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Message: <blockquote data-quote="S'mon" data-source="post: 1088591" data-attributes="member: 463">Leo's Story:Leo hurried through the hallway. A hundred and one things to do and now this; the masons were late, the carpenters hadn’t finished the shelves as promised and Dovistar was insisting that the alchemical laboratory be finished before the library. It was all very stressful; nothing could be done though. One of the prices of being allowed to stay in Gaxmoor and indeed be given this building in the newly nascent city was to be co-operative to the Margrave. When he sent out a summons, then attendance took precedence over everything. Fortunately, the Margrave did not use his power lightly.Leo arrived at the Margrave’s residence without incident and was shown through without ceremony."Greetings Leo. Thank you for coming so quickly. Your colleague Austin should be here any time now. As soon as he gets here we will begin."Almost as soon as he had finished speaking there was another knock on the door and Aos was shown in, followed by a tall striking woman Leo had not seen before. She was carrying a lute"Hello my lord. Let me introduce you to Titania, a wandering player who has decided to grace me with her companionship. Titania, this is the Margrave and Leopold, a good friend of mine."" Good of you to come so quickly," replied the Margrave. "Now this is what I want to talk to you about….."At this point, there was another interruption. A wall guard knocked and came in through the door."I am sorry to disturb you my lord but you insist to be informed any time we feel someone unusual enters the city. Two such people arrived a short while ago. They claim to have just defeated some assailants outside Gaxmoor."Two disheveled individuals entered at this point. Both were occidentals with the characteristic flat faces and almond shaped eyes of that region. The man wore a battered suit of plate mail and was obviously a warrior. He was not armed in the presence of the Margrave but the guard behind him was carrying a short spear. The woman was more non-descript without any visible weapons and normal winter clothes, swathed against the cold."Welcome to Gaxmoor", said the Margrave. " I am told you have just fought outside the city. Where are you from?"The man replied, "My name is Xiang and this is my travelling companion Cho. We are both from the region of Mount Fire. The people we fought were pursuing us from there. They are known as the Death Dealers".Leo had kept quiet but he was finding both the people and the situation intensely interesting. For these two to have traveled all this way, to have survived the normal hazards of travel and to then have also fought off a group of Death Dealers marked them out as formidable indeed. Evidently the Margrave thought so as well."I may have a job for you. Would you be interested? Before you answer, let me introduce you to Leopold, a wizard and Aos."Aos exclaimed at this stage." I am Aos, formerly the greatest duelist in Imarr now the greatest duelist in Gaxmoor."Leo groaned under his breath. So much for anonymity after their disaster in Imarr.The two occidentals looked at each other and nodded. "Yes my lord, we would be interested." The Margrave nods, pleased. "For some time now there have been strange occurrences in the graveyard to the south of the city. My guards refuse to go there but there is a group of mercenary Sith scouts who report walking gnoll corpses and strange lights at night. I would be grateful if you could investigate. The leader of the scouts is named Ahlrand."With this the Margrave makes it obvious that the audience is over and the four leave the room. Aos invites the strangers to the Shapely Siren to discuss what to do next and Leo points out that before they go much further they should call on the priest Tarquin who would be most useful in this venture. Tarquin is duly collected, introduced and briefed. It is now late and the group arranges to meet in the morning to travel to speak with the Sith. Everyone meets in the morning. Leo doesn’t know what the strangers thought about the nightly activities in the Shapely Siren but prudently he doesn’t ask. The journey just outside the city to the former inn that is the headquarters of the Sith passes without incident. There is a brief moment of tension before the Sith are convinced that the two occidentals are not related to the Mongali in any way and the group is invited into the building. There, Ahlrand confirms what he reported to the Margrave with some embellishments, including a few attacks by walking corpses on his men. At this stage, Leo decides to take a look at the graveyard himself through his arcane means. He informs the others of his plan and then mutters a few syllables