Village of Briarsgate, Gran March, Greyhawk
Day Seven. Midnight. Saturday, October 22nd, 576 CY
Cloudy, damp, cold, misty
In the byzantine warren of winding halls and passages in private areas of the desecrated temple, the heroes fight two battles on two separate spiral stairs.
In the stairwell between the ground floor and the second floor...
Hoom, recently freed from his iron cage, hurls darts across the open shaft at one of his former captors (A4). Two of the three steel spikes sink deep into the acolyte's black mask and he slumps to the marble steps, leaking blood.
Seeing this, Telkis changes targets. He is joined at the top of the stairs by Avril and the two pull their bow strings taut and rain arrows down upon another adherent of abomination (A14).
Telkis' arrows splinter on the stone wall but Avril plunges one all the way to the feathers, into the cultist's eye socket. Shrieking his death knell, he topples over the railing and plummets down to the stones below with a sickening cracking of bones. A growing pool of crimson surrounds his shattered, silent form.
Urdur weaves an arcane spell of beguilement and domination upon the remaining disciple of damnation (A15). Then the dark gnome says, "You are so weary from all this fighting. Sleep here on the comfortable stairs."
The final black-robed cultist nods and carefully lies down.
Then Mouser cuts his throat.
No enemies remain in this stairwell.
Urdur's dog (M, formerly H2) runs down to its master and licks his face in a joyous reunion. The other hound (H1), confused and afraid, races down all the steps to the first floor and is gone!
Ingrid suddenly appears next to Avril and Telkis at the top of the stairwell. Somewhere far behind Ingrid, to the east, are the other heroes. Perhaps they still draw breath.
Actions?
Map:
This map is a 30' tall, spiral stairwell connecting the church's ground floor to its second story. PC positions are depicted by their initials. A=Acolyte.
Movement is halved for climbing stairs. It's 100 feet of travel, three revolutions, to ascend the 30 feet to the top.
Missile Weapons: Firing up: effective range is doubled. Firing down: effective range is halved.
Elsewhere, in the stairwell between the church's second story and its bell tower...
Black sorcery breathes unholy life into the ghastly corpses of the inhuman Red Cloak tribe.
Grothnak snarls for aid and fires arrows down the stone well. One impales the disgusting face of the undead Goblin Man that Pelias had disemboweled (ZG4). The macabre horror does not fall.
The half-orc warrior's second arrow misfires. (Please Save vs Dex on d20 or drop your bow.)
Standing in the trapdoor in the ceiling, Long Bo the druid glances around outside the belltower again. The shadow in the courtyard below is gone now. The mob of villagers, carrying pitchforks and torches, grows nearer. They will be at the front gate of the Church of Merikka in four or five minutes. Bo remembers the gate:
The grey druid climbs down the wooden ladder from the ceiling trap door into the stairwell and slings a stone down at a loathsome, unliving Goblin Man, missing it clean.
Once more, a bloodcurdling voice echoes up the stone shaft, profaning this house of worship anew. It utters black words to pierce the frail veil of this reality and call for aid from a fell, unnameable master:
"'Ai! 'Ai! Fhtagn! Ftaghu! Thanarak!..."
Heinous blasphemies echoing around him, Pelias' sword clashes against that of the vile, hateful Goblin thrall (G1) sending sparks flying. The insidious, abhorrent degenerate sees an opening and thrusts his black sword at Pelias' heart, missing only by the grace of Heironeus.
"...Vulg'th! Shogg-Shuggli! Zhro!"
The evil spell reaches a crescendo and the remaining bloody cadavers of Goblin Men pull themselves up out of death's embrace. The dead rise, all except the skeletons that had been burned by fire.
The revenant that had been decapitated by Grothnak (ZG8) carries its horrific, blood-soaked head as its eyes loll and its mouth gapes without sound.
The lone living skeleton (S10) outpacing them, the grisly, charnel house Goblins begin their terrible climb. The dreadful cadavers stagger upward on broken bones, leaving trails of fresh blood as they ascend higher and higher, to kill the heroes at the top of the spiral stair.
Actions?!
Map:
This map is a 30' tall, spiral stairwell connecting the church's second floor to its bell tower.
PC positions are depicted by their initials. ZG = Zombie Goblin Men. S = Skeleton.
Movement is halved for climbing stairs. It's 100 feet of travel, three revolutions, to ascend the 30 feet to the top.
Missile Weapons: Firing up: effective range is doubled. Firing down: effective range is halved.
All Rolls and Rulings (non-required reading):
PC Status:
- Avril Hollysword, Half-Elf Fighter/Cleric 1/2: Move: 9", AC: 7, HP: 5/10, Spells: 0/4 1st lvl
Grey Mouser, Half-Elf Magic-User/Thief 1/2: AC 5, HP 10/10, Spells: 0/1 1st lvl
Grothnak Uthglukh, Half-Orc Fighter 3: Move: 9", AC: 4, HP: 25/28
Hoom Feethos, Elven Magic-User/Thief 1/2: AC 3, HP 8/8, Spells: 0/1 1st lvl
Ingrid Esthof, Human Cleric 3: Move: 6", AC: 3(1), HP: 4/16, Spells: 0/4 1st lvl and 0/3 2nd lvl
Long Bo, Human Druid 3: Move: 9", AC: 6, HP: 3/22, Spells: 0/5 1st lvl, 0/3 2nd lvl and 0/1 3rd lvl
Pelias Blanchflower, Human Paladin 2: Move: 9", AC: 2(0), HP: 4/19, Laying Hands: 1/1
Telkis Brassfang, Gnome Fighter 3: Move: 9", AC: 0, HP: 5/28
Urdur Shimmerstone, Gnome Illusionist 2: AC 6, HP 6/6, Spells: 1/2 1st lvl
- Protection from Evil (Pelias): -2 to AC and +2 to saving throws against evil, in a 10 foot radius around Pelias.
Polymorph Self (Long Bo): Potion. Duration unknown.
