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Lucien had told the Tombtakers that, if anything goes wrong with the ritual contacting the Somnovem, to bury him, split off, and tell no one. It had been one of the most compassionate, concerned things he had said since becoming the Nonagon and losing some of the remaining humanity that the Run had already begun to beat out of him at a young age.
Cree—with the tiefling’s unmoving body beneath her hands—thinks, Fuck that. Lucien doesn’t give out the orders anymore. He can’t. Because he’s fucking dead.
There aren’t many clerics in the Run or surrounding Savalirwood, not a lot of open faith finding its way into the hardened hearts of lawless creatures. Most of the priests are ridiculed as being crazy beggars, and any of those with actual divine powers either haul ass out of town as soon as they can find the coin, seek out one of the wealthy families to shelter them, or get real good at hiding their powers. Cree is one of the latter.
But she’s not powerful enough to resurrect Lucien after this much time has passed, especially considering the conduit to her source of power is currently not breathing, and the Tombtakers are way too infamous in the Run to curry favor with any of the wealthy families unless they’re willing to pay a massive upcharge for their reputation. So, in regards to divine assistance, that only leaves one option. And between the five of them, the group only knows of one cleric rumored to have divine abilities who has stayed close enough to the Run to be contactable.
That’s how the Tombtakers find themselves deep in the Savalirwood at the Bone Orchard as the sun reaches its apex in the sky.
Looking around the flower-filled graveyard, Cree thinks that, even if this last resort fails and Lucien can’t be brought back, this would be a beautiful place to bury him as requested. He likely would’ve scolded her for not ditching him in a shallow grave near their hideout where a lot of fond memories had been made and skipping town as soon as possible. But again. He doesn’t have a say in the matter anymore.
Otis scouts around the stone temple and tells the group that they can hear movement inside but the interior is too dark for them to see anyone. Jurrell and Tyffial bicker about who gets to go knock on the front door until a quick game of boulder-parchment-shears wins Jurrell the privilege. Cree glances back to where Zoran is still holding onto Lucien’s shrouded body and nearly misses the door creaking open to reveal a pink-haired firbolg.
With a single look at Zoran, the firbolg’s curious expression melts into a knowing, sympathetic smile. “Ah. Would you all like some tea? You can bring them inside if you want.”
Exchanging wary glances, the Tombtakers follow the firbolg into the temple, many of them having to remind themselves that they’re here to entreat this man for his potential help and not act like their naturally antagonistic selves. Besides, there’s something strangely disarming about the low, slow rumble of the firbolg’s voice and the experienced wisdom in his pink eyes.
He directs them to set Lucien’s body down on a cot prepared in the corner of what appears to be a kitchen with drying herbs hanging from the ceiling. Cree can immediately smell the blood that still stains particles of the cot’s cloth despite careful cleaning. She can’t tell if she’s unnerved or reassured by how prepared this firbolg man seems to be for taking in corpses.
As the Tombtakers settle into uneasy seats around a wooden table, he starts a fire in the fireplace and fills a kettle with water to boil over it. With a thoughtful hum, he sorts through a few small satchels of dried leaves and decides on a selection to set aside presumably for tea. For a moment, Cree’s paranoid mind conjures up an image of a twisted priest who poisons fresh grievers who bring in a body in order to add to his graveyard collection, but she shakes the idea away. There are very few poisons out there that can outright kill such hardy adventurers and blood hunters as the Tombtakers; they had all proved their worth and constitution through the Hunter’s Bane. Even if her readings on this friendly-seeming firbolg are wrong, someone from the group would at least survive to seek retribution. Zoran, perhaps, with his goliath strength. Or Otis, just out of sheer spite.
The firbolg sets out cups and pours the tea among an unsaid yet agreed-upon silence—one that radiates calm from him but unconcealed suspicion from the Tombtakers. Finally, when he sits down with his own cup, he breaks it. “This is from the Dossier family. It’s a bit bitter for some people’s tastes, but I get the feeling that that’s rather fitting for your group. If not, I do have honey.”
Cree takes a sip and finds that he wasn’t lying. It’s a dark, heavy, bitter blend, which suits her mood just fine. Regardless, it’s good tea, and a quick glance around the table reveals the other Tombtakers agree.
Tyffial sets her cup down first. “So, priest, can you bring him back?”
