Anzath shouts at the others as they emerge from the shadows, "Get back! I vill lover you!"
She sheathes her useless blades, draws her bow and knocks a blunt arrow, all the while moving back.
Through the haze of his rage, Lolygert hears bits and pieces of his comrade's shouts through the screaming of his enemies.
He adds his own eloquent opinion to the conversation, "DIIIIIIIIEEEEEEE!"
Lolly's swings in the dark each have a coin's chance to hit:
His second two swings contact the skeleton, but it's just like trying to cut down an ironwood tree... still, he HAS cut down ironwood trees in the past.
Gelver tries to think:
He succeeds! He withdraws and heads for the corridor. Ippolit is way, way ahead of him, standing with Tragershen, panting, and suggesting softly, "We... we should probably leave, right? Umm... I'm sticking with you, wizard."
Talathel wonders if he heard Anzath correctly just now. He smiles (in the dark). He tries to put one of the skeletons on its back before rejoining her:
...but even his enhanced blind-fighting skills can still fail. He moves out of the skeleton hall and into the light.
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Terapin scrambles on all fours back into the light, rising to his feet and summoning some sterner help without turning around.
As he runs, Terapin holds out his arms and snaps his fingers in both hands, and above each flashes into being a blindingly brilliant crystalline light of the same sort his companions saw in the tomb of Saracek. The Lantern Archons immediately spiral back the way Terapin has come.
Lantern Archon A is going to fly straight back into the darkness and cast Continual Flame on the first thing it bumps into, whether that's one of these skeleton monsters or one of the party members (don't worry, it shouldn't hurt, just dispel darkness) and hold still there, projecting its Aura of Menace. Lantern Archon B casts Aid on Anzath, granting her temporary hit points and hovers above her, waiting for anything unfriendly to come into visual range.
Terapin, meanwhile, continues down the hallway another 25 feet away from the shadow room.
A lantern archon zips around the corner and into the dark--and combat. It bumbles into Lolly and casts Continual Flame on his , if it beats concealment, that is...
Brilliant light pours forth from Lolly's liquor bottle, diluting the inky blackness of the dark magic! For the first time, the warriors in the skeleton room can see their foes--jet black skeletons with swords in each hand.
There are many ways to misinterpret the "counter or dispel" text for light and darkness spells. Here's how that particular rule actually works. To counter a spell of the opposing descriptor, you ready an action just like any other counterspell. Just as normal for counterspell, the target of the spell must be within range (which, without Reach Spell metamagic, is touch for most light and darkness spells). If the target is in range, you automatically counter the opposing spell and it has no effect, just like always for counterspell. To dispel, you simply cast your spell on the same target (just like with enlarge person and reduce person) and then they cancel each other out, leaving no spell. Again, the range is usually touch and the target is the object that radiates the darkness or light; you can't just touch an arbitrary spot within the darkness or light.
...
Now that we have those out of the way, let's assume the more typical case where someone cast a darkness spell on one object, somebody else cast a light spell on another object, and the areas overlap. We're still not dealing with daylight yet. Based on the rules of light and darkness, here's how to adjudicate this situation within the overlap:
First, the darkness spell turns off nonmagical light sources and lowers the ambient light level. If there are multiple darkness spells, figure out the highest spell level (not caster level!)
Next, the light spells attempt to shine through. For every light spell, check to see if it has a higher spell level (not caster level!) than the highest spell level of any of the darkness spells. If so, that light spell has its normal effect, as per the spell. Do not reduce its light level again for the darkness spell; that already happened. This is true in all overlapping areas, as per the May 2013 FAQ, whether the light spell's source object is within the area of darkness or not.
Lolly's skeleton snarls and swings:
Aurora's skeleton joins:
Lolly loses a bit more strength as the blades bite.
Bedlam's glued skeleton tries to cut itself free. Its strength sapping magic is no help, here, and the fiend looks a little pathetic as it hacks at the goo:
Bedlam grits his teeth, as more of his strength is drained. He continues to do the only thing that makes sense in this situation...
Be un good idea, druid!
Two gooped skeletons attack Bedlam with AOOs (I forgot this a second ago):
Bedlam loses a bit more...
Bedlam's bomb bounces before it blows, but it catches a few skellies in the splash:
All three vs Bed skellies take the full blast and are entangled--as they already were, but hey.
The blender starts, with Bedlam in it. Two goopy skeletons get to work:
Only one of the slashes gets through, but Bedlam's lost more strength.
Aurora unleashes a burst of positive energy, a flare of near-blinding white filling the area, and continues to make a backwards retreat.
When others aren't following him away from the darkness, Tragershen curses. He zips back to Terapin's position, taking in the gloomy melee.
Aurora, having already (if I remember right) withdrawn a few steps, gets half the skeletons with her blast of positivity.
Lolly's skeletons are a little closer to her.
One resists, but the other two are racked by her good nature--this might be the hardest hit they've taken all fight! The one Lolly'd been whacking on looks like it might actually go down soon.
...but Tragershen has a chance to one-up the cleric:
The gods (erm, I mean, quick thinking and long study) grant Tragershen a tempting line for his bolt.
Tragershen allows his prescience to give him a flicker of the future, and he times his casting so that the stroke of lighting takes advantage of the remarkable coincidence in the skeletons' placement during the otherwise chaotic melee.
