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"How lucky for us I set the barn on fire."
"Shall we search his house and see if we can find anything that would link him to the vampires? Doesn't make much sense." Jaegr moves over to his body and searches him for anything that looks interesting....
In addition to the nasty-looking sickle, he had a wand and a vial of some kind of black, tarry substance.
Jaegr, for the first time since emerging from under the mountains, is very glad for the open spaces of the surface world. Underground, or inside the barn, Victor could have hidden behind those zombies and cast spells or damageed you with channeling unchecked, with the vampire-spawn maybe flanking you besides -- and every time he channeled, it would heal his defenders. Out in the open, all his advantages were nullified.
Jaegr hands the items over to Miranda, "Can you check these in case they have any magic and what use they may have...beyond the obvious?"
He then makes for the house to see what is inside....
Sickle: "Weak auras; maybe transmutation and necromancy. I don't like this thing, and don't even want to touch it anymore." : "In addition to being a weapon, I suspect it's an unholy symbol -- probably Nerull or some other malign death god."
Wand: "Enchantment magic of some kind, but faint, as if it's not fully charged. : "OK, I can see it now. It's got a hold person spell matrix in it, and enough energy left for maybe 16 castings."
Vial: "I have no idea, but it's not magic. Poison, maybe?"
Cricket and Wolvie fall into line behind Jaegr.
Be ready for anything Cricket breathes to which Wolvie utters a brief growl in reply.
The front room of the house is nothing special; it's a quaint parlor, with little chairs, a sofa, a table with a tea set on it. All very innocuous.
The back room on the ground floor was originally a study. One whole wall had been skilfully painted in a mural glorifying some righteous god of light. Recently, someone took a knife to it, defacing it horribly, and with crude strokes of black paint, depicted a giant scythe over the whole thing, with a crudely-depicted skull over the original god's face. In one corner was an altar; someone turned it upside-down and put an animal's skull on top of it.
The room originally had one window, which, from the shape of the frame, probably was made of stained glass. Any glass in it has been smashed out, and the opening covered with a heavy black curtain, blocking out the light from the moon and burning barn outside.
The shelves are full of books on religion; there's also a locked journal of some kind on the desk.
Caspian is a bit excited at first....
"A library!....only one section...." he adds with a little disapointment.
Caspian looks at the sickle vial and wand from earlier....
"These look right in place here."
Caspian wonders how long he could actually tether the creature if it were to realize the end of the net were in the hands of an 80 pound weakling......
"Later on someone remind me I wanted to get a spirit catching net."
Cricket rips down the curtain, picks up a book and tries to read it. Alas, he has it upside down. After a few moments, he puts it aside. Pelasgian heresies, I swear, whatta buncha rubbish. Ooo, what's this?
Cricket picks up the locked journal.
OK, you are holding a locked journal.
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"What you got? The privvy journal of the bathhouse bandit?"
Cricket hands the journal over to Caspian.
I wanted to check to make sure it wasn't trapped.
Caspian shrugs
"I don't know how to unlock stuff...."
"I have my pick axe, but it may not be readable after I 'unlock' it"
Hmm, I'm sorry, that was very racist of me, Caspian. I apologize. Thank you, friend Jaegr, but maybe I should look about for a key before we resort to such drastic actions.
Cricket searches high and low.
Perception take 20 = 31.
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"Not sure why everyone things we are all pudgy little thieves....likely because they think we are all fat, lazy and weak."
Caspian shrugs.... "No offense taken I did sing that creep song about you...to be fair."
Perception take 20 = 31.
From where he's standing, Cricket does not see, hear, smell, taste, feel, or sense a key anywhere in the room, nor does he remember seeing one, or get a hunch as to where it might be. Granted, he doesn't know anything about hiding places or whatever, so if it's under a floorboard or something, that's not somewhere he's even thinking to look.
Cricket searches high and low.
Looking under the rug (low) fails, but looking high (standing on the chair) lets Cricket see up on the doorframe; there's a small key there, out of sight from the floor. He'd have missed it if he weren't intentionally and specifically looking in high and low places.
