The Scourge of the Ratmen [Scarred Lands] - Updated 1/26

[Amaroq]

Issue #12: Under The Lake - Episode 1 of 5

29th of December, 2002​

Issue #12



Under the Lake​

Four days ago, we set out into the Mourning Marshes, searching for the clan of Disease ratmen who attacked Kratys Freehold. We planned to attack them while they were weakened, having sent their best warriors to the attack. Only their shaman has escaped and can warn them that we seek vengeance.

However, on our quest, we met a tribe of lizard men battling a second clan of ratmen. We assisted the lizard men in their fight, and as payment, they invited us to their home for a great celebratory feast. There, their chief asked our assistance in putting an end to a great evil which has been tainting the swamp for generations. It emanates from a submerged tower in an island at the center of a lake.

We could not refuse such a quest, and now, we are partway into the submerged tower. We have fought several evils: undead zombies attacked us on the surface of the island, we discovered stirges living within the tower, and now, we have cleared the second floor, which held only slimes and oozes. Whatever the great evil is, it lies yet further below us.



It is noon on the first Corday of Madrer. We stand in a long hall, on the second floor of the submerged tower. The room is about fifty feet long, and perhaps twenty feet wide. There are two doors in the south wall, the long edge of the room. At opposite ends, there are two sets of stairs, one leading up to safety, and the other leading down into the ominous darkness.

As we discuss what to do next, Telryn is exploring the room. A stone comes loose, falls from the ceiling, and hits him in the head. The young mage looks dazed, and sits down awkwardly.

Red-haired Miriel, the priestess of Madriel, steps over to examine him, and finds that he’s having trouble focusing and concentrating. He can’t tell her how many fingers she is holding up. “I think you have a concussion,” she concludes, after his third incorrect guess. “You should probably go rest in the boat.”

Concerned about leaving his companions without an interpreter, Telryn says something in Draconic to Hands of Fire, the seven-foot tall lizard man warrior who has been traveling with us. The lizard man responds in kind. “Hands of Fire says,” Telryn translates for us, “That he knows the rest of you can’t communicate with him, but that he’ll figure it out.”

Before he leaves, Miriel asks him, “May I take the prism?” We had found a magical rose-quartz prism the previous day, after defeating some stirges in the submerged tower.

“You can take it for now,” he says, “If you can decipher how to use it, but I want to keep it when we divide up the treasure.”

Miriel also looks over Paks, who is still weakened from the attack of the stirges. The young female warrior wears chain mail and carries a sword and shield. Her hair is cropped just above her broad shoulders. As before, there is nothing Miriel can do for her.

Miriel’s other ward, Stone, is a half-orc. His hair is short and black, and his face has a pugnacious cast to it. He needs a bath, but after a week in the swamp, we all do. He was killed, we think, in the battle with the shambling mound, but somehow brought back to life by Paks, using a great artifact that Miriel carries, Madriel’s Tear. He had been greatly weakened by the experience. “I’m feeling much better now,” he says. “I’m ready for a fight – don’t hold me back, this time.”

Hands of Fire holds out some things significantly. During our adventure in the tower, he has found two scroll cases, some coins, and some pieces of topaz.

Telryn opens the scroll cases, but after looking fuzzily at the first scroll, he says, “I can’t figure this one out without casting read magic, which I’m too woozy to do.”

The other is sealed with a double eagle, and when he opens it, he says, “It seems to talk about troop movements of long ago.”

Miriel takes it from him. After a bit of study, she says, “No, it looks like it contains troop movements for the Durover invasion. I’d heard that Lageni has been invading Durover for the last few years. This document might be several months out of date, but it’s pretty new.”

We send the scrolls back with Telryn to the boat.



“Do you think there’s more on this level?” Miriel asks. “There might be another secret door.”

Goldpetal shakes his head. “I don’t think so. Maybe we should go down the stairs.” He walks over to the main room of the level, and goes to the stairs to look. He can feel cold air wafting up.

Paks comes up behind him, and says, “I have a really bad feeling about the next level.”

As Goldpetal watches down the stairs, he can see a lot of movement at the bottom of the stairs. “It looks like there are numerous rats down there,” he says.

Stone joins them, and concurs. “Yep. I see a lot of rats down there.”

“Paks,” Miriel inquires. “Do you think your bad feeling should prevent us from going down, or just make us go carefully?”

“Kind of both,” she answers, hesitantly.

“Isn’t it kind of strange,” Chuck points out, “That there are so many rats which aren’t coming up the stairs?” As we’ve been watching, none of the rats have stepped, even briefly, on the lowest stair.

“Very,” says Stone.

“Unnatural,” says Goldpetal.

“How many rats are there?” asks Novalia, sweeping her dark purple cloak back into position on her shoulders, out of the way. The archer has been a quiet member of our group. She was rescued by the lizard men, and has joined us in our quest. She holds her bow out, with an arrow held half-readied in case of danger.

Stone counts. “One... two... Lots!”

“There’s a whole swarm of rats down there,” Goldpetal says, “But I can’t see as well as Stone in this light, and we can’t see the entire space. If it’s a room this size, and the entire floor is covered like that, there could be well over a hundred rats. Maybe we could burn them?”

Miriel suggests, “Let’s throw a torch down. Everybody get your weapons out.” When we all draw weapons or knock an arrow, she tosses her torch down the stairs. The rats scatter a bit to avoid the torch.

“I’m gonna take a look,” Stone says. The half-orc gingerly steps about halfway down the stairs, so that he can see the room better. “I see a large square room,” he calls back quietly, “Maybe fifty by fifty. There are four big pillars, and rats everywhere.” He comes back up to the top of the stairs, and rejoins the group.

“How do we kill rats?” Miriel asks. “Goldpetal, can you do something with them?”

“No,” he answers, never looking away from the swarm of rats. “I can summon rats, but I don’t know of anything to disperse them.”

“We could smoke them out,” suggests Novalia.

Miriel asks Goldpetal, “What about summoning a swarm of some other creature, something that preys on rats?”

He shakes his head. “That is a good idea, but my spell is not yet powerful enough for that.”

Paks steps past the others, to the top of the stairs and fires her bow down into the swarm. Her shot kills a rat, pegging it to the ground. The other rats swarm over its corpse, feeding on it.

Inspired by this, Stone goes upstairs. He comes back with the corpse of a stirges, which he chops into bits.

Stone walks down the stairs a bit, and starts throwing pieces of stirge into the corners, walking down the stairs. The rats start swarming into the corners. Some parts of the floor clear up, and the rats seem to ignoring Stone in favor of the corpses.

The room is perfectly square, and there are four huge pillars supporting the ceiling in the center. The rats are swarming everywhere, up the walls, and up the pillars supporting the room. In one corner of the room, he sees rotted barrels and chests on the floor. They look over a hundred years old. There is a bit of water on the floor, too, pooled in the southern end. He looks around carefully, but can’t see any doors or exits out of the room.

