Once I reached the wall level, I followed it around as far as I could, but it didn’t last but a couple hundred feet before meeting the walls of the cavern. I noticed an odd winch system on that side, so I headed over to investigate. Looking over the wall, there was a clearing area leading to a path along the cliff. It looked like the former owners occasionally went down, and used a large platform to move people up and down. Heh, medieval freight elevator, who’lda thunk it? With nothing else to see, I headed down to ground level inside the courtyard and walked around the final building.

The more I looked at it, the odder it was. There was only the one door, and it was partially sunk into the ground for some reason. At most, two people could get by. There were no other points of entrance, even windows. There were three smoke stacks at the north end of the building, all of them pushing out a green smog. So, my newest dilemma. Do I enter through the front door, that is guaranteed to be guarded? Or pick a random spot to enter and hope for the best.

I started my climb by making hand holds along both sides of the southwest corner of the building. I climbed up it, not having hardly any trouble. Once to the top, I pulled myself onto the flat roof and rested to recover my stamina. As I did, I felt a chill pass along the scales of my arm. I dropped flat to the ground as fast as I could, thinking that feeling would have my hair standing on end if I were still a mammal. I swiftly shut off my mystic vision, as something was happening to the minarets on the keep. The outer ones were pulsing with a dark light, gaining more power every three seconds or so. Once they were fully charged, the second ring of minarets started pulsing in the same way. After the third and final ring of minarets reached full power, the outer ones started passing energy in massive bolts of darkness moving counterclockwise. It started as random sparks, gradually building up until it was a complete hexagon. The same thing happened to the two inner rings, before the swirling energy started firing off towards the center. Once everything had reached its height, a massive wave of energy moved from the lowest outer ring, to the highest middle ring before crashing back down into the inner ring. It was then funneled down into a massive vortex, right before there was a pulse through the air that made my ears pop.

Feeling light of breath, I activated mystic vision to see what happened, and was stunned. There was no ambient mana. Whatever ritual they had just performed, had taken that entire pulse of mana and soaked up every last iota of it. That was terrifying. “Thanatos.” I muttered. “I don’t know if you saw what I just saw, but I believe that part of the ritual to corrupt the bodies of fallen heroes requires, no demands, and absolutely absurd amount of mana.”

Thanatos agrees with your assessment.

However, your task is not done. The ritual is important, but find out what preparations are required beforehand. You have done well so far, and I trust you will finish your mission.

Good luck, Angus.

Did, did I just get a direct message from Thanatos? Wow. I thought he would only do that for the high priest. This is probably something that I should only do on rare occasions. I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of a divine smiting for being annoying.

Ok, back to the issue at hand. I started along the eastern side of the building, and five feet north of the corner I cut a small square out and carefully lifted it off to the side. Looking down, I could see a support beam I could drop down onto with a large enough hole to wiggle through. Slightly below the rafter was a cage. Three levels of cages to be honest. I dropped down, trying to be as silent as possible, and found myself in a massive prison. There were bare bones cages, with slats for floors to give something slightly more substantial to walk on other than steel bars. Each cage had skeletons in them, though not of the resurrected variety. I slowly circled the room, and it was the same. The south end had the larger cages for things like minotaurs, while the north end was positively crammed with a double layer of goblin sized cages. As I was hiding in the northeast corner of the room, the main door slammed open.

Two skeletons were manhandling a third, that was fighting it with everything it could. The chains shackling it, glowing with a green energy, were doing a fine job of sapping the undead of its strength. Behind it came two figures. One was an incredibly tall humanoid skeleton, with spiked leather armor in strategic places. The other was a robed figure, its gnarled hand clutching a smooth ebony staff. Since he was the only one still with flesh on his bones, I assumed this was the necromancer.

“Keep him in the cage. He was strong in life, but none have managed to last longer than three days. Well, none other than you, Kurgan.” The praise seemed to make the tall skeleton laugh. “Now, have you discovered the group who killed the luminanthrake and the drider?” The skeleton’s jaw moved, but as he was lacking lungs and other necessities, no sound came out. That apparently didn’t stop the necromancer from understanding. “Pity. I’m sure their bones would make excellent replacements. Guard our new recruit, I need a few hours to recover from the ritual. Then we can have some fun breaking him.”

I watched silently, mulling over all the implications. The ritual was powerful, but it looks like the necromancer was mostly working on his own. The ritual also wasn’t perfected, as summoned undead are almost always completely under the control of their summoner. Maybe I could recruit an ally?

As I was thinking over the implications, the necromancer left and took the two other guards with him. Watching him go, I saw the back of the Kurgan and noticed two things. The first was the absolutely massive greatsword he had on his back. He also had Ramirez’ sword strapped right next to it. The Kurgan looked in the cage for a second, possibly going through more of that silent communication, before turning and striding off through a door in the northern wall. Unsure how much time I had, I swiftly descended and saw that there were stairs at each of the corners that allowed me to descend.

