Prologue Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI Part VII
I've "fictionalized" the session reports in a likely-vain attempt to make them more "entertaining."
And now, our story continues...
Just seconds before the last vestiges of Pol’s life slipped away, Roman and Bria stopped trying to spring the ghoul’s vice-like grip on her neck and switched to delivering measured blows to the creature’s head. With one mighty, double-handed swing of his mace, Roman smashed the fiend’s cranium open like an over-ripe melon, showering everyone standing nearby with bits of rotting flesh, fragments of skull and putrid brain matter.
The two priests immediately went to work, battering the mortally-wounded fighter with cure spells in an effort to bring her back from the brink. Hearing a collective sigh of relief from her allies, the warrior woman’s eyes fluttered open and she slowly came to. As her peers helped her to her feet, the fighter expressed gratitude to her saviors and relief to be still counted among the living.
From that point on, her friends noticed a bit of a sea change in Pol. Instead of charging head-first into battle at the first sign of trouble, she now paused, as if conflicted. Was her reckless rage now tempered with thoughts of her own mortality? Had she finally come to the realization that it was impossible to single-handedly shield all of her team-mates from harm? Or had her self-confidence in battle been irreparably shaken?
Although the Fellowship found no treasure in the room, they did manage to salvage a nice collection of weapons and armor. Burdened by every miserable second spent inside that horrible abattoir, the group quickly pressed on. Not long after, they stumbled upon a door resembling a hinged grate in the north-east section of the fortress. Feeling a slight breeze coming through the bars, Elster explained that this was a fresh air vent leading to the surface.
The explorers passed through the grate, finding themselves at the bottom of a ten-foot-wide shaft with a well of impenetrable darkness overhead. After expertly finding some hand and foot holds, Bria quickly scampered up the wall, which soon narrowed into a claustrophobic, three-foot-wide vent. Detecting looks of concern coming from down below, the rogue climbed thirty more feet until the passage vomited her out onto a hillside. Another grate lay near the opening, clearly ripped from its hinges. After taking note of the scene, and savoring a few heady gulps of fresh air, Bria carefully descended back down the shaft and reported her findings to the group.
"So, that’s how they got into the fort," Elster surmised. "While the dragon distracted us with its attack on the tower, the goblins broke in through the vent and took us all by surprise!"
With a major piece of the puzzle now in place, the group sought out a reasonably-secure part of the maze to pause and plot their next moves. During this cold, dark, fitful rest, every guard tasked to keep watch over the camp couldn’t shake the unmistakable feeling that a dozen set of eyes were trained on them the entire night.
Sunday, Solstice 26'th, 1492
That "morning", the heroes gathered up their gear and continued to venture deeper into the fortress. Elster led his allies to a shrine dedicated to the glory of the Forge-Father, all the while expressing concerns that, most likely, the site had already been defiled by the invaders.
His prediction proved to be all-too-accurate. The Fellowship soon found itself peeking into a large, T-shaped chamber, dimly lit by a pair of flickering black candles half-melted onto the corners of a stone dais at the far end of the room. Lying on the ground in front of the platform was a golden chalice, with two motionless dwarves standing on either side.
As Bria made a motion to hail the sentries, Roman and Elster quickly stopped her. Just as soon as everyone was inside the room, the two dwarves started shuffling towards them, arms outstretched, their breathing sounding like a chorus of death-rattles. Two more unseen figures emerged from the darkened corners of the chamber, effectively boxing our heroes in.
Brandishing the sun sigil of Pelor, Roman tried to drive the undead horde back, only to sense that some malevolent force was impeding his efforts. As the Fellowship recoiled from the exploratory pawing of the zombie dwarves, their initial strikes were tentative at best. Roman stumbled into one of the fiends approaching from the corner and got clawed for his clumsiness. Pol simultaneously stabbed the priest's assailant and then pulled him away from a storm of grasping, filthy claws. Now steadied, Roman tried to follow up with his own strike, but it failed to deter the creature’s unrelenting advance.
After deftly warding away one of his tainted brethren, Elster cast a protective circle around his peers just as an epiphany dawned on him.
"The candles!" he shouted. "They aren’t ours! They must be the source of the evil influence in this room. We have to put them out!"
Reacting quickly to this, Lorelei summoned a hawk from out of thin air and dispatched the creature to snuff out the flames. Bria boldly stepped up and delivered an impressive battle-staff hit to one of the zombies, but it was largely unfazed. Almost immediately, the thief found herself overwhelmed by the creature.
Rincewind sprang to her aid, landing two successive blows with his own staff, finally felling the abomination. Unfortunately, in doing so, he inadvertently broke the seal on the zombie’s putrefying skull. Immediately the entire chamber was flooded by a vile miasma, promptly incapacitating the “WIZZARD” as he struggled to retain the contents of his own stomach.
Her confidence still shaken by their last encounter with the undead, Pol once again found herself locked in another death-grip, but this time she had the presence of mind to start sawing away at the arm holding her fast with her sword. As the walking corpse stumbled backward from this impromptu surgery, the fighter was repulsed to see that the disembodied hand was continuing to claw its way across her shoulder to her exposed throat.
