A Skull Full of Souls

Candii sits in the guild office awaiting her debrief. She quietly ponders the correlation between the difficulty an adventurer causes and the amount of talent they display. Or, at least, their talent for solving impossible tasks. She avoids touching the illusion covering her destroyed hair and clenches her hands. Her multicolored, gem-studded nails dig painfully in her palms. Bonehead even messed up my shopping trip by getting arrested. She sighs. I wish I had some friends to play this with. These guys are just so real. She shakes the errant thoughts from her head as someone calls her name. She smooths her battle dress, wishing she’d had time to bathe and change. She quietly casts a couple of cleaning cantrips, they’re no substitute for a bath, but it should keep her looking at least a little presentable. Then, she follows a scribe down a hallway to an intricately carved stone door that seems very out of place. The doors to either side are simple wooden doors. In fact, the entire hall is full of standard wooden doors. The scribe raises his hand, arcane energies lightly swirl around him and condense on his finger as he pokes a sigil in the middle of the door, and it ignites in red light. “Master Moranth, adventurer Candii is here for her debrief.”

Another rune, higher up on the door splits down the middle to reveal a green, burning iris. Candii feels a slight magical force wash over her as the eye glances around and looks her up and down. “Very good, send her in please Willenforth. A surge of several arcane schools pass through the door and Candii can only identify transmutation, thaumaturgy, and spatial before the door opens in complete silence.

The scribe turns to her and motions her through. “Please enter. I will be here when you finish.”

“Thank you.” She steps into a spacious office. The floor and walls are stone. Each visible inch is covered in more complex runes. Most are covered in tapestries, bookcases, scroll shelves, and other arcane equipment. In the center of the spacious room is a free-floating free-burning bonfire that has no fuel, releases no smoke, and seems to emit just the perfect amount of warmth. Past the fire, where the back wall should be, is what appears to be open air. The view is of a grand valley nestled inside enormous mountains. The window appears to be at the same height as the mountains in the back. As if the view was from the top of a great tower. A balcony extends out, and many planters hold various rare and expensive herbs and reagents. Her mouth waters as she recognizes many. The flowers bend from a breeze that doesn’t affect the room she stands in. On her left, she sees a circle of opulent furniture arranged for small, intimate gatherings. And along the wall behind them, A large portrait of a delicate gnomish woman seems to stare directly at her. Her pink hair is done in a complex ornamental design that frames and travels through an ornate crown. She’s wearing an intricately embroidered green kimono, and her golden eyes seem to stare directly at Candii.

A chuckle comes from behind her as she faces the portrait. “Elle always does demand attention, doesn’t she?”

Candii turns with mild embarrassment as she realizes a man sits behind a massive desk. “My apologies, Guild master Moranth. Your office is-like, way more interesting than I was prepared for. I meant no disrespect.”

Moranth smiles kindly. “A common reaction, my dear. Now, I’m a busy man. Let’s commence.” He waves his hands and speaks several arcane words. Next to him, a quill dips into an inkwell and prepares to write on a blank parchment. Moranth draws a second, largely completed, document and pulls out a fancy fountain pen. He begins filling in empty fields. “Let the record show that this is the debrief for mission seven-zero-A-Z-nine-D-six-seven. Interviewing official: Guild master Moranth. Reporting adventurer: Candii Ellen of Bransbrook of the assigned adventuring team: Bare Bones.” As he speaks, he fills out the actual form for the adventuring contract they took. To his side, the auto-scribe quill titles the parchment ‘Meeting Transcript’ and begins writing every word and gesture either side makes. “Guild contract: Investigate the activities of the Crimson Shade Mercenary group in the Embervale Woods. With the additional addendum of reporting on the incident at the city gate that led to the arrest of three members of said adventurers. Is all that I said correct?”

Candii felt a little flush darken her face at that last line, then flush a little harder when she noticed the quill writing that she had blushed at that line. She tried to maintain her composure and simply answered. “Yes.”

He nods approvingly. “Begin your report from the point of taking your mission. Start with stating the understood parameters of your task and take us through it.”

