Session #45
Part Three: Retreat, Recoup & Read
Ratchis hurried out of the tunnel and breathed a sigh of relief to see the rope still hanging there. Derek came into the dark room behind him, and soon the others began to trickle in.
“I’ve got the rope,” Blodnath said, grabbing the end to steady it, while Jeremy, Derek and Ratchis drew weapons. Ratchis waited by the tunnel entrances to deal with any zombies that might emerge after them, but Jeremy and Derek hurried over to the sconces in the support pillars and slipped their burning torches into them.
“Everyone get up and out of here!” Ratchis commanded, as he spotted a zombie stumbling out of the tunnel. “I can handle this until the others arrive.” The half-orc cleaved open the undead thing’s skull, but it did not stop moving.
The zombie scrambled to its sandaled feet and lunged at Ratchis, who stepped back whipped his sword at the thing again. This time it fell and stopped moving.
Another zombie came from one of the tunnels, and Jeremy skewered it, but it tried to slide down the sword blade to grab him.
“Ugh!” Jeremy pulled his sword out and stepped back.
“I said, get out!” Ratchis roared, and shrugging his shoulders, Derek obeyed and began to get up the rope Blodnath held. The half-orc ranger chopped the zombie that had come after Jeremy and it stopped moving.
Martin emerged panting from the tunnel he and Kazrack had gone down. “There is one right behind Kazrack,” Martin wheezed.
Kazrack stumbled out after the green-robed watch-mage and then Jeremy hacked at it and it hesitated, but then continued to emerge spilling black ichor on the tunnel edge.
Ratchis stepped over and put an end to it.
“You go on up without me,” Jeremy told Ratchis, gritting his teeth. “I have the best chance of climbing up without the rope!”
“No, you go!” Ratchis replied. “I can turn them away from me if I am surrounded!”
“It’s not you I’m worried about,” Jeremy said.
Above, Derek let out a “whoa!” as the floor crumbled a bit as he got up to the top, sending chunks of dirt and stone down on his friends. The rope was biting into the tiled floor, cracking it.
”Wizard! Get up the rope!” Blodnath called to Martin. The white-haired dwarf seemed eager to do the same himself.
Kazrack readied himself to attack any more zombies that emerged from the holes, but Ratchis stepped in front of him. “Kazrack, it’s going to take you a half hour to climb that rope! Get going!”
“We need to wait for Beorth,” Kazrack explained. “We’ll turn the ones that come before he arrives.”
Jeremy sheathed his long sword and leapt for the edge of the hole, pulling his way up deftly by shoving his calloused hands into the dirt. Below him, Martin grabbed the rope and started trying to climb, but his flabby arms were not strong enough to gain him any altitude.
“Get on my back!” Blodnath order, and the dwarf squatted down. The watch-mage stepped up on to the dwarf, but even the boost was not enough. He just kept sliding down the rope feebly.
“Help,” Martin called up, pathetically.
“Get up there!” Blodnath roared.
Jeremy pulled himself up beside Derek, and the two of them grabbed the rope.
“Martin, hold on tight!” Jeremy called down, and the two young men began to pull the watch-mage up.
Meanwhile, another zombie emerged from one of the tunnels. Ratchis struck it and knocked it to the floor, where Kazrack sliced it with his halberd. However, another zombie grabbed the dwarf from behind as it emerged from the tunnel, clawing his neck. Kazrack swung around and sliced the newest foe, but the zombie on the floor was able to get up, dropping chunks of rotten flesh onto the increasingly mucky floor.
“Beorth better hurry up,” Ratchis said, his voice betraying a bit of desperation, as his blow missed the standing zombie. Kazrack thrust his halberd into the tunnel, skewering the one that struck him and pulling its now inert body out into the room. Another zombie fell into the room, and Ratchis turned to keep an eye on it, allowing the one he had just swung at to slam him in the face with a calcified fist. The half-orc turned back, and his sword plucked black and twisted entrails from the undead thing and it fell, sending a spray of filth across the room. It still struggled to get up.
Finally, Belear stumbled into the chamber, “There are zombies right behind us.”
“Oh, thank you,” Martin said to Derek and Jeremy as he finally made it to the larger chamber above.
“Just move back and away from the hole,” Jeremy said sharply, seeing more cracks appear in the floor. The watch-mage obeyed, but forgot about the warded pillars in this chamber, and stumbled between the two that had not been set off yet. His body jerked in pain and shocked as he was struck by the blue lightning. “Yearhg!” (1)
“C’mon! C’mon!” Blodnath called up the hole. “Drop the rope. I’m coming up!”
“Nephthys, grant me your strength to turn these vile abominations!” Ratchis cried out, swinging his chain belt over his head, and the zombies began to cower back and away from him.
