“Get ready! Whoever was shooting at us will probably come out after us!” The tenebrous worms they’d fought were still twitching, but Erin had rushed back to the doors they’d come in through, peering out through the crack between them and expecting attackers to rush out of the castle at any moment. But a minute passed, and then another with no onslaught of foes appearing in the castle courtyard.
“Maybe,” mused Nat. “Or maybe not. The
things that live in this castle may have to stick with using the doors, but
that doesn’t mean we have to.”
The others looked at him in confusion. “We can make our own doors.” He pointed at the blank wall to their west, the
wall of the castle’s donjon. “I could cast a Passwall and we could go straight into the Keep. No one would
expect that, and we would surprise anyone inside.”
The others nodded their heads, admiring
Nat’s cleverness. “Let’s do it!” Jax said, and everyone began casting
protective spells, unsure what might confront them on the other side of the
wall. Once everyone was ready, Nat paused (for dramatic effect), then waved his
arms (also dramatically) and cast his spell.
The spell rebounded off the wall,
slamming Nat with a wave of energy that knocked him on his butt, and almost
unconscious, and left no sign of any opening in the wall. As he picked himself
up, he recalled the complex web of Forbiddance
spells he’d detected on the donjon when he’d examined the lead-sealed door
into it when they’d first arrived. “Looks like that didn’t quite go as planned,”
Jax observed.
Nat was determined to find some way into
the donjon. “Let me go outside,” he offered. “There were stairs going up to the
main doors into this building – may we can just go in there.” One of the
protectives spells he’d cast was Invisibility,
and now he slipped back out into the courtyard, unobserved (he hoped) by the
bowmen hidden behind the arrow slits to the south. He climbed the stairs, but
found that these doors were sealed in the same way as the smaller door they’d
found earlier. Someone had used Stoneshape
all around the doorjamb, creating a lip of stone that prevented the massive
bronze doors from being opened; they’d then sealed both the lip and the gap between
the double doors with lead, preventing any entry (or escape) by means of simple
spells like Gaseous Form.
Since no crossbow bolts were flying his
way, Nat took his time, casting Detect
Magic and studying the complex, interwoven auras of magical power pulsing
from the building before him. As he’d seen before, a powerful Forbiddance spell surrounded the entire
building – more than one, actually. It seemed like there was a layer of magic
that would prevent any but good-aligned creatures from leaving the building.
Beneath that, there was an older layer of abjuration that would prevent all but
lawful-evil creatures from entering. None of that would explain why his Passwall spell had backfired like it
had, and ultimately Nat was left scratching his head.
He returned to the livery and reported
what he’d found. Shadowcount Sial frowned as he tried to make sense of it. “Some
of the abjuration magic you describe sounds like what is commonly placed on
holy places of Zon-Kuthon, allowing only his faithful to enter. But I don’t
understand the presence of magic that would work against them.”
Other options exhausted, the party
returned their attention to the only other natural exit from the room. Erin
moved cautiously into the anteroom; ignoring the stairs for now, she peered
into the room to the south. The large chamber looked like it might once have
been a stable or kennel, but was now gutted. Wooden partitions that may have
been stalls lay shattered and burned. A few stone pillars supported the
ceiling, while the floor was a tangle of broken beams, dung heaps crawling with
vermin, and the occasional gleam of polished bone. The whole chamber was shadowy
and dim, the darkness an almost palpable thing.
Nat took care of that by summoning a Mage Hand to carry one of Wren’s coins
suffused with magical Light. More
magical lights followed, illuminating the large open stable. To the far south,
the lights showed a closed door into a smaller room, and there was a larger
pile of litter near that end of the room. Moving carefully and quietly, the
group fanned out across the stable.
Suddenly a blast of icy darkness
enveloped them, chilling their very souls with waves of unholy negative energy.
A roar of delighted rage shook the rafters, and a huge creature appeared on the
pile of rubble. It was a dragon, its scales black and lustrous, seemingly made
of darkness itself. It was sleek and serpentine, with a long snake-like tail
and narrow head filled with sharp fangs, its eyes like crimson embers. The very
sight of its Frightful Presence left
most of the party shaken.
Erin didn’t recall drawing her obsidian
battleaxe, but she found it in her hands nonetheless. A woman’s voice was
screaming inside her head, terrible oaths in Orcish that she did not
understand, but she was suddenly consumed with Rage, and she charged at the dragon with an incoherent scream. The
dragon lashed out at her as she approached, striking like a snake and sinking
its fangs deep into her, but she ignored the gaping wound, and chopped her axe
deep into the dragon’s shoulder. Asyra was suddenly by her side, helping to
defend against the dragon’s attacks, but the dragon darted away from her spiked
chain.
The dragon took a step back and breathed
again. This time, a cloud of shadow poured out of its maw, momentarily blotting
out all vision. The cloud cleared for most, but for Erin and Tomas it did not,
and they were left temporarily blinded, and everyone caught in its blast were
left terribly weakened.
