12th day of Skaltide, 12th Year of the Reign of Empress Sorasta, 5728
From the Journals of Brother Xindge
Stor is in, Tellem is out as his puppet master is in absentia. A worthy substitution. We are in the catacombs, Xindge is still being held in place. The spell ends, and he’s free to heal everyone up before we chase the vampire vapor down the stairs. We get to the bottom of the stairs and the light shining from Xindge’s light source shows a door across the room below. Xindge goes to the door and listens, hears nothing. Rankhum comes into the room and examines the room. William comes in and does the same. Unlike Xindge and Rankhum, notices holes in the wall, chest height. Lovely. Stor comes into the room and that’s it.
William offers to try disarming the obvious trap. Rankhum moves forward, putting himself between the holes in the wall. Williams examines the door, it’s locked but not obviously triggered. He starts unlocking it. Stor gets pinged with two darts that fly out of the wall after he notices a blood stain on the floor. Everyone else is able to avoid them. He takes some minor damage. Xindge heals him.
William is having a tough time unlocking the door. He eventually gets it, the door is opened to reveal a very large room with pillars. William perceives a soft chanting sound from beyond the cast of our light. It stops and turns into a scream and a voice, likely the vampire woman, who calls out for someone to rise and attack us. So we engage.
Xindge goes into the room and doesn’t see them in the darkness so ducks behind a pillar. There is movement in the darkness, she casts a spell. Nothing else. Rankum casts protection from evil on himself. He moves into the room. William also moves into the room and dashes forward to engage the vampire. He misses. Stor comes into the room and moves behind a pillar.
Xindge throws a bolt at her and it misses. A lot of that going on lately. She casts a spell and puts out Xindge’s light. Three huge spiders emerge and attack Xindge. Rankhum Magic missiles the spiders and does some damage. He moves closer to the spiders and notices that the altar at the end of the room has a statue of a faceless being and the stone is starting to crumble. William goes to attack the vampire and critically fails and injures himself. Stor engages the spiders, attacking the injured one. He hits it and kills it. Xindge fails to hit again. One of the spiders misses Rankhum and the vampiress casts another spell, critical success. Demonic apparitions rise from the ground and start swirling around. Xindge escapes their fury but Stor gets assaulted by them. He goes down. She cackles with glee. Rankhum tricks one spider into attacking another. He goes around the pillar and opens fire on the vampire. He misses. William dashes and opens fire on her. Finally gets in some damage on the vampire.
The stone statue shrugs off its stone and emerges. He waves his arms and bats start swarming. Xindge gets swarmed by bats and is knocked unconscious. His last act is to cure wounds and bounces back up. One spider kills the other thanks to Rankhum. The vampiress walks towards William and Rankhum to envelop them in the demonic swarm. She fails to damage them. She moves up to Rankhum and tries to stab him with her dagger. She misses. Rankhum double barrels her and does decent damage. William misses. Stor grits his teeth again and gets back to action. Xindge dissipates her into a cloud but the spell is still in effect. She moves into the altar and disappears, her apparitions get sucked into the altar as well. The spider misses Xindge. The bats still swarm, Stor gets hit. The apparition shoots a beam of darkness at Xindge. Xindge goes down.
Rankhum shoots the apparition and does some damage. William jumps onto the sarcophagus and attacks the apparition. He misses. Stor grabs Xindge and moves him behind cover and uses a healer’s kit to try to heal him. That’s it. The apparition tries to grab William and throw him onto Rankhum and succeeds. The bats continue their assault and miss everyone. Now Rankhum, from his prone position fires magic missiles into the Apparition and does further damage, then he stands up. William stands up and attacks, misses. Stor drops his swords, takes out his longbow and fires at the apparition. The apparition turns and bats the arrow away. Then Stor ducks behind a pillar. Xindge successfully heals himself but stays down.
The bats fail to bite any of us. The spider finally decides to get in on the action and goes to bite Rankhum and hits. The apparition looks at William and says “look into my eyes” in a creepy fashion. Odd, because he doesn’t have eyes. The spell fails. Rankhum tries to bury magic missiles into the apparition and misses. William steps up and misses the spider. Stor steps out from behind the pillar and opens fire on the apparition and hits. Then he moves back behind the pillar. Xindge tries to cure Stor and fails.
