The Iron Sarcophagus

The Iron Sarcophagus
Date	11/10/2024
Storyteller	Zoro
Tier	Master
Player Characters	Victoria Honeystride, Chrysanthemum Lavandula Orchidaceae Delphinium Helianthus, Vara, Siltmean the Craftrat, Kirrily Icesickle
Rewards	350, 1083 gold, 7 silver, 5 copper, oil of keen edges, spell duelist's siphon, armor potency +2, 3 greater healing potions, major grim sandglass
Result	Success
Author	Victoria
Downtime	28

We get hired to go to Fort Soledad, a bandit hideout located in the deadlands, which is what I am going to call the undead-infested area it is located. Siltmean went there a few years ago and found an iron sarcophagus that was keeping the undead at bay. From looking at the log for that job, the bandits were sacrificing each other to it to keep that ward up. We were sent to the fort to retrieve the sarcophagus, and it does not look like any of the bandits are around to stop us. The undead have breached the fort. Siltmean tells us it was in a mausoleum inside the fort. There are uncountable numbers of undead in there, nothing that can not be cleared out by some cantrips though. We start by heading towards the center of the fort. As we look through the arrow slits on the wall, we see what looks like an undead on a throne. A skeletal knight. We approach the knight prepared to take it down. As Kirilly blitzes the knight, a dragon rises from behind it. I have always wanted to fight a dragon. Vara says it is not that fun, I will see about that. The knight goes down easy, with the dragon following not long after. We quickly descend into the basement, where we find some weaker undead performing a bizarre ritual. From investigating an altar, we find out that the sarcophagus is or was worshipped here. This is some seriously bad magic. There is a pair of double doors that are newer than the rest of the doors down here. We open the doors and find a lich and a few swarms of undead. The lich goes down easy, they did not stand a chance against Kirrily and I ganging up on it, with the swarms going down not too long after. Vara tells us that liches can return after a given time with their soul cage. That sounds like it might be an issue. Kirrily finds a well with a strange blood spatter on an invisible platform. I smash the platform, and start falling. I do not know what I expected to happen when I did this. Vara found a secret door when he went down to catch me. We go through the door and find older tunnels with more undead in them, including a graveknight. There is also an excessively large bedroom with only one bed in it. We find another lich, and I scare it into telling us where the sarcophagus is. We stand on a magic circle, and it sends us to a room of bones. Some of them reanimated, but none of them look stronger than what we have faced so far. The sarcophagus is also on the far end of the room we were sent to. Some more undead show up, clearly working with the lich. Chrys goes down, and the boss of the undead in the room stops my healing spell. She dies from an onslaught of attacks from a nearby troop of skeletons. Kirrily wasted no time in finishing them off, and the rest of the skeletons quickly followed. The sarcophagus then opens, as another undead dragon pops out. We take care of it. The lich who took us to the sarcophagus just lets us take it out of the dungeon with us, and even gives us some healing potions. The sarcophagus can be used to turn people into liches. This is something that should be used very responsibly. As we were going back through the dungeon, we found a hidden treasure room.