Welcome to Dungeons & Dragons – The Death Knight’s Squire! Last time our hero, Milhouse the Scholar, does a lot of wandering around with not much excitement, although he does infiltrate a thieves’ den and steals 1000gp worth of gems! I have no idea where he’s going to spend it in the woods, but maybe there’s a vending machine somewhere.

Oh no, a nice-looking stone doorway! Run!

The walking feels interminable, but the new trusty walking stick makes it a snap! Some keen observation reveals that Milhouse has been here before — if he turns left, he’ll be back where he fought those Giant Spiders that quote/unquote he defeated. Instead of doing an about-face, Milhouse turns right to see if there’s more treasure to be found in this neck of the woods. Learning his lessons, he moves with carefulness.

-Stealth check! DC 13. 15 + 3 = 18. Handily done.

Milhouse tiptoes like a child on Christmas morning. He checks for traps and finds a doorway to a stone building! Finally, something interesting!

-Trap-checkin’ perception roll (DC 14). 14 + 3 = 17. Success once again.

A very thorough investigation of the doorway reveals a catch mechanism on the door’s handle! Milhouse just avoided certain death!… but, Milhouse’s curiosity gets the better of him and he chooses, like an idiot, to pull on the door handle anyway. As expected by the off-screen game player, something bad happens! Two darts shoot out of cleverly-concealed holes and pierces Milhouse’s scrawny neck.

-Dumbass. Roll 2d4 and deduct from HP: 12 – 3 – 2 = 7 HP. Learn a lesson, nerd.

After applying plenty of poultice, Milhouse peers into the now-open door. Might as well anyway since it’s open, right? He enters the passage and discovers it to be a calm, cool, pleasant, but dark walkway (Note: Milhouse has darkvision, so he is allowed to continue instead of turning around). This may not be a good idea at all, but the young elf’s thrill-seeking tendencies have never stopped him before. Soon enough, he reaches the top of a flight of stone stairs. The click-clack of Milhouse’s shoes on the stone floor echo throughout the corridor. He descends the stairs anxiously, peering around for traps and denizens of the stone passage.

Milhouse hopes that this is where the Brewmonts’ son, Darek, is being held captive, perhaps on a spit with an apple stuck in his mouth. The stairs lead to a dimly-lit medium-sized chamber. More looking around ensues. There’s not much to see besides spiderwebs, dust, decay, and that bronze idol over there in the corner… heh heh… buh-what?!

Could this be Amaunator? Because he looks like a bearded John Malkovich.

It’s a likeness of Amaunator, the Sun god, the god of law and justice. He is worshipped in Faerun and not many places else, especially not Paraguay. It’s obvious that this chamber is some sort of monastery due to the plethora of cushions that litter the floor, and since Milhouse is a High Elf who isn’t a cleric or a paladin, he says “Fuck that noise” and throws a rock at the bronze idol. “What’s this doing all the way out in the middle of the woods anyway?” he says to himself loud enough to wake any thieves that may be squatting in the area. Thankfully, at least for now, he is undetected.

Milhouse takes a look around the room, making note of any oddities or delicious treasures that may be in its midst. He kicks up dust that may have been built up for years, perhaps decades, maybe even millennia! But it’s unlikely.

-Investigation check! d20 + 5 = 16 + 5 = 21, hell yeah.

The room is full of dusty old books and scrolls. Milhouse rifles through them and one catches his eye: a red book with no title. It appears to be some sort of journal. The pages are yellowing, filled with handwritten scrawl. Milhouse just about tosses it against the wall as hard as he can when he notices a mention of the Death Knight. “Buh?” he says, taking a closer look.

Hung he was, in the year 3010 EC, from the great Red Tree in the middle of the wood. After that, he became an abomination, a stain on mankind: one of the undead army. It is rumoured that a stake from the tree which he was hung from will finally put an end to his wretched half-life. There is a cave, north of the Amaunator temple, that is said to hold the undead victims of the Death Knight. Under pain of the death, the Death Knight kidnapped the son of a great cleric and made him bless the river that runs path the cave’s mouth, turning it into holy water. Hence those poor undead victims of the Death Knight are forever trapped within that cave, from now to eternity. Perhaps someday they will be freed, though the gods only know how.”

Milhouse flips through more pages and finds a scrap of parchment, which appears to be a spell: “This scroll contains the spell Protection from Evil and Good,” it says. “Hey! I don’t know that one yet!” Milhouse yells even louder than he did before. He pockets the parchment and sets his eyes on the bronze idol of Amuanator itself, which sits upon a small altar. The bronze is so sleek and shiny that it nearly blinds Milhouse’s poor, fragile darkvisioned eyeballs! And, of course, there’s a very valuable trinket lying next to it: a necklace with a holy symbol of Amaunator. “Perhaps this belonged to a monk or a cleric,” Milhouse snorts with disdain. “Insufferable.” But he pockets the necklace anyway. Maybe he can throw it at a spider later.

Pictured: Protection from Evil and Good. The sick-ass demon on it is the icing on the cake!

Satisfied with what he found in these hallowed halls, Milhouse turns around and heads back upstairs to the wood.

At this point Milhouse comes across another green dot on the map and I am prompted to roll a d100. I get 18, and I add 10 to the total due to an earlier successful stealth check. 28 leads me to the next plot point…

Milhouse heads north on the same bearing from before he encountered the stone doors. After a time, something catches his eye: a gray solid shape off the path to the left, mostly covered in leaves and twigs. Looking around and making sure he’s not going to fall into a 90-ft pit, Milhouse approaches the shape and kicks off the debris.

It’s a gravestone.

HERE LIES DAREK BREWMONT
Laid to rest in Weathercote Wood Cemetery… there to rest for all eternity

Milhouse is about to shed a tear and pour a little liquor for his homie, but then he squints and takes a closer look at the gravestone. The death date is tomorrow! What the actual fuck? “Is the boy already dead or not? What could this mean?” Milhouse thinks pensively as he walks away.

Suspicious that the stone was a hallucination, Milhouse doubles back and takes another look. This time, the name “Darek Brewmont” is gone, the actually lettering on the stone is faded and illegible, and the bottom has a clear symbol for a noose: the mark for the grave of a murderer!

Furrowing his brow, Milhouse takes one last long look at the gravestone. He hikes up his walking stick and continues going north.