Second Ptolus Campaign Journal, #48
Still the 6th of Birth
We recover from our ordeal a bit while waiting for the backup knights to arrive. Diethan and Lunas take our fallen cleric friend back up to the surface. Our next move is to make our way through the secret door that Archinemus’ find the path spell has outlined for us. We still need to find Medre’s resting place.
As we turn a corner, we are sideswiped by the lightning breath of a gigantic behir! It grabs Falstef, but we manage to free him while the creature remains distracted by a spell from Calista. Our quarry is behind a gauzy curtain in a large room that looks as if it were hollowed out of the rock by a disintegration. We see a dais at the far end of the room, flanked by four statue-shaped pillars that reach the ceiling. Ten horrible, rotting corpses guard the dais. Burned into the gangrenous flesh of their chests are magical runes. Two skeletons number among the group. Each holds a flask of roiling yellowish liquid. On the dais we see a woman with full plate armor and several daggers. Her hands each end in a metallic pointy claw. The cloak she wears seems to billow and writhe of its own accord; mouths seem to form within it, snapping and biting at the air.
As it THAT weren’t enough, two other pale figures loom near us. One of them has a sword that seems to be burning the very air as it cuts through it. Barbatos races up and blasts the area with a sunburst spell, which unfortunately blinds and injures Archinemus and Sir Othun at the same time that it assails our undead foes. Most of the undead fall, but the skeletons as they hit the ground drop their flasks, which explode into yellowish vapor that fills the room. Nothing we do, no flame strike or sunburst, seems to affect the woman on the dais, who must be Medre.
“Do you think I could have gotten where I am today without planning for your trifling contingencies?” she taunts us. “I’m the greatest vampire in the world!” With that announcement, she shoots a gray pulse of energy from her hands that harms us all and heals her fallen undead foes. Of course, a burst of magic from Calista fells them all again, but even my sword can’t seem to touch her!
The mouths of her cloak suck the blood of her victims, as I find out the hard way. We can do nothing against this vampire, so we hastily decide to retreat. Barbatos covers our retreat with a cannily cast wall of force, and teleports us back to the Siege Tower; Phadian uses word of recall to get the rest of the group back.
We ponder our next move from the safety of the Siege Tower. Phadian thinks Medre and her cadre may attempt revenge. So we need to strike ourselves, before the three vampiric allies that we dispatched can reconstitute themselves. We also need the element of surprise, so that she doesn’t have time to get ready. We spend the rest of the afternoon making plans and determining what potions we need to counteract this powerful vampire.
Session XCII – the 7th of Birth
We gathered again at the Siege Tower and met a new companion: Sir Feruch. His presence here was arranged by Archinemus, who thought this knight might be better than he at fighting the undead. We’ll miss our friend — he’s probably back at the shop doing the books!
We all teleport back into the dungeons of the Dark Reliquary, confident of a better result than the last time. We return to the room with the dais and we see six zombies, who in unison begin hitting their spears on the ground when they see us. Calista’s locate spell tells us Medre is two hundred feet below us.
It doesn’t take long for this signal to alert the vampires to our presence. Greenish vapor seeps in from the walls in two places, and reddish mist seeps up from the stones of the dais-those of us who can see invisible things note that the little biting mouths in the mist are reminiscent of the mouths on Medre’s magical cape.
Phadian turns one vampire to dust just moments after it congeals, while Diethan and Sir Feruch and Sir Mirauch take out a zombies. But then Medre appears, wearing ornate plate armor and her living, mouth-infested cape. Cruel metallic claws fit onto her fingertips. She looks terribly angry and incredulous. “You’ve come back? Are you insane?” she cries. Her fist pulses with gray energy that shoots out from her, chilling us and reconstituting her minions. Barbatos reacts quickly and manages to dispel some of the magic on her, while Calista dispels more of it.
Sir Feruch and I battle at the foul vampire leader, but not all our blows seem to actually affect her. Diethan takes out a zombie (again), and Phadian and Sir Othun deal blows to their vampiric foes. But no sooner do they manage this but Medre uses her pulse of gray power again and raises her minions. And then with a single blow, she slams Feruch to the floor, unconscious. Falstef rushes forward to heal the paladin while I continue to deliver blows upon the vampire woman. In response, Medre does the unthinkable: she banishes Falstef, the First of the Malkuth.
But Feruch avenges his savior, using his smites to pound into her. I follow up with more deadly strikes, and now she knows she’s been in a fight. Calista strikes with her sorcerous blast, and Phadian strikes with a searing light spell, and I deal one last blow that sends her into mist. We have a few last zombies to dispose of and one last vampire, then we locate the secret doors behind which the two minion vampires rest in their coffins. A couple of stakes later and the vampires are dust. At last.
Meanwhile, Barbatos investigates the eight chests we locate behind the dais. They are each marked with the name of the Fallen or the Forsaken. Some of them are surrounded by magic.
After that, we’re off to find Medre’s coffin. With a knock spell, Barbatos opens the secret door in the dais, and we look down into a two-hundred-foot-deep shaft. It’s filled with sharp jutting spikes that seem to undulate when we send an attack against the side of the shaft. It emits a low rumbling. It’s alive! Or rather, it’s undead, as Phadian discovers when she attempts to turn it. The power of Lothian rains down from her hands like golden drops, causing the spines to retract!
Feruch, Mirauch, Diethan, and I levitate down to the bottom, where we discover a cave with a number of desiccated human corpses. Atop a black pedestal is a huge red horn that looks as though it has been carved out of a single red gemstone. Also in the cave is a red metallic coffin. Each of these things is surrounded by a hemispherical dome of magical force. It smells wretched. Diethan and Mirauch manage to rescue one of the “corpses” who’s still alive.
Our spellcasters come down and, when a dispel magic fails to take down the shields of force, Barbatos uses dimension door to get inside the coffin area with Feruch. The coffin won’t open, even after magical aid. Finally they are able to force it open, which releases a cloud of poisonous gas. They manage to resist it long enough to stake the body inside.
“Dust!” cries Feruch as with a final “Noooooo….” the most powerful vampire in Ptolus turns to powder. Feruch and Barbatos grab her gear and a few other magical items from a secret compartment in the coffin and dimension door out again —
— and right into the force field that contains the horn of blood. Feruch picks it up and immediately sees visions of bloodletting and ancient creatures coming out of the sea. Barbatos teleports them back outside the force field to us. Together, Barbatos, Mirauch, and I manage to sunder the gemstone horn once and for all.
