CR Arcadum S1E19: The Candy Man Can

=== Chapter 19: The Candy Man Can ===
==== A strange barrier====
A tunnel in the abandoned railway section of "The Undercity" is protected by a mysterious barrier. Kythus starts investigating how to break through it.
Kythus with his magical affinity, is compelled to move towards the darker regions of the grove containing dark mushrrom and when he makes it there he falls over in pain as a magical crystal starts to form. With help from Leilani he is healed and they make their escape but in the panic he leaves Leilani behind who nearly drowns. Apologizing Kythus explains that the crystals are not enough for what he requires and is afflicted by a magical blindness. Handling over the crystal he has to Conk he carries them to be used to power a flashlight-like device to possibly help penetrate the barrier.
After discussing the barrier with the sanctums other magic users together with Bo, Kythus goes to work at breaking breaking the barrier leading to the sealed off area.
====Help from dad====
Joined by Mayor Eric, Loch and Alfons who has had his true identity revealed makes a call to his father Josephan (portrayed by Arcadum), a higher up ATLANTIS corporate businessman. After being lectured repeatedly, Eric steps in with his smooth talk to help Alfons plead his case. Being put on hold and the conversation going back and fourth repeatedly he eventually agrees to pay off Alfons bounty, however this is after learning about the existence of the magical grove, hidden beneath Callous Row in the undercity.
====In the footsteps of The Necromancer====
Breaking the barrier to the sealed place a party of several slummers spill in led by Bo and Ciara with Dagu in tow holding a flashlight. Cleo smells blood of hundreds of bodies and they find the remains of many dead left over from the quaratine. Body bags and biohazard warning symbols litter the place. Wandering through the decay the group is lead through an old grocery store until they reach a dead body without any visible wounds.
Dagu checks a computer for logs pertaining to what occurred during the quarantine and what left so many dead. Not finding what he was looking for a specific symbol in the logs stands out, Kythus pointed it out to be the magical symbol of "The Necromancer". The descent into darkness turns chaotic as the group reaches a room with hanged bodies suspended off poles with the glaring symbol of "The Necromancer" behind them once more. Ciara starts mumbling out loud to herself and claims that the symbol calls to her, that she deserve's it and that the others are too afraid. Bo approaches her thinking her to have lost her mind and the two ensue in a struggle for power as the rest of the group are pushed backwards and separated behind a magical force. Leaving only Ciara and Bo.
As the two battle Ciara claims the power to be hers, it's what she came here for and if anyone tries to stop her she will make them join her. Engrossed in their fight the dead surrounding them slowly start to rise up, reanimated.
As Bo and Ciara are locked together in a magical struggle Eros, Charles, Loch and Talus among others start fighting the undead physically. As Bo seems to win the battle the group starts to make their escape but not before both Charles and Eros are bitten.
====Respite interrupted====
All limbs intact the injured are helped make their way back to the grove where Leilani provides healing and Akeena uses her knowledge of poisons to aid. Eros survives but is left with black veins covering his skin while Charles is left with a darkened skin and something like a curse. If any dark mana touches him again he will most surely turn and be doomed to join the the other undead.
As if quarantined undead were not enough Loch arrives to sound an alarm that there is an incoming corporate raid lead by Lange and his Quixote forces. This time they're out for blood and lays siege to the group inside the grove as Leilani erects a barrier to prevent them entering.
Trapped but seemingly safe inside the barrier Quixote creates chaos all around Callous Row while keeping some armed guards stationed outside of the grove.
====Kaiphus the collector returns====
Kaiphus "The Collector" (portrayed by Arcadum), the notorious bounty hunter makes his return and encounters the Quixote forces, inquiring about his target, being Rook. Wandering around he finds Faye by happenstance. Knowing very well who she is he shoots her and drags her off to the garbage incinerator to interrogate her.
Sputtering taunting words at the young woman that she should have "listened to her daddy" he gives Faye a threatening final offer to bring Rook to him in exchange for sparing her life. Before Kaiphus is given a response Lange interrupts them, blaring on the Public Announcmeent system that he has taken the Doctors and Mayor prisoner at the medical bay. Faye siezing the opportunity of the sudden distraction tries to get a shot off at Kaiphus but is overpowered.
Kaiphus laughing incapacitates the poor girl by shooting her hands and legs, leaving her maimed and mutilated to suffer and die alone.
====A great sacrifice====
Leilani and "Phil" encounter the body of Faye barely breathing but still alive. Putting all of her powers vested in her from the grove, Lei manages to heal Faye but at a very steep cost, the grove welts and the barrier fails.
The Quixote forces pushes into the grove, they shoot Cleo and Nia and tosses them into the sewers. With infected wounds from the sewage water they manage to make it to land but Cleo is unresponsive and fell unconscious. Nia shelters her dear friend's seemingly lifeless body close, rocking back and fourth as she weeps in sadness.
The Quixote invasion leaves Argen dead from his wounds, Kythus, Dagu and Duncyn severely wounded but surviving. Loch injured.
====Boom====
Not just causing death the Quixote strike team also leaves devastation. Lange plants a bomb in the grove and evacuates his team. Minutes later the explosion creates a small earthquake felt by all inhabitants of the row, causing them to fall to the ground, dirt and smoke fills the air.
