Speaker 1: The Necromancer of Pricene contains adult content and may not
be suitable for children. Parental guidance is suggested. In the
world of Turinlay rests an enormous island called Pricene. The
nation of Pricene is governed by a king and council,
though the real power rests in the hands of ten
cursed immortals, powerful supernatural figures who serve only their self interests.
The land is plagued with black blooded monsters, corrupt political leaders,
and bloodthirsty bandits, and the one man who is willing
to stand up to them all just so happens to
be an unholy abomination, a summoner of the undead, the
Necromancer of Pricene.
Speaker 2: Welcome back, my fellow scoundrels, outcasts and miscreants.
Speaker 3: Allow me to summarize what's happened thus far.
Speaker 2: I went to the Willows Bend Festival for the Faded Four.
Those are the four annoying advents that we keep following.
The festival was attacked by three monstrous creatures that decided
to wreak havoc on the townsfolk. For some stupid reason,
I got it in my head to play hero and
ended up with a sword in my back. I thought
I was a goner, but then I woke up in
the house of Benjamin Wright aka Wrath, aka one of
the Cursed Watchers. He was cordial enough and did a
good job patching me up. Plus he had some amazing drugs.
After a bizarre dream. In a few days of much
needed rest, Rath filled some knowledge gaps about the Cursed
Watchers and their weapons.
Speaker 3: He called them woe sharks.
Speaker 2: It turns out no one has ever survived a blow
from one of the cursed weapons, no one except me.
Speaker 3: My name is Charts the ability to.
Speaker 2: Reanimate the dead and apparently survive a blow from a
wo shard, and I'm on a quest to kill Torch,
leader of the Watchers and the most powerful man in Price.
Scene chapter seven, breakfast in bed. The aroma hit me first,
savory and rich, a symphony of sizzling sausage, fried eggs,
and fresh bread. My stomach growled loud enough to rival
the clattering dishes from the next room. For the first
time in five days, I felt hunger, sharp and insistent,
pulling me from the haze of exhaustion that had wrapped
me since well since Rat put a sword through my chest.
I sat up, slowly, wincing as my body reminded me
just how fragile it still was, and scanned the room
to see if anything had changed. My clothes were now
heaped into a small pile in the corner of the room.
Rat's journal was no longer centered on his desk. He
must have put it away or taken it with him.
Besides that, the room looked much the same as it
had the night before. A clean pair of trousers lay
folded at the foot of my bed, a quiet invitation
to reclaim some semblance of dignity. My shirt, however, was
nowhere to be found. Not that I expected Wrath to
have a closet full of spars in my size. I
pulled the covers down from my chest and then propped
myself up on my left elbow, shifting the weight away
from my injured right side. I stretched forward with my
right arm, feeling the stiffness in my chest.
Speaker 3: Immediately, the pain was.
Speaker 2: Not as bad as expected, and I collected the trousers
with only a small grunt. Actually sliding them on, however,
proved a hole ordeal. I was halfway through wrangling the
waistband over my hips when my eyes fell on my
coin pouch. It had been removed from my cloak and
rested on the windowsill furthest from my bed. Wrath had
likely set it there to reassure me that my money
was safe and he had no intention of robbing me.
But this brought on a slight panic. Questions whirled through
my mind. Had he found the life seeds? Did he
know what they were? Maybe he missed them. He could
have been too busy trying to save my life to
notice a sack of seeds. Then I remembered the emerald,
which should have been with the money in my pocket.
It wasn't on the windowsill, but Rath had mentioned a
small chest at the foot of the bed. Maybe the
emerald and seeds were there. I always stored the seeds
in the left pocket of my cloak, so there was
no risk of them being hit by the singe blade
during the fight. Even with that reassurance, I dearly wished
to hold them in my hands. I pulled my pants
mostly past my left hip and felt exhausted. My entire
body was sore from laying in bed for the last
five days, five days nearly a week since I'd left
Frank behind. Anything could have happened to him while I
was stuck here? More unanswered questions. Has he stayed in
the glade for this entire time? To the town's so
go to that glade? I hadn't cared about that before
because I'd intended to return quickly, But it was likely
a well known location to the residence of Willow's ben.
