With a powerful slash, Bella decapitates the first skeleton in a single blow!
Grem strides into the graveyard with purpose, moving towards the next closest skeleton and smacking it around like a pinata.
◆ Stride
◆ Mountain Stance
◆ Flurry of Blows
Zetty, staying in place to sketch the scene, telekinetically lifts a nearby rock with a sharp edge and sends it spinning at the nearest zombie.
Eyenia casts disrupting weapon on Grem's handwraps. Vengis and Grem each dispatch a skeleton, while Zetty badly damages the nearest zombie.
The undead converge on Grem, who is the furthest one into the graveryard. One of the zombies is too far away to attack him after it reaches him, but the other zombie punches him with its fist while the two surviving skeletons attack with their claws. Only one skeleton manages to land a hit.
Bella prayed again for protection, raising a shield of force before moving around to slash the fresh zombie from behind.
Bella slices the zombie clean in half, her magical blade proving quite effective against these undead!
Grem goes to work on the skeletons, working to take them out quickly.
◆ Flurry of Blows
Zetty grins as the group seems to be making quick work of the foes. She keeps up her art as she sends another spinning rock at the zombie she damaged earlier.
Eyenia shoots some holy energy at the remaining zombie. Her blast misses badly, hurtling into the sky and dissipating.
Vengis zaps the two remaining zombies with electricity. The one Zetty hit earlier falls, so the gnome shifts her target and sends a sharp projectile slashing through its body. Grem tries to finish off the skeletons, but he fails to land a good hit, and Eyenia's divine lance goes off-target.
One zombie and two skeletons still remain. They attack Grem, the zombie landing a critical hit while one skeleton manages to scratch the dwarf.
Again, Grem focuses on the skeletons first, knowing that they're are more prone to shattering from a well-placed fist.
◆ Flurry of Blows
Grem lands a hit on each skeleton, destroying them with his disrupting blows! Only one zombie remains standing!
Bellla moved to finish off the last zombie. The dead should rest in peace, not wander restlessly!
With her second slice, Bella finishes off the last zombie. The graveyard falls silent again. No more restless dead roam the grounds, thought the blue light from Gauntlight still illuminates the scene.
Bella attended to Grem's wounds; the poor dwarf had suffered considerably from the undead's attacks.
Grem remains still for Bella administrations, seeming unflinching regarding his wounds. "This is a good thing we did, but it only bodes ill for worse things to come."
Bella agreed with Grem, "There is an evil force at work here. Our work is not done."
As if in response to Bella’s assertion, Gauntlight's beam suddenly focuses on the five of you. The baleful light's illumination raises gooseflesh as it touches you, then an instant later, a spiderlike aberration manifests in your midst--and, just as quickly, Gauntlight goes dark. The monster chitters and prepares to attack!
Eyenia raises her hands to the sky and calls down a beam of moonlight, coalescing it in her hand and throwing it at the spidery being, her hair swirling around her and her eyes glowing with a pale light.
"Oooh." Zetty's eyes go wide, partly in surprise as the party gets ambushed by the Gauntlight itself, and partly as another strange creature manifests in prime observation distance. "Is the Gauntlight just going to keep serving these up for us?"
The moonlight scorches the monster, igniting the clear, slippery oil that coats its scales. It shrieks in pain--the thing is weak to fire!
The monster skitters around to the party's flank before opening its maw wide and spewing toxic oil on Eyenia, Bella, and Grem!
Success: The creature takes 1d8 poison damage.
Failure: The creature takes 2d8 poison damage. For 1 minute, the creature gains weakness to fire 5, and whenever the creature critically fails with an attack roll with a wielded weapon, it drops the weapon.
Critical Failure: As failure, but 4d8 poison damage.
Bella avoided the worst of the toxic oil spray. suffering only a minor splash. She prayed for divine protection, then moved to engage the aberration. "What is this thing?"
Grem takes the spray right in the face, mouth open, and inhales some of the disgusting liquid. He feels it burn all through his system. It takes a lot out of him, but he's not down yet....
