A Little Treachery To Top Things Off: Part 1

In my most recent journal entry, journal entry 8, which was some time ago, I mentioned – a bit sarcastically -- how the mentality and actions of our party had shifted a bit and taken on a slightly more loathsome approach to what used to be general survival and adventuring. One of the lines that I wrote describing this was “a little treachery to top things off ...” It turns out that I was actually right, even if I was being a bit sarcastic. But I was right in completely the wrong way. And I am one of the worst offenders in our party when it comes to treachery. But I feel that my treachery is the right thing to do.

Where I last left off, we had arrived at the tower and met Matthias Lateralus, a heavily armored, squeaky-clean cleric who attracts light. After he presented his orders to a captain, we were to attend an audience with Lord Marius Wind, a half-mad, totally pretentious human arcanist who is very likely a strong diviner. He claimed that we (the party) were bound to the mysterious map-amulet, which he called a “key”, that we took from the Ogre captain that we previously killed. We were all to become initiates of The Tower, at least for the time being, and in service to The Tower, we were to pursue the goals of The Tower regarding this amulet and the Crystal Tombs, finding out its nature, its story, how to use it and how to find the Crystal Tombs that it could be used on. It turned out that this amulet was a key to one or more of the Crystal Tombs and that the Orgoshi might already posses one or more other keys to The Tombs.

Our first task in this mission was to seek out Baron Wolfrun in The Tower barrows, as he might have known something about the location of one or more of the Crystal Tombs. The Baron, like all inhabitants of the barrows, was apparently living the high-life as a ghost of his former self. So, with the assistance of The Tower's resources, we set out to pursue the baron a few days later.

The barrows were a ghastly place, dark and constantly shrouded with what appeared to be a living mist. Undead things stalked the ruined waste of the barrows and were attracted to the life-force of our party members. Things even stranger than the undead, very much alive, not dead, grazed among the dead and sometimes fed off of them.

We survived many deadly encounters in the barrows, yet we lost three of our horses in the mix. On our way we encountered some smugglers who were masquerading as Watch members. We passed them by after a brief chat the first time that we encountered them as we were not certain what their situation was and did not want to get involved until we understood more of what was going on. The second time that we ran into them, they attacked us, which was a bit ill conceived on their part. We killed them all except for one, who it turned out was actually a scout for The Watch. Eventually we arrived at the baron's ruined mausoleum and spoke with him. He was very friendly and open with us. He agreed to help us obtain the location of one of the Crystal Tombs if we did him a favor. That favor was to rescue his “girlfriend” -- an elven vampire -- from a witch on the coastal edge of the barrow.

So, we traveled on through the barrow. On our way out, we passed through a strange valley where a large skeleton with glowing, yellow eyes watched us from a distance while we camped. The skeleton warned us off of the land, stating that we did not belong there. We continued on to the coast, then followed it until we reached the small fort that the witch inhabited. It turned out that she had four bone hydras guarding the fort, plus a score or two of other undead creatures. We watched for a while and tried to track their pattern as they made their rounds, but determined that an all-out distanced assault was the only way to deal with them.

So, we lured them out and let them storm us from a few hundred feet away. I threw as much as I could at them with my spells and when they finally reached us, we had to fight them face-to-face. The battle was gruesome. The enemy horde consisted of four bone hydras and at least twelve undead humanoids. Eight of the humanoids were elemental types consisting of four electrical and four fire. The other four were heavily armored. We destroyed them all, but a few of us almost died in the battle.

After the battle against the undead, we passed the wall of the fort and worked our way into the keep. The keep was heavily trapped, yet very lightly guarded within. The traps were rather deadly and complicated, but that was little trouble for Gideon, though there was one particular trap that he had to sneak through and find a hidden side passage around for the rest of us. There were false doors and dead-end rooms that were trapped. The ground story of the keep was completely disused and decrepit. Gideon worked his way through the maze of traps and rubble and led us through safely. It appeared that a long time ago a battle took place at the fort and a last stand was made there. The remnants of those deceased and the overturned tables was indicative of this. Constantine found the body of what looked like a paladin who fought until his last dying breath to hold the keep against its attackers. Constantine was rather taken by the scene and felt that it was necessary to give the paladin a proper burial and prayer. and led us into the second story of the keep. Gideon took a dagger off of the paladin's corpse, seeing that it was a very fine dagger that would suit him well in combat, I suppose. He's definitely put it to good use since then. We hauled the paladin's corpse off into a side room, with the intent to take it back to The Wall with us after dealing with the witch.

