Drûr 20-21, 652 DR: Tharad’Zor’s house barely provides shelter for the party within as Grū and Ghûls attack mercilessly. Recruits begin to fail and die under the onslaught. After the assault suspicions of Aren arise. A much need rest. Dammon leads the company to the Great Cemetery of Cenotaph and readies for the final Ghûl battle, they enter.
Continued from Terrors of Cenotaph, Part 1.
Iyldor, 20 Drûr 652
Outside, the rain continued to fall and the wind pushed a night mist through the splintered shutters. Jak and Mishara opened the kitchen hatch and descended into the cellar with a wood axe. In the old wine cellar, standing in a carpet of broken glass, Jak began chopping upward at the heavy timber floor joists. Not long after he’d begun a scratching sound could be heard from the wall behind them, followed by a long mournful “Ooooooo…”. The sound of stones being dislodged from behind the wall sent the two retreating back up into the kitchen. The kitchen table was overturned and Mishara readied his bow near the open hatch. The eerie hollow calling filled the basement below, mixed with the sounds of stones falling to the cellar’s glass strewn floor. Alcèrra arrived with her trident lowered and positioned herself near the opening. At once, a large blackish creature erupted from the hole. Mishara released an arrow into the monster’s chest which turned and bit at the Eylfāe’s head with savage black teeth. Jak and Alcèrra stabbed at the monster, which turned and struck at the spear-man, clawing and biting with ravenous intent. Jak planted his spear into the creature once more and it slumped back against the wall. Examining the Grū, the three were alarmed to see that its wounds had already begun knitting together, as they had seen on the road to Avahrlyn. Jak dragged the rubbery monster into the dining room, and rolled its heavy twitching carcass into the fireplace. A dark noxious cloud issued from the firebox, but the body was slow to catch.
Returning to the cellar, Jak and Mishara examined the hole the Grū had burrowed. Using Jak’s lantern, they looked through into another chamber of the basement, strewn with caskets. Climbing through the hole, Jak noticed a hatch leading away from the house and a pit filled with ragged metal spikes. Mishara examined the floor and found tracks throughout the room. One by one, the two explorers opened the caskets. Jak skewered each shrouded corpse, be it man, woman, or child once the casket was overturned. The last casket however, was empty and would not be budged. Mishara examined its interior and found that a hatch in the casket’s bottom swung downward revealing a dirt passage leading away from the house’s rear. Jak climbed in and squeezed into the tunnel.
It was still dark when Vindin and Aren rose the alarm that the Ghûls were returning. Alcèrra shouted down the kitchen hatch that they were returning. The priestess began a ritual of blessing but the spell failed. Both Aren and Vindin fired at the oncoming masses of Ghûls charging toward the house. Soon the windows were filled with their gruesome faces and rending teeth. Aren drew his sword. Bear’s crossbow sent one of the monsters tumbling back into the street. The Ghûls rushed inward. Bear closed with the invaders, but the claws of one creature dropped the large man into a paralyzed heap. As two of monsters tried to pull Bear out through the window, Alcèrra rushed forward and pulled free of the Ghûls’ claws. As she dragged Bear’s body away from the window, Jak and Mishara charged into the room, Jak with his spear punching through the fearless horrors, and Mishara grabbing Bear’s crossbow which had fallen near the window. The house shuddered with a great boom of thunder as lightning struck very near.
In an upstairs room, Tressta and Vindin fought vainly to hold the shutters closed, stabbing outward through the slats with short swords. The shutters finally shattered inward sending the two staggering back. Mindlessly chattering, the Ghûls scrambled deftly into the room and Vindin collapsed with a scratch from their claws. Tressta screamed and ran from the room. At the bottom of the stairs, the Taládan found Alcèrra propping Bear’s unmoving form in the stairwell. Dammon soon appeared, pouring a potion into the slack mouth of the crossbowman. Next, Alcèrra moved to the room’s center and prayed for a protective circle into being. Jak and Aren fought heroically in the front room, cutting down Ghûls as the streamed through the windows. Mishara fired from the relative safety of the hallway, waiting for clean shots and dropping the Undying monsters with his points. Outside the windows, a figure fell from the second story. Dammon left Bear in Alcèrra’s care and slipped into the kitchen, unleashing Lāllan’s Lightning at those entering the rear of the house. One screamed and dropped, but another, its face ripped apart by the spell, turned and charged the magician. It bit Dammon once, but he was able to step back and unleash another spell to stop the Ghûl’s advance. At the staircase, Alcèrra, Bear, and Tressta watched with amazement as Ghûls trying to press down the stairs were repelled by the priestess’s protective circle.
Within a few moments, as they had earlier in the night, the second wave began to withdraw and were soon gone. The fight was again over as quickly as it had begun. The front room, still choked with Grū-smoke, was filled with the stinking bodies of more than a dozen Ghûls. Scooping up the foul corpses, Jak began the unpleasant task of depositing the creatures out the windows, onto the street below. With this done, he crossed the ichor-stained floor and crawled out a window, dropping among the mounting pile of Undying flesh. Beneath one of the corpses he spied a familiar helmet. It was the helmet of Vindin who had been thrown to the street and hauled away. Jak gathered the helmet and returned to the house. Watches were established and the rest of the night passed without event.
That day the group rested, watching from the windows of the stone house. As far as they could see, nothing moved in the walled Town of Cenotaph. During a change of the guards, Bear spoke with Mishara, voicing speculation about Aren Zarad. Bear explained that he’d volunteered Aren for this mission to get him away from Kryr Shùrulm because he suspected that the young archer might have treasonous intents. Bear explained that he suspected the young archer was much more than he seemed, and that his non-issue sword was of surpassing quality. The Anàhlāen agreed to look into it, and went to speak with the young man. He found Aren suspicious of his questions and quite reluctant to receive the death priestess’s ministrations despite his obvious wounds.
The rest of the day passed without event. The storm had moved on and more pleasant autumn weather returned to Oð.
Irídor, 21 Drûr 652
The night’s watch reported a distant howling sometime near nightsdeep, but that sorrowful sound never grew closer, and was soon replaced with the lonely sound of clapping shutters throughout the town. Come early morning, the group organized themselves and left the house of Tharad’Zor in search of a cemetery Dammon claimed to have seen in months passed. Leaving the walled Town of Cenotaph, the group walked along overgrown dirt roads, passed weed-choked fields and abandoned farmsteads. Finally the group came to where the ridge sloped down to the shores of the Sêryð Swell, and there among countless dark holes, small bristle-weed hills, and overturned stones was the Cenotaph Cemetery. To the east, the first light of dawn splayed across the horizon offering a watch or more of daylight before the Wheel’s pall would mask the sun.
Alcèrra looked across the ruined landscape and knew that this was where she needed to be.
Continued in Shores of the Sêryð Swell.
Characters
- Alcèrra Nàdrelan
- Dammon Shroudson
- Jak of Cænden
- Mishara Mythdaras
- Tressta Drynsval
- Aren Zarad
- Bear Nogrodd
- Familiar
- Dana
- Irgul
- Tharad’Zor: dead
- Toquis
- Vardeth
- Vindin: killed
Played: 24 Apr 1999