At the top of the stairs, the rest of the group continues to discuss the conundrum. “I still think we should smoke them out,” Novalia says.

“Should we detect magic?” asks Paks.

“I like the idea of burning them,” Miriel says, “Or at least smoking them out.”

“I’m not sure,” Goldpetal says. “What if that just drives them up towards us?”

“Do we have any spells we could use?” asks Novalia.

“I could cast sound burst,” Miriel says, “But it won't get the whole room.”

“Look how well Stone’s distraction worked,” Paks says, although by now the rats have ceased swarming over the bits of stirge. The half-orc has returned to the first step of the stairs: that seems to be safe enough, for none of the rats climb up onto the stair.

“Let’s throw a whole corpse down there,” Paks continues, “To get them to swarm in one area.”

Stone climbs back up the stairs. “But there aren’t any doors,” he tells her.

“Whatever we decide,” Miriel says, “I’ll need to rest before we head down, and I want to go out of the tower to do so.”

“I’ll come watch you,” Novalia says.

Paks says, “Someone should stay and watch the rats.” Stone sits down on the stairs to watch, and Paks and Chuck wait with him.

Miriel and Novalia go upstairs. Miriel gestures to Hands of Fire to come along and gets him to pick up the bag of coins and the sack of topaz to come out. He carries it up to the boat, and then goes back down into the tower.

Miriel rests, while Goldpetal and Hands of Fire search all the rooms on the floor we are on for secret doors. Chuck searches the walls of the great hall. Stone and Paks sit side by side on the stairs, keeping an eye on the rats and talking. At first they try to plan a way into the room, but, failing to come up with any good ideas, their conversation shifts to a sharing of stories.

 

[Fulcan]

About the duck:

It was inspired not only by Munchkin ("The Duck of Doom -- Never pick up a Duck in the Dungeon"), but I had also read Cerebus "Church and State" that month. I actually wrote up a long history of the Duck, why it's cursed, and what it's doing at the bottom of the lake.

At some point that you deem appropriate (because we won't ever go back to it or something) you'll have to post/send out that history so that we may enjoy the fruits of your labor.

I still wish Telryn was able to cast fly while chuck had that duck in his possession.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Well, it must be getting close to the time when you get back. I look forward to seeing what will happen with Chuck and the Duck.

Bump.

 

[Amaroq]

Well, it must be getting close to the time when you get back. I look forward to seeing what will happen with Chuck and the Duck.

How right you are! I'm back, and have posted Issue #12, Episode 1.

And, I think you'll really enjoy Episode 3.

 

[Amaroq]

Issue #12: Under the Lake - Episode 2 of 5

Stone and Paks are sitting at the top of the stairs, chatting. Stone is slowly eating some bread and cheese. His crossbow sits in his lap, while Paks’ bow is leaned against the wall next to her. Every once in a while, Stone tosses a little cheese down and causes a scramble among the rats. The stirges are long since stripped to the bone.

Suddenly, Stone nudges Paks. “Shh! Look!” he whispers, and points to the southeast corner of the rat-filled room below.

A trap door opens up, and the rats scatter away from it. He sees two human-looking arms coming out of the door. He readies his crossbow. A ghoul climbs out, grabs a rat and bites the head off of it.

“Should I shoot it?” Stone whispers to Paks, aiming his crossbow at it.

She shakes her head. “Let the ghoul keep eating.”

After devouring the rat, the ghoul starts sniffing and looking around. It looks directly at Stone, and appears to see him.

With a loud mechanical noise, Stone fires his crossbow, and the bolt hits the ghoul in the chest. Paks has only just stood up, and Stone drops his crossbow. Yelling a battle cry, he rushes down the stairs towards the ghoul. He sprints into the pack of rats, running through them with single-minded determination. The rats bite at the half-orc’s ankles as he runs, but none injure him seriously.

Paks yells for help, and Chuck, who was closest, rushes to the top of the stairs, shouldering past her and beginning the descent. Paks grabs her bow and follows him downstairs more cautiously. Goldpetal and Hands of Fire, further away, begin running towards the staircase from the great hall.

Stone reaches the ghoul at full speed. It tries to bite him, but the half-orc lowers his shoulder and makes a flying tackle, driving the ghoul back over the trap door. They both fall through the trap door and plummet out of sight.

Seeing Stone disappear, Chuck rushes into the room. He, too, is bitten by the rats as he crosses the room. He reaches the trap door, and looks down through it. In darkness ten feet below him, he can barely make out Stone and the ghoul wrestling. He calls back to Paks, “There’s a ghoul, and its got Stone!” Paks starts running back up the stairs, yelling as she goes, to summon the rest of the party.

In the small corridor below the trap door, the ghoul and Stone grapple on the floor. The half-orc is faster, but the ghoul has a crushing strength. Finally, Stone unleashes a flurry of head-butts against the ghoul. Twice his forehead makes solid contact with the ghoul’s head, and the second blow crushes its skull, covering his forehead in gore. The lifeless body of the ghoul goes limp beneath him.

The rats are swarming around Chuck now, getting in more bites. There’s a ladder under the trap door, and he quickly climbs down it. The rats do not follow.

Moments later, Goldpetal and Hands of Fire reach the top of the stairs. They see an empty room with a lot of rats, and from their distant vantage, they do not notice the trap door in the far corner. They slow to a stop halfway down the stairs, looking for the rest of the party.

Below, Chuck finds himself in a hallway with Stone and the corpse of the ghoul. “Are you okay?” he asks Stone.

The half-orc clambers to his feet and wipes smashed ghoul out of his eyes. “Yeah. Fine,” he says, and looks around the hallway. It is about ten feet wide and twice as long, and leads to a great stone door at the opposite end. Stone glances up to see if the rats are coming down through the trap door, but they are not. Just as with the stairs, they seem confined to the room above.

Stone begins searching the ghoul corpse, while Chuck climbs partway back up the ladder. He sticks his arm carefully up through the middle of the trapdoor, and the rats do not reach him or attack him.

Across the room, Goldpetal sees a hand sticking up into the dark room, but he cannot see well enough to know if it is human or enemy. He quickly casts flare into the middle of the room. A bright light, as though from a great bonfire, appears in the center of the room.

The rats scatter away from the flare, and Hands of Fire sees the trap door. With the rats scattering from the flare, he starts to run across the room to the trap door. The rats are dazzled by the light, and do not attack him, so Goldpetal follows close on his heels.

Meanwhile, Paks reaches the top of the tower, breathing hard. “Ghouls!” she shouts, as she pokes her head up the ladder onto the surface of the island. “Come help!”

Miriel and Novalia hurry to their feet, grabbing their things, to follow her back down.

