He was, of course, at the moment referring to the Curator of the Vesper Museum, Bernadine Snyder, who had persuaded him to put together this expedition. Although Galen knew that he didn't need to impress Joylah, that her devotion was his already and didn't need to be �bought� like that, that did not change his wanting to. He was glad she was there, that she could see him as a leader again, even as he feared for her safety. �How awful of me,� he thought for a moment.

Meravyel was there too. Galen knew the elfmaid well enough to think he detected a certain excited anticipation beneath her affected, calm manner. She, he thought, liked little more than uncovering an unknown. Whether he knew her well enough to be correct was, he knew, an always-open question. While Taeara Mi'aken of the Order of the Silver Rose led people through the entrance quest, Galen addressed the assembled people.

It was a motley crew indeed, consisting of some mercenaries from Felucca (Galen noted with delight several members of the Warriors of Redemption, which he was a member of until recently, in particular their Guild Master Spoz), some elves of Tel'Ruid (aside from Joylah, Galen noticed Galethien and Thrand Graywolf), and many, many others. The group was pushing 30. In this day and age, this was an extremely large gathering.

And they had come at his behest.

Galen led the group through the basic plan . . . To hit the Crypt hard and fast, to keep the area around the stairwell out of the Crypt as clear as possible, to make room for people to function as healers and to revive the unconscious. Mostly, he stressed, again and again, the extremely unknown nature of what they were about to face. If anyone had advanced this past level three, they were keeping mum about it. There was literally nothing written about the evils that lurked in the Crypt in the little that was written about the essentially abandoned and decayed Necromantric Academy of Bedlam.

By all rights, nothing that was down there should exist. There should be no �Champion Altar,� with candles to mark the progress of intrepid adventurers, but there was. There should be no monsters, but, there they were. There should be nothing but an empty crypt, a burial space for some long-forgotten necromancer. Some great teacher, or great champion, of the dark art of necromancy. But there was more than this. There was much, much more. Exactly how much more wasn't known until the group gated out of the Skara Brae Community Center and advanced upon the Crypt.

Like similar such �Champion Spawns,� as they were called, in Ilshenar and Felucca, the evils of the Bedlam Crypt progressed through various levels. The first level consisted of plague spawn and bog things. This set the tone for what was to follow: creatures of decay and entropy. Level two, following the theme of level one, was bog things and plague beasts.

Throughout the fight, the motley crew of explorers generally maintained their composure and fought in a surprisingly organized fashion. Galen was reminded of the first appearance of the Harrower, when he was the first to wound the vile demonic creature, and a similarly motley band of adventurers came to a silent understanding. Such was the case here.

The group was clearly pleased with its performance through levels 1 and 2, even joking with one another in spare moments.

�We're going to get raided!� Spoz said to Galen at one point, a jocular reference to how similar spawns, in Felucca, were often raided by opposing guilds. Galen chuckled and kept on fighting. The stenches of blood, decay, and sweat melded in the enclosed space of the Bedlam Crypt.

Galen had intended to �watch over� Joylah and Meravyel, but the opposite proved to be the case. The two elfmaids were unseen presences, for the most part. The magic words �In Vas Mani� echoing through the air, healing him from damage he didn't feel . . . He rarely felt pain anymore, which was why the occasional aches in his joints and his chest frightened him so. An arrow whistling dangerously close to Galen's ear, smiting a foe advancing from his flank that he didn't see. The unexpected and welcome assistance of a swarm of insects, summoned by elvish magical forces, or the animated corpse of a fallen foe, summoned by the art of necromancy. A proud smile, encouraging him on.

As the spawn progressed through level 2, Galen became increasingly nervous. As an experienced warrior, he knew that level 3 was what determined success or failure. Generally, if you could survive level 3, you could survive level 4.

