Dwaer Depths [IC]

[King Tius]

Dwaer Depths IC Thread
Chapter One: What Lies Beneath
OOC Thread
(http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13606161#post13606161)
Wiki (http://dwaerdepths.wikispaces.com/)

[King Tius]

Our adventure begins on a crisp, blustery evening in mid fall. Already the town has grown anxious as winter approaches and bets are being placed when the first major snowfall will close off the Pillar Pass. There are many lodging options available in Echo Bend from the scant and Spartan to the luxurious. For a few coppers a day you can rent a “cave” for the winter; a small room dug underground with little in the way of luxury other than a bed and a communal bathroom at the end of the hall. These accommodations are run by Echo Bend’s greediest lot, preying off of the stranded caravan travellers who cannot afford better living quarters. Many who venture down to hibernate in the caves never last the winter. For those with more to spend, inns and other long-term winter homes are available. Those who rent these tenant apartments tend to depart Echo Bend come spring, never to return. Hence, these stranded souls are often referred to as Snowmen. They appear when winter comes and melt away come spring, never to be seen again. The children of Echo Bend have taken to building small armies of real snowmen in the streets of this section of town, both for their own amusement and as a way to pester those living there. The snowmen and the caves are located on the northern side of town, facing the Pillars and the cold wind that rushes off them. The southern side of town boasts the nicer establishments of Echo Bend’s permanent residents. It is here among the two story houses of heavy stone that a crowd is gathering in the dead of night.

Half the town has awoken as the alarm bells are rung from the southern ramparts of Echo Bends walls. The guardsman ringing the bell alternates the pattern of “Fire” and “Enemies” which indicates trouble within the walls. While most residents have the common sense to stay indoors, curiosity or a sense of duty has gotten the better of all of you. Leaving your lodgings from whichever part of town you now call home, you follow the sounds of the bell and the rushing of guardsmen towards the southeastern corner of the town. Who knows what trouble awaits you as you duck your head against the harsh winds pummeling you from the Arrows. Arriving on the scene, you find a crowd gathered outside one of the nicest looking homes in all of Echo Bend. A ring of soldiers bearing torches surround the place while others are braced against the front door, apparently trying to hold it closed. Even as you watch more guards appear with hammers and wood, quickly starting to board up the windows. The Captain of the town guard sits on horseback within the ring of his men. His deep blue cape snaps in the breeze as he stands in his stirrups and bellows out orders to the guards.

“Seal the windows and bring oil! I’ll not have them overrun the town!”

Nearby, dressed in naught but an expensive looking nightgown is an older woman crumpled on the ground. She holds her head in her hands as she weeps. At the order to put her house to the torch, she lets out a wail and turns towards the captain.

“No! Please! Don’t burn it down!”

With her face now revealed, you can all plainly see a nasty set of slash marks that rake across her face, oozing blood. Two women attempt to tend to her, but she pushes them away in her fit of woe.

[Goldfly]

"What is he thinking?" From the small crowd made up of those who live in town, Michiko rushes forward, her sleep-tussled auburn hair fluttering in the wind.

"STOP!!!"
She stands upon the very tips of her toes next to the Captain's horse, looking up at him with a measure of anger in her blue eyes.
"What's in there? Whatever it is, there must be some way to stop it. We could put together a team of mercenaries or something... Something, anything, that doesn't mean someone needs to lose everything they own!" She looks over towards the woman, then looks back at the Captain. "It's probably all in that building. She doesn't deserve to lose it all, and how would she pay to feed herself?"

[Gorgon_Heap]

The pale elf woman emerges from the darkness ghost-like, her white hair and cloak suddenly radiating the torchlight. She glides forward without heeding the armed soldiers, concern knitting her brow as she watches the stricken woman.

Hearing a girl shouting at the captain, Jalaera pauses at the unexpected outburst.

"Lives are more important than possessions, child." she says loudly. "What is in there, captain?" She glances at the injured woman. "If there are innocents involved we should try to save them before you fire the home."

[Goldfly]

Michiko's eyes go wide with surprise at teh elf's words, and her hand comes to her mouth briefly. "I didn't think..."She shakes her head, and walks towards the distressed women as she draws close, she says a word in Sylvan, and the tears and blood evaporate from the woman's face. Michiko places a hand on her shoulder, and looks up into the woman's eyes. "I know this is hard for you, but you need to tell us. Is there anyone inside?"
Michiko casts Prestidigitation.

[Zefir]

A young female human also reaches the scene. She streches her arms as she comes closer.

"The hell what's going on here?"

Even tought she appeares sleepy her body tricks the people it looks like she is a little innocent girls who should sleep now and not walk around at night.

[King Tius]

The Captain stares down from his high horse at Michiko with a look of scorn. This close to the man, she gets a better look at his face in the dim light. His coarse beard and angular features give him a harsh and stern look, but hiding behind his steely gaze the young sorceress can see fear. Whatever it is inside that house, it has this old man spooked, though he is doing his best not to show it.

"The lives of this city are more important than a rich woman's baubles, girl."

As Michiko moves to help the woman and Jalaera repeats the question on everyone's mind, the Captain seems forced to answer.

"The dead have risen. I'll burn this whole block down before letting them take to the streets."

Using her magics to clean the old woman's face, Michiko finds that wounds are largely superficial. The old woman stops her sobbing and becomes even more panicked.

"My maid Indala and Gorgon are still in there! You have to help them! THEY'RE ALL I HAVE LEFT!"

She throws herself onto the ground, overcome by her grief.

OOC: Anyone with Knowledge (local) can make a check to try and learn a little more about the old woman.

[RaggedAngel]

The shadows across the street from the embattled home part, and a tall man steps from them, his eyes flat and hard and his hand at his hip, resting on the brass and wood handle of an odd object, possibly a weapon. A shortsword rests on his other hip, and he is wearing light armor and a small shield; he has the bearing of a man that expects and is prepared for violence. He seems to take a moment to gain stock of the situation, both looking at the wounded woman and at the measures of the town guardsmen. He then strides forward, a detached calm coming over his features.

He walks past the gathered guardsmen quickly, but without excess haste, moving confidently and calmly up to the captain. He looks up to the mounted man, raising a single dark eyebrow in question. "If we set fire to the structure, it may give the creatures an opening through which they could escape; further, we couldn't predict where that opening could be. It may be better to open the door and focus our concentration on that; they will pour out from the obvious and predictable opening, and we can kill them until they stop. The undead are not tacticians, nor should they be difficult to kill if we outnumber them." His voice is nearly inflection-less, but he speaks loudly and clearly, his tone measured and strong enough to cut through the general tumult to reach the ears of those nearby.

Demos has an eye out, and a healthy suspicion of the whole situation.

Perception: [roll0]
Sense Motive: [roll1]

[Gorgon_Heap]

When the captain speaks of the undead, Jalaera freezes in indecision. These are not the kind of oppenent she is accustomed to.

But then the dark man approaches and lays out his thoughts. She grimaces as his restrained coldness.


"The undead are not tacticians, nor should they be difficult to kill if we outnumber them."

"But you cannot know that without knowing what ... why are they in this home at all?" she asks, suddenly confounded.

When the woman shrieks again, the elf rushes closer to her and the young woman. "What is this? There are people inside yet?" She stands and sets her jaw, ready to bolt for the burning structure ...

[Goldfly]

Michiko kneels next to the grieving woman, her hair straightening itself, than forming a ponytail as a small ribbon floats from her pocket. "Let these people help you. We'll do our best to make sure they get out safely."
Michiko stands, and strolls back towards the captain. I think you know that there's quite a few people here who won't stand for you burning down a house with people in it, especially considering this man's information." She inclines her head in Demos' direction. "I think we should listen to what he has to say; he's calm enough about this that he probably has some previous combat experience." She looks up at the guard captain. "We need to do anything we can to help those people."

[King Tius]

Demos sees the fear behind the Captain's eyes and can tell that this is the type of man that tends towards overkill in desperate situations. Typical of someone with a military background, he'd lop off a hand to treat a splinter. The gunslinger senses no ill will from the Captain but realizes the man is willing to do whatever it takes to stop this threat, even if that means burning an innocent woman alive.

In response to Demos's suggestion, the Captain shakes his head. "No, I won't let them come pouring out that door. If they overtake us we'll put the whole city at risk. If you want to go in there and deal with them, I'll hold off my men for the time being."

Michiko's soothing words help calm the old woman down. Hearing that all may not be lost, the crying woman regains even more of her composure and scrambles hastily to her feet. She looks out into the crowd and shouts.

"I can pay! If you'll rescue my poor Gorgon and sweet Indala, I'll pay. Please, don't let them burn down my house."

Most of the crowd shrinks back at her pleas, not willing to brave the walking dead for any number of coin. Two figures (other than those who have already come forward) march out to join you. The first is a tall and handsome man clad in chainmail with a sword on his hip and a shield on his back. The second, much smaller than the handsome man, is a gnome who vaults out of the crowd into a handstand before twirling into the air and landing on his feet. He is clad in simple hide armor with a small shield on his back and a bent dagger tucked into his belt. As he plants his landing he immediately strides forward, seemingly always on the move, and makes his way straight towards the woman.

"You're Ms. Stormscale, aren't ya? Heard a thing or two about your late husband in my travels. I must say, it's an honor to be of service to you, Ma'am." He gives her a low bow, tucking his one foot daintily behind the other. "Tell me, were these nasty things naught but bones or did they have some flesh on them yet?"

"Oh...well...the one that attacked me was nothing but a skeleton. Those empty eyes, they were terrifying!"

"I'm sure they were Ma'am. We'll take care of 'em for you, now don't you worry."

The little gnome skips over to one of the town guards who is holding an armful of wood for boarding up the windows. He grabs the mace hanging from the man's belt and hefts it. Though it is not a particularly big weapon for the guardsman, it proves fitting for the little gnome.

"Right then, you ladies care for a dance?"

He directs the question towards Michiko, Jaleara, and Lyra, though he throws a quick wink towards Demos and the other man.

[Gorgon_Heap]

Already in movement, Jalaera merely flashes a broad grin at the gnome as she runs toward the front of the building.

[Goldfly]

Michiko watches the energetic gnome, than turns back to the Captain. "If it looks like we won't make it out, I'll send out a red signal. Green means it's safe to enter." She turns back to the gnome, drawing forth a crossbow. "Always up for some fun!" She smiles widely at him, before following Jalaera up to the house.

[Zefir]

Lyria walks slowly to the front door her attemps to help aren'tblocking her mind. She will wait for the tall men to go in front, best thing since some of them seem to know what they need to do. On a secound thought she might ask herself what she knows about the people living here. Do they have a wothfull collection? And on another thought how did Undead appear in the building, if Lyria goes to tales they normally appeared on graveyards or in dep dungeons with a lot of cropse.

Knowledge Local:[roll0] To recive the facts you spoke of or any kind of information about the wealth in this house. Also maybe strange things like sobbing at night or so.

Kowledge Religion[roll1] Religion is my choice due to the way she thinks. You know Graveyards are normaly near a church. Seeking knowledge about the facts. What is a skelet, weakness and strength. And as mentioned how could they appear in a house.(not knowing if necromany or some kind of graveyard under the house.

Whatever the results are she looks annoyed at the Gnome.

"Not really. I think you would step on my feet to much and it's not the right time."

Either she takes him seriouse or she doesn't get the real meaning.

[RaggedAngel]

Demos draws a strange, smoothly curved weapon of wood and brass from his hip. It seems like a cannon, but in extreme miniature, and it has two barrels protruding from its handle. It looks as if it was once fine, but has been beaten down by time; the metal is burnished and the fine etchings on the wood have been smoothed away by countless hands, or by countless uses. He pulls back a small lever at the back of the weapon, and an audible click sounds out.

"I don't like the idea of going in there. Too many corners, not enough room, and plenty of opportunities for ambushing. The smart thing to do," he gives the captain a hard look, "is to draw them out here, where numbers and maneuverability are at our advantage. That said, if the leadership here dissents, I'm still willing to save those women." He gives the distressed lady a polite nod. "For a price, of course, but a reasonable one to be discussed at a later time." He seems no more worried or stressed than one would if they were considering which cabbage to purchase, or contemplating how best to pack their luggage.

Demos strides forward, tall and thin, a sharp contrast to the gnome next to him. "I'm not sure that I'm fond of your bluster, gnome, but I approve of your practicality and bearing. Let's do this as quickly and cleanly as possible." He sweeps his eyes over the gathered people that seem willing to enter the building, taking their measure.

"If you can take a hit or crush bones, get up front. Any spellcasters, get in the middle for better protection and for maximum accessibility, especially healers. I'll take the rear guard and watch for anything attempting to flank us; I'm significantly deadlier at a distance than up in something's face, so I can't stand in the front without getting myself killed. Make any preparations you need to; we move inside in thirty seconds." Demos' words are clear, firm, and without bluster or bravado; he isn't confrontational, but he clearly does not expect dissent.

[mshady]

Toland

Walking down the road on an otherwise uneventful evening, Toland whistles a tune quietly to himself. He was returning that evening from his duties at the Temple of Iomedae, which were limited. He is wrapped in a long trench coat, battered and with the collar turned upward. He wears the jacket's hood now, and it hangs over his face enough to obscure his eyes.Toland searches not the streets but the alleys for something more interesting to do. His eyes take notice of two female street walkers who stand on a corner, and they seem comely enough, but not what he was looking for. Two alleys over though, he sees two men squatting by a fire sifting through a satchel, and his linger there. That could be more interesting, he thinks. Is that Hopsing and Bower? I've been looking for them...

That was when Toland sees two horses rushing by him, and he shifts his gaze towards a gathering crowd. Something was certainly going on there. With a small sigh, Toland pats the pommel of his sword and changes his course towards the commotion.

Anything that would get the town's constabulary motivated might be worth looking into, he thinks. Straightening his stance and peeling back his hood, he alters his course into the nearby merchant's district, where the more well heeled citizens lived.

When he arrives, Toland hears an older woman who seems vaguely familiar to him, pleading for someone, anyone, to help her. As he listens to the others, he hears mention of undead and offers of coin to go in there and rescue members of her household staff. Who was she?

Do I care?

Toland listens to the guard captain talk about burning the house, and others concerned with how burning it might take away the only choke point they had against this undead incursion.

This could be interesting.

Opening his jacket to reveal his chain mail armor, Toland steps into the center of the ring where some others had gathered. As he walks, he unlimbers a small shield from his back and opens his jacket to reveal his chain mail. Facing the guard captain on horseback, the fop with blue cloak, Toland smiles and bows to the gentlemen.

"Good evening, Captain. I am Toland Albright, a Paladin of Iomedae" he announces, looking at only the Captain. He manages a sideways glance at the others gathered. It's a rough looking crew, and that was putting it gently.

"I hear talk of an undead uprising. Skeletons even. Of one of our good citizens wounded, of women feared lost in her humble estate. I hear offers of coin to do something about it even, but also of concern for too many corners, not enough room and allowing evil to set its foot on to our soil. Gathered around here be some brave men and women willing to go into darkness. What more needs to be said here? Duty or job the task is clear, I say. Now, it must be done"

Toland looks at the Captain first, than turns to look at the few other brave souls.

Diplomacy Check

[roll0]

He points towards the door of the house with a grim smile on his face.

"I am going in there, now. Anyone who will follow me, do so now. Every moment spent here, is a moment those women inside may not have. If we don't come out, please Captain, burn the house so our bones do not return as something vile" Toland bows once again to the Captain, taking his leave. Toland shrugs off his trench coat field jacket, and hands it to one of the guards as he passes them and stands 20 feet in front of the door.

The Paladin rolls his shoulders and neck, than secures the straps on his shield and reaches for his morningstar. He gives it a testing swing, and now satisfied, tenses.

He gives others a moment to come to his side, than raises his shield in front him.

"For Iomedae!" Toland cries, and raises his morningstar high in the air for a moment, displaying morningstar and shield, complete with holy symbol to the crowd. Some answer back with the same cry.

Success of invoking cheers.

Diplomacy

[roll1]

Toland prepares to charge into the house. He appears to be planning to lead with a bull rush, to clear the way.

[RaggedAngel]

Demos reacts rapidly to the appearance of the paladin, drawing back and nodding slightly, the faintest of grins on his face for a bare moment. "Excellent. Let's all file in behind the holy warrior, then, and hope his god will fill in the gaps his shield might leave behind." Demos sounds earnest and respectful, though an attentive listener may notice an undercurrent of amusement. He moves to stand a few feet behind the larger man, nodding in his direction. "Lead on."

[Goldfly]

Michiko leans over to one of the nearby guards. "Do you have some kind of bludgeoning weapon I could borrow? I fear my bolts may just pass through their rib cages..."

[Zefir]

"What's so bad with corners? Everywhere they can make an ambush we could do as well, right? And to be true undead aren't the brightest guys here."

Lyria sights a bit as she saw the paladin and his speech.

"Martyr aren't the best to follow after all, but they clear the way . So lead the way nameless fellower of Iommedae."

Lyrie will try to take the position far behind. She knows that in worst case this would allow her to suprise the others. After all she doesn't know them and everyone could be a maniac mass murderer.

[RaggedAngel]

Demos raises his eye at the remark, nodding in assent a bit, as if he was pleased that Lyria hadn't simply taken his word on face value. "The issue for myself, at least, is that I fight at-range; and beyond myself, I'm sure we all have some method of attacking a target that reaches further than our own arms. It's just the reasonable thing to do. The skeletons, however, can't do that, or at least I don't believe they can. They'll resort to their claws, or whatever else slashed up that woman's face. That means we're reduced to their style of fight, removing a large potential advantage. And as for the paladin? Good warriors make poor martyrs. He isn't serving his god by dying here." Demos' words are quick, calm, and devoid of any significant emotion, though he seems a bit more cheerful than he had a few minutes before; the danger, it seemed, agreed with him.

[King Tius]

The little gnome seems incredibly eager to enter the house. He stands holding the guard's mace and prances back and forth from foot to foot, seemingly born to dance.

The Captain gives Toland a curt nod. "If you can purge the house, so be it. I'll give you until dawn to see the place cleared."

Michiko is able to secure a club from one of the many guards standing about. Just as the guards are stepping back from the door and preparing to let you in, the gnome gives a shout of excitement and somersaults forward, darting through the crack in the door as it opens. The rest of you quickly follow suit, pouring into the antechamber of the opulent house. With a resounding thud the guards shut the door behind you.

The house is eerily dark and quiet as a tomb. As the dust settled and no skeletons or zombies immediately attack you, the lot of you strain your ears to hear any signs of life. It doesn't take long for you to hear a whimpering sound coming from up the stairs.

There is a stairway leading up to a balcony on the left of the antechamber. The house's main entertainment room to your right which has a pair of couches and a piano.

The Map

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/1698/1stfloor1.png

[RaggedAngel]

Demos scans the room for a long, slow moment, searching for any sign of the living or the dead. After the door has been shut and the dust has settled, he speaks in a voice that carries no further than the others around him, his eyes sharp and unblinking in the half-light. "We need to decide now; sweep the bottom floor or the upstairs first. Either way, we need to be ready at any moment. Weapons out, and be as quiet as you can until the action starts. When it does, don't be afraid to be loud; if we can draw them all out, it'll make our jobs easier. Do not shoot or swing until you confirm what you're hitting is undead; it would be unfortunate to kill the women we're trying to rescue."

Perception: [roll0]

[Goldfly]

Perception: [roll0]
Michiko looks around quickly, before speaking.
"I think we should head upstairs first. I think I heard something up there, and it would be best to take people out of danger as quickly as possible."

[mshady]

Toland

Looking around the room, Toland all but ignores the guards behind him closing the door. As far Toland was concerned, they may as well have locked the door for all he cared.

"Good" Toland says, as he hears the door close. "Now they're locked in here with us" he says with a grim smile.

He pauses for a moment to survey the scene, and than strains to listen to the quiet sobbing again.

"If we can hear them, so can they. Whatever they is, here. I would surmise if they can cry, they must be hidden and safe. Neither of which we are, right now..." Toland says, and his voice trails off.

He looks around for a moment, careful in his assessment.

"Older house, if there was something moving above us or actively looking, we would hear creaking yes? Lets send some of us up, but two of us guard the stairs. We need to keep eyes down here too. I'll stay here with one other. We need to find them and get out, but we need not be flanked either. If six can do it, four can do it"

Toland moves over to the stairs when others move to go up.

[Gorgon_Heap]

Moving to the center of the room, the white elf looks all around and says, "I will stay. I will help control the creature's movement inot the room." She slowly moves the point of the long partisan from one open doorway to the next.

[Zefir]

Lyrie looks around , but after the paladin spoke up she didn't move to the stairs and just sights.

"That is really dump Mr. Paladin. If I understand you right we should send 4 people upstairs where things are fine and leave 2 downstairs where things are still dangerouse."

She looks at the others hopefully find someone who agrees with her.

"We should clear this level of the house befor we go on top. Just think if they attack you. You said 4 can do what 6 can, but I don't think 2 can do what 6 can. So we should stay together until we know what we have to deal with."

[RaggedAngel]

Demos stares at Lyrie for a moment, trying to decipher her accent, before replying. "Right; I agree that we should not split up. Against an unknown number of foes, with unknown skills and abilities? Breaking into easily managed pieces is just doing their jobs for them. We should remain in as large a group as possible unless absolutely necessary. Now, we need to decide; head upstairs or clear out this floor?" Moving as he speaks, Demos walks to the stairs, looking up them with a readied pistol.

[Gorgon_Heap]

As the debate continues, the elf echoes the young woman's sigh. "Oh ... I am not getting any older but somebody in this house might be getting eaten alive."

She strides quietly down the hallway, weapon at the ready, and leans forward, casting quick glances into the two darkened rooms.


Standing in D6, looking into C5 and C7
Stealth [roll0]
Perception [roll1]

[King Tius]

As the group whispers in the main room about how to proceed, you hear the occasional scraping sound coming from upstairs. When they do happen, you notice the sobbing gets louder. Demos moves to the stairs to keep an eye on the landing and Jalaera creeps forward down the main hallway. Fortunately, her steps prove light and agile enough that she barely makes a sound.

Though none of you have a light source, the flickering torchlight sneaking through the boarded up windows provides an eerie illumination. To the left of the hallway is the house's kitchen. Jalaera immediately notices that there is a wood door that leads to the basement stairs (which are right under the stairs to the second floor). Or, should I say, there WAS once a door there. Now Jalaera sees splinters of wood and fragments of the former door hanging by its hinges.

To the right is the house's dining hall. There is a large, well crafted mahogany table. Even more interesting than that, however, are the four skeletons that are standing in the room. They are clustered around the large window by the dining room table, looking almost forlorn as they stare blankly at the hastily thrown up wood.

Kiernan hops excitedly from foot to foot, waving his little mace back and forth like a conductor's wand. He is even humming, though it is so quiet you can barely hear it. As the group argues about what to do, he seems quite content to stand in the middle of the room, his head perpetually on the swivel.

The Map

http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/1531/1stfloor2.png

[Gorgon_Heap]

Disturbed by the sight of the skeletons wavering around the window under their own power, Jalaera shakes her head and looks back down the hall at the others.

