Ludi Blog

The capture/rescued slaves were all strong looking men from the icy wastes of the North. They thanked the party for their rescue (although there appeared to be some contention on the issue of whether they had been in fact rescued) and agreed to help the party storm the temple.

With that the party made camp and attempted unsuccessfully to contact Blackstaff again using the stone. No answer. The only noise coming from Vess as he muttered constantly about being used and abused as pawns in a much larger game. And everyone knows pawns are expendable.

With the camp set up, Celad and Vess were dispatched to check out the temple fortress that had been described by the Norsemen. Upon arriving they saw two or three wagons and a camp outside the entrance to the temple - shady figures lit only by camp fires. The building itself was imposing - long, white and in poor repair, standing in a small clearing in the side of the valley - Vess signaled to move off into the trees to skirt around the building from above. They crossed a track heading towards the rear of the building seeing large areas of the roof with holes. Moving round to the north side of the building they noticed another large door and as Celad went to investigate a shadow detached itself from the roof crawled down the wall and started padding towards him - at this point Celad retreated. Having reported his findings to Vess they decided to return to the camp.

Meanwhile Grogg had wandered off to look at the temple himself, lost interest and then wandered back to the camp. Ril busied herself in one of the carts keeping out of the way of the slaves - still unsure why the party was working with them rather than whipping them until they do what their rightful masters tell them to do. Alana and Womac had made camp and moved the Norsemen off to one side by the time the scouts had returned.

Describing the temple to the rest of the group they then settled down for the night with watches set.

During the second watch Celad noticed a grey humanoid figure trying to approach the camp with caution, he raised the alarm and four of the deathly looking figures entered the camp in search of warm flesh to feed on. A fifth creature, similar looking to the others but seemingly in charge entered the combat stinking of rot and death and sickness - causing some of the combatants to become nauseous. The norsemen came to help the party attacking the undead effectively but one of the men seeing the drow Ril attacked her too thinking her part of the attackers. Surprised she took a fist to the back of the head and she turned to her attacker "How dare you touch me slave!" she shouted and used her dagger to kill the man.

Finally the battle was over and now it looks as though the recriminations are about to begin ...