Something’s wrong.
Wren wrapped her arms tightly around herself. Ever since they’d flown over to this accursed castle, she’d felt like they were being watched. But now … now she felt a malevolent focus on her, a palpable hatred that seemed to pulse from the very walls. She shivered – had it been this cold when they came in? Her breathing quickened, and her breath formed puffs of vapor. She felt a vibration from her pocket – it was Zellara’s Harrow deck. With trembling hands she withdrew the box of cards, and it was covered with a thick layer of frost. A puff of breeze blew her hair into her eyes, and she brushed it away idly, then looked up with a start. Why was there a breeze in here?
Within seconds, the breeze increased to
a gale. The lid flew off the box and the wind caught the cards, sending them
flying around the room. To the others, it looked as though Wren were at the
center of a vortex of flying cards. Zellara’s spirit began to materialize, and
her face was a mask of utter terror. “No!
Please, no! Help me! Help me!!!” Shapes began to appear around her, vague
faces that glared at her with hatred, or leered with hunger. Ghostly hands
reached out of the walls and up out of the floor, clutching and tearing at
Zellara’s insubstantial form. “No! Don’t
let them take me!” her spirit cried out. “Don’t let them take me! Please!” She reached out to Wren
imploringly, and the girl reached back, trying to help the spirit, to push the
greedy hands away. But it was like trying to grasp a moonbeam. Hands tore at
Zellara’s clothes, bony fingers entwined in her hair, and they dragged the
screaming spirit into the very walls of the castle. She vanished for a moment,
then her face reappeared out of the stone, her hands pushing against the wall
as she strove to escape. “You must
destroy the four chained spirits before you can hope to defeat the one who
holds the chains!” she cried, and then the hands dragged her back into
Scarwall. The wind suddenly died, and the cards fluttered slowly to the ground,
but Zellara’s screaming could be heard in the distance for several seconds
before it finally faded away.
Everyone stood in shocked silence for some time, trying to fathom what had just happened to the spirit who had guided them for so long. At last Wren began to pick up the Harrow cards, tears running down her cheeks, and the others stooped to help. Wren placed the last card back in the box, replaced the lid, and laid her hand lovingly on it. “We have to get her back.”
Easier said than done. No one was quite sure what had actually happened to Zellara, let alone how they might be able to undo it. They recalled the mysterious song Zellara had sung after One-Life had channeled his ancestors; it had spoken of ‘Four enthralled in lost Scarwall’, and now she had warned them of four ‘chained spirits’. But Scarwall seemed to be filled with restless spirits – how would they know which were the right four? “I guess we just have to go forward,” Tomas said at last.
Before Scarwall had assaulted Zellara, he and Jax had opened one of the doors leading out of the room they were in. The dim light filtering down the staircase did little to illuminate the dark hallway, but the party soon summoned magical lights. The hall seemed to turn to the right after about forty feet, and there were a pair of closed wooden doors on the left-hand wall. Tomas pressed his ear against the first door and, hearing nothing, nodded to Erin as he stepped back and drew his bow. Erin threw open the door; inside were several sets of double bunk beds and the remains of a table, but everything was in a terrible state of ruin. There was another door leading west, and most of the party moved into the room as Jax and Tomas examined and then opened it. The room beyond might once have been a bath; a large pool of fouled water filled the center of the room. Thick sheets of slimy algae clung to the edges of the pool, sending out dark green tendrils across the floor, while the waters churned and rippled as if something unseen wriggled in the foul-smelling depths. There were two more doors; one looked like it led back out into the hallway they’d already found, while the other led farther into the castle. But Tomas wrinkled his nose at the rancid odor, then pushed the door shut. “I don’t think we want to go in there.”
They retraced their steps, and Tomas moved cautiously to the end of the hall and peered around the corner. The hallway continued on to the north, and for a moment, the area at the end was illuminated. Tomas caught a glimpse of some larger room, but then the light faded, as if someone carrying a torch had moved away. He motioned for silence from the others, then led them back to the ruined bunkroom and reported what he’d seen. “We could continue on that way, but something could be waiting for us. There was another door in the room where we came in – maybe we should check that out first.
While everyone else had followed Tomas to explore the rooms of the hallway, Nat had hung back in the first room. There was a moment when everyone had gone into the bunkroom, a moment when Nat couldn’t see any of his friends, and was all alone in the castle. A feeling of doom came over him, an overwhelming sense of oppression and hopelessness. He was one of Lord Kazavon’s slaves, and it was only a matter of time before he would be tortured and killed for the warlord’s amusement, as all of his family and friends had been. But then he heard distant sounds from the other wing of the castle – the ring of steel and cries of battle. Someone was coming! Someone had come to overthrow Kazavon, to free his slaves! He turned at the sound of the north door opening, and his joy turned to despair; one of Kazavon’s minions stood there, bloody sword in hand, coming to execute the slaves rather than let them go free. All of these feelings passed in an instant, and Nat found himself alone in the dark room. When the rest of the party returned, they found him slumped against the wall, pale and trembling.
