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PREVIOUSLY - CAMPAIGN DIARIES 26 - EXPLORING LANCE ROCK
15 Elient - Day 77 Continued - Within Lance Rock
15 Elient - Day 77 Continued - Within Lance Rock
Having bested a shamble of zombies, the Owlbear League stands within Lance Rock, peering up at the ledge where some of the zombies dropped from, some fifteen feet up. Orryn, powered by his boots of striding and springing leaps upward and lands steadily on the ledge. He peers around, and seeing no threat, tosses down a rope while securing one end to a rocky pillar in the chamber above.
Atlas climbs, then the rest, and they stand in a cave almost square and about forty feet on a side. There is a passage to the north and south and they decide on the passage to the north.
They proceed cautiously.
Down a curving passage and within a small chamber, away from any remaining light from the entrance, almost a dozen motionless humanoid figures dressed in dirty clothes or scraps of armor are propped against the walls of this cave. Some are little more than skeletons with wisps of hair and skin stretched tightly over their bones. Others are fresher. A few old shortswords lie on the dusty floor.
Immeral takes a cloth and wraps it over his mouth, fear of the rumors of plague pushing him to caution. The others have little fear, little Seraphina pulling out her undead fighting mace Lightbringer, and the others preparing their weapons. As Lightbringer is raised, it glows its powerful light, indicating the presence of undead, and indeed four of the skeletons turn and rise to attack, but while rising, the Owlbear League takes action.
Nowhere strikes with her flail and kills one, and Seraphina smashes another to pieces with Lightbringer. Orryn attacks with his rapier, cleaving the bones of the third which falls under a flurry of blows from Atlassa. Immeral uses a magical cantrip to smash the last with a witches bolt.
Confirming that all the dead are now truly finished, the League searches the small cave for secret passages or treasure, but find nothing of interest. It is back into the larger cave and on to the south passage, but the way forward makes them pause.
The narrow passage ahead is about ten feet high with rough, irregular walls. Protruding spurs on the walls are coated in dried blood.
They start forming a single file when Immeral offers to use his cloak of stars to astral travel and explore ahead. They others agree to wait.
Choking down his fear of the alternative plane of existence, Immeral raises the hood and transfers into the shadowy astral realm. It is hazy and colorless, and his friends seem like shadows of their normal existence, and the world a white-edged realm of blackness. He steps forward down the passage, dark blood now looking faintly white in his astral vision. It wanders about sixty feet then opens into a star-shaped cavern, maybe twenty by thirty, but it is the occupants of the cavern that give him pause.
Three zombies lurch about in the area, one dressed as a jester, another in a bear costume, another as a lady in frilly dress and as near as Immeral can tell, gaudy makeup. They lurch around in a morbid dance, seemingly entertaining no one. Immeral backs off, removes his hood, and appears almost exactly where he last left - which he finds a bit disconcerting, but shakes it off.
"There three zombies in the next room, all dressed like in a carnival. One in a harlequin dress, one in a jester outfit, and one in a bear costume." Immeral tells them.
"Bear costume?" Dain asks. "I want the bear costume."
"Gross, it will be zombified." Seraphina states.
"I'll have it washed." Dain replies.
"It it too big for you." Immeral tells him.
"I can have it tailored." he retorts.
Nowhere can see where this is going, familiar with Dain's surprising streaks of interest. She interjects before a fight emerges. "If we can beat the bear zombie without destroying the costume, we will, but Dain, you go first. Atlas and I will follow behind. Seraphina, you and Orryn seem least interested in this, so you two take up the rear."
