Cultes Des Ghoules

REP has been awarded for this quest.

DM Name: Sorrowdusk

Quest Name: Cultes Des Ghoules

Participants:
Gajendra,3,Fighter
Ginko, "Bearbearian", Level 5
Kira, Scout/Ranger 5
Locklear,Scout, Level 2
Olivia,Psion 2
Yuria, Level 4 Psion

Challenges:
1x CR 3 Spiked Pit Trap (CR3)
1x CR 3 Burning Hands Trap (CR3)
1x CR5 Nabassu & 4x CR1 Ghoul Cultists (CR6)

Experience:
Gajendra 750xp
Ginko625xp
Kira625xp
Locklear 750xp-> reduced to »638« Lock spent much of the last encounter paralysed by no fault of his own during which he didnt post, and then later had to leave.. I've elected to reduce the xp from the CR6 encounter (450) only by 25%, but to keep full gold.
Olivia 750xp
Yuria 666xp [}:-) I'm not making this shit up D: It came to 666.666666666 and I rounded down…]

Treasure:
Olivia 1406gp
Gajendra 1406gp
Yuria 1248gp
Kira 1171gp
Ginko1171gp
Locklear 1406gp
Humanoid skulls with tiny horns and unusually sharp canines. (At least 1 for everyone who cared to take one)

Quest Summary:

[NOTE! Olivia has become infected with: Ghoul Fever (Su) Disease—Fortitude DC 12, incubation period 1 day, damage 1d3 Con and 1d3 Dex. An afflicted humanoid who dies of ghoul fever rises as a ghoul at the next midnight. A humanoid who becomes a ghoul in this way retains none of the abilities it possessed in life. It is not under the control of any other ghouls, but it hungers for the flesh of the living and behaves like a normal ghoul in all respects. A humanoid of 4 Hit Dice or more rises as a ghast, not a ghoul. I have left it up to THEM whether they would handwavium this away after the quest (albeit it would still take them 1 day to know they were ill) or whether they would instead continue to seek aid from another player IC. IT IS UP TO THEM.]



The party was drawn into the underground benearth the streets of Avalon, into the Undercity. A bill or mercenary contract was posted by the city watch who had come to suspect some foul goings on…in the catacombs. Yes, the dead of the undercity must be burried, some people live below all their lives, and are inturred there too. On the edges of the Undercity the guard who posted the reward, Sebastian Tember, awaited them at an opening to the catacombs, accompanied by a dwarven crypt keeper, Mr. Pickman.

The party learned that Pickman had heard some strange sounds comming from the deeper parts of the extensive catacombs, he investigated discovering a breach in a wall leading into what he proposed were an unmapped part of the catacombs. All of his life he had taken care of its dead and walked its labyrinthian corridors, and he had no knowledge of these hidden halls. He fled from some sort of Horror and barely escaped, locking the gate to that section behind him. When he returned with guardsmen Tember they pair found the lock had been snapped. Tember thad recieved reports from locals of a creature that supposedly stalked the streets; these reports and Pickman's encounter coincided with one another, and so he believed they may have been related. Tember assesed the situation as being the kind of thing better handled by mercenaries, andso he offered the job that the party signed up for. Pickman agreed to show them the way to the area in question.

The catacombs are a great deal more pleasant, and well lit than they might have expected. The floors were well swept, and everburning torches and little candles gave a soft light. All along the walls were brass or marble plaques with names, behind which one could imagine the coffins entombed. There was a slight hint of burning incense, and the place seemed rather peaceful.

As he leads them through the empty halls, he noted that people did come to visit the departed. It is that fact that disturbed him most, that a Thing most foul might patron those halls too. As they go along, he unlocked several gates, that seemed to divide the underground into various partitions, and took them down a few flights of stairs, each one leading them into a deeper, cooler, darker place than before….

The the floors become dustier, and the cobwebs thicker, and the lights fewer and fewer, until there were none but the ones they cared to bring. He showed them to an iron gate; though held fast by lock and chain, a broken set lay on the floor. Pickman unlocked the gate and the party filed though, only to be locked in, much to the chargin of Gajendra who made Pickman promise to be around to let them out.

