Post by hargrave on Jan 19, 2006 20:40:17 GMT -5
This is my journal: of a necromantic scholar and nobleman, Johan Hargrave. Let my words not be forgotten upon my untimely demise...
January 7, 557...
It wasn't supposed to have been this way... As I rode upon my black mount, the snow and mists rolled in. I was forced to take whichever road came into sight. This particular road took me into a small, forest-bordering hamlet; Raven's Bluff.
As I said, the snow and mist made it hard to see. However, the searing cold made it hard to breath... I quickly found shelter in the inn. As I entered, I overheard the talk of a missing girl and the murder of another. This wasn't my place to interfere but I had no choice...
A knight of Ezra's order was present. Quiet and in his own solitude. I could honor that but the inn keeper piped up. As did the fellow who seemed to arrive as I did. Shrouded in black cloth and scythe at his hand. Any commoner or sane individual would think him Azrael's emissary. I saw him out to be, as he should properly be donned, "Morbid Mercenary".
Brief talk and much concern later, it was settled that come morning, we would all seek out the girl with the local guard. Aside from my hunger, I sought rest but for a few hours. I was awake early in the hours of the morn before the rooster crows. I waited 'till later, when the others rose from their slumber to begin my mental transition for "the hunt"...
I didn't realize what had happened in my sleep... The knight was killed. No brutality other than strangulation. The shadowy figure, Baron Mortiorchis Nightly found on him a book so vile even I, was slightly shaken by the mere name which I read in my thoughts.
The guard captain, Mortiorchis, and I took to the nearby forest region. As an Ezran priest in town informed us, a mad cleric of the "Dread God" whose name I shan't speak should be suspected in this. We also suspected a cultist of the "Dread God" after sight of the tome but we had underestimated his strength...
In the woods, Baron Nightly spied a rather unnatural formation in the ground. Being one to properly identify when soil is tampered with... (Eh-hem!) ...he found it to be a trap door, leading into what we later learned was the lair of the cultist.
Inside, we were coldly greeted by snarling, maggot-infested, carrion-laden shells of men; zombies. Please, spare me the effort of throwing them to the dirt like common scum. After all, on the scale of man and beast, a commoner is much like a zombie; dirty, uneducated, simple-minded, and the bottom of the food chain.
After swift action, we forced the exit of their "life-sustaining" negative energy. Next came the ghouls. They were zombies with a wolf's hunger and instinct, but with a barbarian's mentality. Goad and force action which equals its death.
Again, we quickly slew our enemies though my shoulder was aching with a severe pain from one's bite. That wouldn't slow us down... The long, dug out tunnel lead us to the chamber where the mad cleric had the poor girl tied down and unconscious on a ritual alter... The guard captain took his sword after our nemesis. Mortiorchis' grand spell arsenal made a great wall of necrotic "fire". I attempted to cut the ropes around the girl's wrists and ankles while I had been given cover.
To save details of the fight, the captain was felled, Mortiorchis was on Death's doorstep (as if he wasn't already rapidly flailing his knocker), and I dropped into blackness. The girl was safe, within my embrace and soon, "thanks" to an elf who had been trailing us, the Ezran priest hurried to our locale and healed us as the elf ran off into the trees...
After collecting our thoughts and the remnants of our tattered selves, we returned to the now incinerated ruins of Raven's Bluff... With the cultist gone into the mists, we are still at square one and, just our luck, without the accursed grimoire; our greatest weapon in combating the cult of the "Dread God"...
January 7, 557...
It wasn't supposed to have been this way... As I rode upon my black mount, the snow and mists rolled in. I was forced to take whichever road came into sight. This particular road took me into a small, forest-bordering hamlet; Raven's Bluff.
As I said, the snow and mist made it hard to see. However, the searing cold made it hard to breath... I quickly found shelter in the inn. As I entered, I overheard the talk of a missing girl and the murder of another. This wasn't my place to interfere but I had no choice...
A knight of Ezra's order was present. Quiet and in his own solitude. I could honor that but the inn keeper piped up. As did the fellow who seemed to arrive as I did. Shrouded in black cloth and scythe at his hand. Any commoner or sane individual would think him Azrael's emissary. I saw him out to be, as he should properly be donned, "Morbid Mercenary".
Brief talk and much concern later, it was settled that come morning, we would all seek out the girl with the local guard. Aside from my hunger, I sought rest but for a few hours. I was awake early in the hours of the morn before the rooster crows. I waited 'till later, when the others rose from their slumber to begin my mental transition for "the hunt"...
I didn't realize what had happened in my sleep... The knight was killed. No brutality other than strangulation. The shadowy figure, Baron Mortiorchis Nightly found on him a book so vile even I, was slightly shaken by the mere name which I read in my thoughts.
The guard captain, Mortiorchis, and I took to the nearby forest region. As an Ezran priest in town informed us, a mad cleric of the "Dread God" whose name I shan't speak should be suspected in this. We also suspected a cultist of the "Dread God" after sight of the tome but we had underestimated his strength...
In the woods, Baron Nightly spied a rather unnatural formation in the ground. Being one to properly identify when soil is tampered with... (Eh-hem!) ...he found it to be a trap door, leading into what we later learned was the lair of the cultist.
Inside, we were coldly greeted by snarling, maggot-infested, carrion-laden shells of men; zombies. Please, spare me the effort of throwing them to the dirt like common scum. After all, on the scale of man and beast, a commoner is much like a zombie; dirty, uneducated, simple-minded, and the bottom of the food chain.
After swift action, we forced the exit of their "life-sustaining" negative energy. Next came the ghouls. They were zombies with a wolf's hunger and instinct, but with a barbarian's mentality. Goad and force action which equals its death.
Again, we quickly slew our enemies though my shoulder was aching with a severe pain from one's bite. That wouldn't slow us down... The long, dug out tunnel lead us to the chamber where the mad cleric had the poor girl tied down and unconscious on a ritual alter... The guard captain took his sword after our nemesis. Mortiorchis' grand spell arsenal made a great wall of necrotic "fire". I attempted to cut the ropes around the girl's wrists and ankles while I had been given cover.
To save details of the fight, the captain was felled, Mortiorchis was on Death's doorstep (as if he wasn't already rapidly flailing his knocker), and I dropped into blackness. The girl was safe, within my embrace and soon, "thanks" to an elf who had been trailing us, the Ezran priest hurried to our locale and healed us as the elf ran off into the trees...
After collecting our thoughts and the remnants of our tattered selves, we returned to the now incinerated ruins of Raven's Bluff... With the cultist gone into the mists, we are still at square one and, just our luck, without the accursed grimoire; our greatest weapon in combating the cult of the "Dread God"...