7th of Sage’s Vigil, Year of the Horde
Today would turn out to have most unexpected results. We set out fully intending to seek out the kruthik hive-queen in its lair beneath the Abbey of Erathis, and fight it to the death (its death, that is—I’m none to fond of my death, and hope to postpone that particular meeting for many a year). Instead, we would find new friends—and new foes—in the dark sewers beneath cursed Phirul.
Our day started out routinely enough. After resting overnight in the cellar of Andy’s Armory, we trudged back to the sewer junction that would take us towards the Abbey. No sooner than we had reached the junction, however, when we came upon two other apparent survivors: a sword-bearing dragonkin, and a cloaked tiefling.
Viggo muttered at the latter under his breath, and put his hands to his sword grips. Bitter memories of tiefling raids against his people were always with him.
Hoping to make a rather better impression than a scowling Kuzian ranger, I stepped forward to greet the strangers. The dim flame of The Abzurian’s flickering torch lit our encounter.
“Hello!” I said, with a smile and a low bow, “I be Arnold Wurzel, and these be my friends… who be you, if I might be so bold as to enquire?” The tiefling stopped, and smiled.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have. If there is one thing that a trading life on the barges teaches you, it is how to read a smile. This one didn’t reassure me. It was what my blessed mother used to call a “Demarakian spoon-merchants’ smile” —the sort you’ll see on itinerant flatware peddlers who will try to sell you spoons with fantastic tales of their being forged in the very volcanic fires of Mount Rys… only to find that they wilt the first time they’re used in in a bowl of Polly Pepper Stew. Under my own cloak I palmed a spinnyblade, just in case.
The teifling continued. “I am Bidithal, and this is Zeer. We are sheltering a group of survivors… do you have any? How many of you are there?”
It was then that he noticed The Abzurian, and his smile slipped. “Why, its you…” he said with a dismissive sneer. Moments later, his attitude changed. Raising his hands, he uttered a dark invocation. Almost immediately, hideous putrid corpses began to rise from the fetid sewer waters around our feet. Hands began to claw at us.
The dragonkin by his side hissed, and pulled a large silver sword from the sheath across his back. He leapt forward to join the attack against us.
We drew our weapons. Battle was joined. The zombies, fortunately, we not the infected we had encountered so often in the city, but more of the common-or-garden sort (that is, if it is ever common to have zombies in one’s garden). However, the tiefling and dragonkin were formidable foes, what with the warlock’s deadly magicks and the warrior’s flashing blade.
At this point, both help and danger arrived from unexpected sources.
First, the small access door beside the warlock opened, and a blonde eladrin head poked through. Although the situation must have appeared chaotic—a motley band of heroes (that’s us, the heroes) fighting against undead and two foes in a dimly lit sewer beneath a zombie-infested city—she seemed to have a history with this particular tiefling. Moreover, it was not (as we would later learn) a very happy history. With little hesitation, she called a scorching burst onto Bidithal. She missed, but her fey wizardries were certainly a welcome addition to the fray.
The second source of unexpected help was preceded by a cry of “ahhhhhhhhhhh”, and the splashing sound of footsteps approaching us. A few seconds later, a frightened-looking human warlock rushed into the junction area to join us. While his arrival was welcome enough, the two large zombified dogs pursing him (grave hounds, Dirock later told me) were were decidedly not.
Fearing the warlock might not last long in the face of their snarling undead jaws, I rather uncharacteristically stepped forward to hold them back with my dagger. The hounds leapt at me, snapping at me with a bite that seemed to suck at my very life force. To my left, the warlock fell, only to be revived by Dirock’s healing word and by the power and grace of Kord.
Wounded, I eventually I had to step back, leaving Dirock to hold them at bay alone while I threw spinnyblade after spinnyblade in their direction. The warlock assisted with his own arcane powers. One finally fell from our combined blows.
The battle was a chaotic one. The zombies were slain quickly enough, but the remaining hound was a formidable foe. The Zeer and Thor circled in furious combat, a clash punctuated with draconic hisses and dwarven taunts. The eladrin blinked across the chamber in pursuit of the tiefling. Viggo helped us all with bow and sword.
