Author: Follow Me, And Die!

Session 17 – September 18, 2016

The elf is Alfbrande and the undead woman is his wife, Elyana, whose heart is kept by his master, who has promised to restore her. He has been there 100 years waiting for the master to fulfill the promise.

We don’t like what we have heard, and we attack. Zhoni tried to turn the undead elf and failed. We nearly knock down the elf, and slightly wound the undead elf, and the zombies from the other side of the room, the top of the other set of stairs. Urman cast web to trap them, and all but one zombie and the elf were trapped. Zhoni was trapped in the web.

The elf drinks a potion of gaseous form and tries to run, but we shut the doors and block the gaps with cloths and threaten his trapped wife and he surrenders.

Alfbrande tells us of another party of adventurers, of whom only the evil cleric Enok and a “small” flesh golem who have been there 20 years. Enok posses a key that opens the door to the catacombs of the “master”. Enok came to serve the “master” and the golem came with him and he betrayed his party to join the “master”.

The master, Vorigan is a vampire.

We rest up and learn new spells and go after Enok and the golem to get the key.

Enok is in charge of patching up the damaged undead. Boils “dead” zombies to either boil off sin to become skeletons or to strengthen skin to make them tougher.

People in “village” are slaves and some have been there for generations. They roam the swamps looking for new bodies living or dead. Urdjan knights who are killed have their armor animated, etc.

Otiben climbed up and blocked two of the chimneys to make it even more murky inside.

Otiben snuck inside wearing an elven cloak from Alfbrande, and his noisy footsteps draw the attention of the golem. Otiben notices the sleeping cleric and charges in and slays him. The golem turns and charges him, and we fire a few magic fire arrows at the golem, and then Batukhan and others charge in and help Otiben defeat the golem.

We find an iron key that opens a lock box in a chest. The lock box contained a key with a twisted version of the symbol of the Urdjan knights. This will open the door that is guarded by skeletons that are more than ordinary skeletons, according to Alfbrande. Also inside is a book about making golems.

Enok had an evil staff that turned into a poisonous snake when Urman grabbed it and he nearly died from its poison’s damaging effects, but Zhoni healed him.

There are various other items we found and we decided to rest, heal up, and renew our full complement of spells before going into the catacombs.

Session 16 – September 11, 2016

After healing up and resting the night, we set off the next day.

We encounter a suit of Urdjan armor riding a spectral horse. We defeat them, but the touch of the horse weakens the constitution of Frike until the next day.

We continue on after defeating the rider and horse and come upon a depression that has waterfalls over a cliff. This is the necropolis. We observe the short time left before dark. We see giant skeletons on patrol. We notice a stairway from above.

We decide on a plan to rest overnight, and then proceed to the stairs.

We find the stairs and proceed down. We sneak past the closest giant skeleton. The giant skeletons are actually bundles of the bones of man sized creatures.

We check out a building that exits steam, and see cauldrons and a lab in the back. Our observations from the rim showed that bodies were delivered and then undead walk out.

Zhoni tries augury and what we seek is not there.

We move the the building where we saw light at night. We find a door and enter. We find two stags kept in a room converted to a stable. Xoni turns one and after slaying it, the other is killed.

We go up stairs and find several zombies guarding a room.

We slay the zombies after some are turned. We enter the room they guarded, and find an elf and a desicated lady elf. The elf says, “Ah, it’s been some time since we’ve had any adventurer’s here.”

Session 15 – September 4, 2016

6th of Floranur – Early evening

We prepare to enter the barrow mound.

Otiben scouts ahead and finds an underground room filled with skeletons. Zhoni is able to turn about half of them. The party takes several minutes to deal with the ones that were not turned. Otiben and one of the dogs are knocked down, and it is several more minutes to deal with the others. Long enough that the originally turned group starts to return to the fight, but Zhoni turns them again.

We take the fight to the turned ones and focus on one at a time, to minimize the chances that they will be able to harm us. Finally, it is down to the last two. One is the skeleton that urged the others on, and it is very tough.

After it strikes a solid blow on Zhoni, Urman blasts it for 8 points with magic missile and it still stands. All after the others have hit it a few times. The others miss it, and out of frustration, Urman charges and crits for 6 more points of damage to finish it off. The last skeleton is quickly dispatched. We then heal up and rest overnight The tough boss skeleton had a magical blade which Otiben claimed.

The next morning, we partake of the holy meal for extra protection (HP).

Otiben checks the door, and finds no traps. We more forward and find a room with a circle and star on the floor in intricate silver design. There are elvish like silver runes on the walls, but none of us can read them. There is a fist sized moonstone just inside the door, sending light off to the side. We try various methods to get the light to shine on the opposite door, but fail.

Otiben goes to the center of the room, and it is a trap door, the whole circle containing the start spins. He is dropped 30 feet to water below. Some greyish oozing creature attacks. Urman uses the black staff to stop the floor from spinning and Batukan and Zhoni use a rope to help pull Otiben free.The oozing thing does not follow. We use two flasks of oil to dispatch it. Otiben then goes to retrieve more coins and gems.

We discover that the rotating floor is used to focus light on the door, which makes it open.

There is a room with a fancy stone sarcophagus, with more silvery elvish like writing that isn’t elvish. When Otiben steps in the door, a ghostly creature rises up. Zhoni urges the most vehement possible rebuke (20), and the creature is turned. Urman casts web to hold it, while the rest of the party uses silver arrows, magic missile, 2 spiritual hammers, and holy water to dispatch it.