Someone could have found and reported him to Constable l
Arune or worse the advents than it dawned on me,
was roone even alive? The last I'd seen the beast
had charged into the rusted saw. The fire, the screams
they painted a grim memory. Had the end burned down?
Were all my things gone?
Speaker 4: Too?
Speaker 2: Many questions needed answers, But first I needed my life seeds.
The door to the kitchen area was on the opposite
side of the room from my pile of clothes. I
needed to know if the seeds were still in my cloak.
But for some inexplicable reason, I didn't want Wrath to
know what I was doing. He'd been kind so far,
but I didn't know him or trust him.
Speaker 3: I mean, how could I right.
Speaker 2: Confident I could scurry over to my clothes retrieve the
seeds and return to bed. Before Wrath entered the room,
I slid my legs out from under the sheets and
firmly placed them on the floor. The soreness in my
muscles was.
Speaker 3: A dull ache, and my back had little interest in cooperating.
But I was committed to the mission.
Speaker 2: If the seeds were not in the cloak, then I
would have to find a way to open the chest. Quietly,
I pushed myself off the mattress, lost my balance slightly,
but caught myself on the stand beside the bed.
Speaker 3: I did it. I stood up. Yay me Now to
make it the.
Speaker 2: Twelve or fifteen steps to my clothes, I moved my
left leg forward, and it buckled immediately. It didn't take
long for Wrath to appear. His arrival heralded by the
echo of my fall. I stared down at my treacherous legs,
silently cursing them for their betrayal. Wrath rounded the corner
of the bed. His pock marked face reflected a mix
of concern and exasperation. He had traded his vest for
an apron, The clean lines of his button up shirt
now softened by the practicality of a chef's attire. In
his left hand, he balanced a platter that might as
well have been a gift from the gods, eggs, sausages,
and a thick slice of bread glistening with jam. His
right hand gripped a long wooden spatula, held not as
a mere kitchen tool, but with the poised intensity of
a warrior sizing up his opponent. It wasn't as fearsome
as the singed blade, but somehow Rath managed to make
even a spatula look threatening. An excuse, hastily constructed and
utterly unconvincing, started to take shape on my lips, but
Raf simply shook his head, set the platter of food
on the nightstand, and moved around the bed to help me.
Only once I was tucked back into the bed and
my wounds were inspected did the cursed watcher finally break
the silence charts?
Speaker 4: Are you that anxious to begin physical therapy?
Speaker 3: What? No?
Speaker 1: Not?
Speaker 3: Really no?
Speaker 4: Then would you mind explaining exactly what you were thinking
getting out of bed?
Speaker 2: I saw that you left trousers on the bed for me.
I was putting them on and thought that it would
be better to stand while doing so.
Speaker 4: How did that work out for you. Not well, indeed,
never mind, I made you breakfast. You must be famished.
Speaker 3: I am thank you, and Benjamin, I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: Think nothing of it. Eat your breakfast.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: Do you know why I like Willow's Bend charts. It's
because it's distant from the chaos and corruption of the
main cities. Places like Dawson, Snur and Dorian are filled
with greed, gluttony, pride and hatred. Theft and murder are
a way of life among both the highest society and
the lowest of slums. It is the middle group where
you can find the peaceful bliss of the ignorant.
Speaker 2: You like Willow's Bend because you think the people here
are dumb.
Speaker 4: They're not dumb, but ignorant. Yes, they are simple in
their needs, not their minds. I enjoy their way of
life and the freedoms they are awarded by living so
far away from the metropolis. You know, with the exception
of Aaron and Big George, I don't think anyone in
Willow's Bend even knows that I am one of the cursed. Well,
I guess you know now, don't you. But mostly I
enjoy the tranquility it's predictable. Nothing unexpected happens here, that
is until recently. Now the town is played by Highway Bandits.
Monsters of unknown origin would be adventurers and peculiar strangers.
And why do you think that is? Don't answer that,
eat your food and ignore the musings of an old man.
Speaker 3: You don't seemold charts.
Speaker 4: I'm nearly one hundred and twenty years of age thanks
to the Singed Blade, and I have many years to come.
