Eldur unleashed

Underground

Will this be the day I remember as the start of Eldur's fall? Or does it signify his rise into the bright wizards' upper echelons, where power trumps sanity and the mighty are forgiven their transgressions, simply because they are mighty and too useful? 

Either way, it's quickly becoming clear that my brother is a powder keg, in many ways. There's tremendous power there, but it's also incredibly volatile. A fitting analogy for Eldur. 

It started out in the very useful way. Talian snuck ahead to scout. He came back to tell us there were around 20-30 minor undead up ahead, with some sort of glowing figure in the middle. We discussed how to best deal with them, when Eldur just started chanting - loudly. The inflection in his voice is different now. It's almost as if he's chanting in several voices at the same time, from bass tones to the highest tenor. But the worst part is...some of the sounds he makes definitely don't sound human. Especially if he's building up to something like The Great Fires, which I've learned is the name of his biggest "spell". 

So Eldur chants for 20 seconds or so, then simply walks towards the undead and incinerates ALL OF THEM. Probably would have been a decently tough fight otherwise. 

Of course, even when his magic works, there's sometimes...side effects. Like the walls and ceiling melting and partway caving in, or the absolutely horrific stench of burning undead and sewer gas. The poor elf with his exceptional sense of smell must be dying on the inside, but of course doesn't show a sliver of emotion. 

After a while, everything's cooled down enough for us to traverse the rubble. We move on ahead, when Torgil points out that the walls seem almost...translucent. He sticks his hand inside the wall, before hurriedly removing it. Worse, a few meters ahead of us, we can see that the floor is translucent as well...and that there's just a giant cauldron of undead, moaning and swimming about. On top of that, they seem to be moving in a purposeful way. It takes me a few moments, but when I realize what they're up to my blood freezes to ice. They're assembling themselves into some sort of giant monstrosity. The left leg alone seems to be composed of a hundred of them, or more. 

We run the other way, some more in control of themselves than others. At a safe distance, we discuss how to deal with this. Eldur and Johanna think there's only one way: to stop the ritual. So, the original plan it is then. 

The cemetery

After moving through some more corridors, we finally find an exit. Talian sneaks up to observe. Even the elf seems a bit more pale when he comes back and tells us there are 1500-2000 undead milling about the cemetery and around 40-50 Jesters on the wall, armed with guns. There are sounds of battle coming from further away. To top it of, there are around 20 undead in the middle, feeding that godsdamned professor with magical energy. He seems entirely lost, almost entirely translucent. I don't think he'll be coming back from this...

The situation seems impossible - so we clearly need to find a way to alter the situation. After some discussion, a daring plan forms. We'll head to the tower furthest away from the Jesters, sneaking and sprinting. If we're lucky, we think we might avoid any of the simple undead - and more importantly, avoid be seen by the Jesters and major undead. 

Talian and me go first, sneaking effortlessly to the tower without being spotted. He climbs up, and the rest quickly follow. Everything seems to be going according to plan, before it's our Elder's turn...and naturally she f***s it up. CLINKING along in her armor, stubbing her toe and letting out an inadvertent curse, she just can't stay silent even when her life depends on it! She's quickly swarmed by 8-10 zombies and skeletons, but we manage to drag her up (a bit roughly) with a rope. 

Once we're up there, we take a careful look at our surroundings. We can see that there are four towers surrounding the cemetery, with the Jesters all lined up on the wall furthest away from us. In the tower directly opposite ours, there seems to be several cannons ready to fire. 

Our tower is on the outer wall, and looking in towards the city, we can see another 10-12 Jesters defending the next tower, firing upon what looks to be city guards and/or the military/navy/army (sorry, not my forte). There's a trapdoor leading down to what we discover is both a secure location, supply place (again!) and ammo stash. It's also possible to move between the towers inside the wall itself from this room, avoiding both curious looks and attacks. Meanwhile, we can see the cannons being fired directly into the next quadrant now, and the fighting seems to be moving in our direction. Good! 

A plan starts to form to change the situation to our advantage. We'll attack the Jesters in the next tower from behind, taking them out with the help of the guards. Then, we'll team up with the guards and move towards the cannon tower, using them to blast the undead in the middle. If that doesn't work (they seem kind of...magical), we'll use the cannons to mow down the undead on the ground and the Jesters on the wall, making way for the city forces to move in. Hopefully including some priest and wizards to deal with the prof and the major undead...

I start believing we might actually have a shot at this! Then, we see five Jesters moving from the cannon tower to the next one over, carrying crates and sacks, clearly to gather ammo. We decide to take them out to slow the Jesters down and spare the city forces. And that's when everything starts going to utter shit....

