The call for adventurers had gone out, and we were supposed to assemble in Whitestaff in the Duchy of Blackstone. But no sooner had we arrived then we learned that this was not to be the case. Uniformed soldiers informed us that the location of the gathering had been changed at the very last moment to Firelight Cove. They told us some sketchy story about attacks of undead and pirates, and directed us to a glowing gate in the middle of the city. I couldn’t get any more useful information in Whitestaff, and lacking any other options, I elected to take the gate to Firelight Cove.
When I arrived on the other side, I found the town of Firelight Cove to be less chaotic than I had been led to believe. I saw no undead immediately, but there were several groups of pirates wandering about town. They seemed to be from several different pirate factions, and each faction wore a colored sash denoting which group they were from. Several pirates showed wounds and other signs that they had been in fights recently. I was apprehensive at first, but the pirates seemed content to go about their business, and the town folks barely paid them any heed, so I decided to do the same for now.
After a short time I was able to meet up with everyone else at the tavern. I’m not sure if it was because of the last moment change in location or some other factor but there were not a lot of people around. I counted around seventeen people at the start, and no nobility beyond Squire Caliphar and Squire Fyrestorm.
There were a couple of new faces and faces I had not seen in quite some time. Cormyn Bloodstar was in attendance, and he was with an elf named Arianna. I had not seen her previous to this gather. I was let to believe that this was her first. Tegra and Mar’kerion were also there. I had not seen either of them in over a year. Kale Rend and Xarik were there after a similar long absence. I can’t remember when the last time I saw Meilah at an event. And as for Loremar, I know I haven seen him since the Great Dark Swamp.
In addition to all these people, there was myself, Pyroxia, Katherine, Andris, Caiphar, Hooch, Tygil, Lauryanne and Sathen. Now, if you happen to have been counting along with me, that makes seventeen people, eight of which were attending their first gathering in over six or more months. I thought that this was going to make for some interesting adventuring.
Things started off in a fairly typical fashion. After we had been socializing for a time in the tavern there was a disturbance outside on one of the porches. A band of pirates had come along, and these seemed intent on causing some trouble. There weren’t that many of them, but some of them were tossing gas globes and that made them a little tougher.
I didn’t do much fighting in that attack. I ended up wasting much of my time running back and forth around the tavern trying at first to get away from the pirates, and then to sneak up behind them. For the most part we didn’t have too much trouble with them, and after a couple of thrashings they moved on to greener pastures I suppose.
After the pirates left us alone I decided it would be a good time to take a look around town to see what if anything had changed in the months since I last visited. I saw more pirates walking about, and this time I was a bit more circumspect about them. Until I could figure out which ones were dangerous I thought it best to avoid them altogether. I decided to stick to the edges of town to see what I could find there.
There were less people and pirates along the outskirts. I noticed that there must have been a storm recently. The ground was carved up in a number of places where I could tell water had run. There were also a number of trees down, including some that were still lying across the paths and roads. Over by the edge of town I noticed a guy off to himself flipping a throwing dagger from hand to hand. Since I happened to use a throwing dagger myself, I started over to talk to him.
After only taking a step or two I thought better of that idea. I returned to the tavern and asked around if anyone would like to come talk to this guy with me. After a little bit of persuading I was able to convince Tegra and Mar’kerion to come along, and Xarik jumped up and practically raced me to the door he was so anxious to come.
I retraced my steps and found the guy right where I left him. After a short conversation we learned that he was a thrown weapon expert who was out to spread the word about the wisdom and utility of throwing daggers in a fight. He organized an impromptu little dagger throwing contest for all of us. I thought I had a reasonable chance at winning, especially after I led off with a perfect throw. However, my luck turned bad after that and Xarik ended up being the winner.
After the contest the gentleman gave Xarik a dagger as his prize and gave us all a little bit of treasure for playing. We headed back to the tavern and split our winnings up amongst ourselves. After we had done this, I set out once again to see what I could spot around the edge of the woods around town.
After a short time of walking around I did see something a little ways off in a small clearing in the woods. There was a stump with a large piece of rolled parchment and a quill sitting on top of it. I squatted down and looked this over quite carefully for some time. As near as I could see in the dim light the parchment was quite blank. Still, I ended up deciding not to disturb it for now. I left it where it was and continued looking around.
While I was out looking around the edge of town I managed to miss a rather interesting fight over by the tavern. A small group of undead approached the back porch of the tavern along one of the trails. They appeared to the standard sorts of skeletal undead you find along with a single non-corporeal undead that struck people with ice based damage. The people on the porch scrambled inside and got others and soon enough a pitched battle was taking place.
The adventurers quickly gained the upper hand and began pushing the undead back along the trail through the woods. Once they had gone a certain distance a new creature entered the fight. I large burly bush or small tree with glowing eyes stepped forth out of the brush and began lashing out at people. It was doing considerably more damage, and pretty soon the advance turned into a slow retreat. The bush began to work its way along the trail in an effort to cut everyone off from the tavern. A large fallen tree across the road at this point further complicated matters when a number of people got caught on the wrong side of it.
Thing were just starting to get bad when the bush was finally brought down. After that the defenses were able to firm up and the last of the undead were hacked apart and slain. After a quick sweep through the woods to make sure that everyone was accounted for, everyone headed back to the tavern.
This wasn’t the end of the undead, though. A short time later I’m told that some man ran into the tavern and flung some kind of substance up against the wall. At that spot a gate opened up and mummies began to pour out. Everyone in the tavern scrambled to their feet and began attacking them.
It was towards the end of this fight that I arrived back in town. I could see that there was fighting going on in the tavern so I ran around to the other side. I got there just as Caliphar came out. The two of us reversed directions and crept back down along the tavern wall towards where the last mummy was now fighting on the porch.
I peeked around the corner and saw that the mummy was holding the door against several people. I knew that if we came around the corner we would be seen. I conferred with Caliphar briefly, and we decided that I would run around the corner and engage the mummy. When it turned around to face me, Caliphar would then come out and crush it in the back using his magic sword that struck for healing damage.
