Aporeu chronicles Issue 72: Sins of our Father

Sins of our Father by Q

For this mission, we're not meeting at the Guild Hall, but at the Wanderfoot house. There's Ms. Jaykath and Ms. Elena, who wanna save Mr. Heubald, of course. And Mr. Noaz and Mr. Surron are coming along to help as well. I'm feeling pretty good about our chances, since Ms. Jaykath just disappears when it's dark. Like, really. It's not that she's hiding really well, like I do, either. She literally just disappears.   Anyway, Ms. Elena tells us about what she learned about 'Revenants'. Apparently, those things don't have the proper decency to STAY dead. Godsdammit, what is it with undead things?! Dead things should stay dead! That's how the world's supposed to work! People die, they stay dead, and we remember them so they're not forgotten.   There's also a letter to a Mr. Brindlo. Who's Ms. Jaykath's dad. Apparently, this Camilla lady really hates Mr. Brindlo, and kidnapped Mr. Heubald to get at him. And we're planning to waltz right into the trap she's set. I'm not so sure about this plan, honestly, but I can't think of anything better, so... That's the plan we're going with, I guess.   We head to the docks, and find a captain that's willing to lend us his ship, the Albatross, after a 'safety deposit' is made. Mr. Noaz says he knows how to sail. He was talking boat-stuff with the captain for a bit, which is why they were reluctantly willing to let us use his boat.   Once that's settled, we take off towards the North, to the old watchtower that was mentioned in the letter. As we get closer, we see a ruin, a couple of lit braziers, and patrols. There's about 6 people that we can see walking around, and they've got 4 double-headed dogs with 'em, too. Guess they're expecting company.   With Ms. Jaykath's help, we just narrowly avoid hitting a jagged rock, but the anchor we dropped after that just alerted them to our presence. We weren't seen yet, but they knew something was there. I use my creepy light dagger to try and scare them into thinking we're a ghost ship, but that doesn't really work. After a bit, some of them start shooting flaming arrows at us. That's not really the response we were hoping for, as you might've guessed. I shoot one of the archers, Ms. Jaykath shoots another, and we at least get a bit of a reprieve. On account of them hiding from being shot at, of course.   New plan: We sail by one of the rocks near the island, and fight our way onto the island from there. I hop from the boat to the tiny island easily. These guys are pretty tough, they don't go down very easily. And those dogs are seriously [expletive] up, because they're swimming out to get to us. Mr. Surron uses some magic to tangle 2 of the dogs up in seaweed, which makes 'em a lot easier to hit. I punch one of them in the nose so hard it sinks and doesn't come back up. The other dogs get killed too, and we start working on the people on the big island. Mr. Noaz swam to shore and is already distracting them.   I pick up one of the daggers that they threw at us (and missed), and toss it back. Apparently, my act of kindness is really distracting to the person Mr. Noaz is fighting, since they stumble a bit and Mr. Noaz is able to take care of them with his creepy axe. I was just returning their dropped dagger. Not my fault they caught it blade-first with their shoulder, right?   Mr. Surron does some more magic, and the archers and the mage up in what's left of the tower start to panic. The screaming gets less as more of them just disappear behind the crumbling walls. Guess the magic's doing its thing well! One of the archers decided to get out before he did, but he's not-so-well-hidden behind a crate, and distracted by 2 snakes that came out of nowhere. Guess Mr. Surron did the same kinda magic Dr. V. used against that big Gnoll that had Mr. Noaz' new axe before. Anyway, I leap from the island onto the crate, and stab him in the neck. This half-orc is as tough as Mr. Gerolt, because he's not going down. At least, not until Ms. Elena comes up behind him, smacks him over the head with her staff, and he just roars. Which then turns into a whimper as she kicked him really hard in a not so nice place. This guy's voice went really high before he just collapsed.   After that whole mess is over, Ms. Jaykath does some magic, and the faint mark on her forehead glows. But I feel invigorated afterwards, so I'm not complaining. We have a bit of a breather too, and Mr. Surron shows off that fancy staff of his. Apparently, it can transform into a HUGE fricken snake. Ms. Elena also tells us that Camilla really likes to scare people. Not just pop up behind them and say 'boo' kinda scaring, though. She uses magic to make you terrified of her, and then bad stuff happens.   I also ask Mr. Noaz why the runes on his axe are lit up, and he says it can trap souls or something ominous like that. Not sure if I like the sound of that. But Ms. Elena and Ms. Jaykath seem to agree that Mr. Noaz should be the one to kill Camilla, since then her soul can't escape to keep haunting Mr. Brindlo. I think. It's all a bit weird with all this magic stuff and souls and undead and Seriously, dead things need to STAY dead!   Ms. Elena does some cool stuff that seems like magic, but it's not the god magic that she does. Forgot to ask her if I could maybe learn that kind of magic. But a lot happened, and I can't really blame myself for being a bit distracted. I'll just ask her some other time. Probably need to train the monk things way more before I can do that sorta stuff, anyway.   Anyway. We try to lure Camilla out, and into a trap of our own. But that doesn't really seem to work. Ms. Jaykath tries it, but then we hear a cold voice: "If you want to see your brother, come down here." That's not ominous at all. And yet, we're all dumb enough to go down that ladder, into a small room. Where we find Camilla, a tied up Mr. Heubald, and 2 guys that really weren't as sneaky as they thought.   Camilla's covered in armor, has a scarred face and pale skin, and a big halberd. Ms. Elena starts casting a spell, but I shoot Camilla in the face first. Ms. Jaykath also shoots her a couple times. And then the wounds start closing after she pulls out one of the arrows. That's gonna be annoying.   Mr. Surron remembered that Camilla doesn't like fire or holy stuff, so he sets her armor on fire. Sadly for us, that doesn't really last very long as those not-so-sneaky guys? Yeah, they listened to their boss, and killed Mr. Surron after she said he was gonna be the first to go. I was a little distracted by another guy that came at me from a side room to see it happen myself, but...