We run inside the wall, me and Talian charging ahead. We surprise two of them, Talian taking out one of them and me wounding the other badly before he retreats upstairs and they slam the trapdoor down. Damn...But Torgil bravely sprints up, takes a beating as only he can and allows the rest of us the join the fight. 

Things go south

We're slowly turning the fight in our favor, when all of a sudden the tower we came from blows up in a spectacular explosion, fire raining everywhere! I look down and see brother dearest with a near crazed look in his eyes, grinning and clearly very pleased with himself. Johanna looks absolutely shocked. What's worse, he starts chanting again...

I scream for him to stop, but it's too late. Another Great Fires finds its way towards the cannon tower, which explodes in similar fashion, this time with the added bonus of agonized cries from the Jesters. I peek outside, and my worst fears are confirmed: the major undead (spectres? ghosts?) have noticed Eldur's magics. 5 of them come flying towards at great speed. I just scream "ruuuuun, they're coming!!!", and we run away, panicked. 

Our plan is completely ruined, and in our panic, we choose the worst direction to flee in - towards the cannon tower. The undead fly right through the walls, we make our way to the door inside the walls and find ourselves surrounded by almost 30 Jesters. We surrender and are beaten to a pulp...

Prisoners

...and wake up in a dungeon, chained to the wall. All of us are covered in blood, cuts and bruises, in addition to the raw sewer still clinging to what's left of our clothes. A lovely sight I must make. Eldur moans and wakes up as well, eventually. My eyes shoot daggers at him, and I growl "this time you've gone too far, brother". He barely seems to register what I say. Best to bring it up later. 

We take stock of our situation. All of us are chained, along with 8 other prisoners. 2 Jesters are outside the cell, keeping watch. There seems to be no way out. 

We wonder why we're still alive, but after some time, it becomes apparent why. Charlotte comes gliding down the stairs, all smiles. She tries to convince us to join our side (except Eldur, who seems destined for endless torture, given the damage he caused)...before offering us The Potion. Johanna and the others spit in her face, while I give it consideration - at least on the outside. I've had an idea, so it's time to act upon it. 

Half an hour after Charlotte's gone, I plead with the youngest guard (a man, of course) to please, please let me relieve myself in privacy, putting all my anguish and tears to work. It works, of course, and he takes pity on me and brings me outside. I pray to Ranald to show me an out or a sliver of one. 

There are undead everywhere, randomly roaming around in bands. They seem to ignore the Jesters entirely, who are also all around. There are giant barricades further down the road. I'm taken to a latrine and left to my own devices inside. For once I'm happy to be drenched in sewer sludge, otherwise I'm afraid that the guard would take extra advantage of me. 

[De vanlige problemene med kompliserte bilder og chatGPT, men kul stemning imo!]

Getaway

And lo and behold - Ranald answers! Peering inside the latrine, I find a butter knife barely glinting in the muck. I quickly grab it and hide it inside what's left of my clothes. Once I get back, I ask one of the soldiers if he knows how to use one of these to pick the locks of our shackles. He doesn't...but Gustav the thief does. He's really good at his job, and one by one, we're free and get ready to surprise the guards. 

I put the last part of my plan in action, and poor Johan is too gullible to see through my ruse. I ask him to come inside and help me drink the potion - and he complies. My smiling and thankful face is the last thing he sees in this world before Johanna stabs him through the throat with a broken glass bottle, and his battle brother soon follows. 

Gustav proves useful in more than one way, and says he knows a secret entrance in the wall not far from here. Me and Johanna dress up as Jesters and the rest pretend to be prisoners in a chain gang. Not a very tall order, given our state. 

We successfully sneak away, the soldiers and the rest go on their merry way and we go find the ratcatcher dwarf. He's a tad surprised seeing us come the other way! We make our way back to the toilet besides the inn we started at and get rooms there - and some Shallyah-be-blessed baths! 

The rest tuck in while me and Johanna go meet the spymaster. After much discussion, we end up undecided. We could try to expose Charlotte, but fear the magical hold she probably has on the baron. We could try to just kill her. Regardless, if we can get her out of the way, we think we can convince von Schlüssel to stop using all his resources on protecting the 2nd fleet and instead focus on killing the undead. We'd also save the lives of hundreds if not thousands. 

This way, the chalice won't have to leave Salzenmund. There is a risk in this approach of course - we might end up using too much time, and the chalice might leave Salzenmund anyway. 

But then again - when has Ranald not smiled upon us, in the end?