Evesk moves to help the sheriff and does his best to interceed between the sheriff and the skeleton attacking him.
Evesk's attack in the prior Round destroys his skeleton. Fortunately, it did no damage in that Round, so nothing changed.
Evesk's attack this Round deals just a glancing blow off the skeleton's rib cage.
Round 3
Initiative
Velrek : KS
Ceri : KD
Jzero : 10S
Skeletons : 7H
Sheriff : 5S
Evesk : 4C
Velrek, Jzero, and Ceri are up!
Ceri attacks her skeleton :
And misses.
Seeing Evesk go to help the Sheriff, Velrek stays to help Ceri.
Miserable bags of bones..."
I just realized that Velrek and Ceri were Ganged-Up on the last skeleton (I forgot to put that in my file of notes, still working on the procedure). In which case (from the Fighting bonus), she hits and does
Nothing. Her blow slides off the skeleton's ribs.
Learning how to fight skeletons as he goes, Jzero leaps high and tries to kick the skeleton in the head.
Modifier: +1 - 4
Result: 6 + 4 + 1 - 4 = 7
+ +
AP 2
Modifier: +4
Result: 13 + 6 + 5 + 4 = 28
AP 2
Raise Damage +4
Everyone sees Jzero leap high in the air, and kick the skeleton's head clean off its body.
The remaining skeleton attacks the sheriff :
and misses.
The sheriff tries to shake off being rattled by the skeleton's attack :
and fails.
Evesk is up! There's one skeleton left...
Evesk's first strike did nothing more than skip off a bone. He hoped his next strike would do better. He also tried to position himself to protect the sheriff.
Long Sword Attack = 7
Wild = 6 + 2 = 8
Evesk delivers a glancing blow to the skull, which rattles it .
Round 4
Initiative
Velrek : KH
Ceri : QC
Skeletons : JD
Sheriff : 7C
Evesk : 3C
Jzero : 2H
Velrek and Ceri are up!
Ceri attacks her skeleton :
= Raise
Doing
But her stone fist slides off the skelton's bones.
= 10
Velrek steps up with Ceri but she gets there first, giving it a solid blow from her stony form. As he pulls his massive sword back he hesitates as a crack at the point of that fist's impact loudly crunches and crackles and spreads until the entire skeleton breaks apart and falls to the ground. He lowers hoi sword, looks over to Ceri, "Well, impressive blow!"
Ceri blushes slightly, drops the shape change power, and says "Thanks, I was glad to get at least one hit in. I usually do better in combat than this - maybe the surroundings were distracting me" and she waves her hand indicating the cemetery.
After the fight is over, you all go back into the crypt and find an empty black robe in one corner. More disturbing, however, is that a sarcophagus has been broken into, and it's empty.
The sheriff says "That crypt housed the body of Ezakien Tobyn, the previous priest of the Cathedral. I wonder why it was taken."
Velrek smiles and leans in slightly, "Honestly, I find graveyards spooky so I get it."
After they look around,"Huh. The risen dead and a missing body. that's foreboding."
Jzero scans the graveyard and then looks in the crypt. "I know there are wizards who can cause the dead to rise again. What might motivate them is beyond my humble experiences. Perhaps the religious leaders of Sandpoint will know. We should bury these bones again, if possible in their proper graves."
He will set about reburying the skeletons' remains, unless it appears they were interred in the crypt, in which case he will place them back in their places (coffins or perhaps drawers?).
Jzero can't find any place or indication (open graves, open crypts, open coffins, etc.) of where the six skeletons that attacked you came from in the graveyard.
If anyone has Knowledge/Magic, roll it...
The sheriff says "I wonder if the goblin attack was just a diversion for snatching the body? Well, I'm going to talk to the current Cathedral priest about this. Thanks for your help!"
What do you do?
Velrek looks a tthe group.
"Well, we're here. Should we look around, see if we find any other clues or information?"
"Whoever took corpse likely left trail. We could at least see if we can track anything coming in or out from direction other than Sandpoint."
"Yeah, I'm not so good with 'outdoor' stuff, but I'll look around some...".
Some time later she says "Nope, I didn't find anything of interest."
Evesk helps the others look for any clues to the pilferring of the corspe and more wonders why they might have pilfered the corpse. "I am not sure, but I find it suspicious that they would leave skeletons behind if they had already acquired what they wanted. I would think that the skeletons were meant to stop us from getting to them in some way. I also concur with the sheriff that perhaps the Goblin raid was a diversion for this."
Survival: 6 + 3 = 9
Occult: 6 + 3 = 9
Evesk sees a human shoeprint or two mixed in among the many goblin tracks in the dirt. They lead to the city wall to the northeast, close to the crypt, and there's dirt on the side of the wall as well.
"Ah, good find, sir."
Evesk relays his discover to the others to hopefully solicit some quality feedback and then says, "Perhaps this was the human the Goblins mentioned but why use several sets of bones to steal another single set of bones?"
"Does this mean tomb raider is still in Sandpoint?"
Ceri muses out loud "Maybe the bones that were stolen were significant to the thief in some way?"
Velrek nods, "Good thought. We should find out more about this man and his life and what makes him an important, er body to steal."
"What is name again?" Jzero asks, referring to the stolen corpse.
"The sheriff said his name was Ezakien Tobyn, and he was the previous priest of the Cathedral."
With no more clues turning up, Jzero heads back to the Rusty Dragon to see if there are other people in need of assistance. If no one needs immediate help, Jzero will start inquiring at local businesses for job opportunities. He is willing to find a regular job or do odd jobs.
"Eh, maybe start at the Cathedral to find more about him? Hey, where did Jzero go?"
"That sounds like a good idea, let's go".
Jzero happily joins the others once they suggest a plan.
"Oh, there you are!"
The cemetery is right beside the cathedral, so it takes just a minute or two to walk in the front door. You see the sheriff talking with someone who's wearing robes with just a little more color than ordinary monk's robes. The sheriff sees you walk in and say "Welcome! Meet Father Zantus. We were just saying, it'd probably be a good idea to not mention Father Tobyn's desecration. The townspeople have have had enough stress this week. Is there something we can do for you?"
"Yes, can you think of any reason why someone would want to steal the remains of Father Tobyn as they obviously did not want them for their bones, since they wasted quite a few bones in their attempt to prevent us from getting there to discover the pilfering."
The priest thinks for a few moments, then says "Ah, that's where you're wrong, young one. I have heard rumors that the bones of of a holy man could be needed for some kind of necromantic ritual, but I don't know what specific kind of ritual. That was a good question."
Evesk listens to the priest and thinks for a moment, "Well if we could find out what foul ritual or rituals that a holyman's bones could be defiled for perhaps we might have an idea of either what they are up to or better where they might try to perform that ritual so that we could put a stop to it and return those sacred bones to their proper place. Does the cathedral library perhaps have anything on this?"
"No, I'm afraid that our Order of Good doesn't keep any records or information about things Evil, lest someone reading them be perverted by its influence."
Evesk nods to the response and says, "Well that is a shame. So, all we seem to have to go on are those tracks but that would most likely require a quality tracker, do you know if there is anyone in town that could provide such tracking skills."
"Maybe we can find out if there is someone in town who is known to wander the surrounding wild places and knows language of goblins. This raid had to be planned and would take time."