A Stoney problem(formerlyThe Cursed)

[Ithildur]

((Y'all please feel free to initiate some planning/organizing. In fact I insist!))

[orangetree]

"Hey guys," the young halfling says nonchalantly. "Dunno if a fresh pair of eyes is any help to you, but here we go. I've put a lot of hard work into planning. After all, this stuff is rather uncomfortably close to my home. Never liked the undead..." she gives a little shudder. "So first of we identify the problem."

She then takes out a paper with a chart. "THE UNDEAD!" she points out with a stick figure picture of a monster- though it looks a bit like a sign post. Lunette is undeterred by her poor art work. "Yeah, stuff that moves but has no life. Well anti-life. Those of you with a brain will know what I'm talking about but it ain't the issue." She flips another page.

"THE CURSE!" Picture of a skull and cross. "Yeah, right here. That's the issue. Something or someone made an undead. We were asked to remove it. So here we go, that's the issue. The heart of the matter. A curse means a person- or divine being- let's hope it aint that- has put a curse on these poor unfortunate, undeserving, un-deadable folk."

She pulls back another paper on her presentation. "The MIST!" lots of dots on a paper. "You can't burn it, can't fight it, you wonder into it you are dead. You breathe it in you're dead. You can't defend against it, it's the air itself. This is pretty damn scary." she clears her throat. "Anyway clearly you guys somehow figured out a way around it, so I got a few theories. Maybe it acts as a slow poison, which means the hardiest might get a bit of time to do stuff. When it comes to things like this though, fire is probably the only thing that would work. Yeah I know, it goes boom. But I would rather try surviving a fireball then a sure death by this thing.

The PLAN!

"Plan 0: Ignore it!" ... she glances around. "Hey don't look at me like that. That's always got to be in there, heh. Ignoring a problem you can't solve tends to fix the problem eventually... but I get it, it won't work here." She sheepishly throws that paper away.

Plan 1 "Fight! Right, so that one has your attention. But fight what? We got no target. We know there is a curse, and that tends to mean a curser exists. Curses end normally when a person is dead.. or has ceased existing. So we're probably dealing with a litch curse. Given it's so long, a curse will exist as long as he or she exists... thats why litches are feared. They never die, and if they really want to curse you, you're in big trouble. Bit of a wild assumption there but what else can it be.. oh well it can be a vampire I guess. I dunno how to fight a vampire or anything like that directly, but I'm sure you can fire ball it to death?"

plan 2: Evade! "So far, we are not dealing with a moving army. The situation seems contained in just the ruins. Good thing for us. But we got a lot of weird bio-issues going on. Stuff that isn't right at all. So why is that? Makes me think we're probably being surounded so I suggest a strong look out for anything out of the ordinary. What's the enemy doing? Biding time maybe, or are they constrained by the curse to certain areas. That's what I'm thinking. That means there has to be focal points of power keeping them existing.

Plan 3: Resources: "Hey some good news for us. We need resources so do they." She clears her throat. "Creating undead takes materials. Except we are dealing with a curse here, so that probably doesn't apply. This narrows it down from an arcanist manifestation to divine conundrums of which we are really up the sourdough on. See Divine folk don't need resources as much. Well sorta. They need a prayer right? Maybe we can pray harder... but in all seriousness, we got to disrupt this curse and divine magics look like the only thing that can do it. Short of killing the curser itself. Fundemental rule of magic that one is. you die, your magic unwinds. So that's why people are always killing witches here eh?"

Plan 4: Tie up halfling and leave her hanging on a tree tied up for wasting time coming up with no real plan. "So yeah, that's the last Idea I came up with. Course I do enjoy practicing my lock picking, so if you did want to do this,..

[ImStrokerAce]

Kalas leaned back in his chair, a mouthful of pipeweed leaf stuffed into his bottom lip. He tilts his head off to one side and lets a wad of spit sail though the air into a corner of the gathering; wiping his mouth with the back of his hand he begins to speak...
"Eh, Im aimin' ta do this easy-like...We get up there and start un-cursin' the hooded bastards"
" Now, if ya had yer minions droppin' off to the afterlife; what would you do?" He gives flashes a grin, the pipeweed leaves speckling about his teeth as he does so.
"I'd be wagerin' heavy that there Mist will come out and see what the fuss is all about, and then we gets ta see if them Hooded ones are favorin' release over service to the thing..."
" If they ain't for release at that point.. runnin' off be a suggestion." " That or work out a trap for the blasted Red Mist." With that he shrugs and leans back into his chair.

