You down yet another of the bandits with your first strike, though your second only wounds one. The two bandits near you start backing up.
"You're... some kind of demon!" one exclaims.
The other doesn't bother speaking. He just starts running, as do his surviving comrades.
Puffs of moisture spew from his mouth as he breathes heavily, walking forwards towards the bandit that talked. "You," he points his sword at him. "Where is the girl?"
"She's in there!" he shouts, pointing at the lodge as he backs away from you... and at the briefest lapse in your attention, he turns and runs after his comrades.
He lets the man run. Sheathing his sword, he drinks his last remaining potion before ducking inside. He keeps his shield at hand, you never know what might be lurking.
Theodric sees nothing moving in the lodge when he enters. It seems he's in a large room that runs the entire length of the building, broken up by a long table and a roaring fireplace in the center of the room that only just manages to keep the chill out of the air inside. One door and a staircase up to another one are on his left, while four doors are placed at regular intervals on his right. On the other side of the fireplace a large bearskin rug lies on the floor.
Theodric opens each of the doors in turn, starting to his right.
The first door he opens is clearly a bedroom. The only thing of interest in it is a locked chest.
Theodric continues opening doors - he'd like to get an idea of what's in here before he investigates any particular room.
The next room is also a bedroom. Before he has time to take much of a look, however, he hears a sound behind him. When he looks, he sees the bandits he had just killed... now jerkily moving towards him, shuffling into the lodge as if lacking all semblance of coordination, their vacant eyes fixed on him!
Theodric closes in, and slashes at the undead. The same shadows from before follow the path of the blade, lingering around the dead man.
Now that he's among them, Theodric can tell that there are three zombies. His slash slices straight across the first one's throat... unfortunately, it doesn't need to breathe any more, so that doesn't stop it quite yet.
All three crowd around Theodric and flail at him clumsily with their fists.
Two of them strike his breastplate hard enough to bruise in quick succession.
Reeling from the blows, Theodric lashes out with his sword left and right.
Theodric's first blow decapitates the zombie he'd injured earlier, while his second slash cuts across the chest of a second, damaging but not felling it. Because the corpses were so fresh, the cuts slowly ooze not-yet-cool blood.
The two remaining zombies keep up their attack.
This time, however, his armor wards off both blows.
In spite of the clangor of fists on metal, Theodric catches the soft sound of someone chanting outside.
A burst of shadow covers both the walking corpses, and he lashes out at the injured one.
"Show yourself!" he roars at the spellcaster outside.
Theodric's attack goes wide, his focus too split by speaking and fighting at the same time.
The zombies, unable to understand him and uncaring even if they could, continue their single-minded assault.
They continue pounding on his breastplate with no effect.
A man appears, holding aloft something glowing black. As the black glow falls on you, you feel it sucking at your life force, but you're able to fight it off for the most part.
He smiles at you as he palms whatever he'd been holding and sticks it back under his thick cloak. "Better?" he asks, sarcastically.
Blood wells in his mouth as his life force runs out. Theodric spits it out on the carpet.
He focuses on dealing with the minions before taking on thier master.
Theodric doesn't quite finish off the damaged zombie, but the other staggers and wobbles after his blow. The badly damaged one still attacks him, however.
Fortunately, your armor holds.
The necromancer again brandishes whatever he's holding under his cloak.
Much of the damage he had done to the zombies vanishes as a cold energy washes over them.