The Abzurian, as was his habit, cowered in a corner.
We had begun to gain the upper hand, when Bidithal once more summon a dark ally. Rather than another zombie this time, it was instead a foul demon that arose from the muck to assault Thor. The dwarf seemed to shrug it off, however. Instead he focused on mocking the dragonborn, blocking his opponent’s blows with his shield and striking hard with his hammer whenever he saw an opening. I slipped in behind the summoned creature, and hit it hard with a dazing blow. Before I could follow up, however, I hear a groan and a soggy spash. Glancing to my left, I saw our new eladrin friend slump to the floor, badly injured. Viggo stepped towards her, attempting to hold her head above the water with his foot as he continued to loose arrows at our opponents.
Faster than a paladin fleeing a buxom barmaid, I dodged away from the demon, and ran to her aid. Taking the blue flask from my belt pouch, I administered the magical draught. A few long seconds later, her eyes begin to open. Aunt Petunia’s absent advice be praised—it indeed had been a good idea to pocket this potion!
She quickly leapt to her feet, and renewed her attacks against Bidithal. These, coupled with a few ranger arrows and a spinnyblade of my own, finally brought the warlock down.
Dirock and the human warlock, in the meantime, slew the second grave hound. Finally Thor finished off Zeer and the demon.
We had survived.
With the battle now over, our new acquaintances introduced themselves. The eladrin was named Kiira. She spoke little of her past, but did explain her hatred of Bidithal and Zeer. The two, it seems, and lured her into a trap, caged her, and used her life essence to power incantations of some sort. The Abzurian added more to the tale, noting (somewhat belatedly, as is another one of his habits) that he had been paid by Bithdal some weeks ago to teach him the ritual that hid one from the notice of the undead. It seems as if these two might have some part in the zombie infection that had afflicted the city.
The human was Noctuz, a warlock from southern Festung. Despite Viggo’s understandable interest at the mention of his homeland, he seemed even more secretive about his background. In his account, he had hidden in a warehouse of sorts when the plague struck. Unfortunately, the infected had eventually gained entrance, killing the other survivors that were sheltering with him. While the zombies eventually wandered back out of the building, his refuge had later come under assault from grave hounds. Noctuz had taken flight into the sewers with the abominations close at his heels, and encountered us shortly thereafter.
As our two new companions told us of how they had come to be in this place, I searched the bodies. There was much of use: a magical cloak, and enchanted sword and javelin, two more healing potions, and a fine dagger. The latter was, by my appraisal, a magicked duelist’s dagger, and as we shared these items among ourselves I took it for my own. In honour of my aunt’s sage advice, I nicknamed it “Petunia.”
We also found a medallion of the City Watch, marked with the name of one “Captain Vimes.” Clearly it belonged properly to neither of our dead foes, and it only increased our suspicions that they had been involved in some darker conspiracy.
Noctuz also mentioned two items that piqued our interest in the warehouse where he had been. First, he had found there a large cage, marked with the sigil of the Legion of Frontiersman. Second, he had also seen a strongbox marked with the royal seal of Phirul.
By this point, I couldn’t care less about the Legion, but the strongbox seemed a possibly profitable diversion. Moreover, the warehouse might contain additional supplies that the survivors could use. Since it was only a hundred or two paces further down that sewer branch, it seemed worth exploring.
We eventually came to the end of the passage, and found a small shaft in the ceiling leading upwards. Viggo climbed up first, then attached a rope for the rest of us to follow.
As Noctuz had earlier described, we found ourselves in large wooden building, filled with crates of all sizes and shapes. Light streamed in from windows set high in the walls. A metal cat-walk crisscrossed the room above our heads.
We soon found the cage with the Legion’s mark. It was now empty, with a faint trail of slime leading from its battered door to the shaft. Thor peered at it a moment, and pronounced it the trail of a carrion crawler—likely the one we had fought in the sewers a few days earlier. Perhaps it had been imported by the Legion as a trial of sorts for recruits to test themselves against? We did not know.
