Tessa searches the body and the room for anything of use or interest.
"Does anyone have anything better I can use to hit these undead things with? My blade doesn't seem to be cutting it. Literally."
Barring nothing productive from that search, she moves back to the east to the first junction they came to and checks out the door to the east. If she doesn't detect anything she waits for the party to arrive and heads into the next room, ready for more undead.
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The undead falls to the ground still munching on his meal. as usual you don't find anything of note. Seems like, aside from the untouched secret door, the whole complex have been cleared years ago.
Tesse returns to the room where the first zombies came out.
it seems to be connected to the previous room, at least, you can see the same corridor through the cracks at on the doors.
The corridor seems empty.
The only unexplored part of the complex seems to be the large corridor on the east.
Tessa shouts back to the team, "Hey guys - it looks like this we still have quite a bit of exploration to do, let's get a move on!"
"Yeah, we got a whole day ahead of us, and someone to kill."
Standing next to Tessa, Gavin put his hand on the doorknob and pushes it open and readying his flail for what lies beyond...
Tessa nods to Gavin, weapon in hand and whispers, "Ready."
Bedu hurries up until he is there to help the other two at the door. He tries not to make much noise but the panting is hard to slow or stop.
Erik will listen at the door, and if there's nothing obvious, he'll try to open it an inch to look out to see what is out there. If he see's nothing, he'll open the door.
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Erick tends his hear over the rotted door and he can hear some rattling.
Also some splashes, as if someone was walking in a room with a few inches of water on the floor.
As you open the door a little you can see a large corridor before you that loose itself into the dark.
On your right, there is a double door.
It's hard to judge by the sounds that echo through the corridor, but you seem convinced that the zombies are not right outside your light source.
You believe you might be able to sneak in the room without attracting their attention if you are careful. Assuming of course that nothing in the room itself will attract them once you enter.
Erik whispers his judgments to the group about the zombies, etc, and sneaking. If there are no objections, he'll carefully open the door trying to minimize the noise, and slip into the hallway, moving slowly.
Bedu grips his shield even tighter and waits his turn after the warriors. He smiles at Kutsya, who seems a bit quiet, even for her.
Tessa follows behind Erick, weapon at the ready.
I am really starting to hate these undead creatures. Give me something that bleeds!
Gavin blanches at the mention of sneaking. "I'm not good at being quiet, in this armor. Yell if you need me. I'll be behind you all... a ways."
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As you advance, you don't seem to notice any rumor coming your way.
The corridor ahead of you, turns slightly to the right and again you lose track of it in the darkness.
As you approach the door, you start to hear a voice from inside the room.
It's low, almost a whisper, but sounds calm and collected.
And though you couldn't exactly grasp the words from outside, you are pretty sure it was actually talking, and not just moaning like a zombie.
Tessa listens closely and turns back to the party. She whispers, "Did you hear that? I heard voices in there! Perhaps someone else is trapped in here? I doubt it's the man we are after. "
She puts her hand on the door and says, "I'm ready to go in. Watch my back."
Gavin slides behind the door and readies his flail, trying to override the fear pumping in his veins. Could the cause of the risen dead down here be behind that door? I hope Tessa is correct...
Erick readies his pistol, holding it on the back of his other arm's forearm, sword dangling down and ready to swing after firing.
Tessa looks back and sees that her companions are ready. She gives a 1-2-3 signal and opens the door, prepared to take action if necessary.
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You storm into the room prepared for the worst.
it seems like some sort of private chapel. You are not sure if it was the original purpose of the room, but it looks like one now.
A kneeling man, turns towards the door surprised by your intrusion.
He looks at you with stupor, then he looks at his own hand and touches his own face, as if he was attempting to restore a grip with reality.
"Y..You look .. alive..."
He mutters without making clear if he is talking to you or rather to himself.
He slowly stand up and attempts a few steps towards you.
he limps badly and you can see a deep, badly treated wound that rather looks like someone tried to saw his foot away from his body.
"how..? when..?" he mutters, clearly struggling mentally just as much as he is struggling physically.
Also, they seem a little old fashioned.
It's unusual these days to see those kind of garbs among calistrian priests, except from a few elders maybe.
Gavin stares at the man, thinking, This is pretty much the last thing I expected to see.