Candii nods and takes a deep breath, she organizes her thoughts and begins. “Our contract stated that-like, the group calling themselves the Crimson Shade Company had become increasingly active in the area and that the reports indicated that they had set up some form of-like, large-scale camp in the Embervale woods. Many travelers and locals had reported incidents of members of this group breaking laws—accusations of property theft, violent assaults, and unlawful taxation of traders. Additionally, there were reports of suspiciously large movements of men indicating that their numbers had-like, increased dramatically in a matter of months. We were tasked with investigating their operations and reporting the situation as well. We had permission to engage if necessary, but mostly, we were just supposed to investigate.

Moranth nods and motions for her to continue.

She takes a pull from a water skin and resumes. “Well, things got-like, a little complicated from the start. First, we noticed that we were marked from the start. As we were leaving, several suspicious men seemed to spot our departure and rode ahead of us at-like, a conspicuously fast pace. Running their horses as if they were urgent couriers. We were not unduly worried at this point but decided to scout our surroundings as we traveled. We-like, have a few talents that let us track our surroundings without being obvious, and we found that other riders were following behind us. It was at this here, that we’d assumed that we were going to be ambushed at some point and began planning to reverse the trap upon our attackers in order to-like, gain intel on what was going on. That being said we did-like, discuss reporting back, our belief was that we had nothing but circumstantial evidence and that it wasn’t enough to satisfy breaking off the mission so early. We guessed that they’d likely attack us one of the times we made camp.” Candii paused again. Trying to ensure that she missed no details. “Well, to our surprise, they didn’t attack. They just-like maintained the tail. Every few hours we’d spot a scout marking our location and heading and returning in the direction we were going. We discussed our suspicions that they were waiting until an army of them could surround us, and we considered going back. We are only considered level five and this contract was a category six mission. But we decided that we were confident in our ability to escape capture if they tried to catch us. In truth, our party consists of an extremely varied power rating, and even our weakest member, Julius, has a grasp of magic far beyond his rating.

“Noted. Please continue.” Moranth slowly switches from filling out the form to listening intently. No expression crosses his face. Candii can determine nothing about how the guild views their decisions.

“Well, we-like, get into the wood with no resistance. But it’s clear that something’s wrong. We should have encountered several travelers, traders, and other adventurers on contracts. As I’m sure any official of the area knows, the Embervale Woods Road has constant activity. We-like, inferred that we would be attacked after setting up camp but before we got a chance to investigate. As stated before we prepared to spring and reverse the trap. Julius has-like, some unique methods for scouting, and they found that we were right. They were preparing to attack. But there was a problem. It wasn’t just the mercenaries. I know that this contract was issued “anonymously” with the source paying a premium to keep their identity reserved. I am-like, almost certain that it was at the behest of Salvatore’s Service.

Candii took another sip as she tried to gauge any sign of confirmation in his eyes. Again, all she saw was a professional mask of attention and patience. “Well, it turned out that-like, not only was the entire Crimson Shade merc group positioned to attack our camp, but a large contingent of magic users were stationed on the other side of us, and they were preparing a powerful mass-summoning ritual. As Julius scouted the area he spotted that they-like, all were wearing the sigils of Salvatore’s Service. He read the ritual. As I-like, said his magical comprehension is higher than you’d expect, and he told us that they were summoning twenty greater Hungers. He explained that they’d be perfect for killing our party, as such beasts incapacitate those they attack. Meaning that 20 of them versus our less than ten members had-like, no chance of survival once we engaged. Yes, he could explain his findings in real-time while scouting. Like I said, special methods. Julius, determining that the ambush was far larger than we had expected, changed the plan. He infiltrated the ritual circle and made alterations until the summoning would backfire. Summoning a different creature type, and changing the targeting and functioning parameters. Removing the summoner’s protections and adding a trigger that would destroy the summons before they could spread through the forest.

Moranth blinked and held up a hand. “So, to clarify, your category three necromancer managed to stealthily infiltrate a cabal and significantly alter what sounds like at least a category six, maybe even category eight ritual. Without it exploding or failing. Is that correct?”