If the firbolg is surprised at the request or the brusqueness, he doesn’t show it. “You realize that necromancy like that goes against the natural order of life and death.”
Zoran glowers. Otis giggles. Tyffial and Jurrell exchange scheming glances. Cree, however, recognizes the firbolg’s warning for what it is: not a refusal or even a question, just a warning.
“We and the Matron haven’t seen eye to eye in a quite a long time,” she admits. “We aren’t going to be falling out of her favor, not any further than we already are.”
The firbolg levels his calm yet surprisingly piercing gaze at her. “So, you’re familiar with the Matron and her gifts. As well as the risks of resurrecting someone.”
“Acutely,” Cree says. During her studies under the Orders, she had learned about the power of blood and life, about the dangers and death, about healing and reviving, especially as one of the Order’s clerics.
The firbolg hums, then allows a contemplative silence to fall over the room. “How long ago did he pass?”
“Two nights ago. We have the diamond required for the spell, just not the level of power yet.” Cree takes the diamond—which had taken all of the Tombtakers’ gold pooled together—out of her satchel and sets it on the table next to her cup. “Can you do it?”
The firbolg regards her for a long moment, his pink eyes seeming to search through her very soul. Finally, he says, “I can.”
She waits, expecting him to give another warning about the parameters of the spell or the weakness resurrection imparts upon the newly revived or something similar, but he simply continues to watch her. She already knows everything there is to know about the spell, having recently touched back up on the details for this very purpose, and he has somehow picked that fact up and decided not to waste any more breath on redundant information.
“But will you?” Jurrell asks, her eyes narrowed.
“And for what price?” Tyffial adds.
Cree—a wise and perceptive individual in her own right—already knows the answers, but she remains silent, wanting to hear this cleric say the words himself.
“I will,” he says, after another thoughtful moment. “The only thing I ask in return is, if this person does choose to return to this plane, that you all allow him to stay here in the Grove for a few days while he recovers. You all would be free to stay or go as you please, but it is customary—for the sake of my conscience—that the newly resurrected regain their strength here, where the proper respite can be provided.”
That last part does take Cree aback. She could tell that this hermitic priest would not take gold or work or even favors in exchange for his help, as is the Tombtakers’ usual fare, but she had not expected the offer of shelter and care. Her stunned expression is mirrored around the table before many of the faces twist back into suspicion. As Run locals, all of them recognize the value and the potential threat that an offer for a place to crash without an outright cost has.
“What’s the catch?” Otis asks, their suspicion taking form in a seemingly delighted grin.
The firbolg appears unperturbed (which makes Cree respect him that much more—not many can face Otis and their particular brand of mild to moderate insanity directly without flinching). “This is a holy site, a place of worship for the Wildmother. I only ask that none of you desecrate or disrespect it for however long you choose to stay.”
Cree can see the questions in her teammates’ eyes and feel those same questions rising in her own mind, but she shoves all of it aside. She can’t risk losing this one golden opportunity to bring Lucien back, and she’s confident in the Tombtakers’ abilities to overcome whatever blood price is going to be extracted for it when this offer inevitably turns out to be too good to be true.
“We can do that,” she says. “Is it a deal?”
The firbolg turns back to her with that knowing smile of his and holds out a furred hand, which she takes in her own furred hand and shakes. “It’s a deal.”
Some of the tension in Cree’s shoulders finally relaxes. “My name is Cree,” she says as her hand still clasps his.
His smile brightens into something more friendly and young. “Clay. Caduceus Clay.”
As soon as her hand is freed, she points out the rest of the group. “Zoran, Otis, Tyffial, and Jurrell. We call ourselves the Tombtakers. This is Lucien, our leader.” She spares a glance at the shrouded body, then meets Caduceus’ pink eyes again. “We need him back, Mr. Clay.”
A hint of mischief enters those eyes. “I don’t know. You seem to be doing alright without him.”
Cree barely manages to suppress a flinch. This insightful priest had hit the nail on the head, the one she hadn’t even seen. There’s a part of her that has enjoyed taking charge in Lucien’s absence, of not listening to his bottomless obsession with some entity none of them have ever seen. She would never admit it to him, to the others, or even perhaps to herself, and she would definitely never admit to the smaller, bitter part of her that is angry at the tiefling for doing something so ridiculously stupid and dangerous that it cost him his life—that he died and left her for a beautiful yet intangible dream.
