Wren had hoped to be able to settle things down before bloodshed. It was too late for that now. They’d never get the cat clam now. She casts Bless yet again, helping the group’s attacks find purchase.
Selde's arrow pierces the cat which whines loudly in pain. The cats eyes snap towards Selde and with a ferocious growl it abandons Caspan and leaps towards the druid as it opens its jaws. The cat's sharp teeth sink into Selde's right thigh as it clamps down and grabs a hold of her.
Emil advances and hopes against hope that he can still calm the animal. He sends out calming energy and prepares to explain that they mean it no harm.
He sends out the energy and then talks to it tones it will understand, saying, "Easy there, we've got food to share. We mean no harm."
Selde cries out in pain as the cat rakes her thigh. Dropping her bow, she drew her longsword and stabbed at the beast while whistling for Nur to attack.
The large cat hears Father Emil speak and quickly pivots its head to look at him.
Emil sets his hammer down and goes down on one knee to come to the cat's eye level. "I know, friend, you're scared, alone, lost your master, but we're in much the same situation. Let me heal that wound."
The lynx lets its ears fold and flatten on its head, relaxing some of the tension in its body. It still eyes the party warily, but slowly sulks over towards Father Emil.
Emil motions everyone to back up, reaches into his pouch and removes some smoked meat from the defeated boar, and lays it for the lynx to eat. Then he sends out some healing energy to further calm him down and heal any he wounded. "Keep an eye on the cabin," Emil says to those nearby.
He strokes its fur and keeps feeding it and talking softly until it relaxes and seems ready to talk. Then he asks, "Do you live here alone?" speaking with his Speak with Animals ability.
Caspan looks at the lynx much like the lynx is looking at him, ready to punt the stupid cat across the clearing if need be. He retreats, though, at the old man's instructions, hoping it doesn't end up with the priest disemboweled by the mangy critter.
”Oh, this is wonderful! Look how good the Father is with animals. I’m pretty decent at talking to critters, but he’s amazing,” Wren says, swooning at seeing the angry cat being talked down into a peaceful encounter, after all.
Though the cat is calmish towards Emil, it is still on edge. It eyes Selde and the others warily as it turns to face Emil.
The healing seems to loosen a little bit of the tension, but the large cat is still looking all around it constantly. The lynx looks at Emil and blinks several times before a flurry of abstract thoughts come pouring out. Master fall. Never get up. Long time. Finally get up. Cold. Empty. Different. Me bring food. Help.
The shack remains silent.
With the cat acting calmer and Father Emil seeming to have a grasp on things, Selde relaxed. She slowly lowered herself from Nur and offered the cat some leftover boar meat.
Emil can not make sense of the cat's agitation, but he has a guess as to the situation. "Sounds like your master is dead but not at rest. We will help. Stay here, yeah?"
Then in words the others can understand, "I think he had a master, like a druid or ranger whom he served. The master died and became an undead.
The cat is still loyal but knows something is wrong."
Emil picks up his hammer and looks to the cabin. "Look sharp. The restless dead are unpredictable." He hands his flask of holy water to Wren. "This is holy water. You're better at throwing than I am."
"Wait, what? First we're giving the stupid cat that attacked us our food and now you want to go into that cabin? We came here to help the old man, and it's too late to do that," Caspan argues. "I'd be fine helping if there were something we could do, but you can't bring him back to life, right? If there's something undead, let's go away from it, not toward it!"
”Maybe by helping put his master to rest, we would make a kitty friend to help pick off some hobgoblins if they come chasing us. And if there is an undead, who’s to say it won’t become a threat to our group,” Wren offers.
”Does the kitty know that we will have to put the undead down? We need to be sure she understands, because I don’t want her to get all mad and attack us again.”
She takes the holy water, ready to contribute as best she can.
"Undead are a blight on the purity o' the wilderness. If ya don't want ta help give a former druid peaceful rest, wait here with the other refugees. I've asked the lynx ta stay here, so he won't have ta watch if we do need ta put the restless dead down."
”So are we going in the house or not, everyone? I don’t want to leave the kitty all stressed, figuring out what’s wrong with its friend for the rest of its life...”
Emil, who has started toward the cabin, stops and looks back, his face grim.
"Many undead spread their condition ta other creatures they kill. So if that's what this'un is, we have ta end it now ta keep it from spreadin'. Ask Aubrin feed this Lynx to keep 'im occupied while we deal with whate'er is in that cabin."
