Overly long update. That's what I get for breaking things up by locale. Apologies if the writing suffered as a result, pretty sure it did.
Good news is we're actually alllmost caught up! Like, one session away from being caught up!
Beetlesburg
The next day, the party heads to Beetlesburg, a town a couple days away from Sturmhalten. The journey is an uneventful one, with the most notable thing being the lack of travellers from the town. We start to think maybe things there are worse than we thought. Then, as we approach the town, we see a party in front of us, and surprise, surprise... it's some undead! Time to kick ass.
For a divine-themed party we don't have as much radiant damage we'd like, but we do have three people with anti-undead moves (Alexander and Feth's ST beatdown and Rachelle's brutal crowd control) which doesn't go well for the undead. Most notable is a wight who halves all damage (though a radiant weakness helps for the little radiant damage we have) and inflicts constant unevadable damage whenever we're close to him. Cheater! But overall the undead aren't great enough in number to really threaten us.
Having mopped them up, we decide to scout out the town. Which of course means Feth scouts out the town since the rest of us are useless for things like stealth. Feth turns into a bird and flies around, and sees that the undead are swarming all over the city, apparently being herded by some people in robes. No other living people are spotted. Looks like we have some necromancers or something of that sort on our hands. Pasty-faced losers. The undead also appear to be mainly drawn towards the university in the centre of town, with fewer and fewer undead further out.
After spending an uneventful night (one or two undead mooks wandering around getting fried aside), the party makes its way into the town, choosing a side gate to get in. The group attempts to be stealthy at first. Rachelle attempts to guide them with her knowledge of city planning but this only gets everyone MORE LOST; things get better when she decides to stop thinking of it as a city and start thinking of it a horrible, maze-like dungeon. God Iounians fail. Meanwhile, Desmond isn't too helpful at stealth or city planning, but he is good at just barrelling through undead when we finally do meet some. Alexander spots ways for us to get through and Marza uses his arcana to keep track of where the university and its crazy experiments are.
On the way there, we run into a man who appears to be attempting to direct the undead. Marza, Rachelle, and Desmond question him, and learn that though he had nothing to do with summoning the undead, he is trying to control them. He also reveals that he is a servant of Vecna, i.e. the god of necromancy and the undead. The party continues to try to learn his motivations and gain information on what exactly is going on (and thus, how they can stop it). Alexander also joins in on the diplmacy.
What Alexander wanted to say: "We would like to discuss your research and reach a peaceful solution for the people left in this town."
What Alexander actually says: "DIE, NECROMANCER SCUM! IN THE NAME OF PELOR I WILL SMITE YOU AND ALL YOUR VILE KIND FROM THIS EARTH!"
(He rolled a 2, to go with his untrained Diplomacy and 9 Charisma. It fit.)
So yeah, we get into a battle. This battle is notable and nasty. The necromancer himself isn't too bad, though he does have various area of effect status attacks. The undead are the real problem, though, as this time there are a multitude of wights, some fire and some ice, with the aura of unevadable damage. They also inflict ongoing damage with their attacks on top of this (the ice at melee, the fire at range) and are as such immensely annoying. It's a fairly close battle that costs us a lot of healing, and Alexander even almost dies during it. But we are victorious, and we move on.
Eventually we reach the university itself. It is heavilly guarded with undead everywhere. There is no easy way in. The party comes up with a plan, though: make a distraction to pull some undead away from one of the more weakly defended gates, then sneak in. Feth rigs up some rope to climb over the walls, so all that's left is the distraction. Enter DESMOND! The DM demands Desmond roll to... be annoying. Desmond promptly rolls a 20. For years, scholars had thought the undead could not be annoyed, but Desmond has, in one instant, proved them all wrong.
A ravenous horde of undead chase out the gate after Desmond, who activates the invisibility on his weapon and loses them easily, catching up with the rest of the party at the rope over the wall. We make it in safely. Immediately, we are beset by a few ghouls, but they are of little danger (probably one of the easiest fights that actually involves real combat). Mainly, they show off the fact that they like to inflict immobilise then bite things for big damage. Still, there are only four of them, the party has very nasty attacks against undead, so things go pretty smoothly.
