Journal Entry 07.00 - Shaman's Rest

With aid from the Vanu, the party locates the missing expedition at a deserted temple to an unknown death god currently inhabited by the lizardfolk which had ransacked Canton. The party helps Morvion take his vengeance.

General Summary

Approaching the small cabin in the rock wall, the party sees a grim sight.
They see three elves sitting near the cabin. They are not moving much and appear to be sitting with their knees up near their chests. As the party watches, three ghouls or possibly ghasts can be seen approaching the elves. They grab one of the elves who seems to be weakly struggling. They then drag him about 20 feet before starting to eat on him. The party can literally make out one of the ghouls biting and ripping off the hand of the elf. Oddly, though the elf struggles, it never yells out. It only squirms like a struggling pet in a kids grasp rather than like someone being feasted upon.
Be the strangeness as it may, Morvion cannot abide such an affront to another elf and immediately charges in to attack the ghouls. Rushing in for an initial attack, he runs around two other lizard zombies wandering around. He makes his initial attack and the ghouls respond in kind. To Morvion’s horror, the elves he had seen were already converted into some strange form of undeath. The ghouls had been hungry and without fresh flesh to be found, were feeding on what was available – a recently made undead. Morvion offered much a much better choice.
Morvion now found himself separated from the party by the wondering zombie lizards, under attack by not just three ghouls but also three abnormally fast zombie elves. To make matters worse, there was one more undead that everyone had failed to see hidden in the deep trees near the northern rock wall. A zombified hill giant. (It wasn’t really hiding, only sitting where it’s creator had left it.) Another minor threat to contend with is the presence of a flowering rope tree near by – a menace the party had recently encountered before. It was safe as long as no one approached too closely, however, Morvion was now defending for his life uncomfortably close the perimeter of the tree’s tendrils.
The rest of the party rushes in and makes a valiant attempt to save Morvion. He goes down, however, the party is able to save him. In the battle, the holy archer of Stengard, Vilikek, also almost gives his life. The battle is furious, yet the party prevails without anyone being lost.
The party then decides that resting is a luxury they can’t afford, however they are too weakened to go on. Taking just one night to recover, they then proceed to explore the little mining shack in the west wall. At its base they see a ladder going down into a hole. There might have formerly been a metal stairwell here. If so, it is mostly gone at this point.
Descending down into the hole the ladder enters into earthen caves. The caves are dry and dusty. Exploring the caves, they battle a few more ghouls. The party doesn’t find anything of interest until they get to the farthest reaches of the caves. The caves lead into a hallway that appears to have been a lost underground structure of some kind.
At the entrance is a glowing red rune. The party can’t fathom its intent. They are able to determine that it is abjuration magic in nature and even suspect it might be used for keeping undead from crossing. Not being certain, they have Graykar disable the glyph, which he does.
Zanziel is the first to cross then falls into a 20’ pit, his material form slain from the rusty blades at the bottom of the pit. A single zombie is at the bottom of the pit also, slowly moving around not moving fast enough to tear itself up on the blades. Vilikek will later kill it with an arrow shot. Bypassing the pit, they see a room to the left. In it is a stockade where they find a few elves who appeared to have starved to death - they are several weeks old at least. Vilikek believes that along with the three zombie elves outside, these to be some of his missing brethren. He identifies one of them which he believes is his younger brother. He performs a rite over each of the corpses which he states will keep the dead elves from rising in undeath later on.
Moving on, they come to a room with two passages, one heading east and one west. There is also a large double door on the north wall.
The passage east has another glyph on the floor – a glowing green glyph. Similarly, the west passage has a glowing violet glyph. Better informed, the party agrees that the green glyph is for prohibiting the passage of material dead (like ghouls, zombies, skeletons) and the indigo pattern represents a block to incorporeal undead like ghosts and wraiths. The markings on the walls are appearing to look like this might be a temple dedicated to some sort of dark god of undeath.
Taking the west passage first, the party finds and is attacked by two wraiths. Defeating them – they then find a single undisturbed treasure chest. Not finding a trap, they open it to find they had missed a gas trap. While it hurts, no one is killed from the trap. Inside the chests are several coins, gems, and jewels. Also in the chest is much smaller chest with painted wooden panels of red and turquoise. It has no keyhole, however, has a rune engraved on a metal pad where a keyhole might go. At this time unable to figure out how to open the chest, they store it in Graykar’s satchel for later research.
Taking the other passage, Morvion heads in first and attacks the first thing he sees – a ghoul even though the ghoul doesn’t see him. The ghoul screams as it attacks and from deeper in the cells aligning this passageway several other ghouls charge forth and surround and attack Morvion. Vilikek yells for everyone to fall back behind the glyph and to destroy the ghouls from a distance since they can’t cross, however, it is too late. Morvion once again starts to go down fast forcing the party to enter and take the ghouls on directly. After another fierce battle with no one killed, the party prevails and slays all the ghouls.