Using the most basic of motions - and hoping there's enough light for the thers to see - she indicates four enemies are in the room to her right.

She aims her weapon at the nearest ribcage, waiting patiently for backup to be in place ...



Action I think that's a ready attack if S1 activates a move.

[RaggedAngel]

Demos catches the signals, and he approves greatly of the use of nonverbal communication. He signals an encircling maneuver, and he moves as quietly as he can towards a good vantage point, moving slowly and steadily to avoid making any noise; he is so focused on the skeletons, however, that his shortsword knocks against the wall as he passes, much to his ire. He keeps his gun out and primed, ready to fire at the first sign of movement, though he waits until the others are ready before leveling his pistol with the nearest skull, prepared to fire.

Stealth, moving at half speed: [roll0]

He moves to G7, and readies an action to fire at movement.

Does Up Close and Deadly (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/gunslinger/archetypes/paizo---gunslinger-archetypes/pistolero) damage apply to skeletons?

[mshady]

Toland

Looking around and listening to the creaks and sounds, he watches one of his comrades sneak forward with great care. Until they hit something with their sword. Well, it was a game effort anyways.

Undead and not your normal household vermin. If they are used by a necromancer, it is to attack and overwhelm. Little direction and they let the older woman escape. Otherwise, they are guarding some kind of tomb. So what does an old woman and her maids get up to here to cause that? Spirits, I could understand, but skeletons are, well, real skeletons? Whatever do they have in their closet.

I don't know.

The widow knows.... a voice tells him. A darker voice tells him.

If that noise didn't get their attention, him moving up wouldn't either. He looks around at the group to see who else might be a capable fighter. Most didn't really impress him, although a couple weren't bad looking, but the fellow with the polearm looked useful.

Toland motions to Jalaera to get his attention and signal to him that Toland would like him to accompany him forward.

The Paladin, and presumably the burly fellow with the polearm by his side, move up to get a better view.

That was when he saw four skeletons standing looking at a wall, with a large old table behind them, and that gave him an idea.

Motioning to Jalaera, he points at the skeletons with his morningstar, than the table than makes a pushing motion with his shield.

Translation: See the skeletons and the table? Lets slam that table into those skeletons.

Toland lines up so he has a straight shot at table and prepares to bull rush the table to slam it into the skeletons.

[RaggedAngel]

Demos stands for a moment, torn, before moving next to Toland, bracing his own buckler against the table, keeping his pistol trained on the skeletons the entire time, waiting for them to launch a furious assault. He looks to the others, waiting for them to move forward, and then with a sharp nod to Toland he shoves the table forward, hoping to pin the skeletons against the wall so that they can take the undead out with a series of ranged attacks.

Yeah, his strength is 10, but he's a full-grown man, and it's a table. I just want the action to start.

[Goldfly]

Michiko inches forward, crossbow at the ready, and prepares to fire once the men push the table.
Stealth: 1d20+3
Michiko will move to F3, and ready an action to attack Skeleton 3 when the table is moved.
[roll0]
[roll1]

[King Tius]

Jalaera drops into a slight crouch, HER weapon at the ready. As Toland, Demos, and Kiernan move into the living room Michiko and Lyrie remain in the entryway. Demos' sword bangs against the separating wall, causing all four skeletons to turn around and stare at him. Jalaera takes this opportunity to lash out with her partisan at S1. Though her aim is true, the tip of her blade skips off of a rib and passes harmlessly into its rib cage. The undead abomination does turn its head to regard her, however...

Combat Begins!

Initiative Order
(23) Lyrie
(21) Jalaera
(20) Kiernan
(20) Michiko
(17) Toland
(14) Demos
(12) Skeletons

You all rolled phenomenal initiatives. Unfortunately you weren't able to push the table before starting combat, but since you all get to act first, it is still a viable thing to try. Anyone who wants to help Toland push can delay their action to just after his. I'll need a Combat Maneuver (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat#TOC-Combat-Maneuver-Bonus) roll (treating this like a Bull Rush). Anyone who is helping will be rolling to assist.

You do not need to post in initiative order.

The Map

http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/4484/1stfloor3.png

[Gorgon_Heap]

The elf expertly plunges her long weapon into he skeleton and her brows shoot upward in surprise as the blade clatters harmlessly into the thing. The skull turns its dark, empty sockets her direction and her belly does a flip-flop.

When the others begin to rish in toward the table, however, the tall elf suddenly beams with ferocious humor.

She twists her wrists, spinning the weapon and locking it vertically in the monster's body. "Haaaaaaa!" she yells and shoves for all she's worth ...



[Ok, I can tell you now Hero Points - not being level-based - are the coolest things ever and I'm gonna pop'em like Pez!

Doing a Bull Rush of my own to shove S1 back into the whole row of skeletons to pin them all in the corner behind the table. And though it gets an AoO, I'm out of reach.] Squish'em and smash'em, y'all! ]

Bull Rush: CMB+Hero Point [roll0]

[RaggedAngel]

Demos watches the subtle reaction of the skeletons, and he realizes that there simply will not be time to take any kind of creative action against them. The whipcord-thin man raises his arm, the large gun at the end of it moving perfectly, organically. He sights the middle skeleton calmly, and then he gently pulls the trigger.

The explosion is a hammer-blow, shockingly loud in the small, enclosed space, a clap of thunder in the darkness. The light of the shot flares out like lightning, and for a single moment Demos stands illuminated. He stands, frozen in time, and you can see the man he will become; lean, strong, hard, and deadly. You can see the pistol that will fell gods, and the man that will aim it.

And then the flash fades, and he steps back from the line of undead, quickly jamming a tightly-wound alchemical cartridge into the still-hot primary barrel of his twice-loaded weapon. "You really overpacked that one, didn't you, idiot," he mutters as he loads the weapon. "Why not just blow your own hand off with black powder, why don't you, and save the damned skeletons some trouble."

Ranged Touch Attack vs Flatfooted AC on S3: [roll0]
Damage (Bludgeoning and Piercing, so passes DR): [roll1] + [roll2]; it does half of the d6 if the attack misses.
Shift back to 7H.
Move action to reload the fired chamber with an alchemical cartridge.

EDIT- Dammit. Really? Dammit. I needed a bloody ten to hit, and I got a nine. That is really, really frustrating after weeks of wanting to shoot something. I'm going to go drown my sorrow in rum.

[Zefir]

Lyrie still isn't sure. None mentioned anything about an attack or even enemies close. And then they all dissapear into the other rooms. Fine, just fine Lyrie thinks as she heads after them. She draws her bow and heads after the people going for the living room. Then she notice sword and bone crossing each other. Lyrie turns around going to face the wall with her back as she notice the undeads standing north of her.

"O.....K?" she says as she looks at the deep dark holes where the eyes should be.

Move Action: Going to H8
Standart: Drawing Shortbow

[mshady]

Toland

When the others attack, Toland sticks to his plan and charges the table and leads with his shield. He lowers his shield and shoulder to try to catch the table as evenly as possible and drive it into the four skeletons with over 300 lbs of mass between his body and weight of his gear, plus anyone else aiding him.

The shield connects with the table and drives the heavy old thing towards the skeletons, but is it enough to hurt or pin them?

CM Roll

[roll0]

[King Tius]

Round 1

(23) Lyrie
The Kitsune scampers towards the near couch, taking cover behind it and drawing her crossbow.

(21) Jalaera
Twisting her exotic weapon around, she locks the smaller hooked blades into the ribs of the nearest skeleton. She shoves against the pole with all her might, pushing the skeleton up against its companions. Unfortunately the four combined prove too strong for the one woman and they all remain in their current squares.

OOC: Here are the Bull Rush (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat#TOC-Bull-Rush) rules if you are interested. You’ve got the thing locked on the end of your weapon, so I’m going to consider it to be grappled.

(20) Kiernan
The little gnome rushes into action, ducking under Jalaera’s weapon and dodging the clumsy attack of the pinned skeleton. With a solid swing he smashes a leg off of S1. Kiernan gives a hoot of triumph as he crushes the right side of the creature’s pelvis, but it seems not to care as it turns its attention to him.

(20) Michiko
Seeing that the party has started, Michiko moves to cover at E7 and pokes her head out long enough to fire on S3. While her aim is true, her quarrel skips harmlessly off its right shoulder blade.

(17) Toland
The stalwart paladin goes rushing past Michiko, shield at the ready. He slams into the great table and feels the wind get knocked out of his lungs, the table barely budging. Fortunately for him, the skeletons are little more than mindless automatons and are not capable of laughing at his attempt.

(14) Demos
The room erupts into light and sound as the gunslinger’s pistol roars. By some small miracle none of you are deafened or blinded by the discharge, but it seems the bullet passed straight through the skeleton’s ribs. No beam of light appears from the far wall, so Demos knows he hasn’t accidentally shot someone standing outside the home.

(12) Skeletons
The skeleton at the end of Jalaera’s partisan swipes at the small gnome in front of it. Fortunately it looks like Kiernan can handle himself in a fight as he easily deflects the blow with his shield. S2 pushes up against its wounded neighbor and also tries to get at Kiernan but its claws dig into the table instead. Jalaera is able to hold the two of them in place, at least for now. S3 and S4 rush around the side of the table towards the winded paladin. S3 gets right into Toland’s face but he brings his shield up in time to deflect the clawed attack. S4 tries to move behind S3 to get at Toland more easily but the paladin is ready for such a maneuver; He brings his sword up in a quick slice that catches the skeleton in its lower spine, cleaving it clean in two. Its bones scatter onto the ground about Toland’s feet as the necromantic energy leaves it (Confirmed Critical Hit!).

You all hear a loud scream from upstairs and the hurried sound of scrapping feet headed across the house towards the west end of the house….

The Map

http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/6747/1stfloor4.png

[Gorgon_Heap]

The elf woman sets her stance and braces against the two skeletons straining against her. She hopes only to help them in place and give the others time to destroy them without endangering themselves.

[RaggedAngel]

Demos takes careful aim on the nearest skeleton, the one that had advanced towards him after his first failed shot. He lines up his pistol, holding it along the line of his body, his arm outstretched; then, with a smooth pull of the trigger and a released breath, he unleashes another blast of thunder and light on the skeleton. This blast is much quieter than the last one, indicating a difference in the explosive used to fire the shot, and Demos's aim is far truer; the ball strikes the skeleton cleanly in its forehead.

Using another Grit point for Up Close and Deadly.

Ranged Touch Attack: [roll0]
Damage (Bludgeoning): [roll1] + [roll2]

He reloads the just-fired barrel with an alchemical cartridge. If the skeleton is destroyed, he gains a grit point back.

[Goldfly]

Michiko frowns as her crossbow bolt simply bounces off the skeleton, and places the crossbow gently upon the ground. Then, she looks around the corner and fires a small bolt of electricity out of her fingertips towards the closest skeleton she can see.


Michiko will cast Jolt on the nearest Skeleton.
[roll0]
[roll1]

[Zefir]

Lyrie still in her human for (so no obviouse kitsune) takes an arrow out of the quiver. She takes a short look around, but realize that every oponent is in close combat. She just aimes at S4, because he is closest to her.

Hit:[roll0]
When Crit:[roll1]
DmG:[roll2]
When Crit:[roll3]

"Seems like the bullet brought out the woman." she says while her arrow flies away.

[King Tius]

Round 2

(23) Lyrie
Lyrie takes aim at S4 and fires. Her arrow flies straight at the skeleton’s head and connects solidly with skull. Unfortunately the arrow bounces right off, doing no damage.

(21) Jalaera
Jalaera struggles to keep ahold of her fancy spear as the pair of skeletons push back against her. She keeps her feet firmly planted and focuses on keeping her partisan locked in the wounded skeelton’s ribs.

(20) Kiernan
The little gnome swings again, nearly giddy with excitement as he goes to town. His overly-enthusiastic swing just misses the skeleton’s other leg and slams into the heavy table with a heavy thud.

“Whoops! We’ll blame that one on the skellies!”

(20) Michiko
Calling upon her innate magical abilities, Michiko summons lightning to her fingertips and tosses it easily at the skeleton engaged in combat with Toland. The crackle of energy snaps some bones and chars others, but the skeleton remains on its feet.

(17) Toland
With the skeleton before him weakened, the paladin is able to take another precise swing. The sheer force of the blow from his mace is more than enough to finish the job. Hearing the footsteps upstairs, he moves towards the entryway to intercept the incoming threat.

(14) Demos
With Toland in the way and the skeleton too far away to fire on directly, Demos moves up to D9 for a clearer shot. Now with nothing in his way, he fires straight at the S2’s shoulders. The ball passes clean through, wrecking the entire upper assembly of bones on its way. The skeleton’s head rolls off its shattered body as it falls to the ground. Unfortunately, he is not able to reload this round.

(12) Skeletons
Again the skeleton attacking Kiernan misses with its claws. Just as Toland predicted, four more skeletons come running down the stairs and spill into the entryway, all running right for him. He is now partially surrounded, but none were able to attack this round.

Jalaera’s keen ears pick up the sound of even more footsteps, but these seem to be coming from the basement stairs….

The Map

http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/9016/1stfloor5.png

[Gorgon_Heap]

Pushing one feet into the hallway moulding, the elf pins the remaining skeleton in place and peers back over her right shoulder. She sees more creappy things jangling down the steps and the armored man facing them directly.

Her left ear twitches as she also hears skittering and rattling from the steps back to her left. "Gnome! I have to release it!"

"Hnn!" she grunts, twisting and yaking her polearm and then thrusting it back into the skeleton once again.



Attack [roll0]
Crit??? [roll1] Does this only work for Demos' pistol?
Damage [roll2]

[mshady]

Toland

Looking around, he finally realizes all six of them are downstairs and someone is screaming upstairs. It makes him want to scream too.

What happened to some going upstairs and the rest down here? He and that woodsmen would have been fine down here. Now he is surronded and in a useless fight.

Someone needed to get up there, and fast. It looked like it might have to be him. As he holds up his shield and looks at the approaching undead, his mind races as he tries to puzzle out which one to attack to open a path for someone else...

He sees the woodsmen(lady?) with her partisan trying to hold back one of the skeletons and in a tug of war there. That was quite game of her, but in a moment she was going to get flanked too, and he couldn't allow that.

"Come on, make a hole and lets get someone up there! Someone, take the one to my left (Skeleton 7) hard and push through!"

I'm good, but I can't take on all four. For too long. Time to be a big goddamn hero....

"Ranger, if you can, aid me with this one!" Toland yells out, requesting Jaleara to use "Aid Another" against the skeleton he is attacking to maximize his chances.

Morningstar Attack

Attack Roll:
Confirm Crit: [roll1]

Damage: [roll2]
Crit Damage: 1d8+3

Light Shield Attack

Attack Roll:
Confirm Crit: [roll4]

Damage: [roll5]
Crit Damage: 1d6+3

If somehow skeleton 5 goes down beforehand, however, Toland will fight defensively and attack the nearest skeleton with just his morningstar.

Toland moves to E6 and attacks with his morningstar (not sword) and shield too, against Skeleton 5.

Morningstar Attack

Attack Roll:
Confirm Crit: [roll7]

Damage: [roll8]
Crit Damage: 1d8+3

[RaggedAngel]

Demos grins fiercely as the skeleton crumbles; it's the biggest expression you've seen from him so far. The emergence of the new skeletons kills that smile in its cradle, and replaces it with his standard hard eyes and faint frown. He swivels his weapon around, drawing aim on the last of the first batch of skeletons, intending to prevent any flanking by the undead. Thunder and fire roar, and his bullet strikes bone; it isn't a perfect shot, but the sheer force of the projectile is enough to make it a devastating one.

He uses Up Close and Deadly again.

Ranged Touch Attack, S1: [roll0]
Damage: [roll1] + [roll2]

He then reloads a chamber with an alchemical cartridge.

[Zefir]

Lyrie see's how useless the bow is and will immediatly drop from using it again. Maybe hard steel is better than an arrow. She looks over the scene and decides to go for the new enemies.

Lyria will draw her short sword.
IF possible she will try to head for H6 in case she is allowed to move that far and will attack the skeleton S7 with the flanking.
If she has no move action she will just head for G7 and attack.

Acrobatics: [roll0] (To avoid AoO from S/ on G7 against his CMD)
Hit with Flanking:[roll1] (-2 if Not Flanking)
Crit with Flanking:[roll2] (-2 if Not Flanking)
DMG: [roll3]
Crit DMG: [roll4]
Sneak Attack: [roll5](+1 from dirty fight; only while flanking)

[Goldfly]

Michiko turns as the new skeletons appear; it is the first time she has something approaching fear on her face. She draws forth the club she borrowed, and fires another small jolt of electricity at the nearest skeleton.

Move action: Draw club.
Standard action: Cast Jolt on S7. [roll0]
[roll1]

[King Tius]

Round 3

(23) Lyrie
Unfortunately Lyrie does not have Quick Draw so she must use a move action to draw her weapon. She tumbles around the couch to G7, denying the skeleton an attack of opportunity. Unfortunately, she’s out of actions and can’t attack this round (don’t worry, that attack would have missed anyways).

(21) Jalaera
Quickly unhooking her partisan from the skeleton’s ribs, Jalaera thrusts again with it, this time aimed deliberately at the creature’s spine. She is rewarded with a resounding crack as she shatters vertebrae and the creature’s bones go clattering to the ground.

(20) Kiernan
Fresh out of skeletons to attack the gnome goes shooting through Jalaera’s legs, sliding on the floorboard to pop up next to Toland. “Pardon me, Miss!” Once again he brings his mace to bear but is unable to hit the skeleton in front of him.

(20) Michiko
Michiko draws her club and lets loose with another jolt. Again the magical attack hits home, damaging (but not outright destroying) the skeleton (S7).

(17) Toland
The Paladin proves he is worth his weight in gold, smashing the skeleton (S6) in front of him with a single blow of his mace. Wasting no time, he follows the attack up with a shield bash aimed for the skeleton (S8) to his left (shield side). Toland can’t help but smile as he feels the skeleton collapsing as his shield smashes it to bits.

(14) Demos
With none of the original skeletons left to attack, Demos turns and takes aim at S7, having a direct line of sight. Proving his marksmanship is not to be trifled with, he threads the needle with his bullet and finishes off the work Michiko started, obliterating S7 and regaining his grit point. He reloads one of his barrels again.

(12) Skeletons
The lone skeleton, oblivious to the decimation going on around it, attacks Kiernan. The little gnome easily ducks under its clumsy attacks. Coming from the basement is a fresh wave of skeletons, though this time there are even more than before! They come pouring up from the cellar and into the kitchen running at the first thing they see. S9 rushes up the stairs and heads right for Jalaera. It even gets to make a clumsy claw attack which Jalaera easily defends against.

S0 goes running past her, headed right at Demos. Jalaera makes an Attack of Opportunity against it and connects, but her weapon proves ineffective against the skeleton’s innate DR. The remaining skeletons pour in, filling in the back of the house. Unfortunately Jalaeara is unable to make any more AoOs against them. Though just a few seconds ago it looked like the group had things covered, you are now outnumbered!

The Map

http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/2519/1stfloor6.png

[RaggedAngel]

Demos takes a sliding step back; if the undead lunging towards him bothers, him, he makes no sign of it. He levels his pistol with the skeleton's forehead, narrowing his eyes as he does; as one of the few people in the room with an effective killing weapon, there is a lot of pressure to make every single shot count. He draws on his close-combat skill, exhales, and squeezes the trigger. There is a flash of light, a roar of thunder, and the shattering sound of breaking bone.

Using another grit point. Hopefully they'll keep refilling.

Shift to D10.

Ranged Touch on S0: [roll0]
Bludgeoning Damage: [roll1] + [roll2]

Reload with an alchemical cartridge.

[Zefir]

Lyrie has noticed her problem, but unless the skeletons drop a mace she can't really change things. Well there is the option to steel one from the others, but that wouldn't make her position any better. After these trash thoughts she observes the room again. Well there are a bunch of new skeletons, but she couldn't flank any expect the one in the south. Let's hope the paladin goes for them and doesn't run top.

Moving to F4 to flank the skeleton with Jalaera.

Attacking the Skeleton S5 then
Attack: [roll0]
Crit confirm [roll1]
Damage + Sneak: [roll2] + [roll3]
Crit Damage[roll4]

Let's hope I hit and make at least some damage

[Gorgon_Heap]

Momentarily surprised by the turn of events, the elf woman knocks aside several feeble skeleton hands and considers the close quarters and her long weapon ...

"Ha!" she shouts, and steps back into the hallway with her back to the small, mobile gnome. She pulls her partisan horizontally across the open hall before her so that it's stopping all movement and uses its entire legth, sliding it up and down, to block grasping claws from all three undead.


Jalaera is still in D6 but her weapon is blocking the hall, stretching from C5-7 and is using total defense for the round.

[mshady]

Toland

With his kill count up to four skeletons now, Toland looks around the battlefield again and tries to figure out this mess. He had a perfectly reasonable plan..

This is my chance to make a break upstairs and rescue those women, but I can't get free with us under all this pressure. He watches the nimble Lyrie, who has avoided any wounds but otherwise ineffective, seems to be free.

"You!" he says and risks his defense a moment to point at her. He regrets yelling, but it is just too chaotic. Knowing names would be helpful right now. "Get upstairs and find if anyone's alive! Distract any bones or draw away till someone else can get up there! I'd go myself, but its too bad down here!"

Looking around, Toland draws a couple quick conclusions.

"Fall back! One holds the hall and 3 hold the wall and we can get a second upstairs" Toland yells out. He wasn't a veteran, but he knew if they broke into their line, this would get very ugly.

Deciding to make sure Lyrie was not followed upstairs, if she went up at all, Toland attacks the nearest skeleton (S5). He will than fall back to F7 or E7, if the skeleton is dropped.

If that skeleton is somehow already down, he will move to either E8 or E9 and attack

Toland's Morningstar Attack

Attack: [roll0]
Critical: [roll1]

Damage: [roll2]
Crit Dmg: [roll3]

[Goldfly]

Michiko frowns from behind the wall at the sound of the skeleton so close by. "Damn, it's close..." She shakes her head and turns around the corner bringing her club around with her momentum and into the skeleton.
5-foot step to E8 if necessary to attack S0. If not, she'll attack from where she is.[roll0]
[roll1]

[King Tius]

Round 4

(23) Lyrie
Lyrie takes advantage of S5 being caught out and sneaks up behind it. With Jalaera and Kiernan in a flanking position, Lyrie is able to perform a sneak attack, easily hitting the skeleton and dropping it with one precise strike.

(21)Jalaera
Seeing that she is standing in a critical choke point, the ranger with the pointy stick drops into a defensive stance and pulls up her weapon to defend herself and block the way. Jalaera is fairly confident she can fight off these skeletons for the time being, but there are a lot of them…

(20) Kiernan
The prancing little gnome turns around and darts into the living room, turning the corner sharply and diving under the big table to end up against the far wall. As he goes he slides and ducks under attacks from S!, S0, and S#. You all get the impression that he has spent a good portion of his life dodging things to save his life.

