Revjak slashes at the eyes; the creature seems to attempt to dodge, but Revjak feels the blade bite into his target, and hears the wet squelch of the polearm hitting flesh. It squeals in pain, a high-pitched wail, and falls from the worg's back. The mask falls from its head as it hits the ground and rolls away from the fallen rider...
The globe of darkness disappears suddenly, and Piety sees the masked figure falling from worg's back, the mask falling from its head as it hits the ground. Then he sees a hobgoblin come out of the passageway to Revjak's right, the brute's blade arcing down at the barbarian's skull. But as it does, the sacred flame of Sharess, called out swiftly by Signey, ignites around the creature.
It twists aside to avoid the fire successfully, but its weapon continues towards Revjak....
Revjak attempts to roll away from the blow, and narrowly avoids having his back laid open by the hobgoblin. The longsword rings out as it strikes the stone floor.
Enraged, the worg lunges at the rolling barbarian.
The worg's teeth tear into the barbarian, and he falls at the creature's feet. It looks up at Piety and snarls.
Through the door to the east, Reynwyn and Carric see the second worg come charging down the long corridor towards them and their upturned table barricade!
Revjak howls in triumph as the rider falls and as he strikes back at the hobgoblin, and then is cut short by the worg's savaging. He crashes to the floor, senseless but not yet dead.
Reyn spots the warg charging down the tunnel and steps out to get a better angle. Shadows swirl from the lights around him, dimming the ambient light for a brief moment as it is sucked into the jewel on his ring. The eyes of the raven glow a purplish color before a bolt of darkness fires out towards the warg! He then quickly steps back to his original position to give Carric an opening to fire!
Carric pops up from behind the barrier as nd fires at the warg.
As Revjak falls, Piety moves up and takes his place, standing over the fallen Human. He then tries to smash the more injured of the two enemies.
Piety steps forward, smashing at the hobgoblin, but it manages to get its shield up to block the heavy blow.
Signey once again throws holy flame at the hobgoblin, but it manages to evade the living fire once more. Revjak tries to stand, but can merely groan as his life's blood leaks slowly onto the floor.
As the worg rushes towards to Reywyn and Carric the two of them attack from range, Reywyn's bolt hitting the creature's flank, Carric's arrow spraying wide.
The hobgoblin swings at Piety...
The hobgoblin's blade smashes into the wizard-turned-golem . Piety falls beside Wulgar. The armoured humanoid then moves behind the worg, picking up the fallen mask. It barks at the worg, which bends low, and the hobgoblin swings a mailed leg over its back.
Its rider mounted, the worg then charges straight through the hallway to the east, disappearing from view!
The second worg bears down on Carric and Reynwyn, and smashes into the makeshift barricade.
Carric puts his shoulder to it, and the worg seems to hit it poorly. The table holds... for now. The worg snarls and slavers, smelling prey but unable to reach it.
Signey runs to Revjak, and seeing him severely wounded, administers a healing potion to him.
Revjak staggers to his feet, sees no enemies, but hears the clash going on to the south.
"My thanks again, we must move swiftly and aid the others!"
Revjak charges to the south and braces himself for if - *when* = the second worg breaks through the table.
Carric pops up from behind the barrier and again fires at the worg.
Almost simultaneously, Reynwyn blasts the worg with another bolt of black energy, while Carric pops up and shoots the worg in the forequarters. The beast retreats a few feet in shock and pain, but almost immediately prepares to make a renewed assault on the table, when suddenly the glow of purple eyes appears at the end of the corridor to the east. A low, gravelly voice roars out, and the worg halts. The voice barks again, and the worg looks behind it, then begins slinking back, retreating further than even darkvision can see.
The voice calls out again, in Common this time. "Thank you for your little visit, friends. The mask has been in the hands of one who was unworthy for far too long. Now I have it, and with its power I will spread Shar's blessings all over the North! Listen out for the name Malarkir, I'm sure you'll hear it again!" With a throaty laugh, the purple glow disappears.
Revjak grits his teeth at the irritating voice of the one naming itself Malarkir.
"Damn! But at least we live!"
With that, he rushes back to Piety and attempts to patch him up.
Reynwyn shares a look with Carric and gives the elf a brief nod before rushing over to where Piety lay on the floor of the cave. He removes the healing potion from his belt and quickly pours it into Piety's 'mouth'.
Seeing that Piety will live, Revjak turns to the others.
"It appears that our foes have fled. We should rest while we can, they may return with allies."
Reynwyn helps his traveling companion to his feet before joining the others back in the main room. "We should put some more barricades should we decide to rest here. Perhaps somewhere more defensible would be better? But I defer to you and Carric for such things as I am no warrior like both of you."
"Aye, the table was a quick bit of thinking. We can gather furniture and barricade doors from the inside. The room we slept in before wasn't bad, but we could look elsewhere."
Reynwyn smiles and nods at the praise. "Thank you, Revjak." He glances at the western door. "I'll listen at this door to see if anything makes noise beyond."
Piety stands and offers his thanks to Reynwyn, along with gold for the cost of the healing potion.
Carric continues to look out of the room as the others begin to gather items to barricade themselves inside.
Neither Reynwyn nor Carric hear any noise coming from any of the hallways or doors leading to this room.
You all retreat back through the subterranean temple to the goblin dorm. As you go through the chapel, some of you notice again the odd depression or whatever it is some 5 or so feet in front of the statue. But you are all weary, and some are wounded, so you continue back to the dorm, push some beds in front of the door, and go to sleep.
