Session 25
The party continued their adventure in the gloom of the graveyards south of Starhaven. After clearing out of the crypt they were in, they marched to the other side of the fields and set upon another mausoleum. As they crept down the stairs, they were greeted by an earshattering, unearthly and incredibly pained scream from within. Steelspine, Tanusk and Willow all rushed down to the crypts below, only to find two ghosts and a banshee waiting for them. Honta used his boots to climb the walls, attempting to get behind the spirits to attack them, when one of the ghosts seemed to emit a nightmarish vision of death and horror. Most of the party was affected, turning away in fear of the spirit, but Honta seemed to take the brunt of the attack, and appeared to age several decades in a mere matter of seconds.
The party began to battle the spirits, though they flitted in and out of the walls and attacked those who tried to hide from them, and ultimately, Honta was affected by those ghosts several times. By the end of the battle, the spirits had been vanquished, the party found an old amulet inside one of the burial mounds, and Honta no longer appeared youthful, but rather, as a decrepit old man.
Taking a moment to lick their wounds, the party decided to attack the middle crypt. As they entered, Honta prepared to use invisibility dust upon the group, which Steelspine and Tanusk seemed to ignore. Steelspine approached the bottom of the stairway that lead down into the crypt, then yelled back up at the party. The stairway ended at a T intersection, so the Dwarf and Half-Orc split up and went separate directions. As soon as they rounded their corners, they were greeted by a large room, and a barrage of magic missiles. The room inside glowed with eerie purple light. A burning skull floated above a decorated canopic jar. Three Nightfall orbs floated in the air of the room, purple tendrils of energy pouring from the spheres into the jar in the center of the room. The missiles had been cast by a pair of Necromancers, and as soon as Steelspine recovered and rounded the corner, he found a third Necromancer waiting for him and attacked.
The party slowly filtered into the room, engaging the Necromancers and dispatching them with relative ease, before turning their attention to the skull, who admitted himself to be the reborn Necrolord Joridex. After a brief magical battle that roughed the party up, the skull was shattered, and it seemed Joridex was vanquished. However, the dark one’s spirit was drawn into that jar, which began to glow brightly. At this point, Honta decided it was in his best interest to leave the room, and finally slipped away. After all, he was fairly close to death, both in age and in injury at this point! Soon the glow sent a burst of feedback into the Nightfall orbs, shattering them and leaving three floating crystal shards in the air. The shards gravitated towards the healthiest members of the party, and began to drain life from them. However, Willow was able to identify that the shards also allowed them to strike the seemingly invulnerable jar that housed the soul of Joridex!
The party began an awkward dance of attacking and arranging themselves to transfer the shards between eachother so that no one person surrendered too much of their remaining lifeforce to the spirit in the jar. Aust had his hands full keeping people healed up, expending all of his reserves just to keep people alive. As the life drain intensified, Tanriel found herself in a very dangerous position – the shard draining life from her was becoming extremely powerful, and she had nobody to pass it off to. Luckily she was able to maneouver into a position to trade her shard to Tanusk. Willow wasn’t as lucky – she dropped unconcious from the negative energy of her own shard, which was transferred to Steelspine. To add to the chaos, the party had to contend with rising dead Wights that crawled from the ground below to assault them as they struggled to defeat their enemy. Finally, after a moment where Aust stabbed himself to make himself a less desirable target for those shards, Steelspine drove his blades into the jar and shattered it, destroying the vessel for that spirit once and for all.
Joridex was unhappy about this development. Emerging as an angered Wraith, he quickly hid himself behind two mirror images, hoping to distract the party long enough to slay them and possess their bodies. Spectral fire began to fill the room, making the situation much more dire. Honta entered once more, ready to join the battle again. Tanriel found herself to be the first victim of that Necrolord, her life drained, leaving her unconcious. Steelspine lunged at the wraith and tore into him with his magic blades. Joridex retreated, filling the room with more fire and hiding behind more images – which Willow was easily able to dispatch with a few magic missiles. Aust used up his final reserves of healing spells, and with luck, the party was finally able to strike down the spirit of Joridex, vanquishing him forever.
Daylight can be seen emerging from the entrance to the Necrolord’s crypt. Honta’s hip is seriously acting up, and the party is low on resources. However, they do find that the cult had amassed a large sum of wealth in preparation for their master’s arrival, and so they had helped themselves to the skull and bone studded chest that contained nearly thirty thousand gold pieces worth of treasure.
With the shadow of death no longer looming over Starhaven, the Church of the All-Faith will be pleased. That’s probably for the best, as Honta will require a Greater Restoration spell which only the church can provide. The party can still collect a bounty on any Nightfall orbs they recover from the surface, and Aust will need to report back to his Church for further orders.
Meanwhile, in Starhaven, rumours from travellers have begun to spread, of even stranger things happening all through the region. Vast, dangerous windstorms. Stretches of lands that have grown charred, blackened, where fires ignite in the blink of an eye. Large fissures and dry conditions in normally hospitable areas, and rivers and lakes rising and overflowing, saturating the land and flooding it. Slowly, people are becoming aware of the greater threat in the Region, and begin to wonder – how soon will it be before that threat reaches Starhaven?
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