Chapter 7: The Crypt of Oglibyet
7.1 The Mission
The party rested and recuperated in Darktower for the next week, and Hork bought a fancy suit of magical chain mail from the dwarven brothers, before Jimmy showed up with another mission for them. His mysterious client wanted a few more items retrieved: the soul shards of three avatars of Oglibyet, a long-forgotten demigod worshiped in centuries past by one of the many fanatic cults that once populated the region. Little was known about the three avatars, except the location of the crypt where they are thought to dwell (at the bottom of the Caverns of Sorrow, near Marek's Peak), and their names: The Render of Flesh, The Stealer of Life, and The Corrupter of Reason. They were once powerful, but it is assumed their power has faded in the centuries since the cult died out.
Since this mission would likely mean facing undead, Jimmy sent Magnus Stout, a clanless dwarven cleric of Fharlanghn with the party. Magnus is a wanderer, a drunk, and a gambler. He's traveled far and wide, occasionally joining adventuring parties when short on funds. He had a significant gambling debt to Jimmy, and undertook the mission to pay it off. (Jimmy had sent Hork to "remind" Magnus about his debt earlier in the week.)
7.2 Journey to the Caverns
As the party traveled south, conversation revealed that Magnus has little patience for clerics of Moradin. He says they are too serious and don't know how to have a good time. He and Morgrim didn't exactly get off to a good start, but he seemed to take a liking to Daergel, and mentioned how he had been to the gnomish homelands.
The party also passed the burnt-out remains of some sort of fortification along the highway, but didn't investigate.
At Duvik's Pass, the party discovered a human military camp. They passed the camp of a small army of elite soldiers on its way north from Alterac to assist in the war against the Hobgoblins (since Darktower acts as an unofficial first line of defense of Alterac's northern border). At the village inn, a drunken soldier picked a fight with Hork (saying "a half-orc should know her place"), but she managed to hold her temper and avoid a nasty situation. A ranking officer of the Alteran army calmed the situation down and apologized for his men, but warned the party to be careful. Many Alterans are distrustful of adventurers, and especially half-orcs.
The next day the party headed east into the mountains, making camp for the night in a crevice on a cliff face. It was around this point Morgrim realized he was wearing two rings of warmth and Magnus was freezing to death. He generously loaned one of the rings to Magnus, who was torn between gratitude and anger that they had traveled two days before Morgrim offered him the spare ring.
The next day the party continued to the mountain village of Marek's Peak, where the villagers welcomed Daergel back and treated the party to food, drink, and a place to sleep. The villages bragged about their temple of Moradin, which was erected due to Bloodbeard's influence on the villagers.
7.3 The Caverns of Sorrow (Day 1)
Finally, after a few hours march north the next day, the party arrived at their destination: the Caverns of Sorrow. They found giant footprints leading into the cave and the entrance blocked by a makeshift barricade. Hork quickly smashed it apart, alerting the ettin inside of their presence. However, despite being taken by surprise, the group quickly overpowered the giant; Daergel finished it off with a deadly sneak attack with his flaming shortsword. After dealing with the flaming corpse and smashing another barricade, the party made their way deeper into the caverns.
A few miles down the winding tunnels, they were swarmed by over a dozen ghouls, including a rune-covered spellcasting one. Despite being heavily outnumbered, they party prevailed. Daergel had been blinded by the spellcaster, so they retreated to the ettin lair to camp for the night. Magnus used several spells to heal the wounds the party had suffered so far.
7.4 The Caverns of Sorrow (Day 2)
The next morning, Magnus healed Daergel's eyes. Good as new, they retraced their steps and discovered the ghoul corpses had been stripped of meat. They proceeded cautiously and arrived at a large cave. On a ledge on the other end of the cave was the entrance to the Crypt of Oglibyet, but the floor of the cave was covered by a dark pool. Hork loudly smashed some rock from the wall and threw it in the lake, but there was no visible result. Still, the group was reluctant to enter the water, so Magnus used his gift from Fharlanghn to fly across the room and attach a rope to the ledge there. As Hork and Daergel began crossing the rope, ghouls (alerted by Hork's loud banging on the rock wall) swarmed into the room and attacked Morgrim. At the same time, white arms flailed out of the water at Hork. A swift battle ensued, and despite being tackled and wrestled by several ghouls, Morgrim finished them off. Whenever a slain ghoul fell to the water below, it was quickly ripped apart by the denizens of the pool.