Opening the double doors, the see the antechamber to the lost temple. This time – Morvion holds back and allows others to go in first. Inside this room is a powerful lizard anti-paladin of Letheria. The party attacks. Hiding behind an altar is another lizard man priest of Letheria who is casting spells and then ducking back behind the altar for cover.
As they engage, the priest uses a desiccated elf arm which has the lightning bolt spell stored in it to cast lightning bolt at the party and almost kills Tars in the process.
Also in the room standing statuesque still up against one wall are 4 zombies which are hard to see in the darkened environs, their bodies having a translucent quality. Right after firing the lightning bolt, the priest orders the zombies to attack. Aja sneaks in and covers the area between the priest and alter with a darkness spell – rending some of the priests attacks useless.
After another harrowing battle which sees a battle of heal spells verses accruing damage takes place, with party members dropping unconscious only to be healed enough where they can once again engage in combat, the party prevails.
The priest is surrounded by a darkness spell and then killed by a summoned swarm of rats which fed on him for several seconds. He was almost unrecognizable and Morvion never got a good look at him during the actual combat. However, enough of his clothing and the desiccated hand he was using to cast the lightning bolt leads Morvion to be fairly confident that this was the lizard which had attacked and slain his village.
Continuing to search the remains of the temple, the party doesn’t find much. It seems to be ancient – far older than the lizard priest who recently inhabited it. There are faded inscriptions on the walls, some old paint inscriptions and several potsherds lying around. Nothing of note. In an effort to be thorough, the spellcasters of the group draw a few pictures and collect a few pieces for later study. Nothing else of value is found.
Leaving the cave, the party then heads back the way they came, this time making their way to the world gate on Morvion’s lands.
On the way, they come across the scene of the earlier raptor attack. This time, not being in a hurry, they decide to track the raptors back to their lair in an effort to find out where some of the unaccounted lizardfolk had gone.
They find one which had been treed and then had died after crawling in a knothole. On him they find a few minor magical items. Morvion does find a ring with symbols of Letheria on it which grants the user certain daily spells. Despite his recent encounters with other servants of Letheria, Morvion keeps the ring for himself. Continuing on, they find the lair and find the remains of the missing lizardfolk. The party then continues on to the world gate.
As the party nears Canton, Vilikek makes his leave and begins his journey home to Kerostra.
Continuing on, they come to the world gate to see it surrounded by about 40 soldiers, mostly human with a few elves mixed in.
Seeing the banner of the Coterie Kas Dais – the party knows that something is up. They know that Dame Imokan owes allegiance to Coterie Pramika Ertis – and this is not right. Graykar is familiar enough with the Coterie’s to know that Kas Dais is often concerned with the history of Chrailis and the land – so that might explain things. Graykar is also current enough on Chrailis politics to know that the Coterie’s almost never get directly involved – yet there is no other flag or banner present.
Deciding to approach, they are met by the leader of this expedition party – an older man named Vegas. He is dressed in yellow clothing over hardened leathers and wears a light lavender colored had with a large white feather pluming from it.
Morvion, cautious at first, starts getting indignant about them being on his lands. Vegdas is trying to be diplomatic yet doesn’t seem to be concerned or at all worried. Vegdas offers to let them pass through the open gate to Chrailis; yet he can’t guarantee the party will be allowed to return.
During the conversation Vegdas asks directly if any strange children have been found. This opens up a conversation about the child at Kerlostra. Vegdas states that the entire village is in peril from the child. He also states that they will be sending someone to retrieve the child. This unnerves the party and Vegdas offers assurances that the child will not be killed.
Morvion then starts demanding that Vegdas and his party depart immediately. The commotion causes a tall robed individual to exit one of the tents around the world gate and begin slowly approaching, possibly interested in raising voices.
Falgrieg takes note of this also notes that none of Vegdas’s men are acknowledging the brown-robed individual’s presence. They continually find a way to be looking elsewhere. Vegdas does turn and walks over to talk to the man – not making eye contact himself. As he approaches, the brown-robed figure freezes and stands perfectly still – his robes not even swaying slightly. They can make out Vegdas’s voice, but hear no reply. Vegdas nods and comes back, declaring that the expedition is not leaving, the party can use the gate to travel to Chrails, and it will be determined later whether they can use it to return. Or the party can depart.
Falgrieg – quite bothered and uncertain about the brown-robed individual who just stands there, face unseen – quickly quells Morvion’s anger and asks the party to step back and consider events.
Getting assurances that the child will not be killed, with Tars and Falgrieg needing to return to Chrailis, and needing to report directly in with Dame Imokan, the party decides to take Vegdas up on his offer and use the gate. Morvion is not happy, but rather than split the party or wage a probably hopeless battle – he agrees to come along.

No wealth, no ruin,

no silver, no gold

nothing satisfies me

but your soul,

Oh Death

- Jen Titus

Nameless Lizardfolk Shaman

Entrance to the Lost Death Temple. Middle of the map is a Flowering Rope Tree

The Lost Death Temple

Report Date

13 Mar 2018