Skuffy the Vampire Slayer

Gathering their breath, the companions began to cast around Vane's tower. The blood had now almost all drained out from the floor, and the four poles with their eldritch lamps were examined. The lamps at the top were Indentified by Skufruss as emanating light with the Ultraviolet frequencies removed, as well as waves that greatly accelerated vampiric regeneration. Sack promptly smashed one, and had to jump back quickly as the blast of released energy sent splinters of crystal whizzing around the tower chamber.

The poles themselves turned out to be made of electrum, and the group collected them up out of habit. As they were doing this, Hildraft, on guard at the stairwell, suddenly heard rapid footsteps ascending the stairs from the level below. Everyone came to the ready, and Surya and Hildraft descended to investigate. The steps faded into silence, and despite dilligent searching and detection magic, no-one could be located.

Shrugging, though slightly disconcerted, the group was just preparing to Wind Walk away when a cold voice spoke from below. "You have seriously upset my schemes," said Rhendal. "Nightfall."

As he said the last word, darkness fell. Not mere, normal darkness, such as all the heroes could see through one way or another. Utter blackness. A chuckle was heard, this time much more distant. "Coward!" bellowed Surya, but received no answer. Sack shot up the wall towards the missing ceiling.

Confident that this was not a serious problem, having fought the Fae Mhor and experienced their innate mastry of magical darkness, Hildraft countered with a Daylight spell. To his shock, it was a real struggle to get the magic to work at all! With an effort, he achieved the spell, only to find that the vision granted was a paltry 3' or so for each person in the radius. Coming on top of that, the details of what they could see came as a worse shock.

Each could see the others, but what they saw was a rotting corpse, as their comrade would be after hundreds of years dead, in tattered, decayed armour and clothes, in a room of crumbling stone and splintered furniture. In a few moments, their reason had turned back the black waves of gibbering horror; they could feel their arms, and each others, and they were normal. Skufruss attempted a Dispel Magic, and watched as it fizzled and died. "This is not good," he said. From below, they could hear screams and yells of terror; evidently the rest of the garrison were similarly affected.

Outside, Sack climbed all the way to the top of the tower, then all the way down to ground level, without coming out of the spell's effect. Baffled, he returned. Hildraft completed the Wind Walk, and the party soared out of the tower, ascending rapidly. At a hundred feet or more above the tower, they emerged into the clear air, and found themselves looking down on a dome of utter blackness enveloping the whole castle.

As they watched, it crumpled and fell in, dissolved into nothing and was gone, and they could see the great fortress below like a kicked ant-heap, with terrified men running this way and that, or kneeling clutching their eyes, or curled into balls of fear.

Descending, the heroes cast around the courtyard, trying to locate the leaders of the garrison, and Surya attempted to rally them; but in the confusiuon, he couldn't make himself heard. Not until Sack and Hildraft had wielded a few Remove Fear spells did things die down enough for them to gain control.

Explanations of what had happened were met with disbelief until Sack, seizing the highest-ranking officer present - a Major Harker - Spider Climbed up the tower carrying him and showed him the ruined tower room and its' empty catafalque. This convinced Harker who, on his return to ground level, began rallying troops, convlnced that there really was a chance of rescuing Reital from the vampires.

Talking to Harker, the group learned that the vampires almost certainly slept their days in or near the Forbidden Grove. In the days when Surya had spent time in Reital, the grove outside the southern edge of town had been sacred to Ehlonna, but it had been desecrated and closed after the Invasion, and since the vampire takeover it had become a place of terror, never visited nor mentioned by the dwellers in the city. It was still clear daylight, and the vampires were on the defensive - now was the time to attack!

Harker and twenty of his men set off on foot, marching through the town towards the grove, while the party soared there via Wind Walk.

It was plain from some distance that something was wrong. The trees had an unnatural look to them; but it was not until Sack the Ranger attempted to communicate with them that he realised what exactly was wrong. These trees were dead - physically. Their trunks were crumbling, their leaves mouldering. And yet their spirits - that which made them trees - were still present, imprisoned within the rotting hulks. In a word, these trees were Undead.

Sack and Hildraft both shuddered with horror. Sack's first response was "Burn them". Through the combination of Hildraft's Ta'nara abilities and Sack's spell, the trees were asked what they wanted. The suffering plants begged to be freed from their torment: "We can no longer feel the sun, or the rain. They have taken away from us everything that it means to be a tree. Free us."

With a word, Harker sent five of his men into the grove, lugging kindling and lamp oil. As they crossed the edge and passed below the trees, however, the men's faces changed. Utter terror gripped them, and dropping their burdens, they fled in unmanned terror, out of the grove, past their commander, and back towards the city.

Squaring their shoulders, Surya and Sack moved forwards to try their fortune. As they entered the trees, they felt the clammy hand of fear, but were able to shrug it off. To their surprise, Skufruss was with them. "I said I'd come in with you, and I keep my word." he said.

