Welcome to the Halmae (updated 2/27/07)

[spyscribe]

This update is in honor of WisdomLikeSilence on the occasion of her receiving her MBA today. Congratulations!

Incidently, this is the fourth Master's degree earned by a member of the group over the course of this campaign, proving that if even if some of us are underemployed, none are under-credentialed.

Part the One-Hundred Twenty-Eighth
In which: wait until dark.

The party is on the heels of the fleeing ghoul as he and the rest of the party come charging into the main audience chamber. That ghoul makes a bee-line through the cavernous main room, not even pausing to slam the door behind him. Certainly, he does not stop to put up any kind of fight.

The two ghouls already in the room, unturned, have no such compunctions.

Eva, Reyu, Annika, Lira and Kiara take up posts in the hall and barrage the two ghouls with magical and mundane missile fire. Anvil, who believes that Kettenek’s Justice is almost always best done at melee range, charges on ahead, sword raised.

With a mighty stroke he slices into one ghoul, sending a gout of ichor spraying across the stone floor. The ghoul slashes back ineffectually with its claws, and Anvil easily pulls back to avoid the blow. Unfortunately, that adjustment places his back in perfect position to meet the second ghoul’s outstretched nails.

The gash across his back is shallow, and Anvil easily shrugs off the pain. However, as he turns to face his attacker, he feels his muscles locking up under the effects of the undead abomination’s poison. He soon finds himself trapped between the two ghouls, frozen and helpless.

That is when Eva comes charging in, her rapier out and slashing. A quick slice to one ghoul’s head sends his ear flying across the room. Reyu, Annika and Kiara are right behind her.

Kiara has shifted to hybrid form and swoops above the ghouls in the high-ceilinged room. Her sling sings as it whirls through the air, sending bullets flying.

As she pauses to reload, she takes a second to glance out the second-story window, which is just at a level with the top of the wall surrounding the keep. Through it, she can see the sentries positioned on the wall, and a very startled skeleton staring back at her, teeth clacking.

Kiara calls down to Annika, “If they didn’t know we were here already, they do now.”

Annika runs for the huge oak doors leading back to the courtyard. With some strain, she lifts the crossbar propped on the wall beside them and slides it across. Not a moment later, they shake under an onslaught of skeletal pounding.

Meanwhile, Reyu has cast shillelagh on her quarterstaff and brings a killing blow down upon the ghoul that Anvil and Eva already wounded. Lira whips out her crossbow, and—using Anvil’s petrified arm to steady her aim—pins a bolt through the second ghoul’s shoulder. Reyu and Eva soon make short work of him as well.

Eva pauses to wipe her blade free of ghoul slime and looks over at Anvil. “What do we do about him?”

“Nothing,” Reyu points to a twitching index finger, “he’s already recovering.”

Sure enough, no sooner have Thatch and Benedic caught up with them than Anvil manages to shake off the last of the ghoul’s paralysis, and the entire party presses on for the final wing.

**********

Thatch takes point and runs out ahead of the rest of the party, following the trail of open doors left by the lone, surviving ghoul from the dining room. Once again, he finds rooms in disarray, but no sign of animated inhabitants. The last open door leads to a set of servant’s quarters—a good-sized room divided by thin curtains into individual spaces. Aside from the drapery, the only furnishing is a ladder attached to the exterior wall, leading down into what must be some kind of basement. Beside it is a dumbwaiter.

Just to be sure, Thatch sweeps the rest of the rooms beyond. He finds no one. “All clear!” he shouts.

Annika makes a beeline down the hall and bolts the side door to the courtyard. “Got the door!” she calls back to the others.

Eva shuts the door on a tiny bathing chamber on the other side of the hallway. “There’s a skeleton in there.”

“What is he doing?” Anvil asks

“Looked like he was drawing a bath.”

“Leave it.” Anvil indicates the ladder to the basement with Sir Cyrus’ drawn sword. “Let’s go.”

**********

At the bottom of the ladder, the party finds themselves in a narrow stone corridor with branching chambers, almost as if the keep has been built on top of a series of natural caverns.

