StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Apologies about some of the way I'm going to post this, its meant to be read as pages with footnotes so I'm going to try to get that feel by monkeying around with an idea. This is, more or less, my D&D group going through one of the published adventures. I'm not exactly happy with it but as none of my beta readers have said 2 words to me in about 3 years I'm not entirely sure what's wrong with it (beyond the plot of the adventure). The adventure is called "To Quell the Rising Storm" and is one of Christopher Lindsey's works. edit- P.S. mostly 10th level party (a 9th level fighter and a CR 8 follower) and its supposedly a 10th level adventure.

Prologue wrote:Over the coarse of my long career as a historian, adventurers have always held a special place for me. The first stories I learned as child were of brave heroes cut from this cloth. Not all such people are heroes of course, many are merely mercenaries, or even villains. These collected works are of one such group. Mildly notable at the time the narrative begins, they would rise to heights of fame and power seldom seen. Hailed as heroes almost despite their selves. Zuine the Mindbender, Fenak the Rock, Mithran Dragon’s Blood, Zhou Fei the Traveler, and most importantly Seth the Living Golem. It is Seth who wrote the narratives I have collected and edited from his journals and notes along with occasional forays into other histories to give wider context to the events described as necessary.

All who surrender will be spared; all who do not surrender but oppose us with violence and dissension, shall be crushed.
-Temuldin the Conqueror, ultimatum delivered before every battle.

I am told that writing is a good way to sort ones thoughts. As this is something I desperately need I hope it is true. It had been two weeks since my creation, and the death of my creator. Two weeks of life fueled by the stolen soul of the man whose name I bear. I have followed Seth’s friends, my friends now I suppose. I certainly felt enough attachment to them to kill my creator. Forgive me any who read this in the future but it is woven into my being not to communicate the Golem Master’s real name, ever.(1)

Zuine Arrosa is the one I feel most connected to, Zhou tells me my progenitor was her lover. She is a beautiful woman, with strawberry blond hair, grey eyes and sharp noble features. I watch her as she rides sidesaddle in her gray ‘adventuring’ robe. It flows like water as she moves and the adamant threads woven into it make it better armor than most wizard wear. She is an enchantress who specializes in controlling the mind and will of others. At that point a blue skinned ogre-magi, Magan, who’s will she subverted followed her as her bodyguard. She looked at me occasionally and sadness clouded her features for moments before her neutral expression returned.

Mithran was a strange one, a sorcerer-priest, though I had to discern his goddess’ identity. A wood elf, though a strange greenish cast to his toughened skin, marked him as not of pure elven blood. He wore plate armor made of shed green dragon scales, the armor makes his strange green pall less noticeable. He’s also something of a pack rat, hoarding scrolls and other magical items. He had already showed me his lacquered scroll case, a magical device that holds 50 spell scrolls and unrolls the one you want at will. He prized the thing for its utility as much as the artistry that crafted it.

Zhou Fei is a strange human from somewhere very far away. His very foreign features are marred by randomly placed burn scars, like molten metal splashed him. A master of fighting with only hands and feet, he is a devotee of a religious philosophy that few have heard of beyond him. Clad in a gray shirt and pants covered with a worn robe, that might have been orange once, he seems content to merely travel with us. He rarely takes a share of the treasure, just enough money to eat with and what magical items we insist on.

footnote wrote: (1)Not a surprise as his name was Hud Jermajesty

Fenak is seemingly the simplest of us. He’s a dwarf, from some dwarven community very far underground. Without his special glasses(2) bright lights cause him pain. He’s a typical dwarf, strong, sturdy and wearing so much thick plate armor he could be mistaken for a golem himself. Live hard, drink hard, fight hard, and die well.

We had traveled from the golem master’s lair back towards more ‘civilized’ land for some time when we spotted the signs of old battles. Around a year had past since war had swept through the area. The dirt path we were on became a wider tamped earth road built by one of the armies. Near evening we came upon a sign proclaiming our entrance to the township of Evenfall. We did not see any signs of this town for several minutes, we passed several burned out husks of large farms. The surviving farms had makeshift walls and trenches, but there were few signs of any crops ready to harvest. It wasn’t a large town and showed signs of having fallen on hard times equally with the outlying farms. The shops were already closed though dusk was some time away. A few people were on the practically deserted streets, but they avoided eye contact.

“Friendly folk” Zhou commented to Fenak. A tinny “Aye, aren’t they.” came from the depths of the armor. Making our way to the only well kept building in town, the tavern we were unsurprised it was also the town’s only inn as well. It no longer had a sign above the door, but the warm glow of a cheery fire.

Zuine strode in with the swagger of nobility, Magan having shapeshifted into a particularly tall man with orcish blood held the door for her before going back to care for her horse. She walked up to the bar as though she expected everyone to scurry out of her way. A elder man waved the rest of us to the bar as he spoke to her. “Two nobles fer floor space, two sovereigns fer a private room, the stable is one sovereign a night fer horses a noble fer a person.” She glared at him for a long moment before speaking, “A room for me, I have a man and a horse for your stable. How much for a bath,” she paused then added, “And I mean one with hot water.”

He nodded slightly, “A bath with heated water is 5 nobles. A sovereign if ye want a servant girl to help.”

“Just the bath. And have a meal sent to my room and a to my man in the stable.” I found myself dragged off leaving the others in tavern. At that point I was constantly surprised by what skills I possessed from my progenitor. That day I discovered I was a more than competent masseuse, working Zuine’s stiff and tired muscles with practiced ease. “I have done this before?” “Very often”, she purred “You said you learned this when you were young and delighted in practicing on me when you got the chance. It gave you a good cover identity when you needed one.”

Inwardly I felt a twinge of regret “I wish I had his memories along with his skills.” She sighed contentedly as I worked on a knot in her lower back. ”Your still him you know, even without the memories. Things will be back to the way they were in time.”

Footnote wrote: (2)Goggles of Day, magical lenses made of smokey crystal that allow normal vision in extremes of light, on Fenak they allowed him to see normally in daylight.

The hope in her voice was infectious and made me think maybe she was right. She had picked up a small box once I was done working on her and looked deep in thought before opening it and putting the adamantium ring it contained on. This made me strangely happy, though at the time I did not know my progenitor had given her the box shortly before his ‘death’(3).

It was then I heard a cry of “Gnolls!!! I’ve seen gnolls, up on the ridge, their just standing and talking but their up there!!!” in a youthful man’s voice from downstairs. I looked to Zuine who was now fast asleep and decided to make sure she wasn’t disturbed. I pulled out the Symbol of Pain icon she kept for inn stays and affixed it above the door, the device would cause unbearable pain to any foolish enough to enter uninvited.

Mithran and Fenak were putting their helmets on as I arrived.

“Zuine is asleep.” I said before I stressed to them, “Sleep she greatly needs.”

Zhou-fei arches an eyebrow before agreeing, “He’s got a point. She has not been sleeping well.”

Mithran sighed, “Very well lets go help the wheat brigade. Zhou-fei circle around and scout, take Seth with you, don’t engage yet. This may be a scouting party checking defenses.”

Zhou-fei moved quickly and silently through the woods around the town, he seemed unsurprised I kept up with him quite easily and just a silently. Approaching the general area we saw the gnolls and spotted a wolf sitting at the feet of one, not wishing to be smelled out by the animal he motioned me to back off as he did. He talked into his ring, which would carry his voice to an identical ring on Mithran’s finger.

“I’ve got three gnolls 50 feet down the back of the hill, one has a wolf with her, probably a shaman of some kind.”

The elf’s voice came out of the ring at a bare whisper “We’ve got two on this side, take them if possible I want a prisoner. Not the shaman, without Zuine I don’t want to try to hold a spellslinger.”

“Seth, kill the shaman, I’ll grab one of the warriors as a prisoner.”

The shaman, now facing us, was quickly speaking in seeming gibberish as she cast a spell between us. As I charged her a dark cloud crackling with lightning appeared to intercept me. I didn’t know what it was then but later learned it to be a Storm Elemental. A quick internal twist activated one of the abilities my creator gifted me with, greatly enhancing my speed. Rapiers concealed within my arms appeared in my hands as I attacked, shredding the creature cloud creature and moving past it without slowing down to stab the shaman

Footnote wrote: (3)Seth Kilroth commissioned the ring some year before that adventure. The adamatium wedding ring had the magical function of a Ring of Sustenance, allowing her to go days with only an hours sleep, no need to eat, drink, or even breathe if necessary.

The gnoll warriors with her bolted for the wood. Pulling herself off my rapier the shaman’s shape swam into that of a dire wolf as she loped off at a dead run. The two gnolls from the other side of the hill ran past Zhou-fei, one close enough for him to strike with rapid blows aimed to disable rather than kill. A clumsy counterswing was returned but was so wide he had no need to dodge it.

Leaving him to beat his clumsy foe, I chased the Dire Wolf easily overtaken it and deeply wounded it. The shaman turned and tried to bite me, its jaws snapping on empty air. She reverted to her own body just in time to be gutted by my return stroke with the other hand.

I dragged the somewhat eviscerated corpse back to where Zhou-fei was tying up his prisoner just as Mithran and Fenak trudged over the hill. The elf pulled out his ornate scroll case, a scroll unrolled on its own, giving him the perfect spell for the occasion. He waited for the gnoll to regain consciousness before casting it. He motioned to Fenak who spoke the Gnoll’s strange language to interpret.

While the relay interrogation was going on Zhou-fei and I started stripping the gnoll shaman of anything that looked vaguely valuable. Which being a druid wasn’t much. Her armor though magical was fairly useless except as coin fodder, the same with her rune etched scimitar, but she had a pearl on a chain that looked promising. There were several scrolls that seemed to be divine spells. The interrogation ended with a thunk as Fenak beheaded the gnoll. Mithran approached the pile with a pale blue wand he had found in the golem master’s lab. He pointed it at each item and spoke a strange word causing floating script describing each item to appear above it. He placed the scrolls into his strange scroll case and put the pearl around his neck.

“The rest we’ll add to the loot we’re selling. Its useless to us.”

Hauling the rest back to town was easy enough, the gnoll’s mundane weapons we left to the citizenry. Back in the inn we found Zuine looking much less stressed than when I last saw her.

“Yer looking better lass,” Fenak supplied as the innkeeper sent a free round to them.

She looked down her nose at him, “I merely needed some sleep in a proper bed” with a gesture to Seth, “And some time in Seth’s skilled hands. He is most definitely still Seth, getting him back to the way he was will just take time.”

They shared a look before sitting. “Aye lass,” Zenak murmured sympathetically “That aside the gnolls were just scouts. From what I could make out from the flea-bag there’s a wizard holed up in the south hills with packs of them and a general who’s likely a giant of some kind.”

“Any idea how many?”

“No, gnolls aren’t known for their countin’.” he stated apologetically,

Zhou looked up from his water, “Are we getting involved?"

“No real reason to, I doubt this place could afford to hire us. Unless we were to do it for whatever the wizard’s got.” Mithran answered with a shrug.

“We might as well,” Zuine returned, “We lost a lot of the loot from the golem master when Seth was......changed. My portable hole barely has anything in it.”(4)

“True, lass,” Fenak supplied,”Should we wait for the locals to offer us some pittance or just go in the morning?”

“All of you require rest, the journey was long, if the locals inquire I will handle it.”I offered, “I do not need rest, really.”

After they went to sleep the innkeeper came to me, “Pardon me, sir. Mind if I have a seat and jaw atcha a bit?”

“Please sit, Innkeep?”

“Jarri, sir, Jarri Cobblepot. You’re strangers here, and we can’t rightly expect you to get involved. But since you have I’d best explain a few things. We was hit hard by the war, rebuildin’s been slow as we got more farms than people . Surviving the winter is lookin iffy. Now this thing with the gnolls. They’ve been out there a long time, buncha little roving bands, raided the farms on occasion. Until lately, they’ve been real quiet of late, making people nervous.” He took a moment to scratch his chin in tought,” That they ran away is strange behavior fer them too. We was wondering if you might be willing to poke around a bit see what’s up. While we can’t pay you money I’ll be more’n happy to refund what you spent this evening in exchange”

“We had planned to anyway, but your reward is welcomed.”

“Thank you sir,” he was practically groveling “thank you.”

I spent most of the night in idle chitchat with the locals and even found something interesting on the wall.

In the morning when the others came down to break-fast. “Good morning,” I greeted, “The innkeep has made the town’s offer for assistance.”

The others slid around the table as Fenak asked “How little did they offer?”

“As the town has little to no wealth, we’ve been offered our tab at the bar and inn gratuitied. The last war held in the area was apparently very hard on them.”

footnote wrote: (4)Most of the really valuable items were in Seth’s magical backpack when he was flung into the golem maker and his physical body obliterated.

“They have any idea who’s leading the gnolls?” Mithran grumbled.

“While they do not beyond finding the scouting with no raids suspicious, I have a suspect.” I pulled out an old weather beaten wanted poster showing a cruel looking man with a pockmarked face. “During the war this De’lamor Belshain ran a goblinoid bandit group, he was recruited in return for coin and amnesty. As the kingdom that did so was strapped for hard coin I find it unlikely he was paid the full amount promised.(5) He has not been seen in sometime but was reputed to be a powerful sorcerer.”

“Very good Seth,” Zuine praised with a smile, “See, told you it was coming back to him.”

“Aye,” the dwarf commented as the scant breakfast the inn could provided was set before him. “We should head out after this... ‘meal’.”

