Rune Seeker

“The emperor was possessed by Ur’Thul?” Hiral asked, and Odi nodded gravely.

“Hiral, his emperor isn’t the same as your emperor, is it?” Seena asked, pointing at the sword over Hiral’s shoulder.

“No, this belonged to a human,” Hiral said. “Though I do still have the quest to repair it. Maybe there’s a connection here?”

“How powerful was the emperor before he got possessed?” Nivian asked.

“He wasn’t the strongest warrior in our nation, just the most influential,” Odi said.

“That’s good news,” Wule said.

“Except, his strength hardly matters. The corruption spread through the city—the nation—as soon as Ur’Thul commanded the emperor’s mind, and all were turned. It didn’t matter whether they were weak or strong. They all became… like me.”

“None of the undead we met outside wanted to talk to us,” Yanily said.

“He’s right,” Hiral said. “Everything else tried to kill us.”

“My only explanation for that is my exposure to the ritual within the necropolis,” Odi said. “Something about being present then has made me at least partially immune to the Urn’s influence.”

“The Urn’s influence? Not Ur’Thul’s?” Hiral asked, the Lizardman’s choice of words standing out.

“Ur’Thul, while he possesses the emperor, is formidable, but he’s still connected to the Urn, where his remains… remain,” Odi said. “It’s both his strength and weakness… which brings me to why it must be fate for you to be here. The only others who were present in the necropolis for the ritual, alive, and here… now.

“It’s time to end this curse. To free us all, and to finally rest.”

“Can that be done?” Hiral asked. “Do you know a way?”

Like Odi had said, there had to be a reason for them to be there. Dungeon or not, the PIMP put them where they needed to be to get stronger.

“Do we just need to go beat on Ur’Thul until he’s Li’l Ur’s size, then stuff him back in his Urn?” Yanily asked, and the little lich gave him a dirty look.

“Unfortunately, it won’t be that easy,” Odi said.

“Of course not,” Nivian said.

“But that is part of it,” Odi added. “As long as the Urn is intact, Ur’Thul can’t really die. Even if you were to destroy the emperor’s body, Ur’Thul would return within days, back at full strength, and very, very angry.”

“Which means we need to destroy Ur’Thul first, then do something about the Urn,” Hiral reasoned. “You’ve got a plan, I take it?”

“I do,” Odi said. “Having hundreds and hundreds of years has given me the time to piece together more of the Ancestor’s story. Little of it matters, and I won’t bore you with it, but I did discover how the Urn was sealed in the first place.”

“We’re just going to reseal it?” Hiral asked.

“Wouldn’t that risk something like this happening again?” Seena asked.

“Normally, it would,” Odi said, only to hold up a finger. “But I also discovered something else that will solve that problem.”

“And that is?” Hiral asked.

“The technique the humans planned to use to seal their Fallen away after they captured them,” Odi said. “They traded it for information on the Urn, and I located the sample they left behind. On its own, the humans’ seal wouldn’t be able to contain the power of the Urn, just its physical form. But in conjunction with the Ancestor’s seal, which contained Ur’Thul’s power…”

“Each seal will cover for the other’s weakness,” Hiral said.

“Exactly!” Odi said, pointing at Hiral.

“My apprentice is no slouch,” Li’l Ur said. “Despite his affliction.”

“My affliction?” Hiral asked.

“Yes. Life.”

“Happy to be sick, in this case,” Hiral said, turning his focus back to the Lizardman. “What’s the catch? If it was that easy, you’d have done it yourself.”

“Very true,” Odi said. “To make my plan work, we’ll need the two seals, located in separate areas of the castle grounds. Worse, since the seals themselves radiate power, they have attracted some… particular guardians. The creatures don’t know what they guard; they just feed off the energy.”

“Sounds like Mid-Bosses to me,” Yanily said.

“It does,” Seena said. “Two of them, then?” she asked Odi.

“Yes. Given how you handled the monsters in the necropolis, I’m sure you can take care of these things as well. You do seem to have a bit of a monster-killing fetish, after all.”

“You could say that,” Yanily said smugly.

“Not something to be proud of, Yan,” Nivian said quietly.

“After we get the two seals, then what?” Hiral asked. “Straight to Ur’Thul?”

“Yes,” Odi said. “The lich has been aware of my presence for centuries, but I think he considers it torture that I still have my mind. Since he knows I can’t do anything to stop his plans, he’s left me alone. But what he doesn’t know is that I have this.” The Lizardman pulled an amulet out from his ragged clothes.

“And what is that, exactly?” Yanily asked.

“A doorway,” Odi said.

“Small door,” Yanily responded immediately, even squinting at the amulet. “Even Li’l Ur couldn’t fit through that.”

“It’s radiating gravity,” Seeyela said. “It’s a portal of some kind, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Odi said, apparently simultaneously impressed Seeyela had figured it out, and disappointed she’d stolen his grand reveal.

“If it’s a door, where does it lead?” Seena asked.

“My old quarters in the castle,” Odi said. “Just a few rooms and a hallway from where the Urn is stored. We’ll bypass all of Ur’Thul’s guards and appear right where he’s most vulnerable.”

“Something will go wrong,” Wule pointed out. “No way it’ll be that easy.”

“Kind of agreeing with my brother on this one,” Nivian said.

“No, it will work,” Odi said. “Ur’Thul is… overconfident. His power and knowledge are vast. Things of legends or gods.”

“It’s true,” Li’l Ur said. “I was… am… was so far beyond what you can comprehend. You’re like bugs beneath my feet. Except for you, my mistress, of course,” he quickly added. “And maybe my apprentice in a few centuries.”