Beorth finally stumbled from the tunnel. He was covered in many scratches and bleeding wounds, as he had been forced to fight off zombies in the cramped tunnel. However, never one to be discouraged, he turned and faced the tunnel to wait for more to emerge.
“Kazrack, get Belear up the hole!” Ratchis said, letting the swinging chain wrap up his arm.
“Beorth, back away from the tunnels!” Belear said. “I am going to turn them all so we can escape!”
“Beorth, you will need to be hauled up, so please get to the rope now!” Kazrack added his own commands to those of the others.
“It is my duty to die fighting the undead! Save yourself!” The ghost-hunter of Anubis replied.
Jeremy and Derek had dropped the rope, so Blodnath gave a quick look back at Belear and shrugging his shoulders began to make his own way up.
“None of us need die,” Kazrack said to Beorth.
More zombies stumbled out of the tunnel furthest to the left.
“Anubis! I am threatened! Save me and my companions so that we may destroy this place in your name!’ And with that Beorth reached for the silver jackal’s head about his neck and felt the divine force sweep from him like a wave. The zombies began to cower back into the holes.
“Now that they’re turned can the slow people please get up the rope?” Ratchis said, with annoyance dripping from his gravelly voice.
Belear and Kazrack reached the rope, and the younger dwarf steadied it. “You go first.”
The elder dwarf shook his head, and tugged on the rope. “Pull him up!” he called up and Derek and Jeremy did just that.
“Beorth should be next!” Kazrack called down and he flew upwards.
Above, Martin lay whimpering on the floor, as Jeremy, Derek and Blodnath moved away from the increasingly unstable hole, holding the rope at three different spots to create a lever for easier lifting.
Zombies scrambled over each other like insects trying to get past each other in the narrow tunnels, some fleeing the divine power of the party’s gods, and other drawn towards it like insects.
“All should go up! I can climb the rope easily,” Ratchis repeated himself in more than one way, cleaving open the head of a zombie once again. A huge chunk of brain splashed on his magical boots, and he kicked it away. Another zombie began to climb out behind that one, while two more fell from adjacent tunnels.
“I will bow to your wisdom,” Beorth said, to Belear who handed the lowered rope to the paladin. In a moment he too was being hauled up, with greater speed as now Kazrack was helping as well.
“Natan-Ahb! Fill me with your divine might so we may escape these things that are ever on our heels!” Belear called grasping the sack of runes around his neck. There was crackle and hiss as the three zombies that stumbled towards Ratchis crumbled into dust.
Beorth made it to the top, but finally the floor gave way again as it had threatened, and the paladin felt himself tumbling back down the deep hole to the chamber below. Jeremy, who was closest, leapt forward to grab him, but was too slow. Beorth was able to heft himself out of the hole and roll to safety, but the Neergaardian only succeeded in landing on a widening crack, and with a yelp he tumbled painfully down the hole. In a moment, he was bruised and bloodied back in the chamber below, stunned by the fall.
Ratchis and Belear turned with shock at the sound of their fallen companion. “Belear, go up,” Ratchis said. “I will take care of Jeremy.”
Belear nodded. In a moment, those above had untangled the rope and dropped it back down. They now had a chain of people pulling to avoid concentrating too much weight in any one spot. Soon, the elder dwarf was on his way up.
Ratchis leaned over Jeremy, keeping an eye open towards the tunnels, and pressed a hand to his companion’s temples.
“Nephthys, grant me your pwer to revive my companion.”
Jeremy coughed and awoke. (2) “Thanks, Ratchis.” He leapt to his feet and started climbing. Ratchis was forced to dispatch one last zombie before he, too was able to get to the relative safety of the chamber above.
They all took a moment to catch their breath.
“It appears that the only way we have of moving forward is to open that unlocked sarcophagus…” Kazrack commented.
“Do not forget the books and papers we found,” Beorth said. (3)
Jeremy smirked.
“Tomorrow I can read the first few pages of each of those books before we set off,” Martin added. “If I can risk preparing some different spells.”
“I think we should spend a day resting before we decide what to do anyway, so perhaps you will be able to read even more that that,’ Kazrack replied. “And I can gain a miracle from Lehrathonar that will let me read the loose pages of notes in the gnomish tongue.
Martin shook his head. “I do not think the charm of translation will work on gnomish.” (4)
“I am sure that miracles of my gods will me to read these,” Kazrack insisted.
“If that is so, I commend them to your care,” Martin replied with a shrug of his shoulders.
“Where are we going to rest?’ Derek asked, eying the cracked floor suspiciously.
“We’ll make our way back up to the level of the entrance shaft we left the others at,” Ratchis said.
“Yes, give the choice of being trapped on one side of the door or the other, I prefer it be this one,” Kazrack said, pointing to the weighted chains that worked the large door to this chamber.
“Uh, I see,” Derek said, looking to Jeremy with a look that asked, “Is this dwarf crazy?”