Packing up we headed in the direction the gnoll encampment. Scarcely over the first rise we stopped as the yipping barks of arguing gnolls carried to us.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Mithran said, “It can’t possibly be this easy. Zhou, check it out carefully.”

The scarred monk slipped into the grass only to return a moment later. “Two groups, a hundred yards away, a shaman with a wolf and five warriors in each. Shamans are arguing over something.”

With the tone of experience Fenak replied, “Standard gnoll warbands, their probably trying to hash out wether to attack the town with what they have or get reinforcements first.”

Zuine got a nasty smile “I’ve got this.” Syllables of magic fell from her mouth as she disappeared under an invisibility spell. A few seconds later she reappeared atop a taller hill as a glowing bead streaked from her outstretched hand to the center of the gathered humanoids, where it exploded in a fireball that engulfed most of them.

One could almost hear a smirk on Fenak’s face. “Let’s finish em off, afore she beats us to it.” He cried before charging down at the blast. Shrugging to each other Mithross and Zhou-fei followed with me and Magan both of us transformed into our true appearance. As the fireball cleared the casualties could be seen. Both shaman’s were horribly burned, seven of the warriors were on the verge of death and one of the wolves had expired while the other was standing if only just.

Magan and I peeled off towards the now smoldering shamans, leaving the three standing warriors for the rest. One of the warriors who had been on the very edge of the blast was not in the shock the others were and charged Fenak. Fenak was brought up short from his own rush as the gnoll’s bastard sword clanged off his thick plate. He returned a more telling blow of his own, though not deep enough to kill it from the bad angle.

footnote wrote: (5)De’lamor’s goblins and bugbears were used as cannon fodder against the most heavily fortified position of the Battle of Birch Bluff, then they refused to pay death wage for them.

I reached the first shaman plunging both of my rapiers through the creature’s chest and lifting it off the ground. I watched it expire emotionlessly before throwing it’s corpse aside.

The ogre-magi, Magan was enthralled to Zuine’s magic, but only just, the massive creature’s mind was merely loyal to Zuine, not otherwise altered. Magan still possessed his kind’s vicious love of combat, and drove his huge sword down through the other shaman splitting it in two neat halves. The wolf burned and now bereft of its companion ran into the woods.

Zhou Fei reached his target just as it shook off the shock from the fireball. The small agile man danced around his opponent delivering deadly bone crushing blows that soon had the creature down. Mithran reached the last warrior with an overhand swing of his heavy mace. The creature sidestepped enough to protect his head but his collar bone gave a loud crack as the metal ball connected. The mangy creature looked both pained and enraged but before he could his right eye sprouted a crossbow bolt. Zuine walked up her light crossbow in hand and a satisfied smirk on her face, as the gnoll fell over. We quickly stripped them of any valuables.

“Anyone else notice these gnolls are awfully well equipped?” Fenak asked holding up one of the gnoll’s chain shirts, “Under all the grime this stuff is high quality, they all have a pouch with potions in them too.”

Mithran was sniffing one of the potions in question, “A healing potion of moderate strength, the other is a potion of cat’s grace. The shaman’s were equipped just as well, along with spell scrolls, most of them burned but I found one still useable scroll of Dispel Magic.”

Zuine looked thoughtful for a moment, “It would seem their leader intends them to have greater advantage over their prey.”

A flash of insight struck me, “He may not have many followers. With too few to use as cannon fodder he’d have to view each one as important.”

“Aye,” Zenak put in “Gnolls are difficult to control in large numbers as well.”

With that we continued on, after depositing all the gear in Zuine’s portable hole. It took us some time to find the small crevasse De’lamor’s hide out was in. Zhou Fei and I crept forward scouting the entrance. It was about 40 feet up the cliff face with only a narrow path winding up to it. While a pair of gnolls guarded the entrance, they would have difficulty seeing anyone coming up the path until they turned the last corner practically on top of the entrance.

“We need to take them down before they can raise the alarm.” Mithran whispered, “Zhou, Seth your most likely to get there quietly, once your close I’ll put a silence spell on one of them. Just don’t let them go into the lair.”

We nodded and crept up the path as stealthily as we could. At the last turn we waited for Mithran’s signal. One of the gnolls was yawning when the sound from it was suddenly cut off, we bolted around the corner. From the stunned looks on their faces we achieved complete surprise. I slit the first ones throat before he could blink, I was slightly over enthusiastic about doing so as I nearly decapitated him. Zhou Fei merrily beat his silenced guard to death with his fists before tossing him down the cliff just to make sure.

Once we were all together, we entered the cave like entrance. Fenak and I were in front, with Mithran and Zuine next, and Zhou Fei bringing up the rear with Magan. We passed up the first turn to continue straight ahead where we could hear gnolls in conversation. Ragged furs lined the walls and a kettle of something brown bubbled on a fire in the center of the room. Three warriors and a shaman sat around the room, as we entered they turned and howled that gibbering laugh gnolls and hyenas are infamous for, as they prepared to attack. Zhou set off the battle leaping past the warriors to attack the shaman, there was an echoing snap as his rapid punches and kicks snapped the long bone in one of her legs. As she fell she lost the spell she was casting, the green energy of her spell evaporating into nothingness.

For my part I slashed one of the warriors, though it stumbled back out of the way of my second rapier strike. Mithran suddenly had a wand in hand sending a magical bolt of energy into the shaman killing it. Zuine held out her hand as she snarled a spell and a cone of flaming liquid ripped from her hand to engulf a warrior gnoll and catch my opponent in the edge of it as well. Both died screaming as the liquid was evidently a potent, as well as flammable, acid.

Fenak had simply ran at the gnoll directly in front of him axe at the ready. His first swing devastating the warrior, with a killing blow on the return swing of the heavy great axe. The wolf companion of the shaman bolted, like the earlier one without its bond to the shaman it was just an animal and survival was more important to it.

Zhou suddenly cocked his head, “Six more coming down the corridor.”

We put our backs to the wall on either side of the doorway and waited. Zuine was mumbling an incantation. Five warriors charged past us into the room and were caught in the spell she was casting. Suddenly confused look appeared in their eyes, though one seemed to shake it. That one turned and attacked Fenak, the bastard sword bouncing off his armor. Fenak was unimpressed and answered with a mighty blow of his own nearly cutting the creature in half with a single swing of Stonereaver(6).

From the corridor came the sound of chanting as the sixth member of their group, a shaman, cast a spell into the room filling it with a blizzard of sleet, cutting off visibility to zero and covering the ground in slippery ice. Being close to the door I blindly sidled through it and past the ice to find the shaman there preparing to cast again using the sleet in the room as cover. Almost without thinking I drove one of my rapiers through her eye into her brain and slashed down with the other hand to drive her wolf away. It yelped as I drew a line of blood on its muzzle but backed off before running away, as its mistress finally expired, twitching.

footnote wrote: (6)Fenak’s Great Axe, Stonereavers are rare dwarven weapons enchanted to do extra damage to earth elementals and golems made of earth, stone, or metal. They only work in dwarven hands, being just a very good axe in any others hands.

A few moments of recovery passed as everyone had been sleet blasted before the melee resumed. One of the gnoll warriors, being creatures better equipped by nature for such problems as sleet, recovered first. Unfortunately for the comrade next to him he was still under the magically induced confusion Zuine had hit them with, and attempted to skewer him. The attacked gnoll dodged but then just stood there as if he lost what he was going to do. The other two did the same, it was like their thoughts just stopped in mid stream, then they all started babbling random sounds. Zhou Fei, not one to pass this up hit one of them, thus starting a general melee on the gibbering creatures. With them dispatched we relit the gnoll’s cook fire to dry off some.

“This is really starting to annoy me” grumbled Fenak, “They are too well equipped and identically equipped at that. Gnolls just don't organize like that.”

Zuine, in a fluffy bathrobe while her dress dried, thought for a moment, “This mage who leads them must spend a lot of time making things for them, or buying them. No mage made this” she held up one of the scrolls the shamans carried, “Its written in the way of the divine caster.”

“Aye” the dwarf agreed, “all this mail and sword is of high quality, the gortugh(7) didn’t work to maintain it but its still quality stuff.” Picking up a bastard sword he had been cleaning while we dried out, it gleamed in the light with a water like pattern up the blade, “This would cost a good 300 auric(8) in my home city. Its good enough quality to hold an enchantment.”

Mithran rubbed his chin as he thought, “The best we’ve seen out of them was that older shaman Seth killed near town. She managed summoning an elemental. And had a scimitar enchanted for killing humans. The rest are too well equipped for their level of competence.”

“You know” I added, “They’ve all carried longbows, good ones from the look of it. It could be they’re all primarily archers. The Cat’s Grace potion would improve their accuracy, we’ve just always fought them at close quarters. Outside we kept sneaking up on them, and in here their isn’t enough room.”

“They are bored” Magan’s rumbling voice startled Fenak who seemed to have forgotten he was there, “Magan has led gnolls, if left to sit too long they squabble with each other.”

That said, and Zuine’s dress dried we returned to exploring the lair. We find a second chamber like the first, likely where the other group of gnolls was and a small chamber with a ladder leading down. It lead to a small alcove off a chamber that appears to be quarters for a higher ranked individual. We can hear voices, speaking the gnoll’s tongue, but are less rough and deeper. Zhou Fei creeps down the passage the voices are coming from.

When he returns, he whispers “Three sitting in the next room, look like gnolls but are shorter, less mangy.”

“Flinds” Fenak states with certainty “A smarter breed of gnolls, they act as natural commanders. They’ll be tougher and they’ll bring the mage down on us.”

footnote wrote: (7)Dwarven slang for gnolls, literally translates as ‘carrion breath’. (8)Dwarven gold coins, they are a bit heavier than ours, 350 to 400 gold sovereigns equivalent.

“Maybe not.”Zuine gets an evil smile as she pulls out three bottles. Pointing at Zhou Fei, Fenak, and Mithran.“Drink these.”

“What’s in that?” I asked honestly curious.

“Invisibility potions. Wouldn’t work for you I’m afraid, and Magan can turn himself invisible. They’ll last about eight minutes or until they attack.”

“Hold that thought,”Mithran pulls a scroll out of his case, “Silence spell for me and Fenak. I’ll cast it on his armor, we’ll drink the potions and surround them.”

While they were doing that Zuine set me a task. “Seth go get the corpses from the last battle.”

Their ambush did not go off without a hitch. They returned somewhat more battered than when they left, though only Magan was really injured. It seems the flinds were wearing enchanted mithral mail shirts. A few of the potions we’ve gathered fixed everyone up. I soon had quite a pile of dead gnolls at the ladder as well. Once we stripped the flinds of anything of value, save their flindbars(9), they were added to the pile. We also found a locked iron coffer in each chamber used by one of the flinds.

While everyone else ate and rested, Zuine pulled out a scroll and began chanting a spell off of it onto the pile of corpses. As she finished a necrotic green glow covered them(10), as their flesh rotted away leaving only fresh bone that arose to stand in ranks at attention. Zuine nodded to me and I plucked the swords we took from their corpses earlier from her portable hole and handed them to the skeletons. The three flind skeletons still held their flindbars making them stand out a bit in the group.

“Ta-dah, fourteen, fearless fodder for fierce fighting.” she alliterated before dissolving into giggles.

With the small warband of undead in the rear we proceeded, Mithran was in front now with a spiral wand in hand. A short way down the passage he motioned us to stop.

“Magical trap, give me a second.” he whispered over his shoulder as he pulled out a scroll. A few words later and presumably the trap was rendered inert. We found another ladder in the room the trap protected going down.

There in a large cavern was a dozing giant, he was around 12 feet tall, much broader than a human with over-muscled arms and weathered bronze complexion. A massive scimitar and a strange pipe sat within his reach. We crept into the room, while Zuine got her undead band into the room as quietly as possible I moved the pipe-like object, not trusting an unknown object within his reach.

footnote wrote: (9)A pair of iron bars linked by a chain, used one handed, a weapon particular to Flinds. (10)Having been present while a necromancer preformed a similar feat of corpse animation, no such glow presented itself, leading me to believe it was a function of Seth construct eyes.

With him quite surrounded we waited for Mithran’s signal, he had a different, golden wand in hand. At his spoken command it shot an intense beam of light(11) into the giant. We all started stabbing the dozing giant. Magan fired a cone of icy energy through the undead, who ignored it, into him. The giant shuddered and died as we made a bloody mess of him. From one of the passages out of the large cavern we heard the sound running.

Skidding to a halt was De’lamor himself, his wanted poster did little justice to his unwholesome appearance. He had teeth missing from his rotting gums, and an severe acne problem on top of flea bites. His cloths were worn but fine material, surrounding him at waist height were swirling metal blades(12).

I was at somewhat of a loss at what to do, I could not get within striking range as long as the blades protected him. Mithran seemed to work out an idea first, turning the wand on De’lamor, blasting the mage with the beam. The mage and Zuine began casting at the same time but Zuine finished first. Her enchantment was one of her most powerful specialties, called Spellslip, it changes the next spell a mage casts into a random spell they know. De’lamor was trying to cast some spell on his crossbow so when the random spell went off it targeted the crossbow in his hand. A column of flame roared into existence around him, we stood listening to his screams as it burned him to death beyond our reach. We waited until his conjured blades dissipated to loot what remained of his gear.

Zuine was actually quite delighted to discover that under his greasy hair, De’lamor had a Head Band of Intellect, something she always wanted. Now that the lair was cleared we could take the time to break into not only the chests we found in his quarters, but the ones from the Flind’s as well.

“You know what bugs me.” Fenak put forth as he worked on one of the chests with a crowbar, “Why were none of these whoresons carrying keys to these fucking chests.”