The first part of the plan worked to perfection. I raced around the corner and the mummy pounced right on top of me. When it started hammering on me with blows and spellstrikes I realized that I had bitten off way more than I could chew. I was able to see Caliphar run up and begin beating on the mummy’s back just before everything went black.
When I came to with a healer standing over me, the mummy had four people on it and it was still going strong. I scrambled to me feet and ran over to help finish it over, and nearly got my face smashed in again. We hit on that mummy for another two minutes before it finally went down. I thought we were never going to finish it off.
Once that was all over with I walked into the tavern to get something to drink. When I got inside Tegra, Mar’kerion and Kale walked up and all expressed an interest in scouting around some more. They grabbed me and headed out the door and told me to go find stuff, in which I was happy to oblige them.
We started down the trail that led over to the docks looking from side to side to see what there was to find. Tegra stopped us at one point and pointed off into the woods to our right. After a few moments we were able to pick out what he had seen in the dark off the trail. A five foot tail furry guy with a long tail was standing under a tree spying on us.
Once we walked over and accosted him we were able to see that he was in fact a weasel scavenger. He claimed his name was Skit-skit-skit, and that he was an extraordinary spy that knew a wealth of information about the coming and goings around town. He wanted payment in the form of gems in order to divulge his valuable information, but sadly none of us were carrying any at the time. He said that he would also accept payment in the form of a sandwich, and on that note we all headed back to the tavern in order to seal the bargain.
Once there, and with sandwich in hand, Skit proved that he was in fact quite well informed. We questioned him for some time, and when we were done Caliphar, Pyroxia and some others questioned him. We were able to learn quite a bit about the pirates and the undead.
Skit explained that many of the undead that were now showing up around town have been coming from out of the sea. Some of them wore white tabards with the symbol of a blue eye upon it. Presumably this related to the Eye of Blue that we had heard about previously this year. These undead sometimes fought against other groups of undead, but all the undead in the area seem intent upon finding their way to something call the Necropolis.
He also gave us some background on the pirates. The pirates came in several varieties. The black sash pirates were the lowest of the low, and the white sashes could be termed honorable if such a thing could be said of pirates. The blue, red and green pirates were somewhere in the middle, with the blue being a tad more professional and the red being a bit closer to the unsavory side.
Another thing he said that he had spied out lately was a bunch of undead plant creatures. These menaces would wait in hiding off in the woods and send in undead creatures to try to lure people back to where it waited in ambush. We had of course already encountered one of these creatures earlier, but it was interesting to learn that there was likely more about.
He mentioned a few other items as well. He claimed to have seen a dark elf creeping around town a short while earlier. There were no dark elves among the adventurers, so I can only guess at who that might be. He also said that mind flailers were still operating in the area. They occasionally grabbed townsfolk and pirates and hauled them off to become mind slaves.
He also claimed to know a lot of stories and legends. On a whim, I asked him if he knew any stories about scrolls lying on stumps. To my surprise he claimed he did. He said there was a local legend that claimed that from time to time a magical scroll and quill will appear in the forest upon a stump. If you find this scroll and write a story on it, the story will in the end come true.
Well, I thought all this was quite interesting. Caliphar expressed a great desire in finding this scroll, and Pyroxia in turned expressed her great desire that he not find it. I went over and found Kale, Mark and Tegra and asked if perhaps they wanted to help me find this fabulous legendary scroll. They all readily agreed, and off into the woods we went.
About twenty minutes later we were back, and Tegra and Mark headed off to a corner of the tavern and began looking over a piece of paper that they had. Tegra in particular was quite excited about finding the scroll, and he was already formulating exactly how he could write a story in such a way that would guarantee great wealth and fortune without being able to be misconstrued to cause us harm.
Legend or not, I thought the whole thing was a bit hokey. They say there is no such thing as a free lunch. This scroll had “sucker” written all over it from what I was guessing. Still, I was willing to let Tegra and Mark and Kale have a go at it. If they managed to get something good out of it, then that was fine with me. Besides, would sort of story would I write? I don’t know anything about writing stories.
They didn’t have long to puzzle over their story before someone ran in yelling that we were being attacked by spiders. I ran outside with everyone else and sure enough the place was crawling with spiders. They weren’t particularly large or powerful spiders, but I was still forced to do a lot of hacking and cutting to keep people out of their webs.
There was some sort of dark skinned man who seemed to be in charge of the spiders. I looked over at one point and Caliphar was talking to the guy. This is where things began to get rather confusing for me and several of the other people that were there. Caliphar was negotiating with this guy for something, and every now and then the guy would get pissed and reach out and whack Caliphar with his mace. Caliphar wasn’t attacking back, though, so I couldn’t tell whether to jump the guy or not. The guy had some other sort of humanoid caster behind him, so I just tried to keep an eye on him and Caliphar and occupied myself with squashing spiders.
Eventually this guy and his caster and the remaining spiders wandered off towards the other end of town. A few of us went over to Caliphar to see if we could find out what was going on. I was able to gather that this guy was the related to the message I had read previously on the Fae tree from someone named Lady Alkaline, and that this was all carryover from the gathering last month.
As you may recall, I previously mentioned how fully half of us had not been at the previous gathering. Many of the ones that had been there were now in bed. This meant that most of us standing there had almost no clue what was going on. Caliphar said that this Vhladic guy was here trying to get some kind of piece to a puzzle, and that he was heading into town and would very likely be rifting into people’s warded cabins and causing untold mayhem in his quest to find it.
So off Caliphar ran off after Vhladic to stop him. Hooch, Andris and myself were the only people standing there at the time, and so naturally we ran off after him. When we got to the other side of town where a number of people were staying Caliphar was already talking to Vhladic again. Vhladic was demanding the puzzle piece. There were a few spiders creeping around the edges of the buildings at this point, but for the most part it was just us, Vhladic and his caster. While they were talking, Hooch filled me in with the rest of the story about everyone spending the last gathering finding 5 puzzle pieces which were going to be used by Alkaline to weaken and defeat Vhladic. He was here now to get one of the pieces to prevent this.
