Emperor of Bones

## Recap

### Introduction

A few days after the last check-in with the Lightbringer, the same tiefling girl arrives with a message that the Town Warden has another situation for you to deal with. She brings you to the Giant Elk Tavern, but finding Redbeard not there she brings you over to the Town Hall instead. Entering, you overhear an extremely heated argument between the Town Warden and a gnomish woman, in which the gnome seems to be vehemently disagreeing with the Lightbringer's suggestion to have clerics patrolling the city with the guard in order to detect fiendish and undead influences. The conversation is muffled by a closed door, but Netty's keen ears are able to pick out phrases like "god-bothering zealots patrolling our streets" and "we fought a fucking war over this". With a final pronouncement of "Over my dead body!", the gnome storms out and past the party without a second glance.

A visibly tired Town Warden welcomes the party in, thanking you for your help with the dretch situation and promising you updates as soon as the Lightbringer's people are able to discover anything. He then asks for your assistance with another situation, a seemingly long-sealed basement recently reopened with a hole in the floor of a warehouse in the industrial Blackwall district. Details are still sketchy, but the hidden basement is thought to be from a necromancer's tower that was burned down by an angry mob before the war, and apparently it's been sealed since. The contents are unknown, but assumed to be dangerous. Redbeard offers you 100gp to take care of whatever is down there and eliminate any danger to the city.

### Warehouse

The interior of the warehouse is dimly lit, mostly empty but seemingly having seen recent use. Four guards surround a hole that's been torn in the wood flooring, leading about 10' down into the excavated dirt. A gnomish guard captain, Andrin Lehnherr, seems shaken up but is able to calm himself enough to explain the situation: a worker discovered the hole, tried to look inside but heard a roar that caused him to flee and report the problem to the guard. A five-person guard company was dispatched to secure the site and make sure nobody went in or came out, and the captain sent two of them in to see what was there. They were attacked by something large and vicious, and only one made it out, bloodied and injured. The injured guardswoman (Chiara) is still in shock and unable to provide much in the way of detail, but something large with sharp claws attacked them and killed the other guard with a single blow. The remaining guards are staying above, keeping watch to make sure the creature does not try to come out but otherwise waiting for help.

As the party descends the ladder to see what's down there, the guard captain speaks quietly to Skosgreat, revealing that he's under no illusion that his missing guardswoman is still alive, but asking that the party bring her back "one way or the other."

### Entrance

The excavated dirt has exposed the top of a stone stairway, descending into what seems to be the basement proper. The sound of some sort of large beast eating messily can be heard, and as the party carefully makes its way down the stairs the bloodstains and drag marks show that the body was dragged to the far corner of the room, where a large undead beast appears to be eating with its back to the entryway. An open doorway is the only other access to what appears to be a 25'x25' room with stone tile floors and crumbling stone walls. As the party makes a bit too much noise, the monstrosity hears you and turns, and you recognize it as an owlbear that has been raised as a zombie. Realizing that an owlbear is a tremendously challenging foe and that you don't know whether being undead makes it more or less so, the party retreats back up the stairs (with Murry nearly getting caught by the reaching owlbear) to plan your next move.

### Zombie Owlbear

The party takes some time to figure out how you can take down a zombie owlbear without getting torn apart. You focus on two advantages: the owlbear is large, and will be less effective fighting in a narrow space like the stairway; and the owlbear does not have any way of attacking from range. To capitalize on these advantages, the party decides to build a physical barrier out of the scrap wood you find around the warehouse, which you will set up within the stairwell to draw the owlbear in and force to to squeeze in order to reach you. Rummaging around, Nettie and Murry find both the wood you need and some scraps of metal which can be used to reinforce the barrier at key points. None of the party is trained in carpentry, but with the help of one of the town guards you're able to work out a basic design, which Skosgreat and Raimondo are able to put together to great effect. The barrier will need to be secured in place to be sturdy, but the party is confident that it will hold up to at least a few blows from the owlbear, while allowing you to fire ranged attacks through.

With your newly constructed barrier ready to go, the party carefully goes back down into the pit. Moving quickly, you set the barrier up within the stairwell, shooting down at the zombie owlbear as planned. The owlbear, however, does not respond to your attempts to draw it in, seemingly content to let you remain on the stairwell as long as you don't try to enter the room, and it retreats back out of view. Now in a standoff, the party realizes that you will need to move forward into a position where you can see the full room, giving up the relative safety of the narrow stairs. As you are debating your next step, a small black kenku in full armor, wielding an oversized book as a shield, drops down the hole and introduces himself as Inkwell, sent by the Church to assist with your mission. The rest of the party is momentarily confused by the appearance of this diminutive figure, but Raimondo and Murry recognize him as having assisted them with their research the previous week and vouch for his earnestness and desire to help. Inkwell immediately shows his usefulness, wielding his divine magic to bestow some extra protection on Raimondo as the party moves forward with the plan.