(20) Michiko
Michiko maintains her cover and takes a swing at S0. Unfortunately the necromantic creature’s seemingly random movements make it harder to hit than anticipated.

(17) Toland
Toland grows mildly frustrated as the young girl ignores his orders. What was her deal anyways? Focusing back on the task at hand, he moves up to S0 (who already used its AoO) and smashes its skull to bits with his mace. He’s on a skeleton-crushing roll. Let’s just hope it doesn’t get to his head…

(14) Demos
With S0 out of the picture, Demos takes a bead on S!, blasting it to smithereens with a single shot. He’s certainly giving Toland a run for his skeleton-smashing money. As per usual, he reloads again.

(12) Skeletons
Kiernan’s antics draw the attention of S# and S9. They move to attack him but the gnome proves too wise to their clumsy claws. S$ and S* swipe at Jalaera but she is easily able to deflect the blows with her partisan.

From her position in the main foyer, Lyrie sees SIX more skeletons making their way down the stairs. From up above you all hear a woman scream “Oh gods be praised!”

OOC: 10 skeletons down, at least 10 skeletons to go. Nobody has taken damage yet….

The Map
http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/5384/1stfloor7.png

[Gorgon_Heap]

[Jalaera will performanother round of total defense, hoping the gnome and pistoleer will start clearing out this back room while she keeps the things contained.]

[RaggedAngel]

Demos draws another bead on the closest skeleton to which he has a clear shot, narrowing his eyes with focus; at the rate the skeletons are appearing, he can't afford to miss. He takes note of what the others are saying, however, and now that he has fallen into a rhythm he begins to focus his mind on strategy. His rhythm helps his aim, as well; his shot is flawless, striking the skeleton in the dead center of its sternum, shattering most of its body.

"I agree with your assessment; we should send someone up the stair-" As he speaks, the newest flood of skeletons comes down the stairs. He idly muses that they may have no end. "Dammit. Nevermind. We need to form a solid front, in case anyone gets injured."

He uses Up Close and Deadly again.
Ranged Touch Attack: [roll0]
Damage: [roll1] + [roll2]

Reload, AlchCart.

[Goldfly]

Michiko curses as the skeletons come down the stairs, and fires a small bolt of electricity at the one in the lead. She looks towards Toland and Demos, frowning. "Just tell me what to do, and I'll do my best."

Jolt on Sa.
[roll0]
[roll1]

[Zefir]

Actually Tolands action comes after mine so I haven't had a chance to react to his words right?

After all the skeletons coming from top is far to bad and Jalaera is now in greater danger.

"Hey Paladin! I found 6 bonies."

She heads back to the groupe placing herself next to Jalaera, better save her ass since there is no way out.

Moving to E6:
Using defence stance .

[mshady]

Toland

For a moment, the paladin feels overwhelmed and he thrice curses that he was not at the stairs where he could have plugged up the stair well with a defensive stand. It was 10 against 6, but who else was bringing any of these things down? Him, the gunslinger and the ranger with the pole arm was going a great job of holding up. So 10 versus 2 1/2?

These people and their fancy, prancy ways of fighting!

"Just keep them off our backs! Clear the rear and move up. Throw the damn table over the door below or something!"

I really need to take one of these things down, right now...

Toland moves to H4 or thereabouts and attacks the nearest skeleton...

Attack

Attack [roll0]
Crit [roll1]

Damage

Damage [roll2]
Crit Dmg [roll3]

[King Tius]

Round 5

(23) Lyrie
Realizing that she is quite outnumbered, Lyrie moves towards Jalaera and stands back to back with the ranger, taking a defensive stance to be ready for the incoming skeletal wave.

(21)Jalaera
Jalaera continues her defensive posturing, bolstered by the reassuring feel of a warm body behind her. At the very least, she only had to focus on the skeletons in front of her for now.

(20) Kiernan
“Is that more skellies I hear? This poor old woman must have some pretty big closets, if you catch my drift.”

The little gnome once again brings his mace crashing into the skeleton before him. The blow connects but does not do a whole lot of damage, barely managing to smash a few ribs.

(20) Michiko
Michiko sees the incoming wave of skeletons and sets her sights on the one closest to her. The jolt of electricity she sends flying its way is aimed a tad too low and flies right between its legs, dissipating harmlessly on the carpet.

(17) Toland
The brave paladin rushes the newer skeletons head on, intercepting them near the base of the stairs. His swing is slightly off balance and fails to connect with the skeleton before him. Of all the times to miss, now was certainly not the best of them!

(14) Demos
Unlike the others, Demos is able to solidly connect with S9 and scatter it to the wind. He once again quickly reloads, noticing with slight alarm that his stock of alchemical cartridges is quickly dwindling…

(12) Skeletons
Jalaera manages to fend off the four claw attacks that come at her from S$ and S*. Kiernan proves less lucky, however, as he shouts in pain. Lines of blood show across his face from a nasty set of gashes imparted by S#. The gnome still seems to have some fight left in him, though he’ll need to tend to those wounds soon.
Toland is attacked twice by Sa. He is able to parry the first blow but the second slips past his guard and catches him on the exposed portion of his forearm with a deep cut (6 HP damage). Sb moves around him and the paladin tries to take a swing at it but comes up short. It repositions itself and attacks him but is rebuffed by Toland’s armor. Sc and Sd also attack him but neither of them are able to connect as well. The remaining two skeletons rush past the paladin entirely, heading towards Lyrie.

The Map
http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/7337/1stfloor8.png

Current HP Counts

Demos: 11/11
Jalaera: 11/11
Kiernan: 5/11
Lyrie: 11/11
Michicko: 8/8
Toland: 6/12

[RaggedAngel]

Demos ignores the fact that he is swiftly running low on his fast-loading alchemical cartridges; with any luck he and the big man with the mace will be able to crush the remaining skeletons in the next half-minute, after which point a pair of standard loads should get him through the house and the rest of the day. The woman outside had better be honest about paying them, though, or he'll be forced to resort to dishonest methods of obtaining the materials he needs to craft the cartridges, and standard bullets. The gun was an extremely powerful weapon, but it was damned expensive to maintain. His shot is perfectly accurate, however, and Demos' deadly momentum continues to be unfailing.

Ranged Touch attack on the nearest skeleton to Ki: [roll0]
Damage, with Up Close and Deadly: [roll1] + [roll2]

He reloads as a move action.

[Gorgon_Heap]

[Not entirely sure I can do this but worth a try.]

Seeing the gnome get struck, the elf tries to get some pressure off him. She boots the skeleton back a few inches to give her arms a little more room and swings the partisan wide to the right and directly at the skeleton clawing at the gnome.

Fluff aside ... basic attack on S#

Attack [roll0]
Crit [roll1]
Damage [roll2]

Nuts. Well, maybe I distracted it.

[mshady]

Toland:

Surrounded by skeletons now, Toland looks around at the crowd he has gathered with some grim satisfaction.

This would have been a better plan if someone had came down and helped me here. Just one would have been nice. I know everyone's busy though... Toland thinks to himself, filled with passive aggressive rage.

Still though, this was what he had wanted really. Draw out as many of them as he could and fix them around him, let the others fall in behind them.

I can take on all five of them. I have faith, a shield and a big piece of iron. That helps too.

Still though, that one skeleton who had tried to tear open his leg was discouraging. He had felt its body, sharp, finger stabs into his right leg and try to grab the flesh from the inside and pull it from the bone. It nearly had too, before Toland wheeled around and thumped it with his shield. It had bought him a moment, but no more, for his shield and morningstar flew in a blur, as he blocked more attacks. What he couldn't get to, he let his armor take the rest of the blows that rained down on him.

Still though, this many skeletons would get luck and pull him down. Going turtle might not be the thing here. At least his back was to the wall. He needed to even out their numbers, and now.

Toland takes a 5 foot step to the right, and attacks!

"For Iomedae!" Toland cries out, what may be his last words.

Toland attacks SD, and if that dies, SC

Morningstar Attack

Attack: [roll0]
Critical: [roll1]

Shield Attack

Attack: [roll2]
Critical: [roll3]

Morningstar Damage: [roll4]
Crit Damage: [roll5]

[Zefir]

Jalaera still seems to be more intressed in the gnome so Lyrie can go help one of the other members. It's really bad that her weapons seem to do near no damage even thought she aims for the right spots. Someone could have told her that the skeletons are acting that way against swords. Well that's nothing she can't handle later and for now she needs to help the paladin. Even thought he handeled the skeletons nice he can't beat all of them.

Doing 5 foot step to F6. Gaining Flanking since Toland won't move until after his turn and lyrie is first. Yay!
Attacking Sd
Attack[roll0]
Crit[roll1]

Damage[roll2]
Crit[roll3]

Sneak[roll4]

[Goldfly]

Michiko sighs. "Time to do something reckless..." The young woman steps out from behind the wall, and shocks the skeleton nearest to her, with club held at the ready.
5-foot step to F8, Jolt on Se.
[roll0]
[roll1]

[King Tius]

Round 6

(23) Lyrie
Lyrie steps forward to gain a flanking advantage against one of the skeletons. Even with her superior positioning she is unable to do any damage to the skeleton’s tough bones.

(21)Jalaera
Seeing her newfound ally in trouble, Jalaera lashes out at his assailant, S#. Her attack strikes true but fails to do any damage.

(20) Kiernan
Blood streaming down his face, the little gnome smiles at the skeleton, his teeth stained by his own lifeblood. “Oh, so that’s how we’re going to play now, huh?” The little man begins to dance, prancing back and forth in what almost appears to be a jig. He lets out a shout of triumph as he brings his mace down on the skeleton again, blasting it apart.

(20) Michiko
Michiko passes her Acrobatics check and vaults up onto the nearest couch, crouched defensively much like a fox. Another jolt of electricity springs forth from her outstretched fingers, this time striking Se square in the head. The skeleton’s noggin flies clear off its neck but somehow the creature still stands.

(17) Toland
Quite surrounded but completely undaunted by his odds, the paladin takes a quick step backwards and absolutely demolished Sd. His mace comes down in a solid arc that smashes straight through the skeleton’s skull and the first few vertebrae of its spine, taking out its rib cage as a bonus. The magical forces holding the creature together quickly dissipate, leaving one fewer set of claws for Toland to deal with.

(14) Demos
With a level of precision that is almost routine, Demos turns on one of the remaining two skeletons harassing Jalaera. The bullet obliterates S* entirely and it is only by some small miracle that the bullet doesn’t take out S$ as well. Again, Demos reloads (how many alchemical cartridges do you have left?).

(12) Skeletons
S$ takes a five foot step to attack Jalaera head on. Now with fewer assailants to deal with, the ranger is easily able to parry both attacks. However, Sf steps into the gap Lyrie leaves behind and goes for Jalaera’s exposed flank. Only due to her excellent training is she able to avoid the surprise onslaught from the second skeleton. Se, now headless, blindly attacks Lyrie but misses feebly with both strikes. Sa, Sb, and Sc all step forward and unleash on Toland. Six attacks come in and two find purchase, striking Toland for 5 and then 3 damage. Darkness overtakes the paladin as he falls from his wounds. His mace clatters to the ground along with him, though his shield is still strapped to his arm. Should she want to, Lyrie could tumble over and grab it, coming to the fallen paladin’s aid…

The Map
http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/4998/1stfloor9.png

Current HP Counts

Demos: 11/11
Jalaera: 11/11
Kiernan: 5/11
Lyrie: 11/11
Michicko: 8/8
Toland: -2/12, bleeding (dies at -14)

[RaggedAngel]

Demos takes a moment before firing to take stock of his remaining cartridges. He reaches into the specially designed ammunition holster, and his fears are confirmed; the tightly-wound, specially treated bundles that allow him to load so quickly have been completely consumed by the fight, save for the last one, which sits in his barrel now.

Demos grits his teeth and then begins moving, putting a few tables between him and the main mass of undead while still allowing for clear shots. "I need a few seconds to load this thing," he calls, frustrated. "I'm out of alchemical cartridges, and powder can only be poured so quickly." He reloads his weapon's second barrel with smooth, practiced movements, preparing to resume fire as soon as his weapon is ready.

Move to F11.
Standard Action to reload his second barrel with a normal cartridge.

[Gorgon_Heap]

"Yah!" shouts the elf as claws clatter off her quickly-moving wepon. She ducks and spins the partisan around, shoving the headless skeleton. "Strike it while it's unbalanced, girl!"


She aims her strike deeper into the room.

Attack Se
Attack [roll0]
Crit [roll1]
Damage [roll2]

[Zefir]

Oh yeah the paladin is down. Well thats quiet bad, but every bad thing opens a way for a good thing.
"The paladin is down." she tries to make the others clear.

Lyrie jackknife to get through the knocked out paladin crossing the claws of the skeletons. As she roll off from the leap she picks the Morningstar? from the fallen. After all he won't need it now.

Moving to H5 over G6.
Acrobatics for F6[roll0]
Acrobatics for G6[roll1]
Standart action: taking weapon. (Don't know if this cause aoo I hope not^^)

[RaggedAngel]

Demos grits his teeth in frustration and, though he would never admit it, fear. "Can anyone get the paladin back on his feet? He was our best offense besides myself."

He looks to the door, then back to the fallen warrior. "If not, I'm not willing to let him die. We may need to tactically retreat."

[King Tius]

Round 7

(23) Lyrie
Lyrie cartwheels past the skeletons, ending up standing over top of the fallen paladin. As she moves she snatches up her mace, ready to finish off the job that Toland started.

(21)Jalaera
Again Jalaera lashes out at a skeleton far away from her. Unfortunately once again their tough bones prove too difficult for her partisan to pierce.

(20) Kiernan
The prancing and dancing little gnome moves forwards and brings his mace in an upward swing, smashing into S$’s pelvis and destroying it. He stops his dancing and stands there triumphantly, looking to see where he is next needed.

(20) Michiko
Looking to finish what she started, Michiko takes aim and fires at Se again. Once again she connects and sends the skeleton scattering onto the carpet.

(17) Toland
The fallen paladin continues to bleed out, his mind filled with dreams of him standing atop a mound of dead evil things, all dropped by his own hand.

(14) Demos
Demos takes up a defensive position behind the couch, reloading his second barrel and getting ready to deal out some additional punishment.

(12) Skeletons
Sf continues its assault on Jalaera, lashing out at her twice. The ranger easily parries both attacks, now having only one enemy to focus on.

Standing amid three skeletons, Lyrie takes the brunt of all of their attacks. Both of Sa’s attacks miss but one of Sb’s two claw attacks hit home, dealing 4 HP damage. Fortunately, neither of Sc’s attacks land home.

The Map
http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/6083/1stfloor10.png

Current HP Counts

Demos: 11/11
Jalaera: 11/11
Kiernan: 5/11
Lyrie: 7/11
Michicko: 8/8
Toland: -3/12, bleeding (dies at -14)

[RaggedAngel]

Demos takes aim at the cluster of skeletons around the doorway, the woman, and the fallen paladin, firing at the nearest one to which he has a clear line of sight. He threads his shot into the crowd with uncanny precision, and with the sound of shattering bone another skeleton is deanimated. "Don't let them flank you! We can't afford to lose another combatant, not until we thin their numbers a bit more!"

Ranged Touch: [roll0]
Damage, with Up Close and Deadly: [roll1] + [roll2]

[Goldfly]

Michiko grimaces at the sight of skeletons surrounding Lyrie."Don't worry, we're going to get you out of there!" She fires another bolt of electricity at one of the skeletons surrounding the girl.

Jolt on Sb.
[roll0]
[roll1]

[Zefir]

Well having the new weapon she hops this will do it. Hopefully this time the skeletons will be urt. She holds the weapon up to strike her foe.

[roll0]
[roll1]

[King Tius]

Round 8

(23) Lyrie
With her new weapon in hand, Lyrie takes a swing at Sc. Unfortunately she is not as used to the heft of the weapon and misses her attack.

(21)Jalaera
The artic elf takes a step back, giving her a better shot at Sf. Once again her hit lands but doesn’t do any damage. Perhaps using the other end of the partisan would be more effective?

(20) Kiernan
The little gnome darts past Jalaera and goes after Sf. He, too, misses his attack. Seeing the downed Paladin, he calls out:

“Get them skellies away from him and I can get him back on his feet!”

(20) Michiko
Once again the sorceress lands a jolt attack. Though they aren’t strong enough to drop a skeleton outright, she is at least witling them down bit by bit.

(17) Toland
Toland continues to bleed out.

(14) Demos
Demos takes aim at Sc and quickly drops it, getting some of the heat off of Lyrie.

(12) Skeletons
Sf goes after Kiernan but is unable to land either of its attacks. With nothing to distract them, the two remaining skeletons lash out at Lyrie again. Sa hits with its second attack, dealing 3 damage. Sb misses with its first attack but scores an unconfirmed critical hit with its second, dealing 6 damage and knocking Lyrie unconscious as well. Her limp body falls on top of the already downed paladin, forming a small puppy pile.

The Map
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/1213/1stfloor11.png

Current HP Counts

Demos: 11/11
Jalaera: 11/11
Kiernan: 5/11
Lyrie: -2/11, bleeding (dies at -14)
Michicko: 8/8
Toland: -4/12, bleeding (dies at -14)

[RaggedAngel]

Demos curses under his breath as the woman falls under the attack, but he assures himself that at least now she's safe from any heavier blows; the skeletons are obviously uninterested in the fallen, focusing on those still active. He does, however, note that the list of people still active is rapidly dwindling, and if they were to swarm him...

The gunslinger shakes away the dark thought, and he moves to give himself a clear line of fire to a skeleton, taking his time to aim and blast away with his last alchemical shot. He'll need time to reload, now; and they may not have any time left. He looks to his shortsword, but he shakes away the idea; such a weapon would be useless against these things.

He shifts or moves as little as he can while getting a clear line to a skeleton.

Ranged Touch: [roll0]
Damage, with Up Close and Deadly: [roll1] + [roll2]

[Goldfly]

Michiko gasps as the woman falls, and fires a small bolt of electricity at one of the skeletons standing over the small group of fallen.
[roll0]
[roll1]

[King Tius]

Round 9

(23) Lyrie
Lyrie continues to bleed out.

(21)Jalaera - (Delaying)
Deciding that the pointy end of her weapon isn’t particularly effective, Jalaera twirls her partisan in her hand and switches her grip, now treating it like a quarterstaff. Unfortunately using the weapon in this way denies her its reach potential, so she waits for Kiernan to attack and retreat before making her move.

(20) Kiernan
Kiernan takes another swing with his mace and comes up short, he quickly ducks a skeleton’s attack as he darts back behind Jalaera.

(21)Jalaera - (New Initiative Spot)
With the gnome out of the way, the ranger steps forward and beans Sf with the butt of her partisan, smashing it to pieces. If only she’d thought of that 8 rounds ago…

(20) Michiko
Finishing what she started, Michiko fires off her jolt at Sb and drops it.

(17) Toland
Toland continues to bleed out.

(14) Demos
With only one target remaining, Demos takes aim and ends the fight, scattering Sa to the winds.

(12) Skeletons
All dead! (again)

COMBAT OVER

Wasting no time, Kiernan rushes over to the two fallen heroes and fires off a healing spell on Lyrie. Her eyes snap open as the magic infuses her wounds and begins to seal them. Even as she clambers off the fallen Paladin the gnome releases another healing spell, this time into Toland. His eyes flutter open and are followed by an involuntary moan. He’s alive, but definitely hurting.

Kiernan tears a piece of cloth off of his sleeve and wraps it about his head, bandaging the nasty gash on his forehead.

“That’s the last of my healing spells. It doesn’t sound like there are any more skeletons coming, at least. What should we do now?”

OOC: You gain 450 XP a person from the encounter.

The Map
http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/7646/1stfloor12.png

Current HP Counts

Demos: 11/11
Jalaera: 11/11
Kiernan: 5/11
Lyrie: 3/11
Michicko: 8/8
Toland: 1/12

[RaggedAngel]

Demos immediately begins to reload his weapon, watching both the windows and the doors through which the skeletons came. He doesn't look at his pistol as he loads, instead adding the powder, ball, and wadding from memory. "We can't assume that there aren't more of those things, and we don't know the state of the women we were sent in to save. While it may take longer, we should not split up; these things are way too deadly in close quarters for that foolishness."

[mshady]

Toland

The Paladin's eyes flutter open, and by force of will, he pushes himself back to alertness. He rolls to the left immediately and throws his shield over his face. Realizing his morningstar was gone, he reaches for his longsword and brings it out of its sheathe with a rasp and pushes himself to his feet.

When he stands and looks around, he sees none of the skeletons. Well, he does, but none of them are active anymore and everyone seems alive.

It is only than he becomes conscious again of his own wounds, the pain in his leg and his head. The pain is like a dull, burning fire that crawls up his side. Blood still oozes from his wounds and as the surge of adrenaline wears off, he feels the receeding tide of weakness comes in like a tide. Still though, he also experiences a sense of relief as he sees everyone is still alive. That he is alive.

When be becomes conscious of the gnome holding the bandage and looking at him, he waves the small fellow away for a moment.

"Upstairs, the women!" Toland rasps, than lumbers up the stairs and motions for the gnome to follow.

"Is everyone okay up there? Is there anything else up there with you?" Toland calls up the stairs, as he staggers up them.

It would seem Toland had not heard a word Demos had said, instead heading upwards at his own imperative.

[RaggedAngel]

Demos, still in the middle of loading his second barrel, can only watch in frustration as Toland begins to lurch up the stairs. "Paladin! Stop, now. You're going to get yourself killed, and you're too useful for me to let that happen. Calm down, take a breath, and let me load so I can cover you." He finishes in another second, tapping the weapon firmly to ensure both charges are tightly packed.

He then moves smoothly and quietly across the room, coming to the foot of the stairs. "Okay. Let's do this, intelligently and carefully."

[Gorgon_Heap]

Concerned, the white elf speeds silently after the armored man, holding his shoulder to slow his rapid ascent. She motions vaguely toward the dark gunman in agreement. "Aye," she says with quiet conviction.

She glances quickly over the group, her eyes stopping on the gunman, who seems to have a head for tactics. "Let's us melee fighters go first and drawn any other monsters out under ranged cover? What say you?"

[RaggedAngel]

Demos nods, looking back to the other door where the rest of the skeletons had emerged. "That sounds agreeable. I can shoot from behind you if I need too, but hopefully there will be enough room for me to get around to a side to clear out flankers."

He looks at Toland intensely, almost glaring at the big man. "You do not look well. If you have any ranged weapons, it may be best to use those instead of going into the fray. The gnome got you back up once, but it's going to take a lot of healing before you're whole again."

[Goldfly]

Michiko hops off the couch and runs to the stairs as the paladin moves up them. She pauses as Jalaera suggests that the melee characters move forward, and nods. "I agree. We should be careful here; I think someone like me could probably be taken out fairly easy. We need to be careful, though."

[King Tius]

With everyone on their feet again you race upstairs. The first few rooms you come across are clear of skeletons and people alike. Eventually you make your way into the master bedroom. The large bed with elaborate drapery has been torn to pieces. The mattress is in tatters and you can see down to the floor beneath it in certain spots. As you enter a dog pokes its head out from under the bed and moves towards you, its ears down and tail between its legs, though still wagging. Clearly the little guy had quite a scare up here.