Telryn, still suffering from a concussion, is lying down. He props himself up on one elbow. “Should I come?” he asks weakly.

“No,” says Miriel. “Stay and rest. We may need you later.”

Underneath, in the corridor below the trap door, Stone tells Chuck, “Bring my sack.” Without waiting to see if the Vigilant obeys, the half-orc walks up to the stone door. The door is large, with a wheel carved in the stone, but over it some unholy symbol is marked in charcoal and blood. Chills run up his spine as he contemplates it.

Chuck climbs partway up the ladder and sticks his head out, calling, “Bring Stone’s sack!” He reaches the top of the ladder just as Hands of Fire and Goldpetal get across the room. Hands of Fire, at a full run, leaps over Chuck and down the hole, where he lands gracefully on his feet. Stone whirls around at the sudden motion behind him, and is very impressed by the lizard man’s catlike balance. Goldpetal slips past Chuck, as Chuck comes up into the room with the rats.

Paks and Miriel begin to run down into the tower, while Novalia casts a spell on herself: expeditious retreat. She runs after the other two women, but, magically fleet of foot thanks to the spell, she quickly outpaces them. Miriel, wearing less armor, and not having run as far, also catches Paks and passes her as they follow Novalia below.

Novalia reaches the top of the stairs. She sees the flare, the swarm of rats, and Chuck standing in the middle of it. He has some rope out, and is trying to figure out if he can construct a rope bridge above the rats while they are stunned. Seeing that he is unharmed, she bolts across the room and slips down the trapdoor.

Miriel and Paks reach the bottom of the staircase and also start to run across the room. Miriel goes straight to the trapdoor and down through it, but Paks notices that the rats are not attacking her, so she stops to look around.

When Miriel gets to the bottom, she asks, “Where are the ghouls?”

Stone, who was listening at the stone door, turns and shakes his head. His face is gruesome, and Miriel gasps. The monk points to the mess on the floor, and Miriel and Novalia relax a bit.

In the room with the rats, Chuck finds that there are no good supports to which he can tie a rope, especially on the trap-door side of the room, and he also realizes that his fifty-foot rope won’t stretch diagonally across a room which is fifty feet on a side. He abandons his rope bridge idea, and jogs back to the staircase to pick up Stone’s sack.

Paks steps over to some of the ruined crates and barrels. From the debris, she guesses that this was once a storeroom. Thinking that there might be something of value left in the crates, she grabs one of them and tries to pick it up. It falls apart under her touch. Anything once contained within has long since rotted. She checks one or two of the other crates, but they seem to be all likewise decayed.

The rats are beginning to get over being stunned, and are starting to nose around as though looking for food again. From the room underneath, Stone picks up the dead ghoul and throws it up through the trap door and into the rat’s room. Paks and Chuck start rushing across the room, as the rats begin to sniff at the ghoul corpse. As the flare expires, the rats begin to swarm over the corpse, devouring it. Chuck and Paks are the last two down the stairs.



“Here,” Chuck says, handing Stone the half-orc’s sack.

“Thanks,” Stone says. He fishes in his pack and pulls out his flask of water. He washes his face with water from his sack, removing the last of the gore from his countenance.

We’re all gathered in the twenty foot long corridor. It is freezing cold down at this level. Even those who have just completed the long run from the surface are chilly. The cold is beyond the normal chill one might expect from being underground, and seems to emanate from the stone door.

Goldpetal begins knocking on the walls, looking for hidden doors, while Hands of Fire and Novalia watch back up the trap door. Miriel walks up to the stone door, and examines the blood and charcoal symbol. Stone and Paks accompany her.

“This is a symbol of Chern,” the priestess says, “And relatively freshly made.”

“Be careful,” Paks warns her. “I’ve got a very bad feeling about all this. There is great evil, here.”

“I’ve seen a warding glyph,” Stone says, “Which looked something like that, but struck a priest dead when he tried to open it.”

“Good point,” Miriel says. “I’ll check.” She steps back, and casts detect magic on the door and the two symbols. “It’s not magical,” she says, “So it should be safe to open.”

Meanwhile, Goldpetal turns around. “It sounds hollow, here,” he says, “Perhaps there’s a secret door.” He knocks again, demonstrating the hollow spot and showing how it sounds different from the wall next to it. We all gather around to look, but nobody can find the trigger.

Finally, Goldpetal looks at an empty torch bracket, off to the side of the door. He pulls on it. As soon as he does, a five-foot wide slab of stone slides open. He can see a rough-hewn passageway through it. It’s five feet wide, and leads off diagonally, away from the door with the symbol of Chern.

Goldpetal draws his bow, and knocks an arrow. Without warning, he fires an arrow down the passage. It hits a wall at the end, and breaks.

“Shh!” Paks hisses, grabbing his arm and shaking her head. “That just made a sound, to warn anything down there that we’re coming.”

“We should explore it before we continue on,” he says. That suggestion meets with acclaim, and we begin preparing to go down the passage, making sure that we have two torches lit, and discussing what order to walk in.

Miriel suggests, “Let’s close the trap door so the rats can’t come down.” As Chuck goes to take care of it, she adds, “Wedge it with a dead torch, so it can be opened more easily.”



Stone begins heading down the corridor, through the secret door. Paks and Goldpetal follow, with Hands of Fire, Miriel and Novalia behind them, and Chuck bringing up the rear. The passage is quite long, winding around for about a hundred and twenty feet. Its width varies irregularly, but is never quite wide enough for two humans to walk abreast.

Finally, the corridor opens up into a big natural cavern, fifty feet wide. A large pool of deep, still water fills the room, with the nearest portion providing a small, rock beach. There are numerous stalactites and stalagmites, and even Stone’s eyes can’t see the other end of the cavern.

Most of the group stays up the beach, near the mouth of the passage, looking around, but Chuck and Stone walk to the edge of the pool to examine the water.

“It just looks like a pool of water,” Stone says.

Chuck holds his nose. “Yeah, with a great putrid stink,” he adds. Even those standing behind can smell the foulness of that water, and up close it is almost overpowering to Chuck’s human nostrils. The half-orc doesn’t seem bothered by it. He pulls out his ten-foot pole and pokes it into the water, disturbing the surface.

As though in response, a giant crayfish climbs out of the water. It is taller than a man, and fully fifteen feet long, with the pink sheen of a lobster, and a hard, segmented external carapace. Two giant claws protrude in front of it, and it has beady black eyes and several thick waving feelers or antennae. It rushes out of the shallow water towards Stone and Chuck with lightning speed.

Stone yells out, “Butter!” but before either of them can react more than that, the crayfish grabs both of them, one with each claw. It pins each of them in a vise-like grip, and begins backing into the water, pulling them with it.

Chuck pulls out his magical dagger, and stabs at the crayfish. The glowing blade slices through the hard pink exoskeleton of the giant beast, wounding it. Stone tries to pry open the claw, but the crayfish is much stronger than he is. It drags them both out over the water, and they can feel the water up to their knees already.

