"What's all this commotion about?" says Neronius, trying to peer past the crowd into the room.
These birds begin swarming around the chamber. They don’t seem to be paying much attention to the group until Tolbold shoots a Ray of Acid towards the swarm. As they are flying, they dip and dive around the blast leading the ray to hit the wall.
They swirl in a funnel and then they all fly towards the door to exit this chamber.
Carrie swings out at the creatures as they begin rushing through the double doors. Her attack misses as there are too many of them to focus on
Members of the original jury begin to run away attempting to now throw up besides Malgrim that whips out with the spiked chain that is wrapped around his waste. His attack seems to hit the birds because oyu see feathers go flying as they are ripped from the birds. But, it doesn’t seem as effective as it normally would.
Initiative: Round 1
Trevor
Zinli
Carrie
Tolbold
Creatures
NPCs
Neronius
"Finally! Something we can actually fight!" Zinli takes a step back for better aim, and points her loaded pistol at the nearest crows ganging up on Tolbold.
Ah! Nooooo! Trevor flails around with his Rapier.
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"Ghastly things," observes Neronius dryly. "But instinctively adverse to fire, I would suspect!" With surprisingly dexterous hands given his bulk, he unpockets flint and steel and lights a torch!
"Gaaaah...!" Carrie groans in disgust as the stench of rotten flesh surrounds her, though she manages to keep it from turning her stomach.
Clenching her jaw, she swings her free arm downward, hoping to knock at least one of the undead birds to the floor.
"Stay still, damn it!" she growls through her teeth.
Seeing the birds having no problem pecking at her despite her focus on dodging, she swaps her focus to offense instead.
With what seems like a thunder clap to those unfamiliar in the room, Zinli takes aim at the sword and her bullet rips through some of the birds, feather’s falling to the ground.
Neronius moves away and lights a torch
Trevor slashes out with his rapier, just missing the fast flying swarm.
Carolyn punches out and with a few landing blows, along with the help of everyone else, the mass of birds fall in half the size.
Initiative: Round 2
Trevor
Carrie
Tolbold
Creatures
NPCs
Zinli
Neronius
Tolbold loses his lunch as the stench overcomes him. He backs away sputtering.
Tolbold gets sick from the stench and pecking of the undead birds, he quickly backs away from them.
The swarm continues to surround those closest to them and encompass Trevor and Malgrim.
Malgrim stands his ground and attacks back out with his spiked chain. This time the attack lands, it doesn’t look as effective as it could normally be. Rekkart turns and looks in disgust that he fled and walks forward drawing a longsword and in a swing cuts down a few of the birds.
The few birds that are fluttering around don’t look as if they will last much longer.
Initiative: Round 2
Trevor
Carrie
Tolbold
Creatures
NPCs
Zinli
Neronius
.
Trevor keeps slashing
Zinli reloads her weapon, and takes aim again - a lot more accurately this time.
"BOOM!" she cries out as another loud thunderclap echoes in the room. She begins to laugh heartily, the way a child would while trying out a particularly exciting new toy.
Seeing the strangers' blades and chains making short work of the creatures, Neronius quickly discards his plan to splash the swarm with alcohol and set them alight . . . thus saving a fine bottle of wine! He keeps the torch raised high, however, in case any stray winged creatures break free . . .
With torch held high, Neronius takes a position around the columns that would make it difficult for these birds to peck at him. Zinli reloads this strange device and again the thunderclap echoes down this great hall.
As many more birds fall others flutter away through the boards in the window dropping as they do. Looking at your feat you all see birds that already of the look of death on them. As if they have been dead for weeks. Suddenly there is movement under the feathers as maggots appear and begin to cover the birds as they eat them. As time seems to appear to pass quickly over these birds the maggots tourn to flies, then they fly off. The remaining carcass rots then turns to dust. All this happens in seconds, if you would have blinked you’d miss it.
The jury members regroup around you all. Ebin again laughs a nervous laugh; “What has two wings but doesn’t fly, has two eyes but doesn’t see, and has two legs but doesn’t walk?” he begins to chuckle at his own joke before the punchline is delivered; “A dead bird.”
Killian, the man in white, rolls his eyes “Well the gods be with us that those things,” he looks towards Zinli; “scared off any other critters that have made this their home before we come across them.”
Looking over the group; “Is anyone majorly hurt? I have Iomedae has blessed me with ways to heal. I can’t do it a lot, but I tis handy in a pinch.”
