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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wicht" data-source="post: 711284" data-attributes="member: 221">Chapter 29 – Elias’ FortThere was still plenty of daylight and so the four companions went back into the house and made their way back down into the basement once more.  There seemed to be nothing else in the room with the three beds and the three chests.  At the bottom of the chest in which the vampire had been sleeping, they found foul smelling dirt, but nothing else.“Let’s check out the other room down here,” said Alairic and he led the way, followed closely by Niccolo.  Rasthok, with the torch, brought up the rear.  Alairic, scarcely waiting for the light moved swiftly into the room with the stairs leading back up into the house and then went left through the unexplored darkened archway.A small hall, perhaps only three feet in length led into what appeared to be a room.  Alairic walked straight into it about ten feet and then stopped, waiting for the light from the torch to get better.  Rasthok was still in the other room though and all Alairic could see was the smooth stone floor, wet in a few places.  Something wet and a little heavy dripped onto Alairic’s shoulder.  Immediately there was the sound of hissing coming from the spot, loud in Alairic’s ear.  Another blob of the unseen, wet and heavy substance fell, landing on Alairic’s head.  “What?” began Alairic and then without warning he loudly screamed, “Aarrgh!” The intense pain of something burning away at his flesh overwhelmed Alairic.  It burned and hissed and the smell of scorched flesh suddenly filled the air.  Niccolo, right behind Alairic stared in horror for a moment, wondering what to do and then as Alairic screamed even more loudly, Niccolo grabbed the paladin by the arm and propelled him back out of the room.  The other two made room for Alairic and by the light of the torch they could see a green, slimy substance, eating quickly through Alairic’s flesh, down to the very bone.  It was a horrifying sight and so quickly was the acidic substance doing its job that there was not doubt that Alairic would in seconds be dead.“Stand back,” commanded Rasthok to the other two, and speaking a word of power he brought a glowing ball of fire into existence.  With a flick of his wrist he directed it towards the anguished Paladin who was writhing on the ground.  “What are you doing!” shouted Niccolo, rushing forward to stop the Evoker.  Tilliana grabbed Niccolo by the arm, stopping the half-elf and the ball of flame descended on Alairic.  The smell of burning flesh grew stronger as the flames engulfed Alairic’s head and shoulders.“It’s the only way,” said Tilliana to the upset Niccolo.Rasthok made another gesture and the flames moved off of Alairic and into the dark room beyond the archway.  There it burned in the next room until it went out seconds later.Alairic lay on the ground, still alive.  The flaming sphere had done its job and the slime had been burned away.  The resulting mess was not pretty.  Alairic had just enough presence of mind to lay his hands on himself and pray to Naemae for healing.  The burns on his head and shoulders quickly healed over and Alairic stumbled to his feet.  He was still very weak from the attacks of the slime.“Green slime,” said Alairic weakly as he rose, “I have heard of it, but never before encountered it.”Tilliana rummaged through her brain before saying, “Fire, cold and daylight kills it I think.”  Striding through the archway, Tilliana stopped before actually entering the room beyond and uttering a brief prayer she held up her divine focus and suddenly the whole room was bathed in light, as bright as the light of the sun.The others moved behind her.  The green slime could clearly be seen to coat almost the entire ceiling beyond, save right around the doorway.  But the light Tilliana had conjured forth was having an effect on the slime.  It shriveled and dried before their eyes.“Good riddance,” muttered Alairic.The room inhabited by the green slime was empty, though bits of metal on the floor, the remnants of weapons, along with the remains of floor padding gave the hint that this was perhaps once a training room of some sort.  The green slime had eaten away almost everything in the room though.  There were no other exits from the room.  “Let’s get out of here,” said Niccolo and turned to leave.“I want to search the room more closely,” said Tilliana to Niccolo as the half-elf reached the archway.  So saying, Tilliana began minutely searching the walls.“I’ll help,” said Alairic cheerfully and he started examining the wall on the other end of the room.  