I guess Caliphar figured this would be the best opportunity he was going to get, and so he yanked out his sword and went at Vhladic. Before I could make a move two arcane death spells pounded into Caliphar. I immediately leaped into action and ran away in the opposite direction and hid behind a building. I peeked back around the corner and tried to get my bearings to figure out who was still there, and what was going on. I heard Caliphar and some others fighting, so somehow he had been gotten back up on his feet. I ran forward and found everyone fighting with spiders, and Vhladic standing over by a building talking to Pyroxia, who was standing on the porch of her cabin in her pajamas.
I helped out people with the spiders, and about the time we fought them off Vhladic finished whatever business he had with Pyroxia. There was now a bunch more people on the scene, and when Vhladic strode over to us I figured this was going to be the big showdown. Instead, he looked us all over once, and then rifted out with his caster.
And that was the end of that. As near as I could gather, Pyroxia had given one of the puzzle pieces to Vhladic in order to get him to leave. At least that is what it looked like to me. I was trying to tell this to Hooch when Sathen came up and grabbed my arm and kept going “Who!? Who!? Who!?” like some sort of half crazed owl. I guess he wanted to know who had given up the puzzle piece and I told him to go talk to Pyroxia or Caliphar or someone else who knew what was going on. I was getting more than a little annoyed at this point from spending the last twenty minutes trying to figure out what was going on myself, and I wasn’t much in the mood to be interrogated like that.
As it turned out, everyone at that point just drifted off and starting heading to their cabins. We happened to be standing right in front of mine, so I took the opportunity to drop off some of the stuff I had been carrying around. I stayed up a little while longer and went with Hooch, Caliphar, Sathen Arianna and Cormyn over to the other side of the town to set up some wards. I had a chance to get filled in a little more about what happened last gathering, and what had just happened that night. It was now quite late, and so I headed off to bed myself.
This is where I’ll end my tale for now. Later on I’ll pick up with the events of the next morning and day, and tell of necromancers, statues, mechanical men, and all sort of other wonderful weirdness.
When the morning dawned I got up at a fairly early hour. On many previous occasions I ended up being up as late as four or five o’clock on the first night of a gathering. This time I was in bed before three, so when I got up a little after nine I was much more rested than I am used to being. I grabbed up my towel and headed over to the showers.
When I got to the showers I saw a large metal barrel sitting a short distance away in the woods. I declined to investigate it for the moment, since I really wasn’t properly dressed at the time. I finished washing up and went back to the cabin and got dressed. When I stepped out on the porch again I saw Pyroxia and Tygil heading over to the same metal can. I guess they saw it earlier too, so I hurried over to check it out with them.
When we got there we saw that it was in fact a large metal can with a lid on it. When we got close the lid popped open and a green orc poked his head out. The orc was a surly sort of guy, and he explained that he lived in the can and spent his days collecting garbage. That didn’t seem to be a bad sort of way for an orc to live I figured. He kept complaining about some wolven that cast a death spell on him some time ago.
Since he expressed on interest in garbage, we rooted around a little bit and tossed some trash in his barrel for him. This satisfied him enough that he rooted around in the bottom of his can until he found a messy map that he had collected some time before. I couldn’t figure out the map at all. It seemed to show two squiggly lines, a stump, some sort of pyramid, and a shiny pylon with two holes in it. Pyroxia pocketed the map and we left the orc in his can.
I headed over to the tavern at this point and ordered some breakfast. A couple of people were up and about at this point. When I finished, I declared my intention to search the woods for strange and exciting things. As it turned out, I found just such a thing even before I could step out of the tavern. As I walked to the door, I could see off in the edge of the woods a strange glowing ball of energy through the windows.
I went outside and went over to take a look. The energy field appeared to be some sort of gate or portal. I could not get closer than about three feet to it before I would be repelled by some kind of force. Clearly this wasn’t anything I was going to be able to figure out on my own. I went back into the tavern and explained what I found. A few people wandered over and looked at it with me, but they were as baffled as I was as to its purpose or nature.
Leaving the energy portal alone for the time being, I next set off a bit further into the woods. This time Xarik decided to come along with me. Somewhat uncharacteristically, Xarik was fairly talkative. Up until this point Xarik hardly ever spoke, and typically wrote notes on pieces of paper when he wanted something known. I guess maybe he was loosening up or something.
We wandered around for a little bit until we found a small open field in the woods with an eroded statue standing at one end. The statue was in pretty bad shape. It was badly worn, and whatever had been previously held in the two arms was now broken off. By reading the partial inscription, we learned that this was the statue of some old hero of Evandarr. He was supposed to be holding an orb and scepter.
We fiddled around with the statue for a little bit but couldn’t find or learn anything more useful. So we forged ahead and looked around for something else to explore. It didn’t take us long to find a field that was overgrown with various weeds and flowers. As chance would have it, I had recently taken up the study of herbal lore. The plants growing in this field were the exact variety of plants that had been used as examples in my studies as being perfectly suited for the manufacture of gasses. To Xarik they just looked like a bunch of dumb weeds, but with my assistance we were able to grab up enough of the right sort of things for me to use later.
When we got back to the tavern I saw that a small group of people were down by the energy portal. I went over to see what they were up to. Sathen was in the process of doing some sort of weird mumbo jumbo, and Caliphar was poking at it to see if he could get to it. They said that it had some kind of connection to celestial magic. That wasn’t anything I knew much about, so I stood back a safe distance and contented myself with watching.
Caliphar poked and prodded and was slowly able to overcome the repulsive force of the portal or gate. He went so far as to stick his hand inside the gate. When he began to be pulled inside everyone grabbed hold of him and yanked him back out. Right after this a short man in a dark cloak with strange symbols on this face stepped forth from the portal.
I grabbed up my sword in case he meant trouble, but he turned out to be harmless enough. He started talking to Caliphar of Sathen and Lauryanne about being the guardian of celestial magics or something weird like that. He didn’t seem to have an interest in anyone else. He spoke to those three very softly, and I didn’t feel like sticking my nose right in the middle of them so that I could hear what was being said. So, I figured this matter was well in hand so I left. I looked back as I headed off into the woods and saw that the guy and the three he was talking to were walking back into the gate.