They set the combustibles, and Hildraft blessed the trees in Kord's name, before igniting them with a Firestorm spell. With a rush and crackle, the tortured grove vanished in cleansing fire.

Once the burning was done, the companions re-entered the smouldering grove, noting as they did so the absence of the baleful influence. Reaching the stone in the centre, they could see that its' original inscriptions honouring Ehlonna had been overwritten with others invoking the dark blessings of Cain. While Hildraft busied himself Stone Shaping these away, Surya turned to Skufruss. "If you're coming in with us," he said, "what can you do for us?"

"Give me one of your arrows," replied the Kin. Surya did so, and Skufruss worked a spell over it. The arrow suddenly turned dead night black, and Skufruss looked pleased. "That will kill what it hits," he said. "What, vampires?" asked Surya. "No; anything," replied Skufruss with a frighteningly bland smile. Then he turned to Sack and said, "The spell resonated with some other magic; among your gear there is some item with the same power." Sack thought back and dug out the pistol crossbow bolt they'd taken from the Fae Mhor demonologist Dalthalra. Grinning, he lashed it to the shaft made to carry one of his bigger custom arrowheads.

Next he turned to Sack, and very carefully asked his permission to cast a spell on him. The half-orc agreed, and Skufruss gifted him with the effects of Cat's Grace, increasing his speed and agility. Sack looked at the Kin for a moment. Then, in one of the unpredictable acts so much a part of him, he dipped into his Bag and handed the Sceptre of the Dragon Lords to Skufruss of the Kin.

Skufruss looked him in the eyes, in great suprise, and then bowed his head. "My friend," he said with great sincerity, "thank you." His hand closed around it, and silver energy crackled up his arm. Hildraft and Surya looked at each other, neither confident of the outcome of this.

Surya grappled the rock, and heaved, revealing a stone staircase going down. Descending, the intruders discovered a long, pillared hall, with six tomb-plates set into the wall, covering long horizontal shafts 50' long with coffins at the end. After some experimentation, the six vampires hiding in the coffins were dragged out, helpless, and exposed to the late afternoon sun outside, ending their unnatural existences.

At the end of the hall were a pair of 6' tall bronze doors; all the heroes could feel the presence of the Undead behind them. Preparing themselves, the party burst into the chamber beyond.

The passage widened into a large open space. At the far side was a raised dais, complete with a stone seat. Seated in the seat, apparently asleep, was Rhendal, his scarred face clearly visible in the eldritch light of the six purple globes standing at the base of the dais on electrum stands. His terrible sword rested across his knees. The floor of the room, from just in front of where they were to the first step of the dais, was ankle-deep in blood. This blood looked exactly like the blood covering Vane's crypt, except that this was constantly moving...

Standing against the side walls, at the far end, ankle deep in the blood, were two huge humanoid forms, at least eight feet tall. Apparently flesh, they bore scars and stitches marking them as some form of construct.

Sure they'd got the drop on the deadly Rhendal at last, the party unleashed their missile weapons in a flurry. Surya sent the Arrow of Slaying that Skufruss had made him singing across the hall. In a sudden burst of movement, Rhendal sprang to his feet, his sword arcing through the dim air - and parried the arrow! Deflected, the missile cartwheeled away to his right and dropped into the blood with a plunk!, apparently unharmed.

Hildraft and Skufruss both unleashed fire attacks, Hildraft using his Flame Strike and Skufruss, wielding the Sceptre for the first time, used it to create a Fireball. With a shattering blast, both spells impacted - and worked! By great good fortune, both had overcome the vampire's magic resistance, and watched in gim satisfaction as he was seared again by flames.

Sack had been waiting for this. Knowing that his target couldn't see at that instant, he loosed his home-made Slaying arrow, and watched it streak home. Luck was not with the half-orc that day, however; Rhendal's magic resistance defeated the arrow's power.

Surya yelled in Skufruss' ear: "Get the arrow back!" and the mage cast a simple little spell - one Surya had seen Kobort use so often - Mage Hand. The lost arrow rose quietly out of the blood, and started to float through the air back towards the party.

With a roar, Rhendal was off his dias. Bounding forwards with the blinding speed they remembered from the last encounter, he was down into the blood and wading towards them. The instant he touched the liquid, all the flames burining on his body went out, and the party could see the wounds closing as he approached.

And then, shooting from optimism rather than any realistic expectation of dealing damage, Surya drew and loosed an ordinary wooden arrow; and by a million-to-one combination of luck, accuracy and strength, sent it slamming directly into the massive, vile, engorged black pulsating mass that is the heart of a vampire.

Staked through the heart with wood, in accordance with tradition, Rhendal dropped in his tracks, crashing into the blood with a crimson splash, his sword falling from his nerveless fingers.