Scenario 2.1: Undead Uprising

“My detect evil spell is picking up high levels of evil in the vicinity,” said Lem.

This surprised the rest of the group, since they were eating their meal in the Rusty Dragon tavern when this was going on, and there didn’t appear to be any sources of evil here.

“I think it’s because of undead activity,” Lem continued.

“Where are they?” Valeros asked.

“I’m getting possible readings from six locations in Sandpoint. The sanatorium, the mill, the general store, the village house, the Old Light ruins, and the desecrated vault.”

“Okay, then it’s time to get moving,” said Valeros. “I’ll go to the general store and see if I can pick up a few things while I’m there. Harsk can provide fire support from the mill. And Lem and Ezren can go to the Old Light, since there may be magical activity there.”

Valeros went to the General Store. Outside the store there was a tourist guide with a sign:

Undead Special – 50% Off All Spooky Tours!

See Sandpoint’s undead with your own eyes, with our trusted guides!

Tours of Habe’s Sanatorium and the Desecrated Vault – special deals!

Note: We cannot be held responsible for injury caused by undead attacks or villainous activity.

Valeros hired the guide, who guided him around back of the shop and into an alcove below. “Now, the first stop on our spooky tour is the Haunted Shop. This shop was formerly a shop, but is now haunted with a ghost. Some people say it’s just a ghost story – oh no it isn’t; the ghost is right there!”

A ghost got up and attacked Valeros. Fortunately, he had a magic sword, which could slay the ghost. After the ghost was slain, another, happier seeming ghost appeared, and gave him a ghostly version of a heavy crossbow. “Just beat my performance in a target shooting contest, and the crossbow is yours!” He really wanted the crossbow so he could give it to Harsk – he didn’t want his comrades to think he was just goofing off while everyone else was doing the work, so he used a blessing of the gods for aid, but still failed, just barely. (The whole prize thing was really sweeping Sandpoint by storm – even the ghosts were in on it now.) Valeros made his way up back to the main store and spun the Wheel of Luck a couple more times. He failed a challenge to acquire a potion, but succeeded in acquiring a simple quarterstaff.

Harsk explored the mill. There were definitely zombies here – a plague zombie! He got rid of the plague zobie, but soon found himself faced with another threat – a catwalk that had lots of spinning blades going across it. What it was doing in a mill he didn’t know – whoever built the mill wasn’t concerned about workplace safety. He summoned up the power of the gods to help him across, but it wasn’t enough – he couldn’t find a way through.

Lem explored the ruins, and was soon attacked by a skeleton! Fortunately he was able to hit it with his sling, but only with a stone thrown so hard that he ripped the sling in half. He tried to explore further, but Ezren stopped him.

“I believe that I now have the capability to perform an augury,” Ezren said. “This should allow us to either avoid monsters, or locate an enemy more easily.”

“Let’s do it.”

Ezren cast the augury spell. “There’s two monsters nearby.  If we plan our exploration carefully, we should be able to avoid them.”

That was cool! That was cool! Avoid the monsters and then

Go out and recharge that spell to do it all again!

Lem’s song helped Ezren recharge the spell, then Ezren continued exploring. A giant gecko came out of the stonework to attack, but Lem killed it with his wand of force missiles. The wand was depleted, although he did still have a cure spell left, which he could use to regain his strength.

Ezren soon encountered a big zombie – surely this was one of the villains’ zombie minions! Ezren froze the zombie to death (again) with a frost ray. Lem and Ezren then worked together to use some of the magical runes in the area to cast a simple anti-undead spell – though it could not defeat undead by itself, it could certainly prevent more from infesting this area, at least for a time.

Valeros continued talking to the owner of the general store, asking what his opinion was of Mayor Kendra’s “random equipment” plan. It sounded like he really liked all the challenges, because he got to see what all the town’s adventurers were like. And why did he like that? Well, the answer to that was clear: the owner was actually Caizarlu Zerren, an evil necromancer who was spying on the citizens of Sandpoint and was going to attack!

Caizarlu had seen that Valeros was kind of like the leader of one of the town’s best adventuring parties, and figured that if he could kill Valeros, it would be a big blow to the adventurers of the town. That’s why he changed to his necromancer from and summoned a zombie minion! But the minion was no match for Valeros’ blade. Valeros attacked Caizarlu, chasing him out into the street, where a bot from Harsk and several swings wounded him. But then Caizarlu cast a portal spell and disappeared, saying “You will see me again…”

Back at the mill, Harsk continued exploring. He picked up a longbow lying on the ground, but was soon set upon by a zombie horde! Actually, it was only one zombie, not really much of a horde. He fired two shots and hit the zombie once in each eye.