Niccolo and Rasthok watched impatiently.The two carefully went over the walls, inch by inch, looking for any signs of other exits.“Found one!” announced Alairic.  He was standing at the spot where Tilliana had begun her search and pressing a certain stone he caused a doorway in the wall to open.“Someone else can go first,” said Alairic sheepishly, looking through the door.“Check the ceiling first,” cautioned Tilliana, but the warning was unnecessary.  There was nothing on the other side of the door but a short hall leading to another door.  This new door was of a strange stone-like substance.  There was no visible lock or handle for the door, but in the middle of the door was a metal fixture, with a pattern in the middle, an indentation.  The door would not push open and they concluded that the metal fixture was indeed a special lock of some sort.  They studied the indentation more closely.  “Perhaps the gem we took from that vampire down here,” suggested Tilliana, but the gem did not match the indentation.  They looked at it some more.  The roundness of the indentation suddenly suggested a medallion in Tilliana’s mind and she remembered the magical amulet her mother had given her, the one that had belonged to her father.  Pulling it out from underneath her tunic and armor, she tried fitting it into the indentation.  It did not quite fit.“Let’s check the second floor,” said Niccolo, “We can come back to this later when the vampires are all dead.”“Or we could dig our way into the tower,” said Alairic, recalling the pile of rubble someone had stacked in the hall leading from the kitchen to the tower.“The second floor first,” said Niccolo, “before we dig.”“Don’t forget the floors up there seem to be sagging,” Tilliana reminded them as they moved to return to the stairs.************************************Returning to the room with the large dining table, they took the stairs to the second floor.  To their chagrin, there was little room at the top of the stairs.  A door straight across seemed in decent condition, but immediately to the left of the door, parts of the ceiling of the house had collapsed in, filling the area with nearly impassable debris.  The sagging ceilings below were explained.Niccolo, now in front, opened the door at the top of the stairs and looked through it.  The room beyond was in poor shape.  The ceiling was intact, but the lone bed that occupied the room was junk and the walls were cracked.Niccolo, determined to find something on the second floor, started searching the room carefully, in the end turning up nothing.“Let’s go dig,” said Alairic.  They had about three or four hours remaining until dusk.******************************Two hours later they had managed to clear a path through the rubble in the hall leading south from the kitchen to the tower.As they entered the bottom floor of the tower, they could see that it seemed to be in better shape than other places in the keep house.  Even the dust, so prevalent elsewhere, seemed absent.There were two doors opposite the hall leading into the tower and to the left of the doors, stairs circled up around the wall of the tower to the next floor.They opened the door on the right first.  Inside was a newly refurbished bedroom, not that big but very tastefully decorated.  They stared around for a moment at the signs of recent work.  The new bed and wardrobe, the carpet freshly laid out on the floor.“Is anyone in the room,” said Tilliana finally and they remembered they were supposed to be looking for vampires.A fifteen minute search of the room revealed no-one.  Beginning to wonder where all the other vampires were, they checked out the next door.  It revealed a linen closet, completely empty of everything but shelves.They climbed the stairs.The stairs circled around the tower in a clockwise direction and after a half turn around the tower, the stairs came to a small landing with a door on the right.  Beyond the door the landing ended and the stairs started climbing once more.The door opened onto an empty bedroom and after a quick search revealed that it too was empty they resumed climbing the stairs.At the top of the stairs they came to another door.  Opening the door revealed another recently remodeled room.  The wooden floor looked to have received a great deal of repair and the walls were newly painted.  A painting of a red dragon in flight hung on one wall above a new chair.  There was another door in the room as well as a door on the ceiling.  Niccolo reached up and pulled the ceiling door open.  The door swung down, along with a folding set of steps, which Niccolo unfolded.  Above them they could see the sky.  