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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sammael99" data-source="post: 7010216" data-attributes="member: 1157">Session 2: A Buried MysteryFollowing the band's encounter with Thorn, Sabrina is understandably anxious about locating an ophidoscope. After a few days of research, she hears of a strange shop in the upper reaches of the Tower of the Starred Ribbon. The owner is an old Dwarf called Dwimberg who specializes in unique items. He insists all of them are of a mysterious nature, and he has an ophidoscope for sale, recently acquired. He is asking for a thousand crowns in order to part with it, and amount that is nowhere near within the current means of Sabrina and her acolytes put together. Valya spends his time researching the nature of ophidoscopes rather than finding one. Early in his apprenticeship, his master forced him to learn the sinuous script of the Ophidians, and ever since this long-lost race has been a fascination of his. Spending long days in various libraries around Vornheim, he manages to trace rumours that suggest that books were a human invention: the Ophidians who reigned upon the world in eons past had no use for books for they encoded information in the skin of snakes. Ophidoscopes were designed to decode that information. Valya does not manage to understand if the information would be on the skins of live snakes or dead snakeskins. Understanding that a significant amount of money will be needed if Dwimberg's ophidoscope is to be acquired, Jack and Wistul start looking around for opportunities. Jack learns that the Count of Versheim is seeking aspiring adventurers to clean up the catacombs under his out of town manor. The pay offered is rumored to be ridiculously low however, and the manor is four days walk away, so Jack isn't convinced it's the right opportunity for them given that Sabrina needs to have given the ophidoscope to Thorn in about two weeks time. <img src="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/82rplnijpad9we4/Blind%20Grunsten.jpg?dl=0" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /><a href="http://legrumph.org/Terrier/" target="_blank">Illustration by John Grumph, used with authorization</a>Wistul hears something from Blind Grunsten, a beggar that he frequently meets in the sewers where he sleeps. Another beggar has recently been found dead in the sewers under the Panjandra District. His face and body were raked as if by some claws. The interesting thing though is that the guy who found him found a golden bracelet next to the body. The beggars are worried that something unnatural light roam the sewers. Since Wistul is a mighty warrior (he owns a sword!) they would like him to investigate and eliminate the threat. Wistul tells his companions about this, and they decide to pursue that lead hoping that the bracelet will lead back to more riches, hopefully enough to pay for the ophidoscope. Early one morning they meet near one of the entrances of the Viscera district (entering the sewers from the Panjandra district is tough because the militia tends to monitor those) and enter the sewers. After an hour of navigating the sewer hallways, the party reaches the spot where the raked beggars body was found. This part of the sewer network could be described as luxurious: large canals and narrow but walkable sidewalks. Wistul examines the floor where the beggar was found, and there is an unmistakable trace of dried blood, not more than a few days old. Valya also spots something shiny in a crack between two cobblestones. He manages to extract it; it's a tiny translucent gemstone.Excited by the prospect of cold hard cash, the party searches the area nearby and notices on a wall not too far from where the beggar was killed an engraving in fancy lettering that says "Long and slender, fast and silver". No one knows what that may mean, but Wistul is instinctively convinced that there is a secret passage under or next to that engraving. They start poking the wall and area nearby, but to no avail. Valya asks them to stand back, and points to one of the larger stones in the wall where the passage should be, muttering under his breath. Suddenly the stone grows in an awful screeching sound and knocks over a large portion of the wall. Once the dust has settled, there's clearly an opening visible on the other side. Sabrina shines her lantern, and can see a rough corridor carved in rock. Jack theorizes that perhaps some deranged nobleman gets his rocks off by killing beggars and uses the passageway to access the sewers. "If we can prove it", he says, "we may be able to blackmail him and earn our keep for the night..."The group quickly pulls out some of the stones in the wall and a passage into the corridor is thus created. Jack enters first followed by Sabrina, Wistul and Valya. The wizard looks back briefly as he passes the now destroyed secret door and notices, on the other side of the sewer canal, a fat granary cat looking at him fixedly.The corridor leads to a larger cave like structure. The floor is covered in old skulls and bones. On the right there's a masoned