Into the Dead Warrens

Korvosa’s vast graveyard, a region known as the Gray District, is a mournful place even by day. The district is alone in being a place of quiet and calm in the face of the recent civil unrest, yet there is an unnatural stillness in the air, almost as if the graveyard were preparing for a vast influx of new dead. Nowhere is this ominous feeling more noticeable than in Potter’s Ward, the final resting ground for Korvosa’s poor and homeless. Mounds of unmarked dirt stretch far and wide, indicating sites of mass graves, while crumbling mausoleums from years ago, abandoned by their families as the Gray District expanded to the west, dot the bleak landscape, forgotten and empty. Mourners do not visit here, for the dead buried in Potter’s Ward leave behind few who regret their passing.

The oppressive silence seemed to weigh on the party, making each step slightly more difficult. Everyone, that is, except Wren. She seemed at home among the gravestones, and there was a spring in her step that was unusual for her. She led the party to the area described by the corpse peddler who had taken the dead Shoanti youth’s body, and they had little difficulty locating the toppled, sword-wielding gargoyle he had described. The soft earth showed clear signs of a man pushing a wheelbarrow, but the man’s tracks retreated the way he had come. The wheelbarrow rut continued onwards, surrounded by several sets of smaller, child-sized footprints.

They followed the tracks to an abandoned mausoleum. Inside, they quickly located a poorly-concealed trapdoor in the floor. Exchanging worried looks, they began to prepare for trouble. Nat and Shadow cast Mage Armor on themselves, then Nat cast Message, in case they needed to communicate quietly later. Tomas lit an Everburning Torch, and handed it to Nat, then unlimbered his bow. Taking a deep breath, Jax pulled open the trapdoor, revealing a set of stone stairs leading steeply downwards.

The stairs descended a good 30 feet into the ground, then leveled off into a narrow passage. Patches of eerily glowing mold emitted a cold blue glow that would have provided some light even in the absence of Tomas’ torch. Nat examined the mold warily, but decided it wasn’t dangerous – probably.

After a dozen or so yards, the passage opened up into a large room is supported by four wide pillars of stone. The ceiling above arched in a dome nearly twenty feet high. The walls were lined with skeletons caked into the mud — adult human bones mostly, but here and there smaller bones that might be from halflings or perhaps children. Fifteen-foot-square pits extended off to the east and west, each filled with a large heap of hundreds of bones. To the south, a crude hole had been gouged out of the wall, providing access to a tunnel cloaked in darkness.

“It’s an ossuary,” Wren whispered as they surveyed the room.

“Where?!?” asked Nat, his eyes darting around the room for any sign of an attacking ossuary. Despite the obvious age of the bones, the damp air was filled with the faint but pervasive stench of rotting flesh, and his nerves were on edge.

“The room,” Wren said, trying to reassure him. “It’s called an ‘ossuary’. It’s a place where the bones of the dead are stored when they’re exhumed from graves. Most of the ossuaries in this part of the cemetery were moved decades ago, when the Temple of Pharasma was expanded, but this one must have been overlooked.”

Jax and Erin exchanged looks; Jax pointed to Erin and then at the right-hand pillar, then to himself and the left pillar. With a nod, they both darted into the room and pressed themselves flat against the first pair of stone pillars. Nothing disturbed the silence, and Jax gave another nod. As one, they moved forward again, hiding behind the second pair of pillars.

As Jax darted past the eastern pit of bones, something didn’t seem quite right, and he looked more closely as he stood with his back against the stone column. Most of the bones were a random jumble of dozens of scattered bodies, but a couple looked almost intact, and one was much larger than any body he’d ever seen. With a clatter, it rose up out of the mass of bones. It was like a monstrous amalgam of a bear and an owl, its bones protruding from beneath its desiccated fur and molting feathers. It lumbered up the short flight of steps leading into the pit and slashed at Jax with its wickedly sharp beak, drawing blood. On its heels, another skeleton animated; this one was human, clad in tattered remnants of rusty chain and wielding a notched and rusting scimitar. In spite of its obvious age, the skeleton’s bones seemed to still be oozing blood, as if the flesh had only recently been stripped from them.  It swung its weapon clumsily at Jax, drawing sparks as it struck the pillar. On the opposite side of the room, nearly half a dozen more bloody skeletons, all human, emerged from the other bone pit and converged on Erin. She dodged and parried their blows, escaping injury for the moment. She thrust with her longsword, but the blade slid between her opponent’s ribs with little effect.