There is also a large chifferobe against the far wall. The large door of the main compartment is covered in scratch marks as if the skeletons were trying to get inside. At the sound of your footfalls and the dogs whimpers of gratitude the door cracks open ever so slightly before bursting open all together. A middle-aged woman leaps out of the furniture piece and nearly tackles Toland as she hugs him.

"Bless my stars, Gods be praised! You saved me!" She breaks down crying in the wounded Paladin's arms, overjoyed that the nightmare is over.

Kiernan gives a whistle at the sight before sneaking off down the hallway to check on the other rooms. He comes back a minute later and gives the all-clear.

[Gorgon_Heap]

The pale elf kneels and comforts the scared animal and watches keenly the woman as she sags against the soldier and the gnome as he comes and goes.

Standing, she ignores the sobbing woman, who is now safe, and says to the gnome, "You've seen nothing else on this floor? Then we should get the woman and ..." she quirks her brow in amusement as she realizes what exactly what the woman outside had said, "... and Gorgon, here," she points at the dog, "safely outside and then examine the basement."

[RaggedAngel]

Demos gives the woman a moment, but then he clears his throat softly, speaking in her direction. "There were supposed to be two of you inside here, two women. Do you know where the other one is? Was she downstairs?" He fears that he may already know the answer, but he asks all the same.

[King Tius]

"It was just Miss Stormscale, Gorgon (she points to the dog) and I here. Is poor Miss Stormscale alright? I ran in here when I heard here scream but I couldn't find her and those THINGS...." She starts crying again but is able to steady herself. "What did we do to deserve this?"

[RaggedAngel]

Demos sighs, shaking his head, and the man's cold demeanor breaks down for a moment, granting his voice some warmth. "You did nothing to deserve this, no more than anyone could deserve a housefire or a robbery. This may be a more horrible and unnatural attack, but it's an attack all the same, and you can take no blame for it."

He looks to the others, and then he quietly heads to the top of the stairs. "We need to get her outside before we sweep the basement for the last of these things. Keep an eye out for anything that may provide explanation as to why this has happened. Let's go, now; if we linger she may get harmed."

[Goldfly]

Michiko gives a small smile at the distressed woman.
"She's a bit scratched and shaken up, but she should be perfectly fine. Now, you should head outside; she was worried half to death about you two."

[mshady]

Toland

The Paladin accepts the embrace with a grimace, and is glad for his armor during the embrace, which is as painful for him as it is joyful for her. He accepts her thanks with a forced smile and a stiff bow, before introducing himself.

"You are most welcome. I am Toland Albright, a paladin of the Temple of Iomedae in the city. Please come by sometime during service. It would be a pleasure to see you there.

The others are right about your mistress being worried about you. We should get you out of here. When you are ready, of course. You did not do anything to deserve what happened. Things, however extraordinary, do happen from time to time. It is the world we live in, sadly, but rest assured there will always be those like the others in the room to help in those times of need" the Paladin says, and smiles at her.

Like I believe half of that. That gunslinger and I might be the only ones in here at all, if someone didn't offer a reward. Gold can motivate even heathens to do Iomedae's work though. Certainly enough gets splashed around this town to that end....

Still though, I need to get her our of here before more come up. I doubt we are so lucky as to have cured this ill with one treatment.

"While we all agree what happened here was undeserved... if there is anything you might know about what happened privately to help us understand what happened, I would hear you well on that. I am curious how the attack started and such. Any details you might know. Also, I must say, for such a night, you have managed it with much grace and strength. It took some wit to find a safe hiding place."

Diplomacy Check + Bonus

[roll0]

[Zefir]

Lyrie just follows. This encounter has shown how unexperienced she is. Well such things come. She tries to be the last in the row since she still assumes enemies and she wants to be as far away as possible from the paladin. For now she may need the weapon more than him. He has his shield right?^^

"Deserve? That's still open."

I know she doesn't know much about undead, but they only appeared in this house. Due to that people in here did something to find them or such.

[King Tius]

As the group escorts the woman and the dog down the stairs, she does her best to answer Toland.

"I've no idea where these crazy things came from! Like I said, I woke when I hard Miss Stormscale scream bloody murder and I came running. I'm so glad she's alright, I don't know where I'd go if she was gone! I'll be sure to come and pray to Iomedae for sending you all to save me."

When you reach the front door and knock, a frightened guard shouts to you. "Is it all clear?" After you give the all-clear, the door is opened and you all exit the house, some of you limping from your wounds.

The crowd has thinned quite a bit but there are still near two dozen bystanders who give gasps of surprise at your reappearance. Gorgon takes off at a run and bolts straight to Miss. Stormscale, followed closely behind by Indala. The two women and dog share a tender moment as they embrace one another.

The Captain of the guard is also still on site. He approaches you, now no longer on horseback. "What news from inside? Has the threat been eliminated? There's someone here who can tend to your wounds."

A woman steps forward, her head and face concealed beneath a veil and hood....

[Calenestel]

No. At second glance it's not a veil. Under the hood of the woman's cloak her whole face is covered by a green cloth mask; in the fickle lights of torches not even the colour of her eyes can be told. As she approaches you notice that under a set of studded leather armour she wears a green and yellow dress, divided for riding and running, with a high collar that leaves no skin showing beneath the mask and soft gloves in brown leather. Calmly she moves to face the paladin, immediately noticing that his wounds are the worst. "Hold still a bit, sir Tolland," she tells him in a soft, smooth voice. " This might tingle somewhat." In her low voice she starts murmuring, chanting maybe even singing, while her right hand move through a series of crips, precise but not overly complicated gestures. Finally she lays her hand on the paladins shoulder, washing away the worst of his wounds on a current of slightly tingling positive energy.

Cure Light Wounds, of course. [roll0] Edit: Hey, nice! :smallbiggrin:
Let's see what that does to begin with.
(Also, I'll put a little intro to my char in the OOC thread when I've taken my kids to the daycare. :smallsmile:

[RaggedAngel]

Demos looks around for a moment, observing the crowd, before addressing the captain and the homeowner. "There were at least a dozen skeletons inside, and they were not the easiest to put down. Their bones turned aside our blades, and in the end it was only by crushing them or shooting them," he holds up his pistol, "that we were able to destroy them. We have also cleared out the upstairs. That said, we have not had a chance to go downstairs, where several of the undead emerged; it simply wasn't worth risking the paladin's life or the woman's. Now that a healer is here, however, I think it's important to make sure that they're actually all dead."

He looks to Miss Stormscale, sizing her up for a moment before speaking to her directly. "Ma'am, I really don't mean to be impolite, but there's no delicate way to put this. The ammunition I use for this weapon isn't exorbitant, but it is expensive for someone of my means. I've used a healthy amount clearing out those creatures, but I still have enough left to make my way. Before I go back in there, however, I would like your word that we will receive compensation, and that doing so isn't going to be an excessive burden on you. It may be crass, but I need to know before I disarm myself through expenditure of ammunition."

[Gorgon_Heap]

The elf woman watches the women and animal for a long, thoughtful moment as if lost in thought. When the healer approaches and speaks, she again displays a wide, easy smile.

"Sir Toland, is it? Well, great knight and paladin, thank you for absorbing those wounds to protect the less verile. It was most thoughtful." She pats his shoulder, and though she still grins mischieviously, there's no disrespect in her tone.

"Jalaera Winterwind." She introduces herself to whomever is polite enough to listen as we mill about.

As the pistoleer speaks, Jalaera casually looks between him and the house with a attitude of disappointed aloofness, but she says nothing.

[Calenestel]

Taking her hand from Tolands shoulder the masked woman turns towards the elf and bows slightly, just slightly more than an inclination of her head. "Well met, Jalaera Winterwind. I am Susannah; Susannah Pitt, servant of Sarenrae, Pharasma, Irori and Gozreh." A smile creeps into her voice as she ***** her head slightly to the side and adds: "It's a long story."

[Goldfly]

Michiko furrows her brow at the mention of Susannah's name. "Susannah... I don't think we've met before, but I vaguely remember mom and dad mentioning you to me once or twice. I'm Michiko Shizuka; my parents run the shrine to Nethys." She looks around at everyone and smiles. "It's nice to meet you all!"

[Zefir]

Lyria follows, still taking the position behind the others. As they leave she throws a view over the skeletons they just slay, maybe one still has something worthfull.

Then outside they meet a priest of 4 gods? Sounds like splited personality for her.

"The guy with the gun is right. There may still be more to do right now."

[RaggedAngel]

Demos smiles faintly at the monikers, before nodding politely to the others. "I suppose in the heat of the moment I failed to introduce myself. My name is Demos, son of Savien, who was captain of the Mystral Wraith."

[mshady]

The elf woman watches the women and animal for a long, thoughtful moment as if lost in thought. When the healer approaches and speaks, she again displays a wide, easy smile.

"Sir Toland, is it? Well, great knight and paladin, thank you for absorbing those wounds to protect the less verile. It was most thoughtful." She pats his shoulder, and though she still grins mischieviously, there's no disrespect in her tone.

"Jalaera Winterwind." She introduces herself to whomever is polite enough to listen as we mill about.

As the pistoleer speaks, Jalaera casually looks between him and the house with a attitude of disappointed aloofness, but she says nothing.


Toland

When the veiled woman approaches, Toland recognizes her and nods at her approach. He smiles at her, relieved to see her on one hand, even if he still felt somewhat uncomfortable around her as well. It was.. complicated.

"Yes, they always say it will tingle a little. No doubt it will tingle less than the original hurts though" he says and laughs quietly. "The legs the worst. One of them tried to tear out the artery" he says and pauses. "It's good to see you. A moment though, please?"

The Paladin smiles slightly towards Jalaera and nods.

"Aye, yes that would be Sir Toland" he says, than pauses. "I've not been knighted by the nobility. The Temple of Iomedae considers the few of us knights of our faith, 'knighted' by Iomedae on account of our blessing, so the Sir comes along with it although it's spelled S-E-R. I'm told the title aggravates actual noble knights to no end. Not that it bothers me much. Just Toland is fine though, honestly" he smiles at Jaaera, holding eye contact with her for a moment longer than strictly needed, than glances at her generally.

"As for "taking one for the team" back there "I was just doing my duty back there, trying to hold them off a moment. That was not, of course, my favorite kind of duty of course"

Diplomacy

[roll0]

Distracted from the main conversation at first, he returns his attention to it as the gunslinger gives his report on what happened inside about the skeletons. He goes on to discuss their payment, and at first it raises his hackles but than he sees the man's point. His gun was damned effective, certainly. Still though... this could get ugly.

Now rejuvenated, Toland joins the conversation and nods at Demos.

"Well, I would certainly attest to his aim and effectiveness with his weapon. Without it, I've no doubt we might still be in there and these soldiers would be putting a torch to this magnificent house. I myself was felled and nearly died in there. My compliments on that remarkably solid table, by the way and my apologies for any scratches on it. While compensation is not of great concern to myself, I can understand his concern for himself and the others on the matter. Still though, no cause for concern on the matter, yes? You are certainly a person of means with such a house and in this district. What business were you in, might I ask?" Toland says to Mrs. Stormscales, trying to soothe matters.

Diplomacy

[roll1]

Turning back to the group, he looks back at the house and at them, but makes sure he is still in ear shot of Mrs. Stormscales.

"So, I would agree with our gun-totting friend. While I confess to not understanding his weapons, he has a point on the other matter. Those skeletons came from somewhere below the house. We can either go back in there now, or board it up and return. This is no doubt NOT the end of the problem here. Of course, until someone goes down there, it would be quite unsafe for her to return to the house as who knows what else could be down there, ready to come up"

He smiles slightly and hopes Mrs Stormscales catches his drift. She couldn't return to the house until someone went down below. Which was a different commission, wasn't it? The first being a rescue.

[Calenestel]

The masked healer nods in response to Michiko, with a somewhat more guarded set to her shoulders, but says nothing in answer. While the others discuss the current situation, what has been done and what is yet to come, she instead moves on to Lyrie (with a quick parting nod to the paladin), adressing the younglooking woman while eyeing her injuries: "Let me have a look at your wounds. Like I said to ser Toland: This might tingle a bit." Again she launches into her spellcasting, the same cadensce, the same strange words and the same precise gestures. And as she touches the arm of the wounded kitsune a tingling rush of energy moves through her body, knitting wounds and stilling bloodflow. With a nod for Lyrie she then moves over to Kiernan, kneeling down so as to face the gnome directly: "And how about you. Youv'e stayed quiet so far. Going back in as well?"
She knew her own limitations well and knew she had already spent half of the amount of magical energy she could muster without rest. If the gnome would reenter the house with the rest of the group she'd heal his wounds too. Otherwise she'd bind them and let natural healing and rest do it's work instead.

Healz for Lyrie: [roll0] Edit: Well. That's definetly a lot more disappointing than the last roll. :smallannoyed:
I guess I might have to give Lyrie another CLW. But with only two spells left even before Sannah possibly helps Kiernan she won't be of much help after that. :smalltongue:

[mshady]

Toland

The Paladin looks around at the group for a moment before speaking again.

"So, who would happen to have my morningstar? Or is that still inside? If we are going back in, I think I might have need of that again" he says and smiles serenely at the group.

I do rather need that back. It may have been donated to the Temple, but they will still charge me for lost equipment out of the stipend I don't get...

[Zefir]

Lyrie still not in Kitsune form nods at the cleric.

"Thanks."

Then she looks at the Paladin.

""I have it here. After you felt I thought I could better defende you with it since my weapons are rather useless against skeletons."

She grabs into her bag draging out his weapon and handing it over to him.

[Gorgon_Heap]

The elf stands near motionlessly, her white hair blowing in the night breeze. She turns the partisan with her fingers, grinding the butt into the cobbled street, but shows no other sign of impatience.

She waits as the healer, Susannah, ministers to the wounded and hears out Toland's explanation of his title. She notes that as the big man tolerates Susannah's care, his eyes linger on her heartbeats too long as he speaks.

She shakes her head not-quite imperceptibly in bemusement.

"Tell us, girl," she says as the young woman offers Toland back his weapon, "you are inexperienced but willing, so how best can we use you if you intend to follow us back inside? It's your life to endanger, so I won't tell you not to come, but we should know what skills you possess."

She points generally at those she describes, "For instance, we’ve a marksman and a pincushion, while Michiko knows magic of some sort and the gnome is mobile and can heal wounds.

“So who are you?”

[mshady]

Toland

"I'm not the pincushion, am I?" Toland laughs at the remark.

[RaggedAngel]

Demos smiles at the banter, a sense of normalcy returning in the after effects of the battle's adrenaline. "You are a marvelous pincushion, Ser Toland, and one that I would not mind working with again. Once I finally have the resources to truly fix this old soul," he holds up his gun, "I'll have fulfilled my only current longterm goal. That said, future arraignments will have to wait."

He looks to the lady of the house, nodding politely before speaking. "My lady, you have a simple choice before you. We can settle things here and leave you be, or we can go back inside; not to rescue anyone, but to ensure that there are no more of those creatures lurking in your basement and to see if we can determine where they came from, and why they've attacked your home."

[Goldfly]

Michiko gives a wide smile. "I know my magic isn't very useful against these creatures- they don't really have a mind for me to alter. I'm still going to try, though!"

[King Tius]

Miss Stormscale detaches herself from her handmaiden and dog to stand up fully and address Demos. "Absolutely, it is the least I can do. Does 250 gold a person sound like adequate compensation? My husband is dead but he did leave me more than enough to get by." It occurs to you that this elderly rich woman may have a skewed opinion of how much money is needed to "get by."

In response to Toland's inquiry, the old widow gives a brief account of her husband's career. "My late husband started out as a pole man (man who guides a raft) as a lad down south. He'd lived on the Dagger his whole life, eventually starting his own shipping company. After running up and down the river for nearly thirty years, I finally convinced him to sell his company to some pretentious half-elves and we retired here to Echo Bend, my birthplace. He's been gone six years now, and I still miss him every minute."


When Sannah kneels down to address Kiernan, the gnome gives her a hasty bow but holds his hands up in a stopping motion. "I'll be venturing back in, yes, but I can handle myself." He draws a healing potion from his pack and pops the cork, downing it with one big gulp. "I mean no disrespect of course, but I'd rather you save your magics in case they are needed. I'll help finish the job, sure enough, but I've got no healing left in me. We may want to take a peak downstairs and decide if it can wait until morning."

Hear Jalaera speak, the gnome pipes up again. "Truth be told I'm not that great of a healer. I know the spells, sure, but I'd rather use my spells to help me fight better. If the lady here can knit us back together, I wouldn't mind having her along."

Before Miss Stormscale has a chance to answer, the Captain responds to Demos. "I want no trace of those creatures left. Make sure they're gone for good and Echo Bend will be in your debt. If the lady can't cover it, the city will."

Current HP Counts

Demos: 11/11
Jalaera: 11/11
Kiernan: 11/11
Lyrie: 6/11
Michicko: 8/8
Toland: 10/12

[Zefir]

"I'm Lyrie." she answers her question.

What the hell does this elf thinks she is. There is no reason she needs to justify herself in front of the elf woman.

"And I can ask you the same. where were you while I helkped the paladin. Why did you act like you seek death? And what are your abilities? For instance, we’ve a marksman and a pincushion, while Michiko knows magic of some sort and the gnome is mobile and can heal wounds.

So what can you do?”

Lyrie smiles but her voice was seriouse. There is no reason for her the elf woman isn't the leader nor in any way promoted to be.

[Gorgon_Heap]

Taken aback by the girl's vehemence, the elf looks uncertain if she should be insulted or amused.

"You're rather full of yourself for someone who was unconscious five minutes ago." Now she does look amused, peering at the paladin, she says "Is that attitude catching?"

Not waiting for further argument, she walks back to the house, waving vaguely at Demos as if to say, "You deal with it."

[RaggedAngel]

Demos watches the display with growing irritation, though his face remains calm and composed. Before acknowledging the bickering women, he turns to the Lady Stormscale and the captain of the guard, giving them both a grateful and polite half-bow. "Milady, your offer is generous indeed, and will be more than enough to help me resupply myself, and to help me acquire the materials that I need to properly restore my weapon.

Captain, allow me to say this before we return to Miss Stormscale's home; I will purge every skeleton in this city if it gets me one day and one night with a competent blacksmith or, failing that, the same amount of time in his workshop, and the materials I need to repair my weapon." Demos holds up the pistol, and in the torchlight and quiet it is easier to see what he is demonstrating; though the weapon is long and made of excellent materials, it is clearly worn, and the after-effects of endless wear and tear show on the wood and workings, though the metal of the barrel is conspicuously flawless.

"This weapon was my fathers, and his fathers, back along a line that stretches further than I can rightfully understand. The only mark that we we make upon this weapon is a single notch in the wood of the stock when it passes owners." He twists it around to show dozens of fine etchings along the bottom of the wooden grip. "I am the forty-third notch, sir; and this is not this barrel's original grip."

He allows his words a moment to sink in before walking back towards the woman's home. "If you can grant me the location and resources to repair this weapon, sir, you won't just be aiding a good man in need; you'll be aiding in the repair and restoration of an object that predates our society."

Demos turns his attention to the group of mercenaries, or rather the rabble; they had quickly lost cohesion after the fighting had stopped. Demos was not the leader or the captain that his father had been, but he knew the proper words and actions. "Listen up, all of you. We are all useful and competent people, though in different ways; I know this, because not one of you is lying in there dead, and the only one of you that got close to death is the only one of us who's skill is undeniable."

He nods to the paladin in a subtle but obvious show of respect. "We're about to go back inside, and we do not know how many skeletons remain, if any. Additionally, there may be more than skeletons in the basement, and that means that our strategy will have to shift accordingly. For now, however, we will proceed in a tight group, side by side and back to back. If for any reason you do not wish to continue, or cannot work together, please do me the favor of standing aside so the rest of us don't get killed due to petty infighting."

Demos does not raise his voice, nor form any particular expression on his face. He looks at no one in particular, and he speaks as if discussing a trip to the market. Even still, his words are firm, clear, and unyielding.

Let's do this.

And, yes, Demos' weapon predates the world's current civilization. The weapon can be sundered, jammed, broken, lost, and altered, to an extent, but the barrel itself is utterly unchangeable, and is made out of an unidentifiable metal. This has no mechanical effect, of course; it's just an excellent bit of fluff that I feel adds a deeper, ancient touch to the character.

[mshady]

Toland

The young Paladin listens to everything going on around him, how one of the ladies were upbraided a bit about her prowess and some friendly banter. For the moment, he is content to listen to things as he keeps his own council.
What does not make sense about all this?

Toland keeps asking himself this question, for he knows more than a thing or two about the undead. One of the things his particular Chapter was charged with here in the city was dealing with was any of the restless dead, at least in their own crypts. It was astonishing how POLITICAL things could get if you even offered the presumption of looking after some of the other tombs in the city. The other temples minded their follower’s dead. The noble families that minded their own could afford the best kinds of protection from the temples, but looked after their own family. It was only the commoners no one much minded, particularly the paupers who were not members of a faith and just died in the streets. They were burned, and posed little threat to anyone.
You cannot have a skeleton without bones, yes?

So where did THESE skeletons come from? No doubt going down below would answer some of the questions, but only answers now would help them. It must have been some kind of family tomb, perhaps old and forgotten. Certainly, skeletons could well be timeless in their animation but the number of them? There must have been twenty! No tomb important enough to rate that many guardians would be forgotten, would it?

That left him with an answer he did not like at all.

Toland waits and listens to Demos’ speech, and wonders to himself how it is that he was not the leader of this group. Had he not rallied them to some order to begin with, lead the incursion, slain many of the undead? At first, he found Demos’ presumption a bit… irritating.

Or I could view him as a partner. It’s not like I enjoy doing it all myself, I just think that I should because someone needs to lead the flock. We have similar goals. He is the only one, other than me, who seemed reliable at putting these things down. Obviously I cannot do it all myself, as I did end up on the ground and on my way to bleeding to death. I think my pride can ride on the back of the horse for now…

That pistol he carried too. He had heard of those. They were rare, and old symbols of authority as well. The man was right, what he carried did pre-date this civilization. His temple knew something about those things too. That was about all he knew about the matter, but it was true nonetheless. For now, that was between Demos and the guard captain. He knew his Temple had its own smithy. It was where his armor and sword was made, after all. Well, he would mention that part later…

Back to the conversation!

Demos nodded to the paladin in a subtle but obvious show of respect. "We're about to go back inside, and we do not know how many skeletons remain, if any. Additionally, there may be more than skeletons in the basement, and that means that our strategy will have to shift accordingly. For now, however, we will proceed in a tight group, side by side and back to back. If for any reason you do not wish to continue, or cannot work together, please do me the favor of standing aside so the rest of us don't get killed due to petty infighting."

Demos does not raise his voice, nor form any particular expression on his face. He looks at no one in particular, and he speaks as if discussing a trip to the market. Even still, his words are firm, clear, and unyielding.

