Two of us manage to make it on time, even under the added burden of obtaining junk food: Paul (Cassidy) and Bruce (Belwin Linnet). Tim (Tz'kri), who is now burdened with an exciting schedule requiring him to both attend school full-time and work, is understandably somewhat late. Nick (Ooth) is just plain late. Dan is in charge, as usual.
The characters start out where they left off, standing in the ruins of a long banqueting hall surrounded by the severed remains of a pack of zombies. Upon closer inspection, the characters determine that the zombies had been hollowed out like gutted chickens, then filled with worms and maggots. The worms and maggots themselves don't look like anything special: they writhe about on the floor in the manner of their kind, politely refraining from small, childlike calls of "help meeee…"
After a few moments of contemplation, the characters decide to poke into one of the towers near the back of the Citadel. They choose the one on the right, as there are fewer doors between it and freedom.
Belwin steps into the tower first, looking and acting as cautiously as he can. The interior looks about like you'd expect a 400-year-old tower to look: the remaining wooden furnishings are crumbling and rotten, but the stone stairs around the tower circumference look intact.
As the characters poke around, Ooth spots a simple gold ring with a small carven design upon one side lying on the stairs. Cassidy is unable to sense anything about its history, but Ooth is able to detect an astral presence attached to it. He is unable to determine if the astral presence is eeeeevil or not, basically because everything in astral space around the Citadel looks eeeeevil. Ooth courageously decides that he doesn't want to touch it with his bare hands, and sweeps it into a pouch to look at later.
The characters continue up the stairs, examining a series of rooms that prove to be dull and boring despite the gloomy evil pervading them. A few of them contain the remnants of odd, incomprehensible magical tools that mean less than nothing to the bulk of the characters. This ends at the top room, which is brightly lit with a torchlike light. A pedestal stands in the center of the chamber, with a six-foot-diameter glass globe atop it. A fire elemental thrashes angrily inside the glass globe. Cassidy tries Item History, and determines that there is no significant historical value to the globe, even though the fire elemental writhes and strikes at the glass whenever anyone draws close to it.
The characters decide to try the adjacent tower, entering through the door in the banquet hall. Much to their dismay, they find that the door not only does not open easily, but doesn't even rattle or shake as a locked door would. Upon inquiry, Ooth admits that he doesn't know any spells useful in this situation, and even if he did he wouldn't try and reattune a fetish in this place. Tz'kri takes another tack and hits the thing with an axe, demonstrating that he isn't even able to make a mark.
The characters rather ignominiously head to the outer door. As they reach the other door in the first tower, they hear swordplay on the other side. Creeping through, they see three zombie t'skrang fighting against four similarly-cadaverous non-t'skrang. The characters are revolted to recognize one of the non-t'skrang as the human Warrior Adept who had accompanied the original diplomatic mission from Belhanna Kaer. The fighting is curiously ritualized: first the humans press the attack, forcing the t'skrang back towards the wall, then the t'skrang force the humans back in turn. No blow ever lands. The area around the combatants appears to be a garden, though all of the plants are extremely dead.
Cassidy breaks up the status quo by tying cloth around a crossbow bolt, setting it on fire, and shooting a zombie. The zombies react as anybody would predict: they attack the characters. As usual, the zombies go into a frenzy when they suffer wounds, but they take them quickly enough that this doesn't prove that much of a threat. Ooth spends most of his time towards the back of the fight, sulking over the fact that he doesn't have Mind Dagger in a fetish and doesn't dare reattune things just now. He consoles himself by tossing moderately-ineffectual Pain spells and making zombies go berserk. The other characters, particularly Belwin, really appreciate Ooth's efforts in this regard. Cassidy and Belwin suck up a rather large quantity of damage, but manage to dish out similar amounts when called to. Belwin once again demonstrates that his most useful talent is Riposte, which he uses to dramatic effect. Near the beginning of the fight, Tz'kri performs quite well, slashing and cutting his way through zombies like a cheetah on crack, even though he suffers a number of severe wounds in the process.
