Amber Ablaze – blogpost 17

As we walk into the room, Celeste shoots an arrow at one of the zombies. After her shot hits the target, all six zombies rise from the ground and approach us. One of them seems more muscular than I could see when it was on the ground, and one seems super big and fat. Together with Tomen and Mivyre, I run towards the zombies to smash them with my longsword. The group that we are in now starts attacking us and causes us to get a couple of hits – more intense than expected. Celeste, Solarion, and Lurlille stay a bit in the back but help with ranged attacks. The fight takes a couple of minutes and leaves us bloodied and scarred. I manage to behead a zombie, and Celeste kills the last standing one by jumping on the dead fat one – slipping -, and stabbing the zombie in the head with her shortsword.

After the fight, we have the time to investigate the sarcophagus in the back of the room. We open the lid, but before we can look inside, a Lich appears. He introduces himself as Renwick. We tell him about our way here, but he already knows everything. The sarcophagus was the tomb of his brother, but the body has been moved by the cult – they’ve put another body in. Renwick wants us to move the body and restore the tomb as it should be. In return, he will arrange a safe room where we can rest. To remove the body from the tomb, we have to slide the lid completely off the tomb. However, we’re not strong enough and let it fall on the ground. It breaks into three big pieces – when that happens, we hear Renwick groan. We apologize immediately and promise to repair the final resting place of his brother.

Renwick leads us upstairs to a room where we can sleep during the night without being disturbed – but we also need to ‘clean up’ the ground floor. I understand that we need to clear the area of Black Earth Cult members. We should not go deeper underground, because a Medusa lies there – very dangerous. Below her tunnels, there is a temple where Ogremotch – a giant earth elemental – lives. Below this temple, there is another that connects all bases of all four cults. Below the connection, there lies the Black Geode. During Renwicks’ story, we dump the body of the unknown man somewhere, but I’m mostly paying attention to the story and I don’t really care where the body will be left behind.

We investigate a couple of rooms. One seems like a little brewery. When we enter we are ambushed by three masked monks who beat us up but we manage to kill them silently and without many bruises. We strip them from their masks and clothes and take some bottles of alcohol for the road. We decide to put their bodies in the brewery pots to make sure not to leave any trails.

In the next room, we find a dojo. A warrior is training his men here – he is blind. His name is Hellenrae and after we’ve convinced him we’re new cult members, he invites us to train and fight with him. First up is Mivyre. He lays down his armor and weapons and steps onto the floor. Mivyre dodges a lot of hard punches and manages to grapple Hellenrae. He tries to throw him to the wall but throws Hellenrae onto Celeste. After a couple of hits, Hellenrae stops the fight and calls in the next warrior. Me. After a few punches, I’m out too. I’m a bit disappointed that I’m not as good as Mivyre. Tomen’s next, but also finishes quite soon. I try to fight Hellenrae again, but he refuses. Celeste decides to move quietly so Hellenrae cannot hear her. She manages to hit him hard on the head but wasn’t fast enough to get away, and after one blow, she is too weakened to continue.
Hellenrae gives us a couple of instructions to get past the Gargoyles (don’t forget the hand gesture) and how to get our new uniforms. To spend the night, we head to the room Renwick appointed to us.