The sun would soon be setting and the sky was darkening.  “Let’s check out the other door first,” said Niccolo.“I say we go up first,” said Alairic.Niccolo shrugged, not wanting to argue the point and began climbing up the steps.  No sooner had he reached halfway up then the ancient wood collapsed under him and he fell rudely to the floor.“Umph,” said Niccolo in surprise as he landed in an undignified heap.“Let’s check the door,” said Tilliana.The next room looked to have seen some recent work as well but was fairly empty of everything except a desk.  Niccolo, entering behind Tilliana made straight from the desk.  Atop the desk was some unfinished correspondence.Niccolo read, “Things go well but we are suffering attacks from unknown persons…”“Tear it up,” suggested Alairic, “make them write it again.”Niccolo did so and the group searched the room, finding nothing else.“There’s nothing here,” said Alairic with disgust, “Where are those vampires hiding?”As they descended back down the tower and into the house, they discussed their options.  Alairic reminded them of the other door leading into the second floor of the house, the door atop the landing above the entrance to the house.  They could reach the door via the barn doors on the second floor of the carriage house.Following Alairic’s suggestion, they made their way out of the house and back into the barn, stopping for a moment to check on the horses.  The doors on the second floor did indeed lead onto the landing, a sturdy platform which ran above both the tables and part of the house, providing access to the north and west walls of the keep.The door into the second floor of the house from the landing opened easily and they entered through, aware that their daylight was swiftly fading.  The door opened onto a hall.  The hall contained two doors, one on the left and one on the right and just past the doors, someone had clogged the hallway with rubble.  “Let’s open them at the same time,” said Niccolo to Tilliana, motioning to the doors.“Right,” said Tilliana and moved to open the door on the right even as Niccolo moved to open the door on the left.Tilliana’s door opened to reveal a bedroom, in decent shape, but dusty.  Niccolo’s door opened to reveal an empty room.They entered and searched the bedroom first.  Alairic checked under the bed and Niccolo opened the trunk at the foot of the bed.  It was empty and there was nothing under the bed but dust.  Tilliana looked at the fireplace in the room and looked up the chimney.  She saw nothing.  The room seemed to be unoccupied.Frustrated Alairic went around the room double checking everything while the others watched.  He still found nothing.  They went back out into the hall and looked into the empty room Niccolo had opened.Just as he was about to enter, Niccolo looked up and noticed the ceiling of the room was leaking.  “Maybe we should not go in there,” said Niccolo looking at the floor and deciding it looked a bit weak and rotten.“Where are they hiding?!” exclaimed Alairic.In the end they decided to dig out the rubble blocking the hallway and see what lay beyond.  They set to and like the hallway leading to the tower, it took them about two hours to get this one cleared.  It was truly night by they time they were finished.“It’s night time now,” said Alairic, stating the obvious.  They made their way through the recently unclogged hallway and looked around.“Maybe we should set up some sort of alarm,” said Niccolo.  There were two doors to their right and ahead of them the hallway opened into a large room, part of which looked to be in pretty poor shape.The first door to their right burst open and a lithe, snarling shape sprang through.  It was the female vampire who had taken Kinshag.  She slashed with claw like hands at Niccolo who barely managed to move out of the way in time.Alairic drew his sword and swung viciously at the creature but she nimbly ducked under the swipe.  Niccolo, remembering Tilliana’s suggestion earlier in the day that they wrestle the creatures to the ground and stake them, moved in to grapple the vampiress.  Avoiding the claws, Niccolo futilely tried to pin the woman.  Tilliana rushed in from the other side, putting the undead woman into a headlock but with a snarl, the lock was broken seconds later and the vampiress moved to try and push her two grapplers away.  Rasthok flicked his fingers and murmured a word.  A flash of light went off in front of the eyes of the vampiress, but whatever the intended effect was supposed to be, it did not work.  Alairic, seeing an opening, swung his holy sword up and over and into the undead creature.  The sword bit deep and there was a flash of divine light that burned the undead woman.  