Session #47 (complete)
Session #47
But even more zombies would come streaming out of the shafts.
As Martin was dragging one of the desiccating corpses into a corner to set it afire with some others, Derek hissed. “There are even more coming!”
“I don’t hear –“ Captain Adalar jerked to attention asa zombie came spilling from one of the shafts on the left side. Belear did not hesitate and smashed it with his warhammer.
“There seems to be no end to these foul horrors!” The older dwarf cried.
“We shall make an end even if one does not exist yet,” Kazrack said, heroically and thrust his halberd blade into the zombie’s chest, flinging it across the room.
Ratchis ran across to the other side where more zombies emerged, while Derek moved close to one shaft and listened.
“There are more coming and… something else, as well,” the young huntsman said and pulled away.
Jeremy moved past Derek to cover the other end of Ratchis’ side, cleaving the head off of one as it emerged and then sticking it deeply with his short sword and dragging it into the room. He was covered in black ichor and gore, and the smell of the acrid embalming fluid stung all their nostrils.
“What do you mean ‘something else?” Jeremy tried to wipe some gunk from his eyes with the butt of his hand. “How can you tell?”
“I because I can hear it,” Derek said, nervousness creeping into his voice, like the last strained break of his adolescence.
More zombies fell in from both sides. Kazrack hustled to the help Ratchis as many more were on that side, while Jeremy had crossed to aid Derek who was turning pale beneath his the black ichor-stained cheeks.
“Look!” Martin cried, stepping between them and pointing to the ceiling above one of the shafts.
“Martin, what are you doing stay back!” Jeremy stepped before him as he spotted the thing. It was appeared as man, but covered in a black oily chitinous skin. His arms and legs were bent backward and his hands and feet held a singular gray talon that bit deep into the stone. It opened its mouth and chittered.
“There is something crawling on the walls and ceiling!” Derek announced, half in fear and half remembering to keep his companions abreast of the field of battle.
The undead monster turned its head all the way around and scampered across the ceiling towards them.
“What are you talking about?” Kazrack cried, cleaving a zombie in twain, turning to deal with another.
Ratchis was just grunting with each swing of his sword and with each swing a zombie stopped moving.
“It’s on the ceiling shorty,” Jeremy quipped, and his curiosity overcame his fear. The Neergaardian stepped forward and sliced at the thing. It screeched and hissed as Jeremy’s accurate blow severed the thing’s right hand and the thing swung off at the feet, painfully. But Jeremy did not stop, even as Derek was forced to turn to deal with another approaching zombie, leaving him to deal with the thing alone. Instead, he pressed in close to the startled black thing and chopped at it twice more with all his might.
The thing collapsed on the floor in a pile of rotting purple meat and black scabs of the chitin.
“Zombies, not zombies… I’ll take whatever they got,” Jeremy said, leaning on his sword with a forced smile for a moment and then moving to help Derek.
Soon, that wave of zombies had been dealt with as well, but the bodies were piled high and the tunnels were beginning to be clogged.
“I think I know what that thing was,” Martin said after the fight, pushing at the remaining pieces of the black undead thing with the butt end of a dead torch.
Kazrack was not concerned and turned to Ratchis, “Do you still have access to that miracle that will hide us from the senses of the undead?”
“Yes.”
It was decided they the smaller party would return to the large chamber.
“I’ll tell you one thing I could immediately tell when I saw that chamber,” Captain Adalar said. “There is no way that place is not collapsing on its own. It should collapse. Just the lack of support and the striations I could see on the stone connected to the top of that ziggurat thing.”
Kirla nodded, her own engineering experience had told her the same thing.
“Well, we can only hope that when we destroy whatever is creating all these zombies it doesn’t also bring that whole chamber down,” Beorth said flatly.
“If we can cause the chamber to collapse that would destroy the statues and the vast majorities of the zombies,” said Kazrack.
“I do not think we want to risk that,” Martin said, quietly.
“It would be too great a risk,” Kirla said. “That chamber is beneath us, we could bring all these upper levels down on our own heads.”
Captain Adalar nodded.
“Well, no matter, we must try to destroy that statue and see if that does what we hope it does,” said Ratchis, climbing into one of the tunnels.
“I still think we should check the sarcophagus,” Jeremy called to him.
“We’ve already discussed this,” Kazrack said, following Ratchis. Beorth, Kirla and Adalar followed as well.
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Again Ratchis crept forward invisibly, hidden by his Goddess’ power, from the eyes of the undead zombies, or whatever other senses they might use to sense the living. Captain Adalar, Kirla, and Kazrack were also blessed with the same miracle by the goddess of freedom. They followed evenly spaced and carefully avoiding touching the jerky stumbling zombies. Beorth, whose dexterity could not be trusted to get him by the awkward obstacles was left behind to guard the escape. He hid, crouched watching their progress from one of the tunnels.
