City of Remembrance
The party travels to Kek's stone pyramid to return the Disk of the Sun. As he is a high level caster, with a thousand years of encountering adventurers, they decide he's likely got some decent magic items to sell. This proves to be true, and Kek relieves them of hundreds of pounds of gold in exchange for some items he had lying around.
Then he sweeps all the gold into his portal to the sun. "Don't want to leave that stuff lying around. That's how you get adventurers."
He again warns them his divinations have revealed a "shadow in the east." Convinced that Kek is a danger only on a geological timescale, the party sets out to quell this more immediate threat.
After days of travel they come across a city of contradictions. The place is utterly deserted, the buildings shabby and barely standing; but the streets are clean of weeds and some minor replaces have obviously been done. They cautiously investigate the dockyard area, but only find answers once the sun goes down.
A fog rolls in from the sea, thick as soup; and in the cloudy mist the city comes to life. Housewives sweep their front steps while children play in the street, workmen stroll to and fro, street vendors hawking treats and bars bustling with patrons. The Bard notices that one establishment has recently changed its name, the old one painted out in favor of the new, though both coats of paint are peeling from several hundred years of neglect.
The Bard attempts to buy a street snack; the vendor holds out his hand, but when paid, the coins drop through his semi-translucent palm onto the street. He appears not to notice, handing the Bard a dead sea-creature roasted on a stick. This also semi-translucent treat vanishes as soon as it leaves the vendor's hand; again, with no reaction.
The party enters the bar and repeats the process for foamy mugs of ale that never reach their lips. The Bard makes new friends, or tries to; but the conversation gradually turns to local politics as the night wears on, becoming more and more heated with each hour. Shortly before midnight, the Bard realizes that the situation has passed beyond words; the crowd is angry and ready to fight. He sneaks out into the street, but this is no better. Surly looks from all sides, as street-corner orators shout increasingly violent rhetoric. Spotting another newly renamed inn, the Bard deduces that there are two sides to this conflict: the House of the Sun, representing aristocracy and tradition, and the Company of the Stars, a populist reactionary position.
He returns to the party and warns of them of imminent violence. The party decides to side with the Company, mostly because it's official color is silver instead of gold, and thus the required tokens to indicate their loyalty are easier to fake. The Druid is already wearing a silver helm; the Barbarian and Ranger stick silver arrowheads through their lapels; the Cleric puts his silver holy symbol on the outside of his armor for a change.
At the stroke of midnight the war begins. An angry crowd of ghosts, now glowing yellow, burst through the inn door and attack. The occupants, glowing silver, eagerly leap into battle, fighting with hammers, table legs, knives, and other random tools reforged to violence in the heat of rage.
These ghosts are not really dangerous to our stalwart heroes, though their incorporeal nature is somewhat frustrating - the Druid manages to miss his flame attack seven times in a row. The Barbarian, as usual, decimates whole squads of enemies, and the attackers are soon vanquished. But the respite is brief; within seconds, more flood in from the street.
The Ranger quite sensibly bars the doors, but this does not deter them; they simply pass through the doors and walls. Halfway through this new battle, a group of silvers enters, and soon the golds are crushed. The silvers begin streaming out into the street, only to be replaced by more golds and silvers spilling their battle into the inn. The Druid drinks a potion of Invisibility to Undead, and politely steps around the combatants to check outside.
Where he finds the streets choked with battle, a roiling sea of gold and sliver clashing as far as the eye can see. When he returns to inform the rest of the party, they quickly return to their favorite tactic whenever things get tough: bailing. The Wizard Dimension Doors them to the street (GM note: my world only has short-range teleport spells), the whole party quaffs down potions, and they flee the city for the safety of the dark, quiet countryside.
In the morning they stroll back into the once-again quiescent city, and immediately deduce that the entire performance will be repeated every night. (GM note: the GM forgot they have had prior experience with ghosts, specifically, their first set of adventures.) The Bard recalls ancient tales of a King and Minister, a potion of immortality, and a tragedy; armed with this background, hey seek out the heart of the city, trying to find the key that will release the ghosts from their cycle.
What they find is a barren empty castle, with one hundred magic swords hanging in the extensive barracks. There are virtually no other objects of value to be found, but this clue does not dissuade the Barbarian, who promptly gathers this arsenal into his magic knapsack. Meanwhile, the rest of the party is investigating a simple sewer grate in the middle of the courtyard, as the Bard has deduced that this grate once held a statue of some significance. Why was a piece of art replaced with a bit of plumbing?
As the sun goes down, the grate begins to display mystical properties; but this is quickly superseded by the appearance of one hundred angry ghost knights mounted on ghost horses and bearing the one and only normal weapon the party still fears: lances.
The Bard quickly intervenes and uses his epically powerful smooth-talking to negotiate a total surrender: the party agrees to return the magic swords and once again bail. They flee the town and camp under the stars.
