Adventure 15, Part 5: The Duchy of Beracul
Golman Village
This was the first stopover in the duchy. It was a litte rough here; there was a frontier feeling about the village with its strong dependency on fur trapping and mining. There seemed to be little in the way of outside trade, other than by Beracul's own citizens. The people were rough and strong, but stooping a little under the heavy tax burden imposed by their Count. The villagers here spoke little of places outside the duchy. If anything the party detected a current of fear among the people, but it was hard to say if that fear was directed towards the presence of such noble visitors or at the count himself.
The following morning the party moved out; this place was unlike the others they'd encountered on their journey.
The City of Furniss
Some of the same fears the party has already run into on Golman persisted here. But the city itself was quite a place. There was a simple beauty to the stoneworks which formed many of the building fronts as they walked towards the city square. This place clearly prided itself on the quality of its masonry; the party knew the people here were famous for this, but there seemed a level of pride in the quality of these buildings.
The square seemed even more impressive than the outer areas of the city; almost as though the ruler wanted to make a statement about the quality of their stonecraft. The party checked into the Farus Inn - which was a very high class, but expensive establishment. The city didn't seem to cater for the average traders, almost like those kinds of visitors were actively discouraged. The Farus Inn was aimed at visiting dignitaries. The cost of accomodation here was twice as much as other places they'd stayed at on the road, but this was also much more exclusive than they'd been used to. As expected, the count soon learned of the party's arrival, and an invite to dine with the count was received later that evening. Unusually they were not invited to join the count that evening, but the location of the count's castle, four or five miles out of the city, made such a journey that night impossible. Instead they'd been invited for the following evening.
The next morning the party had time to kill; they decided to take in as much of the glorious city as they could. A brief visit was made to several of the mining supply companies in the middle of the city, and they spent some time introducing themselves to the mining guild. After they'd done what they believed would be enough to maintain their facade of a mining trade delegation looking for expansion opportunities, they went on to do some sightseeing.
A visit to the catholic church of St Christopher was the highlight of the day. Here the head priest seemed to have been expecting them; and soon exposed the truth of their mission. The chief priest, Holb Emmanus, was clearly no lover of the undead ruling the town or the Kingdom. He'd a passing respect for the King, but had a particular dislike to vampires. He had been working with Count Garramus Hune, aiding many of the Kings spies in the city to undermine the Count. The count, of course, suspected, but with the weight of the church behind him, Holb was a stronger political opponent than many others who would oppose Count Beraculs treatment of his people.
The party confided in him about their mission, and he offered to help in any way he could. What the party really needed was a foolproof method to kill a vampire permanently; Holb had heard of a way, but was quite surprised that this was the party's mission. He told them that the only way to be certain was to decapitate the slumbering vampire and simultaneously drive a stake through its heart. Just to be safe, they should also fill the mouth of the creature with holy wafers. He gave the party a large supply of wafers just to be certain - he was quite prepared to give them as many as they wanted. He did point out that, to be certain that the job was done right, that the stake must be driven through the heart at exactly the same time as decapitating - the party realised that they did not want the vampire to regenerate if they were carrying the head across country to hand to the King.
After this meeting a brief visit to the Temple of the Four followed. They were surprised to see blood stained altars here - the temple was the sight of some unusual sacrifices, and this was an activity they'd not witnessed before now in these places. Asking a few questions about the book of Sumtoth did not get them very far; the local priests were unfamiliar with the tome. The party left straight away.
A quick trip to the bath house followed, this helped them prepare for their meeting with the count later that day.
Dinner with the Count
The hour to depart for dinner soon arrived; the count sent a carriage to save them all a walk to his castle. They passed slowly along the winding and rising road that lead up into the lower slopes of the mountains north of the city. The closer they drew, the more the clouds moved over; a light rain began to fall, which steadily became heavier. As they came within sight of the gatehouse the sound of thunder could be heard above the towers of the stronghold.
The carriage took them through the gates and up to the main building, where the party were met by the count's footman. He lead them inside, to a drawing room next to the dining hall, where they were offered wine, and where they were introduced to the count's wife, Countess Elena Beracul, and another visiting dignitary, Count Mereth Arobren, who was visiting from his duchy to the north-east of Beracul. Elena was a well bred lady in her forties, but had a charming manner and soon set the party at their ease.
Eventually the Count Beracul himself arrived; he was a very polite, and almost jovial host; he soon invited them all his guests to join him at the dinner table. They all went into the smoky dining hall, lit by many candles and by a large fire in the hearth which keept the room very warm. The meal was served, and along with it came more wine.
