Seeing that her brother is outnumbered three to one and that Efri seems capable of readily reducing the skeletons to bony kindling, Raika moves to the east to support Bahir.
Waves of Skeletons - Round 2
28 Raika
20 Bahir (23/34hp remain)
20 Seoli
19 Alpha-47
19 Purple Skeleton
16 Red Skeleton
14 Karina
22 Orange Skeleton
20 White Skeleton
7 Blue skeleton (dazzled)
7 Black Skeleton
7 Efni
Raika's arrow flies wide of the skeletons fighting her brother, and they don't seem to even track it intent on Bahir instead.
Bahir attacks against the skeletons at his front, using his magically imbued spear. But neither of this attacks make successful contact. With his last action the exemplar actually gives ground, hoping to draw the multiarmed skeletons closer to his allies.
Seoli batters Green skeleton to bits with an elbow but her follow up attack misses.
Alpha-47 had hoped the skeletons would close the gap on the group, will continue using ranged magic to harass the skeletons.
He then moves through the sand, toward the large barbarian.
Waves of Skeletons - Round 2 - continued
28 Raika
20 Bahir (23/34hp remain)
20 Seoli
19 Alpha-47
19 Purple Skeleton
16 Red Skeleton
14 Karina
22 Orange Skeleton
20 White Skeleton
7 Blue skeleton (dazzled)
7 Black Skeleton
7 Efni
Purple Skeleton rushes after Bahir, just as he intended, and makes a series of attacks with its multiple arms. He is struck once, but its does max damage, ripping at the exemplar's flesh and sinew.
Red Skeleton works against Seoli, stepping to her side, and attacking also with a flurry of blows. The kitsune monk continues to be hard to hit, narrowly avoiding both strikes.
hit
Karina smiles as she points her baton at the skeleton and cackles, "And now, to remake you as the pile of bones you should be,", as she points at the skeleton(s) and pellets made of pure force are shot out of her baton.
Should be back in the fray!
Dang come back almost dead and ineffective!!!
Should be back in the fray!
Dang come back almost dead and ineffective!!!
Waves of Skeletons - Round 2 - continued
28 Raika
20 Bahir (17/34hp remain)
20 Seoli
19 Alpha-47
19 Purple Skeleton
14 Karina
22 Orange Skeleton
20 White Skeleton
7 Black Skeleton
7 Efni
The animated instruments batter one of the skeletons which is then blown apart by a Force Barrage. Karina aims the other two barrages at Red, which is also disintegrated by the missiles.
Orange and White both move across the shifting sands, one attacking Bahir, and the other his sister Raika. One claw gets serious hit in against Bahir, but Raika avoids any damage.
crit
6 total
Efni turns around, seeing her new friends being outnumbered and charges.
◆◆
◆
"Something is controlling them! Before each attacks, their eyes glow green, and they're not acting mindless." Raika calls out to the group, even as she moves to Bahir.
With her bow being pretty useless against the skeletons, and faith that Efni will be reducing more to powder, she slings the bow, pulls out a kit, and gets to work tending her brother's wounds.
for
◆ Shift Immanence (Neck Scar)
You shift your power, filling one of your ikons with your divine spark. That ikon softly glows with radiant light, emits subtle chimes as it moves, or is otherwise obviously empowered in a way that matches your growing divinity, granting the ikon the divine trait and granting you that ikon's immanence effects for as long as your divine spark is empowering it. Your spark is indivisible, so it can empower only one ikon at a time. You can also Shift Immanence to return your spark to the depths of your soul, leaving none of your ikons empowered.
◆ Spark Transcendence
Diehard Feat, +1 to Fort Saves
Healing
Aura Emotion Mental
You inspire your allies to greater glory. You and all your allies in a 15-foot emanation gain a +1 status bonus to attack rolls.
