OOC: Well, I would like to first say thank you to the event holders and the entire staff that made this event happen. Overall the lead-up to this event and the plugs that were done both online and also at Queen of Hearts and Tournaments of Chaos really helped sell the whole thing. There was a solid build-up to this so people could understand what they were getting into as well as learn a few important pieces of information beforehand.
IC: Okay let's get into it. Friday night was food, court, and the hunt. The potluck food was really good. There was a great selection, and it was good to see everyone come together to help with this. I was super impressed with this, and that is rare when it comes to food while adventuring. There was chili, shredded chicken, cheeses, and more available for everyone. Also, some hot and cold drinks were provided. All of this was served at Evie’s Tavern. More was provided but that is all I could remember.
Court was a bit long for my liking, but I like no court for the most part, so that isn't saying much. For this, they did keep it relatively short but made sure all of their important stuff was included. We saw a shift in Voraniss politics with the moving of some members to different positions as well as each of them receiving their titled name. Honestly, as long as this took, it was really good to see. It brought forward some of the people we don't see that often and let us know a bit about them. I am really happy to see this done. After that, the Knights of Voraniss were formed with Avendar being the Knight Commander and him taking on two squires. I look forward to seeing how they all turn out.
The hunt came after court, and it was a bunch of people hunting down the spirits in Voraniss to collect their tokens. It seemed like everyone had fun with this although I did not participate. From what I understand things went well overall with this hunt even if one of the trickier spirits kept getting away. In the end, fun was had and we wrapped it up for the night after more time around the fire.
It was a really good turnout for a Friday night, and even though the cold was enough to preserve the dead, everything ran pretty smoothly from what I could tell. I believe there were a good few people who decided to stay up very late casting spells and talking into the wee hours of the morning, but that is for the younger folk without old tired bones.
Saturday was a whole different story. We traveled North West to a small village that was being roughed up by undead. We made our way to the tomb that we were told about prior to our arrival and found that there were seals at the door. Each seal bore a mark of a deity. There was one for Gaia, Dionin, Aurora, Solarus, and Rexan. The Rexan seal was torn and broken before we got there. Because of this the tomb was now visible as well as leaking necromantic energy. We were advised that we should break the rest of the seals to enter the tomb and take care of the problem within. With very little debate we got followers of each of the listed deities together, and one by one broke down the seals to allow us to enter. Now I would like to say that we did a spectacular job at kicking in the door and winning the day, but that is only kind of what happened.
When we entered the tomb, we realized quickly that this place was far larger than we expected. The first floor was filled with undead as expected, but there were also statues that acted as seals for the passage forward. Each statue required something to be done in order to unlock it. Now my job was to keep the endless undead off the backs of those figuring out the puzzles of the statues so I couldn’t tell you much about them. I am pretty sure one of them you had to sing to, and another had to be proven you had conviction. I could be way off base here as I was only catching a little bit of information as it passed by.
Needless to say, we completed the challenge, and the door opened, and we were permitted access deeper into the tomb. Now I could write this up as a room-by-room-level-by-level synopsis but I won’t. I will hit some of the highlights because, to be honest, there was a lot. I am pretty sure we must have gone down a dozen floors into the tomb before we made it to the bottom.
On our way down we encountered more statues with more tasks. Some of those statues were represented by the deities that helped seal the tomb shut. There was a vampire in a casket on one of the floors. It seemed that it was set up as a trap. Anyone who tried looting the vampires glowing sword had their soul ripped from their bodies leaving a lifeless husk on the ground. Many things were tried to revive the vampire for some reason. I was going to try and kill it but was stopped. I guess we have some people who sympathize with creatures trapped in an evil tomb that radiates necromantic energy causing the dead to rise and kill the local peasant folk. Honestly, I would hate to think how they treat their own peasants if that is the case.
There was a room filled with Shades that when they tore through your armor, they could invoke a deep dread and fear within you or so I am told. Such things really don’t bother me, but they seemed to affect my companions. Interestingly enough weapons that were under the effects of Ghost Blade had great effect on those creatures. Eventually, we had to drive them back through sets of mirrors by pushing them away with light.
Another area we being deceived by malevolent spirits crying out to us and we had to figure out what one was real. For the Stonewood group, we could tell right away ours was a fake. We all know what happens next when you are found and cannot be identified. Eventually, we found the key required to continue on.
One of the levels of the tomb had a gelatinous cube. I cannot express how much that gave me delight. There are some rare creatures in the realms, but you do not see these things often, and all I can say is I was impressed. Sure it was slow and for the most part avoidable but to counter that we have the collective mind of a distracted pigeon so, of course, many people ended up dead to its gelatinous mass. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention I was also one who was caught in a dead-end hallway staring back at the dungeon cleaner that was sucking up undead corpses and pinning me in.