Torches in the passage and side caves cast the entire place in a dim and flickering glow. Thatch sweeps a large, unoccupied room that obviously serves as some kind of barracks. Opposite, Anvil finds a store room equally empty. They are just moving on to the next set of rooms when every torch in the place suddenly winks out, leaving the party in complete darkness.

From somewhere ahead and to the right comes a faint humming sound, accompanied by a low cackle.

 

[Len]

This update is in honor of WisdomLikeSilence on the occasion of her receiving her MBA today. Congratulations!

Congratulations on your new wisdom, WisdomLikeSilence!

Incidently, this is the fourth Master's degree earned by a member of the group over the course of this campaign, proving that if even if some of us are underemployed, none are under-credentialed.

According to my calculations, what this proves is that your DM is way too stingy with the XP.

 

[spyscribe]

A map

The basements of the keep at Bountiful. Update to follow momentarily.

 

[spyscribe]

Part the One-Hundred Twenty-Ninth
In which...

Annika unshrouds her everburning torch. Lira casts light on Euro, ready to send the glowing mustelid to wherever illumination is needed. Reyu—keen eyes unhindered by the dimness—dashes forward to where the corridor widens into a central chamber, and casts light on a stalagmite, revealing to the others what she has already seen:

A pale, sallow figure with sunken eyes and claw-like nails. Although it was clearly once human, now… From Petros’ description, it can only be a wight. Behind, it is flanked by two ghouls and a squad of skeletons.

Unfortunately, running forward to shed some light on their attackers has left the elf in front of the rest of the party, alone and vulnerable.

As her companions watch, a wight—who bears no resemblance at all to Petros—reaches forward with an emaciated hand, skin drawn tight over bones, nails grown into talons, and slashes down the side of Reyu’s neck.

The elf takes a step back, gasping. She brings a hand to her neck, and although it comes away bloody, she can tell that the wound is not severe. Still, she feels… drained.

It doesn’t stop her from swinging back with her shillelagh and cracking the wight in the ribs. Benedic also comes forward and joins the fray. He slashes viciously with his sword, but in getting close enough to reach the enemy he is also within reach of its toxic nails.

Not so good, mate Benedic thinks as he struggles against the drain of the wight’s attack. Whatever he might have thought next is lost as he is entirely distracted by the ear-splitting blast of Lira sounding Sheesak’s hunting horn.

###

Anvil barely glances at the undead approaching the rest of the party. When the lights went out, he was already halfway into a large adjoining chamber which appears to have once served as the keep’s kitchens. Now, in the glow of Annika’s torch and Lira’s familiar, he can now clearly see that another wight emerging from the gloom.

A wight with a bone white goatee.

Anvil backs up rapidly, shouting, “The gem! The gem!”

Kiara is still in hybrid form, but the ceilings of the underground cavern are too low to give her room to maneuver. Worse yet, even as Anvil shouts, a ghoul moves into the doorway, immediately between her and Petros’ animated body.

Still, Kiara has been given a vital job, and she is not about to let anyone stop her from doing it.

Taking a deep breath, Kiara dashes forward, weaving between Eva and Thatch, past Anvil and runs straight for the gibbering creature. At the last possible second, she takes a flying leap and using its head like a stepping stone summersaults over the ghoul to land in a crouch at the wight’s feet.

The Petros wight looks down at her and hisses. He brings a hand back to strike and, at that moment, Kiara slips under his guard, punches forward, and slams the gem holding Petros’ soul right into his body’s chest.

>Boom!<

A sudden gust of wind explodes from the point of contact between the wight and the gem. Kiara brings her arms up to shield her face from the blast and barely manages to stay on her feet. When the wind dies, she looks up.

Petros has been blown across the kitchen. It lies still for a moment. Then, gradually struggles to raise its head. Finally, it manages to focus on the other side of the room, and makes eye-contact with Kiara.

When it does, she can see that its skin is no longer quite so sallow. Its nails are long and ragged, but no longer the sharpened claws that moments ago menaced her. And when she looks into its eyes, there is a light that was not there before.

