Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="el-remmen" data-source="post: 1026212" data-attributes="member: 11">Session #45Part Two: In which the Necropolis is discovered.“When you say countless,” Ratchis paused and looked at the young woodsman who had just hurried back on his belly to report what he had seen. “Do you mean as in, too many to count quickly, or…”Derek shook his head. “Countless.”Ratchis wiped his face with one of his huge ham-like hands.They were silent for a long moment.“Well?  Should we go back?” Derek finally asked, in a sharp whisper.“Uh, no,” Ratchis twisted a thick chunk of natty lock on his head.  “Let’s wait a while and see what the others do.”  He squeezed past Derek and crept up to the edge of the tunnel.  Derek waited a moment and then followed.  Ratchis let out a low breath when he saw the great chamber beyond.  He noticed that a group of zombies were wandering aimlessly on the steps on this side, and seemed to be meandering up towards the tunnels, without real purpose.  He pinned Derek back with a muscular arm, and pressed his own back to the tunnel side, squatting awkwardly.   It seemed that one or more zombies might enter the adjacent tunnel.  They moved back to decide what to do. Ratchis squeezed past Derek once again.-----------------------Jeremy squatted with his back to a tunnel wall as well, looking back and forth from the opening to Blodnoth, who was cursing under his breath about how cursed this place was.“Do you think the others will hang back as well?” Jeremy asked during a lull in the invective.“How in the hells should I know?” Blodnath spat.  “What? Do I look like I can read minds or see through stone?”“I mean, how will we know what anyone else does if they stay back, and if they do run out there they’ll get torn to shreds and then we’re gonna have to run out there and try to save them.”  Jeremy was exasperated; these infrequent bursts of wisdom gave him a migraine.“What do you mean, ‘we’?” Blodnath coughed.  “Look out kid! One of those things is coming in here!”Jeremy startled and bumped his head on the stone above. He turned awkwardly toward an approaching zombie.  It plodded along on it knees, falling occasionally to its hands and then kind of leap-frogging back up with awkward jerky movements. Blodnath leapt to his feet, and drew his short sword.  “Wanna switch places?” Jeremy asked the dwarf, seeing that the shorter warrior would have an easier time in the confined space.“Uh-uh,” Blodnath took a few steps back.Jeremy readied himself with a torch in hand, realizing that he had no room to wield his long sword, and that a short sword would not be so effective.  “Take this,” He heard Blodnath say, and instinctively, Jeremy held back his open palm.  Blodnath placed a mallet in the Neergaardian’s hand.  The small metal type used to hammer in pitons.  And then suddenly the zombie leapt at him, Jeremy threw himself to the right, and held up the mallet to fend off the blow. He nearly dropped the torch.  Frantically, he thrust the torch at the zombie ineffectively, but was happy to hear and feel the resounding crunch of the zombie’s nose being smashed in.In the adjacent tunnel, Derek turned suddenly, as he heard the shuffle of a zombie crawling into the tunnel.  It had barely made it up to its knees, when Derek cleaved its head open with awkward strikes of his ultra-sharp axe. (1) (2)Ratchis squeezed past, yet again and paused at the tunnel opening, listening for any more zombies. He heard the droning moan from the adjacent tunnel, but there were still more zombies milling around on the steps, at the base of the steps and scores more in the great lines going from place to place. Jeremy’s torch was going out, and the mallet was proving too short to do much good as a weapon.  It kept striking the zombie’s flailing arms to no effect.  Jeremy, however, got his nose-bloodied by a graze from the zombie-worker’s fist.“Keep your head down kid,” Blodnath coached Jeremy from behind.  “He’s coming in with the left.”“I can’t keep this up,” Jeremy swore and dropped the mallet.“Looking good kid, play to your strengths,” Blodnath continued with his dubious encouragement.  “Use your sword kid.”Jeremy sighed and taking advantage of the zombie’s slow reflexes edged further back into the tunnel and awkwardly drew his long sword from the sheath.“Looking good!  Keep it up!”Ratchis risked a peek in time to see another zombies climbing into the adjacent tunnel.“Watch my back,” he hissed to Derek, and then climbed out of the niche and swung into the next one in time to Jeremy shove his long sword into the first zombie’s chest and yank hard to the floor, sending a torrent of black liquid that smelled of rotting licorice back out the end of the tunnel.   It oozed over Ratchis’ hand.“How ya doin’ kid?” Blodnath asked.“I need some blasted room to work!” Jeremy said angrily, and folding his arms before his face threw himself into the oncoming zombie, hoping to push it back out of the tunnel.  However, he did not count on Ratchis blocking the way.  He noticed the half-orc brute at the last moment, and jerked back.  