After this I spent a hour or two exploring on my own. I didn’t really find much of any real interest. A saw a lot of trees that had recently been blown over in a storm. One had crashed down perilously close to one of the cabins I had stayed in at past gatherings. As a result of the same recent rain the forest was teeming with mushrooms and toadstools of every sort. Well, not every sort, I suppose, since I didn’t see any of the sparkly fae mushrooms that show up earlier in the year.
When I was done with that I came back to the tavern and ate some lunch. About this time Lord Severon came striding into the tavern followed by Xarik. He quickly explained that he had discovered the lair of a bunch of necromancers and that he wanted us to come with him to clean it out. He seemed to be in a hurry. Luckily, Caliphar, Lauryanne and Sathen took this moment to show back up. Pretty much everyone else was around at that moment so it didn’t take us long to gather up and head out.
We headed off to a series of caves just outside of town. There weren’t a whole lot of us. Not counting Lord Severon we were only a baker’s dozen, so I just hoped there weren’t a whole lot of necromancers. When we got to the cave, Lord Severon explained that this was the necromancer’s lair, and then he took off again to do some more scouting. Our job seemed simple and straightforward enough, so off into the cave we went.
Things started off pretty easy. The front part of the caves had a few scattered skeletons in it. Since the individual skeletons ended up fighting every one of us at once, we didn’t have too much trouble with them. Things got a little tougher the further we got into the cave. We started running into multiple undead at once, and then we started running into the necromancers.
Fighting the necromancers were a little bit tougher than just fighting the undead. A bunch of people started throwing alchemy and spells at the necromancer, but a lot of these got picked off by the necromancer’s undead guards. Eventually a gas globe or take out spell would get past and nail the necromancer, and at that point we usually mopped things up pretty quick.
When we got to the very back of the cavern we found a door with some windows beside it. This was the necromancer’s hideout. The necromancers put on a pretty solid defense right at the front of the door. One of them used a boon of the dead cantrip to shore up his undead defenses. It was somewhat amusing when he would toss a magic Help Undead spell at someone in order to break a shield magic. Several people were rather confused when they got hit with this spell until they realized it didn’t affect them at all.
Once we cleared out all the undead and necromancers that were outside, we still had to force our way inside the door. We spent a fair amount of time fighting through the open door trying to get inside. The necromancer inside was also tossing spells out the windows at us, which kept us on our toes. He also kept yelling at us that he wasn’t going to pay us pirates any more money. I think that the necromancers had been paying the pirates to get them bodies, and that they thought that was who we were.
Someone finally nailed the necromancer, and then all that was left was the undead. Sathen cast sanctuary on himself and moved inside the room and started wandering around. I’m not entirely sure what he had in mind to do. Unfortunately for him, Xarik decided to toss his throwing dagger into the room at one of the undead. The undead then picked up the dagger and chucked it at Sathen, thereby breaking his sanctuary. He got beat down pretty quick at that point.
We finally got a toe hold inside the door and then it was a mad rush to try to get everyone inside. Xarik grabbed his dagger back up and used it to slay some skeleton on the far side of the room before piling into the closer ones with his sword. A bunch of us took a beating once we got inside and started to get cramped, but our numbers told in the end and we were able to carry the fight.
We policed the area and made sure all the bad guys were dead and all the good guys were alive. There was a treasure box over an a mantle piece and I was asked to check it for traps. You could pretty much tell just by looking at it that there weren’t any traps, but this was my opportunity to show off. So I made a nice show of meticulously examining the box, and sure enough it wasn’t trapped. So I grabbed it up and everyone headed back to the tavern for treasure divvy. Splitting everything up didn’t take too long since there weren’t that many of us. The treasure included a magic necklace, but I forgot who ended up with that.
A little while after we all got back to the tavern Rainbow showed up. She had her little bag of sticks and wanted everyone to play the game of drawing for the magic prize. Kale, Tegra, Mar’kerion and I had been looking around in the woods some more, so we showed up a little late. She ran over to us and Kale and Mark drew blank sticks. It was Tegra’s turn next and he turned out to be the BIG WINNER according to the stick he drew. He won some sort of magical gizmo that looked like a planet. Since I had not gotten a chance to drawn, Rainbow went ahead and gave me a component instead.
She had more components to give out as prizes, so she next decided to play the guessing game. I managed to guess the color of the rock she was holding and therefore won another component. I remember that Meilah guessed a tail of a comet and won one of those, but I don’t remember what any of the other components were.
Just as Rainbow was finishing up I saw some kind of strange mechanical man or golem walking towards the tavern with Xarik following along behind. The mechanical man walked on past us and continued off into the woods. I figured that this looked pretty interesting, so I took off after Xarik who was still following it.
The mechanical man lead us off towards the field where we had previously found the broken statue. Along the way Xarik explained that he had found this contraption and somehow managed to convince it to search for the missing pieces of the statue. He had previously learned that the orb and scepter that had been broken from the statue were hidden fairly close to it.
The mechanical gizmo plowed into the woods and started looking around under trees and stumps. As we followed along behind it we ran into a man who seemed to be working on setting up a formal magic ceremony in a circle. Since we already had something to look for and the mechanical man was moving on, we decided to investigate this later.
When the mechanical man slowed down and started looking around a bit more carefully, we fanned out and began looking as well. Pretty soon I found the stone scepter hidden in a tree. We moved further along and ended up finding a pool of festering disease ridden flesh beside a stump. Once again we decided to investigate this later and pressed on looking for the orb. A short time later it turned up underneath of fallen tree.
Once we had the objects of our search, the mechanical man shut down and we couldn’t get it to move any more. Well, its job was done anyway. We took the stone orb and the stone scepter and retraced our steps back to the statue. We fiddled around with getting the broken pieces stuck back on the statue. Once they were attached the decay and erosion on the statue appeared to magically vanish, and the statue began to pivot and slide on its base revealing a small cavity containing a box.
I reached in and pulled the box out. The statue then pivoted back and covered the hole back up and we couldn’t get it to move any more. We looked into the box and it contained a couple of odds and ends of treasure. Xarik and I split this up and then headed back to the tavern to see what else was going on.
