Alter Aeon The Great Library

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AABN:  48338
Title: the Quest for the Silver Halberd, part 8

The Quest for the Silver Halberd, part 8

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

Peering through the open doorway, they could see that the next room was an
old kitchen.  The walls and ceiling were covered with soot and the floor
covered with ash, looking almost like black snow.  Two large tables,
obviously used for food preparation since their surfaces were cut, stained
and marked from years of use, occupied most of the room.  A large iron
stove in the room was host to a small fire.

Most importantly, standing at one of the tables was a pair of horrid
creatures.  Each had the look of a goblin but was covered with coarse white
fur and had the face of a rat.  Wielding cleavers, they appeared to be
butchering an animal and weren't watching the doorway.  The group took
advantage of this and sneaked past, heading further north up the hallway
until it ended at another room in the northeast of the keep.

The dark chamber was clearly a tomb.  The stone walls were covered with
frost, and somehow the air within was even colder than it was outside. 
Four broken pine coffins rested atop stone slabs along one wall of the
room.  As they looked around, a sudden gust of frigid air clawed through
their clothes.  Using his detect evil ability, Justice could see that there
was a malevolent entity within each coffin.

Since it was still daytime, they suspected that they were vampires and that
perhaps they could be quickly eliminated as they rested in their coffins. 
Using scraps of wood, Justice quickly fashioned crude stakes and passed
them out to the others.  Lifting the lid on the nearest coffin, he readied
his stake to strike but found the undead abomination therein to already be
awake and aware of him.  The fiend slashed at Justice, and the resulting
wound caused him to fall to the floor, paralyzed.

The other undead quickly rose and began attacking the party.  The others
besides Justice tried to give them a wide berth, but Silliriun was a bit
too slow and was also paralyzed before he could get a shot off.  Jamarkas
managed to chop one to pieces with sustained fire from his minigun, while
Kenwick fired his crossbow at another.  Fearing the ratmen they had passed
would join the battle, Zorat cast a wall of gloom spell across the outer
doorways of the kitchen to try and keep them at bay.

Meanwhile, Jamarkas and Kenwick focused fire on another undead, bringing it
down.  However, one did get close enough to attack Jamarkas, but he managed
to resist the paralyzing effect.  Justice's paralyzation wore off midway
through the fight, and so he was able to rise and cut down another foe. 
With repeated use a wand of magic missile, Kenwick felled the last enemy
undead.