Serithtial Recovered!

“She’s a cleric!” Nat shouted as he shook off the effects of the Unholy Blight cast by the latest gug who’d come to the party. The other two were bellowing at the top of their lungs; if they were shouting words, it was in a language unlike any he’d ever heard. If these things worshipped Rovagug, then he didn’t want to find out what other surprises they might have in store for them. With adrenaline-fueled quickness, he summoned a Cold Ice Strike that sent slivers of ice slicing through everything in front of him: the two surviving gugs and their Gug Savant cleric, but also one of the Shadowcount’s Earth Elementals. He followed up with a Cone of Cold that turned the two gugs into fallen snowmen, and left icicles hanging from the elemental’s and Savant’s nose and ears. Having done his part, he zipped through the air to hide behind one of the gug’s stone huts.

Jax emerged out of the tunnel, and did a quick survey of the battlefield. He could see a bit of the Gug Savant behind one of the huts, and slipped off to the left, squeezing between the hut and the cavern wall to be able to come up on the Savant from behind. Tomas was still sickened from the cleric’s Blight, but managed to squeeze off a shot, but it sailed off into the dark waters of the lake.

Suddenly those waters began to roil. A vast form emerged from the cold depths, perhaps summoned by the calls of the creatures on the shore. It was a worm-like thing, easily eighty feet long. Its sickly, pale flesh was infested with rot and pustules, and dozens of legs twitched spasmodically along the length of its body, while its upper torso was vaguely human, its face contorted with agony. As soon as he saw it, Shadow was overcome with a shudder of revulsion – and familiarity. He recalled the vision he’d had a few days earlier, when they’d found the chambers of Kazavon’s chamberlain, Kleestad. He recalled the terror as Kazavon had discovered that Kleestad was the traitor who had betrayed Castle Scarwall to its enemies, and the pain as the warlord had broken both his ankles as the first – and least – part of his punishment. Of crawling through the bloody bodies after the battle, of prying the holy sword from Mandraivus’s dead hands and escaping with it, down into the depths beneath the Star Tower. But even there, he had not been safe from Zon-Kuthon’s wrath, and the Midnight Lord had punished his betrayal by transforming him into a great worm, unfit to walk upright as he suffered the god’s eternal torment. This, then, had to be what remained of Kleestad, still protecting his prize all these centuries later. Shadow cast Disintegrate against the thing, but it shrugged off the spell almost without noticing. Not wanting to become the focus of its wrath, Shadow cast a Quickened Vanish and flew far out over the lake.

Kleestad charged the shore. He did not seem to be swimming as much as flying through the water. He opened his mouth and howled in pain, and a torrent of acidic blood spewed forth. Nat and Jax, hiding behind different huts, were shielded from the flow, and Tomas somehow managed to evade it, but Wren and Erin (and the poor Elemental) were drenched, burned, and completely nauseated. Wren flew off to the right, following Nat to crouch behind one of the huts as she vomited; Erin flew left, and Jax, invisible on the ground below her, felt chunks of the morning’s Heroes’ Feast begin to rain down on his head.

Shadowcount Sial heard the commotion, and saw a spray of acid begin to bubble on the wall of the tunnel ahead of him. He magnanimously ordered his Elemental bodyguard to attack, then advanced down the tunnel to cast a belated Haste. The Elemental disappeared into the stone wall, only to appear on the battlefield a few seconds later; its mate, frozen by ice and seared by acid, nonetheless advanced to confront the Savant, but it could do nothing but vomit pebbles on her feet.  The Gug Savant had not been in the spray of bloody vomit, and did not seem at all surprised or frightened by Kleestad’s arrival. She swung the odd, snake-headed rod she carried at the Earth Elemental, chipping off blocks of stone, then struck with her own toothy maw. More stone chips flew, but somehow the Elemental still stood.

Nat left his hiding spot and flew far out over the lake. The cavern was pitch black, but he could see Kleestad silhouetted against the party’s magical lights. He could also see the bright light shining on a rocky island far out in the lake. From shore, it had looked like a distant star, but from here, he could see that it was no star – it was a sword, a beautiful silver bastard sword embedded point-first in the stone! For a moment, he forgot all else, and started to dash forward to claim it for himself, but he could hear the distant cries of his friends, and he knew they needed his help. Turning in mid-air, he cast an Ectoplasmic Fireball that exploded around Kleestad. Unfortunately, the spell’s flames seemed to do only minor damage.

