With no more traps left to bother us in the large room with the statues, we finally get a chance of opening the doors blocking our path forward. As soon as we get the doors open, we notice a rather foul smell of decomposing flesh and notice that we are once again beset by the undead. It was a large room, with a set of stairs to the east, and inside it were at least a dozen of Zombie Rotters, a couple of Zombies, a Ghoul and a construct we recognized as a Clay Scout. We were immediately swarmed by the undead mass, but they weren't much more of a threat than most of the undead we had fought before. Again Ceteribus and Sora have their moment in the sun, killing off a large number of Rotters with their Turn Undead and Dragonbreath, respectively, while the others attempted to deal with the tougher Zombies and Ghoul.
Despite the large number of the enemy force, we were making good progress, despite the constant harassment by the Clay Scout's dazing attacks. The undead were no match for Ceteribus's radiant energy attacks and so the Rotters were soon destroyed, followed by the larger Zombies and the Ghoul, which despite being much tougher than the rest, couldn't cope with our focused firepower. All that was left was the single Clay Scout, which we had avoided enganging, because we knew due to my arcane knowledge, that it had a way of redirecting attacks against it to nearby creatures. He managed to rebound an attack against Chuck, which was of no consequence, because he would soon fall to a barrage of ranged powers.
With the battle won, we were free to look around the room and noticed the remains of the undead's past meals... There were discarded humanoid bones and pieces of decaying flesh as well as tattered clothing and pieces of armor everywhere. Amidst this mess, we were able to find a nice Bag of Holding, which would make carrying loot around much easier. The only way to go now was the eastern staircase, which ended in another pair of double doors. As we approach the door with caution, we can hear some sort of chanting coming from the other side. Kralho checks the door and finds that it isn't locked, but that it seems to be heavily fortified from the other side. Fearing that the chanting could mean that Kalarel was already conducting the ritual, we saw no other solution than to attempt to break down the doors and interrupt him. The rest of our party pushed themselves against the door as hard as they could, while i prepared to attack any hostile creature behind it.
The combined efforts of our stronger members were enough to push through the barricated door and we were able to go in. The door led into a huge room that in ancient times must have served as a cathedral, but was now obviously being used to commit unholy sacrifices. The center of the room was very brightly lit by three blue-green pillars, which emitted an eerie greenish light, giving the room an unsettling atmosphere. In the center of the room, there was a square pit and streams of blood were issuing towards it from the back of the room, where a dark robed figure stood before an altar, chanting in a misterious language and holding a sacrificial dagger. Upon the altar, was the priest's latest victim, it's blood gushing and joining the streams of blood that led into the pit.
Noticing our entrance, he turned towards us, revealing a face tattoed with a ram's skull, ceasing his chanting, and looking at us with murderous eyes. However, we could still hear muffled chanting and to our surprise it seemed to come from the pit in front of us, which meant it probably led into another chamber, and that this dark figure was not our quarry, Kalarel, but more likely one of his minions, left behind to prevent us from interrupting him. If this was true, it meant time was short, and that we had to deal with him quickly. Nonetheless, we advanced carefully, because it was definitely suspicious to find only a single figure expecting us.
Our suspicions were proven right, because as we got closer to the pit, two Human Berserkers ermerged from their hiding places behind the shining pillars, with a third one appearing from our right. To our left, a small group of Vampire Spawn were poised to strike, accompanied by a shadowy creature we recognized as a Dark Creeper. We prepared to hold our ground at the door, letting the foes come to us, thus preventing them from isolating any of our number, which could prove to be deadly. Besides, there was the proximity of the pit worry about, especially because we had no idea where it would lead, how deep it would be, or what was expecting us at the bottom.
After unleashing a few handaxes at us, the Berserkers were the first to close into melee, fighting with great rage. They were soon followed by the Vampire Spawns and the Dark Creeper, as the dark robed figure advanced barking orders: "Kill them all, Lord Kalarel must not be interrupted". As we suspected, he was not yet the one we seeked, which did not lessen our resolve. It was clear we had to win fast and reach Kalarel before he could complete his goal. Ceteribus's Turn Undead proved useful once again, wiping out most of the Vampires. The Berserker's and the Creeper however were giving us some trouble, fighting with great ferocity. Meanwhile the dark priest stayed in the back, attacking us with powerful ranged attacks and bolstering his allies.
A combined effort from our strikers took out the Dark Creeper, which exploded in a burst of darkness, blinding all of us around him temporarily. About the same time, the first of the Berserkers went down and Chuck attempted to push another into the pit with Tides of Iron, unsuccessfully. They learned after that and avoided fighting near the pit for the remainder of the battle. The Berserker's were dishing out a hefty dose of damage and kept blocking the path to the priest striking us from the backlines. Finally, after a lot of back and forth attacks we managed to kill the Berserkers and headed straight to the priest, who, without any more minions to cover him, was no match for our combined firepower.
We quickly looked around the room and concluded that the only exit was to descend into the pit, which had four tightly wrapped chains, one in each corner, that could be used to ease our descent. We had no doubt now that we were heading into the final battle, where we would have to win, or watch Lord Orcus's forces come into the world as a consequence of our defeat. Learn all about it, in the next installment.
No comments:
Post a Comment