Episode 11: 9/20/08

The Party:

Ashelia Raminas, elf ranger-rogue/2-2

Haroldur, human cleric/4

Nineve Floret, human knight/4

Sarek, human wizard/4

We proceed down the stairs after Vander Anderhoff. Just as we're leaving, we hear armed men running to the front of the building. Captain Tevlis of the city guard, accompanied by two of his men, bursts through the door. He demands we cease and desist. We try to convince him that his goals and ours are not mutually exclusive. He concedes, but insists on accompanying and keeping an eye on us while we investigate the slaughterhouse.

We decend down the stairs and Vander is waiting for us in ambush! We rush into combat. As Nineve and I flank Vander, a vision of The Twin appears to me, and I gain a mirror image! Haroldur and Sarek take on Vander's burlier, angrier brother, Parn. Nineve eventually convinces Vander to surrender to her. Haroldur finds himself in a bad spot and flees across the slaughterhouse... only to run into another of Vander's barbarian brothers, Torkan! The cleric whittles him down eventually. In the meantime, the city guards turn on us and their erstwhile leader! Captain Tevlis, totally caught off guard, gets stabbed in the back by his own men and goes down. The guards are dealt with. Sarek also falls, but I manage to navigate the treacherous gauntlet of chutes, platforms and machinery, making it across the slaughterhouse floor just in time to save the wizard from certain doom. As the battle wraps up, we stabilize the three unconcious Sawfish brothers, time them up, and hang them by their bounds from the hook line in the ceiling. Then, we proceed deeper into the slaughterhouse in search of Lord Ondore's missing body.

As we're exploring the warrens of the slaughterhouse, we stumble upon an ogre, who attacks! He catches me on his hook, but fortunately, Nineve disarms him of his weapon before he has a chance to drop me into the mysterious vat of bubbling slime he's presiding over. As Nineve and I are battling the ogre, another stealthy Sawfish brother, Kinto, sneaks up behind Haroldur and Sarek! Nineve and I finish off the ogre and turn our attentions to the last Sawfish boy. We quickly subdue him and tie him up with his brothers.

At last, we enter a room obviously used for illegal necromancy and other foul-smelling evils. Disturbingly, the walls of this chamber are lined with familiar-looking cylinders - acid zombies! We've all been through this drill before, so rather than waiting for them to burst out and attack, I pop the cylinders from afar with my bow, and surprisingly, the zombies slump lifelessly to the floor.

Throughout, I can hear frantic chanting in an ajacent room, followed by some panicked-sounding but fluent cursing. Something must be going poorly... Suddenly, our old friend Filge the Necromancer bursts into the room. He must've heard our approach because he doesn't seem particularly surprised to see us. He animates the zombies with his familiar "Arise, my beautiful monstrosities!" line. Then he runs away like a little girl.

The battle is joined. We mow through the zombies and chase after Filge. We burst through a door farther down the hallway and find him - with some friends. Filge and a closely hooded female seem to be arguing over the shambling, reanimated corpse of what used to be Lord Ondore. Two acid zombies, massive skeletal monstrousity, and two cultists (from the shadows!) attack us. In what is becoming a disturbing trend, Filge uses foul magics to escape our wrath. The female and Lord "Shambles" Ondore escape up a concealed elevator of some sort while we are locked in a battle royale with the rear guard. Between Filge's pets, the cultists, and Haroldur's uncontrolled spider swarm, it's a tough fight, but we somehow manage to stay up and put them all down.

~Ashe