The Necromancer's Lair

Kenostag, 3rd prime post-Calm 1055

Arnari didn't have room in her office for all the Freelancers; so everyone was in the meeting room across from the clerks' office.  The Freelancers didn't spend much time in these rooms; the meeting room was well-appointed, with the Freelancers' crest over the wall beyond a long-ish table.  Some were sitting, some were standing, many with their arms crossed, curious what Arnari wanted to pitch.  Tomtom was leaning against the back wall, listening and observing.

Ondar and others had just returned the day before, having finally located the place indicated by the map found in the Wendehals mausoleum.  Arnari was explaining, she wanted a group to go southwest of Three Rivers, and "take care of the thing with the door.

"I didn't tell you at the time, but Kaiea was unhappy to hear about Natali, or Lichess, however she is called.  I don't want you to spread it around, but his unhappiness seems to be beyond just… undeads.  Maybe because he has a history with her…?"  her voice trailed off speculatively.

But then she was back to business.  "Anyhow, he will pay Freelancers 250gp per person to get to the bottom of what's in that place and neutralize any threat.  This will need a big group; you will need to spell each other to safely do it;  who is willing to go?"

In the end, 9 Freelancers volunteered:  Glesni, Hanno, Khalid, Minji, Murai, Nix, Ondar, Sabah, and Torinn.  They organized themselves rather quickly and were on their way to Three Rivers.

Fysitag, last prime post-Calm

Ondar, Sabah, Hanno, and Minji had no trouble leading the others to the cave they had located a prime or so ago.  Once there, Glesni and Murai went with them toward the cave entrance, leaving Torinn, Khalid, and Nix to watch the mounts.

Minji and Hanno were watching the birds in the sky, wondering if they were actually birds, but the others saw the remains of the fight, except there were no piles of bones.

Ondar swore, and they checked the signs on the ground.  The signs of a fight were still there in the grass and dirt.  It looked like the skeletons had gotten back up, but the Freelancers couldn't tell if there were other tracks.

Hanno invoked eyes of the grave and snuck up to the cave entrance, then stuck his head around the side to look in.  He detected no undead, and actually, the cave was only 50' across, and could easily tell it was empty from the natural light from outside.  He waved the others forward, and they went in.

There was the door, ironbound and locked.  Glesni went up to it, and inspected the keyhole.  She could see it had poison needles.  She stood slightly back and poked at the keyhole with an arrow, in an effort to trigger the needles, but the arrow was not even close to fitting there.

The Freelancers started arguing.  Nobody present had thieves tools, nor did they think to go back to the mounts and get them from Khalid.  Hanno had thick leather gloves, but resisted the idea of risking the trap.  Minji was offended when someone suggested she use one of her claws.  Ondar wanted to knock off the hinges, but was wary of a trap.  Glesni insisted the hinges were not trapped.

Ondar inspected the hinges, and found the upper hinge had runes that would trigger if the door changed.  However Ondar knew runes, and pulled out his tools to work carefully to alter the runes to disable the trap.  As he worked, Hanno began a ritual, to cast silence.  Glesni retreated a bit, and readied an arrow.

Finally all was ready:  Hanno had the silence in place for Ondar to knock off the hinges;  Murai and Sabah were in place to catch the door; Glesni cast a minor illusion of the door still in place.

Ondar knocked off the hinges, and Sabah and Murai caught the door.  Sabah had no trouble, but he was on the hinge side; Murai was on the handle side, and kind of fumbled it.  Their grip slid down the side of the door, into the handle… and the poison needles triggered.  Ugh, they turned pale as the poison triggered horrible nausea.

After the door was fully on the floor, Hanno dropped the silence, and asked quietly, "You holdin' up okay?"  Murai, queasy from the effects, just said, "Please help, I am bloodied…" Hanno cast healing word on them, which helped a bit, but Murai had to use lay on hands to clear the poison, right there in front of everybody.

The minor illusion door was translucent to the Freelancers, and they peered down the hallway beyond.  The outdoor light from the cave opening didn't penetrate that far, but they could make out a tunnel about 5' wide and 10-15' long, which opened into a chamber.  Those with darkvision could see some statues, and a big chair.

Glesni, who was maintaining the minor illusion, pulled out her wand of magic detection and handed it to Hanno without a word.  Hanno looked at it, then invoked eyes of the grave, and peered down the tunnel.  Nothing.  He invoked the wand, and saw his Freelancer compatriots light up with detect magic, like a sparkly display.  After adjusting to that, Hanno saw the remains of conjuration magic on the door hinges, and the magic of Glesni's minor illusion; in the room, he saw there was some sort of transmutation plus necromantic magic on the statues.

The big chair was out of range of the spell.  Glancing at the others, he stepped forward, through the illusion, so he was standing in the hallway.  He saw the big chair was actually a throne, and had abjuration plus evocation magic on it.  A wall was behind the throne, and the statues were of two wolves.

Hanno stepped back and relayed all this, quietly, to the others waiting.  As a test of the statues' magic, Glesni sent an arrow winging into the statue on the right.  The arrow splintered, but the arrowhead chipped the statue's shoulder.  Nothing happened.

Glesni pulled out another arrow, hesitated, then asked, almost as if such considerations were alien to her, "Want light?" She added, "How much?"  Hanno cast light on the arrowhead, and Glesni just sent the arrow into the room, so it lay on the floor, lighting up the room for everyone to see.  It appeared empty beyond the throne and the statues.

Sabah shrugged and walked in, his wolpertinger familiar Fluffy winging ahead.  The room had roughly finished stone walls.

Glesni:  good thing that door is off its hinges, or we'd be trapped in there!
Murai:  o, I wonder if that was those runes
Ondar:  they would have summoned poison, somehow.

Sabah checked out the 2 statues:  they were wolves the size of mastiffs… with ribs sticking out and such; they looked for all the world like undead dog statues.  He called that back to the others, and Hanno stepped in to look himself, especially checking if the statues were realistic, or on bases.  (They were on pedestals.)  Minji followed Hanno, going to the statue on the left.  Glesni nocked another arrow, but Ondar stepped just past the minor illusion, his big quinametzin self filling the hallway and blocking Glesni's shot.  Glesni scowled.

Murai went past Ondar, and saw the throne was covered in gems.  They got out a tool of some sort and started prying the gems off the throne.  Meanwhile, Minji slashed the statue in front of her across the nose with her claws, ostensibly to see how it would react, but really because she did not like canines.

Both wolf statues animated and took a big stretch.  Hanno, with detect magic still up, was surprised that their magic signature did not change.

Glesni moved to get a clear shot past Ondar, and shot the right hand statue twice.  The shots were glancing, although a last-second adjustment resulted in another chip off the statue and a shattered arrow.

• Minji gestured, and a sonorous bonggg rang out as she cast toll the dead on the same statue.  Some of the stone aged and crumbled away.
• Sabah said sternly, "Bad dog!" as they grappled the statue on the left.
• Hanno drawled, "Let's limit the amount of damage you can do around here," as he cast ray of enfeeblement on the statue Sabah grappled.
• Fluffy flew in the face of the right hand statue, distracting it, before flying off again.
• Ondar stepped into the room and became large.  Seeing that he was fighting stone, he drew out a mace and started whacking at the right hand statue.  He whiffed the first swing, but on the second swing, the statue crumbled.
  • From the rubble, a small pawn fell to the floor.  It bounced once, twice, and then grew up into a skeleton, armed with axe and shield, and wearing a steel helm & pauldrons.
• The statue Sabah had grabbed spit out another small pawn, which also bounced twice, then grew up into a skeleton armed with axe and shield.  Conveniently for these notes, it was wearing a copper helm & pauldrons.
  • The statue tried to bite Sabah but failed.
• The copper-helmed skeleton circled around and slashed Sabah twice with its axe, causing them to yell "Ow!"
  • Large Ondar invoked his stone rune, incapacitating the skeleton.
• The steel-helmed skeleton critfailed on its first swing at Large Ondar, but recovered and then missed.
• Murai leapt over the throne and brought down their sawed-off boathook on the steel-helmed skeleton, but their weapon bounced harmlessly off the skeleton's pauldron.

Glesni drew, and fumblefinger'd the shot into a critfail that sent the arrow to the floor at her feet.  She shifted, and sent the next arrow at the statue Sabah had grappled, which again required a last-second adjustment, shattering the arrow as it chipped the statue.

• A wave of confusion washed over the Freelancers in the room with the throne, including Fluffy.  Most shook it off, but Murai and Fluffy did not.
• Minji cast toll the dead again, this time on the remaining statue.  The bonggg rang out as bits of the stone crumbled away, suddenly rotten with age.
• "Sit!" Sabah commanded the grappled statue, applying their strength to force it prone.  However their attempt failed, and the statue growled, an eerie, gravelly sound.
• Hanno cast sacred flame at the steel-helmed skeleton, burning it with holy radiance.
• Fluffy flew about aimlessly, confused.
• Large Ondar slammed his mace into the face of the steel-helmed skeleton, cracking many of the facial bones.  He invoked his fire rune to restrain it, the chains burning the skeleton.  Large Ondar swung again and missed the second swing.
• Sabah was still grappling the wolf statue, and it bit them, however it was still enfeebled by Hanno, and the bite was feeble.
• The steel-helmed skeleton swung its axe at Large Ondar, and crumbled into ash from the fire chains mid-swing.
• Murai struggled through their confusion, and succeeded enough to smite the wolf statue, burning it with holy radiance as well as piercing it cruelly with the hook.
  • Gentle glitter rain fell on Sabah, bolstering them against their injuries.

