Waterday, Flocktime 12, 592 CY, continued

More deaths, and in such a short time!

While Ghelt and I tended to Jonathan’s remains as best we could, Korin and Fafnir were apparently rummaging around in the rest of the barracks— through the kitchen, captain’s office and so on. They did find several magical arrows before Ghelt and I caught up with them. We then went into the basement of the barracks and found a long hallway lined with cell doors with little “windows” in them. Being the tallest of our remaining group, I ventured into the narrow corridor, planning on peeking in one of these windows. As soon as I stepped into the hallway however, all the doors opened and ten grotesquely misshapen figures emerged. I was able to turn a few to dust, but not all, and my comrades took to slicing into them with weapons. Upon “death” the creatures would explode in a noxious black vapor. Ghelt dragged me outside after one exploded so I could get some relatively fresh air, and then she went in again to explore further while I watched two distant objects approaching the ground from well above the city. I thought my ears picked up an “....aaaaaaaahhh...” sound, but couldn’t be sure. While I was determining what to do about the plummeting objects (which I now assumed were of a non-flighted nature, since they were doing nothing to remain aloft), Ghelt and the others found a magical greatsword in one of the cells below. By the time they came up from the basement, I had pretty much guessed that the falling creatures were humanoid, and finally decided, when they began to gently descend like feathers to the earth a few hundred yards beyond us, that they were Valon and a companion.

Fafnir quickly put an illusion of a “We are here!” sign above us in the sky so they would know where we were, and we hoped that they would get to us before the wandering bands of undead found them. Luckily they saw Fafnir’s sign and hurried to us.

Our greeting had to be brief, but we managed to learn that Valon’s companion was Markus, a human wizard that had traveled with him via teleport from the dwarves in Midrock, and that they had the diamond dust I needed to cure Ghelt (and Jonathan, who of course no longer needed it). Valon had to use his bardic ability to fascinate Korin to prevent a rather unwarranted attack against Markus (Markus had been “chasing” Valon). As we hastened toward the rather large tower in this quadrant of the city, we were attacked by wave after wave of the same plague zombies that attacked in the basement of the barracks.

When at last we arrived at the tower, Fafnir polymorphed himself into a bronze dragon to fly 40’ to the top, for the only door in bore arcane runes of warding on it, which none of us could read, but were obviously there to keep us out. Fafnir came back almost immediately— he had pulled a curtain back on an upper balcony of the tower and had seen something “lichy.”

Of course, we all looked up, to see a lich staring down at us! I tried to turn him, but of course that only amused him— he is obviously a creature of great power and age. Markus, sadly, cast a lightning bolt at the lich, which prompted it to hit us with a fireball— killing Markus instantly and putting the rest of us into a panic— except for Korin. Korin scrambled right up the side of the tower and threw a sack over the lich’s head, allowing the rest of us a few crucial seconds to get away. While we didn’t actually see Korin die, I have no doubt that the lich will not be returning him to us, and the brave but quirky little halfling will be missed.