"Then use a sword!" Jamie counters as she readies to swing her blade!
"This would be a REALLY good time for one of the wands to start working..." Adol grumbles, and he tries?
Very much relieved that some remnant of divine protection was still present in his second wand, he assumes position near the front of the party and readies for attack.
"I don't have enough bullets for this!" Say'ri declares, stepping forwards with her rapier and buckler readied.
"We are appreciative of less banging and ear-ringing," Uthe says as she summons a field of grasping weeds in an attempt to restrain some of the closer zombies.
Jazadi starts preparing to cast a grease spell, but when the weeds begin to erupt from the floor and grab at the zombies she opts instead to cast mirror image on herself.
Dhakira takes out a wand and casts Bless
Uthe covers over half the room in grasping plants and pins many of the zombies in place where they scrabble futilely at the plants holding them back. The remaining zombies come shambling towards you, taking various prepared blows without blinking. Say'ri and Jamie together are only able to open up light wounds on the nearest undead, which seems tougher than normal!
Soon you are being engulfed in a wave of rotting flesh and foul smells.
Jamie slices and dices!
Adol tries to find the reason why these zombies seemed stronger than regular ones, or if they were simply a different kind of zombie. Were these the vintage Taldan wines of the undead?
Regardless, he holds the front with Say'ri and slashes at the greenish zombie next to him. This was going to take a while, but he trusted the falcons to have the perfect solution.
His first swing whiffs miserably. Inwardly, his frustration grew as seemingly everything he did today seemed to fail. Why was he so out of it...?
"Ware the flames, Say'ri!" Uthe calls out before plucking a fragile vial from her bandolier and lobbing it into the midst of the undead.
Seeing the ineffectiveness of their new ally, tries to more bodies on their side in the combat and starts casting
Two celestial hyenas appear, Helene and Henri, if possible in flanking position with two different zombies. They each smite evil their respective zombie and attack with their bites
Helen
Henri
Jazadi snaps out her whip to try and harm a zombie!
Jazadi and Jamie cut down a zombie between them, while Adol and Say'ri opt for more defensive measures. Uthe sets another zombie on fire while Helen and Henri slam two zombies into the floor and savage them brutally. The standing zombies swing wildly, but achieve nothing against the armored fighters at the front of the group
The floored zombies try to stand up, exposing them to brutal hyena bites. Henri dispatches his foe but Helen cannot puncture the zombies dead flesh.
Slash! Slash!
Adol tries swinging his sword around again!
"More fire!" Uthe calls out as she steps up and intones words of magic. An arc of flames jets out from her hands engulfing four of the undead.
Another whipping ensues!
If there are any zombies still alive, Henri and Helene move to attack them, while Dhakira helps them avoiding AoOs.
Henri
Helene
Dhakira looks around. If there are more than 2 zombies left undead, she moves in position to be within 30feet of them (without being in their range) and channels positive energy to harm them
DC14
If there are 2 zombies left or less, she moves to cast Guidance on her nearest ally in melee, without provoking or being in range of attack.
Adol cuts down a zombie, while Jazadi and Jamie cut down a second. Helene destroys a third as Say'ri distracts it. Meanwhile Dhakira pushes forwards and unleashes Pharasma's holy light, searing undead flesh!
Only the zombie furthest from the cleric manages to resist the pulse of energy. But then, a new development changes the situation!
“You fools! The mask belongs to us! We are the true heirs to the Sky Pharaoh’s legacy! When he rises again to reclaim his throne, we will receive Hakotep’s blessings, not the likes of you!”
The speaker is a dignified woman wearing a funeral mask, accompanied by three more masked cultists. Her mask is more elaborate than the others and she gestures with a nasty looking khopesh. "Destroy them!"
She vanishes from sight and the cultists advance.
"Thank you for informing us about a 'mask' of sorts. Would you be willing to tell us the rest of your plan as well?" Adol states dryly when the woman and her friends suddenly appear.
