Barrow of the Forgotten King (IC)

[Gaijin Guy Jim]

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Int:15, HP:14/14

Knowing his sharp thin rapier, and magic of the mind useless against such foes, "Trunir" puts his rapier up calmly and looks for anything to his advantage as he grabs a simple morningstar he "bought" for occasions such as this. As he looked around, he paid close attantion to the statue to his right, thinking it strange.

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Spot Check:(1d20+4)[20], sheath rapier and pulls a morningstar from his pack. I actually added a morningstar to my char a while ago, but campaign-blog is acting up and it wont update my sheet or even let me long in now! So, try to play along and say I have one anyway-even if my sheet says otherwise!

[NeonBlack]

Safely away from the heat of the battle, "Trunir" swaps his weapons, sheathing his apparently useless rapier in favor of a morningstar, while inspecting the sculpture, finding nothing worth of notice on it, besides its very detailed craft. Meanwhile, the battle continues. Martina, while also swapping her sword for a morningstar, approaches the skeletons, while still keeping out of the murderous birds. On the other side of the room, Hren mumbles and chants arcane words, and another bolt of pure white light launches from his staff. The bolt strikes true again, and the walking corpse shakes as if electricity had hit it.

The skeletons finally react to Segan's holy presence, and follow on the oldest zombie's trail, fleeing the room while ignoring the birds covering them. The crows , instead of following them, realize they have a closer (and meatier!) target: Martina!. They turn around in the air as one to face the paladin, and start flying towards her.

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The swarm could easily reach Martina this turn (east, turn 45º, turn 45º, north, turn 45º, turn 45º, west, west), but I'll assume Gadriel dismisses them before they reach their target as soon as he sees their intentions.

Gadriel, who was keeping his mind focused in maintaining the presence of the murder, reacts in time, and with a quick flick of his hand he makes them disappear.

After the elf speaks asking for help, he hears an answer, although not the one he expected. Someone is banging against the door of one of the vaults. From the inside. From his current position, Gadriel can see that the leftmost vault on the lower line has had its door nailed shut with pitons, and its from behind that door that the sounds come. The noise of the battle and the thick, heavy door of the vault make it hard to ascertain, but the elf could swear that he also heard a woman's voice.

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I'm stopping here, since Segan's actions make little sense now (no targets for the missile). I'll let Saihyol repost his actions, then follow from there with Merc and the zombies. The rest can post their actions for the next turn, if you wish. Oh, and wow, a battle IC post without a single roll? How weird is that?

Map ahead. Blue thingies are the bows the skeletons dropped last round to flap their hands aimlessly at the crows. The rest remains more or less the same. No damage dealt this round so far. Untrue. The zombie engaged with Mercutio took 5 more damage from Hren's bolt, total 13.

[TwoCents]

Martina, Human Paladin of Pelor

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Initiative: 13
HP: 16/16 AC 18; T: 11; FF: 17 Fort+6; Ref+3; Will+4
AC -2 this round due to Charge
(If you want me to roll another Init, check is (d20+1)[12]

Martina paused when the skeletons fled, but then flinched when the crows turned their attentions to her. She raised her shield up to head height and made ready to run through the cloud of feathered beasts, but smiled when the swarm disappeared. In the lamplight, she noticed the zombie shuffling away, its undead flesh gaping from her first blow.

"Oh no, you don't!" With a growl, Tina charged to engage the zombie, hoping that she could do enough damage to the soft, squishy undead flesh of the vile creature to put it down. "You're going to get peacefully buried like you're supposed to. None of this walking around and moaning!" She swung her morningstar, hoping that Pelor might lend her arm enough strength to quiet the unquiet dead.

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Attack: (d20+7)[21]
Damage: (d8-2)[-1] Includes the damage reduction from the morningstar, that B/P weapon. Sigh.
edit: Well, that just --- no, there are no words. You are an evil, evil DM.

[Gaijin Guy Jim]

Brog Grimapple

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Int:15, HP:14/14

Morningstar clenched tight, "Trunir" regains his courage and runs back to the zombie he attacked before, while screaming "Fer Glasshammer!" (albeit in a screechy voice compared to the usual dwarven roar you'd hear) as he swung at it's rotting body.

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Attack:(1d20)[4], Damage:(1d6)[3]

[Saihyol]

Segan

Segan begins to chant in a guttural tongue the, the harsh sounds in time to his twisting hands. Reaching a peak in the chant he throws his hand forward sending a dart of light at the zombie in front of Martina.

