"Ok, its' a dog. Surely we can handle a dog.", Baran half grinned naively.
Phin had spent a lot of time learning about dogs and how to avoid them when in homes she technically didn't belong in. Personally she liked them but she also knew how dangerous and somewhat unpredictable they could be when defending what they viewed as their turf.
Her brow wrinkled in concentration as Baran spoke. "Yes, we could handle a dog but there's something off about the barking. Just like the changed rat skeletons you found downstairs, there's no guarantee that there isn't some sort of three-headed dog behind that door. And I think we all agree that if it's in there then the kamadan isn't."
The elf gave the bard a sympathetic smile, "I plan to come back for the chest and I promise that I'll free whatever is inside then. But for now, let's leave it like Alua suggested."
Seeing everyone in relative agreement to continue, the rogue moved to the next door and inspected it for locks, traps, and listened for noises beyond - although the constant barking from across the room was making it difficult. "Any way to stuff some food through the cracks of that door to quiet that thing? Or maybe try to calm it through the door?"
Alua cocked her head with a strange expression on her face. "Is that...a dog? Surely, Kamadan don't bark?" She looked to Lupi for confirmation.
"At least I did not hear the Kamadan bark, when it was drugged, it only breathed heavily." Lupi took a few seconds to listen more carefully, what the dog sounded like.
The second door didn't seem to hold any dangers, and when Phin dared to open it to peek inside, all that she found was a walk-in closet full of piles of mouldy, rotting clothes.
Lupi took a couple of steps back from the door to let the front-line experts near the door and said "It sounds to be a small-ish dog with more than one head and possibly even friendly. Maybe it could even help us find the Kamadan. I am not very familiar with dogs... If we are to open the door, I will stay back and cast spells, if things turn ugly..." Lupi readied to cast a magic missile in case the terrible beast on the other side of the door attacked.
"Damn," Alua sighed when she saw the closet. Carefully, so carefully, she removed the tranquilizer bolt and replaced it with a regular one. "Phin, how about you open the door, but stay behind it in case this thing attacks. We'll all be ready."
Turning to the others, she said, "Be ready, it may sound playful, but it's not worth the risk."
Backing up and pointing her crossbolt low at the door, she nodded to Phin.
Phin poked around in the closet checking the floor for a trap door.
Hearing Alua call her over to open the door, Phin reappeared in the main room and moved towards the door. She grasped the handle and on Alua's count, she opened the door.
At Alua's words Erix sighed, and took up position in front of the door. "Someone got a snack for it?"
Turn 029 - Someone got a snack?
Game on!
"Whoa!" Alua nearly pulled the trigger, then quickly raised the weapon before she accidentally fired. A crossbow bolt at a skeleton dog would do next to nothing, other than enrage it.
There was a brief moment of uncertainty, as everybody waited to see if the small undead canines would attack. "Okay, let's stay calm," she said softly. "No point fighting them if we don't need to. Erix, back away from the door."
Cautiously, she took a step back, pulling out another, clean bolt. "If this doesn't work, be ready," she warned the others.
Waving the bolt hesitantly, she said, "Fetch? Fetch the stick?"
Waving the bolt hesitantly, she said, "Fetch? Fetch the stick?"
The closest dog immediately sat down on its haunches, tail wagging, mouth open as if lolling out a nonexistent tongue, empty eyesockets fixed on the bolt and following it attentively as Alua moved her hand. The other two quieted down some as well, awaiting to see what would unfold but perhaps thinking the fetching privileges should go to the one closest to the thrower.
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Baran stood there with his mouth open slightly. He tried to regain himself, "I don't know anything about animal training. They could be conditioned to attack at a word or on a condition??? Like entering the room?"
Baran stood there and pondered what he was looking at, "I ah ... they're um ... skeleton ... dogs." He got a sad look on his face, "Awe, have they just been here, by themselves, all this time?"
Lupi was feeling a bit uneasy seeing the skeletal dogs, "I guess they are able to stay here forever.". She then turned to Alua, "How about throwing the "stick" to the closet and shutting that door?"
"Closet seems a bit small," Alua said softly, "I was thinking the hallway." She tossed the bolt into the hallway, saying, "Go fetch!"
Phin fluidly moved towards the door they had come through moments before at Alua's suggestion, leaving Lupi at the closet door. "There's no door at the other end of the hallway. You sure you want to send them that way?" The elf shrugged, "No matter either way but we may run into them again if we send them that way, just saying."
The rogue handed Alua a couple of clean arrows, "No need to waste all your bolts. Arrows should work too, right? Hopefully this will work. The only other thing I can think of is asking them if they want to go for a walk."
