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Infarct
Seventh day of the Fifth Month 293 AC
There were many things that Bargor had to endure in his admittedly not—so—long life. He had to suffer through the death of his parents in the hands of some petty lord's minions. He had had to resort to poaching to make a living for himself, but he had always seen that as simply taking his due from the lands of the bastards who took what he most valued. Now, sleeping besides an oversized cat with the ability to peel away its face to scare the living shit out of whatever it pleased, in a haunted mansion of some sort, counting now two mages as his companions, he had to admit that this was far beyond what he had imagined. Going to Sorcerer's Deep to find a better life was something. Enlisting as a volunteer to take care of the magical beasts was another. Now, going around the land hunting grumpkins and dead people? He smiled to himself. His eventual children would be proud of him, if he survived long enough to raise them.
Mia shook away from that weird trance of hers. She had volunteered to watch during the night and there were not many ways to persuade her out of doing that. He himself had pretended to be asleep half of the nights, just in case the girl got in some trouble. But, since the first episode in which Skinny had chased some shadow away, nothing had happened. He pretended to wake up again and greeted her.
"Boring as always?"
"Yes, I can't explain you how tempted I was to simply open a book and have a good read."
Bargor repressed a shudder. He still couldn't believe how she always managed to associate dark and cursed places with study, but again, he had never set a foot inside the Shadow Tower. Instead he changed the subject and pointed at the other sleeping figure in the room, the one who had begged to have the bed.
"Should I send Skinny to lick his face? I need some laughs to brighten my mood." Skinny, who had apparently been awake for some time, slightly peeled the skin of his muzzle in anticipation.
"I have a better idea," she said, and she magicked some lights in front of the sleeping face of Beten, who futilely tried to push them out of existence as he grumbled.
Mia frowned. "I would have expected the sudden eerie lights to make him drop from the bed."
"I heard that!" the sleepy mage replied as he sat up. The group had needed someone able to speak to the dead, and apparently Beten had recently graduated from the Scholarum and was able to do that.
"Then you are awake and we can get back to cleaning this damned place." The skulls of the involved hadn't said much. The crime solved after Perenor confessed and was bound and put into custody, the only information that the dead could bring was the origin of this whole mess, and so far none had been able to pinpoint any big dead boss around.
"Then what should I do?" Beten answered, sleep still not getting off his face.
"You can still ask for some insight, right?"
"If the Inquisition pays for it, sure."
"You are here serving the crown, so you will be refunded the material costs. Everything else is part of your oath of service to the King." Beten had been trying to profit from this since he was requested through the weird talking sand—and—brazier thing. The only good thing was that Vee was the one to deliver him to this corner of the Disputed Lands, and Bargor was glad to be able to say hello to the girl who accepted him into the caretakers of Mosshold.
Bargor decided to brighten up the mood for the boy. They had to work together, after all.
"See, there won't be many people interested in buying magical baubles from you if they keep getting killed by the thing you came to fight, right?"
Beten attempted to retort, but simply sighed. "I'll get the herbs, just get the madman out of the vapors"
Perenor, for his part, was unusually happy with his life, for some reason. He still looked in the way of dying, tired no matter how much rest he had, but for some reason the dark mood was lifted from him. He hadn't managed to tell anything of use. He had blamed his murdered wife for the problems in the Meraenos Manse, but so far couldn't even recall anything besides the hanged people getting back to life but leaving him rot in his misery… and some failed suicide attempts.
Before starting to cast the spell, Beten remembered everyone: "Remember, we are all going to commit to go towards Terena's Tomb." After a nod from everyone involved, Beten
ignited the herbs and the smoke turned a dull grey.
"Danger," he said.
Mia nodded. "There will be something there waiting for us. Perenor, you are guiding us to Terena's resting place."
The bound corpse of a man started quite quickly to protest: "She wants me to suffer! I can't go there!"
"You can only suffer if you are alive, right? I'm sure that Bargor here can put a bolt in your nape if something worse than death happens to you."
Perenor froze, but Bargor shrugged. The guy did abuse and murder his wife, but he should just be executed and be done with it. Still, he could see the utility of using him as bait.
"No objections?" she asked. Nobody said a word. "I thought so, let's get going."
***
The way through the illusory thorns plaguing the field fortunately was not long. They still had the power to harm in the form of minor cuts, even after Mia had tested them again and again through magic sight and other spells. Perenor, for his part, was leading the group with his bindings removed. Everyone had agreed that in his state he wouldn't be able to run too much and if that happened Bargor would be in charge of shooting a leg to make him drop. Beten claimed to be able to heal him back up.