As Magnus was crossing the rope to join the rest of the party, he was snagged by several of the water-dwelling ghouls, and pulled under. He managed to flail his way to get close enough so Hork could pull him out of the water, but in the process one of the ghouls pulled off his left boot. Since it was part of Dardurin's Armor, Morgrim decided to go back in after it, despite Magnus' protests.
Morgrim tried to swim back to his boot, but the best he could do was sink to the bottom and walk along the cavern floor. He retrieved his boot, but in the meantime, Hork lost her axe in the pool, and was paralyzed by ghouls while retrieving it. Magnus dragged her back to shore, but then Morgrim was paralyzed on his way back to shore. While Magnus and Daergel dragged Morgrim to dry land by the rope tied around him, he almost lost his other boot.
Soaking wet but still standing, the party sloshed up the stairs and entered the crypt.
7.5 Entering the Crypt
The doors to crypt revealed a trap-laden corridor with four dead adventurers scattered throughout it. The party carefully made their way past the various traps (although Hork was slightly impaled while her and Morgrim tried to reset a portcullis trap) to a door at the end of the hall. Upon touching the door, Daergel was engulfed by a sense of dread and foreboding; the same feeling fell over the rest of the party when they crossed the threshold.
Inside the room were four suits of black armor standing on low pedestals in each corner. Hork hit one with a rock, and it didn't come to life, so Daergel sneaked slowly into the room, searching for traps. Unfortunately, he didn't notice a particularly well-hidden pit trap until it was too late, and plummeted 20' into a room filled with armored skeletons. While he did his best to dodge their swords, the suits of armor above came to life. Magnus pushed past the animated suits, suffering two serious wounds in the process, and jumped down in the pit with Daergel. Upon landing, he cast Hide From Undead on himself and Daergel. They waited, doing their best to avoid coming into contact with the skeletons (despite battlehammers and suits of armor falling their way), while Morgrim and Hork dispatched the suits of armor above.
Injured and weary, they debated returning to the trap-filled corridor to rest while they inspected the three doors leading out of the room. Each had a detailed bas relief: a skeletal, clawed hand dripping with blood; a cloaked skeletal figure with a scythe, and a hooded, shadowy skull with glowing red eyes.
7.6 A Bridge Too Far
The party picked the door with the bloody clawed hand, figuring 'render of flesh' sounded more like their kind of challenge than 'stealer of life' or 'corrupter of reason. They opened the door and slowly made their way down another trap-filled corridor. Daergel found most of the traps, but missed a few, resulting in Hork being hit by a few scythe blade traps. Fortunately, he did find all three spiked pit traps, the most dangerous traps in the corridor. Between Hork's jumping skill and some ingenious use of the crypt's 10' tall iron doors, they made it across all the pit traps after Daergel sprung them.
The next challenge was a large room spanned by a narrow stone bridge. The floor 30' below was covered in some bubbling black liquid, and on each side of the room was a balcony manned by six skeletal crossbowmen. Magnus cast an Obscuring Mist spell to fill the room with thick fog, and under the cover of the fog Daergel carefully made his way across the bridge, attempting to disarm traps along the way. After springing a few traps and disarming a few others, Daergel had almost reached the other end of the bridge when the magical fog began to dissipate. Daergel was peppered with crossbow belts and lost consciousness. Hork pulled him back to safety, but not before he had taken another three hits, leaving him very close to death. It took two of Magnus's healing spells to bring Daergel back around. At this point, the party decided the best course of action was to retreat to the first corridor in the crypt and rest for the night amongst the traps and corpses there (but away from the terrible feeling of doom and despair that permeated the rest of the crypt.)
7.7 Hork Learns to Fly
The next day the party returned to the bridge room, and Magnus used a Hide From Undead spell to allow the party to safely cross the bridge without interference from the mindless skeletal crossbowmen.
Beyond the next door was another strange room. This one was cylindrical, with a ledge on either end. The walls, floor, and ceiling were covered in reaching arms and eerie, moaning faces, as if some mob of tortured souls were pushing at an elastic surface from the other side. Hork tossed her cooking pot down onto the floor, where it was quickly attacked by the mass of arms and faces. There was no bridge spanning the room, but now that Magnus was rested, he could once again use the gift of flight from Fharlanghn. He cast the spell on Hork, and after a brief flying lesson, she ferried each party member across the room safely.
