After a well earned night’s sleep, the adventurers find themselves deciding their future.
“They need corpses – let’s go find the local graveyards and track them from there!” – pitches Nitsuj.
“Let’s hit the other points of interest on the map. The last one showed us the summoning portal and that dark knight.” – Morgane puts forth.
Eventually the party settles on heading to the next closes point of interest marked on the map. Finding a well used trail heading west, the party makes quick time.
Hearing a rustle off the path, a bear and two cubs are seen eating an undead corpse. The large black mama bear held the upper half of a zombie in her massive mouth as the cub ripped mouthfuls of flesh off. The other cub is spotted feasting upon a zombie leg.
Content with just being observers, the party heads further west. As the sun starts to set, they arrive at their destination. A tall plateau with a stone winding ramp guarded by 3 cultists.
Gwan holds back, as the rest of them don their cultist garb, and walk toward the guards.
“Halt – what’s your business” – a guard wielding a large staff yells out from above. Morgane steps forward and begins to spin her tale about being attacked by a group of fake cultists, barely able to escape with their lives.
“We came straight here as ordered!” – Morgane ends with. Anastasia spots one cultist pulling out a parchment, reads it, and shows the other one. “Uh oh… I think they are onto us” – Anastasia mutters.
“It’s them! Kill them!” heard below, and combat erupts. The stone ramp was presents a challenge to the adventurers. Cultists attack from the high ground, taking up defensive positions. The large human cultist steps up to prevent anyone from running up the large ramp.
“You shall not pass!” screams the cultist guarding the entrance to the ramp, as it pulls out a very large thick staff, twirls it with deft proficiency.
Gwan hears the commotion moves closer to the ramp, and readies his heavy crossbow, sighting for a target.
Nitsuj using his ability to climb walls scales up the rock face, and slides behind the two cultists in the back. Sebastian seeing the ease that Nitsuj scaled the wall, decides to try the same – not quite a fast, but he eventually makes it up.
Morgane takes a few steps back, and with just a few bounding steps launches herself at the cultist guarding the ramp. Her mass combined with her speed allows her to launch herself like a cannonball across the gap, slamming into the cultist, knocking him to the ground. Without missing a beat, Morgane dispatches the cultist with a quick precise blow.
The sounds of combat makes their way to the top of the bluff, and more cultists appear above, and start to launch arrows and spells upon the party below.
Sticky spider webs appear from the ether and the entire ramp is covered, slowing everyone down. After a few rounds of furious combat, the party makes it to the top of the bluff and see a bloody sight..
A very mean looking cultist pulls out two deadly daggers and moves forward. Behind him, a smaller undead dread dog moves to attack the party. A magical link of pink energy runs between the dog’s collar and the cultist’s amulet.
Nitsuj yells over the melee sounds to focus on the handler, not the dog.
The dog looked similar to the dread knight’s companions just half the size – its massive head could rest comfortably on Anastasia’s head for scale. Snarling and snapping, it rears back and leaps at Morgane who pulls up her shield, absorbing the blow.
Galan dispatches his assailant by throwing a series of attacks driving him off the ledge, the fall breaking his back.
Sebastian with one massive swing of his hammer, crushes his foe.
Morgane slams her hammer in a powerful overhand smash, yet the blow feels less impactful as she knows it should be. The dog yelps in pain, and a ball of energy moves across the link to the cultist. The cultist screams in pain, and clutches his chest.
Seeing this, Nitsuj charges up the ramp, swinging his new club – delivering a solid blow. Much like what Morgane experienced, the blow does not deliver the damage it normally does. Both the handler and dog yell in pain, enraging both.
The dog lunges at Morgane with unexpected swiftness, and pierces her defenses, the damage immediately apparent as blood gushes out of both her wounds. The link glows green, and both linked parties’ wounds begin to heal.
“Kill the handler!!!!” – Nitsuj yells, hoping it is heard over the chaos of combat. Galan steps from the darkness, delivering a savage and deadly strike on the handler, dropping him. The link fades between them.
Pulling out her wand, Anastasia points it at the demonic foe. Bolts of light erupt from the tip, flicker through the sky and slam into the beast, resulting in its death.
The sole remaining cultist petrified in fear is captured and interrogated. A note found on one of the corpses confirms what the party had suspected, they had been found out. They had implemented a code word. It was signed “Malon”. The forced interrogation didn’t go exactly as planned, resulting in his death.
“He did say ‘Pestilence’ before he died – maybe that’s it”
Not wanting to sleep next to a demonic altar, the group decide to push the massive black stone altar off the edge.
“1….2….3….PUSH!!!”
The altar teeters, and plunges to the forest floor. The silence of the night is broken by the impact, dust blowing up from the 60 foot drop. Satisfied in the destruction of this source of evil, the party rests for the night.
The next morning the party decides that each of the points of interest had turned up more information. The note had said that they were down to one production factory, having two destroyed already.
“This must be it!” – Sebastian points to the ruins of a church. After destroying a few undead, the church reveals a secret. Inscribed into a brass plate at the foot of a large statue of a black knight is the name “Malon” – the same as in the note.
“Hell of a coincidence…” – Galan quips.
Reaching into a hole under the statue yields an elaborate scroll case. Inside are land deeds, and a few magical scrolls. Tired from all the travel, they rest for the night.
Adventurers
- Morgane/Gwan – Mimi
- Sebastian/Anastasia – Sarah
- Galan – Gary
- Nitsuj – Justin
XP
Humans – 2283 xp
Non-Human – 2075 XP
Treasure
- Book of recipes (cookbook)
- Potion of healing
- 2 unidentified potions – one with picture of an arm
- Potion of Cure Poison
- Perfect shaped Emerald – 1,200 gold
- Scroll of Protection from Elementals
- 310 gold
- Scroll Silence 10′ radius