Adjo's Journals (19 of N)
Dec. 24th, 2008 10:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHi,
When I finally get hauled up for a court-martial, I wonder if they’ll accept “hapless pawn of meddlesome demigods” as a defense?
You’ll recall we were on an important (and superior officer ordered) mission to rescue a trapped legion from a Dwarven fortress and how we were just about to face down a bunch of howling undead.
Yeah not so much.
Everything went black, there were a bunch of doors closing and opening and the next thing I know, Hendel, Alanna, Kestrel and I were standing in the common room of some tavern. A common room with three bodies slumped about.
Kestrel and I looked at each other and headed to the bar for a drink. Alanna attempted to heal one of the bodies. It didn’t work, but she did find out that the reason the half-elves (they were all half-elves) were dead was because a humanoid-type being bit out their throats. She also discovered they hadn’t been dead long.
As Kestrel and I looked for a good vintage, we noted that all the labels were in Common and all of them referenced Commonwealth states as their points of origin. So between that and the howling winter outside, it’s a good bet that we were still somewhere within the Commonwealth.
Alanna got very anxious about moving the bodies. I suggested we just cremate them in one of the ovens in the kitchen (cremation – clean, efficient, and better for the environment!), but this only agitated her more so we stacked them to one side of the common room.
There were no windows in this place, but the kitchen looked shut down so we assumed that it’s late at night. We checked the four ground-floor doors and found them all barred but one. We took a quick peek out and saw we’re in some sort of holding and there’s a raging blizzard. So we closed the door and locked it.
That’s the ground floor. Time to check the upstairs. We go up to find a long hallway with small rooms set off to both sides and a larger room at the far end of the hall. Kestrel starts opening doors.
We found the zombie on the second one. Kestrel and Hendel start working it over when a couple more burst through doors further down the hall and come barreling down towards us – bunching up nicely for my scorching burst.
Over the heads of the zombies comes a blast of necrotic energy that suggested a controller was in the area. Another set of zombies burst through the wall in the stairwell to try and flank us. Alanna drove them back with her righteous might and then created a consecrated space to provide healing and protection.
I however, was tired of taking hits from the necrotic blast, so I dropped back and ducked into a storeroom. I could see the zombies Alanna blasted at the bottom of the stairs, so I set them on fire and closed the door. They were still discomfited by Alanna’s attack so I opened the door, blasted them with fire and closed the door again. This time they charged up and punched me through the door. Ow.
I used my thunderwave to push them back down the stairs and as I step out into the hall, I can see some armored idiot up the hallway waving a skull-tipped rod around. Yup. Acolyte of Orcus. How fortuitous that we’d just been warned about them. Alanna seemed eager to have some sort of conversation with the man and we could hear pleas for help just outside the door. So I blasted the remaining zombies in front of me and ran downstairs to open the door.
A flood of terrified civilians came stampeding through the door. Most of them clearly roused from their beds in the middle of the night and a ring of zombies outside were pursuing them in. A priest of Bahaumut and a guy with a spear and his dog were barely holding them back. I positioned myself as best I could to lend assistance.
From Alanna’s colorful language upstairs, I surmised that they’d quite effectively dealt with the cultist and the rest came barreling downstairs. There was a toddler who’d been dumped into the room and when he saw Alanna, he set up a frightful howl. So that proved that Alanna was good with kids and that we were probably in Bastion or some other drow-hating place. There were not a few odd looks when she charged out into the snow, but when she started hacking down zombies, she was an ally of convenience and no one cared much.
The press at the door gave me no chance to get a clear shot so I moved around to get a better view. This worked, but the kid who’d been so upset by Alanna quickly grappled my leg. Not entirely my idiom, but I blasted a few zombies. The fight was still rough, but our superior intellect was beginning to tell against the zombies and it was only a matter of time before everything was brought to a conclusion.
At this point, another acolyte of Orcus teleported into the room. Remember those three bodies we found and how Alanna had to stack them in a corner? Yeah, the acolyte raised them up as zombies and now it’s me against the cleric and his three buddies with over a dozen people to protect.
With a sigh, I shook the kid off my leg and charged towards the danger. I set up a zone of cold that caught the cleric and his minions, but they were fairly tough. I then blasted the zombies with a force orb. It was a tough tactical decision, but stripping away the zombies seemed like the best way to save lives.
The zombies were a mess, but they rushed forward to menace the people and me. Luckily, Alanna bounced back inside and gave me a pleasant boost of energy. She also blasted the zombie menacing me, while the cleric of Bahaumut blasted the one threatening her. I stepped up and set the Orcus worshipper and the final zombie on fire and thunderwaved them around a bit. The zombie kept charging into me, but finally my baleful fires burned him to a crisp and Alanna and the other cleric finished off the acolyte.
