Alair - Holy Wars |
 DM Note: Just Allan and Aimo again this session :( |
The death of Invercane didn't seem to have broken the morale of the two werewolves, and they rushed the doorway where Egia and Hougaard stood. "Finish him off!" yelled Hougaard at Ghlaads, pointing at the downed Venforvyr. The wizard rolled her eyes; run through the middle of a battle to stab a wounded enemy? Job for the party rogue! She contented herself with a Magic Missile which blasted three more holes in his quiescent body.
Hougaard and Egia were having more difficulty. These werewolves appeared to have been enhanced in some way, given some kind of magical protection, because both Hougaard's initial attack and Egia's hurled sword inflicted no damage, despite the Bless Weapon spell that both had receieved. Hougaard weaved urgently past the monster's incoming attacks, but Egia wasn't as fortunate and a savage claw slash across her face left blood streaming into her eyes. As the sword thumped back into her fist she lashed out, but the blade glanced off the Mage Armour the lycathropes had been granted. Hougaard focussed more tightly into a single punch, battering his opponent, then blinked as the werewolf ran up the wall as if he'd been on the flat, reached the ceiling and lunged down at the unfettered from above.
Hougaard struck back at the arm, producing a satisfactory crackle of breaking bone. Egia beat down the defence of her opponent and attacked twice, killing it, then spun under the impetus of her last strike to score a third hit on Hougaard's foe. Behind them Ghlaads, out of Magic Missiles, loosed a crossbow bolt at Venforvyr. It bounced off without any effect and she spat a curse.
Egia lunged upwards, slashing the muscles of the wall-crawling werewolf's last rear leg as it tried to turn and flee. Spider Climb notwithstanding, it couldn't remain up any longer and dropped towards the floor. As it fell, Hougaard punched it again, crushing its ribcage. It was probably dead before it hit the ground, but if it wasn't, the impact as it landed on its head was more than enough to finish the job.
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With visible threats removed, Ghlaads moved over to Venforvyr and despatched him, separating his head and extracting the skullgem, of which Egia took charge. Belatedly, it occurred to her to wonder what had happened to the other Maculate, the one-armed spellcaster who had disappeared from view before the Fireball struck, and she glanced around apprehensively. No-one seemed to be around, though, so she joined the other two searching the corpses of Venforvyr and Invercane. The former was wearing black half-plate armour which was clearly enchanted, but sculpted with symbols of such evil aspect that Egia refused to consider wearing or carrying it it, so Hougaard destroyed it. He'd also been armed with a double-sword - now lying in the room behind them - and despite none of them being skilled with such a weapon, Egia dropped it into her bag.
Once more employing the rope Hougaard had rigged up, they descended to the next level and resumed searching it. All the rooms were unoccupied, though signs of recent habitation were present. Sad relics of the lives the newly turned Maculate had forever lost and were unprepared to surrender dotted the shelves; tools, books, keepsakes.
| DM Note: I rolled 5 d20 at this point, and the players became instantly and firmly convinced that there were five werewolves lurking below. Nobody seemed to realize that I simply had five d20 available on the table... |
As they prepared to descend again, Hougaard got his flute out and experimented with several notes played at as high a pitch as possible. After a while, several agonized yelps rose from far below, and he grinned maliciously, memorizing how he'd produced that particular note.
"Can't we get a look farther down?" asked Egia. Ghlaads brightened. "I have the Lightstone," she said, pulling from her pocket a pebble treated with the Light spell. This she dropped into the shaft and they watched it fall. There was a moment's glimpse of another set of arches - another level of rooms below this one - as the stone flashed past, then it struck the bottom, bounced, and lay still, it's radiance illuminating a circle forty feet across.
Variances in the shadows suggested that there wasn't a continuous wall around the lowest room. Battered lumps of darkness hinted at the location of the werewolves who had fallen into the darkness earlier. Hougaard's rope could be seen dangling to within a couple of feet of the bottom. Egia realized that the lowest level of the tower was well below the ground level of the village outside, though given the age of the place it was possible that that had changed since it was built.
Before moving on, Egia asked Belisama's blessing on her wounds, and closed her eyes briefly in gratitude as they healed, confirming the Flower of the Triad's continued approval of Her paladin. Then they climbed down to the third level of living quarters. These again showed signs of recent habitation, but all possessions seemed to have been removed in a hurry. Marks and tracks in the dust showed where items had been hastily picked up. Turning to leave the second to last room, though, Hougaard noticed a shadow behind the door, and found it to be a long, magnificent black cloak. It swirled and hung in a very becoming way, and felt very comfortable when the Unfettered slipped it onto his shoulders. He felt somehow stronger, more resistant to threats somehow, while wearing it. As he examined it, he realized that it had pockets, and that there was something in those pockets.