Stepping forward, still gripping his flail in one hand, but with his hands out at his sides in a position of supplication, Gavin's voice comes out loud, if a little shakey. "Yes, we're alive, as are you... barely. How did you come to be down here? May I look at your leg?"
Murming to his companions as the man approaches, Gavin says much quieter, "Calistran priest. At least I think so. Those robes are pretty old-fashioned. He may just be crazy and dressed up as a priest. Or crazy and a priest..."
Tessa looks down at the man, surprised it is not really a zombie afterall. She briefly looks him over to see if she can figure out what happened to him, but she has no clue. She looks around for any other signs of danger and whispers to Gavin, "Is he a threat? Is he going to make it? He looks like he's in pretty bad shape."
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Tessa gives a look at the priest wound.
It looks pretty bad but at least doesn't bleed.
You have no clue about how that kind of wound would be caused.
Gavin does the same and examines the wound.
He smells of decay, something you dismissed as it's probably pretty easy to take on that kind of smell down here. But now you get glimpses of actually decayed flesh.
It looks like a veil. An illusion.
A story you have heard comes to mind.
A story of priests that, in the desperation of certain death and seeing no god coming to their rescue, renounce their gods and blaspheme against them.
They call those creatures Huecuva
During daylight, they appear as they did in life. Only at night they take on their true form.
The problem is, you have no way to tell what time of the day it is down there.
He smiles at you. His smile look sinister and creepy now that you have seen what you are dealing with.
You wonder if you had any reaction that betrayed yourself.
(I did indeed rolled your bluff against his sense motive. of course I won't tell you the results)
"Do you have any food? Can we have a feast? I would love to feast!"
says the deranged priest with a hopeful look in his eyes.
Tessa shakes her head as she looks the priest over. She leans in and whispers to Gavin, "I have no idea what is going on with his wound but it's really bad and it's not bleeding which is really strange. Should we help him?
Turning to the priest she speaks loudly, "Ah good father, what is your name sir? Of course we have food to spare with a man of faith."
She shoots Gavin and Erick a look as in, Well?
Gavin resists the urge to draw his flail and shoots his companions a pointed look. Turning to the priest, the Chel says, "Of course, priest, we'd be happy to share a meal with you. First, allow me to say a quick blessing over your wound." Without waiting, Gavin intones his god, while reaching out to touch the priest's leg. "Cayden Cailean, hear my plea, and give this man some respite." And if he's undead, weaken him in our stead...
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The priest seems about to say something about Gavin's proposition but his protests are cut short by Gavin's eagerness.
As the sacred light touches his flesh, the priest reels away from his touch, reacting as if it was touched by living flames.
He emits an inhuman scream of rage at Gavin and now that you are before the evidence of the priest nature, you can pretty much all see some glimpse of his true undead visage.
The Huecuva's grabs at what must have been his holy symbol once, but is now a deformed vandalized mockery of itself.
Shining with a sinister life, the holy symbol produces a wave of unholy energy that engulfs the party.
Tessa stubmbles backwards a step at the scream of agony. "What the... Gavin WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?!"
Tessa feels a blast of some horrific force and grits her teeth as it washes over her. "HEY! Cut that s#@& out!""
She lashes out at him with her rapier, attempting to stop whatever it is this thing has become.
Gavin gasps as the energy, smelling of rot and emanating nauseau, washes over the group. Drawing his flail, the oracle yells, "હું તે જાણતા હતા! અનડેડ! and swings his flail at the priest-from-beyond.
Tessa grumbles in frustration and shouts at Gavin, "For the love of everything sacred, speak some sense Gavin!"
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Bedu takes on his crossbow as he encourage you to push the advantage.
"He's just another undead. The fact that he can talk and look alive doesn't make him more human. Let's strike him down with no hesitation"
Kutsya slides on the side and lashes against the Huecuva with her living hair.
You manage to wound the dead priest, but the damage seems less than you would expect from your strikes.
From the sounds you hear from the corridor, it sounds like you aroused the zombies attention with your battle. Still they probably need a bit before they can reach you.
"Close the damn door!" He bellows, and fires his pistol at the priest.
Once the gun is fired, Erick let's it dangle from the weapon chord, and moves his gun hand to the sword hilt.
Tessa swings and misses and backs up and shuts the door, bracing herself against it.
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The Huecuva hisses a curse through his rotting teeth and launches himself against Gavin.