They enter the jagged passage in that order, soon arriving at the cave where the zombies are still lurching about. Dain rushes in and barrels into the bear-zombie with his shield, knocking it to the ground. Nowhere hits the jester with her sword Icerazor, tiny ice spiders crawling over the enemy, seemingly to little effect. Atlas lands a flurry of blows against the female zombie, shattering bone in the barrage and driving it back. From the back K'ronk casts firebolt, hitting the jester. Immeral casts a ray of frost spell, damaging the bear-zombie with a blast of intense cold. Orryn strikes with his rapier, stabbing the jester, and it falls, destroyed. As he ensures the undead thing will remain dead, two more jesters lurch into the room from passages on the opposite side of their entrance.
Seraphina casts inflict wounds on one, and its dusty skin rips open, black ichor spilling out through its clothing. The female zombie lurches at Dain as misses, and a jester zombie attacks K'ronk and bludgeons him with his cold dead arms. K'ronk uses a suggestion spell as the zombie goes to bite him, commanding "sleep", and the undead entertainer rolls off to him and curls into a ball.
Dain pulls out his great axe now, and targeting another of the jester-zombies lands a perfect blow and hacks off its arm, vile dark blood spilling from the severed appendage and the stump. Nowhere hits the girl zombie with Icerazor and cleaves her chest open, but the monstrosity is still "alive", and Atlassa steps in with another series of punches enhanced by the gauntlets of ogre power she wears. Immeral casts witch bolt and the purple tinged lightning downs a third zombie - a jester.
Orryn steps over to the "sleeping" zombie and stabs it with his rapier, the attack rousing the creature, and it begins to rise. Seraphina brings out Lightbringer, the magic undead-hating mace lighting with radiant energy and she smashes the bear zombie, its ribs breaking within chest and furry exterior. It falls dead, some black blood oozing through the costume.
Finally Kronk casts fire bolt at the remaining zombie, and with the dry screams of the undead, the flames finish it, and it falls smoldering to the floor.
Dain goes over and begins unbuttoning the bear costume on the zombie. "He's actually pretty short, it might not be a bad fit." he says jauntily.
The others ignore him as they give the zombies and the room a cursory look. There are navigable passages to the southwest and southeast, but Immeral speaks up, "I can astral travel to investigate again." With the others offering no complaints, he dons the hood of the cloak and disappears from the mortal world.
Immeral travels down a long wandering passage in the colorless mirror universe of the astral plane. The tunnel opens into a larger cave where three chests stand in the center of the room. It seems like an obvious trap, to which he should be immune. Using his ability to pass through objects with the cloak on, he sticks his head in the chests and sees that there is nothing inside, an even more likely trap, so he gives the final room a look around but sees nothing.
He returns in astral form to the chamber with his companions who are searching the cave and the other dead zombies, but passes through, moving on to the next passage.
This one is longer than the first and he winds his way down a slowly descending path when he comes to a massive cave, or at least the reflection of one, here in the astral plane. The light of torches extends even into this realm from the sconces on the walls, lighting the ceiling some 40 feet up, as well as the rest of the room. Three flat boulders near the passage serve as tables for human corpses. Severed body parts sit in baskets by the corpses, covered in dry gore. A figure in a dark hood stands by the third table, it's back to Immeral. Matted hair just from the hood, and the figure holds a bone needle threaded with dark cord in its hand.
Looking farther to the west, Immeral sees a stone stair climbing the north wall, ending near the ceiling - likely near the chamber with the chests. A stone slab like a counter juts from the wall across the room from the base of the stairs. It holds saws, knives, and other tools. Six skeletons stand beyond this tool bench, guarding a wide passage that exits to the west.
Immeral returns to the chamber of the circus zombies and tells the party what he has seen. Forewarned, they form a line and walk down to end this horror. Little Seraphina, the halfling cleric steps aside from the passage to let her friends through and casts hold person on the cloaked figure, which turns as she verbalizes the prayer. It is not a person though, not anymore, it is a zombie, and it lurches at the others. Dain takes his shield, bashing the undead man in the chin, knocking its jaw off so that its dark maw now only has upper teeth, and a long tongue flops down against its throat.
