It is, it is, a glorious thing...

Game Master Arythain

"Oh yes. They did say this plague walker variant was smarter than average. Not sure how much smarter but any bit of intelligence is a significant improvement over the lowest level undead," Dante comments. "We can ask but I highly doubt it work that easily. We're new, he has his own crew that he isn't even the leader of, and that place is dangerous. We might, however, be able to join them. temporarily."

Can we assume whatever course we decide on, we bring the offer to Georgi? Either hiring him or joining them? Dante will lean towards joining them as a vote.

"It doesn't hurt to ask. The fact we're hoping to find some evidence of Oznat's death might help. Are you prepared to speak to him? I seem to rub people the wrong way."

As Dante spoke, Luca's thoughts were racing. Some kind of... individual with more control over the undead than normal? But why? Most things had a reason for being where they were, and finding that was definitely something she was going to have to focus on. She wasn't going to be stubborn and prideful, either - she was more than happy to join up with someone else if it would work better, although that would certainly limit her ability to protect Dante and Tyrus without revealing herself...

At this point Dante, and I assume Tyrus, look at Luca. Neither could read a mind, yet, but they could tell a lot was going on in her head from the far off look in her eyes. They both hoped she would make her thoughts known through speech, miming, dance, something.

"Sure," Dante says getting up from their table to go find Georgi.

"Georgi? Would your company mind taking a few more warm bodies along with its next venture?" he starts when he finds the looter, or would he prefer item acquisition associate? "Just as far as the theater at least. Or maybe we could hire you to guide us there. Double share of whay we find? All of us are magically inclined so I think we stand a good chance of figuring out what's going on. If you need proof of our capabilities we can certainly demonstrate." To prove his point, Dante summons four orbs of light in his hand that slowly spin. He then sends then off in different directions all around him. "You will never be out of light as all of us can do this. And even if they go out, I can enhance my blade to strike ethereal creatures. Tyrus can too with magic. And the quite one, she's more powerful than both of us. She specializes in summons and can conjure a hoard of minions."

Georgi considers Dante's words silently. "Dabbled in magic a bit myself, won't say it doesn't come in handy out there. As for my own band, we're not going out anytime soon - but I could sign on with you, temporary like, for a time."

He pauses a moment. "Can't promise to take you all the way to the theatre. But we can at least head that way and see what happens. If I'm your guide, then you'll need to listen to me. I say we turn back, then we turn back - or I leave you. Simple as that. Any objections?"

"I'm fine with that," Dante says. He turns to the others confirmation.

Luca vigorously shook her head. "We want to investigate, but there's no need to be stupid." she said quietly. "You know this area much better than we do." Their errand was not so urgent they needed to risk their lives over it.

"Absolutely. Very reasonable. We'll listen." Tyrus's head bobbed up and down in agreement as if on a spring.

"When do we leave?"

Georgi nods his head approvingly at your acceptance. "Good to see you're not being foolish about this. You wouldn't believe the number of people who run to their deaths in the ruins every year for want of a bit of sense. And we can leave in the morning."

Limited time to post right now, so post anything you want to do between now and departure. I'll try and get us going at a better clip starting tomorrow, as I know we've been dragging a bit.

Outside of packing for the trip and making sure they had supplies, Luca didn't look like she had anything in particular to do - and, instead, devoted a bit of time to finding the safest places to bunker down in case she needed to hide. It was always good to have several fallback locations, just in case something went wrong...

"Very well. In addition to a not inconsiderate skill as a wizard, I have also practices a chirurgeon and an alchemist. I'm happy to discuss combat strategies, if you wish. My intention is to fire rays of positive energy at the undead. I am capable of a spell that can augment the life force of a body - not something I undertake casually, but it can allow someone at the brink of death to walk back to the surgery. My skill at hand to hand fighting is - well - it's something I have never bothered to practice."

is there a place to sleep, here?

Yes, you can assume Georgi shows you to a place you can rest easily and securely.

"A fool thinks he knows everything and a wise man knows he knows nothing. We are not fools," is Dante's parting quip. He had been prepared for exploration since they walked through the gates of Keldradt so there wasn't much left to do there. In fact, turning in early sounded like a good idea in case something happened at night. Then he'd have some sleep at least.

There is an air of familiarity as you prepare, with Georgi at the lead, to set out the next morning. The doors of Mistwatch are like a miniature version of the gates of Keldradt which had opened for you only the morning before.

Each of you carries ten days worth of food and water, more than enough (as your guide claims) to reach the tower and return. "Food is rarely the problem," Georgi tell you. "Most trouble you run into is the violent sort, and most explorers end up turning back due to casualties, not hunger."

You spend a few hours walking through the streets, all of them clear and eerie-quiet, just as it was for the majority of your trek into the ruins. Georgi occasionally makes small talk, but it seems half-hearted, as he remains alert, eyes roving your surroundings.

