“Look away!” Nat shouted, as he drew back his arm. A ball of flickering light formed in the palm of his hand and he flung it at the Mummy Lord who had once served this unholy place as a Prelate of Zon-Kuthon. The Empowered Orb of Light struck the Prelate in the chest, exploding into a blinding flash that seared an after-image into his friends’ vision. It seared much worse into the mummy, leaving his wrappings blackened.
Weapon or no, Laori wanted to stay well
out of reach of the Mummy Lord. She saw Erin’s eyes closed in prayer, and knew
the paladin would likely bear the brunt of the Prelate’s fury, so she floated forward
a few feet and drew out her wand, casting Cure
Moderate Wounds to try to keep Erin alive a few seconds longer. Asyra swung
her own spiked chain to gash the mummy (unlike her master, she was not burdened
with human emotions such as jealousy). An evil grin crept across Shadow’s face
as he made a series of arcane motions, then cast Feeblemind at the Prelate, intending to reducing him to a drooling
idiot, but to his disappointment, the spell had no effect. Wren pulled out the
big guns, and prayed to Pharasma to call down Destruction on this abomination. A blast of holy fire swept over
the mummy, but his unshakeable faith in his own god protected him from the
worst of its damage.
The Prelate was all but surrounded by
enemies, but his faith did not waver. He reached out bony fingers and laid them
on Erin’s shoulder, then called upon Zon-Kuthon to Slay Living. She felt intense pain wrack her body, as if she were
upon one of the Midnight Lord’s torture tables. But one of the items they had
found in the alcoves of the Lord’s Tower had been a jade medallion, in the shape
of a beetle. Nat had identified it as a Scarab
of Protection, and suggested that Erin should wear it. Now the medallion
began to vibrate, then a blast of power burst out of it, counteracting the
Prelate’s death magic. A dark spot appeared on the green jade of the medallion,
but Erin was safe – for now.
Tomas had been paralyzed with fear when
he had first seen the Mummy Lord, but he finally managed to rouse himself. He
was still shaken by the mummy’s presence, but he forced himself to fly into the
narrow hallway where the battle raged, and sent an arrow flying into the source
of his fear. Nat followed him, and blasted the Prelate with a volley of Empowered, Intensified Magic Missiles.
Erin opened her eyes as she felt her goddess answer her prayers. Her sword
began to vibrate with holy energy, and she swung it with all her fervor at the
embodiment of evil before her. The Flaming, Holy, Disruptive blade slammed into
the Prelate with a blast of divine power, and his desiccated body exploded into
a cloud of dust and bone shards that rained down into the pit below them.
Before his dust had even reached the
bottom of the pit, Asyra was moving to the open door in the hallway behind him.
Beyond it was a room cloaked in writhing shadows, a living darkness. At the
back of the room a ten-foot tall figure stood motionless. Unafraid, Asyra
approached the figure, spiked chain at the ready. It was a statue of
Zon-Kuthon, spiked chains dangling from his skull’s empty eye sockets. “It has
the appearance of a private chapel,” she reported when she returned. “Likely
where the priests made private supplications to the Midnight Lord, but
certainly not the main chapel for a castle such as this, dedicated as it is to
our Lord’s power.”
As the others flew down into the pit to
claim whatever possessions had survived the Prelate’s death, Shadowcount Sial
and Laori returned to the room where they had fought the giant zombie. Two of
the walls in this room were of seamless black stone, set at sharp angles –
obviously a continuation of the Star Tower they had seen from outside. Sial
approached the wall, then reached out his hand to caress the cold stone
reverently. A shudder seemed to pass through his body. “Is it?” Laori
whispered, her voice full of uncharacteristic awe. The Shadowcount turned to
face her, his eyes wide and face pale. “It … it is!” he croaked.
Nat overheard this exchange and his
curiosity was piqued. “It is what?”
he asked. Sial had turned back to the black stone walls, his palms laid against
them and his eyes closed as if in prayer, and he did not respond for some time.
At last he gave a sigh, and turned back to face the group. “I suppose there is
no reason not to tell you.