“True,” Zuine says from De’lamor’s desk where she’s perusing his journal, “Our new friend the Warmage De’lamor,” she gestures to his remains she had raised as a zombie, “is somewhat understandable. He could magic them open and closed, but the giant, or the flinds. How did they get into them?”

Several hours of breaking into locked chests later we were pleased to find a rather good sum of money some 16000 sovereigns and 200 emperors(13), along with 2 emeralds and a silver raven that glowed under Mithran’s magic detection wand. Our loot loaded into the portable hole or onto one of Zuine’s skeletal gnolls, though not De’lamor who’s body we showed to the town before destroying it, we set out. Our destination, our base of operations, the city of Three River’s Port, to sell loot and buy booze as Fenak puts it.

footnote wrote: (11)Searing Light, a beam of divine energy. (12)Ring of Blades, a popular spell among mages who get caught in melee combat more often than is healthy. (13)Many of my readers may never have heard of an emperor, much less seen one, they are rare coins of platinum used for very expensive magical items, or elder dragons as mercenaries or small countries. An emperor is worth 10 sovereigns and is about half the size.

Final Words wrote:And on that rather typical adventurer’s note this first narrative ends. While not the greatest of wordsmiths as yet Seth does get better as the narratives continue. Though the battle with the mage was somewhat anti-climatic I do hope this was enjoyable. And you keep a wizards eye out for the next narrative.

I like it, and the "footnotes" work very well.

Please continue!

LadyTevar wrote:I like it, and the "footnotes" work very well.

Please continue!

Thank you. On Word it looks a great deal different, with the foot notes below the page break. I was trying out the style the Caiaphas Cain novels are written in. I'll get on the next one as soon as I remember where I put the transcript of those sessions. This one didn't even take a whole session.

heh. I was just thinking that this reminded me of amberly's notes on cain.

What is your party composition. sounds like you have a monk, an enchanter, a fighter, a (golem)? and a cleric.

No trapmonkey? that could prove awkward.

Satori wrote:heh. I was just thinking that this reminded me of amberly's notes on cain.

What is your party composition. sounds like you have a monk, an enchanter, a fighter, a (golem)? and a cleric.

No trapmonkey? that could prove awkward.

As of the end of this adventure:

Zuine Arossa, human, 6th level enchanter/ 4th level mindbender. Zuine is using an unearthed arcana variant on the enchanter that loses extra spells in exchange for the ability to put extend spell on any enchantment she casts for free 1/level times a day.
Transmutation and Conjuring are her banned schools (player wanted to try something unusual so randomly rolled for them)

Magan, not really a party member, an NPC Ogre-mage Zuine is using her mindbender ability Eternal Charm to keep friendly to us as a paid mercenary. No class levels at this point.

Mithran Taurehal, dragon blooded wood elf, 5th level Sorcerer/5th level cleric of Tiamat,not that we know that. Bit of a trinket mage, thanks to the Infinite Scroll Case. We didn't know his religious leanings at this point, his DragonRider armor functions as a holy symbol as they are a holy relic of made of scales from a green dragon, high preistess of Tiamat, something out of Quintessential Cleric II. His Wand of Find Traps has him acting as trapfinder for the moment, while I disarm them if they're physical.

Fenak, Deep Dwarf, 10th level Dwarven Fighter, alternate class levels from Races of stone. Has a load of Heavy armor feats to go with his Mithral Mountain Plate +2. Between Stonereaver and the necropotent feat he can crit a lot of things normally immune to such things.

Zhou Fei, human, 5th level Monk/5th level Fighter, took the Monastic training feat at first level allowing him to cross class freely. Based on (surprise surprise) shaolin monks as they are presented in the 'Ancient Warriors' series. Doubles as our scout, which thanks to the magic items we've forced on him he's fairly good at. Ring that hides him from darkvision, boots that hide him from tremorsense, ect. That and his +20 on hide/move silently.

Seth, LifeSpark Nimblewright Golem, no character class yet

My character who is rather hard to explain in a small paragraph, I was a 6th level rogue/3rd level assassin, but we ran through an adventure against the mentioned Golem Master, who is the D&D version of Robotnik, I was thrown into his machine, my body destroyed (nooooooo I had a handy haversack with half the loot in it) and my soul transferred into a waiting golem body of appropriate HD for my level. In my case a Nimblewright ( Typical states for a nimblewright Here ). Because I was a living soul the Dm ruled I could take the Lifespark template from the advanced beastiary and make an opposed will check vs the Golem Master to replace the golem's mental stats with mine and break free of his control, which I did and promptly killed him. Now however my memories were wiped but the lifespark template gave me 9 class skills and (2+int)*(HD+3)skill points which I put mostly in skills I had before (except a craft skill for repairing myself) However I lost a lot of skills from before. I had at that time, Disable Device, Hide, Move Silently, Open Lock, Profession: Massuse, Sleight of Hand, Tumble, Craft Jeweler, Craft metalworking. With this I lose some of the golems immunities. Mind affecting spells work on me and a -2 vs Compulsion spells as the spells that controlled the golem are still there just dormant. And certain necromancy spells affect me, ones that target the soul specifically. Nalifan's soultrap would work on me for instance as would magic jar and soul bind. Such spells still have to get past my spell resistance.

They'll be more shortly, I was typing out the battles on the third level when I saw I was on page 14. So to break it up a little I stuck some chapter breaks in.

This narrative picks up not long after the first. Seth and his group arrived back in the town of Three River’s Port with nothing of interest in the journals except lengthy descriptions of the journey and the bargaining to sell their looted wares. The trade city of Three River’s Port was situated on the Lake of Tears where the two rivers of Ferrisnor, which led from the Dwarven mountains, and Eudurinel, from the deep woods of Elvan kingdoms, met. From the lake flowed the mighty Kriegwasser into human lands. The strong shifting currents below its surface have killed many a fool who tried to plumb its depths, leading the lake to its current title. This also makes the city a trade hub for river merchants. This has led the city to being the home base for many adventurers.

“The sword that will kill me is not yet forged”
- Tradd, Lord of Sarhalut by conquest, died falling into a swordsmiths forge.

The house Zuine rented for us in town was quite nice, though the rent was quite expensive. I was busy working on the swords she had bought for me. Zuine herself was counting our remaining funds nearby while I worked. Replacing the rapiers I was created with was no easy task. The crystal that drew them to and from the pocket of space in my arms made to hold them was set in the tang under the hilt. I had to place them into my new weapons without cracking the crystals and hopefully get the hilts back on without crushing them. Fortune favored me, as I sent the new rapiers into the space and then summoned them back. In my right hand was the blue-white ghost slayer blade, able to strike intangible targets, in my left the iridescent shifting colors on the blade betrayed its ability to deliver one of four elemental charges at my will.

The others began arriving, as Zuine had summoned them earlier. Mithran took one look at Zuine’s desk before asking, “How bad is it?”

She smiled slightly, “Not as bad as it could be. We have 21000 sovereigns left, but we defiantly want to head out for more soon. I found a likely place.”

“Don’t keep us in suspense lass,” Fenak grumbled.

“A place out east where people have been disappearing, near a defile that contains something called Nightfang Spire.”

Mithran looked deep in thought before speaking, “I’ve heard of this place, a cult was centered there some centuries ago. They worshiped the her....ancient dragon Ashardalon(1). The spire itself is a broken tower filled with the corpses of the cult.”

“Any objections.” she asked, “Good in the morning we head for Drylake, the closest city to the Spire. I’m spending tonight loading up on fire spells. The place is probably crawling with undead.”

footnote wrote: (1)This slip of the tongue was the first clue to Mithran’s hidden faith. Few religions would refer to a dragon as heretic.

Traveling any distance by foot takes time and is not without dangers of its own. We had barely been on the road half a day when we came upon a devastated farm. We could see several farmers and younger family members standing frozen in mid-stride as stone statues. Near the barn we could see a large, six legged, reptile eating a horse.

“Basilisk,” Mithran growled.

Zhou Fei tapped his shoulder and pointed at several brown mounds in the fields, “Six basilisks, I believe.”

“Great a whole colony of them.” the elf looked mildly disgusted at the thought, “Way to close to town to leave them.”

Zuine marched her undead minions out of the bag of holding, she had kept them there to avoid unnecessary hassle about them on the way. Some places do not take kindly to using animated dead, even if they are monstrous humanoids. Now armed with the longbows they held in life in addition to the bastard swords they would make for a good ranged barrage. Fenak had pulled out his rarely used great crossbow(2 ), Zhou Fei had a heavy crossbow to match. Mithran, Zuine and Magan, who looked muck more impossing in his new mithral chain and great sword with flames trickling down the blade, made ready to cast spells.(3)

“Troops,” she addressed the skeletons,”draw bows, target the far left basilisk, wait for command to fire.”

As one the skeletons pulled their bows out and fitted an arrow which they drew and held. Not having a ranged weapon of my own, I prepared to cut off any of the creatures that approached the firing line.

A lightning bolt lashed from Zuine’s finger tips as she yells, “Fire until it dies.”

The closest basilisk writhes under the electric bolt as the undead fire as one. Some of the arrows miss but they still turn the reptile into a pin cushion as it expires from the many wounds. Magan, who had moved forward with me to bring the closest into his range, unleashed a cone of frigid energy into electrocuted reptile killing it in seconds.

Mithran blasted one with his wand of Searing Light, eliciting a pained hissing roar. Fenak’s steel quarrel shot into it’s mouth, though amazingly it wasn’t dead, just angry. Seeing the injured creature still lived, Zhou changed his aim at the last second and shot at it, though his quarrel bounced off a thick bit of it’s hide.

“Fire at any basilisk that lives.” Zuine called as the four surviving beasts began to charge at us.

footnote wrote: (2)A massive crossbow armed by winch, using it requires being steady on ones feet. The recoil can break ribs on the untrained. (3)In the ogre mage’s case use an innate ability.

They barely got halfway to us when the skeletons fired again. This time two of the beasts fell, Zuine waited until the last two were close enough to each other to let loose a spell that pelted a 2- foot wide area with large hail stones. The last one got within range to blast me and Magan with its gaze. Being made of metal alloys it was futile on me and Magan just glared back at the beast. The two of us ran down and attacked it, my new blades easily slashing into the creatures thick hide. Magan, delighting in his new fiery sword, took the beasts head clean off in a single strike.

Mithran looked quite pleased at the foul creatures demise. Though we could not return the farmers or their families to flesh, Zuine sent a message spell back to the city. A return message informed us we would be paid the standard bounty on the beasts, on our return.(4)

Our journey continued some days, on the fourth day it started to rain which slowed our progress as the road turned to mud. The rain lasted several days and the lack of visibility explains why a troupe of bandits attacked us. Ill fed and under equipped for taking on a group of farmers much less us, we massacred them with ease. Zuine didn’t even have to pull her troops out again or cast spells. While thirty bandits seems like a lot they weren’t much of a threat. I accelerated myself and dove into the screaming mob to the right, Fenak cleaved into the group on the left, Zhou Fei took the rear in flurry of punches and kicks and Magan roared at the front. They didn’t fight long before their common sense over came their desperation and they fled the field leaving over half their number dead at our feet.(5) We piled them to the side of the road and continued on.

The other were grateful for the rain in the coming days as an unseasonable heat wave descended whenever the rain let up. Fortunately by the time we reached Drylake the weather had returned to its autumnal cool and the weather had cleared. The people of Drylake had little to offer except that more people had disappeared near the defile and use of the North Road had dropped off to nothing because of it.

The ‘road’ as it turned out was little more than an old river bed. The defile was easy enough to spot and the Spire more so. 300 feet tall, it was a monument to ‘I’m so evil’ bad taste(6). Covered in carved reliefs of skulls and screaming faces, the top was crowned with jagged spikes. The canyon walls were a great deal taller sheltering the tower from weather and keeping it in shadow.A box shaped building at the base drew the eye, though likely that was because of the particularly large and bad sculpture of a misshapen head with a fanged mouth above it. Approaching it carefully it was easy to see it was not part of the original structure. It was far cruder, being little more than stone slabs shoved into position. There was a single doorway and a quick glance I could see bodies of not only people but animals as well lying on the floor. A strange melody was easily heard from the room.

footnote wrote: (4)Slaying ‘lethal nuisance’ monsters like Basilisks holds a bounty in many places even today. The size of the reward is based on the level of devastation the creatures could inflict. Zuine was later paid 35000 sovereigns for slaying this colony of magical beasts. (5) though he did not know it Seth had killed the leader of several bandit gangs which made travel in that area safer for the next decade.(6)No really it is that tacky, a illustration is in the index

“Smells like a charnel house.” Zhou said with disgust. Mithran waved his magic detection wand at the room and pointed to a single body. “That one, his arrows and cloak.”

Zhou and I entered the room, the music sharper now. Zhou almost immediately started falling asleep. Recognizing the signs of magically induced sleep I threw him bodily out the doorway. I hoisted the corpse Mithran indicated and hauled it out. The corpse proved to be a desiccated elf with strange roots burrowed into his front.

“Blightvine,” Zuine identified the root, ”It’ll be in there somewhere playing a song of musical sleep, feeding on any in its reach. Did you see any entrance into the tower.”

“No” I replied “just bodies and weeds.”

Mithran looked over the corpse’s items. “A cloak of elvenkind, some enchanted arrows, few coins, and a note. ‘Flee fool, lest the cuckoo take you.' How very enlightening."

Looking thoughtfully at the tower she turned to Magan, “Would you fly up and see if there’s an entrance at the top, please.”

