Borderland of Adventure #23: In the Mists

At the end of last session we left our heroes in a seemingly haunted graveyard beset by strange occurrences.

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Surrounded by mist, the party decided to venture further into the graveyard. They cautiously advanced, making for one of the mausoleums. They reached it without incident, although the mist swirled thickly about them and rats and other things chittered in the darkness. As Krorz opened the door, his companions kept a careful eye on the surrounds. Klara thought she saw something in the mist and bravely went to investigate on her own. As she moved forward a ghostly, translucent skull rose out of the mist from behind a gravemarker.  It opened its maw wide and let forth a terrible moan – terrified Klara dropped her weapons and fled back toward the party. Her companions moved forward to assist, forming a defensive line, but the skull did not attack. Instead, it sunk back into the mist and moved away.

Shortly thereafter, Hemgor decided the party were going about their investigation all wrong and decided to leave the graveyard. Commanding his new friends to accompany him, he marched off in search of a warm bed and a beer. However, moments after he left the graveyard, Klara spotted a old man, naked but for a tattered cloak, sitting by a gravestone muttering to himself. As Klara called out and moved toward him, he leapt to his feet, climbed onto the gravestone and launched himself at the half-orc! Hemgor, hearing his friend’s shout of Klara’s discovery continued on his way to the tavern, seemingly indifferent to this breakthrough.

Klara was forced to defend herself – smashing the man with her morningstar; injured he ran off and the party gave chase. It was then things began to go very, very wrong.

As the party gave chase, a monstrous creature emerged from the mists and wrapped itself around Adoven. The creature was dark blue in colour, resembled a flying cloak and had a long tail with a viscous stinger. Krorz identified the beast as a cloaker – a creature normally associated with the Ebon Realm and battle was joined. As it began to crush Adoven to death, his companions attacked but sadly every time they injured the creature, they also injured Adoven. In moments, the cloaker had crushed him and moved onto its next target – Klara. She was also quickly engulfed by the beast and only her use of positive energy kept her alive. Luckily this also revived Adoven, but unluckily it also healed the beast! Soon Klara also fell and the beast moved onto its next target – Belivar. It easily enveloped the halfling, but the summoner was made of sterner stuff and even though Krorz struck it a terrible blow, the hafling survived. By now, the cloaker was bleeding from a multitude of minor wounds and finally it fell. The party decapitated the beast, healed their wounds and left the graveyard.

Even though it was the middle of the night, they went to the mayor’s house and woke him up. Although tired, he was delighted that they had slain the beast seemingly responsible for the murders, but was very concerned that the graveyard might harbour a deep connection to the Ebon Realm. The party offered to return the next day and search the area thoroughly. They did, but found no such link.

With the mystery seemingly solved, the mayor gifted the party the deeds to the house he had spoken of and word of their deeds spread quickly through the city. The party then spent a month or so resting, recovering from the wounds and (in Klara’s case) learning new skills. During that time, some of the party began to search for reliable henchmen to accompany them on their adventures and Klara learnt more of the Fire Opal Monastery….

Published by

Creighton

Creighton is the publisher at Raging Swan Press and the designer of the award winning adventure Madness at Gardmore Abbey. He has designed many critically acclaimed modules such as Retribution and Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands and worked with Wizards of the Coast, Paizo, Expeditious Retreat Press, Rite Publishing and Kobold Press.

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