On their third day in the city, they wait till nightfall in the castle, certain that the ghosts will have totally reset. While the Bard (futilely) attempts to talk the knights into joining the battle in the streets, mostly to see if it will have any impact on the nightly ritual, the Cleric and Wizard examine the grate. With a few good Spellcraft rolls and a little inspired guessing, they decipher the ritual that will disarm its McGuffin level of enchantment. However, they also determine that doing so will instantly trigger the knights into a full-on attack, and the ghostly nature of their foe means there will be no way to avoid a plethora of lance attacks (no Entangle this time, and in fact the knights won't even be hindered by each other). This is such a potent advantage that the Wizard suggests plane-shifting the party to the Ethereal plane, where at least the knights would have to abide by normal density.
While this is going on, another group of adventurers appear. The Spectators, as they call themselves, are clearly not up to the party's level, but neither are they low-level chumps. Their wizard claims to have memorized a map to the catacombs beneath the grate, but they have so far been held back by the enchantment. When the Ranger asks them why they want to go into the catacombs, they patiently explain that the castle treasury is bone-dry, and therefore, logic dictates that the gold must be hidden elsewhere. Behind the mystical magical seal is the obvious place.
The parties soon come to an agreement to split the treasury fifty-fifty. Worried about betrayal, the two clerics make a solemn promise: "I won't backstab you, and you won't backstab me." As they are both Lawful, they know they can at least trust the letter of this deal, even while clearly both parties are plotting to gain the advantage somehow.
Much discussion is had over how to deal with the horde of knights while someone does the seven-round ritual to open the grate. They agree to meet at sundown again tomorrow, prepared and ready, and once again feck off to the country to wait for dawn.
The next day, however, the spell-casters determine that the grate is only one-way: it does not actually bar anyone from entering, merely from leaving. In an act of supreme self-confidence they assume that there will be some way to disable the gate from the other side, and decide to enter the catacombs on their own, committing their fate to their skill and pussiance (and the Wizard's pocket portal that will let them rest and regain spells, while their Rings of Sustenance mean they will never starve).
Even so, they hedge their bets: the Bard leaves a note for the Spectators explaining that they've cancelled the deal, and as payment for breaking the contract, describes the ritual necessary to break the enchantment.
At the mouth of the grate, they find a clue: half a broken tile, containing two names. This tells them they are on the right path, even if they don't know what it means.
Now they descend into the depths of the tunnels, passing niches of bones in a winding, random, and ancient series of passages. Periodically shadows spring from the walls, floor, and ceiling to attack them; the damage is trivial, but the statistic drain begins to add up. The Barbarian is reduced to mewling weakness and has to be patched up by the Cleric; the Druid, on the other hand, drinks a potion, and thereafter simply observes the rest of the party fighting for their lives. The Barbarian evades several deadly traps because of course he does, and thanks to the Ranger's sense of direction, they soon come to the heart of the lair.
Here the Druid convinces everyone else to also consume potions of Invisibility to Undead, and then the party creeps into the main room.
In the center of the room a kingly ghost stands, his shoulders weighted under immense grief. A magic circle surrounds him, and the party must now choose: is the king the source of the curse, or its chief victim?
The Barbarian tosses a pebble at the circle, intent on breaking its integrity: he has concluded that the king should be freed. He earns a shout of hissing rate: the Minister, once the king's lover and now a powerful lich, hiding in the room invisibly, due to her spells and skills and magic items.
Unfortunately, the party is also invisible to her and her army of shadows. What follows is less a battle and more a game of hide-and-seek. The lich casts Cloudkill; the party scatters. In their flight some of them make enough noise to trigger attacks in their area, most of which miss. Spot and Hide and Move Silently rolls get thrown around the table, amounting to a whole lot of nothing.
Then the Cleric has had enough. He rebukes the shadows, disintegrating a swath of the lessers. Now the combat begins in earnest: the lich is marked out by magic and subject to a wealth of attacks, while the Barbarian bounces her own assaults with his rage-induced Spell Resistance. The Wizard and Cleric both then cast Dispel Magic, and as usual, manage to destroy her two greatest layers of defense. The Druid turns into a bear, charges her, and tears her to bits in practically a single round. Truly these heroes have the luck of the gods.
Meanwhile, the king's ghost has marched out of the room to the surface, destroying the grate enchantment on his way. The Ranger takes the party back the way they came, and the Bard guesses which ancient estate they should start searching in. Soon enough they find the king's ghost standing in an overgrown vineyard, next to the ruins of a shed. At his feet is the other half of the tile. A simple Mending spell from the Cleric joins them together again. The sky flickers; the king begins to fade, and by morning it is clear the lich's phylactery has been destroyed and the curse lifted.
The party returns to the castle, the Barbarian intent on gathering his army of magic swords; and the party wonders now what threats remain to their peaceful rule, after having destroyed three entire neighboring realms of monsters.
