Mandraiv's Diary 25

We made it to Kaer Maga without further incident where we rendezvoused with the pain priest, his demon woman and the ugly pain priestess we met in Korvosa.  We managed to get a little more info out of them about our quest, and discovered that the point of the trip is to retrieve a sword.  This sword was wielded by a legendary hero named Mandraivus many years ago to slay the draconic source of the queen’s relic, and we are apparently going to need it to kill the queen and seize my throne.

Then it was another one of the gypsy ghost’s irritating predictions of the future, and time to bring the warrior’s woman back to life and head for the castle, apparently held by orcs.  Upon our arrival, we scouted the place carefully and found the outer barbican manned by a few orcs.  Surprise, surprise, surprise.  The castle was built on an island inside the crater of a volcano, surrounded by a lake and with a bridge to a barbican conveniently located on the shore of the lake, on the side we were approaching.  We decided on a surprise attack of the gatehouse  and were all happily sneaking towards the place when four-arms managed to drop three knives simultaneously, with all three hitting a large stone and each other and making quite a racket.  Fortunately, we were close enough that this had little impact on our attack, and we went in.  The fight was an easy one and over quickly, although for some reason we accepted the surrender of one of the orcs.

We interrogated the cowardly orc survivor, gleaning little of value.  Apparently there is a tribe of orcs not too far away, and they send a rotating guard here to ensure that none of the undead dwelling within the castle proper escape.  The ugly priestess of pain asked leave to borrow the orc briefly, but her attentions were cut short when the warrior decided that her fun was “torture” and that we should therefore let the creature go. I can’t see how he didn’t deserve some punishment for daring to fight us, but what can you do?  Not caring that much about his fate, we released him, even allowing him to retain some of the gear he and his companions had used against us.  Of course, this is not a good idea, as he is bound to return with more of his tribe, but then again, they shouldn’t present too much of a problem, provided we don’t encounter them in a particularly vulnerable state.  Sadly, there is a good chance that we will run into them retreating from a tough battle inside the castle against undead, but I guess them’s the breaks.

After watching the orc march off into the distance, we headed across the causeway and into the castle proper.  A few steps onto the bridge saw an unusual magical effect, where the gypsy spirit was sucked out of the deck of cards and was almost sucked away into nothing, but the cleric was able to use his divine powers to save her.  In order to protect ourselves from more of this, we stashed the cards in an extra-dimensional backpack, and soon found that this was inaccessible within the castle.  With a bit of luck we won’t have to hear her ridiculous predictions of the future anymore, but I suspect we’ll find her trapped somehow in the castle, and that she will return to irritate us with her soothsaying once we find Mandraivus’ sword.  We were also, almost immediately after this, attacked by a group of platemail clad skeletons and a skeletal knight.  The knight was pretty tough, but since his allies weren’t the fight was quickly over, and we headed into the castle.

We discovered a murder-hole infested entrance, guarded by giant skeletons.  We prevailed once more, although we found some disturbing effects in the place.  Firstly, it is so infused with undead that when our priest tried to detect their presence he was stunned by the overwhelming response.  Secondly, and far more disturbingly, there is some extra-dimensional shenanigans going on, and I am not able to summon creatures from the outer planes while inside the place or on the bridge leading to it.  This is most disturbing, but I suspect that if I were to stay behind for the rest of the exploration, my leadership of the group would come under question, and I may be unable to claim the prize of my namesake’s sword, which I will need if I am to dispatch the queen and claim my rightful crown.

We withdrew to the barbican to rest, and resumed our quest in the morning.  Disturbingly early in the morning, but I can’t seem to explain to the others that there is no need to start adventuring at the crack of dawn and that the early afternoon is a much more civilised time for it.  I can’t wait until the cleric is capable of casting powerful provisioning and protecting magics and we are forced to break our fast with an hour long feast.  

Our resumed exploring of the castle soon uncovered trouble, with a huge pile of strangely preserved bodies came to life, or at least unlife, and attacked us.  Strangely preserved because the bodies were all dressed as if from a few hundred or maybe even thousand years ago, and yet didn’t stink up the place.  Either way, I don’t think they’ll be animating again, I just hope that they don’t start to smell.

We also encountered a strange undead trap thing, and in the same room the viscous undead spirit of a corpse sitting in the corner.  We defeated the undead spirit and survived the trap, discovering that the armour on the corpse was apparently quite impressive.  Impressive enough, at least, to have thee warrior drooling over it.  Four-arms, of course, was knocked unconscious in the fighting, but we have come to expect this quite regularly and indeed were somewhat surprised that he had remained awake through the last few fights.  I guess his cowardly sneaking around throughout the fight with the orcs paid off.  Maybe he'll repeat the act in future fights and stay awake more because of it.  I doubt it though.  

