SessionEleven

November 8, 2008

Wanting see if she can get a look inside before rejoining the party, Alecsa returns to the alley and scales the walls until she finds a board with a spot she can peek through. She sees a small dusty and dirty room with a skeleton lying motionless on the floor.

By this point, the rest of the party has joined Cinoi, and when she climbs back down the building, Alecsa tells them what she's seen. Osrik immediately wants to bash down the door and attack, but Alecsa wants to discuss things a bit before doing that. Cinoi is all for bashing down the door and attacking, so long as Osrik goes in first. Cinoi, who is way too easy to bore, starts scratching his "runes" into a board, prompting Alecsa to try to get him to stop, not wanting that to trigger something to come out and attack them. [Remember the fire on the mound?!]

Eventually, they find a tavern where they can have a brief discussion and keep an eye on the store. Osrik orders a pitcher of something that costs 1gp! [Was this place swanky and we didn't notice?!] So, they discuss options as they down their post-breakfast drinks.

The options of having Chaedi teleport into an unknown room in a building known to house undead and of digging a hole through a neighboring shop are out of the question. They opt to go in through the back door instead of raiding from the front and back. Osrik and Gloriana will head the assault into the building, with the rest coming in behind them.

Somewhere in here the idiot boys talk about possibly taking up smoking. They had apparently inhaled too much the previous evening. Again, don't inhale strangers!

Osrik asks Gloriana if she's ready to crush undead skulls - which sound oh-so fun - and Cinoi gulps down the last of his liquid gold, while Osrik continues to invite Gloriana with something that sounds like a pick-up line, prompting Cinoi to comment on it. Gloriana has no idea what Cinoi is on about.

The party heads out to the alley and the shop's back door. Alecsa goes a bit ahead to peek around into the alley. Seeing nothing there, she has her comrades follow. She listens at the door, but can't hear anything over the nonsense the rest of the party is babbling. So, she unlocks the door after Cinoi removes his spike and steps back.

Osrik kicks the door open to find a zombie dog. [I wasn't expecting that. Not only because it had been a man before, but because I had thought they were eating the dogs, not making them pets!] Osrik is promptly bit by said zombie dog. Gloriana turns the zombie dog, slamming it back into the far door and dealing damage, leaving it immobilized. Chaedi hits it with her cloud of daggers. Alecsa steps into the room and hits it with a shuriken. Osrik runs right up to the zombie dog and smashes it with reaping strike! Cinoi takes it down with a warlock's curse and an eldritch blast.

The room has a set of stairs leading up to the right, a door near the back wall on the left, and door on the back wall adjacent to the left door. Alecsa listens at the left door and hears a low moan, Chaedi listens for upstairs noises but hears nothing, most likely because Osrik has just opened the back door and tromped right through! Cinoi wisely closes and spikes the street door.

[Why do these things moan?! Do they hurt? Or is it just escaping gas from decomposing?]

Osrik sees the room has furniture, like tables and chairs, in most of the room and a bar to the left. As he pokes behind the nearest pile of furniture, he is set upon by several zombies. Two hit him, and it hurts. Gloriana moves up near Osrik and turns undead, and disintegrates the nearest three. A zombie behind the bar rips off some of his goo and hits Gloriana with it. Eww. Chaedi misses the one to the right with her cloud of daggers, but Osrik finishes it off. Cinoi and Alecsa miss the one behind the bar.

Gloriana steps up to the bar, and her attempt to hit the zombie misses. But, he hits her. She's able to shake off the slime's weakness, though. Chaedi hits it with a thunderwave, pushing it back a bit. Osrik stomps up to the zombie, going behind the bar, but misses. And Aaaargh!s like a pirate. Cinoi jumps up onto a table and misses the zombie, due to partial cover. Alecsa vaults the bar to land on the other side of the zombie. She hits it with torturous strike, doing lots of damage. [It's too bad it doesn't squeal in pain. She likes that part best.]

Gloriana steps back to do a healing surge. The zombie hits Osrik again. Then, the zombie lets off this horrible stench, which causes trouble for Osrik and Alecsa as far as hitting him goes. Chaedi hits the zombie with icy terrain, and it falls down. Osrik is really mad, but his attack misses. Cinoi jumps up onto the bar and does more damage to it. Alecsa hit it with easy target, and the crappy thing explodes, drenching Osrik, Alecsa, Cinoi, and Gloriana in zombie gunk! [That was rather unexpected...]

Milestone!

Osrik calls for a 5-minute rest. This allows the wounded to heal up - but not get a bath. They do wash up as well as they can, though. Cinoi looks through the windows and see their fighting hasn't drawn any notice. He pops open a window a bit to air the room.

[Tod not only gave us XP (150), but we were finally able to go up to level 2!]

