Shadowfell Keep, Epic Battle I

Summary:

The party now faced a long passageway ending in a large chamber with two sets of double doors. One set had "closed" clumsily scrawled across its barred doors. The other emitted faint light from its bottom crack. Queequeg opened the latter door revealing a massive chamber. A fifteen foot statue stood in the middle holding a similarly proportioned sword. In the far corners, two dragon replicas. Across the room, two smaller statues with arms upraised, holding stone basins.

Orchid crept passed Queequeg while the rest of the party cautiously entered the room. Shava and Taegahn held back, watching events transpire before they stepped over the threshold. When Orchid got withing twenty feet of the giant stature, hidden machinery churned from somewhere deep in the room and it suddenly spun into motion, its sword sweeping 360 degrees and slicing into the darting hafling, knocking her prone. Her quick reflexes saved her from certain death. Gareth charged. His axe hacking off chucks of stone, he lept upon the statue's base, protecting him from its sweeping arc.

The rest of the party began making its way across the room, hugging the wall to avoid the merry-go-round sword of death. Gilic broke away, speeding towards one of the two inanimate dragons. As he approached, the closest suddenly activated and breathed forth magical energy that burned into the dwarf's armor and flesh, pushing him back towards the spinning statue. Gareth meanwhile chopped the statue down, Orchid landing feet first on the run, sprinting across the room toward the basin-holding statues. As she ran past them into a smaller alcove, a shimmering wall suddenly energized behind her. It rippled with crackling power, running flush across the two walls and from floor to ceiling. The statues animated too, fresh water beginning to pour out from the now lowered basins. Orchid was trapped within a tank that was quickly filling.

All the party rushed to the translucent wall, except for Gilic and Gareth, who dispatched the remaining the dragon statues. Orchid wasted no time in attempting to disarm her aquatic trap. Shava and Cedric also applied their arcane knowledge to discern halting the torrent of water and removing the magical barrier. The tank filled all too quickly while they worked to pierce the shimmering wall and puzzle out the cherub basin holders. When the tank reached half-full, a vortex suddenly appeared in the middle and began churning the water into a foamy spiral. Busy trying to disarm a cherub, the funneled water ripped Orchid from the statue, slamming her into the other side of the tank and then back to where she started. Out of sheer desperation, Shava pierced the wall and overcharged a panel she noticed glowing dully through the churning water. Both cherubs reacted instantly, lifting their basins back over their heads, staunching the torrent of water. Orchid applied more work to the panel, the walls flashing brightly before disappearing entirely. Enclosed water burst out, drenching the paniced adventures. Except for Taegahn, who had fled the chamber, sobbing incoherently that he couldn't stomach watching Orchid drown to her death.

Past the cherubs, a muddy pool of water dripped mutely in front of another set of double doors. After a quick breather, the party opened the doors to reveal another large chamber. Shambling figures lumbered into view, the groans that of the ubiquitous zombie. Behind them, a pale, taloned figure darted amongst the rambling undead, hurling itself at the party. Gareth and Gilic met the charge, hewing and chopping as they created a protective front. Shava strode into the room confidently, a slight smile on her face as she called forth divine power. Unearthly light shined out from her, tearing through the undead horde with righteous fury. Taegahn pursued a flying gargoyle trying to flee down a descending stairway. When the room quieted but for the sounds of the party, they rested briefly before descending the staircase to the double doors beyond.

Taegahn and Orchid volunteered to scout the room past the doors. As they skulked its depths, they saw cultist guards surrounding a black pit. Binding chains dangled slack from its sides while multiple streams of blood emptied into it like a river into a ocean. Past the pit, an alter. At the alter, an ornately dressed man chanted foul blessings. Facing the alter, his back to the doors, he seemed utterly consumed with a dark ritual that promised to incarnate evil, if not past the walls of Shadowfell Keep, then surly that very chamber. Blood flowed up and out of the alter from all directions, forming the fountain of streams that wound around the room and finally drained in the grating surrounding the dark pit.

Orchid and Taegahn returned to the party to report what they had found. Orchid and Shava moved to the left, Taeghan to the right, and the rest of the party up the middle. A thin skin curtain blocked the middle pathway. Gilic and Gareth burst through it and the battle was on. Undead lumbered into view, surrounding the middle adventurers. Shava made her way far to the left towards the alter. The priest halted his ritual, pivoting on a heel to survey who dared disrupt his good work. He reiterated a call to attack, but he need not; his minions already performed his bidding in earnest. Grinning manically, he joined the battle, attacking and felling a beleaguered Queequeg.

When Shava reached the alter, she called upon the power of her deity to stop the flow. Her god favored her well and the blood ceased to spurt from the evil shrine. The rest of the party continued cutting down the cultist and undead minions around them until on the priest remained. Surrounded, the adventurers showed no mercy in cutting him down. As he drew his final breath, the priest proclaimed everlasting devotion to Shar. The foul Deity channeled dark energy into his dying follower, who lashed out at Gilic and cut him down just as he fell dead in a thickening pool of congealing blood.

Attending to Gilic, the party searched the bodies of the fallen and then rested.

TO BE CONTINUED

Phat Lewt:

Bag of Holding - Taegahn, with eyes slots cut out of it so he can wear it over his misshapen head and spare fellow companions his stomach-churning visage.

Line(s) of the Night:

"The best part of waking up is Orchid in your cup." Blake, singing the famous Folgers coffee jingle in reference to Orchid drowning in sprung water trap.

"And now, Taegahn has some role-playing he'd like to do." Craig, introducing Blake.