Xarik left after this to take care of some business of his own. I didn’t care for the idea of the business of the festering pool of diseased flesh and the man in the circle of power left uninvestigated. I looked around the tavern and saw that there were still no nobles in attendance and that Squire Caliphar was still at least nominally in charge. So I approached him and asked if he wanted anything in particular done about either matter.
In typical Caliphar fashion, his solution was to proceed with me to each situation and deal with it forthwith. We decided to investigate the man in the formal circle first. After searching around for a bit we came across the spot where I had previously seen him. He was in a formal circle and was in the process of conduct a formal magic spell.
Neither Caliphar or I could tell exactly what he was casting. Caliphar said that it must be an earth formal or else he would have been able to recognize it. He reasoned the man must be up to no good because “there are no good earth formals that you can cast in the woods.” That sort of made sense to me. At that point I listened closely to the rhythmic chanting that caster kept repeating. It went something like this.
“Unga bunga sis boom bah. Undead undead rah rah rah!”
Well, that pretty much answered any questions we might have had. The only thing that remained to be determined was whether or not the caster was in a protective circle or a formal magic platform. Once again in typical Caliphar fashion, Caliphar decided to test the circle by taking his sword and whacking upside the caster’s back. His sword passed unopposed through the circle and connected solidly with the caster, which clearly showed it was not a protective circle. There was an immediate flash and popping sound as the formal backlashed.
Luckily I as well away from the circle at this point. Neither the caster or Caliphar turned into a frog or into a puddle of water or anything else dramatically visible. The caster verbally berated us for interrupting his ceremony. Caliphar went to end his blathering by slaying him with his sword. Oddly enough, he found that he was in some way prevented from doing so. The surprised caster attempted to desecrate himself against further attack, but he was likewise prevented. We reasoned that the backlash somehow prevented each of them from using expendable skills.
This didn’t matter too much to Caliphar. We were only a short time away from the moment when such things renewed themselves on their own. So rather than slay the caster he just leisurely hacked away at him bit by bit by bit until he was dead. It was a bit slower and less dramatic and showy than a slay, but it accomplished the task quite nicely.
I asked what we should do with the body. Since the next item on the agenda was to investigate the festering pool of diseased flesh, and since that was only a short distance away, in a moment of whimsy we decided to drag the casters body to the pool. Once we got there we tossed in the body to see what would happen.
The body slowly sank into the fetid and foul smell pool. After a few moments the pool began to bubble and churn, and the body rose to the surface once more and began lurching its way to the edge of the pool. Caliphar and I jumped back and pulled out our swords to deal with whatever this thing happened to be.
Once free of the pool, the oozing odiferous pile of disease flesh began striking out at us. It caused both of us to become diseased through the strength of virulence of its festering claws. We struck it several time, and we were in the process of wearing it down some when it leaped back and began striking magical disease causing blows to itself. In doing so it was able to repair some of the damage we had done to it already.
Things were now getting rapidly unfunny. Caliphar and I were way out in the middle of nowhere fighting this thing, and Caliphar was still hampered by the results of the backlash. If this diseased pile of goo could heal itself, then we might be in over our heads. And since we were both now diseased, a rapid withdrawal would not be easy to make.
I still hadn’t used the eldritch blast spells that I had stored in one of my items. I figured now would be a good time to use them. I activated my item and cast an eldritch blast on the goo pile choosing the first element which came to mind, which happened to be flame. This proved a fortunate choice. When the spell struck the goo pile it immediately fried it to steaming stump of charred flesh. The goo monsters were seemingly quite vulnerable to flame.
We decided that we had investigated the pool sufficiently for now, and that it would be a good idea to come back later with an earth formalist to try to purify the pool or something similar. Caliphar dug out a cure disease potion to speed things up a bit, and off we went back to the tavern.
Around time this was all going on, two other significant events occurred which I only learned about later on. Several people went on an expedition to consult some sort of oracle. I was told by Cormyn that the oracle prophesize that we would face all sorts of undead at the gathering scheduled for the end of October. Cormyn made it sound like the oracle was pretty specific in listing out the exact type and number of things that we would be facing. I meant to ask him later on to give me that list, but I never did remember.
The other incident involved an assassin sent forth by the Avalonian Chicken Council, or whatever that chicken club is called. Some kind of chicken scavenger showed up disguised as Kale Rend and went looking for Guido. Guido wasn’t around, but he did find Kale, Tegra and Mark. It didn’t take Kale very long to realize this wasn’t the real Kale for obvious reasons. All three of them chased down the assassin and killed him. Kale was nice enough to heal the chicken scavenger afterwards and sent him off with a message to his feathered masters.
On that note of silliness, I’ll bring my second chapter in this tale to a close. I’ll begin things again later as the day draws to a close and the undead menace that had been previously lacking shows up with a vengeance.
I’ll begin the third portion of my tale where I usually do, which is with the coming of darkness on the second day. Everyone came in from their errands and explorations and began to get gathered up around the tavern. As is normally the case when this happens, concentrations of adventurers attract concentrations of bad guys. In this case it was more Black Sash pirates. We found these guys for about ten minutes before they once again had enough and moved on.
It was also around this time that we got a visit from some of the White Sash pirates. They were the polar opposites of the Black Sashes. To begin with, they were non-corporeal. I have no idea what that was all about. Secondly, they claimed to be all honorably and moral and not into the whole murder and pillage part of pirating. To me it sounded a little forced. If they were so concerned about the safety and well being of their victims, why were they pirates at all?
I may not have understood perfectly what they were trying to say. I didn’t speak to them personally, but only heard their story second hand. They did seem polite, and behaved themselves while they were in the tavern. I believe they were also the source of much of the information we learned about the other pirate bands.
A short time later I saw Pyroxia and Hooch gathering up a bunch of people. With them was a hooded Mystic Wood Elf that I had seen a few times before, though I can’t recall his name. It is something like Traveler or Wanderer or something similar. I got gathered up with the rest of them and we set out to take care of some “cousin business” as it was explained to me.