7.8 The Render of Flesh
When Hork pulled open the final set of doors at the end of the corridor, a disturbing sight was revealed. The doors opened into a large throne room of sorts. Inside the doorway a few steps led down into a pool of blood covering the floor. On the other side of the room a raised platform held a tall throne made from human bones and skulls. Sitting on the throne was a 9' tall undead humanoid creature with three-foot long claws on it's disproportionately large hands: presumably, the Render of Flesh. The periphery of the room was lined with skeletal guardsmen, who began to advance as the doors opened. In the center of the room was a loincloth-clad human chained to an altar of sorts, with a gaping chest wound revealing his heart had been removed. However, he was alive, and blood streamed from his chest, down the sides of the altar to the pool covering the floor.
While the rest of the party prepared for battle, Daergel admonished the undead creature for the inaccuracy of the artwork in the crypt. The door back in the entrance hall had not accurately portrayed the thing's claws.
The party was taken by surprise and the undead acted first. Hork, in front of the others, took the brunt of the attack. The Render of Flesh revealed the ability to extend his claws up to 20' in length, skewering Hork several times. Magnus called upon the power of his deity, turning all but one of the skeletal warriors to dust. Their weapons and armor clattered and splashed into the pool of blood.
Daergel ducked under the final skeleton, jumped on the altar, realized the human was still alive, said "this poor motherf**ker is still alive!" and promptly fired his crossbow at the Render of Flesh.
Hork finished off the final skeleton, and she and Morgrim charged ahead. Every time one of the heroes moved forward, the Render of Flesh made use of his lightning reflexes to attempt to skewer them. Once they were in the room, the sense of doom the heroes had felt thus far became overpowering. Hork and Magnus lost their will to live and plopped to the ground, but Morgrim and Daergel were able to shake off the sense of hopelessness and continue their attack.
After a brief but bloody battle, with the Render of Flesh weakened by Morgrim's relentless attacks, Daergel finished it off by reaching into it's chest and ripping out the still-beating heart belonging to the human on the altar.
While Daergel jammed the heart back into it's owner's gaping chest wound and Magnus healed him, Hork regained her will to live and in a rage chopped the Render of Flesh into a pasty mess.
7.9 What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate
The human chained to the altar attempted to communicate with the party, but spoke in an unknown language. After being unchained, he attempted to grab Daergel's sword. When that failed, he pointed at the sword and then at his chest. Eventually Daergel gave him a dagger and he stabbed himself. Daergel reached into the gaping chest wound and pulled out the soul shard from inside the man's heart, and then Magnus attempted to heal him. He remained unconscious and twitching.
The party was badly beaten and Magnus was out of spells, but it was impossible to rest with the sense of dread and evil that permeated the crypt, so the party had to get back out the way they came. This proved more difficult without Magnus's flying spell. Hork attempted to jump across the room, but was snagged by the arms. She eventually pulled herself back to safety, but not before losing a boot and half a toe. On her second attempt she eventually made it across the room.
However, while this was happening, the human had undergone a change. He had become engorged with blood (presumably due the same magic that had kept him alive and bleeding for hundreds of years, and appeared to be undead. Morgrim made short work of the creature despite it's amazing fortitude, beating it down with numerous strikes from Dardurin's Hammer.
Eventually the party made it back to the "safe" outer corridor of the crypt and rested for the night.
7.10 The Corrupter of Reason
The party decided to delay tackling the Stealer of Life as long as possible, instead opening the door leading to the Corrupter of Reason. Within was a maze of corridors, stairs, and vicious traps. When the party entered the maze they were bombarded with a strangely captivating babbling in an unknown language. The sounds hpynotized Hork and Magnus, and while Daergel and Morgrim tried to figure out what was happening, an shadowy incorporeal creature flew out of a wall and through Magnus, clawing at his head. After another such attack, Magnus collapsed, comatose. After Hork came under attack, the party quickly retreated and camped for the next five days while Magnus slowly regained his senses. He forgot his own name and about everything else for the first few days, but eventually made a full recovery.
On the second attempt, Hork and Magnus hung back, and after springing a few more traps, they managed to finish off the Corrupter of Reason and recover it's soul shard.
It was around then they discovered that the passageways had moved around behind them and they were lost in the maze. After some debate over which direction to head in, and after wandering for about an hour and springing several traps, they escaped not much the worse for wear. Well, except for the holes in Morgrim's stomach from being pinned by a falling portcullis.
7.11 The Sacrificial Altar
The party opened the last door (the one leading to the Stealer of Life). Inside was a short tunnel ending in a steep, trapped staircase leading down to a door. Daergel sprang the trap but jumped out of the way before the stairs turned into a steep chute. Hork was happy to get a chance to use her favourite trap-testing procedure, and slide an old breastplate down the chute. It knocked open the door a bit, but had no other noticeable effect. Daergel crept down the chute, clinging to the wall, and searched the door for traps. When he didn't find any, Hork proceeded to slide down the chute at tremendous speed, banging open the doors at the bottom and sliding into the room beyond.
