Saul fails to hit the skeletons. the spear just slides off the bones. Jarithe puts off one of the skeletons by attracting attention.
"Gah! Skeletons are a bit out of my purview." Cassius casts Mage Armor and draws his morningstar.
Fhingle pulls out his little mace, moving up behind the first skeleton around the corner swinging with all his might.
[b]"If you need assistance just ask"
Zea is concerned and very scared but, seeing the dire situation, she takes a deep breath and rushes forward to try to help. She jabs nervously at the nearest skeleton with her rusty old blade, encouraged by Jarithe's shout and the lack of hesitation of the more experienced combatants.
Fhinglelacks the strength to do much damage, but he brought the right tool for it and knocks off a rib. Zea on the other side puts a lot of momentum into the swing of her blade, only to have most of it deflected by the hard bones.
The skeleton turns around, it's jaws wide apart as if roaring, but skeletons make no sound besides the clatter of their bones. It swings its club at Zea, as she is the first to come into sight.
The other skeleton keeps cudgeling Bram.
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Saul runs around the skeletons to get a better angle on the enchanted monstrosities and stabs again, hoping to deal enough damage with his spear to make a difference.
"Peregrine, heal Gray Jay!" He yells at Fhingle and points at Bram.
Hope he gets the message. He never picked a code name; maybe this one will be tough enough for him.
Bloodied, Zea realizes this is no time to be modest. She needs to do something about these enemies. She tries to concentrate on a spell while attacking the foes in front of her.
But she had barely grown used to any spellcasting, much less in the face of such danger! Her spell failed but she kept trying to help with her stolen weapon.
But she simply didn't have the confidence to face up to these threats. I don't belong here... I'm just an entertainer who decided to do something about the Thrunes... I'm going to die... Scared, Zea steps back hesitantly.
As Bram is attacked Jarithe interferes with his spear and averts the the attack.
Fhingle raises his left hand into the air, light is pulled from all over the room and infuses his body. Glowing with holy light Fhingle steps up and touches the skeleton.
Energy Body (Su): As a standard action, you can transform your body into pure life energy, resembling a golden-white fire elemental. In this form, you gain the elemental subtype and give off a warm, welcoming light that increases the light level within 10 feet by one step, up to normal light. Any undead creature striking you with its body or a handheld weapon deals normal damage, but at the same time the attacker takes 1d6 points of positive energy damage + 1 point per oracle level. Creatures wielding melee weapons with reach are not subject to this damage if they attack you. If you grapple or attack an undead creature using unarmed strikes or natural weapons, you may deal this damage in place of the normal damage for the attack. Once per round, if you pass through a living allied creature's square or the ally passes through your square, it heals 1d6 hit points + 1 per oracle level. You may use this ability to heal yourself as a move action. You choose whether or not to heal a creature when it passes through your space. You may return to your normal form as a free action. You may remain in energy body form for a number of rounds per day equal to your oracle level.
Seeing the lack of effect from her own weapons, Zea tries to figure out what's going on.
"Ah!" She says. "I guess blunt weapons hurt them a lot more. Does anyone have one they can spare?"
Fhingle will move instead provoking an AoO but healing Bram for 7
"Ah! Hoo... thanks!" Bram called back, regaining his senses as he gripped one of his maces and called out to Zea. "Sparrow, catch!" Giving a good heave, he tossed his spare mace to the tiefling, before grasping his other in both hands and giving the big bony ape a good walloping!
The skeleton smashes its club into Fhingle as he recklessly moves to heal Bram. But the skeleton feels the pain just as Fhingle does. Or not, who knows if skeletons have feelings. But it almost falls apart.
Saul still uses the wrong tool and stabs where the innards of the creature would have been, but as there is nothing now, it is in vain.
Bram takes the chance to finish off the damaged bone warrier before it gets the chance to hurt him again. With loud clatter the bones collapse to the floor.
The remaining ape skeleton again swings it's club at Bram. But this time he is prepared and evades the clumsy attempt easily.
The mace falls to the floor. "Vurz!!" the young tiefling exclaims. "Thanks anyway, Gray Jay!" She stoops and picks it up then hustles to get into some sort of useful position.
Fhingle reaches out and touches the skeleton
Holy energy races into the skeleton
In this fight Fingle shines. Literally and figuratively. With his energy form he ages the bones of this one too up to the point where it will fall apart soon. While Saul breaks off a sinle rib. But more by accident as the spear is jammed in the rib cage as he pulls it out again.
With the effort of Jarithe and Fhingle, Bram is again as good as new.
Zea tries to calm down and help with this horrible creature.
Zea swings into the monster with reasonable accuracy but having trouble putting her weight behind the unfamiliar weapon. A small Sparrow mark aopaers on the skeleton's skull.
Zea, with cold sweat on her forhead, manages to cast a spell, and with two swings of the mace she delivers the spell and manages to break apart the already broken skeleton.
"Sunnuva bastard... that's gonna leave a goose egg..." Bram winced as he tapped the back of his head where one of the clubs struck him, before panting and reaching for his mace back from Zea. "Sorry for the bad throw, a club to the back of the tends to screw with your aim. That was pretty good though. Any time you want to handle my mace, lemme know."
...was that an innuendo?
