Resurection

The following morning, as dawn painted the rooftops in pale gold, the company set out through Absalom’s awakening streets. Their hearts, buoyed by hope and nerves, led them through districts lined with marble columns and gardens perfumed by dew. Beyond the bustling squares, the Consulate of the Platinum Band rose in tranquil grandeur—its spires adorned with banners of deep blue and white fluttering in the ocean breeze.

Within the consulate’s echoing halls, sunlight streamed through stained glass, painting the flagstones with scenes of Apsu’s celestial journey. Hooded acolytes offered gentle bows as the adventurers approached, their purpose clear. At the sanctum’s heart, Khonsu-Rho awaited—an imposing figure in platinum-threaded vestments, his eyes kind yet fathomless. Incense drifted in curling spirals, and the hush of reverence settled over all present.

Khonsu-Rho regarded them with solemnity, his hands resting on a staff crowned with a dragon’s sigil. “You come not only for remembrance, but for restoration,” he intoned, voice echoing like distant thunder. The cleric’s companions placed treasured tokens—amulets, a battered holy symbol, a lock of hair—upon the alabaster altar. In return, the high priest beckoned for silence.

A circle was drawn; candles flared to life on the invocation of sacred words. The air thickened with radiant energy. Khonsu-Rho lifted his hands, calling upon Apsu, the Waybringer, to guide their friend’s soul home. A hush fell so deep it seemed the city itself listened—until, with a surge of blinding light, the fallen cleric’s breath returned, ragged but alive.

Tears of joy welled in the eyes of their companions. The high priest smiled, exhausted but triumphant. “By Apsu’s grace, your journey together continues.” The adventurers embraced their restored comrade, the weight of loss replaced by renewed purpose. As they emerged into the sunlit streets, the city seemed to shine just a little brighter, as if Absalom itself rejoiced at their reunion

Uzohr' revenge

Yet even as the party pressed onward, somewhere in the labyrinth of plots they had left behind, Uzhor’s memory simmered like coals beneath ash. He had not forgotten the thefts—each slight, each stolen relic gnawed at him with the persistence of old wounds. Vengeance was a current that ran deep and silent through his veins, colder and more certain than any river they might cross. Whether by cunning or by blade, one way or another, Uzhor would have his reckoning. The debts of the past would not remain unpaid.

Unbeknownst to the party and the city’s restless denizens, another figure had quietly crossed Absalom’s gates. Darius—Uzhor’s nephew, and a shadow cast long by his uncle’s ambition—returned to the city with a purpose as clear and inexorable as the tide. The old debts of blood and pride had not faded with the passing weeks; instead, they burned all the brighter, fanned by Uzhor’s whispered orders and the hunger for retribution that gnawed at Darius’s own heart.

His charge was simple in its outline, yet fraught with implication: recover the two staffs, those relics of forbidden power that had vanished into the hands of thieves. To any other, such a quest might have seemed impossible, but Darius moved through Absalom’s tangled streets with assurance. The artifacts, after all, shimmered with an unmistakable magic—rumored to call to seekers, and to betray the unworthy with a whisper or a spark. He moved from alley to market, listening for the brush of rumor, watching for the gleam of guilt in a merchant’s eye.

But retrieval alone would not suffice. Uzhor’s vengeance demanded more—a settling of accounts, a lesson writ in fear and blood. Each step Darius took brought him closer to the hidden places where the staffs might lie and to the fateful moment when justice, in his uncle’s name, would be dealt.