On shore, after a brief moment of consternation, Goldpetal, Paks, and Novalia all draw their bows and fire. Goldpetal and Paks hit the hard exoskeleton, and their arrows bounce harmlessly away. Novalia aims for the head and vulnerable eyes, but her shot whizzes narrowly over it.

Stone writhes around until he can get his feet close to its head, and aims a flurry of kicks at its head. One foot connects, breaking the carapace with a loud crunching sound. The crayfish looks stunned, and drops Stone. He lands in shallow water, about thigh deep, but the crayfish scuttles further back, dragging Chuck completely underwater.

Miriel rushes over to Stone. “Madriel, heal this man!” she shouts, and the healing powers course through her fingers, knitting Stone’s flesh beneath her hand.

Hands of Fire dives into the lake. He swims after the crayfish, attacking it with his naked claws and teeth. He hits it with one claw, and bites it hard, in its vulnerable underbelly. It starts thrashing around in the water, and tries to attack him with its free claw, but the lizard man is a phenomenal swimmer, and dodges easily.

In desperation, Chuck tries to stick his dagger in the claw joint. He gets the dagger in deep, and slices the claw completely off! The crayfish sinks into the water.

Chuck pries his way out of the severed claw, and kicks himself up to the top of the water, but he’s injured and having trouble swimming. Stone rushes out to chest-high depth, and holds out the ten-foot pole towards him. The Vigilant is able to grab it with one arm, and Stone pulls him slowly back towards shore. Miriel helps him as soon as they reach her.

Hands of Fire swims down to the bottom, where he finds that the crayfish is dead. He swims back diagonally up towards shore, which he reaches about the same time as Chuck and Stone do.

“Here, lay down,” Miriel tells Chuck. “Let me look at that.” He has a bad wound, with one arm broken, but Miriel again begs the healing power of Madriel, and the bone knits beneath her fingers.

“There,” she says, after several minutes. “That should do. Goldpetal, why don’t you give one healing potion to Paks and another to Chuck, so that they are distributed around the party better?”

As Goldpetal distributes the healing potions, Miriel examines Chuck, Stone, and Hands of Fire for signs of disease. The first two are fine, but after examining Hands of Fire, she says, “I see a color in the eyes of Hands of Fire that makes me think he might have come down with Slimy Doom from swimming in the lake. Everyone to stay away from Hands of Fire, and stay away from the lake.” She repeats the instruction to the lizard man with hand gestures.

Next, Miriel examines the lake water, which appears thoroughly defiled.
Paks walks up behind her, and offers a small crystal vial filled with clear liquid. “Here,” she says. “I bought a vial of holy water at your temple. I think you should pour it into the lake and offer up Madriel's blessing.”

“Thank you,” Miriel says, “But I fear purifying this ill is beyond my abilities alone. Perhaps if we all help, we can manage something.”

“It can’t hurt to try,” Goldpetal says.

“I’ll help,” Novalia offers.

“And I,” Paks says. “Though I’m not sure what help I will be.”

“We’ll stand watch,” Stone says, gesturing to Hands of Fire and Chuck. They stand guard over the others, and Chuck, who smells awful after his immersion in the lake, changes his clothes. The leather armor he wears may be beyond assistance, but at least his outer garments are fresh and clean.

Miriel, Goldpetal, Paks, and Novalia gather at the edge of the water, holding hands. They each close their eyes, and stand in silence for a moment. Then, Goldpetal begins to chant, and each of the others joins in. They each invoke their deities, Madriel, Denev, and Tanil, and ask them to purify the water. At first, each speech feels syncopated, out of rhythm, but the longer they work together, the more it begins to feel like a ritual, and a rhythm to their chant becomes clear even to those listening. It sounds almost like a song, and at the height, Miriel pours Paks’ holy water into the lake.

After almost an hour, the ritual draws to a close. Again silence descends on the cavern, and the foursome open their eyes. Goldpetal looks around at each of the others, catching their gaze with his intense purple eyes. “I have a good feeling about that,” he says.

Paks nods. “Me too.”

Miriel takes a deep breath, holds it for a moment, and exhales with a sigh. “The lake doesn't smell as disease-ridden anymore,” she observes.

Goldpetal nods.

“I’ll need to rest before we go on,” Miriel says.

“Let’s rest in that narrow corridor,” Paks says. “It should be easily defensible.”

“I think we’ll be safer if we go all the way back outside,” Novalia says.

After a brief discussion, Stone, Chuck, and Paks all agree that the defensibility of the narrow corridor is best, and the other defer to the wisdom of their warriors.

We make a quick campsite inside the corridor, with Stone and Hands of Fire watching at the lake entrance of the corridor. Paks and Chuck walk up to the secret door, and after a few minutes of examination, figure out how to open it from this side. Assured of a way out, Paks closes it, and the two of them remain near the door as guards. Miriel, Goldpetal, and Novalia rest after the exhausting ritual.

About forty minutes into our rest, Hands of Fire grabs Stone. He cannot speak, but he makes it clear with hand gestures that he is feeling very unwell. Stone goes up to the door, and gets Chuck. Monk and Vigilant confer, but they decide not to disrupt Miriel, whose eyes are closed in silent meditation. They pantomime rest to Hands of Fire, who nods wearily, and lies down to sleep. Chuck shifts down to the lake side of the corridor, leaving Paks alone at the secret door.

 

[Graywolf-ELM]

How did your characters set up the ritual? I'm curious how the players went about playing it, and how much the DM was involved in making it happen.

Thanks,
GW

 

[Amaroq]

How did your characters set up the ritual? I'm curious how the players went about playing it, and how much the DM was involved in making it happen.

As a party, we've actually done a lot of 'ritual casting', and its been mainly off-the-cuff. Remembering how close the Gods are to the world in the Scarred Lands (literally, they walked the earth as recently as 150 years ago, and it is not uncommon to hear tale of meeting one of their avatars even now), it feels very "in character" to make requests of the gods, even if we as players do not see a way for our characters to take care of something.

On this particular ritual, we debated a few particular spells, and finally decided that none of them were powerful enough. We went with some versions of purify food and drink, remove disease, and pouring holy water into the foul water. We play with a spell-point system, so our DM lets us expend spell-points in ritual casting without knowing if it will be effective or not. Declare in advance, and discover if the gods are pleased or not. What Paks added to this one (besides holy water) wasn't clear, but it felt right to the characters for her to be included, especially after the experience with Stone and Madriel's Tear.

On some other ritual castings which we encounter later in the story-arc, (I can't wait until we're caught up!) the DM has on occasion handed people a note, saying, for example, "During your apprenticeship, you once experienced X ritual..." which gives us a better feeling for whether it will work or not.

