28 End of Session One, Game Two

We were content it had not spotted us, but the four people were less fortunate. The monster flew straight to them, killing one instantly, and another before they had time to figure out what was going on. The last two escaped in panic, the monster pursuing one of them. By the muffled cry some instants later, it seemed clear that the escape had been brief.

The creature didn't return, but stayed hidden between houses. Given it had already shown it could glide through solid objects, it seemed likely that it would soon be in one.. or many.. of the houses.. and some there would not wake up the next day.

I raised an alarm, and together we hoisted Drai up from the crypt. Father Argyle came to us, and used his powers to bring Drai back to life - weak as a drenched kitten, but alive once more. We then headed for sanctuary at the temple to coordinate our next move while two living dead climbed up the ladder from the crypt. The second one stayed at the top of the ladder, blocking the path of the rest, and Father Argyle destroyed them all with a glance and a word. collapsing the chute that had taken so much effort to dig.

Then the good Father came to us. Alarm bells were ringing in several places already, people appearing in windows, asking whether the city was on fire or under attack. There was much noise and panic, but what was not as good were the several houses that remained peaceful, with no faces appearing in windows, no lights lit, no one roused to ask what the bracket was all about.

The anger and panic passed gradually as there was no fire, no invading army of orcs.

At dawn came another voice, more horrid still. It was a voice hurt, sorrow and loss as the people of the city began to realize just how many friends, relatives, co-workers, and owes-me-money people had died during the night.

27 Curiosity and Cats

I suppose it was about at that moment when the team realized that it would have been infinitely better NOT to open the coffin. The room in the crypt became chillier.. not cold as in winter, but chilly as in freezing the soul into despair and numbness and fear. Leila, in an adventuring get-up now instead of stark naked, had time enough to reach the top of the ladder as a ghostly form resembling the dead night coalesced above the coffin, taking a moment to get his bearings. The only other way out was through the door, and moans and scraping sounds from there hinted that it was not the best possible route out.

And then the undead creature attacked. It glided through the air towards Valeria, perhaps because she had opened the coffin. She dodged and screamed as the creature glided through her and into the stone floor of the crypt. Valeria stared in shock at her arm, left shriveled and covered in small boils where the creature had passed through her. The sickly tingling feeling in her leg hinted that if she'd remove her garments and look, the leg would be in the same condition. She shouted to Leila for a healing potion, and Leila tossed her one, but Valeria was too shocked to catch it, and it fell on the floor, shattering there.  Then Valeria had to leap onto the glass coffin and scatter dead roses all over the place as a ghostly arm rose from the floor and tried to grab her knee, and barely missed it. Sitting on the coffin she was closer to Leila, and the second healing potion reached her. Drai avoided a similar attack by flying, even though the room was small. The creature emerged from a wall, ready for a proper attack, and it was clear there was no avoiding it now.

"Run!", Drai shouted, and started another spell. Leila did not need any more encouragement, and scurried quickly up the ladder, while Drai's voice distracted the enemy. Drai cast a spell, making himself appear like stone artwork, but that did not fool the monster. With a sad grin it closed in and pushed its hand into Drai's chest, grabbing his heart while Valeria escaped up the ladder, deciding that drinking the potion could wait. A few seconds, and Drai's heart beat no more.

Shocked Leila and Valeria tried to tell me about what they had encountered, and some moments later telling anything more was pointless as the creature glided up through the earth, not bothering to use the hole Leila and Valeria and Drai had spent so much effort digging. Under the stars it looked around, and noted a group of four people walking on the road next to the cemetery, singing loudly.

26 Sword in Glass

Sadly, the new watchman didn't like the idea of dragons blasting fire in the graveyard, and tried to raise alarm, so I knocked him out. I did my best to be gentle about it. It's bad enough to be unconscious on unholy land, worse still to be dying there.

As Valeria entered the underground room, she found it to be a burial place for just one man - wearing a suit of armor, with a two-handed sword resting on his chest. A knight in repose, perhaps, in a casket of glass set on a small pedestal at the center of the room. The inscription at the edge of the glass coffin named him Ser Anthuang Ravenloft. His features were sunken, both by age.. he had been in his sixties when he died.. and by death, and more. He seemed hollow and drained, possibly as a result of some illness that might have been the cause of death, or drying up after death.

