When it becomes clear that the drunken man has no intention of loosing his spell, Mavro takes his quarterstaff in both hands and thrusts one of its ends at him. "Drop the spell, you drunken buffoon!"
Milo keeps his arms locked around him.
"It's very simple, my friend! You dismiss it and let my friend go, or you're here when your beast arrives!"
Tempest scowls, and tossing aside the scrap of cloak, she rushes in again and grabs Xander by a boot. Commanding Stormcloud to grab hold as well, the two pull to help the man get free.
Xander snaps a wand from a sheathe on his wrist and activates it, a pale blue glow washing over some of his wounds.
Varta continues to advance.
For a second, it looks as if the drunken wizard is about to endure the punishment and be killed before giving up. But a combination of Milo's threatening tone and Mavro's staff hitting him in the solar plexus seems to be enough to knock some sense into him – together with knocking most air out of his lungs.
"Koff ... koooffnough!" he tries to stutter, voice broken by the hit received by the old Pathfinder "I'll drooooff... koff! I'll drop it." he gestures and struggles to get out a few words of power. It takes him two tries, before the dismissal works correctly.
On the other side of the steaming vats, just as Tempest and her wolf are pulling Xander as strongly as they can to get him out of the grip, the tentacles go limp and an instant later disappear; suddenly free of the hold, Xander is flung towards Stormcloud (who is pulling with much strength) and ends up falling upon the animal: Pharasman oracle and wolf roll down on the ground in a bizarre ball of clothes and fur. The animal yelps with irritation.
The necromancer is down on his knees, with Milo firmly holding his shoulders, Mavro and Varta looming over him with raised weapons.
His face, showing signs of heavy inebriation and sweaty from the struggle of the fight, looks pathetic, almost worth of pity if he wasn't just about to kill you "Fine, fine! I dropped it. I surrender ... now – now you have to protect me!"
"Now! What was all that about? Why the hell were zombies working your vats in the middle of a city, and who is this enemy you're prattling on about?"
"There's a good man," Milo says amiably, as he has already forgiven the nearly-dying stuff. He brushes the magician off in a friendly fashion, though he's ready to grab him again if needs be.
"Protect you? Ah, heroes compelled by their morals to do the right thing and defend even their enemies! Very classic, very stirring, my friend! The only problem is that I have no morals. But do go on, tell us more about what you would like us to protect you from."
"I suppose I could try to protect you against singing off key or bad colour choices..." Varta muses aloud. "Or you can elaborate your story and make it coherent. Then we could kill the foe and make the tunnels run with blood, pretty blood."
Xander stares up at the ceiling in a daze as stormcloud pulls free. Xander reaches out and scratches the big wolf's ears.
"Nice doggie. Thanks."
Then he touches a different wand to his forehead and just holds it there for a while, wincing as his battered body restructured itself back to the way it was supposed to be with a number of audible pops.
"Breathing. Breathing is good. Ow."
"Did we win?"
“You don’t understand… it will come. Like Marshan. Like Baskerwhel! Oh, ooh for the stars and the space beyond… it will come for me and for all of us all of us all of us!” he puts forward his wrists “I… I surrender!” he almost pushes them against Milo as if begging to be held captive ”Now I’m your responsibility, yes, YES, you HAVE to protect me!” he is clearly incoherent, but you sense he is not actively trying to deceive you: he really is drunk and panicking.
At every sound, be it a thunder outside, a loud PLOP! made by the irregularity in the boiling vats, or a cat meowing in the street, the wizard jumps around startled - looking to identify the noise “What was that?” he says in his stupor “It seeks me, and hunts me, me and all of us!” his eyes are grotesquely wide open under his sweat-covered brow “If he slays me… he… it… it will feed and grow and grow! It is… it is for my sa… for everyone’s sake! It must not kill me!”
"Oh for goodness sake, calm down. You are, for now, under my protection. At least until you do something idiotic, paint on black velvet or the local authorities take you away. If something wicked this way comes we will deal with it. Otherwise, try to sober up." Varta says tartly.
"Would you mind fixing this for me?" Mavro asks Xander critically, pointing at the torn flesh on his face.
"Yes, yes, you're protected. Now, is it so damned hard for you to just tell us what this blasted creature even is?" he then asks the captive wizard scathingly, "And while you are at it, perhaps you could tell us how to get rid of it."
Xander nods, tapping Mavro with his wand.
