The Emperor's Ghost

Bella was used to being the one who sliced through opponents, leaving them gutted before they even knew what had hit them. But now the Graveknight deep within the Well of Demons had turned the tables on her. One combination of blows had left her bloody and reeling, and she had barely managed to scratch it. The heavily-armored undead warrior drew back its katana, and unleashed another furious series of attacks. Bella’s uncanny reflexes let her dodge first one slash, then another. But the tireless enemy just wouldn’t quit, and the rusty katana slashed through her belly. The pain was unbelievable, and she dropped her weapons and clutched her abdomen, trying to hold in her entrails. As he swept the blade through Bella’s body, he whipped the blade clean, slinging a mess of blood and gore directly into Marie’s face, sickening her.

Shinjiro was in no hurry to close with the deadly knight, so he pulled out one of the Javelins of Lightning they’d taken from the bandits. As he hurled it at the undead knight, it transformed into a Lightning Bolt, and the Graveknight was awash in crackling electricity. But the bolt seemed to have no effect on the creature, and it turned implacably to face Marie.

Nicki cursed the fact that there were so many people so close to his target, but he aimed carefully and dropped a Delayed Blast Fireball at a calculated point behind the Graveknight. An instant later, the blast went off, and he was pleased to see the flames engulf the knight but miss both Bella and Marie. He was even more pleased to see that the fire actually seemed to injure the creature. Ameiko stepped up to Sandoval and cast Eagle’s Splendor on the bard. Feeling especially charismatic, Sandoval then stepped forward and tried to afflict the Graveknight with Crushing Despair, but the spell had no effect.

Bella was near death, and left stunned and helpless by the Graveknight’s eviscerating blow. The knight seemed to be shifting his focus to Marie, but the cleric couldn’t count on him allowing Bella to live while he attacked her (or on being able to survive his attacks). So Marie Teleported behind Bella and cast Heal on the rogue. Bella gasped as her wounds instantly closed, and she regained her senses. The deadly Graveknight returned its focus to her, and drew back its katana once more. But suddenly, a pair of huge Earth Elementals appeared behind the knight, pummeling him with their mighty fists. “Watch out for Ameiko!” Zhustin cried to Sandru, and he rushed forward to direct his newly-summoned minions.

Bella was furious, still feeling the pain of her injuries and embarrassed to have been so badly outclassed in front of her friends. Unfortunately, both her swords lay on the ground where she’d dropped them, but that was barely an inconvenience, as she whipped another pair of short swords from the arsenal in her Handy Haversack. With a bellow of rage that sounded like it should have come from a much larger body, she launched herself at the Graveknight, using the Elementals’ distraction to her advantage as she drove her blades home in the undead body. Suddenly Sawyer was by her side, and Suishen’s flaming blade slid through the eye-slit of the Graveknight’s helmet and exploded in a burst of flame. The knight’s long-dead body crumbled to dust, and its armor collapsed in a heap at their feet.

Zhustin sent his Elementals north the guard the exit out of the cavern as Bella began sorting through the Graveknight’s remains. “Hey, this armor looks pretty nice!” she said, holding the breastplate up to judge it for size.

“Drop that right now!” Marie commanded, and Bella was so shocked by her tone that she actually obeyed. “A Graveknight’s armor is not a trinket to be claimed as spoils of war,” Marie explained solemnly, “and any who treat it as such risk both body and soul. As long as the armor exists, the Graveknight will eventually reanimate within it – or within whoever’s wearing it.

“So let’s just smash and burn it real good,” Bella suggested, pulling a warhammer from her endless cache of weapons. But Marie shook her head. “It’s not that simple. Destroying or purifying a Graveknight’s armor requires a very specific sequence of high-level spells, and must be tuned to the specific circumstances of the Graveknight’s death and reanimation. It would take far more time and research than we can afford. Just leave it here.”

Zhustin was listening to all this with interest. Marie seemed to know an awful lot of detail about the specifics of Graveknights, how they were created, and how to destroy them. He’d heard of Graveknights, and knew they were nasty, but he wondered how Marie had come by such a wealth of arcane knowledge.

