Ghastly Encounters (13th-14th of Bearguard, Rose: 47)

It was eventide on the 13th of Bearguard.

Elan and Siegride and Tamroohk had entered the Cloak of Starlight.

I think I've described this space before but I'll do it again. 

It's dark, perhaps midnight, and it's a clear night sky with bright stars; there doesn't appear to be any ambient light anywhere except for what you generate/bring with you. The surface is a gray grass and in the distance you hear the lapping waves of a distant ocean. There's a small slit of light that hangs about five feet in the air - that slit, when parted, returns one to the real world. There is a horde of goodies here that belong to the party and/or Siegride.

All of the possessions look very old. Dusty, covered in a grime. The books, spellbooks and journals that are here look weathered, like their pages are becoming more brittle with age. The treasures made of metal, gemstone, coins, and so on, look entirely unaffected, just covered in a dust. 

Elan, your nose bleeds here. Bad. Siegride has noted that a constellation is missing from the night sky. 

A quick, onsite inventory of the stuff that was stowed here shows that the following things were consumed by the Black Pudding:

7 bedrolls ~7 each

2 iron pots ~ 10 each

2 lamps ~1 each

2 buckets ~ 2 each

16 empty sacks ~1/2 each

Small stone statue of Barronar Truesilver ~?

fishing tackle ~4

2 shovels ~5 each

61 iron spikes ~5 (for 10)

2 Climber's kits ~12 each

The two angry +3 battleaxes are still here, sitting in a cleared, burned space where this other material used to be.

There is a burned, scorched-earth trail that leads away from this space, where the grasses and topsoil have been consumed, and Elan and company decided to follow it.

They follow the trail into the darkness for what rationally feels like 45 minutes. All around them is darkness and grass. They never, at all, catch a glimpse of the sea or the oceanside; the terrain elevation never changes; there is simply grass in all directions; they lose sight of the slit of light after stepping 30' away from it, and have only the burned trail to lead them back.

Elan is disturbed for she soon notices that there is absolutely nothing different with every twenty feet of steps she takes. That is: the pattern in the scorched earth repeats itself exactly every twenty feet; the grasses sway exactly the same every twenty feet; the landscape and horizon is exactly the same for every twenty feet. 

Her nose bleeding, she soaks it with a spare cloth held up to her face. Testing a theory, she turns around and marches 20' back the way she came. The space then opens up, the party's possessions are seen, and the slit hangs in the air. 

Elan looks back into the darkness and then back at Siegride and Tamroohk in a WTF moment.

Meanwhile, outside the cloak, three hours pass. The cloak sits there, unmoving, on the ground, everyone else resting and sitting in the pews of the dwarven chapel at the end of the mine. 

Tolman reads from his Diary of Correspondence. More news. "Good word to you, Tolman of Aymes Parish, and it's all the good words I can impart, for nothing else good is really to say. I've decided on a more ... prudent tact. I leave Rhackdalia within the next few hours. I make south to Shyn-Bhokerdown to catch a transport vessel I've brokered off of the island. Rhackdalia, most certainly, is lost. The rich evacuate; the poor pray; able-bodied are conscripted; there are enormous lines for food and clean water. The farms along the hillside that feed Rhackdalia are destroyed; merchants and farmers slaughtered. Word comes to me that Shyn-Pastore has been burned to the ground and its citizens slaughtered or chased into the nearby wood. Shyn-D'hnare is under assault; people are fleeing Shyn-Levenson by boat, or, taking their chances into the fens and marshes. I will be silent for a while now as I preserve my breath for my own life. Believer in fate, good Tolman? I am. We shall meet again!"

Meanwhile, the pseudodragon was curled up for a nap on the abandoned Cloak of Starlight when suddenly Siegride returned, and the little dragon was ejected to the floor. It hissed sleepily.

In playing around with the Cloak, the party noted the severe time dilation that occurs when the Cloak is occupied. When the cloak is worn, anyone still inside the cloak experiences an hour for nearly every second in real-world time. It would seem that, when the Cloak is opened and being used by its wearer, it creates a rift that alters that effect; slows it down in random ways.

