Solving the Ghoul Problem
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I propose that we pool our knowledge on this. I for one know that bathing someone in holy water can cure them, and also that removing disease by magical means can work in an early stage. Anyone else has other information?
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I've been captured twice… infected twice... and somehow....by the Grace of Moradin himself, still able to tell the tale.
The second time I was much worse off... it was like slippin further and further into a really bad, exhaustin' sickness... all the while gettin hungrier and hungrier.
Rary, Mec, Tolin... they are lost. Dead. Whatever-the-fark inhabits their old bodies ain't nuthin to do with the folks we used to know.
They kept tryin to get me to eat raw meat... it looked so good at the time! Finally, the craving was so terrible, the hunger so immense that I actually saw in Grag's calf what I thought was a feast. All I could do was think about sinkin me teeth into his flesh...
spits
Rary especially kept askin me how hungry I was... and if i wanted to eat. No doubt that eatin that raw meat has some kind of final power to push ya o'er the edge from our world into theirs...
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Another thing to keep in mind is that your friends who have been turned are not the same people any longer. When they are healed, they will remember nothing of their time as a ghoul. Their souls simply aren't here. This is something I know firsthand, trust me.
What that means, is that these aren't your friends. They're imposters with their faces and memories. They have commandeered the bodies and minds of your friends. If you had it in your head to show them mercy, forget it.
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Sallow-Eyes will occasionally walk amongst the masses, laughing to himself and shrieking to the stillness of the ethereal. He considers each target carefully, preferring the weak and the lonely. Walk not alone in the night, lest the cat get your tongue.
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If we plan to use the orb as a draw, just acknowledge that we absolutely can't afford to lose it. If what I've read is true, the thing is a portable portal and focus for the negative energy plane, essentially a mobile fountain of death and undeath. If it falls into their hands, we have a lot more to worry about than some ghouls and a couple lost friends. Keep that in mind when we're planning a trap.
So, what truth to these rumors that the orb has been found?
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Lyte, looking serious and grim, crosses her arms and speaks
I fully agree with Oreth.
This "master" the ghouls have repeatedly mentioned will logically be a powerful ghoul of one sort or another. This makes sense.
I asked Vroka about the difficulty in bringing our dead-now ghoul friends back, and she assured me she could do this without too much difficulty, still ambulated or decapitated….the difficulty is in getting them to her properly incapacitated.
It seems to me that this orb this master wants so badly could be used to draw the bodies of our stricken comrades, and perhaps the master, into a situation unlike we have faced before...where we choose the time and place of the encounter, and can be properly prepared for the fight.
Taking them when they are prepared and chosing ground they fight upon is never going to be successful…it is completely impossible.
Victory is dependant on our getting the ghouls and their master to fight on our terms.
Then, we can unleash a few prepared surprises of our own.
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I consider it vastly unlikely that we're dealing with a bona fide necromancer. There is no reason to build an army consisting only of ghouls, with the range of undead soldiers that a necromancer has available to them. One builds an army of ghouls because ghouls are all one has. That would suggest that the master we're dealing with can only create ghouls, likely because he creates them through contagion, not magic. Which is to say, he's a ghoul, or he has a seed-ghoul that he's using to infect an army, which is not particularly efficient if you could, instead, magic yourself up some zombies and send them out to smash things.
Aside from that, Chaevre has rather important goals which are being actively impeded by the ghoul menace.
I'm not saying we should team up with her and be best friends, by any means. But I can say with some degree of certainty that she's not the necromancer we're looking for, here.
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I suppose no-one has considered the possibility that Chaevre could be the master they speak of? It seems her kind of thing..
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Chaevre' can't help but chuckle to herself, not knowing why people are reserved in asking the Arch Necromancer for help with the undead problem, she sits alone in her house preparing the "cure" to the undead threat, wether or not she will introduce it to the populace will depend entirely upon the people who so desire it…
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Up until the disease has actually killed its subject, it is cureable with simple disease-removing magics. Once the subject has actually died with the disease, and become a ghoul, as Fadia was, and Mecizq, Rary, and Tolin are, they can only be restored through killing them, purifying their soul and body, and then resurrecting them.
Apparently, Nyda's ritual also works, though I can't speak to that.
An infected, living subject just seems sick, not evil, so when people start acting differently, it is likely too late for the simple cure. Also, note that once someone has turned, you can't just knock them out. They'll keep fighting until they're discorporated or restrained somehow, so if you don't have a way to hold a conscious and struggling captive, it's probably better to bet on a clean decapitation.
The druid frowns a bit at his last statement
But as I've said before….rescue missions are pointless right now. The source of this infestation, their "master", who is likely the ghoul-champion of Myrkul that has been spoken of elsewhere, must be dealt with, or people will simply be reinfected as quickly as we can cure them. And while we are distracted and occupied with chasing down and purifying our friends, the ghoul army gains ground and moves closer to their goals.
There will be time to chase down Mecizq and the others when the ghoul army is broken. Doing so beforehand is a dangerous waste of time.
And before anyone comments, I said the same thing when my wife was turned. The only reason she is back with us now is because she found us.
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_Kael walks up to the sisterhood compound and knocks on the door, as it is opened he ask for Sister Nyda, and telling her that he has a few questions about the ghoul sickness, he then patiantly waits untill Nyda comes
Is there anyone who knows how far one can let the sickness go before it is impossible to turn?
A friend of mine has fallen to this terrible sickness, and I was wondering how we should go forth to have him returned to his usual state. The man i am talking about is Mecizq, though rumors also state that Tolin is under its sway.
I am currently a active Cerulean Knight and I am sure that all in the Knighthood would be very interested in joining in a rescue operation, though I fear we lack the means to bring him back after he is captured.
Any information would surely help.
after his talk with Nyda, he hurridly puts his helm on and heads North, City bound it seems_
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It is considerably more complicated than bathing them in holy water. I treated Melody when she had an advanced case of the disease and the protective spells and twelve hour ritual involved are not simple.
Nyda
