As she gets her balance from her massive swing, another zombie catches her off guard. It's rotting fingers are light knives as it rips through Gretta's bicep and back, making her stumble back into Nelus.
A glance over her shoulder sees him fighting his own flesh flaking foe. Retreating wasn't an option before, and certainly not now so she wills her magic into her hammer again and heaves it into the dead woman's stomach.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"Gretta!" Nelus cries, halfway turning to charge her attacker before he realizes . What are you doing? You know she can handle a zombie. **You're** the one who needs a plan...
Arrows and blades aren't really suited to chopping through bone...
Keeping a firm grip on his bow, he drops the next arrow he was going to fire, curling his gauntleted hand into a fist, shifts his footing to try to keep the skeleton at bay, and slips a precise jab past its reaching claws as it continues to advance.
A pale blue glow briefly shines from beneath the collar of his shirt, and he looks down in mild surprise, missing the answering glow from just outside the cemetery's gates. Odd. Normally I have to will my tattoo to protect me. Response to stress?
***
"It's okay I'm err, Nelus Zeldana, formerly of the Sklarkari caravan. I was asked to do some specialized repairs down at the mill while you were..." he glances at the bottle in Carman's hand "...sick?"
Archa moves closer to the skeletons, passing Gretta. She raises her urumi and calls forth her goddess's wrath once more, blasting the skeletal archer near the wall!
Nelus's gauntlet shatters the skeletons bones, causing it to collapse before him. Gretta moves south to lay her maul into a skeleton, shattering it into a thousand pieces. Archa's spell once again works its magic and reduces the undead to nothing more than a pile of inert bones.
Carman listens to Nelus's explanation with continued narrowed eyes until Gretta's words bring him back to her. He sighs and relents "Alright, alright. A payin' customer is a payin' customer." but under his breath muttering even if you may be my competition.
Setting down his beverage, he motions for Gretta to hand over the weapon. "I'm no fool. Let me see this rune before I give you a price. I know you're not trying to swindle me out of some coin, are you?"
Once shown the weapon, studies it for a few moments before handing it back. He starts "Very well. Should only take a day or so. Cost is negotiable. Maybe it's three and half-" before turning to Nelus and finishing "-or maybe just three if you want to bring your services under this fine establishment. For a small percentage, of course."
Dal hacks the zombie in front of her, burying her axe in its skull before shifting towards the last zombie. "Come one, ye f+$*err!" She slams her shield. "AHHH!"
Lennor glides forward to stand behind Nelus, maintaining the psychic link between Gretta and Daleranna. In her mind's eye, she detects a hairline fracture in the undead's femur, and she grants this knowledge to her allies.
"Oh! Err, umm, which services? I'm- Well I'm not exactly under contract for all of the- with the lighthouse? But I don't think it would be appropriate to- Oh! Just my engineering and chemistry? That should be umm, fine? Potentially?"
It doesn't take much for Dal and Gretta to collapse on the lone skeleton and bring it down with Lennor's assistance.
"Oh thank the Gods!" one of the guards exclaims, clutching a bleeding wound on their neck. "I thought we were done for!" Another one coughs out some blood and tries to speak as well, but their words are drowned out by a loud pulsing noise which builds and builds to a such a deafening level you clasp your hands over your ears. The trees and graves around you shake as a pale blue light builds all around you, almost as if the Gauntlight as focusing a beam specifically on you. The light pulses as ripples of light radiate out from the area between all of you. With a final brilliant flash of light, a creature appears in the center of the blue light.
All at once the sound stops, the light fades and you are all staring at a slippery, scaly horror that glistens in the pale light, the likes of which you have never seen before. Instantly you know that this creature is no trivial undead like the skeletons and zombies you just faced and whatever this is, it's like to be the hardest fight you've had yet!
Carman grins widely and exclaims "Exactly!" and sit down the weapon so he can slap Nelus on the back hard enough to knock the wind out of him. "It's agreed then!" he proclaims before turning back to Gretta "It'll be done tomorrow. Come back and see me then."
Gretta gapped at the result "Um, thank you." she manages, then outside says "You got a job... hey, it's far from the bookstore where I work, we could have lunch together." she says matter of fact.
"Glad you are al-" she starts, and ends with open mouthed wonder at "What is THAT?"
Archa's eyes widen as the monster suddenly appears in their midst! The nagaji slithers around it, interposing herself between the creature and Lennor and Nelus. She raises her shield and swings her urumi towards it. "Daleranna! Flank with me!" she calls.
"I have no idea!" Nelus cries, hustling out of the way of the monstrosity.
"Oh!" He looses an arrow to illustrate his point, "But the armor plates open up at the seams when it moves, see?"
"Oh. I normally read over lunch? I don't know if I'd be very good company?"
Gretta's eyes go bright "I do TOO!" she announces, missing completely that the fact that a lunch with a group of people all reading their own books without interacting isn't much of a group lunch.
Having no time to expel Zaburb's conscience from her mind, Dal jumps at the new threat with gusto, without even stopping to think what she was even fighting. "Ye arre some prrety ugly motherr f~*$err, arren't ye?"
