==== Summary 117: Secrets of Umbrodriith (2014-07-06) ====
[[Giraine]] [[summaries-2014|Summaries]]
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You fought off the last of the skeleton-things, which turned out to be warped newtlings with sharper claws and teeth and tail-barbs. The Captain was quickly hauled up to safety with the Baronet's help, and after slipping around a bit he got back into the fray. Ciddar took a nasty wound as a skeleton ripped its tail-barb out of his leg, but Cyroosta was at hand to heal him quickly. With your combined might and skills, you bashed the two left on shore to bits quickly enough, and the last one (in the pool) tried to leap up and drag Miguel into the muck but failed and was summarily beaten down by him, the Captain and Baronet. While Cyroosta and others tended to the Captain's and Ciddar's many injuries, you inspected the room, finding nothing else that interesting. 

With no desire to linger here due to the stagnant, oppressive stench of slow-cooked rotten newtling flesh from the pool, you pushed onward- literally. With some experimentation, you found that non-living matter passed through the black archways easily and living things could, too, with some strength behind them. Eventually most of you went into the small spherical chamber to the left, beyond that archway, and found a strange collection of pristine items: 7 newtling skeletons dressed in fine, exotic, savage 2nd age-style armour made of sharkskin (4 pt armour, light and fancy but made for a newtling not human), standing atop plinths, and then a bronze rack holding 14 bone harpoons (1d8+1 damage, full damage on withdrawing an impale; otherwise like 1-handed spears) and 7 iron(!) shortswords of old Seshnelan make, and finally a small black lacquered box full of valuable gems and jewels. 

With no exits evident in that odd room, you pushed your way back out into the pool room, to witness Cyroosta (tending to Ciddar with her healing kit) wavering and nearly fainting from the smell and heat in the pool chamber. You had to move on, so you pushed into the other archway to the right. Curiously, it was the same, containing almost completely identical weapons and armour. Who went to such trouble and expense to outfit such a force of newtling-things? This "Umbrodriith" of whom the inscriptions back in the entry room spoke, must have been quite a force to be reckoned with, and not just sorcerously. Some of the sharper minds in your party wondered if the newtlings here had anything to do with the amphibian nature of Toadhaven, Quick Sister, Apatune-- and Giraine/the Giranois? Newtlings were not known from these coasts, not anytime recently, so it was curious.

But now a conundrum was evident: there were no further passageways onwards into this old complex, and yet Quick Sister had asked you to bring not only a bone (you had harpoons, and newtling bits aplenty) but also to end the "anti-life" (undeath) here, which you seemed not to have done yet. The newtling-oids must just have been minions; indeed, perhaps the 7 skeletons in each side room had been intended as further undead warriors? You debated leaving, but a last-ditch examination of the chamber on the right side by the keen eyes of Boamund revealed a marvellous discovery: the walls to the left of the archway inside this "storeroom" were illusory, covering another gateway with water beyond it. You all crowded into that room and the Captain stuck his head into the flooded passage beyond, returned with a light spell on his harpoon, and then cast his sorcerous Abjure Breath incantation on himself- with success! But the spell seemed weak. Would it last? He bravely swum inside, and down a long passage that opened into a dark chamber that he returned to tell of. You ascertained that this chamber must be the source of necromantic power here, and the end of your quest for Quick Sister. So you prepared many magics before swimming inside, one by one pressing through the wall-gate into the bleak, black waters. Miguel cast Mobility spells on everyone (+3 movement) and Boamund cast Versatility (+10% to 1 skill), and the Captain managed another weak casting of his Abjure Breath on the lot of you. Cyroosta would remain behind. Boamund even called forth his undine from his anklet when he entered the water.

It all started well, at least. With sorcery cast, and good fortune pushing into the waters and swimming down the 30m hallway, even Miguel grinned stoically with resolve to see this geas to its end, and strike at the heart of evil here. You did not waver when seeing that evil: in the chamber, a shadowy, curled up form hovered in the middle of a great, smooth-walled spherical space. Every surface of those walls was carved with Stasis and Water runes, and powerful, writhing, hissing rays of black magic projected across the space from four corners of the sphere, where a crystalline node served as some sort of magical focus for the enchantments here. Clearly, the magic held the dark humanoid thing captive, whatever it was. Unable to speak underwater, you gestured and swam swiftly forward, splitting into groups. Boamund sent his undine to the furthest node up above and across the room. Miguel and Maugis (wielding a harpoon now; his trusty staff useless here) swam to the nearest one on the ceiling, and Boamund clunked in his full armour along the sloping floor to the nearest one on the floor. The Baronet, alone and now wearing just his leather armour, swam for the other further node, bone harpoon in hand (you reasoned that as the entry room inscriptions mentioned spears, you might as well see if they were needed to harm things here and break the enchantment). And the Captain, followed in turn by a nervous Ciddar, closed with the black entity to confront it when the time came.

That time came quickly. The undeath-magic here was so strong, it rotted your flesh from you, so there was added urgency in your actions. As you prepared to strike the first blow on the nodes, the thing in the centre of the room gracefully and menacingly uncurled itself, revealing a skeletal head, long clawed arms, and a wispy, shadowy body that trailed off where the legs might be, but from which great ropy tentacles extruded. It was pure Undeath, this demonic being, and relished the destruction of life like no other. You were about to put its prowess to the test.

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