With a coordinated move, Skosgreat detaches the braced portion of the barrier, Raimondo shifts it forward, and Skosgreat is able to hammer the reinforcements back into place just as the owlbear crashes into them with full force. A desperate struggle ensues, with Raimondo using all of his strength to keep the barrier up and in place while the rest of the party launches every ranged attack at your disposal, including a notably unusual magic missile spell from Inkwell. The owlbear throws itself at the barrier again, tearing off chunks of wood, but a well-aimed arrow through the throat from Skosgreat takes it down. As Skosgreat turns back to the party to celebrate, he hears movement behind him, and turns just in time to see the zombie once again rising in undead rage. It rips through the weakened wooden barrier in seconds, its claws tearing into Raimondo, but a final shot of magical energy from Murry brings it down for good.

Silence falls, broken only by the exhausted breathing of the party, and as the adrenaline of the fight wears off the group begins to explore further into the mysterious basement. As the rest of the party starts poking your heads carefully through the next doorway, Raimondo carefully and respectfully gathers up the remains of the missing guard and delivers them quietly to Captain Lehnherr above. The Captain, seeing what became of his officer, offers his subdued thanks and urges the party to continue with handling whatever threat remains below.

### Emperor of Bones

Beyond the initial chamber, two hallways extend out. Down one is a rusted iron portcullis, beyond which can be seen a dried up fountain; at the end of that hallway a crack in the crumbling walls gives access to a chamber heavily shrouded in spiderwebs, from which the sound of skittering spiders can be heard. The second hallway, longer and straighter, contains a long-dead body and a quickly discovered magical trap. Having previously had a bad encounter with spiders, the party agrees to avoid that chamber if possible. Nervous about the unknown magic that seems to have felled a previous adventurer, the party urges Raimondo to use his strength to open the iron portcullis, but despite his best efforts he is unable to do more than rattle the gate. Murry meanwhile uses his feline grace and climbing to easily bypass the magical glyph, urging the rest of the party to do the same. One by one the party jumps or steps over the trap, with Skosgreat offering himself as a brace for Rosa to vault from (and Inkwell taking him up on the offer as well, much to Skosgreat's surprise). In position at the far end of the hallway, Murry charges through and discovers a group of skeletons ready and waiting for you, including a skeletal magic-user calling himself the Emperor of Bones under the protection of a Mirror Image spell.

A furious battle ensues, with multiple party members dropping under the effect of a magical sleep spell, and Murry left unconscious and bleeding in an exposed position deep into what appears to be a ritual chamber. Nettie jumps forward and bravely defends a sleeping Raimondo, while Inkwell shakes both him and Rosa awake to get them back in the fight. With some acrobatics and a few well placed attacks, the party is able to take down the skeletons and start dragging Murry's unconscious form back to safety. As the fighters press forward, the Emperor of Bones sees the tide turning against him and escapes under a fog cloud that leaves the party blindly searching the room, but ends up trapping himself against the same portcullis that Raimondo had failed to open. Desperate and out of options as Raimondo charges and then teleports forward with a brutal hammer attack, the skeleton mage tries a final sleep spell and dives into the spider-infested room, but quickly becomes trapped in the webbing. Unable to move, he is left an easy target for Nettie, Skosgreat, and Rosa to blast apart, leaving the now inanimate skeletal corpse hanging in the webs under a swarm of spiders.

With the skeletons destroyed and the spiders seemingly uninterested in leaving their webbed nest, the party takes a moment to survey your surroundings. Inkwell, who has been ignoring the fight in favor of searching through the Emperor's effects, reports a variety of stations dedicated to alchemy, spell-focuses, dissection, and some general notes that are too chaotic to be quickly deciphered. The Emperor's main chamber has two stone doors, both of which appear to be locked. At the center of the room is some sort of magical circle, etched in blood, but the circle has been carefully broken by a wet rag and Raimondo's quick-thinking during the fight.

### Treasure Rooms

Having taken a moment to catch your breath, the party begins investigating the two locked doors, seemingly the only remaining part of the basement not yet secured. Both are locked, and Nettie's attempts at picking the locks quickly run up against the reality of a large stone door that's not designed to be opened without the key. With a perhaps overly enthusiastic application of fire from Rosa, the spiders are driven back and the webs burnt off enough that the party can quickly search the Emperor's now smoldering robes, finding the key you needed and retreating back to safety. Opening one door, you find a small study filled with notes, which Murry and Inkwell immediately start going through, while Nettie focuses her attention on a small chest. The notes reveal the process of inventing a new spell, one seemingly designed by the Emperor to allow him to raise armies of undead minions around him. With a few minutes of focused study, the party's experts in all things magical are able to identify elements of the spell being created: it can be maintained over time through the caster's concentration, and can raise virtually unlimited undead during that period. Inkwell, worried about the potential applications of such a spell, continues reading, and notices an imbalance to the entire magical equation that seems to have escaped the Emperor's notice. He is not quite able to work out what would happen if the spell were cast, but he is confident that it would not work the way it was intended.

