ADVENTURE 20: WOE OR WEAL BARROW
PC Roster:
Game Session Date: 22 March 2023
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The four Trained Professional Adventures rode their mounts south through the Phostwood on their way back to Greyhawk City. They approached the village of Luminaxa close to dusk, when most of the shopkeepers were closing up their places of business and ensuring the shutters were closed nice and tight against their windows. But there was a tavern still open, the Aca Balaur, with lanterns visible through the windows and a hearty fire in the fireplace. The heroes dismounted from their steeds, tied them by their reins to the hitching posts outside, and headed for the door. Alistair bid his grackle familiar to keep an eye on the horses and call out if anyone tried to bother them.
Inside, the tavern was warm and toasty compared with the bitter air outside, and the place was filled almost to capacity. There was a table free over in the corner and the four headed that way, Chaevaris getting there first and choosing a seat that allowed her to face the building's only door. The others took their places and waited for the barmaid to approach to take their orders.
In the meantime, they listened to what the locals all had to say. Talk had stopped momentarily at the presence of strangers, but once the locals got a good look at the four and decided they weren't bandits or troublemakers - the holy symbol of Pelor emblazoned upon Harlan's armor no doubt helped a great deal on that front - they resumed their conversations where they'd left off. But more than a few of the tavern customers were commenting amongst themselves about Harlan's holy symbol of Pelor being so prominently displayed. Finally, an older tavern wench came by to take their drink orders, saw Harlan's armor, and asked, "Hey, are you here about the children?"
"I'm sorry?" Harlan asked, puzzled but with a look of concern on his face. "We're travelers, unfamiliar with this region. Is there a problem with children in the village?"
"There's been seven kids gone missing in the past two months," the barmaid replied. "Three of their mothers, too."
"What can you tell us about them?" the paladin asked.
The barmaid told them all she knew, and then the others at nearby tables, their own conversations having broken off again, filled in the gaps. It seemed in the last two months, seven of the village children had gone missing, often disappearing right from their own yards while their parents were just inside the house, and had heard nothing. Sometimes, a mother and her child were returning from the village store back to their own homes and were never seen again. But the disappearances happened about once a week or so, always at or just after dusk.
"How long ago was the last disappearance?" asked Ageratum.
"Been six days now," came the reply from an old farmer, whose wrinkled face told of many years spent out under the sun. "Y'ask me, it were prolly goblins. Got us lotsa goblins in the Phostwood, that's for dang sure."
"But why all of a sudden would they start attackin' kids right here in the village?" demanded another of the servers. "I could see them snatchin' kids what wandered into the forest all alone, but that's not what's been happenin'. No, I think it's undead, comin' outta Knight's Hall."
"Bloodhand Hall, you mean," corrected the elderly farmer.
"Please explain," replied Harlan, and the villagers informed him there was a ruined keep outside the village in the Phostwood forest, that used to be called Knight's Keep or Goldenbeams, back when a rich servant of Pelor named Balaur Luminaductor was alive and dwelt there. But then the knight turned to evil - stories varied on the details of exactly how - and he became known as Balaur Bloodhand, and the keep was then referred to as Black Hollow or Bloodhand Hall. Balaur had a wife, but nobody had seen her since he turned to evil, so it was generally believed that he'd killed her. In any case, Black Hallow was said to be haunted by undead, and the area was generally shunned by the villagers.
"Couldn't pay to get me out that way," professed a village farmer. He was about to elaborate when the door to the tavern opened and a young woman burst in, out of breath and with a panicked look in her eyes. "My daughter--" she gasped, "--she's missing! Valeria is missing!" And she collapsed into a chair, sobbing violently.
Harlan was at her side in a shot. "We will look for your daughter," he promised, kneeling before her and looking her in the eyes. "Tell me her age, and describe her for me." Wiping back her tears, Valeria's mother provided the paladin with the information he requested. Once he had a good description of the missing girl, he turned to the crowd of customers. "Tell me how to get to this Black Hollow," he said. "We will look there first."
The villagers said the ruins were about a 30-minute walk out of town, to the east, and there was a forest path that practically led the way there, although the end of the path had become somewhat overgrown over the years since the place fell to ruin. Harlan nodded to the other adventurers and they rose from the table, heading out the door. "We will do our best to return with your daughter," he promised Valeria's mother. "And we will put an end to whatever monster is behind these abductions." He didn't voice his main concern: that while it might not be too late for Valeria, the other seven children and the three mothers had likely been slain shortly after their own abductions.
A half-hour's walk through a forest path took considerably less time on horseback; Harlan, riding his white horse Law, took the lead. They were deep into the forest when the various animal sounds around them - the hooting of owls, the scrambling of squirrels in the branches overhead - suddenly ceased, as if none of the forest creatures wanted to draw any attention to themselves. Chaevaris, riding her gray horse Talkacha just behind Harlan, heard a crashing in the trees off to her right and readied an arrow into her composite longbow, calling a warning to the others. But they had also heard the commotion ahead, and before long a massive creature emerged onto the moon-lit path: a monster as big as a full-grown brown bear, but an oddly-shaped bear indeed, for it had the head of an owl, with feathers along its front legs. It rose up on its hind legs and Harlan and Chaevaris, the two adventurers with elven eyesight that allowed them to see better than the halfling and human members of their adventuring team, saw another such creature, slightly smaller than the first, exit through the clearing the first one had made through the underbrush.
Harlan leaped out of the saddle and drew his flaming burst longsword, the fire-tinged blade aiding Alistair and Ageratum in seeing what they were up against. Then, as fearless as only a paladin can be, he charged the mother owlbear, swinging his blade across her chest and belly and eliciting a cry of pain. Alistair, further back and still in Zephyr's saddle, whipped out his magic missile wand and fired off a blast, hitting the same creature as it dropped back onto all fours and swiped a paw filled with sharp claws at Harlan. The other owlbear, nearly an adult, came shambling over to Harlan's side and made an awkward attempt at biting his sword arm, but the half-elf dodged by moving further into the middle of the forest path.
Chaevaris, astride her horse's saddle, took careful aim at the mother owlbear and sent her arrow burying itself in the beast's shoulder. And Ageratum remained in the saddle as well, using the greater height sitting astride Munson provided her to shoot a shrunken "pebble-boulder" at the hybrid monster with her sling. Upon impact, the stone returned to its original size before Alistair had reduced it to one-sixteenth scale with a shrink item spell. As it squawked in outrage at the unusual attack, Harlan stabbed his flaming blade deep into the beast's chest, piercing her heart and bringing her rampage to a sudden end. But just that quickly, he yanked the blade out of the fallen owlbear's body and swung it in a flaming arc to come cleaving down at the younger menace, cutting deep into the beast's shoulder.