and makes some strange gestures. After a brief period, the others note the appearance of approximately a dozen small spheres. These dart around Leo impossibly quickly, being very difficult to see or follow. Leo sends them into the graveyard and for the rest of the day, these spheres keep coming to Leo and then dart away again. Each time, Leo imparts a new piece of information about the graveyard. A high fence with a large entrance gate surrounds a variety of crypts and mausoleums. These vary greatly in richness, style and building quality. It is the latter that also determines their state. There is a variety of coloured stonework and architectural styles, from the very elaborate to the downright simple. Leo presumes that this is to reflect the wealth of the various families. There is no sign of walking corpses but the spheres do spot a grouping of gnoll rotted corpses just inside the entrance gates. Tarquin is suspicious of their placement. The whole area exhudes a feeling of quiet menace and despair. Some of the buildings have been ransacked while others have been left alone, suggesting that even the walking dead were afraid to touch them. As with the rest of the city there are also a large amount of statues of all types and sizes.This information gathering has taken quite some hours and Leo is exhausted. A decision is taken to wait until the next morning and enter the graveyard during the day. When dawn breaks the next day, there is a banging on Leo’s door and an agitated Ahlrand comes in with the news that one of his people was abducted whilst she was on sentry duty. He suggests that his scouts and himself should accompany the group on the understanding that the party prioritises the rescue of his sentry. The group agrees to this and prepares to enter the area. It is at this point that the quiet lady, Cho puts herself forward and decides to go ahead of the group. Strangely, she is unarmed but there is a grace and fluidity to her movements Leo has not seen before though her demeanor reminds him of something he has heard or read. He cannot quite place it but it is in the back of his mind. Cho strides forward and as she enters the gates, four walking gnoll corpses suddenly erupt from the ground and attack her. Fortunately, Tarquin is alert to the danger and using the power of his deity obliterates these abominations.The group strides forward and Cho, more prudently rejoins the group. Using the tracking skills of Ahlrand, the group strides forward, Leo marveling at the architecture and detail of the buildings. One of them captivates his attention to such an extent he uses his arcane ability to look inside it. He doesn’t like what he finds and he decides to leave it alone. All this time, another set of little spheres flits back and forth, regaling him with information. They pass a shrine to Urnus Gregaria, the lost travelling God of the city and approach possibly the oldest crypt in the whole graveyard. Investigation reveals that it was used by the Agylliz family. Leo sends one of his little spheres inside and finds massed ranks of walking corpses waiting inside. The group briefly confers about tactics and then approach only to be stopped by a heavy lowered iron grate. The strong warriors try to lift it but with little success and Xiang is reduced to smashing it with a morning star. Again the group confers on their next course of action when a voice behind them speaks out."What do you want and what are you doing here?"The voice is superb. It sends shivers down everyone’s back and all the group turn around. They see a stunningly beautiful nude woman with large gilded batwings. She is everyone’s perfect partner and the most alluring being anyone has ever seen. Aos is instantly smitten and a moment later, strangely, so is Titania. By this time, alarm bells are ringing and both Leo and Tarquin are shouting warnings. A green beam shoots from Tarquin’s hand only to bounce off her. She screeches in a language never meant to be heard by humans and suddenly a vulture headed monstrosity appears next to her. Cho rushes forward to strike her only to be impeded by Aos, who lashes out with his rapier, ferociously defending the new object of his desire. Xiang moves forward to be engaged by the vulture-head. The fighting is brutal and he is soon bleeding from dozens of wounds. Another beam shoots from Tarquin’s hand and this one attaches itself to her. Suddenly the ground around the whole group erupts with large tentacles, which flatten everyone except the vulture head; confusion is everywhere and Leo curses. This was not a spell he had used before and he miscalculated the area. The lady Cho was fine but Xiang was in trouble since the vulture head ignored the tentacles. Conversely, the beautiful woman was also in the tentacles and cursed