Ishtar will throw darts to break some ribs or hipbones or skulls or something. Just to see what happens. Might as well do this while they’re further away vs. closer…
I will pontificate on why being a first level mage sucks in pre 3rd edition D&D and keep an eye out for any skellies that get close enough to death that I can probably finish them off with the solitary magic missile I get for the day.
Or if any get too close to me, I’ll astound them with my amazing melee prowess!
Wand goes into tunic, Staff goes into hands, **Frodo **gets ready to bat skeleton heads
Man, climbing this rope is taking forever!
(Your DM apologises for the delay occasioned by attending tutorials, playing the trumpet, taking the kids to see Toy Story 3 etc…)
The nerve!, now come back here and start DMing :).
I’ll try turning them.
(Sorry for the delays, but I’m visiting my in-laws and they only have dial-up)
A grand total of four fearsome, menacing skeletons armed only with a thigh-bone apiece (someone else’s presumably, they seem to be sufficiently ambulatory) enter the well-room with apparently hostile intent. The armoured types fan out to meet them.
Exhortations to begone either in the name of the Holy Rain or His Noodliness apparently go unheeded. The skeletons scurry rather than lurch into hand-to-hand range. One swipes at Melon, but misses. Another strikes Wolverine with unholy force and belts him squarely upside the noggin with the knobbly end of its bone club. Five points of damage, on top of his unhealed earlier wound, put Wolvie down. That’s all anyone on either side achieves in the first exchange of hostilities. Meanwhile, in the well, Auto finds enough finger and toe holds to make about ten feet of progress.
Undeterred by the fall of his clerical comrade and the impiety of these undead types, Melon resorts to plan B. Whirling his mace as though it were a basket of linguini, he brushes aside a skeleton’s feeble resistance and smashes it to canapes. Appleciders’s sword connects to limited effect given that the skeleton has no blood to shed nor sinews to sever, but he does rearrange part of its component bones, whereupon Hoopy decides to try out his sole magic missile. A small blast of pure energy blasts the remnants of the skeleton bone from bone.
Frodo, seeing an opening, bravely steps up and swings his staff, and doesn’t get within a yard of the target. Ishtar launches a volley of darts at the skeleton standing over the prone Wolverine. One of them chips a fragment of bone off it.
The two remaining skeletons attack the nearest upright targets - Melon and Appleciders respectively. Both hit. Melon is down 5, Appleciders is down 6. Both men are still on their feet but badly hurt. Overcome with excitement, Auto slips and arrests his slide only with the help of his safety line, losing the ground he’d made a minute ago.
Melon steps back out of the fray and selflessly cures Appleciders for 4 points, just as Appleciders’s sword again hits but barely damages the skeleton in front of him. Oredigger chips a small bone off his skeleton and Frodo helps out with a desperate blow of his staff. Ishtar looses his last darts more in hope than expectation, one hits. Both the remaining skeletons are looking the worse for wear but the one fighting Oredigger hits him for 6. Autolycus re-climbs the part where he slid down.
With a surge of energy born of desperation, Appleciders destroys the skeleton in front of him. Oredigger barely chips a finger off his so Melon seizes his courage in both hands and staggers back into the fray with his mace. To his surprise, relief and delight in roughly equal parts he successfully makes lasagne out of its cranium.
Hoopy, who is nearest, applies emergency first-aid to Wolverine, who is noisily gasping his life out on the floor. It looks as though he is able to keep matters from getting worse, but Wolvie will need both clerical attention and an extended rest before he is fit for duty. Auto hauls himself out of the well a few minutes later, looking disappointed to have missed all the excitement.
Half of you appear to be more or less seriously injured and you have no healing available for now.
“So about going home to have a cold beer by a warm girl . . . Do we want to barricade the doors and camp here since we have water?”
“Yeah”
“Wow guys, looks like I missed a helluva party. Who wants to fill me in?”
After you fill me in, I suggest we hightail it back to town ASAP!
“If there’s one thing I know about skeletons, is that there’s always more of them around somewhere. We currently have almost zero fighting ability, so barricading ourselves here is only going to get us all killed. We can easily go back to town and rest, as these ashes probably won’t begrudge us the slight delay.”
Ishtar will go around collecting his darts, and seeing if there’s anything of note on these skeletons. If there’s nothing of worth, he’d like to separate the bones from the rest of the parts of the skeleton, in case if they try doing some freaky stuff like trying to come back together…
Maybe toss the skulls down the wells or something…
Melon patches himself up with rags so that his guts don’t spill out before he can find healing. “You all right?” he asks Apple before turning to Auto.
“The marshes surrounding this place are crawling with hostiles. I think barricading ourselves in for the night so as to recover some healing is a fine idea. Just don’t go tossing one of those skeletons down the well and alerting the entire area to our location.”
Oops.
“You should have told me that a-head of time…”
“FOOL OF A TOOK!,” as I shoot a nasty glance at ToeJam.
“Can everyone run? If not, then we need to barricade ourselves in ASAP and pray they can’t break through until our clerics can patch us up.”
“This seems familiar…”
Melon checks to see if his weapon is glowing.
“Best to barricade ourselves here. tradition notwithstanding I think nothing is gonna come up the well, we need to watch it carefully anyway, cant be to careful.”
this said, I sit with my back against a wall, place my staff next to me and start to study “light” again from my spellbook.
I’ll start barricading us in. Let’s just hope they don’t have a cave troll.
See, now those of you who have pitons and such things in your inventory can put them to good use nailing the doors shut, can’t you?
It’s an uncomfortable, spooky and chilly night’s sleep, no doubt for poor Trotman as well who must be wondering what’s become of you, but especially for Wolverine. He will be in no condition to relearn spells until he’s had at least another night’s rest and, ideally, some clerical attention. The rest of you each regain a hit point overnight, plus any CON bonus you might be entitled to, and can relearn spells.