A New Assignment, Part II
After checking the "adherer" and its surrounding room for anything lootworthy, I checked the next set of stairs going deeper into the crypt. Sure enough, there were small holes, just big enough to allow spears to pop out, lining both walls. You know that saying that "Many hands make light work"? If I weren't a proper lady () I'd tell you exactly what I thought of THAT little ditty. I let Eyra take the lead in disarming the thing, and I knelt down to help. She pulled one way, I pulled another, and for some reason Davelek came charging onto the staircase yelling, "I can help, too!" Next thing you know all three of us are enjoying our newfound perforations. Between Davelek and Blackwing, I marvel that we're still alive.
Eyra patched us up all right, but Davelek took a host of healing; apparently he hadn't bothered to mention just how badly the adherer had hurt him. But she did quip that we wouldn't be having to worry about having extra charges left in our wand once we were done with this little sortie. Oh, good.
We made it down the rest of the staircase without further incident (thank the gods!), and found a weird room with a long stone table and a couple of brass urns in it. Eyra and I poked around a bit, and we discovered the "Off" switch for the staircase. Good to know for our way out -- assuming Davelek wouldn't find some way to disable IT. Even though there was a wide passage leading into an even bigger room to the east, the group agreed with my approach of always following the left wall. I find it more sinister. Hey! Even a girl from Riddleport gets SOME education, you know!
As we pressed forward, we caught site of movement ahead of us. Another swarm! And this time it was made up of... cats!?!??!
Yes. Now I was sure I'd seen everything, as a tangle of hundreds of furry bundles of claws and teeth came tumbling towards us. I warned Eyra to step back, but being Eyra, she stood her ground, obviously intent on doing something magical and unfortunate to the kitties. Much as I hated to do it, I prepared a flask of alchemist's fire to show them what-for. As usual, Blackwing did his song-and-dance of, "I can controoooooool you!"
But this time, the cats listened!!!!!
As the cats calmed down and herded around us, you could see that they really were dead. Hundreds and hundreds of little dead cats. All obeying a big black bird. Yeah, my world view is upside-down. Plus, I had a flask of primed-but-unused alchemist's fire in my hands. I guess I wouldn't be going near any torches, nor doing any fighting any time soon. We rearranged the party with the cats in front and proceeded.
OK. I'm lying.
Blackwing made the cats dance. He made them sing. He tried to make them carry his stuff. He tried to make them carry him. We stood there for a good 5 minutes while Blackwing tried everything he could think of with his poor undead horde. Eyra smiled and even laughed a couple of times at his antics. Davelek guffawed. I have to admit, it was pretty cute. In a sick, twisted, necromancer-y sort of way. But he petted the cats and forced them to purr for him, and objected strenuously when I suggested that THEY take point. Fortunately, when I pointed out that they were already dead, so could hardly come to harm, and if they died, meh, he could find other toys, he cheered up and let them take the lead.
The passage we were following arced around and joined the big room we'd seen before. This big room was another big disappointment. It seemed only partially-finished, as there were half-dug passages leading out from all sides of it. The cats (and then I) searched all the dead ends and found... nothing. We checked the torch holders, the stone tables, everything. We found nothing. The only way to proceed was down a short flight of steps to a pair of stone double doors. There was no writing on the doors. No traps. No locks. I was getting less and less hopeful that we'd find anything at all in this crypt. On the other hand, Blackwing had his cats, and he was happily clucking away at them as they made their horrifically-distorted meows back at him. Nothing like necromancer "cuteness" to make you ponder missing a meal. But that's crazy talk!
We opened the door and found the tomb proper. Some guy named Pentheru the Younger. Eyra read all the hieroglyphs all around the room, all about his life and times and this and that and the other thing. She noticed that Pentheru the Younger was obviously a LOT more popular than Pentheru the Elder. All I knew was that I still had an active flask of boom in my hands, and I was itching to find something undead to gift it to.
Before we set to looting exploring proper, Eyra used Detect Magic around the room. There was something in the sarcophagus. Good! Looked like we'd be getting some loot after all! We opened the sarcophagus and there was a brief moment of anxiety but... nothing. There was Pentheru, buried with his favorite cat or something. Eyra Detected Magic again and whatever had been in there was gone. We'd set off something, and now it was just a matter of time to find out what.