Glesni shot the wolf statue and the force of the arrow crumbled it.  She turned her attention to the incapacitated copper-helmed skeleton, but that arrow also needed a last-second adjustment, and lodged in the skeleton's ribcage.

• Minji retreated to the left corner of the room next to the door, and gestured like a card dealer; then she pointed a finger at the copper-helmed skeleton and sent a pale green beam of eldritch blast harmlessly past its head.
• Sabah turned around and punched the copper-helmed skeleton.
• Hanno poked the copper-helmed skeleton with his spear.
• Fluffy, still confused, landed and sat there.
• Large Ondar whacked the copper-helmed skeleton with his mace, smashing it.

Antagonists dispatched, Glesni recovered what arrows she could (3 had shattered) as Murai and Fluffy shook off their confusion.

* * session break * *

Hanno handed the wand of magic detection back to Glesni, then he, Ondar, and Minji went back outside to tell Torinn, Khalid, and Nix that they'd gotten inside and had a fight.  The six of them brought the mounts into the cavern, and Kahlid, Torinn, and Nix came into the room with Sabah, Murai, and Glesni to check it out.

Glesni was using the shaft of one of her shattered arrows to poke through the pile of skeleton bones.  She found two pawns, but that was about it.  She was trying to figure out if there was a pattern to the jewels decorating the throne, but could not discern any.

Khalid did her own check of the throne, looking for traps.  She found none, but the Wind sagani announced to the others she had found a switch under the seat, and everyone backed away from it a good ways.  Nix cast mage hand, and used it to activate the switch, causing a rumble.  A door opened up behind the throne, perhaps 3' wide and 5' tall.  Torinn, a rather large Bronze dragonborn, would have a bit of a squeeze getting through there.

Nix sent her winged cat familiar, Mercury, to scout what was beyond the throne.  Mercury tried to be sneaky, but it was dark and the hallway narrow; his wings hit the walls.  While he was doing that, Murai resumed prying gems off the throne.  They were impressively efficient at it.

Nix relayed to the others that Mercury had found a small, 15'x25' room, dominated by a sarcophagus in the center, with two small decorative statues holding up braziers.  These latter were kind of creepy.  Without looking up from their occupation with the gems on the throne, Murai asked Khalid if she would check for traps.

"Uh, sure," Khalid said, and Glesni helpfully handed her the arrow that had light on the tip.  As Khalid started checking the narrow hallway, Nix began a ritual cast of detect magic.  Glesni asked Murai, "What are you going to do with those?" Murai, having pried off 10 of the gems, straightened and gave an extremely detailed description of the next piece of gaudy jewelry they intended to have made.  Taken slightly aback, Glesni just let it go.

In the other room, Khalid found a crate on the left hand wall and a chest on the right hand wall.  She went about checking methodically:

• The sarcophagus was closed, but neither sealed nor trapped.  She set the light arrow on it.
• The chest was locked
• The crate lid was just there, not nailed shut

Mercury was smelling; the room smelled like musty/dusty underground & bone dust, but Mercury thought this whole place smelled like that.  Nix admonished him not necessarily, but relayed that as well.

Khalid moved onto the statues; they were small skeletons holding up unlit braziers with coals over their heads, which were waist high.  She did not like them at all, and announced, "I want to smash one of these."  The other Freelancers glanced at each other, and then Torinn squeezed down the hallway, unlimbering his great maul and rolling his shoulders as he walked up to the left statue.  Sabah followed, and went to the right statue.  Murai followed Sabah in, but stood behind Torinn, as Khalid backed up into the corner opposite Sabah.

Glesni stayed in the room with the throne, but nocked an arrow and moved to get a good view of Torinn.  Nix moved to Glesni's right and Mercury flew back to her.  Nix's detect magic saw the lingering magic on the bones and the throne, but nothing in the new room.

Torinn swung his maul, and smashed the statue. It broke into pieces, all over the floor, the brazier wobbling like a great coin.  It fell right side up.  Sabah, seeing this, used prestidigitation to light the brazier in front of him, relieving the room of the sharp shadows from light.

The sarcophagus lid started rattling.  Murai grabbed the light arrow off it, and moved it to the top of the crate.  Everyone prepared for what could come out of the sarcophagus.

Murai was ready to attack an undead.
Torinn was ready to smash the lid down with his great maul if it rose up.
Khalid was ready to attack the first antagonist.
Nix was ready to cast mind sliver on the first enemy she saw.
Glesni was ready, arrow nocked, to shoot any enemies that attacked.
Sabah was ready to punch an undead.

The lid lifted up… and Torinn brought down his maul.  Perhaps overeagerly; his strike shattered a corner, and actually moved the lid to the side.  No longer constrained, boiling out of the sarcophagus came 6 undead chickens.

Glesni fired at the closest one[3], but again fumble-fingered the string to critfail and sent the arrow harmlessly at her feet.

• Nix cast mind sliver at the same one[3].
• Sabah punched the chicken[6] closest to themself.
• Murai swung their boat hook at the same chicken[6] but missed.

Fluffy flew by the chicken[6] Sabah had punched, distracting it, then landed next to Nix in the other room.

• Torinn raged, and brought his great maul down on the same chicken[6], smashing it but somehow not taking it out.
• Nix used her sorcerous abilities to cast dragon's breath on both Mercury and Fluffy, so that both familiars could breathe fire.  She moved behind Glesni.
• Mercury moved in front of Glesni and breathed fire down the hallway at the chickens[2][3].  They avoided most of the damage but the air still started to smell like roasting, rotting chicken.  The throne was scorched, especially where Murai had pried off the gems.  Mercury moved to the door to the throne room, far behind Glesni & Nix.
• Khalid stepped up to the closest burned chicken[2] and slashed it badly with her magical scimitar.  She followed up with her daggar in her offhand, but missed.
• Glesni looked at 4 undead chickens in front of her, bent over, bent over to the other side, then she just moved the throne to the left, clearing the doorway.  She sent a piercing shot through three of them[2][3][6].  Two of the chickens[2][6] died, but the third one[3] avoided most of the damage.  So Glesni shot that one[3] with another arrow, killing it too.
• Three chickens remained.  One[1] attacked Murai; one[4] attacked Torinn, but overbalanced; one[5] attacked Sabah.  They all missed.
• Murai smacked a chicken[1] in the face with their boat hook.
• Sabah grabbed the other chicken[5] by the throat.

Fluffy flew into the room and alit on the sarcophagus, then breathed fire on two chickens[4][5].

• Torinn adjusted his swing in an attempt to knock one of the chickens[4] into another[5].  While he failed to knock them together, he pulverized the one[4] he hit.
  • Khalid made a face.  "That's disgusting," she declared.  Glesni responded, "All this undead stuff is disgusting!"
• Nix moved to the right of the narrow hallway, and tried to hit a chicken[1] with ray of frost, but it had some cover from the edge of the hallway, so she missed.  Nix backed up, and
• Mercury moved where Nix had stood, and breathed more fire through the hallway.  The chicken[1] avoided most of the burnination, but the throne caught fire.  From there Mercury moved to the far right corner of the throne room, still not wanting to return to the room with the sarcophagus of chickens.
• Khalid moved to the corner next to where Sabah had the chicken[5] by its throat, and with one elegant slash of her magical scimitar, took off its head right above Sabah's hand.
  • They both watched as the headless undead chicken dropped to the floor, running in circles before collapsing.
• Glesni ducked, held her bow horizontally, and ran into the room and to the right, provoking the remaining chicken[1].  While it missed, Glesni then turned around and shot it with two arrows, killing it.

No more chickens were left, and Khalid was standing next to the locked chest, so Khalid put up her weapons and inspected the chest.  Concluding it was not trapped, she pulled out her thieves' tools and tried to unlock it, to no avail.  Frowning, she moved for better light and did it again, but still failed.

Her attempts had attracted Sabah and Torinn's attention, and Sabah tried punching the lock, and all they got were bruised knuckles.  Torinn waved the other two back and brought his great maul down on the lock, but it bounced off.  Khalid, frustrated, crit with her scimitar to slice it clean off the chest, and the lid sprang open.

The chest had a small pouch, 7 loose gemstones, two potions, an over-the-shoulder bag, and a rod.  Nix inspected the bag; she thought it was a bag of holding.  Sabah checked its contents; it was empty.  The two potions were the same:  brownish liquid with random animal bits floating in it.

Nix began another ritual cast of detect magic, sitting cross-legged on the floor with occasional arcane symbols floating around her head.  Khalid took a potion and walked out to where the others were with the mounts, and asked Ondar what it was.  Ondar explained it was a potion of animal friendship, and pulled out one to compare.  Satisfied, Khalid walked back to the others.

