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"Out of the Frying Pan"- Book IV - Into the Fire [STORY HOUR COMPLETED - 12/25/06]
- Thread starter el-remmen
- Start date
mofos21 said:
The big problem with Gunther is that no one will ever do anything about him (and if someone tries, the other party members will pull you apart...) - short of telling him to take a hike, which won't happen unless he does something much worse than his constant stream of abuse - and he knows it, and takes advantage of it. Good really is stupid sometimes.
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
handforged said:
Originally, Gunthar was mostly supposed to be a challenge for Jeremy's player to deal with - the brother he never knew he had who was crass and a bit shady, but loyal and now a part of his family that was going through hard times ever since he allowed them believe he was dead.
But once Jeremy died and we lost a couple of our players I needed an NPC to accompany the party until we filled the gaps in our group, so Gunthar became a way to fill that gap and to challenge the whole party.
Ratchis has a hard time dealing with Gunthur because of his goddess and his own lack of confidence in how he deals with people (which is often a real problem with his 9 charisma), and since Gunthur HAS risked his life for us, Ratchis has a soft spot for the jerk when push comes to shove.
Also, when you are on a mission to save the world it is hard to throw away useful allies even when they are completely obnoxious.
As a player, he is fun to have around.
Also, when you are on a mission to save the world it is hard to throw away useful allies even when they are completely obnoxious.
As a player, he is fun to have around.
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
part 1 (of 2)
Session #70
Dorn nearly crumpled as he withdrew from the strange undead dwarf.
It looked up at the others, smiling with cracked yellow teeth, saliva strands breaking and popping to pour down its chin and beard, as it swung its hammer back and forth menacingly.
Roland growled and suddenly the top of his body seemed to unnaturally stretch forward. His head sunk into his shoulders as his mouth formed into a powerful feline snout, and his arms shortened up and thickened. The Bastite’s clothing, skin and armor burst out into thick black fur, and a tail sprouted out from his lower back and his legs also shortened and bent with powerful muscles rippling. He roared and charged at the dwarf-thing, now in the form of a black panther.
Roland grabbed hold of the dwarf-thing in his powerful jaws and knocked it over as he ripped at it with his claws. He was able to bring his rear claws to bear as well, raking at it mercilessly. The grappling due tumbled over and the thing was able to break free and attempt to hustle away. Roland slowed it down with one last swat of his paw.
Kazrack hurried over to help.
Meanwhile, Gunthar reached the figure stumbling behind the gravestones. He gave it a kick before he could see clearly that it was a young man in black clothes and cloak. The young man groaned, and the Neergaardian yanked him up by his collar and smacked him with the back of his off-hand, which still held a short sword. The kid grunted in pain, and seemed semi-conscious at best.
“Stop it!” Ratchis commanded Gunthar, beginning to run over, but as he noticed the fight against the undead dwarf-thing was moving further away and nearly through the archway out of the plaza, the half-orc hesitated.
Roland and the dwarf were tangled again, blood flying out and streams from its many cuts and scratches as the Bastite struggled to get his jaws into a killing position about its thick neck. The tumbled through the archway and the thing broke free as they fell to left down the steep stone steps in the alley created by the monastery and the cemetery wall. Roland pounced at it again as it ran past another alley that turned behind the east wing of the monastery, and Kazrack hustled after them.
Suddenly a small figure stepped out of the darkness of the alley and fired an arrow at the dwarf as he was only halfway down the steps. The arrow pierced the dwarf’s inner thigh and punctured his codpiece. He stumbled, but was able to keep his footing as he cried out in pain.
The small figure lingered in the shadow of the corner of the building. Kazrack could see that it was a ghoulish little halfling with bare feet covered in wiry hair, and a swollen skull draped with nearly translucent skin and large milky eyes. It wore armor that seemed to fit it like a second skin, in fact it looked like it was probably made of skin, and held a short bow in its hand, and a short sword was at its belt.
Clouds rolled across the moon.
“What’s going on?” Dorn cried out. “I can’t see!”
Kazrack charged the rest of the way down the stairs, halberd out in front of him, but the little ghouls side-stepped deftly.
Martin made his way to the archway at the top of the stairs, as Gunthar ran over to join the fight, letting the young man drop to the ground with another grunt. Dorn stood in the plaza, looking back and forth unsure of himself.