Alistair aimed his wand at the remaining owlbear and fired off a second barrage, five magic missiles streaking across the path to hit the creature unerringly in the top of its feathered head. But as Harlan was right there at hand, it devoted its retaliatory attacks upon the paladin, rearing up to bring both sets of front claws swinging at him while snapping his beak at him as well. Fortunately, Harlan was able to either avoid the attacks or get his shield up in time to deflect them away. Ageratum used her sling to send another "pebble-boulder" crashing into an owlbear's head, and then Chaevaris shot another arrow into it, dropping it as well. Once both owlbears were lying unmoving on the forest path, Harlan approached each beast in turn and slit their throats to ensure their deaths, preventing the Blood Mirror from stabilizing them at the last moment, as was its wont. Then the heroes mounted back up and returned down the path towards the Black Hollow.
The ruins stood at the top of a hill, appearing initially as a black silhouette against the star-lit sky. As the heroes approached, they could make out more details: the "ruins" were actually in better condition than they'd been led to believe, with no visible gaps in the stone walls. A pair of solid-looking wooden doors looked to be the only way in, and while the wiry scrub-brush and ivy growing up around the building gave silent testimony to the fact there had been nobody tending to it in a long time, the place looked perfectly defensible. If this were indeed the place where the kidnapped children and mothers had been taken, it didn't look to be a place offering any easy escape-ways.
The heroes tied the reins of their respective mounts to nearby trees, Alistair casting a quick mage armor upon himself and telling Ambrose to once again look after the horses and give a warning if anyone - or anything - approached. Ageratum approached the doors, giving them a good look-over before announcing they looked to be in normal working order, did not seem to be trapped, and had likely seen recent use lately. Then, reaching up on her tippy-toes, she pushed them open to reveal the keep's interior.
The interior, from what they could see, was all one big room, with what looked to be a set of stairs leading down to a lower level off to the left, at the far end of the keep where it was harder to see in the gloomy darkness. Up towards the front were four large tables, each with a set of wooden benches providing seating. One of these tables was empty; the other three had various warriors seated and slumped over in death, each reduced to little more than a skeleton in rusting armor. A cold fire pit sat on the floor in the middle of the tables, the ashes looking to be ancient. At the far end of the hall was a longer table, with some sort of statues on either end, covered in so much shadow it was impossible even for those with elven blood to make out any details. Chaevaris took care of their lighting problem by taking the one arrow from her quiver that had the clothlike results of a shrink item spell cast upon a blazing bonfire; aiming the arrow at the center of the firepit, she released the arrow and returned the bonfire to its full size and effectiveness as a light source.
In the glow of the bonfire's flames, more details could be made out. There were five tapestries hanging on the walls, one in the far back behind the banquet table, and two others on the walls to the side. There was another door on the right-hand wall, but it was boarded up and the detailed carving of Pelor's holy symbol inscribed upon its upper half had been covered in scratches and deep cuts, likely made by an axe. The skeletons were covered in a layer of dust, indicating they'd not risen from their current positions despite the tales of undead haunting Black Hollow. But more importantly, there was the body of a little girl fitting Valeria's description laying upon the banquet table, which was flanked by the two statues of what were now recognizable as gargoyles. Before each statue stood a pile of smashed and broken bones of various sizes.
Harlan cast a bless spell upon the group as they advanced towards the back of the keep. Ageratum felt for a pulse on the girl, but her skin was already cold - she'd been dead, it seemed, for some while. Harlan was able to determine there was no evil aura emanating from the girl's body - a definite concern given the two puncture marks on her neck - but in checking out her aura he was able to pick up a definite evil emanation coming from the gargoyle statues. "These are real gargoyles!" he warned the others. He could also sense evil from the stairs heading down to a lower level.
Alistair had been thoughtfully examining the tapestries and discovered they told a tale: in the first, an armored knight (presumably Balaur Luminaductor) being consecrated by an elder cleric with a sword; in the second, the Pelorian knight at his wedding; the third showed the Pelorian knight fighting a demon while his wife was being seduced by another knight in dark armor; the fourth depicted the wife embracing her husband while a squire kneeled before them; and in the fifth, the Pelorian knight now wore black armor and stood over his squire, who was horrendously wounded, while corpses bowed down before the black knight - or possibly to the glowing ruby he held in his right hand. However, the young sorcerer looked up at Harlan's cry and fired a scorching ray spell at the leftmost gargoyle, causing it to flinch in pain and reveal its living nature. Alistair had no compunctions about attacking gargoyles, knowing they were wholly evil - at least according to the acclaimed children's book, Elfy's Exploits in Castle Perilous, which he had enjoyed reading (or having read to him) as a kid.
Chaevaris nocked another arrow to her bow and took careful aim at the second gargoyle, which had yet to move. Ageratum flicked a third "pebble-boulder" from her small pouch onto the head of the first gargoyle, causing it to restore to full size and roll off the creature's head to crash to the floor at its feet. It launched itself at Harlan with its head lowered, trying to skewer the paladin on its horns as it reached out at him with its clawed hands. Harlan accepted the damage from a set of claws as he brought his flaming sword to bear, catching the winged creature in the side of its rocky torso, before another scorching ray spell from Alistair brought the creature crashing down to lay prostrate before the half-elf paladin. Ageratum scrambled over to ensure its demise - she didn't want the Blood Mirror, which was occasionally (she thought) more trouble than it was worth, stabilizing the unconscious gargoyle and allowing it to return to unholy life.
At about the same time the second gargoyle launched itself from the plinth upon which it had been standing, but Chaevaris was ready for it and released her arrow, sending it directly into the creature's neck. It made it as far as the closest table before the elven archer had released another arrow at it, this one piercing its eye and sending it crashing into the pile of warrior skeletons collapsed upon the table; the impact splintered the rotting wood and sent armored bones flying about in all directions.
This close to the banquet table upon which the dead body of poor Valeria lay, Harlan saw silver tableware laid out as if for a feast, but covered in dust - indicating the kinds of feasts now performed in the keep needed no such accoutrements. He laid on hands, channeling Pelor's holy energy into his torn and battered body and healed up some of the wounds he'd taken in battle, before giving the entirety of the upper floor of the keep a sweep with his senses. Having found no further sources of evil, he recommended the group head downstairs.
