Re: AAR: [5H] Vengeance for Bamor (2020-05-07 1800 GMT)
Posted: Fri May 08, 2020 6:38 am
From the journal of Zil, Windling Elementalist and Follower of Garlen.
Last year I and a group of companions traveled to the Kier of Bamor to open it up, and were dismayed to find all within dead except for roving gangs of Cadavermen and Ghouls. We left, but some of them returned a few months ago with the intention of clearing out the undead. They did clear out most of the uppermost layer, and learned that there was a Horror of the type DespairThought laired somewhere in the lower levels, But wounds forced them to leave the rest of the kear for a followup expedition Volkir/Shokunin & Xeviouz/Waijhou having talked to a Horror Stalker and wishing to join their ranks, decided to prove themselves to the Horror Stalkers by organizing an expedition to destroy the DespairThought.
We reentered the kear by the usual way, and finding the main square deserted, made our way to passage where the previous expedition had last fought. We found that deserted as well. We followed indications and eventually came upon a very old dwarf and his cadaverous pets. The old dwarf spoke in a childlike manner, yet looked cadaverous, and it was not until after the fight that I realized he had been still alive. His pets were two large cats, a dog, and a lizard, all undead but returned to a mocking semblance of life. After the fight we found an old Baby blanket, embroidered with the name "Eloco Dar" and we reasoned that this might have been one of the one of the children given up to the horror by their parents all those many decades ago. He had been living alone ever since, with no parent or companionship except the pets the horror had raised for him.
By Garlens grace I was able to heal most of our wounds and we continued on after only a short break.
Down in a lower level market, we encountered 5 other creatures. 4 middle-aged elves, whom we again think were probably given to the Horror by their parents as infants or children, and a horror construct they called "Mother Sorrow".. In the initial moments of the fight Duban was struck by several arrows and almost killed. I was totally useless in the fight spending all my time trying and failing to pull threads to cast "Grove Renewal" upon him. Fortunately the others managed to dispatch these poor souls with little effort. During the fight the elves begged for death. Afterwards we found what appeared to be a schoolroom, with projects in vivisection, torture, and other grizzly subjects. Duban was much wounded, so we retired for the night and proceeded the next day.
In the final confrontation of the day, we came upon a chamber with a magic circle inscribed init. The chamber was occupied by two stone Caryatids, two shadowy Cadavers (not apparently related to cadavermen in any way, other than that they seemed to be spirits reanimating cadavers), and a Despair Thought. We got in a nice defensible position and waited for them to come to us. the two Caryatids were big and slow and gladly came up to us. They were easy to hit, but their large amount of stone armor made them very difficult to damage. The shadowy cadavers held back a little while before engaging. Then Volkir suddenly ran forward, jumped over the shadowy cadavers and swung at the Despair Thought. There were groans from some members of the party as he disappeared behind the blind corner, as Duban had been preparing to cast a buff spell upon him, and now he was isolated out of sight from most of us. He did two mighty blows and did grievous wounds to the Horror, but did not slay it. The Horror did much magic upon him, and caused Volkir's voice to ... become cursed. Everybody except me succumbed to Volkir's horrible voice and could not remain standing. Since they could not stand, they could not move at a pace faster than a crawl, so they could not attack the Horror.
I blasted various stuff with my lightning bolts, and Volkir attacked the Horror from the ground. We both did hits, and we could tell the horror was on it's last... pseudopod. The Despair Thought started to slither away. Just as it was about to reach a stairway, a huge eyeball appeared in the circle. It spoke to the Despair Thought, and told it that it was disappointed at how easily it had been bested. It then seemed to withdraw it's animating essence, and the DT, already almost dead died in truth and shriveled up into a husk within minutes. The two shadowy cadavers also collapsed, and the Caryatids frose. Then the eyeball vanished.
We examined the magic circle, and decided that the Horror was not simply in Astral Space, but very far away, and simply using this circle as a focus to Project himself here. The circle itself had not been built by any sane name-giver, but seems to have been constructed by the horror. We learned that the horror had a name of two parts. The first was Ag'xgai the other was Nlyath'Lyvxenzair. We learned it was not safe to simply destroy the magic circle, but it would need to be painstakingly disassembled if we desired to do that. We explored the keir thoroughly, and decided that we had cleaned everything except the magic circle and the floating eyeball. the eyeball we could not locate, except that we figured the magic circle would probably allow it to come to the kear, and maybe allow a sufficiently skillful caster to open a portal to where it was. We decided that we had no way to confront the Horror, and we record our findings for others, or for ourselves when we achieve Warden status.