 

[joshwitz]

As a party, we've actually done a lot of 'ritual casting', and its been mainly off-the-cuff. Remembering how close the Gods are to the world in the Scarred Lands (literally, they walked the earth as recently as 150 years ago, and it is not uncommon to hear tale of meeting one of their avatars even now), it feels very "in character" to make requests of the gods, even if we as players do not see a way for our characters to take care of something.

On this particular ritual, we debated a few particular spells, and finally decided that none of them were powerful enough. We went with some versions of purify food and drink, remove disease, and pouring holy water into the foul water. We play with a spell-point system, so our DM lets us expend spell-points in ritual casting without knowing if it will be effective or not. Declare in advance, and discover if the gods are pleased or not. What Paks added to this one (besides holy water) wasn't clear, but it felt right to the characters for her to be included, especially after the experience with Stone and Madriel's Tear.

On some other ritual castings which we encounter later in the story-arc, (I can't wait until we're caught up!) the DM has on occasion handed people a note, saying, for example, "During your apprenticeship, you once experienced X ritual..." which gives us a better feeling for whether it will work or not.

Just to add: As far as mechanics go for rituals, we are using the ritual casting rules from R&R1, modified for the home-brew spell point sytem we use.

Ritual casting from R&R is pretty cool. It makes sense that you can create more powerful versions of spells by taking extra time and/or combining powers.

 

[Amaroq]

Issue #12: Under the Lake - Episode 3 of 5

Four hours pass uneventfully as our exhausted spell-casters rest. Finally, when Goldpetal, Miriel, and Novalia have completed their meditation and rest, and are all ready to continue, Miriel examines Hands of Fire.

The lizard man’s eyes are filmy and milky, and he feels warmer to her touch than she remembers. “That’s clearly Slimy Doom,” she says to Goldpetal, who is looking over her shoulder. “Here, drink this,” she instructs, and even if the lizard man doesn’t understand the words, he gathers the meaning as she gives him a potion of cure disease. He drinks the contents of the vial, and the magical elixir courses through his body.

Miriel and Goldpetal turn from his care to re-examine the lake. They both concur that it looks much cleaner, and even the air above it smells better. Before they have even finished, Hands of Fire is on his feet, and joins them at the lakeside. He looks much better, almost completely recovered. He bends over the water’s edge, sniffs at it, and says something incomprehensible. Seeing the confusion on their faces, he gives the thumbs up gesture which Stone has taught him: it’s good.

Everyone gathers their things, breaking camp, and shouldering their packs. They all walk back up the corridor to the secret door, where Paks awaits. She has no difficulty opening the secret door, and the stone wall slides silently before us, revealing the small chamber with the stone door.

The room is ten feet wide by twenty long. A ladder at one end leads to a trap door, and from there into the rat-filled room above us, while at the opposite end, the stone door is defaced with the symbol of Chern, the Titan of plagues and disease, scrawled in blood and charcoal. The rune almost seems to move of its own accord in the flickering torchlight. It is still unnaturally cold in the hallway.

When we are all gathered in the room, the secret door swings shut behind us.

Miriel glances back at it. “Should we block it?”

“I wouldn’t,” Paks says. “It’s better to have it open in case we need to retreat in a hurry.”

“Okay,” Miriel concurs. “Let’s scrub the sigil of Chern off of this door.”

Miriel, Goldpetal, and Novalia set to that with a will, and quickly have all of the blood and charcoal scrubbed off. When the stone door is clean, leaving just the original carving of a wheel on its face, Miriel chalks a symbol of Madriel upon its surface instead.

When their task is finished, Paks shivers. “I still don’t like the looks of this place,” she avows.

Everyone knows we are going through the door, and there is no need for further discussion. With firmness of purpose, we ready ourselves. Paks draws her longsword, and Goldpetal and Novalia ready their bows. Miriel grasps her holy symbol, while Hands of Fire stands at her side. Chuck and Stone brace themselves to open the door, expecting it to be heavy and difficult to move, but Stone swings it open easily.

Beyond the door is another rough-hewn hallway, ten feet wide. After about twenty feet, it opens out to the left.

“Stone, can you see anything?” Chuck whispers.

“Just another pool of water,” Stone says. “Do you got the butter?”

This elicits a soft, nervous laugh from Chuck and Paks. Behind them, Novalia utters the quick words of a prayer for guidance. Chuck and Stone remove their packs, and set them on the floor. Stone readies his ten-foot pole.

Half-orc and Vigilant walk carefully down the hallway, alert for danger and moving as silently as they can. The rest of us follow, near behind, and Paks’ chain mail makes a quiet metallic sound as she walks. We reach the opening to the left, and see a large room, perhaps twenty feet wide by thirty feet long. There is a shallow pool of standing water, and four sarcophagi. The lids of all four stone coffins have been disturbed: two are broken, while the others lie askew across about half of the coffin. The crypt is freezing, even colder than the hallway had been.

As Chuck steps across the threshold, the remaining lids crash to the ground. Three ghouls stand from their graves, and the smell of death and decay rolls across us in a wave. Everyone feels nauseous, and Chuck doubles over, vomiting upon the floor. He is helpless when the first two reach him, clawing with their strong arms. He is badly injured, and goes rigid. Paralyzed, he falls slowly to the ground. His torch falls in the water, and is extinguished, leaving only Miriel’s torch to illuminate the ghastly scene. The third ghoul attacks Stone, but he nimbly dodges backward. The ghoul lurches, off-balance, where the monk had just been, and Stone punches it with a flurry of blows. Both fists connect, and he injures it badly. Paks follows up with her longsword, and her sword drops a blow deep through its side, killing it.

Goldpetal shoots over Chuck’s body and wounds a second ghoul. Hands of Fire leaps over Chuck’s body, to attack the wounded ghoul. The other one bites him as he leaps past, ripping a large gash in his right thigh, and knocking the athletic lizard man off balance. He claws and bites at the wounded one, like an enraged animal, but he does not seem to injure it. The wounded ghoul attacks Hands of Fire, but the lizard man is much quicker, and sidesteps easily.

The other one attacks Stone, and a claw rakes across the half-orc’s chest, paralyzing him. He, like Chuck, collapses to the cold ground, and the ghoul steps over him, snarling in defiance at Paks. Behind them, three more ghouls rush into the room from a passage on the far side. Now we face five of them, and two of our best fighters are paralyzed.

Novalia pulls out a holy symbol of Tanil, steps up, and shouts “In the name of Tanil, be gone!”

Miriel tries similarly, holding her holy symbol aloft. “In the name of Madriel, be gone!” She can feel the power of her goddess within her, and thinks for a moment that she has succeeded, but the ghouls seem strangely resistant, and the sight of the
twin holy symbols buys only the briefest of hesitations from them.

