(G625 16/05/2026 via Roll20 - JF(GM), KT, AP) EVL15

 

(G625 16/05/2026 via Roll20 - JF(GM), KT, AP) EVL15

[The undead cleric of Umberlee known as Salt's Wake has signed up with an expedition to Jundarwood along with his new chum Korinth, a sellsword. They are now making their way up the Klonis Tower, fighting undead as they go. Rollo keeps an eye on them.]

DAY 732 3rd Ches (March)

In the morning they looked out the big Klonis tower doors and saw that there was easily two hundred undead gathering in the square in front of the tower, with more shambling or drifting in all the time.
'Shut that door!' hissed Egnol. 'And keep it shut!'

'Oh right then,' replied Salty. 'So what's the plan? I mean, what's the end goal?'
'I'm not going to tell you, because I don't trust you,' said Egnol.
'Like that is it? So who does know the plan?'
'Never mind that.'

Salty then went around some of the others, trying to find out what this assault on the tower was all about. To be honest, I could largely guess what was going on from who Egnol was and from what they had done so far to get there.

Salty asked Wrunas, who said he had indeed been told the plan. He couldn't remember any details though. 

After breakfast, the assault team headed back up. Before they went up to the next level the two tame shadows were sent up. After ten minutes though, they had to go look for them. At first Korinth thought they were being attacked by a giant undead librarian, but in actual fact they were just talking to him.

Salty barged past and addressed the librarian, who answered in elven.
After a bit of discussion a chain of communication was set up. Korinth talked to Nukillas, who talked to the shadows, who talked to the librarian.

'We mean no disrespect to your library, we just want to keep going up,' said Korinth.
'Very well,' rasped the librarian from under the hood of his cloak.
'Who cursed you?'
The librarian drew in a gasp of breath, then delivered a speech that lasted a long five minutes. But by the time it got translated to Korinth, it has been abbreviated to, 'oh, a baddie cleric did it.'

A bit more chat revealed that the "curse" had been an attempt to make the people of Tyfellia immortal, after the tragic death of the king's family, but - as is so often the way, the magic backfired. I'm not so sure, there are lots of legends like that around this neck of the woods, but maybe it was true.

Salty asked about the Orb known as the Jundarstone that was so vital to Egnol's Plans.
The answer was returned to them that it had been part of the magical process all those years ago that had cursed the city.

Korinth noticed that as the talk went back and forth Nukillas had a big grin on her face, like the cat that had got the cream.

Before they went on, the librarian gave them a book each.
Salty got a book called "The Fatal Kiss".
Korinth got a book called "Death of a Friend".
Nukillas got one called "My Brother's House".

Salty detected that all the tomes had Enchantments on them.

So for the next floor the shadows were sent to scout ahead again. They quickly came back down stairs saying 'nope!'

Korinth had no choice but to slowly edge up the stairs himself. He entered a room that contained the usual array of broken windows and encroaching vines, but also four mirrors, positioned north, east, south and west. Into one of them the ghost of Prince Ferlane gazed as he brushed his long elven hair.

Korinth shrugged and continued up the stairs, but he just ended up at the bottom of them again, teleported by magic or the curse of the tower.

Salty came up and talked to the prince who said, 'you dare address me in that ghastly human common tongue?'

Salty did dare, and asked what was going on. Without taking his gaze from the mirror the wraith said, 'I tell myself the old tales. Alas! We all mourned for our mother, and the madness of our father. But was it so bad back then? The old tales and legends give me some comfort...'

Next Salty went and looked in a mirror, but undead as he was, even he was given a case of the willies. He then tried the stairs, but the curse was even greater on the undead and he landed back where he had started, badly shaken.

Korinth thought the ghost was enthralled by the mirrors, which was indeed correct. Salty then had a good idea (for a change!) and talked to the ghost about one of the books they had been given "My Brothers House".

For the first time the ghost broke its eyes away from the mirror and looked intently at Salty. 'Come close so I may look you in the eye.'

Salty was having none of that and went and hid behind Nukillas. Korinth stepped forward. He had an inkling of what was required. The book he had been given had been "Death of a Friend".

'Ahh,' he stumbled. 'Well, a friend of mine, a mercenary, was decapitated in battle recently.'
'Indeed?' asked the Prince in great delight. 'The flank exposed? A fatal error? Or perhaps it was betrayal?'

Salty was enjoying watching Korinth squirm and elbowed Nukillas.

As the Prince stared into Korinth's soul, his will broke down and Korinth began to cry. 'He was a friend, but he was not a good man! He killed children and made me help him do it!'

'Good! Good!' cackled the Prince. 'The truth revealed at last. You may now pass up the stairs.'

Salty smirked at Korinth. 'Need a tissue for those tears, you big baby?'

Nukillas went next, and told of when she burned down her brother's house and killed his family, when she was first getting into "the demon stuff".