Alecsa heads back to the previous room and listens at the door again, hearing nothing over the noise of the party coming in to join her. Checking at the stairs, she hears a faint thumping noise. The party agrees to take care of the door on the current floor before tracking upstairs.

Alecsa cracks open the door to peek in, but a surprisingly fast and up-on-things zombie grabs her. His buddy tries to attack her but misses. Chaedi hits the zombies with thunderwave, pushing them back into their room and causing the one to release Alecsa. Gloriana turns them, pushing them to the wall and immobilizing them. Cinoi warlock curses one and then destroys it.

Osrik marks the zombie and hits with his reaping attack. Chaedi uses cloud of daggers again, killing off this last zombie!

The party catches their collective breath and look to the stairs.

November 11, 2008

Continuing their exploration of the store of the undead, Alecsa listens for any noise coming from upstairs. After she indicates she hears nothing, Osrik stomps his way up the stairs, hoping Alecsa follows. [I have no idea why he thinks Alecsa is supposed to follow him...]+because he knew there'd be doors for her to check out!+ [When did he start caring? He's busted into every one of them with his axe a-swinging!] She waits (behind him) at the top of the stairs for Osrik to indicate ... something.

The stairs lead to a dim hall with several doors. Alecsa listens at the first door, while the rest of the party moves up the stairs and into the hall. After warning the party that she hears slight movement, Alecsa lets Osrik open the door, since he's so impatient.+Not impatient, just inclined not to waste time debating endlessly.+ [That's impatience!] She is of the opinion that he might respect door inspections after he gets himself blown up at least once. +Hey! He let her search it for traps!+ [Yeah. He's so sweet to her.] She steps back to stand with Cinoi and whoever else is standing in the background. Just in case. Of a big kaboom.

Opening the door, Osrik finds two skeletons and the human who had darted Gloriana's derrière. Chaedi hits the skeletons with a thunder wave and pushes them back a bit. Alecsa hits one with a shuriken. Gloriana's attempt to turn the skeletons is not successful. Osrik does his standard stand there and cleave, prompting Cinoi to mutter something about teaching Osrik tactics. [Has never worked. Remember the whole tree and gate fiasco?] Cinoi then warlock curses a skeleton and hits it with an eldritch blast. Both skeletons attack Osrik and hit! It hurts. The thief tosses a rope up the ceiling and starts climbing it. [That's what the DM said!] Osrik can see a trap door above said climbing thief.

Chaedi leans into the room and casts freezing cloud at him, missing him but creating a bothersome cold cloud for everyone trying to get to the thief. [The DM says "that one dies", but it couldn't have been the thief and it can't have been the two skeletons, beginning the first of the confusing attack-death conversations. Bad guys would randomly be dead and then not. :P] Alecsa thinks about climbing out a window and onto the roof to intercept him but remembers the freaking windows are all boarded up! Alecsa can't get into the room to do any closer attacks, so misses with her attempt with a shuriken. Gloriana attacks a skeleton with wrathful thunder, killing it. [Maybe. It could have already been dead. It's all a bit confusing...] Cinoi hits the remaining (previously marked?) skeleton with his eldritch blast. He doesn't kill it, er re-kill it, and makes a growly face at it out of frustration. The skeleton fails to hit Osrik, who is crunching the body of its friend under his boots. The thief on the rope shoots Gloriana with a hand crossbow, which also blinds her. [Bad idea. Now, it's a personal thing with Lir.] Then, he finishes climbing up.

Chaedi dismisses her cloud and moves forward to ice the thief's rope with icy terrain, managing to knock him off the rope.+This was a highly-skilled tactic on her part!+ [Right...] Alecsa's attack misses the skeleton. Everything is so distracting. Gloriana takes a blind swing and misses. Osrik finally finishes off that last pesky skeleton. Cinoi darts into the room and intimidates the thief into surrendering.

Cinoi begins interrogating the prisoner, while some members heal up and others help with searching and immobilizing the prisoner. Alecsa likes to threaten him with Lir's vengeance because she likes putting the fear of gods into idiots. It's fun. Besides, it's just in bad taste to stab a perfectly good cleric. The thief claims to not know who Dex is or where he is, claiming he was hired to "deliver" the note by a "creepy chick" wearing red armor with bugs crawling all over her. At the mention of the bugs, though, Alecsa pauses and asks if he's picked up any "bugs." He continues to further describe the woman as not looking quite human, with "pointy teeth and stuff." Hm. More stuff.

