S3: Time is of the Essence

Before any further crime scene investigation/ruination could
occur, Pirjo rushed into the Mattress Wholesale. After offering her condolences
for whichever member of the Witch Pinchers it was, Pirjo revealed that she was there
on another urgent matter, requiring their immediate assistance. She had offered
the services of the Witch Pinchers to aid with a complicated hostage situation
occurring in the Overhang. Gerdo and a few of the other party members expressed
some skepticism at their presence being more appropriate than the Red Guard for
such an important and critical matter, but Pirjo insisted that it would make
more sense once they were there and that “Time is of the Essence”©. She also
promised them that she would be able to offer them assistance with determining
what had happened with Goober, as well as a hefty reward if they could deal
with the situation before it escalated any further. Gerdo felt especially
uneasy about leaving Goober’s body in Pirjo’s care and refused to leave him
behind, leaving Aurora, Hildae and Lur to take on whoever was responsible for
the trouble in the Overhang.

An excessive bout of crab dialogue was interrupted by Pirjo
reiterating that “Time is of the Essence”©, herding the three of them into her
platypus-drawn carriage. Upon arrival, they were greeted by three strange
individuals, the most imposing of which was a rather large skeletal soldier
wearing a regal set of armour and carrying a massive blade on her shoulders.
She introduced herself as Captain Wene Page of the Overhang guard and revealed
that the other two were another set of recruits brought in by Pirjo to assist. There
was Doris Fern, the odd horse-headed sorcerer who was in search of an easy way
to make money and Franny, the stoic and brash valk warrior who was seeking
information and support in her quest to topple the rule of a mad scientist
wreaking havoc in the Crow’s Nest. With introductions out of the way, Captain
Wene reiterated the situation to the three of them, barely containing her anger
while doing so.

The capital of the
Overhang, the Overkeep, had been overtaken by a group of cultists who had issued
no demands, but had activated a sweeping magical field spreading across the Overkeep’s
grounds that would slowly rip apart any undead that entered it. This presented
a problem for the defense forces of the Overhang which were largely comprised
of undead soldiers, which the the Scarlet Sanctum seemed unlikely to bolster in
a timely fashion. Having updated the mercenaries, Wene Page saluted them and
then marched off to tend to other possible solutions regarding the siege.

Meanwhile, back at the
Mattress Wholesale, Gerdo had acquired a sponge from a nearby Sponge Emporium
and was using it to collect the alcohol that he’d wasted on Goober into his
flask.  Using the diluted corpse alcohol,
Gerdo began to cast a powerful spell, drawing the spirit of a strange creature
into the body of Goober, reanimating him into a servant that would come to call
himself Puzuzu. Having completed the ritual, Gerdo left the Wholesale in haste
with Puzuzu in tow, aiming to arrive just in time to help.

The approach to the keep
was halted when the party reached a long and winding hedge maze. Franny
immediately went to work on the hedge, perhaps a little too zealously,
destroying a significant amount of the hedge that Wene had asked them not to
harm too much. The noise unfortunately drew the attention of a crowd of
animated corpses that began to slowly approach, threatening to overwhelm them. With
some flashy moves from Franny and Aurora alongside Lur’s intimidating shouts of
“WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR”, the bodies were repelled. Hearing a noise from
behind, the heroes prepared for another attack, but were instead greeted by
Gerdo and Puzuzu. Hildae, Lur and Aurora were stunned by the unsettling
presence of their until recently deceased comrade, while Doris leapt into
action believing him to be another of the reanimated dead. Doris didn’t seem
particularly confident in his melee skills and somehow managed to strike
himself in the head, instead of Puzuzu.

Gerdo was quick to explain
the circumstances behind Goober’s reanimation and the seven of them were
quickly back on their way to the Underkeep. As they climbed the front steps of
the building, they saw corpses of the Underkeep guard strewn violently across
the ground. On guard, they entered the main foyer and were silently greeted by
a robed figure wearing a mask at the top of the steps. Aurora attempted to challenge
him to a duel, charging forward while doing so, when the cultist raised his arms
causing them to glow. A set of chains raced down from the ceiling and attempted
to bind her, forcing her to dodge out of the way. Puzuzu distracted the chains
with his gross zombie body and the rest of them prepared to get into positions
to attack. Doris cast a powerful fireball at the robed figure, knocking him
backwards with a raspy yell. The man was quickly back on his feet and the light
began to emanate from his hands again as the doors behind them came to life and
began swinging their lurching bodies down towards them.

