Bloody Undead

An accounting from Arian. 

After unceremoniously (and quickly) leaving the wizard's booby-trapped tower and taking Eamon to see the Prior before he rotted away before their eyes, no one was sure what to do. Go back to the tower? Go home? Go somewhere else? But then they heard a rumour of some kind of witch taking commoners and children from a village -- and bleeding them! -- and then not returning them as promised. It certainly seemed a worthwhile endeavour. 

Leaving Eamon behind to rest, they approached the manor house with the temple next door. No one was home, though an undead ogre guarded the entrance to the temple. Wisteria thought it best they try to avoid a fight with the ogre and sneak in so as to surprise the priestess (or whatever she was). She managed to cast Turn Undead upon him, which allowed them to enter without a fight. Arian wondered if he would be as amenable when they were ready to leave, but that was a problem for another time. 

Inside, they were soon met with a number of other undead, though amazingly the ogre outside stayed put. He was, perhaps, not the sharpest tool in the temple. No sooner had they dealt with a number of nasty creatures, then they heard a female voice from the east speak up: "Release us, you big rug!" "They're coming to get us! They'll chop you up!"

Arian wondered if they spoke of the bugbear that they had heard served the foul mistress. Certainly she had caught a whiff of his foul stench in the halls, underlaced with the copper tang of blood. Lots of blood. There were times that she felt like her sense of smell while a wolf remained, though sadly only when the smell was something unwholesomely evil.

It was then that Eamon, now cured, hurried to join them. Luckily, the ogre had let him pass as well. They welcomed him back. He was just in time!

But the reunion was short-lived as the bugbear rushed out of the darkness of the tunnel, straight for Arian! It roared something in goblin, but she wasn't sure what it was. Indeed, even with the smell of him everywhere, his appearance had surprised nearly all of them. His morningstar struck her with deadly accuracy. She gritted her teeth against the pain--and the smell.

But to the west, a strange creature resembling a large, stony goblin with exceptionally long arms and a massive, oversize head, rushed at Thibault and lay an attack upon him as well. The paladin boldly declared, "Do your worst, mossy horror!" but the creature did, resoundingly. 

"Perhaps you should not have said that, Thibault!" said Gorlock, shaken by the sight of the battered paladin.

Trystan and Eamon rushed to Arian's aid and even provided some very needed healing. Gorlock blasted the furry beast with an eldritch blast, but that did not shake the bugbear from his focus; he aimed another blow at Arian. Somehow she was able to dodge it. Xarius moved to try and get a clear shot, but the bugbear moved away at the last second and the fire bolt missed him. 

On the other side, Thibault was feeling the stress of being one against a long-armed beast. Ever polite, he shouted, "I can do with some help here please!" and took matters into his own hands by healing himself as well as he could. But he stood fast. 

Wisteria healed him as well, though she was torn between which of her injured mates needed her skills most. 

Angry and, perhaps, feeling a bit bitey, Arian shapeshifted into her arctic wolf form and tried to take a bite out of the bugbear but the wretched creature managed to fend her off. Her teeth snapped the air in front of his nose, catching nothing but a bit of his foul breath.

The Domovoi, for that's what the strange creature was, caste Haste upon itself and attacked Thibault with great speed. 

Unable to reach to assist Thibault, Eamon instead pummelled the bugbear and was able to kill it with a flurry of blows that landed with sickening crunches on the beast's body. 

Trystan attempted to cast Vicious Mockery upon the Domovoi -- "You look like a piece of unloved garden furniture!" but, having likely been unloved his entire life, the creature was unaffected by the words. 

Gorlock and then Xarius stepped up to fling spells at it, and it was Xarius that finally hit it with a series of magic missile attacks. He darted back out of the way.

Noticing a door in the middle hall that should lead to the Domovoi, Arian ran to it and attempted to head butt it open, but it was too solid for her to budge and she only managed to stub her nose painfully. 

Now focused on Greeba, the domovoi reached for the half-orc but she managed to fend it off. Eamon tried to fire upon it with his bow, but the creature, still hasted, was moving too quickly. 

Gorlock and Xarius again tried their combo attack -- the warlock's eldritch blast just missed the fast-moving goblin-thing, but the sorcerer's magic missiles once again hit! Distracted by the blows, the creature's haste spell fell. The domovoi yawned, a sudden wave of lethargy hitting it.

Thibault rushed up the stairs and pushed Arian out of the way to open the door so that he could, along with Greeba, flank the domovoi. Greeba, for her part, dealt him a mighty blow and for the first time, the creature began to look worried, a trickle of thick blood dripping down it's arm.

"Myrkul calls to you!" taunted Wisteria.

Unable to reach the creature to bite it, Arian shifted back and fired upon it with her crossbow, scoring a hit. "Take that, creature of evil!"

Eamon joined in with his bow for another hit. Gorlock, perhaps emboldened at the turn in events, readied another eldritch blast and let it loose -- it struck straight and true. The domovoi staggered, a large hole in its chest oozing green slime. Thibault finished it off with a strong blow; the creature's head tumbling off and bouncing down the steps with a sickening thud. The body collapsed into a mess of mossy filth and old roots. A bulging pouch was the only thing left solid, holding a tidy sum of 120 gold. 

Thibault bent to toss the pouch to Arian, as she had been keeping track of what treasure they found, but Greeba grabbed it out of the air. 

"I think Greeba wants to open this one," laughed Arian. She went on to inspect the bugbear, in case he had anything of value on him. She found an iron key.

