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Entry tags:
Dawn of Magic
Bonnie ("Leif"), Marc ("Mushamee"), Martin ("Kaeso"), and Stéphane ("Vinz") all showed up last Tuesday. We're not sure where Mike ("Rufus") was!
Time: Night, Odin 19, 1002 Imperial Reckoning.
Place: Toshtanag, Kotan.
Last Event: Leif, Mushamee, Rufus, and Vinz dealing with a cursed chest in King Hathig's castle crypt.
King Hathig promises the adventurers that he will have his forces flush out the mysterious priests in Toshtanag and ensure that they're no longer active and making converts. While the curse is gone, these clerics remain a mystery: Were they demons, members of a forgotten cult, or unwilling conduits for the sinister deity's power? Hathig aims to find out.
Mushamee takes advantage of Hathig's gratitude for being rescued from the curse to ask for Kotan's support against Black Adolph and, ultimately, the Starfish-Men. The king is entirely willing to hold up his end of the treaty with Hippolyte. He promises that when the time comes, Kotan will ride to Tenosia's aid – and he seems hopeful that there will be some fighting, to reinvest his troops with any aggression lost to recent events!
Vinz asks Hathig where the ornate chest was found, and whether other items were unearthed besides it. Hathig says that his men found nothing else, but promises to inform Vinz and friends if he comes across any further artifacts, as the heroes are better-equipped to deal with such things than are his soldiers. He also suggests that they speak with Captain Morg, whose troops excavated the box, if they want further details. With that, Hathig departs to see to his castle, capital, and troops.
After a short wait, Morg shows up on the king's orders. The captain is a soldier's soldier, all salute and crested helmet, capable of salty language in both Kotanese and Imperial. As he leads the king's visitors to the excavation site, he tells them all about the reopening of the castle's ancient crypts. It seems that the diggers discovered a whole complex of catacombs, and while the chamber that held the chest collapsed on removing the box (its sole occupant), the surrounding passages remain open. When asked for further details regarding the tombs, Morg grows grim. He says that he sent a party of soldiers in but that only their heads returned, hurled from the breach. When he sent a stronger force to investigate, they, too, returned as severed heads.
When the party reaches the dig site, they find heavily armed guards pointing long spears at a jagged opening in the crypt wall. Nearby is a pile of two dozen severed heads, neatly stacked. Realizing that they face potential monsters, likely undead, Leif, Mushamee, and Rufus decide to return to Tenosia for armor and heavier weapons – and to fetch Kaeso from his lab, in case the problem is one that responds better to fire and poison than to bronze and iron. Vinz remains at the tunnel breach, and sends for Kromm to come tell him everything he knows about the formerly hidden tunnels. Kromm has little to offer, but examines the severed heads and tells Vinz that they were torn off, not cut off, and that the brains within have been sucked out.
After a few hours, the others return from their round trip through the portal between Tenosia and Toshtanag, Kaeso bearing an entire keg of healing elixir! Everyone straps on arms and armor, and gets ready to enter the breach. Peering in, the adventurers see that the passage is narrow and crumbling, and clogged with bones and urns. Still, it's wide enough to walk two abreast, and so Mushamee and Vinz take the lead, with Leif and Kaeso just behind, and Rufus bringing up the rear.
The group follows the master gallery used by Morg's men. This twists and turns, and the torchlit breach is soon out of sight. After perhaps 200 paces, Mushamee sees something in the light of the Sun Sword of Ré: a neatly stacked pile of headless bodies! These are clearly Morg's men. Just beyond, in the darkness, the entire group can hear crying, not unlike that of an old woman.
The explorers advance cautiously, weapons ready, Mushamee holding out the Sun Sword for light. As they move, they hear a strange scratching sound overhead. This grows louder and more persistent as the group delves deeper, and occasionally dust sifts out of a crack onto a helmet. Mushamee thinks he sees a rat at the edge of his blade's light, but he can't be sure. Leif states flatly that it isn't a rat – he looked for rats earlier, to interview about the tomb's contents, and found no evidence of any. Shields and gazes angle upward forthwith.