Emil seems determined to investigate, even if the others refuse.
Father Emil leads the way up to the house and the group cautiously looks around. When Father Emil reaches for the door, Wren grabs his shoulder and pulls him back before he could touch it. She points at an arrow and spring loaded which is attached to the door handle. Should someone open the door, the arrow would surely have shot him in the back.
Selde carefully tries to dislodge the mechanism without setting it off. After a minutes work she declares she is done.
Caspan hangs back, content to not go deal with the undead that seems to not be bothering him.
He hangs back at the edge of the clearing, away from the devil cat but where he can see the cabin door.
Wren follows the Father up on on the porch. ”Anyone else coming? If so, gather around so I can Bless us all without taking time to do it, when we actually encounter the undead. We need to be ready, especially if Caspan isn’t coming!”
Emil prepares to open the door, but he pauses to let others helping with the task take their positions. He gives Caspan a glaring look but says nothing to coax him in.
When the group is ready, Wren cast bless on everyone but Caspan. Father Emil pushes the door open and a painful screeching sounds still pulls on the arrow trap behind Emil. The arrow looses and embeds in his upper right shoulder .
With the door open it is clear that the ceiling has partially collapsed in the room. All of the furniture has been overturned and dusy and cobwebs cover the interior of the cabin. A sole occupant rests in this cabin and turns to face you when the noise of your entry disturbs him.
The flesh of this walking corpse is rotting and putrid, its body skeletal in places and its eye sockets glowing with red light. It turns to face you but is slow to react and the party all gets the jump on him.
Wights are humanoids who rise as undead due to necromancy, a violent death, or an extremely malevolent personality. In some cases, a wight arises when an evil undead spirit permanently bonds with a corpse, often the corpse of a slain warrior. They are barely recognizable to those who knew them in life; their flesh is twisted by evil and undeath, the eyes burn with hatred, and the teeth become beast-like. In some ways, a wight bridges the gap between a ghoul and a spectre—a warped animated corpse whose touch steals living energy.
Know. Religion
Wren uses her mind to pick up a sturdy piece of wood from the fallen roof, and fling it at the undead.
Ranged attack with Bless
Damage
Wren's branch twirls like a boomerang end over end until it smacks the undead creature on the side of the head.
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Emil immediately recognizes the form of undead this poor soul has become, having been attacked by one years ago when he was helping the Nirmathis militia.
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Thael looks on in concern as the undead creature steps forth. He immediately recognizes the description from Lords of the Night.
"A wight!" he calls out. "Take great care...any who fall will rise from the dead, and it will sap your vital energy. Caspan, this is not the battle to shirk!" he yells.
Having used most of his spells that morning, he draws his wand of grease to try to get the creature to slip and fall.
"Wait for it to come to us!"
Father Emil recalls that wights have two special attacks of note. First, any creature slain by a wight rises from the dead as a wight. Secondly, wights possess the ability to sap a living opponent’s vital energy .
"Wait for it to come to us!"
"A wise plan." Selde says as she readies an arrow while directing Nur back.
Emil grunts as the arrow strikes him, evidence he needs rest. He knew the trap was there but his mind is racing and he thinks only about what is inside. But when he sees the occupant of the cabin is a wight, he drops his hammer and backs up and prepares the fire an arrow at it as soon as it comes out of the cabin. "Aye! That's a wight or I'm a griffon's nephew! Draw 'im out an' hit 'im from a distance. He'll sap the life outen ya an' turn ya into one o' his kind!"
Jillian listens to the plan and decides to delay as well, letting the undead try to walk out of the cabin first. Instead, she takes a few moments to try and talk Caspan to assisting. When he doesn't come, she takes note that if that wight makes it through the grease, there will be not time for Wren or Thael to run and nothing to stop it from attacking Wren and Thael. She decides to ready an attack in case it makes it through the slippery terrain.
The wight moves through the grease with amazing grace and acrobatic skill, undisturbed by the slippery surface. As he exits the building, Selde's arrow lets loose and embeds in the chest of the undead creature. Father Emil tries to follow Selde's shot, but his flies too high and embeds into the ceiling of the cabin.
The wight advances to Jillian and she lets loose a swing of her greatsword with tremendous power, but she mistimes the swing and it slices nothing but air before the wight can close the distance.