Somehow our storming of the castle seems to be going very well indeed.  This is starting to give me a bad feeling...

Mandraiv's Diary 24

Sadly, it seems that my companions want to forgive the savages for their appalling attack on us.  I’m sure I heard “don’t run, we are your friends” muttered just before I went down during the attack, but maybe I’m mistaken.  It seems that my companions have bought this crap and assumed it was merely some cultural difference that prompted the attack, and that therefore it was apparently our fault, and the savages should be treated with respect.  In the end we resolved to talk to the primitives again, offering them one last chance, although the ugly chick and I have quietly managed to agree that we’ll return and wipe out this primitive waste of air.

In the end, we noticed that they were scrying us, and so we tried communicating to their shaman that we are trying to save their sorry excuse for a tribe.  This apparently worked, and the shaman came to our camp, where I was only just able to restrain Artox and the ugly chick.  The shaman imparted a little information about the queen’s magic crown, and agreed to meet one of us privately to discuss in detail.  Naturally, I went to talk to him (presumably if everyone was as obscenely good looking as me, the whole savage attack would never have happened), and got the full run-down on the situation.  As we already knew, the artefact is made from the teeth of an ancient, dead dragon, and imparts all manner of power on the queen.  I was then forced to endure a humiliating, barbaric ritual where the spirit of our gypsy cards gave me a tail of the situation and how we should resolve it.  Maintaining her ability to irritate me, she told the tail in the form of a song.  I also discovered that the savages were apparently going to give the truth speaker and the warrior’s priestess of inner beauty a “proper” burial (apparently leaving corpses out in the open for the scavengers to eat constitutes proper respect to these savages), and so I returned to the camp.  Fortunately I was able to memorize the gypsy ghost’s song and ask my trusty bard, between composing verses of the epic tale of my life, to put it into verse and get away from this whole gypsy music thing.  

She told the tale beautifully, letting everyone else know what was happening and sparing them the tragedy of having to listen to it put to music.  She also recalled that Scarwall is a castle, along with its approximate location.  We agreed that we should head out, and planned to meet up with the male priest of pain and his demon woman before making the journey.  Fortunately, they were already in a town called Kaer Maga, the closest place we could acquire the diamond dust necessary to return the inner beauty priestess to life, after we swiped her body from where the savages had left it to rot.  Or be eaten.

En-route to Kaer Maga, we were once more ambushed by assassins.  This time, they had the help of a hunter who showed remarkable skill with a firearm, and the fight went poorly.  Several of us were knocked out by the gunman (some of the assassins were reasonably effective as well, although they paled into insignificance compared to the man with the gun), and in the end I was able to summon sufficient inter-planar aid to carry the day.  It is worth mentioning here that the big warrior was pivotal in the fight, soaking up an impressive number of wounds and managing to destroy the hunter’s gun.  While not essential, these actions did make my job of saving the day a lot easier.

Ch 5, Part 1: Journey to Scarwall

Joined forces

The heroes reunite with both Shadowcount Sol and Laori in Kaer Maga. There they learn more about Zellara’s song, Scarwall and the item they seek: an ancient sword that was used to slay Kazavon many years ago, wielded by the hero Mandraivus. They deduce that they must claim the sword if they are to defeat the queen.

The Dead Watcher Orcs

The heroes travel to Scarwall where they find the old castle, it is dark and foreboding yet in a remarkably good condition given its age. It is nestled upon an island and long causeway leads to the shore where a ruined barbican stands guard. The heroes carefully approach, sending Sparrowhawk and Watson ahead to scout… they find the gatehouse inhabited by orcs. Inevitably Watson gives himself away and a fight follows, with the rest of the heroes soon joining the fray.

The orcs are easily bested and only a single orc manages to surrender in time before being cut down like the rest of his compatriots. A quick interrogation reveals that the orcs are not really the enemy, they guard the gate making sure the undead that dwell within Scarwall do not escape.

The heroes spare the orc’s life, though they allow Laori to claim the orc as her own. She quickly takes him away and begins torturing him and Gritt is forced to intervene. He finds her in the process of extracting the orcs tusks. Gritt stops the torture and lets the orc leave, allowing him to keep his life and the possessions of one his friends.

The Causeway

The heroes resume their exploration and start crossing the causeway, where suddenly Zellara is pulled from her deck and begins screaming as she is sucked into Scarwall. Sol tries to save her by channeling his holy energy but to no avail; Zellara is lost.

