=============== To Speak With The Dead We had last left the party in the town of Sunnyside, to the west of The Shining City of Hieroneous. A paladin on a horse had just delivered them an invitation to "Glorious Combat before the Gates of the City". A bleak silence settled in as the party realized that the prime military force on the island had announced its intent to destroy them all... After some discussion, they concluded the situtation was not irrecoverable. The paladins had a large city to defend from hostile undead, and they could hardly leave it unprotected as they chased the party across the island. The party decided to send Arator the paladin to talk some sense into his allies while the rest of them circled around the city to the south. Thus the party escorted Arator to within half a day's travel of the Shining City; they then stayed the night in a Rope Trick space, planning to split up in the morning. Selket had recognized one of the clerics captured outside of Sunnyside: he had been the leader of those who challenged the bunker on the night the party was cursed. There was much discussion (among the non-paladin members of the party) of the wisdom of casting Speak With Dead on the evil cleric's corpse. Speak With Dead was a necromancy, and such spells had been known to animate their targets (along with any other effects produced). The question was made moot shortly after midnight, as the cleric's body reanimated on its own. The watchers, staring out of the Rope Trick window at the ground below, heard a voice behind them: "Command me, O Master!" Gridley sprung to the challenge, accusing the reanimated cleric of incompetence and demanding an exact record of the ritual which had summoned him. The cleric reported that his group had formed "a few years ago," with the express purpose of summoning the party (?) to lead them in conquering the island and destroying all mortal life. He said that his leader was twelfth-level, and his two lieutenants were of the ninth level. Gridley asserted that the cleric was incompetent and would have to be killed, "then reanimated with more power". The undead cleric seemed to believe this. Elan executed him; the party burned him and buried the ashes in several piles. During this discussion the paladin never woke up. =============== South of the City Dawn arrived. The party noticed that the curse on their armor had worsened: every night it permanently drained a little more of their life force. They set out to the south, circling Stalwart and Valiant on their trek to meet up with the paladin at Courageous. To speed their journey, Etale used the Mount spell to summon several horses. This immediately proved a problem, as the horses were terrified of the party's curse and required considerable handling before they would submit to being ridden. After several party members were dumped and horses were lost, the party dismissed the experiment as a failure. While traveling through the country the party encountered a herd of reanimated cowbeasts, but they dispatched it without too much trouble. In order to avoid damage and desanctification to bunkers on the road, the party elected to sleep in Rope Trick spaces from now on. Etale applied Extend Spell to give the party twelve hours of Rope Trick - easily enough time to sleep, but not enough to protect them for the fourteen-hour night. After the spell ran out the party was attacked by a group of nine zombie dire bats, including one very large one that dealt serious damage to Elan before it was destroyed. The party continued on to Courageous. =============== Miracle at The Shining City As Arator approached The Shining City of Hieroneous he was challenged by a fair-sized army of paladins. They used Protection From Evil to eliminate any mind-control effects that may have been on him, followed by Detect Evil to ensure that he had not been replaced by a doppleganger, followed by Detect Magic to make sure he wasn't under the influence of Undetectable Alignment. Eventually they concluded he was clean and asked for his report. Arator reported that the curse on the Horrors was not controlling them at all; they acted as free beings. The paladin seemed to suspect a ruse, aimed at persuading one of the cities to allow the Horrors inside its shield. Remembering Elan's advice, Arator suggested the clerics apply divination magic to discover the truth. "Divination? Oh, right, divination! We can do that, can't we?" After some searching the paladins found a cleric who had a scroll of Augury. The clerics read the scroll, asking, "Are the Horrors dominated by their cursed armor, or do the mortals inside act with free will?" The divination produced greater effect than expected: Hieroneous's voice echoed from the cleric's mouth. "INSIDE THE HORRORS SLEEPS THE SPIRIT OF VECNA THE NECROMANCER. DO NOT DESTROY THEM; DO NOT AWAKEN HIS SPIRIT. SO SAY I, HIERONEOUS!" An embarrassed silence descended upon the battlefield, as more than a hundred paladins realized