The necromancer takes a deep breath before answering – you all take half a step back for his wretched breath “I… I don’t know what it is… Crove is the one who knows. It came – from the place beyond the stars, he said, the child of the Gods, it should’ve given us knowledge! Power!” his eyes stare blankly in front of him “We… not… it was not possible to see it, but we could all feel it. Massive, hungry. Mad. It… then… in a second, Marshan’s face exploded in blood and pain. I… I was foolish enough to cast a spell to see. I saw it grow, feeding on Marhsan, then coming for us. We ran, and Hyve quick in front of me - a hand over his mouth, we ran fast, fast as we could. I was clawing at my eyes to unsee its figure! Limbs and eyes and mouth, mouths, MAWS!” you can actually see the barely healed scratches hidden in the dark circles under his eyes.
“And stronger, and bigger and stronger! Baskerwhel wasn’t fast enough, and my neck was sprayed with his blood and the beast grew again and I kept running, not daring to turn around and Crove said that - he read in the book, he read all the books, he knows! He said it fed on us, us, its fathers, its conduits it fed on us and would’ve hunted us down to get stronger and bigger and madder!" his gaze focuses once again on you "I am under your protection – for your own good, don’t let it kill me! Please!”
Milo mouths mad as a mandolin behind the man's head as he listens to the man's frightened babble.
"So what, you ran from the beast and left the others to be eaten and then you came here? Where did you do all of this, the calling forth of this foul creature?
"--Lord Ravencourt, I confess I am bit scratched myself, if you have a moment..."
"It is just as well. We can cross two of those fools off our list."
"My dad is Lord Ravencourt. I'm just Xander. Here."
"Stormcloud and I got a little roughed up by those tentacles. If you're done with the wand, I wouldn't mind borrowing it for a moment."
7 castings later, both Tempest and Stormcloud are healed, and she returns the wand to Xander.
"If we are all done playing with our wands" Varta says straight faced "perhaps we should press on?"
"Hmph. So who do we go after next, then? Crove or Hyve?"
"Crove. He's the one who knows."
"Lets give this place a once-over and then head back to the jail to drop off this drunkard."
"It suits me," Milo says with a shrug, though he still wants to know from their prisoner where this 'ritual' had taken place.
"Crove-wards, then"
You take turns keeping an eye on the crazed, drunken adversary while searching the place. Your eyes still tear up for the smell of bubbling middenstone and despite the cold outside, you are all drenched in sweat from the damp, hot humidity.
The building reveals only another room: a small study, a wizard’s retreat with a desk, chair, and working table. You find coins, and several vials of fine, expensive ink and perfect parchment. The necromancer’s grimoire isn’t very well hidden, especially after you find on him the keys to the place. In a closed cabinet you find several books: the spellbook among them, but also several tomes about the Old Cults, matching those found in the dungeon below the city, and what looks like Myre’s Journal, filled with an linear, if tiny and cramped, calligraphy.
Even the somewhat humiliating process of getting padded and searched for items doesn’t distract the necromancer from his fixation. He keeps demanding that you protect him from the beast, that he is its goal, that by killing him it will grow.
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Mavro casts read magic and flips through the spellbook excitedly, but after a few moments he reaches the back cover and slams it shut. "Bah! It will take me years to master this material! I might wither away long before then..." Nonetheless, he wraps up the book and crams it into his pack.
Milo has little interest in scrolls and grimoires. He sits down by the necromancer until the group is ready to move on, smiling amiably at him and nodding at his babble of his horrific fate.
"Yes, really? And how soon is it coming for you? Have no fear, my sword is sharp and the cut of my jib is stylish..."
More quietly, to his companions, Milo says--
"Do we think there's any truth to his gibbering-- regarding the beast coming for him? I cannot say I feel love for the fellow, but it would be a poor thing to do to the city guards to have them guard this chap, then get their innards ripped out for the privilege..."
"Hm. True enough. Perhaps we should use him as bait?" Mavro asks quietly, briefly glancing at the necromancer with a crooked smile. He quickly clears his throat before speaking more clearly. "He will be safer with us, at any rate, and we cannot delay in finding Crove. And with two of them in the same room, perhaps we can beckon the creature." Once again, he clears his throat.
"I had the same idea, Mavro. The idea of bait sounds fitting, considering he's one part the source of this mess..."
"Let's just get him to the jail for now."
"If getting Crove is anything like this was, I don't think it would be a good idea to have someone who needs babysitting along with us."
"The jail is the most defensible place in town. Once we've secured all the suspects, we might be able to use them as bait, but until then they are each a liability unless they're locked up, secure and under guard."
Why don't we park him in the jail? That should be safer than him being with us, and a lot less trouble" Varta agrees.
