Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Carrion Hill Pt. 3

The representative from Ustalaav gets in his carriage and leaves. A circle appears on the street where there is suddenly no rain. A creature appears in the middle of the circle - it looks pale and jellyfish like with eye stalks and a wide mouth. It's a Flumph, which is an aberration. It makes bad smells and injects you with acid, we must be cautious.

 The Flumph greets the party in common and apologizes for it's tardiness. It says it came to warn us about the creatures from beyond. "I came to assist. I may be able to slow the creature down. Our people come to these worlds and are unprepared." The Flumph confirms that he'd rather the monster in this town just be destroyed. The Flumph suggests that we use the souls from the victims to make a bone golem to fight the monster. He has a scroll that can do this, and allows Eorin to examine it - it is the version of the spell that doesn't use necromancy. The souls aren't bound to the bone golem, they just help create it. The golem will cease to exist once the monster we're fighting has been defeated and the bones that make it up will fall into a heap on the ground, which we'll have to clean up. The Flumph hands Eorin the scroll and leaves, the circle of non-rain closing.

We make the bone golem from the piles of bones in the subterranean cavern. It books it towards the docks, and we follow along after it. It bursts into Rupman's Vats, leaving a hole in the wall. It immediately attacked the invisible aberration, somehow knowing exactly where it is. There is also a necromancer with a horde of zombies. We enter the building and engage in a melee with the zombies. Keeper Myre, the necromancer, shouts "Not us! Them!" and casts black tentacles at the aberration. Orias throws some dust of appearance at the invisible monster, and it becomes visible. Illythan cast scorching ray at it, and it had no effect. Eorin has no idea what the aberration is, and decides to continue killing the zombies instead and murders all of them, sending their souls to Pharasma to be judged. Keeper Myre casts acid arrow at the aberration, and it appears to affect the creature! The bone golem is engaged in a grapple with the aberration and continues to attack. Illythan casts an electric version of scorching ray and it also affects the aberration.

Eorin casts doom, and while it has no effect on the creature, the room becomes noticably colder and his eyes glow. Zelara's ghost version of spidey-sense triggers, and her eyes flicker when this occurs. Then some soldiers from the Army of Exploration appear. One soldier attacks Keeper Meyre, and severely wounds him. He created something more powerful than an acidic burst, and it had nothing to do with the sword he used to attack with, rather it's something inherent about this knight. Eorin notices that the knight that attacked the necromancer isn't dressed like a traditional member of the Army of Exploration. He is also undead - there is an area of desecration around him.

One of the soldiers, who is out of breath and chubby, tells the other soldiers to get a sample of the aberration. The soldiers have little jars in their buckler hands. They do not seem happy to be here.

Kyle wakes up (aka the player finally arrived) and decides to smite evil and proceeds to wreck shit (aka shooting the aberration full of arrows). Eorin casts deathwatch to keep track of the party to make sure they don't all die, but once again, his eyes glow and the air turns cold around him. Keeper Myre turns around to face the undead knight, cursing his fate as his attempts to harm the soldier fail. The undead knight kills him and moves toward the aberration. The black tentacles disappear, and two Army of Exploration soldiers move in to attack the aberration. Illythan uses an electric version of burning hands at the aberration and the Army of Exploration guys (who are unaffected). Eorin whiffs with his shovel, despite feeling stronger in the presence of the undead knight, and he is very sad. Zelara moves in to attack with the aberration bane sword and kills the aberration good, preventing the Army of Exploration soldiers from retrieving a sample in time.

The Army of Exploration soldiers run away, and the undead knight calmly walks away. Kyle uses detect evil on him, and sees that while he does radiate evil, it comes from the armor rather than the knight himself. However, seeing as how Zelara and Eorin have a moral imperative to kill undead, the combat cannot cease despite the rest of the party thinking he's kinda cool. Eorin attempts to channel positive energy at the undead knight, and is horrified to realize he just channeled negative energy instead. Zelara charges after him and attacks, but it does very little. Kyle yells at Zelara for attacking, and Eorin hits him with the shovel, but it bounces off his armor. Zelara realizes the knight is too powerful a foe and stands down. The knight reaches out and takes hold of Eorin's holy symbol of Pharasma - even though it begins to burn the knight's hand. He pulls it off Eorin's neck and begins to mold and re-shapes the holy symbol. Eorin attempts to stop him, but his efforts fail. Zelara comes to Eorin's aid with a disrupt undead, but it does nothing. The knight holds out the holy symbol to Eorin, who continues to flail at him ineffectually with the shovel. The knight takes hold of Eorin's hand, drops the symbol into it, then summons a skeletal steed and rides off. The holy symbol is now in the shape of a butterfly - the symbol for Desna.

The party loots the bodies and searches the Vats, and find a journal of Keeper Myre where he was clearly very excited to have learned how to summon this aberration. The rain has lessened, and the crows (the birds) that we saw lots and lots of when we came to town have landed. The party proceeds to scrutinize Eorin uncomfortably, and Illythan figures out that Eorin has undeath/necromancy in his blood.

The royal ambassador from Ustalaav and his butler are at the Mayor's when the party goes to tell the Mayor that the aberration is defeated. His name is Lord Vorik. He's been one of the more powerful lords in Ustalaav for the pat 40 years. People think he might have some elf in his blood. Random undead attacks have gone down seriously since he came to power, but undead sightings have increased.   He rewards the party with a Cloak of the Bat for each person.

Kyle pays Illythan 10 gold in exchange for what he learned about Eorin.

Eorin decodes to go and pray in the graveyard, and Zelara decides to accompany him and lends Eorin her holy symbol of Pharasma. Kyle comes along to help the local watch dig graves for the dead in the city. There is a woman in the graveyard with parasol, and she seems to be waiting for Eorin to finish praying. Zelara offers comforting words when he finishes praying, and they go to assist with the graves. The rain kicks up again, and they all go to bed.

In the morning, Eorin wakes up and finds an umbrella in his room. There's a ribbon with an envelope attached to it. Inside the envelope there's a library card from the Library of Ustalaav, but it's different. There isn't a needle to pin-prick your finger to feed blood to it. The umbrella is black with an eye a the end of the handle. He brings the umbrella downstairs to have Orias look at is, and they find that it's enchanted to hold itself up, and will protect anyone in a 10 ft radius from the elements. They also notice that the library card has a last name for Eorin on it - BinRomad. Orias and Zelara recognize the name as belonging to a famous circus family, and it is rumored that someone from that family founded the Library of Ustalaav.

Eorin is in shock at learning who his family is, and promptly faints. Kyle revives him with smelling salts. The realize that someone had to come into the magic caravan in order to deliver this umbrella. They go outside and see Chubby Baby has been washed and has a ribbon around its neck. Chubby Baby looks very unhappy with this new development. Eorin attempts to test out his channeling, and it once again comes out positive energy.

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