Alecsa gets back to searching the thief while Cinoi continues his interrogation. The prisoner reveals that he took some potion to make the undead not attack or notice him, saying he drank it and the icky things left him alone. [Bugs or undead...?] Alecsa finds a pouch and a shortsword (not magical, darn it), being hampered by Chaedi's "helpful" mage hand. The pouch contains a small bag (which looks like a knotted handkerchief more than a bag) and a large gem, worth about 500 gp. [Ah, some treasure!] The hanky is fancy has the monogram ME and the crest of the Duke of Har, and contains some powder that Chaedi manages not to lose. However, Chaedi is able to tell that it is some sort of dust of invisibility. They manage to find a better container for the dust.

The prisoner states he was actually hired to deliver the note to the toking druid, but she had slipped off already. Being the late sleeper and "clever" thinker that he is, he thought he'd pawn it off on the party. Just because he saw them talking to her. Somehow, Mr. Clever didn't notice they weren't getting along with that crazy druid. He claims Bug-lady also gave him the handkerchief, saying it could come in handy, since she hadn't wanted him to get caught. He says the woman went upstairs and was just gone.

When asked why the idiot didn't just leave town and hid in a house with undead things, he claims he thought we weren't strong enough to fight undead things and get him. He was wrong. When the party threatens to leave him there all tied up, he becomes afraid the zombies will eat him.

So, they tie him up and use him as the first one into the next four rooms. Before leaving the room, though, Alecsa shimmies up the rope to make sure there's nothing on the roof waiting for them. Cinoi tells her to watch out for dragons. Yeah. He's just too cute for words. Then, she latches the trap door and nails it shut with a piton.

Once done with the trap door, Alecsa heads out to listen at the next door. Hearing nothing, she tells the thief he can go in. He protests that he could be killed and what's in it for him. Osrik opens the door and shoves him inside. When Cinoi tells him to report what he sees, the thief declares the room is empty. A search of the room yields nothing. Such a surprise. Alecsa leaves the room, mumbling about never getting any treasure. The next room is also empty. The one after that is also empty. And treasureless.

They come to the last door. From outside, Alecsa had peeked into that room and knows there is at least one skeleton in there. She doesn't bother listening at the door. Cinoi tells the prisoner to get on the floor and stay there if a zombie is in there. Osrik just pushes him in first, [at which point Alecsa notes to herself not to let Osrik take her prisoner, not to be confused with her self-note to not let him try to knock her out] +He's a fighter, not a nursemaid!+ [It's just a self note. Osrik doesn't even have to worry about it!] where two of the three skeletons inside attack and kill the thief before he can even start to hit the floor. Well, voluntarily. Cinoi says he guesses the potion wore off.

Osrik slams the door. [He's so brave.] Alecsa wants to finish off these skeletons so she can search the room. Treasure might be lurking in there with the lurking skeletons. You never know. Cinoi, who is doing his best to look angelic, claims he's concerned about the safety of innocent children playing in boarded up houses if the skeletons are not destroyed. [Right. Your halo is a bit askew there, Starboy.] Alecsa asks Chaedi if she can ice the room from under the door.

Silence falls after a couple of thwaks are heard from behind the door. Chaedi yanks open the door and casts icy terrain. Osrik stomps up to the skeletons and does a reaping strike, marking a skeleton. Chaedi hits them again with icy terrain [Can she do that more than once an encounter?] +oops, no+, knocking one prone. Alecsa can't connect with her shuriken. There is a dwarf blocking the doorway. Wonder who that could be? All three skeletons manage to hit Osrik, hurting him pretty badly. Cinoi warlock curses and eldritch blasts a skeleton. Gloriana turns two of the skeletons, slamming them into the far wall and immobilizing them.

Osrik hits a skeleton, "killing" it. Chaedi casts cloud of daggers on the moving skeleton. Alecsa manages to hit the skeleton, which promptly hits her in turn. Cinoi curses the skeleton and eldritch blasts it but misses. Gloriana attacks with avenging flame, which not only hurts it but catches it on fire. Go, Lir!

Osrik uses a healing surge then steps up to use a reaping strike on the mobile skeleton. Chaedi attacks it with a dagger strike but misses. Alecsa attacks but misses and moves back toward the door. The skeleton hits Gloriana and then falls, destroyed from the fire. [Too bad it didn't die before the hit!] Lir has judged! And this house has been found wanting. Cinoi curses the remaining skeleton and misses with his eldritch flame. Gloriana attacks it with a righteous brand, giving Osrik a bonus to his next attack.

Osrik finally finishes it off.

Cinoi retrieves his rope from the thief's corpse and inspects it. He'll most likely need a new one. Alecsa pries up a loose floorboard and finds a small bag under it. There is a bottle and four gems in the bag. The gems look like they are worth 100 gp each [great, more gems to hide], and the bottle contains a cure light potion. [The DM said so.] The party determines this building has no basement. Isn't that odd for a store? +not really, depends on how hard the ground is around here.+ [I would think they'd need for the "root cellar" cooling thing.]

SessionThirteen