by Galen Wolf
We didn't get far into the passage, before we saw them advancing towards us. There were six skeletons with swords and shields.
"And to battle", I said. I let fly three arrows with Rapid Shot and struck the first skeleton, setting it on fire. I took another arrow and prepared to fire at it again. I hoped that this would kill it. I appraised the skeletons and saw that they had around a hundred hit points each.
Astral Bob's marionette launched itself against the skeletons and a bizarre combat began. A skeleton made of bones strung together with magic wrestled with a marionette made of dark wooden sticks and twine.
Elfhair advanced from behind us, her shield up. I put my hand on her arm. "Steady."
She said, "I've got this."
She waited until the skeletons were closer to us then muttered words of exorcism. She was trying to turn the undead, which as any RPG player knows is a standard priest/cleric skill.
I saw a yellow glow emanate from her and heard a chord of holy organ music. To be fair the skeletons halted, hesitated, but then advanced again.
"Oh shit," Elfhair said. "I forgot I'm only level 3!"
"But it's the thought that counts," I said. We were at a disadvantage with Astral Bob's rapier and Elfhair's inability to turn the undead. But her mace would do some good and my fire arrows were making holes in them. The marionette killed one before being smashed by a second, lying in a heap of tangled strings and splintered sticks on the floor.
My arrows hit that one and he stumbled forward, a burning mess of bones, his skull horribly lit up like something from a Halloween parade.
I hadn't used my pets during this quest so far but now it was time to do so. I summoned Wolf. For the two seconds of the summoning I stood stock still and vulnerable while the skeletons advanced on me. Seeing my trance-like vulnerability Elfhair stepped in front and raised her shield to protect me. That was quite touching. Then I snapped open my eyes and was back in the room. Wolf sighted the enemies and launched himself. I thought that there was no point doing things by half so I reached into my inventory and pulled out the figurine of the Forlorn Tiger. Within a second the Tiger joined Wolf and they were attacking skeletons. Between their fangs and claws and my burning arrows, we managed to destroy them in record time.
"That worked out okay," I said.
Astral Bob patted me on the back. "You had that one, Barcud. With all due respect to Elfhair. neither she nor I were much use against the skeletons, but you and your animal pals sorted them out."
Elfhair stepped forward crunching the bones beneath her feet. "I wonder what's in this tunnel?"
Lying on a stone plinth at the back of the tunnel was a sledgehammer. Elfhair stowed her shield and her mace in her inventory and picked up the sledgehammer with two hands. I could see it was heavy. "I wonder what the hell this is for," I said.
"Let's go see the NPCs and get the other two riddles," Astral Bob said.
The three of us with Wolf and Tiger trailed through to the dining room. The table had been cleared and the golden plates and silver cutlery lay neatly stacked on a side table.
"So, which do you want to do next?" I said.
"It doesn't really matter," said Elfhair. "How about the dwarf?"
"Where did he go?" Astral Bob twisted his thin beard through his fingers.
"I think he said he was going to the conservatory. I don't know where that is," I said, "but I'm sure we'll find it if we wander round."
The conservatory was at the back of the house. It was made of glass and looked out over the garden. The dark night was illuminated by flashes of lightning and I saw silhouettes of elaborate topiary out in the garden, privet hedges cut into the shapes of fantastic monsters. The rain streaked across the panes and made heavy pattering sound on the glass roof. The dwarf was examining the orange trees. Which was strange for a self-professed hunter.
I felt that because he said he'd come from the village of Woodheart, I should start the questioning. Sidling up to him, I said, "We didn't really get the chance to talk at dinner because the other guests were there. Now, it's more private, I was just wondering if you could tell us a little more about yourself?"
The dwarf's eyes narrowed. "What do you want to know?" There was obvious suspicion in his voice.
"Tell me a little about Woodheart – do you know the Rangers’ Guildmaster. He's mayor of the village."
The dwarf blustered. "Of course I know him."
"You can't miss him of course," I said. "Him being a dwarf – and a blond dwarf at that. You don't get many blond dwarfs."
