Characters: Ishum, Fae’ael, and Teslan
We led our army out of Crowsong Fort, with the party scouting ahead of the troops, finding only the faded footprints until the afternoon when we found fresh tracks leading in two different directions, from the northwest, and then tracks leaving Crowspire. It turns out the tracks were the people of Crowspire setting up an ambush for some Undead who had come into town and taken some of their people captive. We met their headlady, Gertrude, and began to set up defense around the town, some of the townspeople pledge to join us in the fight against the undead army, mostly the town butchers and bakers.. Using Naharmatu to dig a trench and helping the villagers set up large bonfires to light up the night as that is when the Vampires forces tend to attack. Ishum gives a young boy a stone, telling him that perhaps one day it will become like Naharmatu. As the twilight of evening fell, we could see an army approaching, the Undead attacked at night! The battle begins!
Fae’ael shouts for her Rangers to target the undead cavalry but they are too shake by the undead steeds to do any damage. The Infantry lines move forward to clash with the skeletons, zombies and ghouls of their opposition. The Knights of Iron charge forward to engage the Skeletal Cavalry but their steeds are unnerved by the undead horses and they do no damage. Eventually the combined fire of Teslan’s archers, and Fae’ael’s Rangers bring down the undead riders but one of the infantry units is almost broken in that time. With the advantage in the battle being with the living, the captive candle stick makers find their courage and strike back against their undead overlords, joining our side of the battle. With the rear open, the Knights of Iron ride down the last of the Skeletal Archers, and the Infantry, Archers and Fae’ael’s rangers finish off the final undead infantry units.
Fae’ael, Ishum, Naharmatu and I crash through the enemy lines in pursuit of the enemy commander, a vampire named Samüel. We find him with his two lieutenants, a zombie and a skeletal archer. Ishum and Naharmatu charge forward and attack the zombie lieutenant, doing significant damage. Fae’ael opens fire on the vampire striking twice with her lightning empowered bow, I charge forward on my steed, empowering my sword with Kalaban’s divine might and leap from my saddle striking down at Samüel and landing two heavy blows, but he is still full of fight. The vampire’s eyes glowed and I felt something strange come over me, and the next thing I knew I was standing in front of Ishum having just attacked my ally, some sort of Undead glamor or charm, we’ll have to watch for that when we confront Lady Amatheia. Meanwhile, Fae’ael casts haste on me, she makes the mistake of getting too close though and the vampire teleports away from Ishum, Naharmatu and I and attacks her with his Blood Blade and fangs, sinking them deep into her neck, the skeletal archer also sinks another pair of arrows into the elf, and she goes unconscious.
Ishum finishes off the zombie lieutenant and Naharmatu uses his earth powers to cause the vampire to sink a few feet into the ground, restraining him. I leap back onto my steed and charge over striking down at the vampire landing a hit, Ishum runs in and feeds Fae’ael a healing potion, bringing her back to consciousness. Samüel tries to surrender but Fae’ael growls “No Surrender” before fading into the ethereal plane and reappearing a good distance away and launching more arrows. Ishum and Naharmatu both strike the vampire, whose form is beginning to break up. I strike down with my sword, separating his head from his body, which, struck by the divine energy being used to empower my sword, begins to turn to ash. We heal up, and I use my divine senses to determine whether Fae’ael had been turned into a Spawn of Damaris, but she is her full, living, self. We collect what little belongings there are, some gold pieces, the hilt of the vampire’s Blood Blade, and an enormous diamond.
Returning to Crowspire, we celebrated our victory with the townsfolk, and some of them decided to join our army, refreshing our units of casualties they took in the battle. Ishum decided to keep the Blood Blade, and while it is a distasteful, and evil weapon. I have faith that Ishum will wield it well, and should it come to it perhaps we could take it to Anahel and purge the evil from the weapon. On our return to Sophia’s Rest, we learned that the diamond was actually enchanted with an extremely strong divination magic, I assume allowing Lady Amatheia to be actively watching us. I believe she now knows the location of Sophia’s Rest and have stationed many of my soldiers here and in Crowspire for defense.
