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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jeremy" data-source="post: 9775774" data-attributes="member: 4036"><h3>4/16/22</h3>[CODE]You ever have one of those games that is just tonally all over the place?This one has some great character moments in it, but it does swerve way into silly.Not the normal for the game but if you're still here I hope it makes you giggle.[/CODE]Grath calls out to Ilmater and with a curt gesture and immediately calls down holy light on the closest zombie.  Strangely it doesn’t react at all, it just stands there and burns.  Veldra investigates out of curiosity but when she gets within reach it suddenly claws at her so she beheads it.  Unfortunately, it continues to fight.  Rho isn’t having that and smashes the entire body of the rotting corpse.  Rounding the corner there are more shambling dead including some more intelligent looking ones ripping apart and feasting on one of their own.Veldra interposes herself and her Echo between the undead and her friends, raising her crystalline shield.  Gribitz calls to the Green to cleanse this place of rotten unlife summoning Fozzie and the Bearoness to the village.  Grath’s reaction is even more visceral, he chokes on the wrongness of this desecrated temple and his holiness is equally repulsive to the ghouls that were feasting on the zombie so they turn their attention to him.Grath clutches his holy symbol and waves of holy energy begin pouring off of him with several of the zombies instantly crumbling away to dust.  Veldra and Rho surge into the gap Grath opens and are met by the oncoming ghouls which utter epithets in a garbled Elvish.  More zombies pour out of the ruined out-buildings around the temple.  Grath and Gribitz hang back with spells ripping into the undead ranks while Rho, Veldra, and the bears push forward.  As Rho passes the open doors of the temple, he spies ranks of organized and coordinated ghouls lying in ambush, directed by a pair of terrible ghasts.  Black smoke begins to pour off Rho and he charges into the ambush.The other undead around the ghasts seem empowered by their presence and their movements seem directed by them.  They have very long tongues and begin speaking some kind of blasphemy but it is difficult to decipher in the chaos.  Grath meets this profanity with his own holy prayers as spirits of the martyrs of Ilmater begin to manifest all about the threshold of the temple and begin engaging the ghoul army.Rho lays about on all sides with his fiery maul smashing the overripe bodies of the front rank of ghouls into black piles of goo.  When the ghasts leap over the carnage the first one that arrives rips the Bearoness apart limb from limb sending her spirit back the Fey while the earthen body she was animated crumbles back away to dust.  Ghouls surge forth and are met by spirits of Ilmater as Stick vibrates in Gribitz’s hand until he slams it into the earth and an immense outpouring of the Green’s wrath rips apart the entire front rank of ghouls with a thick wall of razor sharp thorns.The demonic undead force their dead bodies through the sword-like barrier to rip through Veldra’s armor as if it wasn’t even there.  When Grath’s spiritual energy pulls apart one of the weakened Ghasts, the ghouls bonded to it fall like puppets with their strings cut.  The priest is not satisfied with just one demonic undead banished from the temple and lowers his holy symbol at the other one blasting a smoking hole through its chest and disintegrating its body like dust on the wind.The remainder of the undead thralls fall to the ground.  As Gribitz starts trying to figure out how to bury this army of undead, flocks of carrion birds answering the call of the Green descend en masse and begin feeding on the various corpses to Veldra’s utter disgust.Out in front of the temple, illuminated in the now open sky, is a statue of the Saint Gunter Malokah and his defaced offering bowl.  Grath gets to work attempting to set the holy relic to rights.  Veldra finds a large statue of Ilmater inside the temple and pauses to look up at it with consideration.  It holds a large leather book with empty pages she hands to Grath.  Grath reflexively grasps the book but he is awed and staring up at the statue.The two have a discussion in the shadow of the statue with Veldra trying to comprehend why Grath wants to exemplify the god of suffering and martyrdom.  Grath delivers an oration that Veldra considers silently as Grath begins examining the book.  The tome is the Opus of Sacrifice, a holy relic of Ilmater, and it brings the priest to his knees.  Veldra, having seen nothing but blank pages in the book, is surprised by this reaction and settles in against a pillar to watch over Grath.It takes Gribitz hours to buy the many fallen and he is covered in mud when he trudges back into the temple, exhausted.  Grath looks at the mud he’s tracking in and picks him up to carry him out.  Grath is melancholy to leave the temple but it has been cleared as well as he can and may provide shelter in future for travelers or even be resettled one day.Looking southeast to the horizon, the party considers setting out with Gribitz arguing passionately for leaving the cursed town, but with the idea of camping in the wild vs the remains of civilization—they choose the spooky ruins.Gribitz dreams of a darkened desert, the soil turning sandy and dry to rich loam as water starts flowing and becomes a lush savannah.  Grath dreams of an enormous library that he is reading in surrounded by bruised and bloodied monks that smile down approvingly at him.  In the morning after eating and seeing to Yip and the others, Gribitz speaks to Rho about his dreams but only gets a non-committal grunt out of him.Grath checks in the Bag of Holding and finds the Orb of Fates has returned, it starts talking in its usual pompous way and he stuffs it quickly back in the bag and digs out his Tome of Understanding instead.  Grath approaches Veldra and requests she not allow him to fall asleep as he crams the book as hard as he can to Gribitz's great distress.******On the road the next day, two heavily armored figures stop the cart in the name of the Law of the Woods and accuse the party of assassinating Brunningam Lumpines in his sleep.  Veldra asks what the grounds of this accusation are and by whose authority they are doing this.  They respond naming the knighted gnomes of the forest.  Gribitz offers them Good Berries partially to smooth things over and partially to bribe them out of whatever this is.  They indignantly respond that bribery is a crime and try to arrest him.The last one to speak to the victim was Rho as per the testimony of several woodland creatures.  Grath explains that the party left the exceptionally long-winded gnome they encountered in good health on their way to cleanse the temple of Ilmater.  Gribitz starts driving the cart back down the road away from the sentries but the armored gnomes appear in the cart.  As the party looks on in wonder, one of the gnomes casts a spell that takes the party to a woodland court presided over by a giant owl.The owl speaks in owl which the court of gnomes understands but most of the accused do not.  The prosecutor is a weasley little gnome that twirls his mustache.  The proceedings are chaotic with questioning following no clear order.  The accuser claims to know nothing of the murder scene and it is the judge who explains it was a 5 foot house, and the door was shattered in three pieces.  It is revealed during questioning that the victim was killed with a shabby knife, barely a kitchen knife, in bad condition.  Gribitz points out that all of Rho’s weapons are in immaculate condition.  He also points out that Rho takes fancy doodads and weapons with him.  When asked if Brunningham had any valuables, the accuser, apparently named Stabbar, excitedly declares he had a lot of gold.Gribitz finally catches this clue and some guards check Stabbar’s home for a knife set missing a knife and a bag of gold still marked with Brunningham’s seal.  They swiftly find both as the giant owl finds in favor of the party.  The case is dismissed, and Mr. Stabbar is summarily abducted by the giant owl who swoops off with him to eat him.The gnomes look around and mutter in wonder, “Maybe Mr. Stabbar WAS the stabber.”  With little apology the party is magically returned to their cart.  Kith awakens only to explain with extreme rancor the plague that is all gnomekind.</blockquote>

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