Tessa’s crown-induced intuition led them deep into the Badlands, to a foreboding castle keep in the middle of a dark and gloomy marsh. It did *not* look friendly and inviting. Roland agreed to Kat’s suggestion that they scout the place out a bit before deciding upon an approach.
On the outskirts of the area, they found the castle graveyard, with a few small masoleums. And what looked like the the lost spirit of a dwarven scholar wandering disconsolately about. Naturally, while the others were wary Roland’s first inclination was to walk up and talk to the poor fellow. The spirit turned out to be Angbi Kramsson, former member of the Antiquarians guild. He was killed by ghouls while doing research on the masoleums. He had continued performing his research in death, but could not report his findings back to the guild because he could not leave his bones – which had been scattered by wolves. Roland assured him that they would find his remains and return them to Caer Cyflen with them. According to Angbi the Keep was the home of the Necromancer Madracht, as well as his apprentices and undead servants.Continuing to explore the area, they found a dilapidated cabin with a dark-looking man at a campfire surrounded by black wolves. Tessa detected something decidedly unnatural about the man and his wolves. Kat’s instincts were that he was not at all to be trusted. So naturally Roland’s decision was… to stride up and have a conversation with the man. He claimed that his name was Talbot, and he had a loose arrangement with the Guard Captain of the Keep, an undead warrior named Adam the Twelfth. Adam allowed him to live and hunt in the area unmolested in return for his reporting the comings and goings of travellers. Despite the arrangement, Talbot found himself straightforwardly laying out for Roland all he knew of the castle’s garrison (quite a bit) and master and occupants (very little).Finally they headed to the gates of the Keep itself. Kat could already tell where this was going, and she was *not* happy about it. “You can’t just walk up to the undead guardians of a Necromancer’s Castle and his garrison and ask him nicely if we can pop in and ask his master to give us an ancient magical gem Roland. The world just does *not* work that way!” But Roland was unmoved, “If you don’t treat people as rational beings, then they cannot respond to you as rational beings. You have to give them the chance.”“But we’re talking about Evil Wizards and Skeletal lackeys here Roland, not a bandit chief and his cronies!”, retorted Kat. “People are people”, responded Roland, and proceeded to march straight up to the Castle Gates and… Knock.And much to Kat’s surprise (but at this point, not really) the large flaming headed guard captain came charging out threatening and hostile, listened to Roland’s sincere and straightforward proposal… and agreed to let them continue on into the keep. He could offer no assurances that the Necromancer’s apprentices would agree, and warned that some of the more feral undead in the Keep would likely attack regardless, but readily agreed with Roland that the Necromancer himself should make the ultimate decision as to how to respond. And the others just shook their heads as the undead warriors saluted and went back to their duties.Inside the Keep they met a number of novice Necromancers and various undead – much of it mindless ghouls and zombies who attacked on sight. They eventually stumbled into the workshop of a woman calling herself Lizzaria, who claimed to be Mardracht’s apprentice. Once again Roland engaged her in conversation, and was able to come to an amicable understanding. It seems Mardracht was no ordinary Necromancer.. he was a millenia old Elven necromancer of the old Manacalon Empire who had been one of the original Mages enlisted to seal the Rift!! Lizzaria herself claimed to have been supporting him since before the Cataclysm! While she was prepared to agree to Roland’s proposals, there was a problem. A vampire woman named Aksha had taken over part of the tower centuries earlier, hoping to study magic with Mardracht. And Aksha had restricted all access to Mardracht. Lizzaria claimed Mardracht had never quite psychologically recovered from the Cataclysm, and Aksha had preyed upon his vulnerability to isolate him. They weren’t sure how much to trust Lizzaria, but Aksha sounded like a problem no matter what.They continued on further up the Keep, finding the next level largely full of ravenous Ghouls. Apparently Lizzaria specialized in Zombies while Aksha specialized in Ghouls, and the two had been in low-level conficit for some time as Lizzaria attempted to displace Aksha. Kat also noted that all the exterior windows on this level of the keep were boarded up. She had a hunch that would be useful information.