The party searched and discoverd that the hall was lined with shelves which held not coffins, but instead skeletal bodies, some of which were covered in tattered shrouds. All of them however, were missing their skulls. In the thick dust of the floor therre were strange "Y" shaped tracks, along with seemingly humanoid tracks. Ginko mused that the tracks reminded him of some giant bird, but what would such a thing bedoing down here?

The party entered the breach in the wall, and found themselves in a new passage, not unlike the last, albeit rather thanthe familiar masonry of the last it had a distinctly different, cyclopean mode. However, the shelves here were empty, the bones scattered all over, and yet there were no skulls in sight. Heading further down this hall, stumbling over the light riuble and scattered remains they came to a larger pile of bones, denser than the rest in the hall. The party was also disgusted by a vile odor initially attributed to Lock's flatulence. Not thinking anything, the party passed over the pile that spread the width of the corridor, and Lock and Ginko fell 20ft into a deep pit trap, lined with sharp wooden spears. The fall did little, but the points hurt them quite a bit more. At the bottom the two of them were not alone….

They lay amongst three nude females, all human with skin pale as the moon and large full breasts.

And all very much headless, and very much impaled.

Painfully.

The others offered rope, by which they escaped from the hole. In addition to being filled with impaled decapitated corpses, rotten wooden planks that had broken under their weight, bones that had covered the trap, and spears- it was also filled with about an inch of brackish water stained with blood. Very little blood covered the spears, but more of it covered the inner wall of the opposite side andsomeof the ground there. The party reasoned that the women had had their heads forced over the pit, and their throats slit or were decapitated over it so as to be exsanguinated into the viable malebolge before their corpses were impaled on the spears.

Continuing around a corner the party turned down another lenghty hall. This one was lined with more empty shelves, but also pairs of alcoves which held life sized statues of black marble. This statues depicted men and women, some in robes, others in armor, the latter of which were also posed artisitcally with weapons. Upon further inspection, they noticed that many of them had a slight point to the ears, and a number had small if distinct horns just beneath their hairline. None of the statues had plaques or engraved names, but one would speculate that this forgotten crypt belonged to a family of tieflings or else humans with fiendish blood.

At the end of the hall was plain iron door. More wary now, the party inspected the door for traps but found none. Lock listended at the portal, and on the other side he heard a murmmering he didnt understand, dismissing it as gibberish. Ginko pushed at the door, but it didnt budge, pushing at it harder activated a magical trap. A circle of runes scribed themselves across the door and a gout of flame washed over the party, kocking Lock unconscious and badly wounding others, in addition to setting off some kind of Alarm spell. Recovering, the party kicked the door in ready for who or whatever was on the other side.

Inside there were ozens and dozens, maybe even a few hundred skulls. They were clean and white, some of them with small horns, or unusually sharp canines for a humanoid. Most of them were missing the lower mandible. In the center of the room there was an altar, upon which rested heads, mates to those of the bodies they'd found earlier. Statues of gargoyes, lined the walls, watching over the altar. Searching the room the party found a nude woman lying in an arcane circle drawn with thick lines of chalk. She was breathing but didnt respond to the party, except to barely open her eyes whenLock lit a wick and held it to her skin. What kept her so, drugs, magic?

Where had the participants of this rite gone? They found out emaciated human forms leapt at them from various hiding places, inlcuding from within the altar which turned out to be a hollow stone box of some sort with a close fitting lid. One of them downed Lock immediately, afflicitng him with a paralysis that left him utterly helpless. One of the gargoyle statues lips twisted into a smirk, and its gray lids opened to reveal hideously flickering eyes, and a life stealing gaze. Engaging the creatures, the party quicklyleanred that they had to avertor sheild their eyes, less the creature drain them of their essence drop by dulcet drop.

Gajendra managed to trip it behind the altar, obscuring the rest of the parties view of it, though without holding it down, it wouldnt stay out of sight forever. As the gargoyle or bat like entity spoke to them telepathically swearing "You WILL kneel before ME and you WILL be MY slaves, and your women will be offerings for the Great Demon Prince of The Undead and I WILL-" it was cut off by the raging Ginko's swordstroke. It was a truely incredible blow, worthy of song and legend, that struck with such force it actually lifted the winged Horror up of of the floor, before splitting it in half and sending its torso flying into the ceiling with a shower of stones.

