Paralyze 4 of 4!
With a grunt Sven *finally* broke the spell, stumbling forward onto the deck. Unsure of what was real he looked around in confusion at the swirling mess of sailors and zombies, before using his hammer to pull himself to his feet.
Kehlysch moves along the prow of the ship , then extends his arm towards the zombie in front of Madiya.
Grinding her teeth, Tamesis shifts her focus, forgoing her extra damage in favor of increased accuracy.
Seeing the zombie in front of her drop, Buhayra feels a little less constricted for the moment. She glances down at the two fallen crewmembers, but knows right now the best thing to do is to try to ensure no further ones fall.
"Hang in there sailor, once this scuffle is over I will do what I can for you."
Taking aim, she sends a blast at the zombie engaged in combat with Madiya.
Seeing her rapier have little effect even with the added electricity, Madiya decides to change her approach. Grasping her holy symbol, she mutters another short prayer to her god, and lets loose a weak wave of positive energy to wash over the deck of the ghost ship.
Two of the zombies are mildly irritated by the channel and one is taken out by the captain and Blue. But still they attack the sailors!
Both men are hit, and hard!
One of the men goes down, and the other is one good hit away from going down as well!
Kehlysch unleashes a gout of acid at the zombie most directly in his path .
Sven rose to his feet, now back to his senses. He snarled, angered beyond measure at the intrusion into his mind. He stalked forward to the zombie which was trying to devour one of his men and smashed it apart with his hammer.
Kel and sven down one of the zombies!
"This is bad, we are losing crew members way too quickly."
Seeing that Sven is back to his senses and providing some cover, Buhayra rushes forward to heal the crew member that just went down.
As the crewman's eyes flutter back open Buhayra passes him her crossbow and a quiver of bolts.
"Good work sailor, but now you're done for the night. Get back to the ship and provide us some covering fire while we mop up here."
Seeing as her channel didn't do much good, Madiya moves back up, positioning herself between the nearer downed sailors and the rest of the zombies, and stabs away once again with her electrified rapier.
+
Two remain. Two zombies, two arrows. End this.
Tamesis steadies her breathing and draws, hoping to land the final blows on the remaining zombies...
Baolus sidesteps to a flanking position before attacking.
Tamesis and Baolus take one down, then the captain's second arrow wounds the last zombie.
It mindlessly flails at its crewman target, but misses! The crewman that Blue healed gets up and retreats.
[ooc]Party up! Do 22 damage to kill it. AC 13
Kehlysch drags the nearest fallen crewman and drags him back onto the Challenger.
He then attempts to stabilize him by pumping the water out of his lungs.
Eyes blazing with murder Sven stalked forward. ”Get in my mind will you? Hurt MY crew will you?!” His hammer spoke for him after that.
Seeing Sven splatter the last zombie into paste, Buhayra sets about checking on the fallen crew members, seeing if it is too late to bring them back from the brink.
The last zombie crumples to the deck.
Through the wind and the rain and the lashing of loose ropes you look further down the deck. Two figures stand on the aft castle, calmly looking down on the intruders. Closer to you, however, you see several more zombies coming up from below decks.
The two figures look to each other, nod in unison, and move together down toward you to join the zombies!
The two fallen crew are dead. Drowned. They should not have died that fast...
"They're gone Captain! I can't bring them back. Don't let these suckers get a hold of you, they can drown you very quickly.
I would recommend we order the rest of the men back to our ships. We can't afford to lose more crew members if we are hauling in both of our prizes. Maybe this fight should just be us."
Buhayra stands from the two waterlogged corpses and readies herself for the oncoming storm. There is an anger in her eyes that you have not noticed before. Having lost these two men she barely knew seems to have affected her greatly. Her eyes glow white with a cold energy and frost spikes around her hands. The rain around her begins to accumulate on her as slushy ice.
"Let's make them pay."
Sven stood next to Buhayra, his hammer covered in the same chill that radiated from her.
”Back to the ship!” His voice filled the silence, cutting through the fog. It was filled with confidence and anger. ”Their magic has failed! Victory will be ours! Cover each other as you move, fall back and man the deck for our return!”
"Agreed. All crew, fall back to your own ship, and take the bodies with you so they can be given a proper sendoff. Destroy anything that gets past us, but otherwise stay back."
The captain moves up, adding her bow to the cloud of icy vapor now swirling around their group. She snaps the bow up, taking a potshot at the enemy captain, if for nothing else than to serve as a warning of things to come.
I'm going to mount your rotting skull on the bow of my ship.
The arrow disappears into the cloud of rain and swinging rigging. There isn't a response from the monsters, so it's likely you missed.
With the monsters in the bow of the ship down, Madiya turns towards the stern, grasping her holy symbol in one hand and her rapier in the other. Warily looking towards the line of remaining zombies, she waits for their enemies to make a move.
"The two in the back appear to be the officers of this crew," Kehlysch whispers to the group. "And these sea-zombies are slow. What if a couple of us make a run past them and try to take out the leaders while the rest distract the approaching horde?"