“Dorn, relay what it going on back to me,” Ratchis said, stepping over to the collapsed figure behind a tombstone and calling to his goddess to heal him.
“There is another thing down past the archway,” Dorn said, as Martin relayed the goings on to him from the top of the steps.
“Are you okay?” Ratchis asked the young man. He could now see the lanky figure was probably not more than 15 summers old. He had short tight curls on his head, and his green eyes were blood shot; a thin bit of stubble struggled against his acne to dominate his long face, which was covered in white powder to make him look pale. The powder had come off in many places revealing his olive complexion below. He reeked of ale.
“Mommy?” the boy murmured, and then his eyes opened wide and he stood and stepped back and raised his hands above his head. “I mean… Raaaarrrgh!”
Ratchis rolled his eyes. “Come on!” He grabbed the boy by the scruff of the neck and began to drag him towards the plaza.
“What? No! No!” the boy weakly protested.
Kazrack turned to engage the halfling ghoul, when another figure lurched out of the dark alley. It was a zombie nearly seven feet tall, and wearing a black breast plate. Kazrack spun back around and he barely got his halberd in the way to block the great sword swung down at him. The dwarf’s arms trembled from the force of the blow, and the tip of the sword nicked his temple, sending blood down the side of his face.
“Aaargh! There is another one!” Kazrack called to his companions. The undead dwarf continued to struggle to break free of Roland, but the Bastite was strong and quick in panther form, and kept pulling it back in for more worrying.
The little ghoul turned behind Kazrack and stepped back to bring its bow to bear from a flanking position. The dwarf spun around and slapped the bow with the head of his halberd hoping to snap it in half, but only managed to knock the arrow out of alignment so it missed. The maneuver cost him however, as he felt the heavy blows of the warrior-zombie crunching into his armor from behind, nearly driving him to his knees.
“What’s going on down here?” Gunthar said, barreling down the stairs as the clouds rolled by providing some ambient light once again. He spotted Roland in panther form for the first time. “Who let the cat out of the bag?”
“What’s the matter with you?” Ratchis asked the kid as he dragged him along. “What is going on?”
“I’m so sorry,” the kid whined, tears smearing the white powder on his face even more.
“Sounds like they need your help down there,” Martin said, as he hustled back to where Ratchis was dragging the young man past Dorn. “You go, I’ll take care of this.”
“I am sorely wounded! There are three of them!” Kazrack cried out, as if to emphasize the dire situation.
“Blast him out of existence if he gives you any trouble,” Ratchis said with a wink, pointing to the drunken youth. “Bring him to the archway, so we can make sure you are safe. Dorn, guard the rear.”
And with that the half-orc bolted through the archway and down the stairs.
“Please don’t banish me!” the kid covered his face with his hands, and sat dejectedly on the stained white stone of the plaza.
“It’s okay, don’t worry,” Martin the Green reassured him. “I’m a watch-mage. I’m here to help.”
The dwarf-thing stopped moving, so Roland let go with his jaws and padded quickly over to Kazrack, moving into the space left open by the withdrawing halfling ghoul. He licked the dwarf on the leg with his scratchy tongue, casting a spell to heal the dwarf. (1)
The Bastite snarled in surprise as the undead dwarf-thing was suddenly on its feet again, and sneaking past the melee to come around and slam its hammer into Kazrack’s side.
“Outta my way, Stumpy!” Gunthar came blundering into the shadowy alley, and Kazrack barely moved out of the way, but Gunthar’s swung wide. “I need light!”
Dorn lit a torch. “Martin, I’m going down there.”
The watch-mage turned to the sandy-haired cohort to say something when Dorn let out an “uh-oh”.
The young lad leapt to his feet and began to run for it as soon as Martin turned. The watch-mage reached into his Bag of Tricks and threw a fuzzy ball that grew into a badger at the kid.
“Trip him!” Martin commanded. The black and white animal charged into the man’s feet, but he was miraculously able to leap up and avoid the attack, and make his way to the steps down to the road that led to town.
Meanwhile, Roland howled, human pain coming through his panther mouth, as the zombie-warrior forced him back with twin telling blows, and then moved to parry a blow from Kazrack, after one got through, crunching armor.
