When we last left the party, they had finally entered Ednowain’s tower and had begun exploring it. They had finished exploring the first two levels of the tower and had made it up to the third floor. On that level, they entered a room that looked much like a wizard’s lab with an armored figure standing motionless in each of the corners. Bryn entered the room and went right up to one of the figures and knocked upon the armor.
There are potential spoilers below the break for the adventures, “The Crucible of Freya,” from Necromancer Games (although a heavily modified version) and, “The Mysterious Tower,” from Goodman Games (also a heavily modified version). I also drew from Weapons of Legacy from WotC for some ideas and images I used.
My players became slackers again and so I wrote this up after they failed to do so. Slackers!
Bryn had tapped on one of the armored figures in the room they had entered and it responded, though not quite in a fashion that she may have hoped. Maggots fell from under the helmet as it began to attack Bryn and she responded in kind. The other three armored figures also began to attack. Bryn was badly damaged and fell, unconscious. The rest of the party came into the room and engaged the things. The battle went in the favor of the party but not without mishap. Drogar’s axe slipped (or so he claimed) out of his hands as he prepared a massive blow for one of the figures. Instead, it flew behind the dwarf and embedded itself into the chest of Remus!
Romulus revived the fallen party members and the room was searched. Nothing of value (and no magic) could be found in the room so Bryn headed to the door in the corner, under where the stairs would continue to ascend. It opened into a small room with a single bed and a nightstand. Two books were on the nightstand. Remus took a look and determined that one book was a spellbook while the other was a treatise on creating zombies.
Bryn found a footlocker under the bed. It wasn’t locked and only contained scraps of clothing, lots of dead moths, and the space that the moths which flew out when opened previously occupied.
While Remus and Romulus meditated, prayed, and studied as appropriate, Bryn and Drogar destroyed the book on zombie creation [along with a magical scroll that no one noticed but I shared with the players later]. Readied, or at least they hoped, the party headed up the stairs.
The stairs ended in a door that opened onto a single room with six black stone sarcophagi standing on end against the walls. In the center of the room sat a large black stone sarcophagus with ornate carvings. A cool, nearly cold, wind swirled throughout the room. The party’s torches were dimmed.
A skeleton in robes with runes lay on top of the central sarcophagus. It was holding a staff against its chest and the other arm was outstretched to the side. Scattered papers lay on the floor under the outstretched arm and what appeared to be a broken vial with ornate caging. The runes on the robe looked to be somewhat similar to those that had defaced the shrines of Myr and Tyr.
The party started to spread around the room to get a better look. Drogar went over the skeleton and chopped its head off with his axe. A horrified shriek was heard from the shadows up near the ceiling and Shory could make out something moving in the darkness above. A shadowy humanoid figure streaked down from the shadows and attacked Drogar. The chilling attack drained some of Drogar’s strength. Clarissa was also struck but it and suffered the draining effect. Even though the party’s magical weapons sometimes passed right through the creature, they were able to inflict enough damage to defeat and dissipate the creature.
When the creature attacked Clarissa, it whispered Fernan and called her a traitor. That bit of info pretty much clinched it for the party…the shadow had to be whatever remained of Ednowain and the skeleton must be his mortal remains.
With the defeat of the shadow thing, the cool breeze also dissipated and the party’s lights seemed to return to their full intensity. Checking out the room, Remus and Romulus examined the vial and gathered up the scattered papers. Bryn checked out the skeleton and found a small gold box hanging from a chain around what would have been the skeleton’s neck. Checking out the six upright sarcophagi, they found six skeletons…one in each. It looked like each had been squeezed in while still alive; scratches were found on the inside of the lids! Each of the skeletons was missing a single tooth…the same incisor for each.
Ednowain’s skeleton was moved off of the central sarcophagi and its lid was slid to the floor. The party found it filled with coins, mostly silver and copper, a handful of gems, a vial, and a scroll. Remus spent some time looking at the scattered papers and at the magical items. The papers seemed to be a ritual of undeath to turn one into a lich but it looked incomplete. Remus was convinced that there was no way that the ritual would work. It even included reference to a potion that needed to be drunk with a main ingredient of hemlock!
The scroll turned out to be a scroll of invisibility and the potion a potion of longevity. The staff that Ednowain’s remains had been holding was also magical. It looked to be carved of a single piece of birch and had a large “cage” structure at the tip. The cage of wood surrounded a single crystal that was the color of topaz but was shaped and structured like a piece of quartz. The crystal was larger than any of the openings in the “cage” of the staff. Remus determined that if you held the staff and said the name Ednowain, the crystal would light up (like a light spell) that would last until the staff was released. Also, if you said Glenis, the staff would cast feather fall but only once per day.
The skeleton also had some iron wristbands that were magical. They are bracers of defense +3 (i.e., provide armor equivalent to leather armor).
The scraps of ritual also made reference to the sacrifice of six people and having to pluck a tooth from each and place in a phylactery. The gold box that Bryn found on the skeleton rattled as though it had a number of small items within. Drogar sliced the golden box in half with his axe. Six teeth spilled out.
Lastly, the papers detailing the ritual of lichdom had some notes written in the margins…presumably from Ednowain. They mentioned that he had been able to trick Orcus into giving him the secret of immortality in exchange for his shadow. One’s shadow was a trivial price to pay in exchange for the secret of everlasting life!
That’s pretty much where we ended that session.
