Have Fun Looting the Castle!

“Is this really worth it?” Jax grumbled. He kicked the iron statue of Kazavon that had attacked them, just to make sure it was really dead, then hopped on one foot for a bit, waiting for the throbbing in his big toe to subside. “I mean, I never like to turn my back on a bit of loot, but this place is huge, and who knows what else is waiting for us? There’s more gold than we can carry back in the Lord’s Tower – why don’t we just go load that up and be done with this place?”

“No!” Nat objected strenuously. “We should search the whole castle! There’s probably all sorts of really cool magical stuff just laying abandoned here – we need to check every single room!”

Having learned that where Nat was involved it was wise to pick your battles, everyone shrugged and moved on. They were methodically clearing the second floor of the castle, having made their way down here from the gatehouse loft. A broad central hall wound through the heart of the keep, its floor littered with old bones and the walls festooned with ancient, tattered paintings. A thin miasma of sulfurous smoke hung in the air. They’d been through most of the rooms to the west, and now headed east. The next door they opened revealed what had once been a fine bedroom, its furnishings now little but rotting splinters. In the remains of a desk, Jax spotted a large ring of keys that he hung from his belt, but Nat had already moved on, having hastily cast Detect Magic to determine that there was nothing of value (to him) in the room.

That formed the pattern for their search. They’d open a door, pause for Nat or Shadow to Detect Magic, and then move on if no auras showed up. The next three rooms were small bedrooms, possible clerks’ quarters in Kazavon’s day, but devoid of magic. The central corridor made a turn: to their left was a staircase leading up, back to the level of the Lord’s Tower, while a bit to the right was a staircase leading down to the first floor. The corridor wound around that staircase, lined with more doors, and another heavy door sat opposite it.

Jax pushed open the door opposite the stairway. This room’s furnishings left no doubt as to its original purpose — racks, iron maidens, cages, and other implements of torture littered the room. Disturbingly, these objects were in remarkable condition and appeared to be in fine working order, with not a speck of dust or mold to be seen. Looking over Jax’s shoulder, Nat cast Detect Magic. “Nope – nothing. Let’s go.” Jax started to close the door, but he noticed another door on the far southern wall of the torture chamber, and was suddenly seized with an overwhelming feeling that he really needed to see what was behind that door. Ignoring Nat, he strode into the room, moving purposefully toward the closed door. Not sure what was up, Erin and Tomas followed. Not wanting to be left out, Shadow followed them, while Nat hovered in the doorway.

Jax threw open the far door, but found nothing but a long storage space, full of ruined boxes but nothing of interest. But suddenly, a shifting haze of indistinct images began to swirl throughout the room. One of the images swam into focus, and Jax suddenly saw himself confronted by Gaedren Lamm, holding a chain attached to Gobblegut’s collar! The old man chuckled gleefully as he urged his pet alligator forward towards Jax. At the same time, Tomas saw the figure of his brother step out of the mist. A horrible deep cut leaked blood across Jarent’s throat, and Tomas knew it went all the way through his neck. Indeed, his brother’s head slid back and forth on his neck, threatening to fall off as he advanced, outstretched finger pointing accusingly at Tomas. Both men knew, in some part of their brain, that these images were not real – could not be real – but they were badly shaken nonetheless.

The others saw nothing but indistinct forms swirling in the shadows. Shadow heard Tomas and Jax gasp in terror, and decided he wanted no part of whatever was going on, and headed for the door. No sooner had he reached it when a creature appeared in the doorway behind him. It was an amalgamation of all of Shadow’s worst fears: the horrible worm he had turned into in his vision of Kleestad, the vampire they’d found in the Temple of Urgathoa, a bleeding Blood Veil victim, and more. It lashed out at Shadow, and seemed to tear at his very soul. For a moment, his heart literally stopped from fright – but then it resumed beating again, leaving the sorcerer weak with fear. He blinked, and the image was gone.

But at that instant, something else blinked into view inside the room. It was a tall, lean figure, with a tattered robe and broad-brimmed hat, its face locked in a rictus grin of purest evil. It raked Tomas with its black-nailed claws. To Tomas, it was the final straw, and his fears overcame him; with a scream of terror, he turned and fled into the hoped-for safety of the closet at the end of the room.