◆ Stride
◆ Mountain Stance
◆ Flurry of Blows
Zetty racks her brain for anything she might know about the toxic spider-y creature and begins a sketch starting from its dripping jaws. She calls out, surprisingly calm "OK, so we've got this no problem. Can anyone spin it around? I'd like to see it from behind before you guys finish it off." As she works she ducks behind a nearby gravestone to take some cover in case the monster can spray that toxic oil even further into the distance.
The toxic spray fully catches Eyenia, distracting her enough such that she’s unable to summon forth the lance of divine energy she wanted to.
Zetty recognizes the rare creature as a scalathrax. These slippery, scaly horrors dwell in remote cave networks in the Darklands, preferring to nest in narrow fissures. When on the hunt, they flick barbs from their long legs, or spray down their foes with a clear, toxic oil. The same oil coats the scalathrax's body, all of which is quite flammable—whether it's coating a victim or the scalathrax itself.
Vengis blasts the aberration with magic missiles as Bella and Grem move to flank. Bella delivers a sneak attack while Grem lands two powerful punches!
Badly hurt, the monster sinks its jaws deep into Grem, taking the dwarf down. It turns towards Bella, snapping through her magical shield to wound her as well.
Bella had to act quickly to save her friend! She stepped nimbly around the horrific monster and administered some emergency healing to Grem!
Finally, she tried to stab the horrid creature again with her rapier.
Zetty sketches rapidly while the scalathrax remains standing. "Oh, this big guy's from the Darklands! Wow, maybe we'll see more of them if we dig deeper into the fort?" As she comments, she tears out another picture of a sprite and throws it into the air to fold into a papercraft fae minion. She points over at the oily horror and calls out "Toast it!"
Opening his eyes and trying to recall what happens, Grem's attention is quickly snapped back to the fight.
◆ Stand
◆ Mountain Stance
◆ Flurry of Blows (w/ Inspire Courage)
Eyenia tries again to shoot the beast with a blast of holy light, and while able to, she misses.
Though most of you miss, Grem manages to land one solid punch! That proves to be enough to finish off the badly wounded monster.The spiderlike aberration collapses, twitching, to the ground!
Bella breathed a sigh of relief when the monster fell, "That thing was awful!"
She took out her healer's tools and patched up Grem again, hoping that Gauntlight had finished with them for now.
Then she tended to her own wounds.
But she was having a lot of trouble with the toxic oil residue. She suggested leaving the Graveyard area for now, and then tried again.
Finally she was getting the hang of it.
Grem rotates his arms, trying to stretch the muscles and shake off the pain of his wounds. "We know, now, that something works against us. And the town. We need to be vigilant. We also need to rest."
You have defeated the monster, but the fear of what Gauntlight is capable of remains among the citizens of Otari. People are terrified, and rumors of Belcorra's return run rampant.
After resting to recover from your recent battles, the mayor of Otari, Oseph Menhemes, asks to meet with you. "I wanted to thank you for stopping the undead in the graveyard, and whatever that thing was that appeared thereafter. You seem like capable heroes, so I would humbly ask that you do what you can to find out what caused this event, and if possible, prevent it from occurring again. I can promise each of you a reward of 50 gp from the town treasury if you return to Gauntlight Keep to ensure that Gauntlight never shines on Otari again!"
Bella returned home for some much-needed sleep. The next morning, she woke up with the sun already over the horizon. Apologizing profusely to her goddess she recited late dawn prayers, and settled down for a good breakfast. Then she sought out Grem and tended to his wounds some more.
She arrived late for the meeting with the Mayor, apologizing for the delay. "I will certainly return and stop the threat to Otari. I'm going to have to get some time off work.
Grem feels SO much better after a full night's rest and thanks Bella once more for tending to his wounds.
When the mayor pleads the town's case, "Peace, sir," he responds in his deep, gravely voice. "We were already working towards that goal, and dare I say that last night gave us all a good solid push. We will do all we can to put an end to whatever happened."
During his morning routine, Grem spends more time working on his Bo staff, feeling like he's finally gotten it under his belt and ready to make full use of it.
Zetty spends another half hour or so capturing the battlefield and the various creatures the party dispatched before heading to search for people she knows to ensure they're doing OK. When the panic finally winds down and she's able to get some rest, she sleeps incredibly soundly and wakes up late. Energized and inspired, she spends the morning painting before being called to speak with the mayor.