Seeing Erin nearly surrounded by foes, Nat dashed into the room. He stretched forth his splayed fingers and a cone of flames erupted from them, bathing two of the skeletons attacking Erin. One crumbled to dust under the onslaught, but the other marched silently forward. Wren rushed forward, nimbly skipping around one skeleton to smash another over the head with her mace, and its skull shattered under the force of the blow.

Shadow and Tomas focused their attention on the huge beast attacking Jax. Shadow hit it with Magic Missiles, and Tomas added an arrow, but it seemed not to notice. Jax took a step back from his attackers, stretched out his own hands in a mirror of Nat’s gesture, and a gout of flames shot from his hands, engulfing both the owlbear skeleton and its human counterpart.

Nat stared at Jax in open-mouthed surprise – where had he learned that??? But his momentary distraction cost him dearly; the owlbear skeleton, singed but not destroyed, stepped forward and raked Nat with both of its claws, sending sprays of blood in both directions across the room. He staggered backwards, and thrust his finger forward defensively, sending a pair of Magic Missiles blasting into the owlbear skeleton. It collapsed with a rattling thud.

On the other side of the room, Erin and Wren were managing to fend off the attacks from their multiple opponents. Erin’s flashing sword continued to find its mark, but to her frustration it did little damage; to make matters worse, what damage it did do seemed to be healing as the skeletons’ oozing blood filled the wounds. Tomas was also having trouble hitting the bony targets, and his arrows ricocheted off the pillars and walls of the room. Shadow fired off a Magic Missile at the skeleton chasing Jax, killing it and freeing Jax up to help the others.

But Wren’s mace was having no difficulty with the skeletal attackers. She swung at one and crushed its ribcage, although it just kept coming – at least until Nat hit it with a Force Missile. Shadow hit one coming up behind Erin with a Jolt of electrical energy, then Wren crunched it into powder with her mace. Erin slashed the lone remaining skeleton again with her sword, and Jax finished it off with a Force Missile.

The party stood panting, weapons and fingers at the ready, but no more enemies emerged. Nat was wrapping crude bandages around the gaping wounds the owlbear skeleton had left in his chest. He looked up from his first-aid as Jax walked by, checking the bodies for anything interesting. “Were you just using magic?” he asked the rogue incredulously. Jax just grinned.

The only exit from the room was the crude tunnel that led to the south. Jax listened, but heard nothing, so he and Erin moved forward into the dimly lit passage. A short ways in, it divided; to the southeast it descended in another flight of stairs, while another branch wound off to the west. “I vote we stay on this level,” Wren whispered from behind them. With no reason to choose differently, they crept forward down the western tunnel.

Jax began to hear voices and laughter from ahead, accompanied by squeals of pain from some small animal. The passage opened into a lit room, and Erin stepped in. She found herself in a small natural cavern, the air rank with the stink of sweat and mud. Four straw pallets were scattered around the perimeter of the room, while in the center of the room was a low table, covered with a miniature maze made of carved clay.

Four small creatures huddled around the table. They had pale blue skin, wild hair, and bulging white eyes. They seemed to be playing a game involving a rat, the maze, a hammer, and a pair of pliers; mangled rat bodies littered the floor, and there were more live rats in a wicker cage under the table. They were so engrossed in their game, that they didn’t notice Erin standing at the door.

Erin had the element of surprise, and she decided to use it to try to startle the creatures into doing something stupid. She ran up behind the nearest one and shouted at the top of her lungs. Jax and Tomas were still in the tunnel behind her; they had no idea what was happening, but they say Erin disappear around the corner and start yelling, so they assumed the worst. Jax rushed to follow her, and sank his blade into an unsuspecting victim.

Tomas was right behind him. When he saw the creatures, he immediately recognized them. They were Derros, creatures that were rumored to inhabit the deep places of the earth, both below cities and in the wilderness. They were said to be sadistically insane, but little was known for sure; those who survived their encounters with Derros often were left with little but vague and hazy memories of the experience. Knowing there was no chance of diplomacy, Tomas feathered one with an arrow. Nat and Shadow heard the commotion and moved forward down the passage, but Wren hung back at the Y intersection – she was worried about someone being drawn up the stairs by the noise.

The Derros, while startled by Erin’s sudden interruption of their game, were not frozen in panic. The one Erin had come up behind slashed at her with a short sword. It missed, but the one Jax had stabbed didn’t, and Jax began bleeding. Behind the table, one fired a bolt from a repeating crossbow at Tomas, but it clattered harmlessly off the wall. The other cast a Sound Burst that hammered everyone but Wren with sonic energy; fortunately, Erin’s shouting must have startled it so badly that all that came out was a really loud squeak, doing little damage.

