“They’re after me! They’re right behind me! … This color scheme is all wrong.”
-Red Dagger, after coming back from Pandemonium
Session 7/8/06 - In Search Of (continued)
Sigil was just starting to light up in what passed for dawn in the sunless city. Malbi was leading the way, following the directions that Xas had given them the day before to a graveyard he said was on the border of the Hive and the Clerk’s Ward. Malbi had never heard of it, and they weren’t really any more trusting of Xas than they were of Greydust, but this was a lead, and they were going to follow it.
Finally, they made it to the place, not that there was much of it to see, though its placement was inexplicable. It ran right up to the edge of Sigil, an empty void that usually was never found at street level. Sigil was an inexplicable city itself, being on the inside of a ring, curving upward and around back onto itself. On the edge of the ring was a pure nothingness, not emptiness, nothingness, and it was at this that they were looking.
Usually the edge of the ring was blockaded with buildings with no windows on the far side and the only way to see into this blankness was to climb onto a rooftop and gaze out, but here the infinite expanse of pure nihility stretched out right from the edge of this graveyard. Why there were no buildings here and why a graveyard was built at such a place weren’t things to be concerned with right now, however.
They immediately noticed that there were three mausoleums in the graveyard; Xas hadn’t mentioned that there would be three, so they would have to check each one of them. They approached the middle one, keeping a lookout for anyone else around. They had decided to do this during the day, as they figured that would be the safest time for their attack. They hoped to find one of Caradver’s main men, a bauriaur named Delita, here and question him concerning his boss. That was the plan, anyway.
Jackal knelt down at the door and found it locked after making sure there were no traps on it. Taking just a few seconds, he smiled as the lock unlatched. Motioning to Stock, the large bugbear pushed open the door while the others stood back, just in case. Hearing nothing inside, they slipped into the burial chamber and closed the door behind them.
The room was unlit, but they were all capable of seeing in darkvision, Malbi and Jackal with magical gems (Malbi having converted his into a manacle). The place was cramped for the four of them, but they were immediately sure that they had the right place. On the far end of the room, past three stone coffins, was a black stone slab with crevices carved into it, the floor underneath carved away like a channel toward two candle stands, unlit at the moment.
“We need to search the place,” said Jackal, “Stock, why don’t you check one of those caskets.”
Stock sighed, but did as asked, taking his double axe and pushing away one of the stone slabs coverings. As soon as he had done so, he wished he hadn’t, because he immediately saw stirring inside. Taking a step back, he prepared to fight.
As the mummified figure rose in front of Stock, the two other tops began to stir, and they could see that a fight was imminent. Stock immediately swung for the figure as it reached toward him, Grum moving to Stock’s back to fight another one emerging into sight while Jackal stepped back, taking out his crossbow. At the same time Malbi moved toward the rear, ready to back them up with spells.
As the far left undead rose up, Jackal fired a shot at it, catching it in the shoulder, but it showed no sign of injury. Cursing to himself, he reloaded the crossbow, having to take the gem of darkvision away from his eye. Deciding that wasn’t the best course of action, he went through his bag of holding for his everburning torch and tossed it onto the ground in front of him.
While he was doing that, Stock was fighting an enemy of his own. Slicing the mummy’s side with his axe, it leaned over further to the right than before, but otherwise showed no sign of injury. As he did so, the creature’s shoulder slammed into his side, and he felt not only the pain from the impact, but something else, a pain from inside. Buckling under the strain, his eyes going blurry for a second, he staggered but caught himself quickly. As he looked back, he noted that the mummy’s seams were re-stitching themselves where he had cut it.
“These aren’t normal mummies!” he called out to the others.
“Just great,” responded Jackal, as he put another bolt into the mummy he was closest to as it pulled itself onto the stone floor and shambled toward him.
Malbi took that opportunity to blast away with one of his most powerful spells, incanting his words, he pointed, and a small bead sped from his finger, impacting the far wall and exploding, catching only the mummy Jackal was fighting in a bout of flame. The mummy looked charred, much of its skin gone, but it still advanced upon Jackal.