As Alairic wrenched his sword away, Niccolo and Tilliana moved in again.  Tilliana managed to grab the woman and hold her and before the woman could escape, Niccolo pulled out a tent peg and plunged it into her chest.  The woman gurgled and fell to the floor, unmoving.“Cut her head off,” Tilliana directed Niccolo as she moved to look through the door the woman had just charged out of.  It was a closet.  There was a coffin propped up in the back of the closet.  Lying on the floor in front of the coffin was Kinshag’s dried and lifeless body, gear and all.  With a sigh Tilliana moved in to behead the body.The door next to the closet door opened to reveal a toilet.  There was a sink next to the toilet.  Water was leaking out of the sink faucet, drip, drip, drip, indicating that somewhere above was a cistern.  They left the toilet and continued down the hall, Rasthok’s magical torch providing light.  There was a door on the left wall in the room beyond the hall, and a fireplace on the east wall.  The southern half of the room was filled with debris from where a major part of the ceiling had collapsed.  Niccolo and Alairic moved to check the fireplace.  There did not, however, seem to be any corpses, dead or undead, lurking up the chimney.  Tilliana moved over and tried to open the door to the north.  It would not budge, though the door did not appear to be locked.  Niccolo strode forward and pulled out his great ax to chop the door open.Tilliana moved back.  As the axe swung and struck the door, it became obvious that a mist was floating into the room.  “Here we go again,” muttered Alairic.  Rasthok, standing near the fireplace, looked nervous as he saw the others preparing their weapons.  His mind raced as he tried to think of a plan.Two vampires appeared on either side of Tilliana and attacked.  Tilliana fended them off with her sword even as Alairic moved to aid her.  There was not a lot of room to maneuver in what remained of the room but he still found room enough to swing his massive sword into the side of one of the vampires.  A third vampire suddenly appeared as he attacked Tilliana.  He had, it appeared, been invisible.  Mainly by luck, Tilliana moved just in time to avoid the vampire’s claws as they reached for her.  Moving forward from his spot by the fireplace, Rasthok uttered a series of arcane words and reaching out for the robe of the vampire that had just been invisible, Rasthok transformed the cloak into a source of bright light, as bright as the noon sun.  As the light filled the room, the vampires all screamed.  The robed vampire with his cloak a source of magical sunlight screamed the loudest as his skin burned.  He transformed into mist still screaming but even as mist the daylight spell traveled with him and the screams vanished into silence.The other two vampires, seeing the magical light started to move away.  Tilliana pulled out one of the sharp wooden tent pegs and tried to ram it into the chest of one of the fleeing vampires.  Her aim was off however and even as she missed the vampire was turning to mist and flying down the hall, leaving the house.Niccolo raced after the mist, calling for his two feathered friends as he did so.  With a shriek, his two eagles, Hunter and Featherbrace swooped down out of the sky.“Follow that mist,” commanded Niccolo and the birds flapped and shot back up into the sky to do so.“We need to find a place to camp,” Tilliana was saying when Niccolo returned back to the others.“We could stay in the barn again,” suggested Niccolo.  They argued about the merits of staying in the barn with the horses again for a while.“I think we should stay down in the basement with those three beds,” said Tilliana, “And there’s only one entrance into the room there.”“We won’t have an exit down there though either,” said Alairic, “If we are attacked we will have our backs to the wall.  Might as well slit our own throats.”They discussed it for some time before finally deciding on staying in the room on the second floor with the bed and chest.  It was near and they were ready to camp.  Rasthok set up a magical alarm for them and they were soon drifting off to sleep, only one of them at the watch at a time.  They were not attacked again that night and by morning they had decided to head out of the area for a couple of days until Tilliana could have them back to their normal strength.  Alairic in particular, between vampires and green slime, had been drained and needed to rest.  Having thus decided they went and saddled the horses, left the keep, crossed the stream and rode back south.</blockquote>

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