7/15/08 Journal of Sereck
The horses had been left well back from the latest village as the party approached to allow them to move more silently. Paladin that I am, I had to smile to myself in certainty that Cabal was still cursing the noise the I was making, but I am neither tiny like the human nor wearing a modified dress, plate armor was noisy and there was no getting around it! Even so, I moved as quietly as possible towards the next village. The other two had been abandoned, but I was certain our luck would not hold forever, and the smoke we had seen in the distance did not bode well for any villagers that had stayed behind.
The trees didn’t thin very much, but suddenly the outlines of village huts could be seen through the foliage. I could also now smell the smoke through the plants around me overpowering the smell of wet plants, there must be a great deal of smoke to do that. Duncan held up his hand flat and then into a fist, one of the few hand signals the dwarf had taken the time to teach the party as we all halted in mid step. He then motioned for everyone to get low, this was not good. He wanted us to sneak. I just stood there motionless as the others quietly moved around me, that was my best tactic for being quiet. At least I thought they did, I hadn’t seen Orrin for minutes now, and Cabal was about as hard to find. Only Kernosh was easy to see, his unmistakable silhouette easily recognizable against the trees. Besides, he was huge; you just can’t hide that much dragonborn!
Finally I decided to move closer, very slowly. The flames producing the smoke were visible now, and the dwarf’s eyes were large as he looked back for confirmation of what he was seeing. I nodded back indicating I’d seen his head movement, the flames were purple tinged, and that meant more necromantic magic was being used. This was going to be another bad fight, but I was ready. Sticking his neck forward and looking, I counted six humans standing in the center of the village. They encircled a pile of dead bodies, unfortunate villagers most likely, and the purple flame seemed to dance over their defiled corpses.
I snorted in disgust; one of the humans was obviously a cleric, the Bane holy symbol held in his hand as he chanted. Another looked like a magical caster of some type, while the others were fighters. Probably protectors of the first two as it became obvious that the group was performing a ritual of some kind. We look at each other as Orrin and Cabal appeared out of the woods next to us. I didn’t even notice their approach. We nod in unspoken agreement as our gaze goes back to the group of humans, they must be stopped. The urgency is felt by all of us observing their actions; we have to interrupt the ceremony.
“How much time do we have?” asked Duncan in a low rumbling of a whisper. Kernosh shrugs his shoulders in reply as does Orrin; it’s not their field of expertise. I look at Cabal and see he’s listening intently to the ritual, I can barely hear it but I get what he’s doing, trying to determine if they just started or are about to finish. I look at the divine ritual of evil, it was a summoning or some such, I was certain, and it looked like they were just beginning. I did not know much about rituals, but I’d seen enough.
“We have maybe ten minutes, it looks as though they have just begun…”I tell the group. They all look to Cabal, who nods his head in agreement. I am momentarily taken aback, that they trusted his knowledge to mine, but I let it go. Plenty of time to be upset later.
Now having a time table to work with, Kernosh motions we should move. He must not like the position we are in to attack from.
“I want to get closer, maybe if we go around the outside, use the buildings for cover,” says Kernosh. I shrug, fighting is fine, but my knowledge of tactics is not as good as either his or Duncan’s.
As a group, again with me in the trail position, we move around the small village. We get much closer, but it takes almost all of the ten minutes to get into position. Smart though, I wasn’t too confident of my abilities with the new crossbow that I had picked up, best if we get as close as possible in my mind. As we get closer, coming from around the huts, Cabal points to the cleric and the mage, identifying the key targets. Everyone agrees. I realize I can actually hear the low murmur of the voices. I listen, most of the words are incomprehensible to me, but they seem to be building, we had to move fast. Before I could say anything to suggest as much, Duncan releases a stone from his sling. I suddenly see why, one of the bodies is glowing a bright green; something is about to happen from the summoning!
I decide to stay close to the dwarf; maybe we can surround the enemy and improve my chances of hitting. I throw my javelin as the attack begins; it hits the cleric in the shoulder, a nice solid hit.
“Attack men, they are trying to stop Bane’s plan!” yells the cleric as he points in our direction. From above the villager’s corpse, a glowing green skull manifests itself. The mage points in our direction, and the bodiless skull floats in our direction, a pale green mist trailing behind as it comes to our position.
The group starts moving closer as the humans respond to the attack. I can sense Cables magic, although I’m not sure what he was doing. More arrows fly out from our team, as I pause to load the crossbow and shoot. Another hit, I almost stand still amazed the bolt hit its target. Suddenly Duncan moves forward as the warriors are now in our midst.
“Ow! Oh you shall pay for that cur!” proclaims Kernosh from behind me. Duncan had moved away but I could clearly hear Kernosh cursing. I turn and see blood flowing from him, one of the cursed humans had hit him a solid blow. Remembering last time, I rush to his side and call forth the power of Bahamut to heal his wounds. It isn’t much, but I see him stand up straighter afterwards. Good. Just as I was feeling confident of my healing, lightning racks my body. My chest feels tight for a second then releases.
