Higharvestide to Marpenoth 4 - Mummy Rot is Bloody Annoying

Higharvestide

We went back to town with Talin afflicted by Mummy Rot. Christine could not help him, so we went back to The Magister. He researched the condition for most of the day, but returned that evening to heal Talin. While we were waiting, we purchased a few supplies, such as Sunrods. We collected 30gp for the undead wolves we destroyed, but healing Talin cost us 200gp.

Marpenoth 1

The next morning Christine used her Lesser Restoration spells to fully heal Talin. While The Magister had stopped the rot, the effects would take days to fully dissipate without more magic. We decided to stay close to town today until we all felt better. I was still quite bitter about our defeat at the hands of that vile undead. I swore on my father's life that we would destroy it.

Marpenoth 2

The next morning we left Beldak in town as he was not feeling particularly well. I think it may have been some berries he ate along the trail. He claimed they were safe, but the rest of us were hesitant to believe an Urban Ranger when it came to Rural wild berries, and we all declined his offer. Now he is ill and we are not.

After a horrific battle back at the caves, we destroyed the mummy. It took all of us, and especially Aramil, to be victorious. Aramil has won additional respect in my eyes. I am beginning to see where a wizard will be quite useful as he grows in power. His spells are getting more and more deadly to our foes, and without him we surely would have had to retreat once again. I wished to name him Mummybane but the words do not roll off the tongue. No matter, I will find an appropriate nick name to recognize his significant contributions to the party.

We also found a secret door, but there was noise beyond and we were all significantly injured. Additionally, Talin and I were both infected with the dreadful Mummy rot during the battle so we once again withdrew to town. We were attacked again by undead wolves, but Chrissy drove two away with the power of Tyr and we slaughtered the remaining one.

Back in town I told The Magister to cure Talin first (he could only cure one person per day). We purchased some potions of Cure Light Wounds and then went back to the Inn for the night.

Marpenoth 3

The Magister cured me of the Mummy Rot this day, and Christine took care of removing the last effects of the rot from Talin and myself.

Marpenoth 4

Fully healed and with spells re-loaded, we returned to the cave. Beyond the secret door were 9 zombies. They were no match for the Band of the Hand. We destroyed them easily. We found much treasure, as well as the second-half of the key gem needed to open a door in the room that had contained the Brown Mold.

We returned to that room and placed the gem into the slot. The entire floor gave way and I feel many feet, abruptly having my fall broken by a stone coffin. Talin almost fell but managed to hang on by a fingernail.

Elient 27-30: Caves and Rats and Undead, Oh My!

Elient 27
After our fight with the Undead, we needed to rest. I decided this night that I need to sleep with a sunrod ready in my belt. It takes too long to get it out of my backpack when we are attacked at night. We camped outside with a view of the caves and were attacked by more of those damned undead wolves. Chrissy was severely injured, and we were forced to carry her back to town. We purchased some potions and got her back on her feet, but it was a large delay.

Elient 28
The next morning we returned to the caves, and discovered a secret area with some books on Necromancy and some other treasure. We then fought more beasts (it is all blurring together now), and eventually found a book by the Necromancer we week. The book was written by Stergon (sp?) but the last entry was months ago. We also ran into a coffin filled with Brown Mold, and after a few false starts we figured out how to defeat it. Aramil needed to rest to select the appropriate spells, however, so we decided to sleep in the cave.

Elient 29
Overnight we were attacked by a hoard of rats. We defeated them, and then we tried to stop up their passage. We then took care of the Brown Mold, finding a key hole in the coffin requiring some type of gem to open. We fought another undead, and I got some great armor and a shield off of him. He was no match for Chrissy’s god and the power she wielded held him at bay while we crushed him! We also found one-half of what we believe to be the gem to fit the keyhole in the coffin. Finally, we opened a trap door and began clearing the rubble so we could make our way down the passageway.

Elient 30
We finished the rubble and fought a horrible battle against a Mummy. I let the Band down as I was frozen by the foul thing, as was Chrissy. We had to retreat, but the undead did not follow. Tomorrow we will destroy it. Tomorrow, it will die for the last and final time.

Elient 26 - Wolf Hills, Treasure Caves, and Much Undead

In the morning I could tell that Galton was excited that the Band of the Hand actually met with him. He went on and on about how others have gone out into the Wolf Hills and not come back. It was all a little boring. After all, had not the Band of the Hand faced down the evil druid? Granted, we lost Urky and didn't kill the druid, but we survived a nasty ambush and managed to survive. I was not too concerned about a few undead wolves.

The rolling forest around Fornlar quickly gave way to more pronounced tree-covered hills as we headed north down an old, battered brick road. Eventually the bricks became buried by the
overgrowth. At this point Christina made another comment about the lack of game animals and had an uneasy feeling about the environment. I am really glad she is with us. I apparently cannot tell the difference between north and south, and our urban ranger is all but useless in the wild, but Christina set us straight on a path to the caves. Could it be that she had grown even more beautiful in the years we have been apart? Am I beginning to feel something more for my childhood friend?

After about an hour of traveling into the woods down the path (although not much of a path at all), we were set upon by a group of three ghoul like wolves. Christina quickly prayed to Tyr and was able to cause two of the wolves to turn tail and flee. She really has become a remarkable woman. The remainder of the party moved into action to kill the third wolf. I bagged another platinum collar and asked Aramil to cast read magic - revealing the runes are from a discharged animate dead spell.

About noontime we came to a spot on the map where we found ourselves on wooded hillside overlooking a set of three smaller hills topographically lower than the surrounding area which looked to match up with the map. Going to the hill coordinating with point B on Galton's map the band quickly found ourselves in a vast cave with a three foot stream running along the
southern portion. The cave was wet and fungus filled with little critters running around the floor. Stalagmites and stalactites were numerous throughout with several connecting into column formations.

Christina thought she saw some shadows behind one and being a bit cautious took a good look at the others and whispered to the party that she thought there were shadowy figures behind three of the larger column formations. I felt that they were probably small, terrified Kobolds or perhaps Goblins, so I strode forward and asked them in common to come out. That action quickly brought out three pairs of grey, fleshy, humanoid figures with mottled skin and long nailed claws.

Once again Christina, resplendent in Tyr's glory, prayed for and received the power of her deity to turn the undead creatures into the far corners of the cavern - there we slew the foul creatures. In one corner of the cave from where the stream emerged Talin noted that there looked to be addition caverns for exploration upstream.

For how, however, we moved into the northeast corridor of the cavern and were greeted with two rooms - one to the north-east which looked to have broken chairs and tables and one to the south-east which had four slabs with what looked like bodies.

I decided to move into the south-east room where the four 8'x3' slabs were located. On
each slab was a moldering body with worms crawling from the eye sockets and skin. Each appeared to have sliced marks across their bodies. Also, each body was wearing a tattered black robe with necromantic symbols on it. I prayed to my god and then threw a torch on one of the bodies expecting it to burn. Instead the corpse rose from the slab, and in a moment of weakness, frightened me so much that I found myself fleeing the cave. It slammed into Christina, and she also fled. The only two not scared were Beldak and Talin. In the ensuing battle, Beldak was slammed and then about choked into his deathbed by the living corpse. However Talin was able to fend off the creature. Once we returned, I decided that since Christina seamed to be in good favor with Tyr that she should try to turn the remaining undead creatures.

Again she was blessed and immediately the remaining creatures rose from their slabs and cowered in the corners where they were quickly dispatched. A quick search of the
room found nothing more.