Iron Ranger wrote:

The creature is bipedal, wears flat-bottomed shoes. is  maybe 100 lbs., slight left leaning limp from wound or heavy load.

“I think it’s Malak. He’s an archer, I think, so we should figure out if he’s turned undead like Emral, or he might pepper us with arrows while we investigate the bell tower.”

Kondor and Sol follow the tracks.

Iron Ranger wrote:

The tracks lead both up  and down the Belfry.  And  through the courtyard to and from the cemetery.
Which way? 

And without fire, the damned cold  presses its death grip against you both.

“Skip it, if we don’t move forward we’ll freeze. If he’s eagle-eyed as I remember, he should see us. If not him, or an undead archer, we can take cover behind the tower.”

Ooc: did Sol put on the slippers of spider climb? I’m sure he would have.

The timbers creak and groan under the barbarian's weight, but the steps hold firm. He climbs slowly testing each step until he reaches the top landing. Here over the roofline of the church the wooden belly is fire damaged, the wooden frame around you charred as the interior. 

The lantern flickers against the darkness and Sol holds it closer.

The huge oxidized copper bell is out of reach overhead, its ringing ropes obviously burned away.

 

Kondor manages to snag the clapper and pulls it against the bell's side. A deafening ring erupts, stilling the whipping wind, and causes Kondor to release the whip, and Sol to drop the lantern, both grasping to cover their ears.

The lantern falls through the stair treads to the black below the belfry and the courtyard is plunged into darkness...

The bell is not glowing. You can barely make out Sols figure in front of you, and he doesn’t respond to your queries. The darkness envelops. You are unsure where the step is.

Kondor stumbles his way back down the stairs and searches around for the lantern. 
At last he feels it, it's slippery with split oil but a quick slosh reveals all is not lost.
As he fumbles to relight it the ringing in his ears is slowly displaced by the screaming of a female voice from the edge of the courtyard....."No you fools!!!!"

The slight figure emerges from the darkness. A woman draped in a bearskin, a long stick in her hand. Running toward Kodor at great speed.

She runs behind the great barbarian and mounts the belfry. "We're trapped!" Her eyelids are darkened with soot. There are strands of string around her neck, tiny carved wooden totems. She holds out a bony figure at the darkness toward the cemetery.

The ringing of the bell thins out in your ears and at last you hear - the turning of earth. The trudge of feet on dirt. And at the edge of the lantern light....

a man, dead skin rotted away from his face. The yellowed bone beneath decaying. Tattered black robes of a priest drape the rest of his rotted corpse. And yet he walks! toward the light!

spotter wrote:

Sol strains his eyes toward the feeble lantern light down below.
"Kondor? Kondor! What's going on down there?!"

Sol rushes toward the base of the belfrey.

The woman grabs Sols arm and pushes him back up the stairs. “Forget the barbarian, don’t waste hope on him.”
She releases Sols arm , her sooted eyes boring into the young illusionist. “ I feel the spirits churning in you but We must away!”

The corpse says nothing, but reaches into its robes and pulls out a piece of transparent crystal which fits into the palm of its hand, shaped as a small boomerang, but one side with notching for fingers, the other a smooth cylinder with a hole down the middle of it. The priest- robe clad figure raises it at Kondor as it approaches.

Suddenly, and upon the figure appearing to squeeze it, the crystal glows hot orange - and a spherical spark of energy about 3 inches in diameter jolts forth in the darkness!

8!

Kondor manages to duck in time and the energy explodes in a dazzling ball of sparks against the Belfry rail!

Kondor swings very badly, {roll a 2nd d20}....
The Bearhide covered woman climbs higher on the belfry.

What is Sol's action for this round?


 

Last edited by Iron Ranger (11/16/2019 8:41 pm)

fireinthedust wrote:

2nd d20:  2, before any modifiers.  Ugh.

so that's a dropped sword...