Session Summary #25

[Nathan Sherman]

Cast of Characters
Theren Moonshadow, a Moon Elf Bard played by Payson
Lutheo, a Halfling Paladin played by Dale
Otep, a Half Orc Fighter played by Nelson
Akronos, a Human Wizard played by Alec
Ceress, a Saurien Monk played by Graham
Tykor, very old half elven innkeeper that has forgotten he used to go by Illanor, an arch mage of the Conclave of Freedom - NPC
Nikos, friend of Tykor and entertainment manager for the Inn of the Broken Staff - NPC

After the battle in the entryway, the party had dragged five of the zombie bodies out of the mansion before boarding it back up and recovering from their wounds. They drag three of the bodies outside the estate's perimeter 100 feet past the entry gate to the grounds. Two of these bodies they burned to ash and any remaining bones were pulverized by Otep. The third is stripped of gear but otherwise untouched. They leave two bodies inside the estate perimeter. One burnt and pulverized, the other without gear but untouched. 

The party takes turns on guard duty that night, with the camp set up just outside the entry gate and two sentries on either side, watching the two piles of bodies. They keep a close eye on the zombie remains to see if they regenerate over night.

By the next morning, they find that the bodies have not regenerated and this gives them some comfort that they won't be fighting the same ones in the house that they killed the day before.

That morning while preparing for their assault on the mansion, Akronos gets a Sending from Master Elodin. He lets them know that "The gate is failing faster. Need to hurry. 12 of 54 unlocked. Current rate of failure is one rune every three days but increasing." They can't just talk a month to pick off the undead in the house, but they still have a little bit of time.

They put together an elaborate plan on how to test the house and the moaning apparition. They want to trap it in Lutheos Sumerak shield and prevent it from escaping so they can deal with it once and for all.

The plan is to break open a window to the right of the front door and lure the apparition to attack them there, like it did when they were here months ago.

They have Otep pull the boards off the window, break out the glass (that they are sure they broke out months ago) and once again tear down the curtains inside. The party stands back with Lutheo and Otep near the window but nothing comes to attack them. Finally Otep and Lutheo enter through the window and find that they are in a very nice dining room that is covered in a layer of dust.

They also discover that there was one of the zombies with glowing blue eyes and a long sword standing in the room. It didn't attack when they broke the window, but now that they are in the room it attacks them. They make short work of it and wait a moment to see if anything else comes to attack them. When nothing does, Otep explores further into the mansion, with Lutheo reluctantly trailing behind him for a few moment.

The rest of the party outside calls to Otep wanting him to hold to the plan of waiting outside to lure the apparition but he continues to explore. He finds what look like they might be servant stairs going both up and down but he resists them. Back towards the entry way he finds a door that leads from the dining room to the main hall way and takes a few steps in. He can see the remains of the undead that they killed the day before but there is no sign of the apparition. He finally heads back out to join a frustrated party. Tensions are growing high and the lack of the enemy following the parties plans is not helping with party cohesion.

They decide that they will have to do their back up plan and enter through the front door and slowly advance as a group and work to clear out the mansion. They tell Nikos and Tykor to wait outside until they call for them through a message spell. Nikos happily agrees and pulls two folding chairs out of his backpack for them to sit in while the party has their fun.

The party advances in, crossing over the rough terrain left by one of Akronos spells in the entry way. They have a silence spell on them in the hopes that it will protect them from the wails of the apparition. Lutheo and Akrons also have light spells.

Scattered throughout the entry way and into the grand hall are bodies of the undead that they defeated the day before. The party moves fully into the entry hall as a group. When they get to the far side of the hall, several zombies with glowing eyes come out from around corners, under the stairs and rooms beyond the hall to attack them. To the parties horror, the undead that they had defeated the day before rise up off of the floor to join in the attack, sealing the retreat out the front door. These zombies still show signs of the battle from the day before, but they have obviously also recovered partially from it.

Otep and Theren take up the battle with the fresh zombies at the front of the party while Lutheo moves to the back to defend their flank. Akronos takes damage from zombies that attacked from behind and instead of staying surrounded, he moves up the grand stair case to escape the silence spell and be able to sling spells in from the sides.

Seeing Lutheo surrounded by almost a dozen zombies, Theren drops his concentration on the Silence spell so he can cast a fireball, wiping out many of the injured zombies swarming Lutheo. Right after that, the howling aspiration appears and starts wailing. With the silence gone, Otep, Theren and Akronos all take damage from this floating specter assailing their minds.

A zombie comes out from under the stairs and attacks Akrons who backs up the stairs. Ceress comes to his rescue and engages the zombie in combat and eventually kills it.

At different points through out the battle each member of the party has disturbing visions, followed with either wracking psychic pain or whispers of madness. The visions are: suffocation, restriction, crushing death and destruction; men in uniforms, ogres in heavy armor and saurians in a frenzy of killing; a vaguely familiar body, torn, bloody and broken suddenly appearing at your feet on a mountain top; swords and spears reaving bodies, rocks and fallen trees crushing people; visions of mud and blood blinding vision and stealing breath.; weight upon the chest, every exhale loosing ground to the weight that prevents the next breath from being full; of powerful men standing on a mountain top watching the death and destruction of thousands.


Seeing that the parties back up plan has failed and they are taking heavy damages, Otep calls for the party to retreat and leads the way out of the house. The rest of the party fails to follow him, determined to win this battle. Otep misses much of the battle while leading the retreat and then realizing that the rest of the party failed to follow him, then rejoining them for the final moments.

The battle is tense with the moaning spirit assailing their minds and something else whispering madness in their brains but Lutheo uses a Misty Step to get right between the spirit and another zombie that seems to have held back from the attack. He appears in the air a little off the ground so he can uses his Sumerak shield to create a sphere encircling them so they can't escape. He then attacks the spirt that has taken some damage from Theren and Akrons by magical attacks. He unleashes all of his holly power through mighty Smites and destroys the spirit before it gets a chance to escape from him. The zombie in the Sumerak shield turns and phases through a wall, escaping what would have probably been a similar fate if it had stuck around to go toe to toe with the mighty halfling.

A wispy apparition has floated into the battle and Lutheo is ripped from his feat and slammed upwards. Fortunately for him, his shield sphere kept him for being tossed two storied up into the high ceiling above and then dropped back to the floor, but it was still a very unpleasant surprise.

The battle is thinning out, but the characters are all damaged and running out of fight left in their arms and minds. While pulling back, knowing that there are still zombies with glowing eyes and what ever the whips of an aspiration is, Theren gets picked up by an invisible force and slammed across the entry hall, crumpling into an unconscious and bleeding mound.

Otep has rejoined the party and they finishe off the last of the zombies that are attacking them and beat a hasty retreat with a barely revived Theren.

Ceres and Otep grab several zombies that had fallen in the final retreating battle in the entry way and drag them out of the mansion. After a little healing, the party tries to drag as many out of the house as possible. The rough terrain in the entry way is slowing down their progress.

Akronos starts to cast a long spell to help with the bodies, but it takes longer than the party had for the task at hand.

Two more zombie come and attack them while they are grabbing bodies and then the whispers of madness are heard and Otep is struck motionless for a moment. When he recovers the party decides that the 10 bodies they have dragged out will have to be enough for now since they are all badly wounded and can't stand any more damage without possibly having to leave a member behind, unconscious in the mansion.

This is where the session ends. The party has killed many of the zombies and drag lots of them outside. They know that something is making the ones left inside regenerate or be reanimated. Things in this mansion are tough and bent on sucking the life out of them. It will take an amazing effort by this group to be able to defeat the evil that is within...