Curse of the Witch King Chapter 6

[ewancummins]

Alain finds many signs of recent habitation in the dilapidated four-room farmhouse; bedrolls, blankets, personal effects, and a sword left carelessly on the floor. The pantries and cupboards contain trail rations, rope, torches, and other supplies. Charred sticks and dried cow-chips lie heaped in the fireplace. An iron cauldron hangs on a chain above the spent fuel, and when Alain lifts the lid, he sees blackened, overboiled stew in the bottom. The metal has gone cold.
In a storage roomed lined with shelves, Alain discovers a trap door, party concealed under a threadbare rug. It leads down lightless stairs into some sort of cellar…
A rope hanging down the wall in another room offers a way up into the eaves, where frayed netting and rusty hooks suggest additional supplies were once kept.
Nobody seems to be about on the ground floor. He hasn’t checked the belowground level yet, or climbed up into the shadowy space between the roof and the lateral beams.

[Lord Skybolt]

Well I don't have all day so I guess it Spell time . Alain says to himself as centers himself in the farmhouse to use his quick search spell* .








*Spontaneous Search Spell Alain casts after he moves to spot that covers as much as 20 Foot Radius from can cover .

[ewancummins]

Bird's nest, abandoned, in the eaves...


...mice creeping in the walls...

...coins cached in a gap under the floorboards in the back room...


...and a cellar packed with corpses.

The dead men, nearly thirty in all, lie stacked like cordwood in the dark underground chamber, partly concealed by a big brown tarp spread over the bodies nearest the stairs. Alain can't take a step in the cellar without treading on cold flesh. The cool air stinks of vomit and waste. [/i]

[Lord Skybolt]

Alain explains what he found in the farmhouse in its cellar to his companions .

[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

Klokulf casts a quick, distant glance to his left and right---is that paranoia in his eyes? "We need to examine them. Quickly. Let's get our bearings."

[ewancummins]

Klokulf casts a quick, distant glance to his left and right---is that paranoia in his eyes? "We need to examine them. Quickly. Let's get our bearings."

Dragging thirty-one bodies up from the cellar is a grisly task, but it's easier to properly examine them in the yard adjacent to the farmhouse. And less unpleasant than crouching in a cellar full of dead men.

Examination shows no wounds and not much blood spilled; seven of the dead look to have died by garrote or stiletto, but the mottled faces and bloody mouths of the rest suggest poison as the cause of their demise. No rot yet. You estimate they've been dead a couple of days at the most. It could have happened last night.

The victims wear a mix of common, rough garb and bits of worn finery--a plumed hat, now crumpled and stained, a slashed doublet stained with wine and blood. A few coins and some gaudy jewels of no great value. Several men wear (empty) baldrics. Some have small knives on their persons. Nearly all of them have rough hands, like laborers or fighting-men. Over half show old scars.

There's one woman in the pile of corpses, middle-aged, thin, blonde with a crooked nose (an old fracture) and watery-blue eyes. Her faded green woolen dress looks like something a servant would wear.

[kintire]

Kat looks soberly down at the corpses.

"Looted, but hastily, weapons taken. Who could have done it? No sign of the leader. Hired mercenaries and didn't want to pay them?"

She shakes her head slowly, and looks carefully around, including down in cellar now it is free of corpses

[ewancummins]

Kat looks soberly down at the corpses.

"Looted, but hastily, weapons taken. Who could have done it? No sign of the leader. Hired mercenaries and didn't want to pay them?"

She shakes her head slowly, and looks carefully around, including down in cellar now it is free of corpses

With a lantern taken from the dead men's supplies, Katrin goes down the steps into the clammy, earth-walled cellar.

It smells of death down here still, bodies or no bodies.

Casting about with the oil lamp, she sees writing scraped into the walls and weird circles with glyphs scratched into the floor. When the room was full of corpses, one wouldn't have noticed this. She doesn't understand the circular designs but she can read the writing:

VIEW CONTENT:

SONS OF ORCUS
EVER WE RISE

Nothing else down here except questionable-looking stains, the desiccated remains of a rat, and a mildewed burlap sack (empty).

[kintire]

Kat eyes the writing and designs suspiciously.

"Ever we rise..."

She moves swiftly back towards the others

"hey look at this! uh, I'm not sure I like this ever we rise stuff. Are we sure these dead people are of the passive, non-homicidal type of dead? Because I think we should make sure of that...."

[ewancummins]

IN THE CELLAR

Kat eyes the writing and designs suspiciously.

"Ever we rise..."

Katrin, down in the cellar, does not see what follows her innocent repetition of the active phrase.



IN THE BACK YARD

The dead rise all around Klokulf and Fala, eyes turning red, cold hands reaching for warm flesh. The creatures are fast.
Walking dead swarm the gnome, throwing her down and smashing her with fists and feet.

Klokulf darts clear of the press and calls on Bane's unholy power to rebuke the creatures. Half the horde stops as if struck senseless.
Alain throws a fireball into the mass, burning two-thirds of the animated corpses into a heap of charred meat and blackened bone.

But the rest of the things just keep on coming, red eyes blazing with hatred for the living. Right on top of you now!
Alain begins another spell, but a blow to the jaw knocks the words out of his mouth.

Klokulf tears loose of the cluster attacking him and lifts up the symbol of Bane. A pair of the unliving creatures come to the cleric's rescue, falling on their fellows and ripping them to pieces.

Fala cuts her way out of the mob that knocked her flat, snarling like a wolverine and slashing wildly with her crooked knives.

JUST AFTER THE ATTACK BEGINS

She moves swiftly back towards the others

"hey look at this! uh, I'm not sure I like this ever we rise stuff. Are we sure these dead people are of the passive, non-homicidal type of dead? Because I think we should make sure of that...."

Kat comes out to tell the others what she found and sees them battling the living dead in a pall of stinking smoke!

[kintire]

Kat stops and gapes for one long moment, but before her dazed mind has managed to grasp the situation her reflexes are kicking in. She steps up near Alain and tries to cut down those near him so that he is freed for spellcasting, making sure not to become surrounded and darting back if she seems to be overwhelmed!

[ewancummins]

Katrin joins the fight and soon the last of the attacking undead fall to the adventurers' spells and blades.
Only two of the walking dead remain, both controlled by Klokulf.


The breeze blows away the stinking smoke and the morning sun shines brightly on the scorched backyard.

[kintire]

Katrin takes a long breath and relaxes, then stares coldly at the undead at Klokulf's command. She opens her mouth as if to say something, then seems to remember something and closes it again, cleaning off her rapier and thrusting it back into its scabbard with slightly unnecessary force.

"Well. Looks like the thiry armed men situation was odder than expected. Some necromancer stocking up for an army? Best we watch our backs, I don't like the local recruitment tactics."

[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

"This town is making me rather tense," Klokulf says. "First an armed company settles in, then they are all murdered and reanimated. I feel like the place could boil over at any minute."

[ewancummins]

As the party discusses what to do next, carrion crows fly overhead.
Several of the birds land to the farmhouse roof to watch the scene below, occasionally cawing in an odd way that suggests laughter.