Kaeso figures that whatever is in the ceiling, it's moving about in a hollow space above the tunnel. He asks the others to keep a lookout for a sizeable hole. Vinz soon spots a fist-sized opening in the ceiling up ahead. Kaeso moves forward and stuffs a flask of Tenosian fire into the gap (using tongs, not his hand!). As the alchemist works, Vinz's sense for danger starts to tingle. When Kaeso moves back and ignites the stuff with a fire bolt, the tingle blossoms into a full-fledged alarm.
Vinz shouts a warning. A split second later, the plaster on the ceiling, walls, and floor ruptures, and grasping skeletal hands emerge from all sides! Thanks to Vinz's alert, most of the group manages to slice off the undead limbs reaching for their heads and arms. However, with attention directed upward, the attack from the floor comes as a surprise, and the entire group is soon held at the ankles – and Kaeso, who's no swordsman, has the misfortune of being grabbed from all sides.
The heroes quickly see to cutting themselves free. Mushamee and Vinz liberate themselves almost instantly. Leif realizes that the undead aren't strong enough to drag him down, and on seeing Kaeso being strangled by hands from above, opts to hack the alchemist free instead of himself. Kaeso collapses to the floor and is promptly pinned there by other hands. Rufus, too, finds himself dragged to the ground, though not pinned.
In front, Mushamee and Vinz suddenly see that the grasping skeletons were merely a distraction for the main event: a tsunami of undead human hands scuttling at the group from up ahead! The two swordsmen hack and slash at these, but cannot stem the grisly tide. Soon everyone is engulfed in a horrid sea of punching, squeezing, and gouging hands, while the skeletons in the walls try to hold the tomb robbers in place.
Leif, Mushamee, and Vinz manage to keep their sword arms free enough to chop away at the horde. Soon, the area around them is mostly clear. Rufus struggles to his knees, and then his feet, and joins the others at hacking and slashing. With a concerted effort, the warriors slice the seemingly endless swarm of reanimated fists to bits. At the back of the party, Leif and Rufus then free Kaeso of his bony prison on the floor. Up front, though, Mushamee sees that a new threat has advanced behind the previous one: a loping undead thing with charred flesh.
This new arrival makes a horrid howling noise and bursts into flame. It breathes a jet of flame over Mushamee and Vinz, who manage to deflect the fire with their shields. Mushamee then charges with the Sun Sword. The creature is extremely agile, and evades most of the general's blows. One cut hits home, however, badly wounding the monster . . . but in the process, it releases a gout of lava that instantly blasts Mushamee's sword arm to painful uselessness.
Mushamee reacts by retreating back into formation with Vinz. The thing pelts them with globs of flame, but they manage to evade these. Vinz retaliates by conjuring the magical essence of cleansing, fire-extinguishing water – a vast, drenching shower of it – directly over the monster's head. It simply dissolves into smudgy goo, ending the encounter as quickly as it began.
The adventurers retreat back down the hall a short distance to tend their wounds. Leif heals Kaeso's severe bruises and Mushamee's even worse burns. Everybody quaffs from Kaeso's keg of healing elixir. Thus fortified, the explorers resume their formation and continue down the passage, past the crushed bones, diced hands, and rancid puddle of goo.
The gallery ends a short distance later. The terminal wall bears a huge seal of mortar and stone. Rufus takes a look the Ancient Kotanese writing on it and reads off a warning: "Beyond this seal rests the ruination of the Kotanese Empire." There are other etchings, but these appear to be mystic symbols, not words per se. Mushamee's nose tingles with the presence of gems just beyond the seal.
After some deliberation, the group decides to send for Kromm. Leif heads back, finds the scholar still examining severed heads, and escorts him safely to the seal. Kromm identifies the runes as being ancient alchemical symbols, and sends Rufus for some old books that he'll need to decipher them. Rufus, too, returns without incident, and soon Kaeso and Kromm are stabbing fingers into old books and arguing over obscure alchemical principles.
Eventually, the alchemists tell the others that the seal is a cunning alchemical amulet of great power, cast in several parts. Crushing any one part of it will mix a horrible elixir that will billow up through the catacombs and into the castle above, killing everyone. Kaeso adds that this represents a preparation of nigh-incalculable worth, far too costly for use as a weapon of war, placed here by somebody who truly doesn't want the seal opened. He adds that with suitably expensive ingredients, he feels he could neutralize it.
