Khumla appears distraught as she thinks, "Soma is a Mummy Lord. Even if you defeat him in battle, you must be able to Consecrate, Hallow, and Dispel Evil from the remains lest he rise again. His one weakness is acid, as it burns through his defenses. I can hurt him only if I can get near him, but I dare not approach him as he has the power to bind me to his will. If you are desperate for my help, I will take that chance"
"Well, we can't do most of those things."
"A mummy lord?!" says Selja in surprise. "Those are powerful blessin's yer talkin' bout--beyond anythin' I could do even as a faithful of Shelyn. Unless I could get myself a scroll . . ." She suddenly wonders if they had gotten in over their heads.
"Yeah, that's not gonna happen any time soon. We've got that wand of Corrosive Touch, I guess? But it isn't a full suite of mummy-be-gone spells. He'd just come back if melt him, right?"
"I don't know any songs about mummies."
You do know you have some connections to some temples back in Belhaim.
Fench grinds the butt of her axe handle into the stone floor "I say we take him out."
"Whatever you wish to do, Princess," Liamae acquiesces.
"How long would it take before he'd come back?" asks Selja. If it was slow enough, they could try taking the remains back to a priest powerful enough to put it down for good.
"You will have at least one full day to sanctify the remains and cast out the evil from them," answers Khumla.
You are within a day's trek through the woods somewhere east of Belhaim.
"I think we'd better get ready again before fightin' such a creature. Maybe get our magics back. How close is he? Where will we find him?"
"Seems like it would be ill-advised to go to all the trouble of fighting an enemy that will just come back, knowing our tactics and abilities," says Túrante. She pauses to consider momentarily, then continues, "If we're going to do this, we have to make sure that we have the means to finish it. We can't just go into a fight and then hope that we can find the materials we need afterward."
"Agreed. I don't want to end up undead... no offense."
Selja nods. Discretion was the better part of valor, as they say. "I'm sorry, spirit. We're comin' back, but if Lord Soma is as strong as he sounds, we're gonna need ta make sure we can put him down fer good."
She turns to the others. "Back to the surface, then?"
The ghost to Khumla resumes her quiet weeping as she sinks back into the corner, her apparition fading into the shadows.
As the conversation comes to a close, a door at the southern end of the chamber is thrown open and three more of the skeletal serpentfolk guards file into the room.
The first skeleton moves around the corner and stabs at an offguard Selja with spear!
A squickening sound is heard as the spear plunges into Selja's abdomen.
Selja's eyes widen in shock as she's stabbed!
"Fall back! I’ll handle it!" shouts Fench, as she steps forward in front of Moira, drawing an attack from the skeleton as she does.
The two trade blows, each effectively blocking the other.
Liamae moves towards the back door and telekinetically launches a rock at the skeleton.
Careful not to hit her friends, she misses her mark.
The next skeleton moves into the room and stabs at Fenchurch!
Fench takes a hit!
Moira backs up and starts singin' backup.
Túrante steps at an angle and draws her blade to assist in fighting the skeletons directly.
Selja pulls out her morningstar and tries to smack the skeleton that just speared her.
;
She then takes a step back from the action.
Moira warbles, "Add one to attack and damaaaagge because you're feelin' braaaave!"
Selja and Turante take turns hitting the first skeleton.
One more skeleton enters the room and charges toward Fenchurch, spear first!
But first, Fench gets a swing.
Her greataxe smashes into the skeleton, but it isn't enough to stop its charge.
Fench gets speared once more!
The first skeleton attacks Turante with spear and fang!
Fench tries to finish off one skeleton.
She crushes it into dust, and takes a step back.
Liamae sends another rock flying into the heat of battle!
The rock sails overhead and smashes into a wall!
The last skeleton advances on Fench!
Fenchurch looks like she's one hit from going down!
Túrante grimaces as the skeleton's spear rebounds off of her magical defenses and puts her on her back foot, ruining her counterstrike.
Moira decides that taking a skeleton out of the fight might be worth a try. She summons all her best skeletal humor and uses her Dirge Bard powers to cast Hideous Laughter on the least-damaged skelly. The bizarre combination of bardic and necromantic energies released is perhaps more impressive than the material...
"I bet nothing gets under your skin. But these puns ought to tickle your funny bone! Get it? Use your brain! Wait wait, I'll think of something... humerus!"