Ratchis made it to the platform and took a moment to look around from the base of the statue. There was no sign of any of the ‘foremen’ wights. He grabbed on to one of the demoness’ lower arms and pulled himself up and reached for an upper arm, putting his feet on the lower, and then he hauled himself up until he straddled her head.
The brutish half-orc hefted his hammer and swung out at one of the raised arms. There was a resounding high-pitched ping as the whole statue shook. Everyone in chamber flinched with the sound and looked around nervously at the zombies. The zombies seemed to pause in their lines and seemed to consider going one way or another, but then they all began to move again.
Kirla let out a deep breath.
Panck! Panck! Ratchis hit is twice more. Now some of the zombies turned in circles and wandered toward the statue, but then walked right past it and then milled around more at the base.
There was not even a mark on the statue’s stone. Ratchis looked down at his companions and shrugged his shoulders and took another swing.
Below Kazrack noted a figure moving with purpose in the direction of the statue. It’s flesh was blackened with terrible burns, and its eyes smoldered as if red coals still slowly burned their way into its skull. It wore a dirty white tunic and the shreds of a black leather cloak.
“Heads up!” Kazrack yelped and began to hustle towards it to intercept, holding his halberd out in front of him.
The wight sprung high into the air and onto the stone platform the statue pedestal rested on. Ratchis had already leapt down and he moved back, leaping off the platform leaving it between them.
Captain Adalar and Kirla halted and began to ease their way back towards the ziggurat.
Suddenly, the wight lifted its head and snapped its neck quickly to the right and looked right at Kazrack as if suddenly noticing him. With a shriek he leapt at the charging dwarf and tore at his face with its blackened claws.
“Ugh!” Kazrack halted and swung wildly at it, but the thing had moved within the reach of his halberd and it was an awkward blow that missed.
“Nephthys! With all the power you see fit to imbue me with, please destroy these abominations!” Ratchis cried swinging his belts of chain links over his head.
The wight looked at him with disdain, as five zombies crumbled to dust.
“Beorth!” Ratchis cried out for the reserve.
The paladin began to hurry down the ziggurat steps.
There was a twang as Kirla fired his crossbow at the wight, but the bolt went wide.
Kazrack leapt back and suffered another claw to the face, but was able to get his halberd back between him and his foe and chopped into its side. The dwarf took a few more steps back from it warily.
The zombies began to moan and turn towards the heroes. Ratchis called out to Nephthys again and three more zombies crumbled to dust. Beorth finally arrived, weighed down in his armor, and held aloft his golden jackal’s head.
“Anubis! Send these away so that we might learn our lesson!” Seven zombies began to move away from him. Kirla and Captain Adalar moved towards him. Four more zombies moved to intercept them and Captain Adalar reached for the bag of stones about his neck and called to Natan-Ahb to send them away. The zombies fled.
Kazrack and the wight circled each other, each looking for an opening, leaving the thing vulnerable to Ratchis. The half-orc came hustling towards it fearlessly; a prayer to Nephthys on his lips and slapped it on the back with an open hand. There was the white glow of healing light from beneath the point of contact and the undead creature shrieked inhumanly. And then it fell backwards crumpling into a pile of clothes and dust.
“Come on! Come on!” Beorth waved the others to join him in retreat as even more zombies turned towards them, the combat drawing their attention.
“Look out behind you!” Adalar cried. Beorth whirled around to see another wight coming around the corner of the ziggurat accompanied by a dozen more zombies.
A zombie reached for Ratchis, but he cleaved it down the middle with one blow of his sword. However, in the half a moment it took him to yank the blade free four more gathered around him and began to slam at him with their fists. He pulled the sword to himself as he was battered around. He felt bruises begin to swell. Kazrack was taken a little by surprise by the sudden attack of zombies that had moments before had been ignoring them. He took a blow to the head, and then slammed in to the hip of another that checked him as he moved into a more defensive position.
Captain Adalar turned round and buried his axe into one of the one’s around Kazrack and drove its still animate body the ground.
The new foreman came rushing at Beorth, but the paladin turned his jackal’s head towards it and called to his god. The thing hissed in fear and fled, but the zombies which it had passed (now in both directions) continued to come.
“Let’s drive these things away and then try moving the fires beneath the statue,” Kazrack called to Ratchis, as he broke free of the ring of zombies. He turned when he was clear. “Lords and Lady, I once again implore your mercy and ask that you drive these things from my sight!”
