Gozran 14th 01 - Bones Underhill

The night passed uneventfully for the group and they awoke fully refreshed from their sleep.

Once the camp was all packed up and the group were ready to go they set off to the north-east, progressing into an area of hills and grassy knolls.  As they explored the area the group noticed an easy-to-miss opening in the side of one of the hills where the rocks and soil had formed a crack.

Kyrander dismounted his horse first and looked into the crack and with his half Elven eyes was able to see that beyond there was a passageway which led into some sort of chamber after 20ft. Curiosities raised, the group leave their mounts and decide to follow the passageway which indeed opened up into a small chamber from which another passageway sloped out of the chamber.

Just as he started across the chamber Kyrander then noticed above him clinging to the chambers ceiling were thousands of sleeping bats all tightly packed.  The ranger stealthily crosses the chamber as quietly as possible without disturbing the sleeping mammals above and notices that the passage leading away from the chamber also lead on into another chamber.

As Kyrander started to head down the new passageway he motioned for the party to follow, attempting as best they could both Vaneer and Otto just weren't quiet enough as the bats wakened from their sleep and startled by the intrusion flew out of the cave, attacking the party as they flew past, forcing the group to run through the bat swarm into the same chamber that Kyrander now stood in.  This chamber was just like the previous one except that there were three more short passages leading out of the chamber, one to the north, one to the south and one to the east.  Oh! and there is a single skeleton laying face down in the exact centre of the chamber.

Both Miro and Kyrander slowly approach the skeleton and determine that it died from attacks consisting of claws and a sword wound, but also make sure to carefully search the surrounding area to ensure there were no nasty traps.  Miro quickly spotted a trigger that would released poisonous gas that would severely weaken living creatures and succeeds in disabling it.  But time for celebration was short, just as the trap had been disabled, scuffling noises could be heard from the northern and southern passageways as the sounds of bone on stone could be heard as things started heading towards the central chamber that they were standing in.

After a couple of moments ten human shaped skeletons appeared in the room from the two opposing directions and shambled towards the group. Vaneer acting quick of the mark casts a healing burst which not only heals Miro of some minor damage caused by the bats but also dispatches eight of the skeletons in one swoop of positive energy.  Bob the badger charges at another and kills it whilst Otto uses a magic missile to kill the remaining skeleton.

As Miro was literally picking through the bones another scrapping noise could be heard coming from the eastern passage and Kyrander scurried off to investigate the noise before the rest of the group was ready to back him up.  The eastern passageway lead into another chamber but this chamber was decorated with arms and armours from ancient times (decorative but worthless) and tattered banners.  Whilst resting in the middle of the chamber was an open coffin and standing next to it was something that was once human but was now a skeletal creature with taunt flesh, ancient armour and a powerful ancient cold iron longsword, though the sword's tip and edges were damaged.  The creature's lips parted, possibly forcing a grin, before leaping at the intruding ranger.

In a matter of seconds the rest of the group could hear the sounds of combat down the eastern passage and hurried to aid Kyrander.

As the group entered the chamber Vaneer automatically knew Kyrander's foe!  He shouted to the ranger that he was fighting a Cairn Wright and should avoid being hit by the creature due to it's ability to drain energy out of living creatures.  Alas Vaneer's warning was too late as just as the advice had been given the wright managed to hit the ranger with it's sword and through that was able to suck some of the human's life force right from him before it then continued an onslaught of powerful slashes. Quick off the mark the group jump into action as Vaneer casts his bless spell to aid his comrades in the fight whilst Otto fired a volley of Scorching Ray attacks, Miro used flanking to harry the creature as it continued to attack Kyrander.  The battle against the Wight took sometime, but with Vaneer nearly exhausting his healing bursts to help keep people fighting the battle is eventually won with an combination of Bob charging the creature and Natalia throwing an ball of flaming fire into the creature's face.  The combined damage destroys the undead menace before it is fully able to take all of Kyrander's life force.

After a short rest to check over the weakened Kyrander and provide some spells that restored some of his energy, the group continue to check out the remaining chambers to find nothing new and nothing threatening whilst Miro took inventory on what they found on the Cairn Wight; whilst it's armour was damaged and mundane, the sword it had wielded was a great find; it was a very powerful magical longsword that not only bypasses the damage resistance that some creatures have due to it's composing material, but it is also capable of dealing huge amounts of extra magical damage against fey foes.  They then leave the chambers under the hill and head look for a place to rest.

(Over the next few days the group's spellcasters would utilise mending and repairing spells to restore the +2 fey bane cold iron longsword to its full glory which was then given to Kyrander as he was the only party member capable of wielding it).