The Spirit of the Damned watched Atash the entire time as he scampered around the wall. The Skeletal archer, on the other hand, had lost track of the ratfolk and returned to other targets some time ago. Taken by surprise, it felt the full might of Atash's deceptive magic. Its skull melted as it fell in a heap by the edge of the wall.
The Spirit of the Damned howled with rage, a sound like the lashing of rain against a window. Raising its arms above its head, it conjured a lump of ice and frosty black energy, hurling it at Atash. The wizard clung to the wall and watched as it hurtled by him, just missing.
Inside the tower, the group could hear the siege team approaching from the gatehouse to the east.
Atash scrambles down the wall, dropping out of sight. He waits for his allies to ascend further. His luck had held thus far but he didn't want to push it further.
Torvi will go up the next flight of steps, but stop just short of popping out. She will activate her weapon bond, adding another +1 to her weapon.
Karti follows Torvi up the stairs, closing in on the Spirit of the Damned.
Razaniel moved into the gatehouse to the East of the tower. He passed through a small empty room and into the main room, similar to the one in which you had fought the four cultists the previous day. The seige team was located in this room, and Razaniel was able to close in on one of them.
The one Razaniel closed in on attempted to claw him. The other stepped back, drew a crossbow, and fired at point blank range. The warpriest evaded their attacks.
Torvi and Karti climbed to the next level of the tower. There was a wide sitting room, still equipped with some furniture. There were a pair of arrow slits that had long ago been smashed open, and a small fireplace in one corner of the room. The pair didn't see anything that looked like a Phylactery.
Atash fled down the side of the tower, attempting to hide. The Spirit of the Damned watched him the whole time, and without any cover he was unable to hide. It again conjured a lump of frozen magic and hurled it at the wizard. This time, it nearly hit itself in the head with its own spell.
Atash dips inside and rendezvous with the party. "Just the big one...upstairs...might be wearing it's phylactery."
The dead made poor caretakers.
The topmost room of the tower had once been a splendid bedroom. Once radiant tapestries hung on the walls. Faded and ill cared for, they seemed to be whatever had been available in the nearby town after the seiges had ended. One depicted a dwarf bathing in a hot spring, another a bountiful harvest. There was a bed, but the mattress had rotted away years ago. Beside it was a cracked vanity. Jewelry rested on it, shining as though it had been polished yesterday. There was a wardrobe at one end of the room, next to a wooden dressing partition. There was a scroll rack, a few dusty writings remaining in it, and another fireplace with chairs set beside it. Out of place, in the center of the room, a huge chest lay open. The shadows inside it were deep.
An escalating enfilade of despair strikes Karti in the chest when he surveys the room and it puts his heart in a vice. The folly of their ancestors had birthed many a nightmare, but the one on display here truly well tainted whatever thoughts Karti would have about them in the years to come. The hairs on his neck are tugging at him to exit the room when he, with a hushed voice, speaks to Torvi. "We might want the others to be with us for this ..."
"We're not inspecting this room just yet my friend. Stay focused on the creature above."
"I thought we were leaving!" - Razaniel snarled back, as he noticed his companions were not following him.
Then he focused his attention on the threat at hand - shifting his position to make sure the undead clawing at him obstructs the line of sight from the one shooting that crossbow, he lashed out with quick, measured scimitar strikes.
---
Razaniel cut down the skeleton in front of him and shifted his attention to the other member of the Seige team. They seemed to be similar to the skeletal archers in many ways, but they wore different garb and carried different packs. As he turned to call out to the others, the second undead monster shot him in the face. His levitating bone took some force out of the bolt, but it still cut a gash across his forehead, revealing the bone beneath.
Above, the two dwarves in the party felt a sense of dread settle over them. The Spirit of the Damned made no appearance, and was, at least for now, quiet.
Karti closes his eyes and takes a moment to attune his senses to their newfound surroundings. From the sounds and the smells to the intangibles that you can only sense through experience and training. From above came no sense of tension, no ragged breath, no discernible heartbeat.
The dwarf positions himself next to the steps and does what he can to calm his beating heart. "Hate fighting the undead, I do. For them, the fight's already over, lost, in a sense, you see ..."
Snarling through the pain, Razaniel steps forward and attacks the second skleleton - "It is time to rest"
---
Razaniel finishes off the final skeleton. Listening carefully, he can't hear any more reinforcements coming.
Up above, Torvi climbs to the top of the stairs...and finds nothing. The Spirit of the Damned is nowhere in sight, though the paladin's nerves are still on edge.
Atash scampers up the stairs to try to find the Spirit again for his allies.
Torvi will detect evil and start scanning for the creature.
Razaniel stood perfectly attentive to his surroundings, and went to check the door leading outside and toward Pyrsa.
Torvi's eyes blazed with righteousness, and the world was made plain. A blot of darkness shone in the roof of the tower, just in front of you. The Spirit of the Damned was obviously hiding in between floors, a thin layer of solid rock separating it from any corporeal creatures.
