Session XX - The Necromancer (2002-03-12)

There was some discussion whether or not it would make sense to attack the necromancer right away, or if it could wait till the morning. It was agreed that delaying would only help the necromancer escape, so Radagast and his friends headed for the Blue Moon tavern.

Bardia, being practically the leader of the town's militia, walked right in made it clear he was looking for some answers and did not expect to be stopped. His thorough search found some loose planks on the floor, which he pried loose, finding a wine cellar underneath. At that point the proprietor pointed out that there was a door to the wine cellar as well and that they would not need to break the whole floor to get there. Somewhat embarrassed the party took the stairs.

A search through the place found a wooden trapdoor in the floor, with a brass ring. Try as they might, they could not lift the door up nor could they find any opening mechanisms. It was good thing they had Zig Zag with them, because it took only a few whacks with his huge axe to go though the trapdoor.

There was ladder going down. Cassandra dropped a torch through the whole, but the light disappeared almost as soon as it went into the whole. They heard a thump, so the whole was not very deep. The disappearing light was a mystery, but Bardia wanted to go in first anyway. He disappeared into the unpenetrable darkness, and a short while later the party heard a thump.

Getting a little worried Radagast tied a rope around Cassandra, and lowered her with the rope, torch in hand, into the hole, telling her to avoid breathing. While Cassandra was descending, she noticed that the light cut off completely, even though her torch was still burning. She landed on something soft, and could feel unmoving Bardia under her. She tied the rope around Bardia, and the party pulled him up.

Bardia appeared to be coverd with green oily substance, and he did not seem to be breathing. Radagast's cantrip to remove the substance did not succeed. They could not figure out what to do about it, but since Cassandra was able to go through Radagast climbed down as well, without any problems. As the other members tried to climb down they faced the same destiny as Bardia. Zig Zag was the last up in the wine cellar, and Radagast and Cassandra told him not to climb down, but to instead haul the other members back up and take them to the temple.

Cassandra and Radagast felt their way around. They discovered they were in a room 20 or so feet accross. One end was blocked by a cave in, so it might have been larger room originally. On the opposite wall there was a narrow corridor. Cassandra went in first and Radagast followed a few steps behind.

Suddenly the darkness lifted, and they could see the light of their torch again. The corridor appeared to open into another small room, from which they could hear the sound of metal chains. Cassandra could see that on right and left there appeared to be metal chains attached to the wall, leading towards the wall from which the small corridor was but she could not see what was at the end of the chains. She stepped into the room, and was immediately attacked by creatures obviously drawing their force from the negative energy plane. In other words, they were wights and their life-draining touches made Cassandra suddenly wish she had been able to avoid them somehow.

Radagast saw no other option but to try and tumble between the monsters in order to be able to help his friend. Luckily for him he dodged them skillfully, and let his greatsword taste wight flesh. Radagast quickly realized that the chains were so short that they could take care of the wights one at a time because they did not reach from wall to wall. After the first wight was down they took down the other with some well placed arrows. Cassandra was feeling pretty bad from the wights' treatment, but there was nothing they could do about it right away.

On the opposite wall there was a door, which appeared to be garded by some kinds of glyphs. Radagast did not want to take risks, and carefully tied a rope to the door handle and pulled the door open with that. Since nothing happened, he run and tumbled through the door. This set off some kind of explosion from the runes but some strange magical aura seemed to protect Radagast. He realized Emric's familiar rat, which was riding in his pocket now, had perhaps something to do with that, as well as the feeling of health he had never felt before. Cassandra was able to go through the door without any trouble.

Beyond was another small room. On the opposite wall there were two strong doors barred from the outside, and on the left there were double doors made of iron. The friends pondered for the longest time what to do. The barred doors quite obviously were keeping something horrible inside, which they had no desire to meet. And the iron door looked impenetrable. After they had reasoned that they would never be able to go through an iron door, and were prepared to open the first barred door, they could hear a wind whisper in their ears: "Did you actually try if the door was locked?" Feeling embarrassed again, they pushed the doors and they opened!

A corridor leading to another double door at the end, and side door to the right in the middle of it was waiting for them, but that was not all that was waiting... A huge demon shrouded in darkness greeted them! It's insidious voice spoke to them in their heads, while the demon's infernal fires cast dancing shadows along the corridor. The demon was obviously trying to trick Radagast and Cassandra into serving its dark lords, but the heros were really interested. They did think it strange that the demon seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out what they had planned for the necromancer. It seemed to be disappointed that he would be executed, facing only minimal torture before that.