Figuring the wizard had just worn himself out with all this unaccustomed exercise, Tomas strode past him and on to the door in the north wall. It opened into another empty room, with fragments of torn tapestries hanging from the walls. On the western wall, a message had been scrawled in dried blood. “Can anybody make out what this says?” he asked. Nat had roused himself from his passing terror, and followed the others into the room. “It’s in Orcish,” he said, squinting to read the ancient scrawl. It says ‘Beware Ukwar!’
“What’s an ‘Ukwar’?” Jax asked.
Nat frowned. “I think it’s a name. An orc name. But I’ve never heard of him. Or her.”
There were three more doors in this room, one to the east, one to the west, and one to the south, just to the left of where they’d come in. They chose that door first, and it led to another short hall that quickly took a dogleg to the right; opposite them was yet another wooden door. Opening it, they found themselves in what might have once been a small barracks; several long-ago ruined bunks were in various states of disrepair around the room. But all were larger than human-sized beds. One more door led back to the north again. Tomas listened, then nodded his OK to Erin, who pulled the door open.
A snarling 12-foot tall minotaur stood on the other side of the door. As Erin opened the door, it swung its blood-stained axe down at her head. She threw up her buckler and sword to block the blow, and it barely missed chopping into her skull. “Look out!” she cried, then prepared to slash back with her flaming sword. But there was nothing there – just a dark and empty hallway. Tomas and Jax were looking at her like she was mad. “What’s wrong?” Jax asked nervously.
“There … there was a minotaur there. Really!” Erin swung her sword experimentally through the empty hall, to make sure the creature hadn’t just become invisible, but her blade met no resistance. She looked back at the oversized bunks. “Maybe Kazavon used minotaurs for his guards, and this was where they slept. Maybe I saw the ghost of one of the guards.”
Jax nodded. “Those skeletons I saw on the parapets as I flew over – they could have been minotaur skeletons.” He frowned. “Oh great – maybe we just released another one to go on duty.”
The hallway beyond the door appeared to be a dead-end, but Asyra moved methodically down its length, tapping on the walls. “There appears to be a secret door at the end of the hall,” she reported calmly when she returned. The others crowded into hall, and Erin pushed the secret door open.
Their lights revealed a large open room, with a banquet table running the length of it, covered with dusty plates and tarnished silverware. Portraits caked with dust and cobwebs hung on the walls, while three chandeliers fitted with dozens of unlit candles hung from the ceiling above.
“Look out!” Shadow cried, and immediately cast Invisibility on himself. He couldn’t understand why his friends hadn’t immediately attacked this new threat. “He’s coming for us!”
“Who?” Nat called from the corner of the room, getting ready to cast Magic Missiles at the first thing that moved. “I don’t seen anyone!”
“Me neither!” cried Tomas, swinging his bow back and forth in search of a target.
“He’s right there!” Shadow cried. He grabbed a goblet off the table and threw it at the man in blue. He easily dodged the goblet, which clattered harmlessly off the far wall. His smiled broadened as he moved slowly around the table towards Shadow, twirling his blade expertly. But his figure faded as he advanced, and then vanished altogether. Shadow looked around in panic, and realized that the fine feast he’d seen when he entered was nothing but dust and cobwebs. His friends stood anxiously around him, nerves on edge as they waited for an unseen attacker. “You … you didn’t see a man with a sword, dressed in blue?” Shadow asked, and everyone shook their heads.
They waited for a full minute, until they finally relaxed their guard. There were several exits from the large room; behind them, it connected to the dogleg hall they’d found and to the south to the hall that led back to the slaves’ barracks. There was a door on the south wall, another on the north, and to the west a long hallway lined with still more doors extended beyond the range of even Asyra and Laori’s darkvision.
Tomas moved to the door on the south and pressed his ear against it. He heard nothing inside, but somewhere, off in the distance, he was sure he could hear the sound of someone weeping. He looked up, but none of his friends acted like they heard anything. ‘Of course they’d be crying if they’re in here,’ he thought to himself. He nodded to Erin, and she pushed open the door.
The room inside looked it had once had all the amenities of a luxurious bedroom, but now all the furnishings were crumbling, decayed, and spotted with mold. But the room had an inhabitant. It looked like it had once been an orc, its face painted white like the orcs they had fought at the barbican. But now it was a ghostly wraith of its former self, and it let out a shriek of rage at the sight of humans in its domain. But it had no chance to do more than that; Nat hammered it with a volley of Magic Missiles, and Tomas sent arrow after arrow through its incorporeal form, and it collapsed into a puddle of ectoplasm.
Erin hurried to the mouth of the long hallway, worried that the wraith’s shriek might bring reinforcements; Asyra went by her side. Erin’s fear was correct. Another orc wraith appeared out of the wall of the hallway and flew quickly forward. Its sword swept through Erin’s body; it did no physical damage, but it seemed to cut at her very soul, and left her feeling weaker and less healthy. Another wraith appeared from the opposite side of the hallway, attacking Asyra. More wraiths began pouring out of the walls behind them; Tomas managed to dodge one’s attack, but others hit Laori and the Shadowcount.