With a hushed voice, Karti shares his thoughts with Torvi and the others. "Perhaps you can taunt it by reminding it of its duties, and force it to come out that way ..."
"I wouldn't even know how to begin taunting the thing. Get the others up here, and maybe someone will have a plan."
Torvi will keep watching the thing to determine its relative "evilness."
Whatever goodness had once been in the heart of the creature before Torvi was long gone. It was a shriveled, broken soul bound to the material plane by a heavy weight of negative energy. It was powerful, too, this shadowy thing, nearly as strong as the members of your own party.
"Tell it its offspring is mingling with orcs, in bed with elves, and they mock its failings in life and sense of duty? What shred of mortality still resides within it only has anger to sustain itself on, I'd imagine."
"I think you just said those things, so let's see if it heard you!"
The shadows in the room seemed to deepen for a moment. Torvi, who knew exactly where the Spirit was, saw it peek its head out from the stone. And then it went back to hiding.
Torvi points at where the creature is, ”Right there.”
"Unless we dismantle the entire fort...I fear we cannot force it out...it will shadow us...and strike when we are vulnerable..." Atash pulls at his whiskers uncomfortably. "I don't think...we can do much about it."
Not wanting to risk reinforcements at their backs, Razaniel stands watch on the lower level, and waits for his companions.
"Ok, time for the backup plan. First, we should all get together."
"Ye mind if I take the box of shadows outside and into the sun? I can enlarge myself using an extract, so unless it happened to be bound to the ground by some hidden chain, its weight and size shouldn't be that much of a problem."
Atash nods to both Torvi's suggestion to reconvene as well as Karti's suggestion to take the box of shadows outside.
"Works for me. We shall accompany you."
Torvi will provide overwatch, with detect evil up.
Karti pops an extract of enlarge dwarf, and the foul-smelling concoction causes his body to expand. "Ok, let's do this. It doesn't feel smart, but sometimes stupid is the only crowbar ye got."
As Karti closes in on the chest, the shade descends from the ceiling. With an otherworldly shriek, it unleashes a torrent of freezing wind directly at the dwarf. Expecting danger, Karti dodges to one side at the last moment.
He notices that the chest, though extremely dark and shadowy, is full of clothing.
You notice an aura of evil coming from the chest.
Atash tries to hide and make a ranged acid attack, and while his stealth is weak his aim is true!
Torvi will attack the shade...
Bludgeon
The oversized dwarf reaches for his now enormous weapon and strikes at the shade.
The group lashes out at the Spirit, which had lost track of Atash while hiding. Your weapons passed through it as though it weren't there, but it felt their magical bite nontheless. With a keening wail, the spirit expired. A thin stream of its essence escaped from its center, falling downwards in a tapering spiral towards the chest, which slammed shut once the last of the Spirit was inside.
"Continue Karti, let us take the box into the sun."
The dwarf shivers when the shade falls to their weapons and disintegrates. How much agony was there inside that lost soul for it to stick around for as long as it did? There are things to do, stuff to fix. Karti mentally slaps himself on the cheek and then nods at Torvi, "Alright. Let's do it."
Karti and Torvi hefted the chest and carried it out of the tower, onto the battlements. The clouds which had obscured the sun only moments ago, when the Spirit of the Damned first appeared atop the tower, had now been blown on by the biting wind. When you opened the chest, a fait wisp of smoke drifted out into the air, and then dissipated.
Many of the clothes inside the chest were fine and well preserved. Whatever decay had settled on the other things here had been afraid of whatever lay within. The clothes obscured the bottom.
Atash uses mage hand to move the clothes to the side, searching for valuables at the bottom.
There are a few clothes which are so finely made as to be highly valuable. Cloth of gold gives way to broaches of black pearl and finely embroidered silks.
All the way at the very bottom was a golden sigil in the shape of an anvil. It shone with a dark luster, almost red, that reflected darkened sunlight back at you.
"These are worthy of a king," Karti gasped as Atash manipulated an unseen force to lift them out of the chest. The golden sigil that followed was something else altogether. He squints his eyes and inspects it, wondering what was done to make the gold behave like this.
Atash's eyes glint with the sigil. He was almost sad he had allowed the others to see him unearth it. He scans it for any magic.
Torvi considers the sigil's significance...
"So you stopped to find some new clothes?" - Razaniel smiled as he saw his companions were safe and sound.
Karti was familiar with a variety of techniques for burnishing gold. However, he was unsure of a method that might give the light which came off a piece of jewelry such a sinister character.
Atash quickly determines that the sigil is magical.
He identifies the item as having a moderate aura of Necromancy. It is clearly intended as a storage vessel for the soul of an undead creature, much like a lich's Phylactery.
Torvi considered the sigil. It identified the bearer as Duin, son of Darun of the house of Mahal and a highland noble. Your own parents had been members of the guard at Pyrsa, and had been sworn to the service of Darun's first cousin Darien. If the world had turned differently, you might have known Duin well.
Atash is no longer upset about the others having seen the amulet and he quickly explains to them what it is and how they can destroy it. He hands it to Karti, wiping his hands off afterwards with a fussy expression.