View source for Maure Castle: In the Shadows

[[Category:Blackrazor Guild Sagas]]

==About the Saga==

The Blackrazors finally discover and unlock the Vault of Long Shadows.

===Timeframe===

* Greyhawk Date: Sunsebb 5, CY 591
* Real World Date: 2005-12-16
* [[Blackrazor Guild Sagas|Read other Blackrazor Guild Sagas]]

===Cast of Characters===

* [[Jakob Dworkin]], worshiper of [[Dalt]], god of doors and portals
* [[Andulf Truedeath]], leader of the undead-destroying [[Order of the Final Rest]] Guild
* [[Rex]], unpredictable bodyguard
* [[Thorin Shieldbiter]], veteran dwarven warrior
* [[Silas Dunharrow]], the adventuring explorer
* [[Alistair]], the loremaster

===Notable Quotes===

No quotes are available.

===What Has Come Before===

Adventure summary

==The Saga==
===Sunsebb 5, CY 591===

====Minion of Kerzit====
As the party explores a circulur room with an obviously trapped chest in the center, the rear guard is attacked by a foul, dark, four-armed creature, which Silas and Jakob recognizes as a blood fiend. The fiend utters a blasphemy, which paralyzes and sickens Thorin and Rex.

Jakob sees the creature and tries to banish it, but fails. The creature casts unholy blight, further sickening Rex, then falls back to desecrate the area. Silas steps up, blows his horn of goodness to try and hold the creature at bay, thus ruining part of its desecration.

Andulf steps into the area of goodness and tries to turn it, but fails. Jakob steps up, gets Rex to agree to join [[blackrazors]] in return for heal (which removes all of his mental conditions). The fighter is then freed.

Silas steps up, attacks and lands a might blow with his holy cold steel long sword. The creature recoils from the attack, but then strikes back, biting and rending at his throat, sucking blood from him.

Rex charges, prompting the demon to strike him. The hit staggers the fighter, draining the life from him and recharging the demon. He does, however, manage to land a blow.

The fight continues, with Dworkin blasting the creature with searing light. It flees, teleporting behind the dwarf in an effort to drain life from the helpless victim and regain power. But it fails, and is faced with a charging Silas, who lands a massive, crippling blow. Anudlf sears the creature, burning through its chest and obliterating it.

====The Vault of Long Shadows====
The party finds the Vault of Long Shadows, and Alistair begins summoning. The first spell brings in three slow shadows; the second summons a shadowy duplicate of Alistair, who proceeds to blast the party with chain lightning, targeting his twin first.

Rex turns on the mirror image, and nearly drops it with a brutal series of attacks. Andulf then finishes him. Jakob, seeing how badly injured the real Alistair is, steps up and heals him.

Alistair casts the third spell, summoning a nightwing, which takes to the vaulted ceiling overhead. The fierce battle continues with the slow shadows, while Silas follows the Nightwing via his celestial armor. Andulf backs him up by casting holy smite on him. Then Jakob flame strikes it, singing Silas.

Alistair casts the final spell, which bathes the room in negative energy, healing the shadows while damaging the creature.

The nightwing responds to its blinded condition by plunging the room into deeper darkness, which Jakob then dispels. The creature, outraged, blasts the room with a cone of cold, badly wounding everyone save Alistair and the slow shadows who were immune.

The badly wounded party tries to heal themselves, sucking down potion after potion of healing.

The nightwing turns on Silas, casting finger of death, killing the royal explorer instantly and causing him to float back to the floor. The fight continues, and Dworkin is nearly killed before fighting back at the shadows with a mass cure light wounds which drove off the shadow fighting him, and healed everyone in the party. Allister looks up, blasts the nightwing with a barrage of magic missiles, and kills it.

Rex, infuriated and desperate, lashes out at one shadow, destroying it, and cleaving another vaporizing it with a mighty blow. At the end of the summoning, five chests appear. Opening the first four the party finds a huge amount of treasure. In the last, they find an apparently unopenable, magically-sealed [[adamantine]] box. Magical divinations reveal that a powerful shadow spell known as shades might be used to summon a shadow lock and key, and thus allow them access to the treasure inside. In the other boxes they found: 

*Chest #1: 20,400 sp, 1,5,86 gp, 125 pp
*Chest #2: Two dozen bags of gems worth a total of 4,300 gp
*Chest #3: Art items worth 5,600 gp.
*Chest #4: Potion of enlarge person, oil of shillelagh, potion of barkskin +2, divine scroll of bull's strength, wand of magic missile (22 charges, caster level 7), a ring of water walking, a bead of force, a pair of slippers of spider climbing and a tome of clear thought.

==Experience==

*  Thorin: 3,500
* Anulf: 3,500
* Silas: 3,500
* Alistair: 3,500
* Jakob: 2,827
* Rex: 2,827