A Plague on Bigail
Empire 26, 832 I. E.
15 Years after Albert's Exile
Erika's Tower, Upper Avernum
Albert thought there was something very odd about the silent guards in full plate mail outside and inside Erika's new tower in Upper Avernum. The guards' armament was odd, too, as they bore no swords, but their gauntlets had long metal claws set above the fingers. He was relieved and terrified to see that Sschass and Helen both regarded them as unholy, and Frruh thoughtfully kept as far from them as he could.
Whether emboldened by these servants, or her own legendary prowess as a mage, Erika kept a cool distance from her guests, usually sitting in state on a chair rather like a throne. She dismissed the allegations out of hand. She offered assistance with dealing with whoever had actually made the slimes, giving as proof a medallion for each member of the party. She said this allowed her to track them and aid them as needed, though, Albert thought, this would also allow her to thwart them if she actually were behind the monsters. When Erika learned Frruh was a mage, she offered to teach him (with an air of clinical interest and at such unaffordable prices that he declined.)
That evening, as they camped in Upper Avernum, Helen remarked sarcastically, "That was quite a friendly welcome Erika gave us."
Sschass, who had apparently gotten over his alarm, put in, "We did come to accuse her of tampering in God's domain."
Frruh advised them, "She prides herself on being unapproachable by mere mortals. I'm not surprised that expendable people like us were tasked with asking her such a sensitive question. Erika only deigned to answer the question because she knew that if she didn't, the Triad or the king would be forced to ask the question more directly."
"Deep," Albert nodded. "And here I was just worried about those guards. Didn't even look like they were breathing!"
Sschass said uneasily, "They weren't, Albert."
Albert tried to rub his arms to conceal the raised hackles as Helen asked, "I saw that, too. What were they?"
"Doomguards," Frruh stated. "Complex magic. Each is individually fashioned by a mage. They are not alive. The armor is actually just a different extraction of the magical material which fills and animates their whole frame. So far, they are like golems. Their true power is that they halve if you manage to hit them. Even if your every stroke were true, you could create an army of them - all fully formed within moments of splitting, all attacking you at once."
"I'm glad that's a rare spell," Albert noted.
"Agreed," Frruh said simply.
Albert, Helen, Sschass, and Frruh returned to the surface after their meeting with Erika. Continuing their mission of exploration, they found their way over the mountains to the north of the natural crevice where Upper Avernum opened onto the surface. After crossing the mountains, they went down to a shore of Krizsan Province and bought passage on a ferry to the nearby island of Bigail. Here, they soon found the rumors to be true - it was plagued with roaches. Not a normal infestation - these roaches were clearly magically altered or made, for some were the size of small dogs, others the size of large oxen.
Fortunately, none of the adventurers had an unreasoning terror of insects, but it was extremely reasonable to have some fear of an insect as large as a man trying to eat them. They also came to feel disgust, both towards the creatures, and the effects of the diseases they sometimes caught from the roaches.
As Helen pointed out one evening, it was also a disturbing reminder that the rumors of troubles from magical monsters in other nearby regions of the surface might not be exaggerations. Perhaps the Empire wasn't inactive in this area - perhaps it was simply stretched too thin.
The logs crackled on the fire, and Sschass asked Albert, "Albert, I was wondering about your skills in battle. They're masterful. Did you train in warfare?"
Albert laughed awkwardly and said, "Well, thanks. I mean - oh, well, give me a minute. This is going to sound weird. I can never find the right words. I'm not trying to brag by being humble. But I've always been like this. I love it, but I have no idea how or why it happens."
Sschass stared at him a moment. Could Albert's considerable talent in battle simply be natural?
"It's a gift," Albert shrugged, echoing what his father had told him, a few months or years before he'd decided to become an adventurer. "This must sound stupid to you, since you've seen a lot of action. But I didn't have a tutor. I just could always fight. It's, well: where everyone else sees enemies and weapons, me, I see a dance, and I see where I ought to end up next in it. It just ends up with a lot more violent results for my dance partners?"
