The Sixteenth Session

November 17, 2018, Campaign: Wildfire

When we left off, we were on the final approach to Ofinor. Night has fallen, and concerning melodies sound from the clock tower. And in the streets, the dead are rising.

From Outside Ofinor

We stand on a short hill, overlooking the city. Within the city walls, there are a number of patrolling figures. The city gates are guarded by two giant-like figures. After some debate, we decide to take a long rest before entering the city, and to make sure that we can enter under daylight.

We double back and find a farmhouse with barn to spend the night. We hole up in the barn, and Marnoc casts Guardian of Faith in the form of a merman with fishtail and trident, for the next eight hours, just inside the inside the barn doors.

In the stunning conclusion to the tale of the Apple of Blue, Theren drops his Mask of Many Faces to reveal that Marnoc's nightly stealthy tagging of Theren has in fact affected Theren. He's blue.

Ship, bear, Theren, and Zoltar take watches. During the night, Ship and bear hear the cadence of wolves running. Belmac noties them running away from Ofinor, avoiding the barn. And Zoltar sees the wolves returning to Ofinor that night. We finish our rest; it's about 2 a.m. and the sun won't rise until 2 p.m.

The singing continues throughout the night. Religion and history checks reveal that the singing is probably religious.

In the predawn morning, Ship casts Pass Without Trace, and we leave the horses and cart behind as we head into the city.

Into Ofinor

The gate is still guarded by the two giants, and we need an alternate way into the city if we're not going to be stomped flat.

Theren's troubled relationship with his father often led to him sneaking out of the city. He remembers a hatch through the wall to the left of the gate. "We go right," Theren says, and Belmac and Marnoc go left. Belmac slams his ear to the wall, and starts knocking on the wall, to see if he can hear a void. Eventually we come across the hatch, which leads down a ladder into the sewers. As we open it, a group of bats fly out. Ship thinks that the bats' presence in the sewer is unusual.

We descend.

Theren leads us through the sewers, following Thieves' Cant markings scrawled upon the walls, which he cannot read but which his youthful rebellion has given him familarity with. In side tunnels of the sewer, there are decomposed bodies. We avoid them.

By this point in the day, it has become obvious that the singer is controlling the undead. And Theren knows that while his father doesn't necessarily despise the advice from the members of his council, the lord of Ofinor isn't inclined to follow their advice. Theren warns us that if he gets a chance to go after his father, he will. His father probably controls the singer.

Our stealth rolls are generally good, but the bear rolls 1. We see a lot of rats eating bodies; Belmac smashes a rat, and leaves a burning torch on the corpse the rat was feasting on.

Ship recasts Pass Without Trace just before we stick our heads up through a manhole cover. There's hordes of shambling zombies aboveground, a blacksmith's in disuse, a pair of clothing stores, and The Free Skull tavern — which Theren has been in before. We decide to visit the tavern.

Under the effects of Pass Without Trace, we climb out of the sewer. We convincingly imitate the shamblers as we push out way towards the tavern, and the zombies don't interfere.

The Free Skull Tavern

Behind the bar is an undead human male, clumsily tending the bar. He washes a glass with a dry rag, pours into it from an empty tap, walks over to another zombie at the bar, and slams the glass down, shattering it. The consumer zombie grabs a fistful of shards and mimes drinking.

Zoltar approaches the bar and sits; she's served a duplicate smashed mug of empty beer.

Belmac does the same.

Ship and bear sit at a table; a female undead elf comes out and takes their orders.

Theren calls us all to a table; we need to go to the Council chambers and clear them out before continuing to his father. Marnoc wonders if we should take out the singer at the clock tower. Theren says that stopping the song will stop the undead; they're not independently animate.

So we decide to go to the Council chambers to address the issue of the bigger threat, which is Theren's dad.

After half an hour of travel through the streets, sometimes shambling, sometimes not, we hear a call from a side street. A group of humans and elves walk up and look at us. "It's the end of the shift; we've already patrolled there."

Belmac starts speaking in Dwarven: "I don't speak Common."

"Stop where you are!" says the leader in Common.

Belmac starts walking towards them, saying "I don't speak Common."

One of them shoots at him with a crossbow; he stops.

Theren Disguises Self as one of the guards and says that Belmac's new.

