Day 12 (continued)
The figure has the same white blond hair as Lavender, which is flopped over his face. Lavender stands immediately. The newcomer nods and turns back into the office, leaving the door open. Lavender follows him straight away. Gage pulls up his hood and follows them both. Gage sees one of the guards move their hand towards their weapon as he enters the office. Theren also follows them, but is hesitant and nervous.
Temerity, however, stays behind outside the office. He begins systematically defacing the publications in the waiting room, turning them all into gnomes being rude with goats, whilst also providing a lookout. There are two guards in the room with him. One seems rather unintelligent and focused on his task of standing to attention. The other tells him not to draw on the magazines. Temerity argues his case but the guard is unconvinced. Temerity ceases drawing and uses his rapier to cut the magazines into the shape of origami gnomes. The guard derides his bent rapier, so Temerity insults the guard’s mother. The guard moves to punch him but trips over a chair, falls over and breaks his nose.
Temerity speaks to the fallen guard, referring to Lavender as his prospective bride and Orris as his future brother-in-law, telling the guard that he does not want to upset his boss. The guard is really not convinced that Temerity could ever marry Lavender, but does not want to get embroiled in another confrontation with Temerity, so simply confiscates the magazines and leaves. Temerity starts singing a song under his breath about incompetent necromancers whilst petting his menagerie. Aurius is hiding behind his legs, quaking, so Temerity reassures him.
Lavender chooses to ignore the commotion outside. She, Gage and Theren move into the office with Orris. One wall is a massive bookcase, green curtains hang across other walls and a massive desk with a quill and a half-written letter dominate the middle of the room. Orris asks about Temerity and Lavender says it is best if he stays outside. Orris asks Theren to close the door. Theren is nervous but acquiesces.
Orris Locke asks Lavender how she is. She is taken aback and does not know what to do or say. Orris’s manner is genial and friendly. He compliments Lavender. Outside, Temerity casts zone of truth. Lavender and Gage detect the spell and now must tell the truth, whereas Theren and Orris are still able to lie and do not know that the spell has been cast.
Orris understands why Lavender has sought him out and tells her that there is much that each must explain to the other. He confesses that he has missed her. This news hits her hard and she confesses the same. Orris looks at Gage, whom he had hired to track Lavender. He explains to her why he did it, that he wanted to keep an eye to keep her safe. He stops and cannot continue; he tells her that there are too many others around. He wants to meet in another city instead.
He sends a telepathic message to Lavender, telling her that they cannot speak here and that there are too many things going on that even the two of them are not aware of. She sends back the questions of when and where. In response, he pulls a sending stone from a desk drawer and sends back to use it when they reach Adalens. She takes the stone and packs it away safely. She tries to hug him and he envelopes her with his embrace for an extended moment.
Theren watches all this feeling quite uncomfortable. Gage is being stone-faced, like a guard. They both receive a message asking them to keep Lavender safe. Gage simply acknowledges the message, but Theren is taken aback and does not know how to react.
Orris pulls back and begins a facade of animosity towards them. Lavender kicks the door open and storms out. As she does, she receives one final message, telling her that he loves her.
Temerity is lounging outside with his animals. Lavender strides over and pulls Temerity up by his scruff, dragging him out of the room. Temerity makes a scurrilous remark about their first time, but she ignores him. She frogmarches the party out of the necromancers’ cavern, dragging Temerity the whole way up the stairs and out of the manor.
Day 13
Outside the manor, the sun is beginning to rise. The whole night has passed and they had not even realised. It is extremely cold now; the dead foliage is rimed with frost. As they leave the manor grounds, Gage sniffs the air and notices a dead stench getting stronger. Outside the estate, Temerity is dropped unceremoniously in the road, but he rolls gracefully and hops up. The smell of death is getting stronger as the approach the centre of town.
Gage sends a message to Theren about what he is sensing. Theren stretches his senses out to feel the magic and sees a dark aura ahead. He instantly calls Lavender and tells her that he feels dark magic ahead and that they should not go that way. Lavender replies that darkness does not intimidate her. Temerity also senses that there is something ahead of them. He asks Lavender if she trusts him. Theren answers no. Temerity ignores him and asks Lavender to close her eyes and point the way that they should go. Lavender does as he asks and feels that the central square contains a powerful feeling of the undead. The feeling is lesser in other directions, but Lavender tells everyone that they have a duty to the people of Arcadia to deal with the undead scourge.
Temerity proceeds to make an inspiring speech, referencing their previous adventures and, for some inexplicable reason, gnomes doing lewd things. As he orates, an illusory image of a forest gnome with a goliath reading a sex manual appears. The goliath gentle nibbles on the gnome’s ear and vignettes appear of the goliath and gnome doing every sex position imaginable. Everyone is vastly and bizarrely inspired by this and also incredibly aroused but they all manage to control themselves. Runcible, however, succumbs to the stimulating imagery and Theren feels the dragon shudder on his shoulder. His back is strangely wet.
