Vinster's Last Stand

This text was written by a diligent cleric of Mythras who spoke to the spirit of Vinster, cleric of Mythras as his last statement before leaving the material earth and passing on be with his deity.

My demise took place in a desecrated dwarven tomb as a member of a party investigating the Isle of Fire in an attempt to find a key to one of the Moongates. My erst while companions were a lovable rogue, Torvind, a stoic fighter Khaled & an impetuous half Goblin with both arcane and martial abilities called Slate. 

Our finals hours were spent exploring the tomb after defeating the cultists who were occupying it. It had been a brutal fight and we had barely escaped with our lives. The cultists were nine in number, some with sewn up mouths and lead by a much better armoured leader. We were all relieved to be alive at the end of the battle.

We had a brief discussion as to what was to be done with the bodies as we knew only too well that bodies on the Isle of Fire had a habit or rising as undead. We opted for beheading the bodies in the end, and burning the heads in two braziers that were smoldering within the tomb; my divine beliefs leading me to consider this a suitable compromise as burning the bodies was not practical underground and we could not leave as we had the front to the tomb barred as we had come under missile attack when previously trying to leave that way.

Our investigations into the the undiscovered parts of the tomb lead to us finding a room with horizontal niches in the walls and there were signs that these had once been used to hold bodies, another room with a stone tomb in the centre and a wood chest which Torvind discovered to be full of coin. We uncovered the tomb and found it to be empty. 

At this point we had a locked door we needed to open and so Slate went back to search the body of the leader. I wandered back into the room with the niches and was able to hear the sound of fighting and was able to see Slate engaging the body of the leader in combat so called out "Undead" and rushed to his aid, swiftly we once again killed him. We located the keys but were now perturbed as to what to do with the other bodies. Our decision was to try and find another way out of the tomb.

Further exploration behind the locked door revealed a staircase up to landing with a mural on the wall depicting a mighty dwarven warrior fighting. The mural seemed to depict how the battle went, showing the dwarf being joined by elven and human allies but in the end being defeated. The door on the landing obviously lead to a tomb and was still sealed so we decided for now not to open it as respect for the mighty dwarven warrior we assumed must be inside. We also moved the chest of coins to the bottom of the stairs and so behind the door which we locked on the way out.

We now returned to the main room, where the initial fight had been and the headless bodies remained. To our horror these bodies were now standing again and turned towards us as we entered the room. I thrust my mace in front of me and summoned the aid of my god to repel these abominations but for whatever reason Mythras chose to ignore my request. The combat was swift and Khaled was swifly overpowered by a number of undead swarming around him. Torvind and myself quickly succumbed too as the undead were each able to absorb several hits and still remain standing. My last memory is of Slate still fighting toe to toe with them as more and more of the undead now moved over to him.

It was not the way I would have a chosen to die but I hope Mythras will accept me in his halls of the dead as a man who tried to do the best for his deity and to fight the power of evil whenever he could..  

The game was GMed by Che Webster with Torvind & Khaled played by Pete Fenner, Slate by Ian Roberts and Vinster by Andy Sutton. We used the Castles & Crusades ruleset.