Nowhere uses Icerazor and decapitates the remaining head of the zombie, but the battle is not done. A malevolent voice calls from across the giant cave.
"Bravo my friends, bravo! You have dispatched one zombie, but I see six of you, and you will make fine replacements. I heard your unsubtle attack on my entertainers, so I can only return they favor. Kill them my pets! In death, they will be our new performers!"
From out of the boxes of body parts, dead crawling hands fly at the heroes, attempting to scratch and claw them. Caught unawares, the party is surprised by the attack.
Kronk is hit and clawed by one of the animated hands, dirty dead nails scraping his scaly skin. Seraphina is hit by two of the hand, one grasping at her throat, the other scraping her with a jagged edge of bone. Another hits Immeral, and another flies at Dain, but he skewers it with his javelin, its finger wiggling in the air before falling still. Kronk casts a fire bolt and takes out one of the crawling claws while Immeral casts a defensive mage armor upon himself for extra protection. Atlas unleashes a flurry of her gauntlet-enhanced blows and destroys two of the hands. Orryn swings at another with his rapier, but misses.
Between the Owlbear League and their enemy, obviously a Necromancer, the line of skeletons charges. Nowhere tries to use her ring of command undead against the crawling claws, but it is ineffective. Seraphina pulls out Lightbringer, her undead shattering mace, and takes a swing at another hand, but misses.
Dain, knowing he needs to take out the Necromancer, leave the remaining hands and races towards the squad of boney warriors, screaming in a barbarian rage. K'ronk turns to the necromancer too and casts fire bolt, hitting the master of the undead. Immeral peels a star from his magical cloak of stars and casts it at the necromancer, it becoming magic missiles which slam into the dark magic user. He howls in fury and dives into a side cave out of site.
Atlas takes her shortbow and hits a skeleton before Dain reaches them. Orryn takes out another hand with his rapier, and the others start running to catch up with Dain, leaving Immeral and Seraphina behind at the tables of gore and body parts. One remaining hand hits Seraphina, but she knocks it aside with work to do.
Seraphina casts a shatter spell, back at the cave where the necromancer hid, knowing he could not have gotten far. A wave of thunderous sound erupts from the back of the cave and bits of rock and debris fall all around the area which the evil mage fled. At the end of the thunder, they hear his bitter scream mixed in.
Nowhere catches up to Dain and lends her sword Icerazor to the fight, but she misses her first skeleton. The skeletons fight a pitched battle against Dain and Nowhere, but they parry and dodge most of the blows, taking only a hit each.
Then the necromancer steps out from his cave. Bleeding from the ears and battered from falling rock, he screams a spell at the group, hitting Immeral and Nowhere with the magical bolts from a wand of magic missiles which hits Immeral and Nowhere. Kronk turns back to Seraphina and Immeral and kills the remaining crawling claw with a fire bolt as he reaches the skeletons and smashes at one with his quarterstaff, breaking bones and sinew. Immeral stands at the ready, unsure what to do. Dain misses a skeleton, Atlas reaches the fray and attacks another one, Orryn misses a third and Seraphina misses one. The skeletons strike Nowhere and Atlas and the necromancer casts another spell.
Suddenly a magical crown appears on Immeral's head and his mind slips into a world of confusion and insanity. He fights to recover and his superior intellect saves the day and he shakes off the crown of madness.
Dain bashes a skeleton apart with his shield, Kronk kills a second with fire bolt and quarterstaff. Atlas uses a flurry of blows and nearly kills the third, but Nowhere defeats it with Icerazor. Seraphina brings out Lightbringer and smashes the last crawling claw before it can attack again. Orryn is hit by a skeleton and is badly hurt.
From still a dozen yards away, the necromancer screams, "you dare defile my home, you dare fight those with elemental power? You will be destroyed by my master, the Elemental Eye watches, it sees you, it will burn you and bury you and drown you and suffocate you!".