The giant nodded and lifted off the ground in magically powered flight.

“That still looks trom weird to me,”(7) Fenak said, before pointing “Hope he finds a way in soon more clouds comin' in fast.”

“There is something decidedly unnatural about that.” Zhou observed. “There was no sign of that earlier.”

“LOLTHS BLACK TITS!!!,” Mithran swore. We all turned to look up at Magan who was being attacked by a long tentacle reaching out from the top of the Spire. It wrapped around his waist and from the roar of pain was trying to crush him. The enraged ogre-mage wasn’t one to take such abuse calmly, he planted his feet on the side of the tower and, in a amazing feat of raw physical power, pulls the monstrosity out. It looked like the unholy mating of an octopus and a bat(8), and it seemed none to pleased to be out here. Zuine quickly spread out her Portable Hole and called out her troops. The creature glared at Magan but the Ogre mage laughed at it before bursting into a cloud of gas that dove down towards us. The creature swoops a bit closer and a bolt of lightning streaks down out of the clouds and strikes me. Not his best idea as the magically called lightning isn’t bends around the magical field my body produces, into the ground. It also wasn’t the best idea as he passed Magan’s cloud on its way to get in range for the spell. Magan reformed behind him hitting the abomination with his icy blast. The beast distracted trying to dodge Magan, everyone else cuts loose.
Mithran reads off a scroll, its effect washes over us and suddenly we can fly.

footnote wrote: (7)Dwarven epithet, variously means really, very, absurdly, unbelievably. (8)Its called a Mooncalf, a bizarre lifeform that comes down to ground level rarely.

Zhou Fei, being closet to Mith therefore first to get the effect, takes off at the creature. As does Fenak and myself. We discover rather late that we don’t get close enough to it to attack before it notices us. Just then a volley of arrows streaks past us, many bounce off but some find their mark, one strikes a tentacle particularly deep and it goes sluggish with nerve damage. Just then Zuine joined us a spell already leaving her lips, followed by a bolt of crackling black energy from her hand and into the monster(9). It shuddered and shook as the necromantic spell took effect. Before bellowing with a sound like wet sheet on a fog horn, it seemed to concentrate on Zuine before another bolt of lightning came down to strike her, she dodged out of the way but still caught the edge of it.

Mithran pulls out a flask stoppered with a dragon’s tooth and, after a quick swig, belched out a stream of acid right in the monstrosities face.(10) Fenak and Zhou flew at the creature, their attack is devestating. Mighty blows with his axe cause gallons of fouls chemical to spill from inside the monster on Fenak’s side, Zhou Fei struck a single blow directed blow stunning the beast. While it was still realing I rammed both blades deep into where I guessed its brain should be. The monster froze in place then slipped off my blades as it plummeted towards the ground.

Before it hits we all hear in our minds {Though I have failed to ward the door, Gulthias knows you have come, and makes ready his revenge. Lt the world weep at his retu..} With a wet splat it finally hit the ground.

Mithran looks mildly offended, “We’ve been monologued by a flying squid. Badly at that.”

I few over to Zuine, who was smoking slightly from her near electrocution. A quick potion had her healed but she was still ticked off.

We entered the top of the spire to find a pile of coins with a dead black dragon on it. It was small so fairly young and half eaten as well as rotting. We could see a hole melted in the floor, that led to the next level down. Our survey of the room was interrupted by low growls. A trio of twisted creatures that were once human, wights. Undead, beings who hate the living, their touch drains life energy, from the robes I guessed that these were former cultist. Being immune to such attacks I accelerated my movement and charged into them. Stabbing and slashing in a whirlwind of motion, black congealed blood flew from the animated corpses in swathes.

“Seth drop,” I heard Zuine yell. Hitting the floor as arrows streaked over me, the wraiths cried out in rage before falling truly dead to the floor.

After moving the dragon corpse off the pile, and witnessing Mithran give last rites to it, we pushed the coins into the portable hole. Under the pile was a bone plaque with writing on it.

Mithran picked it up and read it aloud, “The Vow: With my brothers and sisters, I abide the centuries, until such time as Gulthias awakens the relic at the core, and we rise together into unlife.”

footnote wrote: (9)Enervation, a spell that taps the negative energy plane to suppress the lifeforce of the target making them weaker. (10) Dragon’s Drought, any creature with enough dragon’s blood in their veins can drink it and get a dragon’s breath weapon for an hour. Mithran likely drank either Black or Copper drought.

“Gulthias again,” I said, “So lich, vampire, or other.”

Fenak’s voice cheerfully called out, “I’ve got 10 nobles on vampire.”

“I’ll see that, 10 on Lich.” Zuine bet.

Mithras raised an eyebrow, “I’ll take unspeakable horror from beyond.”

Taking a moment to consider I placed my own “10 on demon.”

Zhou looked at us disapprovingly, though Magan had a bet, “Magan bets clone in stasis.”(11) Before flying back outside to guard our horses and wagon.

That settled we descended into the hole before the flight spell wore off.

footnote wrote: (11)Magan’s habit of third person speech is not a matter of intelligence, but a peculiarity of the Ogre-mage dialect of giant.

End chapter 2

I know this is a bit of a short chapter but the next stretch is a little too continuous to break again easily.

Chapter 3 begin.

At the bottom we found a cobblestone floored room, littered with smashed statues and larger pieces of stone from the half destroyed north wall. The claw marks on the chunks of wall clearly spoke of the young dragon having burrowed through the wall. Besided the dragon’s path there were three doors, a roll of the die put the choice in Fenak’s hands, he pointed to the west door. Mithran took one of his disk traps(12) out and set it in the hole in the wall. Zuine set her undead to guard the room until we returned, outside the disk’s range. I open the door from the side and Zhou Fei peers in.

Not seeing anything we began filing into the room. The floor was tiled in obsidian and six stone sarcophagi sit on the floor, all the lids slightly ajar. Expecting an attack from the coffins we are surprised by three figures dropping down on Zhou Fei from the ceiling, though the wily monk dodges all but one blow. With a cry Fenak buried his axe in one, the creature, now readily identifiable as a minion vampire(13) screamed in rage and pain. Zhou Fei made a series of hand gestures then flames sprang up surrounding his hands, before he laid into the undead spawn that hit him. The creature screamed, though the burns Zhou fei inflicted weren’t serious, probably the first pain it had felt in its unlife. It lashed out at him in its rage, though less power and more control would have served it better, it missed the monk by a wide mark.

Zuine rambled off a quick spell, sending small bolts of fire into the unengaged minion behind Zhou. Meanwhile I had been circling around the melee to get to that same target. I ran it through with both swords, as the energy aura blade pierced it I sent a mental command causing it’s shifting colors to flare red as it burst into flames. Still accelerated from the battle with the with the wights I gabbed one of the wooden stakes Mithran had made on the journey from my belt and plunged through the insensate corpse’s heart.

Zuine, not wanting to use anymore of her limited prepared spells so early into this place, pulled out a slate grey wand and started firing magic missiles into the vampires.Mithran who had been waiting, stake in hand, shot forward impaling one. The vampire stiffened in a silent scream before falling over dead. Zhou fei launched a furious series of blows into his target, we could hear ribs breaking under the assault before it pseudo-expired(14). A quick stake later we were going to start searching when we heard the ‘whoosh’ sound of the blast disk going off followed by the sound of bows firing. Fenak and Zuine went out to check after the sounds stopped. They came back with three staked and smoking bodies.

“They must of heard the scuffle and tried to came around through the hole in the wall. The disk and the bones made short work of them.” Fenak’s face took on a smug look, “I think my bet is safe.”

We took a few moments to search the room while Fenak beheaded the vampires. One of the corpses wore a twisted copper ring that came up magical, which we managed to get Zhou Fei to wear in place of the Ring of Communication for the time being. The deflection power of the Ring of Protection was more important at this point.

footnote wrote: (12)Commonly known as Blast Disks, these black disks have a skull surrounded by runes on the explosive side, they can be set to go off by time or proximity. (13) Lesser breed of vampire that serve a stronger master vampire.

There was a door on the south wall of the room, we openned it to a bloodless charnel house. Blood-drained bodies of the vampire’s prey. Having no sense of smell I was elected to search the room. Among the corpses I found a live body, though only just. She was emaciated, dressed in dirty rags that were once the raiment of an academic. I also spotted a badly hidden door.

“Thank the gods,” She croaked out as she clung to me. A healing potion later she could talk more sensibly. “My name is Yesha, Yesha Faulkin of Drylake.” She stared at our pile of vampire heads as she continued. “About a week ago I was investigating an archeological site close to here when the vampires came. There were four of us then, the rest died in there.”

“Did you hear anything about their leader or his plans,” Zuine asked the woman.

“Yes, these spawn are newly created. Their leader claims to be Gulthias, a vampire lord thought slain centuries ago. He has access to a necromantic artifact in the center of this place, they called it the core. If he is Gulthias the whole countryside is in danger.”

“Why,” Zuine pressed, “What do you know of the Gulthias.”

Yesha sat a little straighter as her voice slipped into the even speech of a teacher. “Gulthias was the leader of the cult of Ashardalon. A mythological dragon who tried to become a god. Ashardalon was driven from the world by a hero called Dydd. If it is Gulthias he will not be pleased his god is no longer here. He will use what power he has to enact revenge on everyone who lives.”

“How cheerful.” I said, “Makes me glad I’m made of metal.”

We took her back to the hole and called for Magan, who had by the sound of it made camp in the top floor, horses and all. We gave him the vampire heads to dump in sunlight and Yesha to look after while we continued on. I returned to the vampiric larder, and attempted to open the door. I discovered at this point I had the skills needed to pick locks though not the tools(15). It was harder, fudging lockpicks with my jewelers tool kit, but I managed it. Doing so set off a trap I managed to jump out of the way of. A 20 foot radius in a sphere pattern was frosted over with ice. Inside was the dust of centuries and a small rusty chest. Picking the lock on that I found a load of ancient sovereigns and four ornately carved ceramic flasks. Zuine took one of the flasks, carved to look like a dragon hatching from an egg, and pronounced it to be alchemists fire.

footnote wrote:(14)Vampires undead bodies heal damage at a fast rate and will get back up without being destroyed properly. While a wooden stake seemingly instantly kills a vampire, if its removed it will rise again. Beheading and sunlight are good methods for this. As are weapons specifically designed to harm the undead. And of coarse holy water. (15) Readers may wonder why he didn’t discover this in the first narrative, with the locked chests. Seth’s skills only appear when he’s trying to do something that applies to them. On the first narrative he used a brute force attack with a crowbar so his skills didn’t manifest. This occurs at several points throughout the narrative.

We returned to the hole room and went through the hole to the north. We ignored the other doors and followed the path of destruction. Coming to a pair of melted metal doors we entered to find a destroyed shrine of some kind. A vault shaped like a red dragon stood open, revealing a chest. Mithran found a flat narrow statue of a suit of armor which he claimed to cast a magical armor spell. The chest had fifty emperors inside along with some bloodstones.

Exploring the other rooms yielded little more than debris at first. Then we came on a room with four sarcophagi on the walls. While not surprised by the attack we were surprised by the form as instead of vampires, Shadows slipped out of the coffins as glided towards us.

Zuine hit one with magic missiles from her wand, it dimmed greatly. At the same time Mithran obliterated another with his Searing Light wand. Fenak growled in frustration as his first swing past through the shadow harmlessly but the second sliced into it(16). Zhou Fei had slipped a pair of black leather gauntlets on, gold skulls glittered at the knuckles. I did not realize until he attacked they gave his fists the same ability as Ghostslayer.(17) It was rather amusing to watch him tear the shadow apart with his hands. With only two injured shadows left I struck out at the stronger with Ghostslayer, and Contigency(18) with the other shattering them.

The sarcophagi had a few more emperors and a low value gem in each. Likely buried with cultist who became the creatures we fought.

“Over here,” Fenak called. “There be a hidden door here.”

We got it open to find a pile of debris, though we did find a silver chalice in the mess. We found two more rooms in similar condition that also yielded a single treasure in a pile of funerary wrapping and other trash. One had a high quality long sword, the other had a rather more useful item. A white iron enchanted dagger, it was enchanted to do extra harm to ghosts, which considering the amount of undead so far could only be a good thing. We found two more rooms of sarcophagi filled with shadows and dispatched them with greater ease that the first.

The final room on the far east side of the tower was filled with a bubbling green-black goo. After prodding it with sticks and the like Zuine pronounced it to be necroplasm, to any organic material, living or dead, it was a vicious acid that would grow to cover its victims. It appeared in places that had misused or badly made items of major necromantic power. We had to endure her rather dry lecture on how such pools would appear in places holy to Kyuss the Worm God before she seemed to realize she was doing it. We would need a stronger priest than Mithran to destroy the stuff, as it had to be driven away by holy might.

footnote wrote:(16)Incorporeal creatures such as Shadows and Ghosts are intangible to solid objects. Sometimes the enchantments on a magical weapons will damage the creature as it passes through. (17)Ghostslayer has an enchantment commonly referred to as ghost-touch, as its name suggest it strikes the incorporeal as if they were solid. (18)At some point he got around to naming the other sword.

Chapter 3 end

Chapter 4 Begin

We returned to a stairwell we had passed up earlier and after Zuine gave the troops some instructions we headed down. The skeletons would patrol the floor in two groups of six while the two flind skeletons, with the greater magics of their flindbars(19), would guard the hole room.