"Hey no problem Mayor Oseph. We're definitely going back there, just like Grem said, whether you ask us to or not. Did you know there's supposed to be a dragon behind the Fort? That'll be really and exciting speedpaint if there ever was oen." As others chime in with their agreement, she also adds "As for the Gauntlight, I'm guessing there's something to do with Nhimby, that's Nhimbaloth, outer god of ghosts, swamps and some really bad stuff." She nods "But we'll work it out."
Wrin provides another star reading for you, but the tiefling frowns once she finishes. "Sorry, friends, the stars are vague tonight. All they are revealing is that you will find neither weal nor woe in your explorations. You'll have to rely on your own wits to see you through the challenges you'll face!"
You return to the ruins of Gauntlight Keep, ready to continue your explorations!
Bella stopped in at the mill to explain to the foreman why she was going to be taking a few days off work, "Sorry for the short notice, but Mayor Menhemes has asked us to return to the Gauntlight ruins, and stop whatever is causing the dead in the graveyard to leave their resting places. I'm not sure exactly how long it's going to take."
When the group arrived back at the keep, she asked her companions, "Where should we look now? There's the outbuildings, with the purported dragon. And then there's the stairs leading down to the vaults below."
Staff in hand and ready to get to work, Grem steps with determination all the way back to the lighthouse.
"We should make sure that we leave no stone unturned before we move on to the lower levels."
You head around to the rear of the keep to explore its outbuildings. The smaller of the two is a boathouse, the southern portion of which has collapsed into rubble. The shelves and boats within have decayed into heaps of rot and moss.
Much of the wooden pier attached to the boathouse has collapsed into the swamp, leaving about ten feet of moldy, soggy boards slumped against ancient wood pilings. A rowboat tied to a piling looks much more recently built.
Searching the rowboat uncovers two things. The first is a stash of pastries—smoked salmon in a fish-shaped doughy exterior, the same kind of "fishcakes" as those sold at the Crook's Nook. The second is a carving of a flying bird decorating the inside of the boat near the bow--the symbol of the Ospery Club, Otari's thieves' guild.
An opening under the pier seems to lead into a flooded cavern...
"Hmmm," Grem muses externally. "Seems the stories were true. We should cover the other island, then come back and check this out."
Bella looked at the carving, "It does seem that the Ospery Club is active here. Yes, let's check out the other building, before we explore the flooded cavern." She headed to the bridge crossing over the water to the northwest island.
|
With the undead in the graveyard defeated and a night of rest under his belt, Vengis begins to be excited as the mayor offers a reward for assisting the town.
"That is a adequate offer, Mayor," the old gentleman says. "Though I must say, this is an incredibly dangerous assignment. With undead, and probably a dragon, we could probably use additional funds for equipment. With the town's continued existence at stake, it would be wise to cough up as much as the town has to support this endeavor."
With Nelfeshnee peeing on the mayor's chair during the conversation, it doesn't help the sorcerer's efforts.
Still, the thought of a significant reward brings a thought to his mind. Before they depart, Vengis goes to visit Wrin.
"Say--let's put a hold on selling my collection, at least for the time being. It may be that I will obtain enough funds from this expedition to save it, or at least some of my favorite items," he suggests. "I will be in touch."
With the talk of the thieves' guild, Vengis raises an eyebrow.
"Not all relations I've had in the past with these types of guilds have been negative. Perhaps we can work something out," he says.
Nelfeshnee, the cat familiar, seems to have sprouted some bat-like wings. One of his eyes bulges even more significantly than before.
Oseph shakes his head. "Unfortunately, that is all I can spare at this time!"
A low wooden bridge spans a watery gap between the larger island and a smaller one. A single-story building sits amid the thick reeds growing on the smaller island.
The door leading into the building is stuck, but Grem is able to force it open with a bit of effort. This study features several bookshelves, a desk, and two chairs. The books and objects here lie in disarray with torn pages strewn haphazardly across the room.
A deep voice calls out from somewhere in the room. "Who are you who comes to my domain? Beware! I am a dangerous wispy-ghost! You may call me...Spookywisp! OoOOooOOh!"
A floating blue light appears in the center of the room, bobbing up and down!