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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mortepierre" data-source="post: 1948332" data-attributes="member: 9765">The new year is upon us and I promised an update, so here it is!However, that's not the end of Chapter 1 yet. That update was so massive I decided to post part of it directly. Stay tuned for the next!1.3 Courage and Friendship:The companions’ situation was far from idyllic. Pelrind, hurt and unconscious, possibly dying. Eirak, grabbed by rotten arms and forcibly buried alive. Siubhan watching helplessly from upstairs. And Musadoc, on his knees on the cold ground, frozen into inaction by what he had glimpsed in Eirak’s eyes before the latter disappeared.Kalveig grimaced, realizing the fate of the group now rested with him. He had been unable to distract the creature while it concentrated on eliminating Eirak but at least the respite had allowed him to land two good hits. However, now that the dwarf was gone, the monster would undoubtedly turn to the next threat: him.The holy warrior took two steps back and concentrated on his defense. “Musadoc!”The halfling continued to look at the ground as if unable to accept what had happened.“Musadoc, on your feet! I need you here and NOW!”The halfling jerked, as a marionette whose strings had just been pulled. His expression changed from overwhelmed to furious in a heartbeat. Grabbing his pickaxe, he stood up and started to circle the monster warily. “Keep it busy, I’ll flank it.” There was steel in his voice, and the grim promise of revenge.The blow came, swift and powerful, as expected. Kalveig managed to hold on to his shield and stay on his feet.. barely. And then the creature howled, the sound similar to a stone shattering due to intense cold. Musadoc had attacked it from behind, his pickaxe digging deeply into the monster’s right ‘leg’.Now or never!Kalveig dropped his shield and rushed forward, wielding his flail two-handed. He aimed for the skull and struck as strong a blow as he could manage (15). For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then, cracks began to appear not only on the skull but all over the creature’s body. The monster shuddered once and crumbled to pieces at their feet.**“And you say undeads dragged the dwarf beneath the ground?”Pelrind had been questioning extensively both Kalveig and Musadoc on what had happened after he had lost consciousness. He tried to sit against the wall but relented. Despite the fact that Siubhan had healed the worst of the damage by calling upon Morwyn, his ribcage was still giving him pain.Kalveig helped him to lie down again and nodded. “That’s what it looked like. However, I was rather busy confronting the creature at the time so I can’t be sure. Musadoc got a better look at them though.”“I saw only arms and hands, some rotten, some skeletal. They seemed strong and single-minded given it didn’t take them more than a dozen heartbeats to drag him down” the halfling commented. There was exasperation in his voice. He paced the mausoleum nervously, clearly ruminating over something.When the elf looked at him interrogatively, Kalveig leaned forward and whispered “I think he blames himself for not being able to save the dwarf.”Pelrind shrugged. To him, railing against Fate was pointless if not counterproductive.“I still can’t figure out what it was exactly that you fought” he thought aloud. “Clearly, it had an elemental nature since it understood me when I spoke to it. But the body parts included into its physical matrix suggest necromancy as well. That’s puzzling. Generally those two kinds of magic don’t mesh well. They are even antagonistic to some degree. And yet-”“Could you please stop debating this so dispassionately? Eirak just died in case you didn’t notice!” interrupted Musadoc.Pelrind looked at him calmly. “Actually, I don’t think he did.”“Uh?”“If you had let me finish, I would have said that the act of burying an opponent alive is a standard tactic for earth-creatures, except it’s used to capture, not to kill...”“You mean he could still be alive?!”“I meant exactly that. Whenever they try to protect something or place it ‘out of the way’, earth-creatures nearly always resort to what we call geostasis. In layman’s terms, ‘underground hibernation’. Of course, I can’t be certain given the.. ah.. ‘peculiarities’ the creature exhibited, but it’s a strong possibility. And, even if I am wrong, let me remind you all that we need Eirak’s key to reach the inner vault. Without it, our little expedition stops here and now.”By the time the elf had finished his explanation, Musadoc was already hard at work digging. He stopped only long enough to harangue the others. “Well? Don’t just stand there! Grab something and help me. We’ve got ourselves a dwarf-mine and I intend to hit the mother-lode in record time.”The others grinned. They had to give it to the halfling, his good humor was contagious.Kalveig left Pelrind to Siubhan’s care and ran back to the cellar to fetch some tools. Luckily, he found an old shovel and was soon back to give the halfling a hand.It took them a full day, their work being complicated by the fact that they had to stop frequently to make sure they weren’t about to hit the dwarf’s head. Finally, they uncovered a big ovoid object entirely encased in bones. All in all, it looked like some kind of macabre chrysalis.“Fascinating!” Pelrind had climbed down the excavation and was busy inspecting the thing.“You think it’s him?” Kalveig was clearly a bit leery of their discovery.The elf continued his examination for a few minutes before he nodded slowly. “Quite possibly. Usually, geostasis is implemented through the creation of a stone ‘cyst’ around the subject but given the creature had affinities for necromancy, this may well be its distinctive way of doing it.”“What should we expect if we break it open?”“Normally, the subj-”Musadoc gave him a reproachful look.