Slapping the sea-tree with a thick hand, Delic eyed its truck with some satisfaction. "You are a wise and thoughtful creature, my friend. I only hope that your kind all posses your mothering nature and your warrior's pride amongst the high waves of Lemetoha, the ancient princess of the seas."

"I shall bring your honored children with me," he says, picking up a rope and winding it around his arm, "Though they are dead to you, they shall continue to serve us with honor. Farewell, my friend."

Walking off the boat softly, Delic forgets that he's still tied to the mast, slips backwards and falls on his ass.

Unties self from the rope
Heals
Joins Party

The Horde hikes up the steep trail toward the tiny village. As they approach, it becomes clear that the settlement consists of less than a dozen buildings, all in surprisingly good condition for a location that endures such awful weather. A stooped-over figure stands by the entrance to the village, peering around in all directions.

The trail splits in two here before merging again further up the rock. The left path will take the Horde straight through middle of the little village, and the right path winds lengthily around the village outskirts.

Motsognir walks down the path to the right, because as pleasant as shooting the shit on the streetcorner is, he wants to get a move on.

The village seemed suspiciously tidy for one built in such an inhospitable place and the stooped figure had an air of lookout about him. I noticed the pretty dwarf heading off to the path that skirted around the village and I had to agree that maybe having a bit of a nosey from afar might well be a better idea than diving straight in.

I adopted my best sneaky tiptoe and followed the dwarf. Trying to detect any sinister magic that might be afoot.

Follow Soggy, try to stay out of sight, do an arcana check or perception or possibly both to try and spot anything untoward.

The dwarf did two things as he skirted the village. He used his cunning knowledge of street things to get a feeling for whether or not this was some sort of thieves village, and he used his religious knowledge to get a feel for whether or not some god had a hand in this place.

Religion 16
Streetwise 30

Delic slowly makes his way up the hill, singing

"Now whiskey is the life of man
Always was since the world began

Now whiskey gave me a broken nose
And whiskey made me pawn me clothes

Now whiskey is the life of man
Whiskey from that old tin can

I thought I heard the first mate say
I treats me crew in a decent way

A glass of whiskey all around
And a bottle full for the shanty man!"

Coiling the sea-tree's vines around his shoulder for better storage in his pack, he simply follows Motsognir, without a care (or a wit) in the world.

Motsognir whistled absentmindedly as he strolled down the road, trying to remember anything useful about the history of this island he might have read. It really looked more menacing from a distance, he thought, frowning to himself. They didn't make haunted islands like they used to.

history check

Suspecting something amiss, Soggy leads the Horde around the village, rather than through. He wracks his brain trying to remember anything about a village on the Fang, and comes up with nothing. He soon realizes why: Bob recollects from his arcane studies that the wizards who maintain the Fang Light forbid any settlement on the island. It's soon apparent that the "village" is indeed a complete sham: the timbers used for the buildings are too fresh and when Bob peers through an open window he sees nothing inside but a bare floor and empty walls.

On close examination, Gabe quickly sees the village for the shoddy imitation that it is. It's well that they avoided it; nobody assembles such an elaborate ruse for noble reasons. The paladin can't sense the specific presence of any gods; whatever skulduggery is afoot here is motivated by something other than piety.

Having easily dodged the elderly lookout, the Horde has no trouble creeping around the handful of ramshackle buildings. From there it's a long, long hike up a steep trail to the Fang Light. It's several hours later when Soggy (who, the trail cut into the rock often being only wide enough for one man at a time, accidentally made himself the pointman) gestures for the Horde to stop. A simple cart lies wrecked in the middle of the trail. It's short work to determine the cart being nothing much to worry about; it's apparently been left lying here long enough that most of the trade goods strewn over the path are practically antiques. But even this brief hesitation is long enough for the vile things that live in the crevices of the rock to capitalize on the party's temporary immobility.

The rotting dead crawl from beneath boulders or hurriedly climb up the sheer cliffs below; or, in some cases, they swoop down from high above on leathery wings like a great putrescent bat. Before they realize it, the Horde is surrounded, with an uninviting rock face to the right and a likely-lethal fall to the left.

A winged horror flies up to Delic, swinging its rotten arm like a cudgel.

8 damage to Delic

The second of the winged zombies glides over Motsognir's head, darting directly for the obvious wizard in the middle of the Horde's marching order.

5 damage to Bob

Sluggish, ice-covered corpses trudge heavily toward the Horde from either direction. While the temperature has dropped severely as the party climbed toward the lighthouse, nothing can account for the thick coating of frost on the walking dead; nothing save a particularly creative brand of necromancy. The cold that radiates out from them is such that mere proximity threatens one with frostbite.

One of them staggers toward Garrmondo, and jagged icicles grow from its fingertips like wicked claws. Garrmondo has more than enough time to get his shield up, but with very little room to retreat the cold will surely take its toll before long.

The second rime-covered zombie clambers over the wagon, tearing into Motsognir. As the icicle-talons rip his flesh, the unnatural cold begins to travel through his veins.