The fight was on in earnest. Erin and Jax both hit their opponents again with their blades, and Shadow hit Jax’s foe with a Jolt. Tomas sank an arrow into the Derro that had just cast a spell, and Nat hit it with a bolt from his own crossbow. But these enemies seemed to be a lot tougher than the skeletons they had just defeated. The two wielding swords both missed Jax and Erin, but the one who’d fired the crossbow before now cast his own Sound Burst. This one was full-throated, and left both Erin and Tomas stunned. The former caster raised his own repeating crossbow, and shot Tomas. The bolt was coated with some sticky substance that left the stunned ranger feeling weaker.

Wren, deciding from the sounds of combat that her friends needed her more there than guarding the stairs, rushed into the room and cast Bless. Jax hit his attacker again and Shadow also hit it with another Jolt. Nat, seeing their two biggest damage-dealers out on their feet, decided that he needed to do more than shoot a crossbow. Muttering an incantation and making intricate motions with his fingers, he fired off a Color Spray that left three of the Derros stunned and blinded.

That pretty much ended the combat. Jax stabbed the last alert Derro, sending it to the floor in a pool of blood, and the party had little trouble finishing off the helpless ones. Wren did a Channel Positive Energy to help heal their wounds, then spent time doing additional healing on badly-injured Nat. Jax searched the room, but found nothing of value. There were two more exits from the room. To the east, a narrow set of crude stairs led down into a small tunnel; the Derros would have had little trouble traversing it, but the rest of the party would have to squeeze through its tight passage. To the west was another opening into little more than a crack: even the Derros would have had to squeeze through this one, and humans had no chance of getting through.

Deciding not to crawl through the tight space for now, the party retraced their steps to the Y intersection, then down the stairs, Jax in the lead. At the bottom, the tunnel opened into another room. It held hree wooden tables, their surfaces stained red with old bloodshed. A Derro huddled over a dead body on the center table; it seemed to be using stirges to draw the blood from the body. To the east was a wide hutch with wicker doors opening into a straw-lined cage.

Despite his best efforts to be quiet, this Derro heard Jax approaching. As soon as he spotted him, he let out a shriek and rushed to the cabinet, throwing open its doors. Jax could see another set of stairs leading down just behind the Derro, and he didn’t want him to escape to raise the alarm, so he rushed across the room to block his escape. Erin charged towards the Derro, hoping to prevent him from getting to whatever was in the cabinet.

But she was too late. A pair of hungry stirges flew out of their cage, straight at Erin. She managed to bat one aside, but the other sank its beak deep into her arm. Knowing the creature would suck her blood if left alone, she could do nothing but try to get it off her. She pulled it free, but as she tried to fend off its mate, it reattached.

While Erin battled the stirges, the others focused on the Derro. Nat hit it with a crossbow bolt, then tried to Daze it, but failed. The Derro cast a Sound Burst on Jax; the spell left him with blood running from his ears. He tried stabbing the Derro, but it dodged his attack. Shadow hit the Derro with a Jolt and Tomas sank an arrow deep into its thigh.

The Derro drew its sword and slashed Jax with an oath in some unknown language. Nat popped it with another Jolt, then Tomas drew back his bowstring. His first shot caught the Derro square in the throat, and it sank to the floor with a gurgle. In a single fluid motion, Tomas shifted his aim, nocked another arrow, and shot the stirge off of Erin before it could begin to drain her blood. Wren leaped up onto the table, and swatted the other stirge with her mace, sending it flying against the far wall.

Fortunately, the four stirges attached to the dead body had been satisfied with their blood meal, and hadn’t detached to attack the party; they had no trouble killing them as they sated themselves. Jax examined the body on the table, hoping it would be the missing Shoanti, but it appeared to be an old vagrant, recently dead.

Again, there were two more exits from this room; the stairs leading down to the east that Jax had spotted, and another tunnel to the west. Electing to stay on this level, Jax crept down the western passage. The stench of rot and death was much stronger here, and Jax soon discovered why. The passage ended in another cavern, most of it filled with a nasty-looking stretch of mud — a partially collapsed sinkhole — kept damp by rivulets of water seeping from the walls. A patch of solid ground extended into the mud to form an island, on which was heaped a reeking pile of body parts. A rickety wheelbarrow lay on its side against the north wall. Wallowing in the mud, feasting on the dismembered corpses, was an enormous otyugh. It spotted Jax immediately. “Warm food!” it cried in a slobbery voice, and lumbered up out of the mud.

The PCs earned 1,067 XP, putting them at 6,327 – you’ve now reached Level 4, and need 10,000 to get to Level 5.