corridor exiting the room, straight on the carved passageway continues. They decide to enter the masoned area, but as they exit the cave Valya and Wilbur see a flash of movement behind them. Valya moves forward so that Wilbur now stands between him and whatever moved. Wilbur turns around to face two animated skeletons that have just formed from the bones strewn on the floor. More Skeletons are animating behind the first two. He manages to avoid their first rakes and takes his sword out. Valya starts chanting in a loud voice and a diffused red light appears in his hand. He points it at one of the skeletons and a red flash darts from his hands onto the skeleton which is burned to a crisp and falls to ashes. At the same moment a loud thunderclap is heard and a flash of lightning emanates from the wizard's body(1). Wistul is temporarily blinded, and the second skeleton attacking him manages to injure his arm. Valya is jubilant: "Haha!" he says, "First time that this Mighty Luminescent Assault works so well!" Jack moves forward to come in front of Valya and protect him from the Skeletons. In the light of Sabrina's lantern, now pointing in the right direction, they can see that there are four skeletons attacking them.Sabrina slams her staff (at the top of which the lantern is attached) on the floor and starts intoning in an authoritative voice: "The Black Mists of Drojafin I search for assistance. Hear my call, denizens of the astral realm. Take shadows and flesh. Take will and word. I bind you, creatures, to my call and my need!" She drops some cat fur as she speaks, and a black mist forms in front of Wistul and Jack. Two felines looking a lot like lynxes appear from the mist and screech at the skeletons. With adequate light and the assistance of the supernatural felines, the warrior and the elf do short work of the remaining skeletons. "So much for the deranged nobleman theory..." Jack muses.The group swiftly leaves the cave now littered with charred and broken bones and skulls. Through a long masoned corridor they enter a high ceilinged and ornate room. On their right, a flight of stairs going up. On their left, a door decorated with a coat of arms representing a silver fish on a field of white. - "Haven't we encountered this recently ? A fish rings a bell..." Sabrina asks.- "Well, it certainly explains 'Long and slender, fast and silver'" says Jack. - "Wasn't Spade designing a garden for the Whitefish family ?" Valya asks. - "Yes, but this is a silver fish", counters Sabrina. - "In heraldry, silver is called white, isn't it ? Or is it the other way around ?" asks Jack. - "Good point. So we're in the Whitefish family mausoleum... Do we go up and rob the living or left and pillage the dead ?"They finally decide to investigate the door first. It doesn't seem to be locked. Sabrina blinds her lantern, and Jack manages to open the door in absolute silence. It opens onto a vast space with a central sarcophagus and several side alcoves. Torches light the central area of the room. Behind the sarcophagus, against the far wall, stands a large iron statue of a warrior with many details in his armor or shield reminiscent of the Whitefish emblems. In the open sarcophagus, a man is seated, reading a thick piece of paper. His clothes are faded and rotten but clearly used to be rich. His skin is flaked and bits of it are falling. - "Finally I received it!" he says in an excited yet grating voice, looking longingly at whatever it is he's reading. Jack quietly recedes, and the group discusses next steps in hushed tones. Sabrina suggests they could hide at the top of the flight of stairs and let the astral lynxes attack the suspected necromancer in the mausoleum. For lack of a better plan, everyone agrees. At Sabrina's murmured order, the two felines rush inside the mausoleum. Cries, screeches, kerfuffle. After a few moments, things quieten down. Then the group hears the voice of the man they have dubbed 'the necromancer': "Someone must have intruded! You and you, investigate! Check every corner! And close the door, I need some quiet to ponder dressing arrangements!"From the door below the hidden group emerge two shambling cadavers (2). One leaves towards the passageway they arrived from, and the other starts checking every corner, literally. Wistul and Sabrina are somewhat horrified by the undead monstrosity, but Jack and Valya act all blasé about it. Wistul tries to open the door at the top of the stairs but realizes that not only is it locked, it seems to be barred from the other side. An unspoken exchange of looks and Jack and Wistul position themselves to jump the undead creature from above. As Jack prepares for his jump, he hears Valya murmur behind him and a hand touches his shoulder. As he jumps, his size increases to about twice the usual. Thankfully, the ceiling of the room is high. "Why did you do that?" Jack murmurs in an angry rasp. "I find Ixam-Orko's Aggrandizement to be a most versatile formula", Valya says to Sabrina matter of factly. Jack and Wistul hack repeatedly at the undead, even chopping bits off, but it takes a long while before all the dark sorcery that