(Alternate title: A Matter of Grave Concern)
Time Started: Fireset, c2393/Lavanda-12, 13’00
Starting Location: Feodris | Dosleron Region | Grasmere Island Province | Grasmere Keep | Hillcrest Memorial Cemetery
Rejoining the group in the cemetery as they held a supplicant undead dwarf at surrender, they responded to the plea from the skeletal creature with a pointed question: “Why did you attack us?” The necromancer indicated he was responsible for the warning signs across the cemetery: the darkness, the fog, etc, and he attacked in response to the party killing his “creatures,” indicating the skin kites. He called Hillcrest “his cemetery,” as if he owned it.
The party followed up with a question about Oren Reid, the actual groundskeeper and the reason for their investigation. The undead dwarf confessed Oren was dead, but insisted he wasn’t the murderer. He claimed Oren succumbed to natural causes, and that he had no idea what happened to the skinned dorukan or dwarven body found in the alley behind Oren’s home. Brom then asked why the sudden need for secrecy—the theatrics of the fog and darkness and creepy vibes.
The dwarf—named Nucruk—then began to weave a tale, slowly and reluctantly, but the party gradually drew it out of him. He claimed to have been raised from the dead by an unknown force or entity, a circumstance he was wholly unhappy with. He vaguely described a project he was working on, the goal being to have a conversation with an unnamed individual he thought could help him. This project involved the cemetery and he indicated he was aware of Oren’s presence and made efforts to keep the innocent man away from his dark project. But he confessed to having taken advantage of the untimely demise of Oren for his own twisted purposes, still maintaining vehemently that he was not directly responsible for the man’s death.
At this point Nucruk asked if they could go somewhere where he wasn’t quite so exposed and they turned toward the groundskeeper’s home when they heard someone entering the cemetery and quickly found it to be Riv and Olivia returning from their adventures that morning. After some initial tension, Nucruk ushered everyone into Oren’s home and they made themselves comfortable in the kitchen/sitting room area. They resumed the interrogation.
He claimed to have once been a worshipper of Nendumi, the Goddess of Decay. He was one of her favored, granted powerful magics by the dark goddess. However, toward the end of his life, Nucruk had fallen out of Nendumi’s favor. He had displeased her and she had rejected him, leading to his untimely death by his own hand. Unexpectedly, he was then resurrected albeit with a reduced level of power. He sought an audience with Nendumi then, assuming the resurrection was her doing, part of some curse or punishment. But she cast him out, unwilling to even entertain a petition in his condition. He then became obsessed with the idea of restoring a corporeal body of flesh, particularly after having been rejected also by Nendumites at one of her shrines.
During the course of the questioning, Nucruk discovered that he had not been dead for a matter of months as he had presumed, but rather his initial death had occurred over 150 cycles ago. He struggled to reconcile the reality of his new undeath with the tales Olivia spun about The Profane and their undead armies, but he quickly returned to his previous assertion that what would help him most would be returning to his “new body” project. He asked for assistance in this work and the party seemed a little hesitant, but did offer to try and act as intermediary for Nendumi. He seemed skeptical that would work, but stopped short of asking them to avoid trying. The party also suggested Nendumi might be upset about the reckless murders, which Nucruk seemed to take as possible, but unlikely.
The party then tried to dig into what Nucruck had done to lose Nendumi’s favor in the first place. He described how she used to leverage his loyalty to carry out various tasks in her name until he was asked to cause some kind of harm to children, a line he was unwilling to cross. His defiance cost him Nendumi’s favor and he described how she rebuked him saying his arrogance in the face of her power was unacceptable. During his subsequent depression and alcoholism, he was tormented by visions he presumed were sent from Nendumi, flashes of the future where the children he has been asked to kidnap grew up to be murderers and warlords. Having not known the length of time that passed, he hadn’t thought to inquire about those children to see if the visions were true, but he also didn’t know enough about the targets (other than their age and relative innocence) when he refused a direct order from his patron to really make a historical cross-reference.
Eventually Nucruk agreed to cease work on his reanimation work, lift his spells, destroy his harvesters (skin kites), and return any of the bodies. In exchange, he asked for the group to return from time to time and let him know updates regarding their investigation into who may have raised him or what might be done to grant him the audience with Nendumi he so desperately wants. After a brief investigation into the crypt where Nucruk woke after he’d been raised, Nucruk was confronted directly with the consequences of his actions as he inquired to the reason for the crew’s investigation. Convinced to return the body of Oren Reid to his son, Amenko, for proper burial and grieving, Nucruk then revealed his secret laboratory underneath the wooded area in the southeast corner of the cemetery. Here was Oren’s body, stitched together with various other bits to create a bit of a monster, which Nucruk released to the crew admid some words of support and encouragement. He admitted they were very surprising, far more compassionate and open-minded than anyone he’d expect to find in a cemetery.
