We went back under the city, past the old slaver's hold, and fought our way through looking for the Beggar King.
There were lackies a-plenty, but one spell caster got away with - I dunno what, but I think he took something.
Then Shadwin decided to take the ruby eyes out of a nasty rat statue. We all knew it was a trap, but I he jsut couldn't resist. Turns out it wasn't a statue, but really, a big giant rat. poop. He was nasty, and fighting him made most of us sick. His little rat buddies swarmed us from two sides, nibbling at us with their infectous little bites. bleh.
We took a rest in the makeshift barracks while most of us weathered the worst of the fever. I tended the party, and both Shadwin and
Marius responded well. They recovered in good time, but
Fenrir and I still felt aweful. Still, we trudged on.
There was a door we had yet to check out - we left that till now. The handle was hot. We figured there may be some sort issue with fire on the other side, so one of us would open the door while the rest waited around the corner.
Marius insisted of course.
Inside was a man taken by shadow. His body was bizzarly decayed and barely looked human any more. Inside him, pouring out of every orifice, was the shadow, and it attacked with tendrils of darkness. Just standing next to him was painful, as the shadow tried to envelope it's opponents. The creature was standing it what appeared to be the basement of a tower, with a roaring furnace. He summoned flaming skeletons (yes, flaming) from it. Bleh. What a nightmare.
We attacked, and pulled no punches. After a farily lenghtly fight, we previaled against the creature, and it drained most of our resources. During the battle, we noticed the shadow reaching up the tower as the host body was slowly destroyed. Once we had killed infected man, who we determined to be the Beggar King himself, the fire and skeletons deminished, the shadow flew into the air with the sound of wings, and terrible explosions rocked the place. It sounded like the caverns were collapsing, so we made our way up the tower as fast as we could.
We made it to the tower roof, and saw a shadow cross over the night sky. We quickly realized that we had released the shadow creature, by killing the Beggar King. He really did try to obtain dark power, and it was more than he bargained for. All of Punjar was at risk.
The tower was collapsing, and the group had no choice but to jump across to the next building. Everyone landed safely on the next roof, except me. I stumbled and nearly fell to me death below, but I guess it was not my time, as
Marius would say. Once I saw the shadow dragon land on the roof where my companions were, it was clear that we would get one more opportunity to set right the Beggar King's mistake, but it may cost our lives.
I was out of healing, but I did have one last protection spell that I could use on the party. I managed to reach everyone but Sinaris. It helped some, but our group was so exhausted from the last battle, that our blows kept missing their mark. I threw sacred flame, after sacred flame from my vantage point on a pile of rubble, and I think only 2 really hit.
Fenrir was having similar issues. Then
Marius went down, then Sinaris when down. The Dragon was starting to disintegrate though. Shadwin managed to get in one last strike as the shadow creature started to make an escape, and the creature finally faded.
and Shadwin administered healing potions while I picked my way over to the roof. Everyone survived. Thank Valdreth - It's a miracle.