The landing at the bottom was inscribed with the sigil of a dead tree. Though we did not know it at the time These marks were Gulthias’s personal mark and he could through a magic device scry these locations at will. It let out into a north-south running hallway with a door at either end. After a quick coin flip we went south, into another hallway this time with a door to either side as well.

“We should keep going south.” Fenak said, “Anything beyond that door will be right up against the outer wall. Trusting in his knowledge of stonecraft and architecture we crept to the door. Hearing nothing we opened it and began the search of the room when a click sounded and the floor dropped out from under me and Mithran, who managed to catch the edge of the trapdoor. I slid down the chute narrowly avoiding razors affixed to the ceiling and was dropped outside the tower some 100 feet up. My fall immediately slowed as one of my built in powers kicked in(20).

“Magan, I yelled as loud as I could. The ogre mage soon appeared from the top of the tower and flew down to grab me before I touched down.

“Magan thinks you need a lift.” He flew me back up to the top of the tower, much to the surprise of Yesha who was resting quietly near Magan’s rather large fire. Q quick run brought me back to the others all clustered around the open trapdoor. I joined them, looking down the hole, for several moments before they noticed me. Zuine pounced me in hug that would have strained ribs on someone who had them. After a quick run down on where it took me, we went back to the hall to take the east door.

Empty, except for some strange bone dice with a 13 on every face and another door heading east. The door was locked but the lock was little challenge for me. A disused meditative sanctuary covered in dust that held little beyond benches, though it had signs of great use in the past under the dust

footnote wrote:(19)Its not mentioned by Seth directly, but from the Three River’s Port Wizards guild, I was able to discover Zuine had paid a great deal of her coin from the last adventure getting the swords and bows of her undead troops enchanted just enough to be useful. The flinds weapons were a great deal more heavily enchanted with not only enhancements but lightning elemental damage. (20)Nimblewright golems have a number of magical abilities as a trade off for not being as physically tough as most other golems, Haste he has used quite often here the spell known as Feather Fall saves him from quite a drop.

We went through the west door back in the hall and after a couple more empty rooms we came to room dominated by a massive tapestry of horned red skinned humanoids laying siege to a brass towered city, a massive red dragon dominated the tapestry.

“Ashardalon.”Mithras spat.

Fenak looked closely at the tapestry, “Quality work, worth some hard coin this.”

We took a moment to roll the tapestry up and dump it in the portable hole. Having explored the south half of this floor we returned to the first hallway to enter the north door.

It opened into a large hall passing east to west through the whole tower. Large alcoves with far more ornate sarcophagi standing in them lined the walls. At the far eastern end we could see the only other obvious door, heading north. Zuine pointed to the far east alcove then made a circle motion, we all nodded agreeing to her direction.(21)

We approached the alcove carefully, everyone moved so anything coming out from the sarcophagus would pass them harmlessly. I carefully opened the lid, carved out of stone to look like a dragon headed human, only to throw myself to the side as a stream of fire shot out of the coffin. It was empty save for the trap. The next one was an iron coffin of a half-elf girl with dragon wings. Strangely it had a lock on it, which I bypassed to find a short corridor inside the false coffin. It lead to a stash of sovereigns, emperors and a wand much like Zuines that fired magical missiles.

The next one had no visage on its iron lid, or corpse withing it, though a healing potion was on a shelf within. The next was stone fashioned as a she-elf with a mace, with a sapphire within protected by a poison needle trap that made an annoying squeal when it hit my metal hand. Passing an empty alcove the next three were empty, though the last hit tried to electrocute me. The next sarcophagi was an ambush, as I opened the lid a mummy jumped out to take belt me in the face, while three Spectres charged out of the walls to attack Mithran. The Mummy’s Despair (22) washed over us though only Fenak was affected. Though taken by surprise we rallied quickly.

While the spectres attacked him Mithran managed to get his wand out and obliterate one in a flash of divine light. I set Contingency to fire was about to attack the mummy when Zhou fei waved me off as he drank from a cut glass bottle and his hands burst into flames. The effect was unlike the ability he used earlier, that had lasted only moments, this was fueled by the elixer so would last far longer. I changed direction and hacked into one the spectres, making the faded green image of the cultist fade further as my blows weakened it. Magic missiles streaked into it from Zuines wand, causing it to fade out of existance, as its necromantic unlife died.

Footnote wrote:(21)Its not uncommon for adventurers to have prearranged hand signs for moments when they didn’t want to be heard. In this case she was signaling she wanted them to start at the far end and work their way around so the door would be their last stop. (22) Mummies emit a supernatural field that inflicts unnatural dread in the victim, making them freeze.

Zhou Fei and the mummy, who was also a monk of some kind flew into each other in a furious exchange of blows. I watched them as much as I could noting a distinct difference in style, where Zhou flowed like water, the mummy’s were hard straight strikes meant to take advantage of his undying strength. The mummy came out far worse in the first exchange, being hit multiple times but only landing a single blow on Zhou. The undead creature, realizing Zhou out matched him, despite his advantages, reached up to his jackal-head helmet and vanished in a crack of in rushing air from teleportation.

The small man looked annoyed at this and rushed the final spectre. The gold skulls on his gauntlets mage a visible impression on the ghostly creature, who persisted in attacking Mithran. The aforementioned elf stuck his hand inside the spectre and cast a healing spell. The being twisted and silently screamed as if wracked with pain before I ran it through and watched it fade into eternal rest.

Zhou Fei looked to Zuine, “Forgive me, Nu’shì Zuine,(23) but I fear I will need more of these elixers made after this adventure. My opponent was weak in spirit and fled.”

After a moment to recover we continued our sweep of the room. The rest of the coffins were mostly empty, a black pearl on a chain, a diamond wristlet and a jeweled scabbard made out the rest of the contents.

We took the north door into a long hall with four doors on the north side. After carefully stepping over the trapdoor on the floor, which we spotted this time, we reached the first door.

It proved to be another sanctuary, this time the altar had the dead tree mark carved on it. Fenak examined it and declared it a recent addition. The next door held a stairway to the next floor, so we closed the door and went to the next.

“My isn’t this pleasant.”Zuine declared. And it most certainly deserved the sarcasm, the door was carved with skulls, spikes, tentacles, and extra mouths in seemingly random places. Mithran found a trap on the door, which I managed to disable before unlocking it. The room beyond was yet more signs of bad decorating. Ugly yellow tile covered the floor though it was cracked and worn, the walls were covered in rotted tapestries, in the far corner was a 5 foot diameter iron pipe sticking up from the floor. It was covered with a steel valve carved in the same manner as the door. The valve was easy enough to open and the pipe was a little over 40 feet deep. We could see a cloud of gas in the bottom as well as the glint of gold. After a quick discussion I dropped down the pipe.

As soon as I touched down the gas coalesced into a horrific amalgam of eyes, mouths, and flowing flesh. The mouths all began speaking at once in pure gibberish, as it moved to attack.. Wanting little to do with this abomination, my blades slashed into it. Foul liquids splashed over the interior of the pipe, creature attempted to engulf me only to slam into the other side of the pipe as I tumbled out of the way. I carved into it again only to watch as it fell to the ground in a puddle of dead flesh. I searched the bottom of the pit throwing things into a sack, which I sent up.

footnote wrote: (23) It means Madam, or My Lady depending on context.

While waiting for the rope to be lowered again the thing rose up to attack me again, only to be hit by a blast from Mithran’s wand. After I was out the thing got up again and started crawling up the side of the pipe. Zuine put it down again with a magic missile, while Mithran cast a spell of some kind.

“It’s a vampire!,” He muttered in horror, “How the hell do you make a Gibbering Mouther(24) vampire?”

“I don’t think we’ll be staking that one.” I deadpanned.

“Let it crawl up the shaft,” Mithran got a cruel grin, “I have an idea. Zuine you said the necroplasm would destroy any organic matter living or dead, even undead.”

“Yes.” She seemed puzzled.

“I’m a cleric, By my goddess’s power I may be able to command this undead beast.” He walks over to the pipe and looking down at the crawling thing, states in a commanding tone, “Obey!!!”.

The pile of flesh writhes as Mithran’s divine command fights with its desire to kill. It settles as he gains control of it. It transforms to is gas cloud form and proceeds Mithran down the halls. I skip ahead of them in the long hall so I can hold open the door to the necro-goo. Once its inside, he orders it to the far side of the room and orders it to reform and attack the goo and never assume gaseous form again. I slam the door and Fenak drives a spike into the floor to seal it shut as the mouther screams. We left the mouther and the necroplasm to each other to head back.

The final room on that floor was empty, so Zuine moved her troops down to this level before we descended to the next. On exiting we flipped a coin and headed through the east door. This opened into a massive room filled with stone blocks of varying sizes, some smooth others have the beginnings of carvings. While we are exploring the room a pair of large creatures come around from behind one of the larger blocks. Eight feet tall, with more than a passing resemblance to a gorilla, save they had four arms and white fur. They also were very aggressive as, with a roar, they moved to attack.

I intercepted the first one that seemed to be heading towards Zuine, I stabbed Ghostslayer into its eye while Contingency, glowing acid green, slashed one of its arms. A quarrel from Zuine’s crossbow passed over my shoulder into the beasts chest. Our Dwarven warrior had planted himself in the second’s path and met it’s charge with his axe, taking one of the beasts lower arms clean off. It’s rush halted by Fenak’s devastating blow, Zhou Fei danced in behind the creature and in a quick move snapped its neck.

footnote wrote: (24)Pretty much exactly as described, a oozing blob of flesh covered in eyes and randomly speaking mouths. How one would turn a creature into a vampire is an act of powerful necromancy. ‘Why?’ is a far more disturbing question. Like most such question I believe the answer will end up being, ‘Because I could.’

The simian swung its clawed hands at me, dodging four arms isn’t easy, even when you’ve blinded one of your opponents eyes. As it concentrated on me Mithran had sneaked up behind it and slammed it from behind with his mace. It whirled to face him and took both my blades to the back, it swayed for a moment before falling dead.

No time to rest, however as we heard a similar roar from the way we came in. Rushing back to the doorway, we saw the door opposite open to larger specimen of four armed ape wearing a leather skull mask and several more behind him.

Any tactical ideas for dealing with this mob went out the window when a marble sized ball of flame shot over my shoulder. Recognizing the spell effect, I slammed the door and braced myself before the fireball exploded. The door groaned against my hands as the explosion over pressured a room to small for it. I ripped the door open and with Fenak and Zhou Fei formed a half circle inside the room so we could retreat through the door if necessary. Some of the scorched creatures shook off their shock to rush us.

I heard a grunt from Fenak as one of the blows managed to hurt him through the armor. Zhou did not fare as well the beast’s claws rending his flesh. I heard him fall, but could do little as another beat was upon me as I ducked and blocked his claws.

Zuine’s voice dripped with hate as she cast a spell at the skull-masked leader. The beast who was about to join the assault on us suddenly blinked for a moment before ripping the beast next to it apart and bolting for the door(25). Much to the horror of the one still in the doorway, I imagine. A Searing Light blast struck the beast standing over Zhou blowing a fatal hole in it.

I was somewhat amused to note as I fought that the beast in the door had killed its weakened, enspelled leader. I shredded my foe and started towards the shocked one in the door. Fenak finished his off just as quickly.

“Common, drink up.” I heard Zuine say as she poured one of our more powerful healing potions down his throat.

My sudden charge took the beast, still staring dumbly at its fallen leader, in the throat with both blades, which I then ripped out sideways, in opposite directions. The beasts dead, we took a moment to rest, and heal injuries with the many magical medicines we brought with us. Mithran ran a wand holding a specialized spell for repairing golems over me, fixing the dents and scratches on me.

“We’ll need to rest soon.” Zuine spoke up, “Most of my stronger magics are depleted. I need time to rebuild the spell matrices.”

footnote wrote:(25)A rare compulsion spell called Turnabout, it causes the target to believe all its allies are deadly enemies so it will fight its way to an escape. With Zuine Arrosa's affinity for such spells I suspect this was 'Making toast with dragon's fire' as the Saulusians say

After a quick meal we resolved to clear this floor and rest after. A quick search of both rooms the ape beasts(26) were in gave us more sovereigns, six blue quartz crystals, a potion Mithran said would come in handy later, and a rust-colored magical bag(27). All of it in a convenient pile.

We explored carefully, coming into a room beyond the one the beasts were apparently cleaning. It had two large iron vats one was empty but the other had a opaque brown liquid in it.

“Smells like a tannery.” Mithran remarked. “Looks like one to.”

Fenak looked into the vat only to be surprised by a purple fanged tendril shooting out at him only to bounce off his helm. A skeletal creature burst from the vat. It was a mohrg, the undead remains of a murderer who died unrepentant(28). It appeared to be a skeleton with winding intestines filling its torso, at the mouth you can see its not an internal organ but a fanged tongue that can lash out at the mohrg’s prey paralyzing them. The speed of the thing was amazing, most undead with physical bodies are fairly slow, this thing was as fast as I am.

I got to as it was exiting the vat, Contingency flashing with acid as I did not want to risk the vat being something explosively flammable, carving into the thing. This did not please the Mohrg as it slammed me away with a bony fist. Fenak’s axe caught it unawares as it hit me, driving it back into the iron side of the vat. A yellow ray of energy came from Zuine popping the mohrg in the skull,(29) not enough to really hurt it but enough to divide its attention further. Zhou Fei, smashed the creature for several quick blows before springing back out of the way, as Mithran’s heavy mace in a wide arc came around and shattered the thing’s skull. Its remains crumpled to the ground.

