Erin was grateful that Nat’s Fly spell was still in effect, because otherwise she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stand. The Greater Shadow that had emerged from the wall of the castle gatehouse had sapped her of so much strength that her armor felt like it was made of lead. She couldn’t imagine taking another hit like that, so she stepped back away from the smudge of undead darkness, and then lifted off into the air, coming to rest on the gatehouse roof, near Tomas. “Anyone need healing?” Laori called from her perch atop one of the nearby towers. Erin waved her hand weakly, and Laori was off in a shot, landing lightly on the roof beside her. “I need my strength back,” Erin said, her voice hoarse. “Zon-Kuthon to the rescue!” Laori cried, giggling, then called upon the power of the Midnight Lord to perform a Lesser Restoration. The paladin of Iomedae grimaced as the unholy power washed over her, but she wasn’t too proud to accept the newfound strength that coursed through her limbs.
On the gatehouse parapet below them, the
battle still raged. Two of the giant skeletal minotaur guards had emerged from
the tower to the north, and there were still two Greater Shadows threatening
the party. Shadow maneuvered his trio of Ball
Lightnings among the feet and legs of the guards, and their clumsy movements
failed to avoid the nasty shocks they delivered. Asyra lashed one of them with
her spiked chain, but its pointed barbs couldn’t find as many places to hurt on
a creature without flesh. The Shadowcount’s summoned Air Elementals were in
constant motion; one attacked one of the Shadows but its fists passed right
through the incorporeal being; the other punched one of the guards. For the
moment, only one of the minotaur guards was a real threat; his mate was still
stuck in the doorway of the tower, blocked by the first, but that was likely to
change at any moment, so Shadowcount Sial decided to take him off the board.
The group heard a rapidly receding bellow of surprise, followed by a rattling
crash as the minotaur skeleton dropped into the 30-foot deep Pit that the Shadowcount had conjured
beneath his feet.
Nat flew down to land in front of the
tower at the southern end of the parapet, as far away from the action as he
could get, and summoned a Mage’s Sword that
slashed deeply into the closest Shadow. Then, in almost the same casting
motion, he thrust his fingers forward and a Cold
Ice Strike sent a flurry of ice slivers blasting out ahead of him. The ice
blasted the nearest Shadow (and the Air Elemental fighting it) and shredded the
farthest Shadow into an ectoplasmic snow storm. The nearest Shadow turned its
attention to Nat. It side-stepped his magical Sword, and grabbed at him with its claws. Only the blessings of the
Shoanti ancestors, which had imbued his Amulet
of Natural Armor with Ghost-Touch abilities,
protected him.
Then Nat heard the creak of a door
opening behind him. He spun, and saw a figure emerge into the southern tower.
It was a hulking skeletal warrior, clad in resplendent plate armor. Thin flames
flickered all over its body and its head was a flaming skull. It carried a
glittering battleaxe that it twirled once as it strode towards the trembling
mage. Nat let out a choking whimper as the warrior drew back the axe and swung
it in an overhead chop, flaming skull grinning in anticipation of cleaving the
wizard from nose to navel.
But he was now the focus of the party’s
wrath, and with the help of Nat’s Mass
Fly, they could hit him from three dimensions. Jax flew forward until he
had a clear shot that would miss Nat, and fired down a Cone of Cold that filled the air with steam as it hit the flames
that enveloped Castothrane. [DM Note: His Fire Shield should have negated the cold
damage (since he made his save), but I overlooked that part of the spell] Tomas flew overhead, also maneuvering for a clear
shot, and fired an adamantine arrow down at him, but the shot missed and it
embedded in the stone at his feet. Erin rushed to Nat’s side, swinging the undead-hating
obsidian axe, Ukwar. The blade chopped into Castothrane’s armor, but his
protective flames rushed up the handle of the axe, searing Erin’s flesh. Then a
column of black flame roared down from the heavens onto Castothrane’s head, as
Laori called down a Flame Strike from
Zon-Kuthon.
