Jubei admittedly was startled more by the booming voice, rather than the disembodied face suddenly disappearing out of thing air. He grimaced as he listened to what the creature had to say, before throwing his hands up in the air. "Okay, fine wraith, or whatever you are. Calm yourself, we're going, dragons damn it.", he snarled back at the creature that apparently didn't possess an indoor voice and immediately turned to the door. "We'll have to figure out what we do on the fly then. Let us go!", he spoke and moved to the door to break it open with little regard for the consquences, after all... time was of the essence.

17:07, Today: Iron Jubei rolled 5 using 1d20+2. Strength check: Force open the door.

However it seemed like his efforts to open the barricade would take a little longer.

Willa, having been somewhat desitracted by her lagging strength was suddenly spurred to action by the voice.  "Weirder?  Is you?  Willa and friends do best!  But just beats many enemies. Big Bad Voice In Darkness Soul-Stealer Demon, also.  Not in best conditions for to be just charging forward.  Willa fried by Star-Lord!  What of Grim?  Grim help?  Undeads Grim's enemies, yes?"

"What the-" Phelan broke off as he snatched out his wand and eyed the wraith in suspicion. However, Willa's...Willa reaction caused him to lower it. Whatever it was, it was an ally. A noisy, and rather arrogant one, but an ally all the same. And it was right, Ancestors damn it, he could feel them dying. It hurt.

Sliding his wand back in the folds of his cloak, he decided to forgo normal plans, instead clambering out of the window and up the building to the roof to get a better vantage point, see what he could get from a better angle.

Perception: 18!

Drex was not keen on avoiding the undead, as was suggested by Jubie. They where abominations and must be destroyed. And and was about to make a rude comment, but was unable to due to the appertains of the Grimm's servant.

"We apologize for our cowardliness." Drex bows his head in respect. "We will salter all the abominations and there creator, it only there was a quicker way out of this house." Drex continues to move the objects blocking there access to the door. To try and make Jubei's efforts less difficult.

"It will be my honor to murder the man, woman or... thing that created this army. I just hope we can still save this town." Drex seems single minded and focused. No action is wasted in idle hesitation.

08:53, Today: Drex rolled 6 using 1d20+2. Assisting Jubei.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:54, Tue 30 June 2015.

    TRUST IN YOUR GODS, PROCEED UPON THE PATH AHEAD OF YOU WILL ALL HASTE LEAST YOU BRING MORE SUFFERING AND DESPAIR HERE. the reaver spoke as it turned its head oddly to one side to look at Midagarra.
  HER TASK SHALL ATTEND TO THE FORCES ATTACKING KYSSEA. it paused only a moment as it looked down at Willa.  THEN YOU SHOULD COUNT YOURSELF LUCKY THAT YOU ARE HERE AT ALL CHILD, AS THESE TRESPASSERS HAVE ONLY VIOLATED THE LAWS OF THE LIVING WE MAY NOT ACT AGAINST THEM DIRECTLY THOUGH YOU HAVE THE NECRID’S GRACE SHOULD YOU DIE TODAY.
  Drex and Jubei, despite not managing to get a good grip upon the door managed to stumble through it as whatever had been keeping it shut shifted and fell away.

Jubei was just about to shouldercheck the door with his considerable bulk as suddenly all resistance from it faded away and he stumbled right out into the streets, giving a bit of an indignified snarl as he went. Immediately he readied his weapons and looked around, ready to confront the closest danger.

Willa just looked at the fireplace with a completely blank expression.  She had no idea what Wielder was saying at this point, other than it probably meant the Grim were going to sit around and do nothing again.  As the barricade tumbles away from the door, she turned round, flipped her visor down and drew her rod, as ready for action as she could be.  "Willa do best!"

Phelan clambered partway down so he could  hiss down to the group spilling out of the door. "The sarcophagus is in that direction." He pointed in  the general direction he had seen it. "Before anything else happens, we need to secure it, then decide our next objective from there."