Roaring, Ratchis came running into the fray with his brand new masterwork great sword over his head, but the violence of his own missing swing at the undead dwarf thing, tripped him up and he slammed against the right hand wall and had to duck from being slapped in the face with his own blade. (2)
The dwarf-thing reached out to touch Ratchis with a black calloused hand, but the half-orc spun away and brought his sword between them. This left it open to two blows from Gunthar’s sword. It sputtered and fell, and dark red blood began to pool put beneath it.
Everyone was surprised by a snort, followed by the sound of hooves on the stone floor of the alley. A large boar, snorting steam, with roiling red and black bristly fur, came charged out of the left hand hall, smashing into Gunthar.
“Ratchis, it’s your momma!” Gunthar swore. Unfortunately for him, his swords were thrown wide and he felt the bite of the zombie-warrior’s great sword on his shoulder and chest. Deep bruises swelled beneath the Neergaardian’s armor.
Ratchis spun around and with two hacks of his great sword the fiendish beast dropped to its stomach with a pitiful squeal and then disappeared in a flash of sulfurous smoke.
“Stay alert,” Ratchis warned. “I think a wizard of some kind must have summoned that.”
Roland yelped as he bit the zombie-warrior, opening himself to a glancing blow from an arrow fired by the little ghoul.
A thrust from Kazrack’s halberd knocked the zombie-warrior down on his rear end.
The little ghoul continued to retreat down into the darkness of the alley, firing arrows into the fray. Gunthar winced as one clipped his waist and he moved in to try to finish the prone zombie-warrior, so he turned and charged up the alley, nearly blind. A foul stench filled his nostrils and clung to his exposed skin and he could taste a mix of spicy beef stew and wine in the back of his throat. The little ghoul flashed a ghastly smile that quickly died as Gunthar managed to bring his long sword down and crack the thing’s bow in half.
“Ha! Ha! Take that you little ball of sh*te!” Gunthar laughed, as the thing backed away a bit more.
“You command men and beasts?” the young man said with fear in his voice, turning back around to face Martin from the far side of the plaza before the monastery. The badger circled menacingly. “Are you the one who rules Wharvis?”
“Uh, yes!” Martin bluffed, wiping sweat from his brow. “And, uh… how dare you speak the name of Wharvis aloud? What do you know of him?”
The boy came walking back towards Martin.
“Uh…uh… Nothing, master!” The boy was crying again. “Just that he watches over the monastery while the monks are away…”
Martin the Green hesitated, trying to decide what tack to take next.
“Master! What would you have me do?” the kid asked, fear and sadness mixing in his voice.
“Yeah! Yeah! Tell him to do something! Good idea, Martin! You’re so smart!” Thomas chattered in the watch-mage’s mind, from his hidden spot in the hood of Martin’s cloak.
“Follow me,” Martin said, trying to sound authoritative.
“Do I have to keep pretending to be a zombie?” the young man asked.
“No.”
The zombie warrior scrambled awkwardly to his feet, decaying flesh seeming to crumble away from his joints. With two vicious slashes from his halberd to the legs, Kazrack sent it back down to the ground.
Dorn hurried around the corner to the left hand alley holding his sword in one hand and a torch in the other, coming to support Ratchis and Kazrack, but then cried out.
“I’m blind! Something cast a spell on me!” he said. “Watch out, if I sense anything near me I am going to swing at it.”
“I knew it!” Ratchis cried, slicing into the nacreous flesh of the zombie warrior on the ground. “There must be a spell-caster of some kind down that alley!”
Roland bit at the zombie-warrior, wincing each time expecting to taste dead flesh, but the taste of live human blood was well known to him. He was unable to communicate this to his companions.
The zombie-warrior lurched awkwardly to his feet, trying to use his weight to slash across Kazrack’s face, but it only managed to slap its face into Kazrack’s halberd blade. The dwarf took advantage of the distraction and yanked his pole arm in and slashed low again. Again, the zombie-warrior lost his footing and landed heavily.
“Die! Die! Die! Die!” Ratchis roared crazily, bringing his great sword down on the prone zombie-warrior again and again. It stopped moving, and its appearance suddenly changed to that of a tall broad young man with an angular shaved head. “Roland! Go help Gunthar!”
But Gunthar didn’t need help. He shook off a cold feeling that tingled through his muscles when the little ghoul touched him, and thrust both his blades repeatedly into the thing, saying, “You wanna taste of this! How about a taste of that?”
It dropped to the ground, changing into halfling lad in mottled green and white leather armor.