< = = = >

Lem and Ezren went to the village house, hoping to rest up there and maybe get some more information. There were several people talking about the recent events and swapping equipment to help against the undead. There were some weapons, which neither Ezren nor Lem could use. Aldern Foxglove was there, trying to decipher a scroll he had recently acquired on an adventure.  Normally he was pretty good at deciphering scrolls, but this one looked different. Ezren, too, was having some trouble.

“Do you have anything to help?” he asked Lem.

“I have a spell to help deal with traps.”

“I guess this kind of counts as a trap. Let’s try it and see if it works.”

He tried the find traps spell and deciphered the scroll – it had four different spells on it. The spells themselves weren’t that useful, knowing that there was magic in the area, Ezren looked for more. He cast a spell of detect magic, which revealed a magic scroll in someone else’s pack. The other person didn’t know what it was or that it was valuable, so Ezren was able to trade a minor trinket for it.

Valeros joined Harsk at the mill. He had thought about going to one of the undead locations, but he was no cleric – even if he did clear out some of the zombies, others would come right back out for him. He found a blessing and a hermit crab – a strange combination. Harsk also found a blessing – apparently, some good priests were doing a service for some of the mill workers who had died due to the unsafe conditions, and they had booked it when the monsters showed up. A toad was jumping around – Harsk was able to corner the toad and catch it.

Harsk soon came face-to-face with the evil Dr. Habe! Habe had no weapon, but instead ran away. He ran through a trapped passageway near the bottom of the mill, daring the rest to follow them. (In general, the whole trend of dangerous traps in places where civilians were working had started to become a problem, there were reports in the newspaper of innocent civilians being killed by traps almost every month. There were rumors that they were planning on forming the VSHA (Varisian Safety and Health Administration) to look into the problem, but so far the rumors were just that – rumors.

Harsk jumped through the traps. He had several near misses, and just barely got across without being sliced in half by a blade. It was only through a timely speed spell by Ezren that he managed to make it. However. Habe had one more trick up his sleeve – he took something shiny off the wall and threw it toward Harsk! Harsk saw the treasure and stopped to pick it up, leaving Dr. Habe to disappear around the corner. Thinking quickly, he released his toad, which led the way to Dr. Habe, who had no place else to run. But before Habe died, he triggered some sort of mechanism, which would open up a secret passage. With Ezren’s speed spell still in effect, Harsk ran to stop it – but wasn’t fast enough. A secret passage was open somewhere in the mill, and if they wanted to prevent the villain from escaping here, they would have to find some other way to close it.

Lem went into the basement of the village house and encountered a zombie minion! He tried to cast a sanctuary spell – but as the spell worked by tricking the enemy’s mind, it was useless against the undead! The enemy advanced forward and attacked. Lem ran away, and he felt the blessings of the gods slip away from him, as a punishment for his foolishness. Lem ran back up to Ezren, and alerted him to the threat.

They prayed for healing – the gods smiled on them this day, and both Ezren and Lem were able to cleanse themselves of all their wounds. Ezren told Lem that rather than fighting the zombie, he was going to go to Habe’s Sanatorium and search for the villain there. The villain and the henchmen were never in the same place – so there was no chance of a villain here. But they still needed to kill the zombie at some point – Valeros was going to help them with that.

Ezren went to the sanatorium and was immediately attacked by a zombie minion! Ezren used this as a chance to try out his latest new spell – a lightning bolt! The minion sparked wildly and fell down, and the inhabitants of the sanatorium saw. Ezren held his hand in the air and created more lightning bolts, advancing toward the sanatorium. This was his chance – if he could scare off most of the inhabitants, only the villain would be left. As he entered the sanatorium, he saw that his plan had worked – the inhabitants had been scared away, and there was no villain, but at least they could be sure the villain was not here.

Valeros went off to the village house. He met a guide, who he armed with a longsword, and they explored the basement again. They did not see a zombie, but did see that there was a cultist, who perhaps had summoned the zombie. They killed the cultist, but meanwhile, at the mill, something bad was happening. A zombie minion attacked Harsk! They thought they had cleared the place out, but a zombie minion must have escaped from somewhere else and got in through the hidden passages. Harsk was able to kill the zombie minion, and find the hidden passage to close it.

Lem and Ezren went over to brave the desecrated vault. They found a sage’s journal, with Ezren could decipher with the help of information from his codex. They soon explored further and found none other than the villain! The party got ready to attack, but Ezren held back.

“If we kill him now, the building will collapse!” said Ezren.

“Yeah, and we won’t get any treasure,” said Lem.

They had to make a quick decision. They could kill the villain now and escape, or they could evade him for now and explore the vault for treasure. It was time to count their blessings – thirteen left. Plenty left over to explore some more. But it was too risky. A lot could still go wrong. Especially with everyone in one place, an area attack would be devastating. In their last adventure, they thought they had plenty of extra time once they cleared the first two locations right away – but a couple unlucky encounters and they only won by the skin of their teeth. Better just to kill the bad guy now while they had the chance. And so it was done, and Caizarlu would not be a menace again.