Hogar’s Journal (Translated from Giant)
Year 781 of the founding of the City
29th Day of Garmensis – Part IV
Silverkin Manor – Return To The Entrance Hall
We left the dining
room and returned to the entrance hall to find it packed with hellish
creatures. These creatures were not
unknown to me; vampire spawn. It was
probably no more than a few days since they were sucked dry and reborn. Decrepit skeletons animated by only the most
rudimentary necromancy accompanied the blood-suckers. Immediately it became apparent that these
creatures were no match for us as I stepped into the room and killed two of
them. We cleaved through the massed
minions with little effort, our confidence building that this room would be
cleared with little effort.
Our euphoria was short lived as an unearthly scream from the balcony
above announced the presence of a Skull Lord, a hooded skeleton necromancer
with three faces, each of which can rotate into position. In response to the Lord’s scream one of the
fallen vampire Spawn rose clumsily to its feet and resumed its attack. Even the presence of the Skull Lord could not
make the ramshackle hordes of undead a match for us however. For every skeleton and vampire he raised we
cut down two or three and steadily worked our way towards the staircase leading
to the Skull Lord.
As we pressed our attack the front doors burst open and undead wolves
bounded into the room. A scuttling sound
came from under the stairs quickly followed by the emergence of animated
kruthik corpses blocking our path to the Skull Lord. The emergence of these more powerful foes
seemed to further addle Old Vic’s already fragile mind as he pleaded with me
not to stray too far from him. As the
rest of us continued to deal with the vampire and skeleton minions (or in my
case Vic’s sudden onset senility), Rodney engulfed the approaching wolves with
a burst of thunder and Glen set about the two kruthik with a flurry of
blows. Suddenly Vic seemed to overcome
his need to be protected by me. He declared
that the vampires and skeletons were beneath his notice as foes and moved
forward to attack the kruthik. Twice he
drew his bow and twice he released shafts.
Twice he missed. Free of the old
man I decided that it was past time we brought this fight to the Skull
Lord. I dispatched two Skeletons and a
wolf and sunk a shaft deep into one of the kruthik. Diefenbaker, Glen, and Minron surrounded the
other kruthik and hacked it to pieces.
Eligos stepped in and splatted the remaining Kruthik all over the bottom
of the staircase.
Glen led the way up the stairs throwing an axe as he ran. In a rare moment of clarity Vic sent a bolt
of energy through the skull’s eye socket.
The skull shattered and fell to the ground in a cascade of bone
fragments. Instantly another of the
Skull Lord's three faces spun into position and the fight continued. Minron bellowed his challenge and charged up
the stairs. He barrelled head first into
the Skull Lord sending him over onto his backside. Before the skeleton mage could react he
chopped down with his sword grievously wounding our adversary. As the Lord staggered to his feet I threw my
dagger at it as a precursor to a charge of my own. The dagger caught him between his hollow eyes
and another skeletal face shattered. Despite
this he was able to avoid my charge but not those of Glen and Eligos. As my warrior comrades surrounded the mage
and rained blows down upon him I was able to retreat to a distance where I
could release another shaft through his eye socket, sending the third and last
skull tumbling to the ground in pieces.
No sooner had the third skull hit the floor than the remains of all
three skulls coalesced, levitated and flew through one of the downstairs
doors. As quiet descended on the scene
Eligos noticed muffled voices coming from the other side of one of the doors on
the landing.
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