Wealday, Pharast 27, 4713 afternoon
Beneath the House of Withered Blossoms

After slaying the surviving giant we opened the north door upon the balcony and entered another hallway. This too had mutilated human bodies spiked to the walls.

“But why would anyone do this?” Huffy asked in a plaintive squeak.

Beorn gave a chirp of derision, “Don’t be naive. You know why: because they enjoy it.”

A recent addition — the body of a monk — hung on the far wall, and as we entered we heard the sound of creaking bones. A shimmering ghostly form of a spirit drifted away from the body and towards us.

Much like the spirits we had encountered in the forest this one did not appear to be a typical undead ghost or wraith, but none the less we had no desire to be possessed by the thing.

But it was too quick and we too slow, and it melded with Kali, who sank to her knees, crying out in an eerily hollow voice, “You must help, you must help! You must avenge my killer!”

Olmas asked, “Who was your killer?”, to which Kali replied, “Munasukaru!”

The Oni. We could have guessed. Having made its demands the monk remained joined with Kali, probably to see its final request through to the end. But it was not hostile, and Kali found that she could communicate with it, and that she had gained some of its knowledge and abilities.

She found that its… his name was Kusatsu Yuka.

The southern door led to another hall, and beyond we found a dark, vast open space. Kali sent Nihali off to scout it out, and she returned to report that there was a hobgoblin village nearby and a large stone building building further in.

We decided to rest before facing the cavern, and so secured the two doors in the balcony hall, and Kali sent Nihali out once again to check on the rescued humans above.

The raven soon returned and reported that additional hobgoblins had entered the pagoda. Fearing that they would find the humans we had rescued, we made our way back up to ground level, leaving Radella and Ivan to secure our camp.

The rest of us found the hobgobs, whom tried to flee, but three died very swiftly, and the third we captured alive and questioned. He proved to be quite informative after we convinced him that we worked for Munasukaru.

“She be great! I never seen her, but I knows of her greatitude. I good servant. We sent out to patrol and capture more slaves (never enough slaves, which make good sport and good eating). We clever squad and encounter many humans who attack. I kill at least fifty all by myselfs. Companions not so mighty as I and they die in attack. I faithful servant of Munasukaru.”

Convinced that he would soon be rewarded for he service he accepted a prolonged drink of saki from the everlasting decanter — a good long draught that lasted until he passed out. Ivan drew the short straw and got to slit his throat. After what we had seen below there was no talk or suggestion of any action more merciful than that.

While we waited for the hobgob to drink himself into oblivion we took what little he and his companions had been carrying.

533	rope of climbing
534	4 masterwork armor
535	4 wooden shields
536	4 masterwork composite longbows (+3 STR)
537	4 masterwork Morningstars
538	13 arrows

Presently we returned to the balcony hall and found that Ivan and Radella had been busy. They had discovered that the hobgoblin village was in a large crevasse below our level, accessible by a wooden ladder, which they had pulled up.

Oathday, Pharast 28, 4713 morning
Beneath the House of Withered Blossoms

The night passed without interruption. We only require couple of hours a sleep per day, but no one can be alert for all of their waking hours, and so the length of a watch is only two to three hours. This leaves each of us with plenty of time to work on other things.

Early this morning Zos quietly moved over to one of the giant corpses, which we had piled against the southern door to hold it shut. Out came his little case of vials and smelly chemicals and he softly hummed or murmured to himself as he mixed some concoction. He then took needle and thread and stitched together the gash in the giant’s head.

This got my attention and I came over to watch more closely. He injected the now sutured giant body with his chemical cocktail. After a moment or two it opened its eyes and then slowly sat up.

This garnered some concern among my companions, but I had watched Zos during this entire operation. He had performed no magic nor had he used any negative energy to revive the fallen giant.

“So you didn’t use any spells?” I asked.

“Correct.” Zos replied, as he looked admiringly at the dull eyed thing now standing before him.

“And you did not use any negative energy?” I prompted.

Zos quickly answered, “None at all. This is an alchemical construct.”

I recalled a conversation I had a few years earlier, back when I was still an acolyte of Pharasma. Father Jivorus was the head of the Church of Pharasma in Magnimar, and I had asked about the spell Animate Dead.

“Undead are abominations not only because they are created from negative energy, but the souls of the dead are judged by Pharasma and her alone. Souls of the undead are kept from the Gray Lady, and that is blasphemous.”

“Yes,” I had countered, “but Animate Dead does not use negative energy, and surely the souls of the already dead have long since gone to Pharasma.”

Father Jivorus stopped walking and turned to me, “There are some who think that fragments of the soul are called back and forced to inhabit their animated bodies. Would you dare take that risk?”

I replied much more slowly this time, “N-no.” But I was unconvinced. While not a cantrip, Animate Dead was also not a very advanced spell. It seemed unlikely to me that casting it released the power needed to splinter the soul of the departed — one whom had been sent by Pharasma to its final resting place — and bind it to dead tissue. And what of the souls consumed by Groetus? Would their bodies not animate because their souls no longer existed? This restriction seemed arbitrary.

But then another thought sprang to mind. “So if we cannot cast Animate Dead even on the corpses of animals, it must mean that they too have souls, right?”

Father Jivorus had sighed and shook his head, but said no more about it.