animated the creature fades and the various hacked limbs stop moving. Jack suffers from a leg injury where an independent undead hand squeezed his calf muscle to the blood, and Wistul suffered a bite on his chest. Jack is now quite riled up and the group decides to rush the necromancer and take him by surprise. Wistul kicks the door in, and runs towards the startled man in the sarcophagus. He barely has time to register the apparently paralyzed lynx standing immobile by the tomb. Both Valya and Sabrina intone at the same time. From Valya's fingertips spring forth red flashes of light accompanied by the usual lightning flash and thunderclap. Meanwhile, Sabrina's hands seem to project green blobs of acid. All hit the necromancer straight in the chest.Wistul and Jack both swing their swords at the flaky skinned creature. The ceiling is just tall enough for Jack to stand, and hampers his style so that he misses. So does Wistul. The creature turns around, dropping its piece of paper and yelling "Protect me!" It runs away through a narrow passage at the end of the large room. Simultaneously, other shambling cadavers emerge from the alcoves and attack the party. The confrontation, which had started so gloriously well, turns sour. Sabrina attempts the same sorcery that burned the decaying skin of the alleged necromancer on the shambling cadavers, but fails miserably. Instead of erupting from her fingers, the acid blobs seem to melt with her skin, and her hands and forearms turn sickly green. Valya manages to damage one of the undead with his own magical projectiles, but a blow from another one of the creatures takes him down. Sabrina is not far behind, and when two of the shambling cadavers slam her with their claws, she falls unconscious as well. Jack and Wistul now face the remaining creatures and slowly grind them back to oblivion. By the time the last undead falls in a rotten heap of cadaver flesh and bone, Wistul is barely standing. Wistul and Jack revive their companions who, as luck (3) would have it haven't sustained any fatal injuries. The group then proceeds to check the various alcoves, tombs and (of course) the sarcophagus. They collect coins, bracelets, necklaces and various small gems. They also pick up the piece of cardboard paper that the necromancer was reading. Written in golden letters, it reads: "To Lord Reginald Whitefish. You are cordially invited to the Undertaker's Ball on the 7th day of the Serpent's Moon. It will take place at the Grand Mortuary alongside the St Hildebord Cemetery. Reminder: this is a costume party, plus one welcome."Amidst the bits of jewelry and other valuables, Valya also finds a strange looking crystal phial containing a purplish gas (4). He shows it to the rest of the band but no one has any idea what it might be. They decide to take it and exit the mausoleum. The minute Jack crosses the threshold of the door, they hear a massive wrenching sound from behind them. They turn round and see that the iron statue seems to have activated. It is now brandishing its sword and marching heavily towards the party. Valya slams the door shut and utters the formula for the Agency of the Rigid Condemnation. The door shimmers for an instant and magical sigils appear on its surface. "Run, you fools!", Valya says to the rest of the group. Heavy pounding and hacking can be heard from the other side of the door as they exit the entrance to the Mausoleum. As they run into the cave that leads to the sewers, two of the walking cadavers await. They lunge out at Jack and Valya, but the warrior pushes the wizard out of the way and takes the blow that was meant for him instead. Jack is now severely injured as well, but the group continues to run and soon exits into the sewers. The cadavers are too slow to catch up. Without wasting any time in case the Iron Statue follows them outside, the group rushes as fast as Valya's stunted leg will allow to a sewer exit in the Viscera district that Wistul knows is rarely under militia surveillance. As they climb up the rungs leading back to the surface and fresh air, Sabrina looks down and sees, two granary cats staring at her from the bottom of the ladder. She mentions this as they exit the manhole into the frozen street, and Valya mentions his own feline sighting. "What does it mean?" asks Wistul. Everyone shrugs and they decide to convene instead at the Bleak Beaver to discuss their adventures.***(1) Each spell may have different manifestations in DCC. This is rolled once and for all when the wizard or elf learns the spell. Valya has a less than discrete version of Magic Missile at his disposal. (2) The players had clearly understood these were zombies, but we decided not to call them that since the term didn't seem adequate for the vibe we're after. Shambling cadavers they are for now. (3) Normally in DCC you roll luck when you reach 0 hp to see if you're dead or not. I houseruled that you could burn a point of luck to avoid death. It's a scarce resource though...(4) All magic items in this campaign will be unique. Just feels better that way.</blockquote>

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