The undead creature makes her pay for her mistake. It slams its rotten meaty fist into her chest, connecting and its fingers digging into her body past her skin. When the undead creature grabs her, a dark purple mist flows from its body into Jillian and she begins to scream in pain with an unnatural sound of agony. The wight suddenly yanks its arm backward and the dark purple mist starts to pull a bright light from within Jillian's body towards the undead creature. The purple mist pulls the light from Jillian and sucks it inside of his own body. When this happen the wound from Selde heals completely and the creature lets out a satisfied groan.
Knowing that the others wouldn't stand a chance if the creature got past her she adjusts her stance and takes a more defensive position while she tries to smite the foul undead creature.
Wren withdraws back beside the Father, and again tries to throw a tree branch at the undead.
Tk projectile ranged Attack
Damage
Emil groans as he sees Jillian getting life sucked out of her. He considers firing another arrow but his shaky reflexes makes it hard for him to hold the bow steady. He throws the bow to the ground and goes to his most damaging weapon, his scythe, even though it would leave him more vulnerable to attack.
Caspan stays well back, shaking his head as he sees the undead monstrosity that he warned the others not to disturb start to kill them all.
"Get ready to run," he calls back to the refugees behind him, though he stands his ground.
He looks grim, but face pale, he sets his shoulders, not willing to take his own advice yet. In his hand, he holds the masterwork bola ready.
Out of the corner of her eye Jillian sees Caspan still hanging back and she shouts out to him "Help us put this thing down! I will hold it off, but I can't do it alone."
The essence of life that was stolen from Jillian clearly took some of her prowess. She nearly fumbles the sword out of her hands on her swing, barely managing to right it and follow through, but the attack doesn't come close to striking the wight. Wren follows up with another branch, but it is weighted poorly and flies past her target.
Emil's swipe with his scythe is another matter entirely. The power that the cleric is able to put behind his swing allows him to inflict a very deep wound on the undead creature.
"Nàdar, cuir thugam dhomh!" Selde spoke in Druidic as magical energy began to build.
Thael's missile fly around Father Emil and Jillian and unerringly detonate on the undead creature, blowing off parts of its rib cage.
Father Emil's scythe attack draws the wrath of the wight as he suffers a similiar fate as Jillian. The undead slams its fingers into the chest of the cleric and the purple mist yanks his life force from hims body as well.
Emil gives off a strangled wheeze and crumples to the ground.
Jillian shakes her head as the the undead creature knocks Emil to the ground and Caspan still stands back from the group. She takes a step closer to the building, looking for a better opening on the undead and grits her teeth as she puts all her might into her swing.
With her blade finally connecting she joins Thael in yelling out to Caspan. "Come on! I've set you up for a good position on this foul undead."
AC: 21 (16 + 2 [Defensive] + 3 [Smite])
HP: 12/15 (-5 Neg. Level)
HP 21/21
AC 20, touch 13, flat-footed 18, CMD 19
Fort +5, Ref +5, Will +0 (+2 resistance bonus to recover from a continuing effect)
Unbreakable Survivor 0/1
Martial Flexibility: 2/4
Effects: Exotic Weapon Proficiency (bola)
"Damn it, I told you you were going to get killed!" Caspan yells back.
I can't just leave them there. 'We fight for each other; doesn't matter we don't know each other.' That's what the deal was.
He edges closer and throws the bola, trying to knock the undead horror down. He pulls his axe out, just in case it does manage to get closer.
Caspan's bola misses, but Thael's missiles hit home for a small amount of damage. Jillian's blast from the sword is enough to bisect the creature and send it flying backwards into the grease puddle in the dilapidated shack.
The battle has been won, but at great cost.
Eventually the party will search the shack and discover that much of the belongings inside are missing and the place looks ransacked. Of particular interest however, a boot that matches the one found a few days ago lies on the floor. This one looks pristine and of excellent craftsmanship. .
Selde locates a hidden compartment under a floorboard that is locked.
Wren tries to help the injured to their feet, and healed as could be from the awful attack of the undead. She uses her ability to heal to get the good Father to his feet.
CLW
”Ooo, magical boots! Someone that moves around a whole lot could probably make the best use of of them, come to think of it. It’s wild we found one a few days ago, and now one here. Small world. The Green Mother works in strange ways.”. Wren moves to check on the kittie to be sure it was doing okay after all the violence.
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Thael examines the boots with great interest.
"One of the things I have studied the most is magical items...I particularly have an interest in relics and artifacts. Though these are not that powerful--unless they have some latent ability I have yet to ascertain--I have successfully identified their purpose. These would benefit a number of our group, but as Wren said, they could benefit some more than others."