Chapter 3: Things better left alone

[BelGareth]

You manage to barely avoid Bjorn's reach and escape near death at his claw. Moving up to Alyera you manage to hit the zombie easily.

[Fireheart]

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OOC:

CMD is 18, she's grappled.

Will Save

(1d20+4)[21]

Will roll CMB in OOC thread.

The Zombie closing faster than Moraine believed possible. It misses her so, she quickly casts a spell and then backs away from Bjorn and the Zombies.

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OOC: 2

Cast Obscuring mist (20 ft radius from me)

move 30 feet away.

[BelGareth]

Ma manages to move away with provoking anything from the zombie near her, as she does she casts a spell summoning a vast cloud, almost engulfing the entire street in a fog bank.

As you do, you here Bjorn Curse.

Lucien, Alyera and Annalyn are all caught within the cloud, thankfully the zombies are having just a hard time as you are seeing.

Ma manages to run out of the cloud without stumbling into anything, gasping for breath.

As she stands there she hears another litany of hatred and a flash of light within the cloud.

Those within feel the flash and pain of more negative energy wash over in a tumbling avalanche of pain.

Negative Channel Energy - (3d6)[10] Will save 17 for half.

This hits, Lucien, Alyera and Annalyn.

Turning around Ma can still see 2 zombies heading towards the fleeing Ralph, several feet beyond the fog bank she just summoned.

Initiative (in order):
Ralph
Annalyn
Zombies

[Golden Ladybug]

The wave of darkness shot through the Fog, rushing over me again. I tried to steel myself, to try to resist it, but it was useless. I felt my concentration waver, and the illusionary monster flickered out.

The wave of cold bit into me, and I hit the ground with a thump...

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Well, I'm at -3hp, with two Zombies standing next to me. Welp.

Stabilisation Check to not die (as fast)

DC10 (1d20-1)[17]

Whooo! Stabilised!

[Sparrow]

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Two zombies. Fun. I remember what happened last time I had to fight two zombies, or maybe it wasn't last time. Point is, I was hauled away on the magic equivalent of a stretcher.

Also, don't have access to the map from my ipad. So, I'm just going to move adjacent to which every zombie is closest(?) Yeah, okay. So, IC post now.

Ralph scrambled away from the fight. He told himself not to look back, because everyone was right behind him and if they weren't, he couldn't risk breaking the plan to go back and help.

As he was finally a decent distance from the fight, he slowed his pace. Around the same time, he noticed two zombies approaching. He reminded himself of the last time, but it didn't matter. He was better equipped now.

He skidded to a stop on the cobble of the alley. He drew his sword and rapier as he moved toward the first zombie. When he arrived at his target, stabbed at it with his rapier, and slashing down with the short sword.

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Attack One: Rapier: (1d20+3)[16]
Confirm[18-20]: (1d20+3)[14]
Damage: (1d6+2)[7]
Sneak Attack? (2d6)[8]

Attack Two: Short sword: (1d20+4)[11]
Confirm: (1d20+4)[13]
Damage:(1d6+3)[8]
Sneak Attack? (2d6)[3]

Realized how unoptimized Ralph really is. Gonna have to work on that if we survive. Also, I love how sneak attack can hit undead in PF.

Edit: Wait, can I make an attack with my off-hand after a move action? Just thought about it after I posted.

[SamBurke]

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WillSave - (1d20+12)[23]. Wow. Didn't realize I had that big of a modifier... Guess I won't need resistance for a while.

Alyera shakes off the negative energy and the zombie parts, kicking to the ground the thing's chest. Oh gods... that was.. that was a person...
Yes. Just like you.
"We can still do this!" she cries, holding up her hands in a desperate prayer. Please, please, please do something... just cleanse this place!

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I'll roll Positive Energy in the OOC.

[BelGareth]

Before Alyera is able to summon the power of her deity, she hears the muffled thud sounds and the wet squelching sound of flesh tearing.