The party's main path through the university grounds is locked, so instead, they head in a side door into the library. They move through it, heading in the direction Marza can still feel the ritual, and eventually come to a room with a strange device shaped to resemble the spheres of known existence, or something like that. Marza notes that it has plenty of arcane power itself, and turns it on. Immediately, an image is projected on the screen of a bedroom. Based on the insignia of the folks working there, we are able to identify it as from the apartments of Baron von Wolfenbach of Sturmhalten, and given the grandeur it is presumably his bedroom. A couple of maids, inhuman creatures with six arms, are both working there. Desmond decides to help with the operation of machine, saying "what's the button do?", and hitting something called "Pull". Suddenly, the two maids are summoned into the room!
The maids are understandably freaked out, and any attempt to call them down only makes the more agitated at being teleported suddenly to a dank library room by a bunch of scary-looking humanoids, and crystal-guy. They rush off. Alexander expresses concern that they are running off into a town filled with ravenous undead, and while the rest of the party is somewhat less concerned, Feth nevertheless offers to keep them safe, and chases after them.
At this point, the party concludes that this is some sort of spying device. Thinking to use it to help us in our current situation, Marza finnicks with the machine's controls, using his arcane knowledge to determine how to direct it at the centre of the university, where the ritual is taking place. He does so, and turns the machine on once again. Nothing appears; in fact, the machine appears to shut down entirely. A voice booms out, "FOOLS! DID YOU THINK I WOULD LET YOU USE MY OWN WORK AGAINST ME?" Immediately, the door to the room slams shut, trapping the party. Additionally, a strange gas starts filling the room. Well, shit.
Fortunately, Alexander examines the wall and finds a secret switch which stops the gas from flowing in. Further examination reveals a second one, which opens a hidden door, and causes the voice to boom once again "NAUGHTY STUDENTS! PREPARE TO RECEIVE YOUR PUNISHMENT!" but nobody is to be found. The party concludes quickly enough that both were recordings in case students tampered with the device. With nowhere to go but through the door, the party heads on... but not before Marza stays behind, tries to get the machine started AGAIN, and gets another dose of poison gas for his troubles. He knows how to turn it off and get out of it, but still loses a healing surge. Hahaha.
Separated from Feth, the party moves onwards. The passage appears to take them deep underground, but eventually surfaces very close to where the ritual is taking place. Opening a door, the party finds itself in what appears to be a very ornate office. Examining a few things reveals that it is the office of one Professor Beetle, and it appears to be in recent use. It seems the good professor is still alive. Inspecting the room, we uncover his diary, and although it is written in an unintelligible language AND warded against rituals to understand it, but we try anyway, and after Rachelle fails to get anything more than a headache, Marza's awesome arcana ability kicks in and he's able to read some snippets. Snippets talking about "soon I will have my invincible army!" and "The baron will fear me!" and stuff like that. Oh dear.
The party pockets the diary and moves on, into the hallways of the academy and towards where the ritual is taking place. As they move on, they hear screams... and then silence. Finally, they reach the room where the ritual is taking place. Entering the room, we see quite a few things. First of all, two large vats of bubbling black liquid towards the back of the room. Second, a huge, humming machine which Marza quickly identifies as the source of the ritual. Third, a strange metallic dome. Fourth, two large tables set up with beer and cheese. And finally, five "people" in the room. Two are up in a gallery, and are dressed like graduate students. The other three appear to be professors. None of them, however, appear to be fully alive, although they don't exactly look like run of the mill undead, either. They all have skin that looks like it has been pulled far too tight, and it is black like a rotted limb, and they have burning red eyes. But they appear to still be sane.
One of the professors, who by dress appears to be the senior one, introduces himself as Professor Beetle. Knew we'd run into the bastard sooner or later. He makes some disparaging comments towards us about interrupting his experiment, and as we watch, cages are lifted out of the vats of black liquid, holding what we can only conclude were the people who we had heard screaming. Unfortunately they aren't exactly people any more, but undead mockeries similar to the professor, only not as bright-seeming. The cage doors open, and they shamble out, directionless at first, but then quickly they gravitate towards the tables set up with beer and cheese. Apparently they are still students. Regardless, they appear to be 16 of them, bringing the total potential enemy count in the room to 21.