The room, now that Valeria and Drai were in it, was cold but well lit, with magical flames at each corner. There was a pleasant fragrance of roses in the room, rather than a pallor of death and decay, and a bouquet of dried, white roses on the glass coffin. Other than that, the room was unmarked, except for one closed door, leading in the direction of the guarded Ravenloft mausoleum, suggesting that the team had built a rear entrance to the place that the city watch was trying to guard.

Given what we knew, that would have been a very good moment to stop, but our brave members were undaunted. Drai started by trying to lift the sword of the late Ser with the use of his mind and might, but it would not rise. A rock proved easier to lift so he tried that, moved it above the coffin and dropped it. Valeria however caught it in the air, not being inclined to destroy the coffin.. but she too was determined to get to the sword within. The coffin proved to be unlocked, so she raised the lid.

25 Into Darkness

With Drai keeping the guard out of the way it was time to decide what to do next. Valeria consulted the gods, and learned that indeed, the area with dead grass and trees was unholy ground. The center of the effect seemed to be about 30 feet behind the Ravenloft mausoleum, and 20 feet underground. As the mausoleum nicely blocked the line of sight of the guard, Valerie got busy digging a hole near that spot. Leila stripped naked.. which was a shock to a family paying their respects to a dead grandma, so the father in the family kept an eye on Leila and covered the eyes of his son, until the mother took the entire family away. With her clothes safe from dirt, Leila joined in, and the two half-elves started making quicker progress. I kept watch on both the digging and the guard who was still playing chess, not hearing the sounds of the excavation or not caring.


Eventually the guard's shift ended. Another guard arrived, and the first one, whose name was Geoff, left the cemetery with Drai. The new guard, Burt, did inspect what was going on, but didn't seem to mind that much, especially after a small bribe. After all, he had been ordered to make sure no one opens the crypt, and to raise an alarm with either of the two nearby bells if someone tries to - not to keep people from digging new holes in an area already filled with filled holes. He was curious though, and as saying that the team would be half-elven gravediggers would not fly, I spun another lie; that we were there to follow up on rumors that the infamous Dulltone thieves had buried a casket of coins between Alphonsus and Barrytone graves, which was where the team was digging. After being promised 20% of any coins found, if any, the guard left us be and just guarded the Ravenloft mausoleum.

The night passed, and eventually Geoff passed out. Drai left after Geoff had lost five games in a row but before Geoff would lose the contents of his stomach, and both were happy for it. Drai returned to the cemetery just in time to see that further digging was futile. Fifteen feet of earth and hard digging, and at the bottom of the hole solid stone awaited. That stopped a shovel.. but it was not dragon proof. I got us a ladder from the temple, Leila and Valeria climbed up from the hole they had dug for themselves - and it was Drai's turn. He inhaled, deeply.. then exhaled, and blasted a sharp jet of flames into the pit. Stone shrieked and blasted, mortar melted.. and the stone layer turned brittle. A couple of hits with a shovel, and it gave way. Darkness awaited underneath, and our keen senses revealed that it was a room, about eight feet tall.. so the source of the evil emanations would be in it.

We returned the ladder into the hole, and the bravest and noblest of us would go first. That proved to be Valeria, followed closely by Drai. It made sense... Leila and I would rather stay alive, Drai and Valeria would rather served the causes of the noble, good dragons, so everyone got to do what they were suited for.

24 Checkmate

The guard looked sullen and tired, and even drew steel as we approached. That was unusual - but in the dead area of the cemetery no one else walked, and the guard clearly expected trouble.

"Halt there," he called, his voice weary. "State your business here."

We stopped, showing we meant no harm, and he looked relieved, the point of his sword lowering towards the ground.  Drai decided that this was something he could take care of, and we happily let him. Apparently men with swords and beings with scales and wings have a lot of history in common, so it was time for bonding.