After moving the paladin's corpse, Gideon led us up a stairwell to the second story of the keep. There we saw what appeared to be a very well-kept, clean environment that someone obviously lived out of. A chambermaid walked out of a door as we stepped onto the second story from the stairs and she greeted us kindly. Yet, she seemed to not entirely aware of everything. She seemed to be almost like a mindless automaton living only based on strict instructions. She she idly dusted and cleaned just about any object that was close by, including Constantine himself, without much thought or effort. She asked us if “the mistress” was expecting us. We did not know how to respond to that, but she was off to clean another room in the blink of an eye, not waiting for a response from us. Constantine seemed a bit offended that the chambermaid felt it was necessary to dust him off. He is a bit vain at times.

It seemed that there were no traps on the second floor, as at least one living being was residing up there it was safe to reason such. So, we wandered a little more freely. We found a bedroom with a skeleton in it and the skeleton suddenly sat up and then the door slammed shut. After that, we could not get the door open again. Then strange things started happening. It seemed that the air changed, became tighter, closer and more menacing. And a scream ripped through the upper floor, as if from all around us at once. Then, it seemed as though time was counting down, there was a timed “ticking” sort of sound, I believe, which rang through the upper floor at intervals. The whole event was very strange and difficult to follow. It is even more difficult to describe the event now, as some time has gone by since then.

We worked our way through other parts of the upper floor and Gideon took off on his own to investigate the area and the source of the scream. Nell, Matthias, Constantine and I all went together to check out the main room of the building. There we found the elven vampire – she certainly was beautiful – chained to a platform at the center end of a room with a black veil draped between four posts above her to shelter her from the sunlight. And, before the platform, the chambermaid stood in one place, her eyes closed, swaying while an apparition of another woman also swayed in the same place as her, but slightly out of sync, so that the two women appeared to shift and meld between and to each other. And then she saw us. The apparition looked directly at us. One of us shot an arrow at the chambermaid and the apparition, as they appeared to be one, and the apparition screamed as the chambermaid fell to the floor. The scream ripped through the air again like it had before and the door to the room, which we had not entered yet, slammed shut. Again, we could not get the door opened. We attempted to beat the door down, but it was being held by a mystical force. Again, it seemed like something was counting down, and when the end of the count was reached, the door could be opened again. When we opened it, everything in the room was normal and silent. The chambermaid lay on the floor, barely breathing. Nell, Matthias and Constantine rushed into the room. Matthias assisted the chambermaid while the other two secured and freed the vampire. I stood guard just outside the door while Gideon investigated one of the other rooms.

Just when Nell, Matthias and Constantine were about to leave the room, the apparition appeared again and the door slammed shut to the room, locking Gideon and myself out while trapping the other three in with the apparition. Even though I was outside of the room, I could hear the apparition talking as though she were right next to me. She called us thieves and trespassers. Then she accused us of working for her “him”. It turned out that the “witch” was actually the original wife of Baron Wolfrun and she was the one who captured the vampire that was the “girlfriend” of the baron. When she was referring to “him”, she meant the baron. Obviously this happened a long time ago and now the wife of the baron, much like himself, was a ghost and a very vengeful and powerful one at that.

While the three were trapped inside the room, the ghost apparently possessed Nell and used her body to attack Constantine and Matthias, almost killing the both of them. They managed to flee from Nell and then the ghost lost its grip on her body and Nell was herself again. But, before long, the ghost possessed her a second time. The situation was ugly. Gideon ran off to do something, at the time I did not know what, while the spirit talked to us all as a disembodied voice. I ran off to see what Gideon was up to (I was not aware of the fact that Nell was possessed) while Matthias and Constantine tried to avoid being killed by Nell. I found Gideon attempting to open the door to the bedroom with the skeleton in the bed. I went to assist him and as I arrived, he had successfully opened the door to the bedroom. He cautiously crept inside the room and went to grab a storage chest when the skeleton suddenly sat up and looked directly at him. Gideon reacted quickly by smashing the skeleton to bits with the large, heavy chest. This seemed to end the entire haunting and, as a result, began the collapse of the entire fort. Carrying the vampire “girlfriend” of Baron Wolfrun, wrapped in the dark veil to protect her from the sun, and carrying the unconscious chambermaid, we all rushed outside just before most of the keep collapsed into indistinguishable rubble.