Archa's strike misses, but she positions herself to flank and help Daleranna with her attack.
Daleranna's axe buries into one of the oily limbs of the creature, causing it to squeal loudly and then chitter in a tongue foreign to the barbarian.
Before it can exact it's revenge on Dal however, Nelus finds a soft spot for his arrow and pierces its body as well. As he studies the creature, he determines he can't quite place what the heck this thing is.
The three guardsman drag their fallen comrade away from whatever this thing is, hobbling, limping and slowly moving east away from the combat.
After chomping on Daleranna, it spins towards Lennor and Archa and disgorges a gout of toxic oil from its mouth all over Archa and Lennor.
Critical Success The creature is unaffected.
Success The creature takes 1d8 poison damage.
Failure The creature takes 2d8 poison damage. For 1 minute, the creature gains weakness to fire 5, and whenever the creature critically fails with an attack roll with a wielded weapon, it drops the weapon.
Critical Failure As failure, but 4d8 poison damage.
Okay, I just need to wait for- Oh! That was the moment. Maybe if it rears up again? Wait... I do know what this is!
***
"Oh!" He instinctively leans back a bit from Gretta's mighty enthusiasm, but manages a slightly worried grin. "Well then I'll make sure to bring something interesting."
Gretta hurries forward, infusing another of her spells into her hammer to smash the big creature... but somehow misses it.
Lennor pulls away from the creature, taking cover behind a nearby gravestone. She studies it carefully, looking for weaknesses.
Archa cries out as she is hit full-force by the monster's toxic oil. Coughing and gagging, she drops her shield, then quickly pulls out some poultices and applies them to her wounds.
She retrieves her shield from the ground, then flicks her urumi towards the monstrosity.
Dal raises her shield to block against the monster's bite and then proceeds to hack at it as punishing for going after the others.
The party puts together a good round and Archa, Nelus and Daleranna all land solid blows on the creature, with only Gretta missing her attack.
The creature lashesh out at Daleranna three times with its razor-sharp jaws, connecting with twice!
Afterwards, it decides for a new position and quickly scampers up to Nelus, chittering wildly as it moves right in front of him.
Dal blocks the attacks once more and this causes her shield to break, becoming almost useless. "F$&$!" She curses, and looks at the guards as she chases the monster. "Can't ye f~#~errs lend me a sparre shield?"
She flanks the monster with Nelus, strikes and then raises her shambled shield again.
"Oh! It's flammable. The oily coating is- AHHHH!"
Nelus flees! Willing his shield to cover his retreat, Nelus darts away to seek a safer place to fight from.
Tapping into her own inner magic, Lennor hurries forward to patch up the worst of Daleranna's injuries.
Archa moves in to attack again, raising her shield.
"Flammable! That's great!" Gretta enthuses, before shouting as it attacks Nelus "Pick on someone your- closer to your own size"
"Yes!" comes the reply from the huddled injured guardsman to Daleranna's request. He gives it his all and throws his shield over to her, collapsing for the effort required to pull off this task.
With the creature moving and shifting its position, the party doesn't have quite as good of a round as it did previously, but Gretta's flaming spellstrike hits home in a big way. Landing a powerful blow that injured the creature badly, the Scalathrax's oily body burst into flames.
Chittering loudly in pain, it tries to retaliate by biting Daleranna but cannot focus through the fire to do so.
Fighting through the pain, the creature finds a way to strike Daleranna twice with its last two attempts.
The burning creature fights on, though it's clear it will not take much more to bring it down as it struggles to stay upright.
Seeing Daleranna struck down by the monster snaps something in Lennor's mind, and she falls into a cold rage, dirt and leaves swirling around her in strange spiraling patterns. She glares at the monster, boring into its mind.
Archa keeps her shield up and keeps attacking!
Seeing Daleranna go down sends Gretta into a rage. Rising her flaming hammer in her two big hands over her bellowing head, she slams the metal red hot face into the creature again and again, until it breathes no more.
Daleranna drops to the ground, the creature's attack's overwhelming her.
The combined effort of Lennor, Archa and Gretta make sure that no one will ever need to confront this creature ever again. Collapsing before them, Gretta's fire burns away at the oily corpse.
The blue beam from the Gauntlight quickly vanishes, returning the graveyard to darkness. Even though it's dark out, it somehow seems less ominous and scary than when the blue beam was shining down on you.
Archa flicks the blood and oil off of her urumi's blades, some of the caustic fluid still dripping from her body. She tries to discern the magic of the lingering light, but is unable to glean many insights.
"We survived," she observes. "That was a dangerous foe. No doubt sent by whoever is dwelling within the ruins of Gauntlight."
With her hammer buried in the things head, Gretta breathes heavy, once, twice, then abadons the weapon to go over to the crumbled Dal. "Archa, can you help her?" she wished she could do something, anything, but all she can do is break things, not wondering things like healing.
"Not just sent by something in Gauntlight," Lennor notes, rushing over to Daleranna's aid. "It was teleported by the beam itself." Her face is grim as she works to save the life of her comrade.
It was?
"Wait, if it was sent here - was it sent after us?!"