And then you can hear the sound of animals eating, as if a pack of wolves had caught their prey and were settling down to feast.

In your gut you know you just lost Lucien and Annalyn. But you refuse to believe.

You wield your holy symbol with the might of a Arch Deacon and a pulse of healing energy spreads from you.

But the noises are still there, and your fear creeps up into your gut.

Your friends are dead.

Initiative:
Ma
Bjorn
Ralph
Zomba's

[BelGareth]

Ma stumbles out of the conjured cloud and almost falls to the floor, mental and physically exhausted. Ralph swivels on his feet and feeling empowered from his recent boon from Alyera turns to meet the 2 zombies lumbering towards him, even with the flashes of guilt and memories from the last time he fought two zombies.

Your first attack not only breaks the spell Alyera placed upon you but misses wide, opening you up to the zombies savage bite.

The undead thing leans in for a snap of its teeth with only the exhausted Ma to watch as it dug into Ralphs soft flesh.

But then the zombie disintegrated in a cascade of white energy, Ralph collapsed in a heap as another beam of energy shot over him and slammed into the other zombie, annihilating it as the other.

Ralph and Ma, both lying on the street, both look up to see a golden aura with a mystical shadow, something looks strange, but you cannot put your finger on it.

With a wave of his hand the mist disperses and you see Lucien and Annalyn have fallen and are being feasted upon by more zombies, more bolts of energy stream out and destroying the undead mid meal.

Bjorn looks up but has to shield his eyes. "What? How in the nine hells...." he says before the being waves another hand and sends Bjorn flying against a wall to crumpled and slide down to the floor.

Alyera turns to behold her savior with wide eyes of relief and sadness, two of her friends had fallen even with her best efforts of healing. All of a sudden the ghostly forms of both Lucien and Annalyn rise from their bodies as spectres of death, they neither point or complain towards anyone but rather smile serenely, Lucien falls into a combat stance instinctively and Annalyn twirls her staff.

The luminous savior floats towards them with outstretched arms, beckoning towards them, Lucien stands up and smiles again, walking forwards, but Annalyn shakes her head softly, holding up a hand as if to say 'no' at which point she begins to fade away like smoke in the wind.

A blinding flash later and all is dark again, the zombies have gone, the luminous savior is gone, Lucien stands as stall as ever, healthy and alive and so too does Master Oakenstaff, looking bewildered as ever.

[GuyFawkes]

Lucien

The last thing he sees is his weapons biting into the zombie grappling Alyera before another wave of the dreadful energies strikes him again.

The half-elf Lucien tries to fight off the urge to close his eyes, but his eyelids, nay, his whole body seems like it has all turned to lead, and he could feel himself ever so slowly crumple onto the cold stone beneath him.

Then, darkness.

...

So this is it for me, huh?

Hehe...well, it was a good run...

At least...heh...at least Ma, and Ralph are safe...

At least I got this far, and I could say I just didn't cower in some dark place and accepted death...

At least...

...at least...

...

...

...I...

He couldn't see himself, but he could feel something warm trickling over his cheeks, and something much more hotter, burning within his chest.

...I...this can't be the end for me...

I...I WANT TO LIVE!!!

Suddenly, a burst of blinding light came forth from somewhere before him. He couldn't see or hear it, but he could feel a warm feeling beckoning him into the light.

...Dad?

Lucien instinctively reaches his hand out into the light. After a blinding moment, everything reverts back to darkness. But this time, a small light could be seen from afar. He is not sure, but in that light, he could see his body. Time and space seems to bend between 'him' and his body, and after what seems like eternity, he reaches it.

In a snap, he opens his eyes like waking from a dream and his senses is immediately flooded by the sudden stream of data bombarding his consciousness together with his lingering thoughts of what happened before he closed his eyes.

Instinctively his hands grips his weapons' hilts and he swings around at the air.