We had little chance to puzzle this out, or indeed to find the strongbox. Suddenly the light from the windows darkened, and a booming voiced called out from above, mocking us with its dark and sinister tone.
“Like flies into the waiting spider’s web, you have fallen into my trap! Now you will all die….” At this, several zombies rose up from among the boxes, as did a couple of evil-looking men and another of those fearsome grave hounds. Above us, a black-robed necromancer could be seen, cackling atop the catwalk as he commanded his evil hench-things below.
The scene brought to mind immediately the climatic final confrontation between Edgar Stoat and the Dark Lord Krzylzanthradorfar in Edgar Stoat and the Danger-filled Chamber of Many Levels. With this in mind, I sought to emulate Edgar’s famous leap, and darted up the crates before my companions or our foes could react. Reaching the catwalk, I drew my newfound magical weapon with a flourish. “Taste petunia, foul invoker of rotty dead things!” I shouted, thrusting the dagger at my startled foe.
“Rotty dead things,” was not, of course, my finest rhetorical moment. More to the point, I had clearly yet to acquire Edgar Stoat’s skill with a blade. I missed the necromancer entirely. As if to compound my folly, a large winged zombie chose this moment to descend from the rafters, and lay into me with its remarkably sharp claws. Looking at the blood seeping from my side, I elected to return to my usual pattern of behaviour. With an uncerimonious “erm… excuse me..” I flung myself sidewards off the catwalk, caught it with one hand as falling, and swung myself into a much safer position nestled beneath it amid the cover provided by several large crates. In future, I would leave brazen confrontation with the enemy to Thoradrin.
Glancing down into the warehouse below, I saw my companions locked in combat. The grave hound had knocked Kiira down, but she quickly teleported to a safer location. Noctuz had climbed upon several boxes, where he was hurling curses and other incantations at the flying creature that had wounded me. Dirock was calling Kord’s wrath upon our foes. The redoubtable Viggo was rapidly ranging among the crates, slaying what foes he could find with bow and sword. From my relatively secure perch, I threw spinnyblades where I could best assist.
One by one, our foes fell, until only the necromancer survived. Viggo ran to one set of stairs, and raced up them. I leapt from box to box again, until I too was at the catwalk. Thor rushed to the other end of the warehouse, planning to cut off his escape. It proved an unnecessary precaution, for our opponent was soon felled by blasts of arcane energy from our spellcasters, tumbling with a scream into a pile of boxes below.
Paying little heed to the blood dripping from my side, I quickly ran to loot the fallen body. After all, there was a reputation to be maintained, wound or no wound!
On the necromancer we found a few more items of value–and yet another of the medallions of the City Watch. This one bore the name of a “Sergeant Knobbs.” Clearly this evildoer was also linked to the dark conspiracy we had stumbled across. But how, and to what purpose? Had they infiltrated the Watch, or simply slain some of its members? And, most important of all, had they caused the zombie plague, or merely benefited from it? As formidable as our foes had been, they didn’t seem powerful enough to have afflicted a city and destroyed Spellstorm College. This last thought sent a chill down my spine: we were likely to find even more dangerous opponents as we continued our explorations above and below.
There was little more we could do to solve that mystery now, however. Instead, we secured the warehouse and searched it. The lockbox was quickly found, but defied my picks a good quarter hour before I finally opened it. Two dozen and three silver bars lay within–quite a prize, although its value was diminished by the relative absence of any surviving shopkeepers or tavern-owners to spend it with. Nevertheless, we took a bar each, for good luck. (I took several others for my young nieces and nephews, since a fondness for “good luck” is a Wurzel family trait.)
We gathered up some grain and tools for the survivors, and descended once more into the sewers below. After dropping off these supplies at the Golden Gryphon, we took the remainder of the silver bars to Andy’s Armoury for safe keeping. There we would rest our battered bodies, postponing the expedition to the Abbey for another day.