Alistair concentrated for a moment and cast a flame arrow spell upon Chaevaris's quiver of Ehlonna. "Sorry, Elfy," he apologized. "I had meant to do that earlier, but I forgot." He then cast another spell, bringing forth Ogilvy, his unseen servant, and handed him a small sack containing four "pebble-boulders." He also gave another such bag of magic pebbles to Ageratum, who was down to one stone left in her original sack of ammunition. She took the proffered sack without comment and then went to ensure the second gargoyle was truly dead (helping it out with the blade of her magic short sword).
Chaevaris nocked an arrow at the ready and headed over to the top of the stairs. They led down into darkness, but the elf's keen vision picked out what looked to be a coffin on an upraised plinth in the middle of the chamber below. But then a figure stepped into view, standing at the bottom of the stairs. He wore heavy armor, with a shield and longsword, but his face - about all the elf could see of his actual body - was taught against its skull, desiccated like a mummy. This, at last, gave credence to the view held by the villagers that the keep was haunted by undead creatures, for there was no way the armored warrior below her could still be counted among the living, in the archer's estimation. Still, it called out, in a dry, whispery voice, "Come down to your doom, interlopers!"
Harlan stepped in front of Chaevaris with his own shield and weapon in hand, ready to strike if the armored mummy tried climbing the stairs. Then Alistair stepped behind the paladin, and whereas Harlan and Chaevaris had been able to face the undead monstrosity without incident, the sorcerer felt a chill of dread go up his spine and he froze in horror at the very sight of the deathless mummy. He'd planned on hurling a scorching ray spell down at it, but his mind was frozen; he couldn't think of the proper incantations that had normally just rolled off his tongue when in combat earlier. Ogilvy stepped next to his master, awaiting orders, but Alistair was speechless in his paralyzation and the unseen servant merely stood there until ordered to do something.
Chaevaris sent two arrows in rapid succession down over Harlan's shoulders to strike at the mummy, but he caught them on his shield instead. Ageratum ran in front of the archer, looked down at the mummy and felt a moment of fear (which, unlike Alistair, passed briefly without incident) and tossed a pebble-boulder at him, catching him unawares with the unusual attack.
Then another foe entered the combat. Dropping down from the wall, upon which he'd been spider climbing, Magda - a young woman looking very much like the wife depicted in the tapestries above - stood there among a host of mirror images, for there were a total of five copies of her shifting around and making it impossible to determine which was the true foe and which were mere illusions. But then the mummy, apparently not liking standing there and getting magical boulders tossed down on his head, stepped up the stairs to engage with Harlan, who stood ready for the undead thing's attack. The paladin's flaming burst longsword struck the mummy, and the flames covering the blade seemed to give an extra whoosh of blazing fire upon impact. The mummy brought his own weapon slamming towards Harlan, but the half-elf deflected the blow with his shield.
Harlan channeled Pelor's smiting energy into his blade and hit the mummy again, cutting through its armor and striking the withered body within with its flame-covered blade. The undead thing staggered under the blow, nearly losing its footing on the steep steps. Chaevaris managed to pop two arrows into the mummy as it was teetering, dealing it additional damage as it struggled to remain upright. Ageratum tossed another pebble at it but the stone went wide, striking the stone floor beside the shifting mirror images and restoring itself to boulder form, harming absolutely nobody.
Magda - all five of them, actually - raised a hand and pointed a pale finger at Harlan, and five beams of energy came blasting his way; only one of them was the true ray of enfeeblement, but whichever one it was it did its job, stealing a portion of the half-elf's strength, which Harlan could feel taking effect in the way in which his sword suddenly seemed heavier in his hands. The mummy then lashed out at Harlan and the paladin was too slow to dodge the blow, but although a puff of rancid dust accompanied the impact, the power of the paladin's deity which coursed through his body prevented the mummy rot from having any effect. But then, gritting his teeth at the extra effort it cost him in his weakened state, he brought his flaming blade down twice at the mummy, finally taking him out; the armored undead form collapsed backwards and rattled down to the bottom of the stairs.
Seeing the mummy's demise had an invigorating effect upon Alistair's paralyzed mind, but seeing the mummy had already been slain, he switched tactics and instead of casting a scorching ray spell as intended (for he knew mummies were particularly susceptible to flames, as per Elfy Fights the Mummy Lord), he brought up his magic missile wand and fired off a burst, sending an individual missile streaking towards each of the five potential Magdas. Four of them, upon being struck, popped like bubbles, while the other seemed unfazed at all by the attack - she no doubt had a shield spell active! Well, drat and bother!
Chaevaris shot two more arrows at Magda, but the pale woman was much quicker than she looked and dodged them both. Ageratum tossed her first sack of pebbles away (as it was empty) and threw the first pebble from her restock down at the vampire. It conked her on the head as it reformed to full size, causing her to hiss in surprise and reveal her prominent fangs, as if anyone had been in doubt about her true nature. But it appeared as if she had managed to ignore any potential damage from the boulder as easily as she had the magic missile, and belatedly Ageratum recalled how Carly had been able to shrug off many physical attacks as well - and she had just been a vampire spawn! This woman seemed, if anything, even tougher than Carly had been!
The four heroes were all standing in the stairwell, making the vampire wizard wish she had a lightning bolt spell prepared, but she made do with a slow spell instead; the two women were able to shrug off the intended effects while the two men were not. Harlan took a moment to cast a cure light wounds spell upon himself, healing up more of the damage he'd taken at the hands of the mummy, while Alistair slowly made his way down the stairs, his unseen servant following obediently at his side. "Go check out the coffin!" Alistair commanded, and Ogilvy moved to comply.
Chaevaris climbed down the steps, fitting a silver-tipped arrow to her bow as she did so, and she fired it at the vampire upon entering the lower chamber. Unfortunately, Magda managed to dodge that one as well and it crashed against the side wall, the shaft snapping. But Magda kept going, sunning straight up the wall at the side of the opening for the stairs, until she stood at the very top of the 30-foot wall, near the ceiling.
Ageratum entered the chamber next, unstoppering a potion of spider climbing and scampering right up the wall after the surprised vampire, who hadn't expected any of her mortal foes to be able to reproduce her maneuver. But she concentrated not upon the little halfling but rather the elf archer below, staring at Chaevaris and sending forth the power of her will. Chaevaris's eyes widened in shock as she heard the vampire command, "Shoot the halfling!" and the archer, as if in some sort of remote control, fitted an arrow to her longbow and took aim at Ageratum.
