Siora took her last little misadventure to heart as she continued forward, down the hall. After all, where there was one trap, there were likely to be more. Especially with two lovely chests at the end of the hallway, just tempting people to come and loot them.

Siora’s Search check: 1d20+21 = 41 (Success)

Siora’s Disable Device check: 1d20+25 = 45 (Success)

Your party has defeated an Incendiary Cloud trap.

Melinda gains 175 XP.

Frostmane gains 175 XP.

Siora gains 175 XP.

Vestele gains 175 XP.

Siora cursed as she moved forward, barely ten feet further than where she had been. “There’s another trap here, but this one is magical. Give me a bit, I think I’ll take my time with this one.” She tinkered with her thieves’ tools, doing things that made as much sense to me as my telling someone about the intricacies of my class abilities would to them, but, after almost a minute, she sighed in contentment, and raised her head. “All right, we’re good.”

Loot:

600 pp

Carved Wooden Sculpture of a Tree (40 gp)

Chalcedony Dice (pair) set with Zircon (800 gp)

Ebony Mask (800 gp)

Ermine Bracers set with Blue Star Sapphires (4000 gp)

Fine Steel Decanter (600 gp)

Gilded Wooden Dice (pair) (1000 gp)

Glass Eye (300 gp)

Iron Decanter (70 gp)

Moonstone Coffer inlaid with Hepatizon (3000 gp)

Rabbit Fur Talisman (80 gp)

Small Bag of Incense (100 gp)

Small Tapestry threaded with Bronze (600 gp)

Tooled Leather Corset (1200 gp)

Tooled Leather Shortsword Scabbard (300 gp)

Tooled Leather Talisman set with Turquoise (500 gp)

This loot was clearly the prize pieces of whatever had been taken off the merchants that the wolves had caught. Sure, none of it would be immediately useful to us out here in the wilds, or even before we reached Northport, but Frostmane still had plenty of room in that bag of holding, so we saw no reason not to load them up. Eventually, we would return to civilization, and then we could turn these things into stuff that was actually useful, instead of just being pretty.

Once the loot was stowed away, I clapped my hands to get everyone’s attention. “Right, useful as that was, let’s get moving. We can’t let that priestess get too far along with her rituals.”

No one objected, since we all knew we had a job to do. Tracing our way back to where the hallway split, we continued on the other path, the one that would take us down to the ritual chamber. Siora, leading the way once again, stopped suddenly, putting us all on alert.

Sliding up behind her, I asked, “What is it?”

The Beguiler pointed to the space ahead. The tunnel, which had been a fairly comfortable ten-foot hallway, suddenly opened up to be a room twenty feet on a side, before the hallway continued on at the other side of the room. I couldn’t see any furniture in the room, or anything other than the stone walls and wooden beams supporting the roof.

Without words, I immediately understood what was bugging her. No one just makes a random room in a mine. That’s too much work, for too little purpose. The room was out of place, and that made it wrong. And a room being wrong was a threat.

Melinda’s Spot Check: 1d20+2 = 12 (Fail)

Siora’s Spot Check: 1d20+15 = 18 (Success)

“There!”

Siora’s cry, and her pointing finger, guided my eyes to the roof, which was a good bit taller in this chamber. Now that she pointed it out, I could see the remains of some kind of mechanism. Gears and pulleys, but no longer connected to anything. “What am I looking at, Siora?”

“The top of an elevator for a mine shaft. This must be where they brought ore up from the lower levels.”

Now, the room made sense. After all, a mine that was more than a single floor deep could use a means of getting ore to the top floor more easily than just pushing a cart up endless ramps. And, despite what video games in my old life might say, mines were almost never designed with roller coaster mine carts you could ride through the mines. There was simply no sense in it.

But the problem with the room was that there was a mechanism for an elevator, but no hole in the floor for an elevator to go through. In fact, the floor looked like it was made of solid stone. I didn’t have to be a genius to see that there must be a trap here. A glance at Siora told me she was thinking the same thing.

“Can you find it?”

“Let me check.”

Siora’s Search Check: 1d20+21 = 37 (Success)

Siora’s Disable Device Check: 1d20+25 = 40 (Success)

Your party has defeated a Wide-Mouth Pit Trap.

Melinda gains 175 XP.

Frostmane gains 175 XP.