“And why were you pretending to be a zombie? Explain,” martin was commanding of the confused youth as he led him down the alley to where the fight had been happening.
“Buh… But, you don’t know about the plan?” the kid replied.
“You are trying my patience. Explain!”
“Buh-Because if you act like a zombie everyone will be scared of you and the real zombies will leave you alone, and then you can earn the items of power,” the boy explained.
Kazrack knelt beside the former zombie and called to his gods to close his opponent’s wounds, so that he would not bleed out and allow him to be questioned.
“Anubis! Askoday!” a voice called from deep in the left hand alley, as Ratchis began to creep down it, whispering to Dorn that it was him. The half-orc spotted a dark robed figure slip into a small door in the rear of the monastery, as a cloud of obscuring mist filled the alley.
The zombie-warrior suddenly leapt back to its feet, appearing in its former undead guise once again and slammed Kazrack in the face with a fist. The dwarf scrambled to get his halberd ready.
Roland, who had begun to go check on Gunthar who was gleefully sifting through the halfling’s things, turned around and bit the zombie on the lower leg and tried to pull it off its feet.
“How did this thing get back up?” Ratchis asked, as he burst out of the mist and sliced it across the chest, making a painful looking dent in the thing’s breastplate. Roland took advantage of the distraction and leapt on its back and began to rake it. Kazrack shoved the head of his halberd into the thing’s lower belly.
The zombie slammed Kazrack once again, and the dwarf went down, coughing blood, and then it collapsed again. Once again, it transformed into a pale young man. Roland noticed a long thin wooden bead carved too look like a haggard face that feel from the man’s face. It had been affixed to the bridge of the man’s nose somehow. The Bastite pushed it away with his nose.
“The mage got away,” Ratchis said, kneeling beside Kazrack to heal him. “He slipped into the monastery.”
Martin walked over, with the other boy in tow. He noticed that dwarf-thing now looked like a very dead, but not undead dwarf.
“What is your name?” he asked the boy. “Who told you about the plan?”
“I’m Eton,” the boy said meekly. “Wharvis recruited me.”
“We should go back to town and re-group,” Kazrack said groggily, conscious once again, but exhausted.
“We cannot get back into town until dawn,” Ratchis reminded him.
“The guard will let us in if we just explain what happened,” Kazrack reasoned.
“Look, I don’t know what the dwarves were like where you came from,” Ratchis began angrily. “But here, and everywhere else in your homeland that I have been they are unyielding and rigid when it comes to rules and the law. You need to get this through your thick dwarven skull.”
Kazrack frowned.
“Tell me everything, and start from the beginning,” Martin said to Eton.
The boy looked around nervously at the others.
“Who are you people?”
“We’re the friggin’ Fearless Manticore Killers,” Gunthar said, coming back to the others, and giving Roland a kick in the rump. The Bastite snarled, “Heh, I’ve heard a pussy make all kinds ot sounds, but never heard one snarl.”
Roland roared and it echoed through the silence of the cemetery.
“Perhaps we should at least leave the cemetery and wait by the gate into the tunnel,” Martin suggested. “Eton, you can tell us what you know as we go. Oh, and we are the Keepers of the Gate.”
They gathered up the bodies and their gear and made their way to the steps that led down the cliff face.
Eton haltingly explained that he and some friends had taken to coming to the cemetery not long after the monks disappeared, where they and other town youths would drink and couples would meet. After real undead began to appear, they were recruited by a wizard named Wharvis who claimed to be watching over the cemetery in the monks’ absence, and convinced them to dress as undead to scare off others and to be able to be mistaken as undead by the real ones at a distance. Those who showed the most loyalty and did special “missions” for Wharvis were eventually granted items that gave them the appearance and powers of some undead. He thought Wharvis was someone from town, but he was not sure whom it might be.
"Me and Tanya and Mortimer were waiting for Wharvis and the others to show up and we had a few shots from our flasks, when the ghouls showed up," Eton explained. "Our disguises didn't show up."
"What others?" Martin asked.
"Tipik. He was the halfling with the magic armor that gave him ghoul-powers, and there was Dolan and Tinar, who is a dwarf,” Eton explained. “The last two had already been recruited by Wharvis when we met him.”
“We are going to have to turn you into the authorities,” Martin explained.
“No!”
“You should have thought of that before you started hanging out with ghouls,” Gunthar chided him. “Some men will do anything for a ghoul-friend.”