Laori tried to turn the dragon’s tactics
back on it, and cast Blindness, but
the spell had no effect on the beast. The Shadowcount cast Haste on as many of the party as he could reach, while Wren moved forward
and Channeled the holy power of
Pharasma. Despite being a living creature, the Umbral Dragon bellowed in pain
as the positive energy washed over it. Nat summoned a Mage’s Sword that slashed into the dragon, splashing Asyra with
black blood. Erin stumbled forward and swung blindly at the dragon, but was
unable to hit what she couldn’t see.
The dragon was preparing to lash out at
the enemies in front of it, and Shadow knew that it would likely make short
work of them, especially with Erin blind. He cast a Fireball that exploded in the back part of the room, catching the
dragon in its blast. He shuddered as he saw the dragon still standing, expecting
at any moment to see his friends torn to pieces. But to everyone’s surprise,
the dragon dropped to its knees, its head turned away from them.
“Please!” it begged in a deep, resonant
voice. “Do not kill me here! I beg you – do not let my spirit be damned to
spend eternity in this place!”
That was such a shock that everyone
froze in place for a moment. Even Erin managed to impose her own will over that
of her battleaxe, and refrained from attacking the dragon. “Will you stop
fighting us?” Shadow asked warily.
“Yes!” the dragon cried. “I yield to
you, and will fight no more!”
“Then get out of here!” Jax demanded. “I’ll
show you the door.”
The dragon looked in Jax’s general
direction (he was still invisible). “I fear that is impossible. I cannot leave
Scarwall.”
“Then what will you do?” Wren asked skeptically. “How do we know you’re
serious?”
The dragon paused, seemingly caught in
some internal debate. At last it spoke. “I’ll … I’ll give you my treasure.” There
was the catch of a sob on the last word, and a shadowy tear rolled down its
cheek. “Just please don’t kill me.”
“Why can’t you leave?” Shadow asked.
“I am trapped here, imprisoned by …” The
dragon’s mouth worked, but no words emerged. After a moment, it shook its head
and started over. “I am Belshallam, and I
am … compelled to remain in Scarwall, and have been trapped her for many
centuries now.”
A light went on in Wren’s head. “Are you
a Chained Spirit?”
Again, the dragon tried to speak, but
nothing happened. It even seemed unable to either nod or shake its head.
Watching, Nat and Jax became convinced that some magical compulsion was
preventing the dragon from revealing certain information.
“Is there something we could do to free
you from your imprisonment?” Jax asked.
Belshallam again struggled to express
what he wanted to say. At last he settled for fixing Wren with an intense,
meaningful stare. “Is there some spell I could cast?” Wren asked, but the
dragon could do nothing to respond.
The dragon was trembling from the effort
of fighting against the compulsion, but at last gave in. “As you can see,” it
rumbled, “there are certain questions which I am unable to answer for you. But
there are others in Scarwall who do not share my … restrictions, and who may be
willing to help you.” Everyone’s ears perked up.
“One is Risibeth.
She is one of the original residents of Scarwall, dating back to Kazavon’s
time. She resides in the War Tower.” He nodded back towards the large octagonal
tower at the castles northeast corner. “She comes to visit me occasionally, to
torment me on my plight, but she too grows bored of her long, solitary
existence. She is not constrained like me, and might be willing to answer your
questions. But beware – she will likely wish to extract a price for her
knowledge.”
“What sort of being is she?” Nat asked.
Belshallam shrugged. “She was human,
once. I do not know what she is now. Something like a vampire, perhaps? But
different.”
Everyone shuddered – lovely. “You said
there were others?” Shadow prompted.
The dragon nodded. “There is a Night Hag
who has arrived recently. Unlike most of us, she does not seem to be trapped
here. She has been roaming the castle, trying to capture spirits.”
Wren perked up. “Capture spirits? Is that
what happened to Zellara?”
“What is a ‘Zellara’?” the dragon asked.
“Zellara is a who, not a what,” Wren
answered testily. “She was a spirit who came here with us, but was pulled off
into the castle walls right after we arrived.”
Belshallam shook his head. “No, that was
the curse of Scarwall. All spirits in this place become trapped by the curse,
doomed to become part of its haunting for all eternity. That is why I do not
wish to die here. As long as I live, there is at least some small chance of
escape. But should I die …”
“So what’s this hag doing then?” Shadow
continued.
“I am not sure. I do not understand why
she has been allowed free access to the castle or why she would be allowed to
harvest any of its spirits. She must have negotiated some bargain with …” Again
he found himself unable to speak. “She must have some special dispensation,” he
finally said. “She has not visited me and I have not spoken with her, but have
heard of her from other denizens of Scarwall.”
Jax had been following this discussion
with growing impatience. “About this treasure you promised us,” he finally
interrupted. “Where is it?”
The dragon seemed to have almost as much
difficulty answering that question as he had overcoming the magical compulsion.