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assume I can use the same rolls (even though I have stupidly deleted them) in which case magic missile does not fail and causes 5 damage

[NeonBlack]

Hiding his holy symbol under his clothes, Segan turns to Morgan's corpse, points at him with his right hand, and chants in an obscure arcane tongue, bringing a bolt of pure magic into existance and making it travel quickly and precisely until it impacts the zombie's dead flesh. The living dead falls on the spot, and stops moving.

Mercutio's next blow with his sickle stops in mid air, as his target is already dead. Well, deader. Seeing no undeads at close range, he moves northwards, getting closer to Martina and trying to find a new foe to fight.

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Yeah, made that up. I wasn't too keen on stopping again this soon after the last time, so I just moved Merc up to the corner. He couldn't reach the other zombie or the skeletons and attack at the same time, so I just put him in a place where he will at least be able to see some action . Same goes for Brog, below.

The remaining zombie, still somehow functional despite the damage it sustained from Martina's blows, moves past the skeletons and exits the room through the door at the end. Another door that was supposed to be closed and is not. Gadriel gets a glimpse of the other room through the narrow aperture, but all he sees is floors and walls, nothing distinctive.

"Trunir", finally armed with something useful, turns around to see his foe already downed. Relieved, but at the same time a bit disappointed, he follows Mercutio, looking for some undead bones to bash.

Martina, on the other hand, runs across the room shouting at the running skeletons, and lands a blow with her morningstar on one of them. The hit destroys a decent chunk of its skull, but the skeleton still stands.

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You hit one of the damaged skeletons (#1), so 1+4=5 total damage. #2 is still at 1, and #3 is still undamaged. By the way, the undead have been running for 2 rounds now (skeletons only one, but they move next, so make it 1.9), so 8 more rounds of Cadaver Race remain.

It's Gadriel's turn. Here's the new, improved, row-and-column-numbered map. Even the skeletons are numbered. Big thanks to the romans and their numbers. Sooo easy to draw by hand.



Martina and Mercutio can't see much from what's behind the door, since it's dark in there (and Gadriel's lowlight vision reaches just up to the door itself, so he can't see much more). In fact, Martina can barely make out the shapes of the skeletons in front of her (shadowy illumination, everburning torches are too far away).

[Attilargh]

Gadriel

Can't see a damn thing. Stupidly reckless, charging off like that. Gadriel picks up the nearest torch, sighs and pulls his arm back. "Martina, heads up!" he yells before tossing it down the hall.

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Oddly enough, clubs and improvised weapons both have a range increment of 10 feet, which is just enough to reach I10 on the map. Do you want me to roll to hit the square or just to see where it scatters?

[Gaijin Guy Jim]

Brog Grimapple

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Int:15, HP:14/14

Ready for some action, and a little bloodlust rising up, "Trunir" casts expidicious retreat and runs as close to the skeletons as possible-morningstar at the ready.

[TwoCents]

Martina

"Thank you, kindly, sir!" sang Martina as the torch bounced towards her. She would press forward up to, but not through the doorway, bashing the skeletons until they stopped moving or until they ran away out of her reach. "I can't see much of anything down this corridor, but I'll stay here like a cork, if Pelor grant me the strength."

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Initiative: 13
HP: 16/16 AC 18; T: 11; FF: 17 Fort+6; Ref+3; Will+4

Edit: Her goal is to end up at I12 and then stop.

Attack: (Skeleton I or anything in melee range) (d20+5)[8]
Damage: (d8+3)[11]

[Benejeseret]

Hren

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Initiative 12, HP 18/18, AC 13/13/13

Hren hustles around the corner and pushes himself to make it into the fight. He rushes along the row of vaults and brushes past Martina's shoulder. The charged staff is lowered to the foe.

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Takes a double move hustle up to J-10 to threaten skelly I

[Saihyol]

Segan

Seeing the Skeletons have fled from his presence Segan grins briefly in grim satisfaction, then begins to move forwards trying to get into a position to see further into the room.

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As he is encumbered only 20' of movement for Segan. He moves to I4 with two move actions ready for the next round

[GimliFett]

Mercutio del Bayar

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HP: 14/17; Init 5
AC 20, t 14, ff 16

Seeing yet a new type of foe, Merc shrugs and hooks his sickle onto his belt, then draws his mace and in a sudden burst of speed runs around the skeletons and turns to face them smiling broadly. "HAVE AT THEE!" he yells.

