of his nose, eyes and ears, as his body lays dead still shaking with spasms. I’m not here for trivialities like this. So we head back to where we left Noaz, and find him in a slightly disturbing mental state, talking to his skull mask like a child does with her doll. He jumps up in surprise when we announce our return. “yeah, I’m fine, everything is fine here” he says in his masculine voice. After Quen makes sure the building is safe we enter. It’s filled with cobwebs and dust, old furniture piled up in several rooms. But we do find a trapdoor going underground. Noaz is unable to crank it open, so he heads off to buy a crowbar. No one had a crowbar! I’m starting to get impatient as Noaz returns, and it takes him about 10 minutes to break open the latch, while panting, sweat breaks out on his forehead. The latch breaks open with a blue spark shooting up from underneath, it was magically locked. A winding staircase leads us down, as I wait for the rest to open the door, I hear a splash and Noaz cursing. Surely not his day. But immediately the sounds of battle erupt. I dash downwards and find a room with stone slabs with several bodies littered around. A bunch of morticians or physicians guarded by four cloaked figures, 2 of which at the far end aiming their ranged weapons at us. I find cover, and darkness hits the second room. The body workers seem more capable of fighting as they lash out with weapons from out the darkness. Followed by the cloaked figures cunningly dodging past and targeting Quen.
As the rest tries to hold the door I take care with protecting Quen. Noaz is grabbed and pulled into the darkness, a metal clank can be heard and then the scream of Noaz fading away. Then Jade is also grabbed, but she yells out from the darkness, that there’s a pit where she is dropped into. Strangely her voice doesn’t fade away that fast. Sigvald keeps shooting blasts at the cultists, as we take down the 2nd cloaked figure that’s after Quen. He takes this moment to drop several of the cultists down with a sleep spell. While in cover of the darkness, Sigvald and I show no mercy and finish the cultists in their sleep. Quen drops the darkness, and we find Jade back, having climbed the shaft. We finish of a cloaked elf with a bow, but the half orc wielding a crossbow flees. While we help Noaz back up he tells us of piles of bodies, infested with fungi and fungal zombies. We quickly close the hatch. There's a door to our right, and at the far back where the half orc fled.
We choose to go right, and find a small walkway with planters filled with mushrooms, and several chests with maintenance supplies. The tunnel leads left, where again Noaz charges in a new room finding Camilla waiting for us. I peek around the corner and chant “De silentio ad sepulcrum” causing the sounds of battle to fall in silence. If anything, this would at least stop Camilla from casting any spells. My spiritual weapon appears behind Camilla and starts sweeping in. I move back to where we came from, with the idea of flanking. The tunnel where the half orc fled into, leads indeed towards the room, as I hear someone coming closer so the moment the half orc walks in my sight I command “drop”, he looks confused and lets his crossbow go. I quickly dash in and kick it away, and see Noaz and Camilla at the end of the tunnel in duel. My spiritual weapon is still swinging in, landing some hits. I Keep attacking the half orc while he has grabbed his shortsword and swinging it in return.
“Do you fear me Camilla? Cause you keep running away” Noaz yells as green flames erupt from his weapon and strikes home. But Camilla is tough and still keeps her footing. I hold my Spiritual weapon back and hex Camilla, but unable to damage the half orc. Noaz freezes up in fright as Camilla calls forth some sort of power, while also being hit by my spiritual weapon. Camilla swings a strong attack towards Noaz, but black smoke erupts from Noaz, countering the attack and swirling around him in a maelstrom. Camilla realizes she has lost and turns to run, but Noaz smashes his weapon in her knees and as she drops, Noaz jumps up swinging his axe overhead, and cleaving Camilla in two with a strong critical blow. Camilla’s body strangely turning to dust with a red energy being pulled towards Noaz’s axe. Jade pops from around the corner and kills the half orc with an arrow in his back, while Noaz is roaring in triumph! Man, this guy, even while being exhausted just hauled himself through all this.
We investigate the last rooms, and find a dusty old office with another journal. Apparently they were trying to extend camilla’s life through necromycelium. They seem to have trouble using the bodies, but one particular body of an adventurer seems “promising“. I have a feeling they are talking about Surron. That moment Jade calls my name from far away. I meet her at the last unexplored room, where Surron’s body lays to rest on a stone slab. I walk in and immediately feel my patron’s presence. I’m sure Jade has told her story of what has happened, I have no intentions of giving the specifics. I regret what happened there, though it was not my personal intent. I had no clue that this would be the outcome. I’m conflicted in my actions, but my hands were bound.
Surron is back, but not the Surron we knew and loved and Surely Sigvald will have a great story to tell wherever he will go.
~Custous Vita~
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