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24th of Kythorn, 1481 DR

Dealings with Death

by Morthos Art

For my taste, we encountered death to many times today. My hopes of being relieved from the disturbing memories of our visit of Agatha were quickly shattered as she haunted me throughout the night, stealing every bit of rest from me. Gladly none of the others faced such nightmares, maybe my efforts in calming my friends yesterday achieved at least a little in that regard. We knew that undead and orcs might be around from our inquiries in Phandalin so we were more careful than before in our watches through the night, which was thankfully without any incidents. With the dawning sun we broke camp, setting off into the direction of Old Owl Well
 
We did not have to travel far until we came into view of the distant, crumpled remains of a tower, marking our destination. So many ruins in the last week! For once I will enjoy the crowded, mostly dirty and reeking but living streets of Neverwinter, if we return. When we drew closer to the tower, movement could be seen amongst the rubble. And much to our dismay, ten rotten corpses stood in the yard of the muniment, ostensibly awaiting our arrival. They began moving towards us, a foul smell of rotten flesh traveling ahead of the bunch. Without talking we all instinctively agreed that such malevolent creatures must be eradicated and so rushed to attack them. As disgusting as these creatures are, they appreciatively went back to the dead without too much effort. Although it was disturbing to witness them losing limbs or intestines without so much as making a noise about it. Thus, we slayed the first of the zombies, damaging two others in the meantime, when a man emerged from a tent yet unnoticed by us in the centre of the yard. His head was covered in ink, a tattoo that identified him as a necromancer and absolvent of the school of the Red Wizards of Thay, as Archie later told us. He asked about our desires at this place and we went to sit down and talk with him, but not before Archie attacked him in his panic. I fear the events of the last few days were too much for the poor lad, his nerves are giving in. Understandable at his age, I also was not too fond of the idea to simply talk to this man surrounded by zombies. I may speak with him later to hopefully ease his stress somewhat.
 
Fortunately, beside the hastened attack, the wizard consented to sit down with us and talk. He called himself Hamun Kost and stated he was researching who was responsible for building this place and what happened to it. He appeared to have a genuine historical interest in the ruins. Still it was more than a little odd to hear him refer to the undead around as his company, he allegedly preferred to the one of the living. To our question, to what end he conducts his research he closed himself, unwilling to share any further information. To be honest, it certainly was none of our business, yet my curiosity was not satisfied with such a response. I could see on the faces of my companions that they shared my sentiment. But it was of no use to try to convince Hamun otherwise. Grum was sceptical enough to demand to be shown the interior of his tent to figure, whether no harmful rituals might be conducted here. The necromancer gave way to this rude request which astonished me more than anything that was said previously through this conversation. Inside the tent, Grum did not find anything particularly disturbing. Hamun appealed towards Grum to our services as adventurers to help him in two affairs. He wanted to ask Agatha, who was responsible for building the tower, not knowing how our encounter with the banshee went only one day ago. Additionally, he also told Grum he had some nasty confrontation with orcs near Wyvern Tor, in line with the mission proposed to us by Harbin in Phandalin. He said the orcs were interfering with his research, destroying his fellow zombies. Yet he offered no further explanation what he might hope to find there, neither any kind of reward for helping him. As we want to take care of the orcs anyway, we might well head there next, yet I am not fond of visiting the cursed home of Agatha a second time…
 
Finding nothing that might give us any intel regarding Hamun’s intentions, we went back to our camp. There, we agreed to investigate a little more. Grum mentioned, his shapeshifting ability might not only be useful in combat, as small animals may well get into places, none of us would ever manage. His bravery and readiness to self-sacrifice brought a small tear to my eyes, this was no time to get sentimental however, if we desired to know more about the strange man and his undead company. Therefore, we waited until nightfall and Grum set out to his task. He came back just an hour ago, thankfully unharmed. I could not have born to lose him, especially for such a small thing. He did not learn anything new however, Hamun just studied some scrolls, presumably tied to his research. It does only seem like further investigations would take time without purpose, time we cannot spare.
 
Come the morrow, we will approach this Wyvern Tor. Hopefully none of its namesakes will still be around…

Continue reading...