Toland nods to Demos, returning the respect. The Paladin did find that he liked the young gunslinger, certainly. It was helping.

“I think before we go down there, we should see about acquiring some torches and some sort of blunt weapons so everyone can do them harm. Surely we can rest a moment, but perhaps that passage should be barred by that table. If anyone has a sling and some stones, those could be useful in the tunnels. I have one, myself. If someone else has a shield or could use one, we could hold the line and let Demos and a slinger do some damage from behind us.

Demos, a word too if you will?” Toland says respectfully, with a smile on lips.

When/if Demos approaches, Toland speaks in a hushed tone.

“Your gun came from a time that pre-dates our own, you say. Well, suppose that those skeletons did as well? I submit that any tomb not in the hallowed ground of a temple could only be a family plot and any family tomb that rated such guardians would be significant enough, visible enough, that it would be known of. We saw twenty restless soldiers and the possibility of more below? It is no tomb that was stumbled upon or disturbed by a workmen’s shovel or shift of the land, but a dungeon of some sort. Something of antiquity we may know little of. It is either that, or some necromancers lair, perhaps now untended who turned out the dead. Even so, it would still not be a tomb of our period. Perhaps we should have a closer look at the skeletons and determine of what race they belong.

Also, I am not one to shirk from any danger, but we may do well to approach our journey below as a form of scouting and be willing to fall back in order if need be. There is as much a measure of martyr as there is a predisposition to prudence in my blood, what of it I have left” he says with a smile.

He than lowers his voice a touch more.

"I am not a believer in coincidence, at least in things of import. There is usually some design to them, divine or mundane, but seldom is a coincidence a coincidence. Why would 20 skeletal warriors come all the way up into this particular basement. What prompted them from their timeless guardianship? It was not the promise of a particularly fine wine cellar, I am sure. There may be more to Mrs. Stormscales than we know. Something does not seem... right about this to me"

[Zefir]

((Hey Lyrie felt as well and just to save Toland, also did Toland take his weapon back he never said anything about it.))

Sticky elf woman. Lyrie thinks when the elf heads away.

And then she realizes what the old woman said. 250 Gold for each of them makes 1750 Gold in sum. Oh my god how rich must this woman be to spend such an amount of money. Lyrie seems a bit excited, but clams down fast. Wait the woman spends so much gold for this? There's a fly in the ointment! Noone would spend so much, or more she never met anyone doing so. It's even hard to find a job where oyu get more than a few chopper coins a day. So there must be something dangerouse still in there. It's best to do as the paladin said. A mace would be best in case other skeletons appear.

Lyrie heads over to the Captain. With a playful smile. Hopefully she can attract him to get a few things.

"Eh, Captain. You heared what Toland says and I have to say he is right. some of us don't have access to such kind of weapons and I wonder if you could help us out? Just a light mace would do the job. And I think you would like it if we return instead of the things down there?"

She tries to be as playfully as possible to distract them amn and hopefully the others are more concentrated in Tolands speech.


Diplomacy check. [roll0] (-1 if he couldn't be attrcted to her)
I know not as good as the Paladin.

[Calenestel]

The hunch of the masked woman's shoulders makes it clear that she's hesitating when Kiernan more or less invites her to follow them into the house to evict the last skeletons. And her hesitation is only prolonged by the bickering between two of the women in the group. But finally she relaxes a bit and nods. "All right, this undead menace surely needs to be cleaned out. If you're going back in, then I'll join you. The Gods have given me a trick or two to use against the undead as well as to help and heal the living."
Calmly Sannah turns to face a boy in the thinning crowd with worn clothes but less grime in his face than the usual street urchins. A silent hand gesture and the boy disappears into an alley to return with a heavy backpack with a crossbow strapped to it and a wooden staff. After a mumbled thanks and a coin the boy quickly disappears and the masked healer unstraps the crossbow and shoulders the backpack with a grunt. "As for torches, I have something better."
After mumbling a few, short words and making just a couple of gestures she moves her hand over the tip of her staff and it lights up, shedding about as much light as a torch, but white and unwavering. "Now then. Ready to investigate what started this whole mess when you are." With a special nod of deference to the men, not out of any submission based on gender but due to them not bickering or staying quiet to the sides but instead taking the lead, Susannah picks up her crossbow by its leather strap and slungs it over her shoulder.

[King Tius]

The Captain's face flushes as Lyrie speaks to him. He seems particularly uncomfortable as he turns to one of his men. "Fetch maces and slings from the armory." The guard gives a quick salute and jogs off, returning ten minutes later with 3 light maces, 3 heavy maces, 4 slings, and 50 sling bullets.

OOC: Loving the RPing. Let me know when you are all ready to roll and we'll dive back in to the house.

[Goldfly]

Michiko frowns as Lyrie and Jaelara bicker. "Look, there's no need to fight right now. Right now, there's more important things going on- namely, that the undead have risen." She winks at the two women, before continuing. "I won't get in your way once our job is done."
The sorceress then turns to Demos and listens to his speech, before standing straight in a military fashion, grinning widely, and saluting him."Yes sir! I'll be coming with you! Strength in numbers, and all that."

[mshady]

Toland

Looking around, Toland looks at the protection of others and shrugs.

"Oh, Captain? Could you bring back a couple of shields too? Along with a chain, a smith's hammer and two iron or steel pitons? I have a couple ideas for crowd control down below. A strong chain of 20 feet in length? It would be helpful"

Toland gives the guard captain an appreciative smile.

So why is it the guard is so willing to open their armory for some random daredevils? You would think they would have some heavy infantry around for this kind of thing...

He approaches Demos and tries to explain his idea to him, although he doesn't conceal the conversation this time.

"What I'm thinking is if we see a crowd of skeletons, or whatever else may dwell there when we are in the tunnels, we drive those pitons through the links or wrap around them. We stand behind the chain and they get tangled in the chain and we can keep the press off us.

As for shields, if anyone else can hold the front with me, the rest can shoot over or around us. Don't suppose you could one? Use it for cover when you shoot? Seeing how well your gun works on those things, I hope some sling stones can do something like it"

He motions Susannah over to where Toland and Demos stand.

"Susannah, meet Demos... he shoots things, I hit them. Seems to works" he says and laughs at his own joke. "Would you have any ideas on dealing with skeletons such as this? Anything you could share?"

[RaggedAngel]

While the runner is off fetching weapons Demos holds a quiet conversation with Toland, and his early decision to trust the man prove to be a good one; he is an honest paladin to the bone, and while Demos was not especially paladinesque in his personal morality he still had strong respect for the discipline and skill of the holy warriors, no matter which church they hailed from.

"I had not considered the creature's origins, to be entirely honest, but now that you mention it I agree that it is rather troublesome. From what I have heard it is fairly difficult to create undead, or at least expensive, and there were truly a great number of them. And if there is some sort of passage or tunnel in that basement..." He trails off, looking to the house with a grim expression.

"Burning it will not save us; it will only expose the entrance to whatever underground area these things came from to the sky. That's a poor thought indeed." He sighs, and looks to the others. "Toland, I'm going to be honest with you; I'm not much of a speaker, or a leader. I can kill a man from thirty paces in the time it takes to say his name, but I'm not the sort to lead a charge or hold a standard."

He extends his hand to shake, and he meets the paladin's eyes with an honest smile on his face. "I think it's best to solidify our working relationship now, in the hopes that it can continue successfully and profitably, for both me, you, and your god. So how does this sound: you keep things from goring me while I reload, and I'll kill anything that tries to ventilate your kidneys."

[mshady]

Toland

He takes Demos' hand and shakes it well, giving him a firm smile and looking into his eyes. It is more than measuring his character, but his virtue as well, as he holds the Holy Symbol of Iomedae as well.

Was he a good man or not?

Detect Evil

Not that it would change things for the moment, but Toland was interested. In this town, it was suppose best not to know. It had the side effect of causing many to avoid Paladins, and rightly so, for fear of their nature being exposed.

Which is why I walk the streets at night sometimes... Why I was out tonight. Strange that no one questioned a paladin in a long coat and a hat appearing out of a crowd. So much the better...

"That sounds like a fair deal, I would esteem" he says, and shakes his hand firmly again. "I like my kidneys. My liver less. We survive this, I think we owe it to ourselves to sideways after this" he smiles and laughs.

So you can kill a man at first paces quicker than you can say his name? We should go for a walk sometime down by the docks...

Toland pauses for a moment and looks at Mrs Stormscales and her maid.

How fast can you say Mrs. Stormscales, I wonder?

[Calenestel]

When Toland waves her over Susannah joins the paladin and the gunman, leaning on her lit staff as she listens to the question and the discussion. When she talks it's rather obvious from the tone of her voice that she's smiling: "My trick to handling skeletons is more metaphysical. Like ordinary priests..." Priests of just ONE god who actually volounteered... "I have the ability to channel positive energy to destroy the undead. I assume you, ser Toland, are familiar with the practice."

When the runner returns with the requested weapons, and possibly more, Sannah hesitates just a bit before picking up a sling and a small bag with ten of the sling bullets. She had briefly thought of changing her staff for a mace and a shield but her pack was weighing her down more than was comfortable by far as it was. A mace and a shield would probably push it all over the edge of what she could handle, not to mention that the staff gave her some support to offset the weight as she walked.

[Zefir]

As the man returns with the weapons she gives the cptain a kiss on his cheek. "Thank you."

The with a bit of hast she picks up a light mace a sling and a bag of 10 stones. She weigths the weapons in her hand to test how well she could use them. The havy mace was much to heavy for her to deal with it so she don't even look at it.

"I'm ready. Let's go." She tells the other.

[RaggedAngel]

Demos swings his double-barreled pistol up onto is shoulder in a cavalier manner, nodding to Miss Stormscale and the captain. "Thank you for your support, in both the martial and monetary sense. We're going to end this here, and we'll do our best to figure out why this happened and how we can stop it from happening again."

With that he turns to Ser Toland, giving the paladin a vague salute with his left hand before resting it back on the hilt of his shortsword. "This is your show, Toland. Lead the way."

[King Tius]

Toland is fortunate to catch the runner and put in his request before he takes off. He also brings back two shields, a 15 foot chain (best he could do), a hammer, and some large nails. The blacksmith he borrowed these from comes with him, grumpy that he has been awoken.

Assuming you are ready to venture back in, the group cautiously reenters the house, joined by Susannah. You make your way to the kitchen stairs and descend, Toland at the front. What lies beneath is a fairly common basement. There are boxes and barrels stacked neatly about with shelves holding smaller jars of food. In the far corner of the house, however, there is a large hole in the ground. It appears that the dirt has crumbled into the hole, revealing an eerie set of stone stairs leading down into the darkness. The shattered remains of a wooden door that was hidden under nearly 3 inches of dirt are littered on the upper part of the stairs.

In addition to whatever you all do, please make the following 3 rolls: Perception (spot), Perception (listen), and Wisdom (just add your Wis bonus).

[RaggedAngel]

Demos falls in directly behind Toland; while he is by no means a frontline fighter, if he stands behind too many people his vision and aim are reduced to uselessness. As soon as they ascertain that the room is clear he moves out from behind the big paladin, clearing his sight-lines to the hole in the ground.

Perception (Spot): [roll0]
Perception (Listen): [roll1]
Wisdom: [roll2]

EDIT- Huzzah, my gunslinger has good perception. Doing things correctly feels good.

[mshady]

Toland

Surprised a bit at Demos allowing Toland to take the lead, he nods at the man.

"I'll do my best" he says, and nods to Demos and Susannah.

When the runner returns with what he requested, he thanks the runner, gives the man a silver piece, and holds up the chain, smith's sledge and heavy nails.

"So who wants to take these and swing the hammer?" Toland asks. "The plan is to use it as a portable barricade. Much like how you chain a harbor, we could chain the passage. They looked none too nimble, did they? Demos and I will cover you while someone drives the pitons. Any questions on that? If it doesn't work, we can just toss it around a skeleton, right?" he says and laughs.

I hope someone else is strong enough to do that part. Jaleara maybe?

"Everyone else, take a sling and some bullets. They're metal balls and will shatter instead of pierce. It should give us some reach. Take a shield too. If you aren't into holding one, strap it on to your back, it could help.

If anyone can haul one of the big boards, the shields I mean, we could form a shield wall and hold behind it too. The fight may not go that way, but if it does, it could be effective. Especially if we have to get out of there, shields and that chain might save our lives. Maces too, of course.

I'm not sure how how all of you fight yet, so please take these all are suggestions. If anyone has any last minute ones or special skills, now would be the time share that. My own are fairly straight forward" he smiles, even laughs a bit at the slightly self deprecating joke.

Assuming nothing else, Toland heads the group as it returns to the house. He now has a bigger shield in hand now, his lighter shield he had used somewhat effectively earlier is now on his own back.

When he is down there, he looks around the basement carefully. Truthfully, Toland was not terribly observant of his surroundings at times, but he looks for some sort of clues.

"Can anyone tell if the hole was dug down, or dug upwards? Or was it here all along? It matters" Toland says to the gathered group.

How fast can I say "Mrs Stormscales"?

He thinks about what she had said about her background as he looks around, typically thinking of other things and looking into his mind than his surroundings.

So her husband made his money in the shipping business, huh? Meaning, he made it somewhere else and not here where others would know it. Do I take her word for it when an army of undead just ran out of her basement?

Odd that she said her husband had passed away. Most people lamenting such a thing say what happened too.

Iomedae, I hope all these skeletons were not just her In Laws and ex husband stuck in the basement and come to life. That would be embarrassing...

Perceptions - Spot

[roll0]

Perception - Listen

[roll1]

Wisdom

[roll2]

[Calenestel]

Moving through the house Susannah is less focused on the stairs to the basement than on studying the rooms they pass through. She wasn't part of clearing out the house itself and wants to get an impression of how the group had faired before entering whatever lies below. Not that much can be deduced, of course. As they descend into the cellar the masked priestess puts one of the lead bullets in her borrowed sling, just in case, but no enemies are found.

At Tolands request she then turns her attention to the smashed trap door and the riven floor, not sure if she could find any evidence but willing to try.

[roll0]
[roll1]
[roll2]

Lovely rolls. :smallannoyed:

[Zefir]

Lyrie looks confused at the paladin. Does he think we are dump? It's more than obviouse that the sling ammonition are metal balls or stones. It seems like he never met anyone who knows about weapons. She shakes her head. Paladins are great fighter, but this one shows a leak of wisdom. In any case she won't take a shield. It would just lower her mobility and she isn't really able to use it.

As they go in Lyrie will try to be the last one keeping herself as far behind as possible. After all she is still hurt and hopes that will be enougth for the rest to not question her position. So unless someone force her to do other she will stay behind and have a look at the inventory. She looks out for anything small, but worthy to take.

Perception (Upstairs)[roll0]

She won't take things now. Since she could pass out downstairs and she knows the paladin won't be pleased. So she will try to remind what she could take on the way out.

After that she follows the others . On her way she looks out for traps as well. Even if the others think the skeletons where stupid she doesn't belive/know it. It's best to check twice.

Perception (Traps)[roll1]
Perception (Listen)[roll2]
Perception (Spot)[roll3]
Wisdom [roll4]

[Gorgon_Heap]

Jalaera waits for Toland to take the lead but still stays practically shoulder-to-shoulder with him, seeing others intentionally hanging back for own protection.

She continues to tread lightly, hoing if anything intelligent in present it will only suspect the lone man clanking in armor.


Stealth [roll0]
Perception (darkvision) [roll1]
Perception (listen) [roll2]
Wisdom [roll3]

[Goldfly]

Michiko strides towards the runner, taking a sling and bullets from him with a loud "Thank you!" She then runs towards the building, falling in line just in front of Lyrie.

When the party reaches the stairs in the basement, she frowns. "Either Mrs. Stormscale has some explaining to do, or they didn't notice this. Seems unlikely, though; I imagine it would probably crumble if someone even stepped on it."


Perception Spot: [roll0]
Perception Listen: [roll1]
Wisdom: [roll2]

[King Tius]

As Lyrie moves through the house she notices a pair of gold candlesticks sitting on the little table between the two couches in the living room.

As you stand around the hole and take a better look, you do not see any dirt piled up around the hole, leading you to believe that it was broken open from underneath. You pause and listen but hear no skeletons....or anything really....coming from the stairs. Using your lights and your superior vision (where applicable) you see that the stairs go down about 20 feet before leveling out into a passageway.

Jalaera and Demos Only

Now that the thrill of combat has subsided, you have a chance to reflect on your assailants. One thing sticks out that you only really notice as you pass back through the house and see their scattered remains... All the skeletons were fairly short when they were standing. They were definitely still Medium creatures, but they were all at least a head shorter than you and were squatter in the pelvis and shoulders than you'd expect of a human or elf. Finally seeing a very square-jawed skull sitting at the right angle it dawns on both of you...all of these skeletons were once Dwarves


Lyrie Only

You are no expert mason (or even an amateur one) but something catches your eye in the way the stonework of the basement plays out along the walls. About a foot off the ground (so low you almost didn't see it) the stone is of a different kind than that of the walls and the rest of the house. While the rest of the building is made with medium sized stones that were roughly hewed into the right shapes and mortared together, the stone beneath that seems to be one massive solid piece. As you glance around, the corners are seamless, too. You do a quick 360 and realize that the entire bottom of the basement is one continuous piece of stone, though you have no idea what that could mean.


Kiernan peers down into the hole and gives a low whistle. "I don't know about you all, but I don't think this is supposed to be here. Look how thick this dirt was! Do you think the old miss knew about this? I wonder if this is some little experiment gone wrong."

Just to clarify, the shields are Heavy Wooden shields.

[Gorgon_Heap]

Speaking in a whisper, Jalaera says, "This hole ... the skeletons all had the stature of dwarves. The danger here may be rather older and deeper than the home."

[RaggedAngel]

Demos nods, confirming Jalaera's statement. "They were indeed; the signs are all there. A horde of dwarven skeletons, boiling up from underneath this home from a hole in the floor of the basement? I think that Miss Stormscale was truly unlucky in her choice of locale, but I'm suspecting her less and less and beginning to believe that this is something much more than what we originally suspected."

[Calenestel]

Shrugging slightly Susannah studies the stairs down. The news about the origin of the skeletons did neither bother nor comfort her. It was just as bad as if it had been former humans, and not one whit worse. It might hint at a VERY old crypt below since the dwarves of Echo Bend usually were very careful with keeping track of their dead ancestors and kin, but that was only an assumption. However it didn't tell her anything about the owner of the property, she hadn't thought this to be mistress Stormscales' fault to begin with. She didn't know much about the old woman, but so far she hadn't heard a dark whisper about her from any of her patients or former or remaining friends. It didn't mean much of course, but she was more comfortable with considering everyone innocent until proven guilty. Finally the masked woman looks around and asks calmly: "So... let's move down, then?"

[Zefir]

Lyrie makes a turn around like she had looking for something.

"Wow that wasn't cheap I think."

Then the others speak up.

"Dwarfs? How did you go get that line now?"

[mshady]

Toland

"You don't think she did not notice this in her own basement? She's someone with the finer things in life. Remarkably masonry compared to the relatively workmanlike stuff the rest of the house, I think she'd do more than write it off as "a previous owner". Some things, you ask questions about. These people get fascinated about fine china, cute dogs and love to stroke their pedigrees to their friends. This? She'd ask someone...

Considering the generous amount offered to us to go down there, makes me wonder if she's expecting to pay out and she knows where we're going.

Demos, what's the most likely answer here? A little old lady was unlucky enough to have the exact house where ancient dwarf skeletons randomly surge into her basement after hundreds or thousands of years of inactivity?

Or she, or someone she consulted, recognized the stone and started looking for an entrance to see what they could find and stirred up a bee's nest?" he says, than shakes his head.

"I'm not trying to be paranoid, but it is what it is. Damned odd"

He walks over and looks at the stonework with more appreciation than a professional eye and sighs.

"Noticing small things like that are not my strength. I think it'd be safer if someone more observant, or an actual scout, went ahead to look for traps and things. I suspect its safe, as the skeletons would have triggered anything themselves, but we cannot be too safe. What about you?" Toland says, looking at Lyrie with a smile.

[King Tius]

Kiernan listens to Toland and gives a chuckle. "A lady that prissy? I'll bet she's never even been down here. She's got a handmaiden! I wonder if a cook swings by during the day? Still, if those tears were fake, we ought to bring her down to the theater and get her in the guild." The little gnome scratches his little goatee and looks down the hole. "Although, if she did know about all this and it got out of hand, I'm not sure I want to know what's down there."

With nothing left to do in the basement, the lot of you descend into the dark stairwell. The passageway it leads into is straight as an arrow and descends down at a constant slope. The walls, ceiling, and floor are perfectly smooth stone. In fact, upon looking closer it seems that it is all one great piece of stone, seamless and with no signs of working or masonry. The tunnel descends nearly 300 yards before you begin to see light ahead of you. Slowing to a halt, you wait patiently in the darkness of the tunnel, listening for sounds of trouble. With no immediate signs of danger, you proceed forward, getting closer and closer to the doorway at the end of tunnel.

The room that the passage leads to is is a roughly 25 yard square. Before you on the opposite wall is a massive golden circle, almost like the door of a bank vault. There is an obvious alcove in the center of the door where one might insert an axle if it were a giant wheel. On either side of the chamber are doorways leading into darkness. The placement of everburning sconces (little red circles) make it impossible to see what lies beyond. In each corner of the room are semicircles of metal bars, each guarding a large metal bell that hangs from a chain in the ceiling. The floor is covered in one foot square tiles of plane stone. A curious smell hits your nostrils as you approach the room. It is a mixture of decay and acid. Strewn about the room are large hunks of a greenish carapace and guts. A big bug leg right in front of you makes it fairly obvious that the bits and pieces scattered about were once a very large beetle. There is a hole in the wall to your right that is about two feet up the wall and roughly beetle-shaped. The walls are the same solid stone as the hallway.

The Map

http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/6743/bellroom.png


OOC: You are spread out down the hallway single file. I didn't feel like adding two more rows, hence two of you are magically in the wall at the moment.

Current HP Counts

Demos: 11/11
Jalaera: 11/11
Kiernan: 11/11
Lyrie: 6/11
Michicko: 8/8
Toland: 10/12

[Gorgon_Heap]

Jalaera's eyebrows rise high. "Well, that's certainly the oddest cold cellar I've ever seen."


ID bugs, tracks, whatever.

Know: Dungeoneering [roll0]
Perception [roll1]

She relays what she believes she knows of the insects within ...

[King Tius]

Judging by the thickness of the stones and the size of the beetle parts, Jalaera is fairly sure these were acid-spitting beetles, known for using their acidic spit to slowly burrow through virtually anything. They are underground creatures and not uncommon in these parts of the world.

[Calenestel]

Ser Toland's suspicions makes the masked priestess shake her head slowly. Her face concealed the only indications to her mood is her voice and stance and both seem drily contemplating as she studies the evidence. "To be frank I agree with goodman Kiernan. Logically it's more than possible that the 'prissy' old woman has never set foot down here. And the thickness of the dirt rules out anyone stumbling on the trap door. That leaves the unusual stonework. Which I can hardly see now that it's been pointed out. It seems illogical to immediately assume foul play. No offense intended, good ser knight."

