Session One Hundred and Thirteen Summary (Graveyard of Empires: After the Fall)

Session 113, November 2 2022

Introduction

We continue at 9:20AM on the 20th of Denrilden (00.000.09.11 on the Apocalypse Clock) with the party aboard Davey's Locker and entering the sterncastle where Druul spied the slumped body of Captain Hiro Anakbar in the admiral's cabin. However, there was no sign of the Devil Fish ancestor statue that the group needs to find in order to neutralize the undead problem. Is that idol aboard? Does Captain Hiro still live? What horrors lurk in wait to ambush the party during their search? Can they succeed in their mission and escape the ghost ship? Those answers should be coming shortly ...

Larry's Summary

Khelratha opens door on right to a very small room. Very tiny room with a small bed and porthole.

We move to next set of doors. Khelratha opens next door on right, slightly bigger room, cleared out.

Borthan opens the door to the left. Completely empty similar size to one across the way.

Velkin checks the door to captain's cabin. Pretty sure it isn't trapped or locked. It has a keyhole.

Hallway - ladder leading down. All kinds of broken furniture and barrels lodged in there completely jamming it up.

Khelratha slowly opens it, no sound of alarm. Hiro is NOT in the chair.

Velkin slips in invisibly. Hiro is NOT behind the door.

He checks the desk and the chair is empty with no one on the floor, with a goblet, a dull gold in the chair.

Velkin searches around the desk looking for something that might be interesting. Knife in the center drawer, blade might be silver. Silver bladed dagger.

Khelratha relays back to the rest of the party that Hiro is not here, be alert.

Druul shuffles his feet to try to find a trap door. He thinks he saw something with glowing eyes looking up.

Druul lets us all know. There's eyes.

Velkin picks up the cup to look at it. It is stained at the bottom. It is chunky that slowly moves as he tilts the cup. It might be blood, it's gone tacky.

We move the desk to follow gouges in the floor and re-position it.

Druul asks if he can see things that are invisible. "I don't quite have the nag of it, but Azrael has a real knack for it."

Jardin looks for something invisible and does not find it. Velkin and Peronelle fail to find secret doors, finding none.

We close all the doors.

Khelratha advises those in the rear to keep an eye on the stern castle.

One of the orcs swears in orcish and a good bit of it is all over the deck where he's been walking. There is suddenly a hole in it. It's about half left in here. It is pushed in. We fill it with a piece of cloth.

Ajax is coming in hot and lands near Oskar. He says, problem. Our friends are under attack. By what? Skeletons.

We move to the forecastle and Velkin peers in the first porthole since we suspect another trapped door. 4 portholes. Velkin checks the first, pretty dark with a small room.

Velkin tries to open it and listens. It is quiet and maybe whispering. Maybe on the other side of door to hallway.

Velkin frees up space in his backpack, handing stuff to Renthark, and puts the full keg of gunpowder in his pack.

Khelratha pulls the door open and there is a bunch of clanging from the bunch of stuff like the stern castle. A longer hallway 3 doors each side and an alcove to the right and a door to the front.

Druul has some ashes, Khelratha offers his hand bellows. Velkin suggest the orc not carrying a keg of gunpowder fill the hand bellows with gunpowder.

Lambertus goes to turn and does not have his holy symbol. He has one for Lysander.

Orc uses hand bellows to shoot the gunpowder into the 1st third of the hallway.

There is junk jammed in the alcove with the ladder. Perhaps tighter packed than the stern castle.

Renthark & Jardin open the back doors and they are almost completely unfurhished.

Middle two rooms are empty - Peronell and Kauri.

Last two doors, Khelratha and Borthan open to empty rooms.

We think based on the one on the right hand side, it was either a pantry or some sort of storage.

Khelratha opens the door on the end to a very small closet.

One of the orcs towards the back shouts and Forcas has a flask of oil lit, looking at him with crazed eyes.

He tosses it on the orc with gunpowder and it explodes, and Peronelle, Velkin, Forcas, 3 orcs, Jardin, and Renthark fall through the now missing floor. The 3 orcs are dead.

They are in some sort of largish room for a ship.

Druul tosses a rope down, calling for Velkin.

Kauri hastes the party. 7 members are hasted. Peronell, Renthark, Jardin, Khelratha, Borthan, Oskar, and Lambertus.

Velkin sees a further open area past the partition. A few cannons, nothing living.

Peronell stricks Forcas with the pommel of her sword, dropping him.

We all go below.

Peronell carried Forcas.

We move through the first room with cannons.

Ladder to next deck below. Khelratha goes first, with door going back to bow.

We all get down the ladder and make ready to move.

Velkin checks door and and in addition to being locked there is something up with it.

We all go back up, Velkin hands backpack with keg of gunpowder to him, and we all go back up the ladder.