He connects with the first leaving a red bloody mark on Gavin's face.
But the other just grazes over his armor unable to harm him.
Kutsya strikes again with her hair
And connects. Her hair wrap around the Undead waist both tightening and cutting through his skin.
While Bedu take hold of his crossbow and attempt to shot at the undead monster
Unfortunately, his shot misses.
Gavin stumbles backwards, moving a mailed hand to his face as shock spreads through his system. It is stronger than I thought it would be- Cayden help me! Uttering a brief, unintelligable prayer, a quick burst of white light emanates from his hand, sealing the wound shut.
Erick moves around the pillars to flank with Kutsya.
Tessa moves back in and takes a position opposite Gavin and swings, but misses once more.
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Erick strikes true, the weapon connects but somehow the blade stops on his skin like it was a brick wall.
The mad dead priest looks at him with a demented smile and reach out to touch him.
(halved to 3)
Erick feels for a moment like his left arm touched by the living dead was instantly rotting and falling off his bones.
He recalled all his senses to shake off the horrible sensation and soon, he regained feeling in his arm again.
It was intact, and it wasn't rotting away but for all the illusory feeling the damage was real.
It hurted.
Kutsya on the other side tries to crush him again with his hair.
The hair surround the demented priest head. all but one eye and his twisted smile can be seen as the rest gets wrapped up like a ball of yarn by Kutsya's hair.
Then a loud crack, the undead body becomes simply lifeless as the skull of the abomination is cracked like a nut.
As Kutsya lets go of him, he falls down motionless, his head broken, but despite the damage and the will departed from this body, he still looks like he is sadistically smiling at Erick enjoying the last bit of pain and suffering he managed to inflict to him.
Outside the room you can hear the zombies steps.
They slowly hobble through the corridor.
You would have the time to regroup yourselves before they come .. if they even have the presence of mind of assaulting you.
Erik puts his sword away, retrieves his pistol from the strap, and nods at Kutsya. "Good work. I am loath to get into unneeded fights, but on the other hand, I do not feel right about leaving the undead this thing created around to put others in danger. How does everyone feel? Also, we should see if it had anything useful on it." He says, as he reloads his pistol.
Breathing heavily, Gavin checks the claw marks the creature inflicted, amazed that by the grace of Cayden they've completely closed up. "Sorry for the confusion. I suspected that the priest was a living dead, and had to know for sure - figured asking Cayden Cailean for healing would let us know what this creature was either way... And then I kind of lost my mind again."
Stooping, the oracle begins going over the priest's corpse, checking it for anything useful. After that he moves onto the room.
After the battle(s) are completed, Tessa makes sure everyone is safe and helps in searching the room. She grabs Gavin by both shoulders and still catching her breath from the previous encounters she breaths heavily and says, "Look... We need to come up with... a better way to communicate... my friend."
Exhaling a long breath she says, "You speak total nonsense everytime s@!# hits the fan. I can't understand a damned thing you say when it matters most.
"Since I doubt he's doing it on purpose, I suspect he will be unable to stop it. Likely it's something to do with his god playing games. They like to play games, no offense." He nods at Gavin. "I suspect the best method of communicating is for us to figure out what language he's speaking and learn it ourselves."
Tessa shakes her head and rolls her eyes, "Hey, it is Cailean after all. How do we figure out what the hell he's saying? It sounds like gibberish to me, do you have some insight on it?"
Tessa looks over at Erick and shoots him a warning glance, "And hey, for what it's worth, I say my prayers to Cayden as well and he doesn't have me saying whool-aa-halla-howoall-llwhoaoha-ow-wholalala."
Turning back to Gavin she smirks and winks, "Just like that darlin', what language is that?"
Gavin shrugs, first at Erick, and then at Tessa. "No offense taken. The gods are inscrutable. I'm afraid I have no idea what I'm saying, but if that's what I sound like, Tessa, I'm afraid I am speaking gibberish!"
Gavin fidgets uncomfortably, with all the talk about him and his, for lack of a better word for it, disability. Clearing his throat, he turns to Tessa and Erick and says, "Ahem. Well then. should we continue down the hall? Same order as before?"
Saying a quick prayer to Cayden Cailean, the young man fills his mug with liquid courage, and after drinking half of it, passes it on to Tessa, nodding at her to take a drink, and then busies himself with preparations to continue the search out of the smuggling tunnels.