This “cousin business” turned out to be the same pool of putrid decaying flesh that I had seen twice before. When we got there we saw that this time it was being guarded by a bunch of the diseased goo monsters. The plan was to slay the goo monsters and fight our way to the pool, at which point something else will happen. That last part was pretty vague, but the first part was clear enough.
We fought our way through the diseased goo monsters without too much trouble. It didn’t take us long to all get diseased, but given our numbers we weren’t going to be running anyway. Slowly but surely we slew all the diseased flesh creatures until we were standing at the banks of the pool of diseased flesh.
At this point Traveller stepped forward and explained that he would poke his sword into the pool and purify it somehow using Arcane Secret Mystic Wood Elf Magic or something. He said he wanted us to help him out. So we all crowded around and pressed together in one tight group (with Mystic Wood Elves? Who would have thunk it?) and each placed a hand on Traveler’s sword. He then plunged it into the pool and somehow managed to purify it.
Not much of any of that made much sense to me, but I have never been particular concerned about understanding each and every little detail that I see. For the most part I’m satisfied with practical results, and this particular result seemed pretty good to me. So I was plenty happy. And so back to the tavern we all went once more.
After getting done fighting the filthy rotten disease ridden piles of putrid flesh, I decided that now would be an excellent time to go and get washed up and change into fresh clothes for the evening. I went back to my cabin and then headed off to the showers. Once I was done cleaning the filthy goo off I went back to the cabin and changed into fresh clothes and sorted out some of my equipment. Once I had my affairs in order once again for the rest of the night’s adventuring I headed on back to the tavern.
As I was walking down the path towards the tavern I could hear a commotion. It sounded like there was some fighting going on. The fighting noise died off just as I come within sight of the tavern. I paused just a moment to try to figure out what to do next when a saw a single figure walk around the corner of the tavern and begin to stomp its way straight at me.
I was pretty sure it hadn’t seen me yet. I couldn’t see it well enough to figure out what it was, but given the way it was walking it seemed to be a bad guy to me. I careful took about five steps off the path and crouched down in the darkness hoping it wouldn’t see me. Sure enough it stomped right on past me and headed up the trail the way I had just come.
I was just about to get up and continue on to the tavern when three more figures come walking around the corner of the tavern. This time there was no mistaking what they were. They had glowing eyes, and worse yet one of them seemed to be holding a light spell of some sort. They started down the pathway after the other figure.
I was not that far off the path. In the darkness I felt pretty sure I would not be seen. But these undead were pretty well lit up between their glowing eyes and the light spell. I froze solid and was afraid to move even a muscle. The walked up the pathway, right past me, and then stopped about ten feet from where I crouched.
“Who is that there?” one of them said. They were behind me and I didn’t dare move to turn around and look at them. “Oh, that is our minion” one of them said. Phew, they were talking about the guy that past just a moment ago. They stood there talking for a moment until one of them said “Wait, is that one of the living over there?”
This time I wasn’t willing to take a chance. Maybe they were talking about me, maybe not. Either way, I jumped up and took off running towards the tavern. When I got close I could see there was no one inside, so I ran around the corner and headed over to the other side. Halfway there I turned around to see if I was being followed, and I saw that some kind of undead was lurching after me.
I took off running again. I ran past the tavern and started to run down the path that led to the docks. Just as I started down in I saw a little bit of light reflecting off the face of someone’s shiny metal shield just off to the side of the path. I realized that there were some people set up in ambush right here, and I reasoned it was probably the rest of the adventurers.
I ran just a little ways past and then stopped and turned around. The undead minion continued to stomp his way towards me. I called out to it to say its name, but it only moaned. When it had nearly gotten to me the woods on either side of the patch practically exploded with swords and shields, and a moment later the undead was hacked to bits and laying at our feet.
I was correct in my guess that it was all the adventurers who were here. In the darkness I hastily tried to get someone to explain to me what was going on. I was told that the three Death Knights had attacked and everyone had scrambled to get away. They killed Tegra and raised him as an undead. When I heard that, I immediately realized that the first undead I saw that went walking past me on the path had to have been Tegra.
“I know where Tegra went” I said. “We have to hurry and go save him!” Nobody seemed to be as concerned as I thought they would be. They just stood there and looked at me. Finally one of them said “Ummmm, that’s Tegra that we just clobbered.” I looked down, and sure enough it was.
Someone hastily cast a life spell on him and got him back on his feet. It was still a bit confusing standing in the dark on the path with everyone trying to figure out if everybody was accounted for. We finally decided that we were all safe, and we cautiously moved back towards the tavern. We tentatively scouted around and finally decided that the undead had cleared out and weren’t around anymore.
So we all went back into the tavern and began to relax once more. A few more people who had been off on errands or in the cabins showed up until once again we had a decent sized force. We had just started to settle back down when the door to the tavern burst upon and in leaped a guy dressed in dark robes with a tall pointed wizard’s cap. He shouted out “Who among you is the one that found my magic scroll? Who wrote this tortured and contrived mockery of literature upon it?”
So this was the owner of the magic scroll that we had found late the previous evening. I knew that Tegra and Markeirrion and Kale had been working on a story all afternoon. They never did tell me exactly what it said. They kept asking me what I wanted so that they could stick it into the story. I wanted to play it safe, so I told that that I just wanted to find happiness and have an enjoyable weekend.
I’m not sure how the scroll with the story they wrote ended up back with this wizard. But he was none too pleased with the story. He felt it lacked style, didn’t flow properly, and was deficient in host of other literary ways. He sat down and debated and critiqued the story with the authors. He suggested a number of improvements to the story so that it would read better and be more interesting and dramatic. What they eventually decided was that the wizard would spent some time rewriting the story, and then when it was finished he would bring it back to the authors and they would in turn act it out.
Just as this literary round table was wrapping up, the doors to the tavern burst open and a small troupe of undead came marching in. Everyone scrambled to their feet and in short order we stood facing each other in two lines about 10 feet apart. The undead glowered at us, and we in turn glowered back. Before anyone could move, the literary wizard moved to the end of out line and began narrating the event with much use of dramatic flourishes and wavings of his arms.