"Well, let's have a look. I'll open it if you like."
Huzzah!
Cricket, from up on the chair, flips the key to Wyvurn.
Wyvurn will catch the key, take a few steps back from everyone, wink at Miralda, and open the journal.
As the lock opens, an explosion of dark energy is emitted from the book.
Everyone in the room takes negative energy damage, DC 15 Reflex save for half.
"I guess I did not step back far enough."
vs. earlier channeling (oops!): -> 6 damage
vs. warding on book: -> 11 damage
Miralda is instantly knocked unconscious by the blast.
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Reflex save
The dark energy washes over Caspian bringing back bad memories of his crazy ex-girlfriend....
Cricket (11 + 12) 10 hp remaining
Wolvie (5 + 12) 20 hp remaining
Guh!
Woo woo woo!
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Kelgan feels the dark energy explode, but it is siphoned into his shield and does not harm him. He watched the elf crumble and lays down his shield, laying her upon it and using it to leech the dark energy out of her while he plies some smelling salts and fishes out the special bottle of brandy from Kaiserburg.
"We really need to find a trapfinder. Finding them this way is hardly optimal. Cricket, you can have a lie down as soon as she's done."
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The rustic dwarf's healing skill is unorthodox, but highly effective. Miralda regains consciousness, gags down a gulp of brandy, and coughs, "I... I'm okay. I have no idea how you did it, but I feel fine now." Unsteadily at first, but with rapidly-restored balance, she regains her feet and smiles weakly.
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Jeagr's dverge heritage manages to help avoid the worst of the damage. As Kelgan administers aid to Miranda, he applies some salve on himself and anyone else that needs it.
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"Hill dwarf healing on a high elf. I would not believe it but I saw it myself. Laid her out upon a shield and forced liquir past her lips....."
Caspian digs through his gear and brings forth a wand of cure light wounds in the event anyone needs a bit more....
"Maybe a trapfinding wand or something?"
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With everyone back up on their feet (and Wyvurn shaking his head sadly at the others' need to resort to exotic skills and techniques), you are able to peruse the journal. It's written in Common, and seems to chronicle the life of a young priest of St. Cuthbert; the first few pages have more than you care to know about prayers and the duties of an altar boy. It's also clear that Victor admires and dotes on his big brother Otis; hardly a page goes by without reference to the latter's strength, or skill at archery or woodcraft, etc.
Your interest is piqued by a brief notice of a visit to town by the necromancer, Dispar Anasovin. A few pages later, the devil-boar gets mentioned.
On the next page, Otis goes hunting the devil-boar and doesn't return. The quality of the handwriting declines rapidly thereafter, and there are a number of cross-outs, missing pages, and incoherent rants.
Victor seems to regain his sanity when a traveling friar named Donaldson, passing through the village, provides what he claims is a scroll of resurrection. Excitedly, Victor has Otis' coffin dug up from the cemetary and performs the ritual. Upon its completion, Otis rises from the coffin... but as a vampire, not as a living man.
The rest of the journal, stained with alcohol and black wax, makes it clear that Victor's faith was shattered at this point. Forsaking Cuthbert, he declares allegiance to Nerull the Reaper and begins covering for Otis. He buries the coffin beneath the barn, and when Otis drains a sewer worker, Victor uses his new abilities to dominate the resulting vampire spawn and sets it in the barn as a guard. He also summons a daemonic hound, a "vorr," as a watchdog. Everyone killed by the devil-boar he animates as a plague zombie and hides in the barn as well, planning to eventually send them to depopulate the village.
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"Well I suppose it is a good thing we got here when we did. The town is safer, for now at least. We may need to try and track down this Donaldson. We may also need to speak to Dispar if he can be tracked down. "
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"I think we need to make sure we got Otis. The journal mentions a spawn. We could have just destroyed the sewer worker. In the morning, we need to search what's left of that barn."
[Cricket, and Wolvie, graciously accept any proffered healing. Cricket particularly enjoys hawt salve rubdowns.]
