Gromff finally turns his attention to the figure in black but the sound of approaching, or crawling, evil from the sides draws him back to the surroundings. And now, with the fog, he can't be sure of anything out there. "Stay in the circle. They'll be weaker if they're forced to fight on hallowed ground," he says to the sailors. When they gather around he lifts his weapon high as the head glows brilliantly. The light jumps to the weapons of the others. His armor too begins to glow with holy light, making the fog seem to recede around them.
You cannot consecrate an area with a similar fixture of a deity other than your own patron. Instead, the consecrate spell curses the area, cutting off its connection with the associated deity or power. This secondary function, if used, does not also grant the bonuses and penalties relating to undead, as given above.
...Any sight beyond arm's length is obscured in mere seconds, but not before the party sees a glossy-black figure materialize...
Roland wondered for a second why were not the sailors close to them yet. "Sailors! To the middle of the ship, NOW! Wizard can you do something about this mist?"
He keeps waiting until there's something actually close to him or his companions.
At the dwarf's words of wisdom and at barbarian's demand, some of the sailors above deck hustle to the middle of the ship where the warpriest's consecration magic was still actively providing protection against the forces of undead evil. The only ones who didn't heed the requests were the captain and a pair of his men standing at his side.
Yorst says out loud, "I'm stayin' at the helm so'z we don't run afoul. We're in for it now, boys!" He sounds a bit excited, as if his inner-adventurer had been rekindled!
Each weapon this spell affects each shines with pale light that dimly illuminates a 5-foot square. These weapons also ignore the DR of evil creatures that have DR 5 or lower, as long as the damage reduction is not DR/epic.
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The hurried footfalls of the sailors ceased, indicating their arrival to close proximity to the band of heroes, signalling the warpriest to finish his spell to bless nearby weapons to be light-lined disruptors of evil. As the winks of light flew off and illuminated everyone's handheld steel, the light they shed revealed to Roland a rapid coalesced blackness that formed into a hideous undead monstrosity, standing as tall as the barbarian but covered in articulated glossy black shell armor plating, appearing less like the work of a blacksmith but more like some unnatural organic covering. Where its right hand was should be protruded a long curved scythe blade, still wet with blood from its last kill.
The barbarian swung his earthbreaker in a savage arc, having waited for just such a monster to appear before him. Though the blow was perfectly aimed, the impact seemed to drag along its destructive path, lessening the power of the blow significantly.
With breath smelling of a thousand rotten corpses, the black plated warrior hisses at Roland...
Its eyes flared red while it sent waves of palpable evil in the vicinity, then followed up the dark assault with a slice from its scythe-hand.
Clawing up over the sides of the ship, a flurry of scratching and hustling can be heard as other minions join the fray.
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Roland does not get intimidated by the black figure, but quite the opposite. Lacking a dragon, any weirdo would be a good target to unleash his contained rage. It's been what? 30 days since they last had a fight? Probably, so the barbarian was concentrated on the current problem, but he tried to get rid of the minion first, before proceeding to the boss. He could see the man's weapon was dangerous, but all he could do was kill it fast before anything bad happens. "Loser is incorpoREAL!!" He enrages and tries for the minion first. If it kills it he turns the other attack at the boss. If not he keeps hitting the Wight until it dies no longer is able to bother him.
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Energy Drain (Su) This attack saps a living opponent's vital energy and happens automatically when a melee or ranged attack hits. Each successful energy drain bestows one or more negative levels (the creature's description specifies how many). If an attack that includes an energy drain scores a critical hit, it bestows twice the listed number of negative levels. Unless otherwise specified in the creature's description, a draining creature gains 5 temporary hit points for each negative level it bestows on an opponent. These temporary hit points last for a maximum of 1 hour. Negative levels remain until 24 hours have passed or until they are removed with a spell, such as restoration. If a negative level is not removed before 24 hours have passed, the affected creature must attempt a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 draining creature's racial HD + draining creature's Cha modifier; the exact DC is given in the creature's descriptive text). On a success, the negative level goes away with no harm to the creature. On a failure, the negative level becomes permanent. A separate saving throw is required for each negative level.
The saves only happen one day after the attack, if the negative level hasn’t been removed yet.
The sword glowing in her hands, the mage attacks putting all her not so great strength behind the attack.
Round 2
Gromff can barely make out what is going on through the fog but the black, armored undead is hard to miss. The warpriest charges his weapon with sacred energy, this time making it as insubstantial as the ghost before him. He takes shuffling step forward and swings with magically enhanced speed.
