"Fiddlesticks!" Joseph yells, and
Xana adds her warning:
"Oh no Ogbar, Aanbo, watch out behind you!"
Kragga drops the end of a rope into the floor, where it disappears.
Albertus sees the rope and hears
"Albertus, if you can hear me down there, grab the rope!" just as the chandelier plunges through the floor, too.
Albertus,
roll a DEX saving throw, DC 15. On a success, Albertus is only dealt a glancing blow by a gold ornament and loses 2 HP. Otherwise, he's struck by one of the chandelier's arms and loses 4 HP.
The
figures upstairs walk slowly, but their arms are blurs of motion as they try to pummel
Ogbar and
Aanbo. The dwarf notices that the one attacking him looks like it had only just had its throat cut: the skin is supple, there is no sign of decay or rigor mortis, but at the same time the blood staining the front of its robes is black from age.
"It sounds like people downstairs need help," Aanbo notes to
Ogbar. Using his staff, the monk fends off the first few blows from the silent figures whose eyes are not focused: pupils unmoving, sclera glowing, but the punches keep coming. Knocking an arm aside, the dwarf slips a jab in and connects with
figure 1's face. The head snaps back, but otherwise there is no reaction.
"And we're outnumbered." Swinging the staff around,
Aanbo suddenly slides it forward, thrusting the end into
figure 1's neck. The blow connects and
figure 1 takes half a step backward, but the arms never stop windmilling.
"Perhaps a fighting retreat?"
Theran calls upon the power of the forest and the land and his staff grows thicker, vibrating with green energy. He waits patiently for his companions to retreat down the stairs so he can take a whack at these glowing goons.
Ogbar, facing off against the expressionless
figure 2, half seen in the indirect, flickering light from below, yells as the first blows land. He ignores the heavy punches, hauls back with his weapon, and cleaves down into its shoulder with his greataxe.
Figure 2 staggers but continues to swing savagely at the barbarian.
The angle is bad for a bow, shooting up at the head -
figure 1 - he can only just see over a railing, but nevertheless,
Joseph's arrow catches
figure 1 in the side of the head. It staggers to one side, the shaft sticking grotesquely out of the temple just behind its glowing right eye. It bounces off of the one fighting
Ogbar and silently stands up again, still trying to land blows on
Aanbo. But then
Xana's blast hits it right in the face.
Figure 1 bounces off of the other one again, rebounds, and slumps motionless at last, one arm hanging over the railing, its eyes finally dark.
On his turn
Albertus can examine the chandelier and retrieve the gold ornaments from it, or he can climb out of the pit using the rope.
As
Ogbar is pulling his huge axe from the shoulder of
figure 2, it still attempts to land a solid blow on him, but the barbarian ignores all the feeble impacts.
Figure 3, which was standing in the second rank, steps past its fallen comrade and attacks
Aanbo with the same unblinking, dispassionate intensity, taking him with a lunging punch!
Aanbo loses 7 HP.
OOC:
One of the optional rules we're using in this game is the Injuries rule. The chance for an injury from a critical hit is 10%. I'll have you guys roll this for your PCs when it happens.
[ +- ] The Forest Ruin
Note: I have numbered the figures 1 - 5. The party has stopped Figure 1. Figure 2 is fighting Ogbar. Figure 3 is fighting Aanbo. Figures 3 and 5 are just visible to the characters downstairs.