Fallen the emaciated humanoids swore that their master would be avenged. They fought on in a frenzy, most of their attacks failing to connect, albeit Olivia was paralysed and it was up to Yuria and Gajendra to keep her unmolested by the abominations. Finally, the party wittled down the pack to a single individual, that Gajendra left prone and defenseless. It wheeze, and gave for a slow escape of truley vile air from its mouth and perhaps other orifices unseen, stinking of its decaying organs.

"Breeeath deep the incense of our machinations!", it cried shaking a boney fist, //"Know the Dead outnumber the living! And know one night -the dead shall RISE and devour the living! Praise be to The Demon Prince of the Undead, Unhallowed be his name!"

The raging bear-kin cleaved him in two, and all was silent as the grave. Collecting their survivor, they brought her out of the forgotten crypt, leaving behind only four mutilated corpses and a pile of ash. Tember identified her as one of the missing women he had been searching for. With time, her extended paralysis cleared and she was able to tell them a horrifying tale of being kidnapped by a pack of barely human creatures, and dragged into the deepest bowels of the crypt, and being made to watch the other women die, one at a time.

Still…the party was left with questions. What was that creature with such evil eyes, so as to slowly make one die inside with only a look? And what were the undead's relationship to it?Did the party call the undead's own bluff when they destroyed it? Would the night it dreamed of ever come? Hopefully not while they were alive/…hopefully, not at all.


Quotes

*Performance*
<+Locklear> ill play. just saying my performance isn't going to be up to par.
<@Ginko> Woman problems Lock?
<+Locklear> nah
<+GamastaTam> Performance not up to par? Why-you should talk to your cleric about -Questalis!

*The gate is locked behind them*
+Gajendra chuckled inspite of himself as Locklear spoke up about payment, a slow shake of his head. They should have insisted on the little blighter coming with them, or that guard perhaps as insurance. With his luck they had been sent down here to feed whatever horrid guardian the sicko's down here maintained to guard the tombs. He looked back to the dwarf, leveling a pointed and weighty gaze upon <C>
<+Gajendra> <Co> him, "Stick around, or the bear and I will have see how strong your gate really is…and then compare it to your skull.." he grunted at the last, enjoying pretending to be a hardass when in fact he's only growling in jest with the stumpy fellow…well, maybe.

*Entering the Forgotten Crypt*
+GamastaTam as you enter the breach, and continue you rattle bones and loose stones. As you begin to approach the end of the pile of bones at the end of the hall, there is….a stench.
<+Kira> "By the gods… Lock.. stop it" she covers her nose with one hand.

*Lock 'n Load*
<+GamastaTam> whats marching order BTW?
<@Ginko> shotgun!
<+GamastaTam> With Lock?
<+GamastaTam> Guess that'd make you Lock and Loaded
<+Olivia> …
<+Olivia> bad bad pun

*Escaping from the pit*

<+Gajendra> <Co> his eyes were ahead of them, still having the eerie thought that they had vibrated the web and the spider was merely moving in for the kill now that they were distracted trying to "free" themselves. <C>

*Dicovering a chamber*

<+Locklear glances around and murmurs softly,"Only liberal applications of bleach and fire could scour this place rightfully."

*After 4 enemies all miss with full attack*
<+GamastaTam> wow…these flunkies suck, good help is hard to find, no?
<+GamastaTam> Nobody got hit?
<+Kira> he went to Henchman.com didn't he

*The Killing Stroke*
<@Ginko> roll 4d6+40 Damage of DEATH
<+Vault> Ginko rolled 4d6+40 Damage of DEATH —> [ 4d6=13 ]{53}

*Saving throws*
<+GamastaTam> 2 saves actualy
<+Olivia> roll 1d20+1 :(
<+Vault> Olivia rolled 1d20+1 :( —> [ 1d20=4 ]{5}
<+Yuria> Welcome to the world of being a lowbie

*When animated doors attack, OR proper use of Control Object*
roll 1d20+8 (Bab + Int) Bitchslapping door!
<+Vault> Yuria rolled 1d20+8 (Bab + Int) Bitchslapping door! —> [ 1d20=17 ]{25}
<+GamastaTam> laaaawl hit

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