Towards midday you come to a more tighly-packed area where larger, multi-story buildings crowd a bit more closely, creating a more claustrophobic air. Georgi leads you to one such building that has collapsed, and beyond it you can see several others reduced largely to rubble.

"Here's a shortcut, of sorts," the guide says. "It'll save us a lot of time, and very possibly a lot of fighting. Only thing is... it requires a bit of nimbleness to get through at points. Don't want to be making assumptions about your abilities..." he glances at Tyrus. "But might require some climbing and the like. We'll be able to get through with rope and some preparation, but if you'd rather take the flatter, longer route, we'll do that. That way'll lead through an area that never seems free of walking corpses, so it's a choice between climb or fight, really."

Indicate whether you'd prefer the shortcut through the collapsed buildings (expect climb and other such skill checks) or continue along the normal road (expect fighting).

Luca looked nervously at Tyrus for a few moments. Then... "I... think the longer route would be better." she suggested quietly. "It's been pretty clear of undead so far, so we should have a safe path if we need to retreat. If we're not going to be up to the challenge of fighting, better to find out now than when retreating wouldn't be so easy."

Tyrus flushed a deep red "Ah... I am sorry. When I read of the downsides of haemothurgy in my sedentary academic life I had no idea how inconvenient - even dangerous - it could become. I hope the food isn't for me? I eat little more than a man of more normal proportions."
wait - how far is this hill. 10 days seems like a lot, I thought this was a few hours walk! I'll change up the spell loadout if we'll becamping out in zombieapocalypseville!

It probably is only a few hours even with the rubble. Georgi mentioned it was more food than they would need.

"I agree. I'd rather caught in a fight in terrain we are comfortable moving around in than one we aren't. Tyrus isn't the only one we need to worry about. If there isn't a rope or easy handholds I'd likely be just as bad."

It would be about a half-day's walk if you could just travel normally. Given the danger, it's more like two day's travel because you need to move much more cautiously. I admit that even that might be stretching it - I haven't exactly mapped out every inch of the city. ;)

Georgi nods. "Fine enough."

[b]"Quite a few of them in the square around this corner. Usually are, really. Not sure what draws them to this area. Good news is they all seem to be your average, dumb corpse. If we move quickly we should be able to cut down any that get in our way without attracting too many. If it looks like we're about to get bogged down, then we'll need to hightail it back this way. Getting surrounded by these things is the surest way to die in this city. Do whatever you need to do to get ready."

Will have a map up tomorrow. Basically this will be a run-and-fight type battle with you needing to cross from one side of the map to the other as quickly as possible. Go ahead and roll initiative for me, but you can take as many rounds as you need before you get started. Detail your actions by round.

Initiative: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (17) + 8 = 25

Luca nodded, paying close attention. She'd probably move in the middle of the group, and a glimmer of arcane energy crackled on the edge of her fingertips. She could only do so much, but intended to call up a Shield just before they started moving. Once they did, she could try using some Grease on any particularly large groups of undead, which ought to slow them down quite nicely.

init: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (16) + 2 = 18
Tyrus casts Chill Touch, Mage Armour and False Life on himself 1d10 + 6 ⇒ (10) + 6 = 16
"I'll... I'll go as fast as I can. I'm warded, now. Should be a bit of a shock for any of the undead who do try to take me - but everyone stand clear, I wouldn't like to hurt any of you."

"Now hang on a second. Running through a gaggle of undead does not sound like a tactically sound decision. Let me see." Dante draws his blade and holds the tip out around the corner and up high.

"You know what I am looking for. What are we dealing with? What do you see?"

While the blade analyzes the enemy, Dante analyzes the battlefield.

Letting the black blade look for any unusual undead while Dante looks around for a tactical advantage. You had mentioned that the one path might require climbing so I am looking for a high, sturdy platform to which we can draw the zombies or skeletons and safely fire spells from. Something with a very hard Climb DC without rope. We can climb the structure, bring the zombies close and cast Disrupt until they are all dead. Depends on what kind of undead we are dealing with though.

"There has to be an end to these things. Might as well do our part."

Thoughts?

Luca promised to listen to our guide, and is doing so. XD Unless there's a really big reason not to, anyway.

@Dante: You see some places where that kind of tactic would be possible, but your guide would explain that staying in one place and making a ruckus for too long is a bad, bad idea in this city. Zombies are the least of the troubles you'd attract.

After fussing with a few more attempts at actually creating a map, I've decided on a mapless style for this combat. (or at least, a map-minimal style)

The "path" you need to follow will consist of twelve spaces, starting at 1 and going to 12. You can use a movement action to move from one space to the next.