Tz'kri quickly finds himself hard-pressed, cornered by two zombies, and nearly dead. He goes on the defensive, lashing out at one enough to set it into a frenzy, while Belwin cuts down his other assailant with an aggressive strike. Ooth just about ends the fight by shaking off his anomie and cutting clean through the last combatant zombie with a tree-chopping axe blow. The last zombie gets cut to ribbons by the combined actions of all the characters.
After the characters have disposed of the zombies, they spend some time licking their wounds and making recovery tests. They fortify themselves in the tower for the hour this takes. During that time, Tz'kri heads back up the tower to watch the trapped fire elemental. Belwin comes down off his fighting trance to realize that he's really tremendously hurt (32 Damage Points), and doesn't heal all that much with his two Recovery Tests. The other characters offer him several Healing potions, all of which they got from the Horror-marked elf Asbeth. Belwin declines these offers.
After the healing session is done with, Ooth and Cassidy take the lead, attempting to open up the outer door on the second tower. As before, the door doesn't even rattle.
Tz'kri notes that the tower is only forty feet tall, and decides to try and scale it. He notices that the top of the tower is fused against the Citadel Shell, which makes reaching the top difficult. As a reasonable compromise, he climbs up to the first arrow slit and peers inside. He sees a dark, empty room festooned with cobwebs and bad smells. He is unable to slip through the slit, so he tries to reach inside with his tail. He doesn't find anything. He also finds that the going gets a lot tougher beyond the first arrow slit: he loses his grip and falls to the ground, taking a nasty bruise in the process. As the other characters scurry up to offer aid, Tz'kri lies on the ground and whines, as if he had broken every bone in his body.
The characters walk away from the Citadel until Ooth's Astral Sensing shows that the area is clean. Ooth reattunes his fetishes to Mind Dagger, Air Armor and See The Unseen. He also learns the Third Circle spell Phantom Warrior. Before he reattunes, he tries another Astral Sensing upon the gold ring, verifying that it does have an astral connection to it. He gets a vague sense that it will impart knowledge to the wearer, but he can't tell exactly what.
Noting that Ooth is spending time to commune with nature, the other characters spend their time improving their various Talents and resting, for a total of two days. Belwin gains Rank 4 Melee Weapons (500 points); Cassidy gains Rank 3 Melee Weapons (300 points) and Rank 3 Durability (300 points); and Tz'kri gains Rank 3 Durability (300 points) and Rank 3 Climbing (300 points). Not wanting to be left out, Ooth improves his own Avoid Blow and Melee Weapons to Rank 3 each (300 points each). Everyone also recovers, a process that leaves Tz'kri completely healed and Belwin still fairly wounded. After two days of recovery, the characters pack up their camp and head back to the old t'skrang Citadel.
The characters head to the area of the Citadel where they had previously heard rough laughter. It proves to be an open courtyard with a tower in the center. To the south, a group of four t'skrang zombies is playing knucklebones with a bit of bone and flesh. To the north, ten more t'skrang zombies play soccer with a human head.
Ooth steps in among the knucklebone zombies and tries to participate in the game. The zombies welcome him with no particular sense of surprise, even though he has no idea what is going on (they appear to be wagering bits of rotting fish guts). Tz'kri steps up to the castle, scaling the wall and peering into an arrow slit. He sees a ghostly t'skrang woman who invites him to join her.
At this point, Belwin offers up the rather sarcastic comment that Ooth is gambling with a bunch of zombies, Tz'kri is off loitering with ghost maidens, and nobody appears to see anything wrong with this scenario. His comment is enough to persuade Tz'kri to abandon his ghost-maiden pursuit and attack the gambling zombies. Much violence ensues, as the t'skrang zombies descend upon the characters.
Ooth, Cassidy and Tz'kri engage the zombies playing knucklebones, dicing them with great impunity. Belwin moves to the narrow part of the courtyard to block off the soccer zombies and quickly finds himself faced by five zombies. He maintains as defensive stance as possible, offering the occasional cut and slash when the opportunity arises.
Once the knucklebone zombies are unmoving once again, Tz'kri and Cassidy turn to engage half of the soccer zombies while Ooth moves over to throw Mind Daggers at the four zombies still engaging Belwin. The combat continues on for a while, until the zombies are no longer able to significantly damage the characters. By that time, most of the zombies have been reduced into bits of slime and debris.