Velkin disables the trap, poison needles.

We wait for Velkin to pick the lock and fails.

Khelratha kicks the door open.

Big room can't see the other end of it.

Hammocks with tatters and 4 coffins most of the way in at the center of the area.

A bunch of creatures in here that look at us with their dead eyes and rotting flesh.

One creature standing a bit straighter not so decomposed, not wearing crimson or red.

Lambertus turns most of the creatures, the one guy (orc) is still standing there.

Peronell hits the creature and it does not seem phased.

Kauri shoots the orc with 4 magic missiles.

Oskar charges and he catches the blade.

Kauri charges in and cuts him down.

It hits the ground and goes poof. (Vampire)

Gas makes its way into the first coffin on the left.

There are some hisses behind us. Hiro and someone we don't recognize.

Lambertus avoids being charmed, but Jardin is charmed.

Khelratha charges at Hiro intending to stake him and Jardin swings with his toothpick and hits Khelratha.

Khelratha stakes Hiro and decapitates him with this attack.

Borthan and Renthark charge the other vampire with stakes and Oskar attacks with the butt of his spear.

Borthan and Renthark miss, Oskar hits just missing the heart.

Lambertus tries to strike the head of the spear to drive it home, but he misses.

There are snapping and cracking noises and Jardin gets bigger, taking out the wall behind us. The whole ship pitches violently with his sudden weight with debris falling around us.

Oskar and Khelratha grapple and hold the vampire, Borthan stakes him, then Borthan takes his head off. Jardin is freed from his compulsion.

The roof comes crashing down and the 5 of the 6 cannons come crashing down and miss us, and the floor stops them.

The cannons crush all the coffins, with the one with the gaseous vampire, exposing it to sunlight. No one in the other 3 coffins.

Just to be sure, drag the other bodies into sunlight.

Crunching noises as Jardin returns to human form. Druul uses the scepter to heal him.

Jardin wonders if all the undead are taken care of.

Khelratha, "Well, Lord Thornton, if you recall, I told you, these things don't stay dead."

Druul uses the scepter to heal him and Jardin transforms and flies off, still hasted.

As Jardin flies off, Khelratha says, "I knew I should have killed him back in Midmark when I had the chance."

Velkin gives a magic sword to Oskar and a magic short sword to Peronell.

Ceres, Kauri, Peronell, and Druul are all paralyzed, Ceres is slain.

The crimson clad orc vampire appears and fails to charm Khelratha.

Lambertus turns the ghouls.

Borthan and Khelratha grapple the vampire Ares Haversham, he is staked by Velkin.

We prepare to drag him into the light.

Velkin Scrolls 77 - Session 113

9:20am, Denrilden 20

00.00000.09.11 Apocalypse Clock

We advance into the Sterncastle, Khelratha leading the way. Still no sign of the Ancestor statue we’re looking for that is the locus for controlling the undead.

No Hiro, he’s not where Druul saw him through the porthole but there’s a ladder down blocked by a jumble of broken furniture and barrels.

I pick up a silver bladed dagger, decent workmanship, from the captain’s desk. The cup on the desk is what appears to be congealed blood. Druul sees eyes down the ladder while I hear whispers but can’t make out much, sounds like common.

There’s a lot of confusion, Lambertus loses his regular holy symbol, but still has one of Lysander on him, one of the orcs dumps part of a barrel of gunpowder then… of all things… Forcas lights an oil and smashes it on one of the barrel bombs and explodes it!! He looks out of it… What the hells Forcas?! It blows a hole in the deck and we’re dropped down to the next level and there’s ladders on either end blocked with broken furniture and barrels. Personnel knocks Forcas out and throws him over her shoulder. A ladder going down from this second deck isn’t blocked.

There’s a trap on the door (Poison needles) which I disable, but cannot pick the lock on the door. I motion for our Dwarven Lockpick and Khelratha kicks the door down. There’s 4 coffins in the room beyond with a bunch of nasty creatures, ghouls it turns out. Lambertus turns all but one of the creatures, a vampire. Khelratha and Kauri drop him as he goes to vapor and enters one of the coffins. Another vampire comes out, Jardin gets charmed, turns all dragony and is beat on by Peronell and Renthark. We stake that one and Jardin’s free’d from his charm, thank goodness. The Ghouls return, paralyze some of us and kill Ceres. The Admiral tries to do something to Khelratha, but he shrugs it off. Khelratha, Borthan and Renthark tackle the dead Admiral Ares Haversham and I poke him with a stake, killing him while they hold him still ending this brush with the undead.

We drag all the coffins into the light from the busted decks above and permanently kill off the 4 vampires.

Druul uses the Scepter to heal Jardin, he gets scared, transforms and flies away.