Drai moved forth slightly, his clawed hands moving a bit, and mumbled arcane words, the scales of his body taking on a charming glint. The full brunt of the effect hit the weary guard, and he looked, most of all, relieved. He put his sword away and smiled, watching Drai with affection. The two started talking, and the rest of us let them, and listened.

What we learned was that a member of the Ravenloft merchant family, Ser Anthuang Ravenloft, had perished some months back, and been buried at the family mausoleum. Soon after rumors had began to circulate that a significant part of the family fortune was unaccounted for. The Ravenloft heirs had hired adventurers and detectives to find what they considered rightfully theirs, but nothing was found in the family estate or the book keeping, nor by investigating those who had searched the estate and the books. As the amount of wealth missing was in five or six figures, leaving the family temporarily in debt, they were highly motivated to find it.Soon there were others as well who aspired to find it for themselves-

One of these aspirants was a group of thieves who thought it a possibility that Ser Anthuang had taken the treasure to the grave with him. Since the mausoleum was largely unguarded.. and small.. four of them took on themselves to search it. They remained in the grave for some weeks, and later reappeared in the town sewers where they had made themselves a nest. From that place, with the knowledge they had had of the town architecture, they launched nocturnal raids against unsuspecting people, carting them away to be devoured or converted into more of their kind. Dozens died before with considerable effort the city watch, the temple, and adventurers managed to root them out and stop the epidemic.

It is still not known if the city watch was completely successful in removing all of the living dead as there is no census of the population of the poorer parts of the city. Deaths and disappearances still take place as they have before, but no longer on grand scale. To prevent that from happening again, the city watch has kept a watch on the Ravenloft crypt to make sure no one else causes the trouble to start all over again. The new head of the Ravenloft family, Lady Hebkya Ravenloft, has used her influence to keep the city from violating the grave further, obviously to keep the Ravenloft fortune from falling into others' hands, should it happen to be there.

The guard told all that to Drai willingly, and invited him to share drinks with him at the Fattened Pig, a high-price pub favored by the city watch, after the end of his watch. Drai happily accepted, and offered to play chess with the guard to pass the time until then. Soon the two had pieces out and started playing, Drai winning most games and the guard not minding at all, while the rest of us started exploring.

23 The Daily Bread

It's all fine and good to keep earning one's daily bread at the taverns. Elven poetry is always a big hit in human towns, even though people don't understand a word of it.. just like bawdy human drinking songs make an elf almost smile.

Obviously a good bard mixes many kinds of material, light and serious, prose and rhyme, classic and local. At times I even play the role of a dwarf curmudgeon in song or play. Usually with no actual dwarves in audience, as their kind fails to see the humor in that. For them there are other songs, of oak and malt and steel and gem - but it was time to get some new material, and the best place for that is the adventurers' guild, an exotic place of plentiful opportunities for wealth and glory, and...


...well, lots of empty space today. Both on the notice board and in the halls. Apparently an orcish menace against the farmlands has coincided with pirates preying on the coastal seas and an earthquake opening a new entrance to monstrous depths. Or maybe it was a policy call from the powers that be, but the halls of glory were empty and the notice board clean. Or something, it was not something we could do anything about nor something that would affect us at the moment. What did, however, was the vacancy at the halls of the brave. The only signs of life were a mouse, which scurried away, and a clerk, who scurried to us.

The clerk told us of a confidential mission, to be handled with utmost discretion. Why someone would trust strangers with such was unusual.. especially strangers from out of town, one of them very obviously a professional gossiper and entertainer.. but like all good gamblers we go with the cards we get, and this hand looked interesting, so we run with it and see where the chips will land. The only instructions we got was to head for the temple.. that was obvious enough, while "a temple" could refer to many places, The Temple could only be the one devoted to the Grandfather God of Dragons, Bahamut. A very impressive building, that.. and for obvious reasons, the only place in town where Drai truly felt at home. No one there looked at his golden scales and wings with anything but reverence. So there we went, in search of someone called Father Argyle.

