Alter Aeon The Great Library

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AABN:  48336
Title: the Quest for the Silver Halberd, part 6

The Quest for the Silver Halberd, part 6

by Sparity Ket, Captain of the Order of the White Knights

They found themselves in what was once a richly decorated entrance hall,
ruined by the passage of time.  Damaged painting hung from the walls, bits
of furniture lay on the floor, and cobwebs clung to every corner.  The air
was thick with the odor of mildew and rotting wood.  A brisk wind blew from
outside, its shrill but faint whistle reminding the party of the
increasingly bad weather occurring outside.  Finding nothing of interest,
they moved on to the cloak room.

Most of the racks in the cloak room, which long ago would have held coats,
cloaks and other garments, had long since collapsed and dumped the clothing
on the floor.  A thick layer of dust, probably from decayed cloth, covered
the stone floor.  A pile of moldy leather, rotting wood and rusty bits of
metal laid in each of the room's for corners, however, a single coat rack
in the center of the room had a black cloak with an ivory clasp in pristine
condition hanging from it.  Jamarkas couldn't help but touch it and was
completely enveloped by it for his trouble.  It was a cloaker!

The others sprung into action.  Kenwick summoned a celestial badger to
attack it from behind while Justice stabbed the creature from the front. 
After taking cover, Zorat blasted the cloaker with a hail of stones while
Silliriun shot it with a pair of magic missiles.

The cloak let loose a mind-affecting fear blast, and although the others
resisted, Kenwick was shaken and retreated from battle, running back to the
entrance hall.  Justice was stabbed by its stinger and injected with a
poison that paralyzed him.  Despite these setbacks, Jamarkas managed to cut
himself free from the cloaker's gullet by shooting it from the inside.  The
fighter continued to fire on the cloaker from outside its digestive tract,
only for it to try and engulf him again.  However, this time Jamarkas
caught the cloaker's jaws in his hands, and while Silliriun and Zorat
blasted the cloaker, Jamarkas fired his minigun directly into the
creature's gaping maw.  The bullets shredded through its back, and what was
left of the cloaker flopped over dead on top of Jamarkas, who promptly tore
a piece of it off as a trophy.

The fear effect and poison soon wore off, and the party searched the debris
piles.  After easily putting down a few giant rats, they found some loose
gold coins and a pair of rusty and worthless, but still usable, daggers.