Episode Three - Who Needs Enemies?

Introduction

In episode 2, our heroes Clancy, Skelly, and Erin managed to secure the Talim-Beothainn, a powerful and vile artifact that had been raising corpses to unlife and plaguing Batterglais, from its underground resting place.  Knowing that it must be destroyed, they took this object of evil magic to Keira, the local high priestess of Aoife.  Unable to find any way to dispel the corrupting power of the artifact, Keira instead made a protective case for it, on to which she placed her most powerful enchantments and sanctifying wards in an attempt to at least contain its influence.

Then, in reward for and acknowledgment of her recent accomplishments, Keira bestowed upon Erin the rank of full Priestess.  Soon after the ritual, however, Keira informed them that she was going to leave immediately to investigate possible solutions to the artifact.  While she would be searching for people that might have the power or knowledge to destroy it, Erin would have responsibility to run the temple and ultimately to also watch over the artifact itself.  Merely an hour after the ceremony, Keira left the temple on her quest.

The next day, a band of heavily armed men presented themselves at the northern gate.  They were emissaries from the church of Idris, sent by Bishop Godric Azreel to help bring peace and order to the outlying areas of Locklin.  Leading the group was Steward Egan Albany, a young cleric within the church of Idris.  His companions were a squad of Deacons, the military arm of the church.

Idris is known as the "fierce lord", and he is a god of order and discipline.  His church is highly hierarchical, and in the midst of the chaos following the appearance of the vaporous wall, Bishop Azreel stepped up and invoked order upon the capital city of Branard.  In the conspicuous absence of the worthless Baron, the church replaced the civil government and authorities almost overnight.  With Branard now restored to order, it was time to extend Idris' firm discipline to the anarchistic outlying areas.  Egan Albany was therefore promoted to the rank of Steward and given Batterglais as his first parish.

When Egan found himself faced not with disorganized and harried townsfolk happy to welcome him as savior, but rather with an organized and well-trained militia preventing his entry into the village, he became frustrated and defensive.  By the time that Skelly and Clancy arrived at the gate, the large Steward was demanding entry into town so that he could establish his church there.

Skelly managed to calm him down and negotiate his entry into Batterglais.  The characters also confirmed their understanding that the entire area of Locklin had been sealed off from the outside world by the acidic wall of mist.  Egan also told them of how the Idrisite Church had restored order to Branard while Baron Alastair Locke remained hidden away in his palatial keep.

Over the next few days, Egan and his contingent managed to buy some land near the center of town and began constructing a church.  Egan also began to make his way around town, meeting the people and continually extolling the virtues of his church.

During this time, Erin was becoming more and more paranoid about the Talim-Beothainn.  She had not left the temple since Keira left, and had even resorted to sleeping in the same chamber as the artifact for the last few nights.  The arrival of the Idrisites and their activities in town seemed barely to faze her, and she was becoming increasingly jumpy and irritable, convinced that something bad was going to happen.  Clancy spoke with her privately, assuring her that it was merely the weight of her new responsibility that was making her feel that way.  He convinced her to at least sleep in her room at the temple that night, and promised that he would always be there if anything should happen.

The Abduction

The next day, Clancy awoke with a persistent headache that nagged at him all day.  That night, just as the quiet town began to retire for the evening, a commotion exploded in the center of town.  When Skelly and Clancy arrived at the scene, one building was on fire and two townsfolk were lying on the ground nearby, charred and dying.  Panicked witnesses claimed that "a monster jumped out of the shadows and breathed fire on them". 

The Idrisite deacons and the town militia both quickly responded to keep control of the crowd, and the tension was thick with promised conflict between the two groups.  Egan didn't help matters, talking down to the townsfolk and supposing that it was probably just caused by some of the "Aoifeness pagans... who like to play with fire."

Meanwhile, Clancy had found a strange set of tracks where the witnesses had pointed.  Oddly, however, they seemed to suddenly disappear without any trace.  Then, out of the dark evening sky, a flaming object fell directly onto one of the deacons.  The object was actually the body of a young man, mangled and missing its left arm completely.  The crowd began to scatter as the young deacon screamed in horror.  Then suddenly, swooping down from above, a terrible, three-headed beast roared and unleashed another gout of flame.  Despite the chaos of the ensuing battle and the horror of facing such an abominable monster, Skelly and Clancy were able to pull it together and, with Egan's competent help, defeat the beast.  

The militia then organized efforts to put out the fire still raging through the Wheelwright's shop.  Egan, seeing far more in the young pair of sheriffs than he expected, began to congratulate them when Clancy suddenly screamed, clutched his head, and collapsed.

In a vision, he saw Erin pacing anxiously in the room with the Talim-Beothainn.  Suddenly, one of the walls burst open and a mass of undead warriors poured through.  As they grabbed and subdued the young Priestess, a man dressed in black robes and wearing a skeletal mask strode into the chamber.  He walked over to the pedestal and grabbed the artifact, then moved to where Erin was being held by his undead minions.  He struck her repeatedly with the golden rod, laughing the whole time.  He then left the way he came, followed by his zombie hoard carrying Erin's limp body.