Jax finally managed to squeeze out from behind the stone hut. He could see the Gug Savant in front of him, and he knew the Greater Invisibility he’d cast when they’d first encountered the gugs would give him the element of surprise. He crept up behind her, then lashed out with his sword. It severed her spine, and she dropped like a bag of rocks. Tomas managed to shake off the effects of the Unholy Blight, and fired off a volley of arrows. They sank deep into Kleestad’s corrupted flesh, but it was not clear if the enormous thing was even aware of them. It lashed out with one mighty claw and the hapless Elemental exploded into a rain of gravel. It then flowed forward, floating just above the surface of the ground, howling in pain. The other Elemental advanced and punched the great worm, adding to the wounds it already bore.

Shadow maneuvered to where he had a good angle to hit Kleestad but not his friends, then opened his mouth and breathed out a Lightning Bolt. The worm’s flesh blistered and cracked from the bolt’s energy. Nat flew on to hover above the glowing sword, but he again resisted the temptation to seize it. Seeing that Shadow's bolt had seemed to do full damage, he cast an Empowered Lightning Bolt of his own. It seared Kleestad, but  unfortunately, the bolt blasted through the worm and struck the Elemental standing in front of it as well. Erin wiped the vomit off her mouth and flew back into the fray. Staying back out of the creature’s absurdly long reach, she unleashed a burst of Shining Light that damaged the evil creature, while healing Wren who was standing nearby.

Jax really didn’t want to get too close to the huge worm, so he cast a Cone of Cold. Unfortunately, Kleestad somehow seemed to see him begin casting, despite the protection of his invisibility, and lashed out one of his claws. It raked Jax across the chest, and he felt unbearable pain throb in the wound, and he dashed into the protection of the nearest gug hut. His own spell washed over Kleestad, but the icy cold did little damage. Tomas, flying near the cavern ceiling, began shooting over the surviving Elemental’s head. His first two arrows disappeared into Kleestad’s chest. He opened his mouth and howled again with pain, and Tomas fired another arrow directly into its maw. The howl turned into a strangled gurgle, and it collapsed onto the ground, thrashing wildly for a few seconds until it at last lay still.

Nat saw Kleestad fall, and returned his attention to the sword, still glowing brightly. His hand shaking, he tentatively reached down and gripped the hilt. It slid out of the stone easily, and the light grew in intensity for a moment, then blinked out. As it did so, the heavy bastard sword transformed into a dagger in Nat’s hand. On shore, Erin looked up in surprise; ever since she’d entered the cavern, she’d heard a voice, singing off in the distance, but now the singing stopped. Nat examined the dagger in his hand; he normally wasn’t much of a fan of melee weapons but this one felt … nice. He tucked it into his belt and flew back to rejoin the rest of the group.

He found Wren dispensing healing to those who’d been injured. “Man, it still hurts so bad!” Jax moaned. Wren’s spells had closed his wounds, but he still clutched his arms tightly around his chest, rocking back and forth in pain. “Let me try this,” Wren said softly, then cast Lesser Restoration. Jax’s eyes opened wide, and he sighed in relief.

Nat had already begun searching the huts. The first couple he looked in had nothing of interest: dirty furs for beds, rotting remains of half-eaten meals. In the Savant’s hut, however, he stopped and caught his breath. The stone walls were plastered with mud, and the mud was embedded with hundreds of shining gold coins. He pulled his new dagger out of his belt and began prying them out of the wall. At first, he was just piling them on the floor, but then he stopped and began to examine them. They were unlike any coins he’d ever seen – not from any nation he knew of. Some had Thassalonian runes. Others had strange writing – he was no expert, but to him it looked like the script of the lost continent of Azlant. Still others bore odd hieroglyphs and images of inhuman beings. He gathered some up, and took them out to show the others.

