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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Milo Windby" data-source="post: 78686" data-attributes="member: 202">Temple of Elemental Evil - part 21 (session 10)The door out of the guardroom led to a long passage with two diagonal branches leading to the southeast and northeast.  After listening for movement down both corridors, the group decided to go southeast.  The passage led into a grand hall stretching west from where they entered.  Complete skeletons and broken bones were scattered throughout.  Milo made a quick count and came up with sixteen complete skeletons.  He had a sneaking suspicion that they weren't going to remain harmless if they set foot in the hall.  Weapons lay near the piles of bones, morningstars, swords, and the odd hammer.  Most were rusted beyond repair, but they could see that a few had lasted the years."Must have been some battle here." remarked Milo."Look at the bones, there's more than human remains here." Mazi said, "There's plenty of orc and gnoll bones there too.  I wonder when this happened, and if it was infighting or an outside attack?""Judgin' from tha stuff we seen already I'd say infightin'." Brigit ventured a guess. "It don't look like tha differnt factions here be too friendly wi' each other.""True, but who knows how long ago this happened?" Milo said, "Maybe we'll find out as we get further in.  What worries me more are those intact skeletons.  You just know they're gonna jump out at us as soon as we go in.""Ach, yer paranoid, Milo.  Let's go." Brigit replied.For a moment it did seem that Milo's fears were unfounded.  The group moved as one into the hallway, keeping their eyes on as much area as they could.  Milo's head was constantly craning as he scanned from skeleton to skeleton.Before long they came upon a "T" intersection, the grand hall continuing west as well as an equally large offshoot to the south.  As soon as Jeremiah's foot landed on the first tile of the intersection, Milo's fears were realized.  He groaned as the skeletons rattled to life before his eyes."Not again," was all Milo said as he drew out the club he brought along for this very purpose.The four stood back to back, making a small circle.  Brigit drew her warhammer while Jer and Mazi had only their swords to rely on for the time being.  The skeletons, all sixteen of them, formed a loose circle around the heroes and closed in.The skeletons attacked a few at a time.  Four of the undead attacked at once, three in the range of the pummeling head of Brigit's warhammer.  Brigit was well rewarded in her investment with the hammer.  All three crumbled easily from the powerful slams of the blunt weapon.  Jer expended much more energy dispatching the fourth skeleton.  His sword didn't inflict quite as much damage as Brigit's bludgeoning.  More of the undead moved in while the heroes waited.  One of the skeletons scored a lucky blow on Mazi, stabbing her in the arm with its rusty sword.  She held her hand to the wound and kicked the skeleton away from her.Brigit brought two more skeletons down with her hammer, demolishing the bones into a fine powder with her powerful swings.  Jeremiah fared better during that wave of skeletons.  He found if he could manage to sever the spinal cord the skeletons had less of a chance of staying cohesive.  His sword bit through two spines in quick succession, the skeletons flew apart from the attacks.Milo and Mazi waited for more to come into range.  As soon as one of the hapless skeletons drew near they both struck out with their weapons.  They managed to wound the undead creature but it somehow kept together, defying their efforts.  The clumsy attacks from the undead were not able to wound any of the heroes, their circle defense serving them well.Brigit finished off another skeleton with her hammer but was unable to reach any of the others.  Their dim intelligence seemed to recognize the threat of her blunt weapon.  The remaining skeletons focused their attack on Jeremiah instead, to their misfortune.  Jeremiah had mastered his technique in dispatching the undead.  First the skeleton his companions wounded was destroyed, next came the skeleton approaching from the right, followed shortly by the undead attacking from the left.  Jeremiah crowed.Four skeletons remained, all of them circling the group.  One jumped in to attack Milo, slicing a gash on his shoulder.  He retaliated with a double-handed swing with his club.  The skeleton was obliterated from the impact.  It was Milo's turn to crow, he hated undead, really.Brigit finished off the other three with some help from Mazi.  The skeleton she wounded with her Sylvanglade fell quickly to Brigit's hammer.  The other two followed shortly.  "Let that be a lesson to all you undead!" Milo said loudly."Ya did purty good there, Milo.  That was a nice swing O tha club." Brigit told him.Milo swelled at the complement before getting down to the work of searching the room.  With all of the weapons, some in good repair, Milo figured a magic detection cantrip was in order.  He uttered the incantation and concentrated on the hall before him.  Nothing seemed to react to his newly augmented vision.  Nothing but the considerable amount of enchanted gear he and his companions carried.  "There doesn't seem to be anything magical in this mess," Milo told his friends, "But Jeremiah and Mazi would probably do well to pick up a couple of those nice morningstars for any more skeleton encounters."Both agreed quickly and rummaged through the remains for serviceable weapons.  Brigit and Milo searched the rest of the room, finding that it had obviously been picked over before.  There didn't seem to be anything worth noting besides the weapons.They skipped the intersection and moved on west.  Near the end of the great hall another slanting passage exited to the northeast.  