"I say!" cried Alistair at this sudden but unwilling betrayal, as Harlan moved past the sorcerer out of the staircase and into the chamber below. Poking his head around the corner from the stairwell, Alistair sent a scorching ray spell up at the vampire, hitting her with his single blast of flame. There was a creaking noise as Ogilvy lifted the lid of the "coffin" (it was actually a sarcophagus, but none of the heroes had determined this yet at the time) and found a longbow laying there at the bottom. But, having performed the task commanded of it, the unseen servant left the bow where it was and awaited its next instructions.
Chaevaris shot an arrow at Ageratum but it missed; Alistair let out a sigh of relief until the archer placed another arrow into place, took careful aim, and hit the archer on her second attempt. "Hey!" cried Ageratum as the arrow pierced the top of her shoulder. But, not being able to do anything to stop her adventuring companion from shooting at her directly, Ageratum decided the best course of action was to try to take out the vampire herself. She stabbed the tip of her silver short sword at Magda, catching the undead wizard in the gut. No blood spilled from the wound, but the halfling could tell by Magda's pained expression that she had hurt the undead thing - good! Magda stepped back and retaliated at Ageratum with a scorching ray spell of her own, but the nimble halfling dodged the spell with ease, even while standing sideways on a wall, and then stabbed forth again with her blade and caught Magda once more in the belly.
Harlan, unable to reach the vampire up by the ceiling, thrust forward his holy symbol of Pelor up at her and channeled positive energy of the Sun God through it. However, vampires are notoriously difficult to turn and this proved to be the case this time. But Alistair cast another scorching ray up at her, striking her and causing her undead body to lose its full cohesiveness - it burst into a cloud of misty particles, which flowed down the wall and started floating over towards the back wall. Ageratum kept pace with it, running down the wall but taking another two hits from Chaevaris as she continued obeying her most recent order, to "shoot the halfling." "Elfy, no!" cried Alistair, but Ageratum tried taking things into her own hands; since the vampiric mist was traveling fairly slowly, she took the opportunity to run in close to Chaevaris and tried cutting her bowstring with her short sword. It was a good attempt, but the archer pivoted her bow away at the last moment.
Misty Magda hit the back wall and started seeping through a crack in it, more or less announcing the presence of a secret door in doing so. Harlan used his wand of cure light wounds on Ageratum, closing up the arrow wounds after the halfling plucked the offending shafts from her body and tossed them aside. Alistair prepared a shrink item spell, ready to try to shrink Chaevaris's bow to a size too small for practical use, but he was still slowed and couldn't make his way over to the archer with any kind of speed. But then Chaevaris pointed her bow down at the halfling and tried shooting her from a position so close at hand that Ageratum was successful in slitting the bowstring in twain with her blade; the readied arrow spilled to the stone floor at the archer's feet. But Ageratum was still in motion, breezing past Chaevaris to position herself beside the last of the mist squeezing through the crack in the hidden door, so she'd be in place to figure out the mechanism to open the door. By the time the vampire's misty form had passed fully through the wall, Ageratum had gotten the door open and kept pace as the mist flowed into one of two coffins positioned side by side in the chamber hidden behind the one holding the mummy's sarcophagus.
Once inside her coffin, Magda resumed her solid form, but she was the undead equivalent of unconscious: unable to move, unaware of her surroundings, having flowed over to her coffin as an automatic, unpiloted action. When the halfling raised the coffin lid and brought her silver short sword down upon the helpless vampire's neck, severing Magda's head from her shoulders, there was only a brief moment of awareness when the vampire's closed eyelids raised in surprise and pain, and then the woman once known as Magda Luminaductor was no more.
Chaevaris shook her head like a dog coming in from the rain, trying to clear it. She looked over at Ageratum and said, "I am so sorry...." Alistair imagined he knew just how the archer felt, for he was himself ashamed of having frozen up at the sight of an undead mummy when the others hadn't been affected in the least...although his extended inaction was probably preferable to actively trying to do one of his friends harm. "Not your fault, Elfy," he told Chaevaris. "These blasted undead are all sorts of unpleasant."
The team opened the second coffin, hoping to find a vampire in dark armor waiting to be staked or decapitated, but it was empty. There was, however, a ruby embedded onto the coffin's lid, which Ageratum appraised at around 200 pieces of gold as she pried it loose with her dagger. They also found a hidden stash of coins, and Magda had worn a valuable diamond necklace and a ruby ring, which Ageratum dumped into the chest of coins to lug back with them. But then Alistair had Ogilvy start bringing down the bones from the piles before the two gargoyle statues on the level above - bones he now knew to be those of the missing children and the three mothers - and placed them into the vampire's coffin; Harlan gently placed the body of Valeria inside as well, before Alistair cast a shrink item spell upon it and the chest of treasure for easy transport. "Other than Valeria, they probably won't be able to determine which bones are which," Chaevaris said sadly, "but at least they'll have some sense of closure."
"I'll recommend they take the coffin somewhere in the middle of the town, out in the open, away from the trees," Alistair said. "They can drop it down, restore it to its full size, and then set guards over it until daylight. That way, when that Bloodhand chap shows up looking to rest in his coffin, they'll have him - they can just wait for full daylight and then pop open the lid."
"Vampires often have multiple coffins, for just this very reason," pointed out Harlan Starblade.
"Yes, well, fine, but at least it's a chance," pressed Alistair. There was no arguing about that.
"Who's gonna tell the villagers their missing people are all dead?" asked Ageratum, placing the shrunken chest of treasure into one of Munson's saddlebags.
"That task will fall to me," Harlan admitted with a stoic sigh. Alistair just swallowed hard, glad for once that the intrepid half-elf paladin wore the mantle of leadership of their little band so well - that was not a task he envied him!
It was a quiet and introspective group of heroes who rode their mounts back to the village of Luminaxa.
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This adventure was not Alistair's finest hour - not only did I get frozen in paralytic fear at the mere sight of an animated mummy (while the other three PCs shrugged it off like champs), but I then almost immediately fell victim to a slow spell. I think undead are rapidly becoming my sorcerer's least favorite type of enemy.
We took the longbow from the mummy's sarcophagus - I think we're going to talk Harry into having Harlan carry it as a backup weapon, as fighting Magda while she was 30 feet up a wall just brought home the fact that he's a melee combat machine but fairly useless if the enemy isn't right there on the ground with him. Plus, that way I can use a flame arrow spell at the beginning of each adventure (if I remember - sorry, Logan!) to allow him to deal +1d6 fire damage with each arrow that successfully strikes a foe.