Conversation over dinner ranged from the merits of the Duchy's mining industry, to its masonry craftsmen; the party's plans for new mines were the subject of much discussion. The Count seemed pleased with their ideas - he had though that there was always more room for ore and stone mining around the mountains of his land, and more tax income for himself was always very welcome. As the evening progressed the party relaxed more and more; maybe too much for Jim and Formil who seemed to take more of the wine than was good for them. After the meal, as they all relaxed at the table and discussed their early careers - and Formil let slip that they were on a special mission for the King. The others tried to cover his slip; the Count seemed not to notice - not even a raised eyebrow - but it was done. The party had given away part of their secret to their arch enemy.
Shortly, the party retired to their rooms in the castle, but Fax, Randy and Insorce decided to return to the dining area to gauge the effect of Formils lack of discretion. Jim and Formil stayed in their rooms to try and clear their heads of the excesses of alcohol that they'd drunk.
As the visitors drew close to the dining room, they ran into Count Arobren, who seemed to be heading back towards the guest quarters. They stood and chatted for a little while before Fax tried to raise subject of suspicions about Beracul. He tried to subtlely let Mereth know that the count was a vampire, and that he could not be trusted. His most leading question was to ask if Mereth would like some of the success that Beracul had enjoyed for so long, that if he was to help them with their task that maybe the King would see fit to redistribute parts of the Beracul duchy, and maybe some of the valuable mining and stoneworking trade, to Arobren's care. Arobren saw things differently to the party. Why, he asked, would one of Beracul's closes friends and advisors want to take over from his mentor? Why would another vampire want to take Beracul's lands. The party backed off but could not avoid a fight. Fortunately for them, the count could missed his first blows against Fax, who had been handling the talking, before Insorce managed to turn him back; Mereth changed to a cloud of gas and drifted away. The friends hastily returned to their room to collect Jim and Formil before returning back to the dining area to confront Beracul; their cover was now truly blown.
Final Confrontations
They returned down the stairs, and as they approached the dining area this time they saw the Countess ahead of them down the corridor. Unsure about her motives they moved forward and she approached. It was soon apparent that she was a part of the Count's nefarious scheme. She turned on the charm at first, hitting first Fax, then Formil with the dominating power of her vampire will. But now the trap was sprung; guards entered each end of the corridor in which they stood, and the fight proper with the countess was joined. She fell quite easily, the axe of Formil Ironnut ending her waking state - she turned to a cloud of gas and left the scene. The guards tried to move in, but those behind soon became entangled in Randy's Web spell; Formil advanced to engage those ahead. The fight at that end drew on longer than he'd have liked, but not too long to cause danger to his companions. By the time he'd dealt with them, those behind were just fighting free of the sticky web, he made his way over. Randy and Fax had made short work of the first one free, and he was finished off as Formil engaged him in combat (but he had not an axe mark upon him). As Formil moved over to the other free guard, Randy dropped the web, and the final guard also became free. The remaining fight was very short. Formil was now into his stride and slew these last two with aplomb; he was turning this from plain butchery into a pure art form.
They moved on; heading into the dining room where it was now becoming dark as the candles were slowly burning out. A search through the servant's doorway did not help them find the count - even his servants had disappeared. As they headed back into the dining area, they noticed flickering firelight coming from the side room where they'd originally met the Count and Countess. They went inside.
Seated with their backs to the door in the high-backed luxurious armchairs were Count Beracul and his friend Count Arobren. As the party entered, the count greeted them. "Come in, my friends, I've been expecting you", he said, as both vampires rose to their feet and turned to face them.
Jim was first into the fray, quickly followed by Formil before the magic flew. Both these heroes were hit in the fighting, the energy drain affecting them but not deterring their enthusiasm. When Beracul finally succumbed to the axe of Formil, his friend retreated. The party let out a collective sigh. They knew the Count would be harmless now until dawn, and they needed to find his body before he recovered. They expected this search to be hampered by Count Arobren.
The search was slow. Much of the castle had not seen use for some time, and this made searching hard going. Four hours after their search began, the party found a secret chamber behind one of the cellars. It's underground complex led to a guard chamber; they knew they were on the right path now, there were six of the Count's guards here - again Formil and Jim dived into the fight. While these guards were easily handled by Formil, they were taking time. Behind him, and in the corridor right in front of Randy, the cloud of gas that was Count Arobren re-formed into the vampire. He hit Randy, and he fell, almost dead.
