Luke flees from the gates deeper into the compound, towards the doors directly ahead into the house proper. He spends his action forcing the great stone doors open, driven by the haunt's fear inflicted upon him.
Inside the Taldan comes face to face with three skeletons, each wielding a tarnished and broken khopesh and turning sharply at the intrusion. Raising their broken blades, they move on Luke.
Two of the skeletons, wearing the tatters of what might have been guards' uniforms, raise their blades and swing on Luke. However, thanks to his panicked state, he dodges them all and keeps running .
However, thanks to his panicked state, he dodges them all and keeps running .
"What's with this place?!" a very agitated Taldan exclaimed as the first thing to greet him upon tackling open the front doors was a sword's edge. Three of them, in fact. Not that there was much of an edge to any of these. In his mad dash away from he knew not what, Luke had run into a far more tangible threat: the undead waiting within swung weapons as worn as their wielders. Clearly the rumours about the house of Pentheru were well founded.
Yet the young man was in no state to ponder the implications of their presence. Still gripped by a feverish madness, Luke dodged every blow directed his way and answered them in kind, desperate to get away from the gate and whatever nebulous danger it represented.
Jolánka struts into the courtyard after Luke, taking a bit of smug satisfaction that she'd resisted its influence because of her upbringing compared to him.
Upon seeing the skeletons, she reaches out and touches Luke on the shoulder.
"Fear not, Luke. Just as there are spirits who crave to harm the living, there are those who draw strength from protecting them. I call upon such spirits now to protect you."
Djehuti files away the information they'd gleaned from their observations of the courtyard until after the skeletons are dealt with. Having noticed their lack of contribution in combat last time, they'd prepared a more offensive spell for battle. The elf reaches into their spell component pouch and draws out a pinch of acidic goop to throw at the creatures.
"Residual haunting, you say? I've never thought of these things in such a way." Jolánka seems to have some insights into these undead spirits. Senemheb, in all his studies, has focused more on the more corporeal kind of undead. Such as these skeletons now appearing in the doorway.
But no time to study them, clearly too hostile for that. So blade in hand, the scholar strides up to meet the restless dead.
Maybe it is the shade, maybe it was the curse hanging over this house. It didn't matter, though, as the raw power of Ra decimated the undead guards of the House, ensured by the magic of Djehuti and the blade of Senemheb.
Luke, however, continued into the house . As he entered the foyer, the gates he had opened slammed shut behind him.
Screams and the sounds of a massacre fill your ears. .
Jolánka chants a new incantation and taps Amal.
"May the spirits lend their strength to yours," she says.
The sudden slamming of doors washed away Senemheb's sense of victory over the skeletons. First startled, and then worried about Luke on the other side, he rushes to open the door. But his first instinct is not to kick in the door, but just wave his hand - letting magic do the work for him.
Djehuti shakes their head. "This place really is haunted! Let's regroup once we find Luke. There are ways to deal with haunts but now's not the time for talking."
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GM Screen: 20, 20, 19
Like a compass in a lightning storm. Even in his disoriented state, head spinning, Luke's grasp on reality loosened by the second. Every certainty seemed to exist in a frame of its own, all hung in the gallery of his mind despite half contradicting the other. That whole Plague of Madness business - that was all centuries in the past, right? And yet it was happening now. That gate they'd all crossed - it was completely busted and dilapidated, right? And yet it was all that protected them from a wild mob now. And, notably, it was daytime at the moment, right? Surely as basic a fact as this could be verified.
So why is the sun rising?!
The radiant burst let loose by the cleric washed over everyone present like a tidal wave of light, uncomprehending foreigner included. He didn't understand. The world seemed to have fractured into unrelated events, no transition or causality linking them. One second there was peace, then people were screaming bloody murder. One second the dead had been walking, then they were just gone. He didn't understand. But he did know. Luke knew that they all needed to get away from the outer gate before it burst at the fury bearing down upon it.
"Inside!" Something crunched beneath his boots as the young man rushed into the building. Only to be met by all new realities. Where did the light go? He stopped, nearly toppling. Where did the others go? Eyes bright with a feverish glow tried to pierce the darkness now surrounding him, trying to find the rest of the party. It was as if a curtain had dropped, leaving him alone and confused on the theatre stage. Gods, he wished he knew what his lines were. All was still now, a panting he dearly hoped was his own the only sound breaking the silence.
A sound quickly joined by a voice even delirium couldn't disguise as his.
"What?" He turned, looking for a figure that wasn't there. "'They'? Who? Who's here? What do you mean?" Something crawled beneath his skull. "What family? Pentheru? But they're already dead. Aren't they? I-I don't understand." Were headaches supposed to worm down your spine to the rest of you? "No, shut up. Shut up! I'm not doing anything! Just shut up!"
Despite his protests, he could feel a nameless something settling over him. Obstinate as the Taldan could be, his will was not such that he could resist the lingering spirits of the House of Pentheru.