He nods towards Sven and says, "He's turning people and zombies alike into pink mist with one hit of that hammer, and Baolus is quite effective at keeping combatants off-balance and unable to retaliate. If the two of them run past to engage the officers while we distract and decimate the zombies, then whoever finishes first can come to the aid of the others."
Walking dead that feed on the life-force of the living, not just the meat. Strange and beautiful. murmurs the Bulge in his head.
”They should probably have some support with them to keep them standing. Madiya, do you want to go with them or should I?”
Baolus nods to Kehlysch while maintaining a defensive posture, waiting for the undead to approach.
The undead hold their ground, the ominous clanging of the ship's bell cutting through the whipping wind and driving rain with unnatiral clarity.
Kehlysch shouts against the rising storm.
"They refuse to advance into the consecrated area. Which means we must advance to avenge our fallen. Sven, care to lead the charge?"
”Aye captain.” He didn’t especIally want to charge out of an area known to be safe, but he wanted to be known as a coward even less. With hammer raised, Sven charged!
Tamesis crouches and follows after Sven, moving as far forward as she can before lining up a shot on one of the stragglers and letting fly.
Madiya moves up as Sven charges, praying for some more divine protection. Her skin visibly hardens and starts to shine as she approaches the zombie line.
Baolus joins Sven in his charge.
Buhayra advances 30' choosing the lane behind Baolus to provide the best line of sight. She then sends a lance of cold energy flying to the northern most assailant.
- But with the wind and rain in her eyes the shot flies wild and travels about 5' above the creature's head.
Sven charges forward and absolutely obliterates a zombie, followed closely by Baolus who hits as well, but not as spectacularly and Madiya who is looking a bit odd now. The Captain's arrow is carried wide by a gust of wind!
The Zombies stagger forward and attempt to overwhelm Sven!
Baolus's target retaliates and lands a hard blow with its cutlass!
The monster beside Captain Pilk thrusts its viciously clawed hand down toward the deck. The boat shudders. Then it drops with a sickening lurch. Your stomach goes out as the boat, and all three of yours, are sucked into a sudden, swirling whirlpool! The ships slam up against each other and the masts threaten to entangle! The deck shifts between 15 and 30 degrees and the strain is just too much for the ropes holding your thee ships together. They snap, sending the three into a wild, spinning dance with the Deathknell!
Worryingly, the undead crew seem to be completely unfazed by this development. Captain Pilk steps up and stretches his hand out toward Sven. A spectral copy rushes forward toward him!
The hand plunges into Sven and the mighty warrior feels his very breath being sucked straight from his lungs!
Barely keeping her feet as the quartet of ships are dragged towards the ocean floor, Buhayra glimpses the undead captain assailing Sven from afar.
"Oy! Keep your specters to yerself, bucko!"
With a rush of energy and a spark of light in her eyes, she sends a blast of cold past the zombies and towards the captain himself.
Sven hit the ground, choking as the ship turned and his breath was sucked away.
Kehlysch maintains his footing as he moves across the swaying deck.
As he moves up alongside his companions, he unleashes a gout of acid at the nearest zombie.
"Oh no you f*cking don't!"
Tamesis steps up so she can more clearly see Pilk, and draws back to start firing a barrage of arrows against the undead captain.
Baolus keeps his balance and tries to attack the same undead that he already harmed, even if his attack went wide. Then seeing how Sven was surrounded and affected by something wicked, he tried to trip the zombie in front of his friend.
His face turning blue from the mystical drowning he was suffering from, Sven panicked. Surging to his feet he lashed out blindly at the nearest zombie.
"Sven, Baolus! Cover eyes!" Madiya is thrown off her feet by the collision once again, but still manages to get another prayer off, sending a flash of light through the enemy lines before she stands up.
Blue and the captain line up a one two punch for the ages. A pair of strikes that could kill most ordinary things on the spot. Captain Pilk, however, is not ordinary.
That doesn't mean he isn't dead though.
Madiya follows up with a burst of radiance near Sven and Kel's burst of acid finishes a zombie off. The ship seems to pause for a moment. The rain keeps pounding away, but all the foes just... freeze. Then Captain Pilk and all his gear, and his crew, and his first mate, and then his ship itself start to dissolve into a mist! Withing seconds the monsters are gone. The ship continues dissolving and suddenly becomes ethereal! You are all dumped into a swirling, raging whirlpool which would be bad enough if it weren't also storming like no other at the same time!
It happened so fast. One moment he was drowning under the attention of the undead captain, surrounded by zombies, raging against his impending death...and then he was falling into the swirling maelstrom. The water hit him like a hammer. Forced under he opened his eyes, and looked up at the wan light of the surface. Recognizing his peril, Sven immediately began to shift into a water elemental...
Madiya begins to run back towards the nearest solid ship, but she can't make it in time. Falling into the water, she looks around, but can't see anything through the driving storm. She struggles away from the center of the whirlpool, barely making any headway outwards towards slightly calmer waters.