Dorn and Martin groaned. Roland, still in panther form, snarled his disapproval at the joke.
“Gunthar has a point, young man,” Kazrack said, angrily. “Accept your judgment with dignity.”
“I don’t wanna! I don’t wanna!” Eton made to take back off up the stairs, but Ratchis shot him a glare, and the boy quieted it down, though tears were streaming down his face again.
They had a long wait before the gate would open in the morning.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Notes:
(1) DM’s Note: Roland has the Natural Spell feat, allowing him to cast spells while in panther form.
(2) DM’s Note: Ratchis’ player rolled a natural ‘1’ and then confirmed it with another miss, but made his Reflex save against hitting himself for full damage.
Session #70
Dorn nearly crumpled as he withdrew from the strange undead dwarf.
It looked up at the others, smiling with cracked yellow teeth, saliva strands breaking and popping to pour down its chin and beard, as it swung its hammer back and forth menacingly.
Roland growled and suddenly the top of his body seemed to unnaturally stretch forward. His head sunk into his shoulders as his mouth formed into a powerful feline snout, and his arms shortened up and thickened. The Bastite’s clothing, skin and armor burst out into thick black fur, and a tail sprouted out from his lower back and his legs also shortened and bent with powerful muscles rippling. He roared and charged at the dwarf-thing, now in the form of a black panther.
Roland grabbed hold of the dwarf-thing in his powerful jaws and knocked it over as he ripped at it with his claws. He was able to bring his rear claws to bear as well, raking at it mercilessly. The grappling due tumbled over and the thing was able to break free and attempt to hustle away. Roland slowed it down with one last swat of his paw.
Kazrack hurried over to help.
Meanwhile, Gunthar reached the figure stumbling behind the gravestones. He gave it a kick before he could see clearly that it was a young man in black clothes and cloak. The young man groaned, and the Neergaardian yanked him up by his collar and smacked him with the back of his off-hand, which still held a short sword. The kid grunted in pain, and seemed semi-conscious at best.
“Stop it!” Ratchis commanded Gunthar, beginning to run over, but as he noticed the fight against the undead dwarf-thing was moving further away and nearly through the archway out of the plaza, the half-orc hesitated.
Roland and the dwarf were tangled again, blood flying out and streams from its many cuts and scratches as the Bastite struggled to get his jaws into a killing position about its thick neck. The tumbled through the archway and the thing broke free as they fell to left down the steep stone steps in the alley created by the monastery and the cemetery wall. Roland pounced at it again as it ran past another alley that turned behind the east wing of the monastery, and Kazrack hustled after them.
Suddenly a small figure stepped out of the darkness of the alley and fired an arrow at the dwarf as he was only halfway down the steps. The arrow pierced the dwarf’s inner thigh and punctured his codpiece. He stumbled, but was able to keep his footing as he cried out in pain.
The small figure lingered in the shadow of the corner of the building. Kazrack could see that it was a ghoulish little halfling with bare feet covered in wiry hair, and a swollen skull draped with nearly translucent skin and large milky eyes. It wore armor that seemed to fit it like a second skin, in fact it looked like it was probably made of skin, and held a short bow in its hand, and a short sword was at its belt.
Clouds rolled across the moon.
“What’s going on?” Dorn cried out. “I can’t see!”
Kazrack charged the rest of the way down the stairs, halberd out in front of him, but the little ghouls side-stepped deftly.
Martin made his way to the archway at the top of the stairs, as Gunthar ran over to join the fight, letting the young man drop to the ground with another grunt. Dorn stood in the plaza, looking back and forth unsure of himself.
“Dorn, relay what it going on back to me,” Ratchis said, stepping over to the collapsed figure behind a tombstone and calling to his goddess to heal him.
“There is another thing down past the archway,” Dorn said, as Martin relayed the goings on to him from the top of the steps.
“Are you okay?” Ratchis asked the young man. He could now see the lanky figure was probably not more than 15 summers old. He had short tight curls on his head, and his green eyes were blood shot; a thin bit of stubble struggled against his acne to dominate his long face, which was covered in white powder to make him look pale. The powder had come off in many places revealing his olive complexion below. He reeked of ale.
“Mommy?” the boy murmured, and then his eyes opened wide and he stood and stepped back and raised his hands above his head. “I mean… Raaaarrrgh!”
