The troupe have defeated the Wraith and its minions with Bone Hill Castle, preventing an invasion of Restenford. However, the motivations of the Wraith are still unclear. Perhaps they can find answers within the caverns they uncovered beneath the Castle.
13 Flamerule 1368
The Wraith is defeated but we still know nothing of its motivations. Perhaps it had just been living in undeath for too long. We’ve seen how mad necromancers can become, an undead necromancer must truly lose its mind.
If there are any more answers, they lie beyond the illusory fire giant’s cave. It must have been guarding something. Viconia leads us back to the huge cavern.
It’s only occurring to me now that there was no way the fire giant could have made it down here. The doors to the prison are too small, and the cave leading out the other side is even smaller. I should have realised the Weave was to blame for its presence.
The caves here are small and winding. We have to be careful of protruding rocks and stalactites, as well as ambushes by the undead minions of the Wraith.
Thankfully these skeletons are weak compared to their hobgoblin counterparts. I wonder if these skeletons were raised from the remains of dead soldiers.
Xan gathers the Arrows of Fire that the skeletons were using and we continue feeling our way through the caves. We see a winged statue holding out a sword. It’s protected by a vaguely humanoid shaped pile of flesh As it lumbers toward us I can barely make out stitches across parts of its body.
It is a golem, the stitched together parts of several corpses, reanimated through necromancy. The necromancer is dead, but its creations still haunt these caves.
Thankfully the flesh is as weak as it was in life, and Fabio is able to destroy the monster before it can get close.
Fabio says he has learned how to fight better under the ground.
He gains increase Death, Wand, and Polymorph saves, 1 additional THAC0, and 2 extra hit points. I put a proficiency point into Single-Hand Style.
Viconia approaches the statue the golem was guarding. Its face turns to anger as it begins to speak!
A column of flames roars through the caves, consuming and burning through Viconia. She’s hurt but it’s nothing that Corellon’s blessings can’t heal.
She tries to talk to the statue again, but this time it nearly kills her. She reaches for one of her Potions of Extra Healing as she stumbles away from the statue.
Rose approaches the statue and I try to stop her. She tells me it’s okay, she thinks it may not like Viconia because she is drow.
Amaunator? The old sun god? I read some old tomes about him, but he is thought to be a dead power. There are few, if any followers left. Can a god really come back from that? This statue may be waiting for a long time.
We take a look at the helmet it gave Rose. We don’t know its purpose, but Fabio says it can only be worn by those with a truly good soul. I don’t know what you need to do for the helmet to believe you to be good.
I only just realised there are no good characters in the party.
We continue to explore every nook and cranny of the caves. The Wraith’s minions still wander in the darkness. They aren’t too strong, but occasionally an arrow manages to find a gap in Viconia’s armour.
We find a staff lying across a stand made of bone. Slime drips from the roof of the cave. It forms a blob on the ground and moves toward us. Mur’Neth tells us it is an ochre jelly and we need to defend ourselves.
A bullet from Fabio’s sling smashes through the jelly. It turns to liquid and seeps into the ground. We step over it and look at the staff that was placed on the pedestal. It is the staff of a dragon rider. How a Cult of the Dragon staff ended up here is a mystery. We store this in the Bag of Holding.
The caves give us more practice against the undead minions left here.
We are making progress exploring the various caves when we are thrown for a loop. Is that…? Is that a beholder? What is it doing here?
As soon as it sees us, its huge eye starts to launch magical energy toward us. Two smaller beholders support its attacks. First Viconia falls, followed quickly by Fabio.
Xan is next, then the eye focuses on me. I stare it down as the aberration’s energy flows through me.
I leave Cat and Mur’Neth to fight the creature alone as the world fades away again. I find myself surrounded by our party in the darkness of the caves.
Another vision foretelling death? Tymora’s coin must have landed on its edge when I was born. I tell Viconia to stop before we encounter the beholder again.
The others give me strange looks as I explain my vision. They still aren’t used to this. I’m not really. But the visions haven’t let us down yet. Viconia decides it best to open the fight with a Glyph of Warding.
The beholder sees her and starts to attack, but she’s able to keep herself alive with a potion.
She hides around the corner again and drinks potions of Frost Giant Strength, Speed, and Magic Resistance. She prays to Shar this will protect her as she charges the beholder.
We join the fight, giving her support from a distance. Rose attempts to see if this guardian is an illusion using her Truth Perception. Unfortunately it is real enough to hurt and paralyse Viconia.
The abberation finishes off Viconia and its eye turns to Rose.
We move into cover. Xan is uncharacteristically brave and attempts to flank the beholder. A skeleton spots him and follows him.