As they then descend into the darkness she stays quiet, and as silent as possible which isn't saying much, until they reach the large room. She can't make out much of it from her position, almost nothing more than the golden door. But that prompts a quick comment, her voice more filled with quirky mirth than with dry rationale: "Well... that is one expensive door."

[RaggedAngel]

Demos takes a moment or two to get a look at the chamber beyond, the tall man rising up onto the balls of his feet to try to see past his allies. "This is clearly ancient; there's no way something like this could exist beneath the town and none of you know about it. What's more, can you imagine the effort it took to build a place like this underground? Or the money it would take for all that gold and all the everburning torches? This is something big, something important; and look at those bells. This place seems almost like a place of ritual. An ancient church or something."

[mshady]

Toland:

"I would agree Demos, but I think I've established that. That said, that was a big crockroach we saw so I might entertain other theories. This is not just someone's cold cellar. I think is more like someone's mud room. There will be other entrances here" he says and laughs to himself for a moment.

"Watch where you step. Could be foot traps, and I like my feet" he says.

Jalaera's feet aren't bad either. Those boots she wears are quite flattering...

Toland looks at the floor in front of him, and lowers his torch to cast light on the area. If he does not see anything unusual, he steps forward 5 feet and moves to the right 10 feet to allow others to step into the room.

[RaggedAngel]

Demos enters the room only hesitantly and cautiously. "If none of us has any particular training in trapfinding, we're going to need to be especially careful. Places like this are dangerous, even without acid spitting giant beetles."

He looks to the others, and their general equipment and state of health. "And I'm going to be honest; I refuse to go much further into this place than this room. This is extremely interesting, and as both an explorer and a financially-deprived individual I want to find what may be down here.

But we are not ready for a dungeon expedition. We have no significant store of food, most of us only have one half-filled waterskin, several of you are injured, and I personally have only fifteen or so bullets left. If we want to go into this place with a reasonable chance to come out unscathed we need to take a night to rest and heal or, in my case, take a night to construct another dozen or so units of ammunition."

[King Tius]

Toland steps into the room and move to the right. He makes it five feet to the right when you hear a loud *CLICK* come from the dark passageways to the left. A tense moment passes but nothing seems to result from the sound.

[Calenestel]

Still not seeing much aside from the golden door the masked woman still catches the ominous click. She wasn't moving just yet, but still she stops those little motions everyone does without thinking about it. "What was that? Are you all right out there?" Worry is creeping into her voice. She considers several of them her patients, and all of them seem like good people.

[mshady]

Toland:

"Yeah, I'm good" he says. "Did anyone hear a clicking sound?"

[Zefir]

As the paladin goes for Lyrie she holds her hands up in defense. She is sure that the paladin guessed right, which is after all very strange, but she won't go on kamikaze mission for him,... well not now.

"No, No , no! Not me . I think the elv would do beter for that. Elves have a much better perception. Just see there ears and eyes. And as another reason I'm still hurt which makes it nearly impossible to stay at the front."

A ehile later they stand in a long way heading into a larg room. Since I said it several times Lyrie is the last one in row and can't really get much from the room. Lyrie was a bit distracted thinking how to get the gold candelar out of here later as she hears the click. She mentaly facepalms.

"Didn't he just tell us he is bad in searching? So why did he still go?" she ask to everyone in front of her. After all people cleared the You ok row.

[Goldfly]

Michiko has been quiet as she examined the large room from near the back of the line; when she hears the click, however, she jumps half a foot in the air and begins speaking nervously. "A-Are you okay? I definitely heard something there."She then turns to look at Lyrie, an eyebrow raised at the older girl. "Well... he was in the front. It would have been difficult to turn around in here I think."

[Gorgon_Heap]

Jalaera mirrors Toland's move into the room but, hearing the noise, begins examining the floor in consternation, imagining dangerous and unfamiliar mechanisms.

She looks at the others questioningly but sees they are largely as baffled and worried as she, so, with a deep breath, she quickly glides out - low - toward the closest remains to examine just how the damage was done.

Stealth [roll0]
Perception [roll1]
Dungeoneering [roll2]

[shrug] Gotta try, eh?

[King Tius]

Jalaera moves quickly into the room, crouched down and stepping as quietly as possible. She takes four steps before another loud click is hear, this time from the darkness of the right-side passageways. She takes two more steps before the northwest bell tolls, freezing her in her tracks. From her position in the room, she can here an all too familiar scrapping and scratching sound, followed by footsteps. A skeleton steps eerily out of the darkness and turns to face her....

The Map

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/5016/bellroom1.png


OK! We are going to run things a little differently here. If we drop into combat order and wait a full round for everyone to post and for me to update, we could be in this room for a full year of posting. Instead, I am going to fast forward the intermittent combat in a cinematic fashion. In order to do this, I need general guidelines from each of you as to how your characters will react.

Some examples:
"A will rush to meet any skeleton head on, regardless of how many bells and clicks he hears."
"B will shoot any skeleton, keeping his feet planted, and reload as fast as he can."
"C will follow D and protect her from any skeletons that show up.
"E will channel undead if there are at least 4 skeletons out at once."

You can obviously change these rules post-by-post, but I want things to run pretty quickly so you can focus on puzzle solving and not skeleton fighting. If things get REALLY hairy, we might drop into legitimate combat order. Have fun!

Also, Jalaera, the nearest piece of beetle bits are in J9.

[mshady]

Toland

"Don't panic! They're not difficult in small numbers!" Toland yells as the first thing pokes its way out. He drops a bullet into his sling and starts spinning it.

"Get out if you can, grab your slings and start slinging! Whatever I stepped on, let something out. We step out, form a line, sling away. When the room's clear, stand still and we figure this out. Demos, hold your fire and use your sling and save your big iron!"

For right now, Toland will stand his ground and sling.

[RaggedAngel]

Demos gives Toland a long, hard look before shaking his head and holstering his firearm. "I've gotten so used to using that thing that I occasionally forget all the other weapons training my old man put me through. You're right, though; the gun is overkill for these things if we're all focusing fire, I'm still an excellent shot with a sling, and the bullets are far less expensive than my lead slugs."

He moves to keep himself thirty feet from the doorway, and then he will use his sling and ten bullets on the skeleton that has advanced furthest out of the room. If a skeleton gets close enough to engage in melee, he runs out of sling bullets, or something bigger than a dwarven skeleton appears, he'll pull his gun and fire.

He'll stay in the range of Point Blank Shot. His attack bonus is +6 and his damage bonus is +1. He'll focus on foes in combat, because he has Precise Shot, unlike everyone else.

[Gorgon_Heap]

Jalaera walks toward the nearest corpse and hears loud clicks, but unsure if they are from her actions, and not really caring, but sees a target coming into view ...

Jalaera springs into action, whirling her partisan in powerful arcs to make ther most of the available space. She uses the weapon as is best effective in the circumstance - to keep opponents at a distance or using it simply to cause damage. When confronted by three or more oppenents, she will fight defensively or go entire defense to protect a nearby teammate.

[Calenestel]

The toll of a bell doesn't frighten her nearly as bad as the previous click. But rationally she understands that it's the worse sound, at least after she hears the others talking about a risen skeleton. Still, there was something oddly comforting to her with the mournful sound. Still, there's work to be done.
Dropping her backpack to the floor she hurries into the room, sling already twirling. "I'll hold off with the great blasts of energies until there's more than one!" she exclaims as she lines up for a shot. Voice calmer than she'd have thought as she starts acting, and witha a no-nonsense efficiency about it. Combined with the mask obscuring her facial expressions it could kind of give her an image of complete calm in the face of danger. She would have liked that if she had thought of it. But she's only thinking about the skeleton and the state of her companions.
"Lyrie, tell me if you'd like me to patch you up some more, all right?"

[Zefir]

Jalaera walked in and clicks are heared and the bell range. There must be a connection.Lyrie starts to come up with a general idea how this room works. Maybe, just maybe every 'field' in this room is a switch. And every time you step on one you get a skeleton. The beetle may have caused the skeletons they fought upstairs to come out. After killing it the skeletons used the only way out, which is the stairs right behind her.

"That would be nice. I have something to check out and it would be best to stay alive for that."


A: Check out the theorie: Finding a teap or any kind of switch in the floor. using it and waiting for result (Do this only while no skeleton is close or less than 2 are around)
B: Shoot skeleton with sling.
C: Use mace if ammonition goes out. Only go into meele if the floor is safe to stay. (Allways trying for a save flanking)

[Goldfly]

At the sound of the skeleton appearing, Michiko rushes into the room, firing a small jolt of electricity at the monster.

[roll0]
[roll1]
Should a skeleton get within hitting distance of Michiko, she'll do her best to back off without being hit. If it's not possible, she'll use the club. Otherwise, she'll stay near the back of the party, firing her Jolt at the enemy.

[King Tius]

Michiko darts into the room and fires a magical jolt. Her first three steps yield no results but her fourth triggers another clicking sound. Her jolt flies harmlessly past the skeleton and sizzles onto the wall. Jalaera readies herself for the incoming skeleton which turns and rushes right towards her. Just as it comes into range she gives a swing with the blunt end of her partisan but does no damage. Fortunately she is able to parry the clumsy swing of the skeleton with her weapon.

Demos moves into the room one full move action, drawing yet another mysterious click. He whirls up a sling stone and launches it at the lone skeleton. The bullet strikes and destroys the creature (Note, you have a sling listed as 1d6 damage on your sheet but it is only 1d4). Susannah and Kiernan step into the room, drawing no results.

Lyrie, now the only one left in the passageway, crouches down by the tiles and touches one with her hand. Nothing happens. As she goes to touch the tile on the opposite side of the first tile, her hand passes close to the original tile without actually touching it. Again you all hear a strange click. As she finally puts her hand on the third tile, another bell tolls (southeast). When the skeleton appears, everyone is ready and sling away.

Demos misses with his bullet but Lyrie connects, though the bullet does not drop the skeleton. Kiernan waits and susannah misses her shot. Luckily, Toland's bullet strikes true, dropping the skeleton. Silence settles on the room again.

Skeletons Killed: 3
Clicks Heard: 4

The Map

http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/5978/bellroom2.png


Initiative Order

23 Michiko
22 Skeletons
23 Jalaera - Delayed
17 Demos
16 Lyrie
09 Kiernan
05 Susannah
09 Toland


Party Statistics

{table=head] Character|HP|Bullets
Demos|11/11|8
Jalaera|11/11|0
Kiernan|11/11|0
Lyrie|6/11|9
Michicko|8/8|10
Toland|10/12|9
Susannah|8/8|9
[/table]

[Calenestel]

All things under controll, for the moment, Susannah scans the room getting her first good look at it. There's really not that much more to see and less for her to do about their situation, lacking expertise with traps and burglary. But she keeps a stoic vigil, hoping that any of the others (Tolland excepted) had a shady past with skills best left unexplained. "So... any ideas? I really don't have any experience with traps like this."

[mshady]

Toland:

Settling another bullet into his sling from his pouch, Toland surveys the room. As silence has returned, he looks around the room and takes a deep breath of old, musty air, and smiles.

That's seven now for me? Not too shabby.

"You all seem like upstanding people and all. If anyone happens to know anything about disarming traps and security wards, I'm not going to ask you any questions about it how" Toland says with a laugh, than looks at Lyrie and Jalaera.

"You two are much more observant than I. See any sort of pattern on the tiles or floors?" Toland says.

"I think we need to put that chain up before we start poking around much more. Demos may have had a good thought about provisioning. Getting trapped down here would have its problems. This being a dwarf place, we may want to seek one out if we go back up, although I think if we can get past that vault door we will have a better idea of the size of this complex"

[RaggedAngel]

Demos looks to the corridor where the skeletons emerged, though he pointedly does not make any more movements into or out of the room. "We do need to be more careful about placing our feet; every time someone entered the room there was a click. That said, the number of clicks did not match the number of skeletons, which is odd, though perhaps a nonissue."

He the turns his attention to the massive golden object in the center of the far wall. "I don't know if that's a door or a decoration, to be honest. I mean, the hallways on the side clearly lead somewhere; they may be the only way in and out of the room."

[mshady]

Toland:

"If that thing is a decoration, I'll be first to put my name in for that thing" Toland mused.

"I swear, if we have to 'hop-scotch' across this floor, I am not going to be a happy paladin. Than again, I repeat myself" he says, and pauses, and drums his fingers on his shield dramatically.

"Sorry, Paladin humor" he says and chuckles.

[Gorgon_Heap]

Though she doesn't actually do so, you can practically feel Jalaera roll her eyes.

"Is that what that was?" She examines her surrounding a little more carefully and, nodding definitavely, comes to a conclusion. "Mysterious dwarven architechture is beyond the scope of my exprience. I'm a tracker and trailsman."

[mshady]

Toland

"Well, this is just like that. Instead of looking for trail sign and animal tracks, you look for... stuff on the floor here. Same principle, right?" he says and pauses. "Maybe not. Okay, anyone else?"

[Zefir]

Lyrie sights. Didn't the elf notice that she has the best perception in here? Such a waste of skills having her nose down on earth to seek for footprints. Still good for her she didn't use her skills as she should be that makes one thiev less in the city to fear about.

Without a word lyrie tries to head near the front making out which plates are traps and which not.

[King Tius]

Lyrie pushes past everyone and gets to the front of the group. As she goes, she triggers two more clicks. She glances down at the floor but does not detect any traps (OOC: You don't have any points in Perception!). Kiernan glances around and something seems to dawn on him.

"Hey now, hang on a tick, lemme see something."

He whistles and murmurs a few choice words, casting the bardic equivalent of Detect Magic. His eyes begin to glow with a faint green light as he looks around the room. Almost as soon as the spell completes the little gnome jumps with a start. He lets out a long, impressed whistle as he glances about the room.

"Anyone else seeing this? The whole floor is magic! Same with the door. Floor looks like a faint transmutation aura, but that big door or whatever has some pretty potent abjuration effects on it. I'm not picking up anything from the bells or the bars around them."

He picks up his foot and puts it down again on a tile, triggering a click.

"Whatever the effect is, it is tied to each tile and doesn't disperse when we step on them. Hmmmm, these Dwarves are a tricky bunch. I've never heard about them setting up something like this....."

Skeletons Killed: 3
Clicks Heard: 7

The Map

http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/5978/bellroom2.png


Initiative Order

23 Michiko
22 Skeletons
23 Jalaera - Delayed
17 Demos
16 Lyrie
09 Kiernan
05 Susannah
09 Toland


Party Statistics

{table=head] Character|HP|Bullets
Demos|11/11|8
Jalaera|11/11|0
Kiernan|11/11|0
Lyrie|6/11|9
Michicko|8/8|10
Toland|10/12|9
Susannah|8/8|9
[/table]

[RaggedAngel]

Demos shakes his head, clearly frustrated. "This may be a trap, or it may be something completely harmless; the 'click' may be the sound of something that was supposed to happen, but ran dry long ago.

Or, perhaps every click was supposed to release a skeleton, but they only had thirty or so skeletons, and now they've run out. I mean, they couldn't have an endless supply of undead; they're expensive to create."

[Goldfly]

Michiko frowns slightly at Kiernan. "Is it? I never learned to see Magic, even though my parents told me it would be handy at some point."She shrugs. "You live and learn, I guess. I have to agree with Demos, though- they couldn't have had very many skeletons. That door, however, probably won't let us through, if anything I know about Abjurations is true." Her frown deepens slightly, before she begisn to smile again. "We should probably be careful around it, just to be sure. On another note, though..."
She swiftly turns to the Gnome, her ponytail cutting through the air rather as a rope would. "Do you think you could teach me to do that sometime? I'd sure love to learn how to actually see magic out there."

[mshady]

Toland

"I think we have established clicks mean skeletons. If I could direct your attention to the skeletons approaching us momentarily and request that you prepare your slings."

Toland looks left to right and wonders which side they're going to approach from this time.

"Seeing as I think this is a tomb and they built to last, I would assume they have lots of them and money was no expense here. So lets not step on any more titles" Toland asks politely, but his voice has an edge of tension on it.

"When you use that spell and see the floor, do you see any pattern? There must be a way to get from here to that door safely. Look for a same path, either in the magic or the tiles. Are the tiles different?"

Toland pauses and thinks for a moment.

"Can you tell if it is arcane or divine magic, Kiernan?"

[Calenestel]

'It's just a trap. Nothing I can know anything about,' I said, Sannah berates herself silently. Well, if it's a trap that involves skeletons rising to attack the intruders. Of COURSE it's a magical trap, you daft goose.
Out loud, but still in a low voice, the masked priestess instead says: "That much magic, eh? This I'll have to see that for myself..." And after a few quick words of power, and two simple gestures her eyes as well lights up inside the mask, in a soft white light with a slightly golden tone. "Well... This is interesting..."

I really need to put a point or two in Knowledge (Arcana). Might Spellcraft tell me anything? If so:

[roll0] Edit: Bleh. :smallyuk:

[King Tius]

Kiernan and Susannah do not detect any pattern in the magic of the tiles. As far as they can tell, all the tiles have the same enchantments on them.

"Oh I'd be happy to teach you, Love. I'm sure I can show you a thing or two you haven't seen before."

It is difficult to tell whether the little man is hitting on you or not. He didn't wink or smile, so maybe he has a great poker face?

"If only I could fly! Then we'd be able to poke around down here without setting off all these tiles."

[Calenestel]

The friendly banter from Kiernan makes the masked priestess freeze up momentarily, keeping an eye on the gnome in the corner of her eye. What did he mean with that? Why? No, this isn't the time for this. Focus, damn you! With an effort visible in the way she hunches her shoulders she tears her thoughts away from the distraction and with an exhalation she returns to the problem at hand. "I... I can't make any sense of this with as simple a divination as the one I have at my disposal. It all looks uniformly the same to me. Sorry. Either we just walk across the floor slowly and stop at each toll or..." In the end she trails off, knowing that there must be another way but not seeing it. Yet.

[Zefir]

"I can't do much by magical traps. Unless you know more we should try to go in a line to pass as less traps as possible."

That’s the only thing Lyrie could think to pass this.

[RaggedAngel]

Demos snaps his fingers, nodding as he looks at the tiles. "It's a message. Or a map. Or an arrow, or words, or something; the point is, these tiles convey information; the chiming of the bells have only triggered on specific tiles, which means that if those same tiles chime again we can begin to make the chiming and nonchiming tiles. If we do this over the course of the entire room, it should make some sort of legible image or message.

If after a little while it become apparent that their either a very regular grid or a complete jumble, we can try something else. I'm also not unconvinced that there is a limit to the number of skeletons, and if we move slowly we'll never have to deal with more than one at a time."

[King Tius]

Lyrie nods to Demos and crouches down to the tiles. Gingerly she reaches out and touches one, causing nothing to happen. She draws out her shortsword to scratch a mark on the tile. As she does so, placing her hand on the tile again for balance, she triggers the tile once more, causing a bell to toll. A moment later, just like clockwork, a skeleton appear at I6.

Jalaera readies to attack the skeleton as Demos lets another sling bullet fly. He manages to punch through some ribs but the creature remains standing. Lyrie stays crouched on the ground, waiting for the rest of you to deal with the skeleton before continuing her testing. Kiernan stands there frustrated at his inability to help as Susannah's bullet sails harmlessly past the skeleton. Toland's bullet misses as well but Michiko's jolt lands, damaging but not eliminating the skeleton. It rushes Jalaera but she is easily able to deflect the attack. Unfortunately her follow up proves equally ineffective. With a second sling bullet Demos drops the skeleton, returning the room to silence.

The rogue bits her lip as she contemplates what to do next. She touches the tile a third time. This time generating a click. She puts her hand on it two more times to no effect. Finally, fed up with not knowing what is going on, she uses her sword to try and pry up the tile. With a little leverage the tile lifts partly up, apparently not glued down to the floor. On the underside of the tile is a glowing rune.

"Any ideas?"

Skeletons Killed: 4
Clicks Heard: 8

The Map

http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/5978/bellroom2.png


Initiative Order

23 Michiko
22 Skeletons
23 Jalaera - Delayed
17 Demos
16 Lyrie
09 Kiernan
05 Susannah
09 Toland


Party Statistics

{table=head] Character|HP|Bullets
Demos|11/11|6
Jalaera|11/11|0
Kiernan|11/11|0
Lyrie|6/11|9
Michicko|8/8|10
Toland|10/12|8
Susannah|8/8|8
[/table]

[Goldfly]

Michiko walks over to where Lyrie is checking the tile, and kneels down next to her, examining it closely. "Even if I can't see magic, I can still examine something like, this, I suppose." She chuckles to herself under her breath.
Spellcraft check?:[roll0]

[King Tius]

OOC: I forgot to update the map. Lyrie is actually at K12.

Michiko crouches down to look between Demos's legs, getting a better view of the lifted plate. She nods to Lyrie and the rogue touches the top of the plate, causing the magical glyph to fire. No clicks are bells are heard, but Michiko's eyes light up after watching the magic pulse through the glyph.

She waves her fingers absentmindedly through the air, tracing the pattern of the glyph and following the flow of the magic. Though she can't cast the spell herself, she identifies the spell to be a something very similar to Mage Hand. As she relays this information to the rest of the group, Kiernan rubs the back of his hand.

"Mage Hand, eh? Afraid I can't cast that one. A shame I can't, otherwise I could try and counterspell it."

[RaggedAngel]

Demos looks at the sigil for a long, careful moment, contemplative, before nodding to himself slowly. "If everyone could back away, please, I have a bit of an idea."

He gives the others a second to move away from the plate, reloading his sling while he does, and then transferring the weapon to his left hand. He looks at the sigil for a moment longer, before looking to the spellcasters with an odd grin. "I think I know an appropriate counter for this spell." He then smoothly draws his shortsword, driving the tip down into the ground, bisecting the sigil in the middle.

Gordian knot powers, activate!

[King Tius]

Demos switches place with Lyrie, drawing no noises from the room. Drawing his longsword, the oh-so-clever gunslinger tries to slice through the glyph, only to have it emit a brilliant flash and send of jolt of energy up his sword and into his arm, dealing 3 damage. Apparently slicing the glyph straight down the middle is NOT the solution, but nice try.

OOC: I realized that I was stiffing Michiko in the initiative order by not delaying her until after the skeletons' turn. That has been corrected.

Skeletons Killed: 4
Clicks Heard: 8

The Map

http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/1592/bellroom4.png


Initiative Order

22 Skeletons
23 Michiko - Delayed
23 Jalaera - Delayed
17 Demos
16 Lyrie
09 Kiernan
05 Susannah
09 Toland


Party Statistics

{table=head] Character|HP|Bullets
Demos|8/11|6
Jalaera|11/11|0
Kiernan|11/11|0
Lyrie|6/11|9
Michicko|8/8|10
Toland|10/12|8
Susannah|8/8|8
[/table]

[RaggedAngel]

Demos says a word that one does not say around children, before muttering darkly and putting away his sword. "Well. That was a poor decision on my part. Why the hell would it do that? I mean, how much would it cost to make permanent runes under ever damned tile and put at least two spells in them?"