With the zombies dispatched and the situation somewhat calmer, the characters have a chance to look around. They realize that there are actually large bay windows on the outer walls of the courtyard, giving a beautiful view of the blighted forest. There are matching windows on the walls of the tower, allowing those inside to see out.
With the zombies out of the way, Tz'kri excitedly exclaims, "There is translucent t'skrang woman in tower! Very glamorous! Very sexy! Very troubling!" Though the other characters disagree about the probable charms of the t'skrang ghost, they agree to check out the tower.
The tower door is unlocked, and opens with no more of a threatening screech than might be expected. The tower interior was once beautifully furnished with plush furniture and networks of rotted ropes. Tz'kri speculates that this was the recreation center for the Citadel, and that the original inhabitants used the ropes to climb and scamper about. There is a hole in the ceiling up to the second floor that was once accessible using the climbing ropes. Everyone except Tz'kri lets out a sigh of despair at the thought of having to scale their way up to the second floor.
Ooth solves the problem through the expedient of being eight feet tall: he simply reaches up to the hole and pulls himself through to take a look. The second floor proves to be very similar to the first floor: rotting plush furniture, decaying ropes, and a few gaming tables. There is also a hole leading to the third floor. Tz'kri follows Ooth up, then clambers to the third floor. Belwin, chuffing and blowing, clambers up after the two of them.
On the third floor, the ghost appears. She is translucent, and appears to be in great pain. Tz'kri feels a subtle urge to dance, which he resists for three rounds. On the fourth round, she rushes at him and tears a huge gash in his side with her ethereal fingers. After that, Tz'kri dances. To his horror, he finds that he cannot stop. Even worse, he takes strain every round. Worse than that, the strain damage increases from round to round.
In a valiant but basically doomed effort to help his comrade, Belwin tries Taunting the ghost to distract her, with absolutely no effect. When Tz'kri falls unconscious from the strain, it becomes Belwin's turn. Belwin evades her until he can drop Tz'kri's body down to Ooth, then dives for the second floor a moment too late to avoid her attack. He drops unconscious instantly.
To the other characters' dismay, the ghost follows Belwin down. Cassidy tries dancing with her while Ooth pulls the unconscious characters out to the courtyard. Cassidy finds that he is sometimes able to please her with his dance, even though every succeeding round in which he dances costs him one strain point more than the round before. Unfortunately, he too falls unconscious before he is able to dismiss her.
Having recovered back to consciousness, Tz'kri ventures back to the second floor, where he sees Cassidy lying upon the ground as if dead. Tz'kri attaches a rope to Cassidy's body and has Ooth pull him to safety. He then takes two of the Healing potions the characters obtained from Asbeth, gives one to Belwin and drinks one himself. He heals himself completely, and brings Belwin back to consciousness. Belwin is none too happy, though he is glad to be conscious.
The characters head out into the forest and rest for five days, until everyone is completely healed. They decide to return to the tower and dance with the ghost again, hoping to assuage her loneliness enough to dispel her. Ooth's strategy will be to stand by and try casting Dispel Magic upon her while the other characters dance. Everyone determines that this seems like a good strategy in spite of calculations showing that they have about a 15% chance (all told) to dispel her.
The effort is an incredible disaster. Tz'kri falls unconscious after eight rounds of dancing (36 strain points). Belwin and Cassidy keel over after nine rounds (45 strain points, and one or two wounds). Cassidy does the best of all the characters, managing to occasionally achieve an empathic connection with the ghost. Sadly, it isn't enough.
Ooth's effort to cast Dispel Magic at her is even worse: she doesn't even notice his spell. Ooth runs like a rabbit, eventually followed by everyone else as they make Recovery Tests and regain consciousness. Everyone returns to the forest to recover.
Three days later, the characters try again. Cassidy is once again impressive, but not impressive enough. By the end, the characters sense that she is furious at them, but this isn't enough of a warning to keep them away. They try once more, sending just Cassidy up. She attacks straight away, without asking to dance. Cassidy runs for it, with the ghost close on his tail. The other characters do their best to stop her, with so little effect that she barely even notices. Cassidy flees the area, heading for the Citadel door. He stops just shy of the doors, noticing that there are t'skrang cadaver men waiting with nets. He goes running back to the tower, yelling, "It's a trap!"