“At the beginning of the Age of
Creation, after Pharasma stepped off the Seal and reality came into existence,
the First Gods began creating the universe and the races that inhabit it.
Asmodeus and his brother Ihys created the Laws that govern the universe, while
Desna created the Heavens, and the other gods added their own touches. Worlds
and races beyond count came into being, and the Gods were pleased.
“All but one. Rovagug, the Rough Beast,
was a being of infinite hunger. He began to consume all that the Gods had
created, destroying world after world and relishing the agony of their
inhabitants as they died. The Gods drove him into the Abyss, but after Asmodeus
slew Ihys, Rovagug escaped. He devoured entire districts of the eternal city of
Axis before invading the Material Plane and destroying countless worlds.
Rovagug
“Sarenrae knew that Rovagug had to be
defeated, but he could not be destroyed. So she recruited many of the other
Gods to band together in a plan to entrap him. Calistria distracted Rovagug
while Torag and Gorum forged the shell of the Dead Vault, a demiplane
at the molten core of Golarion. Sarenrae then sliced open a rift in the surface
of Golarion sending Rovagug tumbling into the Dead Vault. Dou-Bral impaled him
with an array of star-shaped spikes to prevent his worshippers’ prayers from
reaching him, and Asmodeus bound him with a key fashioned by Abadar, one that
only the Prince of Darkness could turn.
“As you know, Dou-Bral was the original
incarnation of the Midnight Lord, Zon-Kuthon. These Star Towers are the
spikes that he created and drove into the center of the planet, to cut off
followers of Rovagug from their god’s power. They are the greatest relics of
our religion, and our holiest sites. It is unclear how many Star Towers existed
– some sources say seven, others twelve – but the locations of only three are
known. One, the Tower of Slant Shadows, is in southwestern Nidal – I myself
have been blessed to gaze upon it. Another is in the Vale of Shadows, in the
Five Kings Mountains, and the Star Tower of Vekheen lies in distant Vudra. It
is said there is one in the Nameless Spires at the top of the world, and
another is rumored to lie beneath the endless sands of Osirion, but no one has
found them.
“If this is, indeed, another of the lost
Star Towers, it is an amazing discovery. We must confirm whether this is an
actual Star Tower, but if so, the Umbral Court must learn of it immediately.”
His gaze grew distant for a moment, and he spoke almost to himself. “To be the
one to discover a Star Tower … my name will be recorded in the annals of
history!” There was a note of avarice in his tone.
Sial recovered himself. “We must find a
way to get inside, to confirm that it is a true Star Tower.”
“Not so fast,” Tomas interrupted. “We
still have to defeat these chained spirits, right? Right?”
“What? Oh, yes – of course,” Sial
stammered. “As faithful members of the Brotherhood of Bones it is our duty to
recover the relics of Kazavon, and to do that we will need the sword,
Serithtial. We will see this quest through, but once it is complete I must report
back to the Umbral Court at once.”
Most of the others had been more
interested in closing their wounds than in Sial’s history lesson and visions of
glory, and the party’s healers had been busy repairing the damage done by the
Prelate and his giant servant. As they finished, Tomas returned to the question
of strategy. “Which way next?” he asked. “We’ve got a set of stairs leading
down here, but there’s still a lot of this floor we haven’t explored.”
“If we’re looking for the Bishop, Zev
Ravenka, I don’t think we’re going to find him up here,” Nat offered, pointing
to the stairs. “I’m betting he’s downstairs.”
“But I don’t like the idea of not
knowing what’s behind us,” Jax countered. "We don’t want to get into a fight
downstairs and have a bunch of reinforcements come pouring down behind us.”
In the end, Jax’s argument won the day.
They returned to the hall they’d encountered after they’d first entered the
donjon. It continued east, making a sharp turn to the left. Tomas crept forward
and peered around the corner; the hallway continued on for some fifty feet,
ending with a closed door on either side. There was another door right beside
him, and he motioned for silence as he pressed his ear to it, but heard
nothing. He looked to the others for approval, then pushed the door open.
