Castle Amber: A D&D Adventure

Lynda turns to Simon, and attempts to shoot him 'full of holes' with her bow and arrows. She's aiming for his head.

Kalar commands Simon to flee and much to Lynda's and even Kalar's surprise, Simon obeys. Lynda shoots Simon with a double shot of arrows. One skims off his armor. The other sticks him in the leg.

Galse looks over his new weapon and goes to pursue Simon, only to find Simon running down the stairs right at him. Galse jumps at the chance to attack Simon. He scores a powerful attack to Simon's chest. Simon keeps coming though and much to Galse's surprise, Simon runs right past Galse. Leaving himself open to attack, Galse takes the opportunity to attack Simon again, this time in the back of the head. Simon stumbles from the hit and ends up right in front of the zombies Kalar told to attack him. The zombie both smash into Simon. Simon falls and the zombie swarm over him.

The Chapel shakes. Simon cries out as the zombie tear into him. The statues all shatter. The figurine on the alter melts into the floor. Simon himself begins to freeze. In a moment Simon is completely frozen. The zombies struggle to continue their attack. Then Simon shatters, leaving nothing behind.

Charles walks over and looks at the pieces that used to be his brother.
"What has happened to my family.... This whole Castle has turned into a battleground. I'm not sure I want to do this anymore."
With that he turns and begins to walk back towards his room.

The chapel grows quiet.

Lynda deals 5 dmg.
Galse deals 16 and 13 dmg.
Zombies deal 4 and 3 dmg.

Kalar takes a deep breath, surprised that he's alive, much less the entire party. Not sure if things are over yet, he decides to take charge.

"Lynda, go after Charles, he knows more about this place, and we need the information. I'll send one of my zombies to cover you."

With that, he mentally commands one of the zombies to follow Lynda and defend her should anything attack.

Kalar heads down the stairs to survey the damage. Broken marble and granite lies everywhere, and he rather doubts whether there's anything salvageable in the rubble. Still, it might not hurt to look around later.

He turns to Galse and nods, "Great work there, couldn't have done it without you. I should see if Silas is still alive, as much as the little creep bothered me, we might need his aid later."

Kalar then commands one of his zombies to go to Silas' body and drag it back to where Galse and co. are standing. Kalar has no intention of heading near the place where the bulk of the fighting happened, in case something still lingers there. He has his war pick back in its loop, but he still holds his tower shield ready.

While waiting for the zombie to return, he says, "If any of you are wounded, see me, and I'll deal with your wounds."

As soon as the zombie returns with Silas, Kalar will attempt to fix him up as best as he's able to. He's not entirely sure what sort of physiology Silas has now, but he'll still try to use his skill in the healing arts to determine if there's anything he can do for the warforged.


*Yeah, I know, Mending doesn't work on constructs, but Kalar doesn't know that, never having dealt with them before.

---

Being from the third world, I reserve the right to speak in the third person.

Using Editor version wip 20170527 gfx_sdl+fb music_sdl

Lynda also takes a deep breath. Her head was spinning from everything that just happened. What began as a ploy to gather information turned quickly into a warground, with the heavily unsettling relevation that Castle Clover was actually hell, and the wild combination of a massive sorceror, insects, snakes, Silas falling in battle, and a fanatical peasant woman who had risen from the dead.

She sees Charles go off, and Kalar's instruction, she decides to go pursue him. Crazy Lynda has now toned back down to sympathetic Lynda, trying to pretend she didn't just stab a mans sister to death and his brother became a super sized goon that just got shredded by the undead and Galse.

"Charles...I know you must be devastated about losing your siblings, but you have to listen to me. We need more information about where we are exactly. Your co-operation with us is very vital. So far, you're one of the only normal people we've encountered in this place. I apologize for whatever wrongs I've done to your family, but you have to understand the situation that me and my party are in."

Charles glares back at Lynda. "You leave me alone." He storms off and shuts the door to the hallway behind himself.

Meanwhile, Kalar barks orders from up on of the loft. Silas is unceremoniously dragged up the stairs where Kalar uses a simply Mending spell on him. He does indeed awaken, but is still in a disabled state.

Kalar begins setting up for the night. Thistlewhistle joins him on the loft and helps with resting prep. Lynda tried to decide to persue Charles further or let him be. Galse stands stoically over the battlefield contemplating his past experiences.