Meanwhile, Nettie's investigation of the locked chest reveals no traps, and no lock to be picked, but it remains sealed. Trying the key that opened the room, she discovers that the chest was in fact locked with a spell, which the key temporarily negates, revealing a pouch containing 120 gp, an unknown wand, and a spellbook. Inkwell, immediately distracted from the spell notes on the table, takes the spellbook from Nettie and puts it securely in his bag to examine later, then goes back to studying the notes. A quick discussion ensues about what should be reported to the Warden and whether the party is allowed to keep anything found, and the general consensus is that you should not report everything you find. In particular the question of the spellbook is settled when Inkwell looks up from the notes, chirps a dry "What spellbook?", and goes back to his studies with a smirk. Reaching the limits of his ability to understand the spell, Inkwell confirms that it poses no danger and is not directly useful to his studies, and so he is content to leave it for whatever team the city plans to send to clean up once you're done.

Having found quite a bit of value behind the first door, you then turn your attention to the second door. This one also opens with the same key, revealing a slightly larger room with four stone chests, each with a lever in front of it. Concerned about the potential for future danger and their own fragility, Murry, Inkwell, and Rosa remain outside in the main chamber while Nettie, Raimondo, and Skosgreat investigate. The chests are built directly into the floor, and seemingly unopenable by normal means. Nettie voices skepticism, sensing that this may be a trap, but Skosgreat is unable to resist trying at least one of the levers. Reaching for the nearest one, he shifts it to the right, at which point the first chest opens and water begins pouring out. At the same time, the stone door slams shut and locks, trapping the three in the room while the others are locked outside.

Faced with a seemingly endless torrent of water quickly filling the room, Skosgreat attempts to flip the lever back, but is unable to do so. Other levers seem to open more boxes, increasing the speed with which water flows in, but the party is somehow able to flip one of the levers back and close one box. Realizing that you are faced with a puzzle, all three begin trying different levers, searching for a pattern that will allow you to close all of the boxes and stop the alarmingly fast rise of the water. Meanwhile, Murry attempts to blast the door open while Rosa tries to freeze the locking mechanism. Your extremely limited success in dealing damage make it clear that you will not be able to open the door in time to help, and so you begin exploring the surrounding area for other clues. With small amounts of water coming through the door, Murry focuses his attention on the dry fountain in the previous room, thinking that the flow of water must be related to the lack of water in the fountain, but finds no sign of a link. Rosa tries her luck at searching the walls around the trap room, looking for any sign of a hidden switch, but similarly comes up dry.

With the water now almost 3/4 of the way to the 20' ceilings, Nettie, Skosgreat, and Raimondo continue swimming around and diving down to try different levers, hoping to find one that works. Raimondo is able to seal a second chest, but begins to struggle with swimming around in his heavy armor. Skosgreat keeps trying with the first lever, hoping to find some trick, but the awkwardness of trying to brace himself underwater proves too difficult and he keeps slipping. Finally, Nettie is able to figure out a pattern to the levers, and deliberately opens the one remaining chest. All three adventurers and then able to work together to flip both remaining levers, sealing the last two boxes and stopping the rising water. With only a few feet of air remaining, the party then waits to see what will happen, but cannot sense any further movement. Finally, after a few minutes, the door opens, and only Murry's catlike reflexes save him from getting drenched as the water pours out, then down the drain which was carefully covered by the stone door. Investigating that drain, the party concludes that the water is flowing deep underground, far beyond where you are able to see. Adding "underground cavern and river systems" to your list of research topics, the now-dripping party of adventurers make your way back through the necromancer's basement lair, up the ladder to the surface, and reports your success to the waiting Captain Lehnherr.

### Debrief/Follow-up

As the party emerges, the guard captain visibly decides to ignore your bedraggled state and simply confirms that the basement no longer poses a danger to the city. As one of the guardsmen takes notes on the layout and any remaining dangers for the followup team, Capt. Lehnherr thanks the party for your help, and assigns the injured Lt. Chiara to escort you back to the city center to make a full report to the Town Warden. He doesn't say so explicitly, but Raimondo understands that you are being asked to escort the lieutenant as well, making sure that everyone returns safely and without incident. The captain recommends that you register any items you've found with the Warden as salvage, which allows you to claim them legally so long as the location that you have cleared out is not clearly someone else's property.

> In a situation like this, clearing out a dangerous space where nobody has a specific claim of ownership, anything you find down there and lay claim to belongs to you as salvage. You register it with the Warden's office, so that they have a record of what was down there for investigative purposes, and they'll identify any magic items that you find. They'll also give you face value for any gems and trinkets that you find, so you don't have to worry about haggling with a merchant over what an opal bracelet is worth. Ravenstead isn't a major center for adventurers, but we have enough come through here that we know how to deal fairly with you lot.
>
>

Making your way slowly through the Blackwall, past the Yard and into the City Center, you find Redbeard at his usual table in the Giant Elk Tavern. Lt. Chiara gives her report of the events leading up to your arrival, and various party members chime in to describe the zombie owlbear, the skeletal necromancer, and the various dangers of the basement itself.