“All invaders must die!” Castothrane
growled. He gripped his battleaxe more tightly and swung at Erin. By now, his
centuries of training were operating at their peak, and he did not miss,
slashing her over and over. Wren knew that Erin needed help, and knew that the
skeletal warrior would be more vulnerable to the new Thundering Warhammer she’d
recently acquired, so she rushed to the paladin’s side and swung at
Castothrane. Unlike the captain of the castle guard, she was pretty new to this
whole fighting thing, and the hammer missed badly, pulling her around in a
circle with its weight. Jax also charged in, stabbing with his rapier, but the
pointy blade was much less effective than he’d have liked, and the flames that
shot up his arm as it struck made him think twice about stabbing again.
Tomas was angry with himself for wasting
an expensive adamantine arrow on a clumsy miss. He drew more adamantine arrows
from his quiver and vowed not to make that mistake again. Flying almost
directly above Castothrane, he fired down at him. The first arrow struck at the
base of his neck, just inside his gorget. Two more sank into his chest, and a
fourth into his back as he dropped to his knees. “Forgive me, master!” the
warrior cried. The flames surrounding him faded, then died, and Castothrane
slumped forward onto the flagstones. As he fell, another silent, soul-shaking
scream reverberated through the stones of the castle.
While the rest of the group had been
fighting the Chained Spirit, Asyra had been battling the last of the minotaur
guards, while Shadow harried it with his bouncing balls of lightning. They
traded blows for a bit, but the guard didn’t stand a chance. His buddy was trying
to climb out of the pit, but every time he got a few feet up, one of the Air
Elementals would flit down into the pit and knock him back down; eventually, he
found it was easier just to die.
Those who had been injured gathered
around Erin as she doled out healing. “I guess that’s two down,” Jax said as he
finished looting Castothrane’s body. “Where to next?”
All eyes turned to Scarwall’s tallest
tower. ‘The Lord’s Tower’, Risibeth
had called it, and she said that it was now the residence of Nihil
the Ashbringer, another of the Chained Spirits. It rose a good forty
feet above the rest of the castle, with a crenelated walkway surrounding a
central spire.
“How do you think we get in?” Laori
asked, considering the likely maze of passages through the castle to get to the
base of the tower.
“Duh – we’re still flying,” Jax replied,
lifting off the ground a few feet in demonstration. “We just take the direct
route and go in through the top.” Without waiting for the others, he set off on
a straight line towards the tower’s peak, some 200 feet away, as everyone else
scrambled to catch up.
They weren’t even halfway there before
they ran into trouble. One by one, more of the gargoyles adorning the western
half of the castle began to leave their perches and fly towards the intruders. “Incoming!”
Jax barely had time to shout before the first of them reached Erin, gashing her
with its fangs. Tomas feathered it with an arrow, and Asyra charged at it full
speed, lashing it with her spiked chain. Nat veered off to the east, wanting to
stay as far away as possible, but once everyone was close enough, the
Shadowcount cast Haste on the group.
There were at least three more Gargoyle
Brutes winging towards them, and then an ear-splitting roar echoed off the castle
walls. From beyond the Lord’s Tower, from the vicinity of the castle courtyard,
a great black shape emerged, beating its wings as it gained altitude. “Is that …
is that Belshallam?” Jax cried.
“It sure looks like him!” Erin
responded, squinting at the distant dragon as she dodged the gargoyle’s
attacks. She tried to retaliate, but the dragon’s appearance had so unsettled
her that all of her blows went wide.
“It can’t be!” Wren gasped. “He’s on our side now!” She desperately
wanted to believe that the dragon they saw was not the one she had freed from Scarwall’s
curse – but her eyes said otherwise. Nat, deciding it was better to be safe
than sorry, cast Greater Invisibility on
himself and flew off to hide behind the cover of a nearby tower roof.
The gargoyles ignored the dragon’s
entrance. On lashed out at Erin and Asyra; its fangs and horns hit the paladin,
but all of its claws missed. A second flew in to attack Asyra, while a third
came at Erin from the opposite side. It was all getting very crowded – until Tomas
sent one crashing to the roof below with a volley of well-placed arrows and
Asyra sent the one between her and Erin down to join it. A fourth gargoyle was
still on his way in, and Shadow conjured a Fireball
just to let him know that he might want to reconsider his life choices.
They weren’t even halfway to the Tower
that had been their destination and they were already under attack. And had
Belshallam really returned to attack them?
The PCs earned 8,800 XP, putting them at
284,302, with 295,000 required for Level 14. It’s possible you could reach
level 14 next week, so start preparing your leveled-up characters.
No comments:
Post a Comment