Jax, in the meantime, had returned to the back of the hut where he’d snuck up on the Savant. He’d seen some remains back there, and wanted to take a closer look. There was a dead body all right – a very small one, smaller than a halfling. “Looks like it could be a Svirfneblin,” said Nat, looking over his shoulder as he searched the badly decomposed body. “A what?” Jax asked. “Svirfneblin – they’re the Darklands cousins of gnomes. Probably got caught by the gugs.” The thing’s only surviving possession was a tiny pick, very finely made, and Jax pocketed it.

Erin was turning the gugs’ huts upside down in a mad search. “Where is it?” she grumbled. “It’s got to be here somewhere. I heard it, calling to me.”

“What?” Nat asked innocently, fingering the hilt of his new dagger.

“Serithtial, you idiot!” Erin snapped. “The whole reason we’re here! We’ve got to find it.”

“What do you mean, you ‘heard’ it?” Wren asked in a slightly worried tone.

“The singing! Didn’t you hear it?” Everyone exchanged concerned looks as they shook their heads. “It was the voice of Iomedae – I’m certain of it! That light, out on the lake – where did it go?”

“Oh, that,” Nat said. “Yeah, it was coming from a sword that was stuck into the rock. But when I picked it up, it turned into a dagger.” He drew the dagger from his belt, wiped some of the mud off the blade, and held it up for all to see.

“Put. That. Down.” Erin commanded in a low voice. Nat shrugged, and laid the dagger on the sand at his feet. As he let go of the weapon, it returned to its natural form, and everyone let out a low gasp. A shining bastard sword lay before them, glowing with a soft light. Its blade was sliver etched with gold, and a diamond gleamed in its hilt. Wren knelt before the blade, examining it without touching. “That iconography,” she whispered, pointing to symbols etched in gold. “It indicates that this sword was dedicated to Aroden.”

“I knew it!” Erin said excitedly. “Iomedae was Aroden’s herald, before she ascended to godhood herself!”

“And the legends say that Iomedae herself forged Serithtial,” added Shadowcount Sial. He was staying well away from the glowing sword.

Erin took a deep breath, closed her eyes in prayer, then reached down and seized the hilt of the sword. As her fingers closed around it, she again heard a woman’s voice singing in her head, and felt her body suffused with a sense of holy rapture. The light of the blade blazed forth brightly, then faded again as the sword transformed in her hand, becoming a slender rapier. “This is Serithtial!” she whispered. “I can feel it. This is the holy blade of Iomedae, forged to battle the minions of Zon-Kuthon!” Sial took another step backwards.

Having at last retrieved Serithtial, the party returned to the base of the Star Tower and flew back up through the mist, arriving back in the Chamber of the Well. “OK!” Shadow said excitedly, “Let’s go loot the Castle!”

“Not so fast,” Jax cautioned. “We don’t know what’s still left here, and this is a big place. I think we should go back to our camp and recover a little, and talk about what to do next.” A short debate followed, but since Castle Scarwall wasn’t going anywhere any time soon, there really didn’t seem to be much urgency about searching it. With the duration of Nat’s original Mass Fly spell running short, they exited the Star Tower, popped out of the donjon, and flew back to their base at the barbican.

As the sun set, Shadowcount Sial stood staring across the dark waters at the vast castle looming in the growing shadows. “Now that you have the sword, my work here is done,” he said, turning back to the group. “I must return to Nidal, and inform the Umbral Court that I have discovered a new Star Tower. I must make arrangements for scholars to return here, and to guard it until the curate … returns. I must also inform the Brotherhood of Bones that I have succeeded in my mission, and that the Fangs of Kazavon will soon be ours.” Wren noticed that he didn’t mention Laori’s role in ‘his’ success, and turned away in disgust – she wished she could drop him into a pit. “I wish you success,” the Shadowcount continued. “When you have gotten the Fangs from your Queen, you can use Sending to contact me, and I will return to bring them back to Nidal for … disposal.” He bowed formally to the party, then drew a scroll out of his pack, read some words in Shadowtongue, and vanished.

