Dead, Undead and Demon

(Khundrakar, 21^st September, 1600)

In the night, something had happened to Sack's left hand. Though he appeared unconcerned, and refused to explain, his hand had metamorphosed into a grey-green claw, rough-nailed and dry-skinned. An orc's hand!

[42] Deciding in a very organised fashion to explore the exits radiating from the Thronehall in a clockwise-North-to-South fashion, the party opened the first door on the left of the hall. Immediately, Hildraft and Vollun recognized the chamber they had reached; a temple to the dwarven gods. The walls were carved with their dour images - Kord among them - and a low stone altar stood at the western end of the room. Stone benches had once stood in even rows on the floor, but they had been smashed and thrown askew, and the icons of the gods had been defaced and desecrated.

The temple and living quarters

Atop the altar, arms folded on his chest, lay the corpse of a dwarven warrior in once-magnificent but now torn and rent half-plate armour. A pile of bones was scattered on the floor at each end of the altar, and the leathery remains of eight orcish warriors, dressed in clumsy bronze half-plate armour, were seated around its' base.

Crudely hacked into the face of the altar, in orcish, were the words, "Here the Maker of Death is chained. May he gnaw on his own hate until the Sun dies and all things end!"

Sack started into the room, checking for traps. As he did so, a noise from the other end of the room attracted his attention. Slowly, the eight orcish bodies were climbing to their feet, empty, evil grins stretching their dessicated faces and a fell green fire smouldering in their deep eyes. Sack drew his sword, invoking the full power of the Sun, as his comrades charged to his side and battle was joined.

Hildraft and Vollun, standing together, called on the power of Kord to confound these creatures of evil. The foremost wight staggered backwards, suddenly afraid, but the others came on.

In a whirl, the undead creatures were around the party, clawing and tearing at the living flesh they craved. Hildraft, using a power he'd not tried before, cast Invisibility to Undead and vanished from the wights' sight. As he did so, Surya cut down his first foe. The creature slumped against him, its' claws scraping down his armour with a screech, and its' face turned up to his and the eyes flickered with recognition. "Maasssterrr..?" it groaned, in a puzzled voice, and crumpled to the ground. Surya stared at it with a wild surmise as Hildraft stepped through the gap thus opened and into the clear space behind the battle.

Vollun Crusher was having a bad time of it to Hildraft's left. Pinned by two opponents, he'd already taken a nasty claw wound low in the abdomen, and was hard pushed to keep his feet. Kobort, to his left, was similarly beleagured. Sack, at the far right, was doing far better, and had slain his two foes and broken through - noticing that the Blade of the Sun was doing far more damage to these undead creatures than it had to other foes he had fought. He and Hildraft stared in amazement at the altar beyond.

Each of the two piles of bones was slowly whirling and shifting, in a cloud of dust, building itself into a humanoid skeleton. From the size of the leg bones, they were going to be at least ogresized and possibly bigger. The two advanced on the scene, intent on stopping this process.

Surya, seizing the possibilities of his situation, levelled the Sword of the Dead Legions at the wight he was facing, directed his willpower down it and bellowed "Stop!" at the top of his voice. For a frozen second nothing happened. Then, slowly, the creature stepped back and lowered its' arms. Astounded, Surya somehow knew that he had to keep his will concentrated on the monster to achieve this, and that he couldn't hold it for long; choosing his moment, he suddenly released it and - whack! - swiped its' head clean off before it could move.

Sack and Hildraft hacked violently at the huge skeletons as they tried to complete themselves, and managed in the end to beat them to dust. Turning, they saw that the battle was largely over, and the last wight fell as they watched. They turned their attention back to the altar. Sack, searching it, found a little hidden panel with some gold and a spellscroll behind it; Hildraft, studying the body, came to the conclusion that this was Durgeddin the Black himself!

The dwarf drew out his god's symbol, and quietly intoned the burial service over the long-dead dwarven mastersmith. Nothing visible happened; but a tremendously strong conviction settled on him that what he had done was the right thing, a good thing. The hacked remnants of Durgeddin seemed somehow more peaceful now.

[44/45] Moving on, the party quickly explored the ransacked living quarters the ill-fated members of Durgeddin's clan had occupied. Here and there they came upon ancient corpses, both dwarf and orc; these they treated with great care, but all turned out to be simply dead. At last, they reached the courtyard with the first well [43].