After a couple rounds of deceit, the squad leader says we should go back to the base. We follow the guards into the prison in town, passing cautiously through the zombies. In the prison there are many humans and elves, and some dwarves and halflings.

Eventually it's time for dinner, and servers bring out plates of raw meat. Belmac drops his plate on the floor; the squad leader asks him what's the problem. Belmac explains that he's a vegetarian, and pulls out some jerked meat from his travel rations. Ship passes Marnoc the candelabra; Marnoc tries to roast the meat. We're pretty sure that it's not beef or pork.

We're the only ones in the room that use silverware. Even the elves are eating the meat raw, with their hands and teeth, and elves don't normally eat meat.

Marnoc asks one of the guards, "Do you know who they're serving today?"

"Nah, some kind of peasant probably."

We banter with the guards; they say that they sell the richer nobles' meat to the vampire spawn. We get curious looks from them as we say we'll go back out for another patrol. "You sure you want to go out? It's almost day." But we do go out, and though we get strange looks, we are allowed to leave. As we're leaving, Ship faintly hears yells and screams, from some area below.

"Hey, we know who needs the wheat now," says Belmac.

Ship suggests selling the wheat to the jailers to keep the prisoners healthy.

"These guys are not good customers," says Marnoc. "Maybe Stew the peasant would be a good customer."

Theren advocates killing the head of the snake before taking out the werewolves.

Theren and Zoltar Disguise Self as vampire spawn, and we feign appearance of vampire spawn leading a few captured people towards the thing.

We're heading directly to the council chambers. Theren says we should walk in, go up to their rooms, and "Surprise!" kill the council members stealthily.

The council chambers are not in the town's keep; which we pass as we walk across town to the council chamber.

The clock tower's singing puts us on edge; it's on the same square as the council chambers. The council chambers are a large, grey stone building with a wooden door. The zombies in the area are imitating nobles, wearing fine clothing and appearing to gather in clusters in the town square to discuss business or trade. We go around back of the building and enter through the unlocked service door. It's dead silent in the building.

In the Council building

Without Ship's candelabra the building would be pitch black inside; at 4:45 a.m. there are no signs of life in its halls. Ship looks for oil barrels in the loading dock; there are none. But there are signs of scuffles in the building, and a chest was dragged out the door we came in. And something else was dragged into the building.

We decide to search the building. Moving stealthily, we wander into the front-of-house areas. There are stairs leading upwards, and the main chambers are on the ground floor. Upstairs, there are individual offices. THe main council chamber is empty and in disuse.

We decide to look around for valuable things; the bear starts bringing Ship pillows. Ship finds about 30 gold worth of candlesticks. And a map of a different land, part of the Tuka Solar Imperium.

Upstairs, there's four rooms down each hallway, with two doors on either side. Marnoc opens them all at once with Thaumaturgy, creating a bit of a ruckus as all doors except one (at the end of the hall) slam open. Rustling comes from four rooms. From one room comes a halfling, who is pleasantly if creepily surprised to see us.

"Ooh, normally we have to pay for these," says the halfling.

Ship tries to cast Spike Growth but is out of appropriate spell slots.

The halfling licks his lips. "Spellcasters, too. Their blood is always sweeter. The werewolves did well." He's 15 feet away from us down one direction of the corridor.

Down the other end of the corridor are two other creatures. The corridor is 12 feet wide.

