Ooze Wight?

Eralevia's Lair, Ruins of Amberlan, Tarlanor, June 8th 1655, morning

DM Note: As Gord was with us this week, I simply had Lynien 'be there' and glossed over how she managed to re-acquire the party; otherwise Gord would have sat there til 10 with nothing to do... Cheesy Fudge but it made things easier.

As the undead advanced, the four companions took up positions on either side of the bridge. Eloy and Méabh placed themselves at the top of the stairs on the south side, while Gorfang descended the steps on the north, planning to hold them on his own. Lynien set herself at the top of that flight, to give herself a clear shot.

While this was happening, more wights had been pushing themselves out of the ground and gathering to assualt the intruders. Méabh couldn't be sure, but to her some of them looked to be different; more muscular in appearance, and quicker-moving.

Eloy let fly twice with Varlan, and a wight keeled over dead. He and Méabh exchanged glances; maybe this wasn't such a bad situation after all. The sorceress sent an Orb of Force to crash into one of the other wights - but despite blowing big chunks off, it did not bring it down. This confirmed that some wights were bigger than others.... A final arrow from Eloy brought that one down.

On the north side, Lynien too loosed some arrows and brought a wight down. Her spirits rose, as her archery wasn't normally the most effective weapon in the group's arsenal. Below her Gorfang gripped his two swords as the wights closed, howled a battle cry and began to reap. Bodies and parts of bodies flew in all directions as he chopped his way through the swarm of undead. In a very few seconds, he'd destroyed all the front rank and moved on to the ones Méabh had tentatively identified as looking tougher. Sure enough, they moved much more quickly and ducked around many of his blizzard of strikes. A clawed hand struck a horrible, disembowelling strike, deflected only partially by the orc's armour. Black orc-blood sprayed, and Lynien gulped, her confidence draining away. If Gorfang was wounded this early, what chance did she have?

Eloy dropped another of the smaller ones with his bow, then dropped it and drew Bereloth. Beside him, Méabh drew Rilliantorin, muttering under her breath; the sorceress hated coming to vulgar blows. As the monsters closed, their blades flashed, and more wights went down. Both took wounds, and as the claws tore they felt to their horror the dark spirits within the wights trying to draw their own life energy out.

Gorfang was fighting with more care now, his initial headlong assault tempered with more precision. He managed to down one, but took more wounds. Like his comrades, he could feel the undead creatures trying to drain his life force, but all this did to Gorfang was make him more angry.

Lynien loosed an arrow at the three Gorfang was fighting, but it was easily dodged. Discouraged, she stepped across the bridge to behind Méabh and Eloy to see if she could assist them. Unlike Gorfang, they still had some of the lesser wights left to fight. She dropped one with a single shot and imediately began to feel better.

Méabh was beginning to get worried; she'd taken a nasty head wound, and had slain only one of her opponents. More were gathering at the bottom of the stairs and she was in danger of being swarmed. Lowering Rilliantorin and disregarding the wight she was fighting, she took a calculated risk and cast a spell, boosting it for all she was worth and a Fireball smashed into the wights starting up the stairs towards her. Burning bodies flew in all directions, all the lesser monsters slain, leaving just the most powerful ones scorched but still oncoming.

Eloy had killed both his immediate foes, and swivelled in place to strike the undead attacking Méabh. As he did so, Lynien shot it twice, and between them they sent it flying over the edge of the stairs to splatter into the graveyard below. He then looked back down the stairs to realize that the last four were wounded, burning and slowed. He charged down the stairs towards them, only just pulling up in time as a second Fireball rocketed past him to roast the last wights on the south side just in front of him.

On the north side, Gorfang fought doggedly. He took another wound, but finally managed to defeat the last wight. He rested on his sword for a moment, catching his breath, and then jogged up the steps to check on the other side, finding his comrades likewise bloodied but victorious. It had been a long morning, following a busy night when no-one had slept, and despite healing from staff and potion, the companions were weary and battered. Although the graveyard was a mass of severed body parts and burning wights, the bridge seemed pretty defensible and secure, so the they settled down, prepared a meal, and took turns to catch some sleep.