The skeleton hits Xan, and he retreats. Fabio gets a lucky strike on the beholder, bursting its eye open. Now dead, it’s corpse obeys gravity and falls to the ground.
Cat takes care of the skeleton pursuing Xan. He drinks a Potion of Healing to keep himself alive.
The two smaller beholders explode, releasing a gas that doesn’t seem to harm us.
We’re still alive, but we need to get back to a temple soon. Unfortunately these caves are winding and it may be hard to get out. Rose says she will take the lead again and readies her spear. Mur’Neth gathers up Viconia’s equipment before we delve deeper into this cave structure.
The chest the beholders were guarding contains 200 gold coins, and a tome that even I can’t identify.
This is going to increase another attribute once I have it identified!
There are also two healing scrolls inside the chest.
There is also a sword, which starts to talk when it is picked up by Rose. There is something dark imprisoned inside this sword.
Rose tries to talk to the sword, and it answers her.
Rose: What kind of sword are you?
Sword of Flame +2: Yes.
The sword lets out a laughing sound.
Rose: What does that mean?
Sword of Flame +2: The flames hunger for the blistering of flesh.
Rose: You must be a cursed sword.
Sword of Flame +2: I am yours til death comes for us both.
Rose: How thrilling.
Sword of Flame +2: Yes, my master.
Rose is unnerved by this exchange. We all are. She offers the sword to Fabio, but he says he is happier with his Varscona. It doesn’t protest when Rose stores it in the Bag of Holding.
We continue caving, and I start to see another vision. A vision of fear. A large skeleton cutting Rose in half, the cutting me down with its sword.
The giant skeleton outside the castle let out an aura of fear. I search our potion belt and find two Potions of Clarity that should protect us from fear. I hand one to Rose so she and I can drink together.
Rose uses her robes to summon the Power of the Weasel God as the giant skeleton closes in.
She starts going through potions just to keep herself alive as the rest of us support from afar.
After several more potions, the giant skeleton’s magical bonds are broken, and it collapses to the ground. Among the large pile of bones, Rose finds a powerful scroll.
She also pulls out its enchanted sword. We can’t use it, but it will sell for a good amount of coin.
After a short rest we move on through the caves and Rose impales a zombie along the way.
We come across another of Mur’Neth’s kin, this time a gray ooze. These things can corrode metal, but the enchantment on Rose’s spear should prevent any damage.
Rose manages to strike a nerve and destroys the ooze.
We find a small pile of coins and gems behind it. Two of them are turquoise gems worth a good amount of gold.
The other gems we cannot identify, but they look expensive.
Rose tears through another zombie we encounter around the corner.
We enter a cave with some bookshelves and a skeleton, only this one doesn’t attack us on sight. It looks at us, and seems to be trying to say something.
Skeleton: Release me…
Remove my curse.
Rose: What are you talking about?
Skeleton: Restore me.
Could it mean Restoration? Is this some sort of life drain? Is it still alive? I reach into my scroll pouch and pull out a Scroll of Lesser Restoration. I don’t know if this will work.
The skeleton seems to be happy, or as happy as something that can’t smile can be.
It holds out a scroll as it collapses into a pile of dry bones. The skeleton has given us a wish.
I don’t know what I would wish for right now, so I save it for later.
We search the bookshelves in this cave and find a couple of history books. I cannot wait to read them.
Rayanna the Rose – I wonder if our White Rose has anything to do with this Red Rose? Probably not, but the thought does occur to me that we could hire ourselves out as mercenaries.
The second book talks about a king that became a bandit.
A king that became a bandit… I wonder if something like this is happening in the Sword Coast? It would explain why the bandits are so organised.
Stuffed between the books we find more Scrolls of Lesser Restoration. On the table nearby are several slips of paper. It appears to be a makeshift journal created by our newly “restored” friend.
His flesh rotted away and he was still alive. I couldn’t imagine such an horrific fate. Hopefully his soul is with Amaunator now, wherever the old sun god may be.
We leave this cave and feel wind coming down one of the tunnels. It may lead to an exit so we follow it right into an ambush.
These undead are weak now, perhaps because the Wraith is dead. We destroy all of them with ease.
Along the tunnel we find more of the Wraith’s minions.
We fight our way through…
…and we finally see a way out of these caves.
The exit takes us out to the rocks to the south of the castle. The cave collapses behind us as we climb out. We won’t be able to get back there so easily.
We defeated a small army and made it out of the caves. But Viconia is dead yet again. Our first stop should be to get to a temple. Then we can present what we found at the Castle to Pelltar. Perhaps then he will return us home, to the Sword Coast, and we can return to our mission.
Then we should be able to take down the Tazok and the other bandits once and for all.
