12/7/213 - Report of Anja Lefkaris
General Summary
[Written report of Anja Lefkaris as dictated to Gatefall Company employee Bernard Krieser for 1 Stuiver.]
I met this woman named Marcella. She's from Here! An actual native woman! I was so excited. I could talk to her for hours, but she appeared tired so I tried keeping my questions to a minimum. I think I failed at that endeavor. She told us we've not been north of the mountains when asked about other civilizations. She's not sure where we are. These lands south of the mountain range were given up to the Plague many years ago. When referring to the Empire, she said, "The Empire or whatever is left of it." We told her we came from far away. She was surprised we missed the Plague when we arrived since the dead are everywhere. She doesn't know if the Archaean Empire even exists anymore. The same words from the Revenant Tullius...
Except for her neighbors, Marcella had not seen other living folk in months. There used to be traders or soldiers who would come through, but not for some time. She doesn't know much about the Plague. She said a boy on another farmstead died from a fever, but rose as an undead, about two years ago. A traveling trader said he had heard of such things from the east. The dead appeared more and more. A year ago everything truly collapsed.
[Bernard here. It occurred to me that they may not measure a year the same way we do. Perhaps investigate this further?]
Marcella said we could learn more from the nearest city called Gordion. She had never seen the Bloodlicks before. Further to the east is the capital and center of the Empire. She does not know of the city of Sirmium. She worships Zarus and seems to believe everyone worships Zarus. Calls him the god of the Empire and the god of all Humans. We took her to meet the Burgomeister. She looked at his map and gave us approximate locations of her farmstead and the city of Gordion.
We set off on our journey. We approached the mountains and decided to skirt the lower edges to save time. We pressed on through the night. Gods, I am exhausted. We make it to the plains before dawn and are waylaid by these bugs. They came out of the ground. Marcella called them something but I didn't quite hear it. I called them Chitlicks. They definitely made this clicking noise. One of them slashed my arm. I unleashed limited lightning power on it. It seemed to affect it well enough. I hurt it, but it slashed me badly and I lost consciousness. We killed a few and drove the rest off. Bastards. I fucking hate bugs. Marcella apparently called them Kruthiks. There's nothing like it I'm aware of in The Old World. Their chitin is apparently useful for Crafting. We pressed on.
We came across what looks like another farmstead. Marcella thinks we're getting close to her home. She recognized the house as belonging to the family of her friend Adrianna. Ma'ago's pseudodragon told him that there were shambling humanoids milling about. I feel like they should be put to rest, but we need to get to her family since they could be alive. We pressed on to Marcella's house. We arrived and saw it was overgrown with strange vines and plants. Marcella said she was taken no more than a week ago and that it shouldn't look like this. We went into the courtyard and realized the vines were hostile and attacked intruders. Ma'ago's pseudodragon went into the well and was killed by something with a giant maw. Marcella did not recognize any of the plant growth as from her farm. We found two Bloodlicks in the house and killed them. One of them had a tadpole-like creature go inside Eagrym's gaping claw wound. I cast restoration to cure him and the tadpole shot out of him and attacked me. Eagrym cut it in half before it could latch onto my face. I forgive him for the earlier incident where I was stabbed.
After killing the Bloodlicks, we went into the house and saw two skeletal corpses. Their rib cages were broken outward as if something, perhaps the tadpole, shot out of it. We brought Marcella in and realized she could have more family. There was a trap door that was open with a low rumbling coming out of it. Likely the source of the strange plant growth. We decided to descend and see if we could find the rest of Marcella's family. Eagrym and Myth barely made it down before the screaming began. They scurried back up and readied themselves. I got Marcella out of the house and flew her up onto the roof. Then the Bloodlick burst through the kitchen table and tore into Ma'ago. It was blue and massive. A Bluelick. We unleashed all our firepower on it, but it was incredibly durable. It took all of our efforts, but we managed to kill it. I dealt the killing blow!
[Bernard here. Anja proceeded to do a happy dance for a solid minute.]
Eagrym looted the Bluelick's gem. Two corpses upstairs, larger and completely stripped of flesh likely by Bloodlick tadpoles. In the cellar, we found five corpses, two of which were completely stripped of flesh and three still had flesh. One of the completely cleaned corpses was not chest-bursted. It was the corpse of an adult that has older wounds. One of its vertebrae was cracked. This is an old corpse, dead far before the Bloodlick attack. Eagrym thinks the Bloodlicks are keeping their young tadpoles in water or that they travel through water. Counting up the number of family members Marcella told me, Marcella's father, brother, and siblings were all accounted for. The non chest-bursted corpse was extra. We asked Marcella, who spoke of her mother dying when she was a girl by suicide. It looks like her mother's grave was dug up. The Greenlick wanted to do an arcane ritual with Marcella (on top of other corpses). They specifically took her alive and traveled with her when they could have just infected and ate her here. Perhaps their ritual simply requires Human corpses.