Then again, he didn't have to. Because a certain someone ensured her companion had a guardian spirit of his own. Luke gasped as it suddenly felt like a godsdamned tea cozy was pulled off the kettle that was his mind.
"What the...!" Where the hell was he? What was going on? Disparate events rapidly slotted within his head like so many puzzle pieces. Hold on, was this the foyer to the house? Then the disembodied voice he'd heard here earlier... Could it belong to...? "Aw sh*t." The slimmest sliver of light caught his gaze, shearing through piles of bones littering the floor. Bones that Luke now remembered had been walking just moment earlier. The gaze followed the light up to its wellspring: the slightest crack in the door the others were trying to force open. "Aw sh*t!"
It was a chagrined Taldan that leapt to pull open the doors, wondering how he was going to live this one down.
Senemheb calls upon his magic, however the doors remain shut. Amal and Djedefre attempt to damage the doors, but the sturdy portal holds. Djehuti and Jolánka attempt to buff their allies, as Luke does indeed languish in confusion for 1 round.
"If the doors are too strong perhaps I can unlock them?"
Some damage goes through on Amal's next strike, and Djehuti realizes that these doors aren't locked mundanely.
The elf laughs ruefully and examines the door.
They tell the group what's keeping the door closed.
Djehuti shakes their head. "I'm sorry, I hadn't expected a spell like this. I will be more prepared next time." The elf looks at Amal and Senemheb. "It will be much harder to force them open but not impossible. If you work together maybe you can burst them open."
Desperate and embarrassed at their lack of preparedness, even the slender elf throws their shoulder into the door.
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After learning that the bronze doors are held by magic from Djehuti, the Vulture Court waits two minutes. A sound like falling sand announces the doors are unlocked and Luke opens them .
"I'm fine," a sheepish Luke replied brusquely, brushing away the cleric's concerns like the manly man he was. The only wound he'd received was to his pride. "I dunno what happened... Last clear memory I have is of us standing by the gate. Then..."
One hand rubbed at the unkempt head as if nursing a hangover. "Were those bones walking earlier?" he asked in pointing to the scattered remains. "I remember things in bits and pieces. Just not sure which of those bits are genuine... It all feels like a fever dream. That crazed mob battering the closed gates - I know now that can't have been real even though I almost still hear them..."
Luke looked to the broken portal. The corroded bronze couldn't hold back a kitten now. "Worst part is, somehow I feel like the voice I heard inside was entirely real..." He turned to the darkened foyer, dust and ill portents alike dancing in the scant sunlight filtering through the high windows. "There was this woman - and a man I think? They were scared, screaming somethin' about 'them' making it inside the house."
One didn't need to be a sage to reach the obvious conclusion: the House of Pentheru was all sorts of haunted. Not the sort of obstacle a sharpened bit of metal could resolve. "What about you? You lot alright?"
"We are fine, Luke. Just worried about you for a moment - but glad to see you survived whatever it was that took hold of you." Senemheb's frustration with the unyielding door fades as he sees Luke alive and well.
Now that they are in no need to urgently push through the door anymore, he can take some time to study the deceased guardians. "Yes, the bones were walking indeed. Whether set to guard this house or just animated by restless spirits, we cannot know." he kneels down by one of the less damaged skeletons for a closer look. "But just because they were against us just a moment ago, doesn't mean they couldn't serve us in the future..." these last words were more silent, as if he was just thinking aloud.
He reaches into the satchel by his belt, and draws out an old, dusty skull.
"Do you think you can raise this one? Make it serve us?" Senemheb whispers, keeping the skull close to his mouth.
"..."
"Good. Then do so."
At first nothing seems to happen. Both Senemheb and the skull stare silently at the skeleton. But then... some movement. First just bone fingers, scraping the earth around them. Then the hand and the arm, and they start pushing the rest of the skeletal body to a standing position.
Soon, the skeleton is standing upright, right beside it's animator. At this point, Senemheb puts away the skull, and turns towards the other.
"This one serves us now."
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** spoiler omitted **
After learning that the bronze doors are held by magic from Djehuti, the Vulture Court waits two minutes. A sound like falling sand announces the doors are unlocked and Luke opens them .
Amal cannot repress a grimace of disgust as Senemheb animates the skeleton. He can't help but see something unnatural about those moving bones, though he does his best to let go of his uneasiness.
Their father had never been been fan of the time of magic that forces another creature to serve. His staunch refusal to cast any conjuring spell had raised more than one eyebrow amongst colleagues that considered it a weird quirk - and back in his adventuring days, it was an endless source of frustration for his teammates. But Hafiz had never relented. Always treat with skepticism any school of thought that would lead you to consider others as objects, he would say again and again. It is all too often how you let evils happen in the world.
But the group was not there to hear one of Hafiz's lectures, and out of politeness, Amal doesn't say anything. "Is this... Something else you've animated?" He points at the skull that Senemheb is holding.
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Djehuti takes a step back as the bones start to move but looks on with interest as they notice Senemheb seems to be directing them. "Interesting! How do you do it?"