Spectral Strike

 

The party set out on the bridge leading SW and after a short distance they came upon a offset X interchange.  Mara determined that they should follow a left hand rule so they turned NE.  This bridge sloped up and after cresting the high point the party saw the bridge only continued for 100 feet or so and then fell into space.  No connecting bridge was visible so they backtracked and continued SW.  The air was still frigid and the bridge icy as they continued their journey.


After traveling about an hour they came upon another partly destroyed tower.  Mara approached the entry way slowly and with the lightning strikes determined that immediately in the interior was a chapel area of some kind.  Melisana moved into the area to investigate the altar while Mara moved around the area to the north where an outside wall was still standing.  Pretis cautiously moved southward along another outside wall.  It was obvious that in other areas walls were missing and the ceiling or floor had collapsed.  Melisana's investigation found shattered holy symbols and icons of Orcus strewn around the altar area.  

 Just as everyone entered the room 3 flying wraiths and 3 flying haunts surprised the party.   As the battle started Mara found that she was taking damage from the cold (and necrotic) aspects of the wall.  Also the enemy seemed to have auras that also administered necrotic damage.  Finding that the undead were insubstantial Melisana used the power of her new armor to switch the insubstantial nature to herself.  This allowed more damage to the haunts.  At the same time though Melisana fell victim to Night's Embrace and Night's Fell Kiss and was stunned.  The rest of the battle was moving along smoothly as two haunts were soon bloodied.  The wraiths were using Obliviate to administer ongoing damage to Pretis and Mara.  Alhellara turned the undead and pushed several of the enemy around the room while Gofin used her shrouds to add extra damage to her attacks.  Meanwhile Demin was firing his crossbow, especially at victims that were dazed or confused.  Lythandar used scorching burst but the fire damage didn't seem to add to the damage.  

When some healing was needed by the party they found that it did not work quite as well as expected.  Then a wailing ghost appeared outside the door, attacked Demin, and flew through the walls into the chapel.  Two of the haunts fell and then a wraith which created a blast causing the targets to lose two healing surges.  On top of the lower amount of healing this began to worry the party as the battle continued.  In the end all of the enemy fell victim to the attacks of the party and they collected their wits.

After a short rest the adventurers continued to explore the rest of this tower level.  They found several smaller chambers beyond the chapel which contained the remnants of priestly robes of Orcus.  Finding no stairs up or down the group trudged out to the SW again.  After another hours march they came upon tower.  Entering the area they found a large room the floor of which was covered by mounds of armor and weapons.  All of these seemed to be ruined, broken, smashed into uselessness.

Scorecard:  The party earned 830 XP for the nights work and now have 50000 XP needing 7000 more to reach 15th level.