Aurelia sighs and flicks her wrist at the orc "Look. I know you're just trying to do your job here, I get that. But really, I think you can see the benefit in allowing us to pass to do ours? Alright? Why don't you tell your buddies that it's okay for us to move through here so no one gets hurt?"
"And you know f!~# all about wrath," the dhampir growls to herself as her fists clinch and her eyes smolder.
The orc’s demeanor changes as Aurelia’s spell takes effect. He grunts. ”Fine. You may pass. But heed our warnings. Only death awaits you inside the castle.”
Though the other orcs seem confused by the sudden change of heart, they step aside to let you pass.
Aurelia nods as if she had seen this outcome and expected nothing less. "Thank you. I knew you would see reason."
Turning towards Nicoleta and Cinna, she says "Do lead on, ladies."
Cinnabar looks at Nicoleta to see if she should go first and then leads/follows as appropriate.
Nicoleta spends a moment breathing in through her nose and then out from her mouth before nodding at Aurelia. "Come on, Cinn; You're with me," she says as she moves past the orcs.
Roz, Laori, and Sial follow along behind you.
Castle Scarwall looks every bit as foreboding as the legends say. Dark walls rise from darker bedrock to steep rooflines set with gargoyles and minarets. Battlements look down from towers and defensive walls, and many foul-feathered carrion birds soar above them. Mists rising off of the black tarn obscure the lower portions of the rocky island, giving the whole place an ethereal appearance. Surprisingly, even though the structure is many centuries old, its walls and roofs remain intact with no visible breaches or obvious signs of damage. A ghostly glow lights some of the windows and arrow slits, and now and then, faint flickerings betray the motion of creatures within.
Two leering gargoyles flank an arch at the entrance to the causeway that extends across the lake to Castle Scarwall. As soon as you set foot onto the causeway, a noticeable breeze picks up around you. The breeze quickly rises into a gale! Vague shapes of faces and humanoid forms—the spirits of Scarwall’s restless dead—can be seen in this wind. Their appearance forces the materialization of Zellara’s ghost, recognizable as she manifests before you. As you watch, she is suddenly assaulted from all sides by these ravenous souls, and though she tries to hold them back, the assault is obviously overwhelming.
With a strong effort of will, Nicoleta helps Zellara maintain a hold of herself and quickly returns back to the barbican. The spirit storm dies down, and the monk can feel Zellara's relief.
"I don't think it's safe to bring the deck with us," Roz says, turning to the Kuthites. "Maybe you can hide it inside your bone tower until we get back?"
Laori agrees, and after a brief trek back to the tower to secure Zellara's harrow deck, you return to the causeway.
A high bridge crosses the vast expanse of black water between the barbican gate and the entrance to Castle Scarwall. The bridge is ornate and in excellent condition, with only a few tenacious patches of moss and lichen clinging to it here and there. High arching columns reaching from the waters below support the broad span, each marked by a pair of sinister gargoyles that stare out over the dark lake. A larger pair of these statues flanks a great archway that encompasses the near end of the bridge.
As soon as you reach the midway point along the causeway, the gates and portcullises open to allow the initial guardians of Scarwall out. These consist of a platoon of 12 armored human skeletons led by a dread skeleton fighter astride a skeletal nightmare.
Cinnabar casts a spell and races forwards far faster than she should be able to.
The dhampir's not happy about leaving the Harrow deck behind, but understands the necessity.
When the skeletal guardians appear and Cinnabar fills her and her companions with magical energy, she cries out with laughter at the rush. She races forward to catch and then to pass the ex-assassin.
Turning her head, she looks over her shoulder at the deadly woman. "What are you waiting for, slow-poke!" she calls out and laughs again.
Aurelia doesn't run, it's not her style. She moves ahead quickly just behind Cinnabar. When she's close enough, she casts confusion on as many as she can.
Aurelia's confusion afflicts the skeletal knight, though he manages to avoid its effects for now. Roz casts a magic circle around Roz to protect her from evil as she rushes off.
The knight spurs his mount to charge as he lowers his lance towards Nicoleta! The weapon impales the monk's mirror image that Aurelia conjures!
The skeletal troop fires a volley of arrows!
Cinnabar races around the skeletal champion and hares off into the skeleton troop, a look of serene calm on her face.
The monk easily dodges the arrows and then directs her attacks at the champion's mount.
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With confusion failing, she tries a simpler spell and uses her rudimentary daze on the champion.
The skeletal knight fails to turn his mount away from Nicoleta's attacks. While she doesn't trip it, her repeated strikes are enough to smash the mount to fragments! The knight grunts as he lands on his feet amid the broken remnants of his mount.
Aurelia's spell fails to affect the powerful skeletal champion. Cinnabar begins slicing up the skeletal troop, though her sabre isn't the best weapon for dealing with skeletons.
