Through The Crypts And Up The Spiral Stairs (Session 85)

Summary

Beyond Magister Vhalen’s study, the party found an assistant’s workspace. Pyreece discovered a ledger describing a failed shipment of ghouls, most of which had fused into a screaming mass during passage through the portal. Elenor read the journal of Vhalen’s assistant, Edric, whose enthusiasm had turned to fear as something beyond the gateway learned about them and promised him freedom from death. Further notes reported stronger disturbances during the full moon, violent reactions to celestial creatures, and undead servants refusing to enter the portal. Pyreece found Edric’s warning that the presence beyond the gateway was watching and learning, along with a sketch showing a soul anchor behind the arch and three focus stones around it. The focus stones had to be destroyed first or the portal would never close.

Continuing through the crypts, Brandy encountered Edgar crouched behind a sarcophagus. The party fought him until Audra’s blow reduced him to mist, which retreated into his coffin. Pyreece turned him in that weakened state, destroying him, and blessed his remains. After searching an empty meeting room, they entered a chamber containing two coffins topped with bloodstained bowls. Blood began flowing from them and formed two Blood Wights. Their presence drove Brandy, Oglesby, and Audra away in fear. Pyreece turned one while Kipp and Elenor fought the other, which Elenor destroyed with Burning Hands. The remaining creature was killed while Pyreece kept it turned. Tristan magically healed Brandy’s cursed, continuously bleeding wound. The coffins held unmoving remains in priestly vestments, which the party left undisturbed.

In another crypt, a woman in an aged wedding gown waited beside a coffin. Pyreece’s attempt to turn her failed, and the woman attacked, badly wounding her. She mistook Kipp for her love, but he brought her down while Audra held her continual light stone near the creature’s face. Pyreece destroyed her after she returned to her coffin as mist, then healed herself. Farther on, the party opened a coffin containing Raven, who sprang out when Pyreece tried to turn her. Pyreece resisted Raven’s charm, and the party attacked until Brandy brought her down. When another turning attempt failed, Pyreece destroyed Raven with Defender of the Faith and blessed her remains.

The next sarcophagus contained Thomas, the fused mass of ghouls described in the ledger. Elenor’s Magic Missiles, Oglesby’s last magical sling bullet, and the fighters’ weapons injured it, but Pyreece could not turn it. Thomas caught Audra and dragged her headfirst into its mass. Tristan seized her feet and tried to pull her free, but could not overcome the grasping bodies. Kipp carefully struck where Audra was not trapped and killed the creature. Thomas collapsed into a quivering mass, allowing Tristan to drag Audra out, covered in goo.

In a remarkably well-preserved chamber, Pyreece smashed an ornate coffin with Defender of the Faith. It was empty, but she blessed it, sprinkled holy water over it, and soaked and scattered its earth so its vampire owner could no longer use it. At another western door, two hellhounds burned Brandy with their breath. Kipp attacked over her head through the cramped doorway while Pyreece cast Prayer. Tristan disappeared and reappeared inside the room, where the second hound burned him. Brandy killed the first hound, then charged the second, clearing the way for Kipp to finish it.

Pyreece healed Brandy and Audra, and the party examined statues that appeared evil when seen indirectly but showed chained, weeping women when viewed straight on. Elenor secured a Scroll of Protection from Undead from Pyreece for their expected confrontation with Lyssa. With Pyreece leading, they climbed spiral stairs to a slightly open, iron-bound door. Beyond it, they reached double doors opening onto stairs that rose ahead and to the east, descended to a chamber containing six sarcophagi and torches burning with dim, blackish flames. Tristan sensed Lyssa above them, but an even greater evil in the chamber below.

Audra and Pyreece descended and found an archway that appeared to be a portal. Pyreece searched for the soul anchor and focus stones, but none were present, suggesting this was not the portal Lyssa had been working on. The rest of the party had followed. Tristan approached, vanished, and reappeared seconds later as he was thrown away from the arch. While the party checked on him, a winter wight emerged, rapidly chilling the chamber. Kipp, Tristan, Brandy, and Audra attacked while Pyreece unsuccessfully tried to turn it. The wight struck Kipp, enveloping him in flames like those burning in the torches. The party killed the creature, but Kipp continued burning.

Pyreece and Audra nearly caught fire themselves while trying to smother the flames, and water had no effect. Kipp sometimes resisted the damage but continued to burn. As Elenor prepared Dispel Magic, he concentrated on resisting the fire, and it suddenly dissipated. The winter wight rose and attacked again. The party brought it down a second time, and Pyreece battered its remains with Defender of the Faith until there was little left to rise again. After confirming with Tristan that Lyssa remained above them, they returned toward the stairs.

