Upon
returning to town, the group split up and began making preparations.
Stein went back to the manor and began working on a new formulation
for his bombs. Santino went to Jorfa to borrow a pry bar. Natalya
and Heimish went to the Temple and the Sheriff’s office
respectively, to try to recruit help and acquire necessary supplies,
especially holy water in abundance.
After preparations were made, they went to bed early. But none slept well, even with the sleeping herbs Stein had offered. They knew that they would be facing potentially terrifying foes in the morning.
So it wasn’t surprising that each and every member of the party awoke early, each to go about his or her own preparations. Stein prepared an elaborate and involved morning meal.
Santino visited Jorfa once again, enlisting her participation in a strange and twisted ritual. It is better, perhaps, not to dwell upon the details of such. Suffice it to say that no spirits of Good would look upon it with favor.
Heimish enacted his own religious observance. Sneaking out in the dark of morning to find a soul in need of charity, he eventually found such a man, sleeping in the gutter. Quietly, he hobbled over to the sleeping man, and unseen by anyone, he slid a pouch of coins into the man’s tattered coat. Satisfied that the man would be able to buy a hot meal and warmer clothes, the preacher made his way back to the manor.
Natalya, meanwhile, was involved in her own ritual. Not one to dwell too much on the teachings of deities, she instead focused her efforts on inspecting and maintaining all of her gear. She also trained for an hour, moving gracefully through practiced forms until she was satisfied. Then she used a wet cloth to clean the sweat from her skin.
That isn’t to say that she didn’t have any ritual of religious significance. There was one such, common to all members of the Adventurer’s Guild. Using a piece of chalk, she drew the symbol of Pharasma upon the wall gazed upon it respectfully, then she whispered two words, taught to all members of the Guild. “Not today.” Then she used a second cloth to wipe the symbol away.
The group met for breakfast as the sun had just risen. No one really talked. They knew the danger they faced, so they ate with grim determination. Even Santino said little, to Kendra’s surprise.
After breakfast, they gathered their gear and set out. Their first stop was the Sheriff’s office, where they found a deputy waiting for them. On his belt was a short sword and a crossbow was slung in a harness on his back.
“Vrodish?” Santino whined. “I was hoping for Trestleblade. Maybe it’s not too late to ask the Sheriff for someone else.”
“Come now, lad,” Heimish said. “Sheriff Benjan has his own staffing considerations to take into account. Vrodish is here, and we should be glad of the help.”
“Fine, I guess.”
The next stop was the Temple to collect the holy water they’d purchased. To their surprise, they found Alvin waiting for them. He was dressed in ill-fitting scale mail armor marked with spots of rust. Even his helmet didn’t fit right, and as he greeted them, it slipped down over his eyes twice. On his back was a pair of short spears and there was a large wooden shield strapped to his arm.
“What’s with the armor?” Santino asked.
“Father Grimburrow wants me to go with you,” he said.
Vrodish argued against taking him, but Heimish argued for the acolyte. Natalya wanted to side with Vrodish, seeing the state of the man’s gear. But she knew that even a completely green acolyte of Pharasma would be invaluable in the fight against the dead.
So she said nothing. Instead, she simply helped him fix the strap on his helmet. It would still slip, but it would be an improvement. She was no blacksmith, and they didn’t really have time to go get a proper alteration made. So it would have to do.
It was still early morning when the six set out for the prison, and late morning when they arrived at the prison. Upon arrival, the first thing they did was go to Vesorianna to ask her for any advice she could give.
Santino knelt before the form of the ghost. “Milady, your guard has arrived. How much time do you have before you lose control of them?”
The ghost looked relieved. “There is time still, but please hurry.”
“Is there a way downstairs?” Heimish asked.
“I’m not sure. I am bound to this room and thus have little information about the rest of the prison.”
“The stairs were covered in rubble,” Santino pointed out.
“We could climb down that hole in the room where we fought the skulls,” Natalya suggested.
“I’m not a very good climber,” Alvin said.
“We can help you,” Heimish said. “It would take days to clear out the stairs.”
That settled, they bid Vesorianna farewell and made their way to the room where they’d faced the flying skulls. Once they arrived, Natalya took her rope and began tying knots every couple feet. “What’s that for?” Heimish asked.