"Say'ri, can you handle this side? Looks like the zombies are stumbling away from us. I'll intercept our new guests at the front. And maybe miss pretty mask too if she just went invisible," he continues, and glides through the party to where he was in between the approaching men and the rest of the group.
Her eyes drawn to the masked woman directing the assault, Uthe waves a hand in a sprinkling motion and a cloud of shiny particles descends on the spot where she was standing.
Jamie closes her eyes and focuses on her psychic potential, imagining Adol swelling in size...
« We’ll take care of the zombies. » Dhakira directs the hyenas towards 2 more zombies and they attack them.
Henri
Helene
Dhakira uses her last channel to hurt the zombies again
[ooc] DC 14
Jazadi turns and casts a grease spell beneath the feet of the incoming cultists!
Henri and Helene continue their zombie slaying duties with amplomb, taking down two more of the undead and leaving Say'ri with nothing to do, although the gunslinger seems rather glad of that as she recovers from the fiery near misses she has suffered. The final two zombies shamble their way towards the hyenas, making their lives much easier. Dhakira, unwilling to waste her divine blessings, retains her channel - confident that her friends will finish off the monsters.
Meanwhile to the south Jazadi and Uthe set about making everyone's lives difficult. Although the cultists are too nimble to fall in Jazadi's grease the previously invisible woman is outlined in golden particles, cursing and rubbing her eyes furiously.
Purple is the first into Adol's reach and regrets it when the paladin nearly fells him with a single blow! Still, he lashes out with a crackling blade and his companion sneaks in behind the paladin holding a fistful of lightning! Adol easily parries the shortsword and fells the cultist wielding it with a second mighty blow!
The leader, meanwhile, begins chanting a lengthy spell and trying to get her vision back. She fails.
Jamie completes her spell, and as Adol swells in size, she gives him an extra edge as well.
Suddenly over twice as tall, Adol looks down on the swaying cultist. "Pick a god and pray."
"Thank you, Jamie." Adol says, then starts walking towards the blinded, masked woman. The ground shakes with each step as his massive weight crunched the tiles below. "Your men are dead. Surrender and spare yourself their fate. This fight is over." he tells her solemnly.
Jazadi turns and tries to trip up the cultist leader with her whip!
Dhakira warns her companions " Try to stop her casting, she's trying to summon companions like I do." She casts Guidance on Helene in front of her and walks towards Jamie.
Meanwhile the hyenas continue attacking the lasts zombies
Henri
Helene
Uthe's pupils narrow to slits when she sees the glitter-covered woman continue to cast.
"The entire last half of Magic Basics 202 was spent on casting through distractions," she mutters to herself. "How well did you pay attention?"
She rubs her fingers against the runestone dangling around her neck to send another trio of missiles into the woman.
Adol strikes the second cultist and nearly leaves him broken on the floor, but the man refuses to fall so easily, meaning that the paladin cannot safely disengage.
Say'ri closes in on the caster as Uthe blasts her with magic and Jazadi helps Helene and Henri finish off the remaining zombies.
Uthe's missiles don't faze the woman at all and she completes her spell with a triumphant shout. A large coiling snake appears in front of her, hissing menacingly! As it leaps towards Say'ri, she shakes her funery mask violently and appears to regain her sight.
EDIT:
The staggering cultist misses Adol completely - quite a feat given how large he is!
Jazadi gives the hyena nearest to her a little scratch behind the ears before taking off and approaching the cultist Adol is fighting. With a snap of her whip, she tries to strike him!
Adol sighs. There was a point when he'd tried to talk down insane cultists into not suiciding themselves for whatever poor cause they'd fallen for.
He was no longer that man.
Especially not towards people belonging to an organisation that was apparently big on unleashing an undead plague on this city.
Jamie moves beside Adol and casts ill omen on the masked woman!
The amurrun growls in annoyance when the enemy spellcaster completes her spell successfully. "Better than we did, we see," She gestures again and sends another spell towards the woman.