The good father proved to be easy to find, and our divine team member Valeria was actually already in his company, drawing meditative patterns in the temple sand garden. To the rest of us the acolytes told us to be careful as Argyle was very old, hard of hearing, and - though they said it with utmost respect, senile. They were happy and surprised that young people like us would come to delight his day, and guided us towards the sand gardens. Father Argyle informed us that the sun was making him feel dizzy and asked for a cup of mint tea, as well as escort to his quarters inside the temple. Apparently the rumors of his venerable frailty were accurate.

Behind closed doors, though, Father Argyle shed the appearance of being daft. He straightened his back and power radiated from him, making it very clear that being the Venerable High Arch-Priest of the Platinum Dragon was, despite the thoughts of many in town, much more than an empty honorific. He informed us that there was an inconvenience taking place at the cemetery around the temple, and asked us look into it. We of course promised to do so. Having a somewhat-dragon and a dragon priestess in our group made it a holy mission for some of us, whereas I was there to look for a good tale and Leila probably a way to make a name for herself. Presumably a very wealthy name.

An inconvenience sounded innocuous enough and in a manner most innocent we took a stroll in the peaceful cemetery without proper preparations.. something to keep in touch next time. It was clear where the trouble was coming from as a full fifth of the cemetery looked rather.. well, dead, even more than was appropriate for a final resting place of the deceased. The grass that was green elsewhere was brown closer to that area, and brittle and grey near the middle of it. Not even the bushes and trees had been spared, and in the middle of it all, among tombstones and lesser graves, were mausoleums and crypts of the once-wealthy and powerful, now just as dead as the poor around them. One of the mausoleums had a guard in front of it, so that's where we started our search. It's always better to ask someone about the horrors of the area than just walk into it and experience the horrors personally. Tales and songs can of course claim otherwise later on.

22 New Batch

The world has turned. Some things stay as they have been.. others have altered. The sun still rises and sets, most people are still around, just older and usually wiser. Most laws of the nature stand as they have been.. even the walls of the town are still there.

But the adventurers are all new, as are the challenges. This time the group is concise, and I'll tell more about each of us as time goes on as each of our entourage of beautiful people merits a proper introduction. For now I'll just say that we are a proud mix of elven and human background, mixing the best of two fine races - save one of us, Drai the Drake, who as the name implies, is part dragon. I won't venture to make many guesses about how that happened, but I hope shape changing was involved. Drai looks rather daunting, six feet of muscle and scale and wings, and has some trouble getting accepted on face value in most towns.. fortunately this one has a dragon temple, which helps. Drai as I understand is especially arcane for his scaly kind, and it can well be that someday he will rain both fire and acid and cold and magic from high above, becoming the scourge of all things dark.

That will be quite a tale, and that explains why I'm here. My name is Petfur Pendragon. I have long been fascinated by the dragonkind, and have written quite a few songs and ditties of them, hence the last name. I am a spinner of tales, creator legend, farmer of fame.. hm, that last one doesn't sound right. But it's what I do. Stories and songs. Participate in them, record them, and turn the mundane into awesome and memorable. For those with flat minds and short imagination - in a word, I'm a bard.

And then we have Leila. and Valeria. They are both female, charming and lovely, and half-elven, perhaps even more than I am as feminine wiles and grace augment their already astounding allure. I'm sure we'll have beautiful children at some point. Given we are both half-elves, would that mean our children would be anything from humans to full elves? Leila has chosen a shadowy path of discretion, but that does not make her easy - just a person not prone to using brawn to get her way, finding charm and finesse a better way to get the prize intact.

And finally Valeria, who nicely compliments our elf dragon coterie, being a half-elven priestess well in touch with the divine world - most especially the good dragon gods. Far as I can tell anyhow. She seems well at home at the dragon temple, but has so far kept the preaching to herself. Maybe I do plenty enough of that myself, though my religion is beauty and charm, not the otherworldly powers that some genuflect to.

In a world of human and elf and halfling and dwarf, we stand out, a group that fits everywhere and nowhere. Makers and shapers of events and stories, with magic and blade to inspire, lute and and rhyme to enshrine.