During her watch, Lynien went to take an expert look at the grave of Cirenyyd the vampire. Her skills led her to the earthen floor of the coffin, which she prodded suspiciously before digging into the soil. A foot or so down, she located something hard, which turned out to be a small box of inlaid wood, about the size of a human hand. Carefully, she unearthed it and checked it for traps, then opened it (facing away, of course!) to discover the contents.

It was a magnificently jewelled glove, for the left hand, an exact pair of the one she had found in the dragon's lair. Once matched, the gloves radiated magic; and once Méabh had cast an Identify on them, they were revealed as Gloves of Subtlety.

Gorfang went and examined the barrel of poisoned wine in the storeroom, wondering if it could be used as contact poison, but it turned out to be an ingested poison and the orc lost interest. He did take the box Lynien had found her second glove in and fill it with his cigars; he didn't want to lose all his the way Eloy had if they came to grips with the dragon.

Eralevia's Lair, Ruins of Amberlan, Tarlanor, June 8th 1655, evening

Twelve hours later, refreshed and fed, they resumed their exploration of the necromantic lair. With her full complement of spells available, Méabh felt comfortable using another Arcane Eye spell, and soon the magical sensor was zipping through the cold, dank, webby passages, spying out the land [see map above!]

Eloy spent some time examining the double doors at the north end of the corridor, and observed that they were - unlike most of the doors in these cellars - brand new and solidly closed. Before he could open them, however, a call came from the north-west, where Gorfang, Eloy and Lynien had discovered the water tank.

The Tank - click it for larger image!

A 5' stone catwalk ran around two sides of the room to a doorway on the far side. The ceiling was 10' above that, and the floor apparently 40' below. The lower 30' of the room was filled with clear, fresh-looking water. At the far end of the catwalk was a much smaller room, dominated by a 5' diameter shaft disappearing into the depths. The floor sloped down from that to the tank, and deep channels seemed designed to take water to the tank. A few remnants suggested there might once have been a well-head over the shaft to lift up the water that Lynien was able to confirm to them was not there. So why was the tank full?

They returned to the entrance, and Gorfang ripped a piece of rotted, slimy wood from the few remaining fragments of the door. He cast this carefully into the water to see what would happen. The results were distinctly odd. There was the sound of a splash, and water splashed up as if the wood had plunged into it. But the wood itself didn't go below the surface; it landed soggily on the top, and sat there, rather too still to be floating on disturbed water. After a moment, it began to break up and dissolve, disintegrating from below in a most disturbing way.

Gorfang returned to the store-room, smashed a crate, and came back with a plank. Sprawling on the catwalk, he managed to reach down and scoop up some of the fluid. To the eyes, it looked as if the plank dipped into water and came up wet, but to Gorfang's muscles, he had just dug it into something the consistency of porridge and scooped out a lump. They eyed the wet board for a moment, and then realized that the 'wetness' was spreading across the wood, and that the wood at the end was dissolving rather quickly. Gorfang dropped the plank, and it dissolved.

Méabh blinked, and frowned. She had her suspicions... this looked like an illusion. Focussing her will, she concentrated for a moment - and the water changed before her eyes as she saw through the illusion. Now, the tank was filled with a dark, viscous, blackish-brown integument, moving and flexing in a way she didn't like at all. Warning the others, she began to dig for combustibles.

Between them, the group managed to assemble eight flasks of oil or alchemists' fire. Priming them, they counted down and threw them into the tank. A wall of fire roared up, illuminating the dank passage beyond as bright as day. In the glare, they could see it crawling out of the tank, extending pseudopods of smouldering goo to try and reach them. It was quite slow, but there seemed to be a hell of a lot of it and it didn't seem discouraged by the fire, though there was a very strong smell of cooking caramel for some reason.

The party backed down the hall as it pursued them. Maybe they could lure it into the room where the rot was? If they did that, however, how were they to get out without ending up in the stuff too...?