Murai estimated the loose gemstones were worth 50gp each; Sabah checked the coin pouch to find it had 179gp in assorted gold and silver coin.  Torinn and Khalid moved on to the crate, and Torinn opened it.  There were a couple spell component backs in it, but it was mostly bones.  Glesni looked in with interest, and poked around for any dragonchess pieces, but there was nothing.  She moved on to check the two braziers.  Torinn and Murai poked at the bones some more.  Human, chicken, warhorse bones; the two of them started smashing the bones.

Sabah also looked at the braziers with Glesni.  Sabah righted the one Torinn had left on the ground, and lit it with prestidigitation.  Nothing happened other than the room was well-lit.

Murai discovered that smashing undead bones was satisfying, so they went back to the throne room and smashed the skeleton bones there too.  Nix came in from the throne room, with detect magic ongoing, and she & Torinn checked out the sarcophagus that had held the chickens.  It was devoid of markings, other than scratch marks on the inside from chickens.  No chess pieces, no magic.  She was able to deduce the rod was an Immovable Rod, though.

Before moving on, the Freelancers quickly split the items discovered:

• Khalid - bag of holding
• Nix - potion of animal friendship
• Sabah - component pouch
• Glesni - Immovable Rod
• Murai - potion of animal friendship
• Torinn - component pouch

The gold and gems they tossed into the bag of holding for divvying up later.

Glesni retrieved the two arrows she could, from the last chicken she'd slain, and the one with light.  Nix, finding nothing on the sarcophagus, checked the walls for hidden doors, and found nothing.  She and Sabah went back out to the room with the burning throne and checked the left wall; they found a hidden door with an odd-looking key and arcane lock.

While they were looking at that, Khalid and Glesni came out and checked the opposite wall, and also found a locked hidden door.  Khalid pulled out her thieves' tools, and while Glesni held the light arrow so she could see properly, Khalid easily popped open the lock, and the door slid into the wall to the left.

Glesni, thinking quickly, again cast minor illusion that the door was still there and shut, and also moved the light arrow so it wouldn't shine through.

Nix came to that side of the room, and peered through the minor illusion.  A hallway stretched into a room.  She sent Mercury in to check out the room.  While dark, the winged cat was able to relay that the room was maybe 25' long, with five statues of petrified skeletons.  The four human skeletons on the flanking walls were each holding a chess piece:  white, then black on the left; black, then white on the right.  At the opposite end of the room was a statue of a halfling or a gnome, holding up a game board, missing two pieces from each side.  <Narrator voice:  sort of like this, except with a chess game instead of a burger.>

Nix was relaying this description to the others, and her voice trailed off as she studied the opening layout on the board the halfling held.  After getting poked, she said wanted to bring Mercury back out of the room, and use mage hand on the pieces held by human-sized statues.

Mercury came back out, and Nix used mage hand to grab a bishop from the far left statue.  Nothing happened.  That was when Nix realized the halfling statue was too far away for mage hand, unless she stepped into the hallway.  She said so, then said, "I will run out, if anything moves," and stepped through the door.  She put the bishop on the board in the appropriate spot.  Still nothing happened.

Sabah looked at the others, then stepped up to the minor illusion, ready to grab Nix out if anything moves.

Nix picked up a white bishop with the mage hand, and still… nothing.  By now the Freelancers were increasingly tense, and Ondar and Minji were watching from entrance, only keeping half an eye on the mounts, to Torinn and Kahlid's concern (since Torinn had found warhorse bones in the crate).  Nix put the white bishop in the right place.

The statue holding the board burst into laughter.  Then it exclaimed Goody-two-shoes! and discarded the board.  The other statues came alive and discarded their chess pieces.

* * session break * *

At this turn of events, Ondar stepped up, with Minji just a bit behind; the nekomata was overcome by curiosity about "Goody Two-shoes".  Torinn and Khalid, concerned about Greyfell and Iggy, withdrew to join Hanno in watching the mounts, as Nix, Sabah, Murai, and Glesni prepared for a fight.

The open door was tall enough for Ondar and about 5' wide, and the hallway beyond was taller still; the room was 10' tall.  Ondar moved to the door, and Glesni handed him the light arrow; he moved into the hallway, tossing the arrow so it was equidistant from the skeleton statues.  He (and those who could see past him) saw that the skeletons which had been holding white chess pieces were armed with axe & shield; those who had held black chess pieces were armed with longbows and wore tattered black cloaks.

Ondar invoked Giant's Might, which was normally how he became large; except where he was standing couldn't fit Large Ondar, so he stayed the same size.  He filled the space, prepared to dodge whatever came his way.

• Fluffy shifted forward, between Nix and Sabah, ready to dodge anything headed his way.
• A translucent halfling flew out of the halfling statue, through Ondar (who disliked this sensation intensely) and landed between himself and Sabah.  It cast about, then moved towards Minji.
  • Ondar struck it with his rapier as it passed by, which pierced it, but did less damage than one would have expected were the halfling solid.
  • The translucent halfling reached forth a hand to grab Murai's face for a kiss, but did not succeed as the paladin pulled away.
• Murai did not like this bad touch business at all, and responded with a boat hook to the halfling's face.  As they struck, they invoked the Hoard of the Magpie, and although the boat hook itself caused less injury than it would have to a corporeal creature, the glitter following the swing burned the halfling with holy radiance.
  • The halfling disappeared with a <poof> and a swirl of glitter.
  • The glitter also fell on Ondar, inspiring him.  He smiled, and put the glitter under his eyes like war paint.
• Glesni stepped up behind Ondar, and sent a piercing arrow up the north wall of the room, but the two skeletons avoided most of the damage.  The Cloud elf pressed her lips, then sent an arrow at the closer of the two skeletons, which was itself armed with a longbow; she missed, then grimly stepped back into the place of glitter.
• Nix cast dragon's breath on Fluffy, for fire; she moved a bit away from the doors, but to a better line of sight with the light arrow in the room with the skeletons.
• Minji cast toll the dead on the skeleton Glesni had missed; the bonggg echoing through the rooms.  The spell didn't really seem to have much effect.
•  Mercury flipped his wings back, and walked up to Fluffy, rubbing on the wolpertinger in that way cats do, which annoys the other creature.
• Sabah didn't really want to walk into the room past Ondar, so pulled out a sling and sent a sling bullet at the closest skeleton with a longbow, which did less damage than Sabah expected.
• The injured skeleton with the longbow stepped back for a clear shot, then both skeletons with longbows shot at Ondar… twice.  All four arrows missed <Narrator voice: because Ondar is really Neo in bullet time.>
• The other two skeletons walked up to Ondar and, one at a time, attacked twice with their axes, and Ondar dodged those too.

Ondar, an axe-wielding skeleton in his face, could not resist attacking it; he pierced it twice with his rapier.  Adrenaline surging, he prepared to dodge whatever else came his way.

• Fluffy flew up to Ondar's shoulder, and landed gently so the quinametzin would not just dodge him right off.  From there the wolpertinger used dragon's breath to breathe fire on the two skeletons with axes.  The closer one avoided most of the flame, but the one behind it caught the full blast.  Then Fluffy ducked back around the corner, not wanting to be on the receiving end of any unpleasantness.
• Murai moved into Ondar's space just enough to use their boat hook to collapse the skeleton in front of Ondar into a pile of burned bones and armour.  Satisfied, the Wind sagani retreated to where they had been standing.
• Glesni crit the remaining axe-wielding skeleton, and it too collapsed into a pile of burned bones.  She shot the longbow skeleton she'd missed before, but as with Sabah's sling bullet, the skeleton did not take as much harm as she expected.
• Nix cast mind sliver on the other longbow skeleton.  <Narrator voice: we're not sure how that works, since skeletons have empty skulls; but it had great effect.>  Anyhow Nix moved up behind Ondar.
• Minji, unpleased at her last cast, instead cast eldritch blast at the longbow skeleton Glesni had shot, hitting it with force.
• Mercury, deprived of Fluffy to rub on, started grooming himself, ready to dodge.
• Sabah ran past Ondar into the room, and up to the skeleton Nix had attacked.  They missed with a critfail.
• This skeleton set its bow down against the wall, drawing a longsword and slashing Sabah.  Then it slapped the stocky human with a nasty bony slap, necrosis spreading from the ends of the bones.  For a moment, Sabah felt weak.
  • Sabah glared at it.  "That all you got!"
• The other skeleton, perhaps inspired by Sabah's taunt, did the same thing:  the longsword missed, but the weakness from the bony slap stayed with Sabah this time.

Ondar put up his rapier, unlimbered his longbow, and shot this skeleton, the arrow doing less than expected damage.  He invoked his fire rune, but although that burned the skeleton, it shrugged off the fire chains.  Setting the bow aside, Ondar closed with the skeleton, drew a scimitar, missing.  Ondar stepped back and was rewarded with a bony slap of his own, necrosis spreading across the quinametzin from where the slap connected.