The zombies moaned and turned, and some others that had been approaching also turned.
“What!” Ratchis replied, cleaving the leg off another, and giving it one quick blow as it fell. “We have to get out of here!”
Captain Adalar, Kirla and Beorth were having troubles with zombies of their own. Adalar’s trouble was that they could not come fast enough for him to kill, chopping one down and then hustling up the ziggurat stairs to get another nearing Beorth.
Ratchis ducked the arms of one of the three zombies and spun away from the falling clenched fists of the second only to stand up right into the fist of the third.
He let out a roar, and with one hard blow another fell to pieces into the packed earth of the bottom of the cavern.
“This maybe our last chance to deal with this statue!” Kazrack insisted moving away from two zombies still near him.
Beorth called to Anubis yet again, and again a great number of zombies began to move away. His shawl would shine with a bright white light every time he did so, illuminating the cavern even more and sending crazy shadows of ambling zombies and flying weapons against the great walls and the broad ziggurat steps.
Ratchis began to flag, and lifting his sword too slowly, he allowed another blow to whip down and smash his nose. Blood came out in a torrent.
Kazrack turned and put all his weight into a swing of his halberd and a zombie fell. The bald was still in it as it fell forward, causing Kazrack to turn to keep his balance. He could see a dozen or more zombies coming from around the other side of the ziggurat now.
“Run!” He cried to Ratchis and everyone else, changing his tune. “We are near unto death!”
Ratchis bolted from his foes and leapt up the steps. Beorth and Kirla followed, with Kazrack and Captain Adalar taking up the rear.
There was a scuffle with a half-dozen zombies that had reached the top step, but they cut through them, and hurried into a tunnel. Captain Adalar led the way in one tunnel, while Kirla led Beorth in an adjacent one.
Behind them the zombies kept coming.
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Meanwhile, Jeremy danced backward, his two swords whirling around him keeping the blows of another foreman that had already grabbed him once in its icy claws. It crawled into the chamber among a rush of zombies that arrived from the other side from which the others had gone. He moved back towards Belear who was able to help draw its attention. Derek chopped zombies handily, dropping one with each blow, making his way across the room towards three that Martin had slowed.
The watch-mage leapt forward with an outreached torch and set one of the slowed ones on fire. It moaned and patted weakly at the flames. In a moment it collapsed into a smoldering pile of rotten flesh. Derek chopped another down.
And finally as Kirla and Captain Adalar came bursting out of the tunnels, Jeremy thrust the Right Blade of Arofel into the chest of the wight and torn it out with a sickening long crack. It reached up at him, but he kicked it hard and chopped one last time with the long sword. He yanked the short sword and spun around to help Derek, throwing the swords from one hand to another.
“There are zombies right behind us!” Kirla warned, turning and readying her shield and flail once again.
“Everybody up the rope!” Ratchis commanded as he emerged.
“Did you destroy the statue?’ Jeremy asked.
“Just help people get up the rope,” Kazrack said, hopping out of the tunnel.
“Can we leave now? Did you destroy the statue?” Jeremy asked again, not moving.
“No!” roared Ratchis.
Beorth, the slowest of the group, emerged with zombies right behind him.
Martin was the first back up the rope, followed by Derek and then Belear. Kirla and Captain Adalar went next. Beorth and Kazrack argued, but finally the paladin was pulled up to safety.
Jeremy hustled up the hole.
“Sounds like you were having fun down there,” commented on of the dwarven triplets.
“Yeah, next time we want to go,” said another of them.
“No, you don’t,” Jeremy said, getting away from the hole’s edge to keep it from collapsing more.
“You can take my place next time,” Derek sighed sarcastically.
“Okay!” Golnar, Jolnar and Tolnar chimed together. (1)
Derek and Jeremy rolled their eyes.
Kazrack and Ratchis climbed up into the upper chamber, as the number of zombies in the room below became too much to deal with. They streamed into the room like mindless ants, crawling over each other and moaning their endless moans.
“I thought we were going to try to hold that room,” Jeremy said.
“There is no point,” Ratchis said. “The statues must be magically protected. I could not make a dent in it.”
“Or maybe you just weren’t strong enough,” Jeremy said.
Ratchis growled.
Below the moaning of the zombies echoed him.
“So what now? We leave?’ Derek’s voice betrayed a hint of hopefulness. He missed the sun.
“We open the sarcophagus,” Beorth said.
“Wait! We might still be able to destroy the statue,” Kazrack said. “What if we were to dig from the surface? And then collapse the cavern from above?”
Ratchis shook his head.