“And thusly did the undead horde invade the very midst of the tavern. And thusly did the heroic defenders stand forth, boldly defending their ground. Their steely eyes and tightly gripped weapons showed they feared not the menace that was before them. The undead mages readied their spells, and thusly did the battle begin!”
As he started to get into his little performance, both lines paused and slowly turned to watch him and his antics. One of the undead mages began tossing silence and death spells at his. He dodged out of the way of most of them, and expended a shield magic spell when one finally hit. At that point he paused briefly in his oration to renew his shield magic spell, and I noticed that his voice seemed to climb about an octave at that point. Even though he continued his performance, he did step back out of the line of fire, and at that moment the battle began in earnest.
The battle was pretty short and sweet. We had all our numbers, and in the confines of the tavern where our flanks couldn’t be turned it was only a matter of time before we chopped them to little bits. The wizard disappeared shortly after this, but throughout the night it became sort of a joke to describe whatever just happened by saying “And thusly did the adventurers…”
A little later I stepped outside to take a quick around, and when I came back in I saw there was a group of red sash pirates loitering around the tavern. They didn’t seem to be causing any trouble, but everyone was watching them out of the corner of their eye. Then I saw their leader and immediately recognized Captain Jane Chester. We had fought and defeated her a year ago almost to the day. Chester still had an entirely blue face, which was part of the transform she has on her spirit. That kind of thing makes you stand out in a crowd and gets you recognized.
Chester was talking to Sathen Gor. I recalled that when we defeated her previously, Sathen ended up being the one who won her magic sword. Someont teld me that Chester was here to get it back. Given her previous history of belligerence I was a bit surprised to see her talking so calmly with Sathen right in the middle of the tavern. I was even more surprised when Sathen agreed to follow her outside to hold a more private conversation. I don’t know what they discussed or what agreements they reached if any, but after about half an hour Sathen came back inside none the worse for wear visibly, and Captain Chester and her crew cast off and left.
A short time later we got visited by a rather weird pair of undead. Two shambling corpses walked in to the tavern and paused for a moment. As everyone stood up to get ready, the two turned to face each other, clasped hands, and began to waltz their way around the floor. People stood back and gave them room. After a time our caution gave way to cries of encouragement as they did swoops and twirls and even a dip or two. They were also tossing bits of treasure about which people were scrambling around on the floor to pick up. This continued for about three minutes before they took a final bow and left the way they had come.
Finally there was nothing that remained other than the main event of the night. Viscount Mithrilmyst had learned of an encampment of undead on the outskirts of the town that needed to be dealt with. I’m not sure if they were one and the same with the various undead we had already seen or not. The town was gathered and we marched forth in good order and presently the enemy camp was in sight.
The enemy was the typically motley collection of undead that is typically seen in these parts. Some appeared to be lesser undead of some sort, other had glowing eyes, and one was distinct with his glowing red eyes. From his appearance and actions it was apparent that he was the leader. Behind the main force of undead we could see a glowing permanent circle of power which was empty except for a small lamp.
We arrayed our line and moved forward to attack. We fought the undead toe to toe for a time with neither side gaining much of an advantage. The death knights fought much as one would expect, and there were two casters which made their defense very strongly anchored. The lesser undead took very little damage for weapons. I spoke to Markeirrion and suggested he try some low level celestial spells, and we soon saw that they fell to a single lightning bolt. Once we learned that we started mowing them down quite quickly, but unfortunately they were always immediately replaced by other undead which seemed to rise from the very ground.
Slowly but surely we began to inch forward, and the undead gave ground until the reached the side of their permanent circle. When they reached that point they ceased retreating and held firm. Our offense began to lose steam at this point. Delwyn surveyed the field and judged that we were starting to run out of resources and to get sloppy and disorganized. He commanded us to disengage and retreat for a short distance.
We stepped back about twenty feet and firmed up our line. Delwyn did a quick survey of what and who we had left, and decided to make one more push. We marched forward again and plowed into the undead line. Once again, with the red eyed lich anchoring the center of the line and the casters in the rear, their line refused to break. After a short time Delwyn called for another retreat.
This time once we disengaged, we were ordered to return to town and the tavern. Delwyn judged we had insufficient strength to carry to battle to its conclusion, and that the benefit didn’t justify the risk. We slowly backed away, and then turned and began marching back to town.
Delwyn was hoping the undead would choose to not follow, but once they saw we were leaving the liche ordered a pursuit. At the edge of the field we marched through a narrow bottleneck between some thick woods and a building which was only about 4 people wide. When we reached that point Delwyn reconsidered his plans and called for a halt. He judged that with the narrow frontage afforded by the bottleneck it should be possible to hold off the undead with much less risk. He ordered us to form line at the choke point and repel the undead assault.
There was some initial confusion at this point. A portion of the group had already continued towards the tavern and didn’t understand why the rear had suddenly stopped and turned to face the undead. Once they learned that we were going to fight again, Pyroxia and Tygil in particular voiced loud objections to this plan. But once the undead engaged, that pretty much decided the course of action, and everyone returned back to the choke point to support the battle. I heard a few Bane of the Dead spells cast at that point.
The battle raged for about 5 minutes with neither line moving so much as an inch. The undead savaged the front of our line, but with the reduced frontage there were less people for us to heal. Harm undead spells periodically arced over out line and dumped into their ranks. They were taking a beating, but they kept on coming.
In the end, for the third time, a retreat was ordered. We could see we were making progress against them, but Delwyn was still unwilling to risk our total collapse just to root out a couple of crappy undead. We retreated in good order and made it to the tavern without further incident.
The undead remained persistent, however. Shortly after we reached the tavern they showed up right on the doorstep and began attacking. At this point I believe they were much less undead, but the liche commander was still on the field. While some of the death knights attacked the door closest to the undead camp I could see the liche coming around to the back door.
Markeirrion was order to place a wall of force on that door to secure it. I was trying to explain that wouldn’t work when the door flew open and the liche attempted to enter. It took him only a moment to dispel the wall and then he spelled Markeirrion down. I grabbed my sword but before I could take two steps the liche grabbed Markeirrion and rifted out.
The fighting at the tavern died down at that point. I’m nor sure if the other undead retreated or were defeated. Everyone was in a really bad mood. We were getting our butts kicked by these guys and we knew it, and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. But there didn’t seem to be anything to do about it.
