Orhan 1 Day 42

We survey the battlefield and discover the vast hoards that oppose us. Sniff.

D. picks the lock to the inner sanctum, and moves to the back. We attack.

There are 30 skeletons, six zombies, one over lord, and one poor sailor chained up. Oathar summons an Earth Elemental. D. tries to attack the overlord with her bow. She pings him, and then Imre stuns him with a Jolt. Kyrik take a couple out. Vallandra explodes one too. Haeraan goes in and does the same.

General Combat Craziness ensues, many skeletons fall. D. fumbles her bow. Haeraan fumbles his weapon too. The overlord shouts, "Transform the victim!" The victim says, "Nooooo!" Earth Elemental shows up. Earth elemental blows up taking 11 skeletons with him. Then the sailor has his skin stripped off and all that's left is a giant skeleton. He then rips his shackles off while the remaining skeletons surround us.

Two skeletons sneak up behind us and maul Jack. Imre heals him a bit. More skeletons are attacked all around. Oathar tries to protect Jack with an airwall but only succeeds in confounding D.'s attempt to save him.

A couple of our frontline guys get stunned and we start to bog down. The overlord recovers from his jolt and casts on Haeraan. Haeraan grits his teeth and resists.

Oathar runs back and saves Jack!!! With his staff!! Who knew! The front line gets a bit better and starts taking down skeletons again. The transformed skeleton of doom enters single combat with Haeraan, in the sense that he's only attacking Haeraan. It's not single combat in the sense that other skeletons attack Haeraan too.

We wipe out pretty much all the skeletons except the big transformed one. Leaving also the six zombies and the overlord to deal with. Imre jolts him into next Tuesday, but the days pass fast in this evil place. The remaining skeleton takes everyone's shields away, and but Oathar gives them back. D. aims and aims and aims, then finally looses her deadly arrow at the overlord --- and slays him dead, just as Haeraan finally manages to take down the transformed skeleton.

With the death of the overlord, the six zombies just slump over, so we never actually have to deal with them. Yay!! Victory is ours!!!

Oathar tries to cast a healing circle, but blows his head up, again.

The non-healed folks start making more zombie helper with extra crunchy bone bits.

Imre searches the body and finds a silver ring and a gold chain with amulet around his head. The amulet is a skull. He also has a set of keys. Haeraan thinks that it is a holy symbol of a god of Charon. Imre puts the ring away, while Haeraan stomps the holy symbol.

They bring all the undead parts back upstairs. The crates seem to have oil, wine, cloth (some silk), with a few smaller coffers filled with spices. Imre discovers a small passageway behind the overlord's throne.

The little path leads outside. It was just an escape hole. But at the lowest point of the escape hole, Haeraan finds a secret passage. It leads to another passageway that has torchlight at the end.

Jack stays with Oathar, while D. stalks down passageway, with the rest of the party playing backup. It looks like a combination library, workroom, bedroom. We find things that all of the keys go to. We find some books. "Human anatomy - autopsies", and a bunch of books that Imre tries to pocket quietly, except Haeraan notices him.

"Imre, funny that this Necromancer didn't have any spell books…" -Haeraan

"I was going to read them." -Imre

"Do the priestesses recommend that sort of thing?" -Haeraan

"I was just going to take a peek!" -Imre

Books: Dark curses, Diseases, Dark Lore, Necromancy I, Necromancy II, Skeleton Transformer, etc.

Chest has: Pouch with gems (9 gems about 400 g total), white powder, diary, six inch mini chest, containing a flattish metal cylinder, on one side is a number of stars, on the other side it has an eye.

Nobody knows what the cylinder is. We get all this stuff back to the boat. Oathar wakes up, and notices that the pattern of the stars on the cylinder resembles on of those rare constellations not names after a god, specifically, "The whirlpool", considered a bad constellation by sailors.

His diary talks about how he found the ideal island for research, and sailor recruitment. "I have been charged by the Arulis Kygari to plague the shipping lanes and to establish a base for the Unlife here. Others have been charged with similar tasks, but I am of too little importance to know what they are." It goes on to discuss the progress on the skeleton transformer. (An undead goat!) His servants lure ships in. The false lighthouse has been set up.

Money recovered: 400g from gems. Total value of recovered cargo 3700g We get 99g each! Ring is +1 channeling adder. Powder is necromantic. Cylinder has power (channeling/mentalism), but it's unclear what it does. We take the cylinder to Veriak. Veriak says, "This item has to do with an astrologer. A communication device which can be activated only under the stars."

Welcome to level 3!!