The next thing that he could process is the crumpled figure of Bjorn on the ground, or what should have been, but as he looks around, he could not find the armored figure of the cleric anywhere. And gone are the zombies as well.

"Hah! Drove away that bastard and his minions, yeah?" he says with a grin as he turns around to Alyera and the others. But the grin soon turns into a quizzical looks as he sees Oakenstaff, who was obviously not in his lich form, and turns into something else entirely as he sees the mangled figure of Annalyn.

"...no...No...NO!!!"

His voice falters and his grip loosens, his weapons falling and clanking on the ground as he kneels down beside her.

"Hey, Alyera, why aren't you doing something?! Heal her now!!"

[Sparrow]

The pain of the zombies nasty bite hit Ralph like a stampede of elephants. The pain was only lightened by the energy that swept across him, destroying the zombies. He collapsed as the pain was still intense.

In the distance, he could see the others, being engulfed in the same energy. Then, two figures rose from the ground, and Ralph could tell that two of his friends had died and zombies were devouring their bodies.

Ralph forced himself to look away. He couldn't stand the sight of his allies being defiled when he could do nothing. A tear feel from his eye, splashing on the hard cobble beneath his head. Everything faded and for a moment, his brain shut down and his mind was blank. He couldn't find any words to say, or do anything more than simple tasks. All his memories gone for just the smallest moment.

Then, it all came back to him. Most of his mind flooded back into him and he could think once more. He heard the far off moan of zombies and the general chaos of the moment. When he finally forced himself to look back, he saw his friends back on their feet, which looked much better to be expected.

Ralph tried to pull himself up. Although his mind was whole again, Ralph wobbled on his feet, as if just standing up for the first time in a month. He used the ground to stop himself from falling. One leg at a time, Ralph slowly raised to his feet.

He stood straight for a moment, and then collapsed to ground again. After another try, he was well enough balanced were he could slowly limp toward the others.

At first Ralph's speech was slurred and as though a child was speaking. "Wt..hhagned. Uzd errba-ie ok?[Translation for those who don't understand it: What happened. Is everybody okay?] He slowly regained his language and spoke with slightly better sentence structure and fluency. "I rmembr zombie. Big meny zombie. And a cleirk. Thre were mean cleirk." [I remember zombies. Loads of zombies. And a cleric. There was an evil cleric.]

After a small amount of rambling, finally he could speak normal again, " Bjorn, what happened to Bjorn?"
My mind, I don't understand. I..Why can I not remember everything. During this rambling, he had not taken notice of the delichified Oakenstaff. Since their was a very small amount of memories pertaining to Oakenstaff in his memory, even before, Ralph didn't remember much about him. He turned to the new arrival. "Wait, I know you. But, I don't. Gah, what is happening to me?"

Ralph leaned against the wall, the stone cold on his face. The trauma of everything, it was just too much for his adolescent mind to contain.

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Okay, so obviously Ralph has some short-term memory loss. And, he nearly lost his language. Also, if you couldn't tell, Ralph was temporarily (very temporarily) deaf and blind.

My American Literature, Honors teacher, who is probably the smartest man I know, asked all the classes a question, which hit me very hard when I stopped to think about it. We had to read The Miracle Worker, which if you don't know is the play based off of the autobiography of Helen Keller.

He asked us what would happen if we didn't have language. We spent the next three weeks of class doing things just based around this one question. We listed to a podcast about words.

And I, as someone who hopes to get a doctorate in Psychology asked myself the question. And, all the traumatic experiences that Ralph has had to deal with in such a small time frame laid out a perfect chance to try to put myself in the shows of someone who lost, or never had their language.

I also would like to know what you guys think about this? If any of you would like to share your thoughts with me, that would be great. Just post in the OOC or send me a message.

Also, its post like yours Bel, that make a wall of text necessary as a reply.

[Fireheart]

Ma slowly rises to her feat, leaning heavily on her staff.

She stands over the fallen Annalyn. "Oh, child, I am sorry." She kneels down beside her.