In the immediate aftermath, there was a fair amount of commotion from the kitchen. We go in to find the guy with the spear facing down Hendel and a large gnoll. Apparently the gnoll had rendered assistance and Hendel wasn’t about to let Spearboy McDogLover skewer him. The cleric got his people calmed down and then we played twenty questions.
The cleric’s name was Brensis. His pal with the spear was named Miles. The gnoll was called Barg. We were in the village of Redholt which was somewhere in Bastion. The attack came in the middle of the night and Brensis was gathering up survivors and leading them here. We never did ask why Barg was here, but I bet the answer would’ve only agitated everyone needlessly.
I went up onto the roof and created some signal lights that got a few answers. We determined that there were other small knots of survivors. Barg mentioned that he saw a small group of kids fleeing into a house. The immediate concern was to go rescue them, but they were situated on the other side of town. If they kept quiet and dark they might be ok. The zombies were drawn to large quantities of living flesh and we probably had the biggest concentration right here. Further, with the signal lights we’d probably drawn the attention of any other acolytes. So there was every reason to believe we’d be the targets and not the kids. We bickered about it for a bit until Barg said he’d go check it out. I’m sure that’s exactly what terrified children from a xenophobic culture really want to have break into their safe house in the middle of hell night and there’s a non-zero chance that Barg will just eat them, but off he went.
It was at about this time that the Dauntless decided to let us know he could still reach us. He also announced that Captain Vars had kept a communicator and that Dauntless could act as a go-between. We were about 12 hours away from Dauntless, and the blizzard wouldn’t let up for about that long anyway, so there was little hope of immediate rescue. Still, we had Kestrel relay the relevant details to Duantless to send to Captain Vars, who would tell Lady Bastion who could then inform…we got the word out. We were still on our own, but people knew what was happening.
We also learned from the Captain’s wizards that the acolytes probably had some sort of magical focus to power all the zombie action. Brensis recalled that there was supposed to be some onyx sarcophagus, touched by Orcus himself, buried out in the battlefield a few miles from Redholt. If the cultists got ahold of that and brought it in to town, that could be the source of our problems. Redholt is a river town and one of the citizens remembered that a group of Halflings from the Treetop clan had arrived late yesterday evening. Apparently this clan are notorious smugglers and could easily have brought the sarcophagus into town.
But we know where their cargo was unloaded and now we’re gearing up to go find the sarcophagus and take it out.
Mmmm...Zombie-riffic! Also, I want to make up 4E stats for the special zombies from Left 4 Dead.
later
Tom
When I finally get hauled up for a court-martial, I wonder if they’ll accept “hapless pawn of meddlesome demigods” as a defense?
You’ll recall we were on an important (and superior officer ordered) mission to rescue a trapped legion from a Dwarven fortress and how we were just about to face down a bunch of howling undead.
Yeah not so much.
Everything went black, there were a bunch of doors closing and opening and the next thing I know, Hendel, Alanna, Kestrel and I were standing in the common room of some tavern. A common room with three bodies slumped about.
Kestrel and I looked at each other and headed to the bar for a drink. Alanna attempted to heal one of the bodies. It didn’t work, but she did find out that the reason the half-elves (they were all half-elves) were dead was because a humanoid-type being bit out their throats. She also discovered they hadn’t been dead long.
As Kestrel and I looked for a good vintage, we noted that all the labels were in Common and all of them referenced Commonwealth states as their points of origin. So between that and the howling winter outside, it’s a good bet that we were still somewhere within the Commonwealth.
Alanna got very anxious about moving the bodies. I suggested we just cremate them in one of the ovens in the kitchen (cremation – clean, efficient, and better for the environment!), but this only agitated her more so we stacked them to one side of the common room.
There were no windows in this place, but the kitchen looked shut down so we assumed that it’s late at night. We checked the four ground-floor doors and found them all barred but one. We took a quick peek out and saw we’re in some sort of holding and there’s a raging blizzard. So we closed the door and locked it.
That’s the ground floor. Time to check the upstairs. We go up to find a long hallway with small rooms set off to both sides and a larger room at the far end of the hall. Kestrel starts opening doors.
We found the zombie on the second one. Kestrel and Hendel start working it over when a couple more burst through doors further down the hall and come barreling down towards us – bunching up nicely for my scorching burst.
Over the heads of the zombies comes a blast of necrotic energy that suggested a controller was in the area. Another set of zombies burst through the wall in the stairwell to try and flank us. Alanna drove them back with her righteous might and then created a consecrated space to provide healing and protection.
I however, was tired of taking hits from the necrotic blast, so I dropped back and ducked into a storeroom. I could see the zombies Alanna blasted at the bottom of the stairs, so I set them on fire and closed the door. They were still discomfited by Alanna’s attack so I opened the door, blasted them with fire and closed the door again. This time they charged up and punched me through the door. Ow.