The zombie swung a fist at him, but he ducked.Not noticing the half-orc, Jeremy cursed his inability to knock the thing back.He thrust his sword again, and cut into the thing’s hip.  Its head then jerk backward and it spit up black bile and bits of never digested food now crawling with mealworms.  It collapsed, and Ratchis pulled his own sword from it.“Ya!” Jeremy cried out. “Yer frightening the life out of me.”Ratchis snorted.Derek swung around hurriedly, noting that Beorth was sticking his head out of the fourth tunnel and taking in the horrid scene of the zombie processions, and crammed in behind Ratchis.“Beorth and Belear have made it,” he said.“No sign of Kazrack?” Ratchis asked.“No Kazrack.  No Martin.  Unless they are staying back, which is what we should have probably done.”It was Jeremy’s turn to grunt.Ratchis squeezed back past Derek and found Beorth squatted down out on the top step, still surveying the huge chamber.“There is reason behind these things’ movements,” Beorth said in a funerary whisper. “Anubis’ will is being thwarted here, and I will not stand for it to be in my sight.”Ratchis opened his mouth to speak, but Beorth cut him off.“However, I understand the wisdom of retreating from here and making a plan,” he bowed his head.  “Impatience never gained a man profit in anything.”“Didya see all the zombies, Beorth?” Jeremy whispered harshly, crawling up behind him.  Derek was sitting in the tunnel entrance, from his vantage point he could see the blue-black bald heads of zombies marching around, and spotted that more were heading for the steps.  His keen hunter’s eye noted movement to his left.  Another of the walking dead came around the corner up on this level, and was stumbling towards Ratchis with outstretched hands.“We have company!” Derek said, pulling his feet into the tunnel and holding out a hand to Jeremy who instincts told him that this was a fight that would turn ugly quickly.“We should return the way we came,” Beorth said, agreeing with Jeremy’s idea of retreat.  “I will hold them off.”Ratchis stood and turned, with a curled lip of disgust and cleanly cleaved the blade of his longsword into the top of the zombie’s head; one of its eyes burst, but it did not fall.There was a roar as a squat form came charging out of the third tunnel.  Kazrack whipped his flail over his head and smashed the thing in the back of the head, sending it careening down the steps of the ziggurat, coming apart as the negative energy that maintained it dissipated.  From below dozens more zombies turned their bodies and looked up, and began the pain climb up the ziggurat stairs to beat the life from the Fearless Manticore Killers.Martin appeared at the edge of the third tunnel with a torch in one hand and flask of oil in the other.“Let’s all fall back!” Ratchis ordered.Beorth turned the approaching mass of zombies and closed his eyes willing the divine energies of his god to pass through him.  The chamber’s dim light was added to by the pure white light of the Shawl of Estes, which shone as bright as day as the paladin cried aloud. “Anubis!  I call on you to fill these soulless forms with fear and drive them away so that I, your humble servant, and my companion might escape unscathed to plan how destroy this wanton profanity!”The zombies that were closest to converging on the tunnels held up their arms and moaned loudly; turning away from the ghost-hunter, but the ranks behind them did not pause and passed them by.  Jeremy leapt back out of the tunnel and waited for the approaching zombie line.“I said, we need to fall back,” Ratchis ordered again, but he himself did not move back, taking a step forward to take a early swing at an approaching zombie.  The sword’s tip whiffed through the air.Jeremy moved to the right, and swung at a zombie, but miss it also, as it came within his reach and slammed him in the face with a bony fist. Ratchis and Beorth both cried out as they, too, were dealt heavy blows by the mobbing zombies.   Kazrack slammed the one on Beorth and it tumbled down the stairs as well.  The dwarf then leapt back into the tunnel, helped up by Martin, who was eager to get going as he feared crawling through the tunnels chased by zombies.“If we all hurry back we can be waiting for them in the other chamber,” the Watch-Mage strategized with a frightened voice.  “We will have the advantage there.”“Martin is correct,” Kazrack concurred.  “Back there we need only face a few at a time.”One hard blow was all Jeremy’s zombie needed to fall to the ground and stop moving.  He stepped back towards his tunnel, as Derek moved out and back to the first one.Beorth called to Anubis again, and again the closest zombies turned away.  Ratchis destroyed one last one as it passed him, and then the remaining members of the party leapt back into their tunnels and began to hurry back.Behind them the zombies did not stop coming.----------------------------Notes(1) DM’s Note: The close confines of the tunnel gave PCs a –4 circumstance penalty from using any medium or larger slashing or blunt weapon, and to a large weapon of any kind.(2) Derek’s fine axe was taken from one of the half-fiend gnome brothers of Mozek Steamwind, Mokad. (See Session #39)</blockquote>

Verification