Otiben then opens the lid and we find the body that resembles the creature we just fought, and it appears to have been the rumored druid. Nothing else is in it.

The final room appears to be a sanctuary with 4 thin pillars in the middle, and four alcoves each with a clay urn. On the altar is a scroll tied with a silvery thread.

Otiben carefully retrieves the scroll, with no issues. It is written int he flowery script in silver ink, that no one can read. Urman puts it in his bone scroll case.

Otiben searches each urn and finds gold, several scroll in the elvish like script, and two wizard scrolls and one priestly scroll. Urman added them to his bone scroll case. There was a fancy leather belt with two scabbards, each with a silver magical blade. One a longsword, and the other a dagger. The final urn held a poison needle trap and a bag of moonstones.

When we left, we retrieved the fist-sized moonstone that is finely carved.

We left off the mid morning of the 7th debating whether to press on or to rest and recover spells.

Session 14 – August 28, 2016

4th of Floranur

We went to the docks on the river at the appointed time and were met by a fancy paddlewheel driven barge, “Lady Elspeth”. It was named after the wife of a prior thane.

We learned that it is not magical, but powered by two mules, in a manner similar to large cranes. It is of dwarven design.

Waldemar, the Urdjan Knight, greeted us, he was to escort us and hold the base camp. Waldemar would wait a week for us to make it back to base camp. He described the base camp as a safe place used by the Urdjan knights in the periodic forays to reduce the numbers of undead in the swamp.

Also aboard was Hansel Bergfinn, the ship master and 3 assistants.

Zho ni was concerned that Waldemar would be alone, so he gave him gold to hire more men. Waldemar relented and found an old hand named Harrald to help him keep watch while we ventured into the center of the swamp.

We took the boat as far as we could go, basically to within an hour by canoe and an hour of portaging equipment to get to the Urdjan Knights safe spot. The river was deep enough for the barge, but not wide enough. We loaded our canoes and the barge went back upstream.

The camp is an old dwarven ironclad with a hole in the side forming a ridge in the swampy ground. It has a paddlewheel similar to the one on the barge we used. It was surrounded by 8 posts with lamps similar to the Urdjan spirit lamps. They form a protective zone that keeps out undead.

When we arrived, one of the posts was out of alignment and a large number of zombies, including goblins, dwarves, humans, and an ogre were in and around the old ship. We used the landscape, bowmen, and magic to quickly defeat the zombies. A lot of arrows and a couple magic missiles made the ogre easy to knock down. Urman cast web to guard our right blank and took 5 zombies out of the combat. There were minor wounds to some, and Frike was knocked unconscious, but was up before the combat was over due to Zhoni’s healing ability.

We righted the lamppost, Waldemar said a prayer, and the anti-undead shield was restored.

The party rested overnight and relearned spells for their foray into the swamp.

After a couple of hours of portaging/paddling we encountered a frazzled old woman leading a goat. We did not believe her story of being from a fishing village south of Manheim. She claimed her husband worked on a farm during the warm months and that she was heading north by herself, and the mist obscured the road, and she ended up lost in the swamp.

All of this was too much to believe. Urman attempted to charm her, but it had no effect. Zho ni said that we wold help her, but only if she submitted to being bound and blindfolded. We did not trust her to go off by herself to Waldemar. If she found him, we feared that she was not what she appeared. So we trekked back the two hours and Waldemar discerned that she and the goat were evil.

She then revealed herself and her imp familiar. She was of magical persuasion and was going into the swamp to seek the reputed source of power. This further raised our suspicions of her being in league with the ogres, specifically the Enchantress.

Urman would have none of this evil imp, and blasted it with his magic missile, but only did a little damage compared with the effectiveness of his bolts of pure energy. The imp waited to see what we would do, and Urman urged the others to defeat the imp. Zho ni managed to capture it with hold person, and we used a magic weapon to slay it. Appropriate magical trophies were taken for future use.

We then found her spellbook. Fearing it might be trapped, we saved it for later.

All we learned is that her name was Hilda and she sought power for her own ends, and cared neither for the side of the vale or the ogres, but wished to remain apart from that struggle.

As she would not cooperate, or persuade us that we could trust her, Zho ni gave Otiben the nod to put her out of our misery. Waldemar did not like what we did, but Zho ni pointed out that this is war and she told us she was after the item we seek. We could not trust her to not thwart our plans.

We found some silver and copper coins, a potion,a bit of food and water among her other possessions and a nice black robe. We recovered her items and burned the bodies of Hilda and the imp to prevent them becoming future undead foes.

Zho ni rested and then found no traps on the spell book. Urman was able to discern the intent (name) of the spells, but could not use them, as Hilda was an illusionist. We left the book and other loot in a large sack with Waldemar.

The next day, we set out again. Perhaps two hours travel past where we encountered Hilda we found a low hill with a tree on top and a round door facing us. Otiben approached to investigate and saw that there was an intertwined vine patter around the door. As he approached, 6 vine like forms rose up, similar to the wicked stick things we fought in the forest west of Djoside.

We quickly defeated the creatures, and as we approached the tree turned and had a face on the trunk, and the trunk said these words:

A siren’s call I sing to madmen,

And snarling beasts reply.

I cloak myself in ebony,

Laced with shining diamonds bright.

Thrice a season I lift my veil,

To lay bare in all my glory.

Zho ni said, “Moon”, and the door opened to a passage going down.