As they arrived to the tomb, a decorated stone slab among apple trees which had withered during the curse the afflicted the whole manse. The group stood there, prepared for an ambush. One that didn't come.
Bargor took the time to inspect the tomb. It was difficult to notice if the dirt had been removed or not, a lot of time having passed since the curse started.
"We are going to need to dig up the body," Mia said, her face grim with the prospect of moving bodies around.
Bargor pulled the two shovels he had managed to find, handed one to a frightened Perenor, who had somehow managed to turn paler, and then started digging. They managed to find a wooden coffin, which, unsurprisingly enough, had been opened at some point.
This time it was Beten who asked everybody to open the coffin, claiming that the state of the body could shed some insights into the nature of the threat here. As the lid was pulled off, the half—rotten body of Terena was there.
With a huge bloody hole in her chest, ribs having exploded…
outwards.
It was then when it began. The thorns came to life and tried to grab everyone. As everybody fought off the spines, something red and bloody fell from the trees into Perenor's back. A scream of pain was the only thing that came until Perenor ceased to move, and everybody could catch a glimpse of the thing: a pulsing red heart, still dripping blood, which had somehow mixed with a spider, its fangs embedded in Perenor's nape.
Before anybody could react, the creature jumped away into a branch. Bargor shook himself away from the thorns, ignoring the many cuts, and shot at the thing. It went wide, and then it vanished.
While everybody cut themselves free, or, in the case of Skinny, bit his way out, Beten started and asked Mia, "You said that he had the taint of undeath on him?"
"Yes, you mean that he—"
"Destroy the body before it—"
Nobody had time to react before Perenor's body jumped and grabbed Bargor, the dead visage now sporting an unholy red glow. Bargor flinched, as the recently dead body somehow managed to be colder than ice, and that same coldness sucking the very being out of his body.
Skinny quickly jumped and latched onto the corpse's leg and shook it, giving enough opportunity for Bargor to break free. Mia aimed a
ray of fire to the walking corpse, but went wide. It was up to him. He pulled his crossbow, and the world suddenly lost its color. He looked around, as Skinny didn't let go the leg of Perenor. Why did he come to this place? To die eaten by the corpse of a moron he just saved from himself? He shot almost without meaning it, but the shot managed to find purchase in the chest of the dead one, for all the good it did. Bargor thought that he heard Mia and Beten argue.
"Heal him!"
"It won't do! He is—"
"Then DO SOMETHING!"
That's when Beten cursed like a sailor and launched himself towards the undead, pressing a hand against its torso, just besides the embedded bolt, and uttered a spell.
Golden light infused the corpse, and it became brighter until it crumbled to dust, to the surprise of Skinny, who suddenly found just ashes in his mouth.
Did it matter? That spider heart thing was still out there to murder everyone. He absentmindledly reloaded his crossbow, following old habits, when he felt an intense pain on his leg. It made him briefly snap and shoot out of reflex, a bolt now sticking out of the spider creature which had managed to bite his leg. He then stopped feeling, and the world around it stopped to matter. Mia was shouting something as a
cloud of sparks flew out of her. He... expected all of them to die here. He did not care.
Some lights passed in front of him, he could hear the screeches of the spider as it was ravaged by Skinny. He just wanted to lie down and die, to end all of this.
***
Warm light managed to wake him up. He was in a bed inside the Manse, the hand of Beten giving him warmth.
"This is all I can do for now, but undeath has taken a hold on his soul, it is beyond all I can do."
"How did you end up graduating if you can't break a curse?" Mia was furious.
"The curse I can take out, I can't get rid of the taint, and if it is not beaten soon it will forever scar his very being."
Then a fleeting thought flew through his mind. How could he brag in front of his future children like this? He opened his mouth:
"Do you still have that bag of sand on you?"
Mia nodded slowly
"Have them send a message to the Deep: Tell Vee that I need an appointment with that healing blob of snot she has around."
Note: Lovelorns automatically inflict a negative level upon confirming a crit. When you coup de grace someone, it guarantees a crit, which happens when someone is helpless, like when you sleep. Guess who had been sleeping in the same house than the Lovelorn? And, of course, dying from level drain transforms you into a wight. Also Bargor here got hit by the Crushing Despair Cynic's Bite Level Drain combo, if someone is interested in knowing what happened to him.
