Patch the Hole in My Heart *Sob*

In a short but eventful session we saw the birth of a new way to play and the death of a, uh, hmm... friend?

Recap: The session starts off with the PC's escaping the town of Snoam-Schlabach. The town is still feeling the effects of a recent two-day battle with their Schudlichton rivals and most are reeling with the anticipation of meeting them again. The outsiders go about their business basically ignored by those they don't deliberately interact with.

Before leaving they enter Fengis' warehouse and take the tobacco they left behind earlier along with some picks and shovels. They leave the doors open so Piter and his friends can pick through and freely distribute what they didn't already take of Fengis' goods. They then head to see the blacksmith who sells them a club, a quarterstaff and a heavy iron mace. After that, the group heads to Whitewall Camp and afterwards, the MacBrady(bunch) tomb.

On the way, less than a mile from town they are waylaid by a group of three dire wolves. With the exception of a brief period where Patch is pinned beneath one (reminding him of a scene from "The Two Towers") they are dispatched rather quickly and easily. They arrive at camp by nightfall. They rent rooms and put up their horses for the night and catch a restful sleep.

The next day they walk to the Olde Snoam Mine, traversing through sparse pine and thick snow. It takes half of the day but they arrive without incident. They rope themselves up the 30 foot incline and climb to the plateau. They enter the cave and inexplicably separate into three groups. Ademar remains near the entrance, Patch heads northeast and Cor'Nal heads southeast toward the downward stairs leading nearer the tomb. Patch runs headlong into a group of five darkmantles. He yells for help and is rescued by his friends but in truth probably could've handled the situation himself.

Eventually they make it to the tomb entrance but not before Patch manages to fall into Woofy's pit (now Woofy's tomb). He is brought up without further incident. Once at the entrance they spend the rest of the day and half of the next hacking through the clay wall that Cor'Nal previously created, bypassing the locked door. They walk down a short corridor and come to another locked door. An iron door taking up the whole of the east wall. It is locked, and twice trapped. They trigger it the first time filling the corridor with a strange mist that eventually ignites erupting the passage into natural flame. Patch takes minimal damage but Ademar escapes unscathed. The second attempt is successful.

They enter the tomb to find a large room, roughly 50'x50', it is filled with fifteen sarcophagi. The center one, also the grandest in appearance, holds the three dimensional effigy of a knight on the sarcophagus lid, it is made of a rare blue stone that even Patch does not recognize. They search the room. first for traps and then for secret doors. They find no traps but a secret door is located on the far east wall beneath a message written in an ancient form of the common tongue reading:

"We bury ye, and with ye, the ways of olde."

It leads to another tomb. It contains only one sarcophagus but its a big one. Fully eight feet long and five feet high, the name Pietrous MacBrady is carved out of the blue stone. Another cryptic message on the wall reads:

“Undisturbed may you lay in this tomb of the past, undisturbed as the days of old, deep with the last vestiges of the magic we’ve forsaken, and the ways we’ve chosen to forget.”

Patch decides against heeding the words of the wall and disturbs the tomb. He cracks it open with the crowbar, and slides the massive, heavy lid away from the sarcophagus. Inside he finds the surprisingly well-preserved corpse of a Knight of Ulygnguard (YOO-leen-gard), a Sword of Sovereignty in state dressed in full battle regalia. He is wearing a full set of Adamantite plate, bearing the Rampant Lion crest of the Swords of Sovereignty. He holds in his hands a magical longsword, upon which rests an Adamantite tower shield. Upon his head rests a magical helm. Cor'Nal suggests Patch close the lid. Ademar suggests the entire group leave while they still have their luck and their lives intact.

Patch decides to take the lot of it.

He dons the helmet, which seems to give him greater understanding of things around him. He puts the armor, which won't fit him anyway, into his sack. He dons the shield and takes the longsword in hand, temporarily replacing the dwarven waraxe he usually wields. He even takes the worthless, rotted boots the knight is wearing. Presumably just to anger his companions, or the gods themselves.

Ademar and Cor'Nal order him to put the stuff back. When he refuses they turn their backs on him and leave the tomb altogether. When they leave him, Patch just shrugs his shoulders and walks out alone. When he reaches the center sarcophagus in the larger tomb the door that Ademar and Cor'Nal pass through closes, and a spectre then rises up from the tomb. The spectre is facing Patch, it points to the armor he wears and hisses. Patch says, "Hey, whats goin' on?". The spectre hisses again and reaches for Patch. A battle ensues, Patch screams when he feels his lifeforce being stolen away by the ghostly spectre. His companions hear this and come back through the inexplicably closed door. They too battle the spectre. The battle is won but not before Patch has four effective levels taken from him in lifeforce which nearly kills him. Again the two elves tell the defiant, and now severely weakened dwarf to put back the knights belongings. He again refuses. Ademar socks Patch in the face and a fight breaks out between the two. Patch uses the flat of his sword in an attempt to subdue his friend (although using his fists would've worked just as well). Cor'Nal and the wolf soon join the fray when Ademar begins to lose the battle. They are playing for real however and do not pull their punches, so to speak. Patch rages when he becomes outnumbered and begins to do lethal damage to Ademar whom he eventually bests. When Ademar falls, the wolf and Cor'Nal also take their lumps for a time before Patch finally falls. When he does, Cor'Nal casts a cure minor wounds spell to stabilize him. He then brings Ademar out of unconsciousness. When Ademar comes to, they work together at stealing back the gear Patch himself stole and return it to the fallen knight. While they do this, Patch comes out of his rage and peacefully slips from this mortal coil. He dies, unconscious and alone upon the cold stone floor of a tomb of strangers.

It was unintentional, but it happened. And now the elves find themselves, yet again, without a brute to help protect them. They stood up for their principles, probably the only time either had done so thus far, and put down their traveling companion. Will they return to Snoam-Schlabach to burn him upon a pyre? Or send his body back to Thorak to have his body entombed with his ancestors?

Goodbye Patch. We hardly knew ye.