Once on the ground floor, I made my way to the cage. “Hey, if I help you out of those chains, will you help me?” I asked, and noticed that the skeleton had blue flames in his skull instead of the necromancer’s green flames. “C’mon, gonna need an answer here, the sooner the better.” I pleaded, and got the skeleton to nod vigorously. The gate was latched with a simple deadbolt and secured with a drop pin, and a massive metal plate prevented the prisoners from freeing themselves. I pulled up the pin, undid the deadbolt, and opened the door.

“Ok, loop those chains around your wrists a few times, I need you to hold the taut while I try and slash through them.” As he obeyed, I took a few moments to try and create the sharpest [Keen edge] I had done yet. An edge sharp enough to cut not only metal, but the magic that no doubt bound the chain as well. Bracing itself, the skeleton prepared for my strike.

It didn’t have the strength. Either that or my visualization of the skill just wasn’t strong enough. Either way, I got my attack to bite a little bit into the metal, but then the force of my strike sent the chain downward, robbing me of all the power in my strike. “Damn, this isn’t going to work.” I tried working the tip of the scythe inside the chain loops to pry it open like that, but they were far too resistant to the little bit of leverage I could generate.

“I’m sorry, we are going to need a key to free you. Is it on the necromancer?” Shaking head no. “The Kurgan?” Vigorous yes. “That’s fine, I need to kill that bastard anyway. I’m going to need a distraction though. I want you to stand just outside of the cage and stare the Kurgan down when he returns. I’ll attack him from behind, and take him down. I know those chains weaken you, so just be the distraction, don’t join the fight, okay?”

At his agreement, I headed up to the north eastern corner of the room, and hid underneath the stairs. I double checked everything in my inventory. Crossbow loaded with armor piercing bolts. Hammerscythe at the ready. I had gone through almost half of my supply of pyrophoria potions, so I grabbed a few of the acid ones instead. A crinkling of the chains warned me that the Kurgan had returned, and I finally was close enough for an analysis.

Kurgan, the Jailor

Lvl 41 heroic

One of the cruelest existences ever, the Kurgan lives to cause pain. Wielding a greatsword, he toys with his opponents. The necromancer who raised him has embraced and encouraged this side of his minion, and the Kurgan willingly serves. For now.

Sounds like a real class act. It took a few strides into the room, and unlimbered the greatsword from his back. Rather than dealing with a scabbard, the guard of his sword had a vicious hook that allowed him to ‘sheath’ it on a ring just over his shoulder. This brilliant setup let him draw the sword after only moving it a few inches. As he was staring down the prisoner, I was sneaking up behind him. I was quite impressed by the fact that he was holding his greatsword out to the side with one hand. “[Keen edge].” I whispered, right before slashing through his elbow. The sword dropped to the ground with a clang, but Kurgan immediately spun and smashed his fist into my face, sending me reeling. By the time I had recovered, I had to start frantically dodge sweeping blows of the greatsword.

It readily became apparent that I was being toyed with, as he kept attacking just fast enough that I could partially dodge his strikes, taking slight slashes to my limbs. As I was losing hope, the skeleton from earlier came through in a big way. He looped his chains over the Kurgan’s head, gave it a twist, then turned and bent over so that Kurgan was standing on his tip toes, unable to get any leverage. I close in and started slashing and smashing with abandon, trying my best to cave in the chest. Once we had taken him down to about a quarter health, the Kurgan managed to get sideways just enough that he could extricate himself, so we separated to keep him from being able to attack both of us at once.

“Time to end this.” I muttered to myself, and hoed that the other skeleton would be able to read my intentions. I started to dart in, feinting. The other skeleton started his own charge as the Kurgan started to stab at me. Seeing me hesitate, he brought his blade in a massive overhand swing that would probably cleave anyone trying to block it in half. I continued my charge, knowing that he couldn’t possibly counterattack me in time. “[Death’s gaze][Reaper’s edge].” The only spot that lit up was a thin red line across the throat, and as he bent over from the force of his own blow, I slashed through his neck, and finally finished him.

Panting, I checked the other skeleton. “So. Ha. Ha. Thanks, for the save there. Got a name?” He moved his mouth for a few seconds before I spoke up again, “Sorry, I forgot I can’t hear you. Here, let me loot this guy and we’ll see about getting you out of those chains.” Touching the body, the only things I got were a bone key, a handful of gold coins, and Ramirez’ sword. Once I used the key, the skeleton slumped back in relief.

“Well, you’re free to do wha you want I guess. I’m going to go around and kill that necromancer, but I don’t’ know how well you’ll be able to sneak what with the glowing flames and all.” It seemed quite depressed at that, and I really wanted to just leave it be, but found myself talking again. “Of course, there is still the main keep to clear out, I might need help with that. Tell you what, grab that sword there, I’ll see how we can work together. Most likely I will kite a bunch of them into a trap that you engage. Will that work?” Seeing his excited face, I couldn’t help but wonder how in the hell a skeleton managed to convey feelings with facial expression. Was it a subtle shading of the flames that lit their eyes?

