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It was hot. Incredibly hot, as Bernard dunked his feather back into his pot of ink to put some
final touches on a letter he wanted to send to the university. He took a sip from his glass of
eidallian red whine, signed the paper and lightly blew on the wet ink, when a very exhausted
and frightened looking Sebastian suddenly entered the room.
"I'm sorry master," the young man pants "but I wasn't able to stop him."
"Stop who-"
Before Bernard was able to finish his sentence a large man walked in silently, stared at
Bernard and growled. The scholar looked at the strange man in front of him, smiled and
called out:"You really thought I couldn't sense it was you didn't you?"
Sebastian's eyes flew wide open as the humongous goliath in front of him turned into a pile
of ashes and revealed a small and weird looking wood orc. The green man looked around
the room at Sebastian and laughed. "Got 'im at least."
His voice also was weirdly high pitched for an orc.
"Sebastian, meet Bronuk."
Mesmerized by the events that just occurred, Under his breath and without even thinking a
single thought further, Sebastian asked:"What are you?"
The orc now looked very serious, pointed his finger at the young elvenling and exclaimed "Is
that 'ow you treat your own people, you spoiled brat?" In a loud, scary but also kind of funny
voice.
Sebastian stuttered and stumbled, fearing for his future. Then paused.
"My own people?" He thought, looking confused.
The man looked at him with a huge grin and as if he guessed the boy's thoughts went, "My
mother's a wood elf just like you, young boy."
"Now what was it you wanted, old friend?" Bernard, silent until then, interrupted the
spectacle "and stop teasing my students."
With a slight wave of hand he dismissed Sebastian, who looked both relieved and
disappointed to be sent out.
"I found something, rather heard of something, Bernard." Bronuk couldn't contain his
excitement. "A Temple, old friend."
"I've seen Temples, Bronuk. I've seen many old and broken temples. Elven, dwarven,
human. Orc made, even. How do you think this one would be any dif-"
Bronuk pulled out a large piece of parchment with a massive blob of what seemed to be
charcoal right in the center. As Bernard inspected it more closely he could identify the
silhouettes of several different and strange looking figures. "What are those?" He gasped.
"Ancient people. An' look 'ere." Bronuk pulled out another piece of parchment.
"A dragon!" Bernard exclaimed. The parchment showed a group of the same figures
kneeling in front of a dragon, which in turn kneeled back at them, its head lowered in
benevolent power.
This was it. An unknown civilisation worshiping a dragon in what seemed to be its own
domain. Finally Bernard could be one step closer to finding where they live.
"How did you get that?" He finally snapped out of his excitement.
"Some adventurer just 'appened upon this temple, made this for 'imself and just sold it to me.
Damn expensive for a bit of parchment. Showed me where the temple is as well."
"Tell me you green old fart. Where is it and when can we start an expedition?"
Bronuk took a step back "Whoa there friend. Don't you kiss me again." He paused to wait for
Bernard to calm down a little and continued "it's in the middle of a Jungle. Therefore we
need to be prepared. We need a guide, first and foremost. Wouldn't want to get lost in there.
We need provisions, as neither of us know how to hunt nor gather. And we need a little bit
more muscle. These jungles aren't exactly the safest places and I don't fancy my chances
alone against a fully grown panther or one of those giant lizards."
"You're right." Bernard's excitement morphed into brooding. "This isn't going to be cheap
either. How long do you think we would have to travel there."
"Two weeks at least. No horses either, too swampy, so we would have to get one of those
Raptian things to carry our load." Bernard's heart sunk. Raptians were incredibly expensive
compared to a horse and being birds of prey, they could be incredibly unpredictable if not
decently fed.
Bernard looked at his friend with a concerned look in his eyes. "This is going to cost me
almost all of my savings."
They started preparations and planning the next day, and by fall everything was ready to go.
3 Raptians stood in Bernard's forecourt, fully packed and fully fed. Also a full team of
adventurers assembled, including an elven scout and three beefy mercenaries. Sebastian
seemed nervous but excited for his first expedition. He talked to Brunok about the plan and
what they both thought what they might find in the jungle. All of them were waiting for the
man who made all of it financially possible. "He's sleeping in again." Sebastian sighed
disappointedly. "Well, I suppose it is my job to kick him out of that bed."
As he walked towards the stairs a wide awake and full of zest Bernard slammed open the
doors, took a deep breath of fresh air, looked deep into Sebastian's Eyes and simply
said:"Let's go."
A few days later the team found themselves in a deep, dark and incredibly swampy jungle.
Covered in different insect bites and mud they slowly made their way toward the point on the
map. Their scout leaving every now and then, to return with small bits of edible roots, berries
and the occasional morsel of meat. Reporting that there were still quite a ways to go and
where to camp next.
