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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 1652066" data-attributes="member: 1210">Tragedy in the NightThe night of 5/4/368 O.L.G.Our heroes rest around a low fire.  The stars are brilliant; the air, though cold, is clean and fresh, and still enough that the smoke from their little campfire doesn’t blow in anyone’s face but rather manages to rise above our heroes’ heads before dispersing gradually into the sky.Snuggling down, the halflings (and the dogs) are just beginning to nod off.  Brother He is on watch and has taken to lighting brush on fire and dropping it down into the chasm, hoping to illuminate the bridge more clearly.  He has been attempting this without success for some time when there is a strange sound, like a windlass slowly being let out.“What was that?” whimpers Federico.  Mama gets up and pulls her mace.  “I’m not sure, but it makes me nervous,” she says primly.  “Best to be safe- we should keep a watch for a while.”Hmm, thinks Federico, maybe we should have discouraged He from sending flaming vegetation down below...Time passes.  The sounds of insects in the night and the crackling of the fire are all that our heroes can hear.  Finally they begin to relax again.  And then, without enough noise to hear, a small form dashes into the camp!“Gah!” cries Federico.It’s the skeleton of a dog or wolf- and before the party has a moment to respond, it’s on Ethel, Federico’s dog, with a fierceness that belies its size.  Ethel responds as any big, tough dog will: she tears savagely into the bone hound, and it cannot withstand her powerful bone-cracking jaws.  In an instant the living dog has slain the undead one.But there are more of them... more than a handful.  Skeletons swarm forward into the campsite.  It’s only a matter of moments before the party, half-sleeping, is overwhelmed...Mama cries, “Taste the light of Lenorash!”  She channels positive energy, turning the undead, and they flee into the night from her holy energies.Federico looks at her, awe on his face.  “Wow!”  She winks at him.***Later that night, the undead return. Complacently asleep until almost too late, the halflings are woken just in time by Brother He.  They start scrambling for their feet even as the bony enemy advances into their midst.  Federico scrambles aside, laying a mage armor on Brother He.  The monk smashes a fist through the skull of one of the skeletons, shattering its cranium; but the thing doesn’t even slow down.  It advances on him implacably.  The dog pack springs into action.  Brother He’s dog rips a skeleton’s leg off, felling it; another strikes it with a rusty spear.  The dogs bark and howl, a frenzy of noise and violence.  Mama grimaces.  If I turn them again, they’ll just return again, she realizes.  Glancing around, she scoops up a handful of rocks and begins praying to Lenorash.  They begin glowing softly in her hand.Then a fleshy, shambling corpse springs at her.  This one is not skeletal; it is the color of a buried body that has dug its way free but not yet had a bath.  Stringy hair exists on its head in tufts.  A long, black tongue falls out of its red mouth.  Its teeth are a jagged mess.Mama hurls a stone at it and hits it in the head.  There is a soft ‘whump’ and a spray of dirty gobbets of flesh from the monster’s head.  It shakes itself once, as if ensuring that it’s still standing, and then swings one of its filthy hands at Mama Flapjacks’ head.  She ducks to one side and it almost misses, but instead it catches her by the ear, tearing it free. Mama gives out a blood-chilling scream.  Something white, a small simulacrum of her, seems to flow from the wound into the monster.  Mama staggers, gasps, and falls.*“Mama!” screams Federico.  “NOOOOOO!!!”Brother He and the dogs are tearing skeletons apart, but the wight is unopposed.  It turns to the kobold, licking its lips.  Its wound has clearly healed somewhat.  Federico tumbles away, desperately bringing a mage armor into existence around himself.  The horrible monster pursues, and he drops back past the dog pack.  Ethel immediately springs to his defense, as does Brother He’s dog.Snarling, the wight strikes wildly for Ethel but misses.   Another blow strikes Brother He’s dog, who yelps and backs off, growling.  Moving as quickly as he can, Brother He is destroying skeleton after skeleton; and finally, he springs in to aid the fight against the wight.  “You killed Mama!” cries Federico, firing disrupt undeads from his fingers.  Zap!  Zap!  Again and again he unleashes his cantrip fury.  The monster finally begins to falter.  It hisses in rage as it ducks a blow from Brother He’s mighty pounding fist, and then Ethel leaps for its throat and drags it down to the ground.  In an instant the dogs are upon it in a terrible, rending mass.  In less than twenty seconds they’ve torn it completely apart- but they leave the pieces.  None of them, dog or wolf, will eat this flesh.“Mama!” wails Federico, weeping.***The halflings, exhausted, cry for an hour before they even have a snack.  “What are we going to do now?” wails Federico.“We should burn her body,” Brother He says stoically.  “Some undead will spawn through their victims.”  He cannot suppress a shudder at the thought of fighting Mama Flapjacks.They take her money and cooking implements, and Federico takes her rainshield.  (She was the only one other than Brother He to purchase one.)  Then they build a pyre and burn her corpse before it can rise to hunt them.  “We had best move our camp,” Brother He says gently, and they do- traipsing almost a half mile from the chasm.  Then they fall towards an exhausted slumber, with neither fire nor joy, and as the dawn starts to creep in they cry themselves to sleep. Next Time: New friends!  The Neversun Chasm!  And even more tragedy for our heroes!*This was a critical hit that dealt two negative levels to Mama.  She, alas, was 2nd level.</blockquote>

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