Session Two: A Touch of Death

Game Date: May 17, 2008
In-Game Dates: Godsday, Grimander 2^nd, night – Mansday, Grimander 3^rd, pre-dawn

Here, corpses in various states of decay are strewn across the floor. Off this room is a shrine to the God of death, Wee Jas, and some collapsed storage chambers. Unfortunately, out of the collapsed rubble comes a huge black ooze. Realizing that the powerful acids secreted by the ooze will dissolve their clothes, armor and weapons if they're not extremely careful, the party dispatches the thing as quickly as possible.
The only other door leads deeper into the tomb. Past the door is the ward room. The stones of the floor were once laid in magical intricate patterns that bound the dangerous spirit inside the tomb. Now the heavy stones lay all over the floor, evidence of a great deal of manual labor. Bent and ruined crowbars are in evidence, as well as a bedroll and the remains of many meals.
In one of the adjoining rooms, the party finds a note among old and moldering parchments. It reads:

“. . . to ensure that the wards may never be restored, at least two heroes must breathe their last upon
their broken remains. This act breaks any hold the light may ever have over this place and frees the
darkness forever. My master craves true freedom. Once he has it, his secrets will be mine. . . .”

The party files the mysterious note fragment away for future reference and venture further into the tomb. Finally, they find the room containing the remains of Arathex himself. Upon a raised stone lies a corpse dressed in once-fine raiment that now hangs in tatters. Clutched in its bony hands is a rod decorated with arcane runes. Scrolls and books are piled around the body, but the smell of mildew from the moldy pages reveals that they are unlikely to be readable. The cold of the room intensifies as two bright red points of light form on the far wall. A shadowy, humanoid form takes shape around the glowing pinpoints of light, which now seem to be eyes burning with hate for all life.
The adventurers attack, but the wraith evades most of their blows, striking out with his ghostly claws at Lumi, leaving her shaking, cold and weak. The wraith strikes using hit-and-run tactics, making good use of his ability to pass through walls. Finally, though, the wraith hesitates a second too long before vanishing into the walls, and Aiden fires a fire spell made even more powerful by a rod found on the corpse of Arathex. The wraith screams as the fire consumes him, and finally there is nothing left but a humanoid-shaped scorch-mark on the stone walls of the tomb.
The party also finds the treasure chamber of the wraith, and find a magical sword that probably would have been helpful had they found it before the fight with the wraith.
Venturing back outside the tomb, they see a large, lumbering shape shambling off into the darkness away from them. Fighting their exhaustion and wounds, the party gives chase, and finally catch up to thing on the road back to the town.
It is some kind of flesh golem, and while it appears to be trying more to run than fight, the party manages to bring it to the ground and kill it. Now the party stands on the road back to town, with perhaps two hours left before dawn...

Session One: “Tales from the Crypt”

Game Date: May 17, 2008
In-Game Dates: Kingsday, Disander 25th – Godsday, Grimander 2^nd, night