“You can use the knots like footholds while climbing,” Natalya said. “It was one of the tricks they taught me when I joined the guild.”
“Useful trick.”
After tying off the rope, they decided what order to go down the rope. Santino would go first, then Vrodish, Stein, Heimish, Alvin and Natalya would bring up the rear, because leaving Alvin by himself was just asking for disaster.
As Santino reached the bottom, the sounds of wailing ghosts filled the room in a deafening cacophony. He looked around, and didn’t see anything immediate aside from water pooled in the center of the room, likely draining in from the lake. Even as Vrodish reached the bottom, there seemed to be nothing.
“Is everything alright?” Heimish asked after giving their vanguard time to regain their hearing.
“Seems fine. Noisy. Not sure what’s going on,” Santino answered.
But that changed a few moments later. Stein had just reached the bottom when suddenly ectoplasmic ooze began seeping from the walls, forming into humanoid creatures. The one nearest to Santino attacked him immediately, striking a glancing blow.
Heimish continued his descent and Vrodish leapt forward, slashing at the foe attacking Santino. “Thanks, bro,” Santino said as he joined the attack.
Natalya motioned for Alvin to begin climbing, but he shook his head. “My helmet’s giving me trouble. We should wait to go down until the fighting is over.” Natalya gave him an unamused look. “Sorry,” he apologized. “I might be a little afraid of heights.”
Natalya rolled her eyes and looked down the hole, a flask of holy water in hand. But try as she might, she couldn’t get a good angle to throw the flask, so she put it away.
Then Stein hurled a bomb, destroying one of the ectoplasmic creatures. The sound startled Alvin, who was looking down the hole, so much that his helmet fell off and down the hole. It landed in the water with a splash.
Santino slashed the remaining monster, then bit it, a move he instantly regretted, as the taste was something between dry snot and overcooked cabbage. Vrodish slashed again, finishing the monster as Alvin channeled healing energies to mend Santino’s mild injuries from a safe distance.
The danger passed, Santino reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a lollipop, which he immediately stuck into his mouth in a vain attempt to get rid of the foul taste. But even cinnamon wasn’t strong enough to overpower the rotten flavors, though it did help a little.
“Time to climb,” Natalya told Alvin. He looked like he was about to protest, but her scowl shut him up before he could speak. After he was down, Natalya swiftly climbed down behind him using quick, practiced motions.
From there, they continued on to a room with multiple exits, with the rubble laden stairs in the center. On each of the exits was a charred brass nameplate, denoting the sections of the prison they led to, from “The Oubliette” and the “Reaper’s Hold” to “The Nevermore” and finally “Hell’s Basement”, which was the room the party had come from.
All around the ground lay charred bones. Heimish, an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, pulled out one of the scrolls he was carrying and cast the spell it contained. “Um, guys? Beware the skeletons!” he gasped.
The others moved quickly into a defensive formation as the skeletons began pulling themselves together and standing, eight in all. “That’s not good!” Alvin shrieked.
“Use the rubble as a barrier,” Natalya said. “Don’t let them flank us!”
“They don’t scare me,” Santino said, licking his lips as he swung his axe, chipping one of the skeletons.
Stein swung his cane, clubbing another skeleton. “Alvin!” Heimish said. “Get to the middle of us and channel some of your goddess’ power! Send these things back to the sleep of death.”
“Right!” Alvin said, happy to have a task that would keep him off of the front lines. After taking a second to look through the door where they had come – there was always the risk another of those ghosts could be behind them – he brandished his holy symbol and unleashed a wave of healing energy.
The skeletons sizzled and recoiled, but continued fighting. “Good job!” Natalya said, lunging and stabbing one of the skeletons. “Do it again!” But she didn’t finish the last sentence. Because, as she turned her head for a split second, one of the skeletons struck her. It was a minor, glancing blow, but the hit caused her to fold and crumple upon the floor, completely lifeless.
Unable to see what was happening, Santino drew out a vial of holy water and threw it at one of his foes, but it went wide and struck the rubble, not hitting anything of value.
** * **
Natalya awoke in a lavishly appointed temple. Confused, she began to sit up, and her head rushed, her vision fading for a moment. As her vision returned, she took stock of her surroundings. First, and strangest of all, she realized that she was in a coffin on the altar of the temple.
