The Battle of the Graveyard & The Vampire's Mistake
Only one word could describe what was taking place inside the City of the Dead. Chaos.
The City of the Dead was a vast graveyard that housed the bodies of many who had spent and had given their lives for Waterdeep. Many of the tombs and graves were actually portals linked other dimensions, where the bodies of the dead were laid to rest. Occasionally, the guards would come across some skeletons or zombies walking around the grounds, but in their years of service to the City of Splendors, they had never seen anything like this in years.
Across the grassy fields of Waterdeep's vast graveyard, skeletons and zombies of all sizes were fighting a bloody battle against Waterdeeps City Guard and City Watch. Many of the zombies and skeletons wore black plated armor with white skulls painted on the front. Bones, severed body parts, and blood rained down on the grass.
One side of the field, a giant skeleton was swinging a giant sized club , swatting away guards, watchmen, and zombies away from its path.
On the opposite side of the field, members of the Grey Hand fighting force were having little trouble ripping through the lines of undead. "They don't call us elite for nothing," shouted one member of the Grey Hands, whose halberd sliced through a zombie.
The commander, a man with a stocky muscular build named Jardwhim had just slain a large skeleton when he saw three of his fellow Grey Hand Enforcers and a young man wearing chain armor. For a moment, he watched as the young man with chain armor easily take down three zombies, then moving to a small group of skeletons, attacking them fiercely with his mace and sword.
"We'll never get to the tomb at this rate, there's too many undead blocking our path," he shouted.
Jardwhim looked over and saw Iris coming towards him. "Hey Jardwhim, think you could help us get to an open tomb a little ways away."
"Come on boys, lets plow the road," the leader of the Grey Hands shouted, and quickly he was joined by eight more enforcers, one of them being a frost giant. All together, they charged forward, knocking away any undead who had been in the path. Iris, Shadimir, Theodore, and Fox followed the path of fallen undead left behind by Jardwhim's charge attack.
Shadimir and the others had little trouble getting the rest of the way to the open stairway Mystra had told him about. He and Iris began walking down the stairs, but stopped when they saw Theodore and Fox staying on the surface, fighting the undead.
"Aren't you going to come with us?" Iris asked her fellow enforcers.
Theodore lifted his great axe and brought it down hard, slashing a zombie across the chest. "They need our help up here," he answered loudly. "You two take care of yourselves."
"Besides, we'd be missing all of the fun," Fox added, his voice the same loud volume as Theodore's. The half elf dodged an attack by a nearby skeleton, then looked at Shadimir. "Take good care of her." Fox shouted a loud war cry and jumped at the skeleton who tried to attack him.
Holding Gabriel forward, Shadimir nodded, then he and Iris slowly walked down the stairs together, into the darkness below.
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, a loud moan came from behind them. Out of pure instinct, Iris turned around, and shot a jab with her heavily gloved forward, hitting something hard.
After lighting a torch, and placing it on the wall, both Iris and Shadimir were shocked to see Meleghost unconscious on the ground.
"I just hit Lord Meleghost," Iris squeaked as she saw Meleghost's cheek begin to swell.
"Looks like Meleghost is having a rough night," Shadimir remarked quietly, then turned to Iris," but don't worry, he'll probably think I did it." The hunter looked forward, seeing four zombies emerge out of the room ahead. He quickly drew his mace, and sprang forward, driving his mace into the nearest zombie's midsection, then slashed Gabriel upward into the zombie's ribcage.
Iris stepped forward, bringing her great sword down through one of the zombie's shoulder. The zombie crumbled before her, then with quick reflexes, Iris yanked her sword from the zombie she had just killed, and cleaved the zombie next to her in half.
The zombie Shadimir attacked clawed at the hunter's armor, but missed by only a few inches. The one remaining uninjured zombie sprang out at Shadimir.
The hunter evaded the second zombie's attack, spinning around behind both zombies. He once again drove Gabriel forward, into the zombie's side to finish it off, then sent his mace forward, backhanding the one remaining zombie in the shoulder. The disruption ability from Shadimir's mace reduced the zombie to cinders.
"Shadimir, look," Iris said, pointing into the room ahead of them.. With his blue eyes, Shadimir saw a faint glowing lantern that lit up the room. Next to the lantern, stood the dark haired vampire, dressed in black robes, its pale its lifeless yellow eyes staring at them.