The room inside appeared to be the
donjon’s foyer; directly across from him he could see the back side of the
massive bronze doors they’d seen from the courtyard. The floor of the foyer was
tiled with blood-red marble. Small alcoves were inset into the east and west
walls of the room. To the east was a black altar resembling a skull, its lower
section wrapped in chains and its top cut off flat to form a level surface; a
rusty knife lay on the altar. To the west was pool of stagnant water, its lip
fashioned of white marble that contrasted sharply with the red floor. Besides
the double doors leading outside, there was another door just to Tomas’s left,
leading back to the north, parallel to the hall behind him.
Tomas smelled a trap, although he’d seen
no evidence of one, and he made no move to enter. Looking over his shoulder,
Shadowcount Sial felt a tingle of familiarity. He wracked his memory for anything
from his study of Kuthite rituals. “I’ve heard of something like this,” he
whispered. “It was an ancient ritual, practiced only by obscure sects and
fallen into disuse over the centuries. Upon entering a holy place, one was
expected to cut themselves and spill their blood upon the altar, to demonstrate
their willingness to suffer for the Midnight Lord. Then they would wash away
the impurities of the outside world before entering the sacred chambers within.”
“Doesn’t seem worth it to me,” Tomas
muttered, pulling the door shut. Something about that red floor gave him the
willies. He moved down the hall and checked the door on the right. Seeing
nothing of concern, he cautiously opened it. Inside was an opulent bedroom, its
furniture all swathed in folds of black cloth. A silver and onyx lamp hung from
the ceiling and a silver-framed mirror hung on one wall. A table covered with
black cloth still held silver dishes encrusted with dark stains. But there were
no inhabitants, and (as Shadow confirmed), so sign of magic.
The door across the hall opened into a
small, nearly triangular room, its back walls formed by the angles of the Star
Tower. Several shelves lined the walls, holding a dozen or more glass jars,
their contents obscured by murk, and ruined barrels and boxes littered the
floor. “Might have been the larder for the priests who lived here,” Jax
concluded, and started to pull the door closed.
“Wait!” Sial interrupted. “We should
probably check for secret doors. There has to be some way to get into the Star Tower.”
Jax sighed, and reversed direction. He
examined the seamless stone walls, finding no evidence of any hidden entrance,
but as he turned to leave, he was overcome by an overwhelming hunger and the
sudden urge to eat whatever was in one of the jars. Before anyone could stop
him, he grabbed one of the jars off a shelf and pried off the lid. The stench
of some long-spoilt meat flooded out of the jar and as it hit his nostrils the
strange urge passed, and he dropped the jar to shatter on the floor. He ran
retching out of the room, and the others gave him wide berth until he’d rid
himself of the last remnants of the morning’s Heroes’ Feast.
Other options exhausted, Tomas
reluctantly returned to the foyer. Making sure not to touch the red marble
floor (thankful for Nat’s earlier Mass
Fly spell), he examined the other exit from the room. As he did, Shadowcount
Sial strode to the altar, picked up the rusty knife, and sliced a deep cut into
his palm. He let the blood flow onto the top of the skull, then moved to the
pool. The water was green and stagnant, so the Shadowcount poured water from
his canteen onto his hands, washing them as he prayed, and letting the bloody
water drip into the pool. Nothing – good or bad – happened, and the Shadowcount
stood feeling refreshed. He tied a hasty bandage around his hand, but the throbbing
of the wound reminded him of his devotion to Zon-Kuthon, and for the first time
in weeks he felt devout again.
As the Shadowcount finished his
ablutions, Tomas pulled open the door. To no one’s surprise, it revealed
another hallway, with a dog-leg to the right forty feet down. At the corner,
Tomas could see the hallway continued another fifty feet, with simple wooden
doors evenly spaced every ten feet on its right-hand side; just beside him was
another door leading south.
“These doors look like they’re cells for
low-ranking priests,” Nat whispered. “With the Prelate behind us, and these
guys living here, we’re not going to find the Bishop up here. We need to go
downstairs.”
