His primary weapon clattered to the floor.
Blue Rose assumed defensive positions, yet saw no one. Nothing could have even come close to the body, yet he had seemingly been teleported to god-knows-where.
Who would defile a corpse right under the Blue Rose's noses?
"What the fuck is going on?" Gagaran snarled.
"Evileye." Lakyus called out.
"Detect Life!" She paused, looking around. "Nothing."
"Tia. Tina." Lakyus commanded.
They spread out, checking for anyone Evileye may have missed in her initial scan. An undead assassin or worker wasn't completely out of the question.
Lakyus' head was spinning. How could they have been so careless? He was just a gold rank. Now he was dead and his body was god knows where-
"Lakyus." Evileye spoke, coming to her side. "While Tia and Tina are doing everything they can outside, let's try to search the inside."
She sighed, steadying herself. "Right."
The remaining trio stuck together while searching for anything of note within the building. Gagaran's Bell of Detect Secret Doors was quite handy in situations like these, conveniently avoiding the hours of scouring they would normally have to go through to find a secret entrance.
They each tensed up as the familiar blue glow washed over a decorative head stuck to a slab of stone. A green glow then followed as another bell disabled potential traps.
Pushing the head slid the slab away to reveal a dark staircase, and a Light cast sent down them revealed they were much more extensive than the darkness allowed them to see.
The trio continued down carefully, exploring the seemingly deserted base. The winding staircase led to a wide, open cavern. Green crystals gave the room an otherworldly gleam, and ruined columns suggested this base had been here for a while. Some of the columns had crystals embedded into them, though most of them were set around a rather large ritual circle.
As much as Lakyus tried to avoid looking at the elephant in the room, it was clear that Nfirea Bareare was in fact standing still in the middle of the ritual circle. He was nearly as naked as the day he was born, save for a completely transparent cloak and some strange looking headpiece.
The blood running down his face made it clear he wasn't here of his own accord.
Lakyus heard Evileye stifle a gasp as they got closer. "No…" She whispered.
"Evileye?"
"If I'm not wrong…" She approached the boy, appraising the item. "It's the Crown of Wisdom." She said, a note of finality and resignation creeping into her voice.
"What's it do? It can't be that bad, right?" Gagaran asked, trying to make light of the situation.
"...The wearer is cursed to madness if it's removed." Evileye cut down that line of thinking. "It allows the wearer to cast seventh tier magic at the cost of their mind."
Gagaran's eyes widened. "Gimme a break. How did people like those get their hands on this thing?"
Lakyus was already putting together the dots. "Is this how they raised all those dead, then?"
"Probably." Evileye confirmed. "That Clementine was quite powerful. I'd be surprised if she wasn't from another country."
Probably a bit too deranged to be a terrorist though, Lakyus concluded.
They stood around his body, drawing blanks as to how he could be saved.
Lakyus wasn't aware of anyone who could counter something that powerful, nor anyone in the area who could even cure status effects in the first place. Raise Dead might do the trick, but who knows if madness actually dissipates on resurrection? Furthermore, he looked frail at best. Not strong enough to survive the resurrection.
For the second time that night, Lakyus felt powerless.
"Is there nothing we can do?" She breathed out, clenching her fists.
"We're dealing with threats beyond even us." Evileye responded pragmatically. "It seems like nothing short of a miracle that most of us made it out unscathed."
Lakyus grimaced. "Is there nothing we can do then?"
"The most we can do is give him a painless death."
"Well let's just wait on that a little bit." Lakyus blurted out. "For all we know, someone at the Guild could specialize in something to help him. Besides, it's not like he's hurting anything by standing there."
They all knew she was merely delaying the inevitable, but none of them could bring themselves to say it.
Several tunnels connected the tomb to other places. If Lakyus had to guess, they served as both connections to additional cultist hideouts as well as escape routes out of the city. She wasn't interested in trying their luck though.
They emerged from the secret passage a little while later to find Tia and Tina empty handed at the front of the tomb.
"Evil boss." Tia greeted them. "He's gone."
"We searched the entire graveyard for him." Tina completed.
"...I see." Lakyus hesitantly replied. "Thank you for trying."
They headed out without much fanfare, letting the guards know everything was under control as they passed by.
Unfortunately for them, there was still more work to be done. Tia and Tina were once again dispatched to clean up the undead stragglers who had managed to make their way into the city while Lakyus, Evileye, and Gargaran headed to the Adventurer's Guild to gather a cleanup crew. They managed to bring along Clementine and Khajit's bodies, but left the rest of the cultists and Nfirea there. Doing crowd control and making sure the aftermath was taken care of properly was partially their responsibility. Lakyus just hoped there was someone with a high enough ranking to take that pressure off of them.
They opened the doors to find a fair bit of activity already taking place there, but what instantly drew Lakyus' eyes was someone who by all accounts should not be standing.
The oddly dressed man turned towards them as each party stared the other down, the room quieting down as everyone looked at the standstill.
…
"You've got five seconds to show me you're not an imposter before I Crystal Lance your soul to hell and back." Evileye finally broke the silence.
Delta immediately started doing Delta things, hopping and weaving around the guild, switching weapons quickly. Lakyus noted the change in loadout save for his knife as he leapt from banister to banister, even using people's heads as his stepping stones to… not getting obliterated.
Lakyus let out an involuntary sigh at the sight of their comrade up and kicking.
"You really gave us a good scare there, kid." Gagaran said, a smile breaking out on her face.
Evileye just shook her head at the guy who seemed to be breaking every paradigm she had come to know. "I swear, we've got some questions for you once all of this is over." She grumbled. Lakyus couldn't help but imagine a smile hidden behind her mask regardless.
"There's no stopping us!" Delta declared loudly, stopping in front of the rest of Blue Rose once again.
"Well, seeing as you're in top notch shape after doing… whatever it is you did, why don't you go help out with clearing out the remaining skeletons?" Lakyus spoke, trying to bring the group back to the present.
"I'll let Tia and Tina know you're alive so they don't try to kill you." Evileye supported.
"That's a copy." Delta confirmed before jumping out into the night.
Lakyus turned back to the situation at hand, leading them to the clerk.
The night was long, and only the immediate problems were solved by the time dawn broke. Nfirea was no closer to a cure, though the bodies and secret base were dealt with accordingly. Tia said she talked to Delta and he said he had to go, though Lakyus wondered how she was even able to get more than a yes and no out of the man. Maybe it was some sort of silent communication?
Lakyus wondered if Evileye had considered Messaging Delta to get more information out of him.
She also wondered about the weapons Delta possessed. Evileye had called them guns when describing him to Guildmaster Ainzach, though the only guns Lakyus knew were orders larger than Delta's. If her observations were correct he had at least three of them, though given his rather unclear history it was more than likely he had more. He also hadn't even tried to recover his previous weapon, only taking it once it was offered to him during the cleanup. Whether that implied excess or something else was unclear.
Among all of the questions, they had at least received one answer from Delta. When asked about his apparent resurrection, he had written the following on a piece of paper:
sv_cheats 1;
mp_respawn_on_death_ct 1;