The apparition tries to bewitch Rankhum and his protection from evil saves him. Stor gets hit by bats and goes down. Rankhum misses again. William misses as well. Stor gets his second wind and restores himself, gets up, moves and shoots at the apparition. He hits and moves back behind cover. Xindge gets up, moves and finally hits the apparition and then moves behind a pillar close to Rankhum and William. The bats miss everyone but Rankhum. The apparition tries to kick William in the face and connects like a bat hitting a melon. William drops like a sack of flour.
Rankhum is having a crisis of faith in his skills. But he has a cunning plan!!! He unleashes a barrage on the apparition and hits. William grits his teeth and stabilizes. He stays where he is. Stor hits the apparition with a critical hit and gets in a free attack! Major damage! He drops his bow, picks up his swords and runs towards Xindge, so Xindge tries to heal Stor and fails, because of course he does. The spider attacks Rankhum and misses. Everyone who is up gets bat-bit. The apparition tries to entice Stor and fails.
Rankum feels a little better about himself, throws a magic missile and misses, and feels worse about himself. William grits his teeth again and gets a little consciousness back. Stor attacks the spider and hits. He attacks again and hurts the spider badly. Xindge proves himself useless again in attacking the apparition and ducks behind the pillar again. The spider bites Stor nad he goes down again and is poisoned. The apparition tries to kick Rankhum in the face and misses.
Rankhum tries to hit him again and misses. Xindge misses. Everyone else is down. The spider tries to bite Rankhum and misses. The apparition kicks Rankhum and takes him down. William attacks the spider and misses. Xindge steps out and finally hits the apparition and it destroys it.
The spider is the only enemy left, and it’s hurting. It attacks William and misses. Rankhum takes a healing position and is back to active. William attacks the spider again and just misses. Stor takes the potion and heals up, Xindge heals him to active. The spider once again misses William. Rankhum fires a magic missile at the spider and hits and kills the damned thing already!!!!!
Xindge heals everyone and we go to the sarcophagus. William checks for traps. None detected. He does see how we can open it up. He doesn’t open it, but Rankhum does. There is a staircase going down. Rankhum tosses his lighted pebble and tossed it down the stairs. So…another level.
Stor leads the charge down the stairs. We have arrived in caverns. We plunge ahead. Stor looks into the caverns and sees faint remnants of goblin civilization. We move down into the caverns.
As we turn the corner, we see holes along the walls the size of goblins, little tunnel entrances. On the far wall is a series of sarcophagi. Stalagmites and stalactites dot the cavern. And there are zombie goblins!!! They are shooting arrows. Stor is hit.
William shoots and misses. Stor critically misses. He drops his rapier but attacks with his short sword. Misses. Xindge successfully turns the closest six zombies and they run for the hills.
Rankhum shoots his magic missiles at a zombie and hits. It goes down. William, hidden, shoots at advantage but still misses. Stor picks up his rapier, moves to attack a zombie. He thrusts with his rapier and misses. Then he thrusts with the short sword and hits and the zombie goes down. Xindge whacks a zombie with his hammer and it goes down.
Xindge gets hit by a zombie, the rest run for the hills through the little tunnels. Rankhum moves up and shoots the one remaining zombie and misses. William moves up and attacks the zombie and misses. Stor moves to flank the zombie and attacks with the rapier and hits, the zombie goes down.
We move over to the sarcophagus and look to try to open them. Two are wood and one is stone. Rankhum tries to open one of the wooden ones. We move over to help. Xindge opens the lid and it’s empty. We open another. The female vampire is inside, serene. Until Rankhum stakes her. Her eyes and mouth open and then she collapses. William investigates what remains and starts cutting to find stuff. Xindge opens the stone sarcophagus and pours the holy water in. It starts melting away the faceless form in there. The boss vampire solidifies within the coffin. He screams and stands up. William attacks, knocks the vampire down, dusts it and it reforms back in the coffin, inert. Stor breaks an arrow and jams it into the inert form. Misses. The form is still gaseous so we have to wait until it solidifies. As soon as it solidifies, Xindge pours the holy water across the neck and it gives a scream, red glowing eyes and then it turns to dust. WHEW.
Now it’s time for the looting. Inside one coffin we find a silver sword. In the other a silver coffin. In the last we find an elegant rapier and a small box with gold, silver and jewelry. We break up one wooden coffin, put it in with the body of the female vampire and William lights the pyre. We leave. Just for fun, Rankhum adds oil to the fire and we leave. We close all doors behind us. We have cleansed the catacombs!
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