Veronica holds onto her weapon tightly, the air feeling stale and moldy with such a presence about. She waits as she hears a creature scrambling up the side of the boat, keeping her shield high and swinging the pick at the creature.
Veronica grimaces as the creatures claws slip past her shield and meet flesh, the grim touch of them making her feel even colder. She glances around, seeing more of the things crawling on deck. She drops her cloak and grips her weapon with both hands, stepping between two of the creatures and lashing out at them.
She glances at the sailors as her weapon whistles through the air, shouting "Leave these to me! Go help the old man and the Captain! Hurry!"
Veronica takes a swing at a climbing wight as it crests the ship’s edge, but the warpick swings wide. Gathering her wits about her, she lunges out with multiple well-aimed attacks, putting the business end of her pick into the bodies of wights – on opposite sides of the ship! The momentum of her final attack knocks one of the rotters back into the river from whence it came!
Roland unleashes a flurry of swipes with his hammer, moving it through air with terrifying speed. He smashes the 'undeath' out of a wight then deals a pair of heavy blows on the undead lord, smashing some of the armor plating covering most of its frame.
Catcher lands a deep cutting blow from her greatsword, damaging her wight combatant severely, but not quite enough to finish it.
Gromff further enchants his adamantine spiked mace in a flash, empowering it to damage incorporeal creatures as if they were solid. Stepping forward to meet the heinous abomination, he puts the weapon to work with a furious vengeance, his weapon passing right through the plate armor and smashing full-force into the black smoky monster underneath.
You’re suddenly reminded of two other times where you’ve seen this creature’s style of black-scale –
First was way back in the cave where Meldara escorted the refugees to in the mountains of the Everwood, where the devil-infant was slain; Second was only a few days later when the priestess of Ultruu was met at the gates of Sojourn.
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When the glowing morningstar wielded by the warpriest changed from the hardest substance known to dwarfkind into a ghostly form matching that of the undead, the black monster turned its full attention to this new, more dangerous opponent.
Its scythe hand sliced several times in quick succession, ripping the dwarf’s flesh open in a spray of hot blood. The blades cut very deeply, making a crunch-rip-splatter sound that made it clear that it was a potentially mortal wound.
Emboldened by the sacrilegious aura radiating from their master, the remaining wights didn't let up their assault...
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*Only applicable to anyone who has seen Darnoq up close, which so far is only Roland and Gromff*
This senator Darnoq is a variant of a dreaded undead lord called a graveknight.
These monsters wield unspeakable powers of undead control and have the ability to desecrate any holy site they are in close proximity to.
This particular graveknight is peculiar in that its inner true self is incorporeal.
"No one. Insults. Me..." Before he could finish the statement, he looks down to see the creatures fell blade stuck in his gut. "Peschanik," he curses in dwarven.
Damn! Although Gromff was stronger in defense than him, he couldn't take much punishment as Roland. It was dangerous to let the monster target him for more time, but there was nothing the barbarian could do about it. Wait! Of course there was!
"Good thing I'm not a priest!" He stepped to the side and tried to punish that monster as fast as he could, swing at it with all his might!
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The two nearby sailors needed little prodding, as they preferred to be on the move rather than await their fate in the swirling thick fog. Heeding the words of the paladin, they deftly moved through the familiar upper deck toward the back of the ship where their captain and fellow shipmates did battle with more undead spawn.
Round 3
With Dwarven grit and defiance, he yanks the blade from his gut and heals himself all in the same action. "FOR MOARDIN!" he roars in defiance as he swings yet again, desperation and faith giving him strength.
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Dwarven guts, she’d never seem it so close before, but now wasn’t the time to worry about such things.
Taking her chances, the mage click the bracers together boosting her defenses as she steps around the monster for a better positioning.
No matter the outcome, she mutters the chain words, shaping the power. Are undeads resistant to lightning? the thought crosses her mind, but there’s no time to worry about such things.
Extending her hands, she lets a ray of condensed energy cut open the space in front of her, hopefully destroying both enemies.
Veronica grits her teeth when she sees the blades rip through Gromff. For a moment she considering healing him, but her healing would be only a moment of respite considering the wickedness of those blades.
No, instead she would let the foul creature feel her righteous fury! Through gritted teeth she barks and both her forehead and weapon alight in a faint silver flame.
She lunges at the creature and swings again and again, the tip of her weapon doing its best to find spaces between the creatures dense plates.
One by one the heroic adventurers took their shots at the creature Darnoq - the barbarian chopping away with his earthbreaker, further cracking the shell-plated armor to pummel the monster underneath - the warpriest, grievously wounded, fearlessly pummeling the undead with his holy morningstar in face of certain death - the paladin, rushing to her friends' aid with warpick and a fervor, striking and striking again - the spellsword, conjuring her profound energies and focusing them into a bolt of lightning to be hurled at their common foe.
