D&D chronicles: A trail of corpses

ASH

Oh, the past few days have been glorious! Our swords drip with blood, a trail of corpses in our wake. Turns out the monastery was teeming with undead — skeletons, zombies, ghouls. We defeated them all in two stupendous battles.

And then a wraith attacked us and somehow we defeated that too.

There is also the small matter of our party switching sides yet again… but I’ll get to that.

The mysterious monastery

We started off approaching the monastery compound cautiously. In fact, once we had located it we retreated to rest and recuperate before going in. The three-fanged goblin clan got a bit stroppy with us for the delay, but we managed to convince them it was necessary. None of us are ready to die yet!

The next day started off well, with Saffir and I successfully slaying a wild boar for some much needed food. Then we retraced our steps to the monastery and commenced our assault. There are three main buildings here. The first is an abandoned outbuilding. The second proved to be some sort of temple dedicated to the dark arts…

Battling undead

In the temple, we battled an organised unit of skeletons, zombies and ghouls. Alix is starting to kick some undead butt with her turning spell, and we prevailed. So exhilarated was I, my second weapon came out and I sliced and diced with abandon. Oddly, we couldn’t find any treasure here. I think we’d better go back and search it again later.

The third building is much larger. We first broke into a supply room of sorts. Then we climbed in through a window into an unused bedroom. We crept around and came across another host of undead. Again we slew them all, although I did get a nasty ghoul bite, which unfortunately took me out of the fray for half the battle.

We camped in the abandoned bedroom, only to be attacked by a wraith in the dead of night. Intan and Saffir took this on, being the only two among us with weapons that could hurt it.

That night, while on watch, I could have sworn I heard footsteps in the corridor outside the room we rested in. Turns out these were probably the bugbears — large humanoids, bigger even than hobgoblins — we met the following morning.

“Calm-the-f&#k-down” spell

We saw off one lot, but they returned with reinforcements, including an ogre. At this point things were starting to look dire. But then Alix dug deep in her arsenal of spells and dug out the spell that will henceforth be known as the “Calm-the-f&#k-down” spell.

Seriously.

Alix says it was “calm emotions” or something, and it was a last-minute, desperate, act. But somehow it worked. She caught all of us in its thrall — the remaining bugbears, the ogre, us too. It was the weirdest feeling. Suddenly I looked at the blood-smeared sword in my hand and couldn’t muster any enthusiasm for using it.

The battle fizzled and we were left staring at each other in confusion — Alix smirking to herself behind her hand. [And the DM shaking his head in bemusement.]

We switch sides yet again

We were still trying to figure out what had happened, when a human appeared with some wargs in attendance. There followed the strangest conversation. He says the undead were his guards. Since we killed them, he’s now offered to pay us to take on guard duty of this place.

Cal says he’s undoubtedly a necromancer of some kind, and not to be trusted (as if I couldn’t have figured that out). He spends all his time in some underground cellar rooms and says we can have the run of the place up here, so long as we don’t go down there… And so long as we don’t attack him or any of his allies (the remaining humanoids, ogre, wargs…)

The irony is that we’ve now agreed to guard him against the three-fanged clan, at whose behest we are here… Apparently they’ve been terrified of the wraith, but if they find out it’s slain, they might attack.

Flexible allegiances

Blessed Nievor, this is all getting so confusing. I have no idea whose side we are really on. We’re spinning from one ally to another, and I have the bad feeling we might have three sets of dire enemies in the near future.

But gee it felt good to battle and kill things! My swords sang in my hands and I felt like nothing could stop me (except the ghoul, that is).

And at least the necromancer is feeding us. We even have an invitation to dinner tomorrow night. Most strange.

In the meantime, I guess we’ll take the opportunity to explore this building some more. Maybe we’ll find some treasure worth our while.

***

It was a most eventful and fun session, although Ash hasn’t had any opportunity to go find her animal companion yet. Here’s a snap of the table.

I have no idea what’s going to happen next. Some patrolling? Some fending off the three-fanged clan? Maybe some exploration of catacombs below the compound…?

Should be fun.