Everyone else turned to confront the newcomer. Jax, keeping one eye on Lamm and Gobblegut, moved towards the creature, but he was so distracted by his childhood fears that his swing missed badly. Erin had no external terrors distracting her, but her attack fared no better. Even Nat, standing in the hall outside, couldn’t hit, as his Orb of Light sailed harmlessly over the creature’s head. He could tell that this was some sort of fey, and guessed that it must have been a creature like the dragon Belshallam, who had come to the castle after the curse had descended and been trapped here by it. After long years of captivity, it might not even realize it was free to leave now.

Shadow didn’t worry about what or why the thing was here; he just wanted to kill it. He slammed it with Magic Missiles, and grinned as it staggered under their impact. It spun and fixed him with its evil grin, then vanished. An instant later, another Phantasmal Killer appeared behind Shadow, but this time the sorcerer recognized the thing for the illusion that it was, and it dissolved into shadow.

Jax wanted to put as much distance between himself and Gobblegut as possible, and dashed for the door. But as he ran, an invisible claw clutched at his sleeve, and the bogeyman reappeared. Swallowing his fear, Jax stopped and swung at the creature, but missed again. Erin, now able to see her target, closed and swung, but still couldn’t hit the thing. Nat bit back his own fears, and stepped into the room, then fired a volley of Intensified, Empowered Magic Missiles that almost knocked the creature off its feet. Wren moved to the doorway and said a Prayer to Pharasma for her aid, while Shadow hit the thing with still more Magic Missiles.

Tomas had run down the long, L-shaped storage area as far as he could, and now found that the terrifying images that had haunted him were gone. Trying to regain his courage, he made his way back to the door to the torture chamber, and fired off an arrow, but his hands were still shaking so badly that it glanced off the ceiling above the bogyeman.

The bogeyman shifted away around Erin, nimbly avoiding Jax and Erin’s attempts to stop him, then he unleashed an invisible wave of Crushing Despair that washed over everyone except Tomas. For a moment, their situation seemed utterly hopeless. But they had survived too much already, and each of them brushed the supernatural despair aside. The bogeyman tried to cast another Quickened Phantasmal Killer but Erin’s reflexes were too fast. Serithtial stabbed forward, and the fey let out a scream as its Cold Iron blade sank into its guts. Jax, still trying to stay away from Gobblegut’s jaws, sent his own Magic Missiles flying at the creature. As they impacted, it fell backwards, and the horrifying images filling the room faded away into shadows.

“I’m telling you – this is stupid,” Jax grumbled as Nat cast another Detect Magic into the torture chamber and the storage space beyond. Nat pretended not to hear him, and moved back into the central corridor. They found themselves back outside the doors leading into the Great Hall, where they’d fought Mithrodar, the Chained Spirit. Across from it were two more doors. One opened into a room with a once-elegant desk, its top strewn with moldy scrolls, a human skull, a tarnished candlelabrum, and other ornaments. A tall-backed but moldy chair sat behind the desk, and several smaller chairs lay in ruins throughout the room. An immense but sagging portrait of an armored Kazavon leading an army through rugged hills hung askew on one wall. The other held several ratty, ruined couches and shelves lined with broken wine bottles and serving trays lined with sheets of mold.

“I’m guessing this was an audience chamber for one of Kazavon’s officials,” Tomas offered, pointing to the first room, “and this was a waiting room for those waiting to meet with him, or for an audience with the big guy himself.”

Nat interrupted with a squeal of glee, as his Detect Magic finally spotted something. “Over there – in that desk,” he commanded, pointing Jax towards his find (he was eager to search – but only from a distance). Jax dutifully rooted through the ruined desk, and came up with a silver signet ring. “Let me see that,” Tomas said, and held the ring up to the light. “That’s the royal crest of Tamrivena!” he said, recognizing it from his childhood studies of heraldry. “I’m betting this belonged to Count Andachi!”

By this point, they felt that they’d explored all of the second floor of Castle Scarwall. Jax again argued that they’d done enough, and Nat again urged for a full door-to-door search. Grumbling all the way, Jax led them down the stairs they’d found. At the foot of the stairs, they found themselves in an abandoned workshop of some sort; empty shelves and dusty workbenches, their surfaces marred with odd-colored circular stains, were all that remained. However, an odd arrangements of strings led from the double doors opposite the stairs (which were slightly ajar) to several points around the room. “Hang on as sec,” Jax said in a worried tone, and moved carefully in to examine the strings. After a few minutes, he relaxed and gave the all-clear. “It looks like someone had rigged some sort of trap that would go off when anyone opened the door,” he explained, “but it looks like they disabled it in a hurry.”