But he wasn’t inclined to stop and ask Marie about it. He knew the clock was ticking on his Earth Elementals, and wanted to get as much use from them as he could before they returned to their elemental plane. The group advanced through the cavern, and passed through a tunnel leading up to yet another cavern beyond. This cavern was pitch black, and utterly silent. Marie cast a Light spell to let them see a bit, and they could just make out another tunnel on the far side of the room. Zhustin sent his elementals off to block that entrance, and Bella followed them. The rest of the group made their way much more slowly across the broken rock of the cavern floor, surrounded by flickering shadows as Marie’s light moved among the stalactites and stalagmites.

One of the shadows on the ceiling seemed to grow. It resolved itself into a huge bat-like creature that swooped silently down to land near Nicki. It reached out and touched him lightly with one of the claws on its wings, and he felt his life force begin to flow away. It took all his might to resist the Finger of Death spell, but he was still left injured by the touch. As the Nightwing attacked Nicki a pair of Greater Shadows emerged from the shadows where they’d hidden, and attacked Zhustin and Sawyer. Their incorporeal fingers reached through robe and armor alike and both felt their strength sapped by the icy touch.

Sandoval immediately began singing, and dashed forward to cast Heroism on Sawyer. The fighter swung at the shadow attacking him, and although Suishen passed right through its intangible body, he could see that it left a space that leaked ectoplasm in its path.

Nicki backed away from the huge beast and called forth a gout of Hellfire to engulf it. But he had misjudged its reach, and as he cast the spell he opened himself up for another attack. This time it struck with its jaws, and as its fangs sunk in, Nicki felt not only their piercing pain, but intense cold. Moreover, his Mage Armor dissipated, and the creature seemed to grow stronger as it consumed his magic.

Bella was on the other side of the cavern, behind the Elementals, so she drew her bow and took careful aim. Then she unleashed a barrage of arrows that all seemed to strike the same point in the Nightwing’s body, overcoming its considerable damage resistance. The Shadows still had their claws sunk into Zhustin and Sawyer, draining their strength, although Zhustin seemed to be weakening far faster than Sawyer.

Marie commanded Helgarval to cast Daylight, and the cavern was suddenly bathed in light. The Nightwing gave out an ear-splitting shriek, and began to shudder and retch. Not pausing to relish the effect on their enemy, Marie Teleported to Zhustin’s side and cast Restoration on the wizard, restoring some of his flagging strength. Although grateful for her help, Zhustin was anxious to get as far away from the Shadow as possible, and used his Quick Step to teleport well out of its reach, leaving Marie to deal with it on her own. However, Shinjiro stepped into the breach, using his ki to empower his blows so that he could damage the incorporeal Shadow.

Sandoval rushed to attack the Shadow clutching Sawyer, and his echoblade slashed through its ghostly neck. Sawyer ignored the icy chill around his heart, and thrust Suishen forward into the space where the Shadow’s heart should have been, and it exploded in a burst of ectoplasm.

Nicki fired off a Delayed Blast Fireball at the Nightwing. Helgarval’s light was still blinding and weakening it, and it was unable to dodge any of the blast’s effects. Bella fired off another volley of arrows, but only one found its mark. The Shadow facing Shinjiro swiped its claws at him, but he easily evaded them, then retaliated with a furious ki flurry that sent another spray of ectoplasm across the cavern as the Shadow evaporated.

Zhustin hammered the Nightwing with a round of Magic Missiles as Sandoval started dancing his hoka. Already sickened by the bright light, the Nightwing’s angry shrieks turned into frightened whimpers. It was not finished yet, though, and it cast a Confusion spell that left Sawyer babbling incoherently and Marie eyeing everyone around her with deep suspicion. But before it could take advantage of the slightly better odds, another Delayed Blast Fireball engulfed it, and it collapsed in a smoking heap.

Marie Restored some of Sawyer’s lost strength as they advanced towards the cavern’s only exit. Another tunnel led downwards. Bella advanced cautiously down, checking for any traps on the natural stairs, with Sawyer close behind. They found themselves in an imposing chamber. Starry patterns graced the ceiling, dimly illuminating a shadow-filled hall of decorative sculptures. A black throne sat against the west wall, below long banners depicting the Tien characters for sacrifice and death. A regal crown of black and gold sat on the throne’s massive seat. A discernible chill filled the air, and the sour stench of death emanated from a long-dead corpse lying on the chamber floor.

Bella moved carefully towards the corpse as Sawyer inched towards the throne. Suddenly a figure materialized behind the dead body. It was the form of a distinguished looking Tian man, dressed in an imperial crown and regalia, but they were blackened and burnt. “Get out!” it commanded. “This is my domain and this one is mine! You cannot have it!”

