Sonny looks in the direction the candle-maker looks.
"I don't expect to see much yet, but I have a feeling we are watching whatever happened here. Be ready for some sort of undead, probably some type of spirit.", Sonny warns as he readies his holy symbol to channel.
The prof observes the scene but seems still air-headed.
Sonny thinks about the scene for a moment to see what he comes up with.
The translucent man is clearly a haunt, as Sonny and Caesare realize. As they do, they also realize that such haunts rarely leave the viewer safe or unscathed...
As you watch the door explodes open and the terrified man stumbles backward from armed soldiers with drawn weapons, who seize him and drag him toward his boiling hot vat of wax...
"We need to get out of here. This is a haunt and we will be hurt by it. My channeling may harm it but it will come back. I don't think it will follow us back to where we were."
"Sonny channel! Haunts can be battled with positiv energy and killed!"
The prof begins to think hard before fleeing.
"Oh, once again, you're right my dear Caesare! Sonny! Channel hard and kill this haunt! I can't do anything to it, except use a cantrip to try and disrupt it! Maybe."
Sonny raises his holy symbol high and invokes his Goddesses powers. "Mighty Dawnflower, lay this restless soul to rest if only for now!"
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Sonny calls upon his Goddess as the chandler is thrust headfirst into the boiling wax and a matching wave of heat rushes through the room. The holy energies save you from the heat and the image of the ghostly figures fade into nothingness... All save, the wax-covered candle-maker, who seems to be staring at you through his wax-covered eyes... The pale, ghostly figure points toward the center of the small village, wax pouring from his eyes like tears.
Flinching in preparation for the heat, Sonny is relieved when his channeling combats it.
"I think the answer may lie in the center of town. We'll need to investigate it but we should wait for Risbeth to return."
The prof sighs in relief as the threat seems to vanish.
"Wow, well done, Sonny! Let's wait for Risbeth, indeed."
Turning to face the ghost, Augustus grins and says
"Dear sir, may I inquire of your identity?"
It shakes its head sadly, points to the village square and fades away, leaving only the scent of burned hair and candle wax to show it was there.
An hour passes. You hear the sounds of howling in the distance and growls and snarls much closer to you and a few times, think you spot hulking furry forms moving in the darkness just beyond the range of your sight.
Risbeth's newly minted wolf hunts himself to near exhaustion under her tutelage. She brings him back covered in sweat and reeking of the wild, and immediately upon entering the candle shop, he passes out in the corner.
Risbeth, blood streaking her face, stretches. "He should be much calmer now, at least until the full moon." She takes her waterskin and sloshes some on her face, rinsing it off. "Anyone able to cast Prestidigitation? My clothes got a bit bloody, unfortunately." Which is true, there's blood stains all over her. "He's a bit messy, and I had to smash him in the nose a few times until he let me feed first. Alpha always feeds first."
Risbeth can hear the low distant calls of wolves. In addition, she senses a tingling on her skin, a feeling she associates with the presence of the mindless undead. The feeling seems strongest when she faces closer to the town square.
Risbeth looks toward the center of town, and sighs. "Someone has been a naughty necromancer. Leaving mindless undead scattered around, uncontrolled. Chaos, completely lacking honor or discipline." She spits on the ground. "I suspect there will be no one alive in town. Or if they are, they are hiding behind locked doors. There are undead in the town. We should deal with them."
After a few moments of thinking, Augustus answers eventually Risbeth.
"No, dear. I didn't prepare it today. I prefer to see in the dark." he says, winking at the dhampir.
"Oh, undeads! Mindless? What a shame!" adds the prof, as he progressively lose interest in the undead threat.
Sonny looks at Risbeth, "We'll need to deal with them then. We can't leave undead running around loose. Let's be careful and keep our eyes open there may be other threats running around as well."
Moving out of the candle-maker's shop, you can see the small town is mostly ruins with some intact buildings remaining. You get the sense of being watched as you move outside but can spot no watchers.
In the center of town the ground is churned and muddy, and you spot what looks to be a hand sticking out of the ground...
Risbeth cocks her head. "How was it the jester said?" She steps forward, wondering if the undead will even bother with someone who is almost as dead as them. "Oh yes.. Olly Olly Oxen Free!" She purses her lips. "Olly Olly is an idiot, giving away his Oxen for free..."
There is a sudden shift in the air and from everywhere you can see spectral images, fainter than ghosts or even the haunt you witnessed, of soldiers dragging corpses to the center of town and tossing them into a large pit dug directly in front of where you stand. You see one of the 'corpses' begin to struggle and a soldier calmly crushes its skull before throwing it in.
As the image fades, you see a pair of men stepping out of the shadows, wearing prominent medallions made of a gagged skull. They spot you as you see them and they clutch their medallions as skeletal remains suddenly rise from the churned earth, dripping mud and rotted viscera! From the buildings around you, you can see movement as other things seem to come to life within.