"Shelyn protect us!" Selja calls to her goddess to keep the party standing, especially Fenchurch!
Túrante misses with her backswing and Moira hurls a few jokes at the rear skeleton.
It's a strange sight to see, but the skeletal serpentfolk warrior falls to the floor, holdings its ribcage in a fit of uncontrollable ...laughter? I mean, it lacks vocal cords so its jaws are just kind of clacking.
With a burst of light, Selja keeps the fight in our fighters.
The first skeleton continues its assault on Túrante!
What healing was provided by Selja is quickly undone as a serpentine neck extends and curved fangs sink into elven princess flesh.
Liamae keeps trying to help the only way she can!
Fenchurch decides to go after the bigger threat!
She crushes another skeleton beneath her axe.
The last remaining skeleton tries to regain composure.
The jaws stop clacking.
The princess tries to finish off the prone skeleton and misses.
Selja moves up and also goes after the once-laughing skeleton!
;
It's not as easy as it looks!
Moira darts forward and gives the skelly a two-handed chop:
You'd think a prone skeleton would be easy to hit!
Moira finally gets one in, but her blade isn't as effective as one would hope.
Liamae holds off mentally flinging another rock until she has a better target.
Fench tries to finish the skelly off.
Show off.
Well, that's the end of that threat.
The group proceeds to follow their agreed upon plan and get the heck out of here. They cross the large central hall and back up the long rubble strewn ramp to the levels above. They climb the central stairway and eventually make their way back to Thaena's chamber. The mysterious lunar naga is awake. It must be night out.
Selja is thankful to have escaped. She calls for Shelyn to restore health to the party.
It takes most of her remaining miracles, but the party is healthy again.
"Thaena--there are lots o' undead downstairs. Undead serpentfolk actually. Have you ever heard of someone called Lord Soma the Pale? It seems he was once an evil serpentfolk priest, and is now a Mummy Lord! We're not ready for it yet, but we'll be back once we get some help."
Thaena redirects Selja's attention to the sacrificial slab at the center of her chamber, and the carvings of constellations on the wall.
"Yesss, I am aware of the Sekmin who built thissss temple long ago and their worship of the moon as manifessstation of their sssserpent god. I have faced the undead below, but I have no desssssire to delve any deeper. My only sssssolace is with the sssstars, so I will sssstay close to the ssssssurface. I know not of thisss Lord Soma, but if you sssseek my aid, I will try to help. I do sssssense the pressssence of another of my kind deep below, and I do not wish to impede upon her territory"
Previous conversations with Thaena, over a year ago real time :D
Selja nods. "We'll take a break here, then, figure out what we're gonna do next."
Moira takes a deep breath. "What a day." She reloads her longsword with a casting of Chill Touch. Shaking the cold out of her fingertips, she lays out her bedroll and yawns. "I'm hungry, but I might be sleepier than hungry."
But after a quick nap, she helps prepare a simple delver's dinner before turning in for a good, long rest.
After checking in with Thaena, the party beds down her lair, the ruins of a sacrificial chamber at the top of an ancient, buried serpentfolk temple, with the lunar naga watching over them.
You awoke and delved deeper into the Thaena's Temple of Solitude. Picking up where you left off you opened the doors that were cold to the touch to reveal a mass burial pit, filled with rime covered humanoid bones. The pit turned out to be the home of a huge undead ooze that spit out fully formed human skeletons! But you took care of that with relative ease. Next you opened the stuck door to the west to reveal a partially collapsed room inhabited by a large spider corpse. The spider corpse sprung to life, animated by swarms of tiny spiders within. It was a nasty fight, but you prevailed. Past the spider was a tunnel that sloped deeper into the earth. At the bottom you found a twisted hallway and discovered a storage room of sorts, with some magical items within. The hallway opened up into a long, once opulent central hall, decked with statuary, tattered tapestries and towering columns in the form of twisting serpents. At the end of the magnificent wall sat an empty throne. The hall was otherwise occupied by skeletal serpentfolk sentries, who seems unmoved by your presence. Moira threw up an illusory wall, but this alerted a few sentries who then attacked. After defeating them, you crossed the hall to a dark dungeon. There you met the ancient ghost Khumla, who informed you of her plight and begged you to defeat Lord Soma the Pale, the Serpentfolk Mummy Lord, so that she could finally be set free. You agreed, but decided you would need to be properly equiped for such a task. After being attacked by more sentries, you retreated back to the surface.