PC Roster:
Ageratum Purslane, halfling rogue 7
Alistair Mandelberen Pastlethwaite, human sorcerer 7
Chaevaris Noarunal, elf archer 7
Harlan Starblade, half-elf paladin 7
Game Session Date: 22 March 2023
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The four Trained Professional Adventures rode their mounts south through the Phostwood on their way back to Greyhawk City. They approached the village of Luminaxa close to dusk, when most of the shopkeepers were closing up their places of business and ensuring the shutters were closed nice and tight against their windows. But there was a tavern still open, the Aca Balaur, with lanterns visible through the windows and a hearty fire in the fireplace. The heroes dismounted from their steeds, tied them by their reins to the hitching posts outside, and headed for the door. Alistair bid his grackle familiar to keep an eye on the horses and call out if anyone tried to bother them.
Inside, the tavern was warm and toasty compared with the bitter air outside, and the place was filled almost to capacity. There was a table free over in the corner and the four headed that way, Chaevaris getting there first and choosing a seat that allowed her to face the building's only door. The others took their places and waited for the barmaid to approach to take their orders.
In the meantime, they listened to what the locals all had to say. Talk had stopped momentarily at the presence of strangers, but once the locals got a good look at the four and decided they weren't bandits or troublemakers - the holy symbol of Pelor emblazoned upon Harlan's armor no doubt helped a great deal on that front - they resumed their conversations where they'd left off. But more than a few of the tavern customers were commenting amongst themselves about Harlan's holy symbol of Pelor being so prominently displayed. Finally, an older tavern wench came by to take their drink orders, saw Harlan's armor, and asked, "Hey, are you here about the children?"
"I'm sorry?" Harlan asked, puzzled but with a look of concern on his face. "We're travelers, unfamiliar with this region. Is there a problem with children in the village?"
"There's been seven kids gone missing in the past two months," the barmaid replied. "Three of their mothers, too."
"What can you tell us about them?" the paladin asked.
The barmaid told them all she knew, and then the others at nearby tables, their own conversations having broken off again, filled in the gaps. It seemed in the last two months, seven of the village children had gone missing, often disappearing right from their own yards while their parents were just inside the house, and had heard nothing. Sometimes, a mother and her child were returning from the village store back to their own homes and were never seen again. But the disappearances happened about once a week or so, always at or just after dusk.
"How long ago was the last disappearance?" asked Ageratum.
"Been six days now," came the reply from an old farmer, whose wrinkled face told of many years spent out under the sun. "Y'ask me, it were prolly goblins. Got us lotsa goblins in the Phostwood, that's for dang sure."
"But why all of a sudden would they start attackin' kids right here in the village?" demanded another of the servers. "I could see them snatchin' kids what wandered into the forest all alone, but that's not what's been happenin'. No, I think it's undead, comin' outta Knight's Hall."
"Bloodhand Hall, you mean," corrected the elderly farmer.
"Please explain," replied Harlan, and the villagers informed him there was a ruined keep outside the village in the Phostwood forest, that used to be called Knight's Keep or Goldenbeams, back when a rich servant of Pelor named Balaur Luminaductor was alive and dwelt there. But then the knight turned to evil - stories varied on the details of exactly how - and he became known as Balaur Bloodhand, and the keep was then referred to as Black Hollow or Bloodhand Hall. Balaur had a wife, but nobody had seen her since he turned to evil, so it was generally believed that he'd killed her. In any case, Black Hallow was said to be haunted by undead, and the area was generally shunned by the villagers.
"Couldn't pay to get me out that way," professed a village farmer. He was about to elaborate when the door to the tavern opened and a young woman burst in, out of breath and with a panicked look in her eyes. "My daughter--" she gasped, "--she's missing! Valeria is missing!" And she collapsed into a chair, sobbing violently.
Harlan was at her side in a shot. "We will look for your daughter," he promised, kneeling before her and looking her in the eyes. "Tell me her age, and describe her for me." Wiping back her tears, Valeria's mother provided the paladin with the information he requested. Once he had a good description of the missing girl, he turned to the crowd of customers. "Tell me how to get to this Black Hollow," he said. "We will look there first."
The villagers said the ruins were about a 30-minute walk out of town, to the east, and there was a forest path that practically led the way there, although the end of the path had become somewhat overgrown over the years since the place fell to ruin. Harlan nodded to the other adventurers and they rose from the table, heading out the door. "We will do our best to return with your daughter," he promised Valeria's mother. "And we will put an end to whatever monster is behind these abductions." He didn't voice his main concern: that while it might not be too late for Valeria, the other seven children and the three mothers had likely been slain shortly after their own abductions.
A half-hour's walk through a forest path took considerably less time on horseback; Harlan, riding his white horse Law, took the lead. They were deep into the forest when the various animal sounds around them - the hooting of owls, the scrambling of squirrels in the branches overhead - suddenly ceased, as if none of the forest creatures wanted to draw any attention to themselves. Chaevaris, riding her gray horse Talkacha just behind Harlan, heard a crashing in the trees off to her right and readied an arrow into her composite longbow, calling a warning to the others. But they had also heard the commotion ahead, and before long a massive creature emerged onto the moon-lit path: a monster as big as a full-grown brown bear, but an oddly-shaped bear indeed, for it had the head of an owl, with feathers along its front legs. It rose up on its hind legs and Harlan and Chaevaris, the two adventurers with elven eyesight that allowed them to see better than the halfling and human members of their adventuring team, saw another such creature, slightly smaller than the first, exit through the clearing the first one had made through the underbrush.
Harlan leaped out of the saddle and drew his flaming burst longsword, the fire-tinged blade aiding Alistair and Ageratum in seeing what they were up against. Then, as fearless as only a paladin can be, he charged the mother owlbear, swinging his blade across her chest and belly and eliciting a cry of pain. Alistair, further back and still in Zephyr's saddle, whipped out his magic missile wand and fired off a blast, hitting the same creature as it dropped back onto all fours and swiped a paw filled with sharp claws at Harlan. The other owlbear, nearly an adult, came shambling over to Harlan's side and made an awkward attempt at biting his sword arm, but the half-elf dodged by moving further into the middle of the forest path.
Chaevaris, astride her horse's saddle, took careful aim at the mother owlbear and sent her arrow burying itself in the beast's shoulder. And Ageratum remained in the saddle as well, using the greater height sitting astride Munson provided her to shoot a shrunken "pebble-boulder" at the hybrid monster with her sling. Upon impact, the stone returned to its original size before Alistair had reduced it to one-sixteenth scale with a shrink item spell. As it squawked in outrage at the unusual attack, Harlan stabbed his flaming blade deep into the beast's chest, piercing her heart and bringing her rampage to a sudden end. But just that quickly, he yanked the blade out of the fallen owlbear's body and swung it in a flaming arc to come cleaving down at the younger menace, cutting deep into the beast's shoulder.