Candii nods and agrees. “Yes–well, technically yes. The spell did eventually explode, but-like, he planned the explosion to wipe out the summoned monsters and armies. I did warn you that his knowledge was higher than his category suggests.

“But still, that’s like if one of my apprentices walked into my lab, glanced at my project, then flawlessly rewrote it and added features. Someone of that caliber shouldn't even have the mana to power the changes, let alone the understanding of the higher math and languages involved in such a work. Runic Sigildry of that level requires more energy and precision than such a being should be capable of.”

Candii smirks. “Yup. I don’t want to give away my friend's personal history but as he likes to tell every barkeep and passing traveler, he was made and educated by a level twenty lich necromancer and that’s just the smallest part of his education. It’s only complications from his creation process that hold his level back.”

“Fascinating.”

Candii nods. “Yup, should I finish my report?”

Moranth blinks and then coughs. “Ahem, yes, please continue.”

“So, he-like, finishes the adjustments mere seconds before they activate the summoning, and he orders us to hide under our leathers and make no moves or sounds. Then the summoning triggers and I must say, I’m not entirely sure how to describe what happened. We-like, spent a couple of terrifying and tedious half-hour huddled under blankets listening to the screams and sounds of wings while Julius telepathically chattered and drove us nuts. Then, his explosive trigger went off, and the wood was engulfed in-like, the single biggest fireball I’ve ever seen. When this thing went, nothing inside its blast survived, and the ground was turned to glass. The only survivors were a few on the edges with magical protections, those who found good cover, and the few who’d begun fleeing before the summoned swarms could reach them. It was…effective.”

“You sound upset that it succeeded.”

She sighs and shakes her head. “Not really, it’s just that we had a little collateral damage to the party.

He looks at her with worry. “Did some of your party die? The report didn’t say anything about casualties.”

Her face is sullen. “No, nothing like that. We had some personal property damage and minor…disfigurements.”

He looks at her, then his eyes flick up to the part of her hair covered by an illusion. Then they quickly flick back to her. “Ah.”

Candii blushes furiously and firmly resists the urge to probe her missing hair. She inhales and her next words are full of forced bubbles and cheer. “So-like, we do a mop-up of the area. Capturing a surprising number of survivors. Turns out, whatever was summoned scared their horses so badly that most broke their bridles and ran off. We-like, even managed to wrangle a few and use the mercs' own wagons as prisoner transport.” Candii pauses and takes another sip. “It was during the mop-up operation that we made a few discoveries. First, of the massed armies, we discovered only fifty-seven survivors. Of which, we captured fifty-two. Of those we failed to capture, we anticipate only two actually escaped. The other three fled into a class two goblin warren. Which is-like, alarmingly close to the city. It’s probably fair to say that they might be responsible for several of the disappearances that we blamed on the Shades. The last two escaped in a cart. We-like, wanted to see if the prisoners would give any intel away so we let them wake up while we gathered them. They were restrained and watched, and the gambit bore some fruit. One of the Crimson Shades, an officer if I had to guess. Attempted to murder one of the Ritualists. We prevented the assassination and noted them for interrogation. The attacker was entered into custody as prisoner number Seven. A middle-aged man with dark hair, a scarred nostril, and missing a finger on his right hand. The woman he-like, attempted to, assassinate, was arrested and labeled prisoner number Forty-Nine. She is younger with red hair, possibly half-elven. It’s hard to tell, as the human features bred pretty true. It’s easy to see some non-human is in there, but hard to identify what kind. I requested that those two be held in non-adjacent cells, separate from the rest.

Moranth smiles and nods. “That part about testing the prisoners and marking the ones who acted was a great idea. Back to the warren. Please tell me more. Any information to verify your assessment would be appreciated.

Well first, the cave mouth-like, reeked of goblins. Nothing smells quite like a goblin den. Plus the ground was covered in tracks, there were-like, several old fetishes hanging from the entrance, and some cave art. So it was definitely at least a stage one nest. But there were other smells as well. Burning coal and hot metal. There were also crude iron castoffs. A broken dagger so shoddy that a smith couldn’t bear to let it leave his forge. A few pieces of armor were cast to the side. Also like, a metric buttload of gnawed bones. In truth, we suspect that the Crimson shades were aware of the goblins and were suppressing that entrance. But we both know stage two goblin camps never have just one entrance.