"Bah! Very well, very well. But do not cast blame if the prison is a pile of rubble when we return with Crove."
Milo winces a bit-- he doesn't care about the wizard's fate, but the odds of guardsmen dying just doing their job... Well, he reminds himself, in the long run less guards in the town means less interference in his own activities. Al-ways look on the bright, side of life....
"It does make it a good deal easier on us," he says with external cheer, at least. "To the jail. We'll tell them to put salt around his cell, ha!"
He wanders to their prisoner and takes hold of his ear. "Come along! Solid walls around you, three meals a day, what's not to love?"
"Hmph. I prefer the bait idea, but if we're set on the other course, lets be about it and move on to the next of these creeps. There is no telling how pressed we are for time..."
When you open the door to Rupman’s vat and exit the foul-smelling building, the old guardsman you sta-tioned at the door almost falls down from the scare “Oh… oh for Pharasma’s Spire it is you all… I heard… I heard terrible screaming I wasn’t sure… is… is that Mister Myre? Did… did he do something wrong?”
You explain the situation to the shaking man as you make your way to the jail in the dark, wet evening that is turning into night. You see several people still crowding the streets, loading carts to get out of town. Most of the houses who are still occupied have barred windows and doors, and just a trail of smoke leaving the chimneys reveals that their occupants weren’t able to leave. The rain is still pouring down, creeping into your clothes and armor, chilling you in the bones.
“What did I tell you? already back with a suspect! The Mayor saw right in trusting these adventur-ers!” the pompous corporal who has been put in charge of the jail jumps up and says to his men as you return. The men mostly just shrug.
One of them moves forward holding manacles “So is the hunt over?” ask excited the corporal “Or do you have other targets? Any accomplices who might try to spring him, eh?”
One of the old veterans shakes his head at the obliviousness of his young colleague “Kid, there’s a giant monster out there. Everyone’s scared to death. Nobody’s coming to spring this poor bastard.”
Myre gets locked in a cell. The whole time, he’s been staring blankly in front of himself, murmuring about needing protection “You – you aren’t going to leave me here alone are you? It’ll come for! It’ll come for all of us! You don’t understand, you need it… it’s for safety, you need to do it, you need to protect me for everyone’s safety!” still half in the drunken stupor, he keeps rambling as the heavy reinforced door of the cell gets closed. “It’ll come for me!”
“So what now?” asks the chipper corporal. “Would you like a warm soup before heading back into the rain?” he points to a pot slowly burbling above a fire, which emanates a stench almost comparable to that of the black slime.
___________________________
"Myre, you need to be a little more clear if you don't want to be left here. What exactly do you mean that it will come for you? Why would we need to protect you for everyone else's sake? What is this thing, and why does it want you?"
"Some soup sounds lovely" Varta agrees enthusiastically.
Mavro glances at Varta with a look of equal parts awe, disgust, and anticipation, before opting to dig some trail rations out of his pack.
"Myre, you need to be a little more clear if you don't want to be left here. What exactly do you mean that it will come for you? Why would we need to protect you for everyone else's sake? What is this thing, and why does it want you?"
“You… you cannot understand… cannot comprehend…” replies Myre with voice full of dread “And I… Crove knows, with his old books, and his notes, and all… but I just saw…” he is staring blankly at the wall, eyes lost in a terrible memory “I saw the bodies of Baskerwhel, and Marshan… poor old Marshan… dismembered, torn, eaten by something invisible… and I was foolish enough to cast a spell to see…” his hands touch his own eyes softly, caressing them as if to make sure they are still in their sockets “to see the beast feed on them – on their bodies and souls… and now it wants mine… ours… it’ll come…” drunkenness wearing off, Myre retreats in corner of the cell, knees held at his chest, staring blankly in front of himself.
"Hmph. The same drivel as before. I suspect that is all he has to say on the matter," Mavro remarks, as he takes a bite out of some hard tack. Turning to Xander and the others, he asks, "On to Crove, then?"
"Let's go."
Xander sees that Myre is locked up and nods to the others.
To the guards he says "If anything strange happens, sound a horn and we'll come running."
Milo sniffs at the soup, then pats his belly with a wan smile and politely declines. He's the last out the room after the others, and gives the nearest guard a friendly slap on the back.
"Yes, as my friend says, should something odd happen, sound the horn, we'll be here like lightning."
More quietly, he says for the guard's ears, "But do yourself a favor, lad: run the hell away from this wretch for a good bit before you sound the horn, eh?"
Then he saunters after the others, whistling a jaunty tune.