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...