It seemed clear to me then just as it did now that a lumbering mindless body was no more undead than any mechanical construct, like a golem. There had to be more to undead then that.

I looked at Zos, who was now busy working over the second giant, and said “Cool.”

Olmas looked questioningly at me, but I simply said, “Relax, he is not creating undead.”

Later we were ready to head out into the cavern, but we would bypass the village and head straight for the more distant, large stone structure. Fly and Airwalk spells were cast and we flitted into the darkness. Zos’ two giant servants were left behind to provide support if we needed to make a desperate retreat.

As we flew out I caught the glimmer of firelight off to the left, and heading Beorn’s advice of, “We should check that out,” I veered over to see a camp fire burning in a smaller cavern, with hobgoblins busily performing various domestic acts.

Timber made a rude noise and remarked, “That was so worth the effort, Beorn.” I shushed him and flew back to the others as a large stone building came into view.

It towered all of the way from the floor to almost touching the ceiling: a height of nearly two hundred feet. A narrow stone bridge connected the top most floor of the tower to a shelf several hundred feet to the north. The sound of a distant waterfall filled the air.

We landed on the building and found that it was nearly a ruin, with holes in the wooden roof and missing stones in the walls. Dasi hovered above the roof and concentrated as he stared down.

“I sense ten minds below,” he said, “all of them of about average intelligence.”

This put ten foes somewhere within sixty feet of where we stood. We thought there were different floors below, with a few hobgobs on each level. As such we thought a slow and stealthy advance downward was the best approach.

We thought wrong.

Radella silently crept down the spiral staircase into a tall and large chamber, where a group of hobgoblins were standing or sitting or laying around. She signalled back to Olmas and and I, who were following, to be silent and cautious.

All of us were floating in the air, and so moving quietly seemed like an easy thing. Until Olmas scraped his armor against the stone wall on the way down.

Up jumped the hobgoblin guards, suddenly at full alert and looking up at the open staircase where Olmas looked sheepishly down at them. Up jumped an enormously fat hobgoblin, who had been laying on a bed along with a foursome of what I assumed were female hobgoblins, “What’s going on!?”

I swooped down and placed a wall of stone isolating the fat one and his harem from his guards. The rest of my companions flew in and we all attacked.

Combat was fierce but not prolonged, and even the “Swine Samurai” fell quickly before us. Actually the pudgy pig prodder yelled out “Munasukaru, I know you are watching! For your glory!” before ingloriously sticking himself with his own knife.

This left the harem on the other side of the wall to deal with, and Olmas and a spiritual ally I had created earlier finished the task.

Ivan had moved over to the stairs and looked down to make sure nothing below would climb up and attack us. He nearly stumbled down the steps from the stench wafting up. The chamber was filled with animal pens and a pair of giants acting as keepers. We sent a large earth elemental and the spiritual ally down to attack the giants, who unbarred the main doors and fled.

I used some channels to heal the party while others picked through the corpses for items we could use.

539	+2 armor (O-yoroi)
540	+1 thundering great axe
541	dagger with gold hilt
542	masterwork composite longbow (+4 STR)
543	20 arrows
544	+4 belt of Giant Strength (Qatana)
545	+1 cloak of Resistance
546	+1 war hat (crest of ancient and honorable house of Minkai) +1 luck bonus to AC, can negate critical hit or sneak attack 1/day
547	bronze rice bowl
548	carved horned box with 6 spinels
549	carved horn drinking cup
550	6 masterwork morningstars
551	6 masterwork composite longbow (+3 STR)
552	6 masterwork armor (do-maru)
553	6 masterwork wooden shields
554	32 arrows
	47 gold pieces

I was delighted to find something I could actually use, and glady donned the belt of giant strength. Star practically purred with enthusiasm.

We carefully crossed the bridge over to a stone shelf from which the walkway plunged into a rock tunnel that steeply descended the full two hundred feet down to the cavern floor via cracked and slippery steps.

The bottom of the cavern was a smooth large rock shelf above a subterranean river. To the left a huge waterfall thundered down from above, crashing onto rocks and collecting into a pool from which the river flowed. The sound of the cataract filled the air, and we had to lean into to one another and talk loudly just to be heard.

On the far side of the river was a stout stone keep, and as we approached we could dimly see hobgoblins watching us from the battlements. A drawbridge provided access to the keep from our side of the river, but of course it was raised.

Kali created an image of Munasukaru (courtesy of Kusatsu Yuka) and we pretended to converse with her. Here the deafening roar of the falls worked to our favor, for Kali did not know what Munasukaru sounded like, and the anxious hobgobs would not expect to hear her above the noise.

Olmas and I accompanied our friendly image of Munasukaru across the river to see if we could lower the drawbridge, but a pair of gigantic water elementals rose up and beat the snot out of Olmas before he could retreat to the near shore.

I managed to escape by shooting upward, and the image of Munasukaru rose with me. She then moved toward the hobgoblins with her eyes flaming an angry red and indicated that they had better lower the drawbridge or else.

One of the frightened guards saluted and ran down to lower the drawbridge. I nodded at Munasukaru and drifted down to the rest of my comrades to cross over the drawbridge. The elementals sunk back into the river, but I think we should take the river crossing at a run to be safe.