“What has two wings but doesn’t fly, has two eyes but doesn’t see, and has two legs but doesn’t walk?”
"A scarecrow!" Zinli blurts out before the gnome delivers the punchline. "Heh - wasn't that far off!"
“Is anyone majorly hurt? I have Iomedae has blessed me with ways to heal. I can’t do it a lot, but I tis handy in a pinch.”
"Nah, I'm good," the gunslinger has a look around the room while the wounded get treatment.
Carrie shudders and steps away from the bird corpses as the maggots come into view wriggling and writhing. She looks away in disgust, only to glance back and see that they've vanished. Breathing a sigh of relief, she brushes dirt and feathers off of her tunic, "I should be fine, they only nicked me a little."
Tobold throws up as the maggots emerge and then straightens up. He looks around a little embarrassed and says "Well, that was disgusting. Shall we take a look around in there after any healing is done and see if there was anything important in there?"
I have been pecked a bit but seem to be doing ok.
Rekkart looks at everyone’s wounds and using a little of the water from his waterskin and strips of cloth he cleans them and covers them the best he can; “That will have to do for now. If… when we get out we will all need to get to the temple. We will want a priest to cleanse these wounds.”
Regrouping from the battle your eyes really turn to the destruction of this room. Nothing is usable beyond firewood. The destruction doesn’t appear to be that of bored youth, but of someone that has built up malice for what this room represents.
To the north you see a door that remains closed. An aged, engraved plaque hangs from above. Judge’s Chambers.
Carrie shakes her head in annoyance as Rekkart dresses her minor scratch, but nonetheless nods in thanks when he finishes.
"Well, unless someone wants to pick a different mystery door, I say we open the one in this room," she addresses the group whilst pointing to the Judge's Chamber door with her thumb.
Without waiting for a response, Carrie carefully begins wading her way through the debris in the ruined courtroom, being as careful as she can to avoid waking up whatever else might be living under the wreckage. When she reaches the door, she presses an ear up to it.
"Sounds ominous! Just what we need!" Zinli strides towards the door, just in case there's some more action waiting behind.
Trevor shuffles behind Zinli.
Carrie listens intently at the door. It is difficult through the sound of the large group moving through the courtroom. Then you have Malgrim throwing broken bits of wood attempting to get them stuck in the plastered walls and ceiling. She hears nothing through the cold door.
Battle Map
This lavish room of cold marble is festooned with a large but mangy polar bear-skin rug and an ornate desk of darkwood carved with an old motif of cherubs grappling with vipers. Behind the desk in a high-backed leather chair rest a skeleton in judge’s regalia, a long white beard still draped down the front of his robes. A rusted iron spiked chain still dangles from around the neck of the skeleton. Near the desk lays the desiccated skeleton of a large dog, a few of its ribs broken and its skull cracked.
Since nothing is happening, Zinli abruptly opens the door. "Nothing!" she says cheerfully.
She crosses the threshold to have a better look at what's inside. "Helloo skellies! You're not going to move or talk, are you?"
"Wouldja stop throwin' crap? I'm tryin' to—Whoa!" Carrie glances back while still pressed against the door, only to stumble forward into the room as Zinli suddenly opens it. She does her best to not fall flat on her face, spreading her arms out in effort to maintain balance.
With a grunt of exertion, she narrows her eyes slightly at the gnome, "You coulda warned me you were gonna do that..."
Taking a moment to scan the room, she gasps as she notices the skeletons, turning her focus to the broken dog bones, "Aw, poor dog," Carrie laments as she walks over to the skeletal remains on the floor. Squatting down next to them, she gently prods beast's rib cage with her finger, "what kinda horrible person would do such a thing?"
Tolbold lets the others into the room first after his last experience. He stands in the door acid at the ready should anything appear.
Don't antagonize them, we don't know what will happen!
Zinli opens the door and nothing happens. Carrie moves in to check on the remains of the dog that clearly is the victim of abuse.
The way the dog’s remains are laying, you get the sense that it had fallen trying to protect its owner.
“Don’t worry about me, you don’t want to slip and fall breaking your neck.” Malgrim says as he looks in the room with a smirk.
Touching the dogs wounds, Carrie sees the dog shuffles and begins to growl a deep guttural roll as its ribs slightly shift and the pieces of its skull adjust back into place.
Initiative: Round 1
Everyone
Jury
Dog
Initiative
.