Sometime after the mid-point of the night things went very wrong. It began with the bursting of 9 two foot tall clay canopic jars as the reduction spell wore off and the undead within them returned to full size. The zombie jars had been placed ahead of time in various places within the stable and now the deadly contents moved to attack their sleeping prey.
Seamus hopped over the half height wall of the stall and into the stall where Pedro the cleric was snoring away. Rowenna was trying to figure out what the disturbance was and stood at the gate of the stall the women were resting in, straining her eyes to try and see something in the dark. Fred and Thorgrim meanwhile had an attacker to deal with and could now determine that it appeared to be an orc as it punched Thorgrim for a little bit of damage.
The horses and donkeys had now become fully panicked and their noise along with the scream of a man at arms were enough to awaken everyone.
Tok found himself hoisted off his feet by an unseen attacker that had hold of his tunic, his only certain clue that this was not someone friendly was the thick smell of death overwhelming even the heavy odors of the stable.
Those that had awakened to the sound of the jars breaking had time to grab for weapons to defend themselves and Fred and Thorgrim managed to strike at their attacker doing some harm, but not taking it off its feet. Rowenna decided to risk a spell and summoned light, the flickering of the manna building in her open palm gave her just enough clarity to identify what had to be Tok being lifted from the ground and she sent the light spell flying with him as a target, illuminating his tunic.
The now glowing tunic allowed Tok to clearly see. He had last seen his attacker when he rolled his body down a hill after looting his possessions, but here Samson stood, a rotting corpse and biting Tok for gruesome damage.
The horses and donkeys had bolted from their stalls, running about adding to the chaos as what were identifiable as zombies pressed the attack. The one attacking Thorgrim landed a vicious blow dropping the dwarf unconscious to the floor. Rowenna was struck a glancing blow by another that now menaced her from outside the stall gate.
As the battle continued Pedro attempted to turn undead, but his own uncertainty betrayed his effort and he failed. Tok managed to wriggle free of his tunic and scamper away from his old companion now turned undead horror. Valen and Aiden defended themselves from a zombie that had entered the stall with them.
The battle raged all around in the barn with people, animals and the undead moving around defending and attacking. A magic missile spell, kicks from horses, strikes to and from zombies, and flowing blood were the order of the moment. Nearby a horse tumbled screaming to its death as a zombie struck it down.
Aiden suffered a greivous injury and fell lifeless to the floor. Finally on his third attempt to turn undead, as a group that had murdered the men at arms gathered around him, Pedro managed to call forth his god's power and channel it with faith to turn 3 of them. With the destruction of a number of zombies and now the succdessful turn attempt, the party managed to gain the upper hand despite having people down.
It was now just a matter of finishing off the remaining few zombies. Once that was accomplished, the beaten and bloodied companions were startled as the barn doors were thrown open and a group of armed and armored persons with bullseye lanterns looked in to see what the heck was going on in the stable.
They explained what had happened and searched the barn for evidence of any hidden assailants then burned the bodies of the orc zombies along with zombie Samson in the street outside the inn. The bodies of the men at arms were left to the care of their employer. The party decided to take Aiden back to Restenford at Valen's insistance for burial.
The party rested and then departed for Restenford. No encounters on the trip. They lodged at the houses of Torgrim and Valen. They buried Aiden in the Abbey of Phaulkon graveyard. They also managed to swap some spells with a local wizard. After another 3 days of reast and healing they bought supplies and set out to the north to explore, getting back to their original intended goal.
As evening approached the party was on the road inside the Dweomer forest and was looking for a place to camp. They had noticed that it seemed as if numbers of small animals were watching them, even approaching closely in very uncharacteristic ways. While somewhat unnerving, they decided it seemed safe enough to camp. As they sat eating rations warmed over a fire and Valen prepared for the ritual of Find Familiar, Tok thought a nearby rabbit asked him for a carrot.
Later during Thorgrim's watch he was soaking a hard biscuit in hot water and heard a voice ask "are you going to eat that?" and he kicked Fred (waking him) and said "if you really want something to eat, get up and I will give you a biscuit. Stop asking stupid questions". Fred of course was clueless about having said anything about food and rolled over to go back to sleep.
In the morning as they prepared to break camp, it was noticed that Valen had a new blue jay companion perched on his backpack. It was noticably larger than a typical bird of that type. The they heard a female voice offer greetings. At first they thought the bird had spoken and then quickly realised they had a visitor.
Myla introduced herself as a prestess at a temple located in the center of the forest and invited the group to come and take a chance at great fortune. She was dressed in buckskins and appeared to be unarmed. The party found this entire situation to be very surreal, but after a 5 to 4 vote in favor of accepting the invitation and assurances that their wagon would be safe left where it was off they went.
The next session is scheduled for November 19th. Hopefully all goes well and we can get going with a steady stream of sessions.
1 comment:
Hey, glad to see the campaign up and running again, Sounds like a good session!
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