Sturdy Coat of Strength
| Type | Armour |
|---|---|
| Discovered By | Janna Da Hadez |
| Discovery Date | 6 May 2010 |
| Discovery Location | Bisquez, Atamara |
| Abilities | Prestige +3 |
| Current Owner | Sebastian O'Riley |
Discovery
Janna Da Hadez had followed the trails leading from the forgotten tomb and one by one had hunted down and destroyed the small groups of foul creatures that had escaped from it's depths to prey on the living.
With her armour scraped and dented and her sword and warhammer caked in gristly debris she breached the tomb itself in search of the source of these restless dead.
To her surprise the tomb was well illuminated by ancient torches burning sickly in dank air which was thick with fungal spores and the stench of decay. She moved forward stealthily until the short, sloping hallway opened out into a low, long hall lined with caskets and coffins. At the far end of the hall a figure sat slumped on a huge, rotting wooden chair, apparently inanimate.
She stalked toward it silently, weapons poised, constantly alert, acutely aware of the sound of blood rushing in her ears and the sigh of her shallow breaths.
With a thunderous smash a huge block of stone crashed into the passage behind her, it's impact shaking the floor of the hall and causing the torchlight to flicker and dim. She spun wildly, trapped, looking for an exit. As she scanned the room she felt her flesh crawl as she became aware of the gritty sound of stone casket lids sliding open. At the head of the hall the figure raised it's head and from it's half-rotted face came a gasping, choking sound that could only have been a corpse's attempt at laughter.
Trapped and surrounded Janna allowed her instincts to take control of her mind and body, ignoring the foetid laughter from the chair and preparing herself as the caskets' occupants closed in on her. Methodically, almost calmly, she parried the grasping, tearing hands and the wildly slashing weapons as she hacked off limbs, crushed skulls and impailed bodies. As more and more of her attackers fell the foul laughter grew in her ears until, as the last of the risen dead dropped to the floor it seemed to fill her mind.
She stood among the corpses, her weapons dripping with both the thick black blood of the dead and the vibrant, liquid red from her own wounds and faced the rotting figure as it rose, cackling sickly. It hefted a massive axe in one hand and held a shield the size of a tabletop in the other. Deliberately it started to walk toward her, all the time laughing in twisted humour.
Armour or not she knew she would not survive a single blow from that axe and however sharp her sword or accurate her hammer she could see no mortal blow would breach that shield. In any case her strength had all but been spent on the scores of furious corpses she had faced this day. So she simply stood her ground and allowed her adversary to approach.
As soon as the thing was within range of striking her with it's axe she stepped forward and swung a high blow towards it's dripping face with her hammer. It cackled and easily raised it's shield to block the blow but as it did so she let the hammer slip from her grasp to continue in it's path and dropped sideways like a stone. As she heard the crash of the hammer on the thick wood she swung her sword with all her might at the creature's knees. The sharp, heavy blade passed through them with a sick, wet sound. As she hit the ground and rolled away she felt the crash of the heavy body landing beside her. She quickly stood up and looked down at her now incapacitated attacker.
The hideous laughter did not end until she had severed it's head from it's body but she would swear she could hear it echoing in the hall while she pounded it into dust with her hammer. Try as she might she could barely lift the axe and the shield so elected to leave them behind. Instead she removed the creature's armour, a thigh-length coat fashioned from panels of some sort of thick, red animal hide. The panels were embossed with strange spiral patterns and though they were soft and flexible to the touch they seemed dense as wood when struck or tested with a blade. She lay this, and some other trinkets from the other bodies, to one side and tried to push the stone block that filled the passageway but to no effect. She dragged the massive axe to it and tried to lever the block upwards but again it was no use.
Exhausted she sat back. Between the cold and the fatigue she could barely think or move. Satisfied that the corpses around her were not going to rise again she removed her ruined armour and wrapped herself in the thick red jacket. Despite the stench in the hall she drifted off to sleep.
When she awoke only a single torch remained lit. She slipped her arms into the red jacket and again attempted to lever the block with the huge axe. She was both astonished and flooded with relief when the huge stone shifted enough to allow her to wedge the axe in place then crawl under the block to freedom. Eventually she would come to realise that the jacket she had taken from the lich lord had stranger properties than she had first suspected.
Ownership
After obtaining the Sturdy Coat of Strength Janna Da Hadez offered it to her cousin Severn Da Hadez, Count of Eurotan. He declined the offer, preferring that it be offered as a tribute to his Duke, Sebastian O'Riley of Siver.