There was a priest in exquisite robes seated nearby in vigil. “Oh, good, you’ve finally revived. You had us worried there.”
“Where am I?” she asked.
“I’m sure you have many questions. And I promise I’ll answer them all in due time. For now, please suffice it to say that it has been months since the events of Harrowstone. It took tremendous effort to bring you back, and in that time, your companions have all moved on. The ones who survived, anyway.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” she said reaching out for the hand the priest was offering to help her up, and felt pain wrack her body.
** * **
“What’s that?!” Stein asked, not lowering his guard as he continued fighting.
“I don’t know!” Heimish said, staring at the ghostly chains that had wrapped themselves around Natalya’s lifeless body.
Alvin retrieved a vial of holy water from his pocket. “Here! This will help!” he said, dumping it over Natalya. The chains sizzled and hissed where the water touched them and Natalya’s body convulsed.
“She’s still alive!” Heimish said.
On the other end of the rubble, Vrodish swung his short sword at the nearest skeleton, and missed horribly. “They let you become an officer, but rejected me?! Life really isn’t fair.” Santino whined. The skeletons burst into flame. “Well, now this is getting interesting!”
Heimish drew another scroll from his pack and cast a spell, warding Natalya against evil.
** * **
The priest cried out in pain and Natalya looked around for her sword. It was nowhere to be seen. That, more than anything, upset her. She had to know where it was. Things didn’t seem right.
“Come with me,” the priest said, regaining his composure.
Natalya blinked, then decided. “No. I’m not going anywhere until I have my sword back.”
The priest roared with rage at her declaration.
** * **
“She’s fighting it!” Heimish said.
“I have an idea,” Stein answered. “Hold the undead back.”
“I will! Alvin, help me!”
Before Alvin could reply, there was the sound of an explosion on the other side of the rubble. “Brodish down!” Santino cried out.
Alvin immediately moved to aid the fallen man, leaving Heimish and Stein alone with Natalya and the remaining skeleton. “I’ll buy you as much time as I can,” Heimish said, drawing his starknife.
“I only need a second,” Stein answered, drawing out a vial from his pouch and mixing it with a healing elixir. “Done!” He tossed the bomb, and holy energy burst forth from where it exploded.
The remaining skeleton succumbed to the holy energy and exploded in a burst of flame as the chains holding Natalya disappeared. Natalya’s eyes opened, and from her position on the ground, she saw Santino push a skeleton back. Not sure what else to do, she pulled a vial of holy water from threw it.
But, she was lying on the ground, so the vial missed, shattering on the floor behind the skeleton. Luckily, the skeleton was already damaged enough from Alvin’s earlier efforts that the light spatter of holy water it got from being near the exploding vial was enough, and it exploded in a gout of flame, which did little more than singe Santino’s clothes.
“Well, that was weird,” Santino said. “What happened to you?” he asked Natalya.
Natalya leapt to her feet and picked up her sword, happy to have its comfortable presence in her hand once more. “I was in a strange place. The priest said that I had died and it had been months since we’d come here. It seemed so real. But I guess it was those holy symbols we found in the vault doing it.”
“You shouldn’t have believed him. None of us could possibly have afforded to resurrect you,” Santino joked.
Natalya laughed wryly. She then looked over to where Alvin was helping up Vrodish. “What happened there?”
“We got the poor guardsman into trouble, it seems,” Heimish said. “I’m certain his wife will be most cross with us when he returns with no eyebrows.” He laughed. “Are you alright, lad?”
“I’m fine,” Vrodish answered.
“We wouldn’t blame you if you want to turn back. This isn’t your fight.”
“The town’s in danger, and I’m a guard. I’ll be fine.”
“Attaboy, Brodish,” Santino said. Then he considered it. “You should have this hammer. Much better for skeletons than your sword.” In truth, he was afraid that something like what happened to Natalya would happen to him, so he wanted to get rid of the item he could get rid of as quickly as possible.
The group surveyed the area. Down the labeled halls were portcullises blocking the way. It would take some time to open them and investigate. Heimish rifled through his bag for a moment, drawing out another scroll.
“You know, if there are more undead in here, maybe we should try sneaking up on them,” the preacher suggested.
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