Bella and Sawyer were getting used to blustering imperial spirits by now, and they were not impressed. They continued inching forward, spreading out so as not to present a single target. The body on the floor was many years dead, but its stained and tattered robes had once been very fine, and the designs looked familiar to Bella. “You know,” she said, keeping her eyes on the ghostly figure, “we’re down here looking for a body.” In her peripheral vision she could see Shinjiro creeping along the wall to her left. “It belonged to Emperor Shigure, and he wants us to return it to him. That wouldn’t happen to be him, would it?”

The ghost snorted. “That brat? If he wants it, he should come down here and fetch it for himself! But you can’t have it – I need it! And why do you care anyway? What use do you have for an emperor’s corpse?”

Bella looked around. She didn’t like being the spokesperson for the group, but no one else seemed to be stepping up, so she continued keeping the ghost engaged as the three of them continued inching slowly into the room.

“Well, it turns out we have a friend who wants to take the throne, and she needs the blessings of all the imperial families. And Emperor Shigure said we had to bring back his body to get his blessing. Say – you wouldn’t happen to be a royal would you?”

The ghost drew himself up. “I am Shojinawa Ito, Emperor of Minkai and greatest of the Shojinawa clan!” he said imperiously, then pointed a long-nailed finger at Bella menacingly. “I have warned you for the last time – get out or suffer my wrath!”

Sawyer had learned a lesson from Marie – there was value to a preemptive strike. Without waiting for Ito to act, he launched himself at the ex-emperor, even as Sandoval started singing behind them. Shuishen slashed through the ghost’s incorporeal body, leaving a tiny wake behind. Shinjiro rushed in to take a position behind the ghost, trapping him between them. Ito began making arcane motions with his hands, clearly readying a spell, and the fighter and the monk both pummeled him. They must have succeeded in disrupting his spell, because nothing else happened. Bella, in the meantime, had retreated to the nearest wall and the room reverberated with the foghorn bleat of her Horn of Fog as she tried to conceal herself.

Zhustin had crept into the room behind the others. Now he ran forward, grabbed the corpse by one withered arm, and used Dimension Door to teleport back into the previous cavern with his bony booty. Ameiko and Sandru had been hanging back in this room, too, but now they moved forward, Ameiko to fly her flag where the others could see it, and Sandru to protect her back.

Nicki had cast Greater Invisibility on himself before Bella entered the throne room, and now he had his wings out and had flown into the room. He cast Scorching Rays at the ghostly emperor, twisting their energy into acid. The blasts struck Ito squarely, but he didn’t even blink. “Something’s not right,” Nicki thought to himself, and then it hit him. “It’s an illusion!” he cried.

The figure being hacked by Sawyer and Shinjiro looked real enough to Marie, but she trusted Nicki’s instincts. If that was an illusion, whoever created it must be lurking somewhere in the room, probably invisibly. She cast Invisibility Purge and began circling about the room. Nicki was the first to appear, but immediately after that Ito appeared, flying almost directly above Marie’s head. Sawyer heard the commotion behind him, saw the ‘new’ Ito flying near the exit, and tore himself away from the target he’d been hitting. Activating Suishen’s Air Walk as he ran, he charged up at the emperor’s ghost, slashing it with Suishen. Bella fired a volley of arrows from deep within her fog bank, but if she’d expected to get surprise on the ghost she was disappointed; he seemed to anticipate her attacks as if he could see her, and one of her arrows went wide thanks to his Blur spell.

Confronted with Sawyer in mid-air, Ito flew in a blur into the other cavern, ignoring Suishen’s parting swipe. Then a Wall of Stone appeared in front of the group, completely blocking the only exit out of Ito’s throne room. Zhustin looked up to find himself alone with Ito and Shigure’s corpse. Ito’s ghost glared at him with burning hatred. Zhustin gulped, tightened his grip on the corpse, and Teleported  back to the other side of the wall.

They had found Emperor Shigure’s body, but they were trapped in a sealed room by the vengeful ghost of another emperor who wanted Shigure’s body for some nefarious reason of his own.

The PCs earned 14,171 XP for the night, putting them at 506,062 XP with 635,000 required for level 15. We’ll be back at Leo’s next week.