As the party sleeps while Carric keeps watch, the elf notes again the faint smell of decay that makes his nose twitch in displeasure. Then he hears a slight shuffle sound coming from behind the spiked-shut door to the east. Ears straining, he stays still, listening for more noise, but it doesn't come.
Revjak awakens, ready to face danger once again.
"Companions, how about we finally see what is behind this door? I would not leave behind such a thing to threaten others - or us should we stay here longer!"
After the group rested, Piety's body seemed...tougher, somehow. Which given he was a Golem, didn't make a whole lot of sense, but yet the feeling persisted.
In answer to Revjak's question, Piety doesn't speak, but does give him a nod.
Carric draws an arrow to his bow and nods to Revjak.
Let's have at it, then
Revjak enters a fury, and slams the door.
Revjak smashes into the door, and it explodes in a shower of splinters. The walls of the room within are lined with shelves, most of which have been smashed. In one corner lies a charred pile of books and scrolls. The rest of the floor is covered in dust, ashes and scraps of parchment. Standing in the middle of the floor are four undead monstrosities. Humanoid in shape, their flesh is putrid and rotting. They stare at you for a moment through diseased eyes, then begin shambling forward.
Carric takes a brief moment to mark his enemy, and then he quickly loses an arrow at the targeted undead.
Carric fires past Revjak, hitting the undead creature directly to the east in the chest. It seems not to notice the wound. The zombies advance. The one with Carric's arrow protruding from its chest leads the way, and they push forward as one, completely blocking the doorway, their clawing hands raking at Revjak.
Revjak reels under the blows of the zombies, blocking some, but not enough. His already torn and bloody furs are reduced to tatters hanging around his neck.
Signey raises her arm, presenting a pair of ruby red lips on a gold bracelet. "Flee the power of Sharess, undead abominations!" she cries, and you all feel her divine power wash over you, and the zombies.
All four of the creatures recoil in from Signey's holy symbol, claws raised to protect their faces.
Piety moves forward and attempts to shove the abomination out of the way.
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Reynwyn spends sometime reading through the journal he keeps before stashing it away in his backpack and then laying his head upon the pack as a pillow. Jareth flies up to a perch as watches over the room silently with Piety. During his slumber Reynwyn is visited by his Lady, the masked female to whom he is beholden. She embraces the young half-elf and leans in to whisper into his ear for a time. When the embrace ends she smiles behind the mask and runs her arms around his body as a suit of fine, blackened mail suddenly appears around Reynwyn's torso. He looks down in awe before coming back to the waking world. As his eyes open, Jareth suddenly flutters over to land upon his shoulders and looks at him expectantly.
Reynwyn stares back at Jareth for a few moments. "What?" he finally asks. Jareth twitches its head to the side before pecking Reynwyn lightly upon the shoulder a few times. "Oh!" Reynwyn seems to get the hint and repeats the hand gestures he saw in his dream as some of the ambient light is drawn in around his hands in the form of substantial shadow-stuff. As he draws his hands down around his torso, the shadow-stuff begins to form tightly around his body in the shape of large feathers. "Interesting..."
Combat!
Reynwyn waits for an opportunity and then attempts to fire a bolt of his black energy into the room at the first zombie he sees!
Reynwyn's bolt flies past the zombies, striking none.
Revjak slashes and pummels the undead closest to him, to clear the way.
And awaits their next move.
Revjak swings mightily at the zombie around the corner to his left. Despite the difficulty of attacking around the wall, he connects twice, once with each end of his weapon, and the undead thing falls apart under the weight of the second blow Rancid, rotting flesh splatters over Piety and Revjak.
Carric fires again at his marked enemy.
Carric's arrow flies into the same zombie, and it snarls in response and stops cowering from Signey's holy light. It swings at Piety.
The rotting flesh of the zombie's arms smashes into Piety, and he grunts on impact. The other two make to flee, but as they turn their backs both Piety and Revjak strike at the same target.
Both barbarian and man-golem strike the creature, and massive slabs of zombie flesh slough off the creature, exposing bone and organs beneath. Once again, the undead reacts to the attacks, and turns back to strike at Piety again.
Piety knocks aside the attack easily, readying himself to smash the creature into oblivion.
Signey steps up, and calls on her sacred flame to attack the zombie that just got smashed by both Piety and Revjak.
Signey's holy fire incinerates the zombie, forever destroying it.
Piety smashes his fist into the creature's face.
Revjak's slashes become even wilder, trying to end the zombies swiftly, starting from his left and working across.
Piety smashes the zombie directly in front of him in the face, hoping to drop it. Its jaw flies off into a dark corner of the room, and the unholy green glint in its eyes fades for a moment, but it remains standing, still clawing for his face.
Revjak attacks over Piety's shoulder, slashing away at the zombie with the axehead of his glaive, knocking a number of its ribs free.
The undead creature falls to the ground in a heap, motionless. The young barbarian then turns the butt end of his weapon on the one before Piety, smashing into its semi-exposed sternum.
The creature fails to cling to its obscene parody of life, also falling in a stinking heap of bones and putrid flesh.
His mark having been destroyed, Carric moved his intended target to the remaining zombie and fires.
Carric's arrow lances into the zombie's back, penetrating where its heart should be beating and protruding out the other side. The creature stops cowering in the corner and instead turns to strike at the nearest target.
Seeing Piety directly in its path, the zombie snarls hideously and lunges at him.
Piety manages to fend off its frenzied attack and hold it at bay, but the creature seems relentless in its hunger, and its hate.