Gretta looks up in concern at Nelus and Lennor. "Does that mean we are making things... worse?" the big woman is cradling the other woman (Dal) in her arms and looking rather concerned about their answer.
Archa regards Daleranna, saying a prayer over her to stop her from bleeding out.
"Now there is no need to rush through treatment," the nagaji says. Patiently, she sets to work on the fallen barbarian.
"Your story doesn't end just yet, Daleranna Mooneyes," Lennor tells the woman as she returns to consciousness.
"Yep, time to get up, there are guards who all want to buy you are drink for how you rushed to their aid." Gretta encourages the fighter, hoping she doesn't fall back into unconsciousness.
Gretta helps Dal back to her feet while Lennor and Nelus gather around the fallen creature. Lennor reveals something she learned earlier to her companion, scalathrax oil is a valuable alchemical component, but it's difficult to harvest and preserve.
Returning to town, you learn that dozens of undead had torn themselves out of the ground and leaped off the cliffs, falling to their deaths on the Dawnflower Library down below. As such, nearly the entire town is aware of the recent attack on the town and the dangers that the Gauntlight represent to Otari.
The guardsman you saved insist on treating you to an alcoholic beverage and a hot meal, so your group returns to the Rowdy Rockfish to regroup after there battle. Word quickly spreads through town of how you saved them from not just the undead, but the monstrous Scalathrax that appeared from thin air as well. After your second round of drinks, you find the establishment packed with townsfolk eager to hear your story and see the heroes of their town. While you are contemplating your escape from the limelight, the mayor of Otari enters the building, a human named Oseph Menhemes.
Ospeh steps up on top of a nearby table and hushes the crowd so he can speak. "This night, these five brave adventurers saved this town. It's not just Prercid, Temleg, Jolbaur and Intar lives that were saved today," he says, motioning to the four guardsmen you saved earlier, "Had they not stopped that monstrous creature in the graveyard, who knows what horrors would happened next? The overtaking of our Library? Our town? What other evil creatures would have arrived and destroyed our beloved homes?!"
After the crowd responds and quiets down, Ospeh continues "I am declaring that we will host a feast tomorrow in honor of these five saviors of Otari!" Applause erupts as your names are chanted, mugs are thrust in front of you and more than once people try to thrust you up on their shoulders to celebrate.
"That's the MAY-er-or" Gretta tells no one in particular like she is a native and not just repeating what she just heard. Her cheeks are rather rosy, having not ever drunk much more than a slip of alcohol before tonight (and feeling a bit guilty for even doing that). But it is a celebration about THEM, she beamed inside, it would be rude to turn it down.
"Moma says it is Wude to be Wude." she smiles, then settles her head on her hands.
Archa is distinctly uncomfortable with all of the attention focused on her. Her tail lashes in agitation as people try to pick her up and she adamantly declines. Eventually, she finds a relatively quiet corner of the tavern to hide in until the hubbub dies down.
Lennor's poised bearing reasserts itself once the immediate danger has passed, or at least until she is pestered enough that she tries drinking some of the local ale. By the end of the night, she has a slight purplish tinge to her cheeks and may have even cracked a smile. Once.
"Oh! Oh! I thought it was naturally acidic, but this won't stabilize the oil at all!"
***
"Oh!" Nelus is caught quite off guard when the townsfolk grab him, and quickly finds himself flailing up near the rafters.
It's not long before Nelus is quite flushed himself, though whether the red in his cheeks is more from experimental spirits or all the attention itself is equally as up in the air as Nelus had just been.
Gretta sees Nelus working on the creature she just attempted to smash into paste "Maybe I can help. My folk's shop was a butchery, well and a tea shop. Ma and da's dreams combined oddly, but I learned some of both at least." she rolls up her sleeves and tries to help. If the oil had been the meat of the creature she might have succeeded.
Dal slowly gets up as she regains consciousness, nodding to the women around her. "That creature was... freaking horrible. Is it really dead?" She asks, looking at the massive figure. "I don't mind chopping it into pieces just to make sure." She adds, making it clear her respect for the dead did not include deadly aberrations set to kill her.
"It got me real bad..." She says, looking at the shambles of her shield and the still flesh wounds all over her arm, torso and neck. Nothing was missing luckily. As she gets to her feet, something finally downs on her as she sees a dead guard nearby, rushing for him and looking at their face, not resting until she was sure her father wasn't among them.
---
Dal was still staring at the mug in front of her, deciding if she wanted to drink it or not, when people came to pick her. "I'm good, thanks, but I'm good... I'm still too hurt for that." She says, grabbing her mug and following Archa. She looks at her, gathers some courage, and downs the ale.
Archa glances sidelong at Dal as she approaches. "I have not lived among humans for very long. Is this how they usually celebrate victories? It seems rather... uncouth, is the word, I think?"
"Sometimes, specially when few people are responsible for the victory." She says, considering her choice of word. "I wouldn't say uncouth, but I can see how it could look uncomfortable. It is harmless, though, because even the more 'grabby' of them will not be stupid enough to wander their hands on someone who just killed a freaking horror, right?"
"So, what are your impressions so far about living among humans?"