[Corhim Sparkledingle the gnome wizard, Fenrir the human warlock, Dak the half-orc barbarian and Levmeia the cleric are on Bone Island doing battle with the vampires of the Dementor.]
DAY 634 (27th Uktar) (November) cont ...
The villa where the vampires had been roosting in was now properly on fire. Flames were licking out through the roof tiles and smoke billowing out of the open doors.
Dak went back in and retrieved four more unconscious dominated people. They were laid out with the others in the courtyard. Even Corhim and Lev helped with the rescues.
Fenrir had made his way to the bedrooms in the east wing, which was not currently on fire, but was full of smoke. He found some coffins and passed one out of the window.
It was empty, so whatever half-baked plan he had ended there and with a shrug he set fire to the room he had just come from.
Dak had gone back in through the main door and was confronted by a vampire, a handsome
fellow that put his hands up in surrender. 'Can we talk?' it asked.
The answer was apparently "no" though and Dak destroyed the creature with a single blow
of his enchanted blade.
He then went into a smoke-filled bedroom and looked out the window. He saw that there was a ladder on the inside of the villa's outer wall. He jumped over the wall and searched the forest, but could not find who had fled that way.
Meanwhile, Fenrir found Dame Veroni hiding under a table in a burning room. She was scared and offered no threat, but he blasted her out of the window into the sunlight where she too was destroyed.
Fenrir flew outside, but if there were any vampires going about as mist, then they were lost in the smoke. I'm not sure, but I don't think vampires in mist form can survive in daylight anyway.
Dak shouted up at him, 'what about all these dominated people?'
They had collected quite a few now, some awake and some not. They tied them all up and talked to the non-dominated ones. No one was sure if they would go back to being dominated after Corhim's spells wore off.
There was a female human cleric in the group and she was the most willing to be helpful but she didn't know much. Dak and Corhim started acting tough, asking how they could have been so easily defeated by vampires when Dak and company had made such short work of them.
'Fuck you!' said one of their captives. 'We lost a lot of our friends trying to take these undead out.'
Dak lost interest in the talk and went to throw all the guard corpses into the burning building.
They all then stood over the coffin they had recovered from the house and argued about what to do with it. First a body was put in it, then taken out again, then it was put in a Bag of Holding and then taken out again. Then it was put on a cart - and then taken off again. I will just leave it at that and let the reader imagine what sort of nonsense was talked throughout the whole farce.
It was late in the afternoon now though, so they eventually put the cart to good use and bunged all the sleeping people on the back of it and trundled down the hill to the villa they had first come to.
When they got there Dak went to the body that was lying in the day room and chopped it into chunks and threw it outside. He then went to the water pump and cleaned himself up.
After checking all the windows and doors were secure on the ground and first floors they went down into the cellar.
One of their captives was a fighter, and he was no longer dominated. He was happy to have been rescued and talked freely.
He told them:
''
From what we saw when we first got here, the curse works like this; the islanders are like normal people during the day, but turn into ghosts at night. We had a hell of a time the first night, but after a while we learned that if you hide somewhere quiet then the chances are you'll be ok. They will seek out the living if they are nearby. I don't think its noise that attracts them. Life force maybe.
''
They had nine others with them, all were asleep, under the influence of Painful Slumber. It seemed reasonably safe down in the cellar, but they didn't want to take any chances. Corhim cast Rope Trick twice and everyone was divided up into two groups. The sleepers were bundled up the rope too.
Fenrir and Corhim talked for ages about setting up Flying Eyes and Alarm spells and all sorts of other stuff, but in the end they were missing too many of the components.
Corhim did eventually cast Mage’s Private Sanctum in the cellar.
Once they were all safely tucked up in the Rope dimension Fenrir and Lev played Gnome Cards for several hours before bed.
DAY 635 (28th Uktar) (November)
At three in the morning they all came down their ropes and Corhim recast the spell.
During the night a ghost wandered into the cellar, looked confused and left. Then later it came back with the ghost of the corpse Dak had dismembered.
Nothing else happened and dawn broke. They piled down the ropes and went to have breakfast in the villa's kitchen.
After that they left the fighter to look after the nine sleepers and went to check out the third villa. It was deserted and in disrepair. It looked like no one had lived there in years. The villa where they had burned out the vampires still smoked, a black cloud blotting the sky above the hill.
They went to check it out and Fenrir could Detect Magic in the rubble, but it was all still too hot and messy for them to be bothered digging for treasure.
In the end they went back to base and asked the advice of the fighter. His name was Lesent and he was a goodly sort of chap. He didn't even show his surprise at their lack of preparation and was happy to share his knowledge on vampires.
''
Well, you must remember that some of them are hundreds of years old. The stupid ones all get killed off young, so the older ones, you know they must be the cunning as foxes. They always have a plan, and a backup plan, and a backup for the backup. A lot of them, most of them probably, will have escaped the fire. It is my understanding that a vampire in Gaseous Form, when exposed to sunlight, turns into a Vampiric Mist. These are different entities from vampires. If vampires are injured and in Gaseous Form they need to get to their coffin in about two hours. Clever vampires have backup coffins, and means of travel - such as being placed inside Bags of Holding - between them during the daylight hours.
''
Hearing all this, Corhim and Fenrir thought that vampires were very unsporting fellows. How can you kill a vampire when they have so many options for evading you? That was precisely Lesent's point. He and his friends had scouted the villa for days and had formulated a clever plan - but had not had the might to carry it out. Corhim and company had the might, but not the plan.
To defeat ancient clever vampires then, dear reader, one must have both a plan and the might to carry it out!
Corhim never lacked for plans, but usually they were not for the situation at hand, and Fenrir, I sometimes thing was so used to the chaos of being a Warlock that coming up with a plan made him feel rather dirty. Dak, who I've known for a while now after hunting all those pirates with him, is not as dumb as he looks, but he had really taken to Corhim now and went along with whatever the wee gnome came up with.
Anyway, with all that said, at around ten in the morning Corhim attempted to skrye Baroness Partick. He saw her in a darkened room, lit by candles, as she talked to some of the vampires. They were talking about Corhim and his friends, and how to get off the island.
Next he skryed First Mate Mullmaster and saw his dead body in the forest. Possibly picked off by ghosts in the night. Then he skryed Midshipman Alise. He was moving coffins around in a cellar.
Dak went on a 'patrol' with Lesent to get him out the house while Corhim cast Magic Circle of Protection from Evil so they could questions the others.
The first person they woke up was Lord Baleforth who screamed in agony as the "Painful" bit of the Painful Slumber of Ages hit him.
He cried, and as tears poured down his face he looked at Corhim and said, 'you and your friends deserted us!'
They didn't get much else out of him so they woke up Mrs Baleforth. She was still dominated so they could only talk to her while the Magic circle was in effect.
She could remember being at another house. It had lions (or was it eagles? she asked herself) on the gate posts. When they woke up the rogue, he remembered more and even drew them a map showing this place a few miles east of where they were.
Next they woke the cleric, and she too remembered another vampire safe house. This one was to the west and she could give them directions.
Would they continued to blunder about on Bone Island or come up with a plan cunning enough to catch the vampires now that they had (possibly) gone off in two different directions? I think you may know the answer to that already dear reader!
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