Dain's shield bash kills another skeleton. Kronk manages to get off a fire bolt which takes down a second. Atlas's short sword kills the last skeleton as the necromancer of Lance Rock casts chill touch on Orryn, hitting for some damage. Nowhere rises, points at the necromancer, and unleashes a hellish rebuke, the power of her infernal heritage. The evil mage is suddenly surrounded by flames and screams in agony as they surround him and extinguish his life. He falls in a smoldering pile of robes.
Immeral asks from behind them. "Can we get out of here?"
"One moment." K'ronk says as he walks over to the smoking corpse and grabs the wand of magic missiles from his dead hand.
"Everyone alright?" Nowhere asks.
Despite some cuts and bruises and scrapes, they all gather together and dust off, and although some might like to explore the remaining lair of the necromancer, they trudge back to the entrance, to Lady D. and they leave Lance Rock with daylight to spare.
They march for over an hour back towards the Willets farm, deciding they would take them up on the offer of a warm meal. The farmer and wife meets them in the field, showing concern for those that have been battered a bit. The kids run up to Orryn, their fear past now, asking if they can pet Lady D. and he nods to them and smiles as he communicates to Lady D that the children are coming closer as he dismounts, telling Lady D. to guard them while they go inside. The farmer looks behind, but Orryn just nods as they step towards the house.
The cabin is tight, but they all make do for a pot of hot rabbit stew and a quick tale of the necromancer of Lance Rock. The works of zombies and skeletons and dark magic only a few hours away very much frightens the family, but they are thankful that the threat is gone, and the Owlbear League takes their leave in short order.
They march quickly on the well-worn road, passing some slower travelers from the south coming to Red Larch for a safe stay for the night. There is just barely some daylight by the time they get back to town, and they head directly to the Swinging Sword.
Inside the common room is warm, and the beautiful Kaylessa catches their eye immediately, directing them to the side room where they can talk. She speaks to one of the barmaids and towels damp with warm water are brought to their room to wipe off the grime of the road, along with some tankards of honey mead of course.
Orryn joins late after parking Lady D. at the stables, as Kaylessa asks if they are all OK. "Nothing a good night's sleep and a round of Seraphina's healing won't cure." K'ronk tells her.
"Did you find anything?" she asks with great interest.
They then share the tale of the zombies, skeletons, creeping claws, chopped up bodies, and the necromancer of Lance Rock. She is relieved and satisfied with the news. "I knew it! Wait until that constable Harburk hears of this. But what do you think the necromancer meant about the Elemental Eye?" she asks.
None of the League is sure. "I will keep my ears open. Thank you again so much." and with that, Kaylessa leaves them be.
There is an enjoyable round of drinks, then they hear a bard begin in the next room. It is Aranhoff, a local bard, and after introducing himself, he begins singing a ballad they were somewhat familiar with. Which is unsurprising since bards are how news travels in the world... "Rockseeker had hired the League, his cart and his oxen to lead..."
As the tune plays out, the League listens in silence, amusement playing on their faces. Atlas then reaches into his pack and pulls out the lute that he had been teaching himself with during off moments and while walking. As she enters the main room, the rest of the League follow.
"Do you know The Hand of Vecna?" Atlas asks the bard after the applause wears down, "and can I play along?" The older bard nods after she drops a gold coin into his hat on the small stage. He taps his foot on the floor for three beats and they begin. "Centuries past, on a world far away he was born... His mother was burned as a witch on his 10th birthday morn."
The song continues, Atlas doing great and earning the smiles from the crowd. But the League can see that they are distracted, as the look over at a barbarian dwarf, a tiefling ranger, a gnome rogue, a halfling cleric, and a moon elf and dragonborn wizards. They start nudging each other and looking over and whispering, obviously figuring out who they are, so the League departs to the upper floors of the inn, leaving Atlas behind to enjoy the spotlight, all but her getting a good night's rest.
NEXT - Campaign Journal 28 - The Road to Amphail.
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