“Ahem.. I meant, Eirak should be inside, alive and well, though ‘asleep’. Opening the cyst and shaking him up should do the trick. Of course, I could be wrong. Perhaps he will have been drained of life or even necroanimated.” Pelrind shrugged. “Hard to predict, but a fasci.. er.. gruesome yet intriguing prospect.” He smiled at the halfling apologetically.Cautiously, they proceeded to peel the bones, slowly revealing the unconscious form of the dwarf. The latter was curled up in fetal position. Apart from a few scratches and bruises, he appeared healthy enough.. except for the fact that, though clearly comatose, his eyes were wide open and his face was a mask of frozen terror.“Morwyn’s mercy! He sure didn’t go down quietly. Give me a hand Musadoc.” Kalveig, helped by the halfling, finished freeing Eirak of his grisly ‘gangue’. Then, gently, they tried to wake him. Unfortunately, it didn’t exactly go as planned...One minute, the dwarf was inert as a boulder, and the next he was screaming at the top of his lungs as if all the nightmares he had ever experienced were suddenly revisiting him. He started to flail around, knocking over the human and the halfling, before attempting to flee up the stairs.“Quick, grab him! He is liable to hurt himself!” Back when she was still an apprentice, Siubhan’s instructors had told her that while some physical wounds were both terrible to behold and difficult to treat, there would come a time when she would have to face mental wounds that ran even deeper. Those, they warned, were by far the worst for it would take more than prayers to cure them. Up to now, she had doubted the veracity of such statement. But no more.When the dwarf had started screaming, she had felt his pain keenly from across the room, something that had never happened before! Normally, she had to be in physical contact with a patient to experience anguish to such a degree. Still, she hadn’t come totally unprepared. She didn’t know if what she had in mind would work, but she was prepared to try her best.**To Eirak, the world was Chaos. He recalled only dimly the battle against the thing, his failure to stop it, and his distress when he had been dragged down. While his body had been held in stasis underground by the creature’s magic, his mind had remained fully active, easy prey for the Kun-Orun. He had spent the last day locked inside a living nightmare built of the tales of his ancestors. He had run dozens of miles in tunnels forever collapsing, had been scorched by lava flows barring his path, had felt his lungs dissolve due to acidic fumes he was forced to breathe, and had been hunted down by creatures to which mercy had no meaning.Now, at last, escape was at hand! A slope had materialized that seemed to lead upwards, perhaps even to the surface! Yet, misshapen creatures were already in hot pursuit. No doubt, they intended to drag him back to their world of darkness and misery. He couldn’t let them succeed. He couldn’t!**Kalveig was the first to reach Eirak, tackling him just as the latter was reaching the walkway. He was rewarded by a sharp blow to the face from the dwarf’s elbow. Half-groggy, he managed to hold on long enough for Musadoc to reach them. The halfling did the first thing that crossed his mind; he sat astride Eirak’s back, slid his pickaxe’s handle under the dwarf’s throat, and used it to crush his windpipe. Not lethally, of course, but enough to force him to stop.“Hold him still! I am going to try to bring him out of it.” Siubhan had caught up with them. Her left hand was wrapped around her holy symbol while the right one was surrounded by a nimbus of soft, white light. She extended it towards Eirak and the radiance streamed from her hand to settle around the warrior’s chest and head.**Would this nightmare never end? He had almost reached the top of the slope when one of the earth-demons had grabbed his legs, making him fall to the ground. No sooner had he hit it to break its hold that another demon - smaller but twice as wicked - had jumped on his back and tried to throttle him!Suddenly, he saw her. Contrarily to the other creatures he had met so far, her form was well-defined rather than blurry and awoke neither fear nor revulsion in him. She was so bright that it was hard to make out her features.. except for her eyes. Those were twin oases of calm, one blue like the sky on a sunny day, the other green like a deep forest lake. There was kindness in them, and the unspoken promise that hope was eternal. At her silent command, the demons stopped hurting him. Gradually, he started to relax.**It was working! Her spell was slowly countering the irrational terror that had seized the doughty warrior. Siubhan knelt in front of him and hugged the dwarf as if he was a long-lost kinsman, willing her mental strength to bolster his.**The Kun-Orun was still wrapped around his heart, its fangs dripping their debilitating poison: unadulterated fear. Yet, he could feel its grip weakening. The ‘beast’ didn’t like his newfound ally. Her very essence was inimical to its own.Eirak’s strength was returning and he used every bit of it to fight his way back to reality.**Siubhan knew something was wrong. Like all White Hands of Morwyn, healing someone involved more than mere spells. It established a communion of spirits, for only in experiencing the pain could the healer enact a cure. And the deeper the wound, the greater the emphatic link, and thus the grief shared.As she allowed Eirak’s emotions to flood her own mind, she felt her sanity shattering under the assault. For it was a deliberate attack, not the result of a ‘simple’ trauma. Whatever was affecting the dwarf possessed a life of its own. It knew purpose, and that purpose was to inflict pain!For a few seconds, she saw herself running in dark tunnels as a dwarf maiden, and experienced raw fear on a scale she had never imagined. And then, she spotted Eirak. The warrior was lying on the ground, something dark and sinewy coiled around him. He was struggling to free himself but the thing didn’t want to let go. As she approached, fully intent on helping him, the creature looked at her with sulfurous eyes and shot a glance of pure hatred.Her resolve faltered and she stopped, unsure about what to do next.. until she noticed that her holy symbol was glowing and that the light it shed seemed to cause pain to the monster. She didn’t hesitate any longer. Grabbing it, she thrust it in the creature’s face. The latter hissed in impotent rage and uncoiled, fleeing to a hidden corner of the nightmare it had spawned (16).