A Long Rest (8/31/2026)

GM: Stras Acimovic
Players: April Walsh, Jeremiah Frye, Sean Nittner, Lily Eisner
System: Spell and Blade by Stras Acimovic

We picked up in the middle of a deadly fray!

Zhara studied the Spider Knight with her mystic sight, drawing on her oath to learn it’s secrets. (Crit!). She learned

• The armor negates nearly all magic. It is made of an unknown substance and whole most of the suits lost their enchantments either due to time, the great explosion, or both, this one was still at least partially enchanted. It was especially dangerous to star metal, as it could silence it’s song.
• The creature possessed 12 near invisible limbs that could move and strike at impossible angles.
• Though she could not see it, she knew that undead of the Old Empire required a reservoir of vitae, which us usually stored in a cavity in the chest or abdomen. Destroy that, and the undead would quickly cease to function.
• While the armor itself was incredibly powerful, it was held together by leather straps that could be cut if one got close enough.
• The necromancer was dying, but instead of just letting that happen, he was animating his own body to keep it function.

Warned of the invisible arms, Rulgara lobbed her brightly colored dye a the spider knight to coat it’s spectral limbs in the bright red of our queen. Then she leapt, battleborn, at the creature with her silver spear as Loddi peppered it with arrows. She cut a limb from the spider with her spear and it hissed and recoiled with touch by the silver blade. With it’s remaining limbs it grabbed the haft of the spear and ripped it apart. Now it was angry!

Skanya pulled the clay pot she acquired from Finn Firehands, plugged a wick into it, lit, and then lobbed it in the air. She called out “Loddi!” and he glided down from his perch, caught the pot and hurdled it onto the necromancer’s body. The remaining Eclipse Guard animated and tried to bat it away, but it merely broke the pot apart and fiery pitch landed all over the necromancer, burning the flesh as he was trying to animate it!

Razakar Asheart called forth his undead legion to his aid, but when the reached the building they were blocked from the entrance. Skyanya’s blessing held them at bay. Praise Akta!

The Spider Knight charged Rulgara, who fended it off with shield and blacksilver dagger (the one taken from Braziah). She dodged it’s attacks, got inside it’s range and cut three more spectral limbs!

Zhara, still infused with the aetheric suspension, summoned aetheric winds to fan the flames of the alchemical fire burning the necromancer. When the fires died down there was not but bones remaning!

The spider knight was still a threat though. Loddi shot arrows at the leather straps but wasn’t close enough to get a good shot.

Skanya muttered the words Zhara told them “we’ve got to get close to cut the straps”. She swigged her last via of Sea Song (an alchemical that limbers the muscles), picked up the silver spear head that had been tossed to the ground when the spear was shattered and jumped on the spider knight’s back, using the opening from where Rulgara had cut away the limbs. She pried the blade under the plates, cut the leather straps and exposed the reservoir. Up till this time, Rulgara had been keeping the knights full attention, but it noticed this! With one spectral tendril it grabbed Skanya and flung her across the room. She caught hold of Loddi’s boot to slow her somewhat, but still smashed into the wall hard. She fell down and crumpled before the wall, but held up one thumb and cried out “I’m okay!”

Rulgara distracted the spider knight and Loddi fired one, then another arrow into the resevour, the red vitae gushed out of it. The spider knight, still animated for the moment, pounded it’s tendrils like spikes down into Rulgara. She blocked most of them, but one broke through and impaled her shoulder. Then it collapsed… and so did we!

After we caught our breath we considered what to do next, especially with regard to the necromancer’s bones. Zhara knew that if left as is, he would return. There was a single bone among his body that belonged to the first emperor, and so long as that bone remained, he would claw his way back from death. We wanted to find a way to prevent, of at least delay that process.

Also, there was a hoard of undead outside trying to get in, held back by the blessing of Akta.

We made a short camp, finished our provisions and talked about what had happened. Skanya asked “Loddi, your arrows saved me from a terrible curse. How did you move so fast?”

“I saw he was going to do something bad and I had to stop him”

From Zhara “Rulgara, you are so brave, is there any foe you wouldn’t face?”

“I’m only mortal, but as long as I’m alive I’ll protect my friends. Though a giant horde of blood thirsty undead? That’s probably too much.”

As the rested, Skanaya asked Zhara to use her seven circuit claw to collect a small part of the Eclipse Guard’s plate armor, which she stored in the lead box originally meant for a dragon heart. Anything that could negate magic seemed like something worth investigating further.

Zhara consulted her books and speculated that the corpse on the throne was likely the Emperor’s third son, not much of a necromancer, but he was knowing for his explorations and discoveries. Clearly he had come here looking for something, and clearly he found something, but whatever triggered the explosion was still a mystery to us.

We talked through many plans but finally settled on Zhara trying to convince the remaining Eclipse Guard that we were servants removing the body of that was making a mess before the throne. “He is a King, but he is not of the Empire.”

Though this might have worked with some undead, this Eclipse Guard had been sitting still for three hundred years thinking of nothing but murder and devouring life. Zhara and Rulgara (who was bowing before him and approaching the necromancer’s body) may have looked the part of servants, but they were still living and his orders gave him the permission to kill anything that go to close, so kill he would!

Rulgara dove back as the spear nearly ran her through. She danced behind staglmites as the might undead warrior destroyed them, sending shards of ice flying everywhere.

Meanwhile, though Skanya had thought of many complicated ways to get the body which was pinned to the ice with a spear, Loddi had a really practical one. Let’s just lift it up and over! Very smart.

Body in hand we ran, and thankfully the guardian did not give chase. Instead returning to its post by the throne.

With a team of undead at the entrance, we needed another way out. Thankfully we had picked up some mining tools earlier and Rulgara lead Skanya and Loddi in digging a path out of the frozen bubble. As we were digging, Zhara studied the necromancer’s bones with mystic sight and found the metacarpal of the first emperor. We ground it up, put it in a pouch filled with silver, anchored the pouch with a grappling hook, and dripped it through a crack in the ice to the freezing waters below. If he was remade, he’d be freezing, drowning, surrounded by silver, and perhaps in the presence of a giant wolf monster (that thing Loddi had spotted below the surface). That Necromancer King was about to take a long, very, very, very long rest.

Once the whole was dug we snuck out, Skanya knowing just when to move and when to pause to evade the undead.

Outside we used chains from the airship to pull out critical supports and collapse the digging site. Thought Skanya would still feel saver if the Red Queen called down star metal spears to thoroughly destroy the dig, she and her sister worked as a pretty incredible team to shut it down for now [Crit on the Tinker roll].

Aboard the Tempest Star we told Lah’Ranna what we did to the Razakar Asheart, including every detail except where we put the bone as we didn’t want anyone to know where they could retrieve it.

She turned to Loddi who had promised her to perform any service in atonement of hurting her son and said “I know what I need you to do. I need you to recue my husband and daughter!”