Siora gains 175 XP.

Vestele gains 175 XP.

There was a click, and then a crumbling as the floor fell away. A square of floor ten feet on a side simply didn’t exist anymore, stretching off into an abyss below. Looking up from the side of the chasm, Siora said. “I could have just bypassed it, but we might have to come back through here in a hurry later on, so I went ahead and dropped it.”

Again, Siora and I led the way around the pit. Frostmane easily jumped the gap, and Maura and Vestele followed along behind. Or at least, they started to, before Siora and I stopped again.

To the right, there was a wooden door that was sealed up. Like, literally sealed, with planks nailed across the door, wards painted on the wood, and similar things. There were multiple layers of seals, all designed to keep something inside.

“Well, that’s not ominous at all.” I signed, and looked back to Siora’s pet werewolf. “Maura, what can you tell us about this?”

The sorceress shrugged, and said, “We weren’t allowed into this part of the floor, unless the Mistress was accompanying us, and she doesn’t like questions. But I do know that it has been like this since we took over the mine.”

Melinda’s Knowledge (Arcana) check: 1d20+13 = 21 (Success)

Vestele’s Knowledge (Religion) check: 1d20+12 = 27 (Success)

Vestele moved up next to us, and she and I began looking over the seals. The cleric was the first to speak. “This seems to be a ward of some kind, meant to bind the undead.”

I nodded. “Yes, and look at the symbols, they were drawn in blood. Probably the blood of those who worked in this mine. Perhaps there was more to the mine’s failure than a simple case of the vein drying up?”

Frostmane sniffed at the hole leading down into the abyss. “There is foul air coming up from the depths. The mine most certainly is not a mere two floors deep, that much I can promise you.”

I looked over to Vestele. “The swordsman we met along the road claimed to be someone that Captain Sweetling said died in battle against a necromancer lord. If that battle took place somewhere around here, it could be that some part of the necromancer’s army made its way into the mines, and the mines were sealed. That could be why only parts of the first two floors are accessible.”

Siora looked over the edge of the chasm. “And this shaft leads all the way to the bottom of the mine, I’d wager. If you fell in, even if you survived the drop, you’d still be faced with any undead remaining in the depths, with no certain way out. Not a situation I would care to experience, thank you very much.”

Vestele nodded back to the door. “So, what do we do about this, then? The door is warded against the undead, but it should be easy enough for us to undo the wards. Or, we could leave it be, and let someone else deal with it.”

I nodded. “My initial thought would be to leave it be. After all, we still have a tough fight ahead of us, and it isn’t wise to go borrowing trouble. Especially since the wards have held this long. I don’t see anything that indicates that the wards can be removed remotely, so no worries about the ‘Mistress’ pulling a final spiteful trick on us, but I can’t say for sure.”

Frostmane gave a lupine equivalent to a shrug. “If it doesn’t look like it is going to open behind us while we’re fighting below, I say we leave it, for now. We can always check it on our way back up, if we still have the energy.”

“Uh, guys? The wards are smoking.”

My eyes went wide at Maura’s words, and my gaze caught Vestele’s, before we whirled to look at the seal. The blood seals were indeed smoking. No, wait, they were burning away!

“Fuck!” I recognized some of the runes that were highlighted, now that the surrounding spellwork was burning away. “I don’t think we’re going to have a choice about this. Someone keyed the ward to burn off if a Twice-born was near!”

Siora groaned. “Probably used it as a way to cheap out on the power needed to cast the ward and make it permanent. Setting a condition that deactivates the ward can affect the resources needed to enact it. And Twice-born like you are rare enough in the world at large, but this far to the north? There’s only been a handful of you in living memory of the elves. They must have thought it a clever bit of work.”

I groaned at that. Trust my heritage to come up at the most inconvenient times. “Well, it doesn’t do us any good right now. Get ready for a fight!” Quickly, everyone moved to get into a better position to fight with the undead.