[epetrow]

Balkr takes a long pull of his ale and wipes his mouth on his sleeve. "I be liking Kalas' plan but fer one thing, what do we do when the mist shows.? Now the hin mentions fire, be we seen that have no effect on the hooded bastards so I am not so sure. Still, I be thinkin trying to uncurse the hooded ones be the play. At leat we can thin the herd a little. That be my two coppers anyways Either that or we tie the hin up, that could be fun too.". He chuckles slightly and goes back to taking long pulls from his flagon.

[Analogkid]

Toby heard out the others including Lunette, Kalas and Balkr, after which he coughed to get their attention " All of you make good and valid points, as it is...I think Kalas has the right idea. We have already seen that I was able to remove the curse from the cloaked undead warrior...but also consider this, how were things in Kingsbay for a few days afterwards? the boats were once more hauling in ample stock of fish...and the general mood seemed more upbeat. Yet now....the gloom has returned to surround us. I say we go back and try to remove the curse from as many of the cloaked warriors as we can, and yes knowing full well that we will likely draw the entity out by doing so. Yet, we might...as it has been suggested be able to wrest the remaining undead away from his control once they know we can free them"

[orangetree]

"What about blanketing an area cure spell?" Lunette asks. "It hurts undead and would negate the mist"

[Analogkid]

Toby looks to Lunette "That would be an excellent idea, sadly its something I am incapable of doing. I just hope that if the other undead witness what we can do, that it will sway them to turn against that red mist entity.

[Ithildur]

((good to see some posts. just a heads up, there's a pretty good chance I may not be able to make it to tomorrow night's session. Also, Aglaril's prepared a couple of scrolls of Remove Curse that he can unload to someone if I can get online at some point tomorrow))

[Analogkid]

((my sons have a Boy Scout activity tomorrow night, so i'll be a little late...likely around 7:30 at the latest))

[orangetree]

"Hey can't we cast dispel in an area? We can go after puppets but we should be aiming for the puppet master"

[ImStrokerAce]

(( I'll be running amok with low level fury with Vlad and Gregg at this sessions time and whoever else wanders in on BG :- ) ))

[Analogkid]

Toby, Lunette, Arizma and Balkr were able to make their way to Myrdale, the town that lay some ways past the MacSheehan ruins. It took some sweet talking but the group was able to make their way into the town and speak with the tempite priest.

After some back and forth with the priest it was learned that the issues with the ruins went back to when they first began to follow Myrkul, but other then that not much was learned as much of the town was distrustful of the newcomers. So they made their way back to Kingsbay and began to plot their next move

[Ithildur]

((slight chance I won't be able to make it this friday - fridays may become increasingly difficult for me to make regularly - and Imstrokerace sounds like he will definitely no longer be available fridays. Is there any chance we might be able to move to another timeslot, say late saturday morning? That would also allow another interested euro to participate (Causk); OT I'm sure would appreciate that as well))


A message is left with the barkeep of the Salmon in Kingsbay for Kalas, Arizma, Caine, Lunette, and Aiden:


Toby and I met with a member of the Council of Mages; summary of findings and deductions based on our experiences listed below:

-It appears the mist entity is likely to be a creature called Red Death. It's a highly intelligent entity, possibly formed when a vampire is killed. It avoids combat and inhabits areas near bogs and swamps, and subsists on the bodily fluids of victims. Known pattern seems to be to obtain services of other creatures to help obtain food/victims. According to Toby, magical force missiles seemed to damage it; it's possible that other means of magical damage can hurt it as well.

-The cloaked ones are an unusual type of undead called Cursed. They may be the result of disruptions of the Weave - powerful necromancers may be capable of creating such beings. Their highest motivation above all seems to be to seek release from their state.

- a Remove Curse spell cast by Toby was sufficient to free one of the Cursed. Knowing this may mean we may be able to sway them from servitude to the Red Mist... whether by persuasion or force, or a combination of both. A Tongues spell might be critical - if we can them to speak and if they are capable of speech at all.


I believe our next course is much clearer now. Several questions still remain, but it is my hope that the answers to these will soon become clear as well.

Aglaril

[Arianna]

((Late Saturday mornings will NOT work for me, I am either Playing on BG in the ONLY other DM'd game available, playing other games with friends, doing stuff around the house or Working, I also work 2 Sundays a month. So Weekend mornings are a rather hit and miss for me I have Mondays and Fridays off but then other people are working in the mornings. I can do Sunday Evenings or maybe Thursday evenings but it would be around 7PM to start on Thursdays cause it would be after I got home from work and I cannot guarantee my mood. I will not be available on Friday the 4th of March though . . got a date to see the Follies. As much as I would like to accommodate the euros, I don't see it happening without risking burnout on my part))

[orangetree]

It's okay, I'm greatful to have had a small place at all in the events