Meanwhile, Tz'kri concludes that he has little choice but to fight her. He attacks, using his Desperate Blow charm to ensure accuracy, and delivers a punishing blow. He manages to inflict enough damage to wound her, staggering her across the room. His shouts of joy are enough to bring Belwin back to the fight. Ooth soon joins in the conflict, then slinks back and falls when she hits him really bad. Tz'kri and Belwin finally manage to harry her to death, with Tz'kri doing the lion's share of the damage.
Tz'kri finally puts in the final stroke, slaying the spirit. As she dissipates, she issues a dying curse: "Curse you! May your intestines be devoured by worms!"
As the spirit dies, a loud "boom!" echoes through the Citadel. The characters speculate that this might have been the Sealed Tower doors opening.
The characters in the Ghost Tower notice that Cassidy vanishes into the body of the Citadel at a run, screaming about zombies, nets and traps all the while. Soon enough, they find out why, as four zombies carrying nets approach the tower chanting, "Eat more brains! Brains!" They get into the tower, shut the door, and take refuge on the second floor. At that point, Belwin tosses some furniture out of the window to get the zombies' attention, then ensures that they stick around by Taunting them. Once they're all in line of sight, he and Ooth dispatch them with a combination of crossbow bolts and Mind Daggers.
Meanwhile, Cassidy flees through the Citadel, eventually managing to escape into the forest, where the other characters link up with him somewhat later.
Once again, the characters trek back into the wilderness to heal. Several characters take this opportunity to spend Legend Points upon various Talents and abilities. Belwin takes two days to heal, and buys three points of Karma (costing him 18 Legend Points). Ooth takes three days to heal, and buys Melee Weapons Rank 4 (500 points) and Spellcasting Rank 4 (500 points) . Tz'kri buys Karma Ritual Rank 1 (100 points), and heals in much less than three days thanks to his staggering Toughness.
The characters decide that they are unwilling to venture into the Sealed Tower at this point, even though superficial investigation suggests that the doors now rattle like locked doors should.
As a compromise, they decide to break into the eastern tower. To their horror, they find that it is stacked three feet deep in bodies. Sporadic shiny bits of plunder and metal are visible among the grue. All races are represented among the dead, from windlings to trolls.
Belwin argues that the only decent thing to do is to carry the bodies out and burn them. He and Tz'kri volunteer to carry the bodies out while Cassidy and Ooth set to gathering wood for the funeral pyres. Belwin and Tz'kri both wish to avoid touching the bodies directly, so they fashion crude gloves from the remains of the furniture and tapestry in the Ghost Tower.
The top layers of bodies are fairly fresh, and include the remains of two of the diplomats from Belhanna Kaer. Some of the carcasses are still adorned with usable gear, including a suit of troll chainmail, a suit of t'skrang chainmail, an ornate spear of orkish manufacture, a small-harp of elven craft, a set of Blood Pebble armor (still embedded in it's onetime owner's corpse), and a withered ferndask shield. Beyond these items, the characters also locate a small, distinctive necklace upon one of the diplomat's bodies (to establish that they found the man).
Ooth is completely in favor of looting all of the valuables from the bodies, an idea that Belwin opposes as a desecration of the dead. They manage to reach an uneasy agreement that the spear and the harp may be heirlooms, and should be returned to the relatives of the deceased (if they can be found), and that the suit of trollish chainmail armor can be taken because Ooth is a troll and knows the ways of his own people. The diplomat's necklace must be returned to the Council as proof that the characters succeeded in their mission.
This agreement is shattered when the Blood Pebble armor is uncovered. Ooth immediately states that it must be his, and plunges into the corpse with his dagger in hand. Even as Belwin yells at him to stop, he continues to lever out pebble after pebble, apparently untroubled by the gore and maggots that flow from the wearer's corpse. Only after Tz'kri joins on Belwin's side of the argument does Ooth relent and (reluctantly) agree that the armor should be burned with it's owner.