The area was around 30' each side, and a dark pool, filled with a viscous, oily fluid not entirely like water, sat in the centre of the room. A hallway led off to the east. A strange sound began to be heard; a moaning, gibbering which gradually took form as a crazed voice muttering words in Dwarven. A strange, ghostly creature drifted into the room from the eastern passageway. The continual aural onslaught began to affect the group, distracting them and scattering their thoughts. Surya, however, tried to repeat his earlier coup by presenting the Sword at the spectre and declaiming "Stop!" again.

The effect was not what he was expecting. Like a smoke-ring caught in a sudden draught, the spectral presence was suddenly snuffed out by the force of his command and vanished. The others looked at each other nervously. Where would this end? What was the Sword of the Dead Legions doing to their comrade?

Exploring further, they discovered an abandoned armoury, occupied by an animated arming dummy, striking at whoever came into its' reach. This was easily disposed of by simply setting it afire. Then there were more ruined living chambers, and finally, at the end of the passage, they discovered a room that was different.

It had once been a library or the study of a scholar. Bookshelves stood against the walls; several piles of books rested on the reading table at the centre of the room, and the room reeked of mouldy paper. Two doors exited to the east and south.

Idalla (blasted dress version available soon!)

A slender woman of medium height with long, black hair sat in a chair at the table, looking extremely sad. Her clothing appeared well-worn, though it did little to detract from the beauty of her appearance. Introducing herself as Idalla, she proceeded to tell the band that she was the last survivor of an adventuring party like themselves, captured and bound to this rooom under and enchantment by an evil wizard; she implored them to help her break the spell on the room - by entering it - and freeing her. The experienced adventurers didn't trust this one inch. They talked with her at length from outside the door, questioning her and trying to test her story. She appeared to answer honestly, her beauty and grace enhancing this impression, but the gods-given senses of Hildraft were unfooled; this girl was one bad mama!

Still, she spoke to first one, then another, sweetly persuausive, archly inviting, hinting, teasing. All of them could feel the effects of her charm working on them. Finally, Sack found himself convinced that she was really a lovely human girl, in need of rescue, and moreover deeply attracted to himself. Entranced, he stepped forwards, trying to enter the room and go to her. Just in time, Surya and Hildraft noticed this and grabbed him, slapping him around the face until he recovered. With the return of his free will came rage that he'd been controlled so; bending his bow, he unleashed two of his deadliest new arrows - armour piercers - , both tipped with the nastiest poison he had access to. Flashing across the room, these thudded into Idalla's leg and chest. She looked slowly down at the cloth-yard shafts where they jutted from her shapely frame, her movement this time having more than a hint of the reptilian about it. Smoothly, the arrows slid out of her without leaving a scratch, and she looked up. "There was no need for that," she said sadly.

The party, after a quick discussion, decided to send in two volunteers. Hildraft and Kobort, each roped securely to a solid object outside in the passage, stepped over the threshold. It was noticeable that Idalla was quite careful to stay as far away as possible from Hildraft; instead she concentrated on Kobort.

"You have no need of your weapon," she said, in a low, intense voice. Suddenly, it occurred to Kobort that she was right; of course he wouldn't need a sword to deal with a helpless young beauty like this! Quickly, he dropped the nasty thing to the floor... At this point, Hildraft realized why she was leaving him alone; he had cast a Protection from Evil spell during the fight with the wights. Quickly, he repeated the spell, casting it on Kobort as he stood helpless, a soppy grin on his face. The sorcerer looked up abruptly. "No," he said, "I don't need a sword." The mighty blast of a Lightning Bolt filled the small library....

Everyone was dazzled for a moment, and rather stunned as the thunder of the levinbolt died away. Blinking, they saw Idalla still very much alive; in fact completely unharmed by the blast. Her dress, however, was another matter; the energy blast had burned great areas completely away, and the charms revealed by the smouldering tatters nearly undid any chance the group had of holding their own against her.

But only for a second. With a berserk roar, Sack charged in and struck with the Blade of the Sun. Straight and true he struck; clean through Idalla's right eye, and out through the back of her head. Without a sound, she dropped to the mouldering carpet. As she did so, her body shimmered indistinctly for a moment. When it stopped, they saw a body fundamentally the same as she had appeared before, but with one major difference.

Springing from her slim shoulders were a pair of black, leathery bat-shaped wings, and curled under her, the tip still twitching slightly, was a long, sinuous, barb-pointed tail....