"Closet seems a bit small," Alua said softly, "I was thinking the hallway." She tossed the bolt into the hallway, saying, "Go fetch!"
With an excited bark the closest skeleton darted after the bolt while the two further into the room followed it with their gazes, clearly interested. But while the enthusiastic one soon returned to Alua with its prize, not willing to relinquish it back without a bit of a tussle, the other two turned to look at each other.
It had been so very long, but gradually memories frozen in the past began thawing. These two-legs… hadn’t spoken the Words. Nor did they wear the man-furs of the past masters! That meant… something, but what could it be?
"So - there's stairs here. Do we need to take them?" Erix does his best to avoid thinking about the disconcerting (yappy) death dogs. "I can shut the door if you... and they're out."
Erix freezes for a moment as Phin says the 'W word', ready for anything... except possibly being licked to death by tiny desperate bone dogs.
Not seeing Erix tense, Baran cautiously stepped through the door, "Good pups. Don't mind me., he tried to walk around the dogs to the stairs beyond.
Alua grabbed the bolt from the skeleton dog, her bile rising in her throat as the undead creature tugged a moment before letting go. "I think we'd better do this quick," she said to Phin. "Let's see if we can get the other two to play too, then shut them out of here. Lupi, take an arrow, try to distract a dog. Come on, Fetch!" She throws the "stick" again, as far down the hall as she can, and motions the other women to do the same.
Lupi took the Stick from Alua, waved it a bit before throwing it to the hall. "Nice doggies... go... and fetch...", she said slightly nervously.
"Nice doggies... go... and fetch...", she said slightly nervously.
Happy to keep playing, the first dog gamely chased after the bolt Lupi threw into the corridor. The weird clatter of the bony feet on stone faded as soon as your pushed the door closed, while the two other dogs still watched from where they had sat the whole time, sharing their attention between watching what you were up to and staring at each other.
A few moments later, you could hear the clatter of bone and the somewhat muffled whining from behind the door as the spirited canine returned only to find its way blocked. Yet that didn't stop it for long - you sprang back from the door as a skeletal head now bathed in an aura of blue ethereal sparks thrust its way boldly thought the door as if the heavy wooden barrier didn't exist. The rest of its body followed, and the aura of magic faded as it sat on its haunches in front of Lupi, dropping the bolt before her feet and gazing up at the self-styled goblin expectantly.
Phin's eyes widened in surprise and her jaw dropped just a bit as the skeletal dog passed through the closed door. In her many years of existence she had never seen such a thing. "So much for plan A. And who knows what other tricks these bone pets have been imbued with. Do we just try to move past them and deal with whatever they try to do to us? Or maybe we try to find out who their master was by searching this bedroom and letting our resident performance artist, she nodded at Baran, "pretend to be him. But I don't think we have the luxury of time right now."
"Whoa...creepy." Alua backed away from the dog. "I wonder why they didn't do that to get out of the room in the first place."
"Hopefully they'll continue to be neutral if we don't mess around in that room. Let's go for the stairs."
She continued to throw "sticks" for whichever dog was interested, as she inched carefully towards the stairs.
Lupi said, "As a child I always wanted to have a pet dog, now that I have one, I am not that sure... Well, they say there is a big responsibility in having a dog, but I never thought it would be like this.", then she threw the "stick" to the corner one more time and followed Alua towards the stairs.
Erix sighed. "I'm sorry to push, but time is not our friend. Could be they couldn't get through the door in here because it was warded or something, right?"
"Are they even actually undead?" he wondered aloud, as he headed for the stairs. "They're actually kind of... cute. Would be nice if they were something else just made to look scary. You can't always judge someone" he recovered quickly "...thing based on how scary it looks."
Phin moved towards the stairs with the others, looking for something to swing herself up on to in case the bone dogs turned violent or the most direct route out of the room.
"I'm sorry to push, but time is not our friend. Could be they couldn't get through the door in here because it was warded or something, right?"
The rogue muttered, "Easy for you to say, Cub. You can smash the creatures with your muscles but none of my weapons will do a things against magical skeletons." And with that quiet rant muttered under her breath, Phin didn't bother switching up any of her weapons because she knew she'd be less than effective against magic or skeletons and so her plan was to get through the area first and let the others deal with the fallout.
As the strange two-legs moved deeper into the room a recollection finally dawned.
'Intruders!'
That's what these people who didn't wear the man-furs nor speak the Words were. And as that first realization was reached, the knowledge what to do with the information quickly followed. The two dogs cried out, making the most complicated series of howls and snarls and barks you had ever heard come out of a canine. Startled, the excitable dog still playing with Lupi's stick forgot its new favorite toy and fixed its eyes on the elf/goblin, this time with quiet intent.
As things got wrong, Lupi took a step back and casted Magic Missile.