He turns his rhetoric into a real question, looking to the spellcasters with a raised brow. Though his face betrays nothing, the skin of his arm is already turning bright red in sharp, jagged lines, and the smell of singed flesh and hair is faintly detectable.

[mshady]

"How much does it cost? Nothing, when you have nothing but time on your hands and a surplus of paranoia" Toland snorts. "When the bell tolls, a skeleton comes. What if we shoot a bell? Not saying just go DO that, but anyone have thoughts on that?"

"Notice neither our fallen sling bullets or the skeletons themselves trigger more runes? It seems to only respond to the living. Seems a bit.. narrow in focus. Before things get too crazy in here, I think I'd like to install that chain. Our experiments are not going so well, so far" Toland reflects.

He turns and steps back the way he came, making sure he does not step on a tile that has not been stepped on before. If a bell tolls, he will immediately stop and start slinging...

When he gets back to the tunnel, he drives the two pitons into the stone work and suspends the chain at hip level, figuring it would keep the shorter dwarf skeletons out.

"Can anyone climb the walls? Maybe it would help looking down on this. Would that I knew some dethek rune language to help with this. I would think any dwarf puzzle would have some sort of religious significance. Some sort of old prayer"

[Calenestel]

While Lyrie, Michiko and Demos has worked, without much luck, to find a way through the magical trap Susannah has stayed to the side, pondering, trying to find an out-of-the-box way out of the room. Each individual tile was a trap, but in a sense the whole room was one bigger trap, there must be a way to exploit that... Then Tolland entertains the idea of deliberatly striking the bells to see if it conjured a new skeleton and a small idea, not much more than a slight hope, lights up in her mind. "If that works, if the bells aren't just warnings but part of the magic that raises the dead... then maybe we could silence them?" For all they knew it might even help if striking the bells did nothing.

[King Tius]

Toland moves back towards the door, triggering one click as he steps into Kiernan's square. He installs his chain easily enough and tests its strength by putting nearly his full weight against it.

Kiernan chuckles when the Paladin asks if he can climb walls. "My father was an ugly man, but he wasn't a spider. Perhaps we could track down someone who could cast a Spider Climb spell on us, but even then, what would we do up there? Go ahead and shoot the bell, but let me put my magic eyes back on."

The gnome casts his Detect Magic spell and his eyes begin to glow again. Turning towards the group's resident marksman, he gives Demos a nod and points towards the bell. "If you'd be so kind." Demos loads a sling bullet and hurls it at the bell. The bullet ricochets off the metal bars encircling the bell with a high-pitched ring. Frowning in frustration, the gunslinger loads another bullet and slings again, this time connecting solidly. The bell lets out its familiar tone, swinging back and forth slightly from the impact. Everyone stands tensely for a moment, anticipating a skeleton that never comes. Kiernan has been staring at the bell, not seeming to care about any skeletons. He drops to a crouch and has an extremely focused look on his face. "Hit it again, harder this time. I thought I saw something...." Demos loops his sling back in his belt and draws his pistol, firing a carefully places shot at the bell. The ring is much louder this time and is accompanied by a much greater swinging back and forth.

The gnome leaps to his feet in excitement, pointing at the bell and shouting. "Yes! It's under there! The ringer is magic!" Unfortunately when he lands from his jump he triggers another bell, this time on the right side of the room.

Once again a skeleton appears in the doorway. This time Michiko is ready for it and fires her bolt, scoring maximum damage and dropping the skeleton in a single hit.


Skeletons Killed: 5
Clicks Heard: 9

The Map

Toland now at O12 instead

http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/1592/bellroom4.png


Initiative Order

22 Skeletons
23 Michiko - Delayed
23 Jalaera - Delayed
17 Demos
16 Lyrie
09 Kiernan
05 Susannah
09 Toland


Party Statistics

{table=head] Character|HP|Bullets
Demos|8/11|5
Jalaera|11/11|0
Kiernan|11/11|0
Lyrie|6/11|9
Michicko|8/8|10
Toland|10/12|8
Susannah|8/8|8
[/table]

[RaggedAngel]

Demos seems to agree with the new line of thought, looking to the bells contemplatively. "I could hit those from the mouth of the tunnel pretty easily, and then we would have plenty of time to destroy any undead the bell might summon. And breaking the bells may be the best way to disarm this place."

He loads another round in his gun, looking to the bells thoughtfully. "I don't want to waste rounds if that did nothing, though. Do you see any damage to the bell? I suppose I could aim for the rope holding it up."

That's funny, you ninja'd me and I agreed with you anyway. That's pretty neat.

[King Tius]

OOC: Yeah, sorry for ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGf9qtIeyBg) but I wanted to keep things moving.

Kiernan squints at the bell and shakes his head. "Doesn't look like it did much. I imagine that metal is pretty thick. Maybe we can get at those knockers?" He gives Toland a wink and a nudge at the joke.

[RaggedAngel]

Demos rolls his eyes slightly, but otherwise pays the gnome's joke no mind. He takes special care, however, to not glance at any of the ladies present, lovely though they may be. "After what that rune did to me I'm not eager to get within striking distance of the bells or the bars; the bars almost certainly have some sort of protective spell on them. Like you said, whoever made this place had an excess of time."

[Gorgon_Heap]

OOC: This is totally outside Jalaera's purview, so she's just kinda being observy.

[Goldfly]

Michiko approaches the bell cautiously, and stops as she stands next to it. She pokes it gently with her borrowed club, then again a bit more vigorously. If nothing happens, she steps back and fires a jolt at it.

[Calenestel]

Staying to the side when the rest are making some "ranged investigation", and keeping a watch for skeletons when anyone moves, Susannah clears her throat softly as Michiko prepares to cast a spell. Her voice is respectfull, which seems more odd than most tones of voice with her face obscured, when she interjects: "Excuse me... but isn't it unneccessary and slightly reckless to continue shooting at the bells? After all, Kiernan has already identified that the magic is coming from the... clapper." She turns her head slightly towards the gnome at that, and the hesitation might hint at a blush behind the mask. But if so she presses on despite it. "Mightn't it be a better idea to try and disable them now?"

[Goldfly]

Michiko looks over at Susannah.
"Well, I was curious about whether touching it would make the electricity go off. Also, I figure that the more we know about it, the easier it'll be to disarm it."

[King Tius]

Michiko moves towards the bell on the left of the room. As she approaches the bars she triggers another click. This time, however, there is a large *BANG* sound right after, coming from the left passageways. A horrible moan comes wafting out of the room, deep and painful and completely unexpected. Lumbering out of the darkness is the rotted remains of a Dwarf, somehow still with meat and skin clinging to its ancient frame. It continues to moan and growl as it enters the light and moves towards Jalaera.

This isn't a skeleton, so let's do some actual combat.

Skeletons Killed: 5
Clicks Heard: 10

The Map

http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/962/bellroom5.png


Initiative Order

22 Skeletons
23 Michiko - Delayed
23 Jalaera - Delayed
17 Demos
16 Lyrie
09 Kiernan
05 Susannah
09 Toland


Party Statistics

{table=head] Character|HP|Bullets
Demos|8/11|5
Jalaera|11/11|0
Kiernan|11/11|0
Lyrie|6/11|9
Michicko|8/8|10
Toland|10/12|8
Susannah|8/8|8
[/table]

[RaggedAngel]

Demos watches the lurching creature with hard eyes, leveling his pistol with a smooth, precise motion. "I apologize for what has been done to you, dwarf. Let us end the pain now, so that you may return to a well-deserved rest."

He then addresses the others, a slight tinge of fear in his voice, the first that you've heard. "This isn't a skeleton. My bullets are going to be a lot less effective. This thing isn't going to go down nearly as easily." He then closes his mouth, breathes out slowly, and fires at the zombie. There is a flash of light and a clap of thunder, and the smell of gunpowder fills the room. The bullet slams into the zombie, with terrible force, ripping its way out the other side in a small spray of gore; and the creature continues forward as if nothing had happened.

Attack: [roll0]
Damage: [roll1]

The damage is bludgeoning and piercing, so unless PF changed something it did nothing.

[Goldfly]

Michiko looks rather disgusted at the sight of the undead creature. "You know, the skeletons weren't so bad. They were clean, at least. This, however, is just terrible." She shakes her head, then fires a Jolt at the thing.
[roll0]
[roll1]

[Calenestel]

When the zombie appears Susannah isn't very surprised. It made sense for a portion of whatever repository of dwarven remains this placed had, had been turned into something slightly worse than simple skeletons. With a quick, and even more heartfelt than usual, prayer the masked priestess drops the sling, unshoulders the crossbow and loads it with unaccustomed, but not hesitating, motions. After what seems an eternity of struggling with the string she fits a bolt in place and raises the weapon to take bead on the undead.

I think that's all she can do. Move action to unshoulder the crossbow, and another to load it. But if Tius allows it (it's not strapped to her backpack or anything), here's an attack roll too.

[roll0]
[roll1]
Edit: Oh, NEVER mind. :smallyuk:

[mshady]

Toland:

Toland thinks to himself, "Now what is that?" and sorts through what education he has on the subject, which is not shabby, but he was hardly a Scholar either. At least he could see over the gnome, but he was still in the way...

[roll0]

Failing that, he relies on observation and his nose. It was a bunch of rotten meat and Demos' big iron gun had not put it down yet. At least it was a truer kind of undead, being some sort of reanimated flesh. Flesh he could deal with.

So with a rasp, he drew his sword and let his sling fall. With his other hand, he drew his dagger instead of his shield for the moment, intending to throw the dagger at the approaching meat sack.

"Kiernan, clear out of my way!" Toland insists, cursing himself for not setting that chain earlier. "Rest of you, try not to move! It is just one! We don't want to trigger more. Jalaera, ready your polearm against a charge if it comes for you. If anyone has any grenades, toss'em out!"

Toland will try to move to N12.

Question: Is it wearing armor?

[King Tius]

End of Round 1

23 Michiko - Delayed
Michiko lets loose with her signature move, blasting the zombie square in the chest and dealing damage, though the zombie seems unphased.

23 Jalaera - Delayed
Not wanting to wait for the fight to come to her, Jalaera steps forward to K9 and slashes at the zombie with the business end of her partisan. Though she doesn't trigger any sounds, she does deliver a nasty slash to the zombie, causing some of its putrid entrails to spill onto the floor.

17 Demos
Demos fires and connects solidly with the zombie but the bullet punches clean through without doing any appreciable damage.

16 Lyrie
Lyrie draws out her sling and lets a bullet fly, hitting the zombie but doing nothing.

09 Kiernan
Kiernan stays where he is, not wanting to trigger any skeletons to make the fight more complicated. He whistles at the mummy like he's calling a pig, trying to get its attention. The zombie doesn't seem to notice.

05 Susannah
The veiled priestess draws and loads her crossbow, ready to fire next round.

09 Toland
The paladin draws his blades and doseydoes with the gnome. Unfortunately his movements cause a bell to toll (and we all know what that means!).

Beginning of Round 2

22 Zombies and Skeletons
The zombie steps up next to Jalaera and attempts to slam her into the floor. Its swing is clumsy, however, and she easily parries the blow. A skeleton appears at K18.

Skeletons Killed: 5
Clicks Heard: 10

The Map

http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/2669/bellroom6.png


Initiative Order

22 Skeletons
23 Michiko - Delayed
23 Jalaera - Delayed
17 Demos
16 Lyrie
09 Kiernan
05 Susannah
09 Toland


Party Statistics

{table=head] Character|HP|Bullets
Demos|8/11|5
Jalaera|11/11|0
Kiernan|11/11|0
Lyrie|6/11|8
Michicko|8/8|10
Toland|10/12|8
Susannah|8/8|8
[/table]

[Goldfly]

Michiko stumbles backwards as Jalaera cuts open the zombie, her hand rising to her nose in disgust at the smell of long rotten entrails. She fires off another Jolt at the creature with her free hand, still blocking her nose with her right.
[roll0]
[roll1]

[RaggedAngel]

Demos turns toward the skeleton with a quick spin, leveling his pistol at the shambling pile of bones with a calm, cavalier stance. "I'm sick of using slings on you bastards. By lead and fire, I'm going to destroy every last one of you." He calls for thunder and flame, and his pistol answers the call, shattering the skeleton into a hundred dusty pieces. Demos holsters the smoking weapon, his eyes still scanning the shadows, and he moves to take up his sling or sword.

Attack, Up Close and Deadly: [roll0]
Damage: [roll1] + [roll2]

Move action to holster his pistol. He's going to have to get the damned sling back out, or his sword.

[Calenestel]

After finally getting a quarrel in place Sannah raises her crossbow against the zombie. She hesitates slightly when she notices the new skeleton clattering towards them, but Demos seeems to have things under control there, and she's still not willing to waste any positive energy on just two undead, even if one's slightly tougher than the other. So instead she fires at the shambling zombie. "DIE... again!"

So... I guess I'm keeping the crappy rolls from before. But if not then here's another attack roll:

[roll0]
[roll1]
That's... that's even worse! :smallmad:
Never mind. The RNG clearly hates me right now. I must have offended it greatly somewhere. :smallfrown:

[mshady]

Toland

"Jal! Watch out!" Toland cries out. He grimaces regarding what he is about to do, and than throws his dagger with a sidearm motion at the zombie, hoping to cut it rather than stab it.

...because Paladins are known for their dagger throwing skills, right?

With the dagger thrown, Toland reaches for his big shield and waits to see what happens next.

Dagger Throw if Jal still in Melee

[roll0]
[roll1]

Dagger Throw if Jal not in Melee

[roll2]
[roll3]

[King Tius]

End of Round 2

23 Michiko - Delayed
Once again the sorceress fires her bolt, connecting with the zombie.

23 Jalaera - Delayed
Jalaera takes a five foot step backwards to once again put herself in the right range to slash at the zombie. Another bell tolls as she whips her weapon's blade across the zombie's chest, bringing it down.

17 Demos
Sick of dealing with skeletons, Demos blasts the current one to smithereens. Hearing the bell toll, however, he knows another is on its way.

16 Lyrie
Lyrie keeps a bullet ready and waiting for the next skeleton to appear.

09 Kiernan
"Anyone else getting sick of this? We've got to stop those bells from ringing!"

05 Susannah
Susannah waits for the right time to shoot.

09 Toland
The Paladin bides his time.

Beginning of Round 3

22 Zombies and Skeletons
Another skeleton appears, this time at E18.

Wrap Up
Michiko fires again, her fingers now seemingly constantly alight with magical energy. She scores a light hit. Jalaera waits and Demos draws (and loads) his sling. Lyrie gets luck and brings the skeleton down with a precisely aimed sling bullet.

Skeletons Killed: 7
Zombies Killed: 1
Clicks Heard: 10

The Map

http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/6141/bellroom7.png


Initiative Order

22 Skeletons
23 Michiko - Delayed
23 Jalaera - Delayed
17 Demos
16 Lyrie
09 Kiernan
05 Susannah
09 Toland


Party Statistics

{table=head] Character|HP|Bullets
Demos|8/11|5
Jalaera|11/11|0
Kiernan|11/11|0
Lyrie|6/11|7
Michicko|8/8|10
Toland|10/12|8
Susannah|8/8|8
[/table]

[RaggedAngel]

Demos sighs, growing frustrated. He puts away his sling, takes out his pistol, and begins to reload both chambers with powder, ball, and wadding, his movements focused and restrained. "No one move. Not a step. We need to talk and think before we call down more undead; the skeletons are very easy to deal with one at a time, but if multiple zombies converge on us, or if we call out more than two or three skeletons we could be in serious trouble."

He nods to the bells, his hands still busy readying his weapon. "We know that they are the source of the magic. The tiles are also connected to them. However, not every tile causes a bell to ring; the clicks from the tiles are more numerous than the ringing of the bells, and it's the ringing that brings out the undead." He sighs, inspecting his weapon for additional wear or damage; you notice again how worn and beaten down it looks. "Any thoughts on how to appropriately deal with this?"

[mshady]

Toland:

"Nice shot, Demos" Toland says and waves at the man. He puts his dagger back in his sheath, glad he did not have to throw the weapon. The paladin sheathes his sword as well, and returns to the sling.

"At least we have the chain in case this gets worse" he remarks, not to anyone in particular.

"You know what would be a really nasty trick? If someone set up something to look like a puzzle and it was actually a trap?" Toland remarks and looks around.

"Two questions: Can anyone see ANY difference between a tile that causes a bell to ring versus ones that do not? There has to be some kind of pattern.

The other question is... Well, how does the magic trigger the bell? Is there some sort of conduit under the tiles that connect to the bell housing? Can someone who knows magic explain how this could possibly work? Susannah, do you have an idea? Dwarfs usually are more for the divine. Know any divine traps? Or Wards?

Otherwise, lets just shoot the frak out of that bell and see what happens. "

[Calenestel]

"Don't worry about the skeletons, Demos," Susannah says calmly. Well, calmly now that the battle has taken a pause. "I haven't even started doing my part. I was waiting to have three or more undead in range before I started channeling."
Turning more to the whole group the masked priestess continues: "I'm afraid I'm not much wiser about the trap or puzzle or whatever it is than the rest of you. The whole floor is magical, every single tile. But the enchantments are way beyond anything I've seen before. I wouldn't honestly know where to start, sorry. So just shut those bells up, preferably with a minimum of undead summoned. I don't know, wrap something around the clappers or something. And if you set of a bunch of skeletons I'll put them down hard." Her voice actually turned rather grim by the end, and with her face obscured that must be the most unsettling tone of her voice yet.

[mshady]

Toland

"Whole floor is magical, no pattern, undead with every misstep and so far, and we know no more now than we did we started" Toland says and looks around.

"So at what point do we just go up, tell the local authorities and just bury this place? It didn't bother anyone for a few ages, none of the skeletons have shovels, and fences make good neighbors. I'm all for being brave, but what are we accomplishing here?" he says and laughs.

"Seriously though, any ideas or do we just keep shooting the bell and see if it falls down? Think you can hit it Demos?"

[RaggedAngel]

Demos nods silently to the request, but he spends a moment or two closely inspecting the nearest bell. "I can hit them very easily, but I don't know about actually damaging them.

The one that I shot before shows no sign of where my bullet struck it, and I only have so many bullets; I have a strong suspicion that I would run out of ammunition long before I compromised the integrity of one of the bells. Silencing them may be a better option."

[Gorgon_Heap]

Flicking reeking gore from her blade, Jalaera watches the openings warily.

"And just how do we do that? And what are you missing? Is there a pattern judging from the distance from the bells?" She glances up toward the ceiling to see if there's anything corresponding to the floor up there.

"I hate to flee with these creatures still ... ambulatory ... but I'm beginning to think Toland may have a point about simply sealing the place off.

"And don't call me 'Jal.'"

[Goldfly]

"I don't think breaking the bells themselves would be all that useful. Taking down the inner mechanisms of the bell might be more helpful. Either way, I'm curious about what else is down here. If everyone else wants to leave, though, I'll follow. I don't think I'd be able to handle everything down here alone."

[King Tius]

Kiernan pipes up. "I saw some hefty magic coming off those knockers. Let's see if we can get a closer look at one." He turns and looks at the big gold door. "They built this place for a reason. Whatever is down here is probably important, why else would they go through all this trouble? I don't know about you, but I want to find out. Can we try and get our hands on one?"

[Calenestel]

When Toland suggest that they stop their investigation now and leave Susannah eyes him curiosly. Like anyone else she had grown up with stories of paladins and their stubborn refusal to abandon any quest until they'd seen it through and she was surprised that he would so go against what she expected. Then again, it was somewhat logical. They had, probably, solved the riddle and the paladin's suggestion seemed adequate. But she wasn't happy. At first she wasn't sure why, fearing it was simple curiosity.
But when Michiko admits to exactly that motive to wanting to continue the masked priestess realizes that that's not the case for herself. No, Toland is actually wrong. He's just too short sighted. Shaking her head she speaks up:
"With all due respect, ser Toland... But we must consider why this place was built in the first place. The stonework is old, I take it. And this must have been ridiculously expensive. What if it's guarding something? I think someone needs to find out so that it's not something that can have been woken up or disturbed like the skeletons and zombies here. If we're lucky it's just a well guarded crypt. If we're unlucky it's something that could escape more easily than mindless undead. If it hasn't already." If they were really lucky they'd find a huge treasure with no obvious owner, but that was too mercenary a thought to be voiced aloud. "I suggest that someone agile enough climb the fences and see if they can do anything to silence the bells and maybe we can continue on unhindered."
Blinking, Susannah stops to look to Kiernan, realizing that he had echoed her words (if not in as many words) almost exactly.

[Gorgon_Heap]

The elf casually listens to first Keirnan and then the strange priestess.


But we must consider why this place was built in the first place.

"Oh, must we? I think such anciant secrets rarely resolve themselves in such happy ways. What do you suppose we'll find at the end of this deadly road? A pot of enldess rainbows?

Let's be realistic. If this is a serious and direct threat to the people in town, we should end it. If it's only a danger if they unwittingly wander down here, we'll all be better served by removing the connection.

I say our forray here should definately be limited."

[Calenestel]

Turning towards the elf the priestess hesitates a bit but when she answers her voice is stern and unwavering: "Of course I don't expect to find a... "pot of endless rainbows". I am not a witless child."
Taking a deep breath she continues in a slightly softer tone. Slightly. "But the thing is that we do not know what's there. So someone needs to make sure that there are no immediate threats to the city above. And if not us, who?"

[RaggedAngel]

Demos snaps his fingers, the sound echoing loudly in the cavernous room. His eyes light up in the same moment, and he smiles, the most expression you've seen from him so far. "Of course. Of course. Gods I'm thick for not seeing it sooner. We've been suspecting people of foul play, and I've been driving myself crazy trying to spot the person that set these traps off in the first place, half suspecting them to be hiding in the shadows."

He points to the remains of the giant acid-spitting bugs, clearly relieved. "It was just those things. They dug into the cavern, fell onto the floor, and began walking around looking for an easy way our or food or something. They triggered a bunch of traps, and the undead began to flood out. The bugs, like any sensible creatures of instinct, fled from the undead; triggering more and more bells. The undead eventually caught up with them, killing the lot of them.

Then, as undead will do when unguided, they began to look for something to kill; and the only way out of here for them was that passageway. They got to the end, and the maid eventually went down into the cellar, making noise as she did. They heard her, realized that prey was above them, and dug up through the ground to get to her. They pop up in the house, and then we killed them. And that, friends, is what happened here."

[Gorgon_Heap]

"Hm." Jalaera looks around the room carefully. "I see that. Well done, Delos.

As I said; if we sever the connection between here and the town, all will be safe. We can get back to enjoying life rather than risking entombment in this foulness."

[Goldfly]

Michiko looks over at Demos, a hand rising to her chin in thought. "That would make sense. What I want to know, though, is what were the dwarves hiding? It must have been something fairly important to go to these lengths... It could be a tomb, or it could be something slightly more intriguing. "

[RaggedAngel]

Demos nods, clearly thoughtful about the situation. "My explanation certainly does not make any sense of this place, and it is certainly important; there is too much money and power in this single room for it to simply be the work of an individual, on a whim. This is a place of historical significance, though we do not know who's history, or how old it may be. Creations of magic have no expiration date, as far as I know."