• Fluffy flew into the room and breathed fire on both these skeletons.  The one on Sabah's right avoided most of the damage.
• Murai stepped past Ondar and clobbered the burned skeleton with their boat hook, and it collapsed into a pile of burned bones.
• Glesni stepped to the left, then it occurred to her to check where she had been standing for a chess piece, because that's where the halfling had gone <poof>.  There was no chess piece.
  • She shot at the remaining skeleton twice.  The first arrow missed, but the second one struck, and again was less effective than she'd've liked.
• Nix cast chromatic orb at the remaining skeleton, and before it hit the orb settled on fire.  It hit the skeleton in the chest, charring but not actually setting it aflame.  Nix moved up next to Ondar.
• Minji peered through the door.  "O look," she exclaimed, "There's still one guy alive!"  Glesni glanced down at the nekomata, and said shortly, "No."  Minji became cross, ears flattening slightly, and replied dismissively, "Undead, then!"
  • Minji moved for a better line of sight, and cast eldritch blast at the skeleton, hitting it with more force than the last time, causing its cloak to billow.
• Mercury, done with grooming, settled and closed his eyes, but was still ready to dodge.
• Sabah tried to punch the skeleton, but missed.  Surging on pain & adrenaline, they punched again, knocking out a tooth, but like their earlier sling bullet, not as effective as they expected.
  • Sabah closed their eyes a moment, and recovered via second wind.
• The skeleton slashed with its longsword, but missed.  It also tried to bitch slap Sabah again, but missed.  Sabah was pissed.

Ondar swapped back to his rapier, attacking the skeleton twice.  The first thrust missed, but the second one caused it to crumble.  As it did so, the big quinametzin backhanded the skull into the wall.  Sabah high-fived Ondar.

Glesni picked up the arrows Ondar had dodged.  They seemed serviceable, albeit black, and she put them in her quiver.  She went into the room with the skeletons, and looked in the piles of bones that had been wielding the longbows.  Each pile had a quiver with 10 arrows remaining, and the longbows were leaning against the wall.  Both serviceable.  Glesni picked up the quivers, considering.

Glesni:  Sabah, you might want to consider picking one of these up.
Sabah:  enh, sling works okay, I try not to use it.

Nix was examining the halfling statue.  It hadn't actually changed position, but the chessboard was definitely thrown to the side.

Nix:  I am going to reassemble the chess board, is same thing.
Murai:  maybe don't put it on the statue.
Nix:  that was sort of my point.

Murai scowled, but Nix ignored the Wind sagani and suited actions to words.  Nothing happened.  Everyone turned to other interests in the room.  Murai was looking for bling or valuables, and Nix helped; Sabah cast guidance, launching into a story of having lost something in the woods; but there was nothing to find.  Sabah checked out the chess pieces; they were not terribly fancy, nor were they keys.

Nix turned her attention to the halfling statue itself, and Glesni helped; Sabah again cast guidance, this time telling a story of freeing an animal from a snare trap.  They did not notice anything particular about the statue, or the chessboard; Nix remembered the white piece is what set it off.  The statue appeared to maybe conceal something, and Nix, Glesni, Sabah, and Murai started arguing about the chess board again:  play the problem?  Put all the pieces on it?  Remove just the white pieces?

Minji was exploring the room on her own, in particular for wall carvings and secret doors.  The others had not noticed, but the walls had an abstract depiction of a sequence of scenes:  a beautiful lady playing chess with someone kind of amorphous; the beautiful lady raising undead; the undead pillaging and burning the countryside.  Minji's hair stood on end.

"I think the walls are trying to tell us what would happen, etc," Minji declared.  Then she tilted her head. "For us?"  Sabah looked at the walls, then said with an air of cleverness, "We pillaged and burned them!"

Nix sat cross-legged to ritual cast detect magic, but as she did so, the light faded off the arrow.  She recast light on the arrow, then restarted her ritual.  Glesni studied the scenes on the wall, comparing them to her knowledge of history, and did not recognize the depictions.

Ten minutes later, Nix saw the room lit up with fading necromancy, the light arrow, and all the Freelancers' items.  The walls did not light up, but there was both abjuration and necromancy on the statue.  She abruptly removed all the white pieces from the board, and the statue slid to the side, as did the secret door it was attached to, revealing a 5'x5' opening, and a hallway beyond that turned left around a corner.

The Freelancers all looked at each other, then Nix sent Mercury ahead to sneak into this new room.  However it was not a room at all, but a hallway with an oddly clean floor.  Mercury peered down the hallway, and realized the other end of the corridor was not really air, but more like gelatin.

Mercury stopped, as the gelatine went <glorp>, and Nix relayed this to the mostly-still Freelancers.

Murai picked up one of the longbows next to them, checking its heft and pull.  Glesni handed them an arrow and they nocked it.

• Ondar bent over and went through the short doorway; then since the hallway was 10' tall, became large.  He shot two arrows at the gelatin, which entirely filled the far end of the corridor, and noticed that 10' in front of him, was some sort of trap in the floor.
  • Large Ondar crouched down and had to walk like a frog to pass through the 5' tall door back into the room with the others, which was totally undignified, the more so because squatting like that, he farted.
• Sabah moved to the doorway.  Glesni said, pointedly, "I don't recommend you punch it."  Sabah retorted, "I don't intend to," and got out his sling again.  He went to the corner and sent a sling bullet into the gelatin; he saw the arrows from Large Ondar within, and they were dissolving.  He returned to the others and reported that.
• Minji used cat zoomies to get to the corner and gaze upon this thing herself.  She saw the arrows and sling bullet dissolving, and cast toll the dead on the gelatine.  The bong sound did not resonate as well as usual, but the necrosis turned a small portion of it grey, which spread along unpredictable striations.  Minji also returned to the room.
• Nix realized she didn't really know anything about this kind of creature, so she mounted her broom, went to the same corner, and cast chromatic orb, which settled on cold before it struck the gelatine.  Bits of it froze and broke off, but Nix did not linger to watch; she broomed back to where she had been.
• Fluffy backed away from the door, prepared to dodge.
• The gelatin moved!  It glorped in a disturbing fashion that all could hear, and surged forward to try to absorb Mercury!  Mercury avoided just the last second from getting engulfed!
  • However, that brought it in view of Murai, who loosed their nocked arrow, piercing the gelatine.  "Very nice," Glesni declared, "You should consider keeping those!"  Murai turned the bow in their hand.  "I think I will," they stated.
  • The gelatin wasn't done yet, and formed a pseudopod which bopped Mercury mid-air.  Between the strike and the acidity of the gelatin, Mercury went <poof>.  Nix went "Unh!"
• Glesni handed Murai the quiver with 9 arrows in it, asking if they had a lantern, which they did.  So Glesni used prestidigitation to light Murai's lantern.  Then she also surged on stress and adrenaline, and used the lantern flame to light two fire arrows and shoot the gelatin.  The burning, acidic protein smell was pretty bad.

Murai set the lantern down, then sent their own fire arrow into the gelatine, which quivered and jiggled, then collapsed, flooding the floor, and whatever trap it had been on top of and ignoring.  It smelled super bad.  All the arrows that had been shot into it were ruined.

Nix, unhappy at this state of affairs, wanted to take the time to resummon Mercury.  She pitched it at the others; that they could get a short rest while she did it.  Glesni liked this idea because she would recover her arcane shots.  Sabah, however, still felt weak from the skeleton bitch slap, and wanted to sleep it off.  Regardless, the current space definitely smelled super bad.

Nix:  we could retreat to the nearby woods, and sleep
Murai:  more enemies, later
Glesni:  we could be attacked, disrupting the hoped-for rest

* * session break * *

The Freelancers withdrew into the room with the throne for their short rest, except for Sabah, who joined Torrin, Khalid, and Hanno with the mounts, and konked out.  Nix spent the time carefully casting the spells to restore Mercury, and once that was done, placating the upset winged cat with well-timed cat treats.  Even then, Mercury was obviously grumpy.

By then everyone was in better spirits, and wanting to see if they could explore the hallway.  Nix produced a pole of collapsing and expanded it; then she moved to the corner of the hallway, and used mage hand to test the trap.  First, she waved one end of the pole over the trap:  nothing happened.  Next, she tapped the walls of the hallway next to the trap; nothing happened.  Lastly, she tapped the floor; it turned out the entire floor there was a balanced plate that covered a nasty pit.

After more coaxing with cat treats, Mercury was convinced to reconnoiter the hallway beyond.  He proceeded slowly, but wasn't at all sneaky because he was still making cat numnum sounds about the tasty treats.  His senses were extra sharp <Narrator voice:  Brian rolled a nat 20 for Mercury perception>, and the first thing he noticed was the hallway was very clean, other than the draining acid from the gelatine they had fought an hour ago.

Mercury got to the far end, turned a corner, and saw stairs going down.  That was about it; the stairway was pitch black.  Mercury returned to Nix, who cast light on his tongue, and he flew back to the top of the stairs, then walked to the bottom of them and stuck out his tongue.  Nix relayed what he saw:  a bit of a drop, 2' maybe, at the end of the stairs; a large space, possibly naturally hewed from the rock and then refined; the floor loose dirt with little pebbles; the ceiling taller than that in the stairway.  Mercury smelled bone dust, and a sharp, acidic smell.  He noticed green slime on the wall as the likely source for it.

Nix noted the green slime could probably attack but not move.  She wanted to freeze the pit trap so everyone could walk over it, but Glesni suggested everyone just jump over?  Suiting action to words, she did so.  Nix applied water and used shape water to freeze the pressure plate in place, but in the process noticed leather armour on spikes, and maybe potion bottles.  Nix immediately sat cross-legged on the floor (away from any remaining gelatin) to ritual cast detect magic, runes floating around her head.