After moving the undead troops to the explored level, we returned to the top to rest. Mithran placed his Glyph Sigil(30) at the hole, while I took guard duty.

footnote wrote:(26) Know commonly as Girallon’s these carnivorous magical beasts are related to gorillas. Normally found in warm forests. (27)A Bag of Tricks, when the possessor reaches in they pull out a random animal that obeys their commands for 10 minutes or until let back into the bag. The Potion would later turn out to a magical Aid, that blessed the imbiber and increased their lifeforce temporarily. (28) Likely he learned this in hindsight. (29)Disrupt Undead, a beginners cantrip that attacks the necromantic energy that gives it unlife. (30) An item that acts as a reusable Glyph of Warding. Attacking trespassers with whatever spell the owner knows that can be set in it. Likely Searing Light, though he uses the wand to cast it in most combat Mithran can cast the spell, though no where near as strongly.

Chapter 4 end

Chapter 5

As I said in the beginning I intended to reference other works on occasion. As many of my readers are unfamiliar with how magic spells work I have included this excerpt from ‘Guide to Magic for the Un-Magical’ by Ky’anu Umnrad. A work anyone who employs wizards full time should read.

Ky’anu Umnrad wrote: One of the precepts of magic most seem to have a hard time grasping is spell memorization. How can a wizard ‘forget’ something by using it? The truth is the terminology is wrong. Started some distant age ago by wizards with little gift in language, trying to explain why they only had so many spells prepared each day.

A wizard preparing the spells they will use each day are actually building a matrix of energy out of their personal reserve. Like weaving a twine between poles to make a pattern you want. As they grow more powerful they get more personal energy to make these patterns out of.

Keeping with the analogy, when they cast a spell it draws in magic from the world around them, as the energy travels the matrix it takes on the shape of the matrix and carries out a magical effect. While it does this the magic burns the pattern away, as if the twine was set aflame.

The reason they need spellbooks to re-weave the patterns is even a simple cantrip is a complicated mess of lines in the matrix that must be expertly placed or the spell fails.

Now as you may know some wizards gain what they call Spell Mastery where some spells can be prepared without a spellbook. Those spells, usually ones they use most often, patterns are so well used and known that they can be rebuilt with no guide. Not all wizards have the capacity for this, but it is common enough.

What about the words, gestures and material components, you may ask? The patterns are not actually complete, the words, gestures, and items used in casting the spell complete the pattern allowing magic to run through it and carry out the instructions contained therein. This is why absolute concentration is required, as if they make a single mistake the pattern isn’t completed and the matrix breaks down.

This is also why it takes so much time to translate spells from one wizards spellbook to another. As the pattern is formed with a wizards personal energy store each one has parts individualized to each wizard. The ‘Read Magic’ cantrip does aids greatly in this showing the caster what parts are from the personal traces of the wizard who wrote it down.

It is possible to learn skills to create the patterns without the need for components, but that requires greater energy loss on the wizards personal stores so the spell acts on the wizard as if it were a more powerful spell. Some magical tools replace the need for them as well, in those cases they provide the extra energy.

These skills, referred to as metamagic in some circles, are difficult to learn, the two most common being Silent Spell and Still Spell. As the names suggest, Silent allows the spell cast with no vocal component, and Still with no hand gestures. A wizard can apply as many of these skills as they can learn to a single spell. But, every metamagic trick attached to a spell increases its magical energy costs. Applying both Silent and Still to the common low powered spell Magic Missile requires three times as much energy, equaling the more powerful Fireball spell.

Sorcerers, work in much the same way at the basics. The sorcerer has a vastly larger store of personal energy because all a sorcerer’s magic comes from within rather than gathered externally and shaped. The sorcerer has a smaller number of patterns but, keeping with the analogy, they are woven of copper wire. The magic takes shape and travels along the matrix but does not erase it. A sorcerer stops casting when they run out of their personal energy.

This is why the sorcerer has a more limited scope of spells but can cast them far more often. They also do not choose spells so much as they spontaneously form as the sorcerer grows in strength. They can change, when new spells patterns form the matrix of all the spells is slightly in flux and the sorcerer can alter them to spells he’s seen used often.

This change is intuitive, but in depth study of spells they want to be able to cast makes it more likely.

Metamagic also works on a sorcerers spells, the metamagic extension acting as a filter attachable to a spell before casting, though as for wizard, this increases the energy cost.

He goes on to describe various common magical items and spells along with tips for best utilizing a wizard in your employ.

Chapter 5 end.

I'm sorry these chapters are a bit dry but, published adventure against undead, not a whole lot of witty comment.


Chapter 6
A trio of vampire minions were teleported in during this period of rest, only to find me prepared for them. They were not much of a challenge not expecting someone as qlert as I was. By the time all the others were rested and ready I had a collection of some 14 vampire heads and a need for Mithran’s wand to repair me.

We made our way back down, fighting a spectre along the way. It seems the skeletons had a visitor during the rest as a defeated wight lay at the feet of the flind skeletons. From the magical equipment it was someone of some importance and combat skill sent to destroy the troops. Three were destroyed, Zuine declared them a lost cause and animated one of the ape creatures to replace them. Once the troops were set again we descended to the next floor. The stairway opened onto a disused shrine, dust was thick here save for the tracks of the apes and undead feet from the stairs to the only door. On the outer wall a statue of red streaked marble in the form of a dragon stood. We made our way to the other door, Zhou Fei listened intently at it.

“Sounds like more of the ape-beasts.” he reported, “At least six of them.”

“Open the door, quietly.”Zuine commanded as she began the syllables of a spell. Zhou eased the door open as she finished the spell, stuck her head out and let out a glass shattering shriek. It was well beyond the ability of her lungs to produce such a sound, nor would her voice normally cause the door frame to frost over.

Fenak planted himself in front of the door like a short wall of metal. I stood to one side of the door while everyone else readied ranged options. The door was flung open and we could see four of the beasts with a fifth wearing a skull mask behind them urging them forward. With a flash the dwarf’s axe nearly gutted the lead beast. I jumped in slashing the throat of the beast Fenak hit, ending its pained life, before sliding past to drive my blades into the next ones chest killing that one as well. My assault done I dove to the side as the sound of crossbow fire filled the doorway. One of the beasts sprouted quarrels, one of which appeared to be made of acid as it ate into it’s hide.

Not one to waste an opportunity I attacked in a whirling pattern of stabs and slashes at the leader. One of the jabs went into its throat at an odd angle piercing the spine, the creature dropped like a puppet with cut strings. Surprised by my own success I missed the injured beast moving to assault me, until its claw screeched across me anyway.

In a burst of impressive speed from one so armored, Fenak charged through the door hacking through my attacker and into the final beast. The last creature seemed skittish about fighting us, though Mithran gave it little choice as he cracked one of its legs with an impressive blow. Zhou Fei shot into the room unleashing a withering assault upon it as it looked desperately for an escape, only to be hit in the eye by Zuine’s crossbow quarrel.

“One good thing about these ape guys,” Fenak observed as we looted the room, “they gather all the loot inta one place for us.”

Zhou Fei’s head shot up suddenly, “Running feet approach.”

We looked to the door as it flew open and cultist-wights poured into the room. Mithran in a sudden spark of genius yelled, “Obey” as the scales of his armor glowed for a second. Two of the creatures stopped. “Attack other wights.” he yelled at them.

Fenak and Zhou crashed into the pile of wights, before they could react, each bringing a wight down. One of the controlled wights flew at the strongest looking one, slamming it into the wall but doing little damage. Its own aim was thrown off by the assault from its fellow, making it flail wildly without striking anything. I move in for a quick strike before backing away, as the only other uncontrolled wight flashes to ash under Mithran’s searing light spell in midleap at me. The second controlled wight leaps at the leader and crashes into the wall. A blast of fire from Zuine ends the leaders unlife. Mithran sets the last two to beating each other to death until Fenak finishes off the victor.

A quick check revealed me as the only one wounded, which Mithran fixed with that rather handy wand. We moved deeper into the tower. As we approached one door a gravely voice called out from it. “Is somebody out there?”

“That rather depends on who’s asking.” Zuine replyed.

“I’m Rhunad, and I’d really, really appreciate it if you could let me out.”

“That’s nice, but a good reason would be nicer.”

“I can tell you anything you want to know about Gulthias. This would be easier if you would come in here, all this yelling will attract Mr. Stitches.”

“Mr. Stitches?”

The aforementioned Mr. Stitches made an appearance at that moment. He was aptly named, built of pieces of ogres and a draconic humanoid, held together with massive black stitching of steel wire.(31) It opened its draconic maw as if to speak and fire blasted out at us. Mithran took the worst of it, being burned to the point he was hard to recognize. Only Zhou avoided the flames entirely, having jumped well clear.

It was at this point I discovered a rather unfortunate weakness of my metal body as the flames caused me to freeze in place for precious seconds.(32) It was a fairly odd feeling watching without being able to do anything at all.

footnote wrote:(31) Commonly known as a ‘Flesh Golem’ they usually cannot be made of such unusual parts as creature with dragon’s blood. (32)A nimblewright is normally animated with a spirit of a water elemental. Though Seth’s soul provides the will of the body, pure energy from the Elemental Plane of Water is still used to power its movement and magical abilities. This unfortunately, means he still has the nimblewright’s weaknesses. Magical fire based attacks can disrupt the Elemental Water energy structure momentarily, stunning him. Similarly magical cold based attacks can hinder the flow of the energy slowing his movements.

“Distract it,” Zhou yelled to Fenak, as he reached into his pouch. Fenak attacked the golem to little avail, his blows skittered off the red dragon-like scales. Meanwhile Zhou pulled out a blue gold scarab pin and affixed it to his robe before attacking the creature. The pin glowed for a split second before his blows hit, driving the construct back(33). I could hear Zuine casting a quick spell, but as she was behind me I could not tell what. Mithran was busy healing himself. Stitches swung one of its mismatched arms at Fenak, as with many of the dwarfs opponents, he discovered Fenak was a master at using his armor to deflect blows with minor changes in angle. It roared in fury as its fist slid across the armor until he was past the dwarf entirely and hit the wall.

Suddenly I could move again and shot at the golem, my blades flashing as I carved into it.(34) Contingency flashed icy blue-white as, like myself, Stitches had certain weaknesses to elemental attacks. Frost spread from the wound and the golem’s movements slowed. The dwarf’s great axe drove into the golem, eliciting more howls of impotent rage. Another quick strike from Zhou diverted its attention, as Mithran’s mace of all things flew past me into its face with a sickening crunch before the golem dropped. The mace flew from the floor back to Mithran’s hand, as it did I could see a fine line of magic connecting his gauntlets with the mace.(35)

Two more flesh golems charged into the room, these ones were bits of humans and the ape beasts we kept finding around the spire. These two looked ‘fresher’, their wire stitches fresh, the ape beast’s body parts gave them four arms to ply the inhuman strength of such constructs.

Zhou Fei leaped at one pounding its body with magically enhanced blows before springing away as Zuine who had been readying something from her position at the rear, fired her crossbow through the space he had been in. The oddly glowing bolt flared angrily as it hit the golem, its flesh melting away from the missile before the construct screamed and crashed to the ground dead. I remembered at that point Zuine still had six, five now, golem-bane quarrels from the adventure that birthed me. The spell she was casting earlier must have been to improve her aim so as not to waste the, suddenly precious, spare ammunition.

footnote wrote:(33)A Golembane Scarab, gifted to Zhou Fei by their then employer against the Golem Master. Most golems use Earth Elemental spirits as the animating force, this creates a supernatural hardness to them that can usually only be overcome with adamantine forged weapons, or massive damage. The Scarab encases the wearer in a field that disrupts the effect for the wearers attacks, allowing them to be hurt as if they were normal creatures. (34) In a set of notes Zuine sent to the Guild, it seems that in a effort to increase the golems powers Stitches’ normal resistance to weapon strikes was altered, in return for even greater resistance to damage they made him damaged only by enchanted weapons rather than adamant. This would have taken most adventurers by surprise as they would have broken out adamantine weapons and been slaughtered. (35) Gauntlets of Throwing, three times a day they enchant any weapon you’re holding with the capacity to be thrown as if perfectly balanced to do so and return to your hand afterwards. This is also an example of Seth ‘seeing’ an invisible magical effect. This ability crops up a great deal and operates under some strange rules. Seth only seems to be able to see magic when he ‘knows’ its there. He also cannot see the magic in magical traps or invisibility spells, the nature of the magic to be ‘hidden’ seems to hold to his sight as well.

Fenak tried to strike the second but its resistance to blows, meant he merely left a deep scratch. Whatever instructions were left in the constructs simple mind compelled it to charge past us to strike at Mithran. Zhou, Fenak and I, all got a free swing at the golems back as it rushed past us, doing rather hideous damage to it. The elf, showing off the grace of such beings, deftly deflected the constructs claws with his wooden buckler(36) as his mace came down on its head. The creature staggered back into my reach, so I rewarded it by taking its battered head off with Ghostslayer.

A few potions later the voice behind the door reminded us of its presense, “is Mr. Stitches dead yet.”

We approached the door the voice came from, it was carved with a single rose motif. This immediatly put us on edge, virtually every decoration had been draconic in nature. Mithran read the inscription on the door aloud, “Rhunad is interred here, leave him in piece.”

“That’s the understatement of the centuries.” Rhunad called to us. “I’ve been trapped in here since Gulthias had a heartbeat.”

We found the door locked and trapped as we all dove out of the way of a blast of lightning when I touched it. Now knowing the trap was there I disabled it and unlocked the door. The room was a eye searing purple tile mosaic, in the center was a gaunt vulture-like creature.

