Kin and Vampire

Hildraft remained by the door, working away at a renewed Glyph to re-guard the door, while Surya and Sack went onto the offensive.  Surging forwards, the two stormed through the ranks like a hurricane. Clearly, these were the cannon-fodder they were facing, sent in to test their mettle, and no match for the half-orc and the Tellaran.

The two leaders of this group were rather tougher, however, and one managed to sink his claws into Sack's belly. The injury was slight, but he could feel the dark power of the vampire pulling at his soul, trying to drain his vital essesnce. Resisting with all his might, he pulled away and struck back, dropping the evil creature in its' tracks. Looking over, he saw that Surya had accounted for the other one, and that the tower was cleared.

 Sack enlisted Hansen to open the door just enough for him to flip one of his patented naptha bombs out, and was rewarded by thin shrieks of pain as the flames washed across the creatures lurking outside.

Then the spell was ready, and Hildraft scribed his Glyph on the wooden surface, watching with satisfaction the glow as it successfuly armed itself. Then he cast his Magic Vestment spells on the three of them, while Hansen took refuge behind an upturned table, scribbling furiously.

Suddenly the sounds from outside ceased; the wind, the voices, the movements. There was a moment's pause, and then a clear, cold voice - a voice somehow familiar - said; "You invited us in, remember. It would be a shame to waste such an opportunity."

There was a crackle, and suddenly a pinpoint of eye-aching purple light pierced the wood of the door, near the edge. Rapidly, it described an arch across the portal. When it reached the end of its' arc, the heavy wooden door toppled forwards out of its' frame to crash in a heap of splinters and ashes.

Looking through the opening, the group could see a large crowd - twenty or thirty - of the lesser vampires waiting in a semicircle around the door. In the centre, and just in front of them, stood a tall, proud figure, armoured in midnight black, cloaked and booted. His face was gaunt and drawn, clearly a vampire face, though perplexingly criss-crossed with burn scars. And yet, though all three heroes were capable of sensing the prescence of the Undead, their senses did not identify him as such... At the sight of the burns, memories stirred; of a rainy night by a rock on the borders of Belamir.

He grinned a wolf's grin at the sight of the three faces peering out through the ruined door. A lordly gesture sent his minions surging forwards towards the tower.

Inside, the defenders sprang into action. Surya whipped out the silver dagger thrown at him by this self-same vampire, and hurled it at him. It missed narrowly, singing out across the warm summer night to plunge into one of the watching vampire spawn, which fell with a cry.

Sack drew Asildur's bow and sent four swift arrows winging across the threshold. Two found their mark, but the wounds they made were mere scratches, which healed as he watched.

Then Hildraft took a hand. Crying Kord's name, he completed a spell and sent a Fire Storm blasting out from the tower door. The effect was stunning. All the lesser vampires dissolved in a wash of flame and  a scatter of ashes. However, where the flames enveloped their leader,  the results were rather different.

Where the roaring fire came up against the vampire's form,  the flames simply flickered and died. Still smiling evilly, protected by his magic resistance, he moved forwards, slowly unsheathing a black hand-and-a-half sword from his back, and pointed at Hildraft.

"Be silent!" he commanded, and for an instant the priest's tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, before his native dwarvish toughness shrugged off the magic. Dropping their missile weapons, the adventurers drew their blades ready for the vampire's attack.

What they were not ready for was his speed. With a rush and swirl of cloak, he was among them and dealing out terrible two-handed blows before anyone could react.

Two slashing blows sent blood pouring down Sack's face, and then a third strike went home - a stab this time. The half-orc felt the sword bite, and then to his horror felt tiny teeth snap out from the edge of the blade into his flesh, and the dreaded vampire power start to drain at his soul. Only at the last instant did he manage to pull away, and reeled away from the fray, frantically working healing magic on his battered head as he did so.

From behind his table redoubt, Hansen the Bard flung one of Sack's naptha bombs at the vampire. Futile, dangerous to the others, and poorly aimed (it hit the wall) but bravely done.

Surya's two blades flickered, cutting and stabbing as he pressed his attack, but try as he might he couldn't damage the undead. Hildraft was marginally more successful with the Axe of Glass, but he too could see his wounds closing even as he made them. Hefting his black sword, the vampire grinned and closed for the kill. Things looked bleak.

The explosion came, not from inside the tower, but outside, from the direction of the Castle. The vampire paused an instant, sword poised, as if listening. Then, in a swift movement, he sheathed the weapon across his back, turned his back on the party as if they didn't  exist, and strode out of the tower.

Rushing at him, the party rained blows on his apparently defenceless back - to no avail. Moving with the same superhuman quickness he'd displayed earlier, he rapidly outpaced them as he headed into town. Sack and Surya sent arrows after him, striking him at an incredible distance, but without impeding his movements. He rounded a corner and was gone.