Glesni moved to the corner of the hallway at the top of the stairs and peered down past Mercury.  She could barely see the green slime on the wall to his left.  She looked back at Nix, and waited.  Nix finished her ritual cast, and a small hint of enchantment lit up from the pit; Nix unfroze the pressure plate, and employed mage hand to haul the stuff up from the bottom.  She brought up some trashed clothing; leather armour perforated by the spikes; glass shards from a broken potion bottle; and a meerschaum pipe, carved with an eagle, which is what set off the detect magic.  Nix thought it was a pipe of smoke monsters.

Nix had a pipe of smoke monsters already.  Despite the obvious eagle on the pipe, Murai rather thought it looked like a magpie, so Murai took the pipe.

Glesni looked down at the green slime again.  "Can I roll a ball bearing?" she asked the others.  Murai said, "I would rather divine sense, first."  That was sensible, and Glesni sighed.  Nix added, "Let me freeze the trap first," and she did so.

Murai came across the frozen trap to where Glesni was, and invoked their divine sense.  There were undead in the room in front of Mercury.  They cautiously moved down the stairs, stopping behind Mercury.  "There are two undead," Murai declared.  "The slimes don't trigger it."

An argument immediately ensued about what to do.

As the Freelancers argued, Mercury returned to Nix, and Murai re-lit their lantern, so as to see in the room better.  Ondar, wanting to see what they were talking about, came up behind Murai; and Minji came up behind Ondar.  The stairway ceiling was about 10' above the stairs, so Glesni stayed put, since Ondar didn't really block her shots.  Nix came up behind Glesni.  She wasn't curious about the room, because of Mercury.

Minji decided that reducing threats, especially disgusting threats, was in everyone's best interest.  She cast eldritch blast at the slime to the left; the force crushed it.  She cast again at the slime at the base of the opposite wall, the force splattering it.  She kept going, stepping forward to cast eldritch blast at the slime on the wall to her right, and then on the slime at the foot of the wall to her right, splattering them all.

There was a small silence, then Nix stepped up to the door of the room, the detect magic still going.  "There are hints of necromancy," she announced, "and some abjuration in the northwest corner there."  She peered at the corner, but just saw loose dirt.  Mercury also looked, but he didn't see anything either.  He and Nix went back up the stairs behind Glesni in the corner.

Murai stepped forward, lifting the lantern and their holy symbol.  The light of the lantern reflected in speckles off the blingy bird (which, by the way, did not resemble an eagle), and Murai angled the reflections to point out for Minji where, on the floor, they had detected the undead.  Glesni stepped forward, arrow nocked; Nix also stepped forward.  Minji obligingly sent an eldritch blast into the dirt, and they all heard a little rumble, but nothing else happened.

Glesni pulled out a ball bearing, then used prestidigitation twice:  she made it warm, then sent it into the room with a shower of sparks, trying to provoke whatever it was.  Nothing happened, of course.  After all, eldritch blast hadn't provoked it.

Nix:  Mercury will go alight on the ground?
Glesni:  what if we're actually checking the boundary of the room?

Nix sent Mercury winging into the room, and nothing happened.  She had him land, although he mentally grumbled at her for it, but still nothing.  Glesni used her winged boots to fly into the room, and took a position in the near right corner, arrow nocked still.  The Nothing continued to happen.

Nix:  what's on the ceiling?
Glesni:  nothing!  It's about 20' tall.
<Nix took a position in the near left corner, on her broom of flying.>
Glesni:  I'm not thinking it's a good use for me to be on the ground.
Murai:  hey, Ondar!
Ondar:  Ondar will go in.

Ondar walked down the stairs and hopped down the 2' drop onto the dirt, then stomped up to the nearest place where Murai had indicated there would be undead.  The ground rumbled mightily, then bursting up out of the dirt, larger than Ondar, were two skeletal minotaurs, each wielding a very large greataxe.

A good number of the Freelancers exploded with "What the fuck Minotaurs!" but not Ondar: Ondar became large.  He attacked the nearest minotaur with his rapier, piercing it, and immediately invoked his fire rune, burning it and restraining it with fire chains.  Then he struck it again with his rapier.

• Murai hopped down and strode up to the chained minotaur and smacked it with their boat hook.
• Glesni pivoted to her right, trying to stay out of the range of those giant axes, and shot a piercing arrow through both minotaurs.  She shot at the restrained minotaur again, and her arrow dropped it despite being distracted by the fact she was in range of the unrestrained minotaur's giant axe.
• The remaining skeletal minotaur lowered its head and charged Large Ondar.
  • Glesni struck with her rapier, piercing its shoulder.
  • The minotaur's horns missed, and Large Ondar flourished his shield like a matador's cloak.
  • As a reward for that move the minotaur slashed Large Ondar with its greataxe, forcing him to invoke stone's endurance to mitigate the damage.
  • Large Ondar then invoked stone rune and the skeletal minotaur was stupefied.
• Seeing the state of the minotaur, Mercury flew to it and landed on its head, then peered in its face upside-down.  Then he flew off and landed on the end of Nix' broom.
• From the foot of the stairs, Minji cast eldritch blast on the skeletal minotaur, striking it with force.
• Nix cast ray of frost on the skeletal minotaur, blasting it with cold and slowing it down; she moved to be next to both Large Ondar and Murai.

Large Ondar pierced the skeletal minotaur twice with his rapier.

• Murai swung their boat hook, but somehow missed.  They backed off to the far left corner.
• Glesni crit the skeletal minotaur, and applied a last-second correction to her shot, and it dropped into a pile of very large bones.

Glesni pivoted immediately and sent an arrow into the dirt in the corner Nix had said was magic.  Nothing happened.  Ondar picked up one of the minotaur's greataxes and started using it as an impromptu shovel.  Glesni exclaimed, alarmed, "Don't break the arrow!"  She landed and hastened to retrieve it.

While Ondar was digging, Murai did a walkabout, checking for hidden doors.  Finding nothing, they declared, "These walls are boring!  This place is carved out of a cave."

Ondar dug up a chest, which definitely lit up for Nix's detect magic with abjuration.  Nix flew to Ondar and landed.  "Careful, Ondar, it might be trapped," she warned, and Ondar handed the chest to Nix, who immediately put it down, because it was heavy.  Murai wandered to them, curious, but Minji uncharacteristically watched from the door.

Glesni was still retrieving arrows as Nix and Murai checked the chest for traps; they concluded the trap was in the latch.  Upon inspection, they found runes, but the runes were hard to see; it looked like some were inside the chest.  Ondar asked Nix to help; he thought he could dismantle the trap.

Glesni glanced over, decided she would be no help, and started checking the ceiling more closely, like Murai had the wall.  It was a cave ceiling, smoothed out.

Finished with his work, Ondar opened the chest, to discover he had not succeeded.  The metal around the chest flared green; the runes flared more green, and poisonous magic flared out across the room.  While everyone was somewhat harmed by it, Minji was in a bad way, and Mercury flew to her.  Nix cast cure wounds through Mercury, healing the nekomata somewhat.  Glesni joined them at the chest, she was paying attention now!

The chest had 2 pouches of coins, and everything else lit up for Nix's detect magic.  A plain wand with dowel-turning at the thick end had enchantment; a coiled-up rope had transmutation; a dragonchess piece was abjuration.  Nix picked up the piece; a queen?  She realized: this piece would open the locked door in the throne room.

Feeling like they were so done with this dirt room, the Freelancers headed back to the throne room.  Glesni pointed out they should bring the greataxes with them, and Ondar grabbed them.

Back in the throne room, the Freelancers realized they were injured, and tired, and really needed to eat and rest.  Outside was getting dark, and they did not particularly want to encounter the rest of the lair in the middle of the night.  After discussing watch order, and Glesni pointing out as a Cloud elf, she would be fine after 4 hours, they decided Ondar would take the first watch, Nix the second, and Glesni the last two.  Mercury would stay awake and help Ondar and Nix.

Ondar's watch was pretty uneventful.  It was rather dark, and neither he nor Mercury noticed anything.

Nix's watch was still pretty uneventful.  She heard the mounts in the other room getting restive, and Hanno soothing them, and Sabah snoring.

Glesni's watches were mostly uneventful.  She was alert for any of the skeletons reanimating, but they did not.  Midway through, though, she was sure they were being watched.  She pulled out her wand of magic detection and invoked it, and prowled the room.  She felt maybe they were being watched through the keyhole of the door, but she felt no ping of magic other than the lock itself, and all their items.

Glesni did realize, between all the time during her watches and the detect magic, that the items from the chest were a +1 wand of the warmage and a rope of climbing.

A hint of external light and the mounts getting restive let them all know it was morning again, and the Freelancers woke up very much refreshed.  Murai and Sabah had very much absorbed lessons from the encounters and combat experiments, and Minji… got a gift.

• Murai → lvl 4!
• Sabah → lvl 4!
• Minji → lvl 3!

As Minji sat up, a swirl of green energy surrounded her, spun around, and in a final swirl of green sparkles a book appeared on her lap.  Ears pointed forward, the nekomata clasped it to her chest, then opened it and peered within.  It looked for all the world like a young girl's diary.  Minji looked very happy.