Professor Beetle immediately questions if we have been sent by the baron, his tone making it clear that he won't be happy if we were. The party doesn't answer definitively either way, perhaps mildly terrified of the idea of fighting over twenty undead. The professor decides we are too odd a bunch for the baron to have sent. Marza expresses great interest in what the professor is doing, and the two get to talking. The professor reveals that the machine he has set up is harnessing and controlling the overflowing energies of the Shadowfell (rather than creating them) and he is using them to create his undead... his perfect army that will soon make the baron tremble! Marza tries to convince him to shut the machine down, promising that he will give the professor access to similar energies from the Feywild. Beetle is intrigued by this, but further discussion is cut off when Alexander, proud avenger of Pelor, has had enough of this "discussion" with undead filth once again. This time he doesn't even try diplomacy, he just attacks one of the students straight out, lashing out with his ranged attack, Radiant Vengeance. He misses, but instead destroys one of the pitchers of beer. The undead are pissed. With a cry of "destroy the Pelorite!" from Beetle, battle is joined.
This is another pretty tough battle, though perhaps not as tough as it first seemed. The undead swarm in, and their thing is to inflict immobilise and just overpower us by sheer numbers. The grad students from the gallery also lob immobilise-inflicting ranged attacks, while the three professors move in from the back. Beetle's two friends inflict stun (ick) while Beetle himself repeatedly polymorphs one of us a turn (for only one turn, mercifully) into a chipmunk. He also has a multitarget minor action he uses every turn that hexes us, halving the damage we do to him and reducing hit rate against him. Annoying. Fortunately, the students aren't exactly the best-made undead in the world, and after Rachelle hits 7 of them (out of 9 targetted) with Rebuke Undead, OHKOing them all, the battle starts to look a lot more possible. More multitarget attacks take out the rest quickly enough, although all the status piling on makes things tricky. Alexander in particular spends most of the battle stunned. The undead don't really like him.
Marza, on the other hand, continues to try to talk things out even as the fight begins. He shares the undead's disgust at the loss of beer! He promises to bring new beer! He has connections! Can't we all just get along? He even takes up a mug of beer to show where his interest lies (protip, Marza: you can't drink any more, being a construct of crystals) Anyway, his diplomacy works well enough to stop everyone from attacking him, but not well enough to actually stop the fight. A few rounds in he gets fed up, smashes his glass of beer in disgust, and lets loose his magical might on the undead. After that things turn south for them fairly quickly.
Beetle sees this and starts to flee, attacking his own machine as he does so. The combination of Rachelle's slow and Desmond's sword to the face means he doesn't get too far. Meanwhile, Marza tries to desperately stop the machine from going out of control, having concluded that, if it does, the whole area will be flooded with Shadowfell energy, which apparently would be a Very Bad Thing (something about turning anything living nearby into undead). Fortunately he's able to get it under control, with a little help from Rachelle. The remaining grad students flee their posts, and the battle is won.
Feth catches up with the party at this point, and reveals that she had a job here concerning the Shadowfell. Marza uses the machine to create a portal there, and what we see isn't pretty. Something about "fabric of space being ripped apart" and "parts of the plane are missing". The party decides not to go there. Instead, Marza investigates Beetle's diary some more, and this time we learn that he had been approached by a black-cloaked man, who had offered him the energy of the Shadowfell. Beetle had refused, but the man had told him to prepare to receive it anyway. Beetle had then built the machine he did to control the energy, but as time went on he appeared to become corrupted by the Shadowfell energy despite this, and his last entries were the insane ranting about how the baron would fear his army.
Armed with this knowledge, we decide we had better report what had happened here rather than jump straight into the Shadowfell. We head out of town, braving a few more undead minions, with Alexander's HP dropping precipitously low as he is out of healing surges, but we get out nonetheless. As we leave town, we see about a dozen necromancers shepherding about a hundred high-level undead out of town in the opposite direction, away from Sturmhalten. It's a concern, but one we can't deal with at the moment. We head back to civilisation.
Next time: more crazy people! Also the return of a certain scumbag that Desmond wants to kick in the face (and one who is short enough that he can. Easily).