Initiatives

Melinda

Frostmane

Vestele

Abyssal Ghoul

Siora

Maura

Melinda’s Attack (AG): 1d20+19 = 35 (Touch) (Hit)

Vitriolic Blast: 7d6 = 33 (Acid)

Frostmane’s Attack (AG): 1d20+15 = 27 (Hit)

Power Attack (5) Bite: 1d8+19 = 22 (Piercing)

Freezing Bite: 1d6 = 1 (Cold) (Cold Resistance 20)

Frostmane’s Trip Attempt: 1d20+13 = 28

AG’s STR Check: 1d20+7 = 17 (Fail, Prone)

Vestele’s Attack roll (AG): 1d20+11 = 31 (Hit)

Damage: 1d8+1 = 3 (Piercing)

The seal broke, and, not a moment later, the door was thrown open. The creature looked like a ghoul, but had fiendish characteristics, like red skin and a long tongue flowing out of its mouth that faded away into incorporeality. With a half-feral roar, it jumped forward…

…And was immediately met by one of my acidic blasts, Frostmane’s teeth, and a bolt from Vestele’s crossbow. The creature was cast to the ground. Hissing with anger, it moved, trying to stand up. Probably too much to hope that it could have died from that.

Siora’s Attack (AG): 1d20+7 = 9 (Miss)

Maura’s CL Check: 1d20+10 = 15 (Fail)

Siora launched an arrow from her shortbow, but trying to shoot around Frostmane at a target that didn’t wish to be hit was difficult at the best of times. Her pet sorceress had no better luck, as the magic missiles she launched simply splashed against the undead creature’s chest. Not good.

Vitriolic Blast Lingering Damage: 2d6 = 7

Melinda’s Attack Roll (AG): 1d20+19 = 27 (Touch) (Hit)

Vitriolic Blast: 7d6 = 21 (Acid)

The undead creature’s flesh sizzled as my acid burned it, but that wasn’t enough, since it was still ‘undead’ and not ‘dead’. I unleashed another blast at the creature, hitting it in the chest. Thankfully, it seemed like acid worked just fine on this demonic undead.

Frostmane’s Attack (AG): 1d20+15 = 35 (Hit)

Power Attack (5) Bite: 1d8+19 = 25 (Piercing)

Freezing Bite: 1d6 = 2 (Cold) (Cold Resistance 20)

Frostmane’s Trip Attempt: 1d20+13 = 25

AG’s STR Check: 1d20+7 = 8 (Fail, Prone)

Frostmane did not rest idle, his jaws snapping shut on the undead creature. With a wrench of his head, he cast it back to the ground, tearing great ragged chunks of flesh from its body. The white wolf snarled down at the ghoul, almost daring it to rise.

Vestele’s Attack (AG): 1d20+10 = 30 (Hit)

Damage: 1d8+2 = 4 (Bludgeoning)

AG’s Will Save (Disruption Weapon): 1d20+12 = 30 (Success)

Vestele maneuvered around to the other side of Frostmane, and slammed her mace down upon the creature’s head. It… did not have as great an effect as she hoped, but every little bit, and all that. “Why won’t you just die, and stop wasting our time?”

Frostmane’s AoO (AG): 1d20+15 = 31 (Hit)

Power Attack (5) Bite: 1d8+19 = 25 (Hit) (Dead)

The abyssal ghoul tried to rise, and give some kind of answer to the priestess, but that was not to be. It rose directly into the path of Frostmane’s jaws, and ended up being reintroduced to death, just like so many other creatures had. A quick battle, but satisfying.

Your party has defeated an Abyssal Ghoul.

Melinda gains 263 XP.

Frostmane gains 263 XP.

Siora gains 263 XP.

Vestele gains 263 XP.

Vestele’s Knowledge (Religion) Check: 1d20+12 = 24 (Success)

As the rest of us caught our breath after the moment of excitement, Vestele kneeled down next to the undead creature, examining it. The frown on her face told me something was wrong. “What is it, Vestele?”

“This creature is an abyssal ghoul, an undead created by the minions of Kiaransalee, drow goddess of Undeath. Only her followers are supposed to know the secrets of creating them. And her worship is all but unheard of on the surface.”

I frowned, “Captain Sweetling certainly would have mentioned if the Necromancer Lord they fought was a drow.”

Siora nodded slowly. “Then perhaps the so-called ‘lord’ was, in fact, a minion. The mine may have been collapsed to cut off contact between the master and his servant.”

I took a breath. “All right, that’s not our concern right now. We can tell the townsfolk when we get back. For now, we need to concentrate on the wolves. Let another group, one prepared for the undead, deal with potential necromancer lords.”