Roz sends her faeries to harass the knight, entangling his armor in his bones.
Still ignoring the confusion, the knight draws a longsword and slices at Nicoleta. Meanwhile, the troop of skeletons gang up on Cinnabar.
Aurelia tries to help Cinnabar out by making the ones ganging up on her glittery and blind.
The dhampir kicks aside some of the broken bones of the champion's mount with disdain.
"You're next, F$!*face!" she declares with a grin before sweeping his legs from underneath him.
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Nicoleta sweeps the skeleton off his feet and proceeds to stomp and kick under it stops moving. Aurelia blinds the remaining skeletal warriors, allowing you to make quick work of them.
You finish crossing the causeway and enter through the castle's gate. The far end of the entry corridor is blocked by a heavy gate with an iron portcullis set before it. Lining the length of the corridor are dozens of orc skeletons and scattered bones, many still clad in damaged pieces of armor and clinging to rusted weapons.
"Allow me," Sial says. He draws forth a chime and rings a discordant note on it, causing the gate to grind open.
The scene in the large chamber beyond is stomach-turning. Bodies lie everywhere, orc and human alike. Judging by the sprawled and mutilated nature of the corpses, they fought brutally before succumbing to their wounds, dying in heaps on the floor. Many corpses are riddled with arrows and crossbow bolts, and a few appear to have perished while locked in mortal combat and still hold weapons embedded in various parts of each other’s anatomy. Strangely, while the room reeks of death, the bloodstains on the walls and floor seem incredibly ancient.
The pile of corpses suddenly shudders and rises up. Many mouths move in unison, speaking words in Aklo. "Welcome home. Come back to us!" The mass scuttles forward on dozens of arms and legs!
"That's a whole lot of 'NOPE!'" Roz shouts, calling down a flame strike on the thing!
Cinnabar's face as she deals with the final skeletons is truly blissful, as though she's dancing in a lovers' arms rather than fighting for her life.
As the roiling mass approaches she looks at Nicoleta for orders. Seeing the monk ready to charge she races forwards to flank the creature, cutting at it with one supremely swift strike.
"That is just ... wrong ... on so many levels," Nicoleta declares in disgust. With nothing else to do but get stuck in, though, she dashes forward, all fists and feet herself.
There seems to be a creature in the center of the mass of corpses, with many sticky tendrils animating the bodies. Cinnabar slashes it, and Nicoleta lands several pummeling blows, though it seems resilient to bludgeoning damage.
The many mouths on its body open up as the thing unleashes a piercing shriek.
Cinnabar winces but steps around the creature to flank it with Nicoleta and then, finally, lets rip.
Unaware that her combat companion has no doubt already killed the monstrosity, Nicoleta continues to kick and punch the ... thing.
Aurelia does her best to help Cinnabar by casting Glitterdust on the mob, hoping to blind as many as she can.
The creature resists Aurelia's spell, but Cinnabar tears into it with a furious frenzy of slashes! Body parts and black blood fly everywhere as she slaughters the hideous aberration.
Roz moves to heal Cinnabar's and Nicoleta's injuries, alternating between good and bad touches.
Aurelia approaches Cinnabar and places a hand on her shoulder and asks "Cinna? How do you feel? Are you alright after that encounter? I'm not talking about wounds, I mean, inside here." She places her hand on Cinna's upper chest over her heart and looks into her eyes to gauge her response.
Cinnabar looks remarkably happy, and quite a bit younger in her joy. "I feel so... free." She says with a wide smile. "There's no worry, no regret, just life, in the moment."
She turns the wide smile on Aurelia. "I feel wonderful! This is something that I know I'm good at and that's just...!" She seems to run out of words. "What's next?"
"We move on," Sial says, insistently. He rings his chime again to open the next barred door.
Tattered bits of ruined tapestries line the walls of this hallway—wispy filaments of rotting cloth that hang limp and forgotten. Ancient bones from scattered skeletons lie on the floor amid bits of broken weaponry and armor. Only one skeleton seems to remain whole, slumped against the northeastern corner, clad in dust-caked full plate armor.
Nicoleta grimaces at Roz's healing touch, but shakes it off. "Thanks," she says, putting her hand on the woman's shoulder. "I appreciate you keeping us on our feet."
She turns to the others and nods in agreement with Sial. "Yes, onward. Hopefully that will be the last of the skeletons and rotting bodies," she says.
~~~~~
"Or not," the dhampir says at the bones scattered throughout the room. She narrows her eyes at the fleshless bodies and sniffs the air. "Let me guess ..."
Nicoleta detects strong undead auras in the room. That’s enough warning for her to usher you all back before a haunt manifests!
