Second Ptolus Campaign Journal, #49
Still the 7th of Birth
We ascend back up out of the shaft and inspect our vampire-gotten goods. We have quite a pile of goods -plus what’s in the chests! (We find lots of gold, various scrolls and vials, magical books — and a few traps. We even locate Falstef’s old mace, a beautiful gold weapon with peal inlay. What a tragedy that he was banished… Somehow, we’ll find a way to get him back!)
Calista can detect there still is another vampire around. So we place the chests of treasure in one of Barbatos’ rope tricks and head off to find that last vampire. We think he’s the one who hurt us so badly with fire spells that first time we came down here.
We reach a long hallway lined with black stone arms that Sir Mirauch said will animate to become demonic arms that attack us as soon as we step inside (he’s the Keepers’ expert on this place). Diethan and Sir Feruch book through this hall, barely evading a demonic grapple, and emerge into a magically dark room (Calista suppresses the darkness for them). The rest of us run down the hall and most of us make it — I’m carrying Calista, but the arms manage to grab her away from me. It takes three of us to grab her back again, and sadly she sustains a little damage in the process, but we eventually manage to roll into the chamber at the end.
We see a rune on the iron doors here that says “Mother,” but Mirauch assures us that the Runewardens killed that horrid demon some years back. We move through another room and find the vampire locate spell pointing us at a pillar. We find a secret door in the pillar and from it suddenly emerges a skeleton in chain mail. It opens its mouth and seems to breathe out ghostly humanoid forms at us. We dispatch four awful wraiths (not before they drain three of us of a good deal of life energy) as well as their skeletal creator, then find the vampire sorcerer’s coffin inside the pillar. One good thrust of Diethan’s stake turns him to dust.
We find a bag (two vials, a scroll, some coins), magical scarf, and a ring in his coffin once he’s gone. Barbatos also finds the creature’s spellbook in a secret cache in the coffin and swipes it. Let’s get out of here before anything saps me of more of my life force!
Calista detects one last vampire: in another pillar in this room. I pull open a secret door in the pillar and a fire trap gets some of us pretty good. But we find our quarry and stake him too — we fought him too, before we encountered Medre. We take his magical longsword, (evil) magical cloak, two diamond rings, and a magical flask.
Thankfully, Calista senses no more vampires, now, but we do note a secret door in an additional pillar in here. There was nothing in that space, however. Calista uses a couple spells to suppress the magic arms’ effects on the return trip (thank the Mother!).
We return to our “loot” and separate out all the evil items. Phadian sets fire to the pile and carries anything that doesn’t burn back to the Siege Tower. On the way out of the Dark Reliquary, Calista questions Sir Mirauch about what magic is still left to the Dark Reliquary — he was quite surprised that so much had been left undiscovered here, as the place was scoured years ago “by greater powers than I.” Items and creatures of awful power were destroyed by the score. Calista mutters that she’d like to level it to the ground. Hearing their conversation, Phadian mentions that the resting place of the Wintersouled (the first undead of the world; they built the Reliquary) was never found. However, such creatures are far too powerful for the likes of the Keepers. Later we learn that Phadian fears that we almost stumbled onto the guardians of the Wintersouled
We discuss our future plans but can come to no resolution immediately. Phadian says she needs to take immediate steps to prepare her organization for war (considering the Balacazars’ and Covenant’s threat). We decide to table further decisions and head over to the Pale Tower to pass along the sad news about Falstef. Aoska is shocked to hear that we destroyed Medre Allaconda as well as the Horn of Blood. And she’s in a state of disbelief that Falstef is gone. “You must report this to our leader immediately,” she says stonily and takes us upstairs, to what we guess is the top of the tower. Beyond a beautiful golden door inlaid with ivory, we find ourselves on a narrow walkway that appears to float out into the sky. There’s blue sky above us and below, and fluffy clouds roiling about. At the end of the walkway, Aoska kneels, “Sephranos, O Winged Lord, please come before us now and hear us.”
A door opens up in the sky, and a figure fifty feet tall with wings that give new definition to the word White emerges. This bald angel has billowing robes and speaks with a rumbling voice.
Falstef, the first of the Malkuth, is no longer in the world? “Then in the name of my seven brothers, who guard the Seven Chains, the Malkuth are undone. We are gone, and I holdyou responsible. Falstef should not have been taken into such a situation.” He returns back through his golden door and leaves us. Our protests that we would do all we could to find Falstef and bring him back fall on deaf ears.