Mr. Surron died. Ms. Elena saw it happen. It was really quick, too. None of us had a chance to try and save him. That's another one gone. I implore every Adventurer to think hard before they go into a fight. Especially when you reach Gold rank. Things stop being easy. Things WILL do their damnedest to kill you. And there's not always gonna be a chance for your friends on the mission with you to save you before that happens.   I can't be distracted. I take out the guy that was interrupting me from focusing on Camilla. Ms. Jaykath goes down, but Mr. Noaz is right there, able to give her a potion so she won't die. I'm not entirely sure what I did or where I stabbed, I just remember that I stole Camilla's sword from her scabbard and flung it away to spite her. And without realizing, gave Mr. Heubald a hand in trying to get free from his bindings.   It becomes clear that we're not going to be winning this fight, as Camilla uses some magic to heal herself from most of the stuff we did to her. Mr. Noaz has the same idea as I have, and gets the heck outta there. I linger a moment too long to try and make sure Ms. Elena, Ms. Jaykath and Mr. Heubald can get out as well. And Mr. Heubald ends up having to drag me out of there. Guess I got under Camilla's skin a bit too much without a proper exit strategy.   If I never have to see Camilla again, it'll be too soon. The biggest problem we had was not enough ways to keep her from regenerating. I don't blame Ms. Elena for being shaken after seeing Mr. Surron die. I didn't know him that well, but I knew him well enough to know he was a nice man. I hope that he is happy, wherever his soul went after it left us.   -Q-

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Sins of our Father by Jaykath

I’m a girl who’s not good with words, unlike dad and bro. Not really sure how to start this thing, but here goes I guess. A few weeks ago my brother was kidnapped from the docks in Arnheim, we knew the chance was there that there was an undead monster, that a revenant has been after our family. When we finally heard who had him we pooled all our resources, and even borrowed some money to put out a gold tier quest to return my brother and capture that b… woman.   Last night the time was there, and Elena and Q who I knew came to help, along with two new faces, Surron and Noaz. Me and Elena told them what we would be up against, a revenant, an undead, sort of, who heals if not hurt by fire and godly magic, and who really wants our dad to suffer.   Eventually we went on to go to the docks, to rent a boat to take us to a watchtower in the lake. Luckily Noaz knows how to talk to sailors and he persuaded one of the fishermen to rent us his boat, the Albatross. We returned it in the best condition we could.   As we approached the island with the watchtower Elena first saw several people, 2 walking around with each 2 large two-headed hounds, 1 more outside the derelict tower, and 3 on the walls of the tower. We nearly sailed into some rocks but I managed to help Noaz avoid them, but in doing so the people on the island did hear us.   From there I must admit a lot became a blur for me, my first real combat. There was that time Gerolt fought me in the training grounds but then I knew it was training, and that does feel different.   Four of us jumped off the ship as it sailed past a rock out in the sea in front of the island, while Noaz sailed on as a distraction. A great plan I thought, but the people and the dogs did know we were there, and the dogs swam out to attack us while their archers kept shooting at us!   While we were busy with the dogs on that little rock and the archers on the walls, Noaz swam to shore and started killing the people there. Surron did some magic to the dogs, trapping two so they couldn't move out of the way and slowly we did manage to kill them off. As we then made our way to the island the archers had all but disappeared, apparently Surron had magicked up some snakes on the walls or something, which was very welcome!   As the fight wound down, I looked around at the others, seeing most of us were quite seriously wounded. I closed my eyes and felt the now familiar warmth grow on my forehead, then spreading out all around me as it closed wounds and healed bruises on all of us.   When we felt up to confronting Camilla, a few of us got up on the walls surrounding the tower, while Elena and Noaz were at the hatch. Elena opened the hatch and shouted down at Camilla to come fight us, unfortunately she wasn't goaded so easily. Even when I told her who I was and to come out to face me she told us to come down, and that Heubald was waiting to see me. Elena went down the trapdoor, soon followed by the rest, and I took up the rear. We all snuck down, and it seems Camilla did not notice most of us as we hid behind pillars, watching her kneeling in front of an altar, next to Heubald, bound and gagged.   Behind pillars near her we also saw some men standing, pretending to hide or something. As Elena started casting a spell on Camilla, Q and I shot at her. From there, it is one big blur. I know that Surron caused her armor to start glowing bright red, which seemed to hurt her. That in turn made her angry, and she and those men attacked him ferociously… so much so that none of us were able to get to him, to save him.   And from there the fight turned foul. It did seem to go well for a while, but there were just too many of them and too well trained and dangerous. I know I went unconscious several times, so did others. It seemed like the Gods themselves were against us, the way all our attacks kept missing her! In the end we were forced to flee.   We did manage to get everyone out, although I do not know how, and we retrieved Heubald. Still… With losing Surron on my first mission, and a mission we commissioned I really do not consider this a successful mission. Our dad, our family and friends are still in danger of his choices in the past. I… know what would resolve this, but the thought scares me.   I do want to thank Elena, Noaz, Q and Surron… and apologize to them for dragging them into this mess.

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On the next issue:

Missing person: The Mages Courier