Lightning bolt, damage, DC 17 reflex save for half damage.
The Continual Flame continues to flame the darkness into lightness.
Suddenly, the room is VERY bright as the lightning bolt transfixes the skeletons fighting Bedlam. Despite their goopy bones, they all twist away from the worst of the shock.
The dodge is not enough to save two of them. They crumble.
One of Lolly's skeletons attacks:
Lolly takes another nick and feels his strength seeping away through the cut.
Now being able to see her foes clearly, Anzath studies a black skeleton and fires into the melee.
"Okay, okay, I think we've got it now, boys," Terapin murmurs to himself.
Now backing up at a more relaxed and cautious pace, Terapin winds up as if to throw a ball and launches a third Lantern Archon into the room, while the one hovering above Anzath joins it.
Lantern Archons A, B, and C are all going to focus fire their light rays on the black skeleton that just nicked Lolly.
Terapin is staying well clear of that room, but keeping an eye out; he'll redirect the nearest Lantern with an unexpended Aid spell if one of his new friends falls.
The room is full of a flurry of rays and "pew pew pew" noises. The archons fire wildly, but enough of the rays hit Lolly's skeleton to burn its unlife out.
Lolly lashes out at his bony foes:
He chops the first one's head off. It rolls into a corner.
Talathel, sensing weakness, attacks Bedlam's skelly:
...thank goodness it's entangled, or that would have been an embarrassing miss. And the lights are on and everything.
All's well, though, that ends with stabbing a prone monster:
He's just not great at defeating DR--he does scratch it a little.
Gelver jumps into the fray:
...ineffectually.
The last black skeleton fighting against Lolly, Tal, and Gelver fights from its prone position:
...it misses with both attacks.
Bedlam decides to gnaw on bone...
We be need'n un bard!
Bedlam's claws scrabble at the bones without much effect, but his bite proves fatal--his jaws crack into the ancient marrow, and Bedlam tastes a strange, but somehow not-unpleasant flavor that very few have had the chance to savor.
Tragershen slips a wand into his hand and points it at the remaining skeleton. With a word from the elf, the wand emits a white beam.
Disrupt undead, ranged touch attack
Damage,
Terapin plops down in the hallway and dabs at his brow with a handkerchief, while his archons spiral around the remaining skeleton and go about burning it to a cinder.
Bedlam's skeleton suddenly rears back, still alive, and lunges at the alchemist--when it finally succumbs to the light rays of the archons and a blast from Tragershen's wand. They make quick work of the other skeleton, too.
Even as the last skeleton falls, the continual flame is overwhelmed by darkness. Whatever is powering the literally dark magic, it's not the undeath of the skeletons.
Bedlam--hastily--makes his strength depleted dwarven arse back out of the Darkness to relative safety...
Me no feel so guud.
Anzath lowers her bow, surprised they are all able to walk away from this. "Sh!t. Vell done."
With the enemies vanquished, Lolygert takes a knee, feeling much weaker than usual for this kind of thing.
Then the darkness descends again. Blinking, he looks about in the darkness, "Where'd everyone go?" he shouts out into the inky blackness.
Aurora heaves a sigh as it seems, at last, the battle has ended. "Gather our injured," she calls. "We need to pull back somewhere safe and rest."
When the injured are gathered, Aurora will channel a pulse of healing energy.
The party gathers in a circle in Room One, in the light and just down the staircase to the ghoul-rat-pooze cave.
Aurora heals the party's superficial wounds, but the analgesic magic does little to restore their vim and vigor. The strength drain of the skeletons has taken its toll.
"Ve are unstopable. Let'z prezz forward."
Down the stairs you found in Room 7
Up the stairs you came down back to the pooze level
Down the dirt slide
Up the dirt slide
Through Tragershen's Arcane Eye tunnel in the shroom room to the graveyard
Through one of the other tunnels in the shroom room
Or, get creative.
The party limps to the shroom room and inspects Tragershen's tunnel. You'll be able to crawl up it, but it'll be a tight squeeze for the larger of the medium-sized folk. All will have to crawl, except Terapin.
There aren't any monsters around the tunnel or its exit, so it takes time and you get dirty, but you make it up.
The sky is flaming orange as the sun sets to the west. It will be night in the graveyard in an hour or two.
Anzath searches for a suitably safe spot to make camp.
In a feeble effort to try and salvage some dignity, Tragershen uses prestidigitation to clean most of the filth off of everyone when we emerge.
We'll try to find somewhere within an hour's walk of the tunnel to hole up and lick our wounds.
Without any other recourse, the damaged dwarf attempts to find a cozy--hidden--place to rest for 6 days...
Weary beyond what he's felt before, Lolygert scrambled through the musty tunnel, rolling on the grass when the open sky revealed itself above.
With a groan, he rises and helps to find a safe place...
The party discusses their options and trade survival lore.
To the east, the coast and the sea.
To the south, the hobgoblin forest.
To the west, the coast road, the Forest of Hope, your former stomping grounds, town.
To the north, the bridge over the river and the colonists of Iansfort.
Above, the sky.
Below, gods only know.
Pick a direction.
Bedlam figures it has been a while since they had some good home made biscuits. He starts heading to town....
When the dwarf starts stumping off to the west, Tragershen gives a weary shrug and starts to follow.