“A Vrock,” Zuine announced.(37)

“Yup, Gulthias, get me out of here and I’ll tell you the whole story on this place. Bastard locked me in here centuries ago as a ‘contingency plan’ and forgot I was here.”

I saw Zuine surreptitiously casting a spell thay circled its way up to hover in front of her mouth before she spoke, the spell wove itself into her words.(38) “You should tell us now, we can hardly trust a demon to keep its word. I’ll banish you back Abyss after.”

The demon seemed to ponder her words as the magic fought its way into his head. “Alright.”

We were then treated to a 2 hour rendition of everything Rhunad knew and suspected about Gulthias. Some of the information was just bizarre, like the fact Gulthias raised blooddrinking roses.

footnotes wrote:(36) For the militarily uninformed a buckler is a very small shield, either carried or strapped to the forearm. Its small size however makes it difficult to intercept multiple attacks in rapid succession. Mithran’s buckler is the forearm mounted type favored by crossbowmen, as it leaves the hand free. (37)A demon of the abyss, they make up a good portion of the abyssal army’s flighted troops. Powerful and reletivly cunning. (38)Suggestion, one of the most popular compulsion spells, if only because it can be so hard to resist. One or two sentence statement on a coarse of action, the more reasonably it is phrased the harder to resist.

End chapter 6

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Chapter 7
In the interests of not doubling the size of this narrative here is the study notes version.
Ashardalon was a red dragon so ancient and powerful he attracted a following of worshipers. The Spire was home to these worshipers as well as several of Ashardalon’s half breed children. A coalition of druids led by Arch-druidess Dydd defeated the dragon and banished his soul to some outer-planar prison. The worshipers went slightly insane, especially Gulthias the then high priest. No one knows where Ashardalon’s body went but Gulthias managed to harvest the dragons heart which was placed in the protected center of the spire. The cult then decided follow their ‘god’ into death. They spent year converting the Spire into a mausoleum, then committed mass suicide. This somehow changed the heart into a powerful necromantic object. It raised Gulthias as a vampire as he was in the chamber with it when he died. Gulthias now with centuries to spare decided to raise the entire cult as undead. At some point he had left the tower and had been staked, leading to the rumor of his destruction. Gulthias returned recently having been released from the stake to restart his work. Gulthias goals are unclear as he is insane, not only affected by the madness of Ashardalon’s death but of centuries of imprisonment. The Heart is in the core, there is only one entrance, located at the very bottom, unlocked with a magical key broken into four parts held in the underground catacombs.

“Now,” The beaked demon asked, “Will you please get me out of here?”

“Nope.” Zuine said with a grin.

“What, but you said.” It blinked for a moment as the spell ended, its task done, “You tricked me!!”

“Yup, I was surprised, that spell doesn’t usually affect demons so easily. Perhaps your mind got rusty sitting in here.”

“You mortal bitch,” The Vrock ineffectually threw itself against the binding magics that held it, “When I get out of here I’ll rip out your soul and feed it to Jubilex(39) one sliver at a time for the next hundred years!”

“Do we look stupid to you. You can rot here until someone more gullible or has a spell to banish you shows up. If we let you out you’d just show back up to betray us later.”

We followed Zuine out and after we put a clearer ‘warning contains demon’ sign on the door, she cast a Sign of Sealing(40) on the door.

We continued through the place, finding an embalming chamber, there were a few perserved cultist in the vats of natron(41), but none were animate as yet. And when we were done mutilating the corpses it was unlikely they ever would be. The next chamber was far more interesting as it seemed to be the source of Mr. Stitches. Perserved body parts and tools covered the room around the four workbenches, Mithran found a secret compartment in one of them that contained a book.

“Libram of Flesh,” Zuine read aloud after skimming a few pages, “It’s a guide to making flesh golems for the inept. It literally helps you create golems at cost to itself, if you lack the magical skill to do so. This thing has about one more use in it.”

“So it’s a cheat sheet for wizards?” Our dwarven friend asked.

“More or less, yes.”

As we approached the stairs we passed another dead tree sign carved into the floor. We were unaware of it at the time but these signs were linked to a scrying device Gulthias had in his chamber. It was shear dumb luck he had not spotted us as yet, though he was aware someone was in the tower. Another quick trip to move the troops to this floor before we descended.

footnote wrote:(39) Jubilex, the Faceless Lord, demon of slimes, oozes and other fungal monsters. Most well known as the creator of green slime, devourer of anything not made of stone. (40) Spell that both locks the object it is cast on and acts as a trap for any who persist in trying to open it. (41)A mix of salt and soda ash used to dry corpses for mummification, also a handy cleaning agent and mouthwash.

The stairs opened on to a room full of cinerary urns(42). Marked with names in draconic script, some were broken spilling fine ash onto the floor. Seeing the bone ash, Zuine pulled out her alchemy journal, and after a moment smiled.

“What’s got you happy lass?” Fenak asked.

“If we have time I’m raiding this place for alchemy supplies. There has to be a quarter of a ton of natron upstairs and there’s enough corpse ash here to fill a dwarven beer vat. That combined with vampire ash, mummy dust, and ground wight bones for spell components, this isn’t an adventure, it’s a shopping mall for necromancy.”

We found two more chambers much the same, then the third had a pack of zombies cleaning the room. We watched fascinate as one zombie glued broken urns back together, others took the broken ones to it and put the fixed ones back , the rest had very fine brooms and dustpans and were carefully sweeping up ashes and bone fragments to return to the correct urn.

Since they ignored us we passed them to peek in on the next room. There were more zombies and an ape beast under the direction of a mohrg. They had moved all the urns to the edges of the room and had a large pile of ashes in the center from all the broken urns. The mohrg was somehow directing the zombies to fill the intact urns to the brim, uncaring about who was mixed with who.

“Fenak,” Zuine whispered, ”How big is the room?”

The dwarf eyeballed through the cracked door, “15 by 20.”

“Good, stand back.” She started casting a spell that seemed awfully familiar, especially when a red marble of flame shot from her fingers into the room.

“At least the door opens into the room,” I remarked, “So the explosion is holding it closed rather than me.”

The results when we opened the door were suitable apocalyptic for them. The zombies had joined the ash pile they were attending, the ape looked almost fatally burned and the skeletal mohrg was smoking still. While we surveyed the damage, Fenak had charged the mohrg, bringing his axe down in a mighty blow that cut the creature in half from head to legs. The mohrg fell in two pieces its unlife over, while Zhou rushed the shocked ape quickly ending its suffering before it could recover its wits.

We continued down the hall to a large stone double door. It was hot to the touch and from Mithran’s expression smelled none to good either. Carefully opening the door we found a massive room, taking up almost half the tower with a high ceiling. Ash and burned bone covered the floor and a pillar of fire reached towards the ceiling in the center of the room.

footnotes wrote:(42) For those in regions without the practice, these are urns to hold the cremated remains of the dead.

Zuine studied the room for a moment. “The pattern on the ceiling is an elemental binding, I’d lay good odds that’s a fire elemental. This isn’t good I only have one spell with ice damage prepared. And its not the best of choices.”

“I have a scroll with Otiluke’s Freezing Sphere on it, but that’s the only cold based spell I have.” Mithran supplied.

Zuine nodded, “We’ll have to use them both and hope for the best. Once these are gone Seth is the only one with an ice weapon.”

“There is a problem, every strike from the elemental will stun me for a few seconds.”

“Don’t get hit.” the dwarf joked, “I’ll be goin’ in with ye anyway.”

We set ourselves to charge through the door. My inbuilt enhancements activated, in response to my preparations.

Zuine finished her Ice Storm spell first, causing large hailstones to pummel the flames. The fire screamed, which is a bizarre experience, it sounds like hot metal being quenched in ice water but drawn out over minutes. The scroll Mithran was reading exploded in blue lights before rushing at the thrashing flames. It exploded in blue energy much as a fireball does in flame, this seemed to hurt the elemental a great deal more than the hailstones did. We rushed into the room, hacking at the elemental’s fiery body, we didn’t do nearly as much damage as the freezing attack did. The column of fire formed great arms out of its mass and swung at us, while I dodged it, it took Fenak full on, leaving a burning dwarf in its wake.

Magic Missile spells rained on the elemental as both our casters let loose with their wands. The creature screamed as it unraveled into nothingness. Mithran rushed over to Fenak who was still very much on fire and spoke a quick orison(43), a few gallons of water flashed into existence right over his head, actually far more than was needed.

“Douse me, don’t drown me.” Th dwarf grumbled as he drank a curative potion.

“We should rest here.” Zuine mentioned, “We’ve taken a lot of beatings, the potions heal injury not weariness.”

After I spiked(44) the unopened door shut, Zuine used a lodestone to put up a scrying block. And Mithran set up a teleport alarm, in case we had more sudden visitors. Once again I kept myself busy while they slept, I found that much of the ashes were most likely fellow adventurers as there was a great deal of coin, gems and a magic shield in the piles. We were not attacked this time, which left me curious as to why, but the demon did say Gulthias was insane.

footnote wrote:(43)Divine magic version of cantrips. Minor priestly effects, this is one of the most common and common uses for it. (44) Ever wonder what all those iron spikes adventurers buy are for, here you go, one use of hundreds.

Exiting the crematory, we followed a long hall that wound around the space between it and the outer wall. We finally came to a room swept clean, a hole was on one side. A quick check revealed rusty iron rungs forming a ladder down the stone shaft. Forgoing the ladder I picked Zuine up and jumped down the hole, my feather fall ability slowed us immediately. We gently floated down the hundred foot decent, the others not far behind.

We touched down in a room with a pile of ash in the center. Footprints of shoes feet and skeletal marked the pile. Zhou, being the only one to use the ladder, was last down. The room had a single door, which opened onto a crypt still filled with the bones of cultists. Exiting we went to the east first, but found only looted crypts holding empty sarcophagi. Turning the other way we found a passage north, but left it for later.

To the east we found a door and a pack of ape beasts behind it. Before any fighting could start Zuine motioned us to lower our weapons. It seems the apes we fought before had been controlled, the catacombs were home to free tribes of them. Using simple gestures and some food conjured forth by Mithran we got them to let us pass through the opposite door. As we continued on we found a room packed tighter with nine of the beasts, reinforcements for the sentries we had just passed. The next room contained several children of the species and care givers for them, they watched us warily but let us pass.

This room was surprisingly civilized compared to the others, the hides on the walls and floor were cured and cleaner. The largest one we had seen sat here, a glimmer of intelligence in her eyes. This assessment was confirmed when she spoke, though only Fenak understood her.

“Heh, deep trade speak.” He muttered to himself, before speaking with her.”Guys meet Thiff the Smart, alpha female of the free tribe. Her accent’s atrocious but understandable.”

“What is she doing down here?” Zuine wondered. A short conversation ensued, “Her people came here a while back from deeper underground. They were making it a nice home until Gulthias came and started raising his cultists. He took several captive to use as slave labor, she’s kept the rest free cause the vampire don’t know she’s a cunnin’ one.”

“Has she seen the key?” I asked, noticing the piles of metal junk on her shelves. He turned back and after a few words “She has a piece of it, she lost a bunch of warriors getting it but keeping it forces Gulthias to teleport his physical undead in and out of the core. She’ll hand it over in return for a promise to kill Gulthias. We want any of her other treasures we have to trade for it.”

“Why, not.” Zuine answered, “We’re going to kill him anyway.”

After a spurt of conversation we traded an some old amulets of Zhou’s and the bone dice for a magical battleaxe and kukri. The amulets were particularly well received as they allowed Zhou to strike creature normally only struck by magic, the amulet he currently wore gave greater a enhancment.(45)

footnote wrote: (45) An Amulet of Mighty Fists, popular in the gladiatorial games of Terathin, as an equalizer between magical and mundane brawlers.

Thiff was so impressed she sent her mate with us to help. And what help he would be, he was about a foot taller than the other warrior males and weighed somewhere around 900lbs. of simian muscle, as he was the alpha male of this group, we nicknamed him Alpha. He could understand Fenak but seemed unable to speak himself.

We exited out the other side past more guards, into an altar room. The walls were covered in onyx reliefs of various humanoids dressed as cult members, an inscribed altar sat in the middle of the room.

“Gah, don’t look at the altar,”Mithran suddenly yelled, “It’s a trap of some kind, the writing is a riddle in dragon-tongue with some magic that tried to grab my head when I read it.”

We carefully avoided looking at the altar, as we made our way to the door. This room, besides the two other doors held an untouched sarcophagus. Mithran pointed out a trigger wire on the lid, which I disabled before opening it. Some coin was inside with the corpse but the real prize was a scroll case sealed with wax, inside was a spell scroll inscribed with Panacea, a divine spell that wipes away a host of ailments that combined can take six spells to remove normally. It was also beyond the current strength of Mithran’s divine connection to cast.

Our guide seemed nervous as we approached the next door, the looks on the other’s faces told me I would be glad once more I lacked a sense of smell. The room was a cross between a stable and a torture chamber. Filthy stalls lined the walls, several ape beast slaves in them, a brazier with blazing red pokers next to a torture rack with restraints fitting for the four armed apes. A pair of hideous humanoid women with dark bruise purple skin. I recognized them from one of Zuine’s books, night hags, deadly and disease carrying monsters spawned in Hades.(46) Of the random facts I remembered of them, it was their tendency to transfer to the ethereal plane to attack from ambush that stood out. One turned to look at us with glowing red eyes.