Goldpetal takes advantage of that moment to drop his bow, draw his scimitar, and step around Paks. Standing over Chuck’s body, he swings at one of the closest ghouls, but it reaches one arm up, and catches his hand in its iron grip, stopping his blow in mid-swing.

Hands of Fire gives way, stepping back, to stand beside the elf. He towers two full feet taller than the slight druid, but together they block the passage. The lizard man swings his great club at the closest ghoul, but misses, smashing it against the floor at his feet. Paks steps back from the front line. She pulls out a symbol of Madriel, and mimics Miriel. “In the name of Madriel, be gone!” she cries, but the ghouls ignore her.

The undead press their advantage of numbers, pushing us inexorably back as they attack. Hands of Fire parries one attack with his club. The wounded ghoul attacks Goldpetal, and claws him viciously across the chest. The elf, like so many of his comrades, collapses, paralyzed. Another ghoul steps towards Miriel. Hands of Fire tries to interpose himself, but he misses it with his club, and it pushes him aside, reaching for Miriel. Its claw gives her the merest of scratches, but her face freezes in horror as she, too, becomes paralyzed and falls. Her torch flickers on the ground, but rolls up against the wall, where it continues to burn.

Only Hands of Fire, Paks, and Novalia remain, and five ghouls stand over the bodies of their fallen comrades. Novalia looses her first bowshot of the fight, striking one in the head. The arrow goes right through its head, a blow which would have surely killed a human, but its undead animation does not live in the brain, and it presses on.

Paks steps in front of Novalia, and holds the holy symbol high above her head. “Madriel! Tanil! Hear my plea! Be gone, foul things!” Amazingly, the holy symbol comes alive, shining with a white light. As that holy radiance illuminates the room, all of the ghouls turn and flee from her! Hands of Fire swings his club at one of the wounded ones, but they shamble quickly out of his range, and he does not connect. The ghouls disappear through a hallway on the far left side of the room.

After a moment of surprise, Novalia grabs Miriel and drags her back into the hallway. Paks grabs Stone, while Hands of Fire takes Chuck in one hand and the slightly built Goldpetal in the other. The three survivors drag their comrades back out through the large stone doors.

Paks pushes the stone doors closed, and braces herself against it. “By the gods!” she exclaims, astonished and breathing hard. “I didn’t think that would work!”

“It may not work for long,” Novalia says. “Let’s keep moving.”

Paks nods, and bends over her fallen comrades. She takes Stone and Miriel’s daggers, and wedges them underneath the big stone door, trying to wedge it closed. Novalia, looking over the wounds, sees that Chuck and Hands of Fire are the worst injured, and she begs Tanil for healing for them. Her god grants her plea, and though she is not as powerful a healer as Miriel, the worst of their bleeding wounds close under her touch.

Novalia watches the big door with bow drawn and arrow knocked, while Paks opens the secret door. As a great pounding begins against the large stone door, Paks and Hands of Fire drag their four paralyzed friends into the narrow secret corridor. When everyone is behind the secret door, Novalia slips through and closes it.



Even through the secret door, we can hear the loud pounding of the ghouls bashing against the wedged stone door. Paks, Hands of Fire, and Novalia, all wait, tense, weapons ready, between their comrades’ bodies and the secret door. The tableau holds for several nerve-wracking minutes.

Finally, Stone and Goldpetal start to move. Stone sites up. “What’s that pounding?” he asks.

“The ghouls,” Paks says.

Goldpetal stumbles to his feet, and slips past her to the door. He is still unsteady on his feet, and when he tries to listen at the door, he stumbles against it and bruises his ear. He still looks a little queasy from the noxious stench of the ghouls.

After a moment of rubbing his ear, the elf turns over to Chuck’s pack, and begins rummaging around in it.

“What are you doing?” Paks asks quietly.

“I want to see if I can get rid of the duck without touching it,” he says.

“There’s an extra shirt in my pack,” she offers, gesturing to the pack she has set deeper down the corridor.

As he opens her pack, we hear a loud reverberating stone crash. The pounding noise has abruptly stopped.

“I think the other door just opened,” Paks says, turning to face the secret door. Stone steps up between the party and the door, with Hands of Fire and Paks at his back.

Meanwhile, Goldpetal wraps the duck in the shirt, and takes it out of Chuck’s pack. Novalia starts dragging Chuck further down the corridor, both to relative safety and to make sure he is out of the way. Goldpetal disappears out of sight down the corridor. A loud splash follows shortly, and we can only presume that he has thrown the duck as deep into the lake as he can.

Another minute passes. Novalia finishes dragging Chuck to the beach in the cavern, and helps Goldpetal drag Miriel to that relative safety as well.

Stone, listening at the door, shakes his head, and turns back to face Hands of Fire and Paks. “I don’t hear anything,” he says.

“Maybe they went up the ladder,” Paks suggests.

The half-orc gives a firm nod, and turns back to the door. He shouts, “Hey! We’re in here!” as loud as he can. He pounds on the door for added noise. He then turns over his shoulder and says to Paks, “I think we can take ’em, one at a time.” She shrugs, face impassive, but sheathes her sword and draws her bow.

He continues listening carefully at the door, and whispers, “I can hear them climbing back down the ladder.” Another minute passes, as adrenaline courses through our bodies, and we stand taut and ready for any action. The ghouls are not opening the door. Stone shouts helpfully, “The torch handle!”

As Miriel starts to move, the ghouls finally figure out how to open the secret door. They rush in through the secret door, and are forced into a single-file line by the narrow confines of the corridor.

As the first ghoul reaches him, Stone punches it with a flurry of blows. One fist connects hard, crushing the ghoul’s skull, and it collapses at his feet. Paks shoots her bow past Stone at the next ghoul in line, but in the dark and narrow confines, it’s a tough shot, and she misses.

The second ghoul rushes Stone, but he steps back out of its way, giving ground a little. Hands of Fire throws his javelin over Stone’s head, but it bounces harmlessly off the ceiling. Miriel and Goldpetal have re-entered the corridor, and arrive at the back of the group. Back at the beach, Novalia guards Chuck, who is still paralyzed, and asks Tanil for guidance again.

As soon as she sees the situation, Miriel begins a quick incantation. Suddenly, a sound burst echoes in the air in front of us, and in the narrow confines the explosive noise rings in all of our ears. Stone and Hands of Fire are deafened, but the two lead ghouls are stunned.

Stone attacks the first ghoul, a solid punch to the head which has clearly wounded it. Paks shoots at it, and her arrow buries itself in the ghoul’s chest. It falls to the ground and Stone’s feet, returned to death. The second ghoul back, the first one that isn’t stunned, leaps forward to attack Stone. It slips on the bodies of the two ghouls in front of him, and stumbles heavily into the stone wall. Stone kicks it while it’s down, smashing it hard, but it struggles back to its feet.