He nods again. His expression pensive. “That is enough, thank you. Shall we move to the incident at the gate or do you have anything else to add?”

She thought for a moment, wracking her brain for things she’d missed. “Only to restate that our impression was that this felt like an obvious setup. They’d known we were coming before we even left. And that the Church's involvement is very alarming. I can’t imagine why two large groups would work together to take one little party of adventurers down like that. They had us. If it wasn’t for Julius we’d have all died. The creatures they were summoning would not have taken prisoners, it’s not in their nature. So I can’t figure out why they would lure a single, low-level team into an ambush and not plan to take prisoners. It couldn’t be to gather intel. Else they’d have aimed to capture us. And we aren’t important enough that our loss would damage the guild. I-like, don’t want to sound arrogant but this feels like the church hired the mercs to bait us in particular into a trap. I understand the rules of allowing for paying premiums for anonymity and don’t really feel the need to know. But if the church did set this quest I’d suggest you try to find out why they wanted to lure a low-level team to their deaths.”

“I’ll add that under suspicion and personal thoughts. No need to give them ammunition for accusing them. As this is going under notes. What is your guess as to their reasoning?”

“Well, we once-like, stopped in to get a disease removed from Sasha. She got bitten by a sick monster while scouting. When we visited the chapel they immediately took a great dislike to Julius. It’s not-like, an uncommon reaction. Lots of clergy loathe the undead. But they got so upset that they threw us out and refused to heal any that would ‘Consort with an abomination that will devour all life.’ I mean, Jules can’t actually eat. And we ended up having to pay an apothecary to get the disease cured.” Candii did not mention that the sickly and irritated Sasha stole all of the valuables from the altar as they were chased out. “So if I had to guess. I’d say it was about Julius. But that makes no sense. I saw your name on one of his papers that he’s not a bad guy. I’m-like, assuming you realize how not ambitious or monstrous Julius is.”

Moranth nodded. “Indeed, he’s very mild-mannered and civilized. Though lacking in a firm understanding of morals and ethics. Mostly he’s just excitable and eager. He also decided to surround himself with people who can show him, if not the right path, at least a constructive one.” He hummed thoughtfully. “You know, Julius is at such a low level that I’d never considered his future. But there is something strange about his capabilities. Perhaps the church fears what he’ll become. Hmm, anyway I will note that we should look for a motive surrounding the quest issuer. Now, report on the incident at the gate.”

Candii sighed, took one more sip, and continued. “Well, the guards were of course alarmed when we showed up with fifty prisoners. They asked some questions and Julius-like, immediately blurted something about killing hundreds of people with a spell. He then was confused by the guards' even more pointed demands for explanations and instead of explaining the contract, he declared that the guards were too simple to understand that the church was trying to kill him. At this point, the guards had ordered us to dismount and allow them to search the carts. Borbigmos tried to calm things down by explaining the contract and that we were reporting back but a guard found Sasha sleeping and checked to see if she was alive. She reacted violently and bit the guard. Borbigmos rushed to stop Sasha while yelling at her, and the guards decided to arrest everyone who was involved. As Krop, Rick, and I had been cooperative I asked if we could turn in our quest and sign a contract that forbade us to leave town. They agreed and thus here we are.”

Moranth sighed. “Well, that does fall under the Anticipated Disruptions section of the adventuring law. We can probably get them off with a fine. Sasha may have to do a penalty assignment or pay more reparations for assaulting the guard. But I can probably get them--” A stone glows red on his desk and starts making chimes. Moranth picks up the stone and infuses energy into it. Moments later he groans and tosses it down. “This concludes our debrief.” the quill magically wicks away the remaining ink before replacing itself neatly. Moranth stands and gestures for Candii to do the same. “Unfortunately signing and witnessing will have to wait. There’s been a breakout at the prison. Come with me.”