During the doorway's assault, Gerdo's warhammer was destroyed, Doris received another blow to the head and Hildae was forced to the
ground. While on the ground, Hildae was forced to her efforts to support her teammates through singing
about crabs. Using her newfound crab blessing as inspiration, Franny took that
moment to sprint up towards the top of the stairs and leap, flying towards the
cultist with her trident prepared to stab into him. The triple blades dug
violently into his shoulder, pinning him to the ground as he roared in pain.
His hands began to glow again and the trident itself floated into the air, before
flying directly at Franny, who just managed to tumble out of the way. Back on
the ground floor, Lur was attempting to assist Hildae back into the action by lifting her into the
air, which Hildae angrily resisted due to his lack of having consulted her
beforehand. Hildae then used her hardened carapace to strike out at the chains
that were binding Puzuzu, causing them to fall to the ground.

Seeing Franny in trouble,
Aurora leapt up two stairs at a time and made a powerful strike on the cultist,
finally bringing him to his knees, too weak to continue fighting. Franny walked
up to him and attempted to threaten him into revealing what was going on, but
the cultist merely laughed at her, prompting Franny to strike at him a little
too strongly. The life faded from his eyes and Franny looked around awkwardly
and tried to play it off like she did it on purpose.

Beyond the foyer of the
underkeep the party would find the main chamber, where three more robed figures
had taken up position around a giant pink crystal. While one of the cultists
continued to cast some kind of spell on the crystal, the other two noticed the
approaching party and began casting. Lur immediately pointed one of his claws
at the pair of them and began to taunt the two of them, which earned him the
rage of the shorter foe. A giant hand raised up from the ground and firmly
grasped Lur, aiming to crush him. Hildae used her bard intuition to determine
that the cultists were hiding something on their person.

The other cultist more
calmly began to summon a second pair of hands from the stone of the steps
leading up to the central platform. Some more combat ensued in which the
smaller cultist was killed by Lur. The other cultist’s calm was broken by his
companion’s death, and he retaliated by bringing down the ceiling. Lur raced up
to the other cultist and attempted to throw him in to harm’s away, instead
throwing him just far enough that he ended up out of harm’s way from the
falling ceiling. The channelling cultist finished what he was doing, causing
the pink crystal to fade and fall to the ground in a thundering crash. “We’ve
done what we came here for..” he whispered before beginning to slink away. Mere
moments before he could escape, Hildae gave Doris a boost with a particularly
inspiring crab song about crabs, which gave him the strength he needed to
strike the bird-masked cultist with a lethal set of fireballs.

Seeing the writing on the
wall, the remaining cultist attempted to escape by summoning mouth monsters
from one of the walls of the chamber. Leaping past the creatures, Franny and
Lur combined their efforts to fly out the hole in the wall by having Franny
carry Lur forward dangling from a rope. In spite of their efforts, the two of
them lost the cultist and Lur had to strain with all his might to prevent the
two of them from going careening off a cliff.

Back in the central
chamber, the remaining party began to examine the corpses and found it difficult
to pry into the robes of the cultists. The material of them appeared to be unable
to be ripped. Aurora managed to open up the robes of the bird-masked cultist
through a hole created by Doris’s fireball to find a green emerald within. The
green emerald began to pulse and become a stream of particles that joined with
the crystal within Aurora’s broach. The corpses then began to smoke and
dissipate away, leaving behind their robes for the party to keep. They
considered taking the giant pink crystal with them until they heard the sound
of approaching footsteps. Thinking quickly, Doris turned himself invisible,
while the rest of them thought it best to simply try greeting whoever was
approaching. It turned out that a portion of the RedGuard had been summoned to
help and they were quick to tell the five of them to surrender themselves to their
custody. It seemed as though they might have to go quietly until Hildae managed
to bluff that they were just hostages and that the remaining cultists were just
beyond.

### Spoils

* Emerald fragment
* Resistant robes