The mercenaries were fending off large animals and standing guard at night. One for the
evening, one for the night and one for the morning, just before the expedition party
awakened. The Animals they slew, mostly went to the Raptians to keep them calm and in
line, so that they didn't leave to hunt for themselves or, even worse, started hunting the party.
Sebastian coughed. This had been the worst trip of his life. The campfire flickers in his face.
"You look pale, boy." Says Brunok, chewing on a particularly tough piece of lizard meat,
"You're not drinking enough water." He hands his waterskin to the young lad who
immediately starts chugging some down. As soon as he is done, he feels bad for what he
just did. Clean water is hard to come by in this environment and cooking it can only get you
so far. As if reading his mind Brunok explains
"Don't worry kid. I still have plenty." And pats on his travelling bag that's tucked below his
legs.
Days go by as Sebastian's state slowly drops. Brunok, despite his small size, carries him
most of the time. As the days go by, his skin turns pale and his lips blue as he slowly fades
into some kind of a coma. At some points in time unresponsive and at others barely alive it
was at the last campsite where he just didn't wake up anymore. Just hours before the group
would have found the temple site.
As the party entered the ruins, they didn't cheer, as they would have thought. They didn't
scream as they would have feared. They just went about their jobs. Calculating years,
recording data and finally opening up their last campsite before they turned back home with
their would-have-been-amazing findings. They stayed for a few days foraging what they
could for food. One of their Raptians already took off, hunting for themselves. An event
which Bernard already calculated into his plans. However what he couldn't have prepared for
was what happened one evening after the party had already eaten and gone to sleep.
The massive room they all stayed in suddenly lit up in a foreboding red light. Blindingly,
every word, letter and picture carved into the wall was shining. As they all stood up from the
tent, they couldn't help but stare at what was happening around them.
"Look!" Brunok shouted, pointing at a, previously blank, spot of wall.
As they watched, new words began to appear as if carved out by a ghostly force. Bernard
immediately grabbed his notes where he tried to translate what was written and learn the
ancient language. As he read and deciphered his face turned as pale as a the peak of a
mountain.
"Something about someone being the cause of people living forever?" He mumbles, "A
Name, That Name. Who is that?" He starts flipping through his notes rapidly. "Here it is
again. Son of time."
He scribbles something in his notes,"so that means-." He stops and keeps frantically flipping
and writing.
The night passed. And as Bernard joins the others for breakfast Brunok noticed, that he
hadn't slept at all. "What did you find?" He asked.
"I don't know," Explains Bernard, "Apparently some guy named Zuruth existed, probably still
does, who does something that causes people to not be able to die anymore." The last
words of his sentence come out tumbling.
"Zuruth, like the name of the Month?"
"Yes, exactly. So that shows us, that this guy was an extremely important person. And he
uses, or already has used, an extremely powerful kind of magic, necromancy, to make it so
that nobody in this world will ever die again."
Brunok looks concerned.
"Either that or I misinterpreted the whole thing." Bernard seemed to be falling back deep into
thoughts.
"So nobody can die anymore?" Brunok interrupts his thoughts after a few moments.
"Seemingly yes." Bernard looks at Brunok. "But it can't be good. Benevolent or not, it's
unnatural." He pauses, "and I know what you're thinking, but no. Sebastian has already died.
I fear it's too late for him. Don't think he would have wanted it anyway."
Two more days passed. The group, now finished, packed up and began their way back.
Descending the temple, they noticed something, rather someone, at the foot of the stairs.
"Sebastian!" Brunok shouted in excitement.
He stormed down quickly followed by Bernard.
But as soon as they got close Bernard noticed something about that boy. His eyes stared
blankly into nothingness, unblinking, unmoving.
As they approached him, he fixated the small ork, who didn't seem to mind and just hugged
the boy.
In pain Brunok suddenly screamed as Sebastian, as in a trance just took a massive bite out
of the ork and, without chewing, swallowed it whole.
Brunok fell to the ground, bleeding profusely. One of the mercenaries stormed down the
stairs as Sebastian lunged at Bernard in an insatiable hunger. Sword drawn he borrowed it
right into the boy's heart who just turned his head towards the man in an attempt to now eat
him alive. He walked towards the battle hardened, but now frightened, man sword still firmly
grasped in the merc's hand, just moving it deeper and out through the other side, and ripping
the man's windpipe out with his teeth.
The stunned Mercenary fell to the ground, gurgling, spitting blood. Trying to breathe until he
finally faded, just as Sebastian started gnawing at Bernard's leg as he tried to get away.
Bernard fell the moment the other Mercenaries arrived at the scene. They pulled Sebastian
away from him and drew their swords, oblivious to Brunok and their mate standing back up.
They ripped the two of them apart, taking chunks after chunks out of them until they too
suffered their fate. Unable to move very quickly Bernard also died to the now five of them,
leaving only the scout, who ran into the jungle and, in his panic, lost his way back to society.
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