Noticing this, Roman viciously beat down one of the ghouls intent on stalking them, but his concerns were unfounded as Pol calmly plucked the vile appendage from her neck like a pesky bug and hurled it across the chamber.
Like a house ablaze, Elster healed Pol in one moment and then dispatched another zombie in the next. Rincewind managed to compose himself just in time to brain the final shambling horror reaching out for him, resulting in yet another self-inflicted shower of oxidized blood and rancid ichor.
"I have no idea where those candles came from," Elster said, panting for breath in the fetid chamber. "As for the chalice, it’s always supposed to be on the altar, filled with water from the Spirit Well."
After the dwarven priest thanked Lorelei and her familiar for extinguishing the flames, he retrieved the chalice and it back in its rightful place.
"What’s the Spirit Well?" asked the mage in return.
"A naturally-occurring holy spring of water," he replied, surveying the room for additional signs of tampering. "The water that springs from it heals wounds both spiritual and physical. As our quest nears its end, I’ll bring you there. Given what we’ve faced thus far, we’ll most certainly need its aid."
As the group left the Shrine and headed back out into the pitch-black corridor, Elster’s demeanor seemed to darken considerably. They headed south, towards what the dwarven cleric described as the quarters he once shared with his fellow clerics. As they crept inside, the group noticed that the narrow room was furnished with three modest bunks, all of which were now pulled apart. Various broken items of religious significance were scattered about the floor.
"Parn was the head chaplain of the Great Hall for the past forty-four years, while Girsta and I served as his acolytes for the past ten,” Elster lamented. “You could never find two souls so well-forged and true; they’ll be sorely missed."
Elster made his way over to an open closet, its ornate doors ripped from their hinges. He flipped through several torn robes hanging inside to retrieve one particular garment that, at face value, looked identical to all of the rest. As he brought the robe back to them, the explorers all noticed black bands along the hem and lines of ancient runes. Amidst a crossfire of inquiring eyes, the priest proceeded to answer the unspoken question.
"The runes tell the tale of Moradin’s first words to our people. This particular robe belonged to Parn. It’s especially precious, since it safeguards the wearer from dark magiks."
After donning the garment, Elster led the pack onward. Back out in the hall, the heroes continued to inch their way through the crushing darkness, pausing occasionally to listen for competing footsteps. After passing by several semi-inviting doorways, Roman finally asked the dwarf where he was leading them.
"Before I left the Hall to seeks your help, the guard room was one of the last holdouts against the goblin tide. After seeing the state of priest’s chambers, I now fear the worst."
As if on cue, the adventures hung a sharp turn south and spied a smashed-in door just to their left. Elster surged ahead, stricken by a sudden panic for his brethren.
Inside, the heroes discovered yet another scene of absolute carnage. Two massive hobgoblins and four dwarf fighters were sprawled dead on the floor in pools of red ochre. An overturned table lay along one wall of the room, along with four dwarf-sized chairs and a scattering of what appeared to be playing cards. The door on the far wall was covered with scratches, as if repeatedly scored by a flurry of weapon blows.
"The Treasure Vault of Kiras Toth lies beyond,” Elster intoned, his voice echoing eerily in their stony womb. “It’s the culmination of all of our hard labors and, as such, Giran ordered four of his best men to guard it with their lives. It appears as if their sacrifice became necessary..."
To everyone’s surprise, Elster went on to point out that the damaged “doorway” was actually a clever fake, revealing it to be a solid granite wall magically enchanted to resemble a wooden portal. No matter how hard the hobgoblins pulled on it or tried to break it down, they could never breach it!
"Giran told me that there’s a secret door in here somewhere which leads to the vault," the cleric narrated as he started running his hands along the walls. "Unfortunately, he was quite cagey about exactly where it was. I think he only told Parn and a few of his closest advisors..."
As if the gauntlet of challenge to solve this puzzle had just been thrown down, the members of the Fellowship made a beeline to the closest patch of wall and began to study it intently. Eight or ten minutes went by before the group collectively jumped in reaction to a shout of delight from Lorelei, who’s rummaging in an alcove in the south-east corner of the room yielded dividends.
"It’s here!" she cried. "I can’t believe it didn’t notice it right away; it’s so obvious!"
After the heroes clustered around her, Elster and Bria side-stepped to the forefront to inspect the secret portal.
"I can’t find a lock, catch or a trigger," the thief said, blowing an unruly wisp of red hair out of her eyes. "Which is weird, especially if there’s as much treasure behind this door as you say there is."
Ignoring the curious glint in the young rogue’s eye, Elster turned to address the group.
"I think it just needs to be pushed."
"Leave that to me," Pol announced, cracking her fingers dramatically.
At this proclamation, the Fellowship practically trampled over each other in their haste to get out of her way. Still wary, Bria kept close, keeping her eyes peeled for anything suspicious.
In an impressive show of strength, the statuesque fighter managed to shove the massive stone block deep into the recessed wall. But, just as the space opened up, Bria spied something glint just above the warrior’s head.
“Look out!” she screamed, her clarion warning coming just a fraction too late.
To be continued...
IMAGE CREDITS:
Dwarf Zombies: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/mvE3v
Black Candles: https://witchcraft101.medium.com/candle-color-meaning-in-witchcraft-detail-guide-for-beginners-518ff881becf
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