Cassidy stands aside from all this conflict, preferring instead to spend his spare time examining the various items the characters have recovered, using his Item History talent quite liberally. He determines that the orkish spear is headed with razor-sharp obsidian (even after long disuse) and is hafted with nut-brown wood. His Item History tells him that it may have been made with the blood of a Horror, and his common sense tells him that it is deeply frightening in appearance. He isn't too sure about the history of the elven harp. It is unplayable, as all of the strings are long since rotted to worthlessness. However, he does decide that it would make a remarkable instrument if it were to be restored. Cassidy also examines the withered ferndask shield. His Item History tells him that it can be brought back to full health, but not exactly how.
Along the side, Tz'kri finds a small blood charm that Cassidy identifies for him as a Death Cheat charm. In the event of the wearer's death, it gives him one free Recovery Test at a +5 Step bonus. After it is used, it turns translucent and no longer functions.
It takes the characters several days to finally dispose of all the bodies. Along the way, they keep a written record of everyone they pull out of the pile, with a rough description (e.g., "troll, recent, blue cloak, misshapen horns; elf, badly decomposed"). The characters make special note of the missing members of the diplomatic mission: two decomposing emissaries in the room of death, and one Warrior Adept romping around as a zombie. In total, there are 274 bodies. Those towards the bottom are predominantly t'skrang, but the ones at the top are of mixed race. The characters all agree that the more recent bodies are probably unfortunate traders, emissaries and adventurers who fell afoul of the Citadel's residents.
All of the bodies are burned upon pyres in groups of four and five, except for the various obsidimen carcasses, which are placed in shallow graves instead. Tz'kri carves a short memorial to the dead on a barrel top to mark the site. Ooth offers some shamanic prayers for the souls of the dead. To close the brief ceremony, Cassidy sings a truly moving song, wishing the souls of the dead a good journey on to the next life.
The characters spend a bit of time poking around some of the more obvious unexplored corners of the Citadel during the time they are working to clear out all the bodies. Their primary interest is to find any other zombie concentrations, so they can be eliminated as a threat to the public welfare.
One corner of the Citadel proves to be a zombie bazaar furnished with stalls and shops marked off with hideous tatters and tapestries. A crowd of zombies still stagger around, trying to trade goods consisting of fish guts, severed limbs, and metal bars. The characters make short work of them, then recover a total of fifty metal bars from the wreckage. They are of a variety of materials, predominantly iron, copper and bronze. Each masses 2.5 kg. The characters arrange to load them onto a simple wooden sledge so they can take them back to Belhanna.
In his explorations, Cassidy finds a large room filled with beds and hammocks. Each contains an apparently sleeping t'skrang. Some of the characters are very much in favor of examining it straight off, considering that the t'skrang appear to still be alive, if inactive. The other characters argue that the entire group is tired, hungry, and injured, and should report back to Belhanna upon what they have already found before starting to fool around with something that is obviously rife with powerful magics. In the end, the characters decide to leave it alone, with the idea of coming back to it later.
Soon after the characters return to "normal" forests, Tz'kri spots a big, 15-foot log carved into the shape of an alligator on the shore of the river. It is almost afloat, with half of it's length out over the water, and is rocking back and forth slightly. Cassidy quickly figures out that it is a canoe, and that there is a big lizard trapped inside it. Cassidy even recognizes that the lizard is a Lightning-Spitter, an aggressive creature with dangerous magical lightning powers.
Belwin speculates that the canoe must have arrived in the area very recently, as it looks to be in fairly good condition and there is clearly nobody living in the region (thanks to the dead Citadel). Tz'kri tries his Tracking and quickly figures out what happened from the welter of t'skrang tracks in the mud around the canoe: the crew had beached their vessel and were pulling it ashore when the lizard arrived and attacked. When the lizard came on the scene, the t'skrang all ran for the jungle.
Tz'kri heads off to track the crew, while Belwin sits and thinks about trying to snipe at the lizard. Within minutes, Tz'kri finds a group of jungle t'skrang chanting around a fire. Communication proves to be difficult, as they share no languages with Tz'kri. Tz'kri is reduced to carving an illustration of a lizard in a boat upon a tree, which gets quite a reaction from the savages. They hoot and holler for a while, then bring up a warrior wearing a lizard skin the same as the thing in the boat. Things don't go very far very fast from there, even after Tz'kri brings in Cassidy to try and establish a better link.