Thuan laughed with false humor. He tried his best to make his chuckling sound genuine, but I knew he was lying. Ahn was no blond dwarf. I confronted him. "You're not really from Woodheart? And I don't even believe that you're a hunter. So, what are you really doing here?"
"I'm not telling you anything ranger boy," he snarled.
Astral Bob motioned me aside. "Leave this one to me." He looked at the dwarf and began to waggle his fingers like some kind of stage hypnotist. The dwarf's eyes became staring and black. He stopped moving and his bearded jaw hung suddenly slack.
"What skill's that?"
Astral Bob glanced at me and from the corner of his mouth, muttered. "It's Mesmerize. It's one of my Scryer skills. I can hypnotize NPCs with it and interrogate them to find out secrets. It's useful in quite a lot of quests."
Astral Bob asked the dwarf what he was really doing there.
In a droning voice, as if he was speaking from a deep sleep, the dwarf said, "I am here to case the joint. Lord Armboth has angered many people with his delving in forbidden places. He has uncovered secrets that should not be uncovered. My employer heard that Armboth was the subject of a hit contact contract and sent me to find out what we could steal once he's dead."
The dwarf's eyelids fluttered and I recognized the familiar sign that we'd solved the riddle. It seemed that by use of certain class skills we could get the NPCs to cough up the truth about why they were there. Once they did, they gave us a riddle. As if on cue the dwarf said:
“A Ring Of The Bell Is Such A Sound.
Ring It Twice It's Very Loud,
Ring It Thrice Will Make Me Stop,
Standing Still To Take A Pop.”
"Oh hey," said Elfhair. "What on earth does that mean?"
Once again there was a click and a wooden panel in the wall that faced the main house came open.
Tiger and Wolf stood by me. I drew arrows from my quiver and got my bow. Astral Bob took out his rapier and I said, "What no more marionettes?"
Astral Bob chuckled. "I have one left – but I'm saving it."
Elfhair got ready with her mace and shield but I said. "Why don't you just stand behind here and heal us?"
She nodded. "I hate to do what you tell me, Barcud. I don't know why, but I don't like to be ordered around by a man. Unfortunately, in this case, you're right."
We approached the now revealed tunnel. It was the same familiar grey stone – unlit and going into darkness. I heard the drip of water. I also heard the growling of beasts.
They didn't wait until we entered the tunnel. Three werewolves rushed out, shaggy grey fur, yellow fangs, and red burning eyes. Their growls and snarls rent the air as they surged out to attack us. My animal pets joined battle, and I began to send a rain of burning arrows into the creatures.
However, it didn't seem to do much good. I saw my pets were being harmed but the werewolves were not. I asked Elfhair to heal the pets. She nodded and complied grumpily.
"What's going on?" I turned to Astral Bob.
He wasn't smiling. "They can only be harmed by silver weapons.... And we don't have any silver weapons."
I remembered the silver dagger I obtained during the quest of the Forlorn Tiger from the cairn in the Haunted Werewolf forest. It had been a quest item but I'd never destroyed it and it was still in my inventory. I drew it out. "I've got this."
"Well you'd better use it."
I rushed at the werewolves, silver dagger
in hand. I guess I was showing off a little in front of Elfhair. Tiger had the werewolves’ aggro even though he wasn't doing damage. But whatever damage he was taking himself, Elfhair was healing. She didn't have infinite mana and, unless we dealt with the werewolves, they would kill us all. I did a backhanded stab into the werewolf's muscled back and the toxic silver pierced its shaggy fur. The creature howled with pain and staggered and fell to the ground, transforming into a skinny man.
It was a simple matter from there to stab the remaining two werewolves. It turned out that one of them was a woman and the other a fat ginger dude. After they changed back to human form their graphics disappeared in a speckle of black motes and they were gone.
"And that shows," said Astral Bob, "how a quest can be easy if you've got the right techniques and gear, or impossible if you haven't. If we hadn't had that silver dagger I don't know what we would have done."
