Death Is Inevitable

As we interrupted the ritual at the jungle altar, several large bipedal lizard-creatures ran out to ambush our ambush.
 
Without thinking Brom ran into the chaos, channeling the fury of the Hollow Spirit in a pyroclastic tide: "Remember the tragedy!" He managed to deal a devastating blow into the group.
 
However, this ferocity was met with the full might of the enemy group: after parrying without armor the last strike felled Brom. An attacking reptile lunged at his throat, ripping the last un-life from his body. But yet, in that moment, the nail -- the Hollow Mark -- grew cold and icy around his neck. A voice called to Brom, as one would a sleeping child: "Rise up, dead man." And he rose, taking one last strike at his enemies.
 
As Brom fled the throng of combat, he was noticed behind a stone ruin by the turned drake-creature, who raged towards him. Eragon, yelling "Dammit" all the way, before point-blanking a lightning bolt to try to turn the creature. It did not work.
 

The Sword of Remembering

 
Cassandra, from behind, pulled forward Luce's sword from her things to invoke the lost barbarian. A spiritual copy of the sword came into being to flank Brom's (and Eragon's) opponent. It missed, perhaps due to Cassandra's reluctance to fight.
 
Rohrouk was the one to take down the tezkeleh priestess, and Brom to finish the raging ritual lizard-creature.
 
Eragon: "Brom you could've died!"

Brom: "I... I have friends on the other side."

Eragon: "You have a friend here!"

*Brom sheds a single tear*
 
 

The professor

As the party regrouped, a voice came from the darkness of the jungle. Professor Aharen (how Rohrouk called to her), a white-scaled lizardfolk clad with a similar dueling sword to Rohrouk's and wealth to match appeared to us. "I know everything, Rohrouk," she explained. Her sass is overpowering. There was an ensuing discussion between her and Rohrouk about stopping these creatures (this sect?), which ended on a note of undoing some type of natural selection or eugenics. Kind of strange, if you ask me.
 
In the capital of Dekeli, a high priestess of the Wildmother has taken to being the (female) emperor's chief adviser and basically in control of some of the current political upheaval.
 

The child

 
Apparently, a year or so ago Rohrouk fathered a child out of wedlock. For his position, this was scandalous, and Rohrouk fled the town of his holding, which is what led to the charge of "dereliction of duty". Now, he has returned to retrieve his daughter. Prof. Aharen is entirely against this, and told Rohrouk to leave. Immediately. "Nurture that hatred; keep it pure."
 
Additionally, Rohrouk is looking for his father's sword -- his father was murdered and the sword taken.
 
We left the prisoner priestess from the fight with Prof. Aharen, and she mentioned she would send someone that night to fetch the tezkeleh from the ship.
 



Heeding Aharen's advice, Rohrouk (and the rest of us) returned to the Shortreef. Thankfully, the night passed uneventful. All the same did we leave port.
 

"Love, what a shame"

 
A notable line Brom was not present for

Cass: "If you could not stop nature, I don't think Brom would be here".
 
Rohrouk is horny for non-lizardfolk
 

Night Hunters

That night, Eragon and Rohrouk awoke separately, bothered by their own thoughts. Each was awake for a minute or so before they could hear it: gargled choking, a slapping, followed by a sharp piercing cry of anguish. In the dim light, the two came across each other, as well as a body of one of the crewmen with a hole clean through its chest. A bizarre red, humanoid shape seemed to feed from it.
 
The ~~red slaad~~ began to attack Eragon and Rohrouk. Eragon's shouting woke Brom, who rolled out of bed to rush to the pair's defense. Meanwhile, another reddish creature tried to break down the door to Cassandra and Fathom's room (which Fathom answered naked, of course). Upon fighting, though the party took the creatures down, they did manage to strike Brom and Fathom ~~and infect them~~. It ended as Cassandra pulled at the weave -- to the shipmen she struck the bell; to the ~~slaad~~ she tolled its fate, and ended its life.
 

Ship's Surgery

 
Cassandra rushed over to help Brom, diagnosing the forearm wound as not the underlying cause of Brom's (non-pain) symptoms. After discussing with the first mate, Cassandra (with the help of Eragon) takes Brom to the medbay to try and cut out the infection. It takes Eragon casting suggestion (after a failed sleep from Cassandra) to put Brom out for the surgery.
 
Brom, asleep, is normal at first. It's when his mouth opens that an unholy noise begins to grow from his mouth: the creaking of branches breaking and snapping, a twisting scraping noise that seems vaguely wooden. Though Brom is asleep, that which resides within him is not. Cassandra and Eragon have to tie his body down in order to proceed.
 
The "surgery" starts badly, with Cassandra having to carve deeper into Brom as the living thing inside him wriggles away from her again and again. She finally manages to pull the egg out, the size of a marble with tendrils flailing about. I was cured.