I used my thunderwave to push them back down the stairs and as I step out into the hall, I can see some armored idiot up the hallway waving a skull-tipped rod around. Yup. Acolyte of Orcus. How fortuitous that we’d just been warned about them. Alanna seemed eager to have some sort of conversation with the man and we could hear pleas for help just outside the door. So I blasted the remaining zombies in front of me and ran downstairs to open the door.
A flood of terrified civilians came stampeding through the door. Most of them clearly roused from their beds in the middle of the night and a ring of zombies outside were pursuing them in. A priest of Bahaumut and a guy with a spear and his dog were barely holding them back. I positioned myself as best I could to lend assistance.
From Alanna’s colorful language upstairs, I surmised that they’d quite effectively dealt with the cultist and the rest came barreling downstairs. There was a toddler who’d been dumped into the room and when he saw Alanna, he set up a frightful howl. So that proved that Alanna was good with kids and that we were probably in Bastion or some other drow-hating place. There were not a few odd looks when she charged out into the snow, but when she started hacking down zombies, she was an ally of convenience and no one cared much.
The press at the door gave me no chance to get a clear shot so I moved around to get a better view. This worked, but the kid who’d been so upset by Alanna quickly grappled my leg. Not entirely my idiom, but I blasted a few zombies. The fight was still rough, but our superior intellect was beginning to tell against the zombies and it was only a matter of time before everything was brought to a conclusion.
At this point, another acolyte of Orcus teleported into the room. Remember those three bodies we found and how Alanna had to stack them in a corner? Yeah, the acolyte raised them up as zombies and now it’s me against the cleric and his three buddies with over a dozen people to protect.
With a sigh, I shook the kid off my leg and charged towards the danger. I set up a zone of cold that caught the cleric and his minions, but they were fairly tough. I then blasted the zombies with a force orb. It was a tough tactical decision, but stripping away the zombies seemed like the best way to save lives.
The zombies were a mess, but they rushed forward to menace the people and me. Luckily, Alanna bounced back inside and gave me a pleasant boost of energy. She also blasted the zombie menacing me, while the cleric of Bahaumut blasted the one threatening her. I stepped up and set the Orcus worshipper and the final zombie on fire and thunderwaved them around a bit. The zombie kept charging into me, but finally my baleful fires burned him to a crisp and Alanna and the other cleric finished off the acolyte.
In the immediate aftermath, there was a fair amount of commotion from the kitchen. We go in to find the guy with the spear facing down Hendel and a large gnoll. Apparently the gnoll had rendered assistance and Hendel wasn’t about to let Spearboy McDogLover skewer him. The cleric got his people calmed down and then we played twenty questions.
The cleric’s name was Brensis. His pal with the spear was named Miles. The gnoll was called Barg. We were in the village of Redholt which was somewhere in Bastion. The attack came in the middle of the night and Brensis was gathering up survivors and leading them here. We never did ask why Barg was here, but I bet the answer would’ve only agitated everyone needlessly.
I went up onto the roof and created some signal lights that got a few answers. We determined that there were other small knots of survivors. Barg mentioned that he saw a small group of kids fleeing into a house. The immediate concern was to go rescue them, but they were situated on the other side of town. If they kept quiet and dark they might be ok. The zombies were drawn to large quantities of living flesh and we probably had the biggest concentration right here. Further, with the signal lights we’d probably drawn the attention of any other acolytes. So there was every reason to believe we’d be the targets and not the kids. We bickered about it for a bit until Barg said he’d go check it out. I’m sure that’s exactly what terrified children from a xenophobic culture really want to have break into their safe house in the middle of hell night and there’s a non-zero chance that Barg will just eat them, but off he went.
It was at about this time that the Dauntless decided to let us know he could still reach us. He also announced that Captain Vars had kept a communicator and that Dauntless could act as a go-between. We were about 12 hours away from Dauntless, and the blizzard wouldn’t let up for about that long anyway, so there was little hope of immediate rescue. Still, we had Kestrel relay the relevant details to Duantless to send to Captain Vars, who would tell Lady Bastion who could then inform…we got the word out. We were still on our own, but people knew what was happening.
We also learned from the Captain’s wizards that the acolytes probably had some sort of magical focus to power all the zombie action. Brensis recalled that there was supposed to be some onyx sarcophagus, touched by Orcus himself, buried out in the battlefield a few miles from Redholt. If the cultists got ahold of that and brought it in to town, that could be the source of our problems. Redholt is a river town and one of the citizens remembered that a group of Halflings from the Treetop clan had arrived late yesterday evening. Apparently this clan are notorious smugglers and could easily have brought the sarcophagus into town.
But we know where their cargo was unloaded and now we’re gearing up to go find the sarcophagus and take it out.
Mmmm...Zombie-riffic! Also, I want to make up 4E stats for the special zombies from Left 4 Dead.
later
Tom