Laori swung back with her spiked chain, tearing out little gouts of ectoplasm with each hit. Jax hammered the one facing Tomas with Magic Missiles and backed quickly away, wanting to stay out of their reach. Nat saw his friends outnumbered by undead, and knew he had to help even the odds. He unleashed a Fireball that filled most of the room, and Jax expected to see half his comrades on the floor when the flames cleared, but only the wraiths were scorched, and Nat twirled his Selective Metamagic Rod happily.
Wren also knew she had to do as much as she could to help her friends. She started to Channel the power of Pharasma, but she could sense something impeding her connection to her goddess, and feared the positive energy might not be enough. So she stepped bravely forward, and called out one of Pharasma’s most Holy Words. As the word of Pharasma rang through the cursed castle’s halls, all of the wraiths were blinded by her holy power. Unfortunately, so were Laori, Shadowcount Sial, and Asyra. Jax and Shadow also felt their vision dim for a moment – they weren’t accustomed to that kind of language – but the feeling passed.
That was the shift in balance that the party needed. Tomas stepped away from the wraith attacking him, then exploded it with a hail of arrows. Shadow blasted Laori’s attacker with Empowered Magic Missiles, and it too vanished. The Shadowcount was cursing under his breath, but swung his spiked chain blindly at where he remembered the wraith being and managed to connect. Unfortunately, it had the same luck with its blind riposte, and he felt more of his energy drain away. Asyra also managed to get in one blind hit, while the wraith missed her, as did one that swung at Wren.
With most of the party able to see, while none of their foes could, the battle turned one-sided. Jax slashed the wraith attacking Sial, then Nat unleashed a stream of Magic Missiles that killed that one and injured another. Wren finished off the one in front of her. Tomas filled the air with arrows; the wraith facing Asyra exploded in a splash of ectoplasm and Erin’s was staggered, injured enough that Shadow’s final Magic Missiles had no trouble dispatching it.
“I’ll thank you not to use that sort of language again!” Sial groused as he waited for his vision to clear. Wren just stuck her tongue out at him. Most of the party were exhausted; the wraiths’ attacks had drained their constitution badly, and several were still suffering the after-effects of the two jesters’ horrific pantomime. Wren cast Restoration on Erin, and Laori did the same to herself, and both felt much better. Wren cast a Lesser Restoration on Jax, then turned to Asyra. She knew the kyton had been injured by the wraiths and was likely suffering. “Would you like me to cast Restoration on you?” she offered.
“Don’t bother,” Shadowcount Sial answered for her. “She’ll be fine in the morning.” Asyra’s blank expression didn’t change.
The group spent a few more minutes gathering their strength. Erin kept a watchful eye on the long hallway leading west, but no more enemies appeared, at least for the moment. When everyone had had time to catch their breath, Tomas moved to the door leading north from the dining hall. It revealed a short hallway; across from them was an open staircase with sunlight spilling down. It led up to the small balcony they’d seen as they flew in to Castle Scarwall. To their right, there was a door to the north and another at the end of the hall.
Tomas cautiously opened the first door. The room inside had once been a fine accommodation, but the bed and other furniture had succumbed to mold and decay long ago. The air seemed musty and foul, despite the wind blowing across three narrow arrow slits to the north that looked out over the crater lake. A figure stood at the center arrow slit, staring out at the lake beyond as if lost in thought. She was an orc (apparently physical, not spectral) and she held a magnificent obsidian battleaxe loosely at her side, but she did not turn or react to the door opening.
The orc woman absorbed their attacks with eerie silence. She moved with the efficient grace of an experienced champion. She swung her green-glass battleaxe at Erin; the blow sliced through her armor like cheese, then continued on to Cleave Jax and Asyra in turn. The mangled muscle and bone was the least of the damage, for as the axe blade sliced through them, it tore away a portion of their life force with it. She still made no sound, but stepped back into a corner of the room, out of line of sight from those in the doorway.
Tomas couldn’t see her anymore, so he dashed farther into the room, until he could get off a shot at her. The arrow flashed past Erin and slammed into the orc’s chest, directly through her heart. She glared at Tomas, and broke her silence for the first time, barking out a phrase in Orcish as she died. “What did she say?” Tomas asked, turning to Nat.
Nat gulped. “She said ‘You shall join me in death soon.’”
The levels that the orc had drained from them were even more worrying than the constitution they’d lost earlier to the wraiths, and Wren and Laori cast their final Restoration spells on Erin and Jax. “Crap!” Wren cursed. “We’ve barely started and my spells are already depleted.”
“We could always fly back, and come back tomorrow,” Nat suggested. He lifted a few feet off the ground to show that the Fly spell he’d cast on everyone was still in effect; they’d barely been here an hour.
“No!” Wren countered. “There’s no need to go back. I’ve got a Nap Stack – we can just rest here for a couple of hours, get our spells back. This room seems pretty safe.”
Jax looked around at the ruined bedroom and shuddered. Sure – let’s just take a little nap in Scarwall Castle. What could go wrong?
The PCs earned 6,000 XP, putting them at 218,702 XP with 295,000 required for Level 14.
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