Nix hesitated, then said, "I'm terrible at studying, but I only have low-level wizard spells in my wizard-book."  Minji looked at her, and said, "Thank you… This was a gift, and I'm sure my patron will fill it up, but I'm curious, so will take you up on it."

As the Freelancers readied themselves for the day, they considered the items from the chest.  The coin pouches had 150gp each; they'd split that later.  The wand, though… Nix offered coin for the +1 wand of the warmage.  The others cried unfair, and it was decided to draw straws.  The straws favoured Minji and Murai, so Minji got the wand, and Murai the rope of climbing.

Rochtag, last prime post-Calm

Nix turned her attention to the door, and made use of the chess piece to open it.  Stairs led down into the dark, and Murai held up their lantern to see what could be seen.

The stairs went 15' down to a landing, from whence it appeared there was a wide corridor to the right.  The stairs continued beyond the landing. 

* * session break * *

Sabah walked in, stretching.  He glanced with incurious interest at the book Minji was still clasping to her chest, then with much greater curiosity at the open door Nix was peering through.

Nix called Mercury over and again cast light on his tongue.  Then the winged cat padded quietly down the stairs to the landing.  Glesni stood with an arrow nocked, ready to shoot anything that attacked him.

Mercury paused at the landing, taking in all the scents.  From the hallway to the right, he smelled a pervasive smell of old death:  rot & bone, long set in.  From the stairs in front of him, he smelled mud, like river mud in a calm part.  Somewhere further away, there was a smell of chemical components.  <Narrator voice:  Brian rolled a nat 20 on Mercury scent perception.>  Mercury backed up behind the corner, then opened his mouth to let out the light, and took a look around.  The hallway to the right was wide, and had sarcophagi in the wall.  The stairs in front continued downward; from his smell, he thought into a muddy pit.

Mercury closed his mouth and crept forward to proceed down the stairs, which were deeper than the others.  He stepped on the first one and they went entirely flat, at a pretty steep angle, at which point Mercury realized they were very polished!  Surprised, the winged cat slid all the way down the former stairs and off the end!  He took flight, good thing he had wings!

The river mud/swamp smell was stronger, and Mercury opened his mouth again to see where he was.  30' below him was a pit of stinking river mud!  He looked at the stairway; no longer thus, it stayed a polished chute.  He circled, and flew lower, but did not see or smell any living or recently-dead creatures, and the water didn't seem entirely stagnant.  He flew back to the waiting Freelancers, stealth be damned.

The light showed that the walls of the stairwell were rough-hewn, without decoration… beyond a base board, which had geometric patterns, lining the entire way.  It looked somewhat incongruous, with the rough-hewn walls.

Nix sat in a cross-legged position, runes occasionally floating around her hat; a ritual cast of detect magic.  Mercury curled up on her lap, needing reassurance, and the others composed themselves to wait.  After 10 minutes, she stood up, walked to the head of the stairs, and peered downwards.

Nix:  at least one of these [sarcophagi] has live necromantic magic.
Murai:  walk in, like, 'Hey, What Up, Bitches'
Glesni:  I agree
Ondar:  Ondar always like that!
Glesni:  What about paladin detect whatsit?
Murai:  you mean, divine sense.
Nix:  can that be sustained?
Murai:  no, it's instant, so as soon as I notice what's there, they'll be trying to make friends.
Sabah:  so, Ondar still first.
Murai:  I'll be second.

Ondar went down the stairs to the corner of the big hallway and looked around.  Glesni called down, "What's on the ceiling?"  Ondar looked up, then replied, "Nothin', it's a big arch."  He stepped into the hallway, and Murai went to the end of the hallway, hanging back.  Sabah was behind Murai, and Glesni used her Winged Boots to float just over Murai's head; Murai glanced up, and hung the lantern on Glesni's left boot.

With the hallway illuminated, they saw there were four sarcophagi in recesses, and a wide stairway down at the other end.

On seeing the sarcophagus lid, Sabah ventured, "How heavy…?"  In answer, Ondar turned to the sarcophagus on the near right, and lifted the lid.  A dark purple glow appeared to flow into him and be absorbed, and he hesitated, then set the lid on top of the sarcophagus to the left. 

Ondar did not feel right, but like he was less competent at everything; but he looked into the opened sarcophagus, which appeared to be storage of bones.  He told the others.

Glesni:  light it on fire!
Nix <urgently>: let me look; I need bones!
<Short silence as everyone looked at Nix.>
Sabah:  sentient creature bones?!
Ondar:  come pick a bone.
<Nix examined the bones, which were all sabotaged because Ondar cut them over a prime ago.>
Glesni <sardonically>:  can you light them on fire now that you're there, o caster person?

Nix sighed, and lit the bones on fire, which if nothing else, improved the smell in the room somewhat.  Ondar moved to the next pair of sarcophagi, but this time, looked for traps, not wanting to repeat what had just happened.  Everyone else moved to see, and Nix helped… however, Ondar really was less competent at everything, so he found no trap, lifted the lid, and another dark purple glow flowed into him.  He felt like things might hurt him more, now.

It too was full of bones.  Ondar moved to check the left hand sarcophagus for a trap, and Nix, realizing that the necromatic energy her detect magic saw was the traps, not undead, interjected "Wait, let me check!"  Ondar did not, so Nix helped, and Sabah cast guidance, by starting on a story about a cave with a hidden opening.  This time Ondar found the trap, engraved as runes, and dug out his mason's tools to dismantle it.  Nix checked the bones in the open sarcophagus to find they too had been sabotaged.

Ondar succeeded in dismantling the trap; Nix saw the necromantic magic fade out from the sarcophagus.  He opened it to find more bones.

Glesni:  can we burn the other bones?
Nix:  you want me to?
Glesni:  yeah

Ondar, knowing what to look for, checked the last sarcophagus for a trap, and found it.  He easily disabled this trap, and the runes flared, sickly poisonous, before the magic winked out.

None of the bones were suitable for Nix's purpose, and she set them all to burn.

Ondar regarded the broad staircase downward, did a quick self-assessment, then said to the others, "Ondar is liking a pause before any combat."  Nix regarded Ondar, and added, "The detect magic sees some necromantic magic on you, Ondar."

Everyone agreed that Ondar should rest, or something, to see if the hostile magic would wear off, so they withdrew to the landing on the stairway.  Glesni took the lantern off her boot, but before she could hand it to Murai, Nix took it.

Nix got out her broom of flying, and hung the lantern off the end of it.  She mounted it and flew down to the muddy pit.  The stairs to the pit had not been restored, it was still just a steep chute.

Flying around the pit, Nix determined nothing lit up the detect magic.  She looked at the wall for any signs… of anything.  The walls were really slick, there weren't a lot of handholds.  Near the bottom there was grunge, indicating the water level had fluctuated over time.

Nix looked at the muck.  Anyone caught in it would be in serious trouble, but she did notice there was some flow.  She took thought how to examine under the waterline without getting stuck.  Since there was some flow, she started to apply shape water.  After some poking, she discovered both the ingress and egress of the flow, which were 2' square entrances in opposite walls of the pit.  These entrances did not have any bars.

Nix wondered whether she could follow the water to its source, but a sharp tendril of feline thought inserted itself into her brain.  "Don't even think of it," Mercury said to her, and Nix turned on her broom and returned to the others, giving Murai their lantern back.

After about an hour, Ondar still felt fairly fragile, but the uncomfortable feeling of incompetence cleared.  The Freelancers decided to explore down the stairs.  At the head of the stairs, Nix again cast light on Mercury's tongue, and the winged cat flew down the stairs, which weren't as steep as the chute, but he did not trust them.

The room at the foot of the stairs was big, and higher than the mud pit.  Mercury smelled the chemical smells again, and the old death.  Lab tables were on the walls to his right and left; between the right hand tables was a bookshelf, between the left hand tables was an open door.  A shelf opposite him held various spell components, and the tables nearest it seemed to have ingredients for curses.  The near left lab table had a dead cave bear, in poor shape, and the near right had various body parts.

Mercury looked up to see how high the ceiling was, since Nix liked to fly and Ondar liked to become large.  It was 20' high and… there was an undead wyvern clinging to the wall above the door to Mercury's right.

Mercury fled and the Freelancers all heard the snap of teeth.  Glesni, from the top of the stairs, peered into the dim laboratory and moved until she noticed someone standing in the doorway.

Glesni:  ho, down there!  This place seems to be full of unhealthy things!
Person:  you've broken into my home, and now you want to chat?
Glesni:  so!  Are you the supposedly late Roberto Wedndehals?
Roberto:  I am that person.  If you lay down your arms, I'll turn you into undead, and we'll be good.  You've wrecked so many of my servants, this will make up for it.
<Glesni, thinking about Roberto's loyal servant Bernard, became incensed.>
Glesni:  I've seen you mistreat your servants!  Poor Bernard deserved better.  No Thanks.

Glesni moved downstairs somewhat to get a clear shot and good look at Roberto, who honestly seemed a bit pale.  He had a staff in his hand.  She sank a couple arrows with her longbow, and heard him say "Ow!  Fuck!"  She backed up to the top of the stairs again.