Frruh scratched his own cheek, listening as he continued his shift as the lookout. "We aren't your dance partners?" he asked.
"No, because then I'd be fighting you," Albert explained. "The dance partners stand for my enemies, not for my friends. It's an, well, something."
"Analogy," Helen supplied. Frruh said shortly, "I know what an analogy is." Helen ignored him and continued, "But it's a bad one, Albert, because you can't dance."
Albert complained, "You haven't even seen me dance! What makes you say I can't dance?"
"If you think fighting is dancing, you can't dance," she said with finality, but Sschass could see in the firelight a small smile on her face.
"Oh?" Albert said, approaching her. "Then I will show you how I dance."
He began some manner of traditional folk dance. Sschass wasn't familiar with human dance and couldn't tell how well he was supposed to be doing. He wasn't perhaps the most nimble of humans, but he wasn't bad, either.
Helen, however, laughed and said, "Not that - that's not a real dance. How about something hard, like the Formello Foxtrot?"
"You gonna sit there and laugh," Albert asked, "or are you going to help?" Sschass realized he was not half as offended as his words suggested, as he helped Helen to her feet and they began a fast-paced dance together. Frruh caught Sschass' eye and shook his head in exaggerated fashion, disgusted by the quality of dancing or of flirting or both. Sschass didn't think either was half bad, especially without any music to keep time with. It was unfortunate this was happening so long after the end of his bet with Frruh.
Sschass' turn for the watch came just as Albert and Helen finished the dance. Sschass asked Frruh as the latter headed towards the fire, "Any dances of your people that you know?"
"Some," Frruh said nonchalantly, and as he came to the opposite side of the fire from Albert and Helen, effortlessly did a combination cartwheel and spin and a few other moves entirely that Albert couldn't quite catch, then rose to his feet in a graceful pose. Albert and Helen clapped as Albert said, "Should've known."
The nephil standing outside the town of Bavner received the necklace gratefully. "Thank you," he said. His smile towards Albert and the others was sincere, but he flicked a look of loathing and terror towards the town as he said, "I hope you didn't have to go to too much trouble."
"No trouble at all," Helen said truthfully. She was sure, though, that there would've been trouble retrieving the necklace from the innkeeper if they hadn't started to gain a good reputation in the area. The innkeeper had managed to save face by claiming the nephil had lost the charm, and the innkeeper was holding onto it for when he came back, but she doubted this.
The nephil took the bow and quiver off of his back. "This is enchanted," he said, presenting the set to the group, "and will serve you well-"
"No!" Frruh exclaimed, gesticulating fiercely. "You need these!"
The nephil shook his head, not quite meeting Frruh's eyes, and held the items out to Frruh. "It is enough to know that my people survived the banishment to Avernum, and to have what is mine restored to me. I shall hunt with traps or my claws if I must. Let me honor you."
Frruh took off his own, lesser bow and quiver, setting them softly on the ground, and took the bow and quiver from the nephil. He strapped them on, almost opening his mouth to offer his own to the nephil, despite the near-certainty of insult, but the nephil had quickly turned and headed away.
Frruh harrumphed as they left the town behind them, "That nephilim should be a proud hunter. Treated as an honorable one. Instead, the Empire makes him a pariah. No respect."
Albert, feeling a strange tightness in his own chest, began to say, "Frruh, I-"
"Don't!" Frruh shouted, then said more quietly but less calmly, "Just don't! Because there are some days I think the same things about your species as you do mine."
Sschass' bulk suddenly appeared between the two.
"No!" Frruh yowled. "It's not - it isn't!" He huffed and walked ahead of them rapidly, calling back, "I'll be back at nightfall. I need to be away from everyone for a bit."
"Don't go too far ahead!" Albert shouted.
"When did you get the authority to tell me that?" Frruh asked without even looking back.
"When we found the bodies of the first team!" Albert shouted angrily. "Remember what happened when they split up? We've been finding their bodies scattered across this continent!"