1. Round 1
   1. The halfling, Lazen Vinzer,advances to Ship, tries to claw Ship, fails, and then grapples Ship.
   2. The male elf, Sonev Oly, attacks Theren, saying "It's been a long time since I've seen you here." He grapples Theren and then tries to bite. He takes some necrotic damage and loses some max HP.
   3. Ship slips free from the grapple, casts Ensnaring Strike, and moves arond the hobbit.
   4. The bear attacks the halfling with claws for 7 nonmagical slashing.
   5. The female elf, Sina Tolar, moves up to Ship, misses her attack, and successfully grapples.
   6. Zoltar casts Blight with a twinned effect. Her Wild Magic surge doesn't kick in. The Blight spells hit the two opponents who are grappling Party members, who both exceed the spell save, so they take less than half damage.
   7. Theren Hexes the male elf, and stabs him twice for 11 slashing, 2 cold, 1 necrotic, which is wildly effective for anything other than the necrotic damage.
   8. The female human, Nina Volina, runs up next to Theren and Belmac, and attacks Belmac.
   9. Belmac uses Primal Strength and Action Surge and Rage for a number of damage to Nina Volina.
   10. Marnoc casts Spirit Guardians to set up the necrotic hands.
2. Round 2
   1. The halfling takes 2 necrotic damage from Spirit Guardian. Then he moves over to Marnoc and attacks. The damage he had received the previous turn, about 7 points of damage, appears to heal.
   2. The male elf takes 4 damage and then drags Theren away from the party. He bites for 12 necrotic and 1 piercing, reducing Theren's HP max by 12 more points. And then the elf fails a claw attack.
   3. Ship shoots the halfling for 15 plus Ensnaring Strike , as a critical hit. The Bow of Twilight casts Hunter's Mark on the halflin. The bear claws the halfling for 7 points nonmagical damage. Ship casts another Ensaring Strike as a bonus action.
   4. The bear claws at the halfling for 7 nonmagical.
   5. The female elf drags Ship 15 feet away, and fails bite and claw attacks.
   6. Zoltar casts Hold Person on the vampire spawn dragging Ship and Theren away, which has no effect because they're technically not humanoids, being undead.
   7. Theren Hexblade Curses the male elf grappling him, and then tries and fails to use Blink to escape.
   8. The female human, Nina Volina, takes 2 necrotic from the shadow hands, and then misses Belmac twice.
   9. Belmac fails, succeeeds, and misses with his usual attacks, for 9 magical slashing.
   10. Marnoc swings at the halfling with his silver hammer, and misses.
3. Round 3
   1. The halfling heals some, fails his saving throw and receives 9 necrotic damage from the shadowy hands. He attacks Marnoc by grappling, who thunderously rebukes him with Wrath of the Storm to break the grapple by pushing the halfling back 10 feet. The halfling runs back forward and tries to grapple again, and fails.
   2. The male elf tries to bite Theren, but fails. Then he claws Theren for 9 slashing, but Theren maintains his concentration on the Hex.
   3. Ship tries and fails to stab the grappling female elf. The bear claws the halfling for 8 nonmagical slashing.
   4. The bear misses.
   5. The female elf pulls ship into a room and makes a bite attack, which connects for 5 necrotic and 2 piercing, reducing Ship's max HP by 5.
   6. Zoltar casts a twinned Scorching Ray, triggering Wild Magic with 07 casting "Fireball centered on self" which affects everyone except Ship and the female elf. And the bear can't see Ship, so it doesn't have advantage on its saving throw. Everyone in range who failed the save takes 30; everyone else takes 15 fire damage. No one went down.
   7. Theren attacks the male elf for 15 and a critical hit of 36. The male elf councilor, Sonev Oly, dies. Theren gains 11 HP from the Hexbalde Curse, and then vanishes from existence with Blink.
   8. Nina Volina grapples Belmac and bites him, for 9 necrotic and reducing his max HP by 8.
   9. Belmac breaks free, then does Second Wind to regain some HP.
   10. Marnoc swings and misses at the halfling.
4. Round 4.
   1. The halfling regains a little HP, then takes 3 necrotic from the shadow hands. He tries to grapple the bear. And then he drags the bear away. He bites the bear for 11 damage, but spits the blood out because it tastes bad. it's a bear.
   2. Ship stabs the vampire for 9 but doesn't Ensnaring Strike. The bear
   3. The bear breaks free of the grapple, runs away from the halfling taking 5 slashing, and enters the room with Ship and the male elf.
   4. Zoltar casts Tides of Chaos for advantage on all attack rolls, passing the Wild Magic check, for advantage on attacks to Nina Volina. She takes 8 damage. And eventually dies.
   5. Theren blinks towards the halfling, then Eldritch Blasts him for 7 force, 3 necrotic, and a disadvantage on strength checks. But he remains on this plane, failing to Blink.
   6. Belmac moves up next to Theren, adjacent to the halfling. He misses his first attack, but connects on the extra and bonus attacks, for 29 damage, which kills him. Ship moves the effect of Hunter's Mark onto the elf that has grappled them.
   7. Marnoc moves to near the door into the room and casts Sacred Flame on the male elf, which does nothing.
5. Round 5.
   1. The male elf heals up a little. He tries to push past Ship out of the room, but fails. He takes 3 necrotic from the spectral tentacles, and his movement speed is halved. He moves Ship out of the way of the door.
   2. Ship stabs the elf with 9 nonmagical and a successful Ensnaring Strike. The bear fails the first attack.
   3. The bear claws the elf for 13 nonmagical slashing.
   4. Zoltar moves up towards the door, and ends their turn.
   5. Theren moves forwards to opposite the door, where he can see the elf. Then he moves into the room, with Hex and a natural 20 for 8d6 cold damage, for 33, which kills Sonev Oly.

