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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LordVyreth" data-source="post: 1458853" data-attributes="member: 9626">Battles in the NightThe two undead horrors shambled into camp.  One, that living shadow, quickly closed with Quercus, while the other undead, which reeked with the stench of death, charged into camp with surprising speed.  Quercus held up his symbol of Bha-Ael, and shouted, “Goddess of creation, make these unnatural abominations cower at your might!”  However, while his faith was strong, he lacked understanding in the true power of his goddess, and the undead laugh at him scornfully.  The shadow then plunged its hand deep into Quercus’ chest, bypassing his armor like it wasn’t even there.  Though the touch was painful, it chilled Quercus to his very bones, making his muscles sluggish and tired.  Meanwhile, the other five adventurers converged on the ghast, and between Rudyard’s blades, Raz’ arrows, and Tal and Tsine’s magic, the creature was brought down quickly.  However, the shadow proved more resilient; Flix moved in to help Quercus deal with it, but his weapon passed through the creature’s body like it was nothing but air.  Quercus tried his weapon as well, but had the same result, and was rewarded for his bravery with another debilitating touch.  As he struggled to recover, the dark creature’s body was buffeted by energy blasts from Tal and Tsine, and Rudyard closed in, using a magical sword that was found among the treasures in the Temple of Bas.  It hit the creature true, and its body unraveled into strands of darkness, which quickly faded into the night.  But the creature’s damage was done, and they had no way to heal Quercus’ lost strength, nor could they afford to wait for it to heal naturally.  Btu Quercus barely seemed to notice, and as soon as the undead were destroyed, he was searching the forest, looking for some signs of the singer.  All he could find was a small set of humanoid footprints, which apparently appeared and disappeared without further tracks.  “You know, Quercus, if you want to go back to Methosilang and just meet us in Necropolis later, we’d understa…” Tal began, but Quercus merely held up a hand to silence him.  “No, you’ll need me to perform the ritual of raising if they can’t finish the job at the Shrine.  And I don’t want to leave until I solved this little mystery, either.”  With that resolved, the party finished resting for the night, and continued on their journey.    However, the next night wasn’t any more peaceful.  Near the end of their day’s journey, while the party was traveling further down the path to the shine, they suddenly noticed a small team of skeletons coming up the road.  There were two normal skeletons, and a third that wielded a long sword, and was riding an equally skeletal horse.  Again, Quercus raised his voice high, exhorting his goddess, and this time, he was rewarded as the two skeletons on foot turned to flee.  Meanwhile, Rudyard moved up to engage the mounted skeleton, while Tsine, Tal, and Raz stayed behind to lend magical and missile support.  Flix dove into the undergrowth, with the intent of sneaking up behind the undead to help surround the enemies, only to suddenly stumble upon another undead, which appeared to be the remains of a six-legged cat of some sort.  The cat immediately pounced on Flix, taking a chunk out of his leg with a bite, but fortunately, it looked like it could have been worse.  The creature shifted some strange bones in its shoulders, as if trying to slap him with a long-rotted natural weapon, but the effect was useless.  Meanwhile, Rudyard and the others concentrated their fire on the skeletal warrior, easily finishing it, but the horse then focused all of its attacks on him, and despite being nothing but a walking pile of bones, the horse was still able to attack effectively with both hooves and a bite.  Both hooves struck true, knocking Rudyard to the ground.  Quercus and Tal prepared to help their fallen friend, only to hear Flix’s screams, and instead charged into the bushes to help him.  Quercus got a strong hit with his great sword, but the effect merely chipped at the creature’s hard bones, and Tal’s magic had little use as well.  Flix also got an effective but minor shot in, before again being ravaged by the creature’s bite.  Things were going slightly better on the road, as Tsine hurled an arrow of pure acid at the creature, dissolving much of its shoulder.  Raz’s arrow bounced off harmlessly, but Rudyard was able to flip himself onto his feet, and with one strong blow, finish bisected the horse’s shoulder.  The remaining bones collapsed into an unmoving pile, and the heroes were ready to help out their friends in the bushes, when a shot rang out behind them!Everyone turned, and saw Tsine, who now had a gaping whole in his chest.  They looked around desperately for their new enemy, and saw a dark figure in the sky above them.  Quercus knew he was the only one who could easily attack this new threat, and took off, leaving the undead beast to uselessly bite at him.  When he climbed above the lowest branches, he saw an orc woman, riding a hippogriff and wielding a strange weapon.  It looked like a crossbow, but had a tube where the bow should be, and it was currently leaking smoke.  Tal and Flix resumed fighting the remaining undead creature, and Rudyard, not wanting to switch weapons, joined them and gave the creature a telling blow with is magical blade.  Meanwhile, though he could barely speak above a whisper because of the pane, Tsine wanted revenge.  He hissed a few arcane words, and launched a few orbs of pure magic at the rider.  Raz fired at the creature as well, but hit the mount instead.  The woman flew higher, while trying to reload her strange weapon, but Quercus followed, and cut deep into shoulder.  She cried out with pain, but in a feat of strength, managed to keep her grip on both her weapon and the saddle.  Meanwhile, Flix and Rudyard surrounded the undead creature, and finally managed to cut into the creature’s spine so often that it just disintegrated, causing the creature to collapse in a heap.  Another one of Raz’s arrows pierced the creature, and then Tal released his own magical orb, sending it streaking towards the orc woman.  Tsine fired one more volley of his own magic, which struck both mount and rider.  The mount finally couldn’t remain conscious anymore, and crashed into the ground.  The rider, already heavily wounded, was sent flying when her mount plummeted, and landed hard on her back.  She did not get up again.  Quercus, who was best able to track her descent, flew down to investigate.  He picked up her strange weapon, and was taking a few moments to try and figure out how it worked when it exploded in his face!  The shrapnel also cut deep into the orc woman, emptying her of what little blood she had left.  While her weapon was destroyed, the party was able to salvage her equipment, along with the few coins and minor items the humanoid skeleton had among its tattered scraps of clothing.  Quercus used his powers and wand to heal the party’s wounds, and then continued on their journey.  All of them were mostly silent after the fight they just survived.  Only Flix broke the silence until they made camp.  “So, that was the kind of weapon Lerissa was talking about,” he observed.OOC Notes:  This was the first time I used templated monsters to fight the party.  This was still back in 3.0, where the skeleton as a template concept was still not core, but was introduced on the Wizard’s web site.  This was also the first time I introduced orc firearms into the game.  They were only used rarely, but I did have to change the system at least once after this point, eventually creating a system that combined a few other types that I found online.  I’ll post the relevant details of the new system if anyone’s interested.</blockquote>

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