◇ Drop Spear
◆Strike with Gauntlet:
Bludgeoning Damage
Alpha-47 strides over to the black skeleton, drawing his light hammer and attacking the creature.
With the three skeletons she was fighting now destroyed, Seoli rushes over to flank the black skeleton with Alpha.
◆ Stride
◆ Stride
◆ Flurry
+
"Wait. Is that guy alive still as well?."
Waves of Skeletons - Round 2 - continued
28 Raika
20 Bahir (11/34hp remain)
20 Seoli
19 Alpha-47
19 Purple Skeleton
[b]14 Karina
22 Orange Skeleton
20 White Skeleton
7 Black Skeleton
7 Efni
Raika shifts next to her brother, and takes out her healing kit starting to deftly and quickly patch up his wounds, and hope he can last throughout this fight. The healing has an immediate visible effect on Bahir, who seems revitalized.
Bahir shifts the radiance to his own scar on the neck which speaks to his fortitude and resilience. He is even more healed and then drops his spear and swing a mailed fist at the nearest undead. The scar also provides a boost to all allies within 15'. Unfortunately, its not enough to help with his melee attack, and the gauntlet strike misses the mark.
Seoli rushes to the aid of the android cleric and with a couple of deft strikes reduces the offending skeleton to dust.
With Black Skeleton dead, Alpha just keeps moving and attacks Orange with his hammer, doing minimal damage.
Purple skeleton continues to attack Bahir, with claw swipes from its multiple limbs. But there is no damage dealt.
Karina sighs, giving up the instrumental pretense as she dismisses Spirit Object, only to cast it on Bahir's dropped spear, causing it to brace itself against the wall an prepare to attack with the butt end.
"Hopefully you don't mind, the viol is far away!"
"Thanks you sister. Now get out of this danger".
◆ Strike with Gauntlet (At White, Flanked?)
Gauntlet
Bludgeoning fist.
"Wow! He walked into that one".
◆ Strike with other Gauntlet (At White, Flanked?)
Metal Punch
Bludgeoning Fist
◆ Raise Shield (AC 19)
Waves of Skeletons - Round 2 - continued
28 Raika
20 Bahir (24/34hp remain)
20 Seoli
19 Alpha-47
19 Purple Skeleton
14 Karina
22 Orange Skeleton
20 White Skeleton
7 Efni
Karina moves objects around and prepares to shift her focus to the others side of the ambush zone.
Orange Skeleton makes a pair of claw strikes on Efni. But neither strike makes any headway against the giant target. Possessed by some higher intelligence, Orange steps away from the flanking situation as best it can.
When the green glow moves to White, it continues to attack Bahir, before stepping off to the side also. Again the strikes come up empty.
"Why are you still standing?" Efni shouts at the skeletons.
◆
She then ◆tramples the remaining bones and attacks the next skeleton.
◆
Sticking with his trust hammer for now, seeing that this combat is nearing its end, Alpha will step into flanking the orange skeleton and attack it.
"Brigh's appears to be punishing me for using a tool as a weapon,"
"Hah! These things're nothin'!" Seoli laughs as she dashes over to the orange skeleton. Using her momentum, she pivots on one foot and gives the undead a roundhouse kick.
◆ Stride
◆ Strike
◆ Flurry
+
The spin leaves her a bit dizzy, and her follow-up punches aren't nearly as accurate.
Waves of Skeletons - Round 2 - concluded
28 Raika
20 Bahir (24/34hp remain)
20 Seoli
19 Alpha-47
19 Purple Skeleton
14 Karina
22 Orange Skeleton
20 White Skeleton
7 Efni
Efni does what she does best, making powder of two of the skeletons almost effortlessly.
End of Round 2
Waves of Skeletons - Round 3
28 Raika
20 Bahir (24/34hp remain)
20 Seoli
19 Alpha-47
14 Karina
22 Orange Skeleton
7 Efni
Bahir moves adjacent to Orange, the only remaining foe, and uses his mailed fist to mash the last undead thing into si224/34mple bones, ending the fight.