Alistair aimed his wand at the remaining owlbear and fired off a second barrage, five magic missiles streaking across the path to hit the creature unerringly in the top of its feathered head. But as Harlan was right there at hand, it devoted its retaliatory attacks upon the paladin, rearing up to bring both sets of front claws swinging at him while snapping his beak at him as well. Fortunately, Harlan was able to either avoid the attacks or get his shield up in time to deflect them away. Ageratum used her sling to send another "pebble-boulder" crashing into an owlbear's head, and then Chaevaris shot another arrow into it, dropping it as well. Once both owlbears were lying unmoving on the forest path, Harlan approached each beast in turn and slit their throats to ensure their deaths, preventing the Blood Mirror from stabilizing them at the last moment, as was its wont. Then the heroes mounted back up and returned down the path towards the Black Hollow.
The ruins stood at the top of a hill, appearing initially as a black silhouette against the star-lit sky. As the heroes approached, they could make out more details: the "ruins" were actually in better condition than they'd been led to believe, with no visible gaps in the stone walls. A pair of solid-looking wooden doors looked to be the only way in, and while the wiry scrub-brush and ivy growing up around the building gave silent testimony to the fact there had been nobody tending to it in a long time, the place looked perfectly defensible. If this were indeed the place where the kidnapped children and mothers had been taken, it didn't look to be a place offering any easy escape-ways.
The heroes tied the reins of their respective mounts to nearby trees, Alistair casting a quick mage armor upon himself and telling Ambrose to once again look after the horses and give a warning if anyone - or anything - approached. Ageratum approached the doors, giving them a good look-over before announcing they looked to be in normal working order, did not seem to be trapped, and had likely seen recent use lately. Then, reaching up on her tippy-toes, she pushed them open to reveal the keep's interior.
The interior, from what they could see, was all one big room, with what looked to be a set of stairs leading down to a lower level off to the left, at the far end of the keep where it was harder to see in the gloomy darkness. Up towards the front were four large tables, each with a set of wooden benches providing seating. One of these tables was empty; the other three had various warriors seated and slumped over in death, each reduced to little more than a skeleton in rusting armor. A cold fire pit sat on the floor in the middle of the tables, the ashes looking to be ancient. At the far end of the hall was a longer table, with some sort of statues on either end, covered in so much shadow it was impossible even for those with elven blood to make out any details. Chaevaris took care of their lighting problem by taking the one arrow from her quiver that had the clothlike results of a shrink item spell cast upon a blazing bonfire; aiming the arrow at the center of the firepit, she released the arrow and returned the bonfire to its full size and effectiveness as a light source.
In the glow of the bonfire's flames, more details could be made out. There were five tapestries hanging on the walls, one in the far back behind the banquet table, and two others on the walls to the side. There was another door on the right-hand wall, but it was boarded up and the detailed carving of Pelor's holy symbol inscribed upon its upper half had been covered in scratches and deep cuts, likely made by an axe. The skeletons were covered in a layer of dust, indicating they'd not risen from their current positions despite the tales of undead haunting Black Hollow. But more importantly, there was the body of a little girl fitting Valeria's description laying upon the banquet table, which was flanked by the two statues of what were now recognizable as gargoyles. Before each statue stood a pile of smashed and broken bones of various sizes.
Harlan cast a bless spell upon the group as they advanced towards the back of the keep. Ageratum felt for a pulse on the girl, but her skin was already cold - she'd been dead, it seemed, for some while. Harlan was able to determine there was no evil aura emanating from the girl's body - a definite concern given the two puncture marks on her neck - but in checking out her aura he was able to pick up a definite evil emanation coming from the gargoyle statues. "These are real gargoyles!" he warned the others. He could also sense evil from the stairs heading down to a lower level.
Alistair had been thoughtfully examining the tapestries and discovered they told a tale: in the first, an armored knight (presumably Balaur Luminaductor) being consecrated by an elder cleric with a sword; in the second, the Pelorian knight at his wedding; the third showed the Pelorian knight fighting a demon while his wife was being seduced by another knight in dark armor; the fourth depicted the wife embracing her husband while a squire kneeled before them; and in the fifth, the Pelorian knight now wore black armor and stood over his squire, who was horrendously wounded, while corpses bowed down before the black knight - or possibly to the glowing ruby he held in his right hand. However, the young sorcerer looked up at Harlan's cry and fired a scorching ray spell at the leftmost gargoyle, causing it to flinch in pain and reveal its living nature. Alistair had no compunctions about attacking gargoyles, knowing they were wholly evil - at least according to the acclaimed children's book, Elfy's Exploits in Castle Perilous, which he had enjoyed reading (or having read to him) as a kid.
Chaevaris nocked another arrow to her bow and took careful aim at the second gargoyle, which had yet to move. Ageratum flicked a third "pebble-boulder" from her small pouch onto the head of the first gargoyle, causing it to restore to full size and roll off the creature's head to crash to the floor at its feet. It launched itself at Harlan with its head lowered, trying to skewer the paladin on its horns as it reached out at him with its clawed hands. Harlan accepted the damage from a set of claws as he brought his flaming sword to bear, catching the winged creature in the side of its rocky torso, before another scorching ray spell from Alistair brought the creature crashing down to lay prostrate before the half-elf paladin. Ageratum scrambled over to ensure its demise - she didn't want the Blood Mirror, which was occasionally (she thought) more trouble than it was worth, stabilizing the unconscious gargoyle and allowing it to return to unholy life.
At about the same time the second gargoyle launched itself from the plinth upon which it had been standing, but Chaevaris was ready for it and released her arrow, sending it directly into the creature's neck. It made it as far as the closest table before the elven archer had released another arrow at it, this one piercing its eye and sending it crashing into the pile of warrior skeletons collapsed upon the table; the impact splintered the rotting wood and sent armored bones flying about in all directions.
This close to the banquet table upon which the dead body of poor Valeria lay, Harlan saw silver tableware laid out as if for a feast, but covered in dust - indicating the kinds of feasts now performed in the keep needed no such accoutrements. He laid on hands, channeling Pelor's holy energy into his torn and battered body and healed up some of the wounds he'd taken in battle, before giving the entirety of the upper floor of the keep a sweep with his senses. Having found no further sources of evil, he recommended the group head downstairs.