With all of the blows falling upon the monstrous undead lord in a matter of seconds, the overwhelming onslaught defeated the wretch, sending the articulated armor in a dead drop to the ship's deck, with black smoke seeping out with a hiss.
The wicked armor sat there stationary but ominous, almost as if it was a creature itself but had merely fallen over. But alas, no, it clearly was bereft of life...or unlife...with no direction and no smoky monster within to control it.
"FOR MOARDIN!"
Roland once again was disappointed. He wasn't even breathing heavy from the battle, since it was not very complicated after all. This time the barbarian don't even have to sit to catch his breath! "Common, the guy has been sleeping for like, ages, and all he can take is that? You gotta be kidding me, certainly his master is still lurking around, isn't he?"
From inside the mist (that probably had dissipated but we don't know) he calls out to the captain, checking if they are alright. "You still alive Yorst? Cause we've seen worst." Yes, he said that.
The bardbarian is excited about the big problem about that place being solved, but he starts to give crazy ideas. "So, why don't we take a closer look at this city and learn more about this freaking place?"
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The throaty growls of the undead still cut through the foggy melee despite the fall of their leader. Also heard were the sounds of melee as the sailors battled them.
"AARGh---" One of the men cried out but was cut short by his gurgling death rattle, followed by he and his cutlass slamming to the wood deck planks.
Rushing to their aid, the party cuts down the remaining wights just in time to see the fallen sailor's eyes light up with an evil red glow, then shoot up ready to commit murder -- that is until his skull is caved in by a glowing greatsword with Catcher on the other end.
As the group looks around the take stock of the situation, the fog thins out and quickly returns to a typical well-lit morning on the river. There do not appear to be any more apparent dangers though the black-scaled armor still hisses ominously, sending out a greasy smoke that seems to be floating in a less-than-random fashion, westward toward one half of the ruined city of Alladoza.
"What in the name of the gods just happened 'ere?" ...asked the captain to anyone willing to guess at an answer.
The articulated black scale armor plating doesn't appear to be able to be donned like any traditional armor, though it might be able to be refashioned into something more conventional.
Sitting next to the armor is a large bloody scythe blade with no discernible handle, but its quality is notable. Runic engravings along its edge show it to have been crafted by a artistic-minded smith.
A routine detect magic spell indicates that the blade is magically infused but also reveals the black armor to have auras of both transmutation and necromancy, and another strong aura of transmutation coming off of the belt hanging from the bottom of the black armor plates.
Gromff continues to fight through the excruciating pain in his stomach. Much longer and he'd bleed out. There was a moment he wondered if he did survive but the hole remained and he just starved because food kept falling out. What a way to go. But that wasn't a concern now. Undead to kill. And his consecrated ground was aiding them well. When they were done he wasted no time in pulling out a wand and going to work, letting out a sigh of relief as the pain ebbed.
"You ok over there dwarf?" He pats the brave dwarf in the shoulder. "Hey you look just like me in a bad day... Is that a broccoli?" He smiles and moves away, also badly injured but he would be fine for now. There were more urgent matters to attend to.
So he moves to the loot, checking it out from afar. He can't resist but to try to touch the "invisible" handle of the scythe, if there is any.
Veronica drops to a knee once each of their enemies no longer posed a threat, her voice hard and strong. "As swift as thy vengeance, so did our blades strike. As strong as our faith, so did our blows rain down. And in your services did we serve so mightily. Amen."
Afterwards she checks each of her companions, including the sailors, and prays for them. And as she does so fresh crimson stains form on her off-white garments, until everyone seems to be well.
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Ew! Dwarf’s gut!
She looks mildly curious, maybe his insides would look different right? It was a valid question, but not one she ought to ask. He master had been the one to study the body and how to, as he liked to say, enhance it, removing the breath of life, but leaving it alive.
Mostly she’d been disgusted by that. Necromancy wasn’t something she tried to learn, but during the time she was learning, she’d looked inside every dead body in the rare occasions her master was able to produce one. Living in a magic banned city wasn’t easy.
Even then, those times were long past. Catcher wasn’t sure why she was thinking about this again. She’d mostly given up finding her mentor. He was alive, she was sure about it, but mostly likely he didn’t wanted to be found.
When the dumbarian moves to take the weapon, she block his path, eyeing him disapprovingly.
”Haven’t you learned nothing? This is some nasty stuff, evil and most likely cursed.” she says the last word just a bit louder, just to scare the sailors.