Do you believe in fate?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 4: Now that was a quick answer. Most people have never
even considered the prospect of fate, not seriously anyway. Yet
you are ready with an answer as soon as the
question escapes my lips. Why is that?
Speaker 2: I've had plenty of time to consider fate, the gods,
a master plan, whatever you want to call it. If
I choose to believe in the gods or fate, then
I'm inclined to hate them for what they are and
what they allow. They would be responsible for the horrific
things happening to good people.
Speaker 4: And you don't think that they would be responsible for
those things? What of mourn the god of death? Doesn't
she hold some responsibility over the lives of people.
Speaker 2: If we let gods bear the blame for every misfortune,
then what need is there to hold men accountable for
their actions?
Speaker 4: Now you're starting to sound like a watcher discrediting the
possibility of fate in order to justify your actions against
other people you've judged as unworthy. Would you be the judge, jury,
and executioner like so many watchers believe themselves to be.
Speaker 2: I'm not a watcher and I don't aspire to be one,
but I do believe people should be held accountable, and
I believe there are resources in this world that we
can use to hold those individuals accountable in a humane
and just fashion.
Speaker 4: Resources.
Speaker 2: Yeah, some are as simple as prisons or rehabilitation programs,
but others are more complex.
Speaker 4: If you think prisons are not complex, you've never tried
to design one. And I find it interesting that you
deny the existence of the gods when you currently stand
in the presence of magic. Doesn't that seem counterintuitive?
Speaker 3: The world can have magic without gods or fate.
Speaker 4: I believe in fate, and despite their lack of interaction
with men, I believe in the gods. And do you
know why I believe in fate Because every year or
two I come to Willow's Bend for a few weeks
to escape the pressures of the Watcher's Guild, King and Council.
I've been taking this trip for over eighty years and
have never encountered fiends like those I fought at the festival.
I have never heard of bandits subjugating demons, and I
have never met some one who can survive a blow
from a woe shard. And yet here you are.
Speaker 3: It could all be happenstance, Charles.
Speaker 4: I ask around, and no one seems to know much
about you. You arrived here only a short time before
those would be Watchers, the Fated four. You keep to
yourself but maintain odd hours. Mike said you were here
for one day and were robbed, but wouldn't tell him
about the thief. And aside from the local innkeeper, no
one knows anything about who you are or why you're here.
Speaker 3: I'm just passing through.
Speaker 4: I'm sure you are. I had assumed you were trailing
the Adventurers, but several people confirmed your arrival almost a
full day before them.
Speaker 3: My business is my own. I haven't done anything wrong.
Speaker 4: I didn't say you had.
Speaker 3: You're not far from suggesting it charts.
Speaker 4: You're an impossibility, and something brought you here to me fate,
the God's luck. Call it what you will, but it
brought you here. Nonetheless, you the one person in all
of known history to survive the Singed Blade, came to
a place with monsters, bandits, adventurers and a watcher. If
you're not the cause of these events, and by no
means am I implying your culpability, then you were caught
up in something larger than you when outside the realm
of simple happenstance.
Speaker 3: That's far fetched.
Speaker 2: You're hinging this entirely on the fact that I didn't
die after you stabbed me, and we both know that
I wasn't far off from the underrealm. What if I'm
not the only person that can survive a wow shard?
What if others like me are out there and you
just haven't stabbed them yet.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't know. I've stabbed a lot of people
and they've all died straight away.
Speaker 2: Maybe you're just an excellent healer and your medicine saved me.
I assume most people you've stabbed have been for mercenary work,
and you had no interest in saving them. Maybe it's
something to do with how quickly you got to me
and started the healing process.
Speaker 4: I doubt that. Now, after you fell, I collected the
Singed Blade and chased down the third monstrosity. It wasn't
until after I dispatched the creature that so some one
had informed me that you had survived. You should have
been long dead by the time I returned to you.
You left me there, of course I did. I told
you no one survives a woe shard, so no, that's
not the case. There are only three options that I
can see as to why you're still alive. Option one,
you're secretly one of the Cursed and can survive a
blow from a woe shard. I severely doubt that's the case,
considering I would have heard if one of the ten
died and you would be carrying one of the cursed weapons.