Just in case you missed it, here are the tributes that you found within the chapel:

There were six tributes here. Master-works dedicated to the gods. They are the same origin as the mace found earlier in the adventure.

• A Light Dwarven Crossbow +2. 1d8 Piercing. 5lbs. Range 80/320. Light, loading, two-handed. Bluish silver, wood, handle, crafted steel. Decorated in outstanding blue Kyanite. When in varied light, it shows Berronar reaching out at the aggressor with a clawed hand.

• A Heavy Dwarven Greataxe +2. 1d12 Slashing. 7lbs. Heavy. Two-handed. Bluish silver, polished steel and laced with silver, decorated in Kyanite. In varied light, it shows Berronar’s kind face staring back at the possessor.
  
• A Shield +2. Round. Silver. 6lbs. Bluish silver, polished steel, large Kyanite gemstones. When in varied light, shows Berronar praying.
  
• A Heavy Dwarven Hammer +2. 1d12. 10lbs. Two-handed. Silver, blue, Kyanite. On the hammer, in the light, it shows Berronar in an angry scream.
  
• A Dwarven Battleaxe +2. 1d8/1d10 Slashing. 4lbs. Versatile. Silver, blue, Kyanite. On the axe, Berronar in prayer.
  
• Three Dwarven Daggers +2. 1d4 Piercing. 1lb. 1 is blue, silver, kyanite, the blade catches one-half of Berronar’s face. 2 is red, rubies, depicts half of Abbathor’s face; 3 is green, emeralds, depicts one half of Clanggedin’s face.

• The armor on the corpse is Dwarven Half-Plate +2. Blue, Kyanite. Dead dwarven hero. In the right light, along the breast plate, it shows Berronar’s torso in prayer.

After a rest, there was much discussion about possessions, the state of affairs in Rhackdalia (apparently under siege), and what to do next. To assist in their efforts, Siegride pulled out a scroll of Berronar Truesilver's followers, written in Dwarvish, the spell Speak with Dead. They cast it on the hero's corpse that was found in the underground church.

The corpse said that, in life, his name was Andersol Hammerhand, Son of Bakar. When asked, he said that his intention was to use the tributes to vanquish what was in the Pit in Drake, but he never had the chance; he and the miners were trapped on this level when Barrelborn sealed the Drake and locked everyone in the mine. The tributes were thought blessed by Berronar Truesilver's clerics and would aid him in his efforts. The Pit, he explained, wasn't what York thought it would be (the Khannel Duergar - the underground path to the mythical Dwarven exiles). His time expired, the corpse was finally silent.

When the party descended in the spindle to Drake, they found a foul forest of white vines and tree trunks that grew out of the very stone. The smell of sulfur and ammonia hung in the air; a dense mist or fog clung to their feet; it was seemingly entirely alien. These mine shafts were erratic, no artistic value like the upper levels, and seemingly lacking purpose, taking odd courses through narrow passageways without any regard for finding minerals or gemstone deposits. The upper levels seemed so planned and methodical; this layout seemed unplanned madness. Earlier the party had forced air into this level of the mine through the central control panel on Jackal; if they hadn't done that, they seriously doubted they'd be able to breathe this air.

It didn't take long for their exploration to lead to a tight corner in a narrow hall where the white trees and vines wrapped up around the walls and ceiling. Within the crevasses and crawl spaces of the foliage, movement, and corpses with pale white flesh, wicked claws, and horrendous fangs began to stir. The undead breathed in the breath of the living, and they rose to attack!

It was a bloody battle of a noxious stench, claws, poison, vomit, blood, earth-shattering spells and divine intervention! When the dwarven tribute weapons were used, everyone could hear a high-pitched tone like an inhuman (indwarven?) shriek with every time the weapons successfully connected with the flesh of the undead! The party found themselves beset by fourteen Ghasts coming at them from all directions, climbing through the trees along the wall, floor, and ceiling, swiping and biting them, ripping their flesh off their bones! But when the battle was over, the party members scraped by.

It was around 9am on the 14th of Bearguard when the party regrouped and prepared to trudge further into the Drake, to learn more of its awful secrets.


R