[After all the reading and talking, Cricket grumbles]
We're totally screwed. Who knows who else in this village is really a vampire, or a devil boar, or a, a, I don't even know what!
Cricket heads back to the village to start gathering garlic, ash, holy water, anything else that he can think of that is particularly useful in preventing vampires from attacking you in the middle of the night.
[Looks at Skills]
"This place is near as bad off as just taking on the necromancer directly."
...."Donaldson is likely the necromancer himself."
Caspian paces around while the barn burns to the ground. "Maybe we should take the journal in and warn the townsfolk and get their aid in tracking down anything left over."
Caspian grabs the book once more...
"But first when the fire stops we must dig up the dirt and make certain the coffin was consumed in the fire."
FInally he grabs the whiskey and takes a big swig himself and just sits down.
A number of helpful townspeople arrive with buckets; thankfully, the zombies have mostly been burned up at that point. Dousing the smoldering wreckage of the barn and sifting the ashes, you're able to find an area of earth, cracked from the heat, that looks hollow beneath it (Jaegr's mining experience is of considerable help*). It's faily easy, albeit laborious, to dig up another coffin, somewhat larger than normal, with the name "OTIS" engraved on it in Common. The coffin is empty except for some brown loam.
Cricket finds some very nice wild garlic in the woods nearby, and with some loose bits of string and rawhide he keeps in his pouch for Mother-Tree-knows-what purpose, he begins stringing together garlands for everyone. Wolvie is very pleased with this new "collar" and prances around to make sure everyone sees how handsome he now looks.
Jaegr will destroy the dug up coffin to make sure it doesn't get used again.
A couple of blows with "Finisher" smashes the heavy bronzewood coffin into kindling.
Caspian watches the procession of townsfolk unfold, trying to stay out from under-foot of the villagers.
"We best do something about that dirt."
Caspian looks at the soil.
"Anyone know dirt, maybe can tell where this came from?"
Knowledge: The Planes
Survival:
Eager to be helpful, Miralda starts spouting all kinds of trivia about the funeral rites associated with the Church of St. Cuthbert, and what the inscriptions on the coffin mean, and the differences in wording of the funeral incantation depending on if the priest is a member of the Order of Stars or the Order of the Chapeax. Eventually she says, "Cuthbert's church doesn't put dirt in coffins, but vampires have to have a handful of soil from where they were buried: that's what lets them move their coffin elsewhere and still use it -- the symbolic link to their original grave site maintains the link to the Negative Energy Plane, if you want to get technical. If there's enough soil, I suppose a vampire could theoretically have multiple coffins, with a handful in each one. So I'd guess that soil is from the village churchyard, although I don't know anything about agronomy and can't actually identify it or anything useful like that."
"I suppose we ought to ask around about Otis and see if anyone remembers him. Donaldson too, for that matter. Although I fear Caspian is right in his assessment. At the very least, we need to get these people inside and bar their doors from sundown to sunrise until we sort this out."
After handing out garlic garlands, Cricket busies himself with studying soil samples. He probably doesn't get very far, seeing as he's never studied soil samples before, but he does it anyway.
Survival (?)
When the sun starts to go down, Cricket goes Eek!
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Cricket looks at the dirt from the coffin, which is nice and loose and very brown. After all the times he's dug his own latrines (or seen elfs do it, if goblin-Cricket is too lazy and just voids on the ground), Cricket is pretty clear that dirt tends to change color and get more tightly-packed as you dig deeper, or in places where it hasn't been disturbed very much. So he thinks the dirt in the coffin is from somewhere where the dirt gets dug up or even gardened every so often -- he's guessing the cemetery in town fits the bill pretty well. Also, sifting the soil in his palm, he finds little rootlets in it, and identifies them as being from a willow tree, and remembers there being a willow in the cemetary.
Caspian watches Cicket playing in the dirt wondering if he should do or say something, but Cricket seems to be looking at every detail of the sample or is engrossed in dirty thoughts......
Cricket feels like Sherlock Holmes.