In the room that Ship was drawn into, there's a coffin on the floor. It has a little bit of grave dirt. Theren breaks the coffin. We fan out to start defiling the other vampire-spawns' graves. In the other rooms, we gain 30 platinum, 360 gold.

In the locked room, there's a small chest of gold, and a tied-up family who are absolutely terrified of Belmac as he sticks his head through the hole he bashed in the door. He opens the door and opens the chest to retrieve 1150 gold and 25 platinum and 1 potion of greater healing. The family are a wife and husband of middle age, an 8yo male and a 6yo girl. The family aren't vampiric, but a little drained. Theren cuts them free, and gives them rations. The children devour the rations.

The father approaches Theren, and recognizes him. "They're doing horrible things here!" He's surprised to hear of the cannibals in the prison. He's Caspar Grieg, the treasurer in the city. He says that he's not a child of the night because he didn't folllow the new rules, and was jailed with everyone. He was taken to the prison, and then the prison crowd sold him to the council.

The new rules came from Theren's father, who suddenly changed. After his change, the council slowly took more control of the city, restricting trade. No one new came in. Two weeks ago, Grieg started hearing the singing, which was the first night with of people dying in the streets.

The werewolves in the prison keep the meat trade and the prison; the vampires keep the council chambers.

We take an hour rest.

It's now 6 a.m.

"We are eventually going to be leaving," says Belmac to the dad. "We have a cart of wheat; you can come back with us to Kingalore, if we get out alive. Do you want to leave the city or would you stay here?"

"Is it safe to leave?"

"No."

"Are you headed somewhere big afterwards? Did you say Kingalore?" We talk a while longer, but basically we're probably going to take them with us when we leave.

Theren decides that we will go to the clock tower, but he does need some healing before we go. Belmac gives him one of the healing potions.

We decide to stay on the second floor, with the family. We shut all the doors upstairs, and Marnoc puts Guardian of the Faith behind the door of the room that we hide in, which is the one that doesn't have a big hole in the door. We take a long rest, until 2 p.m. when the sun rises.

Marnoc takes first watch; the bear and Ship take second watch. No one enters the building. The bear smells a lot of singed stuff. Zoltar takes third; nothing happens. Theren wakes everyone when the sun comes up, weakly rising on the horizon.

During that rest, Theren has another vision. He sees the same old things, but he now sees the prison, with the prison cells full of people. He sees the clock tower, and his vision zooms into the clock tower, with a graceful figure eerily singing and dancing. And in the center of the room is a large heart, the size of a person, which beats slowly. At the end of the vision is Theren's father, standing atop the keep, looking over the city. He sees the dead bodies eventually slump down as it becomes day and the eerie music stops.

The Clock Tower and the Dancer

The music has stopped, and the zombies outside are all slumped down. As we step outside, Belmac smashes one zombie's head. Nothing happens. We walk to the clock tower, and Belmac smashes heads all the way.

Outside the clock tower are two large figures, also slumped down, guarding the front.

We enter the clock tower, which has 15 stories of spiral staircase. We armor up and spell up, and finish the climb. The top of the tower has the stair, exiting towards the middle of the room. To the left is the large heart, and tto the right is the dancing figure, who wears a dress with ribbons that she twilrs around. As she dances, lights shimmer above the stair.

Ship prepares the arrow of 300gp poison.

As we exit the stair, we see the dancer's face: It's half undead, half a mannequin.

