Arrow draws his bow as he goes to help whoever screamed.
Dur’dan hears the hin’s warning and draws his axe, charging into battle.
“Why would they awake now?” He then speaks in Dwarven, aloud to the raising dwarves.
“It will be my honor to send you back to the afterlife brothers, rest easy.”
Karikhan will stand back and take a defensive position with his spear.
“It seems your ancestors resent our presence here,” Karikhan says to Dur’dan. “The dead must make way for the living, but they do not always go willingly.”
John sighs wearily and says, “Looks like it’s time for more fighting…”
The skeletons clamber to their feet, one wearing heavy, rust-caked iron plates and the others with bits of rotted leather clinging to their bones, crumbling spears in hand. The heavily armored corpse and one of its spear-wielding fellows turns to Khan, empty sockets falling upon the tribal spellcaster. They begin to move, disintegrating boots scraping on hard stone. The third skeleton has its gaze locked on the goblins and with a loud, screeching moan, breaks for them, joints creaking with each step.
Khan readies his spear, taking a step or two back down the stairs in preparation. The others race up the stairs to join him.
Round Two
The halfling is quick on his feet but decides to stay in the relative safety of the rear of the group. Jikhal is next, dashing up the stairs and readying himself by Khan’s side. John, Oshro, Dur’dan and Jon do likewise. The half-elf summits the staircase and pauses, loosing an arrow towards the armored skeleton. The projectile covers the relatively short distance almost immediately, driving itself into the iron chestpiece and nearly sending the skeleton reeling. Kittix draws his weapon and hobbles after the party, still dripping wet and covered in clinging mud.
Khan steps forward to meet the skeleton and thrusts with his spear, the weapon shattering a now-brittle iron plate and sending bits of metal raining to the ground. The skeleton turns awkwardly, impaled on the spear but not quite damaged. The Shelic sweeps the weapon, knocking ribs aside and snapping off an arm.
The greenskins shriek in terror, cowering against the wall as the skeleton headed their way charges, slashing at one of them with its spear. The helpless goblin is impaled through the throat, blood spraying from the wound for a moment before the greenskin clamps its hands around it, bloody bubbles frothing at its mouth.
The remaining two skeletons attack Khan, the one-armed corpse pouncing forward with a rattle, fleshless fingers clawing at the shaman’s face. Karikhan plants the flat of his spear against the monster’s chest and shoves it back with a roar before swinging his weapon and knocking the second corpse’s spear aside.
Round Three
Hob, seeing the skeletons focused on someone other than himself, summons enough courage to attack the unarmored corpse. He lands a solid blow against the abomination, breaking a femur in half and sending the skeleton stumbling and clawing at the air for a moment before it collapses in a heap.
Jikhal looms over the crumpled undead and pulverizes its skull with his club.
John circles 'round the armored skeleton and scythes his sword upward like a pendulum, bringing its point between two armor plates and rending the undead’s upper body in half.
Arrow isn’t willing to risk injuring members of his own party by shooting at the skeleton engaging them so he instead takes aim at the skeleton attacking the goblins. He lines up a shot and takes it, the arrow rocketing across the chamber and passing right through the skeleton, flitting directly through its ribcage and catching a goblin in the face, sending it to its back in a quick spray of blood. Kittix remains at his partner’s side, keeping out of Arrow’s line of sight but ready to intercept an attacker.
Oshro charges the armored skeleton, which is barely holding together at this point. It slowly turns its head to face Oshro, almost as if accepting its fate, just before the Ironbeard’s axe bowls through what remains of its body and sending broken bones tumbling across the floor.
The last surviving goblin, both of its companions dead, looks up at the dwarven corpse that approaches. It attempts to step back but discovers it is already backed up against the wall of the chamber. The skeleton lifts its spear to skewer the pathetic little creature and is met with a high-pitched wail as the greenskin summons whatever spirit it has and rushes the skeleton with its short sword. Miraculously the skeleton is sent to the ground, both legs snapped free from its body. Immune to pain or fear, it claws after the goblin, who leaps over its outstretched arm with a yelp.
The others in the party make their way to the downed skeleton, Jonathan finishing it off. Finally quiet descends over the chamber, its floor littered with bones and scraps of armor.
“That went better than last time.” Oshro sets his axe down, leaning on it as he catches his breath from the short sprint. “Anyone hurt?”
“Me and Kitz are fine.” Arrow replied as he stung his bow across his back.
Dur’dan is a little sad he didnt get to participate in the festivities.
,
“Oh… looks like I’m late to the party… carry on!” He says with a faint laugh, and makes his way back down the stairs to continue his work on clearing the path.
what was I doing during all the fighting? haha did someone forget about good 'ol Dur’dan?
You scored no successes for initiative and acted last each round (I grouped Dur’dan’s actions with the others in the second round for convenience). By the time you could act in the third round the combat had ended.
“Not a scratch!” Hob replies. “It went much better than last time indeed.” Gesticulating towards the goblin, “Even our new goblin friend is unscathed.”
Upon mention of the goblin, Karikhan will walk toward the creature and skewer it with his spear.
“Vermin,” Khan scolds.
Karikhan approaches the cowering goblin. He towers over it by almost five feet and feels like a true giant in its presence. He lashes out with the spear and, unbelievably, misses. The greenskin shrieks and tears off across the chamber in a panic. The shaman’s longer legs can carry him much faster, however, and within a few seconds he’s on the goblin again, this time driving the spear through its back and pinning it to the ground. He plants a sandaled foot on the squirming creature’s back and rips free the spear. The goblin is still, a pool of blood slowly expanding away from it.
John’s palm meets his face as Karikhan kills the goblin.
“He was defenseless! You can’t tell me you don’t see what’s wrong with killing someone like… THAT!”
“Someone?” Oshro raises an eyebrow quizzically. Jonathan, too, gives John an appraising glance.
John sighs. “Look, in combat, I’d kill a hundred goblins to save a single… Civilized life. But butchering them like this makes us no better than we are!”
“I was just starting to like the little guy, too,” Hob sulks.
“What’s done is done. Let’s get back to exploring this place.” Arrow offered flatly
“I have no desire to be better,” Khan says. Somehow he knows his next words with be inflammatory, but he continues anyway. “Honor is weakness. If my people are to survive, it will not be because we had honor. It will be because we exterminated the horde.”
John sighs. “And in a century, when your people are strong and as numerous as the stars in the sky, you will be a threat to another group of people, who will wipe you out in justifiable self defense! An a century later, they too will be a threat to another group! Why do you think all of this” he gestures at the magnificent hall they are in “is lost to history? Why do you think this whole damned world has gone to hell?” He pauses, clearly moved by his own words. “If your people–and mine, and the greenskin, and the dwarves, and the elves, and the halflings–keep acting this way, then I fear the only inhabitants of Arcady in a thousand years will be the vultures, the rats, and these damned undead.”
Dur’dan shrugs, “that may be so, but we can worry about that bridge when we cross it. For now we do what we must to survive. You think that if that greenskin had the ability, he wouldn’t have slain you in the same manner? None of it matters. Treat those who have honor with honor and you in turn may be an honorable man. Greenksins have no such thing. They are vile little creatures that are in our way. All that matters now is that we continue on, and send anyone or anything that tries to stop us to the depths of oblivion.”