“In the room behind me,” he managed to stammer at last. Jax hurried to the door
and pulled it open. His jaw dropped, and he stood there in silence. Finally, he
let out a low whistle. The others moved to join him and one by one mirrored his
open-mouthed expression. Battered weapons, breastplates, helms, shields, and a
large number of skulls lay heaped on room’s floor. More importantly, there were
chests overflowing with gold and silver coins and gems – thousands upon
thousands of them.
As the party crowded into the room,
pawing through the unimaginable riches, Nat pulled everyone into one corner. “We
need to kill him,” he whispered, nodding back towards the room where Belshallam
was quietly weeping over the loss of his hoard. “Zellara said we have to
destroy the chained spirits, and he’s clearly one of them.”
“No!” Wren argued back, shaking her head
vehemently. “He says there’s another way. Or at least he implies it. We just
don’t know what it is yet. We have to learn more.”
“But Zellara said we couldn’t hope to
defeat whoever’s in charge until we get rid of the chained spirits. If we don’t
destroy him, we won’t get anywhere. Besides, you can’t trust a dragon.”
“He seems like he’s telling the truth,”
Jax piped up. “I mean, look around – he wouldn’t let us have this if he wasn’t serious. He
sure seems terrified of having his spirit trapped by the curse.”
The argument went back and forth, but
once Wren had made up her mind there was no changing it. Finally Nat gave in –
against his better judgement. They decided to leave most of the loot where it
was for the time being (after all, if Belshallam was telling the truth, it’s
not like he could run off with
it). Wren and Laori focused their Restoration
spells on helping Erin and Tomas recover the strength they’d lost to the
dragon’s Shadow Breath.
Once they were ready, they retraced
their steps, back to the anteroom and the staircase leading up. “We’ll do our
best to find a way to set you free,” Wren promised Belshallam as they left. At
the top of the stairs was a locked door, but that was little impediment to Jax,
and they soon found themselves back outdoors on one of the castle’s parapets.
It led south along the castle wall with a door leading back into a building on
the west. To the west, it overlooked the courtyard. Another door was set into
the wall of the War Tower, rising above them to the northeast. It was also
locked, but quickly yielded to Jax’s picks.
Jax cautiously opened the door. Inside
was a small room with two flights of stairs, one leading up and the other down.
Two other doors led out of the room, one north and another east, and both were
ajar. Erin moved into the room and to the north door, which was closest. The
room inside was probably once a dining hall, with a stout oak table in the
center of the room, surrounded by crumbling, rotten chairs. Moldy paintings of
battlefield scenes covered the walls.
Shadow heard the sound of fighting and
dashed into the room. He saw the huge skeleton threatening Tomas, and targeted it
with Scorching Rays. One missed, but
the other two entered each of the skeleton’s eye sockets, and blasted out the
back of its skull.
Erin rushed across the room, and into
the doorway from which the skeletal guard had emerged. The room inside was
empty of furnishings, but two more of the undead minotaurs were there,
greataxes in hand. “More enemies in here!” she cried, then Channeled the power of Iomedae to punish the undead in front of
her. Asyra joined her in the doorway (which appeared to be sized for the
residents), and readied her chain. Jax was right behind her, and hammered the
nearest guard with Magic Missiles as
Laori whipped out a Wand of Sound Burst and
blasted their calcified eardrums with a sonic blast.
The nearest minotaur charged Erin,
lowering its head to try to gore her in addition to chopping her with its axe.
But it misjudged; its axe glanced off the floor at Erin’s feet and its skull
slammed into the doorframe. Its partner stepped forward, taking advantage of
its size to attack Erin from a distance, but she deflected its axe with her buckler. Tomas
moved into position to get a straight shot, and feathered the one that had
charged with an arrow. Erin called upon Iomedae to Smite Evil and swung her obsidian battleaxe at the minotaur in
front of her, and it exploded in a clatter of disjointed bones. She swept the
axe back around, and took a step to the north, slamming the orcish weapon into
the other guard.
Shadowcount Sial and Nat were still back
by the door to the parapet, unable to see what was going on in the fight
against the guards and with a crowd of allies preventing them from getting
closer. Both had spells prepared in case something broke out of the room. It
was well they did, because they heard the clattering of claws coming up the
stairs from below, accompanied by vicious snarls. A creature appeared on the
stairs; it looked like a lean wolf, but was the size of a small draft horse. Sial
cast the spell he’d held at the ready, and a deep pit suddenly appeared at the
top of the stairs, right under the creature. As the ground dropped away, it
leaped forward, landing almost on top of Nat, who hammered it with Magic Missiles. This wasn’t the first
time he’d seen one of these; it was a Nessian Warhound, and he remembered
seeing some of these in the kennels of Losarkur – in Hell. The hound snapped at
Nat, sinking its flaming fangs into his arm. Asyra whirled around, the
minotaurs forgotten, and attacked the warhound that was now threatening her master,
and her spiked chain slammed into its side.
The party now had enemies on two sides. And
the hollow baying of more hounds echoed up the stairway from below.
The PCs earned 10,134 XP, putting them
at 237,902 XP, with 295,000 required for Level 14.
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