Rummaging, he produced a ring, two potions and a wristband, all also clearly magical. He glanced at Ghlaads but she shrugged. "I've cast my Identify for today," she said apologetically.
Egia recast her and Hougaard's Bless Weapon spells, which had worn off, and Hougaard climbed down the rope until he was just above the next level's ceiling. As he did so, the other two made loud noises above to cover any sounds he might make.
Suspended above the light stone, he caught a glimpse of a massive shadow flitting across the edge of the pool of light. Closer in, three naked, battered human corpses lay in drying pools of blood, the remains of the werewolves who'd fallen down the shaft. Each appeared to have rolled several feet away from the centre of the shaft, where there was a blackened patch as if something had exploded. Hougaard frowned; the other skullgems hadn't produced any physical force when they exploded. Invercane must have been something rather special.
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Further out was a circle of walls, broken here and there - twice by passages going out towards the outer edge of the tower, and twice by rows of cells walled in steel bars. He could see movement inside these cells, and after a moment realized that he was probably looking at the Maculate's larder.
There seemed no overt threat, so he descended to the floor and looked around. The cages behind him were empty, but the ones ahead contained three rather sad-looking humans of local stock, two men and a woman. Egia joined him, and he threw her a glance. She shook her head - no evil in these poor victims - and he turned to explore further. Egia aimed a reassuring smile at the prisoners. "Just stay there a bit longer and relax," she said, "We'll have you out of there before you can walk the dog." Hougaard turned back, struck by a thought. "Which way did the Maculate go? And the werewolves? Were there five?" The prisoners pointed. "Down the stairs," one said. "There were two lycans and two Maculate. Please don't leave us here; we'll be eaten like the others!" He gestured towards the corridors.
Hougaard and Egia followed one to the outer room - a circular curving passage around the outside of the inner section, littered with bones and bits of cloth and skin, among which were fragments of older, darker bone from the tower's ancient history. The werewolves' feeding room was not a pretty sight.
Two holes were set in the floor of the inner room; one was shallow, no more than three inches deep, but the other was a shaft going down, about five feet across and with stairs this time - stairs a werewolf could probably climb. Cautiously, the three followed these down two turns to find a passage, heading straight as an arrow due north away from the tower. Egia knelt and scanned the floor, finding a footprint, and Hougaard took over, his woodsman's training having included tracking. "Two sets of boots," he said, "and two sets of paws. Two Maculate and two hybrid werewolves."
They followed the tracks down the passage, for well over a mile, Hougaard keeping an eye on the tracks to ensure they didn't suddenly veer off through a hidden door or something. Finally, the passage sloped sharply upwards, turned after a hundred yards, then again, then again, to bring them up to what Egia reckoned must be around ground level. Finally it leveled out, ran for twenty more feet, and hit a dead end.
The three stood for a moment, gazing around, wondering what they'd missed, and then Hougaard looked up. Above them was a panel in the stone ceiling, looking as if it could be slid aside, and with very little effort they did just that. Above, a vertical shaft rose into the dark, pocked with handholds for climbing. Egia and Hougaard glanced at each other and started up the shaft.
With an effort, Hougaard shoved back the sliding gravestone and peered out of the hole. Around him was a huge bowl, three hundred yards across, cut into the side of the dell in which Turil was built. Steep slopes enclosed it on three sides, with a pale fence across the open end which faced the village. The floor of the bowl was carpeted in grass with flowers here and there, and sprinkled with stones and wooden boards set into the ground in regular rows. Graves. They were in the cemetery.
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Hougaard scrambled out and Egia followed, raising her eyebrows at the strong feeling of necromantic evil that washed across her. As the Unfettered began to pick out the tracks of their quarry leading towards the fence and gate, she muttered an imprecation; the sensation was strengthening. All of a sudden, the grass and earth around many of the graves began to boil and stir, and bony hands and arms stretched upwards, clutching and fumbling. Skeletal forms began to rise out of the ground and turn towards the three intruders. The nearest broke into a trot, arms raised, heading straight for the three friends in preparation to attack.
Egia stepped forward, lifting Sunrazor with her amulet wound around the quillons. "Return to your quiet graves, deceased ones, in the holy Name of Belisama!" A pool of pure, warm, orange sunlight surrounded her for an instant, and the dozen or so nearest skeletons crumbled quietly into bits of bone and flakes of skin. It flashed across Hougaard's mind that it was a good job they were a mile outside the village - or that was their cover gone right there. Egia looked down at the remains, properly returned to their rest, with a moment's satisfaction. Ghlaads tapped her on the shoulder. "Great," she said, pointing to where upwards of a hundred more skeletons were massing for an attack. "Let's see you do that again!"
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Session Date: 14th March 2013 |
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