"All right, here go."
Catarya takes a defensive stance again, and then tries to move through the doorway to the other side.
F~*! it, I'm gonna (attempt to) bullrush him into the room to clear the path for everyone else.
With a mighty roar of anger, Grelthe charges forward, pushing the enemy orc with all her strength, forcing her way into the room:
Catarya rolls into the room just behind the flames and manages to avoid attack. Then Grelthe takes the exact opposite tactic and shoves the orc at the door a full ten feet into the room while yelling in orc. To her surprise, the Orcs answer! First the red, then the purple one answer!
The man in chain mail then orders, Hold the door, brutes, hold!
Melkar follows Grelthe's orc into the room, wielding his scimitar menacingly. He barks back at the orcs in their harsh tongue.
The orcs look to their leader, look to Melkar, and drop their weapons.
The leader fumes and screams, What do you think you're doing, traitors!
Grelthe makes eye contact with the closest orc that dropped their weapon and growls "Good choice" in orcish.
Not sure what the conversation is (she does not speak orc) Kayla tries to wind her way through the orcs to get behind them.
and she tries to slip into the shadows of the dimly lit room.
The shadow that is Kayla uses the flash of fire and yelling to slip into the room unnoticed.
Grelthe will use her movement to scoot around the right side of the (red) orc she pushed back to reach the leader.
When she sees the orcs drop their weapons, she realizes that they must be surrendering, even though she doesn't understand the language. So she says to the orcs, assuming they know common as well (although she could of course be wrong), Go on, get out here. We promise not to harm you while you are leaving. Just don't come back here, or Melkar and Grelthe here <indicating her companions> might be angry.
the orcs withdraw through the door. The leader of the group is furious! He shouts, Get back here, cowards! You! Who do you think you are, attacking us in our house! GET OUT!
They all step back and together and have bows drawn and ready.
Zadira readies Burning Hands, but holds and doesn't cast yet.
You're insane. YOU attacked US. Ambushed us even. It's not like people don't come down to this dungeon *all* the time to explore. I talked to several in the town. And you go and act all offended that we opened a freaking door, and then try to kill us? YOU had your people shoot at us before saying a word to us. Don't pretend we started this. You want to end it? Drop your weapons, like those smart orcs did. Otherwise, we'll end the conflict the old-fashioned way.
Zadira strides forward as she is saying this, and when she gets to one end of their little group she waits to see if they are going to talk or keep trying to kill them.
If kill, she releases her readied spell, and gets Purple, Blue, and Light-Blue in the cone.
<--15 foot cone, reflex save for half, DC 15
And what would you do if someone BARGED INTO YOUR HOUSE! Now youall just turn around and walk out that door and tell my boys to get back here. We'll all pretend we never saw each other.
"What kind of fool do you haf to be to lif in tis place?" Catarya asks rhetorically.
She maintains her defensive stance.
Zadira starts to laugh.
You can't be serious. Looks to me like you're actually bandits, not a household. Preying on unsuspecting explorers, and we just happened to be a little stronger than you expected, and your minions a little less loyal. We turn our backs on you, and just invite you to shoot us in the back? I think not.
Not able to maintain her tough talk because she truly doesn't want to just kill them, she softens her voice, trying to convince now, rather than demand.
We have no desire to kill you. Please don't force us to do so. Drop your weapons. Then, perhaps we can talk about what we're both doing here, and perhaps we *will* leave you in peace. But we can't just walk away not knowing if you are going to try to kill us again... or any other innocent adventurers. Please. Lay down your weapons, and we'll talk.
Grelthe's heart-strings are tugged a bit by the leader's mention of home. Though this may not be a traditional house, as she well knew, any corner of earth you stake out for yourself could be a home, and any group of like-minded individuals a family.
But she has been taken advantage of before for her compassion, and she is here to clear out the evil taking residence here.
So then she detects evil on the Leader.
He is, in fact, slightly evil. Zadira must be right in thinking this is a bandit crew.
Grelthe narrows her eyes "We gave you a chance to surrender, liar."
She then steps forward to swing her flail one-handed at the Leader:
As the archers loose their arrows, Grelthe grunts a little as one hits her in the thigh, but fights off the pain and keeps moving.
Zadira didn't expect Grelthe's attack, but when the arrows fly, she releases her spell, trusting Grelthe and hoping she was right about them being bandits and that they weren't just innocent adventurers who had... settled in? Even just in her own thoughts that sounded unlikely.
The flames and the flail are enough to do the leader in, and the flames severely wound two of the remaining thugs.