While discussing, Radagast and Cassandra were trying to figure out if they would have any change against the demon. Cassandra concentrated on detecting the level of evil from the create, and was struck down by the overwhelmingly foul and poweful aura. That was enough to inform them that the flaming creature in front of them could probably kill them just by wishing it to be so...

The demon wished them no harm, however, although it did put a circle of fire around them. Apparently the necromancer had made the demon, or its masters, very unhappy and for that the necromancer would have to pay dearly. Mere death was out of the question. The demon informed them that they could do whatever they wanted, but should leave the necromancer to suffer for his actions. Then it disappeared.

After the circle of fire died down, Radagast and Cassandra opened the door to the side room. It was quite obviously the necromancer's living quarters, but he was not there. There was just a lovely woman lying nearly naked on the bed, apparently under some spell or drug, trying to seduce Radagast (and Cassandra to that matter). Radagast was a gentleman and did not take advantage of the woman, even though Cassandra was obviously urging him on (there seemed to be something common between Drik and his sister after all). Cassandra gave the lady a dagger and Radagast gave her a little money, but she did not want to go to the city alone. She was from Capernaum and did not speak North Speak, so she would have been pretty helpless by herself. When Radagast asked is she knew how to use the dagger she said: "I know how to protect my honor."

After a thorough search of the room Radagast bagged some vials and research notes from the tables. Apparently the necromancer was trying some foul experiments to perhaps prolong his life, or something else along those lines. In any case it seemed to be rather painful. There were some old notes perhaps from some other person as well, perhaps a previous experimenter? Radagast was also happily going through the necromancers library. He was certain we would hit a jackpot and find wonderful new spells in his opponents spellbook. He finally came to a nondescript book that looked like might be a spellbook. Feeling apprehensive Radagast opened it fully expecting to get a blast of fire hit him. It was not fire, but his readiness made his already superior reflexes kick into overtime and he jumped clear as a green snake-like creature tried to bite him! It was obviously a spell left to guard the book. Now Radagast realized that the same spell had disabled their friends earlier in the darkness. Radagast bagged the book, and torched the rest of the books that mostly contained unholy texts and worse.

Next Radagast and Cassandra went to the double doors at the end of the corridor, while the woman backed up into the previous room. Behind the door was a circular room with altar, and a magical circle engraved to the floor. In the middle of it and old man was standing, covered with flames, desperately trying to kill himself with a dagger. It wasn't doing any good though, since there was no blood coming out of the wound, which closed immediately after the dagger was withdrawn. Cassandra took pity on him and swung her greatsword in big arc, slicing the old man in half. The flames disappeared, but the fiery demon appeared again. It held a dark gem next to the old man's body, and for the briefest instant the stone flickered, after which the demon also disappared. Radagast recognized the demon had used some kind of soul stone to capture the necromancer's soul. No doubt he would find the relief from pain a brief moment indeed. Luckily the demon did not stay to reprimand Cassandra of her behavior.

There did not appear to be anything of interest in the circular room, so Radagast asked Cassandra to consecrate the place. During the ceremony the altar stone broke in half.

Radagast reasoned that since they had not found any money, it had to be hidden somewhere in the living quarters. They went back, and this time Radagast found a loose tile under the bed. In the small hole he found a bag of gold pieces, 2 vials and a shief of papers, including a still usable letters of credit to House Schwertkauf worth 50 gold. It appeared it had been written to the name of Cloren, which was apparently the name of the dead necromancer.

As they went to meet with the woman they found she had taken her own life. Radagast noticed that she seemed to be carrying a soul stone, which he took in order to send it to his parents who could take it to Keepers of the Dead. The body they would took to the temple for burning.

Weary but satisfied that the necromancer threat was no more, the friends went to report to Alayn. He only asked that they not mention there was still a demon loose. Alayn promised to take care of the creatures still under the tavern in the locked rooms.

Alayn also mentioned he was giving Eomric's tower to Wolfrig, a man who had apparently served his uncle before as an enchanter.

No specific reward was given, but it was obvious Alayn owed a big favor...

Continue...