Each member of the party gains 7,365 xp. This should put everyone at around 4th level.

To Silas's utter astonishment, he is pulled out of the sinking void of near-death, and sees a blurry, confused, painful vision of Kalar and a zombie leaning over him.

Silas lays there on the ground, inert, unbreathing, and disabled. He thinks he could probably speak, but he does not even try.

Silas inwardly praises Vecna for sparing his life, "Oh Great and Terrible Secret Master! Thank you for your favor! My life is doubly in your debt! My every action, my every thought, for the rest of my days will be nothing but acts of worship to your Unholy Secret Glory"

It is okay for anyone to read the spoiler now

Lynda, sighing heavily, goes back to the Kalar.

"He's inconsolable at the moment. I can't say I blame him though, I really did a number on his sister. Maybe if you tried talking to him, you'd get better results." She says to Kalar.

She notices Silas lying on the ground.

"Is he going to be alright? I feel kinda bad about leaving him, but seeing as how it lead Simon into Galse, it turned out to be one of my better decisions." She says.

"Although I can't say I'm overly happy he lived...that guy gives me the creeps." Lynda thinks to herself.

Galse checks Madeline, on the off-chance that the party could revive her again... third time's the charm, right? There's a definite sadness to all of this. These "monsters" are people just like us, trapped in whatever this place is, doing what they have to do to survive. Simon may've been a big spooky man with a purple magic shield and been dabbling in the occult, but we've got a guy who controls zombies.. not to mention the Amazing Rock Boy. For all we know he could've been our ticket out of here, if we hadn't set him off. Had they killed any more siblings before that wall blew up?

Galse shakes his head at Lynda's attempts with Charles. We just killed the guy's whole family, what could you even say? Maybe after a good night's sleep, a proper breakfast.. a lengthy visit to the wine cellar. Even then, best to let someone without blood on their hands do the talking. This quarterstaff... a fantastic weapon. I didn't even realize I was swinging it that hard. Killing him came easy... too easy. The time may come when we need it again, but.. for now, I think I'll use the one whose mistakes can be corrected. Galse puts away the staff in favor of the sap.

His squinty eyes survey the carnage, his face as stony as a sta... well, maybe not that stony in comparison to some of us. At any rate, the word of the day is "Caution". This is a scary situation, panic is inevitable. We must put our best faces forward to let others know we're not a threat, and that we can work together to get out of this. Things were easier at the dinner table... simpler.

When it comes time to relay these thoughts to the others, he summarizes it thusly:

"Let's quit killin' everyone who might know what's going on."

While, Galse overlooks the carnage, he finds a staff with a snake head on the ground where Simon, Silas and Lynda had first been fighting.
Lynda finds a ring attached to a frozen finger in the ground on her way back from Charles' door. The ring seems untouched by Simon's freezing and by the shattering. The ring has an emblem of feathers on it.

Lynda decides it would be best to pick up the ring with the feathers on it.

In response to Galse, she says "Well, I tried. It was either upset Charles, or strangled to death Charles. I decided to save what might be one of the only people who could give us a straight answer. The fact that his siblings were too crazy to listen to reason can't be helped."

Btw, does Lynda still have her amulet?

Galse will bring the serpent staff to the rest of the party for examination, but doesn't have any overwhelming desire to hold onto it personally. And to Lynda he says "She was just a scared woman, rightly so. Couldn't you have subdued her without slitting her throat?"

Yes, the amulet as well as all the other things the statues did or gave are still there.

"I didn't see any fear in her when she ran in and began strangling her own brother...not once, but twice! That woman gripped his neck like a vice. I realize that if I had the opportunity, there might've been a better way to handle things, but in the heat of the moment, I only saw a man who had the potential to help us being wrung out by a woman who had clearly lost her mind."

[i]"Out of her mind indeed, and not responsible for her actions. At any rate, it could've been worse. Someone will have to talk to him in the morning and try to straighten things out."

Kalar is surprised to see that Silas is alive, so-to-speak. Not entirely sure if he actually is alive or if it's some strange reaction to the mending spell, he asks: "Silas, can you hear me?"

He hears Galse talking to Lynda and turns to him and says, "I'll talk to him in the morning. I can't guarantee anything, but we might be able to learn something from him at least."

---

Being from the third world, I reserve the right to speak in the third person.

Using Editor version wip 20170527 gfx_sdl+fb music_sdl