The rest of the night passed quietly, with no ghostly lights seen in the castle’s windows. The next morning, Wren prepared another Heroes’ Feast, then turned to Jax. “It feels a little weird to do this on someone who’s still breathing,” she said and then cast Raise Dead to finalize the Temporary Resurrection Shadow had cast yesterday. Jax blinked a few times, then looked at her quizzically. “Am I supposed to feel any different?” Wren shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out if it worked later – if you don’t drop dead.” She then cast a Restoration to take care of one of the lost levels her spell had left Jax with.

Once Jax was squared away, the party prepared to set out. Nat started to cast his usual Mass Fly, but Tomas stopped him. “Why don’t we just walk there?” he suggested. And so the party set out across the long causeway leading to Castle Scarwall. At its far end, the found themselves confronted by an enormous iron portcullis. Some twenty feet farther in, they could see an equally huge steel gate. Both were firmly shut. “Can you open them?” Nat asked, turning hopefully to Jax. But the rogue simply held up his tiny lockpicks. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Hang on a sec,” Shadow said, then cast Slither to transform into a shadow. He slid through the bars and under the vast gate. He materialized inside a long entry hall. At the far end was another portcullis fronting another steel gate – both also shut. The ceiling was pierced with murder holes and the walls with arrow slits, but there was no other way out of the room. Casting Slither again, he reported back to the group.

“Makes sense,” Tomas muttered. “This is the Castle’s first line of defense. If someone penetrated this gate, you’d want to keep them bottled up trying to get through the second one.”

Shadow was looking up at the battlements above them. “I cast Fly on myself before we left,” he said. “I could fly up and tie off a rope, then you could all climb up. Everyone looked at the sheer stone walls rising eighty feet above them, then down at their heavy armor and cumbersome weaponry, and gave him the same ‘you’ve got to be kidding’ look Jax had given a moment before.

And so, Nat ended up casting Mass Fly after all, and everyone flew up to the parapet where they had fought Castothrane and his minotaur guards. Entering the castle through the towers at either end of the parapet, they found themselves in a long chamber with inward-sloping walls, like an attic. Old barrels and boxes, broken and empty lined the walls. A single staircase led down, and they followed it. On the next floor down, they found a similar-sized room containing an enormous winch apparatus, with a system of levers and gears that obviously controlled the raising and lowering of the portcullises, and opening of the gates. However, even if they worked out their operation, it wasn’t clear if their combined strength would be sufficient to move the massive winch.

At the north end of the room another stair led down, flanked by a wooden door. They opened the door, and found a central hallway that seemed to zig and zag through the heart of the keep. Intent on exploring the entirety of Castle Scarwall, they began opening doors. The first led into a common room; the poor quality of the ruined furniture suggested it had been used by servants. Beyond that was a short cross-hall; Tomas speculated that beyond it might be the Great Hall where they had defeated Mithrodar. Off it, they found a sparring chamber for the castle’s guards, its sparring dummies in ruins.

Returning to the central hall, Tomas opened the next door. Armor stands and weapon racks once filled this room, but all were now crumbled into rubble; the few visible weapons that remained had rotten wooden hafts or rusty, pitted blades. But in the far corner of the room stood an iron statue of Kazavon, gazing out imperiously. As Tomas opened the door, that imperious gaze turned to glare at the intruder.

Shadow was standing behind Tomas, and quickly fired a volley of Magic Missiles over his shoulder, but the bolts of energy ricocheted harmlessly off the statue. “It’s an Iron Golem!” Nat shouted. “Immune to magic!” He then cast an Orb of Light that exploded with a flash in the golem’s face. “Well … most magic,” Nat amended.

The flash seemed to have blinded the golem, at least for the moment. Erin pushed past Tomas and swung Serithtial at the thing, but she still had spots in front of her eyes from Nat’s spell as well, and the blow went wide. Tomas had no such problem. Drawing adamantine arrows from his quiver, he fired again and again at the construct. Each arrow rang against the metal statue like a hammer hitting an anvil. With the last arrow, a massive crack formed in the statue’s head, splitting it down the center, and it fell face-forward on the floor with a reverberating crash.

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The PCs earned 30,933 XP (!) putting them at 385,635 XP, with 425,000 required for Level 15.