To be continued . . .
Time: Night, Odin 19, 1002 Imperial Reckoning.
Place: Toshtanag, Kotan.
Last Event: Leif, Mushamee, Rufus, and Vinz dealing with a cursed chest in King Hathig's castle crypt.
King Hathig promises the adventurers that he will have his forces flush out the mysterious priests in Toshtanag and ensure that they're no longer active and making converts. While the curse is gone, these clerics remain a mystery: Were they demons, members of a forgotten cult, or unwilling conduits for the sinister deity's power? Hathig aims to find out.
Mushamee takes advantage of Hathig's gratitude for being rescued from the curse to ask for Kotan's support against Black Adolph and, ultimately, the Starfish-Men. The king is entirely willing to hold up his end of the treaty with Hippolyte. He promises that when the time comes, Kotan will ride to Tenosia's aid – and he seems hopeful that there will be some fighting, to reinvest his troops with any aggression lost to recent events!
Vinz asks Hathig where the ornate chest was found, and whether other items were unearthed besides it. Hathig says that his men found nothing else, but promises to inform Vinz and friends if he comes across any further artifacts, as the heroes are better-equipped to deal with such things than are his soldiers. He also suggests that they speak with Captain Morg, whose troops excavated the box, if they want further details. With that, Hathig departs to see to his castle, capital, and troops.
After a short wait, Morg shows up on the king's orders. The captain is a soldier's soldier, all salute and crested helmet, capable of salty language in both Kotanese and Imperial. As he leads the king's visitors to the excavation site, he tells them all about the reopening of the castle's ancient crypts. It seems that the diggers discovered a whole complex of catacombs, and while the chamber that held the chest collapsed on removing the box (its sole occupant), the surrounding passages remain open. When asked for further details regarding the tombs, Morg grows grim. He says that he sent a party of soldiers in but that only their heads returned, hurled from the breach. When he sent a stronger force to investigate, they, too, returned as severed heads.
When the party reaches the dig site, they find heavily armed guards pointing long spears at a jagged opening in the crypt wall. Nearby is a pile of two dozen severed heads, neatly stacked. Realizing that they face potential monsters, likely undead, Leif, Mushamee, and Rufus decide to return to Tenosia for armor and heavier weapons – and to fetch Kaeso from his lab, in case the problem is one that responds better to fire and poison than to bronze and iron. Vinz remains at the tunnel breach, and sends for Kromm to come tell him everything he knows about the formerly hidden tunnels. Kromm has little to offer, but examines the severed heads and tells Vinz that they were torn off, not cut off, and that the brains within have been sucked out.
After a few hours, the others return from their round trip through the portal between Tenosia and Toshtanag, Kaeso bearing an entire keg of healing elixir! Everyone straps on arms and armor, and gets ready to enter the breach. Peering in, the adventurers see that the passage is narrow and crumbling, and clogged with bones and urns. Still, it's wide enough to walk two abreast, and so Mushamee and Vinz take the lead, with Leif and Kaeso just behind, and Rufus bringing up the rear.
The group follows the master gallery used by Morg's men. This twists and turns, and the torchlit breach is soon out of sight. After perhaps 200 paces, Mushamee sees something in the light of the Sun Sword of Ré: a neatly stacked pile of headless bodies! These are clearly Morg's men. Just beyond, in the darkness, the entire group can hear crying, not unlike that of an old woman.
The explorers advance cautiously, weapons ready, Mushamee holding out the Sun Sword for light. As they move, they hear a strange scratching sound overhead. This grows louder and more persistent as the group delves deeper, and occasionally dust sifts out of a crack onto a helmet. Mushamee thinks he sees a rat at the edge of his blade's light, but he can't be sure. Leif states flatly that it isn't a rat – he looked for rats earlier, to interview about the tomb's contents, and found no evidence of any. Shields and gazes angle upward forthwith.