This where the session ended!

Please start the recorder!

Exp: 3878 - Brandy and Audra made 8th level

Detail

The party continued exploring the passages beyond Magister Vhalen’s study. Oglesby listened at the western door, heard nothing, and found no traps. The door was unlocked, and the party opened it.

Inside stood a desk and a simple wooden chair whose legs rested unevenly on the floor. A shelf on the south wall held journals, neatly bundled notes, spare quills, and nearly empty ink bottles. Dust covered much of the room, but the desk showed signs of recent activity. Candle wax had dripped across the papers, and hurried notes filled the margins of reports. The chamber appeared to be an assistant’s workspace rather than a laboratory. Its stone ceiling was about fifteen feet overhead, and three doors led from the room.

On the desk, the Pyreece found a ledger recording a shipment of ghouls. Forty had been ordered, twelve had arrived, and their condition was marked unusable. The crossing had compressed their forms, fusing most of them into a single screaming mass. The creature had been sealed in an empty chamber, and the mistress refused to look at it. She insisted that the portal formula was correct, yet the mist kept rewriting the destination.

Other papers contained supply inventories, prisoner lists, schedules of portal experiments, and notes on maintaining the crypt complex. The party warned one another that somewhere nearby there might be a room containing the fused ghouls.

The top drawer held correspondence with Magister Vhalen. The messages requested verification of rune measurements and additional blood samples for the lady, and reported that portal instability had increased after midnight. One note bore what appeared to be dried blood.

Oglesby checked the desk for traps and opened the bottom drawer. Inside was a leather-bound journal. He placed it on the desk for someone else to examine while he listened at another door. Again, he heard nothing.

Elenor read the journal, which belonged to Vhalen’s assistant, Edric. The early entries were neatly written and enthusiastic about the work. Vhalen believed they stood upon the threshold of a discovery that would reshape entire worlds. As the entries progressed, Edric’s handwriting became increasingly erratic. Another subject had been lost, and Lady Lyssa seemed irritated rather than concerned. Edric dreamed of faces in the mist that knew his name. He refused to enter the portal chamber alone. Although Vhalen insisted that they were making progress, every improvement seemed to make the phenomenon more aware of them.

In the final entry, Edric described hearing something speak from the gateway. It had addressed him rather than the magister, knew things it should not have known, and promised that if he stepped through willingly, he would never fear death again. Lady Lyssa had ordered another activation for the following day. Edric intended to leave before it happened and prayed that, if anyone found his journal, he had succeeded.

The party searched for a map, but the desk and its drawers held none. Pyreece examined the bookshelf and found another notebook. Edric had preserved observations that Vhalen considered too trivial to keep. Portal disturbances increased during the full moon. The gateway reacted violently whenever celestial creatures approached, a detail the party immediately connected with Tristan. Several undead servants had refused orders to enter the portal, and one skeletal warrior had repeatedly tried to flee the chamber when the gateway was activated.

Behind the books, Pyreece found a letter from Edric to Vhalen. Edric wrote that he could no longer participate in the experiments. He believed that what stood beyond the gateway was more than another world: it saw them whenever they opened the passage, and it was learning.

The letter included a rough drawing of a chamber containing an arch surrounded by arcane circles. Behind the arch stood a large stone labeled the soul anchor. Three focus stones were positioned around the arch upon the circle. Beside the sketch was the warning: “Destroy the focus first or the portal will never close.”

Pyreece shared the discovery with the others. They discussed what they could use to break the stones. Her Rod of Smiting was intended for constructs rather than ordinary stone. Brandy’s Longtooth could pierce hard materials and was particularly effective against stone creatures, though they were uncertain how that would apply to the focus stones.

The party opened the door Oglesby had checked. Audra carried her continual light stone partly concealed so that its light pointed backward and down. Beyond the doorway was a dark intersection. Stairs rose to the south, another door stood across the passage, and the corridor continued north. They chose to explore northward.

At a T-junction, Audra looked along the adjoining passages while Oglesby listened at a door and checked it for traps. He heard nothing and found none. Audra discovered another door farther along. Brandy opened the door Oglesby had examined.

Beyond it lay a circular crypt that smelled of blood and damp earth. Dense, overlapping scratches covered the inner walls, as though something trapped there had tried to claw its way out. A cracked-open stone sarcophagus stood in the center. Two pale eyes rose above its edge as an undead creature crouched behind it.