Miriel fires off another sound burst and the explosive noise actually kills the first ghoul, which Stone had wounded. It slumps to the ground with the bodies of its comrades. Paks, too, is deafened, and the explosive sounds ring painfully in the ears of those who can still hear.

The remaining two ghouls are stunned, and clearly wounded. Stone steps to the side of the corridor, and waits for the ghouls to come to him. He’s balanced on the balls of his feet, clearly enjoying himself.

Hands of Fire loses patience with waiting, and muscles past Stone. He charges towards the closest ghoul, but forgets how short the corridor is. His club bounces off the ceiling, and his momentum carries him up to the stunned ghoul. The one effective fighting ghoul attacks him from behind, hitting him with claw and tooth. The lizard man collapses, paralyzed like the others had been earlier. However, the ghoul trips over him and falls.

Stone rushes over the fallen ghoul and kicks the stunned ghoul, a firm blow which knocks it from its knees to a prone position on its back.

Behind him, Paks steps up to the ghoul which tripped. As it tries to stand, balancing unevenly against the wall, she chops its head off with her longsword.

Stone stomps on the head of the one which he knocked down. “You ain’t so tough!” he yells. “Get up, damn you!”

After a moment, it is clear that none of the ghouls will ever be getting back up, and Stone calms down. He calls back down the corridor, “It’s over!”



Within a minute, everyone's hearing has recovered, and Chuck is beginning to move. When he has recovered enough to sit up, he stands, and staggers past Novalia. It takes one hand on the wall to keep his balance, but he begins working his way up the corridor. He angrily calls out, "Goldpetal, damn your black heart! What kind of camaraderie is this? I’m paralyzed, and you steal my duck?”

Goldpetal walks calmly down the corridor towards him, and says, “You have been enchanted.” His voice contains all of the placid firmness of a druid more than a hundred years old, but Chuck, in his rage, refuses to be calmed.

“Sure, I was, but you stole my powers!” he yells. His hand strays to the hilt of his sheathed long sword. “I’ll never trust you again! Dirty little elf!"

Goldpetal stands before him, implacably. “The enchantment was not good for you.”

Rage contorts the Vigilant’s face, and just as he begins to draw his sword, Miriel steps between the two of them. “Calm down,” she says. “Calm down.” Chuck pauses with six inches of naked steel displayed, but the majority of the blade still sheathed. Behind him, Miriel can see Novalia at the end of the corridor. She has her bow drawn, and an arrow knocked, but pointed at the floor.

Back up the corridor, Stone says to Paks, “I hate elves. Actually, they’re not so bad, with a little ketchup.”

Chuck is breathing hard, and staring past Miriel at the elf with hate etched in his face. Miriel repeats herself one more time, “Okay, calm down,” as though speaking to one of the horses at her father’s inn.

Chuck suddenly turns on her. “You let him steal my duck!” he shouts.

Miriel gives him a look as though he’s crazed. “I was paralyzed!” she says, indignant.

“Oh. Yeah, okay,” Chuck seems to be calming down a bit. Then, he drops to his knees and throws his head back, hands covering his face in clear anguish. “But… my duck!” he wails.

Stone comes down to commiserate with him. “That was a cool duck, too,” he says, putting one arm around a shoulder. Miriel kneels with Chuck and holds him as he sobs wordlessly into her shoulder.

Back at the head of the corridor, Hands of Fire stands up. He looks as though he might walk down towards the commotion, but Paks puts out a restraining hand, and they wait in the corridor.

After a minute or two has passed, it seems that Chuck is quieting. Miriel continues to hold him until the sobs have ceased, talking to him all the while.

Finally, when he is finished, she stands up and offers her hand to him. “Let’s go fight the ghouls,” she offers. “They did a lot of damage to us. They’re our enemies, not each other.”

“My duck...” Chuck says, sadly, still on his knees. He is staring at the ground, and the tone of his voice conveys absolute heartbreak.

“Chuck,” Paks calls quietly from the top of the corridor. “The ghouls might have another duck.”

Chuck looks up, his face alight. Voice full of hope, he asks, “Another duck?”

He rises to his feet, shoulders past Goldpetal, and goes to find his pack. He checks through it carefully, as though to make sure nothing else is gone.

While the Vigilant looks through his things, Miriel turns to Paks. “I didn’t know you carried a holy symbol of Madriel. Where did you get it?” she asks.

Paks gives her an odd, unfathomable look. “Milo gave it to me,” she says after a moment, “When I dropped him off in the wilderness, after we expelled him from the party.”

Miriel looks as though she’s about to ask a further question, but then she closes her mouth and gathers up her other things.

“Let’s push on,” Miriel says.

 

[Amaroq]

Issue #12: Under the Lake - Episode 4 of 5

We begin to gather our things, and Miriel checks over the party members for injury. Most of us have been wounded, either by the stirges or the ghouls, but nobody is weakened enough to consider stopping. We’re ready for more. There is a sense of purpose and drive as we gird ourselves to push onward.

We pick our way back through the narrow corridor, stepping gingerly over the bodies of the ghouls. A foul smell comes off of their bodies, and it still makes us all nauseous to be anywhere close to them.

We go back through the hallway, closing the secret door behind us, and through the great stone door. The oppressive feel of evil is evident to all of us, and the air grows ever colder the further we progress past the stone door.

We reach the crypt where we met the ghouls. Their coffins stand empty, now. Novalia stands watch with her bow drawn, while the rest of us look around the room. The room is filthy and defiled, piled high with trash, and the walls are covered in graffiti. The lids of the sarcophagi have been torn off. Most of them are smashed and broken on the floor, and only one remains whole. The small pool also smells foul, and it looks like there may be pieces of rotting flesh in it.

Stone pokes at it with the 10 foot pole. It looks shallow, and he’s surprised when it turns out to be much deeper than that. “It’s really deep, guys,” he says, with the pole extended most of the way into the water. “I still haven’t hit bottom.”

Miriel looks around with growing concern. Noting that the group is dispersing – Paks is about to start searching the sarcophagi, and Chuck is looking anxiously down one of the two corridors we haven’t explored – she commands, “Stop, everyone.” When everyone is halted, and paying attention to her, she explains. “I think there’s a real danger of catching disease from this offal. Let’s perform another cleansing ritual, remove all of that graffiti, and clean up this trash.”

“That will take a couple of hours,” Goldpetal protests. “What is the point?”

“We have to remove this source of disease,” Miriel says.

“I’m not sure that’s necessary,” Goldpetal says. “Surely this is an effect of the disease we are here to fight, not the source.”

While they debate, Stone goes over to look down hallway on the right side. He sees that the filth does not continue down that way, and it opens into another cavern. He goes around to look down the left corridor with Chuck. After a short passage, he can see more open and damaged sarcophagi. He comes back to tell the others what he’s found. “Down the right side, there’s a cave,” he says, “And to the left, more coffins. Let’s press on.”