Later as they cross the causeway they are quickly meet by a small troop of platemail clad skeletons and a knight upon a skeletal horse. The two groups clash and heroes quickly prevail.

Castle Scarewall

They resume their exploration fighting their way into the castle keep, which is guarded by large skeletons behind murder holes. Once more the heroes are victorious, but they begin to learn something about the nature of Scarwall. It is deeply evil and filled with undead, Sol is stunned by the backlash of negative energy when he casts a detect evil spell. Furthermore the castle is also enchanted against extra dimensional forces preventing Mandraiv from summoning.

The heroes withdraw to rest before continuing the following morning; they battle a mound of dead corpses, a haunting of the battle of scarwall and ancient dread wraith.

 

 

Encounter	Grit	Helious	Mandraiv	Sparrowhawk	Sol	Watson
Total	102,356	96,306	108,356	96,606	100,256	97,706
Level	9	9	10	9	9	9
Journal
Orcs	4800	4800	4800	4800	4800	4800
rp: sparing the life of the orc	900
Chief Tea maker	450			450
Total	108,506	101,106	113,156	101,856	105,056	102,506
Level	10	9	10	9	10	9
Journal
Skeletons and Knight	2227	2227	2227	2227	2227	2227
Skeleton gate guards	400	400	400	400	400	400
Mound of bodies	4267	4267	4267	4267	4267	4267
Haunt	1067	1067	1067	1067	1067	1067
wraith	4267	4267	4267	4267	4267	4267
Chief Tea maker				450
Total	120,734	113,334	125,384	114,534	117,284	114,734

Ch 4, Part 4: Ambush

The heroes lick their wounds while they ponder the audacity of the cinderland barbarians brutal attack on them. While they rest they simmer with rage and plan a bloody vengeance on the Sun Clan. Only Watson argues to stay their hands not convinced that they deserve such a vicious counter attack.

In time Watson’s arguments start to hold sway and the heroes reluctantly  entertain the idea of offering them one last chance (though almost all of them hope the chance is not taken and they get to kill them all)

During their discussions, Gritt notices a two invisible eyes watching them and assumes it is the Shaman watching them. They openly discuss the queen and midnight’s tears, hoping it might draw a reasoned response from the Shaonti.

And that it does. The shaman approaches them, with dinosaurs in tow to offer some information on the midnight’s tears. He offers to meet one hero to discuss the ancient relic and the threat it poses.

Mandraiv volunteers, he meets the shaman and the the Ridge of the Golden Eagle where he learns much about the history of Kazavon and the Midnight’s Tears (which is essentially the teeth of an ancient immortal blue dragon)

He also undergoes a special ritual where he communes with the spirit of Zelara. She sings a cryptic song as clue to aid the heroes…

Zellara’s Song

Fate of steel—Serithtial

Her cage for years sustained

Four enthralled in lost Scarwall;

Undead to keep her chained.

A spirit first, red war his thirst

Still stands at post of old;

A second foe, infernal soul

Waits high in tower cold.

In kennel’s grime third bides his time

Then vents his killing breath.

And on a stone ’mid ash and bone,

The final dreams of death.

The spirits worn and battletorn

And locked in their damnation,

The chained one’s hold at last grows old

And ushers in salvation.

Yet hope remains amid the chains

When blade’s stone cage has crumbled,

Friends to dread and the death of the dead,

Keys to Kazavon humbled.

Trinia recalls one line in the verse a place named Scarwall, that is located in the Hold of Belkzen

The heroes are also in frequent communication via sending with the Shadowcount Sol and after learning that he has been detained (with a dog in tow … as he puts it) They agree to journey to Kaer Maga to meet him. There is also the case of the corpse of Slyvanna which is in need of raising and Kaer Maga is the closet city that will have the necessary diamond gem needed for the spell.

On their journey to Kaer Maga they are ambushed by more Red Mantis Assassins, and also the fabled Cinderlander. The ambush is savage, and the cinderlander shots many of the heroes down with great skill.

Cinderlander

 

Leader of Assasins

 

A desperate battle is fought and the heroes somehow finds the tenacity and reserve to slay their attackers.

Encounter	Grit	Helious	Mandraiv	Sparrowhawk	Sol	Watson
Pre-session	90,606	85,006	94,456	84,856	88,956	85,506
Level	9	9	9	9	9	9
Journal			2600
Altruism: No Revenge						900
rp: learning about quest	900	900	900	900	900	900
Ambush!	10400	10400	10400	10400	10400	10400
Chief Tea Maker	450			450
Total	102,356	96,306	108,356	96,606	100,256	97,706