Tomas moved immediately to the partially opened double doors. They led to a wide corridor running the width of the castle. Its opposite wall was pierced with arrow slits, and he could see into the castle courtyard beyond them. The floor was littered with giant bones, crossbows, and bolts. “Here’s who was shooting at us a few days ago,” he said, nudging one pile of minotaur bones with his foot.

There were three more doors in the room at the foot of the stairs. One led to another narrow storage space. The second revealed an odd room, with innumerable bags of netting hanging on its walls, holding bottles, clay jars, dried plants, desiccated bits of animals, and similar things. Tattered, gauzy curtains were strung throughout, creating a kind of diaphanous maze. The whole place was choked with a dank-smelling smoke that still rose thinly from a pitted iron brazier set in the center of the chamber. “This couldn’t have been left that long ago,” Tomas said warily, but there was no sign of whoever had lit the brazier. The final door led to an ancient wine cellar. Most of the bottles had shattered long ago, but a few were still intact. None were magical though (as Nat confirmed) and so everything was left alone.

The broad hallway held several more doors. One set of double doors obviously led out into the courtyard. Across from it was another pair of double doors, and this was where the party went next. Pulling them open, they found a long hallway, twenty feet wide, its walls lined with wispy bits of tattered tapestries. A battle had clearly taken place here; the floor was littered with ancient bones from scattered skeletons – some human but mostly orc – amid bits of broken weaponry and armor. Just beside the door was one skeleton that remained whole, sitting slumped against the wall, clad in dust-caked full plate armor. Despite its centuries-long layer of dust, the armor was clearly fine, and bore a brightly-painted crest on its breastplate. “That’s the heraldry of the nation of Lastwall,” Tomas whispered, kneeling before the body. He looked around at the dead orcs littering the hall. “This must have been his last stand. He fought here when the castle was overwhelmed, trying to defend what he had only just taken.” He looked up at the others, his expression solemn. “I believe this is the body of Mandraivus, conqueror of Scarwall.”

The discovery dampened everyone’s mood. Erin said a quiet prayer to Iomedae, but they left Mandraivus’s body undisturbed. Another pair of double doors led out of this room; they’d once been barred with a heavy iron bar, but it now lay shattered on the floor. When everyone was ready, Tomas pulled open the doors. On their other side was a scene of carnage, the likes of which they’d never seen. Bodies lay everywhere, orc and human alike. Judging by the sprawled and mutilated nature of the corpses, they fought brutally before succumbing to their wounds, dying in heaps on the floor. Many corpses were riddled with arrows and crossbow bolts, and a few appeared to have perished while locked in mortal combat still holding weapons embedded in various parts of each other’s anatomy. Strangely, while the room reeked of death, the bloodstains on the walls and floor seemed incredibly ancient.

“Why are these bodies so fresh?” Erin whispered. Indeed, the corpses in this room looked like they might have perished only yesterday, while those in the room with Mandraivus – clearly from the same battle – were nothing but dried and brittle bones.

“Maybe it was some aspect of the Curse,” Wren speculated. “But who knows why this room was affected this way, but not any of the others.” At the far end of the gruesome  hall they could see the back side of the steel gates that led back into the castle gatehouse. Shadow did a quick Detect Magic from the safety of the doorway; seeing nothing in the immediate vicinity, they carefully closed the doors. No one much wanted to set foot in that charnel house.

There were still more doors in the hall they were in, so they started checking them. The first led to a corridor lined with arrow slits that looked out into the massive death chamber. Human bodies in chain shirts lay on the floor among the broken remains of shortbows and quivers of arrows. At the far end of the defense corridor was another door, which opened into a barracks area, its large bunks sized for the minotaurs who had served Kazavon. An orc’s body lay on the floor by one wall, clearly much fresher than most of Scarwall’s corpses (possibly only decades old). On the wall above it was a message, scrawled in blood. “Beware of Ukwar!” Nat translated.

Another door led to a short hallway along the castle’s outer wall; on its left were three more doors. The first led to a bedroom once better appointed than the barracks, possible a commander’s room. The next was another bedroom, with a desk heaped with rotted scrolls and an iron footlocker along one wall. The party had by now fallen into a routine: Jax would open a door, do a quick scan, then move on to the next while Nat followed along casting Detect Magic. Nat stepped into the second room as Jax pulled open the door to the third. This also looked like it had been an officer’s quarters, but it was not empty. A tall, skeletal figure clad in spiked plate armor and holding a glowing greatsword stood in one corner. As the door opened, a gleam of hatred glowed in its eyes. “This time I shall not fail you, Master Kazavon!” it roared.