Petros’ familiar voice croaks, “What…?”

Kiara grins.

On the other side of the cavern, Annika gapes—caught between pride and terror.

###

Meanwhile, the echos of Sheesak’s horn die away just as the blast which reunited Petros’ body and soul does and a silvery green vortex appears behind the wight that attacked Reyu and Benedic.

Benedic drops into ready stance, preparing to ward off another blow from this, still very much undead, wight. But as the wight moves to strike, its back arches, as if in sudden pain. It shrieks, once… twice, and then, with a small gurgle, falls.

It’s then that the party can finally see that the silver-green vortex has solidified into a very large, very angry, wolverine.

Benedic straightens, momentarily off-balance now that his nearest enemy has been so abruptly eliminated. Lira barely smirks.

Eva looks at the wolverine and shudders.

###

Anvil dispatches the ghoul in front of him and charges into the kitchens. He finds that any food preparation in this room is but a distant memory, and the center of the floor is now dominated by an eight-foot arch. And as approaches, he sees that it appears to have been constructed from human bones.

It is a massive, foreboding presence, thrumming with evil magic. In the center of the arch, a slight shimmering, like an invisible curtain, ripples. Anvil draws still closer, and realizes that the vague unease that pervades the lands of Bountiful is no longer vague in any way. This thing is a foul, black heart, pumping waves of unholy energy that besmirch all that was once good and light in this place.

Calling upon Kettenek to grant him mighty strength, Anvil plants his feet and attempts to push the arch over, but as he touches the bony surface, a ghostly figure appears before him, and forces its incorporeal hand into Anvil’s face.

The figure seems to be human, but like no human Anvil has ever seen. He is a great, seven-foot tall figure, but his shape is indistinct. He seems to be clad in rotted furs, but they ebb and flow like dark mists around him. Whatever face he might have had is lost in the dark of a sickly looking headdress of matted fur and feathers.

In life, the headdress would no doubt have been some badge of distinction—the mark of a chieftan of the Go’nah-li. Now, it is a cowl of decay, from which two glowing red pinpoints of light shine through, right where his eyes should be.

His touch is deathly cold, so cold it seems to burn. And as the pain penetrates deeper and deeper into Anvil’s flesh the ancient chieftain roars with a voice like gravel in the wind, “These are our lands!”

Anvil can feel the cold pulling at him, trying to drain away his health, his stamina, his very life. He resists, reaching inside, searching for the rock in his core that is the center of his faith. He shouts back: “Kettenek cares not whose lands these are!”

Anvil breaks free, holds his holy symbol out before him, and calls upon his god to banish this abomination.

The wraith laughs with the sound of the dying.

###

The rest of the party has done their work. Three wights and their ghouls lie in pieces on the stone floor, and the Wolverine crushes the last skeleton between its mighty jaws.

Thatch holds his sword at the ready; he can almost feel Anvil’s enchantment on the blade, crying out for the chance to strike. He glances back to the others. Lira has just cast a cure spell on Reyu to bring the Druid back to something closer to fighting shape.

“Ready?” he asks.

“That was my last cure light wounds,” Lira warns him.

“Then we’d better be the ones doing the damage.”

The others nod. Thatch raises his sword, and the group descends en-mass on the incorporeal ancient chief.

 

[ellinor]

Great update, and great cliffhanger. Thanks for the afternoon-booster -

 

[spyscribe]

Part the One-Hundred Thirtieth
In which: Kiara demonstrates that her dexterity is higher than her diplomacy score.

Thatch lands the first blow, Anvil’s magic weapon spell allowing the sword to connect with reassuring force as the Chieftain attempts to glide through one foot of the arch in an effort to put that bony mass between himself and the party.

The wraith snarls, but does not shift the focus of his attack away from Anvil. Instead, he casts and scorches the cleric with a searing light spell, sending Anvil staggering backwards and causing his attack with Sir Cyrus’ sword to go wide.

“Your weapons cannot harm me,” he hisses as Anvil struggles to regain his balance.