obscenely as an effect failed her.At this point the grate behind the group opened and a horde of the enemy came out. Amongst the undead were also a raging ogre, an orc and a goblin, grinning maniacally while clutching a spear. The ogre struck Tarquin who was visibly staggered by the blow. The half orc and the goblin charged and injured Titania, who vanished into thin air. They then looked for other targets and found them in Cho, Xiang and some of the Sith scouts. Suddenly the black tentacles disappeared. Xiang gave a bellow of joy and savagely attacked the winged woman. She could not withstand his fury and Tarquin could have sworn that there was a satisfied moan from Xiang’s spear as she succumbed and died. He later put it down to his imagination. Vulture head disappeared with her. Tarquin rose into the air and soon the undead abominations were exploding in multitudes as he used the power of his religion. At the same time, a mass of sticky wet looking strands appeared in the room behind the grating, preventing any more of the enemy from coming out until this group had been dealt with. It was hard bloody work but with this group being cut off and Aos finally shaking off his unnatural infatuation, the enemy was destroyed.Everyone regrouped and Tarquin and Titania both used healing spells. When everyone was ready, the sticky strands were burnt and the group entered the crypt in force. There was still a large grouping of the living dead inside as well as a gnoll archer and above all, a humanoid figure, with a golden circlet around his brow. Leo let loose with a ball of fire, while Tarquin again called upon the power of Urnus Gregaria to destroy these abominations. This time, they were only driven away. The evil priest suddenly whirled and ran to a hereto-unforeseen door in the wall. At this point, Lady Cho, moving with extraordinary speed and skipping past opponents with unearthly ease, ran to the priest and with one blow, incapacitated him. Not to be outdone, Aos joined her and together with Leo, the priest was finished off. It then became an issue of mopping up the rest of the evil forces although a prisoner was taken.The gnoll prisoner revealed disturbing news. The cambion Heracules, former ruler of Gaxmoor, had visited the graveyard only a month ago. He also revealed that Heracules has a stronghold in the mountains. The priest was a worshipper of the Undead Goddess Hel and hopefully, further interrogation will reveal just what his plans were. The Sith sentry was found and rescued, the prisoner was handed to the Margrave and the group retired to Gaxmoor with a variety of spoils. Most of these were dweomered weapons and armour with one exception. Upon attempting to identify the golden circlet, Leo was surprised to find engravings of snakes that almost seemed to come alive upon eye contact. When donning it, Leo suddenly felt the urge to explore a massive path of necromantic magic revealed to him. Voices inside his head whispered about the power that could be his. The potential to rule this place, this country, this world, this plane; with no opposition. He should explore this newly acquired fascination with death, and in fact, undeath, which was the true state, the right state. A small corner of his mind was screaming warnings at him and with a titanic wrench, he wrested the circlet from his head. He found his eyes and ears were streaming blood while his head felt as if it was being split in two. He could still hear the voices whispering. Greatly chastened and using a much more cautious approach, it was revealed that the circlet was the Crown of Quentis, a fabled Red Wizard noted for his affinity to the school of necromancy. The Crown was sacred to the goddess Hel and one of the major posessions of her priesthood. Careful study provided the method of its destruction. It should be melted in the furnaces of the White Way while being blessed by a priest of Urnus Gregaria. Unbeknownst to all, Leo was suffering from nightmares the voices were still whispering in his head. As a sad postcript, during the winter months, the voices inside his head hurt Leo more and more. His work, his studies, his skills suffered greatly. After two months, a scream was heard from his chambers and he was found unconscious, a small broken piece of jewellery found in a corner as if flung there in disgust. Concerned, Dovistar and Laera took him to the Temple of Urnus Gregaria where Leo sat in a dark room with Tarquin, concentrating upon methods of expelling the voices from his mind.The effect was immediate. Under the influence of the temple and the priests, the voices were first suppressed and then silenced. Thus the last malevolent legacy of the Crown of Quentis was expunged forever.</blockquote>

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