Rurik's Mission II
Dead Men Walking
A rest was very welcome, and soon our wounds were healed. We were once again called to Lord Lucasson’s conference room. The first thing I noticed as we gathered for the meeting was that our numbers were reduced by one. Fenulla had been called back to her druid grove to deal with matters of nature. One of our major sources of healing was no longer available to us. None the less, we had a job to do. Lord Lucasson informed us of a problem in one of the towns to the west. Lord Chevelle was the lord of Port Luck and its surrounding areas. He was having some sort of trouble and requested help from Lord Lucasson. We were the help that Lord Lucasson was going to send. We were to travel to Port Luck and assist Lord Chevelle in any way we could.
Bright and early the next morning we set off on the road to Port Luck. We were all hoping for a relatively uneventful trip, but we were attacked by two different bandit parties. Neither of these encounters was anything more than what one might expect along a well traveled merchant road. Eventually we arrived in Port Luck. It was a nice little town with a good smithy. This was the main port for trade among the Western Isles. We found our way to Lord Chevelle and presented our charter. Right away I was unimpressed by this man. It was clear that he spent way too much time being a noble and not enough time minding the business of the town. He was haughty enough to put an elf to shame. Not only did it seem to bother him that he had to speak to underlings, he would not even acknowledge Scout’s presence, a fact that infuriated her. The problem that we were to fix was not actually anywhere near Port Luck, but rather in a small town to the south. Willow Ridge was one of the townships under Lord Chevelle’s protection. Apparently the mayor of Willow Ridge had been pestering Lord Chevelle for several months. There was some sort of disruption in the town, but Lord Chevelle suspected that it was just overly superstitious people in a back water town trying to get some attention. Our new assignment was to go to Willow Ridge and appease the mayor there so that Lord Chevelle would no longer be inconvenienced by the constant requests for help.
We started on the road to Willow Ridge the next morning. This road held two incidents: one merely interesting, the other fairly dangerous. The interesting incident had to do with a hungry and injured bear. It burst into our first campsite and was ready to attack. Rigel threw some food to the bear, and fortunately it stopped to eat. Then, with the bear somewhat sated, Scout was able to communicate with the bear as only those wilderness types can. The bear also had some mild injuries that Solomon was able to heal. After being healed, the bear’s behavior was much improved and it went on its way. The second incident had to do with a group of rogues that had set up a road block and were extorting money from travelers. We spoke with them for few minutes, but we could not reach an agreement. They wanted a good chunk of gold from us, and we didn’t want to give it to them. I made the first move, and my companions were quick to follow. I charged in before they were able to fire their bows and engaged the first row of enemies. We were able to defeat these brigands, and destroy the barricade. Soon after this, we made our way into Willow Ridge.
As soon as we entered Willow Ridge, we knew something was not right. The smell of fear was in the air, and all the villagers looked as if they were going through hard times. We made our way through the town and to the Mayor’s residence. There we met Mayor Brextol. Lord Chevelle described him as a whiny politician. This could not have been further from the truth. Mayor Brextol was a soldier. He was intelligent, strong, and experienced. He explained that his town was facing a great danger, and that Lord Chevelle had been no help at all. In fact, Lord Chevelle had actually reduced the support to the town since the crisis had begun. As we discussed the problems we could see that Mayor Brextol was a good and fair leader, but that he was not getting the support he needed from Lord Chevelle. The problem that Mayor Brextol and Willow Ridge faced was very serious. It seemed that undead had been spotted nearby, and they were getting closer to the town. This problem actually started several years before. In the beginning, it was only small animals that were found walking around when they should have been dead. Then, larger animals were seen, and this is when people started taking these sightings more seriously, as wolves and bears started raiding the outlying farms. This is when the first calls for help were sent to Lord Chevelle. Recently, dead people were seen walking around and attacking some of the farmers of the town. We were informed that the center of the undead uprisings seemed to be an older cemetery located a few miles from the town. It was no longer used by the town, and few people had visited it in recent years, but that seemed to be where the largest concentration of undead could be found. It seemed like a good place to start, so we rested up for part of the day, and made sure we had appropriate equipment. Solomon informed me that undead could be invulnerable to my slashing and piercing weapons, and suggested that I pick up a battle hammer of some sort. I searched the town blacksmith, and found a good, heavy maul to bring with me. Our plan was to set out in the afternoon, travel all night, and hit the cemetery by mid-morning the next day.