Brandy fired an arrow, but the creature ducked behind the coffin. They heard it say, “So hungry.”

Brandy ran into the chamber and attacked with her sword. The creature, Edgar, leaped at her like a feral animal and shrieked loudly enough to shake dust from the ceiling. His attacks missed, and Brandy resisted his attempt to hypnotize her.

Oglesby entered and moved aside to assess the fight. Audra recognized that the southern door probably connected to the assistant’s room and called back for Pyreece to use that route. She then circled the sarcophagus and struck Edgar. Kipp entered and hit him with both weapons. Pyreece made her way around Elenor and the coffin but missed her attack. Elenor tried her staff sling, though the coffin and the combatants made the shot difficult, and she missed as well.

Audra struck again. Edgar’s body became mist and drifted back into the sarcophagus. When the party looked inside, the mist was already beginning to take shape again.

They discussed how to finish him. Pyreece recalled that a stake, a holy weapon, sunlight, or turning him in this weakened condition could destroy him. She invoked her holy power, and Edgar dissolved into ash and dust.

A search of the coffin revealed nothing of value. Pyreece said a blessing over his remains, hoping that he would pass into a good afterlife and rest peacefully, then closed the sarcophagus. Tristan approved.

Oglesby checked the next door and found no traps. Pyreece took the lead as they continued along a short passage and opened a door into a large, dusty chamber. It might once have been a meeting room or dining room, but there was no kitchen and nothing on or beneath the table. Thin cobwebs hung overhead. Kipp and the others searched the walls for secret doors and found none.

They returned to the hallway and tried the northern door. Beyond it was a narrow chamber nearly sixty feet long and ten feet wide, with an arched ceiling supported by old stonework darkened by moisture. Two dark granite sarcophagi stood opposite one another. A shallow stone bowl rested upon each lid. Reddish-brown stains ran down the bowls and across the coffins, spreading through the stone like roots. The floor dipped between sections reached by stairs.

Pyreece thought the bowls might be intended to receive blood. Elenor looked more closely and noticed that one already contained liquid blood. As she watched, more accumulated. The old stains became red and wet, and blood began running down the coffin onto the floor.

Pyreece drew Defender of the Faith and swung at the bowl, intending to knock it toward the wall. Before she could strike it, the blood congealed into an undead creature between her and the bowl. Her mace hit the creature instead. A second Blood Wight appeared at the other sarcophagus.

The creatures’ presence filled Brandy, Oglesby, and Audra with fear. Oglesby ran through a door to escape. Brandy was struck as she fled, and Audra retreated despite her anger at being compelled to abandon the fight. Kipp, Elenor, and Pyreece resisted the fear. Tristan’s protection had not been active when the creatures appeared.

Elenor struck one Blood Wight with Magic Missiles, and Tristan moved in to attack. Kipp fought the other while Pyreece stepped back far enough to try turning both. One of the creatures recoiled from her holy power.

Kipp continued fighting the unturned Blood Wight, and Elenor destroyed it with Burning Hands. Meanwhile, Brandy’s wounds kept bleeding even as she fled.

When the fear passed, Oglesby and Audra returned. Pyreece prepared to advance against the remaining creature but could not keep it turned if she approached eigthin 10 feet. So, she stayed back while her companions finished it.

Brandy could not stop the bleeding from her wounds. Tristan explained that it was a curse of the blood creatures and would persist until healed by magic. He licked the wound, healing her and ending the bleeding.

The party slid the lids aside to examine the sarcophagi. Inside were remains arranged ceremonially and dressed in priestly vestments. The bodies did not move. The party closed the coffins without disturbing them further.

Beyond another untrapped door, a short passage led to a further doorway, with stairs descending along a western branch. Brandy opened the next door without waiting for another trap check.

The passage opened into a perfectly round crypt of pale stone. A single coffin stood upon a raised circular platform amid dozens of melted candles. The air smelled faintly of old roses and grave soil. A woman in a tattered wedding gown, yellowed with age, knelt beside the coffin.

“Did he send you?” she asked.

Brandy answered that he had not. Pyreece attempted to turn the woman, but the effort failed. The surrounding mist seemed to strengthen the undead.

“I waited,” the woman said. “I waited for him even after I died.”

Pyreece told her that they had sent him on to the afterlife and that it was now her turn. The woman sprang at Pyreece, striking with clawed hands and extraordinary strength. Her blows drove the priest against the wall and badly wounded her.