Anvil grits his teeth. “Kettenek has other methods,” he says tersely and follows his words with a searing light of his own.

The wraith falls back, crying out in sudden pain. But not before lashing out one last time with his freezing touch, sending Anvil, unconscious, to the ground.

However, Eva is right there to take his place. She knows her rapier is useless against an enemy with no body, so instead she brandishes the party’s wand of cure light wounds. She thrusts the tip of it into the air where the wraith’s chest would seem to be, and activates the wand.

He shudders and hisses, dodging through the arch.

Good, Eva thinks, didn’t like that much, did you?

Although the party has to be careful not to follow him through the arch, the wraith finds that he is still unable to shield himself from their attacks.

Benedic picks up Sir Cyrus’ sword from where Anvil dropped it and goes on the offensive.

Although Thatch does not connect with the wraith every time he brings his sword around, he is hitting with shuddering forced when he connects.

Eva is right there with the wand of cure light wounds and Reyu continues to batter away with her shillelagh.

Lira, seeing Anvil on the ground, takes a moment to convert an orison to cure minor wounds. She sends Euro scurrying over to the fallen cleric to deliver the spell. At least it’ll stabilize him, she comforts herself.

She forces herself to focus on the task at hand, and prepares to cast magic missile at the wraith as soon as Euro has discharged his spell.

Meanwhile, Annika keeps her eyes glued on the incorporeal foe. She’s out of magic missiles and she knows her crossbow is useless against him. She does however, still have a dispel magic prepared.

There, the wraith is falling back. It’s hurt badly, looks like… yes, it’s going to cast. Annika casts as well, finishing her spell just an instant before the Chieftain does. She realizes with a sinking sensation in her stomach that it was attempting to cast inflict serious wounds on itself, likely enough to negate most, if not all, of the injury that the party has managed to cause it.

But those few seconds prove to be enough. Annika feels her spell spin out from her hands and crash into the wraith’s nascent magic. The Chief curses in its ancient tongue as its spell collapses before its glowing, red eyes.

And just at that moment, a stone comes whizzing from Kiara’s sling, striking it square in the torso.

Had Kiara been using an ordinary stone, or even a sling bullet, it would have passed harmlessly through the creature, as though through an illusion or bit of mist. But this was the last of Kiara’s magic stones, and as it strikes its target, the wraith’s form appears to buckle around the impact, leaving a small black hole in the middle of its phantom chest.

Like ripples in a pond, the blackness spreads outward, the Chieftain’s form collapsing in on itself, until—screaming in incoherent rage—it is no more.

###

For a moment, the room is eerily silent. Eva uses the wand to return Anvil to consciousness, and he heals himself to closer to his full strength.

Petros clears his throat in the post-battle quiet. “I thank you very much for your assistance, but I must point out that our work is not yet done. The skeletons will be returning soon, unless we can stop them, they will overwhelm us.”

Anvil shakes his head. “We cannot turn them all.”

Petros agrees. “But I believe this… arch must be responsible for whatever force is animating the skeletons. Disabling it should destroy them all.”

“What should we do to… disable… it?” Reyu asks.

“Does any of you have a spell-book?”

Annika produces hers, but offers it with some trepidation. “How long do you need?”

“Fifteen minutes, perhaps a little more.”

Anvil shakes his head. “I do not believe we have that long before the skeletons return. They already know where are here, and have been trying to break into the keep for some minutes.”

Petros looks at Annika. “Do you have dispel magic prepared?”

“I used the last one to counterspell the wraith.”

Petros sighs, “It was unlikely you could have affected the object in any event.” He then glances back at her. “I do not mean to impune your abilities, but…”

Annika nods to show that she takes no offense.

Eva notices Lira casting detect magic and squinting at the arch. “What do you see?”

“Transmutation…. And a whole lot of necromancy.”

“Surprise, surprise,” Thatch mutters. “Looks like plan B.” The fighter takes off his pack and pulls out a coil of rope. This would be a whole lot easier, he reflects, if I had Bob.

