Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="HJFudge" data-source="post: 8229136" data-attributes="member: 6997593">After defeating a party of thugs sent to kidnap their charge, the PCs decided to leave their bodies on the side of the road with a message, warning the people who hired these thugs against further attempts. They set out from the inn where they were attacked toward their destination, but after a few hours the parties Necromancer senses a dark energy coming from the direction of the Inn. Worried about the Innkeeper and his family whom they had befriended, the party (against the wishes of their charge whom hired them to escort her to the city) decide to risk it and head back to see what was causing such a disturbance.The bodies they left on the side of the road: Gone. The inn: Burned.The Innkeeper and his family: Vanished.Tracks led toward the mountains, several of the tracks clearly hobbled or hampered somehow. Were the Innkeeper and his family still alive? They head off in pursuit hoping to intercept whatever force had kidnapped their friends and even their employer decides that this is a worthy delay. The rest of the day is spent tracking and they come across an abandoned cathedral deep in the woods at the foothills of the mountains. Dark necromantic energy emanates from the once holy place and haunting organ music fills the night air. After paying a small price for inattentiveness (the windows they tried to break through happened to be ensorcelled, blasting them all with evil magicks and doing some damage) they proceed through the structure, sneaking around to disable the sources of necromantic energy that had been placed by whatever force occupied the chapel. The Necromancer decides to try and redirect the power into his summoned minion and fails, destroying it but luckily also overloading the energy. The Innkeeper lay dead at the alter, his life essence used to power the wards, but his son remains alive and in the clutches of a powerful wizard - a member of the Merchant Consortium which sought to prevent their charge from reaching the city as she had vital information that would disrupt their interests there. The Merchant Wizard offers the party the chance to walk away, claiming that the boy and his family were simply recompense for the parties killing of his apprentice (which led the thugs that attacked them at the inn). The party, being heroes, refused and a fight ensued. During the fight a truth was revealed: the leaders of the merchant consortium were dragons in disguise! The wizard cackles as he shape shifts into a carrion dragon and raises the dead parishoners of the shrine! Battle commences, the party manages to wound the dragon who tries to escape with the boy, but a daring leap sees the fighter save the kid as the dragon escapes into the air, vowing revenge. The necromancer of the party takes pity on the boy and in a weird act of kindness raises his dead father as his new main Minion, promising to teach the boy the ways of the dead.Thus the party stopped an evil merchant dragon wizard, saved a young boy from a fate worse than death, and gained a follower in the form of a young necromancers apprentice.Fun times <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

Verification