Alleria Venture for Undead

Venture for Undead in the Shrieken Mire
A Tale by Alleria Vasari

Five of us set out early in the morning on a Stonesday, the 18th day of Brightbloom. We followed the Seamarch Road southwest from Alistair’s Stand, curving south when we passed the Summerstone. The moor was desolate and eerie to the west, but that just gave us a clear view in that direction. I took the lead, knowing roughly where we were going, with Draco behind me. Sol led the mule and our supplies, while Basileus kept pace with Lyle, who rode atop his large dog. Basileus’ owl perched on the man’s shoulder.

As we passed through Alistair’s Crossing, Lyle seemed to be bored by the constant walking with nothing to see. His constant banter drove Draco to pull out his drum to drown out the little one’s voice. Of course, the combined din attracted unwanted attention. Seemingly enjoying the noise and not distracted by it, Basileus was still observant. He spotted several figures moving low through a gully to the east of the road. He used his wizard’s sight through his owl to look closer, after pointing the figures out to the rest of us. I dropped behind to sneak behind and closer to these creatures. They approached our party, revealing themselves to be five orcs, clearly looking for trouble. Their leader spoke in Orcish to the others: “Drop your packs and weapons. Then go away. Leave the mule.” I couldn’t tell anyone else what he said, since I was hidden away by now.

Lyle turned his talkative nature to address these new people. His showmanship actually saved us. He did that magical trick to amplify his voice, and boomingly told the orcs to go away. The orcs probably didn’t understand him, but they actually were afraid of his voice. The leader held his hands almost in surrender and they all backed away, saying “No mage. We go away. No mage.” I backed away from my hiding spot as they ran away from our humble party at full speed. When I got back to the others, I translated what they had said. Lyle was very proud of himself for scaring them. I just considered us lucky. If Draco plays that drum again while we are on the move, I am considering confiscating it…

The next few hours were quiet, Thandol’s Span rising up in the distance. Stopping for a short time, we turned west and followed the Thresh River along the cliffs above it. We reached a lazy bend in the river when we heard some terrible screeching above us. Three creatures circled ever closer before they dropped down to attack us. They looked like a large chicken that some dark force had changed into a nightmare. With leather-like wings, spotty feathers, and a long lizard-like tail, their long claws slashed at us from above. They had a terrifying scream so sharp that felt that it physically pierced into my head, making me stop in my tracks for a moment. We rather quickly killed the monstrous chickens, which attempted to flee when the first fell. I studied the body of one of them afterwards and saw that its blood was sizzling when it hit the ground beneath it, turning it to stone. Draco thought better of eating it after seeing that.

We continued downriver for a few more hours. As the sun was setting, we reached a place where the Thresh River flowed into a rather dark forest. It almost seemed darker than the area around it. Basileus told us his owl could see the Mire to the west. We made camp a ways from the river and forest and settled down for the night. Someone had a good idea to create defense of some sort since we were out in the open. Basileus volunteered to bid the earth to move, keeping a earthen hill ring around our camp. Very impressive. Of course, the odd wizard then decided to create a hole under a large stone to sleep in.

I tranced for the first part of the night, while the others kept watch. I was awoken by someone, interrupting my rest. There was a strange creature(?) approaching our camp from the direction of the forest. It looked like a massive pile of vines and plants that was rolling into itself to move towards us. Seeing it constant movement, we prepared to fight it off. Basileus was closest to it when a vine whipped out to wrap around him. The struggle began. Common weapons seemed to do little to it, but Sol’s everchanging elements, Lyle’s brilliant lights, and Basileus’ flaming hands made all of the difference. Their magic seemed to really affect the creature, and it focused on them. The fight seemed to take a long time, but in truth less than a minute had passed when Draco’s axe found the creature’s pulsating red heart. All of the vines lost their strength and lay still.

Basileus took care of the pile of useless vines, bidding the earth to swallow it up. Draco had grabbed the heart of it before this and ate it. I don’t know how he can eat that...Otherwise, we settled down again for the night. The others slept as I took watch. There was a strange sound on the wind, almost like whispers in my ear.

The next morning, we set out for the Shrieken Mire itself. We turned northwest as the dark forest to the south met the mire. We followed the edge of the mire in a mostly northerly direction, the moor being to our east now. After trekking some 15 miles, and perhaps 9 miles northwest of our previous camp, we found a defensible bluff near the mire. Basileus created a larger earthen wall at the top of this steep rise while the rest of our party observed and rested. This would give us a relatively safe place to observe any undead activity in the mire. We saw nothing however for many hours.

Mid-afternoon, we decided to scout a bit further north. Two miles northward, we came across a ruined stone bridge. It seemed to be part of an ancient road that was above the mire itself, traveling east to west. It was here that we finally discovered the creatures we had set out to find. Well, rather they found us.

Four humanoid figures ran towards us from the mists. We all started to move back towards our encampment, fighting and running. One of them was killed before any of them had reached us. One of the figures was larger and look more unnatural than the other three. He actually spoke words, in a harsh strange tongue that I had never heard before. Draco was the first they came to, as he was between them and Lyle. They set upon the two of them, while Sol, Basileus and I rained down frost, fire, and arrows onto the undead.

Lyle had cast some sort of spell that glowed around him; it seemed to confuse the undead attacking him. They would direct a blow at the little one, but they would constantly miss or end up hitting the lizardfolk next to him instead. Magic is truly intriguing. Whatever it was, it certainly saved Lyle’s life many times over as Draco seemed to revel in his bloodlust.

The undead were a hard to kill bunch. They would fall as if a killing blow had been struck, but they rise again. A single blow after this rising would actually kill them. There was an overpowering stench around them when you got close that was enough to churn one’s stomach. Their clawed fingers had a similar, but more potent effect to the monstrous chickens we had encountered the day before, making a person’s limbs seize up and become unable to move. Luckily, we were all strong enough in mind and body to shake off these effects.

Perhaps the halfling’s luck rubbed off on each of us because somehow we all survived. Only Draco had been damaged in any way and he said it was nothing. The heads of the four undead were collected for the bounty, and we started to make our way back to town, having achieved our goal of locating and killing some undead.

It took us another day, but we arrived in Alistair’s Stand safe and sound. The Order of the Black Rose paid us quite handsomely for the undead killings. The man there commented on the larger undead’s head, saying that they were considered undead bosses since they were able to give orders to other undead. He was surprised that we had run across one of them. Overall, it was a successful hunt for the five of us as we learned a lot, earned a bit, and survived it all.