Elfhair said, "The cutlery at dinner was silver. I saw it was still neatly laid out on the serving table in the dining room. If things had gone badly, I guess we could have run and got the knives and used those. So, it was possible to solve the quest without Barcud's handy silver dagger."
"Still, once again, Barcud saves the day. Well done. You're okay for an outdoorsy guy really," Astral Bob said.
Blushing from the praise, I said, "Let's go and see what quest item is down this tunnel."
We approached with less caution than previously. We were getting used to this quest. It did cross my mind that there might be a trap.
On the stone plinth was a brass bell with a wooden handle. I picked it up and felt its weight in my hand. I rang it to hear the clapper banging loudly against the bell. "Curiouser and curiouser" I said. "I wonder what the hell this is for."
Elfhair said, "It goes along with the sledgehammer and the ghostly sword in my inventory. We still have no clue what's going on here."
Astral Bob lit a roll up cigarette. After he took a deep drag of it, he said, "There's one NPC left - the halfling wine merchant. Didn't he say he was going to the music room?"
We wandered through to the dining room, and from there we could hear the tinkling of a piano. We followed the music until we arrived at the music room. It was a stately chamber with the red carpet. A grand piano in white wood dominated the centre of the room. There were other musical instruments around the sides; I recognized the harp and mandolin, other string instruments and a flute and clarinet.
The tubby halfling wine merchant sat playing the most wonderful melody at the piano.
Elfhair said, "He's really quite talented, isn't he?"
Astral Bob took a drag on his cigarette. "If he's like the others, he's not what he seems."
"True that," I said.
We began to question the halfling, Drugo, about his story. He gave us the same old nonsense he'd said at dinner, but we didn't believe a word of it. However, he stuck to his guns, and we weren't getting anywhere. Elfhair tried her influencing skills but to no avail. Astral Bob tried again to mesmerize the halfling, but he was strangely resistant to the spell.
Elfhair sighed. "I don't know how to get the truth out of this one."
Then I had a thought. We had been saying that he wasn't what he was supposed to be so why didn't I try to Unmask him? The Unmask skill was a level 10 skill in the stealth tree. To be precise the stealth skill tree could probably be renamed stealth and perception; it was all about hiding and revealing.
I chose to reveal what was really behind the halfling Drugo now. I hit him with Unmask and the shape of the fat halfling disappeared and in his place, was a lean white skinned vampire. The creature's eyes burned like amethyst and long sharp fangs lay over his pink lips. Instead of trying to attack us however, his eyes fluttered. I recognized this sign that we had solved the riddle. I didn't know how we would have solve this riddle without my Unmask skill, but I knew the developers wouldn't have created a quest that couldn't be solved so they must be some artefact in the house that would allow to see the halfling in his true form.
I looked to the wall and above the mantelpiece was a hand mirror. I guessed that if a player was clever enough, he would realize that the mirror would show the halfling's true reflection and reveal it as the vampire.
The vampire spoke his riddle:
“Don't Venture Down In Deepest Night,
To Get It Right,
Go In The Light.”
"Hmmm," said Elfhair. "There's definitely a theme of light and darkness in these riddles."
"I'm beginning to see why, I think," Astral Bob said.
He gave a dramatic pause.
I smiled. "Go on then?"
He sucked his teeth. "I'm not sure right now. I'll tell you when I am when I'm absolutely certain."
"Oh, you tease," Elfhair said.
The panel clicked open in the music room wall and another tunnel was revealed. With Wolf and Tiger at the ready and arrows on my bowstring, we entered the tunnel.
We wended our way cautiously down the stone passage and were met by an unearthly wailing. I looked down into the darkness and saw the incorporeal shapes of the spirits of dead men. They had been warriors in life but now were ghosts. They glided forward over the ground towards us, brandishing their ghostly weapons.
"I'm not sure they can hurt us," I said. "After all they're ghosts."
"And we might not be able to hurt them," Elfhair said. "I'm not going to bother trying to Turn Undead. It didn't work last time."
The ghost made contact with Tiger and Wolf. Although Tiger and Wolf didn't seem to be able to damage them, the ghosts were causing negative energy damage to my pets. I saw their health bars going down.
