Zune – blogpost 3

After the short rest, we walk back to the entrance of the obstacle course. We found a scroll of raise dead in Enola’s belongings, so we are going to try to bring the party member who is hidden in a mine cart – Smokey – back. 

At the entrance, Farryn carries the Black Tabaxi from the mine cart to the center of the room. I can see a mark on Smokeys shoulder. It is a vampire mark. We’ll have to be on our guard because the conjuration will take Calyx one hour. To make sure I’m doing everything I can to help, I conjure eight wolves to protect us. 

After a couple of minutes, we hear a silent whisper… I make sure I can stay out of reach if a big fight breaks out, and to keep some overview, I climb up a pillar. From the north, a black shadow flies in. I shoot an arrow at it, but it just flies through. The shadow moves closer to Calyx and Smokey. When it gets to Calyx, it makes sure Calyx cannot perform any magic, and knocks him out. My wolves are trying to protect the party on the ground. 

“Get him with a wooden stake!” yells Farryn. 

At that point, I suddenly see Ruben appear out of nothing. He’s almost like me, invisible in the darkness, but this halfling is a rogue and stabs the vampiristic shadow with a wooden stake. It becomes smoke and tries to flee to the north. 

Calyx draws breath again to my greatest relief, and shouts: “SARCOPHAGUS!”

We run to the north, to the place where the party knows there is one. When I get there, Farryn is already there, panting like crazy. In the sarcophagus, a dwarf is resting, with closed eyelids. Calyx just throws a sacred flame on the area, but when the smoke fades, the dwarven vampire is untouched. 

“Can’t you have a look, Zune?” asks the party. 

Hesitantly, I jump down into the tomb. If the party trusts me already enough to let me help them, I’ll do so. They’re helping me to find my mentor, so I’ll help them. Calyx will get the vampire out of the tomb with a thorn whip, and I’ll pierce his heart after. However, the thorn whip doesn’t do what it’s supposed to. So, I just intentionally stab the vampire in the chest. Before my very eyes, the chest crumbles down and the only thing left is the rest of the body and a hammer. On top of murdering the vampire, Calyx asks me if I could fill the vials he took with him with some blood. I do so: with quick accuracy, I slice the veins in the arm of the dwarf and fill a couple of vials. 

I climb out of the tomb and clean my hands on my trousers. I smile at the party. They already make me quite happy. This is some nice teamwork. 

Next, Farryn wants to go to a room where he thinks a treasure is stashed. But to get in there, we have to strip ourselves from every magical item there, so we can cross the bridge leading there. We are drawing straws to see who has to go first. I draw the shortest straw, but in the end, Calyx goes first. He is walking in a zig-zag pattern, but he takes one wrong move, and we hear ‘TELEPORTED’ and see Calyx disappear. Farryn approached the same spot as well, trying to get around, but is also teleported. 

“Okay, so we’ll have to get back to the beginning again!” I say happily to Valentine. “Can you take us there again?”

“Yeah, sure,” says Valentine. She has a weird look on her face, but I imagine she is just shocked or irritated that the two Gnomes got teleported again. 

I hold her hand and feel my feet leave the ground. 

But then… My feet don’t touch the ground anymore, and Valentine’s grip on my arm gets stronger. It hurts. Something is wrong. We teleport again, and I feel a lot of heat. 

Scared, I open my eyes. My eyes meet Valentine’s. Without any emotion on her face, she is chanting something. I cannot understand or hear very well, because, below me, I see a canyon with lava boiling and moving. The whole cave lights up, and I try to hold onto Valentine’s hand, but she lets go of me. 

I fall. The seconds before I touch the lava seem to last for an hour. The only thing I can think of is the betrail by Valentine. I thought she liked me… What about my mentor…? 

Luckily for me, the excruciating pain of my skin melting away doesn’t take long. I just close my eyes and pretend it’s a warm bath and trust I’ll someday open my eyes and be reïncarnated and ready to do more good. I say goodbye.