A little more than a week has passed since the cataclysmic events in the city of Brindinsford. The great temple is beign rebuilt, the demons prowling around the woods near the city have been hunted down and slain. And a statue of the five heroes is being erected in the town square. Of those heroes, one is resting and recovering in the house of master harpers Bruge and Chlyra Corbett. The other has, with great ceremony, been interred in the catacombs beneath the temple of Pelor, and his holy symbol now rests upon the main altar in the sanctuary. The others have set off separately for lands both known and unknown on missions of their own.
Rowan's father checks on her often, but today she is walking around the city, and meets her father where he organizing his troops to move out. Moonflower, the druidess of the grove outside the city, offered Rowan the position of leader of the rangers in the area, but Rowan would rather not. Her father tells her of a mission for Kartharine, the head of the Librarium at the Grey University. He doesn't know much in the way of details. He does know that two of his men, a young, brash (but competent) warmage and a hardy duskblade will be volunteering for the mission.
Meanwhile, a young gnome cleric of Pelor, assigned by Father Tilok from Miel to help with the restoration of the temple in Brindinsford is approached by the newly appointed head priest. Since her work is nearly finished, the head priest asks her if she would like to join an adventuring party who will be in need of a cleric.
Also, Chlyra and Bruge have offered their young protege, a bard named Althea, a position on this party.
(There were actually several others that were invited to join the party. Alaine, the Paladin of Heironeous, a wizard from the University, and a rogue from the Gold Tabard Trading Company. Obviously, they decided to pass on the adventure.)
The five souls who decided to accept show up, one by one, to the library in the early morning. They spend a few minutes introducing themselves to each other, then Kartharine appears and greets them.
After introducing herself to them all, she tells them of the mission she needs them to undertake. Kartharine has an associate, an elf male named Colwyn Daystar, who was on an information-gathering mission for her. He had contacted her well over a month ago saying that he had successfully acquired what she was looking for. That was the last time she heard from him; and the journey from where he was to Brindinsford should have taken no more than three weeks. She has attempted every scrying spell she had access to with no success. Even if Colwyn had been slain, the spells should have shown him his remains, or the place he'd been killed. But all her spells simply fail, which leads her to believe there is some kind of magical interference going on. So it falls to the party to find Daystar. If they can free him, that would be desired, but of paramount important is the retrieval and delivery of the information.
Kartharine is vague about what this information is, mostly due to the fact that she's not entirely sure what form it is in. Her hunch is that it is a book of some kind. At any rate, the last place he was seen was Fallo, the royal city of the Kingdom of Fall. She provides them with a detailed description of Colwyn, from his looks down to the family sigil on the ring he wears. However, she advises them, he can and does use magic to disguise himself if necessary.
The next day, the party leaves the city on a river barge. The River Brindin heads roughly South, taking them more than halfway to the royal city by water. The party is able to get to know each other somewhat during the largely boring week on the river.
The party debarks at a city called Night Falls. Though the River Brindin joins the River Elegy, which flows past the royal city, several stretches of white water and a few waterfalls make traveling the entire way by boat unfeasible.
Night Falls is a strange city. The town of Night Falls was founded a short distance from a place called the Tomb Steppe. According to legend, the Tomb Steppe was created as a place where the remains of powerful undead and evil necromancers could be interred safely. Occupying more than two square miles of land, and protected by both physical and magical means, the Tomb Steppe was maintained by a human priest named Arathex. He aided many adventurers who fought the undead and those who sought to control the undead. As the story went a party of heroes found Arathex's body in the graveyard one day, evidently slain by the forces he spent so long protecting the world against. The heroes used the massive mausoleum near the north end of the graveyard, and buried Arathex with great ceremony.
After Arathex died, tales of dark and evil creatures marauding the area made the area no longer a preferred site for disposing of dangerous remains. But as time passed, incidents and sightings declined, and became nothing more than local legend. As the nearby village grew due to increase in river trade, Night Falls became a thriving trade center and farming community.
Realizing that the Tomb Steppe was safe enough during the day, the citizens began burying their dead there rather than building new crypts on pristine farmland. Because this method of interment was cheap and easy, people from many surrounding communities brought their dead to the town as well. The business of burial brought new prosperity to Night Falls, and a guild called the Funerary House sprang up to control the trade. It became something of a fad to be buried there, and many lower noble families and wealthy merchant families began using the Tomb Steppe as well.
From the Funerary House Guild, with its sigil rune of crossed shovels, to the Gravedigger’s Tavern and the mourners-for-hire on every street corner, the entire town seems geared to profit from death.