The room’s odd shape and the narrow, angled hall outside, made it impossible for most of the party to see what had just challenged them. Jax, standing in the doorway, had no doubt. He stepped into the room, opening the doorway for reinforcements to follow, and quickly cast Magic Missiles at the creature. Shadow followed, unlimbering the Staff of Necromancy he’d found in Belshallam’s hoard. He’d been dying (no pun intended) to try it out, and this seemed the perfect opportunity. He pointed it at the undead knight, and cast Halt Undead, but to his dismay the spell had no effect whatsoever. Wren advanced as close as she could without getting in everyone else’s way, and Channeled the power of Pharasma. The wave of holy energy swept into the room, but she could feel some sacrilegious aura inhibiting her connection to her goddess, and the positive energy had little effect on the creature.

Erin pushed past Wren, and charged at the undead knight, Serithtial glowing brightly, but the knight deftly parried her blow. Then it swung its greatsword two-handed, and its blade sliced through Erin’s armor like butter. The blade dripped with acid that burned away at flesh and metal alike. The knight struck once, then again on the backswing, and with those two hits, Erin was near death.

Nat was still flying, and he zipped over everyone’s heads, staying close to the ceiling in the farthest corner of the room from the thing they were fighting. One look at they glowing eyes set in its fleshless skull, and the fine armor that seethed with acid, told him what they were up against. “Holy shit!”, he shrieked. “That’s a Graveknight!” Knowing he needed to pull out all the stops, he hurled an Empowered Orb of Light that exploded with a flash in the graveknight’s face. When the flash cleared, the glow in the creatures eyes was dulled, and it shook its head trying to clear its vision.

Tomas also flew into the room, and fired off a single arrow that punched through the graveknight’s armor. Jax fired another volley of Magic Missiles, but the bolts of force vanished as they reached their target, thwarted by its innate resistance to magic. Shadow got luckier, and his Magic Missiles got through. Wren called upon Pharasma again, but this time her Channel was aimed at healing Erin, rather than hurting the graveknight. Erin gritted her teeth; Wren’s healing had helped, but if this thing hit her again like it had the first time, she’d be beyond any form of healing. “Guide this holy blade, crafted by your hand,” she prayed, and then she swung. The graveknight, still blinded by Nat’s spell, never saw it coming. The first thrust caught it in the gut; as it doubled over in agony, Erin swept her blade around, and its helmed skull clattered onto the floor.

As everyone stood panting in the aftermath of the fight, Jax spoke the thought that was going through several of their minds: “I thought all the undead in this place were supposed to be gone!” he said angrily. “I thought we were supposed to be searching an empty castle!”

“Well, that bogeyman wasn’t really an undead,” Nat said defensively.

“Are you going to tell me this wasn’t undead?” Jax demanded, giving the skeleton on the floor a vicious kick.

“No, he’s undead, but he’s a graveknight,” Nat said, as if that would explain everything. When he saw by Jax’s glower that it didn’t, he went on. “A graveknight is bound to its armor. It’s like a lich’s phylactery: as long as the armor exists, the graveknight will eventually rejuvenate within it.”

“So you mean we can’t even sell it?” Jax said incredulously. This was adding insult to injury.

“Well, we could still sell it,” Nat offered. “As long as we hurried up, and didn’t tell whoever we were selling it to.” The glares he got from Wren and Erin quickly made him change his tune. “But that would be wrong!” he amended hastily. “I think we just have to leave it here.”

“Can we destroy it?” Wren asked.

Nat stroked his chin (he was working on a proper wizard’s beard, but so far all he had were a couple of wispy chin hairs and a slight discoloration on his upper lip). “I suppose I could try Disintegrate on it. Or we could drop it into an active volcano. Or take it to the Positive Energy Plane. Although … that wouldn’t be a good idea.”

“Fine! Leave it then!” Jax snorted, and stormed out of the room.

The party spent a few minutes breaking open the footlocker in the previous room. Nat had spotted some magic inside it, but after several minutes of pounding on the rusted-shut iron box, it turned out to only be a potion that had decayed into poison over the preceding centuries. This further soured Jax on the prospects of searching the rest of the castle, but nonetheless he followed along as they backtracked to the hall where they’d found Mandraivus’ body. Moving west from there, they found the castle’s kitchens, and another layout of barracks and officers’ quarters that mirrored those on the eastern side of Scarwall. Fortunately, they found no more inhabitants, but their magic-only searching didn’t turn up anything else, either. Jax did find a small stash in the kitchen, but it turned out to be a few partially melted silver teeth, a melted gold ring, and an odd green stone. “Ewww … that’s a gallstone!” Wren said, looking over Jax’s shoulder, and he dropped it as if it were hot.