“You’re probably right,” Jax
acknowledged, “but we don’t want to leave any enemies at our backs.” At that,
he gave Tomas a nod, and the ranger pushed open the door. It opened into what
had once been a common room. A worn but colorful carpet covered most of the
floor, and a number of wooden tables and comfortable chairs were spaced about
the chamber for informal gatherings and meals. A small kitchen had been set up
by a low stone fireplace alongside a cupboard holding some dishes and utensils
as well as a few desiccated remains of foodstuffs. In the opposite corner of
the room an open staircase led down into darkness. But all of that was just
incidental; what captured his attention, and provoked a shout of alarm, were
the inhabitants of the room. Five semi-transparent spectres floated about the room,
their gauzy forms clad as priest of Zon-Kuthon. As the door opened, they
emitted a collective shriek, like dozens of fingernails down a blackboard, and
began to advance.
“Oh shit!” Tomas cried, and slammed the
door shut. Knowing a closed door would be no obstacle to the incorporeal
spirits, he ran full speed to the end of the hall, then spun with bow raised,
ready to provide cover from a distance. They had fought spectres before, in the
War Tower, and Erin recalled that the secret to defeating them then had been
light – lots of light. “Aid us now, Inheritor!” she cried, and held her sword
aloft, as her Power of Faith caused
the blade to glow with a light as bright as the mid-day sun. And not a moment
too soon. A spectre emerged through the closed door, but upon encountering the
holy light gave a shriek of pain and retreated. One after another, the spectres
emerged – some through the door, others through walls, only to flee. Two came
through doors at the end of the hallway, right in front of Tomas, but Erin’s
holy light washed over them and they, too, backed off.
“Good work!” Nat said with a quaver in
his voice. “Now let’s get the hell out of here!”
“No!” Erin commanded. “We need to
destroy them while they’re helpless!” With a nod from the Shadowcount, Asyra
threw open the door and advanced into the room. As the light flooded in through
the open door, the spectres cowered, helpless. The rest of the party began to
follow. Shadow moved to the doorway and pounded the nearest spectre with a
volley of Magic Missiles. Wren
advanced into the room, and called upon Pharasma to smite the undead spectres
with her holy power, and cacophony of wails filled the room as the wave of
positive energy swept over them. As the Shadowcount cast Haste, Nat conjured an Elemental
Wall of fire that caught two of the spectres in its flames, and singed two
more who were nearby. Tomas, unable to get a clear shot with all his friends
blocking the narrow doorway, kicked open the nearest door. As Nat had
predicted, the room inside was a spare priest’s cell. A simple cot sat against
one wall, and a brittle skeleton wearing fragments of black robes and rusty
links of chain lay on it, a knife still in its bony hand from when it had
committed ritual suicide. But Scarwall had not allowed the priest’s soul to
rest, and it now floated in the doorway, as Tomas fired an arrow into it at
point-blank range. Jax was also unable to get through the crowded doorway, so
he rushed down the hall to aid Tomas; his blade also sent a gout of ectoplasm
spraying over the walls.
The spectres in the common room were
helpless to attack in the face of Erin’s holy light. But they were not
immobile, and rather than stand and be slaughtered they simply sank into the
floor, somewhere into the deeper regions of the donjon. The spectre facing
Tomas was not helpless, however. Erin’s light bathed the hallway, but the
spectre was protected in the shadow of its cell. With an angry groan, it
reached out and swiped one incorporeal claw through Tomas’s chest. The ranger
felt the icy claw rip through his heart, as it tore away a chunk of his life
force.
Wren heard Tomas’s anguished scream, and
rushed to his side; seeing the spectre drawing back for another blow, she
blasted it with Searing Light, and it
exploded into a mist of ectoplasm. “Another one. In there,” Tomas groaned,
pointing his bow at the door from which the other spectre had momentarily
emerged. With the other spectres vanished for the moment, Erin had by now also
run to help Tomas. Her holy light still blazed, and as Jax kicked open the door
it bathed the cell inside. Like the other cell, the priest who had killed
himself had become a spectre, and it shrieked in pain as the light struck it.
