|
21 Praedus 1120
Casualties of War
There was plenty of room aboard the Torchwood on the morning of 15 Praedus. Sagan had bid the party adieu with his customary flourish and left to seek his fortune somewhere, as he put it, "where the fighting happens in daylight and the circumstances are less grim." Karu, too, was absent temporarily, leaving the group down to just four. Those four were summoned to the Adventurers' Guild by Grimaldi for a consultation. Group Three, the chief researcher explained, was in pursuit of the beings with the power to recharge the galadiir. Meanwhile, there was a disturbing lack of news from the area around Deep Elandrin, where Group Three had confronted the leaders of the aberrant army and helped to break the siege. Grimaldi asked the party to undertake a reconnaissance tour of the northeastern sea floor and find out the state of affairs. It seemed prudent to replenish vital supplies first, so the group commissioned a pair of mid-level clerics to recharge their wands of water breathing and cure critical wounds. They set off on the evening of the 16th for the northeastern sea and, early on the 18th, dropped anchor about 30 miles short of Deep Elandrin so they could explore the surrounding area and gather information. The situation on the sea floor was grim. The first two villages the party happened upon were deserted ruins, each bearing the same battle scars as the villages they had seen before. A third village housed a small population of merfolk, struggling to remain viable with their resources sadly depleted. From those merfok the party was able to get a decent picture of what had taken place in recent weeks. After the other party had faced down the aberrant army's leaders, the siege of Deep Elandrin was broken. The bulk of the army had retreated to parts unknown, presumably to regroup. The rest -- still a significant number of forces -- had disbanded into separate companies and taken to looting and marauding for sport. These rogue groups were smaller and less destructive than a disciplined army had been, but the weaker villages were still hard pressed to defend themselves. Equally disquieting, perhaps, was the rumor of another ugly side affect to all the fighting and killing: large numbers of undead, both of the aberrant forces and defending races, were being encountered in the ruined villages and abandoned battlefields. There was even word that a large concentration of undead was gathering in a dead village to the west. Zombies and skeletons are not known for organizing themselves; if such a village did exist, Tika reasoned, there was likely a necromancer at the center of it. The heroes left the Torchwood at anchor and set off along the ocean floor toward where rumor said the undead village would be. Several hours into the trip, an oncoming trio of humanoid figures caught their eye: half-illithid sauhagin troops, moving rapidly away from the direction the party was heading. Loki and Vondran swam up to engage the soldiers. Ash opened hostilities with a sonic scorching ray and was surprised to see the leader slain on the spot by her spell. Vondran swooped in to engage the second, who had just stunned Loki with a mind blast, and impaled it on the Arm of Telomir. The third absorbed a volley of magic missiles from Ash and tried to flee the encounter. Vondran yanked his harpoon out of his enemy's gut, doing mortal damage in the process, and chased down the fleeing marauder. A single harpoon blow was enough to end the creature's life. Not surprisingly, an examination of the bodies showed that these soldiers had been seriously weakened by another recent combat before encountering the heroes. The party could not tell with any certainty whether the combat had been with undead or merely a failed village raid; either way, the best course of action seemed to be to press on. As they approached the general area of the rumor the party noticed an eerie degree of stillness in the environment. Much of the area, devastated by the violent war, was less vibrant than normal, but as the party continued northwest they were struck more and more by the increasing scarcity of even the most simple plant and fish life. It made the three skeletal figures approaching all the more conspicuous. The heroes braced themselves for action and allowed the enemy to close the distance. They were humanoid skeletons but definitely not human. The bone structure reminded Vondran of sahuagin but the skulls were larger; could they be animated from aberrant soldiers? Their origins made little different to Tika, cleric of Pelor. She held out her holy symbol and channeled positive energy through it toward the skeletons. They immediately turned and fled back the way they came. There was time for a whoop and a cheer, but then the party's congratulations were cut short when a huge, vile-looking skeletal creature swooped down from above and sank its massive teeth into Tika's hide in a brutal swim-by attack. The thing was easily 20 feet long and had the shape of a massive eel or elongated fish. Whatever it was, its bite was a serious threat. Ash retaliated with a sonic fireball that rattled the creature's bones but did not destroy it, which made her the next target of its awful bite. Vondran and Loki both attacked, seeking to draw it