We rested for the night, then continued our trip, bringing the vampire to the Baron's ghost. The Baron, who was quite happy, had us simply stuff the vampire into a hole in a wall for the time being. The whole situation was a little creepy. After that, he informed us that he did not know the answers that we needed, but he told us that he could direct us to a “friend” who knew the answers. So, he gave us a large, strange and magical lock and sent us off to a sectioned-off valley in the barrow.

We traveled on again, and when we arrived at the valley, we realized that this was the same place we had passed the outskirts of on our way to the witch's keep, where the strange skeleton had warned us off. This time, the skeleton (all of the skeletons, it turned out), was somewhat accepting of us because we possessed “him”, as it referred to the lock. The skeleton who had warned us off before, directed us to a barren portion of the valley, an area where all of the land was completely lacking of any kind of animal or plant life. Once we passed the threshold of this place, I felt disconnected from the world, as if my elven roots of life could not be maintained on this soil and, should I lie down there or spend too much time there I would cease to continue on living in any way, shape or form. Were I to die there, my essence would never leave there. The feeling was very unsettling. But I think I now understand something very significant about my people, the elves, and how it is that we exist in this world.

Once within this strange, barren land, we spotted a platform and a large pile of rock. As we approached the platform, the rock-pile came to life. The creature was very strange, but not very difficult to dispose of. We destroyed it in short order and continued on to the platform. Gideon, being the more daring member of the party, mounted the platform and investigated. After determining that everything was safe, he took the lock, which was given to us by the Baron Wolfrun, and inserted a key that he found on the platform into the lock, which caused a burst of light and energy, resulting in Gideon, as fast as he is, jumping off of the platform to get out of the way, releasing the lock and leaving it on the platform. He cautiously crept back up onto the platform and, after a moment, started talking to someone. So, we all climbed up onto the platform to see what was going on.

When we got onto the platform, there was an apparition there. The apparition was that of a royal and regal-looking man in his middle years. He spoke to us openly and warmly. It turned out that he was Emperor Lonton III. He spoke to us of what the empire used to be, and we spoke to him of what the empire is today. He was very disappointed with the current state of the former empire and imperial land of Tirynthia, but we urged him to explain to us the nature of the Crystal Tombs and how to locate them. He could only remember the location of one Tomb, as The Tombs were created long before his reign in The Empire, which he indicated was somewhere near Bayview and that the key that we possessed, was very likely the key originally “tuned” to open this particular Crystal Tomb.

After speaking with the emperor for a while about current and past affairs, he bestowed upon us his former vestments and royal weapons, which had been resting on this platform for ages and were completely undamaged or time-worn. With his last efforts before fading away for eternity, he bid us thanks and farewell, and we did the same for him. After this, we all set out to return to The Tower, each of us a little dumb-founded and consumed with our own thoughts on what had transpired. We learned a lot from The Emperor. Gideon seemed to pull his own personal knowledge and awakening from the encounter, which seemed to trigger a very deep change within himself. Constantine seemed to be much more prideful and determined in his decisions and, perhaps, his path in life, yet at the same time, a little disappointed in something. As for me, much of this I already had knowledge of, or had enough to figure some of the details out, from all of my knowledge of history and book reading. I just did not understand the depth of it all. And these newfound depths seemed extremely treacherous. What exactly befell The Empire? How did everything spiral so far out of control? The Watch, The Tower and The Empire had become completely divided and all that was left of the empire as a whole was purely an illusion maintained by a king who was simply a glorified ambassador of these bits and pieces of the former empire, attempting to keep the citizens from noticing the complete collapse of the imperial system. The various remaining facets of the former empire (The Watch, The Tower and the king) were constantly at odds with each other, and perhaps even silently warring with each other. Eventually this would all fall apart. With rumors of dealings with the Easterners and the Orgoshi Ogre captain's words of an age-old “empire” of Orgoshi and/or Wastelanders pulling together and becoming stronger and preparing for all-out war, these “complications” within the Tiryns empire were certain to be the deciding factor in whether or not Tiryns civilization would continue to hold together through the coming trials. I found this knowledge to be a little depressing.

When we got back to the tower, we informed Lord Marius Wind of what transpired, and most of what we learned, particularly the pieces about where The Tomb was that our key was “tuned” for, but we left a lot of the uncomfortable details of our knowledge and experiences out of the conversation. The Lord Wind decided that it was appropriate for us to prepare to journey to The Tomb and secure its contents before the Orgoshi empire did. So, we prepared ourselves over the next few nights, and rested up. But, as we planned, I don't think that either one of us was prepared for the treachery. For our treachery.