Shadimir could feel the vampire trying to dominate their minds. The vampire's eyes turned its eyes and stared at Iris, attempting to crush her willpower with his eyes. Though he easily overcame the vampire's attempt to dominate his will, the hunter was unsure if Iris could stand up to the vampire's dominating power, and even if she could, he wasn't going to take that chance. He had to distract her, and one idea came to Shadimir's mind
Forgive me Stephanie, the hunter said in his mind as he sprang forward, and wrapped his arms around Iris. He pressed his lips hard against hers, kissing her deeply.
Her eyes closed, Iris slowly melted in Shadimir's kiss. She kissed his warm lips back, wrapping her arms tightly around him.
"Very touching but you fools are too late," the vampire stated coldly.
Shadimir slowly broke the kiss away, then turned to the vampire. "I would say you're the fool Soulviss. You're the one who sent all of the undead above to fight, while you remained down here by yourself."
The vampire growled and flew out at Shadimir. The hunter stood still for a second, waiting for the vampire to get closer to him.
Soulviss was ready to fly into the human. He would throw him up against the wall, crush him into the rough stone walls, then drink the blood from his neck. He was ready taste the human's blood, but then he saw the human spin his left arm forward. The vampire tried to slow himself down, but it was too late. The enchanted mace in Shadimir's left hand cracked the vampire's skull on impact.
The vampire dropped to the ground, clutching his head as the holy and undead bane enchantment from the mace shot through his body like an intense blast of lightning shocking his nerves with intense pain. Soulviss knew he wouldn't survive another attack like that from the human. His whole reason for becoming a vampire was for the immortality, but he also didn't want to fail his goddess either.
Using what mental strength he could gather, Soulviss' body quickly formed into a mist. The hunter knew this to be a vampire's gaseous form, something vampires used for quick escapes.
No, you will not run! cried a terrible voice inside the vampire's head.
Soulviss' body reappeared a few feet away from Shadimir. "My goddess, I am sorry, I have failed you. Please let me leave, so I can serve you another day," Soulviss pleaded.
The plan failed because you weren't smart enough to keep more than four guards down here with you. I will deal with you on my own time.
"You don't understand, I didn't think they would send anyone down here...please..." Soulviss crawled on his hands over to the black orb.
Shadimir and Iris watched the vampire speak to the open air. They couldn't hear anything for it, but he had heard Soulviss call to his goddess to let him leave the tomb. He looked over at the wall, seeing the small black shard imbedded in the wall, surrounded by black marked runes. "Iris, go and remove that shard from the rune," Shadimir said as he walked over to the vampire.
Iris obeyed, and walked in front of the shard, but rather than remove it from the wall, she brought her great sword forward and began batting her blade against the shard, breaking it piece by tiny piece.
Shadimir walked up to Soulviss, who appeared to be hunched over on his side. The hunter began to feel pity for the vampire. He held Gabriel forward, ready to finish the creature off, when the vampire disappeared in front of the Shadimir's eyes. What remained, was the black orb.
The hunter looked at the orb curiously, and began feeling around it softly.
Who are you? said a cold female voice from inside the orb.
Back in the Demonweb Pits, Kiaransalee stared at the silver haired human who was now holding the orb. The silver hair. The blue eyes. Something about this human was familiar to the Lady of the Dead.
Then she remembered Elisondar, the first dracolich created by her clerics. She remembered the dracolich was destroyed almost a month ago. If the reports and messages sent to her by her clerics were true, then his man matched the description of the one responsible for the destruction of Elisondar. Whether he was the one who had destroyed the dracolich or not, he was responsible for ruining her plans to take over Waterdeep with her army of undead. The shard must have been destroyed, because the drow goddess could no longer sense the power of undead coming from the surface of Waterdeep's graveyard.
"Soulviss maybe have been weak, but he could created more undead," Kiaransalee growled, but now her plan had truly failed.
YOU! the voice from inside the orb screamed into Shadimir's mind, causing him to drop the orb. The hunter's head filled with unbearable throbbing pain. He thought his head was going to explode.
Hearing Shadimir's cries of pain, Iris walked over to him. She looked down at the orb, her insides telling her to destroy the cursed object. She brought her greatsword's sharp tip down hard on the orb, shattering it on impact.
When the orb was destroyed, she looked over at the orb, she saw Shadimir lying unconscious on the cold tomb floor.