During our further explorations of the Kaer, we found a few thread items, a set of chainmail that Duban took,a nd a helmet that Volkeir claimed.
Last year I and a group of companions traveled to the Kier of Bamor to open it up, and were dismayed to find all within dead except for roving gangs of Cadavermen and Ghouls. We left, but some of them returned a few months ago with the intention of clearing out the undead. They did clear out most of the uppermost layer, and learned that there was a Horror of the type DespairThought laired somewhere in the lower levels, But wounds forced them to leave the rest of the kear for a followup expedition Volkir/Shokunin & Xeviouz/Waijhou having talked to a Horror Stalker and wishing to join their ranks, decided to prove themselves to the Horror Stalkers by organizing an expedition to destroy the DespairThought.
We reentered the kear by the usual way, and finding the main square deserted, made our way to passage where the previous expedition had last fought. We found that deserted as well. We followed indications and eventually came upon a very old dwarf and his cadaverous pets. The old dwarf spoke in a childlike manner, yet looked cadaverous, and it was not until after the fight that I realized he had been still alive. His pets were two large cats, a dog, and a lizard, all undead but returned to a mocking semblance of life. After the fight we found an old Baby blanket, embroidered with the name "Eloco Dar" and we reasoned that this might have been one of the one of the children given up to the horror by their parents all those many decades ago. He had been living alone ever since, with no parent or companionship except the pets the horror had raised for him.
By Garlens grace I was able to heal most of our wounds and we continued on after only a short break.
Down in a lower level market, we encountered 5 other creatures. 4 middle-aged elves, whom we again think were probably given to the Horror by their parents as infants or children, and a horror construct they called "Mother Sorrow".. In the initial moments of the fight Duban was struck by several arrows and almost killed. I was totally useless in the fight spending all my time trying and failing to pull threads to cast "Grove Renewal" upon him. Fortunately the others managed to dispatch these poor souls with little effort. During the fight the elves begged for death. Afterwards we found what appeared to be a schoolroom, with projects in vivisection, torture, and other grizzly subjects. Duban was much wounded, so we retired for the night and proceeded the next day.
In the final confrontation of the day, we came upon a chamber with a magic circle inscribed init. The chamber was occupied by two stone Caryatids, two shadowy Cadavers (not apparently related to cadavermen in any way, other than that they seemed to be spirits reanimating cadavers), and a Despair Thought. We got in a nice defensible position and waited for them to come to us. the two Caryatids were big and slow and gladly came up to us. They were easy to hit, but their large amount of stone armor made them very difficult to damage. The shadowy cadavers held back a little while before engaging. Then Volkir suddenly ran forward, jumped over the shadowy cadavers and swung at the Despair Thought. There were groans from some members of the party as he disappeared behind the blind corner, as Duban had been preparing to cast a buff spell upon him, and now he was isolated out of sight from most of us. He did two mighty blows and did grievous wounds to the Horror, but did not slay it. The Horror did much magic upon him, and caused Volkir's voice to ... become cursed. Everybody except me succumbed to Volkir's horrible voice and could not remain standing. Since they could not stand, they could not move at a pace faster than a crawl, so they could not attack the Horror.
I blasted various stuff with my lightning bolts, and Volkir attacked the Horror from the ground. We both did hits, and we could tell the horror was on it's last... pseudopod. The Despair Thought started to slither away. Just as it was about to reach a stairway, a huge eyeball appeared in the circle. It spoke to the Despair Thought, and told it that it was disappointed at how easily it had been bested. It then seemed to withdraw it's animating essence, and the DT, already almost dead died in truth and shriveled up into a husk within minutes. The two shadowy cadavers also collapsed, and the Caryatids frose. Then the eyeball vanished.
We examined the magic circle, and decided that the Horror was not simply in Astral Space, but very far away, and simply using this circle as a focus to Project himself here. The circle itself had not been built by any sane name-giver, but seems to have been constructed by the horror. We learned that the horror had a name of two parts. The first was Ag'xgai the other was Nlyath'Lyvxenzair. We learned it was not safe to simply destroy the magic circle, but it would need to be painstakingly disassembled if we desired to do that. We explored the keir thoroughly, and decided that we had cleaned everything except the magic circle and the floating eyeball. the eyeball we could not locate, except that we figured the magic circle would probably allow it to come to the kear, and maybe allow a sufficiently skillful caster to open a portal to where it was. We decided that we had no way to confront the Horror, and we record our findings for others, or for ourselves when we achieve Warden status.
During our further explorations of the Kaer, we found a few thread items, a set of chainmail that Duban took,a nd a helmet that Volkeir claimed.