The explosion leaves the whole undercity destroyed, filled with debris and rubble and all the inhabitants depending on it's magic for sustenance are gravely afflicted.
Bo, Conk and Leilani all fall to the ground unconscious and begin to rapidly degrade. The grove and the focus of their magic - has been destroyed.
====Return of The Retribution====
Athologoth aka "Phil" hears voices in his head again, like that time previously when his dark patron ordered him commands. This time he was told to seek "the sorrowful one, the sole survivor". Finding Loch which was the target the voice sought, he did as told and managed to get Loch to meet him alone.
When they met the voice revealed himself audibly to both Athologoth and Loch to be "Rodgick", someone that Loch recognized from his days in The Union military. Belonging to a ensign that Loch had previously witnessed die, the disembodied voice asked for his help and told him to "take the hand of the servant". Grabbing Phils hand time seems to stop around the two of them and they both shared a vision. The vision showed "The Retribution", Lochs old battleship in orbit above Savior City, not looking as it once was but how it is now, with a cancerous growth pulsing on the side of it.
The voice ends cryptically: "The Rebels have taken what is mine, it now seeks the heart of your world. Servant gather my strength, end the sorrow of the survivor and make right what was wrong, I can only hold it back for so long..."
Phil explained that the voice was a patron of his, an otherworldly being that occasionally contacts him. Loch didn't seem to grasp what role his "patron" played in what he had just witnessed but had no reason to doubt the truth of the vision.
A Sonitii announcement of a ship approaching is sent to Dash Spacer. The notification tells it is approaching in 14 hours and that a mandatory quarantine of it is in effect. At the same time as the corporate message The Hellbats, Sharborough and Sgt. Kal Reinhart recieve an emergency SOS on an old outdated channel notifying them that a ship previously reported destroyed with the only survivor Loch is approaching, it is undeoubtedly "The Retribution".
====Small comforts====
Rook returned to find Faye in a state of depression with scars all over her body outside his bar. Signing about her parents she became unresponsive as he approached and tried to wave him away. Signing "not worth", Rook loses his temper and confronts her, telling her that shes worth something. He tells her that she can hate him all that she wants but to never to hate herself.
Loch appears at the bar and and tells Rook about the vision of the ship in orbit and the message from his supposedly dead ensign. He pleaded to Rook to believe him, insisted that he had not gone insane although lacking any explanation of what really occured. Trusting his story Rook invited Loch to be his "bloodrite second" and introduced him to the secret base of The Shattered Legion and told him about Kaiphus the Collector.
A delivery from The Hellbats arrives, a young sergeant named Kal Reinhart hands over an armor to Rook.Arcadum stream 2020-03-14 Week 21 Ep19
==Twitch Clips==
==Gallery==
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 1 Leilani saving Kythus.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 2 Nash's health and survival training, advertisement.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 3 Gathering at the Grove.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 4 Kythus speaks about the quarantine and evil.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 5 Alfons calling his father.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 6 Kythus, Bo and breaking through the barrier, Talus guarding.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 7 Barrier.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 8 Before breaking through the barrier.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 8 Entering.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 9 Conk frozen in place.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 10.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 11 Found a body.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 12 Dead bodies and biohazard.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 13 Dagu checks the computer.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 14 Dagu checks the computer.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 15 Hanged people and the symbol of the necromancer.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 16 Ciara reach for the symbol, Bo tries to stop her.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 17 Ciara vs Bo.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 18 The Dead rise.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 19 The Dead rise.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 20 Akeena knew how to deal with Eros being bit.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 21 Bethany, Cleo and supporting Charles.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 22 Leilani heals Charles.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 23 Loch warns of a Corporate raid opening fire on everybody.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 24 Quixote Corporate Raid.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 25 Quixote Corporate Raid.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 26 Loch got shot, Nash and Warren assisting.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 27 Leilani maintaining the barrier to the grove.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 28 Quixote Corporate Raid.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 29 Quixote Corporate Raid.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 30 Kaiphus the collector shoots Faye.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 31 Kaiphus the collector threatens Faye.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 32 Kaiphus the collector threatens Faye.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 33 Kaiphus the collector threatens Faye.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 34 Leilani and Phil Found a discarded weapon.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 35 Leilani inspects Faye's wounds.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 36 The Grove breached.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 37 Nia thinks Cleo died (Hundera PoV).jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 38 Nia thinks Cleo died (Hundera PoV).jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 39 Scanning Quixote learns that the grove is under Talaris control.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 40 Dagu is shot in the eye.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 41 Quixote firing squad.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 42 Warren and Odd inspects Conk after the bomb went off.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 43 Phil ordered to seek the sorrowful one, the survivor.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 44 Phil and Loch.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 45 Phil alone with Loch.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 45 Phil and Loch, disembodied voice.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 46 Phil and Loch, disembodied voice of the Retribution ship.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 47 Plif gets notified of The Retribution in orbit.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 48 Rook found Faye.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 49 Faye depressed.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 50 Loch tells Rook about the strange vision of the Retribution ship.jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 51 Sgt. Kal Reinhart (SciFri).jpg
Arcad Callous Mar 14th 2020 52 Sgt. Kal Reinhart (SciFri).jpg
Category:Callous Row Arcadum Episodes