Henri licks Jazadi's hand, accepting the scratches then follows her to attack the cultist (Dhakira gives him instructions to go around the cultist in flanking position while avoiding an AoO). He is followed in turn by Helene.
Henri
Helene
After their attacks, the hyenas disappear in a Celestial poof.
Dhakira rejoins Uthe in the doorway and puts her hand on Jazadi's arm to casts Guidance. Her hand lingers a few seconds on the bard's arm.
Jazadi fells the final cultist with a precise snap of her whip which sends him crashing to the floor, freeing up Adol to stride towards the cult leader and hammer her with a mighty blow. Then Say'ri fires a bullet into her side and the woman screams in pain - a cry only slightly muffled by her mask.
Afflicted by Jamie's ill omen the woman is unable to resist Uthe's spell and although her snake does its best to defend her she remains helpless long enough for Adol and Say'ri to fell her for good.
Henri and Helene vanish back to Heaven, leaving only felled zombies behind and quiet reigns in the tomb once more. Dispatching the chained zombies is no trouble and you stand masters of the desecrated chamber.
It is also a simple matter to locate a hidden panel in the altar which contains a caster's shield engraved with owls and whippoorwills taking flight. The shield is inscribed with an owl's wisdom spell.
The room beyond is filled with statues of female figures clothed in spidery robes and masks, who stand with arms outstretched at either end of this wide, short hall. The tiled floor is a detailed mosaic starscape.
Say'ri spots a trap! A section of the mosaic floor just in front of the door conceals a pressure plate...
Her sharp eyes soon find the hidden switch required to bypass it however, and you can all move on to the disappointingly blank hallway beyond.
"Wish we could have gotten more out of her... she was quite talkative, for a cultist," Adol says by the remains of the masked woman. "But I suppose this was inevitable."
Knowing he was out of his debt when it came to traps and the like, he stands watch as Say'ri works her magic and points out and disables a nasty one.
When she opens the right door for him, he only nods and proceeds right in.
After all, if there was another trap here, surely Say'ri would have seen that too!
Jazadi sticks with Say'ri in looking for anything dangerous in the hallway beyond.
Dhakira casts Guidance on Say'ri while she's looking for traps, then follows her lead, confident in her capabilities.
The door opens without a problem and you are confronted with a very long room full of dead animals... Sarcophagi and mummified creatures of every shape and size fill this chamber. Detailed murals and carvings on the walls depict a wide variety of beasts from the surrounding area and far beyond. All in all the mummified remains of hundreds of creatures—draft animals, quarry from hunts, and beloved pets, especially cats—who would
accompany the dead of the Shepses line and guard them on their journey along the River of Souls can be found here. A mummified elephant dominates the crypt.
With nothing else to find you move to the corresponding room on room on the other side. That room contains stone biers, each holding an open sarcophagus engraved with spirals and flying night birds. Three large stone tables hold piles of books, dried food, statuettes, and other offerings to those resting here. Unfortunately there are also a number of hideous animated corpses here, covered in weeping pustules and crawling around on twisted arms and legs. The following fight is short and extremely unpleasant as the creatures die in explosions of rot and assorted vileness. Thankfully after a brief melee they fall and you are all none the worse for wear, except for the smell.
Having travelled the corridors you now have three options, two central doors into self-contained rooms or a descending staircase at the far end from where you came in.
« I think we should inspect those middle rooms before going downstairs. They might contain more undead and I wouldn’t care about being surprised by behind while going down. » Dhakira then adresses Say’ri « Would you look over the door for traps before proceed, dear. Here’s a little help from Pharasma. » She again casts Guidance on Say’ri.
Say'ri nods her thanks and examines the nearest door carefully.
[dice=Perception]d20+9+1
"Looks clear." She concludes, before opening the door and stepping smartly to the side so Adol can go first.
"I hope so. This place has enough dead animals and decay to last me five lifetimes... was this animal sacrifice or whatever it was really that important to Osiriani religion?" The paladin asks, passing cautiously further into the tunnel at the head of the group.