She too broke down into tears, but as she stepped over to join Korinth she gave him a wink. They had been crocodile tears, she had not cared about the tragedy in the slightest.

It was now clear to them all the ghost of Prince Ferlane feasted on tales of regret, the more horrible the actions the teller had taken - the better!

Salty, who's soul was probably darker then anyone in the entire tower just could not play along. He made up stories about kissing his love farewell before the sinking of his ship, and various other stories he had of regret, but where he had not been at fault.

The Prince was growing tired of Salty's evasions so eventually the salty old villain blurted out 'I once woke up with a dead prostitute in my bed! Wasn't my fault though!'
Whether truth or fiction, the Prince was interested.
'Ah yes, you may have no memory of it,' prompted the Prince. 'But she had marks on her neck didn't she? Don't deny it!'
'Err...,' muttered a confused Salty.
'And she wasn't the first was she? Quite a coincidence don't you think? So many of them dying in their sleep next to you?'
Salty made a brave face of it, but even if the accusations were true or not, and undead or not, the sinister ghostly magic of the Prince had an effect on him.
'Very well,' said the Prince to a dewy-eyed Salty. 'You too may pass.'

And so our brave adventurers ascended to the last room but one. And here an ancient and undead lich - King Nooras resided, flanked by Tree Blights that acted as his guards.

The first thing that happened when they got there was Salty being dominated by the undead king and attacking Korinth. It didn't last long though as he shook it off in just a few seconds. Salty tried Turning the king again and again, but the lich just shrugged it off.

To make matters worse, corrupted tree ents emerged from the bushes and vines in this room and attacked. Korinth was badly battered and had to retreat to take a healing potion. Nukillas also came over to heal him as vines lashed around everywhere seeking out victims to cut and strangle.

Salty turned himself into a huge bone devil and fought off the ents, the floors of the tower room creaking with their combined weights. While all that was going on the King managed to hit Nukillas with a lightning bolt that sent her flying to the wall in a bloodied heap. Korinth rushed him and as pushed him again and again until they were teetering on the edge of a broken window. With one last heave, and as vines and blights lashed all around him, he threw the lich over the edge and down into the square below where he landed in the crowds of undead.

Korinth dusted off his hands and nodded. The foliage all slithered away and they had time to heal up Nukillas before she bled to death.

Resting seemed like a good idea after all their exertions, but twenty minutes later there were sounds of fighting below. 
'For gods' sake!' sighed Korinth as he picked up his sword.
A few minutes later Egnol and everyone else from downstairs came running up to join them.
'What's going on?' demanded Korinth.
'Some fool threw a lich out the window and all the undead went berserk!' puffed Egnol.

They all then rushed up the to the top room of Klonis tower and barricaded the stairs with whatever they could find. It wasn't a big room, about 40 feet in diameter. There was an altar on the north side and Egnol went over to it. Everyone else crowded in, even Wrunas who was a real danger to the buildings stability.

Egnol took the Jundarstone, performed some magical rituals that he read from his notes and then placed the stone on the altar. Magic hummed into life and the altar crackled with eldritch flame.

Wrunas had carried up two dead porters with him, and one was placed on the altar. After a minute he came back to life. He hoped off and another was put in his place, with the same result. Next the shadows lay on the altar and became two young elven acolytes.

'Me next!' said Salty as he lay on the altar. And with that old Salt's Wake became the handsome young man he had once been. As he stood up the barnacles fell from his skin and the seaweed fell from his hair. He was happy to be alive again, but I wonder what Umberlee will think of it? After all, it was her that had selected him as one of her
chosen.

There was no one left undead in the altar room now, but there was a horde of them banging on the barriers below. No one knew what to do, and Egnol bid them wait while he thought what to do next.

After half an hour of Egnol reading through his books and notes a cleric of the Children of the Final Dawn teleported in. She stumbled and gasped, 'it worked!'

She stepped back to take in the scene and then appealed to everyone, 'Stop this madness! The dead should stay dead!'

Salty, Korinth and Nukaliss all exchanged glances. No one moved. 

'Your Cult should just stay out of this!' demanded Egnol. Seeing mostly blank  looks he said to everyone else, 'this is what we came here to do! This is what you have all been paid for! I've worked towards this goal for thirty years, to bring back Tyfellia. The Children of the Final Dawn won't stop me!'

'The undead should be put to rest,' countered the cultist. 'Not brought back again. No good will come of this! The undead must be destroyed!'

The freshly minted Salty stood watching this power-play with his hand on his chin. Nukillas had sidled up to him and whispered in his ear, 'there is a third way you know, ignore both these fools and become rules of our own city of the undead! Think of the power we would have! Trust me, I've looked into it, there is a third way where we get all the treasure and power we desire. You and me
Salty, what do you say?'

The fate of Tyfellia, the Jundarwood, and the whole of the Shining Sea, hung  in the balance!