25
MAR/21
For the past several days, the talk of the streets and taverns has all been about the so-called death curse: a wasting disease afflicting everyone in the Nexus, cause by the disappearance of the magic that sustains this world. Victims grow thinner and weaker each day, slowly but steadily sliding toward the death they once avoided in the material plane. When they finally succumb, they can’t be raised — and neither can anyone else, regardless of whether they’ve ever lived in the material plane or not. Temples and scholars of divine magic are at a loss to explain a curse that has affected their haven: The Nexus
You have been invited to the home of Braucherei, a retired familiar and now a merchant of the Nexus. A uniformed mouse leads you up a grand staircase to the third floor, then ushers you into a wood-paneled room with a fireplace, comfortable chairs, and a heavy table bearing goblets and bottles of wine. The darkly paneled walls are hung with maps and sea charts. Racks, shelves, and cabinets hold hundreds more rolled-up maps and charts.
A cat is seated in an overstuffed chair near the fire. Only the cat’s head emerges from under a heavy blanket draped over the chair, and an embroidered hood and silver mask conceal the wearer’s face. Even the person’s dry, raspy voice provides no clue. “Help yourselves to wine, and seat yourselves, friends — I hope I may call you that.”
After you poor yourselves something to drink, and politely sit, Braucherei says in a cracking voice, “The death curse you’ve heard about has struck me hard. I don’t know how much longer I’ll last before I perish. Clerics have no help to offer. They’re stymied by what is happening.”
You swallow some of this now-rare wine, and ask, “Do you know what is happening?”
“My contacts have learned that the cause of the death curse is a necromantic artifact called the Soulmonger. According to their sources, the Soulmonger is somewhere in the center of the Nexus, The Waking Jungles.”
“The Waking Jungles is a peninsula ringed with mountains and choked with rainforests. Enormous reptiles, savage familiars, and an army of undead prowl its jungles and ruins. Mapping the place has always been nigh impossible, and nothing is known about the region’s current geography beyond a few miles from the portals.”
“Working from dozens of charts, log books, and explorers’ journals, I assembled everything known about the current state of The Waking Jungles into one map. I’ll provide it to you if you undertake my mission.”
“If you decide to take on this perilous, yet heroic task, I will teleport you to the portal located in Nyanzaru, the only major settlement in The Waking Jungles. I’ve been there several times before, so there’s little chance of mishap. Once there, I’ll stay with a friend named O’tamu. He’s one of seven ferret-merchant princes who rule the city.”