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Assuming I can now see the skeletons...
I s'pose put me in H, I or J 11?
Attack - (1d20+6)[7] --> This is getting RIDICULOUS!
Damage - (1d6+1)[4]

[NeonBlack]

Hren closes in to try and fight the remaining undead hand-to-hand. Meanwhile, Gadriel throws one of the everburning torches to Martina, which falls right at the paladin's feet. The skeletons keep on running, and flee into the other room, following on the remaining zombie's trail. They push the door open wide, and thanks to the torch, most of you can finally see what exactly is behind it.

This wide passage has the statue of a human woman set in a niche on the northern wall. She is dressed in robes, and her arms and face are help upward as if toward the sky. On either side of her, fountains gurgle with what appears to be fresh water. The passage smells like rain.

Directly across the hall from the statue is a closed stone door, and farther down the passage in an archway on the northern wall. Beyond that archway, grave vaults like those you've seen before occupy all sides of the passage. Many have been opened and apparently looted. A lone torch lights the end of the passage, and together with yours, allow you to see the whole length of the passage, albeit not as clearly as you'd wish.

The skeletons flee towards the vaults at the end, and stop there, cowering, having nowhere else to run to. While Segan finally moves from the landing at the start of the room, trying to get a look at what's happening behind the door, Mercutio leaps ahead with unnatural speed, goes past the zombie in the middle of his way, dodging its inaccurate attacks, and ends his spectacular charge with a, er, less than spectacular attack aimed at the first skeleton. Or that was his intention, anyway, since his morningstar ended up hitting the one of the walls.

Trunir also charges into the room, also sporting a supernatural burst of speed in his movements. Martina, in contrast, decides to pick up the torch at her feet and stop at the door, thinking her next move. It's in the silence that follows, with the crows long gone and the heat of the fight farther away, that everyone remaining in the preparation room can finally hear what Gadriel heard a while ago: the sounds of a young woman, trapped inside one of the vaults, screaming for help and bashing the door with all her strength. Which, sadly, is not enough to free her from her imprisonment.

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A few things: I've eyeballed the whole radius of light thing, but with one torch at each end of the passage you should see able to see everything, though except the 20 feet around each light focus, everything is shadowy, so not much detail unless you get near. That's why Merc couldn't see what's behind the archway.

I've also played a bit with Merc's movement, since he would have needed three Tumbles to get past the zombie, but eh, whatever. Also gave him the chance to charge into the skeletons even when he went through a few threatened sqares and he didn't move in a straight line, since not using that natural one would have been a waste . I stopped him at the first skeleton, since the goal was to block their way and not allow them to run any more without provoking a few AoOs.

And Gadriel, Segan, Hren and Martina all hear the woman's voice and other assorted noises coming from the J1 corner. Brog and Merc are still oblivious to them.

It's Hren's turn now (this time I didn't forget about him, that's an improvement!), and we're right into the fourth round. Updated and expanded map is here, the new things should be pretty self-explanatory thanks to the room description:

[Benejeseret]

Hren stands against the stone. With the battle routed to the next room he finds a moment of peaceful silence within the melee. In that moment he hears the pounding for the first time. The monk turns, listens, and moves toward the sound - his pace increasing to a frantic search as he hears the woman's voice. He calls out to her as it dawns upon him that she must be alive and trapped.

"Hello! Ma'am!"

Sealed in, he thinks, and must be one of these vaults. The lad looks for a way to free the woman.

((Moves as close to the right vault as possible searching for the source and a way to free her))

[Saihyol]

Segan hears the voice calling out from the tomb behind him and looks undecided, but seeing Hren move towards the stone he holds his position, ready to assist if needed, but continuing his attacks on the fleeing undead. With a mutter of further hard chants he fires off a bolt of energy at the fleeing zombie.

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Magic missile spell failure (low 15% fails) (1d100)[52]
damage (1d4+1)[3]

[Attilargh]

Gadriel

"Hren, over here." Gadriel points at the closed vault and walks onto the wall next to it. "Would you happen to have a crowbar handy?" he asks and taps a piton with his foot.