7 damage to Soggy; immobilized for 1 round and takes 5 ongoing cold damage (save ends)

Beginning of Soggy's turn: 5 cold damage

:savepoint: Motsognir, Wight, Delic, Garrmondo, Bob, Gabe, Rotwing Zombies, Chllborn Zombies

Defenses:
Rotwing: AC 19; Fortitude 18, Reflex 18, Will 16
Chillborn: AC 24; Fortitude 22, Reflex 18, Will 18
Wight: AC 21; Fortitude 20, Reflex 19, Will 18

Not able to move his legs once again, Motsognir lets his axe fall on the winged undead. He was get used to immobility. Maybe after this he'd buy himself a wheelchair, or maybe just a handtruck. There was no point in going overboard with it yet.

His axed missed the target by a wide margin, but swung around to chip the ice away from his feet. In a moment, he'd be battle ready again.

"Name of the Devil, man! Be not afraid of me, horrible thing!" Delic cries out while pulling his sword from its scabbard, "I have only come to give you the eternal peace you've sought your entire miserable life!"

Brandishing the sword with one hand and holding onto the sheath with the other, Delic makes an uneasy advance toward the closest winged creature.

"Name yourself, damn your eyes! My blade cries out to be fleshed into a foe and it will know your heritage, your elders be damned!"

Move to P2
Footwork lure

In what was rapidly becoming the story of his life, Soggy found himself immobilized again. Dead sick of this sort of thing, he just begins hacking away at his own legs until they decide to behave. Negative reinforcement, that's the only way. If you're not tough with your limbs they'll never learn to behave.

The last of the walking dead, a lanky thing in a tattered robe, springs over the cart and rakes Soggy with his bony hands. Aside from the wound itself, the creature must be delivering some kind of anticoagulant — Motsognir's blood is flowing out of him significantly faster than it probably ought.

6 damage to Motsognir; 1 surge lost

In an unconventional move, Delic boldly stands on the edge of a cliff and attempts to provoke a winged thing into lunging at him. Regrettably for the careers of future bards, his provocations are ignored.

:savepoint: Garrmondo, Bob, Gabe, Rotwing Zombies, Chllborn Zombies, Motsognir, Wight, Delic

With little room to manouver on the thin path, I ducked away from the dead things as well as I could. A fireblast would probably be the best option against the frozen zombies I figured but with them right up on us already, the risk of hitting my companions was too great. Hoping that the less frosty looking beasts weren't too cold proof, I sent an icy beam streaking towards the flying thing and the jumping thing nearest me.

Shift south (That is a path square right?), Icy rays on closer Rotwing and Wight

And suddenly, although barely audible, the Horde could hear a faint voice on the wind.

"FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-"

As the Wight suddenly lunged at Soggy, the Paladin's nostrils were filled with the stench of the undead. Outside, beneath the sky, these beasts dared attack a Paladin of the Storm God? Truly their foolishness knew no bounds. Even as the creature focused on his ally, the holy warrior's axe began to glow with a pure, white light. His eyes glazed over with the radiance of Kord's divine will.

He then promptly swings directly over its head, embarrassing himself horrendously. Bollocks.

With a resigned sigh, he flips off the winged horror at N7 with a divine challenge.

Start of Garrmondo's turn: 5 cold damage from Chillborn aura

Grimacing under the bitter chill emanating from the frozen corpse, Garrmondo begins the onerous task of shoving it toward the precipice. With any luck the fall would break it into little frozen pieces.

Bob rolled his eyes theatrically. What was the use in dabbling in both necromancy and cryomancy if his enemies were going to send frozen ice zombies after him? He felt a little upstaged. Sure, he could always get into fireballs and all that business but the next thing you know it'd be all red dragons and lava golems at the front door. At least the dead were fairly predictable and stupid. He shot off a lance of ice at the slavering thing in the robes, which at least had the decency to act like a reanimated deader ought to instead of flying around like a ponce.

Icy Rays: 15 damage to Wight (immobilized for a round)

Chillborn Aura: 5 damage to Gabe

With no fear of the high cliff's edge the winged zombies lunge for the paladin as he flips them the bird. His middle finger extends and a nimbus of holy light emanates forth from his knuckles, creating, quite paradoxically, an obscene gesture which is simultaneously a sacrosanct and holy act. It's a great bit of luck that news of this event never spread beyond the Horde, as the ecclesiastical fallout from such a baffling theological conundrum may well have led directly into a massive reassembly of the church of Kord. Luckily, no one ever found out except the zombies, who were more interested in introducing their skulls to Gabe's than questions of faith.

Slam: 6 damage to Gabe

The chillborn zombie scowls at Garrmondo. He didn't climb out of a meat locker and scale a thrice-cursed mountain so some warmblood could push him around. He'd had quite enough of being pushed around in life, thank you very much, which is what leads one to the unwise decision of camping overnight in a Thayan meat locker which (as it turns out) only unlocks from the outside.