Each round of combat, I will roll to determine how many zombies notice the party and approach to attack. The roll is normally 1d3-1. HOWEVER, I will add to the total each time the party does something loud or noticeable, like fighting or moving quickly (taking two moves in one round of combat). Each time you do one of these actions (listed below), you or I will roll a stealth check (I'll do it if you forget) with a flat DC 10. A failure results in zombies. (+1 zombies arriving next round)

Zombies so attracted will approach the space the most characters are in, and will arrive at the beginning of the next round.

Players can attempt to move out of a space even if there are still zombies in it. This requires EITHER a Combat Maneuver or an Acrobatics roll against DC 8 + # Zombies in that space. Failure results in one AoO against the character, and a failure to move into the next space. If a zombie is left in a space that all players have exited, it will follow into the next space on its turn.

To leave the area/end the combat, all players must reach and exit one of the two path ends (spaces 1 and 12). Obviously, exiting on space 1 would be going backwards. Furthermore, there are already zombies in a number of spaces, these are listed in the spoiler below.

Ask any questions you have. Furthermore as usual, if you want to try something not handled in the rules explain what it is and we'll work out how to do it.

Georgi draws his weapon and turns to the group again. "Ready to move? Do everything as quietly as you can, even if it's hacking down a zombie. And keep moving whenever possible. If we can get across the square we can easily lose them in the streets beyond."

That set up is going to be super difficult. Both the description and the math says this is not going to work.

Dante's tactical mind began running through scenarios in his mind's eye. Finding different paths, analyzing the movements of the zombies, factoring other known enemies that might show up. All of it added up to an almost 90% percent certainty they were not going to make it to the other side or at least not in any condition to continue. They needed a distraction or to thin the horde silently. "This is not going to work. We need a distraction or to drastically reduce their numbers. I can't even see a clear line through them." Dante is quiet for a moment as he thinks. "Luca, can you summon a pair of stone men on either side of this horde and distract them to the sides? Maybe having them move into a building or down an ally while making noise?"

I had worked out that it should be doable (though not guaranteed), but it's possible I got some things wrong (or left out something that I had initially included). I'll run through it again to be sure.

"Let me try something." Dante moves as close to the zombie-infested clearing and hides behind a ruined wall. He focuses on a point out in the middle and not along the thinnest line they might make it through. The "path" above. A bright, glowing, vaguly humanoid figure appears within the mass. Now to see if the walk towards it or away from it.

I forgot dancing lights have secondary effect to make a vaguely humanoid shape.

Luca looked at the others. "Um... I... might have an idea that's better than the rock things." she said timidly. "If you just want a lot of noise to distract them, I could do that at several different places a fair ways from here..." The stone warriors were the most common servants, but not the only ones. She could also call up some flying, noisy things...

Dante sees that some of the nearby zombies do take notice of the light. They make for it somehow hesitantly. None of them appear to try and attack it, though.

Interesting. Why do they seem to be afraid of it? "Alright. Do that. Can you summon your protector as well?" Dante says formulating a plan. You still don't have your eidolon out. May or may not help. "I think we should try stealth as long as we can. Me and Tyrus will take out that pair spot three at range. I can use the lights to distract that other group spot 7 and we can take out the last one. Sound good?" Dante looks first at Georgi seeing as this was technically his call and then the others.

fingers crossed.

Luca frantically shook her head at the idea of asking that creature to show up. It really only bit things, and wasn't that great at doing so to begin with. Mostly, it just talked to her about magic. Besides, if it came down to it, better to have some of the stone soldiers or the shrieker things, and there was a weird kind of magical interference when the one beast was around.

"Absolutely. Sounds wonderful. I'm sure we'll do fine." Tyrus voice belies his words. "Only, I just cast The Cold Touch of Death, which causes undead to flee at a touch. If I cast anything else, I'll lose that spell. Do you think I should?"

Dante looks at Tyrus curiously. "How is the "Cold Touch of Death effective against undead? They are already dead and immune to the cold."

That looks like it might have a slightly better chance of succeeding and there are 8 total in our way. I didn't think you could hold a spell that long.

Did not remember that Chill Touch makes undead flee. Crazy - but then again, Tyrus is all necromancer prodigy and such.

Georgi nods at Dante. "Aye, distractions can work. But if we rile up the horde too much, it tends to backfire. I've a feeling I'm a fair bit more nimble in this work than some of you, so keep moving forward as much as possible. Don't need to drop every zombie in our path. I'll take the lead at first, but don't be afraid to let me fall behind. I'll catch up better than you folks could."

Georgi thinks for a second. "Unless I ask for your help. Then you'd better get your asses back and give me a hand."

Begin Combat Round 1

Georgi moves into Space 1 and begins combat. Georgi moves again into space 2.

Georgi Stealth(Double Move): 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (8) + 8 = 16

Also, slight correction to the above description of the battle: I will roll for and add the extra zombies at the beginning of each round (excluding this one). Dante's use of the dancing lights spell will impose a further -1 on the zombies arriving in the round after he uses it.