[GimliFett]

Mercutio del Bayar

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HP: 14/17; Init 5
AC 20, t 14, ff 16

A brief frown crosses the swashbuckler's face as he misses his attack. In a flash, it is replaced with the swarthy swordsman's incessant smile. "I forget my manners. I am Mercutio del Bayar. And you are about to be a pile of bones!" He salutes the skeletons and swings his mace immediately afterward, the blunt weapon becoming a silvered blur.

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Attack - (1d20+6)[25]
Damage - (1d6+1)[2]

[TwoCents]

Martina, paladin of Pelor whose head is in danger of exploding from the chaos

"Everybody, just wait one damned minute!," bellowed Martina. "Nobody is opening up any more vaults until we deal with the undead walking around already, and nobody is opening any more vaults until I have a chance to look at them! She's been in there a day, she can last a few more minutes!" Pitching her voice in a slightly nicer tone, Martina continued. "Miss, we're from the town, and we'll get you out of there as soon as it is safe."

She turned back towards the hallway where the two lunatics were merrily following the walking dead into Pelor alone knew what and, after a brief prayer to Pelor for patience and understanding, she attempted to see if there was anything especially evil about the statues or the region around them.

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Detect Eeeeeevill east for three rounds while Trunir and Mercutio get into trouble.

[Attilargh]

Gadriel

"Yes, milady," Gadriel squeaks and snaps to attention as he's startled by Martina. After he regains his composure he mutters sullenly to Hren: "Pfft, I could fill that little hole to the brim with ravens faster than she could blink. What's an elf got to do to get some credit around these parts?"

[NeonBlack]

At the sound of Martina's voice, the woman's screams for help suddenly drop in volume. Hren and Gadriel can still hear her, crying and whimpering and asking for someone, anyone to let her out of there. She stops banging against the door, however. Sounds like she's calmed somewhat.

Inspecting the vault's door, you can see that whoever nailed it left gaps big enough to let air into the vault for the woman to breathe. The pitons haven't been hammered in too deeply, but they still look strong enough to withstand her weak attempts forever. Someone with a strength above the average could probably pry it open without any other help, but it would take a while.

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So, if anyone tries to open the door, gimme a Strength check. I guess Martina and/or Mercutio are the best candidates for this. If you find something that resembles a crowbar I'll give you some circunstance bonus (and I seem to remember a pair of broken spear handles somewhere outside that could prove useful ). Remember you can take 20 if you wish (I won't count the skeletons as "being in danger", since they are almost a non issue), but it will take longer.

Meanwhile, the battle against the undead still rages on. Well, kind of. The skeletons seem to be unable to fight back, and they only stand there cowering in fear, weakly trying to dodge Mercutio's blows. The swashbuckler recovers from his previous mistake, and manages to land a blow on the closest undead that, although weak, is enough to erase whatever negative energy remained on it. The skeleton crumbles to the ground, and moves no more. The zombie, on the other hand, is hit in mid-run by another bolt of magical light coming from Segan's fingertips, and drops to the ground face down.

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I won't draw a map this time, since almost no one relevant to the battle moved. Skeleton #1 is down, and so is zombie #2. Skeleton #2 is at 1 damage, and #3 is undamaged, but unless it takes you 6 full rounds to kill them, they're goners, since they apparently can't defend themselves while turned (which sucks, by the way).

Martina detects evil on the hallway, but on this first round she still can't tell if it's the remaining undead or something else.

It's Brog's turn, by the way. Round 5 starts right now.

[GimliFett]

Mercutio del Bayar

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HP: 14/17; Init 5
AC 20, t 14, ff 16

With a sigh, the swashbuckler resigns himself to the drudgery of dispatching the skeletons. "It is, sadly, like shooting fish in a barrel, no?"

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Attack - (1d20+6)[8]
Damage - (1d6+1)[7]

[TwoCents]

Martina

As she continued to concentrate on the divine sight of Pelor, Martina spoke briefly, for the benefit of those behind her. "Mercutio and Trunir are as they were. A zombie and one skeleton have fallen."

OOC:

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As far as Martina's concerned, Trunir is Trunir, and although he's the wierdest dwarf she's ever seen, she hasn't actually had any time to sit down and think about it. Once the gears in that thick paladinistic head start to grind, though...

[Saihyol]

Holding his position Segan calls out to Mercutio

"My presence and the power of Yair will hold these skeletons for some time, but I cannot move to attack without disrupting this and I believe I should refrain from using more of my magic, we may face more dangerous foes, additionally my crossbow will do little damage to walking bones."