###

Cautious never to actually pass through the shimmering archway themselves, the party works to tie several ropes around the top of the arch. Anvil and Benedic pull as Thatch hews at one leg of the arch with his sword.

Sparks ring from the blade as metal strikes bone.

One.

Two.

The structure begins to groan as Benedic and Anvil put all their weight onto the ropes. Thatch draws back his arm for one last strike….

Three!

With a mighty >CRACK< the bone arch snaps and a huge section breaks free, leaving only two uneven stumps protruding from the floor.

Thatch stands back, satisfied.

A few seconds later, Lira reaches out to Euro through their shared empathic link.

Euro?

Yeah, Boss?

When the arch broke, did you see a big flash of light?

No.

Ah.

There is a brief pause.

Are you still glowing?

You bet.

Annika’s torch still lit?

Sure. I think that’s why they call it “everburning,” you know Boss?

Yeah, probably is.

Hey Boss. Why, do you ask?

Oh, it’s just there was a really big aura flare when the arch broke… and I was looking right at it with detect magic when it happened….

You okay, Boss?

Actually, I think I’ve gone blind.

###

Fortunately, Lira’s sight begins to return almost immediately, and in the meantime Annika casts knock on the one large locked door in the basement of the keep which was never opened in the course of the battle.

As Annika works, Kiara gets up the courage to ask about something that has been bothering her since she first saw Petros in his wight form.

Trying to be mindful of her manners, she walks up to the archmage and asks, “Excuse me, but what happened to your arm? Did the ghouls eat it?”

Indeed, Petros’ left arm ends just below the elbow. The rest of the party turns to look, most of them just as curious, if too wary to ask.

Petros actually looks a bit embarrassed. “No, it was… like this before.”

Lira is too startled to prevent herself from saying the first thing that pops into her head: “And you didn’t think of mentioning that as a way we might be able to identify you as a wight?”

Whatever Petros might have answered to that is cut-short by a whoop from Eva, who has just gotten a look into the locked room.

Thatch and Benedic both reflexively reach for their swords, but the cause of Eva’s outburst soon becomes clear:

The room is filled to the brim with treasure.

 

[Trahnesi]

The room is filled to the brim with treasure.

Ah, the joys of divying the treasure.

Did Fajitas allow you to keep any of it?

 

[dpdx]

I'd hope whatever rest could be had would be the first priority, if indeed the keep could be secured to prevent entry.

Second choice would be to see if anything in the room could be used to help ward off the skeletons, if indeed the "search committee" cannot rest.

Finally, Anvil cannot be out of turning attempts. I count two in the last four updates, which I read gleefully all at once in a successful attempt to catch up.

Thanks, Spyscribe, and congratulations, WLS. Any number of gaming companies could use your acumen to help them stay afloat.

 

[Fajitas]

Did Fajitas allow you to keep any of it?

Well, in the original module, the Wraith is keeping the Baroness alive in the Keep. He's confused about whether or not he's alive or dead*, you see, and he intends to marry her to legitimize his claim to the town. Thus, as written, while the Keep contains all the looted treasure of the town, the Baroness won't let the PCs take any of it.

This whole legitimizing claim thing didn't work for me. So it went, which meant the Baroness went, which meant that the treasure... well, you'll see in the next update what happens to the treasure.


*Which may have something to do with why he casts searing light at the PCs. It was written in the module as part of the tactics, and I didn't really think about it until it happened, but undead casting searing light at the living? That's not smart. It'll just give them ideas, and they get to do a lot more damage back to you. Ah well.

 

[spyscribe]

Part the One-Hundred Thirty-First
In which: Lira and Anvil explore Bountiful at night, and we find out what happens to the treasure.

Aboveground, the streets are deserted, and—aside from the party’s own movements—absolutely still. The effect would be eerie, except for the memory of what the streets had been like before. Nothing like a town of animated skeletons to put things in perspective.

Anvil and Lira make their way towards the desecrated temple in the middle of the town. For the last half-block, they have been stepping carefully through a swathe of fallen skeletons piled nearly to their knees. They appear to have collapsed where they stood when the arch was broken. The dry >clack clack< of brittle bones sliding against each other is the only sound in the darkness.