• Sabah moved down the stairs, using prestidigitation to light his lantern.
• Mercury prepared to dodge.
• A large growl came from Sabah's left!  The bear was revived as a zombie!
• Ondar strode to the bottom of the stairs and became large.
  • The zombie bear swiped at him with its claw and missed
  • The zombie wyvern tried to bite him and critfailed, but hung onto its perch
  • Large Ondar pulled out his longbow and sank another arrow into Roberto, then invoked his fire rune.  The chains failed to hold Roberto but they did burn him, and he swore again in pain and dismay.
  • Large Ondar shot another arrow at Roberto but it went over his head.
• Fluffy flew in front of Nix.
• Murai moved up near Sabah, on their right, and presented their glittery, blingy, pendant of a bird, and sent a sparkly, rainbow-coloured guiding bolt at Roberto that burned him with holy radiance and also left him covered in glitter.
• Roberto raised his empty hand and pointed at Large Ondar, murmuring some spell, which hit the quinametzin with poison and some necrosis.
  • Large Ondar invoked stone's endurance to mitigate both, but was still pretty injured.
  • Roberto spun with a swirl of black robes and retreated, slamming the door behind him.
• Nix cast dragon's breath on Fluffy, with fire, and moved up behind Murai.
• Minji used cat zoomies to get up to Large Ondar, and saw it was indeed the zombie bear she'd fought before.  She cast eldritch blast at the thing, hitting it with force.

Glesni dashed to the door and tried it.  "This door is locked," she announced, angry.  She backed up from it a little ways, away from the zombie antagonists.

• Sabah moved past Large Ondar and set their lantern on the lab table.  They punched the zombie bear, then grappled it, grimacing from the smell.
• Mercury flew to the closest sarcophagus in the bone storage, keeping his tail and feathers away from the smoulders.  He maiowed at Nix, distressed.
• The zombie bear twisted and thrashed in Sabah's grip, biting and managing to bite itself instead of Sabah.  It roared in frustration and slashed the human with its claws.
• The zombie wyvern released the wall, and glided to the floor.  Purple and green magic shone translucently where its wing membranes would have been.  It tried to bite Large Ondar, but misjudged.  It then slashed Large Ondar with its claws.  The wounds immediately became necrotic, and he burned with the pain.
  • The zombie wyvern stepped back, and Sabah swung at it with their free hand, but missed.
• Large Ondar pierced the zombie bear with his rapier, and the bear again went limp, and became even more smelly.
  • Large Ondar then pivoted and stepped forward 10' to face the wyvern, piercing it with his rapier.  Surging on adrenaline, Large Ondar pierced the zombie wyvern again, and again with his rapier.
  • That slash hurt, and the quinametzin centered himself and gained his second wind.
• Fluffy dashed into the room.
• Murai rolled up to the wyvern and clocked it with their boat hook.
• Nix got on her broom of flying, and flew in the room over the dead bear.  She cast chromatic orb at the zombie wyvern, which settled on fire before it hit the creature in the chest.
• Minji cast eldritch blast and critfailed, the force knocking her prone, right next to the smelly bear.  She yeowled, and Mercury puffed a little.

Glesni, angry and unable to do anything about the door, shot at the zombie wyvern and missed.  That brought her more to herself and she shot it a second time, the arrow piercing it in the neck.

• Sabah had let go of the dead bear, and picked up their lantern.  They went to the door and kicked it.  The door shuddered, and Sabah kicked it again, fueled by a surge of adrenaline.  The door flew open, and Sabah started down the hallway beyond, lantern in hand.
• Mercury started walkin down the stairs, prepared to dodge.
• The zombie wyvern clawed Large Ondar again, with much the same results.
• Large Ondar thrust at the zombie wyvern again, but missed.  He thrust again, but critfailed and struck at Murai, who hastily raised their shield to deflect the blow.
  • Feeling poorly from the wyvern's slashes, Large Ondar downed a healing potion.
• Fluffy moved to the near right corner of the room and breathed dragon's breath fire on the zombie wyvern, adding a new and unwelcome smell to the laboratory.  The wolpertinger then backed up behind Large Ondar.
• Murai struck the zombie wyvern with their boat hook, augmenting the strike with a divine smite of the Magpie.  Rainbow glitter appeared in the wake of the swing, and the wyvern was burned with holy radiance.
  • The smite inspired Large Ondar, who felt his defenses bolstering as the glitter covered him.
• Sabah could not see Roberto, but they could hear him, swearing and… it sure sounded like he was packing a go bag.
• Nix cast an uplevel'd cure wounds on a grateful Large Ondar, then used sorcery to quicken sleep on the zombie wyvern, who crashed to the ground, somnolent.
• Minji stood up, and did not care that the zombie wyvern was sleep'd.  She cast eldritch blast on it, and the force caused the creature to disintegrate into a large, disgusting mess.

* * session break * *

The zombie bear's roar had carried well throughout the stone hallways.  Hanno had heard it, and realized what it was.  He leapt up, and hastened towards the origin of the sound.

Glesni moved down the hallway to just in front of Sabah, but she did not block their lantern.  She peered down the hallway, murmuring almost to herself, "Is Roberto behind a door?"  Sabah said, "No?" and Glesni loosed a seeking arrow, to find out where he was.  The arrow zipped around a corner out of sight, and Glesni did not learn where he was from the magic, but the outcome still succeeded when the two of them heard Roberto exclaim "Ow!  Fuck!  Gods be damned!" then switch to Primordial for his swearing.

Glesni:  I think he has a whole bunch of undeads in there.
Sabah:  isn't this his bedroom?  That's really weird
Large Ondar:  undeadroom

Glesni stuck her arrow in Sabah's lantern, setting it on fire, and shot it into the partition between them and Roberto.  The wooden partition caught, flames licking up the corner.  Sabah moved towards this fire, and saw to their right a small living room, or sitting room, and that there was a separate back room to the left of the fire.

Sabah ran into this separate room to find Roberto, stuck with Glesni's arrow, packing a go bag, and got in his face.  "Roberto Wendehals!  You are coming with us back to Cliffshadow to answer questions from a variety of people about your activities over this last year!" they proclaimed, loudly enough for the others to hear, then added "You can come quietly, or we can continue beating the ever-loving shit out of you!"

Roberto did not appreciate Sabah's proclamation, and shouted back, "Void take you!  I'm not going anywhere with you!"

Back in the laboratory, Mercury moved to Nix's broom handle, prepared to dodge.  Hanno got to the doorway, saw the dead bear and wyvern, and intoned the blessings of  Te Mārie on Murai, Large Ondar, and Minji.

Ondar became small again, and ran down the hallway past Glesni, followed by Fluffy, then Murai.  Glesni reminded Murai, "Don't kill him!  We want him alive."  Murai grumbled in response.

Roberto bitch slapped Sabah, necrosis spreading from where he connected with their face.  To Sabah's dismay, Roberto healed as a result, the bleeding from Glesni's arrow clearly staunched.  Just then Nix flew up on her broom, blocking the opening into the little room, then used sorcery to quicken a cure wounds spell to heal Sabah.  Minji used cat zoomies to run up, but even that was not enough to get close; she prepared to dodge.

Glesni moved in front of Minji and shot the necromancer again, with a last-second adjustment for a deeper wound.

Glesni:  this for what you did to your own servant!!
Roberto:  Ow!  Void TAKE you!  Would not have done anything to Bernard if you hadn't shown up.  No sympathy!
Ondar:  how did you know?
Roberto:  like any loose end, kept an eye on him.
Glesni:  Well, Lord Rohe will keep Void from taking me

Glesni shot Roberto with another arrow, which hurt worse than the first one.  Before he could resume swearing, Sabah socked him and grappeled him.

Mercury jumped down from the broom, and started grooming his chest, prepared to dodge.  Hanno ran in and started doing a quick inventory for who was injured.

Ondar reinvoked Giant's Might even though there was no room to get large, and then he stuck Roberto with his rapier until the necromancer passed out.  As soon as he did, Sabah picked him up by the ankles and started shaking him to see what would fall out.

Not a lot fell out of Roberto Wendehals' robes as Sabah shook him, but the Freelancers were all treated to an unfortunate view of his underpants, which were actually sewn with a material fashioned with an undead bear pattern.  He had a staff, a daggar, and some bag he was packing.

Nix pulled out lacquered manacles and a ball gag, and Sabah stopped shaking Roberto.  Everyone raised an eyebrow, and Sabah put Roberto down, saying "of course Nix has lacquered manacles and a ball gag."  Nix just smiled and applied these items to unconscious Roberto properly.

Ondar looked into the bag, but saw nothing.  He wisely did not reach into it.  "This is a bag of holding," he announced.  He took it back to the laboratory, and Glesni and Mercury went with him.  With Glesni's help, Ondar moved the skeletons and bear and wyvern upstairs; Glesni used prestidigitation to clean up any gross fluids from the zombie corpses.

Then Ondar emptied the bag on the laboratory floor.  It had

• A scimitar
• Black velvet mask with silver thread
• Small mirror
• 2 healing potions
• Jar of ointment
• A bishop chess piece
• Coins worth 2107gp

At this, Mercury flew back to Nix.  While they had been doing this, Nix had put out the fire Glesni started, then settled into another ritual cast of detect magic.  She and Hanno came out to the laboratory and she confirmed that the bag, the scimitar, the daggar, potions, jar of ointment, and the bishop chess piece all lit up from the spell.