She slammed to a halt against a stone altar in the middle of a large column-lined chamber. She was immediately swarmed by 4 odd blackened, blood-encrusted skeletons. Magnus used his holy power to smite two of them, but upon being destroyed, they exploded in a shower of razor-sharp bone shards. Morgrim slid down into the room, knocking Hork to the ground again. Morgrim finished off the second last skeleton, causing it to explode. That caused the other skeleton to explode as well, leaving Morgrim and Hork pierced all over by dozens of bone shards.
After the battle, Magnus healed Morgrim and Hork, and they party inspected the room. There was an iron door on the far side, with no apparent way of opening it. The altar had iron manacles at the four corners, and there were mysterious runes on the altar and along the walls. Magnus went to rest so he could pray for a Comprehend Languages spell and read the runes, while Hork and Morgrim spent several hours attempting to smash the walls around the iron door. Eventually they gave up, and went to rest. The next day Magnus deciphered the writing, revealing that the altar required a sacrifice in order to open the door.
They party spilled some of their own blood on the altar, causing a low moaning sound to emanate from the room, but the door would not open. Hoping that spilling enough blood would open the door, they party loaded Hork up with empty containers, and sent her (flying, under the power of Magnus's spell) to the blood-filled lair of the Render of Flesh. She filled up the various containers and quickly returned. As she emptied kegs, waterskins, and invisible strongboxes of blood onto the altar, the doors finally creaked open.
7.12 The Stealer of Life
Hork rushed towards the open door, and was immediately attacked by two shadows that rushed through it. Both struck her, atrophying her muscles and reducing here to barely-above-average strength. A fierce battle ensued, in which Hork and Morgrim's strength were further sapped, and in which Hork realized her non-magical axe was not up to snuff for fighting incorporeal undead. After defeating the shadows, Magnus restored Morgrim and Hork's strength as much as he could, and the party continued through the doorway.
A short corridor beyond led to a final chamber, lined with columns. In the middle of the room was a large stone sarcophagus. As the party approached the room, a shadowy, translucent, skeletal figure with a scythe rose through the top of the sarcophagus and moved forward. Wispy black fog trailed from the blade of it's scythe as it moved.
Another vicious but short battle ensued. Similarly to the lair of the Render of Flesh, the room had an aura of doom which caused Hork to lose the will to live and collapse to the ground upon entering. Luckily, most of the creature's attacks missed, and after the rest of the party weakened the thing, Magnus finished it off with his one remaining major spell, Searing Light. By the time everyone had recovered from their sudden blindness, the Stealer of Life was gone, leaving a jagged black shard on the ground.
7.13 The Black Dagger of Oglibyet
A little disappointed at the lack of loot discovered thus far in the crypt, the party decided to loot the sarcophagus. Hork in her weakened state could not budge the stone lid, so her and Morgrim spent an hour smashing it with their battle hammers until they cracked it apart enough to get inside. Daegel crawled in and looted the corpse. One of the objects he found was a black-bladed dagger, which he felt compelled to hide from the party and keep to himself.
Needless to say, the dagger turned out to be a powerful evil artifact, which quickly warped Daergel's thoughts. On the way back to Darktower, Hork bragged to the townsfolk of Duvik's Pass about smashing the sarcophagus. This insult to Daergel's new deity prompted him to sneak into Hork's room at night to kill her, but his willpower overcame his dark thoughts at the last moment.
When the party arrived back in Darktower, the dagger fiasco culminated in Hork's shop when Hork and Morgrim became suspicious of Daergel's strange recent behavior. Eventually Morgrim found the black dagger, and also succumbed to its' power. When Hork tried to take it, Morgrim stabbed her, she collapsed to the ground and cowered in the fetal position, losing some of her life force and her will to live. Fortunately, before things got too dire, Mork paralyzed Morgrim and the others with spells. She then retrieved Jonas, the powerful cleric of Pelor. Jonas was able to dispel the dagger's hold on Morgrim and Daergel. When his attempt to destroy the dagger failed, he journeyed south to bring the dagger to the highest priests of the order of Pelor, so they could destroy it and rid the world of it's evil.
Daergel seemed to have remorse for his actions for once in his life, even making a sizable donation to the church of Pelor, and Morgrim was influenced by the recent events to join the priesthood of Moradin, becoming Bloodbeard's apprentice of sorts (and the janitor of the temple of Moradin.)