Session 39: Necromansplaining

The battlefield stank of rot and river‑mud, the vapors of Waterdeep’s forgotten marsh curling above churned earth like the breath of something vast and dying. Amid this mire the companions found themselves ringed by shambling dead and the rag‑clad necromancer Serith Hollowvoice, whose insect‑etched staff dripped green ichor that hissed when it struck the ground. From every broken corpse that littered Decay’s Rest, blow‑flies rose in black swarms, veiling the pale morning sun.

Pebblesong hovered above the fray, no longer a dwarven girl but a constellation wrought in draconic shape—scales of gilded starlight glimmering where flesh had been. Her arms—now wings—beat once and scattered sparks across the mud, each ember finding purchase in the swirling bramble of dagger‑long thorns she had coaxed from the soil. It was a living hedge of pain, corraling the dead and hissing as ichor and rot bled upon its barbs.

Bhakris Edge lay half‑submerged in the sullen river, armor buckled by the titanic fist of a corpse‑giant whose body was sewn together from a dozen lesser cadavers. The paladin tasted blood and iron, yet through cracked lips he whispered a prayer to the Earth‑Mother—a prayer that was equal parts vengeance and plea. Across the water, Bartholomeow, still in the guise of a broad‑shouldered tabby cat, launched himself atop a half‑sunken log and loosed a rapier’s thrust that whistled inches over the amalgam’s drooling maw. He cursed with feline eloquence, then raised a flute carved of willow and piped three bright notes that fluttered like larks to the embattled paladin’s ears—an unspoken command: rise and strike, earth‑born brother.

Hat answered the call with metal rather than melody. The goblin’s steel‑wrought turret skittered on insect‑legs to the riverbank, pistons hissing, and belched a thunder‑pulse that hammered the corpse‑giant square in its fungal chest. The brute staggered, teetered—then, shoved by an invisible force, toppled backward into Pebblesong’s briar. Thorn and sinew met with a sound like wet parchment tearing. Black blood spattered; bramble‑barbs snapped; and still the amalgam lurched onward, dragging its ruined mass toward Bhakris with mindless purpose.

Above them, Waer’dara moved on eight slender limbs, a drow no longer but a silver‑sheened spider the size of a war‑hound. Illusory duplicates shimmered at her flanks, each mirroring her every motion, so that Serith Hollowvoice could not tell which arachnid face bore the true hatred of the Spider‑Queen. Green witch‑fire blazed in her eyes as she wove a hex about the necromancer’s limbs, sapping the strength from bone and sinew. Serith snarled and loosed an arrow toward Hat—only to have the shaft splash against an unseen shield of quick‑cast force.

It was Thalmiir Brukur, though, whose fury turned the tide. The old dwarf barreled through thorn and muck alike, greataxe lifted, beard braided tight against ruinous fangs of ghasts that snapped at his heels. Rage thundered in his chest louder than any battle‑horn; he felt it pulse behind his eyes, felt it drive him on when breath should have failed. A single leap carried him across the river’s narrowest span; another heartbeat, and his boots hit the sodden bank before Serith’s trembling knees.

Steel met bone with a crack that echoed through the swamp. Serith reeled, jaw hanging loose, then howled—less from pain than from the sudden realization that death had come for him in a dwarf’s weathered visage. He turned and fled, half‑crawling through the brambles that ringed his ritual site. Thorns flensed flesh from his calves; Pebblesong’s starlight seared his back; yet desperation drove him onward toward the lacquered box that lay atop a shattered altar‑stone.

He never reached it. A comet of astral light—Pebblesong’s guiding bolt—speared him between the shoulders. Serith sank to his elbows, talons scrabbling in soft loam, then went still. In that instant the corpse‑giant roared its outrage—an echo of its master’s will—and smashed a gore‑sodden fist into Bhakris once more. The paladin’s vision dimmed; only Bartholomeow’s lilting flute and the memory of dwarven courage kept him tethered to life. With a defiant shout he surged upward, holy fervor wreathing his blade. Steel bit, radiant fire followed, and the giant’s patchwork frame sagged as divinity burned what necromancy had stitched together. Hat’s cannon barked a final time; the brute collapsed into the thorns, where they gnawed it to shreds.

Silence fell but for the drumming of Thalmiir’s heart and the distant croak of frogs. The companions gathered round the lacquered box. Infernal glyphs crawled across its lid like embers in blackwood—unreadable, yet radiating threat. Resting inside, nestled in velvet, lay a single shard of age‑darkened earthenware, its outer curve etched with faint agricultural sigils. Bartholomeow’s pupil slit widened in recognition: a twin to the fragment Sterling had shown them weeks before, rumored piece of the fabled Orbum Vitalis.

No sooner had awe settled upon them than a corpse twitched in the wagon nearby. Another stirred, and another—dozen bodies bound for unmarked graves yanked toward unlife by whatever lingering sorcery Serith had kindled. Pebblesong’s voice, now a harmony of wind‑chimes, sang starry wisps down upon the twitching forms, each mote a dagger of radiant dusk that stilled a corpse forever. Bhakris piled driftwood and broken planks beneath the wagon while Thalmiir splintered dead saplings with practiced swings; Waer’dara’s webbing pinned writhing cadavers to the cart’s frame. Hat muttered goblin prayers of discovery and traced sigils in the air—Detect Magic blossomed before his eyes like dawn. The shard blazed so bright it left after‑images; the box glimmered faintly; Serith’s beetle‑encrusted staff pulsed with a sickly green heart‑beat that set the goblin’s grin widening and Thalmiir’s brow knotting with suspicion.

Flames licked the cart. Smoke spilled into the gray sky, carrying the stench of burning linen and old death. One by one the companions turned from the pyre to the treasures they had seized—and to the uneasy question of what price such power might demand. Hat cradled the shard‑box with reverence and no small hunger; Pebblesong’s astral wings folded about her like a cloak as she whispered to unseen constellations for guidance; Bhakris pressed a gauntleted hand to the blistered brand upon the box, feeling its thrum against his own heartbeat. Thalmiir kept watch, axe dark with Serith’s blood, eyes darker still with foreboding.

Beyond the swamp, the road to Secomber awaited—two days of mud and memory, of quiet nights where old wounds bled anew and new secrets whispered in dreams. Yet for now the marsh was still, the necromancer slain, the shard claimed. In the dying light the companions set their feet toward distant hearth‑fires, each carrying wonder, dread, and hope in equal measure—unaware of the eyes that watched from the tower whose sigil adorned Serith’s final letter, and of the shadow that stirred hungrily at news of its servant’s fall.