“Maybe we need to stop looking at this from a warrior’s point of view and look at it as an engineering problem,” Kazrack added.
“I don’t think it will work. First of all it is too deep to dig and second of all I am starting to think it is the statue that is keeping that chamber from collapsing. It is obviously magicked, and Adalar did say he thought that chamber should not be able to support itself.”
Captain Adalar and Kirla nodded.
“But we have nearly a score of us, and more than half of us are dwarves!” Kazrack didn’t want to let it go. “We should be able to dig in no time.”
“With what tools?” Derek asked, now frustration crept into his voice.
They voted. Kazrack was the only one who wanted to try the digging scheme.
“You are out-voted,” Ratchis said.
“Grr! You are all lazy and shiftless,” Kazarck cursed.
Captain Adalar bristled, but Belear placed a hand on his shoulder, calming him.
It was agreed that they would rest a day (or the equivalent) before attempting to open the sarcophagus in the small anteroom they had found when first arriving at this level.
Balem, 19th of Prem – 565 H.E.
“Nephthys, grant me your divine strength so that I help defeat whatever evil might emerge from within the sarcophagus.”
They were now all gathered in the small ‘laboratory’. Ratchis turned to Kazrack as he walked past and cast bull’s strength upon him as well.
The half-orc stepped behind the stone slab that looked as if it were once used to prepare the dead or perform autopsies. Belear and Beorth walked to the front, while Jeremy took a spot on the other side of the entrance from Ratchis. Blodnoth was in the front of the room, to the left of the immense statue that was leaning over the stone sarcophagus. (2)
Golnar, Jolnar and Tolnar were in the narrow hall that led to the stairs out of the room, with Baervard behind them, and Captain Adalar before them. Helrahd and Kirla, stood over on the other side of the desk from Jeremy, and Kazrack was in front of them. Derek squeezed in beside Jeremy.
Blodnath gave the statue and sarcophagus a very slow look over.
“She seems clear,” he said, wiping sweat from his dirty brow.
Belear looked around to see if everyone was ready and then began his chant in dwarven, designed to break the enchantment on the lock that held the sarcophagus closed. (3)
Everyone tensed up.
It was a long moment, and then as Belear’s chant died on his lip there was the sound of snapping metal and the lid of the sarcophagus burst off and smashed into a shower of rock and dust. Beorth and Belear reared back, covering their faces, while Blodnath instinctively ducked.
Everything seemed to be moving too slowly and as the dust cleared there was a tall gaunt figure floating above the sarcophagus. The figure had black wiry hair, and pale flaps of desiccated skin that hung off its bones. It wore a midnight blue gown, that might have once been very fine, and golden jewel-covered rings hung limply on its talon-like fingers.
It hissed loudly, throwing its head back as if in utter agony, revealing long canines behind it black pruned lips.
As if in answer the very walls and floor shook violently. Dust fell out of cracks that began to snake their way across the ceiling and floor.
This seemed to bring time back into its proper flow.
Without saying a word, Ratchis ran forward before anyone could react and pushing past Beorth and Belear, leapt upward and brought his sword across the thing’s neck with both hands.
The thing’s red-eyes glowed more brightly for a second, obscuring the yellow dried pus around them, but before it could react, it’s head toppled off its shoulders. The head had not reached the ground when it and the entire body collapsed into a pile of dust beneath the dirty gown, and littered with jewelry. (4)
The entire p[lace shook even more violently, and behind them on the stairs they heard the sound of cracking rock and then a blast of cold air.
Ratchis turned and looked at the shocked faces of his companions.
“We have to get out of here,” he said.
End of Session #47
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Notes
(1) Sarcasm is a rarity in dwarven culture. It is a form of expression that is uniquely human, but the other races have adopted its use over the centuries. However, dwarven taboos scorn lying of any kind, and sarcasm is considered a form of lying.
(2) Much like the statue in the great cavern below, it was a bronze statue of four-armed, four-breasted demon woman. The upper right and the lower left hands held curved bladed swords that looked like over-sized butcher knives. The upper left hand was making a clawing motion, while the lower right held a bronze depiction of a human head by its wire hair. Despite the fact that she had four breasts, and her expression was filled with rancor, full lips retracted to reveal sharpened teeth, she still had a menacing beauty about her. The statue was bolted to the wall from its bat-like wings in order to give her the appearance of coming through the wall, and leaping over her pedestal. She had tiny horns nearly hidden by her long flowing hair. (see Session #44).
(3) DM’s Notes: i.e. Dispel Magic
(4) DM’s Notes: Ratchis’ player rolled a critical hit and then rolled a ‘00’ on the percentile for determining the effect: decapitation.