When they reach clear road again, Lira breaks the silence. “If we burn Bountiful, do you think the Sovereigns will send someone to investigate?”

“It seems likely.”

“Do you think we’ll be gone by then?”

“Probably,” Anvil replies.

Lira stops, choosing her words carefully. “If it looks like we won’t… would you mind preparing an undetectable alignment for me?”

Anvil considers. Since her divine revelation, Lira has shown a strong and distinctive aura under a detect chaos spell, not something—like her holy symbol—that she can hide under her tunic.

On the one hand, Anvil is not sure that church leaders generally condone using Ketennek’s blessings to conceal chaotic priests from the forces of the Law. On the other, the laws of the Sovereignty state that it is illegal—on pain of death—to be a chaotic priest, and so he would—to whit—be using Ketennek’s blessings to prevent her unjust execution under a miscarriage of Justice. It is an interesting dilemma, one he will have to record in his Log of Justice.

To Lira he says only, “If it appears likely we will have to deal again with the Sovereigns, it can be done.”

She nods. “Thank you.”

They continue in silence, past the carpet of bones, to the temple beyond.

###

Thatch uses a large golden tureen to scoop coins off the floor of the royal vault and dump them into a waiting cart which the group has appropriated. Annika and Kiara have gone to walk with Petros back to his tower, leaving him, Eva, and Benedic to sort through the assorted loot, estimate its value, and decide what will be taken back with them.

Before he and Lira left, Anvil broached the question of whom the treasure in the vault rightfully belonged to.

#

Eva looked at Anvil as if he were a little dim. “I think that would be us,” she replied.

“The former resident of this keep may have heirs,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but umm… how are we going to find them?” Thatch asked. “You know… if they’re out there.”

The group finally decided that if anyone in the Sovereignty had really been concerned about the contents of the vault, they would have sent their own group of operatives to retrieve them.

#

Euro, still lighted, trots by. The ruby in his teeth casts red glowing spots on the surrounding walls and floor. He drops the gem in the cart and turns back to the pile to get another.

Yep, thinks Thatch, it’s good to have money.

###

The inside of the temple is pitch black. Since neither she nor Anvil have any light spells left, Lira strikes a sunrod on the stone flags of the entryway and follows close behind Anvil as he proceeds through the desecrated space, sword in hand.

The building has been wrecked: furniture overturned, papers scattered, and anything that might have once been holy to Ketennek has been deliberately defiled. Lira finds a recently dated decree from the Baroness Teysu Gyoko, who seemed to have been the local noble, in a ransacked office, and pockets it as documentation that they were here.

Everywhere, the walls and floors are covered in blood. Anvil and Lira soon they find the bodies--brutally murdered and left where they fell.

“Could this have been some kind of last stand?” Lira asks.

Anvil shakes his head. “Everything is barricaded from the outside.”

“Why would…?” Lira abruptly stops, realizing the answer to her own question. “They didn’t want the clergy to be skeletons. They just wanted them dead.”

Anvil says nothing and steps forward into the main sanctuary.

The huge space swallows the light of Lira’s sunrod. More wreckage of pews… blood… Anvil approaches the main alter and finds that someone has cut a large square hole in the center of it. Lira tugs on his sleeve.

“Look.”

His gaze follows her finger. Pinned to the wall above the altar is a foot.

Anvil takes the sunrod and steps closer to the wall. Standard temple architecture usually places a large holy symbol of Ketennek on this wall. It’s still there… behind the disemboweled priest nailed to it.

Behind Anvil, Lira swallows bile and tries not to think about what order death, nailing, and disembowelment might have occurred in.

“Do you want to try and take him down?” she asks.

“Why?” he answers. “We’re going to burn it all anyway.”

Anvil turns on his heel and walks out, Lira following quickly behind.

###

Eva picks up the last stray gold coin in the corner of the vault. Euro does a sweep, comes up empty. Thatch surveys the empty room.

“Umm… I guess there wasn’t much not worth taking then, was there?”