After the zombie slaughter fest the group rested a bit, caught their breath and searched the area. Erevan noted there was potential for goodies in the previous halls so they went back and found it. While it forced Huorn to undo his precautions (wedging doors shut) she was able to sense something special about a statue. There was a statue of a old Dwarven General, General Leo. A great general with many great victories under his belt. In the end he died and someone made a statue of him. The sculptor graced the statue with a minor enchanted longsword. Deciding that it could come in handy Kriv went and tried to pull the sword from the statue. He did a good job at that but the statue came crashing down around him. And there went General Leo’s monument. Poor Leo. Had a nice sword through, came down as a +1 longsword for Kriv. And he only took a healing surge’s worth of damage.
Valenor, Kriv, Chali and everyone else debated a bit on what path to take. Should they explore pieces of the dungeon they passed earlier in the day or should they continue on? Press on they decided! And press on they did into a crowded room filled with zombies, skeletons and a small flying drake. The drake appeared to be leading them (as much as anyone can lead the undead). And they fought, long and hard. Spells flinging and weapons flashing our heroes pressed on their foes. These undead were stronger and sturdier than most and resisted. The drake balanced the brute strength of the zombies. Flittering back and forth it went, poisoning Kriv and then Marix, disappearing to hide in plain sight when it was hit only to strike again from the side. Having enough of that, Erevan hit some zombies and the drake with a spell throwing them to the floor. While this broke the stalemate between the two groups it wasn’t enough to prevent Kriv from falling. Down he went as the zombies pummeled and bit him. All through the fight however, one zombie appeared to be staying back from the fray. When the main group was nearly defeated Valenor rushed to it to smite it only to realize it was no zombie! As he hit it squealed and whimpered and fled. Also not very zombie like. As the last of their other foes went down Huorn came to assist and keep him in a corner. The zombie changed from a Zombie to a Doppleganger! Well, it was always a doppleganger but now it was obviously a doppleganger. And it was scared. It wanted to get the hell out of there and fast. Being spent after the fight the group decided it was a good time to retreat and rest up, bringing the doppleganger and the drake’s body with them.
Once outside and a safe distance away our heroes setup camp and proceeded to question the doppleganger. He was incredibly skittish and terrified (though less so for being out of the dungeon) so Huorn helped him calm down by providing him with a hot meal, a warm campfire and some time to rest. Once he had relaxed, they set to work. They played Good Marshal Bad Paladin, intimidating on one side and comforting on the other. In his fragile mental state this worked beautifully. He explained that he and been hired by Malareth about a week ago and he thought it would be a pretty standard job. Guard the wizard from people with sharp objects, get paid 50gp. Simple, right? Well, that’s what he thought and why he signed up. But then the experiments began. Malareth turned two of the other mercs into zombies. He hid then realized he might escape detection if he pretended to be a zombie. Who’s going to notice another zombie around? And it worked! For most of a week he hid in plain sight, pretending to be a zombie. Eating was tricky but he was careful. Unfortunately he couldn’t just leave, there was Malareth’s drake around. Not only was it nasty but it was his familiar, reporting back to him all that it saw. He knew the heroes were there! That cinched it. They needed to head back to town, resupply and prepare for the final fight. And they needed to go in eyes open. That meant tracking down Traevus and asking some hard questions.
Back to town they went! The trip took a couple days but it was a fruitful visit to town. They stocked up on supplies, got the local apothecary to extract a usable amount of poison from the drake’s body and rounded up Traevus. Kriv, Erevan and Valenor went especially hard on him, asking what was with that box he sent them to retrieve. They received more help than was originally planned for and it was still pretty hard to get it back! Sighing, he told them the full story. Though he’s just a merchant, his family wasn’t always in this situation. The Stonehammers used to be one of the great houses of Hammerfast. A few hundred years ago there was an uprising in Hammerfast where a dwarf necromancer raised the dead against the living. More so than most necromancers, this was truly an abomination. He raised the ancestors against us. Ones meant to sleep forever were raised up against their descendants. No one knew what his end goal was, but he was stopped and his artifacts sealed. His grandfather was entrusted with the safekeeping of this artifact, which was sealed in it’s box, preventing anyone from using it. Over the years, his house declined until he was forced to take up life as a merchant. To continue safeguarding it, he felt the safest place to keep the artifact was with him on the move. In hindsight, perhaps that wasn’t exactly the wisest thing to do but there you have it. He still didn’t know how the rider knew to ambush him but he would compensate the party as much as he could. He’d pay an additional 60 gold plus 180 when they got back (which was his entire haul for this merchant trip). Kriv felt sad for him. Erevan and Valenor however wanted recompense and Marix, Huorn and Chali wanted in on the action! He agreed.
With additional knowledge in hand (and a rough map drawn by the doppleganger) they ventured back to the dungeon. Fasil however stayed behind. He hadn’t been much use in the previous couple fights and knew it. He was dead weight and didn’t want to slow the group down. He also thought it wise to heed the dopplegangers warning of “you’ll die if you go back”.
By the time the group made it back it had been a week since they had left so they approached cautiously. They pushed through room by room, wary of traps and encounters only to find none. None until they got to the doors the doppleganger told them about. As they approached Huorn noticed a disturbance in the floor as he approached. Chali investigated in detail and found that the door itself had been booby trapped. She disarmed one of the traps and left the other in case they wanted to retreat and get the enemies. This was it, likely the final showdown with Malareth. They set up and Kriv kicked the door in.
Inside was Malareth himself, hunched over a table working with two skeletons assisting him and two zombies standing guard. When Kriv kicked the door in they got Malareth’s attention. He sicced his minions on them as they entered. A frantic brawl ensued. The group got into position in the room and attacked the zombies but Malareth kept himself at a distance. Marix crouched under his table, stabbing at whatever he could reach, Valenor stood above him on top of the table, crushing foes and healing as much as he could, Kriv took the brunt of the damage with Huorn healing and backing him up. Chali and Erevan dealt damage from a distance. After seeing the extent of the group’s strength he called for Kurash and joined the battle. As he waved his hand he paralyzed heroes, sucked life from them and helped his minions out. The group noticed his ring shone brightly as he attacked and the open box on another table shone with it. Kurash (a giant bugbear) joined the fight while Marix made a run for it to close the box hoping to hinder Malareth’s efforts. Well, it worked. And boy was Malareth upset. Fortunately for Marix, Erevan got the attention of the zombie behind him (and the goblins coming in after Kurash) while Valenor, Kriv, Huorn and Chali brought their attacks on Malareth. With his attacks less effective because of the box being closed he went down more easily. However at this point Kurash was beside him helping so he didn’t go down that easily. But down he went. And when he went down the goblins and Kurash tried to flee. One goblin managed to get away but the rest were cut down.
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