Then, the mage sets herself to identify what those items are, and what they can do.
"You ok over there dwarf?" He pats the brave dwarf in the shoulder. "Hey you look just like me in a bad day... Is that a broccoli?"
...Skewers of roast fowl, quartered onions and potatoes are handed out for a complimentary lunch, freshly prepared in the kitchen below deck.
A 2nd meal is served as the sun begins to set; a bowl of clam and dumpling chowder with stale corn kernels that weren't cooked long enough to soften properly.
So he moves to the loot, checking it out from afar. He can't resist but to try to touch the "invisible" handle of the scythe, if there is any.
The barbarian reaches for an unseen handle on the scythe, finding nothing there but cold wind. Then it dawned on him that the scythe blade seemed to be imbedded in the monster's arm, like an unnatural extension of his limb. This weapon clearly has no handle, but one could likely be fashioned with little effort by someone who was proficient in weaponcraft.
Catcher takes a step in front of the barbarian, asserting herself and her skill in understanding the complexities of magicked items, using the opportunity to show off for the sailors as well -- or more to the point, to frighten the sailors with her choice of verbiage.
After a couple minutes of studying the auras radiating from the items, the spellsword discovers some very interesting details:
Gromff nods in agreement. "No doubt its cursed. Looks like that same stuff growing off the cursed child. And the amulet from that one woman. Nearly caught us getting in'a Sweetwater I think. Devil's corruptions probably awoken this Darnoq feller. This lane probably ain't safe anymore." Gromff stays clear of the, perceived, cursed armor. Best to destroy it than anything else.
"Funny, I completely forgot about that child. Anyway, we can make this place safe again. We just have to destroy this armor." He lets the Earthbreaker rest on his shoulder, ready to strike. "May I?"
"And are we taking a look at the ruins or not?"
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”We have some options here.” the mage says finally after looking at the studying the items at leisure.
”We can simply destroy the armor. That ought to destroy the ghost as well.” she looks around and finally admits ”There’s evil in that armor, but it has some interesting perks as well. It can allow someone to see in darkness, double of what Gromff is capable off. It also allows the wearer to transform in mist for some minutes. If we destroy Darnoq, we may be able to get rid of the evil in the armor, making it safe to use, or at least sell, since it should be worth a pretty sum.”
”The belt, I don’t feel anything wrong with it, I cannot say for certain without investigating further. It however, makes the wearer stronger, while boosting his fortitude.”
”The blade is enchanted to be deadlier than it normally would be!” she says finally showing a bit of excitement. ”It’s a deadly weapon on its own, but if you manage to hit properly, nothing would survive!”
Gromff watches the smoke as it trails away to the west and scratches his beard in thought. He doesn't stop staring west as he asks the captain, "Think yer men can hold this barge against anymore wights? Darnoq might be close. Could end this so the trip back is safe."
"...Don't even know where the ruins are," he says reasonably.
There do not appear to be any more apparent dangers though the black-scaled armor still hisses ominously, sending out a greasy smoke that seems to be floating in a less-than-random fashion, westward toward one half of the ruined city of Alladoza.
Veronica sneers at the armor and blade. "I'm not normally one for letting resources go to waste, but it seems... unclean to use such devices."
She makes a holy gesture and turns towards the trail of smoke. "If it would make this passage safer, it seems to me to be a good idea to remove Darnoq permanently." Briefly, a moment of doubt crosses her face. "Though, if our current matters are more pressing..."
Roland makes fun of this last comment. "Current matters? We don't even know where we're going! This folks could have been awakened by... something... to show us our fate and light the way. For all I know, if we don't investigate we could go by the very thing we're looking for and never notice. I say let's go already and solve this problem at once." He approaches the board of the ship, to take a look at the water and figure how they would go down that ship to approach the ruins. "Hey Cap., can you approach the bridge?"
"Thanks for the magic, Veronica."
Royst commands his men to furl their sails and drop anchor. After several moments the ship slows to a halt. The sailors busily go about their duties though they're visibly shaken by the recent undead assault and loss of one shipmate.
The soft lapping of water against the stationary hull and the calls of airborne waterfowl are cut across by the captain's voice,
"Let's decide, now. You all did good by us by defendin' the Salt, so if ye decide to go, we'll wait for ye."
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"Don't wait if'n it gets dangerous. Yer the only ones that can guide the ship. Something happens, head south. We'll catch up somehow. Best take the horses in case," he responds. Then again, horses had a good sense for evil and danger. May not even get them off the ship. "Or at least, we'll try." Once the barge is close to the shore he tries to bring his own horse up out of the hold and onto land.