Lavender moves into the town square. Five zombies, five skeletons and two corpse-raisers await them, spread out across the town square. Battle is joined.
One of the corpse-raisers fires magic missiles and hits Gage and Theren. The other fires magic missiles and hits Lavender and Temerity. The zombies all advance towards the party, with three of them arriving directly in front of the party immediately. One of them reaches Lavender and slams her, causing only minimal damage. Others reach Temerity and Gage. Temerity uses sacred flame on the zombie right in front of him and it screams in pain. Gage uses his rapier to strike the zombie right in front of him and causes ichor to ooze out of it. Lavender rages and fights back against the zombie in front of her, severing one of its arms, but it does not slow it down. However, a final slash takes out the zombie and it collapses. The skeletons begin their attack; three of them move forwards towards the party and the other two hold back and shoot arrows. One tries to hit Lavender but misses, a second slashes Theren and the third slashes Gage. The archers shoot at Temerity and Lavender; Temerity is hit and Lavender suffers a glancing blow from the arrows. Theren uses shatter on the group directly attacking the party, blasting three of the skeletons and one of the zombies into shrapnel, leaving only one zombie next to the party.
One of the corpse-raisers shoots a blast of green energy at Lavender, sapping her strength; he has cast ray of enfeeblement on her. The other corpse-raiser advances from the opposite side of the square and shoots magic missiles at Theren in retribution. A cry flashes out across the square, speaking of the necromancers’ desperation. The other two zombies join the third directly in front of the party. One swipes at Gage and misses, another one swipes at Theren and misses and the last swipes at Lavender and hits a glancing blow. Temerity uses sacred flame on the zombie attacking Theren, making it cry out in agony, and heals Theren for some of the damage he has taken. Gage moves forwards towards the two corpse-raisers and tries to slash one of them with his rapier, but it dodges. Lavender overcomes her fatigue to slash at the zombie attacking her, only causing moderate damage. She successfully shakes off the enfeeblement effects fully. The two skeletons are still at range and shoot arrows at Theren, but only one hits, causing minimal damage. Theren shatters the two corpse-raisers, who are now standing beside each other; however, the spell causes only some damage and nowhere near as much as it should have.
The corpse-raiser not engaged with Gage moves forwards past the gnome, who causes minimal damage to his enemy at it passes, and tries to strike Theren, but he fails. The other corpse-raiser strikes Gage, drawing life energy from his body and into his own. One of the remaining zombies doubles back to attack Gage and causes serious hurt to him. Another attacks Theren and fails and the last attacks Lavender and fails also. Temerity is deeply concerned at Gage’s dreadful state and heals him. He then uses sacred flame on the zombie in front of him, causing it to burn but it remains upright. Gage disengages from the corpse-raiser and zombie that were attacking him and hides in the shadows on the edges of the square, blending indistinguishably with the stone of the buildings. Lavender attacks the zombie in front of her, bifurcating it completely with a single stroke. She charges past it towards the corpse-raiser that had been attacking Gage but does not manage to hit it. The skeletons stay at range and shoot arrows at Theren again in retribution for his destruction of their comrades earlier; only one manages to hit him, though. Theren uses agonising blast on the corpse-raiser in front of him and causes significant damage. Runcible finally recovers from earlier and joins the fight, stinging the corpse-raiser; he is now looking very badly wounded.
The corpse-raisers both drain life from Theren and Lavender respectively, healing themselves. The zombies attack Lavender and Theren. Lavender receives a glancing blow but Theren is not hit. Temerity heals Theren back to full health. Gage sneaks forwards to attack the corpse-raiser by Lavender, causing significant damage with his rapier. Lavender also attacks the corpse-raiser by her; her blade rimes with frost, light refracts off in a rainbow sheen. She stabs it through the chest and whips it out in a glorious arc of scintillating beauty, with frozen fragments of blood glittering in the air. The skeletons shoot at Lavender in retribution for killing the corpse-raiser, causing only minimal damage. Theren hits the remaining corpse-raiser with an agonising blast, causing significant damage. He also activates cloak of flies, which overpowers the corpse-raider in a hail of golden scarabs.
The zombies try to slam Lavender and Theren, but both miss. Temerity uses sacred flame against the zombie in front of him, immolating it completely. Gage returns to the wall to hide and shoots the final zombie with his bow from his stealth position; the arrow passes straight through the zombie and thuds into a barrel of mouldy ale on the far side of the square. The zombie falls and Guido rushes over to start drinking the mouldy ale. Lavender charges at the furthest skeleton, blasting the bones into dust and obliterating it in one hit. The final remaining skeleton turns to face Lavender and fires its bow at her, causing minimal damage. Theren uses agonising blast to turn the final skeleton to fragments.
As the battle concludes, they are all suddenly confused as to why they would be attacked here after just speaking to Orris and being allowed to leave the manor safely.