We later encountered the Necromancer’s Apprentice again. We had faced them at Queen of Hearts performing the ritual to bring back their master. We failed then at stopping the ritual, and in doing so, I believe we allowed the Master to become more powerful and more challenging when we finally faced him. The fight there was difficult as we were running low on resources from a long day of fighting and the Apprentice was bringing the undead back almost as fast as we were killing them. I was working on distracting him to get some much-needed information as well as slowing the tide of undead to my friends. It was somewhat effective, but we were still having a difficult time at this point.
Once the Apprentice was finally killed, we were allowed access to the final chamber to the Master. Turns out he is a lich and a powerful one at that. He created an unpenetrable circle around him as well as causing candles to float around his throne soon after we entered. Then he began slinging some really powerful spells and throwing boulders with his mind. There was a book of evil rituals that was on the other side of the room to my understanding although I was not able to get over there before the whole tomb started to collapse. As I was making my way out, I was struck by a rogue fireball and was slain. I was revived after my body was dragged out of the falling tomb. I would like to give thanks to whoever dragged me out of there. I heard it was a close call and I never saw who it was. Others were not as lucky as me as there were some trapped within. Mathias, through works of magic and favor, recovered the rest of the trapped adventurers.
We found a portal to get out, but it was at the end of a gauntlet of traps. Being one of the more sturdy adventurers in the group, I was set to point and began eating traps with my face to protect those who were behind me. The shield blocked the magic missiles with ease, but the boulders and fireballs took a bit more oomph to shrug off and keep going. In the end, though we all made it through and out safe.
When we popped out the other side, I was a bit in a haze and needed to catch up with the group. We pushed to the end of a path fighting large groups of undead and finally came across the vampire that we had seen in the tomb. I would like to take this time to also mention that we did also run into many random items in the tomb and some were helpful, and others were cursed. One such item was a crown that made the wearer unable to be healed. Unfortunately, that meant creating them as an undead, and well, it was one of mine so no normal undead would do. So they were created as a Death Knight. While some of the party was talking with the vampire, the larger portion of the group was keeping the line against the summoned undead that popped up behind the group. While many of them could be felled through normal means the more powerful of them required magic weapons to kill. At that point, we sent in the Death Knight to clean out the group. Realizing that we were ill-equipped as a full group to deal with that kind of threat we handed off a couple magic weapons to others to bring up our odds of success.
Once we dealt with that threat, we made our way to a ruined village and were told we needed to sanctify the area to push the undead out. This was by far no easy task. First, we needed to perform a ritual of faith and then something else. Honestly, at that point, my whole job was to help push back the undead and more importantly keep my friends alive. I was told that there were adventurers among us that were actively working against us and performing blood magic to hinder our efforts. Such openly evil deeds are being looked into, and I hope that those responsible understand the foul deeds that they did will not be tolerated.
Even with the setback from our fellow adventurers we found victory and drove the evil from the area. Or at least the undead evil that was attacking. With that, the area was safe for a time. We then returned to the fire for rest and catching up as well as casting spells to ensure we had completed all we could and to help find those who worked against us.
The next morning we traveled to the nearby woods to destroy fetishes of evil that spread further necromantic power. Small ones were found in abundance, around twenty if memory serves, and were destroyed. There were larger ones that needed to be taken care of, but about the time they were working on that, I saw a creature in the woods. It can only be described as a candy goblin. When spotted it took off, and I was not letting it get away. I was also not the only one who saw it as two others tore off after it as well before finally killing it. It exploded in loot and dropped his candy sack for us to dig through. To our delight, it was in fact a sack full of candy and other odds and ends.
Once that business was all dealt with we made our way to the local cemetery to perform some last rights and deal with some lingering undead. The undead roaming around were zombies, and that was the perfect thing to train some of our newer adventurers on so we worked to keep it a controlled environment to allow the fresh recruits a chance to learn some real-world fighting skills outside of the training pits. I am happy to report that it really helped and within a half hour, we saw some real improvement.
In the end, Mathias packed up some of the wayward villagers and brought them home to ensure their safety and give them a place to live. I am glad to see that they are being taken care of and I hope that someday they can return home when it is safer.
In conclusion, I don’t believe we have seen the last of the Master and his undead hoard, but we will see. We have many spells to cast to see if he still lives or if the rubble was enough to end him. Overall I feel like we did well by the people of the area and we will be working on repairs to the village to ensure they are not just left in the cold in the wake of another tragic event.
Thank you all for your time,
Lord Sir Elwin O’Bearikin of Stonewood