Kaeso figures that whatever is in the ceiling, it's moving about in a hollow space above the tunnel. He asks the others to keep a lookout for a sizeable hole. Vinz soon spots a fist-sized opening in the ceiling up ahead. Kaeso moves forward and stuffs a flask of Tenosian fire into the gap (using tongs, not his hand!). As the alchemist works, Vinz's sense for danger starts to tingle. When Kaeso moves back and ignites the stuff with a fire bolt, the tingle blossoms into a full-fledged alarm.
Vinz shouts a warning. A split second later, the plaster on the ceiling, walls, and floor ruptures, and grasping skeletal hands emerge from all sides! Thanks to Vinz's alert, most of the group manages to slice off the undead limbs reaching for their heads and arms. However, with attention directed upward, the attack from the floor comes as a surprise, and the entire group is soon held at the ankles – and Kaeso, who's no swordsman, has the misfortune of being grabbed from all sides.
The heroes quickly see to cutting themselves free. Mushamee and Vinz liberate themselves almost instantly. Leif realizes that the undead aren't strong enough to drag him down, and on seeing Kaeso being strangled by hands from above, opts to hack the alchemist free instead of himself. Kaeso collapses to the floor and is promptly pinned there by other hands. Rufus, too, finds himself dragged to the ground, though not pinned.
In front, Mushamee and Vinz suddenly see that the grasping skeletons were merely a distraction for the main event: a tsunami of undead human hands scuttling at the group from up ahead! The two swordsmen hack and slash at these, but cannot stem the grisly tide. Soon everyone is engulfed in a horrid sea of punching, squeezing, and gouging hands, while the skeletons in the walls try to hold the tomb robbers in place.
Leif, Mushamee, and Vinz manage to keep their sword arms free enough to chop away at the horde. Soon, the area around them is mostly clear. Rufus struggles to his knees, and then his feet, and joins the others at hacking and slashing. With a concerted effort, the warriors slice the seemingly endless swarm of reanimated fists to bits. At the back of the party, Leif and Rufus then free Kaeso of his bony prison on the floor. Up front, though, Mushamee sees that a new threat has advanced behind the previous one: a loping undead thing with charred flesh.
This new arrival makes a horrid howling noise and bursts into flame. It breathes a jet of flame over Mushamee and Vinz, who manage to deflect the fire with their shields. Mushamee then charges with the Sun Sword. The creature is extremely agile, and evades most of the general's blows. One cut hits home, however, badly wounding the monster . . . but in the process, it releases a gout of lava that instantly blasts Mushamee's sword arm to painful uselessness.
Mushamee reacts by retreating back into formation with Vinz. The thing pelts them with globs of flame, but they manage to evade these. Vinz retaliates by conjuring the magical essence of cleansing, fire-extinguishing water – a vast, drenching shower of it – directly over the monster's head. It simply dissolves into smudgy goo, ending the encounter as quickly as it began.
The adventurers retreat back down the hall a short distance to tend their wounds. Leif heals Kaeso's severe bruises and Mushamee's even worse burns. Everybody quaffs from Kaeso's keg of healing elixir. Thus fortified, the explorers resume their formation and continue down the passage, past the crushed bones, diced hands, and rancid puddle of goo.
The gallery ends a short distance later. The terminal wall bears a huge seal of mortar and stone. Rufus takes a look the Ancient Kotanese writing on it and reads off a warning: "Beyond this seal rests the ruination of the Kotanese Empire." There are other etchings, but these appear to be mystic symbols, not words per se. Mushamee's nose tingles with the presence of gems just beyond the seal.
After some deliberation, the group decides to send for Kromm. Leif heads back, finds the scholar still examining severed heads, and escorts him safely to the seal. Kromm identifies the runes as being ancient alchemical symbols, and sends Rufus for some old books that he'll need to decipher them. Rufus, too, returns without incident, and soon Kaeso and Kromm are stabbing fingers into old books and arguing over obscure alchemical principles.
Eventually, the alchemists tell the others that the seal is a cunning alchemical amulet of great power, cast in several parts. Crushing any one part of it will mix a horrible elixir that will billow up through the catacombs and into the castle above, killing everyone. Kaeso adds that this represents a preparation of nigh-incalculable worth, far too costly for use as a weapon of war, placed here by somebody who truly doesn't want the seal opened. He adds that with suitably expensive ingredients, he feels he could neutralize it.
To be continued . . .