So intent was he upon thinking of this, that he was caught off-guard by level 3 when it actually spawned. Greater plague beasts, referred to commonly as �plague beast lords,� and smaller versions of the vile fiend known as the �grizzle,� which ruled over the ruins of Bedlam with a foul, iron fist. They shared with their giant cousin the ability to encase their foes in a fiery ooze, which burned skin and armor, and turned even the most powerful weapons to pools of deadly, molten metal.

The healers, standing by the end of the stairwell, were increasingly pressed by encroaching creatures, and pressured by an increasing load of wounds to tend to. Things were getting bad.

Without being ordered to do so, without so much as a word to this effect between them, the group cast magical walls and fields to hold the monsters out, to preserve the healers' area. One grizzle broke through, and was advancing on Joylah with malicious intent before Galen beheaded it. Galen noted that the blood of the Grizzles scarred the ground briefly before the air turned it into a harmless, if slippery, liquid.

Galen was amazed by how this ad hoc group of people maintained their collective wits about them, and fought as one despite the mounting odds. When level 3 spawned, and Galen saw the powerful beasts that heralded it, he had begun to lose trust in the endeavor. Those who had to face these powerful beasts, for no obvious reward other than helping the museum and being a part of history, seemingly did not lose faith, however. Athena of the Warriors of Redemption, indeed, seemed almost serene as she casually dispatched her foes with magic and the assistance of powerful animals at her command. Spoz, as calm and professional as always, simply smashed creatures into oblivion with his Berserker's Maul, sometimes seemingly with a single, powerful blow. Meravyel's arrows sliced the air around them, as they dropped the creatures at an almost alarming rate. Meravyel discovered that the plague beast lords were, like their overland equivalents, vulnerable to the paralysis spell, and she and Galen spread the word as quickly as they could. Mages would cast the spell, then Meravyel or some other warrior would run up to the beast and slice it wide open, spilling its insides all over the floor. Galen quickly grew acustomed to standing in the pool of filth as he battled the grizzles.

The flickering on of the candles surrounding the altar let Galen know that the spawn was advancing, albeit slowly. It was getting rough, but the endeavor proceeded. His chosen weapon for the night, the Breath of the Dead, once the blade of a long-forgotten necro-warrior, whistled through the air, its magic helping to keep him alive as he dispatched foe after foe, his strange, magical steed carrying him speedily from one end of the crypt to the other. He had grown cold early on in the evening, the dank, chill air of the Crypt bothering him, and had slipped on the hooded shroud Joylah had given him. He wondered, briefly, what an image he made, a Paladin, wielding a dark-colored necromancer's weapon, atop an obviously undead mount, shrouded in a dark, hooded robe.

Almost before Galen realized: level four spawned, consisting of fetid, green clouds, the same type that he had fought before in the Prism of Light, assisting the foul crystalline entity that reigned there, and mummies of a sort. The clouds had just enough physical substance to be attacked with weapons, but barely so.

After the armor-scorching attacks of the grizzles, however, level four seemd easy by comparison, despite the foul stench and powerful attacks of the clouds. The level passed quickly.

And, almost before he realized it, the champion of the crypt was before him, standing on its altar, at the center of its realm. Like the beast, known as the �Monstrous Grizzle,� that now effecitvely ruled over Bedlam itself, this creature was a large grizzle, oozing with malicious intent, its skin crawling with a fiery decay. Galen wondered quickly if the beast was, like its obvious cousin, a necromantric construct that had gotten away from the evil men who had made it. There was no way to tell.

Galen eyed the fiend with the weary eyes of an experienced warrior. Through its seemingly empty eye sockets, it somehow seemed to see him too. �Hello,� Galen said, and attacked it.