Grum was having problems of his own. His large size hindered his advancement on the third undead opponent, and he had to straddle the casket it had been interred in, one foot in the grave, so to speak. He swung his great axe at it, impacting it in the head, which hung broken at the neck. But, the thing still attacked him, hitting him in the leg, causing the same nauseating effect Stock had experienced earlier.
Jackal fired another bolt into the mummy, this time hitting him in the leg, but he kept coming. “How many hits can these things take? He looked over at the mummy Grum had been fighting, which now had an arm missing and a large gash in its stomach so that he could see its spine, though the wound was already closing. “Oh.” He pulled out his two short swords, one silver and electricity buzzed around it, the other finely crafted and runed, as he ducked under the approaching mummy’s arm.
Stock was having a hard time, the mummy he was fighting half hidden by its stone coffin, but he couldn’t back up, lest he compromise Malbi’s position. One of his axe heads struck against the stone, but the other made it to the undead creature’s leathery chest, opening him up again where he had healed beforehand. He grunted as he felt another hit, and worked to focus away from the pain it caused.
Malbi now had no place to drop further fireballs. He waved his hands and incanted again, this time several spheres of force appearing, disappearing, then appearing behind the mummy Jackal was fighting to slam into its back. Still standing he observed the situation. Jackal looked the best off, as he hadn’t been in melee with his opponent for long. Grum wasn’t faring very well, but he could heal himself if it got to that. Stock was looking the worst and was protecting him from direct attack, so he decided his next spell would be aimed at that one. He began incanting his next spell.
Grum decided that things weren’t going as well as he had hoped. The mummy was looking very hurt, but he was feeling woozy and his head felt like it was splitting open, though he hadn’t been hit there. He focused as best he could and held out his palm, a blaze of light erupting from it filling up the entire room with a bright white glow. The light struck his opponent, who staggered back, for the first time showing signs of injury, which wasn’t a surprising considering the spell he had just used.
Jackal, having had help from Malbi earlier, finally pushed the creature beyond its breaking point with a pair of slashes to along the body. It fell over with a thud.
Two rays of fire flew from Malbi’s finger and burned away Stock’s mummy’s head, throwing ashes and pieces all about around it. Stock took several swings at the creature at the same time and cut deep into his arm and torso, but the creature kept fighting.
Noticing Stock’s condition, Grum attempted to make his way toward Stock, but was caught by an attack from the mummy he was fighting. Feeling his injuries becoming fatal, he decided to heal himself. Casting his spell, he regained much of his composure. Stock would have to wait a few seconds.
Jackal, having dispatched his own opponent, closed to flank Stock’s enemy. A ray of flame from Malbi went wild over their heads as Stock felt Grum’s hand on his shoulder, Stock regaining feeling in his extremities and the faintness he was feeling subsiding.
Grum decided to go on the offensive and letting his blood boil, he called upon the favor of the battles he had fought in the past. Feeling the rage flowing through him, he tore into his enemy with his adamantine axe, crushing in his shoulder.
Now Stock, with Jackal’s help, and Grum’s healing making him feel much better, tore into his enemy. An arm fell off and he saw one of Jackal’s swords come out of the creature’s chest. Swinging, he separated the mummy’s torso from his lower half and it fell into its casket, unmoving.
Finally, as they finished him off, they saw Grum sweep the mummy handily with his axe and not only slice deep into its chest with a loud crack, but it flew back and slammed into the stone alter behind them, falling limply to the ground like a doll. Grum roared with excitement.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” he exclaimed. The others weren’t feeling so well, and as soon as the adrenaline went out of Grum’s system, he felt the effects as well.
“What were those?” Stock asked, kneeling against a wall. “I’ve fought mummies before, but they never restitched themselves, or… or did whatever those did when they touched me.
“I don’t know, but that’s not important. We need to search this place. There must be a secret passage or something around here.” Jackal brought the group back to work. He began searching around with Malbi while Stock kept lookout through the ajar door and Grum healed their wounds.
“Nothing!” Jackal was looking perturbed.
“Then we wait for someone to show up?” Malbi had also found nothing.
“There were some abandoned buildings across the street,” offered Stock.
“Wild goose chase,” Jackal muttered.
