Ch23 - Wartime

Ch23 - Wartime

Escaping the Shadowfell spat us out in front of the mausoleum, if I'm not wrong, in the game, Shar kept Shart behind to threaten her. But because I pushed everyone through the portal to get my samples, she might've missed it.

I begun checking everyone out, rushing through portals is dangerous, especially if a part of you got stuck. Fortunately, Gale was just a bit sick from the movement, I also think I saw him taste test grass earlier but I could've imagined it.

"Is everyone okay?" I call out, pulling my hag light back out to keep the shadows away. ""Yeh"" "All good soldier" "Fantastic" "I don't know", were my responses, a healthy mixture I would like to say.

"So are we going to moonrise first or are we taking a short break?" I already knew the answer and I was setting up the campfire, we did just rush away from an evil god after all. But I had a different reason for wanting a break, I wanted to give everyone ritual boosts on their stuff.

I started on Astarion's cloth cowl, I used some shadow cursed wood, and a sprinkle of Shadowfell soil. This time I called upon Vecna, god of secrets to bless the ritual, due to my own blessing it barely took a minute to finish.

[Smuggler's Cowl -

A ritual tied cowl, perfect for smugglers. Adds deception Expertise. Full cover is now invisibility, half cover is full cover and no cover is half cover.]

Perfect for Astarion really, next I'll choose Karlach.

This time I used a finger from my Annis hag form, which I will grow back in a day or three, and a sprinkle of soil from the shadowfell. Instead of a cowl, I used her greataxe and called upon Tempus, god of war.

[Axe of the Warlord -

A ritual-tied axe, designed for those in outnumbered battles. Damage increases by 5% for every hostile enemy attacker]

I'm almost tempted to put her back into the blood war, just out of curiosity. Wyll, Halsin Shart, Lae'zel and Gale are left now. For Wyll, I infused his rapier with dark elements like the others to make:

[Rapier of Malice-

A ritual infused rapier, created to inflict excess pain. A small barbed tip causes bleeding on opponents, and for causing a bleeding opponent, the wielder gains 5 extra hitpoints (stackable)]

Halsin got some shadow cursed, wood and a green hag eye. [Grow more eyes] was used for the final material. It was infused into a quarterstaff for him.

[Dark fey staff-

Ritual infused quarterstaff. Evil essence permeates it, offering no ill will to the wielder. However, fey enemies will face disadvantage and the wielder has a chance to charm anyone hit by it.]

For Shadowheart, as she is no longer dark inclined. I used two eyes from a dusk hag to be infused into a scrap of cloth from an annis hag's clothing.

[Blindfold of a seer -

Ritual-infused cloth. The eyes of the divinatory dusk hags power this blindfold allowing (1/day) scrying or foresight. The blindfold is resistant to all magical and physical damage, and does not obstruct eyesight]

Lae'zel is a simple person, but I ran out of illithid corpses. But I do have 7 githyanki corpses instead, perfect to infuse into her hill-giant strength gloves.

[The githyanki gauntlets-

A ritual-infused pair of hill giant strength gauntlets. The gauntlets offer 23 strength to the wearer, but with the ritual, offer a +2 when fighting any gith based being and ignores any immunities or resistances to slashing, bludgeoning or piercing damage against them.]

As I found out, the better the gloves are, the harder they are to improve. Nevertheless, everyone was happy with their gifts, Halsin was a bit weirded out by his but I can't change the nature of hags.

***

The rest was over, I made more potions and buffed everyone's equipment. Finally, we march on to Ketheric, determined to give him his untimely death. We enter through the archway and see Jaheira stood around piles of bodies, now that I know how to utilise them best I steal every body, whilst my party does the talking.

Joining up with them, it sounds like the plan is to just charge and kill everyone on the first floor. It's a decent plan, one that I'll add to in my own way. As everyone begun to sneak up the steps, preparing for the surprise element, I used invisible presence and changed form into a crypt chanter.

Flying into the rafters, I begun playing my [draining melody] a crypt chanter ability that drained 1 level to every that fails a wisdom save, every 6 seconds.

"I'm gonna fight 'em all!

A seven nation army couldn't hold me back!"

This is my song, the song I used to develop my skills. If Alfira was here, I knew she'd be proud, just as I am. The battle raged on, only for the gnolls and the goblins to drop first, rising up to play the bass, electic guitar and drums. This is my orchestra, my melody!

Though if you save a roll against one crypt chanter, you are only immune to that one. All these others now under my command are separate entities entirely, the enemies fell, humiliating themselves after death. Only a lucky few died to blade and not to the melody of the dead, spared from the eternal service they would have to me.

Descending and reforming into my usual body, all the new crypt chanters dived into my hag bag, waiting to start the music again. I patted it gently, a whole new arsenal bowed to me.

"What in the 9 hells was that Charles?!" Astarion stomped over to me, confusion and anger on his face.

"Yeah, it was totally wicked!" Karlach chimed in.

"Well, fun fact I guess. I wasn't technically a ghost, I'm a crypt chanter. Just one that couldn't play music, an anomaly of sorts." Another lie, but it's becoming easier to do lately.

"A crypt chanter? One of the macabre musicians? My friend did his dissertation on them, he went to visit them for an audience and never came back. Should've chosen Mystra like everyone else." Gale chipped in.

"Sounds about right I guess" I added.

Before we ascended the tower, I released my chanters to thin the ranks as much as possible. A low thum echoed through the castle as AC/DC 'Highway to hell' blasted throughout, it only took one minute for the music to stop. A flurry of chanters, thrice as large came rushing back in, straight to the bag. I think they might've caught some of the intellect devourers by accident with numbers this large.

We then ascended to investigate the losses the enemy took, coming upon the hallway leading to the tower's peak, a small graveyard could be seen. Motionless skeletons cover the ground, with one human lady shaking them.

"Get up! They're here!" She must have survived somehow, might've plugged her ears.

Astarion simply snuck up behind her and decapitated her. We can go to Ketheric now, but there's just a one more thing I'm missing, The Shadow Lantern. I can only imagine what that can do in a ritual.