Ratchis rolled his eyes. “Come on!” He grabbed the boy by the scruff of the neck and began to drag him towards the plaza.
“What? No! No!” the boy weakly protested.
Kazrack turned to engage the halfling ghoul, when another figure lurched out of the dark alley. It was a zombie nearly seven feet tall, and wearing a black breast plate. Kazrack spun back around and he barely got his halberd in the way to block the great sword swung down at him. The dwarf’s arms trembled from the force of the blow, and the tip of the sword nicked his temple, sending blood down the side of his face.
“Aaargh! There is another one!” Kazrack called to his companions. The undead dwarf continued to struggle to break free of Roland, but the Bastite was strong and quick in panther form, and kept pulling it back in for more worrying.
The little ghoul turned behind Kazrack and stepped back to bring its bow to bear from a flanking position. The dwarf spun around and slapped the bow with the head of his halberd hoping to snap it in half, but only managed to knock the arrow out of alignment so it missed. The maneuver cost him however, as he felt the heavy blows of the warrior-zombie crunching into his armor from behind, nearly driving him to his knees.
“What’s going on down here?” Gunthar said, barreling down the stairs as the clouds rolled by providing some ambient light once again. He spotted Roland in panther form for the first time. “Who let the cat out of the bag?”
“What’s the matter with you?” Ratchis asked the kid as he dragged him along. “What is going on?”
“I’m so sorry,” the kid whined, tears smearing the white powder on his face even more.
“Sounds like they need your help down there,” Martin said, as he hustled back to where Ratchis was dragging the young man past Dorn. “You go, I’ll take care of this.”
“I am sorely wounded! There are three of them!” Kazrack cried out, as if to emphasize the dire situation.
“Blast him out of existence if he gives you any trouble,” Ratchis said with a wink, pointing to the drunken youth. “Bring him to the archway, so we can make sure you are safe. Dorn, guard the rear.”
And with that the half-orc bolted through the archway and down the stairs.
“Please don’t banish me!” the kid covered his face with his hands, and sat dejectedly on the stained white stone of the plaza.
“It’s okay, don’t worry,” Martin the Green reassured him. “I’m a watch-mage. I’m here to help.”
The dwarf-thing stopped moving, so Roland let go with his jaws and padded quickly over to Kazrack, moving into the space left open by the withdrawing halfling ghoul. He licked the dwarf on the leg with his scratchy tongue, casting a spell to heal the dwarf. (1)
The Bastite snarled in surprise as the undead dwarf-thing was suddenly on its feet again, and sneaking past the melee to come around and slam its hammer into Kazrack’s side.
“Outta my way, Stumpy!” Gunthar came blundering into the shadowy alley, and Kazrack barely moved out of the way, but Gunthar’s swung wide. “I need light!”
Dorn lit a torch. “Martin, I’m going down there.”
The watch-mage turned to the sandy-haired cohort to say something when Dorn let out an “uh-oh”.
The young lad leapt to his feet and began to run for it as soon as Martin turned. The watch-mage reached into his Bag of Tricks and threw a fuzzy ball that grew into a badger at the kid.
“Trip him!” Martin commanded. The black and white animal charged into the man’s feet, but he was miraculously able to leap up and avoid the attack, and make his way to the steps down to the road that led to town.
Meanwhile, Roland howled, human pain coming through his panther mouth, as the zombie-warrior forced him back with twin telling blows, and then moved to parry a blow from Kazrack, after one got through, crunching armor.
Roaring, Ratchis came running into the fray with his brand new masterwork great sword over his head, but the violence of his own missing swing at the undead dwarf thing, tripped him up and he slammed against the right hand wall and had to duck from being slapped in the face with his own blade. (2)
The dwarf-thing reached out to touch Ratchis with a black calloused hand, but the half-orc spun away and brought his sword between them. This left it open to two blows from Gunthar’s sword. It sputtered and fell, and dark red blood began to pool put beneath it.
Everyone was surprised by a snort, followed by the sound of hooves on the stone floor of the alley. A large boar, snorting steam, with roiling red and black bristly fur, came charged out of the left hand hall, smashing into Gunthar.
“Ratchis, it’s your momma!” Gunthar swore. Unfortunately for him, his swords were thrown wide and he felt the bite of the zombie-warrior’s great sword on his shoulder and chest. Deep bruises swelled beneath the Neergaardian’s armor.