[King Tius]

Kiernan stows his weapon and rolls up his sleeves. "Alright, enough talking, lets see if I can get in there." Moving past Toland and Sussanah, Kiernan takes a running jump and lands adjacent to the bars, triggering 1 click in the process. Though he has to squirm and curse, hes able to slip through the bars and enter the protective circle, triggering another click from the magic tiles within. Carefully, he ducks down and looks under the bell, studying with his magical sight.

"It's a powerful Necromantic aura, that's for sure. Here's hoping this doesn't kill me!" He grabs hold of the knockers and lifts it upwards, detaching it from the bell. "Well, look at that!" He holds the knocker aloft, turning it around for you all to see. The knocker looks to be a cylinder cut into quarters like a very, very tall birthday cake. It pulses with magical energy in Kiernan's hand. "What now?"

[Goldfly]

"Necromancy? Then... Is it possible that the bells were animating the dead now?" Michiko pauses, glancing around the room at the other bells. "I think we should disarm all of them, for safety's purpose. If Demos is right, then it should be safe down here once they're of no more use."

[Calenestel]

She holds her breath when Kiernan removes the knocker, which doesn't really show until the unharmed gnome waves the metal bar in the air triumphantly and she releases a loud sigh of relief. Apparently nothing horrible was waiting to happened when the bells were tampered with, when Kiernan had said that the aura was necromantic in origin, something she didn't see form her vantage point, she had feared that it'd be harmful to touch, by design or coincidence.
"Right," she says, relief also clear in her voice. "Let's disable the other bells and move on. As I said: I want to make sure no surprises are left before I leave."
And that was even if she had to scout the crypt out herself.

[mshady]

Toland

"Not for nicknames, ok" Toland says and chuckles to himself.

"So far, this has been interesting yes. My point is only that we came down to fix a problem, and if we can fix it by rolling a boulder and some dirt, isn't it fixed? Whatever is here hasn't bothered anyone for such a long time, no one from around here even knew it was here. If this is a dwarf place, these are likely just guardians, so why not respect their dead and leave it be? I don't want to have to explain to the local dwarf Thanes that we dismantled the protection for one of their ancient tombs, maybe a King's tomb, simply because it was there. Not that I am opposed to finding some unexpected windfall of gold, but... Unless we can get from here to that bell without a horde of undead guardians coming at us, what this place really is, is a moot point." Toland says and shrugs.

He listens to Demos' explanation and shrugs to himself.

"That could be an explanation too" he says and laughs, than looks around.

When Kiernan gets frustrated and takes a running leap at one of the sides and starts to protest his madness, but just prepares his sling instead.

"Now what, indeed? Who wants to steps on a tile now and see what we get?"

[RaggedAngel]

Demos looks to the other bells, thinking quickly about the clicks and chimes. "If we dismantle every bell we're going to trigger around a dozen more clicks, assuming that we move very carefully and touch as few tiles as possible. I don't know if the click to chime ratio is going to change as we dismantle bells, but we can only hope so.

And while this place may be a tomb, the defenses are turned on by the local fauna, and they can leave the area to attack innocent bystanders. We're going to turn off this thing if we can, because otherwise someone might get hurt. I just don't have any particular need to preserve the sanctity of a skeleton and zombie producing death trap."

[Gorgon_Heap]

"Oh, you really do worry too much. Though they obviously overmatch a paladin, once freed these creatures were unable to defeat two unarmed women and a dog.

Disable the bells and we'll destroy whatever comes along. And then off for a pitcher of mulled wine, ay?" She sniffs. "And a bath, I think."

[RaggedAngel]

Demos crosses his arms, a frown forming on his face. "I don't think such flippancy is warranted, especially considering the fact that one woman fled, and another simply bought herself more time by hiding behind a door that they were rapidly destroying. That said, I agree that disabling the bells is going to be our best bet."

[mshady]

Toland

"Oh, and how many did you kill up there Jalaera?" Toland snorts. Her remark annoyed him, but he realized everyone was tense too. Replying back to her was small, but how often a chance did he get to be outwardly snarky?

That he was put on the ground by such weak foes annoyed him far more than he had let on previously. It positively burned him up...

So Toland watches in silence as the gnome disables the bell and shrugs.

"Well, may as well try that" he says and chuckles. "It seems like there must be an easier way. Why build an entrance that is impassable from the entrance? Seems like there would be an easier way and we're missing something. Ah well, brute forcing it is more fun"

He turns and tips his head in Demos' direction and smiles.

"Nice shooting, by the way"

[Gorgon_Heap]

The elf stands at ease, watching the gnome go about his work. To Toland's strained remark, Jalaera merely turns her gaze his way. Her pale face is calm, passive, not unfriendly. She neither gave nor took any offense, and there are depths to what she doesn't say.

For the first time since this calamitous night began she is still and at peace, and the change is noticable to all present. It seems she could stand thus - impassive and ageless - for a year and hardly notice.

Those unfamiliar with elves see now the weight of many, many years in her blue eyes, and it stands in strange contrast to the excited and confrontational attitude she's exuded thus far.

You can all tell she's simply willing to wait quietly until needed, though why her demeanor has changed is a mystery.

[Goldfly]

Michiko looks from Toland to Jalaera, then shakes her head slightly.
"I'm going to go try my hand at disarming those bells."

[RaggedAngel]

Demos finishes reloading his pistol, swiveling on his current tiles to face as much of the room as possible. "Good luck. I'll cover you as best I can; I know we're running low on sling bullets. If another zombie appears I'm not going to be able to do much to it, however; that'll be up to you guys with slashing weapons."

[Calenestel]

"And I'm going to risk setting off a bell to keep close to you," Susannah adds with an almost apologetic tone to her voice, and a rather eloquent shrug. "I'll be right behind you, ready to help if we trigger more undead at a time than what's comfortable."
Glad that they had a working plan she loads another bullet in her sling and stands ready.

[Goldfly]

Michiko smiles widely as she looks back at Demos and Susannah, walking towards the bell on the opposite side of the room.
"Thanks! It's always great to have someone at your back!"

[King Tius]

Michiko and Susannah head towards the other nearside bell as Kiernan scampers across the way to get to the far side bell. With all of these movings two bells and three clicks are triggered but the skeletons are brought down before they can do any real damage. Kiernan is able to slither in between the bars and retrieve another knocker without much effort. Michiko's foxy heritage comes into play and she is able to squirm her way through the bars with a little help (in the form of pushing) from Susannah. With three knockers retrieved, Kiernan goes to grab the final one, triggering 4 clicks but no bells. As he juggles the three magical devices he places them in close proximity to one another. When two of them manage to line up correctly they clap together like magnets. Kiernan gives a whistle as the seam between the two dissolves and it becomes one piece of metal. He adds the third piece to the puzzle as he walks back to the group, triggering 1 more click.

"Now I'm no wizard, but I'm guessing I know what to do with these." He motions towards the large hole in the door. "Who wants to do the honors?"

[Calenestel]

Letting out a small whistle of her own as she studies the joined clappers in Kiernan's hands Susannah for a brief moment entertains the notion of being the one "doing the honours" as the gnome put it. Like the bard she had a pretty good idea about what this was, and what door it'd unlock and it had roused her curiosity. Still, in the end she shakes her head softly.
"Not me, friend. It'd be better if a warrior or someone with experience with traps went first. But I'll be right behind whoever volounteers, if there's more undead on the other side."

[King Tius]

Lyrie frowns and lets out an exacerbated sigh. "I guess I'm the trap girl. Give it here, then." She takes the remaining knocker piece and combines it with Kiernan's creating a solid cylinder. As she moves towards the large door she triggers another click (#20) which is once again accompanied by a large THUD from the opposite passageways as before. Again, a zombie appears! "UGH, not this again! At least we don't have to worry about the skeletons. Let's GET HIM!"

Michiko fires her Jolt, connecting squarely with the zombie. No longer fearing the skeletons, Jalaera springs into action and moves towards the zombie, slashing it across the face with her partisan. Demos and Lyrie swap weapons and move into position as Kiernan dashes forward, quickly slashing the zombie across the leg and bringing the moaning, ancient dwarf down without a fight.

Now without any interruptions, Lyrie moves towards the big door, triggering zero clicks. She pauses before inserting the newly-merged key, looking about curiously. She starts skipping around the room, looking down at the floor as she does so. "No clicks! They've stopped, too." Apparently satisfied that the room is now safe, she rams the knockers into the alcove of the door. A great churning of metal on metal comes rumbling out of the floor as if massive gears were turning out of sight. The door begins to spin, faster and faster, it's burnished surface causing brilliant patterns of light to dance about the room as it slowly lowers into the floor. What it reveals is a large stairway, ten feet wide, descending further into the depths of the earth. This stairway seems to be lined with everburning torches much like the room you are currently standing in.

Kiernan turns to look at the Paladin and shrugs. "After you?" Lyrie has already lost interest in the great door and is peaking into the dark passageways on the right side of the room.

Skeletons Killed: 10
Zombies Killed: 2
Clicks Heard: 20

XP: You gain 250 XP (each) from the monsters and 250 XP (each) for solving the puzzle!

Party Statistics

{table=head] Character|HP|Bullets
Demos|8/11|3
Jalaera|11/11|0
Kiernan|11/11|0
Lyrie|6/11|4
Michicko|8/8|10
Toland|10/12|7
Susannah|8/8|7
[/table]

[RaggedAngel]

Demos watches the proceedings with no small amount of excitement, but as the door begins to lower he slowly grows pale, his hand gripping his gun firmly. "And they delved too deep," he murmurs to himself, as if quoting something. "And they awoke a creature of shadow, and of fire."

He watches the entrance to the deeps with haunted eyes, his mood rapidly growing grim. "I wanted to know what was behind that door as much as the rest of you, but now I fear that we have done a horrible thing. This may not have been a tomb, or a vault.

It might have been a prison. And anything that would need a prison like this should not be allowed to walk free. And I don't see a way to close the door."

[Gorgon_Heap]

Jalaera remains silent, but allows the possibility of the truth of Demos' words to reflect on what she said earlier.

She looks ... resigned.

[Goldfly]

Michiko purses her lips at Demos' comment. "I seriously hope you're incorrect. I don't think we could fight something like that, and it would be our responsibility to defeat it."

[RaggedAngel]

Demos nods, not moving his eyes from the doorway. "I pray to all the uncaring gods that I'm wrong about this. But this doorway scares the unholy hell out of me. My father used to tell me something about fear. He said that three things frighten a wise man; the sea in storm, a moonless night, and the anger of a gentle man."

Demos turns, looking Toland dead in the eye. "This is worse than any of those things, and I've had to fight through each of them. This is a gate to horrors unknown, opened willingly and through no small measure of effort. We need rest, we need preparation, and we need better resources before we go down there.

But I have to go down there. We have to. For honor, for the people that live above, and for my own thrice-damned curiosity."

[mshady]

Demos watches the proceedings with no small amount of excitement, but as the door begins to lower he slowly grows pale, his hand gripping his gun firmly. "And they delved too deep," he murmurs to himself, as if quoting something. "And they awoke a creature of shadow, and of fire."

He watches the entrance to the deeps with haunted eyes, his mood rapidly growing grim. "I wanted to know what was behind that door as much as the rest of you, but now I fear that we have done a horrible thing. This may not have been a tomb, or a vault.

It might have been a prison. And anything that would need a prison like this should not be allowed to walk free. And I don't see a way to close the door."

Toland:

"So yeah, I think burying this is no longer an option huh?" the Paladin says dryly.

So is this a sword kind of place or a morningstar kind of place?

He walks over to where Demos stands and looks into the dark old vault and frowns. It was big, and there was no convenient ambient light either. This was all a very impressive piece of engineering, to be sure.

Still though, Toland was not as thunderstruck by it as Demos.

"Demos I know this is impressive, but when we opened a dwarven vault door deep underground, this should be what to expect. I don't think we have unleashed any unholy terror here though, if for no other reason than this was a poorly defended entrance. A clever trap, but the fact that a handful of people answering an alarm could breach the defense..." his voice trails off and shrugs.

"They're dwarfs. If they could build all this, they could have built much more lethal traps. Something to look forward to, eh?" the paladin smiles.

While he was not afraid they freed something terrible, the thought of the battery of traps left here... THAT scared the hell out of him.

"Before we go in there, lets grab some of those magic torches. We're going to need them. I'd like to look at the side passages here too, see what is in there. We should find a way to block that vault door from closing behind us too. It would fit with a dwarf sense of humor, don't you think?"

[King Tius]

Kiernan steps up to the door and peers down the illuminated stairs. "Yeah, I'm going to have to go with Demos on this one. I just don't feel like going down there without my spells. Granted, we gnomes are an underground bunch, but even this place is giving me the willies. I like badger holes, you know? They're warm and homey, like you belong there." He lets out a wistful sigh and not for the first time you all realize just how marvelous and bizarre gnomes really are.

Jalaera Only

Your keen Elven ears pick up a very distinct *click* latching sound coming from the passageways that Lyrie disappeared into.


The young fox lady reappears from the side passageway and skips back to the group. "Nothing interesting in there, just a room full of skeletons on shelves. So you want to rest up for the night? Fine by me."
Just to be sure, you wait in the room for nearly half an hour to be sure that nothing sinister comes crawling up the fancy staircase leading further into the earth. Retracing your steps back towards the surface, you come up into the basement of the Stormscale residence and scare the living hell out of the guards standing in the room. They have set up some makeshift chairs out of boxes to sit and watch the basement hole but apparently fell asleep at their post. When you appear they jump to their feet and reach for their weapons, only to relax once they realize it is you. The lead guard seems quite embarrassed at being caught with his pants down, so to speak, and implores you to "not tell the Captain about this."

Before parting ways for the night Susannah blasts the group with her healing auras, restoring everyone to full health. Kiernan gives everyone a tired wave as he makes his way towards his semi-permanent home at the inn. Lyrie turns to the group at the top of the stairs and puts her hands on her hips.

"You know, this was great and all, but I don't think I'm cut out for this. Skeletons are creepy and I hate it down there. Don't worry, though, I know a ....um....man....who I think can help you out. I'll see if I can find him and have him meet you here." She pauses and thinks for a second. "Don't be too quick to judge him, you never know what people are hiding." As she says this she turns into her true (Kitsune) form for the first time, growing ears and a tail as she struts up the stairs and out of sight.

OOC: Feel free to spend the rest of the evening as you like. Dungeon Delving will resume at noon (as suggested by Kiernan). If all you want to do is sleep and come back to the basement, just say so. Now is a great chance to resupply. Please mention any purchases you make and end with your character showing back up in the basement so you can meet your new teammate!

[mshady]

Toland

"So Demos, think we could rub two coppers together and get a couple of ales and discuss? Might be a good chance to figure out who each other are, seeming as we are working together, for this at any rate"

[Goldfly]

Michiko's eyes widen in surprise, and she stumbles backwards, when Lyrie transforms. By the All-Seeing Eye, there's more of us. The girl shakes her head, before looking over at the rest of the group. "I need to head home; my parent's will be worrying. I'll try to make it here fairly early tomorrow, though." She gives the rest a wide smile and wave, before turning and heading home. And they will want to hear about Lyrie...

[Calenestel]

Susannah had eyed the gunslinger curiously when he had voiced his fears. It had struck her as... maybe not uncharacteristic for the man, she hadn't known Demos that long really after all... but very out-of-the-blue. That he had seemed so frightened had been hard for her to respond to and at first she had simply just eyed him, the mask obscuring the look of almost comical disbelief at the gunslinger's concerns. But then ser Toland had spoken up, trying to soothe the nervous man and she had been quick to add her own voice of comfort, talking as much to Kiernan as the gunslinger. "Our paladin friend is right, Demos. And not only that, it's more within reason that if there is something down there, just simply opening the vault, or whatever we should call this, and entering isn't enough to release it. It's illogical to build a prison that you cannot enter to make sure that the inmate is still held securely, isn't it. If, however, the magics have faded, or if there has been more tunnels made by the beetles, then something may have been released with no fault of ours, and then it's our duty to find out."
Not that she was sure what they would be able to do about it, but great, wandering heroes were in short supply in the city at this time of the year.

When they had safely returend above, and promised the guards not to tell on them, Susannah had asked everyone to gather around and released wave upon wave of positive energy, making sure that not even a bruise remained on the courageous volounteers she had already started to feel a certain kinship to. That Lyrie turned out to be not quite human had made her eyebrows rise, but she kept her body language in check and with her face obscured she had seemed to take it entirely in stride. And when she was certain that her voice would not quaver (it usually pays off to keep an air of mystique in her line of work) she had simply told the other that she'd join them as soon as she'd regained her spells and left for her parent's house, much like Michiko. Of course, she didn't live there anymore, but it was a bit too far to walk to her own cabin outside of the city, her own family wouldn't turn her away for the rest of the night. And it would be good to see her little sister again.

[Gorgon_Heap]

The elf salutes the girl and bows her head in a small nod of respect as the draped woman walks off.

To the men she says, "Right. I'll join you for a drink. I do want to keep a clear head, though. I've not seen this much excitement in years."





OOC: I don't want to drag out IC chatting and hold things up, just staying in character. Do we want to skip the conversation or do it quickly or what? If the other PCs make it obvious they aren't comfortable with her there she'll have a drink and leave.

[Goldfly]

The next morning, Michiko walks towards the manor, a slight spring in her step, a bright smile playing upon her face, and with a basket of apples in the crook of her arm. She pauses upon seeing the Tengu, before waving in an attempt toi catch his attention. "Hi! You must be the man that Lyrie mentioned last night!"She gives a slight bow before continuing. "My name is Michiko, and I'm our little party's sorceress." She then pulls out an apple from the basket, throwing it in the air before catching it and holding it out to the Tengu.
"You want one? I haven't eaten yet, so I figured I'd bring some food along."

[mshady]

Toland

Arriving early, by at least an hour, the party finds Toland sitting with some guards out in front of the Stormscale house. Him and five others are sitting around a table, playing a game of cards. The Paladin is bare chested, his armor and weapons to the side and a stein of ale within easy reach. His pile of coppers is considerbly larger than the others around him, but the group is laughing.

"Hold on, I want to show you guys something. Watch this" he says with a reckless smile. He takes the dagger from his sheath and at first balances the point on his index finger, holding the knife pin straight. The group boos and guffaws, and one throws a bread roll at the Paladin, and it catches him in the face and ruins both his balance and concentration.

"Oh, saw that one huh? Well, have a look at this" he smirks. He takes a belt of beer, slams down the stein of ale and spreads his fingers on the table. Looking around with a smirk, he grabs the soldier next to him and shoves the man's palm under his own and forces both of their fingers to spread wide.

Taking the dagger in hand, his face returns to an expression of dangerous intensity. The man look at him with an expression of fear and astonishment in his face, when Toland jams the dagger down between both of their fingers. The man yells in fright and the group laughs. So does Toland.

"One gold piece I can do it. Any takers?" he asks the group. Two of the men raise their hand. "Two for, three against alrighty" he smirks. Noting it, he smiles at the soldier he is partnered with and stares back at their joined hands.

The dagger starts moving rapidly, stabbing left between a finger than right again twice, than left and right again before jumping to the other finger. His pace increases rapidly as the knife clunks into the table and the man hollars in terror. Toland looks at him and matches the hollar's intensity, roaring as he went through the knife trick routine. He crosses the hand to the left, the right, the left and the right again before stopping. Flipping the knife into the wooden table, which looked a lot like the one he had tried to body slam into the skeletons the day before, he throws both of their hands up into the air.

"No blood!" ye proclaims, than beats his broad chest with his free hand. "Pass'em over, gents! It's for the Temple, pay up"

The group laughed, even his partner albeit a bit nerveously. He covered a wet spot in his pants strategically with one hand as he did so. Three gold coins are pushed into the center, and Toland snatches them up. He smiles at his partner and slides one gold coin to the man.

"That'll be one for you, one for me, and one for the Temple" he announces, sliding both of his coins into his coin purse. The man gratefully accepts; a gold piece was a lot of money to a guard. A day's wage for some. The man smiles at Toland and shakes his head.

"Fella, you're loco! Crazy in the head!" he laughs. "You said you were a Paladin at that stuffy temple? This what you boys do for fun in the rectory?"

"Well, buggering each other got a little old" Toland laughs and shrugs helplessly.

"Hey, I want you to try that again with me this time" one of the other guards say, but Toland waves off the request but promises another time. The guards protest his decision, thumping their beer steins on the table and chanting "Loco! Loco! Loco!"

"Hey buddy, I think your friends are here" someone says, and Toland turns to find the group gathering. He overheards what Michiko says and laughs, than shakes his head.

"So we're a little party now? I like a good party" he says and winks to her. His eyes seem remarkably... appraising... for a moment and he stand. When he stands, he just keeps standing too, to an impressive height of 6'5 and sharply defined, strong muscles. Statues had been made of lesser men, and Toland knew it too.

"Well, if the gang's all here, lets get the party started" he pauses and smiles. "I've always wanted to be part of a gang," he says and laughs.

No doubt the laughter is received by several stone faced or astonished friends.

[Gorgon_Heap]

Sighing at the display in front of the mansion, the elf shakes her head and drags something from her side. She motions for Michiko to follow as she nears the door.

Walking past the guards to towering paladin, she foists her sack of sling bullets into his chest. "You're obviously overcompensating for something." She releases the bag into his hands and walks off. "Put on your armor."

Unhesitantly she walks into the house ...

and back toward the kitchen, examining everything carefully, making certain nothing awful is climbing up from the basement.

If such is the case, she opens the larder and makes herself breakfast.

[Goldfly]

Michiko grins up at the man towering over her. "Well, some of us are little!" She waves her hand over her head as if to prove her point, then chucks an apple in his direction, a playful look in her eye.

[mshady]

Toland

"Overcompensating?" he says and chuckles. "I'm reallllly not" he says and winks.

"You are not wrong, Miss. Some are little, and count me as glad you came back to the group. I'd hate to see you go."

Love to watch you leave though. She's little alright. A little cute. Heh.

Still though, with it time for work, Toland bids his new friends goodbye and starts to don his armor and cloak again. One of them helps him tighten the straps, squiring for the Paladin. Next, he dons his gray cloak and throws it over his shoulder. On the bottom edge is an old blood stain.

Checking his equipment one last time, he soon follows Jalaera into the mansion and than the larder. He starts looking around the cup boards, and seems surprisingly familar with the kitchen's layout as he quickly locates a loaf of pumpernickle bread, eggs and some other food.

"So, have a good night off and ready to face the Doom of Dwarves?" he says, pronouncing the last part in a mocking, dramatic voice. "So do you want to tell Demos or shall I tell him sometimes a door is just a door?"

[Gorgon_Heap]

"A door often is just a door," Jalaera says, passing Toland the butter. "But there's often nothing good to come of digging up the past."

She makes a face as if she'd bitten into something sour. "But now you've gone and done it, so I can't very well allow you lot to go on down there ... unchaperoned."