I shot across the room at full speed, ramming both swords deep into her gut. With a quick twirl I ripped both blades out and struck at her twin, scoring a mark across her upper arm before sidestepping the charge of Alpha. The rooms occupants and contents led me to believe the Night Hags were the source of ape slaves we had seen cleaning above. Being nearly immune to the mundane damage the apes could inflict one on one they must have kidnapped stragglers at random and tortured them into obedience. Alpha was, however, now armed with an amulet that made his claws magical weapons, his bestial wrath was well armed to tear her to shreds.

While we had slayed the hags, Zuine had been busy putting the enslaved apes into magical sleep. We waited as Alpha hauled them back to Thiff, killing a pair of mohrgs attracted by the sound of the Hag’s death wails.

With a crack of rushing air Mithran vanished only to reappear a few seconds later in the same spot.

footnote wrote:(46)Night Hags incubate a magical plague called Demon Fever that damages ones overall health unless mystically healed.

“Teleporter, goes to a small room.” He said non-chalantly, “I marked the wall if we find the other end later..” He took a piece of chalk and marked off where he guessed the teleport spot was.

We moved on through several rooms, emptying more crypts of coin and destroying the corpse within. We came to a room that just screamed trap though we could find none. The lock was absurdly complex, beyond my capability to open. Mithran used one of his spell scrolls to magically open the lock. An eight foot tall statue of a rearing dragon stood there with what looked to be a piece of the key in its mouth. Zhou reached up to grab the piece, only to be clawed when the statue suddenly attacked him. It wasn’t a statue but a massive gargoyle, twice the size of the ones the mages guild uses as guards. (47)

With a kai shout, Zhou struck at the creature but did little damage to its stony hide. Doing so only made him vulnerable to the monsters attacks, as it grabbed him sinking its claws deep before taking a bite out of him. Fenak took the opportunity to slash into its side with Stonereaver, the weapon flashed as the magics within, made to harm earth elemental creatures, attacked the gargoyle’s flesh. I danced around the melee until I saw an opening and struck, Contingency glowing green with acid next to the ethereal blue of Ghostslayer as they pierced the creature’s hide. Ghostslayer slipped through its ribs and hit something fairly vital if the black gush of blood was any indication. It looked murderous as it moved to assault me only to be struck by swarms of magic missiles from Mithran and Zuine’s wands, distracted by the sudden attack it didn’t dodge Fenak’s next blow severing its spine.

Mithran poured potions into Zhou until his wounds were all healed. Zuine took the key fragment and placed it with the other in one of her many pouches. (48)

footnote wrote:(47)Obviously spoken in hindsight as Seth’s first visit to the mages guild is in a future extract. (48)Zuine habitually wore a Belt of Many Pockets, the eight pouches sewn onto the inside-front of the belt, open onto thirty-six spaces similar to a miniature bag of holding.

End Chapter 7

Please keep posting! This is now on my 'must read' list in this forum

I love the footnotes, they still work great. The dungeon itself is a nasty one, I'm glad I'm not the one running through it.

However, I do have one small complaint. Ashardalon was badly wounded in battle, near to death. He cut out his heart and replaced it with a living Balor: Ammet, the Eater of Souls. All draconic followers of Ashardalon go through an initiation where their hearts are scarred and tied to a demon as well.
So how can his heart be an artifact? I don't think the dragon would leave his old heart lying around... would he? If he did, that's going to be one POTENT artifact.

LadyTevar wrote:Please keep posting! This is now on my 'must read' list in this forum

I love the footnotes, they still work great. The dungeon itself is a nasty one, I'm glad I'm not the one running through it.

However, I do have one small complaint. Ashardalon was badly wounded in battle, near to death. He cut out his heart and replaced it with a living Balor: Ammet, the Eater of Souls. All draconic followers of Ashardalon go through an initiation where their hearts are scarred and tied to a demon as well.
So how can his heart be an artifact? I don't think the dragon would leave his old heart lying around... would he? If he did, that's going to be one POTENT artifact.

Its not explicitly mentioned but there's a reason none of the undead are half-dragons. Except for Mr. Stitches all of the cultist corpses are human, elf, half-elf, ect. Almost all the Children of Ashardalon left before the cultists went nuts the five who stayed were killed to build Mr. Stitches.

As for the Heart, the Vrock told us the truth as he knew it, thing is, not everything he 'knows' is true.
Spoiler That aside, I've also started cutting the less important or boring combat scenes down to mentions, I just couldn't type out yet another battle with mohrgs. So unless something particularly interesting or note worthy happens a lot of battle scenes are going to get skipped. I also forgot not long after this adventure we retconned my new rapiers into being carried rather than replacing my natural ones so that's going to be fun to work in without rewriting the whole mess.

Sorry this took so long but my internet access has been unstable for awhile. The company that bought out my ISP has been doing some maintenance that got left undone by the collapse of the original.

Chapter 8

We made our way down a long corridor and after destroying yet more Mohrgs at the end, we found ourselves at the edge of a deep chasm.

“I can see a piece of the key.” Fenak said, his dwarven vision more acute in these underground places than ours. “Its on a natural column of rock in the center of the room.”

Mithran had cocked his head to one side, “Hear that clacking sound? The floor is swarming with skeletal undead.”

A plan quickly formed in my head, reaching into the pack Zuine made me take I pulled out a grappling hook attached to a 50' length of chain. The pack was fortunately larger on the inside than out and weighed next to nothing, as I needed a second length attached to the first. It took three tries to hook the dragon shaped pedestal the key was on.

“What are you doing?” Zuine asked.

“I’m going to walk across the chain like a tightrope. If I fall I won’t get hurt, and I can climb faster than any of you. I need you to cover me at range. It is likely there is another guardian here.”

I affixed the chain to the floor with several iron spikes as taunt as I could make it. Carefully walking along the chain, I managed to get most of the may there when the grappling hook shifted. Twisting in mid-fall I grasped the chain and hauled myself back on it. Reaching the ten foot wide plateau I moved to get the key only to be ambushed by spectres, rising out of the rock. There were five of them, long odds for me save that not being a ‘living’ being the strength sapping aspect of their touch did nothing to me.

Ghostslayer was in hand quickly, I left Contingency were it was, I couldn’t count on it to strike the ghostly bodies of my foes. Quickly twisting to avoid their rush, I slashed and stabbed in a blur of ghostly steel. They screeched it pain as Ghostslayer tore holes in their forms, but none fell. A volley of magic missile spells tore into one of them, sending it screaming into nothingness. Turning effortlessly in the air they returned to strike at me again. While they were quite fast, unhindered by the physical limitations of matter, it was quite clear they were far to used to the advantages of their incorporeal state. Their attacks were forceful but clumsy, almost amateurish. I wounded them some more as I dodged them easily, one flew past me face first into a second volley from Zuine and Mithran, sending that one to whatever hell awaited it.. One of the surviving spectres made the connection and flew at the cliff the other stood on, only to screech in pain as Fenak introduced it to Stone Reaver.

With only two opponents the odds were definitely shifting in my favor, as I split one in half. The final spectre was looking slightly desperate as it turned to strike me. Aiming first would have been an idea, its blow glanced off my shoulder plating, too close to avoid completely but neither could it deliver a telling blow. The negative energy sustaining the undead horror left a tarnished stain on the mithral. Attacking me so close had left the creature wide open to me, I sank Ghostslayer into its transparent mid-section before ripping it up and out through its head.

Grasping the key I wrenched it out of the dragon statues mouth, the floor of the small mesa was instantly electrified, sparks traveled over me doing nothing but make an impressive light show.

Once back with the others we traveled back through the catacombs to the northbound corridor we passed near the entrance. This led us to a short maze with more mohrgs wandering around in it.

At the end of the twisting passages we came to an ornatly carved chamber with a large humanoid figure standing there, the nine foot tall figure looked to be a statue made of fused together tombstones. It was little surprise that it started to move towards us.

I slashed at the creature but I had little chance of seriously damaging a creature of solid stone. A guess that was confirmed as my blades skittered off its surface, the thin blades of my rapiers were simply not up to the task.

Fenak however was in his element, so to speak, destroying beings of earth and stone was the purpose of his great axe, StoneReaver. With a single swing the axe blade drove through the stone like paper, energy flowed from the blade over the stone turning it to grey sand wherever it touched.

The tombstone golem teetered for a moment as a large amount of its bulk was now a pile of sand at it’s feet. Zhou Fei circled around it, the Scarab on his shirt glowing as he struck with lightning fast jabs. Each strike imparted energy from the scarab, negating the unnatural harness of the golem. Unfortunately it was still a rock so the blows did little damage. Alpha struck it as well sending a few chips off it, but doing little better.

The golem swept its arms at us, taking me in the chest despite my speed, the squeal of bending metal told me I would need repairs soon. Its other fist crashed into Fenak, not only doing damage but discharging a crackle of black energy into him. The runes on his armor, enspelled to resist death magic, flared as they fought it off.

Mithran hit me from behind with the repair wand, the rather large dent in my chest snapping out as the magic fixed me. Far back Zuine could only stand helpless, the golem’s magical immunity rendering it impervious to anything she could do.

Fenak yelled as he attacked the construct again, his blow shattering it into dust and rubble.

In the chambers beyond we found the final key segment in another dragon statues mouth trapped with lightning. The key assembled Alpha led us to the core. It was a smooth stone wall, rounded out towards us, a box jutted out of the right side with a keyhole in it. A few moments to assemble the key and turn it in the lock. With a click the entire wall turned until a door was revealed and lined up with a door on an inner wall. Inside was a large conical chamber covered in loose earth. Far above our heads in the center of the ceiling was a metal hatch. The room’s support beams crisscrossed in a climbable lattice.

The chamber above us was easy to enter. A strange misty doorway stood to one side with a wooden chair before it. Unnatural cold filled the room emanating from above us. There, burning with black flame, was Ashardalon’s Heart. A catwalk encircled the walls parallel to the heart.

Almost instantly a pair of lightning bolts blasted down, Zhou dodged one while the other grazed Mithran. Mithran quickly screamed out a spell, a wave of blue radiated out from him, revealing a humanoid that could only be Gulthias. A pale vampire with a ridiculous goatee wearing goggles of day similar to Fenak’s, dressed in aristocratic clothing a size to large for him.

I raced to get up to the catwalk, with no stairs I pulled the grappling hook I had used earlier out and threw it up onto the catwalk. Feeling it latch onto something I shimmed up as fast as I could go.

Fenak drank a potion and rose off the floor, now able to fly though not quickly. Gulthias sneered and shot two more lightning bolts clipping Fenak, but not stopping him. A scream told me Zuine had been hit as well. I could hear Mithran casting something that caused a ghostly blue dragon’s claw to appear in midair and attack the vampire. Zuine also spat a spell, her voice dripping with malice, a bolt of energy streaked to Gulthias exploding into chains of fire that wrapped around him holding him helpless.

Though I did not know it at the time the mummified monk Zhou had fought in the tower had reappeared near him when Mithran cast the invisibility purge. The two had attacked each other ignoring the rest of the room.

While Gulthias struggled with the flaming chains I raced to him and started ripping anything that looked magical off him starting with that Wand of Lightning. I managed to get a scroll case off him and flying to the floor, a second wand, his goggles and a ring. He tried to break free of the fiery bonds only burning himself further. As Fenak reached the catwalk the vampire dissolved to gas slipping out of the chains, it didn’t stop the dwarf from slashing through the mist eliciting a garbled scream as it flew off.

Magical missiles flew from Zuine and Mithran into the cloud destroying sections of it. Gulthias the cloud flew towards the heart, thinking this was a bad thing I motioned to the others.

“Target the heart, destroy it.”

Magics crashed into the heart, fire and golden streams battering away its aura of black fire, to tear into the dark draconic flesh. With an abrupt turn the cloud turned and struck towards their position. I took a running jump and, using Fenak as a stepping stone, launched myself onto the heart. My cloak burned away as I could now see the black flames were made of the necromantic goo we found earlier. The Heart shuddered under the spells striking the other side as I drove my rapiers in deep. The flames began to gutter as the heart died, and began to fall. As it fell I watched the still bleeding flesh rapidly dried into a mummified state. Not wanting to be part of its demise when it hit the floor after a 100 foot drop I pushed off angling to hit between Gulthias and Zuine.

Rather ironically I missed and landed on Gulthias as he reformed to attack, driving him into the ground with several bone snapping crunches. The vampire twitched feebly until Mithran rammed a wooden chair leg into his heart and we beheaded him.

The heart had ruptured upon impact revealing dark soil(50) and several valuable magical treasures.

“Wow,” Zuine commented, “He was using the heart as a coffin, that’s.....actually kind of sick.”

Later wounds healed we spent several days looting the spire, Gulthias’s lab was very well stocked, just hard to get to. Finding out the weird mirror looked into rooms marked with the odd tree symbol and even better allowed transport to them was a huge help. The undead remains and various creatures were rendered down to Zuine’s satisfaction for sale or spell components.

We were forced to send Mithran and Zenak off to the nearest town for wagons, mules and teamsters to transport it all. By the time they returned our squad of undead had transported it all to the top of the defile. Our return to Three Rivers Port was in rather greater luxury than the trip out, with Zuine happily humming as she calculated the probable coin return for the wagonloads of material.

footnote wrote:(50) Many vampires hold that they must sleep in soil native to the place of their death or homeland.Several do not do so and seem to suffer no ill effects

And on that rather satisfying note I shall end this narrative. The trip back was suitably boring despite the largess of their haul.

Again, this rocks, hon. I can't wait to see the next Adventure of Seth