Shigeri Soma

Casual Soma

Shigeri Soma is a Seiryujin Rogue of mysterious origins and motivations who joined the party in Nock.

**Appearance**

Soma is often found in town dressed in noble finery. His hair is cropped abruptly at shoulder length and an expensive bracelet rests on his left hand.

Outside of town, he often wears drab garb fit for what someone who had lived inside a city's walls their whole life would expect a traveling mercenary to wear with no bracelet visible.

During a brief encounter with a powerful Montulais, Soma's "true" form was revealed to the the noble finery and his other outfits were little more than tricks of a Hat of Disguise.

**History**

**Early Life**

**What Remains**

Upon returning to the Elm Woods tavern in Nock one day, the party found a man who did not look like he belonged in such a place sitting at a table by himself, running through gambits and sequences on a dragonchess board alone. Fionna Woods joined him for a game, and soon the rest of the group came to join them to suss out who this odd man was, and *why* he was there. When Soma's offered assistance to their current goal of solving a puzzle box came up and raised more suspicions, he revealed that it had indeed been no accident that he had been in *this* tavern at *this* time and he had hoped to meet the famed "Heroes of the Library' to offer his assistance in order to raise his own name and renown.

The group departed for the shrine the puzzle box originated from shortly thereafter. In the town of Howlerton, they found smouldering ruins. Atop a pile of corpses sat Isaac Woods. Hez'rod spoke to the man to get information about the situation and learned that Isaac had been bound in life to destroy the Black Blade, but now after failing, was bound in undeath to fell 500 undead before he could rest. After some debate, where Isaac made it clear he neither needed nor wanted the group's assistance, the group agreed to take the remaining few townsfolk from the still-standing inn and take them on to Manus.

After briefly preparing in Manus, the group made their way to the shrine. Upon approaching a large crest in the center of the room, the orbs flew from the puzzle box and suspended in midair as an emerald dragon formed beneath them. The party tried to parlay with the dragon, but their words only angered the beast that had a single purpose: to retrieve the pieces of the puzzle box from these intruders.

When the box was knocked away from Fionna by a vicious swipe of the dragon's claws, Soma rushed in, grabbed the box, and teleported away before the dragon could claim it. To the party's surprise, though, the dragon followed suit, teleporting after him as the room filled with a malevolent, frightful energy. The dragon stayed fixated on people who held the components, and during the fray, Fionna briefly took the ring and tried to flee the shrine without the group following her before returning when it was clear no one was following the lead. With a great deal of struggle and too many close calls, the group managed to kill the dragon. After retrieving the stones, a date was discovered on the crest, and the group returned to Manus to recover from their wounds.

Back in Manus, while Avran Normac was training on the outskirts of town, Baphodel limped towards the town before collapsing from his wounds. He brought Baphodel back to the tavern to tend to his wounds and the party retired for the night. The following morning, the group used the date on the puzzle box to unlock a bottom panel, revealing a slip of paper with the Words of Creation written on them. Between plys of paper was a silver thread: a crystallized memory.

Hez'rod touched the thread to his head to be transported to a memory not his own. In it, Sifford and a halfing did battle with a monstrosity of tentacles, jaws, and an eye. When Sifford killed the beast, the Halfling quipped "What a way to spend a birthday!" The memory contained knowledge of Sifford's birthday: 11 Falloon.

This date unlocked the last mechanism of the box, which twisted and spiraled and transformed into an elaborate spiral key, leaving no trace of the box or its components behind.

Baphodel recruited the party to assist him in slaying the devil that had nearly killed him and *had* killed his companion--another friend of the party's. The group traveled north to a lake and clearing surrounded by mist to challenge the devil Torold. While the party prevailed, Baphodel did not survive the encounter. When Hez'rod attempted to bring the celestial back from recent death, the Celestial refused in order to go on to the greater fight between good and evil.

The party searched the ruins of the clearing, discovering more words of creation and architecture matching previous locations associated with the Lady of the Deep. The lake went down seemingly forever, water quickly turning to Orvo and opening in to a massive chamber. The party took a vial of Orvo from the corpse of the amalgam of Torold and his steed, which seemed to emanate a magic nullification field like the freestanding orvo deeper in the lake.

The party returned to Manus once more to safely stash the Orvo. At the tavern was an autocarriage belonging to the Montulais. Fionna was desperate to avoid them, and some of the party tried to convince the rest to avoid staying in town. Hez'rod and Avran, however, went to the tavern with Soma trailing behind them in case things went poorly.

Inside the Montulais woman was meeting with a Congolmerate diplomat and surrounded by the fleshen monstrosities serving as her guard. While Kenneth the barkeep tried to shoo away the heroes, Megan Montulais told him they could stay. In conversation, she revealed she knew much of the heroes deeds--or crimes, as they were considered by her, including releasing a Mindflayer that had been suffering in another tomb. When Soma arrived, she casually dismissed his disguise and called him out as an agent of House Daigot. Eventually Megan tired of the discussion and retired, dismissing Soma, Hez'rod, and Avran. The trio returned to the party's camp on the outskirts of town and prepared to head back to the shrine to find out just what this mysterious key protected.