As I look back at the mage, a large explosion echo’s in the buildings off to the north…the skull had cast some sort of fireball! Immediately the others close on the skull, identifying him as the greater target. I see the cleric off with two of the warriors, obviously archers, protecting him. As I begin to wonder if I should leave the party I am suddenly filled with the blessing of Bahamut, energy filling me and making me feel stronger. It was Kernosh, some sort of blessing. Wonderful, that blessing would have helped everyone, this would be my chance.
I race towards the cleric, his hands swishing in the air in front of him. I close to attack, and manage to get a small hit on his shoulder with my axe. Fortunately, I am not finished, as I test out my new improved dragonbreath. I exhale in a billowing cloud of electrical discharge, and with my new range, I am able to hit both of the archers as well. They drop! I am left only with the single caster in front of me. Behind me I hear sounds of fighting, and a gleeful yell from Orrin. I grin; it must have been a pretty good hit for him to call out attention to himself.
I swing the great axe as I dodge whatever spell he was casting my direction and manage to connect. It is a solid blow, right at the base of his neck. The cleric’s eyes grow wide as he realizes his death is upon him, and before he can utter a single curse, he falls to the ground. I pull my axe out of his body and turn to see where I can next be of assistance, and almost fall to the ground as a large concussion goes off of fire and smoke. Another fireball, and possibly cast upon itself? I move towards the group and see everyone still standing, although visibly shaken.
“It blew up? You have to be kidding me…” mumbles Duncan. Then I understand, the energy of the skull released when he attacked it. Dangerous. We were fortunate there was only the one. I see only bodies of the humans lying on the ground, we were victorious over the evil followers of Bane.
“Does anyone need any assistance?” I ask of the party, as a few nods come to my attention. Except for Orrin, who managed to not only avoid getting hit, but wasted no time at all beginning his searching of the fallen humans. I almost had no time to finish his bandages as Cabal hurriedly jumped to assist the Eladrin in the search. I’d noticed that before, the two seemed to be very good with finding things.
I was finishing the last bandaging of Duncan when a sound had all of us turning around. From out of one of the huts, some very sorry looking villagers came stumbling in our direction. They looked terrible, suffering from smoke and fire damages. I rushed to their sides to aid them, as Duncan and Kernosh approached and administered water and tried to calm the terrified group. After a few minutes, they seemed to be as fine as they were going to get, as they told Kernosh of their hiding since they did not leave the village fast enough.
“We got a message, but the defender that brought the message said he saw some ruins with draconic script on it. Then he died, defending us when these people came. I think he came from the east, but I’m not certain.” says one of the villagers as he explains their situation.
“From the east huh?” says Kernosh “Sounds like something we should check out. If for no other reason than to determine if there are more humans there summoning skulls and such. Think you can track them back to where they came from Duncan?”
“Locating a trail made by one human running at full speed through the woods being chased by six more? That shouldn’t be a problem. What of the others, are they finished? And what about these villagers?” asks Duncan.
Kernosh looks at the villager who had talked the most, “We just came from that direction, from Glenmaple. We passed two other empty villages, and saw no more humans of Bane or goblins, do you think you can make it back on your own? It’s about a twelve mile hike.”
“Yes,” answers the villager, as he looks at his companions. They all look tired, but nod their heads in agreement. “We can head out after you start heading east, after we get some supplies. If they have not all burned up in the fires these evil men started.” Two of the humans went back to the hut they had come out of, and were carrying three makeshift packs, apparently they had been almost ready to leave before the ambush happened.
Looking at the other two members of our party, I noticed that Orrin and Cabal had dragged the bodies over to where one of the village huts was burning, and were tossing them onto the fire. A small pile of gear had been set up, obviously the things they had found worth keeping. The others followed me as we walked over to the pile of goods. I recognized the staff the mage had held, and a long sword. They had also left the bane amulet from the cleric and some small daggers and bags of what must be coins and such. I picked up the evil item and looked closely at it. Yes, strong magic radiated from it. I decided I would ask the others if I could try and change it to a symbol of Bahamut, I’d mention it later.
“So what do you think about the ceremony Cabal?” I asked the mage, who was looking intently at the staff that he had obviously claimed. It was covered in lightning runes, and I could tell he was looking at it intently. Even so, without even looking up, he answered my question.
“I’m not certain. I think that given there were four more bodies, we were lucky he didn’t summon four more skulls.” I looked at the burning remnants of the villagers bodies, and had to agree.
“I think there was more to the ceremony than that, as if the skulls were only the first part, your thoughts?” I asked the wizard.
“Yes, I think so too. Whatever the next part was going to be, you can bet it wasn’t going to be anything we would want to have happen,” says Cabal.
I nod in agreement. It takes only a few moments to divide up the silver and items of worth and to catch Orrin and Cabal up to speed on the plan to head east. They allow me to keep the holy symbol, as I notice I can probably scrape the bane symbol off with nothing more than a knife and some time. The villagers walk up and thank us as they head off in the direction we had come from. We follow them as far as our horses, and then bid them farewell.