“I think we need to perform the purification ritual before we move on,” Miriel says.

“I agree,” Paks says.

Novalia nods, and Goldpetal agrees reluctantly. Paks turns to the others and tells them, “Chuck, Stone, Hands of Fire, you guys watch the corridors while the rest of us do the purifying ritual again.”

Miriel, Novalia, Paks, and Goldpetal gather in a circle, and begin chanting the names of their patrons, Madriel, Denev, and Tanil. Chuck and Stone each watch one of the new corridors, while Hands of Fire watches behind us.

About ten minutes into the ritual, just as the four participants have pulled up a powerful magical energy, Chuck sees something in the room he’s watching, a brief hint of movement caught out of the corner of his eye. He’s at the left-most passage, the one with the trash and more damaged sarcophagi. He waits for something more visible before he says anything.

Suddenly, a tall humanoid appears in front of him, flanked by three ghouls. The creature’s skin is deathly pale white, almost translucent, and the bone beneath that unearthly skin is clearly visible. His eyes glow with an unnatural reddish light. He is wearing what must have been at one time exquisite robes and a jeweled crown. His hands are twisted claws with long nails and he has just wisps of hair hanging down from his skull.

“Who dares to say those names in my lair?” the undead king demands, in a deep, booming voice. “How dare you defile my sanctum? You will serve me for all eternity!”

Paks breaks the circle, drawing her sword to stand behind Chuck. The others in the chant feel the power break and disperse, lashing uncontrolled into the room, though there is no visible repercussion.

The crowned humanoid claws at Chuck, but he steps back into line with

Stone leaps over the sarcophagi, flipping and rolling, also arriving just behind Chuck. Hands of Fire runs over next to Paks as the crowned humanoid claws at Chuck. The Vigilant steps back into line with his comrades, drawing his bow, and the four of them stand shoulder-to-shoulder to face the greater evil.

With the power of the ritual dispersed, Miriel pulls out Madriel’s Tear, and holds it aloft above her head, with her other hand wrapped around her holy symbol. “Madriel, banish this evil!” she calls, stepping towards the king. She feels no reaction, no power in either the Tear or her holy symbol.

The crowned humanoid laughs maniacally. Goldpetal leaps up on a sarcophagus and draws his bow, and Novalia climbs atop another. Chuck fires off two shots at the crowned humanoid. One arrow buries itself into his shoulder, but his evil laughter intensifies. He pulls out the arrow and breaks it in one hand. “Pathetic,” he says, as though commenting on our efforts.

The three ghouls rush at us. One of the ghouls leaps forward and bites Chuck, and again he collapses, paralyzed, his bow still held rigidly in his hands. Another ghoul tries to slide past Stone, but he punches it, hitting it hard as it attacks Hands of Fire. Stone’s blow knocks it off balance, and it misses the lizard man. Paks’ sword rings off the stone wall beside it, narrowly missing.

Stone punches at two of the ghouls next to him. He misses the first, but hits the injured one. The force of his blow slams it back against the wall, and it collapses. Hands of Fire steps forward to attack the other one, bashing it forcefully with his great club.

Miriel casts a sound burst on the three undead creatures. The explosion of noise kills the injured ghoul, but the crowned humanoid is not even stunned. Goldpetal and Novalia unleash their arrows. Goldpetal’s hits him, while Novalia’s shot misses.

Ignoring the arrows and the spell, the undead king advances on us. The very air becomes colder around him. The last ghoul follows him as he steps up to Hands of Fire. The spectral king attacks Hands of Fire, clawing him with his arms. His strength is unnatural, incredibly stronger than a human, and he slams the seven-foot-tall lizard man hard into the wall. Hands of Fire looks very cold and weak, and the crowned humanoid seems to grow more powerful. He laughs evilly again, as the lizard man slumps to the cold ground.

The ghoul lurking behind the ghost king tries to slide past Stone, and he punches it, killing it with a single blow. It falls to the ground next to Hands of Fire.

Paks steps up before the sepulchral figure, and yells, “Madriel, help me!” She brings her longsword down in a great overhand swing, and smites the crowned humanoid with a tremendous blow. Her sword bites deep into his shoulder, and the sound of breaking bones is audible. He is clearly wounded, now, and his left arm hangs at an unnatural angle.

Stone sees the opening, and tumbles past his left arm. The undead king claws at the monk as he passes, but the wound prevents him from connecting. As Stone comes to his feet, he kicks at the creature’s knees, but he misjudged the tumble, and rolled just out of reach.

Miriel runs up to Hands of Fire, who lies bleeding on the floor, and begins pulling him back out of the fray. He is too heavy to carry far, but she gets him out from under Paks’ feet. Novalia leaps down beside her, and cries, “Tanil, heal thy ally!” She lays her hands upon him. The worst of the bleeding stops, but his body feels icy cold beneath her touch, and he remains unconscious.

The spectral king has turned his back on the main group, to face Stone, and Goldpetal has a clear shot at him. His arrow bites deep into the creature’s back. The monarch screams in pain, whirling around to face the elf. “I’ll get you!” he yells.

He leaps at Paks, clawing at her with his good right arm. She steps forward into his blow, blocks his arm with her shield, and thrusts her sword deep into his chest. His momentum carries him almost to the hilt, and then he freezes, staring deep into her eyes. His red eyes glow with an unnatural intensity.

The tableau holds for a second which feels like eternity. He grinds out, “I curse you all in the name of Chern,” in a deep, ragged voice. Paks lowers the point of her sword, and he slides back off of it, to fall on his back. The unnatural light fades from his eyes, and they close as he goes limp upon the ground.

There is another moment of silence, and then Paks steps to his shoulder. With a single, sharp blow, she cuts off his head.

“Thank you, Madriel,” Miriel prays under her breath.

Stone turns around, as his tumble had taken him into another room. He looks around, and sees another cavern, a little smaller than the first, with four more broken sarcophagi. There is another tunnel leading out of the cavern from the far side. “The tunnels go on,” he says, gesturing.

“Let’s get out of this cavern system,” Miriel suggests, “Until Chuck wakes up. I’m exhausted. I need to sleep, and meditate.”

Hands of Fire is just well enough to stumble along with a supporting arm from Miriel. Stone and Paks drag Chuck, who is still paralyzed. Goldpetal leads, and Novalia brings up the rear, both keeping their bows knocked and ready. We make our way back through the caverns, and into the corridor leading to the underground lake.

We move the dead ghouls up into the next room, and shut the secret door behind us. Novalia heals Paks and Goldpetal, while Miriel heals Chuck. After several minutes, the paralyzation wears off and the young Vigilant is able to move again, but Hands of Fire remains chilled and weak.

We rest as before, rotating guard duty between Chuck, Paks, and Stone. An oppressive stillness settles over the caverns.