The Catacombs of Ascendent Court (Part II)

Wraith of Unusual Size

While examining the traps protecting the Treasure Vault, the party was attacked by a group of barrow-wights led by a Wraith of Unusual Size. The Wraith phased through the walls to attack us from the other side of the trapped bars, and screamed like a Banshee (no banshees were harmed in the making of this encounter) when hit it repeatedly with the Sunbolt spell. 

The squad dealt the barrow-wights after Simi destroyed the wraith. The traps guarding the vault were disarmed by Valcos and Pumpelio acting as a team. Those with arcane knowledge identified several valuable magic items, and those they could not use were taken as evidence. Heading west and north, the squad encountered a hallway with spectral grasping hands, which attempted to slow them and drain life energy, but after they were revealed they were swiftly bypassed. 

Barrow Wights

At the end of the corridor were a pair of double doors that passed into the Crypt of the Headless Horseman. This ten-foot-wide hallway forms a ring. Exiting the ring are a large pair of stone doors to the south and a hall that quickly ends in caved-in rubble to the west. Just north of the cave-in, a narrow, hollowed-out tunnel in the twenty foot-tall ceiling also indicates a potential point of egress. Within the ring is a cylindrical ossuary, accessible from the northern side of the ring via a wrought-iron door made of vertical bars tipped with ornamental castings of cantering horses, javelins, pennants, and other heraldic symbols. A splendid rectangular tomb fills the center of the central ossuary, on top of which is a life-size statue of an ivory cavalier mounted atop a rearing onyx-black steed. The room is guarded by Black Puddings. The Black Puddings were, at length, destroyed, and one of the remains yielded a copper key to the portcullis. 

Black Pudding

Searching the area, Valcos unlocked a door leading to a staircase leading to a subterranean passage. They found their way to the Viewing Room, where they engaged a Skinsaw cultist named Dannicus in conversation. Dannicus and his friend Gubbs (who had failed to make the rendezvous) have decided to leave the cult, and in exchange for safe passage out, Dannicus drew the squad a rough map of the Skinsaw cult area. The squad escorted him to safety, and went back to the portcullis before resting.

Skinsaw Cultist Lair