“That does it!” he stormed. “This is a waste of time. We’re not here to go shopping – we came here to get that damned sword, and now that we’ve got it, we need to get the hell out of here!”

“Jax is right,” Tomas chimed in. “We have more important things. We should go back to Janderhoff to re-equip, and then get back to Korvosa. The city needs us.”

“But … we still didn’t finish that wing where we first came in.” Nat sputtered. “Who knows what in all those rooms.”

“No!” Jax insisted, and this time everyone else was nodding in agreement. “We go back up to the Lord’s Tower, shovel up all those coins and shit we left there and move on. We’re done here.”

Nat had no choice but to agree, although his pout made it clear he was not happy with the decision. Their Mass Fly spell had long ago run out, so they had no choice but to make the trek back to the third floor on foot. They stopped by Mandraivus on the way out, respectfully removing his armor, then proceeded back up the stairs to the second floor, then up the ones leading to the third.

At the top of those stairs, they found themselves in – surprise, surprise – another dark, winding hallway, made even gloomier by the thick sheets of cobwebs that hung from above. Dust and fragments of bone littered the floor and portraits hung askew on the walls, their subjects lost to a layer of mold and grime. Nat’s eyes lit up at the prospect of more doors to open, and they began to explore once again. Several opened onto open balconies, with no railings to prevent a fall to the shore of the lake below. Stone gargoyles watched over these balconies, with several open spots showing where others might once have rested. Another door led into an abandoned storeroom, but it contained no magic and was hence ignored. Yet another revealed a small library, it shelves holding a modest collection of scrolls and books. “Ooo! Magic! Magic!” Nat enthused. “Over there!” he pointed. “Go get it!”

“Get it yourself!” Jax groused. He was sick of being Nat’s designated trap-finder. Realizing he was on his own, Nat tip-toed into the room, and used the blade of his dagger to gingerly move books and papers aside until he uncovered the magical scrolls his spell had revealed.

While Nat was retrieving his booty, the others had moved on. The next door they opened was another bedroom. This one had an arcane circle inscribed on the floor in blood. Shadow gave it a quick glance, but couldn’t tell what it might once have been used for. His own Detect Magic showed that it was no longer active, nor was there anything else with a magical aura inside, so they moved on. Tomas pulled open the next door; it led in the direction they needed to go, back towards the Lord’s Tower. The room inside was probably once a guardroom, with a single table, a pair of chairs, and a tarnished brazier for heat. Above the table was a bronze gong with a striker, and around the table stood a trio of spike-covered infernal creatures: Barbed Devils! As soon as the door opened, they all let out bellows of rage.

Nat had been hurrying to catch up when he heard their shout, and dashed behind Tomas to fire off a quick set of Magic Missiles at the nearest devil, even as Tomas feathered another. Shadow stepped into the doorway beside Tomas, and breathed out a cone of Fire Breath that engulfed two of the barbed devils, but did absolutely no damage to the hell-born creatures. Realizing that moving to the front might have been a tactical mistake, Shadow cast a Quickened Vanish. But it was too late. One of the barbed devils rushed to the spot where it had last seen Shadow, lashing out with its claw. It connected, and the claw sank deep into Shadow’s flesh. The devil grabbed Shadow and yanked him close, impaling him on the bony spikes that covered its body. Another charged Tomas, and it too sank its claws into him, pulling him into a deadly embrace that not only left him badly injured, but terrified to be in the clutches of a creature from Hell. The third barbed devil simply vanished, only to reappear a second later in the hallway, right next to Nat; now that Scarwall’s Dimensional Anchor had been lifted, these creatures could teleport at will.

Shadow and Tomas were blocking the doorway into the room, leaving no way to attack the devils who clutched them. That left Erin only one target, and she pushed past Nat to get to the devil who’d appeared next to him. It gashed her with one claw as she moved into position, but she stabbed Serithtial into it, calling upon Iomedae to Smite Evil as she did. Jax, knowing they were in a bad spot, cast Haste on the party as Wren called down Destruction on the devil threatening Erin and Nat.

Maybe Jax had been right all along – maybe Castle Scarwall was still a very dangerous place.

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The PCs earned 9,600 XP, putting them at 395,235 XP, with 425,000 required for Level 15.