"Detect magic doesn't detect curses," Hanno warned, "I wouldn't recommend using any of these items until thoroughly checked over."

Nix started prowling for spellbooks, or faux books.  She went to the bookshelf on the east laboratory wall and tried them all, in case they exposed a secret door.  She glanced upstairs, and told the others she'd want to be harvesting bones from that wyvern, then went back to Roberto's sitting room, looking for spell books and secret doors there.  Glesni followed her, and noticed a pantry on the right; she looked for a door behind it too.

They found nothing, and the Freelancers were puzzled.  How could he be a necromancer, with no spell book?  And it seems he felt safe, there were no secret doors?  Glesni used her Winged Boots again to check the arched ceiling, but there was nothing remarkable.  Murai and Minji blindfolded Roberto while Hanno gathered the items to go.  But, why did he think he was going to be able to go?

Murai said, "We should look."  They also took a turn investigating the room for secret doors or levers.  They found nothing, although they noticed a couple romance novels on the nightstand.  One was the Tahu one.  Ondar, frustrated, hit the nightstand with his sword, and it broke into two pieces, revealing nothing.

Nix had gone back to the laboratory and gathered three pouches worth of spell components, and then shifted her attention to the wyvern.  She felt the wyvern's knucklebones would work well for divination.  Ondar went to help her, and Sabah cast guidance by starting on some tale about skinning an animal while being stalked by a hippogryph.  Nix needed all these assists; the wyvern had been dead for a while.  After taking some care to clean off both Ondar's blood and rotting wyvern yuck, she got the knucklebones she needed.

And on that note, the Freelancers left the lair, necromancer casually tossed across Frostclaw's shoulders.  It was a pleasant late morning, the Daystar shining through a thin overcast, and the group returned to their prior campsite they'd had before getting to the cavern the prior day.

At the campsite, while the other Freelancers were setting up and prepping the evening meal, Nix set about ritual casts of identify.

• The jar of ointment had 5 doses of Keoghtom's Ointment
• The 2 potions were greater healing potions
• The bishop chess piece was a receive-only half of a pair of sending stones
• The scimitar was a Nightside Scimitar, which will shed light on command: bright light within 30', dim light for another 30'
• The daggar was the Tsunami Edge of Arcana, which needed attunement and granted the following magical advantages:
  • Once per rest, when the bearer crits with this weapon, all creatures other than the bearer within 5' of the target (including the target) must roll a DC 12 constitution saving throw or be knocked prone by a wave of concussive force.
  • This weapon can project a spectral tome suspended in mid-air that the bearer can interact with like a physical book. This tome can be used as a spellbook.
    • Roberto Wendehals had put these spells in the spellbook: false life, identify, mage armor, ray of sickness, blindness/deafness, sending, web, animate dead, bestow curse, vampiric touch, dimension door.

Nix's eyebrows went up at the daggar, which solved so many mysteries:  how the necromancer was lacking an obvious spellbook, and with dimension door, how he had expected to flee.  Hanno's reaction was predictably phlegmatic.  "Sounds interestin'," he drawled, "But this sound like the kind of thing that would have a curse tied to it; best be careful."

The Freelancers camped that night without incident, but when the morning dawned they realized trudging back to Cliffshadow with a blindfolded, manacled, gagged, and fully-rested necromancer with dimension door prepped was tiresome and risky.  They decided it would be best for those with flying mounts – and Nix, whose broom of flying could keep up with Frostclaw – to fly directly to Cliffshadow with him.  That meant Ondar, Torinn, Khalid, Hanno, and Nix flying to Cliffshadow, and Sabah, Glesni, Minji, and Murai to walk back normally.

Before they did so, they spent some time on how the items would split amongst them.  As they discussed it, Roberto, who could hear them perfectly well, squirmed with displeasure.  They decided any coin and gems could be split later, but for the other items,

• Ondar:  Nightside Scimitar
• Nix:  bag of holding
• Hanno:  Keoghtom's Ointment
• Murai:  greater healing potion
• Glesni:  greater healing potion
• Sabah:  Tsunami Edge of Arcana

Minji did her best to look winsome and wheedled, "I'll give you my share of gold from the bag of holding, for that daggar, Sabah."

Sabah blinked; they were primarily interested in the way it could knock so many prone.  But they were bad with calculating money.  "Sure!" they agreed.  <Narrator voice:  that's 301 gp to Sabah.>

That left the receiving stone, and they decided it would go back to Freelancers and could be given to Nyls, who also was holding on to one from Lautaro, the assassin who'd been sent after Roberto's severance Bernard.  Ondar took the stone in the interim.

On that note, those Freelancers who could fly mounted up, and with Roberto across Frostclaw's shoulders, charted a straight-line course back to Cliffshadow.  In the abrupt silence, Glesni, Minji, Murai, and Sabah packed up the rest of the camp, and headed on foot to Three Rivers.

Kenostag, last prime post-Calm

Three days later, Ondar, Torinn, Khalid, Hanno, and Nix flew in wearily to Freelancers Tavern.  The smells of Harvest Holiday preparation filled the air.  Frostclaw, Greyfell, Iggy, and JayWalker were exhausted as the Freelancers landed in the courtyard and started to unload.  All, including Roberto, started stamping their feet and stretching after the long ride.

The stablehands hurried out, clucking in dismay, and so did Arnari, looking quite alarmed.  Ondar held up a hand indicating they still needed the mounts, so the stablehands helped unload and rub them down.  Sovelai emerged with goodberries and gave one to each mount.

Arnari:  what!  You're back sooner than I expected, how is everyone else?  <doubletake> who is this?
Hanno:  everyone else is fine; this is your rogue necromancer.  On account of his abilities to escape, we thought it best to return here straightaway.
Ondar:  you have a better feel for politics; Ondar cares not for such things.
Arnari:  well, as long as others are okay, I'll be happy to accompany you to deliver this miscreant to Mayor Kaiea.

Arnari went back into the stable with one of the stablehands and emerged shortly with Peacock, her peacock gryphon, and then they all mounted up and flew over to Pegasus Square, Arnari leading the way.  When they landed in front of the Mayor's Office, between Peacock and Frostclaw, a lot of heads turned.

They were shown in immediately, but that was awkward with Roberto blindfolded, so they removed that.  Once all were seated in the office, the Freelancers took turns relating what they had found to Kaiea and Arnari.  While the Mayor was glad to see the Freelancers, he was clearly disturbed at the report.

"Oh no, more undeads?" Kaiea asked unhappily.  "And chess pieces?"  He looked at Roberto, who was a bit confused, but stared defiantly back.  Nix, Hanno, Ondar, and Arnari could tell the Mayor was very relieved to see the necromancer in chains, but they also could see Roberto was scared, under the defiance.

As they finished the report, they saw how Kaiea couldn't quite conceal a flinch at "Natali" or "Lichess".  He looked at Roberto again, then went to the door.  Stepping back, a guard and a robed guard came and escorted the necromancer out, and Kaiea shut the door again.

Arnari asked, "Why are you so disturbed by this 'Lichess' thing?  It seems like a huge Freelancer issue, and it may not be done; tell me what is happening here."  Arnari was burning with curiosity; after the mission with Bernard, she'd sent to Damakaios about whether he'd heard of any interventions on Commerce, but Damakaios knew nothing.

Kaiea sat heavily at his desk, sighing overdramatically, as Fire sagani are wont to do.  "I don't have full info," he started, then explained, "I used to know someone named Natali, and I'm afraid they are the same person; but if they are, she would be an extremely powerful person."

There was an unspoken "long ago" in the Mayor's statement, and Hanno, Arnari, and Ondar all glanced at each other as if to say, "did you hear that?"  Kaiea Tihani looked 27, and had a reputation for being the youngest Mayor Cliffshadow ever had.  Hanno, suddenly suspicious, invoked eyes of the grave and looked at Kaiea more closely.  No undeads there!

Kaiea had not finished.  "I do not know where she is now or going, but she wanted more power.  When I saw she was willing to use any source for that power… Before I was able to intervene, we were no longer in contact.  So this feels like a continuation of that megalomaniacal journey."

Arnari's forehead creased.  "Do you know where she might be?"  Kaiea shook his head, orange hair flying.  "No idea – could be on a large skylith, hidden in a city, or a lair on a small/medium skylith."  He sighed, and added, "Anywhere."

Arnari was sure this would be a huge Freelancer issue, now.  "What does she look like?"  Kaiea said, "Well, Natali has pale skin; she is human, when I knew her she had dark hair cut in kind of a wavy bob from ear to chin.  Dark brown eyes…" his voice drifted off.  "Elegant, almost aristocratic features."

Nix and Ondar glanced at each other, and at Arnari.  This was indeed the description of Natali the "elegant lady" the Freelancers had been encountering in the investigation.  But Kaiea was disturbed to the point of melancholy, and the tired mounts were waiting.  Arnari stood up, and told Kaiea she would settle the fee and any further missions later, and the Freelancers took their leave.

• Ondar → lvl 6!
• Nix → lvl 4 Sorceress/lvl 1 Wizard!
• Minji → lvl 4!