We followed Mayor Brextol’s directions and made our way toward the abandoned cemetery. The first two encounters were fairly mild. First, we encountered a group of zombies and smashed them good. My maul was amazing and I was able to crush several of the walking corpses. We soon encountered a second group of zombies and skeletons and made quick work of them, too. Then, we were caught by surprise by a group of four skeletons that burst from the ground and tore at our legs. Fortunately we were all able to get away from those abominations. Then, we noticed four more walking corpses in the distance. We moved to intercept them, but I was a bit slower than my fellow warriors. Solomon and Korthian reached them first and moved to attack. It was only then that they realized their error. They thought they were about to take out some more zombies, but these were ghouls, much more dangerous foes. I soon made my way to the fighting and we were able to fight off the ghouls. As dawn broke, we neared the old cemetery. We followed the old trail around a final hill, and there was the cemetery. There was a strange formation of rocks in this cemetery. Several rock pillars surrounded a central pedestal made of pure, black rock. This was amazing, but not my concern as we were not alone in the cemetery. There were dozens of zombies and skeletons moving about the pillars and tombstones. There were also two more ghouls and another, more fearsome being that was later identified as a wight. As soon as we entered the cemetery, the undead moved to intercept us. We quickly arranged ourselves in defensible positions, waiting for a wave of undead to wash over us. I set myself to deal with as many undead as I could and still hold my part of the line when I noticed that Arcadius was moving to a forward position. I was confused by this because I knew he would be cut down almost instantly if the undead got to him. I moved over to give him some cover, but before I could reach him, he turned to face the black pedestal. When he was still some thirty feet away, a beam of energy flew from his hand and struck the pedestal. An explosion rocked the cemetery and a wave of light and energy washed forth from the pedestal, leveling everything in its path, from the stones to the undead to the adventurers. I was able to turn away just in time, so I didn’t get hit too hard by that powerful wave. Arcadius, however, was not so lucky. As soon as the wave passed us by, Arcadius collapsed and rolled onto his side. The entire front half of his body had been burned away by the energy backlash of the pedestal. I didn’t have time to help him right away, as a few of the undead were still moving. We made quick work of those that were left and then went to check the damage. Aside from Arcadius, all of us were in good health. Arcadius, however, had been slain. We loaded his body onto our pack animals and we returned to Willow Ridge.
Mayor Brextol was there when we returned. He praised us for having destroyed the threat, and shared in our sorrow over our fallen comrade. He prepared a modest reward, two letters of praise (one for Lord Chevelle and one for Lord Lucasson), and a small escort to see us safely back to Port Luck. We felt bad for taking so much from a town that had seen so much hardship, but Mayor Brextol was so insistent that we couldn’t refuse. We made our way back to Port Luck and after the first day, we sent the escort back to Willow Ridge. We didn’t want to deplete the forces of Willow Ridge any more than necessary. Soon after we left the escort, we came across that same barricade that we faced on the way down. A new band of rogues had repaired the damage we had done in our first encounter and this time they didn’t even wait for us to talk before they opened fire. I charged the line, but I got hit by four arrows and was knocked unconscious. When I next woke up, we were in Port Luck. We met with Lord Chevelle and gave him one of our letters from Mayor Brextol. He basically blew us off, and we had to insist on him giving us our agreed upon award. We happily left Port Luck and returned to High Castle. Lord Lucasson was very happy to hear of our victory. We pooled our money and went to the clerics to have Arcadius raised from the dead. Then, just as we had our group return to full numbers, Solomon was called away by his church, so again our group dwindled. Those of us who were left retired for the evening and rested up for our next mission.