[Benejeseret]

The monk seems torn. He looks once more to the vault of the sobbing lass before pulling himself away and to the skeleton abominations that his training would be suited well against.

Fine, I will assist with the undead ones, but surely the poor lass does not need to be kept in torment any longer.

He runs back toward the skeletons at a hustle.

[TwoCents]

Martina

"Boys? There's a lady to rescue back here as soon as you're done with the skeletons. No rush, though. She can wait, I'm sure..."

[NeonBlack]

Hren reaches the end of the hallway just in time to help Trunir and Mercutio destroy the remaining skeletons. The undead pose no challenge at all, and after a few missed swings, both fall. Among the scattered bones of each of the three skeletons rests the quiver in which they stored their arrows. The first skeleton held only 2 red-feathered arrows, while the other two quivers contain 10 black-feathered arrows. After a quick glance on the way back to the main room, you don't find anything of interest on the zombie's body.

Once the threat of the undead abominations is gone, the group gathers around the vault in which the woman remains trapped, trying to find a way to release her.

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Brief and to the point, huh. Oh well, not much else to say I guess. As discussed OOC, I've fast-forwarded the combat, since it was a foregone conclusion anyway. So, the undead are gone, and each of you gain 100 XP.

[Attilargh]

Gadriel

"Now can we help the woman out?" the elf asks, tapping his foot on the wall. "Does anyone have a crowbar?"

[TwoCents]

Martina

The paladin continued to concentrate on the long corridor until she believed she had gleaned what she could. Smiling at the others, she commented, "Good work, fellows. Now, let's look at the vault back there." She strode back towards where the voice cried for release, collecting bows and arrows as she went and laying them in a neat pile. "Perhaps a couple of you might go and collect the slings and sling bullets from the bodies of the fallen sentinels upstairs, while I take a peek at this door here? Once I'm done, maybe somebody could look for booby traps? And then I can start in with my pick, ok?" After looking around at the others to check their reactions, Martina turned back to the vault door and pitched her voice to carry through. "Ma'am? Don't worry ma'am. We're from the government, and we're here to help."*

With that, Martina commenced three rounds of trying to sense any particular evil around this end of the tombs. Eventually, unless something leapt out at her,** she would unlimber the pick and shovel she brought, just in case, and begin prying out the spikes.

OOC:

*Sorry, I couldn't resist
**Literally or figuratively

Oh, and what happened with the DEvil on the other end?

[Benejeseret]

The monk stares at the paladin a bit, before shaking his head slightly while heading off to collect up what weapons and equipment can be salvaged. At the bodies of the guards and other humans he refuses to take any personal items but does collect visible weapons or shields (if only to prevent them from having them should they raise back up themselves in this unhallowed place).

He piles the goods found on one of the empty slabs.

[NeonBlack]

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Ooops, sorry TwoCents, forgot about that. Most likely because there wasn't anything to find, or in other words, the evil Martina detected at first was the one emitted by the undead, and as soon as the skeletons were destroyed, it slowly vanished. Nothing evil about the fountain .

Under the watchful eye of the rest of the group, except Hren, who is busy gathering whatever useful is on the fallen enemies and friends, Martina starts working on the vault door with her improvised tools. It takes a while, but eventually the nails start falling to the floor. The paladin also keeps her mind focused, trying to find any source of evil around or inside the vault, without success. Either the door's too thick, or there's nothing evil about the prisoner.

In the meantime, Hren has finished gathering everything that seemed useful, and pooled all the items found on top of one of the free tables. It's not much: three shortbows, 20 black-feathered arrows and 2 red-feathered arrows from the skeletons, and two slings plus 20 sling bullets from the dead guards. There's also the set of keys found on the entrance, dangling from the door's lock.

Finally, thanks to Martina's tireless efforts, the last bolt falls, and even before it touches the ground, the vault door opens violently, almost hitting the paladin in the knees. From the inside leaps a human figure, obviously female, covered in dust, ash and debris. She stumbles forward, falling into the arms of the first companion to be in her way, who, quite unsurprisingly, happens to be Mercutio. The woman hugs the swashbuckler with desperate strength, her eyes staring into nowhere, and the only intelligible thing anyone can gather from her stuttering speech is the words "...light...air...free...thanks...", repeated many, many times, in many different orders.

Even with her features obscured by filth, you all notice her striking resemblance to the dead woman you found lying at the bottom of the stairway. Looks like you've found Tyra, last survivor of the Yurling family.