Amber Ablaze – blogpost 5

After we deliver the Goblins to Harburk to do their community service we take a rest. We are quite refreshed; however, the party wants to go shopping again… I still don’t have any money – I am nearly broke, so I don’t go along this time, as is Tomen. We stay at the Inn, while everyone goes out. When everybody returns, they tell us that Lurlille and Celeste have been to the spa, the clothing-store, and have sold the locket Lurlille obtained a while ago. Mivyre bought a new shield: it is the size of a barn door!

Before our rest, we were headed for Lance Rock but came across the Goblins and wanted to handle that first. Now, we head for Lance Rock once again. Arriving at Lance Rock, we see a big menhir. Celeste sees a small sign near it:

Come no closer
lest you catch
the disfiguring plague
that afflicts me!

The Lord of Lance Rock.

The party walks to Lance Rock and finds a cave. We enter it and again see a body on the ground. Lurlille investigates it with a Mage Hand, but the body – that seemed dead – stands up and attacks us. We quickly beat the Zombie and walk further down the cave. Suddenly, two Zombies fall on top of us. I really don’t like undead – they remind me of the nightmares I had about Fury – I dreamt he was dead and came to look for me, but he turned into a Zombie. Horrible dreams… This is also one of the reasons I like to sleep with a light or fire on.

We walk further and enter a room with again dead bodies and skeletons. Mivyre checks if there are undead here with Channel Divinity. Three of the skeletons are alive, and without hesitating, Solarion and Celeste shoot arrows on them, and luckily, they stay down. Lurlille goes a different direction to scout and quickly returns with a couple of Zombies on her heels – they are dressed really oddly. One looks like a fancy Lady, another like a bear, and the third like a clown. Mivyre plants his shield in front of the passage after Lurlille ran past us, and he and Solarion defeat the Zombies. Very impressive!

Stealthily, we move further. We hear a silent rustle coming from down the passage. Solarion scouts ahead while we wait for a bit. As he comes back, he tells us what he has seen: a man that is mutilating multiple bodies and stores the bodyparts in baskets, placing them on altars. In another passage, he saw two iron chests. Mutilating bodies?! That is just disgusting! I run in the direction Solarion points at to stop the man – and also check if he has any books I can read. The party concludes that we have to move stealthily and not touch anything…

The room is quite long stretched. There are altars in the front, a counter in the back, and skeletons behind the counter. The skeletons look like they are protecting a gateway of some sort. Nearer to us, there is a guy with his back to us. We instantly kill the guy – it was a zombie, but it stays down. From the baskets, crawling claws come to attack us. We also hear a high pitched scream – it comes from a Skin Bat coming from behind us. I produce a flame and press on a crawling hand, incinerating it on the spot! I leave a scorched handprint behind on the ground. We kill the Skin Bat and remaining crawling claws.

Behind the skeletons, we suddenly see a man with a beard. He looks noble.

What have you done?!

He yells.

The nobleman runs away and leaves some kind of blue light, and the skeletons make their way over to attack. Mivyre has already covered Lurlille but took quite a lot of damage, so I go help him. Four skeletons approach us. I ready myself for battle. A swarm of bats appears behind us, and Tomen and Celeste yell that they’ll take care of it. Mivyre, Lurlille, and I take care of the skeletons. With success!

After the battle, we investigate the room. There are bodies everywhere, but also bodies stitched to each other. I get the feeling I have to vomit, so I keep my distance. Lurlille finds a peek hole in the wall and sees the two iron chests in the room Solarion saw a while back. Mivyre and I walk over there, and in the ceiling, we see a trapdoor. Lurlille opens the chests with her Mage Hand spell: both are empty. Lurlille finds a lever and activates the trap in the room with the chests – what we already suspected. We already have created some distance between us and the chests, so the trap did not hurt us. Mivyre and I walk back to the party, without any treasures – I am a little bit disappointed.

The party wants to go further to chase the nobleman, but Tomen and I stay behind to make sure the undead are really dead.

Some catching up to do
When Tomen and I catch up to the party, Lurlille and Mivyre are just waking up. Also, we find Celeste changing her clothes…? The rest explains to us that they found the nobleman – actually a necromancer. They’ve killed him, but not without sacrifice: Lurlille and Mivyre were knocked out, and Solarion needed to use his Potion of Long Rest to stay alive. Celeste and Solarion eventually killed him with a lot of sneak attacks. Celeste apparently shot him right in the heart.