**In the NeMoren’s mausoleum, Eirak blinked at a world that was no longer quite so terrifying. He could feel the Kun-Orun lurking in a dark recess of his mind but, for now, it had been subdued. The human priestess was still hugging him, her face drenched in sweat. She seemed exhausted. With a gentleness he had never shown outside of his own race before, he disentangled himself from her arms and helped her to her feet. He read an unspoken question in her eyes and answered it in a whisper. “Don’t worry lass, I may be ‘sundered’ but I ain’t broken yet.” He winked at her for good measure, a simple gesture but - considering how he had acted up to now - one that spoke volumes about how grateful he was to her.He was a bit surprised though when Kalveig and Musadoc took turn patting him on the back and telling him how glad they were that he was back safe and sound. Even Pelrind smiled at him and nodded once in silent welcome.**The companions had decided to leave the vault for a well-earned night of rest on the surface. Not even Musadoc was tempted to spend it underground! However, before leaving, they resolved to check on the source of light that had beckoned them from the main corridor’s end.As it turned out, they hadn’t to go far to solve the mystery.The last stair rose to a 10 ft. square hallway that was blocked by a massive iron door. It showed no visible keyhole or handle, and stretched from floor to ceiling. To the immediate left of the door, there was a small niche in the wall, very similar to the one they had found in the chapel. A small crystal sphere sat on the ground near the niche. Light dimly radiated from the sphere, giving the doorway an eerie glow.Pelrind picked it up and grinned broadly. “This is a Calisil, an ‘Orb of Light’ you might say.”“What does it do?” Musadoc was standing on his toes, trying to get a better look at it.“Watch.” The elf closed his hand around it for a few seconds, allowing his body heat to suffuse the crystal globe, and then opened it up again. The orb flared up, suddenly bathing the adventurers in bright light.“Amazing! It’s as if we were outside in the sun. Well, minus the warmth of course.” The halfling was practically jumping up and down in excitement, no doubt already imagining how advantageous such an item could be in a mine. Still, the others were suitably impressed too. This orb would be a great boon in their exploration of the vault!“Wait, that’s not all.” Pelrind went to examine the alcove. “Ah ha! As I suspected. The metal lining the interior of the depression is elvish brass.” Seeing the others didn’t know what he was talking about, he continued. “It is a rare alloy whose secret of creation is shared only by a few of my people. When exposed to certain forms of light, it vibrates. For that reason, it is used mainly to decorate ceremonial armors or musical instruments. Frankly, I am surprised Kragor NeMoren was entrusted with it, not to mention a calisil!”“So, t’is good news?” Eirak didn’t seem to understand how it would help them.“Very good news.” Pelrind smiled mischievously and placed the orb in the hollow of the niche. Immediately, they heard a subtle but pleasing hum coming from the alcove.. and the door began to slide upwards into the ceiling.“Nifty!” was Musadoc’s only comment.Kalveig, always suspicious, positioned himself in front of the door. Eirak came to stand at his side and the others arrayed themselves behind them.It took a minute for the door to retract fully but by the time it was halfway up, the companions could already look beyond.. and what they saw wiped the smile from their faces.The corridor continued into darkness further than their source of light could penetrate. Fungi covered the walls and ceiling. Water dripped down from the ceiling, disturbing the dust that coated the floor. As for the air, it was both humid and sticky.Just on the other side of the door, there was another small alcove. However, this one lay empty.More worrying by far was the bent crowbar lying on the floor and the word that had been scrawled in crimson letters above it on the wall: BETRAYER.“Uh oh..” was the halfling’s only comment.And that’s when they heard it, the grinding sound of hidden mechanisms in action behind the walls, all the way back to the vault’s entrance.. and its door!As the truth of their situation dawned on them, they ran back, desperately trying to reach the exit in time.. but to no avail. The door had closed and there were no keyholes to use the silver keys on their side.Pelrind suggested removing the orb from the alcove to reverse the process, so they tried it. Alas, though it made the secondary door close again, it failed to reopen the first.Grimly, they realized they were now part of the NeMoren’s hoard.. possibly forever!**********(15) I swear, they had luck on their side! Both of them scored a critical hit. Up to then, I hadn’t really thought much of the halfling’s pickaxe but with a x4 dmg multiplier, it sure was an eye-opener! I shudder to think of the kind of damage he would dish out if he was wielding a medium-sized one...(16) She had cast - you guessed it - Remove Fear, and Eirak finally made his Will save.. but only just! (detailed explanation in the <a href="http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=106418" target="_blank">Rogues Gallery</a>)**********</blockquote>

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