Oglesby moved out of the way, and Brandy came behind the woman to attack with Longtooth. Kipp joined the fight. When he entered, the woman called him her love, apparently mistaking him for Edgar. Her teeth sharpened as she looked at him. Pyreece struck her with her mace.

Tristan advanced through the hallway and climbed onto the coffin, but could not find a good angle to attack. Elenor tried her sling and missed. Audra reached the crowded chamber but initially had no room to engage the creature.

Brandy struck again, though her next attack missed. Oglesby had no suitable magical attack ready. Audra brought her continual light stone close to the woman’s face. As she did, Kipp struck with both weapons and brought the creature down before its stare could charm him.

Like Edgar, the woman became mist and drifted into her coffin. Pyreece went over, opened the lid far enough to act, and successfully turned her in that weakened state. Her remains dissolved into ash. Pyreece then used Cure Critical Wounds on herself before the party continued.

Brandy opened the southern door into a small but well-kept crypt. Crimson drapes lined the walls, and a closed coffin stood in the center. Pyreece listened at it but heard nothing. She gathered the others before opening it. Audra, Kipp, and Pyreece slid the lid aside together.

Inside lay a woman who appeared to be sleeping peacefully. Her skin was very pale, but her body looked as though she had died only recently. Pyreece began an attempt to turn her. The woman, Raven, immediately sprang out to attack.

Brandy missed with Longtooth. Kipp landed a blow with his longsword but missed with his short sword. Audra struck Raven, and Pyreece’s attempt to turn her failed. Raven tried to charm Pyreece, but the priest resisted. The creature then wounded her.

Oglesby used his magical sling with a magical bullet, but missed. Tristan stepped forward and hit Raven. Elenor attacked with her staff sling and magical ammunition, missing at first but landing a later shot. Brandy struck Raven again while Audra missed another blow.

Brandy’s next attack brought Raven down. Pyreece attempted to turn her once more, but Raven did not disintegrate. Instead, Pyreece used Defender of the Faith to destroy her, striking until nothing remained. She said a blessing over the what remained, asking the good gods to receive her now that the evil had been defeated.

Brandy opened the next door. The circular crypt beyond smelled of blood and damp earth. Scratches marked the outside of the sarcophagus lid, as though a beast had tried to get into it.

When the party began opening the coffin, its lid flung aside. A mass of bodies clustered together erupted from within, shrieking as pseudopods reached toward them. Mist poured out with it. This was Thomas, the fused mass of ghouls.

Elenor cast Magic Missile into the creature. Oglesby hit it with his last magical sling bullet. Brandy and Audra missed their first attacks, while Kipp struck it with both weapons. Pyreece tried to turn the mass, but her effort had no effect. Tristan approached, trying to get into the room.

Thomas extended two long grasping limbs toward Brandy and Audra, missing both. Brandy and Audra struck back, leaving it nearly destroyed.

The creature lashed out again. It wounded Brandy and caught Audra. Unable to resist, Audra was yanked off her feet and dragged headfirst into the mass.

Brandy missed her next attack, and Oglesby’s remaining ordinary sling ammunition could not harm it. Tristan rushed in, caught Audra by the feet, and tried to pull her free, but the many grasping undead bodies were stronger than he was.

Kipp attacked carefully, striking where Audra was not trapped. His blows finished Thomas. Unlike the vampires, it did not dissolve into mist. It collapsed into a quivering mass. Tristan still had to pull hard, but he finally dragged Audra free.

Audra emerged covered in the creature’s goo and shook herself off. Tristan refused to lick her. The party left the remains and continued.

The next stone door scraped across the floor as Brandy opened it. Beyond stood a square chamber about twenty-five feet across, remarkably pristine compared with the surrounding crypts. Candles burned with pale, steady flames, without smoke or flicker, casting a cold amber light.

An ornate stone coffin rested in the center. Roses and thorny vines intertwined across the lid, with small carved ravens perched among them. Despite its age, the sarcophagus was exceptionally well preserved.

Pyreece chose to destroy it rather than open it. She struck repeatedly with Defender of the Faith, knocking away pieces of stone. Some blows glanced off, but others opened cracks and broke larger chunks loose. The noise was considerable, though the party had already made plenty during their battles.

Eventually, the coffin collapsed inward. It was empty, but fine silk fabrics and a pillow remained inside. Pyreece sprinkled holy water over it and offered blessings. She soaked the earth from the coffin with holy water and scattered it so that the vampire whose resting place it had been could no longer use it.

The party returned to another western door. Brandy opened it and was immediately met by fire from two hellhounds. Both breath attacks burned her.

