The Cave Of The Undead

After we bury the dead and feast our victory of the Lightning Lizards with a goat buffet fit for a king – thanks to Jarl’s talents, equally impressive at the pots as at threadweaving – we continue with our journey. Sadly, it’s not too long before our water supply starts dwindling. The search for water becomes paramount. Jarl and I go hunting and manage to stumble upon a puddle of unidentifiable contents. Should we risk our luck and drink it? We decide against – although we do allow our horses to partake of some of the liquid.
As it happens, we were right not to risk it as the horses ended up very poorly later in the day. Whether through the mysterious liquid or simply through fatigue, it was impossible to determine. But thank the Passions, they soon returned to their former self and the following day we set off on our journey once more.
Around the afternoon we discover a beaten path leading to what looks like a small village. As we draw closer, we hear the ringing of a bell and see women rushing their kids indoors, bolting up their doors and windows. Can it be that us five adventurers instill such fear in the heart of these simple villagers? We walk up to the cluster of huts, warily. The villagers bow in our direction, equally warily. We decide to clarify our position as Jarl and myself explain how we have just conquered the Lightning Lizards and vindicated the death of the shepherd living some way off. A certain Lybaden seems to take leadership and informs us that we were welcome as long as we didn’t cause any trouble.
Mindful of our horses’ plight, we request access to water and lead the beasts to a trough. While the beasts lap at the water thirstily, Lybaden introduces us to Darren, who turns out to be the second in command. We learn that this Darren has a quest to entrust us with – there is a good reason why the villagers are in the throes of fear. Someone, or something, has kidnapped a little girl called Myra while she was playing in the woods with two of her friends. A search party that was sent out for her never came back.
Although we feel sorry for the girl we are tempted to refuse this quest. We are still tired from the previous fight and the story recounted by Darren is certainly a spooky one. We smell dangers ahead, possibly even the dreaded Horrors. Darren’s words, however, strike straight at our Heroes’ Hearts. What kind of heroes would we be if we refused these villagers our assistance? And so, with a heavy heart, we decided to find out more from the two children, Beth and Enolu, who were with Myra at the time of her disappearance.
Despite using my best charms on them, the little ones cannot remember much. They talk of a flash of light, their friend laughing and suddenly disappearing. Another eleven people went missing while searching for her. There is nothing left for us to do but embark into these woods.
Sure enough, before long we see what looks like a small light fairy flying in our direction – followed by others. At first glance they appear to be little will’o the wisps, filled with energy, created for the specific purpose of doing some mage’s bidding. Realised like this, they can do a lot of damage. Especially to me, as they happen to have the power of flight – or rather air flotation – and can easily damage me when other creatures can’t get near me. I feel a flicker of doubt and it’s only the fact that my four fellow adventurers are flanking me that keeps me from abandoning the quest.
The light fairies don’t take long to attack. Although I do my best to wound them, I fail miserably and before I know it I’m wounded. Thankfully Elessar, Ahmok and Ivor seem to have more luck and before the creatures cause too much damage they get beaten. Ivor even manage to knock one unconscious so that Jarl can imprison it in one of his famous ‘jarls’. You never know when such a creature might come in useful after all…
Some metres away we see a pit, with bodies inside it. This is, then, what happened to the search party. We descend in this pit and discover that it seems to be an inverted pyramid structure, sloping into the ground. We go inside this dungeon like building and are soon stopped by a huge body of water. Ahmok, blessed with underwater breathing, manages to scout underwater and to find a hidden labyrinth as it were. Panic ensues with the discovery of what Ahmok believed to be a dead body in an air pocket – when the zombie like creature lashes out at him and follows we fear the worst but Ahmok ably gets rid of this Cadaver Man.
We realise that there’s only one thing for it: we have to go under the water to find out more. The only problem, of course, being that windlings are notoriously bad swimmers. Although Ahmok helps me find my way in the underwater passage, the swim takes its toll on my poor body and when we get to the first airpocket I’m gasping for air. Finally we make it into what appears to be a big library-like room, adorned with the statues of the 12 Passions. I offer a silent prayer to Astendar. The books are rotting. As we explore, we realise that two bodies that we thought were dead were also Cadaver Men. We look at each other, resigned to another fight with these creatures.