  1. The Backstory
    10th of Myrtul, 1481 DR
  2. The Gathering of the Four Misfits
    15th Kythorn, 1481 DR
  3. Straight into the Adventure!
    17th Kythorn, 1481 DR
  4. On a Quest - For Quests!
    18th Kythorn, 1481 DR
  5. Dead End for the Red Bands
    19th Kythorn, 1481 DR
  6. On the Road Again
    22nd of Kythorn, 1481 DR
  7. A Truly Horrible Experience
    23rd of Kythorn, 1481 DR
  8. Dealings with Death
    24th of Kythorn, 1481 DR
  9. A Killing Word
    25th of Kythorn, 1481 DR
  10. Wand’ring and Trading
    29th of Kythorn, 1481 DR
  11. A Flying Visit in Neverwinter
    3rd of Flamerule, 1481 DR
  12. Of Small Trees and Large Spiders
    4th of Flamerule, 1481 DR
  13. An Attempt to End Them Rightly
    5th of Flamerule, 1481 DR
  14. Finally - Charge!
    5th of Flamerule, 1481 DR
  15. A Twisted Rescue Mission
    6th of Flamerule, 1481 DR
  16. How to Clean a Castle
    7th of Flamerule, 1481 DR
  17. The Return to Phandalin
    8th of Flamerule, 1481 DR
  18. The Eluding Spider
    11th of Flamerule, 1481 DR
  19. Two Hangovers and a Funeral
    12th of Flamerule, 1481 DR
  20. The Flame Rekindles
    12th of Flamerule, 1481 DR
  21. Reclaiming the Forge
    13th of Flamerule, 1481 DR
  22. When Past, Present and Future Meet
    19th of Flamerule, 1481 DR
  23. Riddles and New Friends
    20th of Flamerule, 1481 DR
  24. Midsummer Carnival
    21st of Flamerule, 1481 DR
  25. Investigations in the Dark
    23rd of Flamerule, 1481 DR
  26. Whatever, We’re Still Standing in Shit!
    25th of Flamerule, 1481 DR
  27. The Haunted Marshes
    26th of Flamerule, 1481 DR
  28. Dismembered Corpses – and a Cauldron
    28th of Flamerule, 1481 DR
  29. Arising Tensions
    29th of Flamerule, 1481 DR
  30. From the Dungeon to the Sewers
    30th of Flamerule, 1481 DR
  31. The Ritual
    Midsummer, 1481 DR
  32. A Devil and Repercussions
    Midsummer, 1481 DR
  33. How to Civilise an Orc Tribe
    1st of Eleasis, 1481 DR
  34. Towards Unknown Caves
    5th of Eleasis, 1481 DR
  35. Of Pacts and Mushrooms
    7th of Eleasis, 1481 DR
  36. The Dragon
    13th of Eleasis, 1481 DR
  37. The Birth Of The Green Scales
    16th of Eleasis, 1481 DR
  38. Forth To New Adventures
    19th of Eleasis, 1481 DR
  39. The Madness of the Dark
    24th (?) of Eleasis, 1481 DR
  40. Fishy Business
    30th (?) of Eleasis, 1481 DR
  41. Out of the Dark
    8th of Eleint, 1481 DR
  42. Into the North
    13th of Eleint, 1481 DR
  43. Everything Is On Fire!
    16th of Eleint, 1481 DR
  44. Ever North Goes the Road
    25th of Eleint, 1481 DR
  45. Always Keep A Door Up Your Sleeve!
    27th of Eleint, 1481 DR
  46. First Steps in Mirabar
    1st of Marpenoth, 1481 DR
  47. On The Search For Quercus
    2nd of Marpenoth, 1481 DR
  48. Reunited
    4th of Marpenoth, 1481 DR
  49. The Hyenas of the Forest
    6th of Marpenoth, 1481 DR
  50. Family Reunion and Ill Omens
    8th of Marpenoth, 1481 DR
  51. The Path of Darkness
    9th of Marpenoth, 1481 DR
  52. A Fateful Return
    11th of Marpenoth, 1481 DR

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by 3 Armored Kittens · Prodromos v.1.1 - World Anvil 0.9.15.045 © 2017-2024 [] | Anvil Time: 14:32, May 22 2025