Frruh didn't respond at all, but he was back at nightfall. Apparently, though he had been out of sight of them most of that afternoon, he had tracked them back to their camp. A small bolt of his magical flame easily lit a fire Albert had been having trouble with, earning a grudging thanks. They ate and slept. It wasn't the most harmonious night the party ever had - but at least it was together.
Albert's boots echoed on the stone floors of the hospital as he moved towards Helen. Frruh and Sschass were waiting just outside. Helen was sitting beside a sickbed, chanting for one man with a hacking cough and labored breathing. Albert took Helen's shoulders from behind, but she was still chanting, so, while maintaining a hand on one shoulder, he walked around the bed and looked into her eyes. "Helen, you can't do this for everyone. You can't go on like this."
She kept looking at the patient for a few moments after she finished her chant. The patient had managed to go to sleep, but was still sweating, apparently suffering from a high fever.
"Cure is a simple spell," Helen told Albert, finally looking at him. "I still have some more left in me."
"I know that," Albert said. "Helen, the healers know Cure, too. The patients staying here are the ones that Cure isn't helping enough."
Sidling up to them, Frruh said in a low voice, "It's as the healers said. They have advanced conditions that only time and supplies can cure - if they can be cured at all."
Helen's eyes were growing moist, and her head bowed. "They're suffering, within my reach. I trained my whole life to defeat this sort of evil. To make people well again." She looked up suddenly. "That hurts."
"Sorry," Albert said, loosening his grip on her shoulder. He was terrified to keep holding on, but terrified to let go.
"Helen," Albert told her, "the healers are holding the line here. They've got our backs. Take the fight outside, with us. We're the ones who can destroy the source of the roaches spreading these diseases. We've done it to the slimes already, we'll do it again."
"They might die," Helen squeaked.
Even while he felt sympathy, for her and the sufferers all around him, he wanted to shake her awake, but he knew that wouldn't help. He insisted, "You know this isn't where we can best serve, Helen."
Frruh quietly said, "While we were waiting, Sschass and I went to the cemetery near here. We looked at the dates on the graves. Helen, they have been dying since before we came. This is not your fault. This is not the healers' fault. If it's anyone's fault, it's whomever manufactures these plagues."
Wordlessly, Helen stood up, shaking tears free to roll down her cheeks. Frruh stood on one side, and Albert on the other, putting his hand around her shoulders. Helen's lips moved in silent prayer as they came to the exit, where Sschass met them soundlessly. No one remembered the pleasantries they exchanged with the healers as they left, though the gratitude did register.
They trudged down the hill, Albert occasionally looking at Helen and back at the building where so many still suffered. Before, he might've said any death was too good for someone from the Empire, but he couldn't really believe it now. If they ever caught whoever was behind these plagues - but what kind of justice could bring back all those in the cemetery?
Author's Note:
I may be making Erika too unapproachable, and Frruh may be reading too much into her motives. Erika may have a quest she asks you to do as well, but in any case, she is rather brusque.
I made up the Formello Foxtrot - Formello is a city in Avernum, though.
Albert has the trait Natural Warrior, which in the Avernum 3 game gives him a combat bonus - I just thought this would be an interesting way to learn how he sees it. Your heroes can have this or other traits to help them, at the cost of slower development of their skills.
I may not be recalling the personality of the nephil outside of Bavner correctly, and I'm making up the nephilim culture, attempting to follow the general cues in the game. Also, the whole story of the lost charm may be different from what I'm putting here; I don't remember the canonical story.
The first team to explore the surface split up, and I think they all died except one survivor, who might've simply decided to live on the surface and abandon Avernum.
The hospital may actually have been the first floor of the Anama temple in Shayder on the Isle of Bigail, but in any case, I recall a facility treating people seriously ill with diseases contracted from the giant roaches. I don't remember if it had a cemetery, but the diseases were supposed to be at least potentially lethal.