"This will come in handy," said Arian -- and just in time, as someone shouted "Help! This way, please!" And then, from the west, a young boy's voice piped up, "This way too!"

Arian tossed the key to Thibault while Wisteria healed her wounds, visible again after shifting back to her human form. Thibault opened the doors to the east first and found some buxom young women who fell over themselves to exit their cell.

They hugged him and it was hard to tell who was most grateful.

"Are there more of you?" asked Greeba.

"The first eight are already in the Blood Vault!" said one woman, clinging to Thibault's strong arms. Her name was Jolla. "The Blood Vault is through the main doors! They took Mirna and the others!"

Strangely, as if in a dream, Xarius' ears perked up at the name Mirna. It seemed important, somehow.

They hurried and released the prisoners to the west: a strapping young blacksmith's apprentice and a young boy. 

Determined to release those in the blood vault, they directed the former prisoners to wait in the main room. Bruf, the buff one, picked up a sword that had fallen from a skeleton's hand and stood ready.

"Let us waste no time in bringing down this affront of a 'priestess'. Myrkul's offence is palpable.....," said Wisteria. Her face was grim. The little they had heard of the blood vault made it sound a deplorable place.

Greeba was first at the doors depicting the Red Goddess Loviatar at the head of an elaborate blood procession. They opened to reveal a domed chamber with a concave floor with rivulets carved into the stone that led to a central drain. Eight tall metal cylinders, about the height and circumference of a large man, hung on chains suspended from the domed ceiling. Space remained between the bottom of each cylinder and the highest point of the curved floor, where the carved channels began. Blood dripped from holes in each cylinder’s base, pooling beneath it before flowing down the rivulets and into the central drain. A clockwork automaton moved from one cylinder to the next, prodding each with a long wooden pole so that it swung upon its chain.

Greeba shouted, "Are you still alive, kids?"

Wisteria was shaking. "Abominable! This will not stand!!" She could hear muffled cries of fear and pain from some of the cylinders. "Quickly! We must free them! They are not ready to meet Myrkul!"

"This is not right at all," said Arian darkly. It was worse than she had feared, for who could imagine something so depraved and vile? She looked to the fellforged automaton. "Should we kill that...thing...first?"

 "Let us see how it behaves," said Thibault, already rushing to a cylinder. 

Each cylinder had an external clasp. They rushed to open them and pull out the bloodied people inside. They saw that the interiors of each featured hundreds of short, razor‑sharp spikes designed to pierce the surface of the flesh and allow blood to freely flow. Holes in the floor of the cylinder give the blood a way to escape and drip into the collection rivulets carved into the floor of the chamber.

As they worked to free the trapped, the automaton came to life: "INTRUDER ALERT! HOSTILES DETECTED! INITIATING COMBAT MATRIX."

They wondered at the strange words. It was almost as if the creature came from another place entirely. One, of course, insane enough to come up with such a terrible torture device.

One of the coffin things held a beautiful young woman. Blood dripped from her many wounds. Trystan, moved by her beauty, spared her some healing.

While the others rescued the captives, Eamon attacked the fellforged abomination. 

From the waiting area, one of the already freed called out, "Be quick! Before Sister Alkava knows you are here!"

The woman coughed herself awake. "Wh-where? Oh no!"

Trystan helped her to her feet, lending her a shoulder. He escorted her south to where the others they had freed were. 

Jolla: "Mirna!"

Mirna: "Ara! Jolla!"

The two woman, Ara and Jolla, rushed forwards to help Mirna. They escorted her down the stairs. 

Gorlock glared at the automaton and blasted it. "Take that! What kind of creature treats women this way?" Almost as an afterthought, he cast a bit of healing on a youth near him, who started awake and crawled away from the approaching automaton. 

"THREAT DETECTED ++TERMINATE++" uttered the fellforged automaton and rushed forward towards Arian and Xarius, causing the sorcerer to let out a small shriek. 

It struck at him, but at the last second he remembered to raise his shield spell and the attacks bounced off. 

Arian raised her hands -- she had recently learned a new spell that she was anxious to try out. She cast Heat Metal upon the creature, for surely, being made of metal, it would hurt it. It did -- but it also seemed to resist it, though whatever was inside the metal seemed affected. The undead spirit inside the fellforged screamed in pain.

Just then, the northern door to the blood vault opened and an angry looking vampiress peeked through, obviously throughly annoyed. "Defilers! You will pay!" she hissed.

"I think you speak of yourself!" yelled Arian back.

Paying the druid no mind, the vampire leapt upon Greeba and attempted to slash her, but was only able to inflict minor wounds. But all of the commoners cried out in terror at the sight.

Thibault stood firm and tried to Turn the undead. "Turn away from the holy grace of Good!" "Crawl back to whence you came, evil soulless shells!! I order you!"

The fellforged could not stand the attack and collapsed immediately. The vampiress fared little better, screaming and shrinking back in terror at Thibault's holy visage. A Wraith rose from the body of the smouldering Fellforged. Both fled back through the north door.

Quickly, they freed the rest of the prisoners who were alive, though sadly a few had already perished. Greeba, always practical, took one look at the remains of the fellforged and picked up the metal. It looked enough for a suit of armour. 

Arian found a healing potion in an old boot while looking for any other weapons to give to the commoners and passed it to Eamon. "You might want to wash the old boot smell off," she said.

Now, they just had to figure out what to do -- take the former prisoners, still barely clinging to life, out via the door and past the undead ogre or battle further in to attack the wicked priestess?