Clancy awoke suddenly with another scream.  Before he could even gather his wits to answer Skelly and Egan's questions, however, a town guard ran up and told them that the Temple was on fire.  In a mad, furious rush, Clancy led the other two young adventurers to the Temple of Aoife, which was already engulfed in flame.  Clancy barely paused at the open door, then charged into the raging inferno.  Fighting through the oppressive heat and dangerous flames, he found that both the Talim-Beothainn and his beloved Erin were missing.

Managing to calm himself enough to focus on the surrounding area, Clancy soon picked up the trail of shuffling, undead feat heading off into the forest.  He, Skelly, Egan, and most of the deacons followed it, soon realizing that it eventually veered off and again headed back into town.  They caught up with the gaggle of undead just as they began to resume their attack on the beleaguered village.  The group of adventurers struck down the mindless monsters quickly, then realizing that neither the necromancer nor Erin were with them.

Doubling back along the trail, Clancy eventually found where a lone set of tracks veered off from the rest of the undead band.  Following the trail in the darkness, Clancy, Skelly, and Egan soon found their way to a nearby abandoned farm.  Entering the farmhouse itself, they found the skeletal remains of a woman who had clearly been bound and abused before being killed.  A strange, ethereal shroud seemed to hover over the corpse, which seemingly aroused and began to wail as the characters entered the kitchen.  Egan led the fight against this frightening, ghostly being, eventually defeating it and granting it the rest it had so long been denied.  The rest of the house was empty except for the dessicated bodies of the three children.

The party then proceeded to the barn, where they found the Necromancer in the final stages of raising Elsie the Skeletal Cow and Elmer the Skeletal Farmer to begin reassembling his undead army.  Driven by rage and his love for Erin, Clancy fought like a man posessed.  With support from Skelly's magic and Egan's spinning mace, they managed to defeat the necromancer just before he was able to collapse the Barn on top of them all.  Once again finding no sign of Erin or the artifact, they searched the entire farm again but could find no sign of her at all.

Returning to the necromancer, they tore the skeletal mask from his face only to realize that it was the same "hooded man" who had kidnapped Clancy's younger brother just a few weeks earlier.  Crazed with fury, Clancy almost beat the man to death looking for answers about Erin and the artifact.  Egan and Skelly managed to restrain him, however, and convinced him to take the "hooded man" back to town where they could quesiton him more fully.  

The next morning, Egan healed the necromancer enough to arouse him and the party began to interrogate him.  For hours, he responded only with taunts and curses, sometimes telling them about how easy it was to get the artifact, and how Erin was just a special bonus that we was fortunate to get.  He laughed about how she squealed when he took her, and how they had played a little game of hide-and-seek that she had apparently lost.  In the end, he admits that he buried her, and hints that he got a little bit of a head start from the farmer and his family.

Catching the reference to the cellar, Clancy, Skelly, and Egan returned to the farm, leaving the necromancer in the jail with some of the militia watching him.  In the cellar dug into a nearby hill, all they found was rotting meat, molded vegetables, and an empty hole dug into the sticky mud.  Erin was no where to be found.  And when they returned to town, they found that the necromancer had somehow escaped from his locked cell while the guards turned their backs for merely a second.  

Erin's Return

Still distraught and restless, Clancy wandered through the streets of Batterglais as night began to fall, trying to collect his thoughts and figure out what to do next to find Erin.  Then, out of the shadowy forest, Erin stumbled into town practically right in front of him.  Clancy's head was pounding, but he managed to pick her up and take her to her parents' home.  She did not have the artifact, but said that it was "safe".  Just before exhausted sleep claimed her, she told him about how she had regained consciousness just as the necromancer was preparing to bury her in the cellar.  She "played dead" however, and allowed him to cover her.  Thankfully, the moaning of the woman's spirit disturbed him and he left her, thinking her dead.  She quickly escaped into the woods, where she hid the artifact in case the necromancer discovered her absence.

Erin slept straight through the next day and into the night.  After waiting axiously for her to wake up all day long, Clancy eventually went home tried to get some sleep.  In the middle of the night, he awoke to the sound of someone coming in through his window, immediately arousing and preparing to defend himself.  What he was not prepared for, however, was seeing Erin in the bright moonlight.  She rushed to him, crushing her lips into his, madly tearing at him with a passion they had never before shared.  He tried to question her and what was going on, but she answered only by saying, "Life is too short."  Moments later, they were both consumed with this passion they had repressed for so long, and they finally consummated their budding relationship.

At the climax of his passion, Clancy's head again erupted in pain as he had another vision.  This time, he hovered in the dark cellar of that farm, watching as Erin knealt groggily at the feet of the necromancer.  The "hooded man" leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead, then grabbed her head firmly, twisted it, and snapped her neck.  Clancy screamed as her lifeless body collapsed to the floor, then waking in his own bed as morning light streamed in through his open window...