Alistair concentrated for a moment and cast a flame arrow spell upon Chaevaris's quiver of Ehlonna. "Sorry, Elfy," he apologized. "I had meant to do that earlier, but I forgot." He then cast another spell, bringing forth Ogilvy, his unseen servant, and handed him a small sack containing four "pebble-boulders." He also gave another such bag of magic pebbles to Ageratum, who was down to one stone left in her original sack of ammunition. She took the proffered sack without comment and then went to ensure the second gargoyle was truly dead (helping it out with the blade of her magic short sword).
Chaevaris nocked an arrow at the ready and headed over to the top of the stairs. They led down into darkness, but the elf's keen vision picked out what looked to be a coffin on an upraised plinth in the middle of the chamber below. But then a figure stepped into view, standing at the bottom of the stairs. He wore heavy armor, with a shield and longsword, but his face - about all the elf could see of his actual body - was taught against its skull, desiccated like a mummy. This, at last, gave credence to the view held by the villagers that the keep was haunted by undead creatures, for there was no way the armored warrior below her could still be counted among the living, in the archer's estimation. Still, it called out, in a dry, whispery voice, "Come down to your doom, interlopers!"
Harlan stepped in front of Chaevaris with his own shield and weapon in hand, ready to strike if the armored mummy tried climbing the stairs. Then Alistair stepped behind the paladin, and whereas Harlan and Chaevaris had been able to face the undead monstrosity without incident, the sorcerer felt a chill of dread go up his spine and he froze in horror at the very sight of the deathless mummy. He'd planned on hurling a scorching ray spell down at it, but his mind was frozen; he couldn't think of the proper incantations that had normally just rolled off his tongue when in combat earlier. Ogilvy stepped next to his master, awaiting orders, but Alistair was speechless in his paralyzation and the unseen servant merely stood there until ordered to do something.
Chaevaris sent two arrows in rapid succession down over Harlan's shoulders to strike at the mummy, but he caught them on his shield instead. Ageratum ran in front of the archer, looked down at the mummy and felt a moment of fear (which, unlike Alistair, passed briefly without incident) and tossed a pebble-boulder at him, catching him unawares with the unusual attack.
Then another foe entered the combat. Dropping down from the wall, upon which he'd been spider climbing, Magda - a young woman looking very much like the wife depicted in the tapestries above - stood there among a host of mirror images, for there were a total of five copies of her shifting around and making it impossible to determine which was the true foe and which were mere illusions. But then the mummy, apparently not liking standing there and getting magical boulders tossed down on his head, stepped up the stairs to engage with Harlan, who stood ready for the undead thing's attack. The paladin's flaming burst longsword struck the mummy, and the flames covering the blade seemed to give an extra whoosh of blazing fire upon impact. The mummy brought his own weapon slamming towards Harlan, but the half-elf deflected the blow with his shield.
Harlan channeled Pelor's smiting energy into his blade and hit the mummy again, cutting through its armor and striking the withered body within with its flame-covered blade. The undead thing staggered under the blow, nearly losing its footing on the steep steps. Chaevaris managed to pop two arrows into the mummy as it was teetering, dealing it additional damage as it struggled to remain upright. Ageratum tossed another pebble at it but the stone went wide, striking the stone floor beside the shifting mirror images and restoring itself to boulder form, harming absolutely nobody.
Magda - all five of them, actually - raised a hand and pointed a pale finger at Harlan, and five beams of energy came blasting his way; only one of them was the true ray of enfeeblement, but whichever one it was it did its job, stealing a portion of the half-elf's strength, which Harlan could feel taking effect in the way in which his sword suddenly seemed heavier in his hands. The mummy then lashed out at Harlan and the paladin was too slow to dodge the blow, but although a puff of rancid dust accompanied the impact, the power of the paladin's deity which coursed through his body prevented the mummy rot from having any effect. But then, gritting his teeth at the extra effort it cost him in his weakened state, he brought his flaming blade down twice at the mummy, finally taking him out; the armored undead form collapsed backwards and rattled down to the bottom of the stairs.
Seeing the mummy's demise had an invigorating effect upon Alistair's paralyzed mind, but seeing the mummy had already been slain, he switched tactics and instead of casting a scorching ray spell as intended (for he knew mummies were particularly susceptible to flames, as per Elfy Fights the Mummy Lord), he brought up his magic missile wand and fired off a burst, sending an individual missile streaking towards each of the five potential Magdas. Four of them, upon being struck, popped like bubbles, while the other seemed unfazed at all by the attack - she no doubt had a shield spell active! Well, drat and bother!
Chaevaris shot two more arrows at Magda, but the pale woman was much quicker than she looked and dodged them both. Ageratum tossed her first sack of pebbles away (as it was empty) and threw the first pebble from her restock down at the vampire. It conked her on the head as it reformed to full size, causing her to hiss in surprise and reveal her prominent fangs, as if anyone had been in doubt about her true nature. But it appeared as if she had managed to ignore any potential damage from the boulder as easily as she had the magic missile, and belatedly Ageratum recalled how Carly had been able to shrug off many physical attacks as well - and she had just been a vampire spawn! This woman seemed, if anything, even tougher than Carly had been!
The four heroes were all standing in the stairwell, making the vampire wizard wish she had a lightning bolt spell prepared, but she made do with a slow spell instead; the two women were able to shrug off the intended effects while the two men were not. Harlan took a moment to cast a cure light wounds spell upon himself, healing up more of the damage he'd taken at the hands of the mummy, while Alistair slowly made his way down the stairs, his unseen servant following obediently at his side. "Go check out the coffin!" Alistair commanded, and Ogilvy moved to comply.
Chaevaris climbed down the steps, fitting a silver-tipped arrow to her bow as she did so, and she fired it at the vampire upon entering the lower chamber. Unfortunately, Magda managed to dodge that one as well and it crashed against the side wall, the shaft snapping. But Magda kept going, sunning straight up the wall at the side of the opening for the stairs, until she stood at the very top of the 30-foot wall, near the ceiling.
Ageratum entered the chamber next, unstoppering a potion of spider climbing and scampering right up the wall after the surprised vampire, who hadn't expected any of her mortal foes to be able to reproduce her maneuver. But she concentrated not upon the little halfling but rather the elf archer below, staring at Chaevaris and sending forth the power of her will. Chaevaris's eyes widened in shock as she heard the vampire command, "Shoot the halfling!" and the archer, as if in some sort of remote control, fitted an arrow to her longbow and took aim at Ageratum.