Grief is a complicated experience, and this is the first time that Cree and her hardened orphan heart has ever allowed herself to care enough about something to grieve the loss of it. One look into Caduceus’ wise eyes reveals to her that this gravetender has seen grief time and time again and that her process of mourning is nothing new, which reassures her more than it should.
“We want him back,” she concedes.
He nods. “Understandable.” Then, he stands, slightly favoring one leg, and makes his way over to Lucien’s body.
When he folds back the shroud, Cree finds herself doing a double take at Lucien’s utter stillness. The tiefling had always been a creature of movement—hands gesturing to accentuate his point, horned head tilting in thought, tail swishing back and forth with emotion. To see him so still and silent is a shock, to say the least. But, with some luck and divine assistance, that’s hopefully about to change.
Caduceus moves the cot away from the wall and begins to prepare the resurrection ritual. Cree has to admit her curiosity as she peers at the symbols he is drawing in a chalk circle and breathes in the incense and listens to his murmured incantations. Despite her textbook knowledge and clerical experience, she’s never seen a live resurrection.
When it comes to the three required offerings, Otis goes first, recounting a story from their time in the Orders and drawing on fond memories. Tyffial goes next, questioning Lucien’s soul almost to the point of a challenge for even daring to think about not returning to them, to the people who care about him. Cree finishes it up with a pledge of loyalty and a verbal painting of the dream Lucien has envisioned ever since they found the tome.
The sigils in the ritual circle surge with light and magic. Every living Tombtaker holds their breath. Caduceus, sitting in a chair at the head of Lucien’s cot with his eyes closed in concentration on the spell, breaks his steady, even breaths with a contemplative hum.
“His soul is…” He trails off. “I don’t normally ask this, but may I ask how Lucien died?”
Cree, tension lining her features, debates on answering for a moment. “It was a powerful magical ritual gone terribly wrong. None of us know exactly what happened or even what was supposed to happen. Lucien and the spell-slinger who did it kept the details to themselves, and she fled immediately afterwards. What’s wrong with his soul?”
Caduceus frowns, an unfamiliar worry marring his expression. “It is… scattered, as best I can tell. Normally, when seeking a soul beyond the Veil, I see one bright light to try to return to this plane, but his soul is… everywhere, in many small pieces. In all honesty, I’ve never seen a soul broken so thoroughly. And unfortunately, this spell is not powerful enough to mend pieces of a soul back together. I’m not sure if there are any spells that mortals can cast that would be able to perform such a feat.”
“So, what… what can we do?” Cree barely manages to suppress the panic in her voice. The spell is going to fail. This last resort, this last ditch effort, will be meaningless.
“Well, there’s nothing else I can do myself. Not today, at least. You said you fell out of favor with the Matron, yet you appear to be a woman of faith. You can try to entreat your deity to intervene on your behalf and mend his soul, and if it works, we can hopefully attempt the spell again since this didn’t find a whole soul to grab onto.” With his words, the spell fades, and they are plunged back into the dim light of the kitchen.
“I… I have not asked for any intervention today.” Cree clutches the blood-filled pendant around her neck and wonders who would even answer her call for help if she were to succeed. Would the Somnovem be able to drag all of the pieces of Lucien’s scattered soul back into one place? Or would the will of the Nonagon be strong enough to pull himself together with enough of a push?
There’s only one way to find out. She sends out a prayer into the universe, to whomever might be listening, beseeching it to fix Lucien’s broken soul. A heartbeat passes, then another, then another. The universe is silent.
Cree has failed. Lucien is still dead, his soul scattered across the Astral Sea and beyond. His corpse is motionless on the cot.
Caduceus stands up, his soft smile seeming alien among the crowd of devastated faces. “We can both try again tomorrow. Perhaps the Wildmother will have more luck. You’re all free to make yourselves at home here for as long as you need. The rooms belong to my family, so please keep that in mind, but I don’t suspect they’ll be returning to reclaim them anytime soon. I’m going to go harvest some more tea from the Dossiers.”
He leaves the Tombtakers in a stunned silence. Otis is (unsurprisingly) the one who breaks it: “Wait, does that mean we’re drinking tea from dead people?!”