Option two is that there is something special about you
that no one else in the world has ever replicated.
I also find this unlikely. No offense, but you don't
come off as super special. The final option is that
the Singed Blade let you live.
Speaker 3: Let me live. Can it really do that? Can it decide?
Speaker 4: I don't see why, not like I said, it's magic, unless,
of course, you know something that I do not know
about why you would be unique?
Speaker 3: I no, nothing comes to mind.
Speaker 4: Then this is a mystery that we will solve together.
Don't worry. There's nothing to fear. You are perfectly safe
with me and nothing is wrong with.
Speaker 3: You except the sword shaped hole through my chest.
Speaker 4: Look at that. You're already at a point where you
can joke about it. Now, finish your breakfast. You need
to regain your strength, and I need to run into
town and check on some things. While I'm gone. Try
stretching your arm and shoulder. This will help with mobility
as your wound heals.
Speaker 3: All right, I will, and.
Speaker 4: For Rowan's sake, stay in bed. If you fall again,
you could tear the stitches.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'll be back soon.
Speaker 4: Get some rest.
Speaker 1: The Necromancer of Pricene will return after these messages. Hey everyone,
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Speaker 2: I finished my breakfast and began working the muscles in
my right chest, just as Rath had suggested. The movements
were slow and deliberate, a necessary to discomfort as I
tested the limits of my recovery. What I wanted, no needed,
was to get to my cloak. I just had to
make sure Rath was actually gone before trying to drag
myself out of bed again. No way was I giving
him another excuse to lecture me. The pain in my
shoulder had dulled to a manageable throb. My gaze fell
on the water he'd left on the nightstand, how consider it?
And then I saw the bedpan, and the sheer fucking
mortification hit me like a runaway cart days. I'd been
out for days, and that meant that Rath had been
dealing with everything that thought snowball fast. Did Rath have
his own bedroom here? How many rooms did this house
even have? Where was he sleeping? Or had I just
spent the last five or six days shitting in his bed.
The image of Benjamin right Wrath, one of the cursed
and one of the most feared men in the kingdom,
wiping my ass burned itself into my brain. The notion
was outlandishly unthinkable.
Speaker 3: But you know what it was.
Speaker 2: His fault, rass blade was the reason I was in
this predicament to begin with. Sure he might have saved
hundreds of townsfolk in the process, but let's not gloss
over the part where he stabbed me in the back
with a cursed sword.
Speaker 3: Am I being petty? Absolutely, but I refused to be
embarrassed about the fallout. I handled the pan situation with
as much dignity as one can muster in such circumstances,
and set it back on the floor.
Speaker 2: That task behind me, it was time to try for
the cloak. Using the same strategy as my earlier, ill
fated attempt, I forced my legs to cooperate, one shuffled
step at a time. I braced myself against the wall,
inching forward every joint ached, my muscles pro tested, my
legs tingled with static electricity, and my back felt like
it might betray me again at any moment. But I
was on my feet, progress heroes in stories seemed to
bounce back from mortal wounds in a matter of hours
or days, but here in the real world, a wound
this large could take months to heal. I'm not complaining
or anything. The sword nearly hit my lung, and that
would have been fatal, regardless.
Speaker 3: Of my uniqueness.
Speaker 2: Besides, complaining feels petty when you're already the exception to
the rule.
Speaker 3: I shuffled along the wall.
Speaker 2: Until I reached the pile of clothes, the reward for
my painstaking journey. Kneeling slowly, I began to rummage through
my tattered garments. My shirt was a lost cause, shredded
and bloodied beyond repair. But the cloak that could be salvaged.