“I don’t think it matters,” Aoska says sadly. “Falstef was our anchor here. But I appreciate your sentiments. Now I’m sorry,” she says, “but I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
As she shows us out, we see angels in confusion gathering up their belongings. With one last warning that they should do what they can to keep the Pale Tower out of the eventual hands out of the Iron Angels, we depart. As a page brings Calista her belongings, we see Aoska in the entryway arguing with a half-celestial named Glassia. “But we have to leave. The Malkuth are leaving,” Aoska says.
“Then I quit the stupid Malkuth,” she says. “This is my home. I’m not leaving.” She approaches us with her possessions rolled up beneath her arm. A human wizard emerges from the tower, directing some pages as to where to take a number of large mirrors, muttering about finding lodging at the Griffon. A jealous Barbatos doesn’t want to invite the wizard to stay with us at Pythoness House, but he eagerly invites the charismatic Glassia to stay.
Coincidentally, Pythoness House is only three blocks away from the Pale Tower. “Didn’t this used to be a brothel?” Glassia whispers to Calista…. Oh, yes, perhaps not the place for those with divine blood. And then there’s the issue of us being about to fall under the attack of vampires… perhaps we’re not the safest housemates she could choose.
While the others take our loot to the shop for identification, Sir Feruch and I case the house and discuss key defense points and refurbishments to ward against vampires-or at least set up an alarm system to warn us of incursions.
At least now there are only four members of the Covenant of Blood left. But we’ve earned their enmity, as well as that of Menon Balacazar for killing his ally, Medre. And they’re all sure to come after us.
From here on out, we think we’re going to call ourselves the Knights of the Sundered Horn.
Session XCIV – the 8th of Birth
We spend the night in Pythoness House protected from possible vampiric assault by Barbatos‘ rope trick spell. (He even brings the house’s resident Cobbledman into the safe space.) While we’re up there, Calista repairs my shattered great maul, and Barbatos trains the Cobbledman to keep watch.
When we emerge, two figures are waiting for us in the courtyard: Malkeen Balacazar and his bodyguard. “I understand you’ve been looking for me,” he says in the predawn chill.
We explain that we’ve just dispatched Medre and are in hiding from the other Covenant vampires. “You have them understandably concerned,” Malkeen says, adding that he expects them to remain on the defensive for a week or two before attempting revenge. He doesn’t know where they have their lairs.
We explain that we know Menon will be at a performance at the Cloud Theater in two and a half months at which there will be an assassination attempt on him. We explain that we would hope Malkeen himself would take over the family, but he claims that is not his goal. “I exist merely to savor the sweet juices of revenge. My list of enemies is long enough to keep my busy for quite some time.” Apparently one of those foes is Hadrien Runihan, one of the Covenant vampires.
“I come here with advice on how to deal further with your ‘vampire problem,'” he says. He knows that we don’t know how to find the other Covenant members, and when they figure that out, we’ll be in grave danger (like we didn’t know that). He suggests we should go not to the Keepers of the Veil for support. “What people like you often forget is that the worst enemy of evil is not good — it is evil. Look to those who deal with such folk on a daily basis to learn how to protect yourself.” He tells us of a man named Chellaster Marcan who he says we should kill and rob of his mighty wards against vampires. He apparently is no spellcaster but knows a lot about magic and uses it in a way other than spells. “Chellaster feeds on the blood of vampires,” Malkeen tells us; he keeps vampire slaves, forces them to infect others with vampirism so he can feed on them. Okay, he’s a bad guy, all right….
We ask him about other Covenant members: he tells us Kobann is a litorian who has hunted the city streets for more than a hundred years. He advises us to worry the most about Tabares Sorcen, the half-elf wizard vampire. Zachean the dark elf is new to the Covenant’s circle, he adds.
Malkeen tells us we can expect Menon, his father, to get back at us not necessarily swiftly, but thoroughly — he and Medre were close friends as well as allies. He thinks he might launch an all-out assault on the Siege Tower, for instance. He can afford to take the time to do this, as the “Killraven problem” is not as severe as it has been (due to dissention among the Killraven ranks, cause unknown).
The vampires take their leave of us as dawn begins to break. Diethan runs off to see what he can find out about Chellaster and where to find him. He learns:
1) Some guy heard that two years ago Chellaster befriended the Shuul.
2) Chellaster was/is a very big customer of Menon Balacazar (evil magic, slaves, demonic slaves).
3) “Which one?” someone asks. There apparently are two individuals named Chellaster Marcan, and they don’t like each other. One lives in the Nobles’ Quarter and the other keeps a low profile and is poor, living on the street.
We work on a plan to fortify Pythoness House a bit. Calista can use a repair spell to fix the walls, which will help this go a lot faster!
