The Mausoleum of the Flame of Pelor
We move out of the Mausoleum and are immediately attacked by a group of zombies. The dead are free and moving throughout the Necropolis. We defeat the group, but there’s a lot of noise. There are many more.
We head to the gate out of this section of the Necropolis, but the ogre zombie is there. And when it hears us, it smashes open the gate. The Ogre zombie is wielding a massive morning star, which has the same maker’s mark as the Ogrillon’s weapon.
The ogre zombie and it’s zombie allies are defeated, but again, so many more undead are approaching.
The Gravedigger’s hut
We move quickly to the Gravedigger’s hut. While unlocking the door Berdyn is poisoned by a nasty dart trap. We heal him and confront a madman within the hut. Is he the Necromancer? He is a devotee to Vecna, a supplicant. He clutches a book and giggles, his madness consuming him. The Devotee smites Berdyn with a necrotic attack, almost killing him. The Devotee is then killed, his last words are “He didn’t say this would happen”. We take his book and examine the hut. Simon’s senses tell us the bed and one of the outbuildings outside the house have something “good” within it. The Bed contains the gravedigger’s corpse, perfectly preserved, who is holding a prayer book containing a spell of Gentle Repose.
As we head to the outbuilding, we see the zombies and skeletons approach. Maud casts a web spell blocking them, but the Skeletons start shooting their bows at us. The hut and the area around is peppered with arrows.
We reach the outbuilding by keeping low along the gravedigger’s half wall around his compound. The outbuilding, once Berdyn disarms a second dart trap, contains the kneeling body of the Flame of Pelor!
Once we pull the body out of the outbuilding (it had been sealed from any sunlight with several layers of pitch) it bursts into flames. The flames don’t burn us, but they give us a surge of confidence. We suddenly feel everything is going to be all right.
Any zombie that gets too close (within 30 feet) are instantly incinerated by the Flame of Pelor. But the skeletons are too smart to get close, backing up and peppering us with arrows.
We quickly realize that the Flame of Pelor may have been kept by the madman, but is the madman the Necromancer? The horde of undead make it difficult to get back to the mausoleum of the Flame of Pelor, and even if we brought it there, if the Necromancer is still alive, he could simply take it again.
Codex tries reading the book the madman held, and it starts to drive him insane as well, before he’s forcibly pulled away from reading the book, it is suggested in the insane scrawling that the Devotee met a “Friend” of the Lord and Master (Vecna)”. This friend must be the true Necromancer.
After some argument, we decide that the safest place for the Flame of Pelor is the Spire in the City. We flee to the City, the Skeletons pursuing us a ways peppering us with arrows.
Everlife Poor District
We enter through the collapsed wall from the initial undead incursion. As we travel quickly to the gates, we discover that the Noble Disctrict has been breached. The undead are entering into the Noble area.
As we approach the Noble District, a group of Skeletons fire more arrows at us. Maud slows them down with her Web spell, and as we run alongside the Noble District Wall a pair of ghouls jump out to attack us. After a few terrifying moments, the ghouls are slain. We continue to run from the Skeletons, scaling the walls into the Noble District.
Everlife Noble District
As we enter the Noble Quarter we see the undead are attacking various Noble Houses. Bale tries to distract by setting fire to two nearby noble houses, while we move quickly to the spire. A group of Undead are attacking the Noble house controlled by the Stone Fists, but they seem to be holding them off, even luring undead towards the house to attack them.
The zombies pursue us, but we outrun them to the Spire.
Michael fills us in on what happened. Sometime late last night, the undead started appearing in the Noble Quarter. No one is sure what happened.
We place the Flame of Pelor in the Spire’s chapel. As the Flame of Pelor sits on the Altar, it burns a groove and settles into the altar, and the sense of well-being and confidence radiates through the Spire. We perform the ceremony to cleanse the area and it seems to be successful.
With the Flame of Pelor returned, and the Necromancer unable to control large amounts of undead, we discuss options. We head to the top of the spire to see what happened with the undead.
We see that the East Gate into the Noble quarter has been opened. It was not smashed open, which means someone, likely someone inside of the Noble District deliberately opened it.
We also see that Argorn Miveft’s manor is in flames (different from the ones Bale set fire to). It seems that the Bear Paw gang has been subsumed by another gang, and it is likely that Antonious is dead.
We still don’t have a clear plan of what to do, but we discuss some options:
- We need to close that gate. But who opened it? How do we prevent it from being opened again?
- The Prison is still occupied. Should we see who is in there?
- It is possible the Dark Tide gang is involved in the undead incursion. Should we investigate?
- Hooks gave us a timeline to return to LastHaven. If we miss that timeline, she might retaliate against our holdings. Is it time to leave? If so, who do we take with us?