Her head bowed, Ma struggles to keep her tears inside.

She takes a breath and rises. Moving to Ralph, she puts a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay, Ralph. We'll get through this."

Somehow. We are still alive, not zombied and not feasts for zombies. It's time to get to the bottom of this mystery.

Glancing around, she takes in Lucien, white from his own brush with death, and Alyera, defiant as ever. Such fierceness from such a small one.

She spares a glance for Oakenstaff. "Master Oakenstaff." She nods at him. Perhaps you could lead us someplace safe for a bit?

[BelGareth]

Alerya looks to Lucien, eyes full of grief and tears. She slowly shakes her head as she looks to the fallen body of Annalyn.

"I...I can't Lucien, I can't..." she manages to sputter out, through tears and half sobs. Falling to one knee she kneels before her friend.

Ma moves near and places a hand on her shoulder as she kneels next to her, tears welling but not falling down her face. The strength of age and bitter taste of experience staying them from flowing.

Oakenstaff seems almost as confused as Bjorn was by his arrival, "What in the..." he manages to stumble through. "...How?" he looks around, his apprentice robes swirling to keep up and he eyes the scene, the lifeless zombies, and the crumpled form of Annalyn. "Oh dear." he whispers, even after all the death in the city, the death of someone he knew still managed to catch in his throat. A testament to his humanity.

Bending down he grasps Annalyn's staff "Interesting.." he mutters to himself, green light shoots up the engravings, and makes it glow with an eerie light.

"We must leave, it is not safe here." he says stoically, more forcefully than before, as if he had found himself among a room of strangers.

With that he begins to cast a spell, eldritch energy seeps from his new staff and reaches out to everyone, tenderly touching them with green ghostly hands. Ma, Lucien, Alerya, Ralph and lastly Annlyns body. With a flash and a strangely familiar feeling, you are transported to another dark alley somewhere else in the city. Turning to you all he addresses you "I believe I know where you were heading, here it is" he says, pointing to the house at the end of the cul de sac. "Do not fret over your friend, I will make sure she is taken are of, I need the assistance of Alerya, but not for long." he moves to leave and then stops as if remembering something "Do not fret, there are friends here, you might do well to find them before heading out." he says with a smile. With a flash he is gone with Alerya and you find yourself standing alone all of a sudden in a dark alleyway facing a long dark street with the big looming house at the end.

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This chapter is over, but we have some house cleaning to do. (Feel free to continue posting)

Experience
+2000 xp - For completing Chapter 3
+500 xp - For finding One Eyed Burt
+100 xp - For not killing him
+500 xp - For surviving Bjorn and his Zomba's

Misc
+175 - For being Epic
+500 - For almost reaching the one year mark!
+200 - For gratuitous use of the Silent image spell (Golden)
+300 - For not turning it into Zombies

Total = 4275 XP

Notes
I noticed you all are tracking XP as medium, we are doing it as fast (See HERE) so, you all should have already been at 4th, this will bump you all to 5th and several thousand away from 6th level. Enjoy.

Golden, bump your new character up by one level.

[Sparrow]

Moments before Oakenstaff spoke, Ralph looked and saw her. Annalyn was still on the ground, completely unresponsive to Alyera's magic. When Alyera spoke, Ralph turned his head. He didn't know her well, but Annalyn was a friend, they all were. "Why didn't she keep to the plan." Ralph fell to his knees again. "She was right behind me. I saw her. Why didn't she run." In all the heat of what was happen, he lost it. Ralph cried over his dead friend.

He continued crying, until they were teleported to the new location. After Oakenstaff and Alyera left, Ralph stood up, wiping the tears from his face. "Bjorn did this. How many people have to die before we can end this." Looking around, Ralph didn't recognize a thing. He tried to think, but nothing arose. He had also received an enormous headache since he regained his thought. "Um, where are we?" he asked, sadly implying that his memory was damage.