The shriek was cut short as Jax stabbed it and Tomas sent arrow after arrow
slashing through its incorporeal form, until it evaporated into the ether.
While the fight had shifted to the far
end of the hallway, Asyra, Laori, and Shadow had taken up protective positions
at the top of the stairs in the common room, lest the spectres summon
reinforcements from below. None had come, but Wren knew that Erin’s light would
not last much longer, and when it faded they would lose their advantage. “Erin!
We need to move fast while we still have your light!” she commanded, and set
off at a run for the stairs. The others exchanged quick glances – they weren't
used to Wren being the one giving orders – but knew that she was right, and
hurried to follow her.
By the time they reached the bottom of the
stairs, Erin was in the lead. She held up a hand to stop them, paused for a
moment, then stepped out around the corner, her blazing sword presented in
front of her. Its light revealed a hallway running the entire length of the
donjon. At its far end it turned to the right – perhaps back to the stairs they
had found outside the private chapel. But about a third of the way down were a
pair of double doors. Like the doors leading into the donjon, they were massive
bronze affairs, each embossed with the image of Zon-Kuthon. Erin strode to the
doors, aware that the duration of her Power
of Faith was growing short. The others followed, casting hasty protective
spells as they moved: Gravity Bow on
Tomas’s bow, Greater Invisibility on
Shadow, Death Ward on Tomas (courtesy
of Laori), and a Prayer from Wren.
Pausing only seconds for everyone to get set, Erin threw open the doors, which
opened smoothly and silently.
Inside was vast chamber, floored in gray slate and supported by thick pillars of obsidian, inset with skulls. Torches mounted on the pillars burned, yet their flames were strangely dim, barely lighting the cathedral-like space. White pinpoints of light danced in the eye sockets of each skull that decorated the pillars and thick black curtains hung from the chamber’s walls, seeming to absorb what little light the torches produced. To the northwest, a tall statue of a skull-headed man dressed in dark robes stood behind a black marble altar, jagged, barbed chains dangling from the its eye sockets. On the altar lay heaped mounds of ashes, bits of bone, and a single skull, its teeth and eye sockets set with glittering gemstones.
The spectres they had routed from
upstairs had retreated here, to the Dark Shrine of Midnight, and they floated in
the air inside the vast room. The magical non-light cast by the room’s torches
battled with Erin’s holy light, pushing back against it as if against a
physical thing, but at last the power of Iomedae won out. As the light flooded
the room, the result was more like normal light – not daylight, but not the
barely-illuminated shadows cast by the torches. Nonetheless, the spectres
wanted no part of it; shrieking in fear, they retreated back up through the
ceiling.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Erin started
to step into the room, but Nat clutched at her in near panic. “Stop!” he whispered
urgently. “Don’t take another step!” He pointed a shaking finger at the
bejeweled skull resting on the altar. Following his finger, Wren, Jax, and
Shadow all gasped and went pale.
“Risibeth told us Zev Ravenka was a
lich,” Nat said, his voice shaking. “Maybe he was, when she knew him, but that,”
he pointed at the skull again, “is no mere lich.”
“What is it?” Laori asked, her voice
echoing the fear that her more knowledgeable comrades were showing.
“It’s a Demi-Lich,” Jax muttered,
and Nat nodded. “Far more
dangerous than a normal lich – and that’s saying a lot – and nearly impossible
to destroy. They say they can steal your soul and trap it in one of their gems,
utterly destroying your body.”
“And they’re supposed to be immune to almost
all magic,” Wren said.
“And they can emit a wail that will kill
everything within earshot,” Nat added.
“OK then – I guess we’re out of here,”
Jax said, and began backing slowly away.
“No,” Erin said grimly, as the holy
light faded from her sword and shadows reclaimed the chapel. “We have to
reclaim Serithtial, and to do that we have to defeat Mithrodar, the Chained
Spirit. And to do that,”
she pointed her sword at the glittering skull, “we have to kill him.”
The PCs earned 8,000 XP, putting them at
315,768 XP with 425,000 required for Level 15.
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