The silence of the ancient, dead castle suddenly shatters. The hall fills with a cacophony of clashing weapons and battle cries intermingled with the screams of the dead and dying. Individual words are impossible to discern, but as the sounds reach a crescendo of violence, smoky black shapes boil up out of the bones and swirl into a vortex of angry shrieking spirits.
A few moments after the vortex fades away, a towering smoky form rises from the plate-mail-clad bones in the corner. He appears as a shadowy, muscular humanoid made of dark mist. Two yellow eyes glow deep inside the sockets of his skull-like face.
As he lunges for you, he shrieks, “You shallnot have Serithtial! It is mine and no other’s!”
Nicoleta hides her fear under the same mask she hides everything else ...
"Back the f&+& off you dead f$&@!" she snarls as she fills her touch with energy. "We're taking the sword and you can't stop us!"
Roz blasts the wraith with searing light before Nicoleta starts pummeling the incorporeal undead. He shrieks and tries to grab her but she dodges away from his touch!
Aurelia tries to make the defender drop down and laugh.
Cinnabar circles around the creature and stabs it in the back
The dhampir's face remains a rigid mask as she continues to punch and kick at the spectre, sparks flying from her strikes.
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The wraith resists Aurelia's spell, but Cinnabar moves to flank and scores a good hit before Nicoleta proceeds to pummel him again and again. With the final blow, the undead shrieks and dissolves into wisps of harmless smoke as his spirit is put to rest.
Most of the man's gear has long since been claimed by other denizens of the castle, but his full plate, which is a suit of celestial armor bearing heraldry from the nation of Lastwall, remains.
Doors exit to the west and south, while double doors to the north lead deeper into the castle.
Nicoleta shakes off the last of her rage before indicating the southern door. "Let's check the other doors before moving further in. I don't fancy some undead creepy showing up at my backside."
You check out the western door first. A nondescript corridor is lined with arrow slits, looking out into the main keep's entry corridor. Human bodies in chain shirts lie on the floor among the broken remains of shortbows and quivers of arrows.
A few rooms at the end of the corridor hold quarters for the guards and officers that once defended the keep. Among them, you find a spellbook in a secret desk drawer, as well as fragmentary journal entries written in Elven. The journal belonged to a magus named Aerilaya. The entries tell of her exile from Kyonin after her involvement in a series of unsanctioned vengeance killings against innocent half-orcs, of her journey to Belkzen to seek death while killing the orcs she hated (for
reasons the journal never makes clear), of her capture by orcs and rescue a few short days later by Kazavon, and of her being hired by him to serve as a court spellcaster. She characterizes Kazavon as a “handsome and well-spoken lunatic” and all but gushes over his passion for slaying orcs.
Stairs lead up to the upper part of the guardhouse, or you could go back and explore the rest of this level first.
Looking at the corridor and arrow slits, Aurelia says "Well that's ominous."
"I suggest we clear the remainder of this level before moving up."
The eastern corridor is similarly lined with arrow slits and corpses. Beyond, several dust-covered bunks, each large enough to hold a creature slightly larger than a bulky human, sag along the walls of a dreary, chilly room. Arrow slits look out over the tarn, yet these do little but let in the damp and cold, as if the wind itself were loath to enter Scarwall. A message in Orc seems to have been scrawled in blood on the west wall. An orc’s body, still clad in hide armor and clutching an obsidian battleaxe, lies facedown below the writing.
A few more doors exit this room.
Cinnabar eyes the body suspiciously, but she doesn't read orc so she can't be any more helpful than that...
The dead orc still wears a suit of rhino hide and clutches a +1 undead-bane obsidian battleaxe, but her other gear is relatively unremarkable.
Not seeing anything Cinnabar advances to claim the axe, although she doesn't seem to care to strip the body entirely.
"That's a big axe." is all Aurelia has to say about that.
"Alright then. Nice work ladies. I think it's time to visit the upper guardhouse. Shall we?" She once more motions for Cinna and Nicoleta to proceed.
The other doors here are more officers' quarters, but one of them is occupied! A skeletal knight sits forlornly on one of the bunks, clad in his armor, muttering under his breath. When he sees you, he shrieks in delight and picks up his blade. "This time I shall not fail you, Master Kazavon!"
"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Nicoleta replies under her breath with a grin.
Cinnabar darts in and stabs the skeleton before he can act!
Aurelia stares at the knight and crosses her arms, "Why don't you, just .... stop."
Aurelia's spell works, but being undead, the knight ignores its immediate effects. Cinnabar lands a critical hit, slicing deeply into the skeletal warrior. He snarls and retaliates with several powerful swings of his greatsword, acid sizzling through Cinnabar's flesh as his blade cracks bones and punctures organs! Fortunately, his follow up strikes only hit mirror images.