A little stitching and it'd be good as new, or
at least good enough relatable. Right, My fingers found the
hidden pocket and the left breast of the cloak, and
my heart sank empty. The seeds were gone, and so
was the gem. Why would Wrath have taken them? The
emerald sure, shiny, valuable, tempting, but the seeds did he
know what they were? Wrath was old, ancient, really, and
would undoubtedly be familiar with the legend of the Tree
of Life. My mother, who passed the legends onto me,
wouldn't have been the only person in the world to
know those tales. But the real question was did Rath
take the life seeds with him or did he stash
them somewhere in this house. I looked around the room,
taking stock of all the places Wrath could have hidden
the seeds. The house was oppressively quiet, save for the
persistent ticking of the long case clock, each tick gnawing
at my nerves. My thoughts raised a chaotic loop of
where could they be and what does Rath know? And
for a moment moment, I was unable to focus on
where to begin my search. I limped back along the
wall until I reached the ninth stand. One drawer and
then the other empty, save for a few unremarkable odds
and ends, nothing useful, nothing of mine. I shifted my
weight against the bed and dragged myself to the other
side of the room, making my way to the small
box Rath had mentioned earlier. Inside I found the emerald
and my essential travel gear. That was a small relief,
but the life seeds were still missing. I continued to
use the bed for support and made my way toward
Rat's writing desk. The trek took minutes, but it felt
like an eternity. I finally collapsed into his chair. My
hands flew to the drawers, rifling through them with a
mix of desperation and anger. I was so focused on
finding the seeds that I nearly missed it. A secret
compartment in the back of the bottom right drawer. I
blindly felt around until I found the and with a twist,
the locking mechanism released. A hidden panel in the drawer
snapped free, revealing its contents without hesitation. I pulled everything
out and laid my findings on the desk.
Speaker 3: Six books. I recognized the.
Speaker 2: First as the one Wrath had been writing in. The
others looked as if they were journals as well, and
from the wear and tear on each book, they were
likely complete. My curiosity hijacked my better judgment, The urgency
of my original mission to find the seeds temporarily forgotten.
What can I say, I'm easily distracted. I opened the
journal and went to the bookmark page. Glancing over the text,
it appeared to be the most recent entry he wrote.
The subject continues to demonstrate an above normal level of
physical self repair bordering on the supernatural. I assume Wrath
was labeling me the subject. I don't love that, but
much like the proverbial dead cat, Kurrio had me hooked
and I continued to read on.
Speaker 4: The subject continues to demonstrate an above normal level of
physical self repair bordering on the supernatural. As previously noted,
the singed blade wound continues to heal at a slow
but steady rate. There is no benchmark for this healing process,
as there are no other documented survivors from a singed
blade wound. Most of the minor cuts and scrapes the
subject incurred during the fight with the gurrikthin had healed
by day two, and all major injuries were healed by
day four. The subject experienced extreme fevers and fatigue for
several days. During this time, his body fought against potential
infection from the open wound and possibly the effects of
the sined blade. The specific impact of the blade has
yet to be determined. During this time, other portions of
the subject's physique were negatively impacted. Most notably, the muscles
in his thighs showed a massive reduction in size, decreasing
the initial measurement of circumference from twenty three inches to nineteen.
These changes took place in only four days, which is
too rapid a decrease to be attributed to physical inactivity.
My current theory is that the subject's body draws upon
other muscle groups to heal the damaged ones. In the morning,
I will cook a high protein meal for the subject,
hoping the body will use the food to heal the
wounds and slow the atrophy of the other muscle groups.
The easiest way to validate my theory would be to
assist the subject in full recovery. Once the subject has
regained his strength, another large wound should be inflicted on
a non fatal muscle group. At that point, a second
and observation of the healing process can begin.
Speaker 2: I stared dumbly at the final paragraph of the journal entry,
my brain tripping over itself to process the words. Rat
didn't come right out and say it, but I think
the bastard wants to stab me again.
Speaker 3: What the fuck?
Speaker 1: Charts is voiced by Josh Allen. Benjamin Wright aka Rath
is voiced by Ray O'Hare. Audio engineering by Adam Culbertson
and Richard Collins. Editing by Tisha zang music provided in
part by Elizabeth Blakeley and written by Nico Rodriguez. The
Necromancer of Pricene is a Creative Typo Entertainment production. For
more information about this show, our cast, or other shows
under Creative Typo, please check out our website at www
dot creative typo dot com. And thank you for listening.
A very special thank you to our executive producers from Patreon,
Nick Mead and Patrick t Arsenal