Title: Wraithspawn
Characters: Corrin, Greff, Arkhan,Erik
Date: Early Trilan, 1332 Avard
Synopsis: A vortex wraith escaped from Reegel's Tomb and continues to hunt for the book – by possessing people and attempting to kill to get closer to the book.
Evening of the 5th of Trilan, 1332 Avard.
Prior Erik Tusem of K'Tath was a mid-sized man with an over-sized sense of justice. The traditional God of Justice was Yatindar, dedicated to honorable justice. The problem with Yatindar, to Erik's way of thingkin, was that sometimes justice needed to be a bit less than honorable. K'Tath was the God of Vengeance. K'Tath had a bad rep, mainly because a bad crowd tended to follow him. Erik was different than the usual crowd of followers for the God of Vengeance; evils of any kind were worth a bit of justice, retribution, and vengeance. So, Prior Erik find himself wanderin the world, metin out justice in K'tath's name.
An overheard conversation between some local guards and a very rare dragonborn – the first Erik had seen in years – caught Erik's attention. Another local paladin named Bertrant, a flunky of Yatindar, had carved up a couple of fellows in a bar. Afterwards, the paladin escaped his bonds and helped fend off an attack by some poltergeists in the bar. Weirder still, the paladin still had his holbraces, indicatin he still had the favor of his god. One of those the paladin had offed was a member of the local guard.
Erik followed the dragonborn and the reportin guard to the scene, a place called the Scarlet Armor. A crowd had gathered, and the corpse wagon was already bein loaded. The dragonborn was allowed into the scene like he was some kind of noble, but everyone else was held back by the local guardsmen.
A strange half elf half orc thing with a child was allowed through the barrier of guards, but not before bein checked for scars of some sort. It took Erik a moment, but he remembered that some dopplegangers was scheduled for execution the very next day. Apparently the local varient of shape changers could be scarred permanently, somehow. In any event, Erik listened in at a window, while the dragonborn and then the local noble talked about the mess inside the bar – and about the bodies still bein carried out to the wagon.
The paladin was a follower of Yatindar, and the town's executioner. A thug was scheduled to be hung, and the two dopplegangers were supposed to lose their heads, all the next mornin. The paladin said he had been tryin on the executioner's mantle, cause he'd been gainin a little weight, when he heard a small crowd of people in the hallway outside his room at the temple. That was the last thing he remembered, before wakin up after takin an orc's head off.
Other witnesses said the paladin killed an off-duty guardsman, first, and then killed the orc.
So, the paladin wakes up after killin an orc, and calls for the local guard. Only, the local guard had already been called, and showed up right quick, puttin him in manacles. He didn't resist, and he still had his holbraces, so nobody knew what was goin on. What with dopplegangers scheduled to die, somebody figured there were more. But what happened next was weird.
Two poltergeists appeared, and started trashin the place. Some people got killed, and then more poltergeists or wraiths or something like started showin up. The inside of the bar was trashed pretty badly. There wasn't a piece of furniture larger than a man's head inside, and some of the planks off the walls, sod from the roof, and stone from the lower walls was all over the inside. The place looked like a tornado had touched down inside, except for the splashes of red painted in long streaks where people had died in a bad way.
By then, more guards and one of the priests had showed up. They helped put down the undead, but not before the body count had risen to almost half a dozen.
The dragonborn explained about a new type of wraith he and his half orc half elf something buddy had found in a tomb not far outside of town. The wraith used a vortex of some kind to hammer at people, suck their souls. And when somebody died at the hands of a vortex wraith, they became one. But none had possessed anybody, at least, that they knew of, till then.
The little girl with the half thing buddy said it was impossible, though, as all the vortex wraiths had been killed. She was apparently tougher than she looked, even though she wasn't but about three and a half foot tall, maybe fifty pounds soakin wet. But the girl with the big eyes was armed, and Erik decided to keep her well enough aways from him. A blade in her hands was just the wrong height for a man to keep his manhood.
The noble took everybody's statements, and then let em all go, even the paladin.
The dragonborn headed off in one way, and the half thing and the girl went another way. Erik followed the dragonborn, figurin that if there was still some justice to mete out, then that was the way to do it, follow and learn, specially if there was still a vortex wraith still out and about.