1. Round 1.
   1. The figure begins to dance its eerie dance, igniting the floor with sparks of magical fire. The floor catches fire as she skates by. She dances with her rapier, striking Theren for 6 piercing, magically compelling him to follow her in the dance. She takes 20 ice from his Armor of Agathys, and she leads him through the flames twice, for 4d6=17 fire damage, halved by Theren's resistance. All told, Marnoc and Theren take 11 damage split.
   2. Ship pushes up the stairs and shoots the heart with the vial of 300gp poison arrow, for 7 magical piercing plus a significant amount of damage. The heart stops beating for a second, then continues beating as the a thin spurt of blood comes out of it. And there's an almost-inhuman cry of pain, coming from the area of around us. Theren recognizes that voice as his father's.
   3. Marnoc moves up the stair, and casts Spirit Guardians. He shouts, "Come at me, bitch!"
   4. Belmac runs around the flames, Rages, then attacks. In his head, his gauntlets yell, "Burn, burn all that oppose you!" and he does an extra 1d6 of fire damage as he attacks the figure. "Okay, thanks, gauntlets!" he says.
   5. Theren Hexblade Curses and Elemental Banes the figure, meaning that she loses resistance to cold damage, and if she takes cold damage, she takes 1d6 extra damage.
   6. The bear dashes up the stair, to the other side of the heart from the figure, next to the heart.
   7. Zoltar moves up the stair and casts Scorching Ray for 27 damage. The scorch marks on the dancer's body begin to heal, and the cuts on its dress sew up.
2. Round 2
   1. The creature takes 13 necrotic damage and a halved movement speed, attacking Belmac with its rapier. He is magically compelled to follow it; it leds him through the fire for many feet for 20 fire damage, then he's pushed back 10 feet.
   2. Ship shoots the dancer with Ensnaring Strike to restrain it, and deals 7 magical piercing.
   3. Everyone near the heart (everyone except Theren) makes a Constiution saving throw, with Marnoc compelled to dance for the next minute.
   4. Marnoc with a 17 does a pretty good dance in heavy armor, and then he makes a Constitution saving throw to end the dance. He bows.
   5. Belmac moves up next to the dancer, misses, misses, then moves away, and the figure misses its attack of opportunity.
   6. Theren uses Relentless Hex to teleport 30 feet to within 5 feet of the Hexblade Curseed feature, so he attacks with advantage, critically hitting for 20 slashing, 11 cold on the first attack, and 12 slashing, 2 cold for the turn.
   7. Bear moves up to the heart and claws at it, but doesn't really do damage to it. Then it moves to behind the heart from the dancer.
   8. Zoltar moves to behind Theren, casts Scorching Ray on the dancer for 9.
3. Round 3
   1. The dancer heals some damage. It's still restrained, and it doesn't escape the vines. it takes 3 piercing damage from them.
   2. Ship shoots the heart with 8 magical piercing, plus the potion of 50gp poison, plus a bonus because the heart is effectively restrained. The heart erupts into an explosion of blood, coating everything nearby. We again hear the scream of pain from Theren's father.
   3. Marnoc casts Guiding Bolt on the dancer for 12 radiant damage.
   4. Belmac advances to within 10 feet and uses a Lunging Attack on the dancer, to attack from beyond range, making two attacks that hit for 15 magical slashing, 2 fire, 16 magical slashing, 2 fire, total 35 damage. And then he backs up 5 feet.
   5. Theren attacks for 18 slashing, 4 cold, 15 slashing, 3 cold.
   6. The bear is slightly disappointed in the lack of hear meat. It moves up to the dancer but does not hit.
   7. Zoltar casts Blight on the dancer, for 8d6 = 36 necrotic. Its body withers somewhat under the pain from the blight, as what moisture remains in its body is sucked out
4. Round 4.
   1. The dancer does not heal on the top of its turn; the radiant damage from its burns prevents it form healing. The spirit guardians reach up from the floor and destroy it.

Looking through the top floor for loot, we find the singer/dancer/mannequin has a lute. Belmac picks it up.

Looking out over the city, the undead remain inert. But the sun's still up.

"Hey Theren? I think we may have killed your dad," says marnoc.

"Mmmaybe? We killed part of him."

"And Daddy Vampire is still around here somewhere."

End

We're still in the top of the clock tower. Theren's father might be dead. The dancer is dead. The zombies are quiescent. The werewolves run the jail, and Caspar Grieg's family will want to be evacuated from the town.

Net take:

• (Ship) 30gp of candlesticks
• 55 platinum
• 1510 gold
• (Belmac) The Dirge Singer's Lute