Seven servants of the wraith!

We regroup with our team after a difficult battle and with the necrotic flaming skull lying before them. Still, in the hallway, the group decide to move into the smelting room just beside them. We enter a room which where it seemed a ravine ran through which has long been dry. There seems to have been a cave in at some point as there is no other exit… There is an apparatus in the middle of the room with a strange noise coming from it. Agrippiana and Thraback investigate with Thraback finding and opening a hatch. Out falls the familiar figure of Dante Belmont, our companion who disappeared when the group travelled to defeat the giant Frostburn. Dante tells us he was caught by the minions of the Black Spider but had not laid eyes on him. Dante searches the room to find his things and nothing seems to be missing. The group are miffed that Dante left them and managed to get himself caught but he reunites with them nonetheless… We decide to take a quick rest to recuperate after the fight. Thraback then moves to close the door of the room while we rest and as he does this, the skull begins to light up and whispers to us, “There is no way out, I can wait forever…” After our rest the group investigate the ravine and Dante is able to climb down first, making use of his ability, Feather Fall and making it down successfully. We all follow him down. We find ourselves in a corridor with a ladder leading to a door at the end. Vorn climbs up the ladder and about the door, there are a set of precious stones which Vorn gathers are in the pattern of the night sky. Vorn then makes his way inside and finds the remnants of a battle long ago with corpses and bones strewn across the room. Dante tries to pry the precious tones out to no avail, much to the shock of the rest of the group. The rest of the group follow Vorn into the room which seemed to have been a bedroom. They look around with Agrippiana moving to the bookshelf straight away. Vorn comes across a strange chest which Agrippiana ascertains is a wizard’s chest. As he investigates it, a strange mist takes over the room surrounding the group. The yellow smoke with faces, arms, hands appearing and reaching out to the adventurers. Agrippiana is horrified but also fascinated by the mist and seems to recall that this is created by a Wraith, whose soul is unable to move on. Thraback calls for the creature to reveal itself to us. And slowly the mist begins to change and reform into this black and grey figure with blurred whispy features. Around us appear 7 of the wraiths servants, who are somewhat similar to him but not identical. Thraback demands to know who he is. The creature regards us rasping, “I am Mormesk, and mortals may perceive me as death. The box drives me insane, the guardian guards these walls, these floors, it all. I will allow you my things if you give me something… precious.” Dante jumps in instantly, asking him what he wants and how he can help him. As he asks the Wraith questions it drains his life force as a reward and seems to grow stronger from this. In the chest, we find a map. From the groups' combined knowledge we ascertain that this is a map of the world, but from long ago, Agrippiana is particularly interested and it is discovered that it is a map of a time before the catalyst and involves Nagrul the Foul, with two X marks on the map. As Agrippiana gazes upon it she feels the contents of her backpack weigh heavy upon her. The wraiths seem drawn to Agrippiana, reaching to her belongs in but passing through there as they have no physical form. She is horrified by this and takes out her holy symbol in an attempt to push them back. The seven servants quickly disperse, but Mormesk is enraged and strikes at her both with a physical attack and an attack on her very soul. The group, excluding Dante, quickly rally around her in an attempt to protect her. Despite this, the creature manages to knock Agrippiana down dead while leaving her soul damaged and on her way to becoming one of them! With her holy symbol down, the servant spectres return to join the fight, no longer afraid. The rest of the group keep attacking, despite the physical blows not having the impact that they thought they would. Luna moves to Agrippiana and managed to bring her back, but only just. The group manage to weaken the creature and as Mormesk who starts to disappear. On his death, he utters, pointing to Agrippiana, “You will be the death of us all…” Aralon engages all his power to cast firebolt to do as much damage as possible to the seven spectres and manages to disperse them all. As they do, however, mist gathers around Agrippiana’s ankle and a hand grabs her and begins to put her down. Thraback swiftly brings his axe down upon it, finishing it off. Dante is still in the possession of the map, much to the fury of Agrippiana who can’t seem to reason with the tiefling. We take a long rest as Thraback is exhausted and Agrippiana needs to ret to regain her spiritual energy. In order to sleep safely, Lukas and Vorn say that they will watch over us, with Lukas having the first watch. As he is watching over us, he hears a strange noise from above and behind him when suddenly two tentacles quickly lunge at him and pull towards him. Lukas quickly defends himself with his long sword, being careful not to wake us up. This creature appears to be a Grik, a horrible worm-like creature with an almost flower shaped mouth and many rows of teeth within. Lukas just about manages to defeat it but is gravely injured in the process. When the group wake up Agrippiana is quickly able to heal him. After this rest Agrippiana is revitalised and casts Remove Curse from herself and is very happy and relieved, though the group don’t quite know why this is… We gather ourselves and move to the room across the cavern to investigate, with Dante and Aralon going first. The door is old and the cracks in the wood, meaning the two can see a little of the room beyond. They can see a spherical creature moving about in the darkness and they open the door and move inside. Aralon and Dante try to play a trick on the creature with Aralon’s acting skills, he tries to convince the creature that he is the master and will dispel him. The creature – we work out, is a Spectator. This does not go to plan and we are forced to attack the creature with Aralon giving the first critical attack. It tries to cloud our minds with Dante being overtaken by fear. Mushu has had enough of the trickery and uses her favourite weapon – fire, and burns the creature to death. We gather ourselves and move towards the brazier which seems to contain a green fire and seemingly magical qualities. We are able to work out that it improves the attack of non-magical weapons if we hold them in the fire for a time. It also seems to be the source of the magic in this strange place… Queuing to use this brazier, Lukas places his long sword, Agrippiana her armour, Thraback his ceremonial trident, Aralon, his staff, Dante his two daggers and his rapier. Vorn also sets in his daggers and Vandal uses his war hammer. After this, we look around the room for something interesting. We find a chest plate with a golden dragon embossed and it is decided that Lukas would get the most use out of it. There is also a mace found with the Name of Lightbringer – this is a name we have heard before… As the dust settles and we are looking for something valuable – we notice that the ever booming noise of the base seems to be at its loudest point and coming from the room next to us…

More next week!