They took a few minutes to scan through some of the materials Nucruk had gathered there, finding a collection of unsettling necromantic tomes which he claimed came mostly from a fortuitous cache unearthed in one of the graves. He had also managed to gather a few other forbidden texts and components through laborious means. Nucruk then thanked the crew and agreed to wait patiently for their return with information about operating Necromancers, Nendumi, or possible solutions to his undeath. There was some discussion then about how best to proceed, given the state of the partially flayed body and that of Oren Reid, whose body was desecrated pretty thoroughly as part of Nucruk’s experimentation. The party asked Nucruk about Oren’s belongings and he produced a sack containing his personal effects (CitBook, clothing, a ring of keys, a monogramed handkerchief) so they would have something to give to Amenko Reid, then they fabricated a plan to start a small, controllable fire in one of the mausoleums to burn the bodies and cover up Nucruk’s presence and involvement.
After a bit of debate about whether to pursue further investigation of the cemetery and questions swirling about the state and status of unlawful necromantic activity, Olivia and Riv let on they had some information to share and suggested they retreat back to the Stewed Prune for further discussion.
Game Event: Short Rest
Time Check: Fireset, c2393/Lavanda-12, 18’30 (hour and a half until sunset)
New Location: Feodris | Dosleron Region | Grasmere Island Province | Grasmere Keep | Salt Slums District | The Stewed Prune
Once there, Riv recounted his experience at the Recovery Center, describing his sense of uncleanliness while casting healing magic and the evidence the phenomenon was spreading. This reminded Brom that he’d experienced something like this earlier as well. Olivia went into more detail about their chat with the healer (Ruda) in Myrtledale and the developing theory that if healing magic is weakening or becoming tarnished, then perhaps the inverse (necromantic magic, perhaps) is becoming stronger.
A lengthy discussion ensued about how best to approach investigating this issue. Brom and Riv settled on making a trip to the Shadow Chapel to see about appealing directly to Nendumi while Olivia headed to the strange building in the Cliffside District where Riv had observed the mysterious violet-skinned ovor woman from the night of the fire at the Stewed Prune. Beeroy, Olivia, and Riv made plans to meet back up at the Recovery Center after their other errands, while Bold split off to try and find Judge Jamie Wappelode to get an insider’s account of the healing magic task force’s progress. Bold found his way to the Pillarhand Courthouse and, seeing armed guards outside, decided to wait and try to intercept the Judge as he departed for the day.
Meanwhile, Olivia and Beeroy headed to Cliffside. They spent some time casing the mysterious house that had attracted Riv’s attention earlier in the day. During their recon, they noticed an unusually small orc, wearing bright clothing and a distinctive cap entering the building. Without seeing him leave, they then observed him approach the building from a different angle and enter a second time. They concluded there must be a second ingress/egress point somewhere, but with nothing much more to go on, they headed over to the Recovery Center.
Brom and Riv then moved to Gods’ Walk, heading into the gothic looking Shadow Chapel. They met a priest there named Yuaphim who seemed helpful at first but quickly bristled and became combative when Nucruk was brought up. He jumped to a conclusion about Nucruk’s status as an undead, and he perceived the casual questioning as a series of accusations. Riv and Brom pressed him on rituals and practices pertaining to Nendumi and Yuaphim softened a little, offering to provide them with books on the topic of the Goddess of Decay and her worship. He gave them two slim volumes to borrow, and suggested weakly that at some future date they might be granted access to the archives, once they had finished reading the loaners. He also apologized a little for his prickliness.
As Brom related a few more details about Nucruk, Yuaphim began to question the legitimacy of Nucruk’s (or possibly Brom’s) story. He claimed Nemdumi had more or less cut herself off from the Mortal Phase, and hadn’t blessed any clerics for generations, going back to before The Collapse. She’d become detatched and had scant response to even dedicated worshippers. Brom and Riv accepted the books and returned the apology for their own prejudices before departing.
Back in front of the Courthouse, Bold began to grow anxious that he’d missed the Judge, but finally made contact. Judge Wappelode did not seem at all happy to see Bold waiting for him, but grudgingly motioned him around the corner to a more private location. Bold brought up the healing magic issue, which the Judge seemed unfamiliar with. As Bold described the details, Jamie seemed very uninterested and distracted. He offered vaguely to ask around about it a little, almost more hoping to be rid of Bold than offer any specific help. Bold then brought up the ovor woman Jamie had confessed to having an affair with, mentioning that some members of the party had been having encounters with her.
As soon as the ovor woman was brought up, the Judge tried to silence Bold by pushing him further out of sight and range of hearing from passers-by. He vehemently urged Bold not to mention the woman in public and seemed particularly keen not to have any association between her and himself be made. He offered to come to The Stewed Prune around lunch the next day and have a more private discussion. Bold agreed to the meeting and left, running into Riv and Brom returning from the Shadow Chapel on their way to the Recovery Center.
After bringing Bold up to speed on the encounter with Yuaphim, they all met up with Beeroy and Olivia, but they find that Administrator Genberos has left for the day and is off until the day after, so they make an appointment to return and meet with him next time he’s in the office.
Game Event: Long Rest
Time Ended: Almset, c2393/Lavanda-13, 00’30 (half an hour after sunset)