Once he gets his mace back, he looks down at the skeletons, rubbing his stomach where the second caught him off guard. "Charming exhibits. Can't imagine why the place was shut down." He turns to the one open door, this time veeeeeeeeery carefully approaching it to get a peek inside.
Zea nods her thanks. "Appreciated, Gray Jay." She also blushes slightly. Redroof was a place where a woman's ears grew used to such talk. She then goes back to her scimitar and picks it up with a nod to Jarithe. "I'm unsure what you were doing back there, but it was helpful, Mockingbird?"
Fhingle touches Bram before his other worldly glow fades.
"No one asked for assistance so I did what I thought I needed to this time." Fhingle offers.
Fhingle looks around the room. "Do you think anymore are real?"
Zea thinks "You know, I might be able to test that." She concentrates very hard and tries to repeat the words she learned but gets the pronunciation wrong and the spell sputters out. Then she tries again with even more focus and a spectral hand reaches out and wiggles the bones of each skeleton in turn to make sure they don't react.
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Saul rolls his eyes at Fhingle's comment and he bends down to pick up one of the skeleton's clubs. "Peregrine, it doesn't matter if we ask for assistance of not, because when we get into battle you don't understand a lick of what we say and you spout off gibberish the whole time. This happens again and again and again. Someday I'm going to figure out what you are actually saying."
Saul is intrigued by the bones hanging about the room. He tries to identify what they used to be.
"It's not gibberish. It's Celestial. The language of angels and good outsiders." Bram said absent-mindedly, still discerning the safety of the open door. "Pretty much a direct opposition language to tongues like Infernal and Abyssal, some suspect it's a cousin language to the likes of Sylvan and Draconic. Devils will speak it... but they reeeeally hate to."
...how the hell did he know that!?
The hall of cryptids features all manner of strange or mythical beasts said to haunt Kintargo and Cheliax over the years. The exhibits are for example the "Skull of a Cyclops King" or the "Teeth of the Blue Dragon Rivozair". The skeletons that attacked you are labelled as "Arcadian Skunk Apes".
Bram looks into a corridor that leads to the next room. A briny odor wafts over from there from the sea creatures, that are there according to the sign over the passage.
Zea wonders "I'm new to this and all but doesn't it take magic for skeletons to run around trying to murder innocent trespassers?"
Zea shrugs uncertainly but definitely unwilling to contradict someone who must know more than her about these matters. "Certainly felt real" she mumbles while holding her bruised side. She looks down the briny-smelling corridor.
"Does someone want to scout ahead or should we all go together."
"Lead on, I will stay in the middle to help out where I can." Fhingle says
Zea shrugs. "I'm not much of a tracker. But I'll try to be quiet as we go."
A briny odor wafts from a dozen water-filled cases in this room, each a display of strange, colorful sea creatures. Puddles of water cover the floor alongside shattered glass and fish skeletons. A ten-foot-square tank of murky water stands to the northeast.
The new exhibit primarily featured species of fish and shellfish from Nisroch Bay and amphibians from the banks of the Yolubilis River, and well as a few colorful but hardy Arcadian species. All are now dead, including the hall’s biggest draw—the onetime occupant of the main tank, a four-clawed reefclaw identified as a “Quadclaw Marauder.” The waters are murky with its decayed remains.
There are also two tanks containing "Arcadian Mermaids", according to the name plate.
"I dunno. I could see this taking off... if the exhibits didn't attack you... and didn't smell like the bad side of the wharves..." Letting Saul slip through and check things out, Bram checked in through the door, but not entering.
"Pssst! Jackdaw... all clear?"
Fhingle looks to Saul for the go a head
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Saul waves everyone forward. He hisses back in a loud whisper. "No sign of movement."
As the party comes in, Saul walks in as well, and starts looking around at the displays. "Couldn't they have at least released the fish when they closed the place down? This is disgusting."
Saul stops by the tanks holding Acadian Mermaids. What in the blazes are these things?
Zea walks up behind Saul, who is regarding the strange aquatic creatures with what, to her, appears to be a knowing air. "Jackdaw, what in the blazes are those things?" She looks around the rest of the room in wonder as well. A poor girl in Redroof didn't normally get to see things like this.
After a few moments, she ducks to peek around the corner to the small side room and see what is in there, moving as quietly as she can manage.
Jarithe takes his time to scour this room for anything of interest.
Zea finds more aquariums with no surviving creatures seen.
Cassius tries to sneak into the room but steps on something gross and lets out a yelp.
From the neighboring room, almost inaudible, the clicking sound of legs on stone is heard. Turning the head, you can see that the next part of the museum is about insects. Either not all exhibits are dead, or there are recent additions to the museum.
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**A few minutes earlier, before the insect noise is heard**
"Gah! These mermaids are still alive! Or dead I mean. Or undead, but not yet moving. Anyway..."
Saul maneuvers a bit to get in the proper position, and tries to fill them with so many holes from his spear that they cannot possible reanimate.
"That sounds big, I will stay in the middle, big things always want to eat me." Fhingle says gripping his mace with 2 hands
Saul makes himself look crazy. Babbling stuff that makes no sense while destroying the container these 'mermaids' are in, flooding the room and then stabbing them until the corpses are an unrecognizable pulp of stinking dead meat.