When Catarya sees Grelthe and Zadira attack, she springs into action.
Maintaining her guarded stance, she runs forward, jumping over the body of the dead leader. She gets behind the enemy line.
"Ofer here, boys. Ready for some pain?"
Moving among the shadows Kayla circles around drawing her single poisoned blade. and once in position she strikes.
(nope)
you'll want to surrender if you want to live she whispers as her blade slices the archer from out of nowhere.
Melkar howls as an arrow buries itself deep into his hide. He sees the party has one of the archers surrounded so he goes after the other.
Anyone here smarter than your leader? If you want to live, throw down your weapons and leave. We won't shoot you in the back, unlike some. And don't come back to Rappan Athuk, or we *will* kill you.
Kayla's man falls unconscious under her attack and her poison. Melkar, on the other hand, takes the much less subtle approach and straight up bisects his target into two squishy bits.
Just as you finish speaking four more bandits round the corner behind you! They take in the scene and freeze. Then, as if there weren't enough targets here, four bloody, vicious looking skeletons charge in from the far right door and head straight for you! The bandits shift their focus from you to them and one shouts, Destroy the bonies, lads!
The last standing bandit of the original group steps away from the very scary Melkar and fires at one of the skeletons, but the arrow goes wide.
Zadira moves away from the new bandits, and focuses on the skeletons.
<--w/favored enemy
Grelthe will take a moment to absorb the newcomers to the fight, but decides she can sort out who is evil later since, for the moment at least, they are all threatened by the same enemy.
She yells, "Focus on the greater evil of the undead, unless you are threatened by..." she locks gaze with the bandit who called out directions "...others."
She moves closer to the skeletons, using a chair to step on to the table in front of Kayla, and starts singing a terrible song of war and blood and death , while twirling her flail about (trying to look intimidating).
Her voice bursts out clear and pure, at stark contrast with the horror of her lyrics.
When the skald begins a raging song and at the start of each ally’s turn in which they can hear the raging song, the skald’s allies must decide whether to accept or refuse its effects. This is not an action. If accepted, the raging song’s effects last for that ally’s turn or until the song ends, whichever comes first.
Inspired Rage (Su) At 1st level, affected allies gain a +2 morale bonus to Strength and Constitution and a +1 morale bonus on Will saving throws, but also take a –1 penalty to AC. While under the effects of inspired rage, allies other than the skald cannot use any Charisma-, Dexterity-, or Intelligence-based skills (except Acrobatics, Fly, Intimidate, and Ride) or any ability that requires patience or concentration. (Unlike the barbarian’s rage ability, those affected are not fatigued after the song ends.) If an ally has her own rage class ability (such as barbarian’s rage, bloodrager’s bloodrage, or skald’s inspired rage), she may use the Strength, Constitution, and Will saving throw bonuses, as well as AC penalties, based on her own ability and level instead of those from the skald (still suffering no fatigue afterward). However, inspired rage does not allow the ally to activate abilities dependent on other rage class abilities, such as rage powers, blood casting, or bloodrager bloodlines; the ally must activate her own rage class ability in order to use these features.
"Focus on the greater evil of the undead,..."
"Putting down te undead is what I am here for."
Catarya maintains her defensive stance and heads for the skeletons.
Melkar starts tapping his toes to Grelthe's song. When the skeletons appear and the others appear to be focused on their destruction, Melkar is happy to join in.
Kayla moves around one of the tables as she does so she takes a moment to lern more of her intended target.
Zadira's arrow sticks the the skeleton's head, but doesn't bring it down. The four converge on Melkar and Catarya...
Their attacks fall short due to the party's defensive stance.
The bandits all loose arrows at the skeletons and one splits Zadira's arrow! The added force drives her arrow head in just a bit further and split's the skull in half! The skeleton falls to the ground in a heap.
Zadira shoots at the skeletons again.
(favored enemy: undead)
Zadira's specialized training shines through again and she plants another arrow square on the skeleton's skull. It drops in a heap.
Kayla will delay in case the skeletons suddenly become some mythic level undead of immense power and appear to over run the party.
Melkar turns his attention to the red skeleton. "Here you go, dummy!" he taunts while swiping with his vicious scythe.
Melkar turns his attention to the red skeleton. "Here you go, dummy!"
Catarya darts around behind the last skeleton.
Grelthe sees what Catarya is trying to do, and jumps off the table, taking up a flanking position to distract the last skeleton. She makes eye contact with her ally & nods, giving her the attack.