Adventure Brunch #36 -- April 19, 2020

In a new bid for aid, Zura and Jingles took a cart with Curace to Ubeda, to call upon Zura's uncle, Isran Ayarra, and the Sun Sentinals for aid against the undead horde! Also in the cart was Zura's truesteel armor, which looked suspiciously warped. It hadn't the day before...

In Ubeda, Zura reported what had occurred with the undead attack on the Tower to her uncle, and on what she and Jingles had found deeper in the forest. Isran Ayarra ordered his chamberlain Minara to gather three of his paladins and to contact the Horizon Enclave. A party would set out for the Tower in the morning.

Zura and Jingles went around the town and picked up some sticks of dynamite and a fireworks rocket, in case they needed even more backup. They also stopped by the wizard tower of Iben Wasif. They had learned that he works for Warlord Asad and has an apprentice named Amina, however they only encountered rude little firey gremlins--fire mephits or magmen?--who turned them away.

The next morning, Zura had her truesteel armor back on(!) and met Jingles at the cart. Also there were: Nazeem Arraya, Ingjara, and Jathas, all paladins of the Sun Sentinals, as well as Zahir, a ranger from the Horizon Enclave. After Zahir harassed Jingles a bit for information, they all set out back to the Tower.

After sleeping at the Tower, at dawn the party headed out with Shakkax. Glinnor was also with them and opened the portal again to the deeper woods. There they put into place their plan to close the portal to the undead; the paladins and Shakkax held the front line and the enemy's attention, while Jingles, Zahir, and Zura crept around the hills to the portal of the undead so that Zahir could close it.

Zahir successfully closed the portal, and the paladins sent Zura, Jingles, Shakkax, and Zahir to clear out the cave they could see further away where undead had come from during the battle. The paladins stayed to destroy the remaining undead, and clear out the cave closer to them.

Zura, Jingles, Shakkax, and Zahir ventured into the cave and encountered even more undead. They also heard a female voice warning "Shemesh" about the invasion and asking for aid. After defeating the undead foes, a woman looking like a Fall elf with a bone crown appeared and barred the entrance of the cave; she stepped out of a dark magical coffin and summoned a large, armored skeleton creature in front of her. Zura knew that everyone was nearing the end of their strength, and channeled all her magic into her sword to strike at the armored minion--taking it down in two mighty blows! This surprised the necromancer so much that she stepped back into her coffin and disappeared. 

The party headed deeper into the cave, and heard her cursing in Sylvan and Infernal... and found her in a small room with an altar. Just as Zura threw her last magic spell at her, the woman cast a very powerful (and damaging) spell back from a strange staff and disappeared again into her magic coffin.

There was a portal in that room which Zahir closed before they all left the cave to rejoin the paladins in the other one. Nazeem, Ingjara, and Jathas were resting in a room similar to the one the necromancer escaped from, but with no portal. The three paladins were exhausted but also victorious.

As the group rested and reported to each other, Jingles realized that his badger companion Meowth was nowhere to be found... and neither was Glinnor!