Round 1:
Professor, Risbeth, Caesare
Horde of smelly undead
Sonny
THinking for a moment Caesare quickly takes an extract of longarm.
The prof says some arcane words, shrugging, and snaps his fingers. A pit forms itself beneath the skeleton's feet.
Caesare's limbs lengthen, while the Professor gets into the excavation business! Two of the skeletons manage to leap aside, but two others fall in and land with a crunching sound!
Risbeth grins. "Sonny, I leave the skeletons to you. Don't damage me when you channel..." Then she sprints through the skeletons, dancing through them with glee as she charges straight at the closest of the two men with gagged skeletons.
"Bad necromancer! Bad!" She admonishes the caster, and releases a flurry of attacks on him!
Risbeth smashes into one of the necromancers, causing him to explode into viscera!
The remaining necromancer screams "KILL HER!" as the skeletons turn and attack! Seven skeletons attack! Scrabble as they might, none can get through to deal any damage! The necromancer scrambles back and launches her scythe through the air at Risbeth, propelled by an invisible hand! for damage!
Sonny moves forward to get as close as he can and then raises his holy symbol, "Dawnflower, release the bodies bad to their grave and rest!", making sure to leave Risbeth out of the channel.
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And all the skeletons explode.
Round 2!
Risbeth grunts as the scythe strikes, and then she forward flips next to the remaining necromancer. As she comes up, she waves a finger in the necromancer's face. "Unh Unh unh!" Then she attacks the survivor...
Risbeth steps up and smashes into the last necromancer, but even with most of her hits landing, he still lives. Though he does look incredibly frightened!
Round 2: Professor and Caesare are up! 2 skellies and a battered necromancer remain!
Moving in and studying his target Caesare tries to skewer the necromancer.
The prof moves forward and snaps his fingers. As he does so, an arc of fire leaps from his fingers towards the necromancer. As he's struck by the fire, the arc continues his way through the skeletons.
Caesare's spear reaches almost impossibly far and stabs the necromancer, who stumbles until the Professor's fire hits him, briefly illuminating his wide eyes and scream of pain before he falls to the ground, followed by the burnt remains of his minions.
On the far side of the ruined village square sits two buildings, close together. One is clearly a keep, rising high above the squat buildings around it. Strange chanting is coming from inside, but the other building seems to be a squat armory, and it from there that your next adversary comes. The door opens and a pale clearly undead woman steps out, flanked by six similarly dead creatures, but in a much more feral state.
"Children. You interfere with workings set in motion countless years ago. You meddle with forces ancient and terrible. I offer you a chance to walk away, to abandon a foolish path of ruin and despair. The Whispering Way has no quarrel with you. Begone and we shall not pursue. Stay and your corpses shall serve us."
Risbeth rolls her eyes. "Oh please, Mother is much scarier. It would help if you had some thieves pinned to the wall above your head, slowly bleeding out from where the stakes were driven through their shoulders. Those are always way more intimidating. I don't really have a problem with undead things, which is good, or Mother would have had a problem with me." She pauses, looking thoughtful. "Which would have been bad for my long term health. So it's generally a good thing I don't mind dead things. However, your Whispering Way is sowing the seeds of chaos and dishonor, I'm not really ok with that, and neither is Mother." She glances at the rest of the team. "However, if you can convince them to leave, I guess I won't have much choice but to go along with them. Good luck though, they seem rather stup... stubborn about things like this."
"Walk away and let evil undead create more pain and suffering in the world? I don't think so! As she says we're rather stubborn about these things." Sonny says as he nods to the others.
The prof chuckles.
"Wow, allow me to laugh! That was a long time since anyone called me "children"! How refreshing!"
Instantly he takes a much more serious look and stares at the undead woman.
"The Whispering Way? I wouldn't want them as enemies. But my corpse would not serve any other purpose than the one he's meant to. And it would be useless to you. What you do here is an insult to lore and academic research, my dear."
The wight stands impassively as you speak. "If you will not leave, then you will die. Kill them all." She speaks in an almost bored voice to the wights, who slobber and snarl like feral creatures!
Round 1:
Professor
Wights!
Risbeth, Caesare and Sonny
The professor draws his newly crafted rod and mutters some words to slow the wights, adding a pinch of dweomer's essence to the components.
All save two of the creatures and the leader seem affected! The slowed creatures lurch forward, while the unaffected ones charge!
for damage!
for damage!
for damage and Fort Save DC 15 or stunned for 1 round!
Risbeth sighs as she's slapped by the wights. "Seriously? That's not how you punch! You're holding your wrist too limp, and you're not putting your body into it. Do it like this!"
Sonny again calls on his Goddess to harm these undead.
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One wight and the special one cringe as the others explode into white-holy fire! Risbeth smashes twice into the wight monk, but she doesn't bring her down and the wight merely smiles, her dead lips stretching across rotten teeth!
Moving a step back Ceasare gladly punches a hole in the closest wight after observing his movements.