You awake, rested and ready to trek back to Belhaim.
It's been a couple of days since you've last seen the sky, and it takes a moment to adjust to even the dappling light filtering down from the thick canopy of the forest overhead.
Selja spends the evening painting a scene of starlight filtering through the ruins.
She frowns as it isn't quite as nice as she hoped. But she leaves it for Thaena anyway.
"Ready ta go? Let's hope we find the help we need in Belhaim! I think we oughta take the most direct route west--shouldn't be that hard."
She channels health into her protective cloak (storing 10HP in cloak), then heals herself.
Moira says, "I have zero survival skills. You really don't want me pathfinding for us. Fench?"
"Oh, I can handle this. Growin' up around orcs means you gotta learn this sort o' thing."
And so before even letting someone else get a word in edgewise, she begins leading the way through the woods.
"I'm a fair hand in the forest as well."
"I'll just stick close, then. Thanks!"
M. hums to herself while keeping her eyes on her two companions who glide through the forest with ease.
I have no idea where I am right now, but I'm ok with that.
Selja and Turante do a fantastic job ranging through the woods. You travel through some hilly terrain, heavily forested, obviously, until you come across the Rogue Creek, which you able to easily follow until you cross a footbridge to walls of the small town of Belhaim. Other than typical, benign, sometimes friendly wildlife, no danger is encountered.
Fenchurch, Moira, Liamae, Selja, and Túrante emerge from the woods, tired, dirty, but on a mission. As they pass through the eastern gates of Belhaim, they are stopped by the guards. "Sorry there misses, but we're gonna need to take this one in," they motion to Fenchurch, although seem intimidated by the green knight, "Turns out you've got a number of open warrants for yer arrest, for crimes committed in the Verduran Province and abroad." Fenchurch shrugs and puts up no resistance as the guards slap a pair of manacles on her wrists.
"Oh, and uh, Milady Baroness Devy wants a word with the rest of ye." He shouts over his shoulder as he escorts Fenchurch off to jail.
The two of you have shared the road for a while. Circumstances had you visiting a newly established post on the Taldan side of the Sellen River, in the Verduran Province. There you met with the Marquis Markus Lambert to deliver him a trade contract. He regretfully informed you that he could not fulfill the contract until a certain treaty was amended and ratified, which he assured was in process. He confided that his trusted men sent to gather the signatures necessary for ratification were running behind schedule and he worried for their safety. The Verduran Forest is a very wild and dangerous frontier. So, you agree to track down his men and make sure they finish the task, for a fee.
You follow their trail south to the naval fortress on the Isle of Arenway and find they had met with the Rear Admiral there and had been successful in collecting his signature. Then they left by barge up the Verduran Fork toward Belheim, and so you follow them there.
On this day, you reach the town of Belhaim from the west. A quaint, quiet place, stoicly holding back the verdant growth of the surrounding forest, although it seems the forest is on the verge of reclaiming it. A local points you toward the Wise Piper, the nearest tavern, and so you head there first.
"And I'm sure we'll want a word with her--Fenchurch saved our lives out there, more than once, and I won't just stand around and see her thrown in jail."
Moira is bone tired, but the fact that she's almost worn to the bone just serves to remind her that she's not a skeletal undead at the moment--thanks to the lumberjack, among others.
Chuckling to himself for the tenth time, "I still can't believe that he refers to himself as the "rear admiral." I mean, I can understand if others call him that behind his back, but to call himself that? It's too much."
Looking around the small town, he spies the tavern. "It looks as though we might finally catch up to our quarry. Then we can escort them to get the rest of the signatures and head back for our payment. I think that Marquis Markus Lambert might have a few more jobs for us. This could lead to us being the 'go to people' for all the local nobility!"
Zeetri is walking, well, swaggering down the main thoroughfare as if he were a wild west cowboy, until a his overgrown skinless chicken nudges his leg and causes him to stumble.
"Stop it you stupid Lizard! First impressions are important. If you don't want to look fearsome, you can stay outside."
Back under control, "So, Goldilocks, Are you planning to stick around in this area? I think that the two of us...oof...three of us could make a formidable team!"