Returning from their battle with Derl Xian seems much easier then the warriors expect, almost as if the undead were avoiding them, possibly afraid of them because of their victories over the scores of undead thrown at them.
Deciding to avoid the lands of the dead for a time, the warriors head north towards Morgheim and beyond that the dwarven fortress of Barak Var. Unfortunately our warriors plans are changed upon arrival in a small city known as Gharig, on the edge of the marshes of madness.
Arriving in the city they meet a messenger from the council of the empire. A visage of the great undead king Nagash had appeared before the council telling them that he was returning and that his armies would soon destroy all that the empire had built. Grim news indeed, for even if untrue, the power required to create such an apparition so far away would be immense.
Even worse then the news from the messenger is the local state of the city.
Displeased with the warriors and their progress, Nagash, or his current replacement, has assigned one of his groups of minions to attack the warriors and eliminate them. The Dark Eve, as this group of elite warriors is known, is one of the groups of undead that can be considered elite as their leaders are even more magically powerful then most. The Dark Eve first tried to convince the inhabitants of Gharig to turn the warriors over to the dark eve by threatening them with death and a curse. The inhabitants of Gharig are not your run of the mill peasants though, having great bitterness towards the undead that kill their crops and indeed friends as well, refused to give in to their demands. Instead the peasants decide to support the warriors, as long as they could find a way to stop the curse of the dark eve which kills 1 citizen every night that the warriors live. When purchasing anything in this city, a roll of 5 or 6 will reduce the cost by ¼.
To stop the curse, the warriors must take water from the sacred fountain and pour it on the idol in the idol chamber, once this is done, the power that the idol was providing is stopped and the curse is broken.
Both of these rooms are heavily defended though, the sacred fountain is defended by 2 ghosts, and 8 tomb guardians. The idol chamber is defended by the mummy Grandh Hara (who acts as a normal mummy with a magical item, weapon, and armor), his 2 wraith bodyguards, and 8 tomb guardians.
If the warriors failed to save the Vampire's Eye in the previous quest it is strangely found lieing in the sacred fountain. The warriors encounter 2 necromancer's as well as the 2 ghosts and 8 tomb guardians and in addition will suffer 1 wound fatal damage from the sizzling gases produced by the combination of the Eye and the pure water from the sacred fountain per turn.
This dungeon is to be played somewhat differently. Every turn the members of the Dark Eve will enter the dungeon, being placed in the first room. From there they will persue the warriors through the dungeon unless halted by an impassable obstacle. The number of Dark warriors (Skeletons armed with swords) is determined with a D6 roll and these warriors have +1 weapon skill and +1 strength. Note that these attackers are in addition to any other monsters. (Also note that the normal rules for exploration do not apply, because otherwise the warriors wouldn't make it past the first room, in this quest you may explore when monsters are present).
The actual dungeon layout is also somewhat determined. The fourth room is a T-junction (Make a random deck for the first 3 rooms), and somewhere down the one path is the fountain chamber, while somewhere down the other is the idol chamber (5 card random deck for each). The warriors may not enter the idol chamber without the sacred water from the fountain chamber. Both objective rooms yield 1D6 x 100 gold and an objective room treasure card to any warrior who participates in the battle.
One last note is that if the warriors have the Vampire Eye from the previous adventure it may be placed in front of the idol, returning Randon Keeg's soul to a liche body. Randon Keeg is then considered 'alive'. He is still undead but has reconsidered his plan to be put to rest. Seeing the terror that may be unleashed upon the land he decides to remain in the idol chamber to determine if there is any truth behind the return of Nagash.
In all reality it is pretty easy to stop the hoards of undead that pour in from the entrance, if you have a wizard all you need to cast is the pit of dispair once or twice. Remember this needs to be done before the t-junction.
If you can't cast a pit of dispair the next best thing is to have a warrior who can fight on his own (helmet of farseeing or something like that would do). Place him before the t-junction and just let him slay the skeletons till the cows come home (this is assuming you have a strong warrior who can deflect the hits for about 5 to 10 turns.
If you can't use either of the above suggestions your in for a long, tough fight because first you'll have to run through the skeletons to get to the one objective room and then you'll have to attack them to get back to the second objective room.
Loric held the skeletons off for a while but the trick was that he needed to be near the lantern. Then we realized how we could use the pit of dispair, that cleaned things up nicely. Then we sent 2 warriors down each path and upon arrival at the sacred fountain decided the barbarian and wizard were slightly out of their league. The wizard popped back a Potion of Change which we had found a few rooms earlier and we were lucky enough to have him converted to a Lord of Change. You can probably imagine how easy the quest was after that!