The Saga of Hester the Jester ~A Staff Found, the Journey Begins

They key is Hester’s own palm, via magic. She locks the door behind us and it's pitch black. No one seems to have any lanterns or torches. Hester suggests that Lucien cast a "detect magic" so that all our magic items glow. Toughas's sword glows especially, since it's rune stone and has been rubbed with the "kapow oil". Suddenly we hear something in the dim....and three zombies are coming at us. They're human skeletons.

One goes to attack Toughas so he parries, attacks, parries again. Toughas counter attacks. His rapier is not the best weapon for attacking bony zombies.....and he’s not getting the damage needed per hit. Another zombie goes to attack Lucien and he dodges out. They go back and forth like this. Lucien smacks them hard with his staff. Behind the zombies comes walking...some kind of mage. He casts a spell at Toughas. It was a Powerbolt...and that hurt. Next round this guy tries to Powerbolt again and Toughas goes to parry that blast! He succeeds! Wow! Two zombies are dead (again...) and the party battles. Hester....encourages them. At one point she does try to attack a zombie but ends up hitting herself in the face. (one point botch) Hash and slash! Hash and slash! Zombie lord goes down. We get through about 20 zombies and finally they're done.

We move through the tomb and find the reset the switch which resets all the zombies and put them back in their crypts.

Hester goes to grandpa's tomb and takes the wand of the clouds. There is also a spell wand that the zombie lord had, and we grab that as well. Lucien sits down with the zombie lord’s wand which has arcane writing on it. He tries to determine what the writing is. The wand is an elder wood wand that gives +1 for veil rend. It also has the spell "Power bolt" written on it. Lucien learns the spell from the wand and now knows how to cast power bolt!

The staff of the clouds is a highly enchanted weapon. In the hands of a hillman it's a staff, in the hands of a human or trogger it's a large wand. Lucien puts summon object on the staff of the clouds. He hands Toughas his old staff to strap to Toughas's backpack.

The trio open the door out of the mausoleum. They attempt to do so sneakily and steathfully. The light outside is so bright that it's blinding compared to the very dim crypt. Hester closes the door again and suggests that they all wait until night. All the heroes settle down and Lucien takes time to meditate on the staff of the clouds. No one in the party has the moxy/ability to wield this staff. It would mana corrupt anyone that would touch it for long. So Lucien wraps it in silk which protects anyone from getting mana burned, and puts it in Toughas's pack.

Hester opens the door just a crack and we all peak out. We see two tents and some guards outside the mausoleum. We talk strategy and decide that Lucien and Toughas should suck down invisibility potions, while Hester stays in the mausoleum with the backpack which includes the wand of the clouds.

Toughas stabs the bad guy wizard in the back. We've seen him before, he's the dandy from a few towns before. Lucien calls zombies as a distraction and then sends a Powerbolt through his new Powerbolt wand at a little hillman that is hidden and up on another mausoleum. Toughas and Lucien are both now visible because their violence made them visible, and the crew can roll initiative. The hillman dies from the impact of the Powerbolt. Toughas stabs the dandy again and he's down and dead. The woman who the dandy was talking to turns and runs, but the zombies under the control of Lucien grab her and the man who was sleeping in the tent comes out, and surrenders.

We bind up the two and leave them in the cemetery. We talk about running back to the huge city Namdak. We leave and go back to the carriage...and Pickles the murgo isn't there anymore. He's walked away and we find him about 10 mins away. He had gotten out of his binds and rubbed himself raw from it. We wrestle his mouth open, get a heal potion down him and then wrestle him back into place with the carriage. Hester and Toughas climb into the carriage and they're off. They're spotted, but don't notice.

Lucien pull the carriage into the keeper's home to give back the zombie talisman. When they come into the house there are four drunk deputies in the kitchen. Lucien tells them how he and Toughas spotted Densmeal's men in the cemetery. The drunk deputies don't want to do anything so send them down to the Sherriff in town because he's not drunk and can deal with this situation better than they can. The sheriff believes Hester's story (they chose for the hillman to talk to the other hillman, assuming that may go best) and then steers the conversation toward Hester's act. He's a huge fan. They finally extract themselves from conversation and head back out.

They look for a campsite so they can sleep and get some rest. They chose not to go to the hotel for fear of other Densmeal’s men. There is a camp outside of the other end of town. Hester pays and gets a cabin. The space is small, but quaint. It’s built for hillmen, so Toughas is uncomfortable, but everyone is tired enough that they manage. Once there they can see the wand of the clouds in its full glory. After looking it over Lucien re-wraps the staff with some of Hester's silk and gives Toughas his rope back. They fall asleep until about 1:00pm.

To be continued.......