"I wonder why they didn't do that to get out of the room in the first place."
Phin's heart sank as she realized that them escaping on the stairs would prove difficult if in a rush. Turning on her heel she said, "I think Alua had the right of it. The dogs can't seem to get through this particular door so maybe we can get them to follow us out and then trap them on the other side."
The first magic missile hit the skeletal dog in the middle of the head giving it a third eye socket, if it needed eye sockets to see at all. The second magic missile hit the front paw of the skeletal dog, causing it to limp a bit.
Phin did her best to growl and bark menacingly at the skeletal dogs. She even took an empty glass beaker off one of the shelves and threw it at the two who had refused to play fetch.
The rogue kept her eyes on the dogs to see how they'd respond. Without breaking eye contact with the empty sockets of the skeletal dogs, she said to the others, "If they chase me then make sure they get out of this room and then get ready to slam the door when I slip back inside."
The dog struck by Lupi's spells shook its head and whined, for a moment pawing at its eye socket struck by the first force dart as if in pain, but as one of the dogs in the ruined laboratory barked what sounded suspiciously like an order it quieted down and fixed the spellcaster with a look that spoke eloquently of retribution to come. As one, blue sparkly auras blinked into existence around the skeletal dogs and they moved in closer, whether in pursuit or Phin or simply to move close to threaten Alua or Erix was impossible to say.
Erix knew enough about tactics to see the tactical situation was, to use the technical term, FUBAR.
"Conserve poison!" he shouted. "Alua - you're flanked by a pack! Move!"
Taking his own advice the big man jinked to the side - freeing up space for Alua - and did his best to give one of the dogs something else to concentrate on.
'Canine weak spots; eyes and snout...' he looked at the skeletons for a second and discarded all the tricks he knew for fighting dogs. 'On the plus side, there's no padding, just bone. If I can hit the spine hard enough, maybe I can break them in half.'
He thrust forward with his shield to pin the dog's head and block its sight, then lifted his right leg and stomped hard on the dog's spine. Again and again he struck. The first strike caught it by surprise, and bone cracked. It freed itself as the second strike hit, twisting to take the strike on its pelvis. After that it was ready for the move, and Erix realised he'd need to come up with a new tactic.
Alua wondered what had happened to the spirits of the dogs that had become skeletons. It seemed that the one dog at least had retained some of its previous personality. But the thoughts flitted in and out again, as the reality of fighting forced itself into the forefront of her mind. Hearing Erix's command, she moved automatically, stepping slightly to the side to take her out of reach of at least one set of jaws.
Hit
Alua swung her morningstar, hard into the side of the dog Erix was currently not stomping to splinters. The spiked ball of her weapon took the dog square in the ribs, knocking most of the small bones out and scattering them to the floor. The dog was thrown against the wall, but rebounded quickly, up on its feet, skeletal paws scrabbling for purchase on the stone floor ceiling.
Lupi thought "Eek, now they are blinking too, they will not take so much damage on physical attacks. I guess I have to use another Magic Missile." She called forth two more faintly shining missiles and they sent them towards the wounded skeletal dog.
The first missile hit the dogs tail, which stopped wagging and blew into bone splinters. The second missile hit it on chest causing it to stop on it's tracks and...
Baran stepped toward the wall, dropping his bow and lashed out with his quarterstaff. It was a clumsy swipe downward and he hated it. Skeletal or not, thrashing such a fantastic creature was against his nature. He felt strangely relieved when his staff hit ceiling and the dog reappeared a second latter.
Phin knew there wasn't anything in her arsenal that would be able to do any damage to these creatures. As far as she was concerned, their best bet was still to get all the dogs into the bedroom while simultaneously getting all of them in the room with the stairs so that they could close the door.
She yelled at Erix, "Is there any way you can herd that last dog out here?" She then gave both Baran and Lupi a gentle nudge towards the door.
The skeleton thrown to the wall with a hit from Alua's morningstar bounced back, shaking its head but otherwise no worse for wear. As it saw Erix's boot crushing the unlife out of his opponent it gave voice to a mournful wail that turned into sharply barked orders. It dodged past Alua to try and retaliate against Erix, but the brawler's shield was there to block its jaws, denying it its revenge.
The previously playful beast was suffering heavily under bombardment from Lupi's spells but it acknowledged the orders the other survivor barked with a low growl. The elven spellcaster had managed to get herself behind cover, so the hound settled for Baran, stepping through the bard's staff swipe and bit the man on his upper leg, growling and worrying his flesh for a moment...
... before both of the skeletal beasts suddenly blinked out of existence.
"What was that, where did they go?", Lupi said still short of breath for all the casting. She concentrated trying to understand, what just happened.