Pantherho the Younger was obviously not a rich man. We took his funerary mask and pendant, but took pity on the poor guy and didn't bother scraping the gold or prying the gems off his sarcophagus. At the end of the day, he really didn't have much worth anything, so we sealed him back up in his coffin, Eyra took some notes on his life, and we headed back up to the surface.
By miracle, we remembered to flip the switch to deactivate the spear trap before we went up.
Now that we were done with poor Pootenanny the Kid's tomb, we figured it was time to loot his house. Once again, the door was untrapped and unlocked. I was pretty thankful, considering my hands were still full, but I was starting to wonder about security in old Wati. NO ONE in Riddleport left their doors unlocked; not even the criminally insane! There was a nice courtyard in the center of the house, but again I chose the direction for the group, and we went... left. Blackwing's cats trotted into a pretty nice (but pretty stinky) dining room without incident, but as Davelek and I stepped in, four heads rose from the table to menace us. Finally! I gave them the gift of fire. Blackwing gave them the gift of hundreds of happy undead cats getting to pounce on floaty heads in the air. I have no idea what they'd intended to do; talk to us or bite us or invite us to dinner. They didn't last long enough to do much of anything. If they'd had eyes, I think they would have looked a bit astonished at how poorly things went for them. Blackwing said he'd researched the things and they were called "Beheaded" and they could breathe fire and scream and do all kinds of nasty things, so I was just as happy to watch the undead kitties gnawing on their now-motionless forms. The dining room proved a bit more profitable, with silver plates and goblets worth a tidy sum, but as always, they'd hidden the silver. What IS it about nobles and silverware? "Should I hide my firstborn or the silverware?" "The silver, darling! Of COURSE you hide the silver!"
My extensive searching came to naught -- I couldn't find that darned silverware anywhere. So I took their plates and goblets just to spite them.
The next room along was a lesser dining room. Still no silverware!
Eyra, probably fed up with my obsession with eating utensils, suggested we approach the courtyard. As usual, Blackwing sent his cats in first. I was towards the back when I heard a woman's voice in Common call out, "What are all these cats doing in my house?!?!!"
I know a cue when I hear one, and vanished behind the wall so whoever "she" was wouldn't see me.
Eyra, far more diplomatic than I, greeted the woman in return. She identified herself as the "spirit of the house". She and Eyra managed to exchange pleasantries for a good 30 seconds before Eyra asked, "Is there anything we can do for you?", and the woman responded, "You can DIE!!!!"
She did... somethingorother and we all felt sleepy for a moment, but we all snapped out of it as Blackwing's cats swarmed over the woman and Eyra slashed it so hard it made my ears ring. Note to self: Never get Eyra angry while she's exchanging pleasantries. It's... bad. There was no room in the doorway to engage, so I started going around. However, Eyra hit it again, Davelek was laying into it, and the cats were all over it, so by the time I made it around there was nothing left to fight but... a pile of sand.
Ah, well. All's well that ends well, I guess. I wonder what the heck she was?
Awwwww, the poor kitties got mummified. At least they're exacting some payback on the bastiches that turned them undead.
*poke*
The problem with letting a 12-year-old start an AP is that the 12-year-old is extremely likely to lose interest rather rapidly.
I've been prodding him a bit to run us again, but so far no luck.
And now he started GM'ing a kids-only (literally -- NobodysWife and I are out, so the oldest person in the house is 15) game on Sundays.
I was really looking forward to seeing how Red played out. On paper she's a disaster. In-game she rolled like a madwoman, and proved unbelievably effective.
Ah, well, I do write up whenever he runs, but I suspect that campaign may be D.O.A.
That is a shame, NBH. Better luck next time, eh? :)
That is a shame, NBH. Better luck next time, eh? :)
Yep. I'd love to get in more playing and less GM'ing, but there are only two of us who actually enjoy GM'ing, so it's hard.
Once I wrap up a couple of the APs I'm running maybe someone else will take the helm...