away from the severely weakened Ash. Tika tried turning but this creature was much more powerful than the humanoid skeletons and resisted the effort. She noted that such skeletons require serious magical power to create, confirming her suspicions about the presence of a powerful necromancer. The combined might of Vondran and Loki finished off the creature, though not before it landed a bite on Vondran. The bones settled to the floor and lay still. Soon the party made out the profile of a moderate-sized village in the distance. Before they could get close enough for a good look, they were intercepted once again. This time the attackers moved quickly and had flesh on their bones. There were three of the aberrant soldiers and two ramfish, which the party knew were often used as mounts by the soldiers. The first blows were landed by the ramfish, who charged and gored at Loki and Vondran. Yes, they had flesh, but it was grey, sick-looking flesh; that, and the obvious open but no-longer-bleeding wounds made it clear these ramfish were some form of zombie. The aberrant sahuagin also looked zombie-like, but they moved with a speed and precision that is beyond the normal zombie's ability and their eyes gleamed with a cold, malevolent light. Tika held out her holy symbol and called on the power of Pelor once again. The symbol flashed and two of the enemy, a ramfish and a humanoid, fled the encounter. Vondran and Loki moved in to engage, landing blows against the soldiers. The remaining ramfish charged and gored Tika, then absorbed a sonic scorching ray from Ash and retorted by goring her. The soldiers proved skilled and deft, trading blows with Loki and Vondran, and also somewhat resistant to magical attack. Tika concluded that they were swordwraiths rather than zombies and made another turning attempt, again sending a ramfish and a swordwraith out of the battle quickly. That left but one enemy, a swordwraith, which Loki dispatched to end the combat. A crowd had gathered at the edge of the village. As the heroes quickly healed up they saw a group of a dozen or more people stagger toward them with the characteristic shamble of the undead. It was a mixed group of sahuagin (non-aberrant), merfolk, aquatic elves, even a sea kith. Beyond, just visible in the murky water, dozens and dozens more shuffled around the village proper. The group debated what to do. Tika had a limited amount of turning power left; they could handle the dozen approaching zombies easily, but a hundred more? Plus whatever powerful mage might be controlling them from within the village? They debated swimming past this front line and searching the village, using their superior speed to avoid having to fight every zombie. They debated coming back with greater numbers and refreshed spell power. And as they debated, the zombies closed in. Loki noticed that they moved more quickly, and seemed less deathly pale, than zombies were supposed to. A suspicion dawned on him, and on the rest, and they held their ground. Sure enough, the approaching figures stopped and the one in the lead spoke: "You're not even remotely afraid of us, are you?" The very-much-alive villagers took the party to see their council of elders. The council's makeup itself was remarkable: two aquatic elves, a sahuagin, a merfok man, and an aventi woman. The story they told was even more so. The village, the party learned, was composed of groups of survivors from lost battles. Each of these groups was too weak to stand on its own, but by putting aside ancient racial hatreds and combining their talents they were able to establish a viable society. The one thing they lacked, according to the council, was the thing they'd lost most of in the war: young men and women of fighting age to defend them. Faced with that dilemma they turned to Sophronia, one of the council's aquatic elf members and a necromancer of significant ability. One thing the war had left in abundance was dead soldiers, and Sophronia knew that undead guardians would be immune to the mental powers of the half-illithid forces. By animating the enemy's dead, she could create a protective force under her control that was a fair match for the remnant of the threat. And so she had, adding in the animated skeleton of a dragon eel for shock and awe value as well. The elder's plan had worked well. Sophronia's undead had done well at repelling the marauding bands of aberrant sahuagin, who proved easily unnerved by the sight of their own kind as undead defenders. The people had also quietly seeded and spread the rumors of a village of undead to help discourage attacks in the first place. So effective had the strategy been that the Torchwood party had been the first to penetrate their defenses. As abhorrent as the undead were to her, Tika had to concede that the villagers were making the best of a desperate and ugly situation. As long as the undead remained under control, she could not in good conscience condemn the council for their acts. Ash mentioned the merfolk settlement they had found and the council promised to send someone to invite those merfolk to join them as well. The heroes left the "undead village" in the hands of its council, promising to keep the secret of their ruse, and returned to Marhaven to report on their findings.
<MR>
|