We found three tadpoles in the well. This accounts for all of the corpses with the gaping holes in their chests. Eagrym cut open and inspected one of the tadpoles. There's no way they could grow that fast. There's no way they could eat that much to grow that fast given how small they are. We burned the corpses of her family outside the farm's walls and comforted Marcella as best we could. We then took her back to Gatefall, which was the only place for her to go. Myth had an excellent idea and said we should show her the Currency we have found. She was astonished at the wealth we had generated and identified their currency.
Gold coin - Aureus, worth 3 Siliquae
Electrum coin - Siliqua, worth 2 Denarii
Silver coin - Denarius, worth 4 Sesterces
Bronze coin - Sesterce, worth 2.5 Nummi
Copper coin - Nummus
Marcella's prayer to Zarus for the dead: "And he shall wipe every tear from their eyes. There shall be no more death or mourning or crying in pain, for the old order of things has passed away and peace shall rest upon all.”
We rested for two weeks. I started learning Archaean from Marcella. We then set out to the cave we rescued Marcella from to kill the Greenlick. Ranaghar went in stealthily and scouted it out without us even knowing. Slippery bugger. He came back and said they had cleared out. Eagrym hit him.
[Bernard here. Anja was snickering uncontrollably here.]
We went into the lair and saw the remnants of their operation. The pile of skeletons Marcella was bound to was burned. We also saw a giant frog/lick skull. The Bloodlicks had cleared out any valuables. Petra found this thin ash-like substance with paper consistency. Maybe they used a scroll to do their ritual. But it occurs to me it's more like shed skin that had been burned. Maybe they were doing a ritual to transform one of their own into something more powerful. If the colors of the Bloodlicks represent a hierarchy, it could be a transition of one to a higher color. Or into something else entirely that required Human sacrifices. Myth used his identifying magic to say that the skin had Transmutation magic residue. It was likely a transformation ritual of some kind.
Despite Eagrym's well intentioned but awful tracking efforts, I managed to determine they went west towards the river. We got into more hilly territory where it started to snow. As we made camp, we heard a scream coming from a rock outcropping. We found a camp with Human corpses ravaged by two Bloodlicks. There was one robed man still alive. We slaughtered them both. Ranaghar was quite impressive and killed one in just about one salvo. I managed to extract one of the Bloodlick's rubies with Eagrym.
We cut loose the robed man. He said we don't look "Imaskari". We told him we came from another continent. He didn't know people could cross the Great Sea. He said the idea of other lands beyond the Great Sea were a myth. He said the Bloodlicks were originally Slicklicks but became corrupted. They came from beyond the river from Nadezhda. He said his name is Gaius Casina. A mage of the Archaean Empire, or what remains of it. He said the dead began returning to life. He said he and his companions were fleeing from the Empire's fall and thought the Nadezhdan Empire was long dead, a myth even in the memory of Elves. They have elves too!
The mage asked where our camp was. I didn't say. The others became suspicious. They said that the mage's robes had the same flecks of dead skin as we found in the cave. It seems incredulous, but I trust my friends. I told him his disguise was close but not close enough. That he's like a snake with shed skin still on him. He laughed and said he was only recently evolved into "something more." Oh he creepily opened his mouth up wider than it can be and transformed into a Greylick. The fuck?! The Bloodlicks can transform into humans! He raised his hand. Black fire erupted from it and my world went black. I came to and the others had killed it. How stupid of me to call it out before we had tried to subdue it as the others recommended.
We investigated the camp. There were four corpses who were tied up and likely the ones screaming. They were infected with tadpoles. We burned them and the Bloodlick corpses. Ivellios thinks that they were watching us and set an ambush. Ranaghar remembered the Greylick had a pet monkey. Perhaps his familiar watched us and that's how they knew to set the ambush. The monkey fled west, which means they know about us. We returned to Gatefall.
[Bernard here. So far Anja has not told anyone about the Portal. I commend her for her discretion. We should confirm with the other adventurers that our origin is still safe. As we are slowly meeting more people and sentient creatures, perhaps we should discuss protocols for what we should and should not tell them?]
Rewards Granted
1433 XP
Character(s) interacted with
Created Content
Report Date
26 Nov 2022
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