Figuring that the passage led back to the original corridor, they passed by that one as well.  One last corridor led from the end of the great hall to the south.  The corridor zigzagged south and west until it ended in another long passageway.  This hallway stretched from north to south, well beyond Milo's vision.The southern passage led through a four-way intersection, into yet another four way intersection, and ended in a "T".  "Let's check out the first intersection before these." Milo suggested."Aye, we'll see it all anyway." Brigit agreed.  They headed west at the first intersection, passing a door on the southern wall before seeing that the corridor ended in a door on the west.  They found that a large chain locked with a sturdy padlock secured the southern door.  Milo's trained eye could see the lock was well oiled and had been used often.  The door to the west was a normal portal, unlocked and untrapped."Decisions decisions, let's take the normal one first." Milo suggested.  "I bet the other door has captives.  We don't need them running around.""Agreed, I'm sure whatever is guarding them is inside this door." Mazi said, indicating the unsecured door."Well then, to tha door!" Brigit said as she raised her boot to charge in.One half-destroyed door later found the heroes face to face with six bony white-skinned creatures."Ghouls.  Of course." Milo said.Jeremiah and Brigit moved as one.  Their cooperation made short work of four of the ghouls.  Mazi and Milo fired their weapons at a single retreating ghoul in the rear.  Their missiles didn't stop the undead creature from making its way out of the door to the side of the wide room.It returned shortly with six more ghouls in tow, the room started to get cramped.Another shot from Milo's crossbow whistled through the air as the battle heightened.  His bolt stuck into the chest of one of the ghouls, not even slowing it down.  The ghoul snarled and lunged for Jeremiah, landing on his sword and ending its own existence.  Jer withdrew his sword and lopped off the head of another.That's when the other ghouls retreated, forming a rough semicircle around the group."What is that stench?" Milo gagged.A rotten stink filled the room, emanating from the door the ghouls had entered through.  Milo doubled over, retching.  The others fought off the foul effects of the approaching odor.  Two large, ghoul-like creatures emerged from the doorway.  The odor was almost visible, emanating in waves from the undead monstrosities."Gh-ast-s." Milo managed to choke the word out between heaves.Brigit drew her bow in a flash and she, Mazi and Jeremiah took down two more of the ghouls before the ghasts could join the battle.Three of the four remaining ghouls crouched for a moment before throwing themselves full speed at Brigit and Jeremiah.  Just before they could attack, the ghouls leaped into the air, bounding over the heroes.  Brigit and Jeremiah made short work of the first jumper, slicing it to pieces midair.  Milo and Jeremiah tried to do the same to the next, both able to plant missiles into the flying ghoul, but not killing it.  The last ghoul leapt unchallenged, none of the heroes had enough time to strike at it as well.Now surrounded by the ghasts and the ghouls, the party was assaulted by a fresh wave of the stench.  It was the others' turn to gag and retch.  Milo still hadn't recovered from the initial blast of stink.  One of the ghasts lumbered to the front, swiping at Jeremiah.  He took the blow full on, struggling to overcome the paralyzing effects of the ghast's claws.  He retaliated with Sharda wounding the great undead creature.Milo and Mazi readied their melee weapons, now uncomfortably close to the undead ghouls.  Jeremiah and Brigit struggled to quell their stomachs and fought back.  Jeremiah cut past the ghast's claws and chopped through its abdomen, toppling the large creature to the ground.  Brigit moved forward through the gap and attacked the other ghoul.  She slashed through the ghoul as if it weren't there.  Her blow wounded the remaining ghast, gouging a wound in its chest.The stench in the room seemed increase, washing over the heroes as they struggled with the remaining undead.  Two giant ghasts heaved their bodies into the room, filling the limited space with even more sickening fumes.  Jeremiah choked back his bile and leapt forward to help Brigit.  He destroyed the ghast that Brigit wounded and stabbed at one of the new larger ones.  Near the entrance to the room Milo and Mazi had their hands full.  The ghouls lunged at them repeatedly.  Both friends were able to wound the undead but Milo bore a bite to his right arm as well.  His axe skittered to the floor.Brigit dodged a blow from one of the ghasts and hammered her axe towards the wounded one.  The ghast loosed an unearthly, shrill scream at the wound but did not fall.  The ghast reared back to strike, leaving itself open for Jer's attack.  He jumped at the opportunity and felled the first of the two large undead creatures.Milo grabbed at his axe while Mazi fended off the ghouls.  Her Sylvanglade wounded one of the lunging undead.  Milo recovered in time to follow the attack with his own.  The ghoul fell with a gurgling sigh.  The two friends turned as one to face the last ghoul.Inside the room behind them Jeremiah advanced on the wounded ghast.  His sword flashed brightly in the torchlight of the room as his inexorable swing completed its arc.  The last ghast lay before him, truly dead.  Brigit remembered the leaping ghouls.  In one fluid movement she spun on her heel, dropped her axe, drew her bow and an arrow, and fired.  The arrow sped through the arrow, coming to a dead stop directly in-between the ghoul's eyes.  It was just enough of a wound to fell the last of the undead.</blockquote>

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