Immediately Formil was on the Vampire. There was no chance to finish Randy off while he contended with the dwarf's axe, and to complicate things further, Fax moved up and attacked with his spear. While Insorce healed the suffering Randy, Jim fell in the room; his opponent was a guard, who went to aid the Count in his fight with Formil.
Formil was hit again; this time he was really feeling it. Insorce stepped up and turned the vampire once more; the party needed some breathing space and a chance to recover. The vampire was trapped in the corridor between Formil and Fax, and turned back to a cloud of gas once more. The party gave a collective sigh of relief, but turned immediately to other matters - they had to find Count Beracul's body and deal with it before dawn, and had only a minute until Count Arobren returned.
The secret door at the back of the cellar chamber was easy to spot, but took Formil precious seconds to open; it was stiff and had not been used for some time. While he struggled with this, Insorce handed more healing out to the party, but they looked bad. Jim and Randy were being carried, they could do nothing else without more healing. Throwing some lamp oil onto the door mechanism and using brute force, Formil finally opened the door. They ran through, down some more steps and up to what appeared to be a sturdy wooden cell door. This passageway had not been walked for many years, the dust and cobwebs hung thickly from the ceiling.
The door was tight - Formil hit it hard with his shoulder, and it shuddered but held. Twice more, and it gave, budging only slightly at first, but with more force it scraped its way open. Inside this room were two low stone tables. Upon each table was a wooden box. The party entered and opened them; inside each, apparently asleep, were the Count and Countess Beracul.
They noticed a swirl of smoky air around them. They knew what was happening. Away in the corner of the room, right next to Insorce, appeared the Count Arobren. Another fight broke out. Insorce hit and backed away, as did Fax, who moved to sling range across the room, before Formil, using the magical haste provided by Randy before he fell, moved round Count Beracul's coffin to engage Count Arobren in hand to hand combat. He was hit again, but this time the fight was much shorter. They did it, Arobren was badly hurt, and Formil had survived his attacks.
The party gathered themselves for a retreat. They killed both vampires by slicing off their heads and driving stakes through their their hearts (doing this at the same time caused some co-ordination headaches, but was achieved); packing the Count's head into Formil's pack, they made their way back to the ground floor level of the castle.
Escaping the City
They expected that getting out of the castle may prove difficult, but it was not. They hid the bodies of the guards that had been left in corridors where the various fights had taken place, they wanted to delay the discovery of the castles problems by the household staff. They made their way into the courtyard, and were surprised to find the main gate already open; it looked like the count had no security problems. In the stabling, near the entrance, the party could on find heavy horses and an ornate carriage, the stables used by the guards must be elsewhere, they figured. They quickly pulled out the carriage and hooked up the horses. They climbed aboard as daylight spread across the sky, and flew as quickly as the rickety carriage would allow down the mountainside back towards the city.
As they drew near, the city walls they saw behind them along the road, the figure of a horseman riding hard. The pressed on into the town, they knew they had to be lost among the crowd before he arrived. There was no trouble at the gate, the Counts carriage is always waved through, so they drove straight to the square and dumped it outside their inn. They needed a place of refuge; they decided that the Church would probably be a good place, the priest was helpful the day before, and had been assisting the King's agents for some time. He agreed to shelter the party, and he even had enough Restoration spells to help the party heal all their lost levels.
Outside an angry mob had gathered, complete with pitchforks and wooden torches. As the mob headed out to the castle, the party continued to lay low. The following day, the church sent a couple of acolytes out to the inn to recover the party's horses, and while the mob was still in full force off to the North of the city, the party slipped off to the west, out through the city gate. Riding hard they put as much distance between themselves and Furniss as they could.
They passed through Golman village, left Berecol Duchy, and camped out on the road while they rested the horses and grabbed some sleep.
Another Meeting with the King
The first stop on their journey back was a visit to Count Garramus Hune whom they had met and been helped by on their journey through. He was very pleased that their mission had been a success, and held a banquet for the heroes. He hadn't thought them strong enough to deal with this adversary.
Eventually the party returned to the hall of the Lich King, and presented him with his prize. He was extremely pleased, and made sure the party knew. All he had to do next was leave the party in the hands of his wizards. The magic users were not quite ready, however, althought their investigations had gone well. They asked for another couple of days, but didn't think that the party would mind this, as they had already been stuck in this limbo for 10 months. The party now had two days to kill, and they spent their time relaxing in their luxurious hotel.