Ratchis spun around and with two hacks of his great sword the fiendish beast dropped to its stomach with a pitiful squeal and then disappeared in a flash of sulfurous smoke.
“Stay alert,” Ratchis warned. “I think a wizard of some kind must have summoned that.”
Roland yelped as he bit the zombie-warrior, opening himself to a glancing blow from an arrow fired by the little ghoul.
A thrust from Kazrack’s halberd knocked the zombie-warrior down on his rear end.
The little ghoul continued to retreat down into the darkness of the alley, firing arrows into the fray. Gunthar winced as one clipped his waist and he moved in to try to finish the prone zombie-warrior, so he turned and charged up the alley, nearly blind. A foul stench filled his nostrils and clung to his exposed skin and he could taste a mix of spicy beef stew and wine in the back of his throat. The little ghoul flashed a ghastly smile that quickly died as Gunthar managed to bring his long sword down and crack the thing’s bow in half.
“Ha! Ha! Take that you little ball of sh*te!” Gunthar laughed, as the thing backed away a bit more.
“You command men and beasts?” the young man said with fear in his voice, turning back around to face Martin from the far side of the plaza before the monastery. The badger circled menacingly. “Are you the one who rules Wharvis?”
“Uh, yes!” Martin bluffed, wiping sweat from his brow. “And, uh… how dare you speak the name of Wharvis aloud? What do you know of him?”
The boy came walking back towards Martin.
“Uh…uh… Nothing, master!” The boy was crying again. “Just that he watches over the monastery while the monks are away…”
Martin the Green hesitated, trying to decide what tack to take next.
“Master! What would you have me do?” the kid asked, fear and sadness mixing in his voice.
“Yeah! Yeah! Tell him to do something! Good idea, Martin! You’re so smart!” Thomas chattered in the watch-mage’s mind, from his hidden spot in the hood of Martin’s cloak.
“Follow me,” Martin said, trying to sound authoritative.
“Do I have to keep pretending to be a zombie?” the young man asked.
“No.”
The zombie warrior scrambled awkwardly to his feet, decaying flesh seeming to crumble away from his joints. With two vicious slashes from his halberd to the legs, Kazrack sent it back down to the ground.
Dorn hurried around the corner to the left hand alley holding his sword in one hand and a torch in the other, coming to support Ratchis and Kazrack, but then cried out.
“I’m blind! Something cast a spell on me!” he said. “Watch out, if I sense anything near me I am going to swing at it.”
“I knew it!” Ratchis cried, slicing into the nacreous flesh of the zombie warrior on the ground. “There must be a spell-caster of some kind down that alley!”
Roland bit at the zombie-warrior, wincing each time expecting to taste dead flesh, but the taste of live human blood was well known to him. He was unable to communicate this to his companions.
The zombie-warrior lurched awkwardly to his feet, trying to use his weight to slash across Kazrack’s face, but it only managed to slap its face into Kazrack’s halberd blade. The dwarf took advantage of the distraction and yanked his pole arm in and slashed low again. Again, the zombie-warrior lost his footing and landed heavily.
“Die! Die! Die! Die!” Ratchis roared crazily, bringing his great sword down on the prone zombie-warrior again and again. It stopped moving, and its appearance suddenly changed to that of a tall broad young man with an angular shaved head. “Roland! Go help Gunthar!”
But Gunthar didn’t need help. He shook off a cold feeling that tingled through his muscles when the little ghoul touched him, and thrust both his blades repeatedly into the thing, saying, “You wanna taste of this! How about a taste of that?”
It dropped to the ground, changing into halfling lad in mottled green and white leather armor.
“And why were you pretending to be a zombie? Explain,” martin was commanding of the confused youth as he led him down the alley to where the fight had been happening.
“Buh… But, you don’t know about the plan?” the kid replied.
“You are trying my patience. Explain!”
“Buh-Because if you act like a zombie everyone will be scared of you and the real zombies will leave you alone, and then you can earn the items of power,” the boy explained.
Kazrack knelt beside the former zombie and called to his gods to close his opponent’s wounds, so that he would not bleed out and allow him to be questioned.
“Anubis! Askoday!” a voice called from deep in the left hand alley, as Ratchis began to creep down it, whispering to Dorn that it was him. The half-orc spotted a dark robed figure slip into a small door in the rear of the monastery, as a cloud of obscuring mist filled the alley.