Now given a breathing space,  they looked around to see what had happened. It wasn't  difficult to find the cause. At the west end of the city, the Castle loomed over them. Normally dark, sheer and imposing, its' appearance was now radically different.

A massive breach, thirty yards across, pierced the wall nearest them. Through it were visible several fires - some obviously magical in origin - and silhouetted against the fires could be seen fighting figures. As they watched there was another heavy explosion, and a great billow of fire rolled skywards.

Surya's spyglass brought the striving figures into sharper focus. Two distinct groups were fighting it out within the Castle;  scattered groups of lizardmen, bearing the livery of the old Dragonarmies, appeared to be trying to fight their way out of the castle, while a much larger force of humans, bearing the insignia of Vane the Mace, were trying to kill or capture them. There was at least one spellcaster among the lizard force, the source of the flames and explosions, but many of the defenders were equipped with Invigilators and these were rapidly reducing the ranks of the lizardmen.

As the Tellaran watched, the ranks of lizardmen around the spellcaster were thinned to a point where he could see him. Tall, thin, with a grey, studious face - beyond any doubt, it was Skufruss of the Kin, Lord of Trialt.

While Skufruss and the party had hardly been great friends, he had dealt honestly with them, and was far less alien a creature than a vampire. The decision who to help was  easily made.

Using a mixture of Wind Walk and Spider Climb, they ascended to the crag on which the castle stood. By this time, Skufruss and his rapidly-diminishing force had been cornered in the breach, with no-where to go except over the edge. Hildraft stepped to the front of the group, flanked by Surya and Sack, and released another Fire Storm, clearing the enemy from in front of them and giving them time to make their withdrawl.

On seeing them there, Skufruss was clearly shocked. "You!" he exclaimed, rather unoriginally. His night-black eyes tracked from Surya across to Hildraft and locked there. For a very long, still moment he stared at the dwarf, and there was a kind of quiet intensity in his gaze that rather unsettled the priest of Kord. Then Surya stepped between, asking questions about the practical issues of getting themselves plus fifty lizard soldiers down the cliff, and the moment passed.

Spells and ropes combined to make a way down the cliff-face, although there were some casualties; Lizardmen are not really designed for climbing ropes. Once at the bottom, the group made off at speed, heading back towards their tower.

Enroute, Sack and Hildraft split off, heading towards the Mageguild tower with the intention of trying to enlist the wizards to the cause. Sack hammered on the sparkling door, while Hildraft yelled up at the closed windows, urging the wizards of the Guild to choose sides, that the time had come to get off the fence. No response was forthcoming, and then it occurred to the dwarf what would be the consequences if the Mageguild did choose sides - and happened to choose to ally themselves with Vane. Turning, he and Sack returned to their own tower.

Meanwhile, Surya, Hansen and Skufruss had been working their way back towards the tower, surrounded by Skufruss' guard. More were rallying to him all the time as they moved through the city, and there were around a hundred of them by the time they reached the tower. As they walked, Surya questioned Skufruss, trying to find out what had happened to bring him here.

Skufruss, for the first time since Surya had met him, displayed emotion at this - rage. "It's all the fault of that sawn-off vermin," he raged, "I should never have allowed him to carry on whinging to his so-called God in my city!" It emerged that something very powerful had been unleashed by Hildraft's re-opening of the ancient temple of Kord in Karennal. The influence of Kord had somehow been focussed and magnified there, and the fairly simple temple had been transformed into a Place of Power. Conversions to Kord were almost a daily occurrence, faith and conviction radiated from the temple into the rest of the city; almost overnight Karennal had become a major religious centre dedicated to Kord. Secondary temples and religious scholae were springing up everywhere, and, most incredible of all, paladins - human paladins of Kord - were walking the streets. There had been no such beings for two thousand years! The movement as a whole was calling itself the Church of Kord Triumphant.

The political results of this process had been fairly predictable; the populace had risen, supported by the new paladins and the clerical orders, and deposed Skufruss. Using one of a network of teleport circles laid down many years before, the Kin lord had fled his palace to take refuge with his friend and brother, Vane the Mace.

The expression Skufruss turned to Surya now was anguished, betrayed. "I found him not; I found a vile thing, an abomination against Nature, against Reason; a vampire," he lamented.

Clearly, Skufruss had inherited their Father's almost pathological hatred of the vampire kind; the tranformation of his brother had triggered in this most rational and civilized of the Kin an apoplectic, violent reaction. He had immediately attacked, supported by his inner guard, who had made the escape with him; but he had badly underestimated the size of the force Vane could call upon instantly to his defence. But for their timely rescue by the party, he and his men would have been wiped out.

Shortly after that,  Sack and Hildraft arrived, closely followed by a battered-looking Delgarde, who it transpired had escaped when his cell in the castle was demolished by Skufruss' magic.

And then, as if there were not enough causes for excitement and alarm that night, Sack reached into his Bag of Holding, removed the Sceptre of the Dragon Lords, and showed it to Skufruss.

"What do you think of that?" he mimed.