End of Combat
Shaking some of the sand off him, Alpha-47 draws out his healer's kit to patch up Behir's wounds, "It would appear there is a never ending supply of these skeletons, there may be a curse that re animates them every day. Now hold still Behir,"
Taking 10 minutes to treat wounds on Behir before moving on.
Alpha spends the requisite 10 minutes patching up the raking claw wounds left by the many armed skeletons. The red sun continues to shine in the sky, and a steady wind blows the sandy terrain around in chaotic patterns meanwhile. After the first-aid is complete, a choice for the path forward needs to be made. Alpha and Karina recall generally moving in a southeasterly direction from this big massif next to you, but the choice of where to go next is up to you.
"I think that we follow the path. That way we don't get lost." But Raika's thoughts are pretty casual, and if people want to go another way, she cheerfully agrees.
"Yeah. We must be headed in the right direction considering this attack. Do these skeletons have anything worth looting on them"?
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"The skeletons didn't appear to have weapons or armor," Seoli recalls, "And if Raika was right and they were bein' controlled by somethin' smart, I feel like they woulda used anything they had against us."
"Agreed, let's follow the path," Karina says.
If probed, the skeletons do not have any armor, weapons or valuables of any kind on them.
The path of footprints that Karina and Alpha-47 followed in the dark before is no longer visible as the swirling wind constantly stirs the soft sand, filling footsteps quickly and obliterating any sign of previous passage. However, they do recall moving on the south side of this big massif, moving west to the cliffs then south along the cliff wall until they saw a cave entrance with a bright light shining out of it.
The bright light is not visible with the red sunlight filling the desert instead of darkness, but you can still follow these directions. Without incident, you make it to the sheer rock walls on the west side, then southwards. Not long after you see a cave opening that looks much like the cave you entered this strange habitat from.
When you enter the cave, you do see the bright light from the rear and investigating, the prior visitors remember the rock wall here is an illusion but the light behind it is now shining through. Sure enough, as you get the back of the cave, you can pass right through the "wall". Beyond that, you see more of the strange metal doors that you saw previously, complete with the control to open them via hand. Unfortunately, the door here is damaged, bent and off the track slightly so it does not close completely but leaves about a 5" gap where the light from inside shines brightly through.
Peering through the gap, you see a narrow chamber made of the same glaucite metal with another set of the sliding doors on the other side. Machinery on either side of the room hums in motion but occasionally give a loud clank and bang sound that does not fill you with confidence. The machinery has a large nozzle that points towards the center of the room from each side.
Raika is studying the not all the way closed door right in front of the group. "Maybe we can get this open more and jam it in place so it won't close, and then worry about the far door." she muses.
"Huh, those kinda look like showers, don't they?" Seoli points at the nozzles, "But why would you build a shower here of all places? I guess to rinse off sand from their weird underground-indoor-desert. Maybe they really didn't like sand."
"Or maybe they're somethin' else entirely. Either way one of us could prob'ly squeeze in there to check it out."
Raika can see that the jammed door is bent from some outside force and needs to be straightened before it can open (or close) all the way. She figures that levering something hard like a crowbar, will likely fix the door track. Fortunately, Efni has just such a levering device, and with enough force applied they are able to get the door back on its track, and it slides open, not easily but with a screech, but it opens nonetheless.
The room beyond sill appears as it did before. You recall there was a similar room on the other side of the sandy habitat with hoses, nozzles and a flashing button. No flashing button or similar item this side, but the equipment is very similar, though not the same.
Eying the room steadily, "This is the room that will kill you, the other one was similar, but this is definitely the one. We should proceed through one at a time. Watch and do as I do,"
Stepping inside, Alpha-47 walks to the far side, prepared to activate the hand shaped device if it lights up.
