Faced with the riddle in the room after the Lava-place, Darion wanted to turn around and go back. In his mind the only viable solution to the riddle. However, no, he was thwarted. The way back was closed.

The party struggled with the meaning of the riddle for some time. Finally smart Bubo and brave Heidel beat the mystery and cleared the way.

And so we reached a new room with three sarcophagi. They sat on a mezzanine up a wide set of stairs … behind a wide hall dominated by a gigantic black marble statue: a likeness of everyone’s favourite queen. And eight crystalline dwarf statues along the side walls.

Crystal Clear

Darion wandered up to the statue to take a close look at the queen – no problem. Vampire Hunter Matrius RaedWulf went a bit further – and triggered a response. Lucky for Darion, the statue remained a statue, otherwise that would have been it for him. Instead, it was the crystalline dwarves who woke up.

They were fast! Waking up and moving into melee with us all happened in one. Two of the crystal dwarves confronted Matrius and faced his silver scimitar. Three boxed Darius in against the Queen-Statue. The other three matched with the others.

For a moment it looked rather bleak: Matrius shattered his majestic silver scimitar against the sharp edges of his crystalline foe. “Shit!”
The others fought with little effect, and Bubo backed away from the fight into a corner.

Darion’s mind raced. These dwarves were not the enemy. They were protecting the tomb. An honorable task. No, it was not possible to attempt to fight them.

Darion dodged under the Queen’s marble elbow and whizzed away, taking attacks of opportunity from the three dwarves around him. One hit, and the hurt bit deep — but Darion did not stop. He ran, to the stairs, up the stairs, towards the main central sarcophagus.

Moment of Truth

And there he saw it: A bronze Twohander, with a mighty handle wrapped in green leather. An amazing weapon, the sword that brought low a Devil: Endbringer.

It was not on nor in the sarcophagus but behind it, cradled in two hooks on the wall. Darion grabbed it, held it in both hands, and high up in the air. Endowed with the might of Endbringer, he commanded: “STOP”.

No-one listened.

The three dwarves on his heels were coming on. The two dwarves on Matrius were dodging his whip and trying to hit him. The other three dwarves were battling his friends.

The dwarves did not accept Darion as the bearer of the Sword Endbringer.

And Matrius rolled another critical failure and the whip slipped from his grasp, leaving him with nothing but a tiny dagger between his foes.

Splinter

Heidel, Apoqulis and Bubo turned the tide. Working as a team and letting Vaeva distract the enemies with arrows, some vicious backstabs from Bubo exploded two of the dwarves into tiny, glittering shards.

Darion let Endbringer sing as two of the dwarves followed him up the stairs. There he had the high ground! Or so he thought: his first swing missed as he overbalanced, and he took another hit.

Vaeva’s arrows hit with uncanny precision, chipping away at the dwarves, while the melee fighters confronted the dwarves. Bubo picked up the magical whip – made it change its size to adapt to his smaller stature – then threw it back to Matrius, whose larger frame made the whip snap back to its earlier size.

“I told you to stop it!” yelled Darion, and sliced one of the crystal dwarves clean in half.

Then he got stabbed once more, reducing his HP count to single digits. And he rolled a critical failure, so that he dropped Endbringer and let it slide down the stairs.

Still: Slowly but surely the battle turned our way. In the end, crystal shards littered the room, Darion was a bit bloodied, but otherwise we were fine.

Gargoyles and Morals

Now we had time to really look around. The central sarcophagus was for the queen, and it repeated the black marble motif from her statue. The two other sarcophagi were smaller and in white marble, and they were for relatives of her. There were also two gargoyles in the room, which had not acted – and valuables that were presented gift for the dead.

Darion summed it up: “We are in the wrong crypt if we are looking for vampires. There are no signs.”
Matrius RaedWulf agreed: “No signs of undead here.”
Heidel looked for secret doors, but none presented themselves.

None of us had much interest in robbing the grave: it was wrong to take these treasures – only the sword was really needed in our greater mission. Which meant, we won no material reward from this crypt, apart from carrying Endbringer back into battle.

Uno mas

Matrius tried to re-negotiate our contract, on the grounds that no vampires had been here, so this delve did not really count. We did not agree, but we did agree to check one more crypt with him; under the assumption that it is still one expedition – mainly because he had lost his valuable scimitar and gained no reward. However, regardless of vampires would be found or not, after that next crypt we stop. We have our own tasks and cannot pick through crypts for weeks or months.

In terms of us being hirelings here: a Loyalty roll barely made.

More Morgansfort