The zombie-warrior suddenly leapt back to its feet, appearing in its former undead guise once again and slammed Kazrack in the face with a fist. The dwarf scrambled to get his halberd ready.
Roland, who had begun to go check on Gunthar who was gleefully sifting through the halfling’s things, turned around and bit the zombie on the lower leg and tried to pull it off its feet.
“How did this thing get back up?” Ratchis asked, as he burst out of the mist and sliced it across the chest, making a painful looking dent in the thing’s breastplate. Roland took advantage of the distraction and leapt on its back and began to rake it. Kazrack shoved the head of his halberd into the thing’s lower belly.
The zombie slammed Kazrack once again, and the dwarf went down, coughing blood, and then it collapsed again. Once again, it transformed into a pale young man. Roland noticed a long thin wooden bead carved too look like a haggard face that feel from the man’s face. It had been affixed to the bridge of the man’s nose somehow. The Bastite pushed it away with his nose.
“The mage got away,” Ratchis said, kneeling beside Kazrack to heal him. “He slipped into the monastery.”
Martin walked over, with the other boy in tow. He noticed that dwarf-thing now looked like a very dead, but not undead dwarf.
“What is your name?” he asked the boy. “Who told you about the plan?”
“I’m Eton,” the boy said meekly. “Wharvis recruited me.”
“We should go back to town and re-group,” Kazrack said groggily, conscious once again, but exhausted.
“We cannot get back into town until dawn,” Ratchis reminded him.
“The guard will let us in if we just explain what happened,” Kazrack reasoned.
“Look, I don’t know what the dwarves were like where you came from,” Ratchis began angrily. “But here, and everywhere else in your homeland that I have been they are unyielding and rigid when it comes to rules and the law. You need to get this through your thick dwarven skull.”
Kazrack frowned.
“Tell me everything, and start from the beginning,” Martin said to Eton.
The boy looked around nervously at the others.
“Who are you people?”
“We’re the friggin’ Fearless Manticore Killers,” Gunthar said, coming back to the others, and giving Roland a kick in the rump. The Bastite snarled, “Heh, I’ve heard a pussy make all kinds ot sounds, but never heard one snarl.”
Roland roared and it echoed through the silence of the cemetery.
“Perhaps we should at least leave the cemetery and wait by the gate into the tunnel,” Martin suggested. “Eton, you can tell us what you know as we go. Oh, and we are the Keepers of the Gate.”
They gathered up the bodies and their gear and made their way to the steps that led down the cliff face.
Eton haltingly explained that he and some friends had taken to coming to the cemetery not long after the monks disappeared, where they and other town youths would drink and couples would meet. After real undead began to appear, they were recruited by a wizard named Wharvis who claimed to be watching over the cemetery in the monks’ absence, and convinced them to dress as undead to scare off others and to be able to be mistaken as undead by the real ones at a distance. Those who showed the most loyalty and did special “missions” for Wharvis were eventually granted items that gave them the appearance and powers of some undead. He thought Wharvis was someone from town, but he was not sure whom it might be.
"Me and Tanya and Mortimer were waiting for Wharvis and the others to show up and we had a few shots from our flasks, when the ghouls showed up," Eton explained. "Our disguises didn't show up."
"What others?" Martin asked.
"Tipik. He was the halfling with the magic armor that gave him ghoul-powers, and there was Dolan and Tinar, who is a dwarf,” Eton explained. “The last two had already been recruited by Wharvis when we met him.”
“We are going to have to turn you into the authorities,” Martin explained.
“No!”
“You should have thought of that before you started hanging out with ghouls,” Gunthar chided him. “Some men will do anything for a ghoul-friend.”
Dorn and Martin groaned. Roland, still in panther form, snarled his disapproval at the joke.
“Gunthar has a point, young man,” Kazrack said, angrily. “Accept your judgment with dignity.”
“I don’t wanna! I don’t wanna!” Eton made to take back off up the stairs, but Ratchis shot him a glare, and the boy quieted it down, though tears were streaming down his face again.
They had a long wait before the gate would open in the morning.
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Notes:
(1) DM’s Note: Roland has the Natural Spell feat, allowing him to cast spells while in panther form.
(2) DM’s Note: Ratchis’ player rolled a natural ‘1’ and then confirmed it with another miss, but made his Reflex save against hitting himself for full damage.
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