The characters finally decide to try and kill the lizard, mindful of Cassidy's cautionary tales of its lightning powers. Tz'kri sneaks up on it and tries to stab it with the orkish spear while Belwin hides in a patch of brush, waiting to fire with a crossbow. Tz'kri's efforts at stealth are quite successful, as is his accuracy. He and Belwin dispatch the thing with little trouble. It actually takes a lot more effort to haul the carcass out of the canoe to show the jungle t'skrang.
The jungle t'skrang appear to want the creature's eyes. Tz'kri gives them the eyes, and they give him a carving of the canoe and indicate that the canoe at the shore is his. The characters think that they should give the locals something in return, so Belwin gives them his crossbow. The jungle t'skrang appear quite appreciative of the gift after Belwin shows them how it works. As he urges them to take it, he explains to them that he'll just make the Council give him a new one.
The canoe is a Jungle T'skrang War Canoe. It has the following stats:
|
Speed |
3 |
|---|---|
|
Maneuverability |
4 |
|
Hull Armor |
5 |
|
Hull Ramming |
8 |
|
Damage |
|
|
Captain |
1 |
|
Crew Size |
10 |
The characters paddle back towards Belhanna without much trouble. Along the way, Tz'kri enjoys himself by splashing in the water. Cassidy tries washing his ferndask shield to bring it back to life, without much immediate effect.
The characters return to Belhanna to find that the Kaer is doing fairly well. There have been a number of events in their absence. The most baffling of these is the sudden, mysterious reconstruction of the Library. Nobody on the Council or among the Dwarf Scholars is able to explain what happened, but the building now boasts new stonework and ornate gargoyles overlooking the roof. Belwin tries to find the scholar Thrumb (whom he trusts) to see if he can explain, but finds that the dwarf has headed off to try and find the Kingdom of Throal.
Tz'kri finds that his old master, an Ork Scout, has run off with Mank and Ragvorn. He learns that the ork outsider Grith-Tu is also a Scout, and offers him two bars of bronze as payment to teach him the secrets of the Third Circle. Grith-Tu accepts. He is fascinated to hear of Tz'kri's stories of the T'Urgulobon Citadel.
One of the windling beastmasters decided that with his mighty dyre he was now invincible, and headed off to the South to teach Ragvorn's orks a lesson. He was flown back, beaten and broken, in the claws of an eagle. There was no sign of his dyre, but it's fate was fairly clear.
To Belwin's great distress, the ork Tryleena has returned to the Council. She and the other Council members have a long and complicated story about how she was acting as the Council's double agent among the orks, a story that Belwin doesn't really accept. He does his best to keep his mouth shut, but is unable to refrain from offering mildly scathing commentary upon the wisdom of the Council when he reports upon the fate of the emissaries sent to T'Urgulobon Citadel. Some of the Council members retort that none of this would have been a problem if he and his renegade friends hadn't breached the Kaer Seal in the first place. Once again, Belwin stalks away from the Council Keep with a black cloud over his head.
The Kaer's first crops are progressing well. The new strategy of surrounding fields with buried stone walls and poisoning the earth-q'wrill inside is working well enough to make the farmers confident that they will eventually be able to bring in a substantial crop.
The session ends with the characters back in Belhanna Kaer. They are currently resting and reflecting upon their experiences in the ruins of T'Urgulobon Citadel, and readying themselves for another expedition to the site.
During the course of the adventure, most of the characters spent some number of Legend Points upon Talents and Karma, as listed below:
|
Character |
Expenditures |
|---|---|
| Belwin |
Total Spent: 518 Legend Points |
| Cassidy |
Total Spent: 600 Legend Points |
| Ooth |
Total Spent: 1600 Legend Points |
| Tz'kri |
Total Spent: 700 Legend Points |
|
Goals Completed |
|
|---|---|
|
Opponents Defeated |
|
|
Roleplaying |
|
|
Heroics |
|