On the east side of town, there was a large, walled-off enclosure with tight security. The dragonborn stopped at a gate, and said he was lookin for a fellow by the name of Koord of Halgrimar, Baron of Palatus. Erik didn't hear any answer to the dragonborn, but waited a bit for the dragonborn to move out of sight, and then approached the same gate. Erik asked for Koord of halgrimar, Baron of Palatus, from the man on the other side of the gate.
The tonsured man in chain on the other side of the gate didn't move, and just continued to look at Erik expectantly. After a bit, the silent guard held up a holy symbol of the god Lul, puttin off a teal and purple light. Erik pulled his own holy symbol, and called upon K'Tath, lightin the symbol with a swirlin blue and black light.
The guard held out his hand, and Erik sighed. Followers of Lul believed in only one thing: gold. It explained the compound, and Erik dug in his purse for a small golden inot. He passed the inot to the guard, who opened up the gate. The guard then wanted to Erik to leave his hammer in the guard house. Erik almost left, but saw the dragonborn movin near one of the buildins, where the guard pointed.
An accolyte at the door of the buildin let Erik in, and then he had to wait in the hall with an armed guard (why did he get to keep his weapons?) while the dragonborn talked with the baron. That gave Erik a few moments to thingk. The dragonborn would come out of the room, and likely notice it was Erik that was tailin him, but even if the big galoot didn't notice the tail, he still had nothing to say to the baron, or his guard.
So, when the dragonborn came out of his little talk with the baron, Erik told him point blank that he wanted a hand in dealin with the Bertrant issue about the wraiths. The dragonborn seemed a bit confused, until Erik pulled his holy symbol and showed that he was about vengeance, even if it meant vengeance on some unthingkin wraiths.
The dragonborn's name was Arkhan, and after thingkin it over for a moment, agreed to let Erik walk with him back into town. The two exchanged a few bits of information, but nothing tellin. The dragonborn, Arkhan, was a good judge of when to talk and when to shut up. Erik was a good judge of the same, prefferin to keep his mouth shut when he didn't have anything real to say.
So, Arkhan led Erik towards what he called Meridian Explorations, some kinda outfit he worked for that knew how to handle the wraiths. Apparently, some of the other mooks from Meridian Exploraitons was headin to the same place, cause Erik saw the helf elf half orc thing and the girl up ahead, playin in the street. Only, it didn't quite look like playin.
The half thing saw his buddy, the dragonborn, and called for help! He had his hand out on the kid's head, like he was a bully or something beatin on a smaller kid – only the kid had out a shortsword and was swinin it at the half thing like she meant to gut him.
Arkhan an I ran up to them, ready to tackle the girl an take her sword away, when she suddenly just kinda woke up. She put her sword away, and was tryin to remember what happened, when the half thing's eyes rolled back up into his head, an he started to attack Arkhan.
The streets was gettin tore up, glass was crackin in windows, shutters was pullin off the walls, cobbles was rollin around, an it was like some great poltergeist was in the street. That's when the girl let off some kinda grenade with purple smoke. The half thing went out like a light, and so, too, did Arkhan.
Some kinda wraith rose up outta the half thing, and started attackin the dragonborn, riflin through his stuff till he found a book of some kind. So Erik an the lil girl with the blade attack, an try to wake up the half thing an the dragonborn, too. They wakes up pretty fast with all that stuff flyin around, the wraith puttin his attention on the book he got off the dragonborn.
All four o thems attacks the wraith, gettin knocked every which way, but they eventually wore it down and destroyed it. Turns out, the book was what the vortex wraith thing was after all that time. The lil girl and Arkhan said they had a way to hide the book from any more wraiths, and would do so quickly.
Seein as how that was the vortex wraith that had started the whole mess, justice was served, and Erik bid a quick salute to the gang. There was plenty of hard justice left to mete out, elsewhere, but it was good to kick some undead butt for a change.
Evening of the 5th of Trilan, 1332 Avard.
Date: THU30DEC2010
Ooh, last session for 2010. I made some shrimp and scallop gumbo that was pretty good, if I say so myself. Dave was out of town, taking his family to Disney World, and Danny just happened to be in town for the holidays, so he showed up for a one-shot as Erik. I had something planned for the next time Caileb played with us as Graven, but he wound up going to a cousin's overnight birthday party. I had another story thread I'd been saving up, about a possessing undead spirit that had escaped Reegel's tomb. I'd forgotten how much the players hated the vortex wraiths, though.
All characters have 28,500XP, and are 11th-level.
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