Of course, this line of reasoning is largely subconscious, the chillborn's active thoughts are more akin to "GRAH" or "FFFFFNNNHRRRGGH". Not that he could have explained his position to Garrmondo anyway; his tongue had snapped off and rolled downhill into the ocean a few days back.

Start of Motsognir's turn: 5 damage from Chillborn aura (bloodied). Immobility expires.

:savepoint: Motsognir, Wight, Delic, Garrmondo, Bob, Gabe, Rotwing Zombies, Chllborn Zombies

Taking a step back from the ice creature, Motsognir rubs his hands together furiously in an attempt to warm himself. Blasted cold fingers he thought, shoving his arms down his trousers. Ahhhh, that's better the dwarf exhaled pleasantly, closing his eyes for an instant. The warmth crawled up his arms as he opened his eyes, and he saw his elfen woman heave a bolt of ice at the foul dead. Oh, sweet lady elf. He stood and gazed for a moment, blissfully unaware, before realizing his hands had grown uncomfortably warm. Removing them from his pants and seeing their red glow, he quickly pointed his arms towards the wight. A burst of confetti sticks to the frost in the dwarf's beard, making him look like a Discordian everchurn pastry, as the fire shoots from his palms.

shift to L8
Second Wind
scorching burst at N6

8 damage to wight
CRITICAL HIT! 10 damage to rotwing

Soggy flings forth an incandescent ball of hot hot heat, comprised of roughly half magical fire and half creepy, inappropriate elf-lust. Perhaps due to the sheer trauma of being in close proximity to so much smoldering bearded machismo, the winged zombie reacts very poorly to what is generally a fairly insignificant little blaze. Screeching wildly, the zombie flaps its wings in an apparent attempt to douse the fire — but only fans the flames. Within moments a zombie-shaped fireball is careening over the cliffside in a cacophony of shrieks and crunching bones before splashing into the sea.

Second Wind: Soggy's HP +11
Rotwing destroyed (zombie weakness)
Before you ask, no, Zombie Weakness doesn't affect the Chillborns

Pinned in place by Bob's ice blast, the wight has no choice but to lash out angrily at Gabe (whose rude gesture has perhaps brought him more attention than he might have wanted). Distracted, the paladin feels the wight's talons rip into his neck.

Claw: 9 damage to Gabe, and healing surge lost

:savepoint: Delic, Garrmondo, Bob, Gabe, Rotwing Zombies, Chllborn Zombies, Motsognir, Wight

Mustering all the hate of his race from Adam on down, Delic raises his sword over his head and charges full force into his target, screaming a battle cry lost down the stretch of time longer than the existance of any spoken language.

"Cobra-LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA!"

Charge to Enemy at P4
Brash Strike

Remembering the wand I had nabbed had a handy magic missile and pushing people around function and seeing the sheer drop right behind the wight, I drew the wand and shot the wight with a magic missile, hoping to fling the undead horror over the edge of the cliff.

Draw wand, magic missile at wight, pushing it back if I hit (To M5 and therefore over the cliff edge ideally)

With the wight forced over the edge of the cliff, the dwarf lashed out angrily at the rotwing zombie next to him. Unfortunately he managed to miss high, like he always did, and instead burned a healing surge because fuck these dice.

Paying the chilly ambiance of the ice zombies no particular heed, Delic whirls his mighty blade before him and aims a vicious slash at the loathsome creature's very heart. Turns out zombies don't care so much about chest wounds really.

Brash Strike: miss (a charge requires at least two spaces of movement, sorry)

Teeth chattering, Garrmondo manuevers carefully around the frozen zombie, putting it between himself and the cliff's edge. As a general rule Garrmondo didn't much care for falling off cliffs himself, although there had been some exceptions.

Start of Garrmondo's turn: 5 cold damage from Chillborn aura

Cautiously aiming his new acquisition and the untested spell it holds, Bob fires off a blast of crushing force at the ravenous wight. The pulse of arcane energy smashes into the monster's jaw, and it reels away from the paladin with a howl of pain. Conveniently, "away" means an 80-foot drop onto jagged rocks. It's impossible to say whether the wight's been finished off for good, but it won't be bothering anyone else today.

Wight pushed over a steep cliff and for all practical purposes destroyed!

The paladin was developing a serious crisis of faith. Between the indifference of the storm, the myriad voices in his head, and the absolute refusal of his axe to ever deliver a telling wound, the various benefits of a career in door-to-door sales began to seem more than a little appealing.

Start of Gabe's turn: 5 cold damage from Chillborn aura
Second Wind: Gabe's HP +12

Though the Horde was rapidly thinning the undead ranks, Gabe still seemed to be beset on all sides.

Chillborn Slam: 10 damage to Gabe; bloodied, immobilized for a round, ongoing 5 cold damage
Chillborn Slam (deux): 11 damage to Gabe

:savepoint: Motsognir, Delic, Garrmondo, Bob, Gabe, Rotwing Zombie, Chllborn Zombies