As Alpha-47 enters the small room, alarms sounds and the lights flash briefly and the door slides shut, if it can. The mechanisms on the sides of the room come to life and start spinning, but unfortunately, there is some kind of malfunction. Alpha is able to cross to the other side and open the other door, entering whatever is beyond, but as soon as he does, a loud explosion sound happens, and live electricity fills the room, frying anything left inside. After that, the doors open normally once again as if nothing happened, but a small waft of ozone smoke fills the space and the machines make a clunking sound that's less than desirable.
Alpha finds himself in a familiar long bent hallway with several of the now familiar metallic double doors. The hallway is also all metal floors, walls, and ceilings and well lit by recessed illumination panels in the ceiling.
The nearest double doors have a red chip on the opening scanner. The middle doors have a black hip on them, and the last set have a brown chip. Alpha recalls that the red chipped doors seemed to be a control room where the the power to the habitat was seemingly turned back on. The brown-chipped door was an observation area into the habitat, but that's where the kasatha zombie was and from where you retreated last time to nurse your wounds and staff back up. You did not open the black-chipped doors last incursion.
"Thank you for showing us how this works." Raika says cheerfully to Alpha, and then she goes through second, echoing the way that Alpha proceeded through it.
Bahir follows behind his sister hoping nothing in this ancient place malfunctions. He can't help but wonder at the metal that makes up this place as he goes.
Seoli recoils into a defensive stance as the explosion occurs, slowly easing herself out of it as the light show in the room ends.
"Alright," she utters in a somewhat-fearful higher pitch, "I see why you called it the room that can kill you."
Once Raika and Bahir are through the death room, Seoli takes a moment to prepare herself, then darts through the room herself, trying her damnedest to mimic Alpha's movements as she nervously eyes the jutting bits of machinery.
Once you have seen how it works, its not hard to avoid damage in this room from the malfunctioning equipment, though it does cause some anxious moments. Soon enough all the group is on the other side.
"Should we start going room-by-room, or have you already searched some of them?" Raika asks Alpha and Karina.
Alpha-47 points to the observation room, "We fought a strange zombie of the alien skeletons in there, it was some sort of observatory room that looked out on the desert, though we defeated that Zombie it was tough and unlike other zombie's I've read about," Looking to the others, "These panels correspond with these flat square things we have, we've found a couple so far, mainly brown ones," Alpha pulls out a brown card to demonstrate how they work. "We haven't found any red cards or black cards, I'm not sure if these rooms will open with our brown cards,"
"It would seem... counter-intuitive to need to carry so many of these cards, so I think it's some sort of hierarchy. Try to look around for any color we haven't seen before, if we can't open them with the ones we have."
"Wait. The panels are locks and the cards are keys. Well, many locks have keys, and you can get in without them. I can't promise anything. I've never seen locks like this before, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Raika moves to the black-chipped door. She pulls out tools, looks for screws to remove it without much damage, and then examines it to see if she can find a way to open it without the proper key.
"Be careful Sister".
Bahir will attempt to use crafting to help his sister out.
Crafting
Karina advises from the back as well with her knowledge of such devices, however small.
"Well, if you can't get it open, we can always bust the door down, right?" Seoli jokes, cracking a sly grin.
Alpha and Karina do recall their brown card opened the door with the red chip last time they were here.
The black-chipped door (in the middle of the three) does indeed have a opening/locking panel. When Raika bends to the work, she quickly realizes this is not a mechanical lock but seems to be activated by other means. When Bahir and Karina apply their knowledge of how things work, especially Karina's rudimentary understanding of this technology, Raika can , barely, make the right connections with the wires behind the panel and she cries out in satisfaction as the door slides open, revealing a curved hallway beyond.
Beyond the door that was just opened is a long curved hallway that runs back in a direction you cam for as far as you can see before the curve cuts you vision. In the other direction, there is a huge pile of jangled rubble but before that is another set of double doors with a brown chip on the opening mechanism.