In which I did not fall asleep

While waiting for the cloak to burn out and hopefully smother the centipedes, Ronya took his little brother outside. I guess things were too dangerous for Zym, for we haven’t seen them since! We also took a look inside the final unopened door of the room. Bryrgar quickly figured out that there was little more than an old well in the corner. While the others looked in, I stood in the doorway, listening for zombies. I could see into the altar room just a little, which reminded me - what did they ever find in there after I was nearly killed? When I asked, it turned out that they hadn’t stayed to check. Roscoe took this as a chance to search the room.. very, very carefully. Or so he thought. As I watched from the doorway, he set off the skeletons a second time!

I stepped inside the doors in case he couldn’t outrun the things, earning me a reminder from Charzth about staying out of trouble. I answered that I was standing well away from trouble but couldn’t leave the halfling alone against the things! As we argued, Roscoe was hit a couple of times but managed to get away and run past us out of the room, so I followed. I watched the things come stalking down the length of the hall even as Charzth and Bryrgar picked up the doors and tried to close it up. I really expected them to stay inside the altar room, but found myself in hand-to-hand combat instead!

This time, things went better. Charzth and Bryrgar used a door to crush two of the skeletons, Sprocket and I destroyed one, and Bryrgar finished off the last. They disappeared totally - nothing left! Then Bryrgar turned to me, said a few words, and healed me up a lot! I thanked him, too; much easier than a trip back to town! After our latest experience in that room, we all agreed to leave it alone. I followed Charzth and the others to yet another door - this one, Bryrgar had been unable to open before. With everyone there, the door was soon shattered. Inside was an opulent bedchamber.

Bryrgar and Charzth promptly smashed open the desk, and the dresser. They make quite a pair! I avoided the splinters by checking under the bed. Nothing. So I started flipping sheets and blankets and pillows and the mattress.. aha! I found a book! I gave that to Sprocket, who seems the most bookish of us all. Bryrgar found a little bag and Charzth found some clothes he wouldn’t be caught dead wearing. Poor husband! The bag proved to have some gemstones and parchment - more stuff for the bookish folk. In fact, the parchment seemed to show that one of the statues in the altar room ought to be looked at more closely. Hmmm.

We trooped back to the altar room for a third time. We stood at the edge of the danger zone so no skeletons appeared, while Sprocket and Roscoe stared at one of the statues by the altar and tried to figure out the code. My husband and the dwarf, of course, wanted to just fight it out with the skeletons.. again. Next thing I knew, Bryrgar stepped well over the line, while the rest of us scrambled back! To our surprise, nothing happened. We quickly took the opportunity to step up to the statue and check it out closely.

Charzth was soon holding Roscoe up to the statue’s breastplate. He looked at the plate, at the parchment, at the plate... we were all discussing how to follow the directions.. or was it discussing what would happen if we followed the directions? Finally, I made out that Roscoe wanted someone to push on the statue’s knee. I had no idea why, but at least I understood that direction, so I did. The kneecap promptly disappeared into the statue; I promptly hid behind my husband!

At the same time, the breastplate of the statue slid aside and we could see a hole with something in it. Charzth put Roscoe down and reached in, pulling out a bag full of something that clunked while the halfling jumped and hollered at his feet. Charzth handed the bag to Sprocket, who carefully opened it. She found more gems, some scrolls which she handed right to the dwarf, saying they were for clerics to heal people with, and a plain gold ring. Then she opened the book I’d found, hoping it had some clues to this whole mess!

Over two hundred years ago, the evil head cleric of this place wanted to become a lich. Though the journal ended right before the important ritual began, it did give us a clue; he had a secret room under the altar. Finally, we might meet and maybe destroy the thing that’s been attacking the town! Roscoe went over the altar, quickly finding that the skulls were trapped, and finally figuring out the way to press them down to cause the whole altar to slide aside. It exposed a set of steps into the dark, and a surprise - recent footprints in the dust! Roscoe lit his lantern, and we were off.

There was a chamber at the base of the steps, and doors to a crypt on the other side. There was another Tiamat symbol, and wow! Was that place cold! It got worse the closer you got to the doors, too. Unnatural. While Roscoe checked the big doors for traps, Bryrgar found a couple of smaller ones; he followed one down a hallway, then crash! Charzth walked carefully down to see that the floor had given way, and poor Bryrgar was impaled on a spike in a pit trap. We got Roscoe to slide down a rope and tie it around the dwarf, then pulled them up. I managed to stop his bleeding, but he looked pretty bad.

We really wanted to finish this before sundown and more zombies, so we decided to get poor Brygar some healing and keep going. This time, Charzth and I waited while Sprocket and Roscoe ran to town with some of the gems. They planned to buy some healing potions, but they returned with potions, the town paladin, and the sorcerer! I was pleased we’d have some extra help, because sitting next to that cold evil door really freaked me out. Even with my husband there.

Bryrgar was soon on his feet, ignoring Roscoe’s taunts about not checking for traps. As we walked to the big doors, writing appeared on them. Some bishop in the past had placed a wand and magic so that the lich could not escape. Although he warned not to disturb the place, we could see that the footprints went right inside. Roscoe pulled at the handle and was immediately shocked - so much for checking for traps, I fear! We stepped back while Bryrgar tried one of the new scrolls; the door sizzled, and we hoped the magic had been dispelled. Sure enough, the paladin was soon leading us down a new hallway. It got even colder.

And colder still when we found the real crypt, and sarcophagus, and all lit by an eerie green light! Charzth put me behind him for safety while the paladin noted an empty slot in the floor - the bishop’s wand, missing? We could also see a crystal skull on a shelf across the room. Bryrgar decided he wanted to follow the footprints and headed back upstairs; Charzth and I waited for the paladin, but not for long - the others were screaming about undead even before they got back to the altar!

As we ran to help our friends, a green light streaked over our shoulders from the lich’s room. It disappeared into one of the zombies ahead of us, and we knew that was a bad thing. Thankfully, the zombies were held back by a portcullis that slammed down between them and us - I think Sprocket found the lever, thank Ubtao! We were able to stab at the undead without taking so much hurt. Charzth suddenly turned and ran back to the lich’s room; thinking he’d heard something, I followed. I got to the end of the hall in time to see him smash the crystal skull to pieces. He was cut up by the shards in the ensuing explosion, but I was more worried that he landed on the sarcophagus.

I ran to help him, but he was already chopping at the sarcophagus itself. He hoped that destroying the skull would make it easier to destroy the creature inside the crypt. I helped him push the lid aside even as the same green ball of light flew back into the body of the lich inside... which stood up, holding a mace, dead eyes glowing with an evil light. Without a second thought Charzth and I attacked it together with the pick and shovel in our hands. We were helped by its cloak suddenly wrapping about its head and face - Sprocket? - and the paladin attacking it from behind. Slingstones and arrows flew through the room and others attacked, even as Charzth dropped the thing. Thank Ubtao!

I thought we were done, but I was as wrong as when I destroyed the head zombie in the graveyard. The clerics say the lich’s source of power is hidden in a phylactery, and it won’t be truly destroyed until the phylactery is, too. I don’t want this thing to come back in any form! We must find either the phylactery or the bishop’s wand, but that could be stolen again. Either way, the search is on.