Walking to the east of the village, it takes Duncan just a few minutes to determine the path into the woods to follow. The messenger had been running hard and had not tried at all to hide his path, neither had his pursuers. After about 3 miles of slow riding, we see some ruins in the woods.
“How many hidden places exist in this forest?” asks Cabal. I had to agree, this forest held many secrets. We do not see any guards or sentries, but we still move off the horses and move silently into the area with them tied up beyond site of the ruins. The place looks undisturbed, and we look to Duncan to explain how the path could come from here if the place looks like nobody has been here. Duncan just shrugs in reply, “Maybe they ran past the ruins and we should just ignore them? I can look around the other side to see if I can find another path.” He says to the group.
But the ruins look old. And upon further exploration, they look Draconic. I can even recognize some of the words and phrases, and the script on the walls seems to be based on Draconic, but it’s not correct. It is the consensus of the group that it is some old outdated draconic language.
The architecture of the buildings is quite different than the goblin structures.
Casting comprehend-languages, Cabal can tell that a group of dragonborn lived here long ago. They knew about cults to dark gods and the Orc civilization. This place had been a small temple outpost that was fighting back the Orcs. Even while Cabal was relating his tale, we continued to walk among the ruins and eventually find stairs that go down into what could be crypts or catacombs. We are of course eager to see if this is where the humans had been, and go down the stairs.
There is a sarcophagus and a raised alters in the room. There are 2 stone doors directly across the way and the draconic script over the doors. The draconic script over the doors says to Cabal who can still comprehend-languages “this is the way”. The writing on the sarcophagus says “here lays the hero who died protecting the temple.” Orrin insists he is not going through a door that says “this is the way.” His contention is that is the way to go if we want to die quickly in a trap. Nobody argues with his logic.
The area looks as if it has not been disturbed. Talking about this, the group agrees the Bane followers did not come from here, but that the place is just too exciting to pass up without searching. Always interested in Dragonborne lore, I too cannot wait to explore this temple of my ancestors. For a brief instant, I even wonder if the mighty warrior would be willing to part with a weapon that he may have been buried with, to continue fighting in the name of Bahamut. But I brush the thought away, if that is what he truly wanted, it would have been written on the sarcophagus.
More writings on the temple say “those in the know will perceive the treasure.” This seems to get Orrin and Cabals attention. Cabal seems to be very interested in monetary gains, and complains often of the expense of being a wizard. I am certain nothing will deter these two from searching. There is a pentagram on the floor opposite from the sarcophagus. I sense the pentagram is inscribed in a defensive manner, but there seem to be a couple of the runes around the edge that indicate illusion. I decide to enter it, because for some odd reason Cabal is standing there hesitant to go in.
There is a sense of calm as I enter the pentagram. It is obviously consecrated to Bahamet, it hasn’t been found or desecrated up to this day. I inform the others who follow me in.
Kernosh prays at Bahamut’s alter. I had never seen him pray before, but maybe he is just feeling overwhelmed by the old temple. Apparently, while praying, he sees a rune that can be pressed, presses it, and opens the secret door.
Cabal suddenly runs over to the door and says it’s safe. Kernosh walks into the trap head first, getting pinned against the wall from the spears holding him in place that sprang out the side of the wall. We try to move the spears but cannot. Orrin moves carefully through the hallway, disables the traps for everyone to get through and releases Kernosh, who is more embarrassed than injured, and mentions that next time Cabal can enter first after saying it is safe.
Searching some more, Orrin finds a door and a keyhole, but it’s locked and he thinks there are no traps. Cabal also says there are no traps. Orrin unlocks the door easily and opens it. There seems to be another dead end, as all that is there is an empty room.
Felling unsure of his trap finding abilities, Cabal uses thunder wave on the floors. It reveals multiple pit traps, 30 feet deep with spikes at the bottom. We look at each other and discuss the use of this action, but everone agrees, for all these traps to be here, something must be at the end of the trail. We continue.
They eventually find a secret door. It opens into a long hallway. The hallway has alternating spikes all the way down it. Not wanting to wait, Kernosh walks down the hallway and looks into the room at the end. Suspended in the center of the room are 12 cages, just hanging from the ceiling. Open bottom cages, 10’x10’ spread around the room. Cabal suddenly thinks the hallway traps will activate if someone goes in the room, so Kernosh says he will go in solo.
Everyone backs up as Kernosh moves into the room and promptly sets off a fire trap. He moves out of the way, and a 2nd fire trap goes off. Kernosh runs out of the room, and comes lumbering back to the group…smoldering. Nobody is laughing.
Orrin moves in and he looks at the pointed out trap, figures out how to move without setting it off. Orrin marks the trap with chalk. Cabal comes up to help, steps on a trap, air pushes him under a cage, and it drops on top of him. The cage is made of bronze, but in good shape. Everyone else moves into the room full of traps wondering if this is all worth it. We contemplate our next move and how to release Cabal as we look around the room.
Check-Point reached, Save-game.
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