The doorway was too narrow for the large creatures to attack together. One hound remained in front of Brandy and missed its next attack. Kipp could not slip past it or stand beside Brandy, so he attacked over her head, taking care to avoid her. One of his blows hit. Brandy struck the same hound with her weapon.

Audra considered using her bow but could not get a clear shot past Kipp. Oglesby and Elenor were similarly obstructed. Tristan moved toward the chamber and suddenly disappeared. Pyreece cast Prayer to aid her companions and hinder their enemies.

Brandy attacked again and killed the first hellhound. Tristan reappeared inside the room beyond the doorway and attacked the second, but missed. The surviving hound turned on him and breathed fire, burning him.

Elenor waited at the doorway for a clear view. Kipp also waited for Brandy to move. Brandy charged into the room and struck the remaining hound, opening the way for Kipp. He followed and hit it with both weapons, including a powerful longsword strike. The hellhound collapsed in a flaming heap.

Tristan expressed his hatred of the creatures, recalling that they had nearly killed him before. Kipp checked on him after seeing him burned. The party assessed its wounds, and Pyreece cast Cure Serious Wounds on Brandy, restoring much of what she had lost. She also used Cure Light Wounds on Audra.

The statues in the room resembled the one they had encountered earlier. Seen indirectly, they appeared evil; viewed straight on, they showed weeping women bound in iron chains.

Before continuing, Pyreece made sure Elenor had a Scroll of Protection from Undead for their expected confrontation with Lyssa. Elenor placed it in her ordinary bag, where she could reach it, rather than her Bag of Holding.

Pyreece opened the next door, with Audra close behind so that both could move forward quickly if more fire awaited them. Beyond was a short passage that turned north. Around the corner, Pyreece found stairs winding upward into darkness. She checked above for anything lurking there but saw only the stairs.

Tristan confirmed that the woman they sought was above them. The party climbed, with Pyreece leading. Their footfalls scraped against the spiral stairs as they rose out of the blackness below.

At the top stood an iron-bound door, slightly ajar. Pale light spilled through its narrow opening, but they could not yet see what lay beyond.

Acter a break, the recording did not continue so the rest of this is done from memory.

The opened the door and continued into a hallway that led east and a chanber that continued north. At the end of the hallway to the east was a door leading south. North was a set of double doors. Pyreece and Audra moved to that set of doors. The rest of the group was able to clear the doorway from the stairs and were preparing for what they might find beyond the doors.

Pyreece opened the doors and the moved in. There were stairs leading up directly in front of them and a shorter set of stairs going down into a chamber with 6 sarcophagi and torches that didn't burn bright with fire but with a dim blackish fire.

They asked Tristan if he could tell if Lyssa waas here or further up. Tristan was visibly disturbed by what he was feeling. He felt a great evil to the right, down the stairs but Lyssa was still above them.

The evil he felt in the chanber below, he felt, was the greater of the two evils. Audra and Pyreece moved first down the stairs. There wasa portion of the southern part of the room they couldn't see from above.

The rounded the corner to see a wall with an arch that appeared to be some kind of portal. Tristan felt the greater evil comeing from there. They approached carefully. Pyreece was activly looking for a soul stone and the focus stones that the jopurhal below described. There was nothing like that here. This is likely not the portal Lyssa was working with.

Tristan moved closer and said he wanted to try something. He vanished, and only seconds later, became visible again as he was thrown away from the archway.

While the party was focused on checking on him, a creature stepped through the portal. A winter wight, so cold that the temperature in the room dropped quickly. Kipp, Tristan, Brandy, and Audra moved in to attack it. Pyreece tried to turn it but failed.

During the battle, Kipp was struck and immedeatly burst in flames, or something like it. It was the same flame the torches in the chamber were emitting.

They beat the wight down and finally killed it. Fortunatly, no one else had been simmarly afflicted. Pyreece and Audra tried to smother the fire but almost caught fire themselves.

They tried water on it fire but it had no effect. Kipp took damage some times but other times was able to resist the damage. As Elenore was preparing to cast a dispell magic on him, Kipp focused his thoughts into a single burst of restance to the fire and it suddenly dissapated.

The winter wight rose again and began attacking once more. The party quickly turned and eat it down again. This time, Pyreece to "Defender of the Faith" and began beating the creature's dead body until there was little left of it and no chance it would rise again.

They checked with Tristan again and determined that Lyssa was still above them. They headed back to the stairs leading from this chamber.

This is where the session ended!

Please start the recorder.

Exp: 3878 - Brandy and Audra made 8th level