“Ok, before we go through there, we need to figure out just what in the hell is going on in the other room. I’ll check it out first, you stay here, ok?” At his nod, I poked my head around the corner of the doorframe to see just what was going on.

Inside looked like a recreation from the Dahmer Cookbook. There was a heroic skeletal butcher that was removing as much flesh as possible from corpses on one table. When he got it mostly removed, he would toss the bone over his shoulder into a pot, occasionally stopping to stir it. Next to it was another table, where a heroic skeletal alchemist was prepping each of the now pristinely white bones, drying them off and adding powders and reagents to them. Once things were dried, the bones were tossed into another bubbling pot and stirred, and after a few minutes were fished out with a massive strainer. He would then place them on a rack over a drain to dry out once again.

The final table was where the operation slowed down. Three heroic enchanters were hunched over the table, each one carving things into the bones of a meticulously reassembled skeleton. They didn’t throw the bones into the final pot until they were at least four bones away from the finished ones, and I assumed that they were carving a massively linked runic array into the bones.

I headed back to plan with my new ally. “Ok, so there are five heroic skeletons in there, all of them at level 41. None of them should be as troublesome as the Kurgan was, so I think we can do it. There are three enchanters, an alchemist, and a butcher. I think the enchanters would be the most dangerous, but they are also engrossed in their work. I’ll take the alchemist out first with a bolt to the head, then reload and take out an enchanter as you engage the butcher. You will have reach with that greatsword, and after I take out the other enchanters I’ll head over and help you out if you need it. Sound good?” At his nod, I loaded an armor piercing bolt, and we got to work.

The plan went off without a hitch. I started by the left hand side of the door, and took out the unsuspecting alchemist with one shot to the forehead. As soon as I shot, the skeleton ally dashed through and engaged the butcher, who was stunned for a second but recovered in time to not take a free blow. The clash of metal alerted the three enchanters, just as I finished reloading. As they looked on, confused as to why two skeletons were fighting, I shot the furthest one from me in the skull, killing him. Charging in, I made it halfway to them before they both turned and started chanting some magic spells. I used a simple body check to interrupt the closest one, and used his body to shield me from the bolt of darkness that flew out of the other enchanter’s hand. Unsurprisingly it didn’t do any damage, but my shoving my hand into its chest cavity and ripping out the resurrection core caused quite a bit of panicked flailing before death. For a mostly insubstantial organ connected with flows of mana, it was rather hard to rip out. I vaulted over the table, scattering the bones and taking a dark bolt in the process. Once I got into melee range, the fight was swift. The enchanter fell for every feint, and when I wasn’t giving them it completely ignored my left hand, despite taking several punches to the face and side of the head.

Once the final enchanter was dead, I looked over to see that the butcher had also fallen, though my ally was sitting at a quarter health. “Well, this will be the last time you go into battle my friend.” I said, and interrupted his flare of anger. “You have no way to heal yourself, and I don’t know any dark magics. That just means you will have to help me with traps.” When he finally looked like it wasn’t in the mood to argue anymore, I set about inspecting everything and looting bodies. Since I didn’t do any damage to the butcher, I couldn’t claim any loot from him, but the others all gave up several silver and a resurrection core each.

According to identification, the bubbling pot that the butcher was tossing things into was a lye solution. It smelled particularly foul, and I didn’t spend hardly any time in the near vicinity. The next set up seemed to be a way to neutralize all the lye and somehow strengthen the now brittle bones. I had no idea what was going on in the last station, aside from writing the runes. There were three books of notes, but I was lacking several skills to even make sense of them. “Thanatos, I’m not sure if this will work, but if it doesn’t the worst that happens is this knowledge is lost from this world. I offer to you these books as sacrifice, and all the knowledge within. I believe it to be another integral part of the ritual.” After I spoke, I tossed the three books into the flames at the base of the final cauldron, and a familiar purple hue.

Thanatos accepts your sacrifice.

You continue to do well, mortal. This is indeed the knowledge required for the ritual, and I thank you for removing it from this world. I count your mission fulfilled, though I will grant you a bonus if you find the source of the mana the necromancer is using.

“Thank you, Lord. I will find the source.” I vowed. Out of curiosity, I pulled a bone out of the final cauldron. It looked pristine. I had to practically put it right next to my nose to see the indentations from the carving had been filled in, and activating mystic vision allowed me to see that it was filled with a very mana rich compound. Tossing the bone aside, I started looking around this kitchen of horrors. There were two things that I was incredibly interested in. For some reason there were several large sacks of flour, near fifty pounds apiece. I immediately put them in my inventory, as well as several jugs of cooking oil. Smiling, I left the kitchen, ready to finally take on the main keep.