The Castle Crypt

(Gorntar Castle, Oret, 18^th March, 730)

Before going any further, Kobort used his arcane powers to identify some of the treasures already found. The results are available here.

Next, they turned their attention to the crypt of Alasmarin. The door of this room was entriely plain and unadorned, and had no opening mechanism visible at all. Sack, however, had seen something of this nature before. Checking the stairs leading down to the door, he discovered a loose area on the front of one, and pressed it (with a stick). The door opened.

Inside was an absolutely plain crypt with an absolutely plain stone coffin. All there was to do was open it, so they did just that. Inside was a plain skeleton, elven, with no sign of clothes or other grave goods. What was obvious, however, was a short wooden stake, clearly driven between the higher ribs; something Hildraft recognised as a known method of disposing of vampires. The team closed the coffin and left the crypt.

The next crypt they looked into was Lord Asmalindë's; the door was closed and sealed with lead and wax seals, but not locked or trapped. Inside was a magnificently wrought stone coffin, inlaid with what Hildraft immediately recognized as gold and mithril. Making a mental note to come back and try melting the metals out of the coffin, they moved on to Daira Fairhands' tomb.

The door to this crypt was locked, had been sealed with molten lead in the seams, and had a wide variety of holy glyphs and runes of a warding and restraining nature carved into the door. After some careful checking of the door, and the disabling of a savagely powerful magical trap, Sack - after preparing his bow with the Arrow of Dissolving - smashed it violently open, breaking the hinges in the process.

Inside, they found the skeleton of a female elf, crumpled up near the door, almost as if it had died trying to get out. There was no coffin, decorations or any other furniture, but draped over the body was a magnificent black cloak, radiating Enchantment magic, strangely designed around the trailing edge, and decorated with intricate silver stiching in a web pattern.

As they examined this, they started back in shock as misty vapour started to pour from the bones, coalescing above to form the shadowy image of a hate-twisted, evil-featured female elf. Whatever crimes had earned Lady Daira the fate of being walled up alive, had also earned her eternal undeath as one of the Bain Sidhe - a Banshee! It glared at them, and raised a terrible shriek. Almost paralysed with horror, they felt this dreadful sound tearing at their very souls, striving to rend them out of existence. Shaking it off, Sack loosed the arrow directly at it. The shaft tore through her misty form, scattering sparks as it did so, and the creature recoiled in pain. Encouraged by this, the others rallied too and swung to the attack. Meanwhile, the arrow discharged its' secondary payload - acid - which simply fell through the banshee and started to dissolve the floor of the crypt. The others tore into it with their weapons, and soon Lady Daira was laid to rest permanently. Collecting the cloak, they moved on. Moving down to the crypt of Dalrn Colind, the band found the door to his crypt locked, but not sealed or trapped. Inside was a stone plinth bearing a carven stone funerary urn, in front of it a horizontal rest with a heavy wooden staff resting on it; it was topped with a blue crystal which emanated a gently pulsing radiance.

Surya picked up the staff, upon which the light in the crystal instantly went out. Puzzled, he looked at it carefully, and it responded by giving him a mild but uncomfortable electric shock. By this stage, everyone else had fled the crypt. He considered a moment, and then put the staff down; the previous gentle glow returned to the crystal as he did so.

Experimenting, Kobort picked the staff up. This time, the crystal flared brightly for a moment, and then settled back down to glowing again. Wonderingly, the sorcerer felt his arcane potential expand as the staff augmented his own magical training.

Finally, the party opened the tomb of the warlord Daltin Kotessë. His crypt was more like a trophy-room of centuries of battle with the lizardmen of the deep Trakar; crude swords, shields, axes, totems and banners of lizard-make were hung on all the walls. The warrior's body, encased in his half-plate armour and holding a heavy sword, lay atop a slab in the centre, and four carved metal lizardman skeletons crouched submissively at his feet. Strangely, a second bastard sword was sheathed at the warrior's hip.

The party were expecting trouble here - and they got it! As soon as they crossed the threshold, all five of the figures came alive and moved to attack. Surya backed into the stairwell, allowing Kobort and Hildraft to attack from above as their foes came out of the crypt, and forcing the undead to fight one at a time. The lizardman skeletons were dealt with easily, but Daltin himself was a stiffer foe, and he managed to wound Surya. Enraged, the Tellaran responded with four perfectly placed strikes, in close succession, which smashed the figure back into his crpyt in a scatter of empty armour.

The sword Daltin had fought with was completely ordinary, but divination revealed his (untouched) second blade to be "the Blade of the Sun". When drawn, it had the ability to shed sunlight over a considerable radius. Sack claimed this. Surya, of course, claimed the armour and immediately donned it, adjusting it slightly to compensate for the differences in build between him and Daltin. This seemed to be the last area of the castle unexplored, so the band decided to rest up at this point. So, after melting out the gold and mithril from Lord Asmalindë's coffin, they pitched camp.

Later that night, Sack decided to go out to feed the horses. As he tramped through the main hall, suddenly, with absolutely no warning, the twelve suits of armour arranged around the walls came to life and stepped off their pedestals. The pommel of the Blade of the Sun flared bright blue for a second and then went dark again.

Nine of them faded into mist and were gone. The remaining three closed in around the startled half-orc, hefting their hiltless swords. Broad beams of blue light sprouted from those hilts, and the armours advanced on him.

Drawing the Blade of the Sun, he held it out commandingly and tried to indicate that the approaching figures should kneel. Undeterred, they swung their blazing blades at him; to his horror, he watched the blades of light pass unhindered through his parrying sword, his armour and clear through his body. A deathly lassitude crept over him, and a paralysing stiffness. His limbs wouldn't move properly, and to his dimming vision, his skin seemed somehow different - rougher. Then everything went black.

Elsewhere in the castle, each of the others were shocked to see three ghostly armoured figures appear facing them. Each drew weapons and tried to defend himself, but the blazing blue blades of force were unaffected even by magical weapons, and each in turn was overcome by the effects.

There was no sense of passing time. The next thing anyone was aware of was daylight. It was coming from a hole in the ceiling. Blinking, they became aware they were standing in a rough cave of some sort, underground, with a hole in the roof around 20' up, and surprised human faces looking down at them.....