the mistake they had nearly made. ("So, uh, does that mean I don't have to flip these coins?" wondered the cleric.) The paladins brought Arator into the city; he traded in some of the loot the party had found. Used to low-intelligence paladins, they rather high-handedly decided what equipment to assign him in return. ("Here, you need a +2 shield, and take this half-Holy sword. Here's a paladin mount, and, uhh, here are some rings of protection for the Horrors...") =============== Lady Caleria Arator rejoined the party well-armed and well-equipped, though comparatively few of his new items were intended for other party members. After some grumbling, the party settled down an hour out of Courageous to rest for the night in a Rope Trick space. Not too long after nightfall the party's watchers observed four elves and a woman of indeterminate race walking down the road. The creatures, apparently vampires, stared at the Heward's-Handy-Haversack-on-a-rope hanging down from midair. The party quickly climbed down from the Rope Trick to negotiate. The woman introduced herself as Lady Caleria, of Darkwood Glade. She offered the party safe passage past Darkwood Glade in return for Tidefell, the horse whose armor had also received the curse. Elan refused to part with his horse, and combat ensued. The first round of combat was consumed ineffectively, as Gridley's Searing Light spell missed, and the party proved immune to the vampires' commanding gaze. Gridley's second spell, combined with Enajien's spellfire, reduced Lady Caleria to gaseous form. Elan was badly wounded in combat with the four elven vampires, which kept Gridley busy healing him as Enajien and Etale finished the remaining creatures off. (Selket fared poorly in this battle: the creatures were quite difficult to hurt, and she had to fire into melee without benefit of Precise Shot.) =============== To The Citadel Worried about the vampires' return, the party double-marched to The Citadel, using healing from the wands to make up the subdual damage suffered. Etale's horses received more use, though again they ran away after a few hours. After covering two days' travel in one day's time, the party spent the night in a Rope Trick space on top of a nearby bunker. The vampires from last night attacked again, this time summoning wolves to assist them. (The wolves proved unable to climb the bunker walls, so they didn't actually accomplish much.) Gridley and Arator combined their efforts with a Sun turning to destroy two of the vampire minions completely; Lady Caleria cast Stone Shape to collapse part of the bunker ceiling under them, but the remaining two minions were destroyed without too much effort. The party saw an undead octopus approaching them from the riverbank nearby, but Selket and Enajien destroyed it before the casters could react. They double-marched the rest of the way to the city. =============== The Shield of Prator The clerics of Pelor, speaking from the walls of the Citadel, greeted the party as allies, if not precisely as friends. They had spoken to Pelor with a Commune spell, and had already decided how the party's curse would be removed. They told the party of Sir Arthur Diamondblade, who gave his life to destroy The Necromancer in one final, immensely powerful undead turning through the Shield of Prator, an artifact of legend. Sir Arthur's body still lies in The Necromancer's throne room where it fell, still holding the Shield as a threat to any undead that might disturb it. The clerics asked the party to retrieve the Shield of Prator from Necropolis, claiming that only that could remove the curse without awakening the Necromancer to plunge the island into war. (There was some discussion of the use of Miracle to remove the curse. The clerics seemed unenthusiastic about this idea: it would have manifested Pelor directly in the caster to do battle with Vecna the Necromancer, with regrettable consequences for the bodies of the mortals they possessed. Besides, the clerics really, really wanted that Shield of Prator back.) =============== Side Quest "And, uh, while you're travelling to Necropolis..." mumbled the cleric, "we've got a little problem that we could use some help with." Apparently the Citadel had lost contact with its satellite town Sunwatch several days back. They sent a team of clerics to investigate, and lost contact with them too... Then they sent a larger team, and lost contact with them as well. Scrying reported that the rescue teams were alive but paralyzed, stacked in a bunker somewhere. The clerics acknowledged that the party's goal should be Necropolis, but added that they had lost a lot of good people at Sunwatch, and they were a little short on rescue teams at the moment. They had been considering sending for help from Kher Keep or the Shining City, but worried that their people might die if they didn't get help fast. The party decided to stay the night at the Citadel to rest, regain drained hit points, and re-equip.