“Whatever do you mean?” Martin asked. “If if we got trapped on this side, we’d likely all die – as there may be no other way out.”
“Better to be trapped on this side where we can stop the source of this evil even if it means we must die than on the other side and be cut off from it.”
“I agree,” said Beorth, nodding.
“You’re crazy!” Jeremy exclaimed. This time it was Derek’s turn to nod.
“There are other more present dangers in the world that we must see to, Kazrack,” Belear intoned. “I would rather have the freedom to do so and have this place be sealed away, but let us hope it does not come to that choice.”
“Well said,” Ratchis agreed.
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The Fearless Manticore Killers and their companions joined the rest of the dwarves on the circular level with sarcophagi. Captain Adalar and the others were happy to see them relatively unharmed. Adalar immediately ordered Jolnar, Golnar, and Tolnar and the other dwarves who had not been below to take up the night’s watches to allow those who had been fighting uninterrupted rest.
Before bedding down, Belear cast spells of healing on Kazrack and Beorth.
Ralem, the 15th of Prem – 565 H.E.
The next morning found the group chewing on dried pieces of meat and fruit. Derek and Jeremy restlessly practiced handstands against a wall, as Beorth looked on reproachful of their behavior in a tomb, but spending his day in quiet reflection.
Ratchis restored some of his own strength and that of Kazrack, and then spread around the healing graces of Nephthys; after that he just paced back and forth and the dwarves all watched him grimacing.
The dwarves all spent the day alternately catching up on sleep, or talking softly among themselves in dwarvish.
“If there is another excursion they had better let us go,” said Jolnar to his brothers. “I came along for some action!”
At first Kazrack, tried to help Martin the Green with the books the party had found in the room with the locked sarcophagus.
“Grey-Giver, Keeper of the Hidden, please reveal these inscrutable circles and lines to me,” the dwarven rune-thrower said, having spread the loose gnomish notes around him and casting his runestones upon them.
All that was revealed to him were lists of tightly packed random words, most of them rather common in use.
“This is gibberish,” Kazrack sighed. “I hope Martin will have more luck with the books or else we will have to make a choice of what to do next blindly.”
“We may have to do that anyway,” Ratchis replied.
Martin had prepared to cast Comprehend Languages several times, and he also detected magic on them and found that two had wards upon them. These he set aside in hopes that Belear might be able to dispel one later as it was beyond his own meager power (5).
He read for hours, quickly flipping from book to book to absorb as much as possible in the limited time he had. He gasped and shuddered, and more than once frowned and snapped a book shut to grab another.
The very large book seemed to be mostly pictures, and the gnomish marginalia was untranslatable. There was one thing he was pretty sure about however, the books had been written a long time ago and then bound afterward, and he did not think the fiendish gnomes or their father had written them. The books were old even for gnomes. (6)
Two of the books were on necrology and had extensive info on various types of undead; their abilities and the methods for creating them – including new types of “experimental” undead fusing animal spirits with human corpses.
Another of the books was on demonology, and had color plates of various demon types and specific information on some specific and very powerful-looking demons; including the sacrifices they preferred, methods for summoning them and where in the abyssal realms they might be found. (7)
The first book, marked with a one, seemed to be a detailed explanation of the resources required to build the Necropolis. Including lists of slaves from places Martin could not recognize, and notes on tons of stone and methods for moving them and raising dead slaves to have them keep working.
There was a planar treatise, and book on Rahkefet, the ram-headed god; son of Set – which the builder of the Necropolis and the author of the books seemed to serve.
The color-plates in the large book were extremely vulgar – portraying various accounts of mortals consorting with demons and birthing monstrous half-fiend children.
However, there was little that seemed to indicate where to go next or what to do, and Martin said this to the others. The information held within these tomes would likely prove invaluable in the long term, but for right now the Fearless Manticore Killers found themselves no closer to discovering the source of the evil here and how to stop it.
[end of session #45]
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Notes
(1) See Session #43 (Part Two)
(2) Any of the Cure spells can eliminate the stunned effect.
(3) See Session #
(4) Martin’s little exposure to the gnomish written language (called Binar) while living with the Garvan gnomes taught him that the language is naturally in a form of code – which makes it very difficult to learn, and impossible to translate without powerful translation magics.
(5) DM’s Note: While Martin the Green was 5th level at this point, he had not yet found a copy of the Dispel Magic spell or had time to research it for himself.
(6) The party suspected the books might have been written by the gnomes, since they were in a room guarded by a gnomish magical ward in Session #44.
(7) In Aquerran cosmology, the Abyss is the area “outside” of the fiendish realm called hell, where fiends who refuse to submit to the hierarchy of the diabolic monarchy dwell. It is a fluid and torturous place, and not really a place at all at the same time
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