“Even if he knows about the doorway, which I don’t think he does, he won’t see it as a threat,” Odi said. “He won’t see me as a threat.”

“And you can bring us all through this door?” Seeyela asked, eyes glued to the amulet.

“Yes. I can only open it once, but it will allow us all to pass through.”

“When was the last time you used it?” Nivian asked.

“When I was still alive,” Odi said.

“I think the amulet has enough power to do what he says,” Seeyela said. “I can feel it.”

“Okay, so we have a direct line inside the castle after we get the seals,” Seena said. “One less thing to worry about.”

Hiral nodded—that would save some trouble—but then his mind went back over some of Odi’s earlier words. “Wait, wait, wait. You said something about his plans? What plans?”

“The power of the Urn has been building, slowly, over the centuries,” Odi said. “Feeding, I think, off a kind of symbiotic relationship with the undead in the city. My theory is that they collect and convert solar energy, similar to the Cycling process, and the Urn has been hoarding it.”

“Something’s changed?” Hiral asked.

“It is reaching a kind of critical mass. Considering my… state”—Odi again pointed at his obviously undead body—“I can feel it coming. The power within the Urn will soon spill over, washing beyond the walls of the city and the bounds of the nation. Slowly, day by day, it will crawl across the world, killing everything it touches and leaving only the undead in its wake.”

“Would that stop the… uh… the squids?” Seeyela asked.

“In a way, yes,” Odi said. “The squids don’t come here anymore because they don’t like the taste of the undead. At least, that’s my best guess. I haven’t seen one of their kind in a very long time, though the endless storms tell me they’re still around somewhere.”

“They are,” Wule said.

“It wouldn’t turn the squids into undead versions, though, right?” Nivian asked.

“They seem to be immune to the Urn’s influence,” Odi said. “Probably because the seal is based on something similar to the strange runic magic they use.”

“Hold on,” Hiral said. “Didn’t you say the humans opened the door to the squids long after the Ancestor sealed the Urn away?”

“I did, and I know, I can’t quite explain it either,” Odi said. “But there are definite similarities between the seal we need and the runes the squids use. They aren’t exactly the same, but it’s like they’re two child languages stemming from the same parent.”

“Either way, having the magic of the Urn spread would be bad, and we need to stop it,” Seena said, everybody nodding their agreement. “What happens to the undead… to you… after we succeed?”

“Immediately, nothing,” Odi said. “It will take time for our bodies to run out of energy and finally shut down for good, assuming we don’t meet a violent end sooner. Some of the undead will be able to prolong their lives by consuming the energy of others, but very few will survive for more than a few years.”

“Consume?” Seeyela said. “The giants? They’ll survive?”

Odi shook his head. “The giants, fortunately, possess too much energy, due to their behavior. Their own strength will lead to them dying first. No, I think the only ones who will become truly immortal are the weaker ones who manage to evolve through consuming enough energy from other undead. The process of absorbing the energy and refining it would allow them to build a stable body. If they had something like the Cycling technique, their odds would be even higher.”

“You seem to know a lot about this,” Hiral pointed out.

“I’ve had a lot of years to think about and study it,” Odi said.

“Can you do that?” Seena asked.

“Even if I could, I don’t want to,” Odi said. “No, when the Urn is sealed, my part in this tragic tragedy of travesty will finally be complete.”

“Leaned into the Ts that time, huh?” Yanily asked.

“Seeing you again reminds me of… better times.” Odi waved a hand in front of himself. “Enough of that. Once we take the first seal, the lich will probably notice us. It may even intervene if it figures out what our plans are, but we should be able to also retrieve the second seal without too much trouble.”

“And after that?” Seena asked.

“Once we have both seals, we’ll need to proceed directly to the Urn as quickly as we can. Ur’Thul will attempt to stop us.”

“He’s with the Urn?” Hiral asked.

“Never far,” Odi said.

“Any way we can distract him?” Nivian said. “Pull him away from the Urn to start the sealing process?”

“Unlikely,” Odi said. “We—and by we, I mean you—will need to either defeat Ur’Thul or engage him long enough for me to get the seals in place. You’ll also need to keep me alive.” He then looked down at himself. “Or undead-alive? I have no idea what the appropriate terminology is.”

“If we kill him, how long do we have until the Urn resurrects him?” Wule asked.

“Anywhere between minutes and days,” Odi said with a shrug. “I don’t know the rules to it. I’ve only witnessed it twice. The first time, it took days for him to reappear, but the second time, he returned almost immediately.

“There’s probably a mechanism where he cannibalizes some of the Urn’s energy to return sooner, but that’s only a theory.”

“Either way, we need to be quick,” Hiral said.

“How long will it take you to set up the seals?” Seeyela asked.

“Just a few minutes,” Odi said. “Both are self-directing once given the proper stimulus, like the ritual of cleansing was.”

“Anything else we should know?” Nivian asked.

“The undead within the castle walls are stronger than the average undead found outside,” Odi said. “And the seal guardians will be even stronger again. Don’t underestimate them.”

“We won’t,” Seena said.

“Good. Then, I believe it’s finally time,” Odi said, and a notification window popped up in front of Hiral’s eyes.

Dynamic Quest

The undead archeologist Geckodiana has asked for your help in sealing the Urn of Ur’Thul and rectifying the mistakes of the past.

Secure the two seals.

Seals acquired (0/2)

Seal the Urn of Ur’Thul.

Urns sealed (0/1)

Bonus Objective: Defeat Ur’Thul the Undying