I felt really bad about Markeirrion. I don’t know what I could have done to stop his abduction, but it still grated on my nerves to have him rifted out practically within arms reach of me. I guessed that he was probably back at the undead camp and in or near that permanent circle. A little bit of pride and a little bit of anger motivated me to make the unwise choice to sneak back there and see if there was anything to do.
I crept out the back door and started quietly making my way along the patch towards the camp. I had gone maybe fifty yards when two pairs of glowing eyes could be seen approaching me from the path ahead. Well, there went that idea. I reversed course and ran back to the tavern. I told everyone that the undead were coming back. In short order a defense stood in place just inside the tavern.
This attack turned out to be almost the same as the first. Death knights assaulted the front and the liche assaulted the rear. We were more prepared for him this time, but it made little difference. Caliphar was hammering away at the liche with his sword of healing but several death spells later he lay crumpled at the liches feet. When the liche reached down this time I jumped forward and began hammering away myself, but I was unable to prevent Caliphar from being rifted away.
This was just too much. When everyone started to glumly settle down again I saw both Pyroxia and Cormyn walking out the door. It didn’t take a scholar to figure out where they were going. I slipped outside and moments later I was following them to the encampment of the undead.
I wanted to help, but I had no grand fantasies about storming through the undead encampment slaying death knights side by side with Cormyn. Those two seemed to have their own plan, so I made mine. When we got to the edge of their camp I crept behind a building and circled to where I could see both Pyroxia and Cormyn as well as the circle of power. Sure enough, I could see both Caliphar and Markeirrion in the circle and they appeared to be unharmed. There were a number of undead lingering there as well, and presently the liche and one of his casters moved down to confront Cormyn.
There was a short amount of verbal wordplay exchanged, but as you might imagine that isn’t exactly Cormyn’s thing. Pretty soon the battle was joined. The undead caster supported the liche and Pyroxia supported Cormyn. The liche far and away fought harder than Cormyn, but Pyroxia was far and away the better earth caster, so things were fairly evenly matched at first.
I decided to see if I could tip things in our favor. I crept out from hiding and pounced on the back of the undead caster. I reasoned that if I got lucky and dropped it, then all three of us may be able to overcome the liche. I got off a number of good swings, but when the spells started flying in my direction I took off like a shot. Pyroxia wasn’t going to be able to move away from Cormyn, so I knew if I got dropped that was it for me, so I wasn’t taking any chances.
I ran back around the side of the building, got my act back together, and then peeked back the way I came. The undead caster was now down, but one of the lesser undead was moving from the circle and coming down to assist the liche. I came back out to cut that undead off, and it became a two on three fight.
We fought that way for a time. Even without caster support the liche soaked tons of damage from Cormyn’s sword. It was all Pyroxia could do to keep him up and to toss a little healing my way. I could barely hold my own against the lesser undead, but I could only take a single stroke from the liche before I was at death’s door.
The liche took an especially aggressive lunge at me and I took off running. I turned around after about ten feet just in time to see Pyroxia and Cormyn hit the ground in a heap. Well, that is that, I thought. I took off running for the tavern. As soon as I left the light I dropped to the ground and turned to see what happened.
The liche cast some spells on Pyroxia. I think he stabilized her in some fashion. He then picked her up and began to haul her off towards the circle. He ordered his lesser undead minion to start hauling off Cormyn. The undead reached down to grab him and got a sword in the face for its trouble. Cormyn had been faking it.
Sadly, Cormyn was also on his last legs. Before I could decide whether to come out and help or stay hidden he was back on the ground again. The undead grabbed him up and started hauling him off. I figured it was now or never to act.
I crept up behind the undead and activated my cure critical damage spell and plunked it right into its back. That may have been a bit overkill, but I was beyond the point of taking any chances. My last cure critical spell got cast into Cormyn and he got back on his feet. We could now hear Pyroxia yelling at Caliphar to run away. Somehow she had managed to get herself into the circle and him out.
Now both Caliphar and Cormyn were fighting the liche. I looked around and saw that the undead forces were down to just the liche, a lesser undead and one caster. Caliphar told me to get help, and I took off running to the tavern. This time I didn’t stop until I got there. I ran inside and explained the situation to Delwyn, and in short order those that were still in the tavern were rushing back to Caliphar’s aid.
On the way back we ran into an undead Cormyn, so we knew the battle hadn’t gone well. We killed and lifed Cormyn and then proceeded to the circle. The circle now contained Caliphar, Pyroxia and Markeirrion. The undead were reduced to a few lesser undead, a single caster and the liche. We were wore out, but we had numbers, and this time we were going to finish the job. We didn’t even have a plan. We just marched up to the undead and stomped them into the ground. The liche fought ferociously but there was just way too many of us. Once his supporter were gone he got surrounded and beaten to pieces.
So the battle was now finally over and everyone was safe. Sort of. There were still three people within the circle. Various plans were suggested for getting them out, but each in turn was discarded. No one had a greater Destroy Formal Magic scroll, and Delwyn didn’t think we had the time or resources to go get one copied. Eventually Delwyn decided to use a charm he had been saving for a special occasion.
He pulled a small clear crystal out of one of his pouches and chanted a short little rhyme. A moment later Rainbow rifted in. Delwyn explained the situation to her and she happily agreed to rift into the circle and to rift everyone back out. Caliphar made sure that he grabbed all the items in the circle first, including the lamp. Rainbow chatted with Delwyn for a short time and then disappeared once more. Then, for the last time this night, we left the undead camp and went back to the tavern.
Sathen Gor had the various items in the treasure identified. We learned that one of the swords was magical and that the lamp was in fact the liche’s spirit bottle. We passed out the treasure to everyone and Xarik ended up with the sword. Delwyn took possession of the lamp and I went with him and some others to the guild building and watched him use a Destroy Formal Magic formal to break it.
And there ends my tale for this month. In the future I will try my best to get these completed in a more timely manner. I hope you enjoyed reading this. If there are any questions or corrections about any of this, please feel free to bring them forth.