I said, "This could get nasty." I fired my arrows with Rapid Shot but they simply sailed through the ghostly forms. Two of the ghosts pushed past my pets and attacked Astral Bob. He flailed about him with his rapier. For all his many skills, sword fighting did not seem to be one of them. In any case his rapier couldn't make contact and was quite useless.
However, when the ghosts touched him with their weapons he began to suffer negative energy damage. His health bar began to inch down. Elfhair threw him a healing spell and got him back up to around 87%. I had to think fast. This could go terribly wrong. It would be a shame to lose the quest after getting so far into it.
Then I remembered the ghostly sword. Elfhair had it in her inventory and I told her to get it out and throw it to me. Although it was translucent the sword was solid to the touch. I held it in my hand and advanced. As I had guessed, this ghost touch weapon was able to harm the non-material bodies of the ghosts. They had relatively few hit points and after a few slashes I killed the first one. I took some negative damage but Elfhair was able to heal me up. Negative energy always smelled like gasoline for some reason and its stink was heavy in the tunnel.
I attacked the next ghost, jabbing at it until it collapsed and died then it was a quick matter to finish off the rest. I needed a little healing but between scoffing a tasty Hale Fruit and Elfhair's spells I was soon up to 100% health.
"Once again", Astral Bob said, "if you've got the right gear – this quest is a doddle."
"Don't speak too soon", Elfhair said. "We haven't met the boss yet."
We went to the end of the tunnel in there on the stone plinth was a small octagonal box made of ebony inlaid with gold.
"Strange..." Elfhair reached over and picked the box up. I was about to stop her in case it was trapped but there didn't appear to be any traps in this quest.
"It looks like it opens", she said. "I wonder what's in it."
She lifted the lid to reveal a gelatinous black unguent. I saw her nose wrinkle and she thrust it away. "My god, that stinks."
Astral Bob leaned in then leaned quickly back out again. "It's like ammonia."
I said, "I think it's smelling salts."
"So," Elfhair said. "We have smelling salts, a handbell, a sledgehammer, and a ghost sword. What on earth are these for?"
I shrugged.
"So, what do
we do now?" Astral Bob said.
I patted Wolf and Tiger who stood on either side of me. "Let's go find Drexel and ask him."
We made our way to the entrance hallway where the Elf Butler stood waiting for us again.
11
Boss Fight
We made our way to the entrance hallway. "Where's the butler, do you think?" Astral Bob asked, tugging at his wispy goatee.
I pointed at Drexel, who stood silent as a ghost. He stared at us. "Ah, you're here," he said. "Lord Armboth is waiting for you."
"I thought he was ill?"
Drexel smiled. "No, he has risen."
"He has risen?" Elfhair said. "That sounds ominous."
I noticed a set of stairs had appeared in the floor leading down into what looked like a cellar. I said as much.
"Or a crypt", Elfhair muttered.
"Yes, I bet it's a crypt," Astral Bob said. He exhaled. "Well, it's now or never. Let's see what's down there."
I patted Wolf. "I'm guessing that Lord Armboth is down there." Outside, I saw through windows that flanked the entrance door that the rain had stopped and the grey light of dawn stained the Eastern sky. "Why don't we wait until it's lighter?" I said.
Astral Bob snorted. "You a tad chicken, Barcud?" He shook his head. "No, let's get it sorted out now."
Elfhair said, "I'm with Barcud. Let's wait."
"I've got things to do in Vinab, so let's get this quest finished." Astral Bob walked up to the steps and clip clopped his way down the damp stone.
Elfhair sighed.
I said, "We can't leave him to do that alone."
We followed Astral Bob descending into the crypt. It looked like generations of Lord Armboth's family had been laid to rest here. Sarcophagi in white marble with effigies of knights and ladies on their lids were laid out in rows. I shivered. I could see my breath in the air, but more than a natural chill hung here; a strange thrill of supernatural evil rippled through me. We advanced further into the crypt, away from the stairs, and there at the far end was a sarcophagus much larger than all the others.