And the profits have obviously been good—the town’s wealth is evident in its well-lit streets, liveried town guards, and well-maintained buildings. But despite the dour nature of its chief business, Night Falls seems a happy, prosperous place, and its people seem content.
As much of the day is already gone by the time they get off the barge, the party rents a few rooms for the night at the largest inn, the Gentle Repose, planning to start out first thing in the morning.
Most of the party, half out of curiosity, half out of desire to walk around after being on the boat for so long, venture to the graveyard and look around.
They find the area surrounding the Tomb Steppe is flat, with no rises, dips, or vales to break up its monotony. Grave markers litter the ground, and names and holy symbols seem to be carved into every surface. In the center of this desolate area is a hill studded with hundreds of mausoleums, some of which jut forth from the hill itself. A sturdy fence surrounds the hill. A thin mist clings to the ground, its gray monotony masking all but occasional weeds and bits of wild scrub that reach up through it. No straight road leads through the tombs; the well-kept paths wind through mausoleums, trees, and statuary. The steppe is unnaturally quiet—even the normal chirping noises of night insects are absent.
Despite the creepy atmosphere, the groundskeepers seem fairly normal, and Lumi, the cleric of Pelor feels no evil there. The party returns to town in time for dinner, looking forward to beds that don't sway back and forth.
Just when the sun is close to setting, a young man runs into town, waving his arms wildly. “The Great Mausoleum!” he yells. “The Skull Tomb is open! The ghost is free!”
A crowd quickly gathers around the young man as he tells his tale. The adventurers make their way to the center of the crowd as well. The boy, named Felix, explains what happened:
“I know I had no business going there alone,” confesses the young man to the gathering crowd. “But the other gravediggers said I was a wimp who was too scared go to the Tomb Steppe. So I decided to go there alone, to prove myself. I went all the way to the Great Mausoleum, figuring that I’d chalk my name on the doors to prove I was there. I couldn’t just say so, after all—I needed proof.
“But the doors were open when I got there. I wondered if some grave robbers had made it past the wards, so I decided to check. I went in and saw several bodies, all decomposing, in the main tomb area. Above the pile floated a wispy ghostlike thing with glowing red eyes. I felt it's hatred for me in my very bones, and I turned and ran the whole way back here!”
The townsfolk are alarmed by this news, and a general uproar arises as they speculate about what might have happened. Finally, Chief Elder Genning, head of the city council, calls for the most knowledgeable person on the subject of the tomb, the head of the Funerary Guild, a man named Mior Harken.
A thin human in late middle age, wearing expensive clothing embroidered with the crossed shovels symbol, steps forward. “Thank you for summoning me, Elder Genning,” he says. “As head of the Funerary Guild, I can attest that the doors on the Great Mausoleum have been shut for decades. To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever gone inside, since doing so would break the old seals on the doors. Certainly no one would be foolish enough to do that.”
“But Harken,” says Genning with a worried expression, “if the ghost is in the main room, then the inner wards are broken. That means the ghost that once troubled this whole region is free to roam again. Isn’t that right?”
“According to myth,” says Harken, “the ghost cannot leave its tomb unless a new dawn breaks while the seals are broken. An experienced group, acting quickly, could reach the tomb and reseal the wards tonight, before the creature can leave.
“Unfortunately, the guardians of the graveyard are active at night, and none of our local priests are up to the task of evading or confronting the guardians.” He scans the crowd with a discerning eye. “Who here is willing to undertake such a task?”
The party confers for a moment, then offer their services to the town. Genning offers them 5,000 in gold for the task.
The five heroes mounts their horses (or Great Dane, in Lumi's case) and heads for the Tomb Steppe. Winding their way through the graveyard, they encounter the guardians: animated statues that by day stand motionless atop low pedestals placed around the perimeter of the graveyard. Four of these statues, carved in the form of cloaked mourners, attack the party with huge stone fists. The party is holding their own, then the statues being to wail, a heart-wrenching, keening sound that literally deafens the adventurers. Althea manages to sing out a countersong that nullifies some of the effects of the wailing while Lumi keeps the fighters on their feet with her healing magics.
When the last of the statues has crumbled, the group quickly makes their way to the great mausoleum. The entrance, carved in the shape of a skull with a wide open mouth, beckons. The first chamber contains four statues of snarling dogs, one in each corner of the room. As the party reaches the center of the room, the eyes of the statues light up, and rays of black light shoot out and form pools of shadow form on the floor. Out of those shadows come huge skeletal canines that attack the party. For each one they kill, another springs out of the shadows to take it's place. While not particularly difficult foes, the skeletons just keep coming. Finally the party attack the statues themselves, knocking off the heads and smashing them. Breathing heavily, the party proceeds into the next chamber, wondering if they'll have the strength left to combat the wraith and restore the wards if these attacks keep up...