"I say!" cried Alistair at this sudden but unwilling betrayal, as Harlan moved past the sorcerer out of the staircase and into the chamber below. Poking his head around the corner from the stairwell, Alistair sent a scorching ray spell up at the vampire, hitting her with his single blast of flame. There was a creaking noise as Ogilvy lifted the lid of the "coffin" (it was actually a sarcophagus, but none of the heroes had determined this yet at the time) and found a longbow laying there at the bottom. But, having performed the task commanded of it, the unseen servant left the bow where it was and awaited its next instructions.
Chaevaris shot an arrow at Ageratum but it missed; Alistair let out a sigh of relief until the archer placed another arrow into place, took careful aim, and hit the archer on her second attempt. "Hey!" cried Ageratum as the arrow pierced the top of her shoulder. But, not being able to do anything to stop her adventuring companion from shooting at her directly, Ageratum decided the best course of action was to try to take out the vampire herself. She stabbed the tip of her silver short sword at Magda, catching the undead wizard in the gut. No blood spilled from the wound, but the halfling could tell by Magda's pained expression that she had hurt the undead thing - good! Magda stepped back and retaliated at Ageratum with a scorching ray spell of her own, but the nimble halfling dodged the spell with ease, even while standing sideways on a wall, and then stabbed forth again with her blade and caught Magda once more in the belly.
Harlan, unable to reach the vampire up by the ceiling, thrust forward his holy symbol of Pelor up at her and channeled positive energy of the Sun God through it. However, vampires are notoriously difficult to turn and this proved to be the case this time. But Alistair cast another scorching ray up at her, striking her and causing her undead body to lose its full cohesiveness - it burst into a cloud of misty particles, which flowed down the wall and started floating over towards the back wall. Ageratum kept pace with it, running down the wall but taking another two hits from Chaevaris as she continued obeying her most recent order, to "shoot the halfling." "Elfy, no!" cried Alistair, but Ageratum tried taking things into her own hands; since the vampiric mist was traveling fairly slowly, she took the opportunity to run in close to Chaevaris and tried cutting her bowstring with her short sword. It was a good attempt, but the archer pivoted her bow away at the last moment.
Misty Magda hit the back wall and started seeping through a crack in it, more or less announcing the presence of a secret door in doing so. Harlan used his wand of cure light wounds on Ageratum, closing up the arrow wounds after the halfling plucked the offending shafts from her body and tossed them aside. Alistair prepared a shrink item spell, ready to try to shrink Chaevaris's bow to a size too small for practical use, but he was still slowed and couldn't make his way over to the archer with any kind of speed. But then Chaevaris pointed her bow down at the halfling and tried shooting her from a position so close at hand that Ageratum was successful in slitting the bowstring in twain with her blade; the readied arrow spilled to the stone floor at the archer's feet. But Ageratum was still in motion, breezing past Chaevaris to position herself beside the last of the mist squeezing through the crack in the hidden door, so she'd be in place to figure out the mechanism to open the door. By the time the vampire's misty form had passed fully through the wall, Ageratum had gotten the door open and kept pace as the mist flowed into one of two coffins positioned side by side in the chamber hidden behind the one holding the mummy's sarcophagus.
Once inside her coffin, Magda resumed her solid form, but she was the undead equivalent of unconscious: unable to move, unaware of her surroundings, having flowed over to her coffin as an automatic, unpiloted action. When the halfling raised the coffin lid and brought her silver short sword down upon the helpless vampire's neck, severing Magda's head from her shoulders, there was only a brief moment of awareness when the vampire's closed eyelids raised in surprise and pain, and then the woman once known as Magda Luminaductor was no more.
Chaevaris shook her head like a dog coming in from the rain, trying to clear it. She looked over at Ageratum and said, "I am so sorry...." Alistair imagined he knew just how the archer felt, for he was himself ashamed of having frozen up at the sight of an undead mummy when the others hadn't been affected in the least...although his extended inaction was probably preferable to actively trying to do one of his friends harm. "Not your fault, Elfy," he told Chaevaris. "These blasted undead are all sorts of unpleasant."
The team opened the second coffin, hoping to find a vampire in dark armor waiting to be staked or decapitated, but it was empty. There was, however, a ruby embedded onto the coffin's lid, which Ageratum appraised at around 200 pieces of gold as she pried it loose with her dagger. They also found a hidden stash of coins, and Magda had worn a valuable diamond necklace and a ruby ring, which Ageratum dumped into the chest of coins to lug back with them. But then Alistair had Ogilvy start bringing down the bones from the piles before the two gargoyle statues on the level above - bones he now knew to be those of the missing children and the three mothers - and placed them into the vampire's coffin; Harlan gently placed the body of Valeria inside as well, before Alistair cast a shrink item spell upon it and the chest of treasure for easy transport. "Other than Valeria, they probably won't be able to determine which bones are which," Chaevaris said sadly, "but at least they'll have some sense of closure."
"I'll recommend they take the coffin somewhere in the middle of the town, out in the open, away from the trees," Alistair said. "They can drop it down, restore it to its full size, and then set guards over it until daylight. That way, when that Bloodhand chap shows up looking to rest in his coffin, they'll have him - they can just wait for full daylight and then pop open the lid."
"Vampires often have multiple coffins, for just this very reason," pointed out Harlan Starblade.
"Yes, well, fine, but at least it's a chance," pressed Alistair. There was no arguing about that.
"Who's gonna tell the villagers their missing people are all dead?" asked Ageratum, placing the shrunken chest of treasure into one of Munson's saddlebags.
"That task will fall to me," Harlan admitted with a stoic sigh. Alistair just swallowed hard, glad for once that the intrepid half-elf paladin wore the mantle of leadership of their little band so well - that was not a task he envied him!
It was a quiet and introspective group of heroes who rode their mounts back to the village of Luminaxa.
- - -
This adventure was not Alistair's finest hour - not only did I get frozen in paralytic fear at the mere sight of an animated mummy (while the other three PCs shrugged it off like champs), but I then almost immediately fell victim to a slow spell. I think undead are rapidly becoming my sorcerer's least favorite type of enemy.
We took the longbow from the mummy's sarcophagus - I think we're going to talk Harry into having Harlan carry it as a backup weapon, as fighting Magda while she was 30 feet up a wall just brought home the fact that he's a melee combat machine but fairly useless if the enemy isn't right there on the ground with him. Plus, that way I can use a flame arrow spell at the beginning of each adventure (if I remember - sorry, Logan!) to allow him to deal +1d6 fire damage with each arrow that successfully strikes a foe.
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