Round 1

"Do what you need to do," Dante says following Georgi but not as quickly. He moves into the horde slowly, focusing on groups that turn their way and putting a glowing figure nearby to distract them. He wasn't sure if they were afraid or fascinated but it didn't seem to rile them up too bad as Georgi mentioned. So he was going to keep using it until it proved detrimental.

Move to space 1 and cast Dancing Lights again. Technically I am casting a light spell but it for distracting so I assume a stealth isn't needed.

Correct, no need for the stealth roll when using it for that purpose.

Tyrus cautiously advances between Dante and Georgi, his lecture on the disruptive effects of negative energy on undead mentally stored for a more propitious time.

As they started to move, Luca activated her Shield spell before heading out, then advanced to try and stay in the middle of the group. The beginnings of a Grease spell were at her fingertips, ready to be hurled towards any larger groups of undead.

End Combat Round 1

Begin Combat Round 2

Zombies: 1d3 - 2 ⇒ (1) - 2 = -1

With Dante's spell distracting the nearest group of undead, none of them have yet noticed the living that are nearby.

Georgi Attack v Zombie 1: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (19) + 9 = 28
Georgi Damage: 1d8 + 4 ⇒ (8) + 4 = 12

Georgi slows his pace as he approaches the first group of zombies in the way. Still moving stealthily, he sneaks up behind the nearest one and brings his axe down on the back of its skull.

Georgi Stealth: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (11) + 8 = 19

12 damage on Zombie 1.

Dislodging his axe, Georgi prepares to continue the assault.

so Georgi moved to 3?
Still making more effort to be quiet than useful, Tyrus carefully moved forward a little.

Luca advanced together with Tyrus, keeping an eye on her surroundings.

Ready Action: Cast Grease (Reflex DC 15) if a group of 3 or more undead approach, aiming to trip them up.

Dante moves forward as well and takes aim at one of the undead menacing Georgi. The shot was perfect but luck had a different idea. The zombie's shuffling feet caught a loose stone, causing it to lurch just as the beam of positive energy was about to hit it.

Ranged Touch: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (1) + 6 = 7 Wow
Disrupt undead Damage: 1d6 ⇒ 5
Stealth+ACP: 1d20 + 3 - 1 ⇒ (14) + 3 - 1 = 16 Dodged a bullet.

Yes, he moved to 3. And way to shift the blame on missing that "perfect" shot, Dante. ;)

Zombie 1 Attack: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (10) + 2 = 12
Zombie 1 Damage: 1d4 + 2 ⇒ (4) + 2 = 6
Zombie 2 Attack: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (1) + 2 = 3
Zombie 2 Damage: 1d4 + 2 ⇒ (1) + 2 = 3

The two zombies retaliate against Georgi, who slips effortlessly between their sluggish blows.

End Combat Round 2

Combat Round 3

Zombies: 1d3 - 1 ⇒ (3) - 1 = 2

2 more zombies approach. They will arrive at space 3 and make their attacks at the end of the round. Yes, I changed it again, sorry. This should be the final decision!

Georgi now attacks with both axes at once.

Georgi Attack v Zombie 1: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (6) + 5 = 11
Georgi Damage: 1d8 + 4 ⇒ (2) + 4 = 6

Georgi Attack v Zombie 1: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (16) + 5 = 21
Georgi Damage: 1d8 + 4 ⇒ (4) + 4 = 8

Two blows fall, one nearly missing but the other connecting solidly. The first zombie falls as if it were a puppet with its strings cut, leaving only way impeding your immediate path.

Georgi Stealth: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (16) + 8 = 24

Ranged Touch: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (1) + 6 = 7
Disrupt undead Damage: 1d6 ⇒ 5
Stealth+ACP: 1d20 + 3 - 1 ⇒ (9) + 3 - 1 = 11

Two in a row? Good god.

Dante prepares to fire another but the spell fizzles before its even ready. The magus looks down at his hand, confused. He'd never failed to produce the spell before. Ignoring the smoke from his own hand, he moves forward to aid Georgi. Or at least to provide another target.

Must be the city's curse.

Dante looked like he was having trouble, and Luca gave him a worried look. They could still retreat if they had to... and it was better to be safe than sorry. Deciding that erring on the side of caution was the better choice, she hurled a bolt of Grease towards the ground at the feet of the oncoming pair of undead.

Cast: Grease. Reflex DC 15.

on the theory above area is not greased...
Tyrus took a deep breath and strode forward, hand outraised.
chill touch, touch attack: 1d20 - 1 + 1 ⇒ (9) - 1 + 1 = 9 +2 if can get flanking
stealth: 1d20 - 1 ⇒ (10) - 1 = 9
lianna's blessing: 1d20 - 1 ⇒ (10) - 1 = 9