Its powerful arms knocked Galen from his mount, breaking his ribs. He somehow managed to land on his feet, and responded by smacking the beast in the jaw wish his shield, and executing a powerful slash across the creature's foul chest that paralyzed it for a moment. The creature bled acidic blood, like its lesser cousins, the grizzles, did. It struck a powerful blow across Galen's face, nearly breaking his neck, and opening up a cut on his eyebrow. Galen's own blood obscured his vision. It then advanced on Galen. Half seeing the creature through his bloody vision, Galen swung carefully, in a high, wide arc, and severed one of the fiend's horns. The creature emitted a barbaric, malicious holw of pain and what seemed like astonishment. Acidic blood spurted from its head, where Galen had severed its horn. The blood landed on Galen's breastplate, melted through it, and scarred his skin. Ignoring the searing pain, Galen smiled at the creature, as several energy vortexes, cast by the mages, advanced upon it. Beset by the vortexes, the creature was held in place.

The vortexes were doing great damage to the creature, and it howled again. An animal tamer, Galen wasn't sure who it was, set a cu sidhe on the fiend. The powerful animal began to rend the fiend limb from limb, literally.

Galen lit a nightshade cigarette, his first since seeing Meravyel at the the tower of The Arcane Order the night of the Order's �Twelvth Night� celebration, and watched it die as mages and animal tamers finished it off. Healers ran up and bound Galen's considerable wounds. The nightshade smoke rose into the air, from underneath his hood.

�Goodbye,� he said, watching the fiend die, with horrible, unholy screams, so soon after it was awakened. His voice was cold, professional.

It was done. �On behalf of the Vesper Museum, I thank you all,� Galen yelled several times. There had been no discernible reward for this, for being a part of history. And Galen wanted those who had come to know that, no matter what, they at least had gratitude.

For most of them, indeed, that, and simply being part of history, seemed to be enough.

Galen walked over to the corpse of the champion, staring at it, prodding it with the Breath of the Dead, attempting to ensure that the creature wouldn't rise and attack them anew, and attempting to discern anything he could about the nature of the fiend. He looked down and saw the horn he had severed. He picked it up, and wrapped it in cloth, and put it in his pack. This would be the relic, the proof, the Vesper Museum had requested.

Galen looked up and saw Joylah, smiling at him. He smiled back, his face taking on the characteristic shyness it sometimes did when he smiled at her. Seeing that he was alright, she proceeded to make sure the other elves were as well. He watched her until he knew she had safely left the Crypt.

As the remaining spawn was felled, and all loot that could be had was taken, people slowly departed, many of them congratulating Galen for bringing this group together, an eerie quiet slowly descended upon the Crypt. If the monsters would re-spawn on their own or not, Galen didn't know, but at the moment they weren't. The Crypt was, for the moment, what crypts were supposed to be: resting places. Galen saw now how much the Crypt, curiously, resembled a lecture hall. Bookshelves on the walls, benches for students, the Spawn altar where the lecturer would have stood. Curious, because the place was also most definitely a crypt.

Spoz of the Warriors of Redemption, Galen, and Meravyel remained behind for a time. A few others were mulling around as well, marveling, as Galen was, at the historic nature of what they had done.

Spoz gestured to the fiend's corpse with his Berserker's Maul. �It was fun,� he said.

Galen chuckled. It was hard, sometimes, to forget that Spoz was no longer his Guild Master. �Thank you,� he half-said, half-muttered. Galen knew Spoz's tone. Like Galen himself, Spoz probably didn't intend on doing this again. It had been a rough ride.

"I now understand why there was no mention of this place," Galen mused, his cigarette still dangling from his lips. He inhaled the foul nightshade smoke, was reminded why he was attempting to quit. He promptly extinquished the cigarette. "There is naught here but death.�

• The Deep Places of the World: The Crypt of the Tainted, p2 Meravyel Anardai 08:30:49 pm, 1/11/6 (2)
  • Re: The Deep Places of the World: The Crypt of the Tainted, p2 Adrian Ventura 11:45:37 pm, 1/11/6 (1)
    • Re: The Deep Places of the World: The Crypt of the Tainted, p2 Galen 09:00:23 am, 1/13/6 (0)