When they made it to Aksha’s chambers, she too seemed strangely amicable and open to dialog. She was perfectly happy to let them through to see Madracht, although she claimed he had grown so paranoid and unmoored from reality that he could no longer manage an intelligible conversation. She seemed quite bitter about that, and had resigned herself to gleaning what Necromantic Lore she could from his extensive libraries. Just as they were about to continue on peacefully, Aksha made an offhand comment while complaining about her hardships that made Kat’s blood run cold. “Nothing to eat in these marshes but wolves and rats. Haven’t had so much as a hunter in months, and nothing young and tender in centuries…”
Kat had been complaining for much of the mission about Roland’s insistence on attempting to negotiate with every opponent, no matter what they were. But this, she knew how he would react to this. Centuries old Vampire Necromancer of unknown power or not. “I think, woman, that it is time to curb your appetite” said Roland, coldly. And the battle was on.Aksha immediately took to the air and summoned a magical inky blackness, making it almost impossible to see her. And this was no ordinary darkness spell. Tessa could not counter it, and even a daylight spell of her own had little effect. Meanwhile Roland was having difficulty doing damage to Aksha faster than she could drain life from he and her vampire servants.Falcon attempted to occupy and wear down the vampire servants so that they could concentrate on Aksha, but even with his speed and skill that was a tall order.Just when it seemed the task was growing impossible, they heard a voice ring out from the balcony above. “Hey you bloody tart! I bet this will make a fine bonfire!” It was Kat. Holding what appeared to be Aksha’s spellbook…. The Vampire immediately ceased toying with Roland and flew up to Kat. Who was standing with a smirk, spellbook in one hand and… a warhammer? in the other? “Do you even know how to use that dearie? ” sneered Aksha. “Surely you don’t think you can harm *me* with it?” “Oh its not for you”, smiled Kat, as she suddenly turned and smashed the hammer straight through the wood panelling – which had been used long ago to cover all the windows in the room…Streams of bright sunlight poured in, shining directly on Aksha. She screamed as the sunlight burned her, but before she could flee Tessa hit the now clearly visible vampiress with an old elven specialty – the entangling arrow. They watched silently as Akasha disintegrated, and then turned away. Roland had nothing more to say about her.
They healed up, cleaned up, and pressed on. The next level was a magical maze, with teleporters that had to be activated in a specific sequence. But it was of little challenge for Tess. There were several strong squads of undead blocking their progress past that, but nothing to compare to Aksha and her cronies.
When they finally made their way to Mardracht they found that, as they had been warned, he was quite severely delusional. He believed that the Human Gods were out to kill him for sealing them in the old world when he helped close the Rift. And he was convinced those Gods had sent them to kill him. Roland talked him down from immediate violence, but could not get through his madness to negotiate. Kat put her hand on his shoulder, “Let me take this one” she smiled. Then she spun a tale of tales, mixing just enough truth to sound authentic with just enough of Mardracht’s own delusions to sell it. They were immensely powerful Agents of the Gods sent to kill him for his blasphemy, but they wished to rebel and protect Solasta. They needed to empower the Crown with its old gems so that they could defeat the interloper Gods and send them back to the old world. And while Mardracht hesitated for a moment… he bought it. Hook, line, and sinker. He handed them the Gem, and directed them to a Major Gate which would teleport them back to Caer Cyflen.
As they stepped through, Kat winked at Roland. “Sometimes my way works out too” she chided as she stepped through the portal. Roland just chuckled and followed behind.
Author’s Note: Yes, Roland is really specced for Persuasion and Insight with a high Charisma (a viable build for a 5E Paladin). And yes, even in game he was allowed to pass checks to peacefully talk his way past many of these fights. Even Aksha if he had been able to tolerate walking away. And Kat is just as heavily specced to be good at Deception.
4 responses to “Solasta: The Dark Keep”
atcDave
Very entertaining. I loved both the renders and story of the encounter with Aksha. And the balance between Roland and Kat makes this a ton of fun.
The whole structure of the game really fits them well. From the many opportunities to talk your way through things, to the differences in *how* you talk your way through things, to the whole way the Crownbearer thing works – which was practically tailor-made for Tess given the way it turns out.
The shocker here was how much the AI let me get away with injuries on Roland. I initially just asked for a “bloody” lip, and it went so overboard with that I just started describing minor cuts and got the image shown.
The *real* shocker was the undead guard captain. I didn’t say one word about Tess, or women, or companions of any sort in that description. Just Roland, Adam, and skeletons. But I had just finished a bunch of images of Tess and Roland arguing when I asked for that. Which to my mind proves just about conclusively that it has some sort of memory.
That all is amazing, although I would have guessed the same from my own experience, that the AI remembers *some* things. It can be frustrating when it gets on a kick you don’t want, and you aren’t sure if you need to reword something or just do something else for a bit.
Sometimes I’ll get to thinking if I select certain photos for enlargement it weights those more heavily to influence future renders. But everytime I get sure of that, it does something wild to dissuade me.
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