    Outside the library the air was cold yet each of the adventurers felt an upwelling of warmth within them, as if they had each had a bit of strong drink just moments before.
  Readying themselves the adventurers made their way to the sarcophagus…

Caught in the Sea of Despair

This challenge will use a mixture of skills and powers, so there is no set array of specific skills nor powers which will achieve success, you have a goal use what you have to achieve it, failure naturally means you draw the attention of or run into undead forces.  Though there is some grace, you are unlikely to cause a fight with a single failure unless get a natural 1, yes critical failures are a rule in use here.  Here below are some ideas as what skills can help you with here.
Acrobatics & Athletics:  Move around quickly and escape from encounters with the undead.
Perception:  Spot shortcuts or roaming undead.
Stealth:  Allows you to get around the undead without being noticed.
Streetwise:  Use what you know of the villages layout to find shortcuts, or elude pursuit. (note this would use wisdom rather than charisma in this capacity)
etc.
Because you can see where you are going you have a rough idea of how many successes are required to reach your goal.  That would be about 9.

As the group moved, Phelan clambered on the walls for a better vantage point, hissing warnings of possible undead and possible shorter paths.

14:19, Today: Phelan Drixos rolled 29 using 1d20+9. Perception.

Nat 20!

Jubei meanwhile lead the group through the streets. Although he might have been a little overzealous in how he approached it.


15:30, Today: Iron Jubei rolled 10 using 1d20+3. Athletics roll: Move quickly!

Willa followed along as well as she could.  She wanted to help, but previous attempts at helping had gone badly and now was not the time for causing trouble.  It seemed odd that they were trying to be stealthy anyway when Iron Jubei towered so tall over everything else.  How could the undead not see him?  Then again, how could they see anything?  They had no eyes in their head.  Perhaps she'd ask Phelan later.  Though, to be fair, technically her eyes weren't normal either...that was a strange thought she'd not had before.  Did that mean umbreans and undead were similar in some ways?  Did they see the world the same?  Earlier Phelan had made the confusing remark about there being umbrean magic around the sarcophagus. Was that just a misconception on his part?

Now that she thought about it, umbreans never really died.  They were just reborn.  Resurrected some might say...she shook her head.  Umbreans were nothing like undead!  Umbreans would never do such horrid ruinous things!  Of course, she hadn't met any to know for sure, but she felt that that was how things were. Also, umbreans didn't have bones.  Undead had lots of bones.  Or lived near bones.  Or were somehow connected to bones.  Umbreans couldn't be further from associating with bones.  Either physically or metaphorically.  How would one be metaphorically associated with bones?  What did that even mean?

Well, nevermind.  Back to the task at hand.  How to help without causing problems?   It was a puzzle, alright.  She couldn't even really use any of her magic.  Too showy.  And also too destructive.  If she tried to cause a distraction she'd probably end up damaging something and actually helping the undead's destruction of Kyssea.

She considered the task at hand.  They had to get to the sarcophagus so that Mardigras could use her staff on it.  That seemed most important.  Whether they were discovered or not - Mardigras had to get to the sarcophagus.  The Sarcohpagus was special in some way.  But why Mardigras?  Why not her?  Despite her size, Willa was pretty sure she could outrun anyone here, the druid included.  Perhaps that was what she should do?  Run really, really fast and try to cause a distraction?  It sounded risky.  She wasn't well and if the undead had ranged weapons, or spells she'd be certain to die.  She didn't really want that.  Life was precious.  Especially so to short-lived umbreans.  Every moment mattered.

It was a bit late coming as it suddenly occurred that it may have been better to have laid an ambush and had the sarcophagus come to tiem instead.  None of this flapping about would have been necessary then.  She sighed unhappily at her own slow wits.

What else was there then?  Her words were useless.  She wasn't the best spoken of individuals, but somehow she always seemed to be able to talk her way out of the worst situations.  Or into them.  But not here.  The undead weren't good at conversation.

In the end she decided she was useless.  She wanted to help, but could not find a way to do so that would not hinder the party.  Sullenly, she followed along.

    The party moved between the buildings around the library, going westwards for the moment, was slow going for the most part even with Jubei rushing them from cover to cover only for Phelan’s keen ears to catch the sound of a roaming pack of undead and so barely saved himself and his friends from running right into their path.
[Everyone make a Stealth check.  If the party has at least three successes you will remain unnoticed and can continue on your way.]

Phelan clung quietly to the wall, creeping along it as best he could, keeping an ear for zombies. He hoped they followed the adage of: "No-one looks up", because he was no good for sneaking.


10:19, Today: Phelan Drixos rolled 8 using 1d20+1. Stealth.

Nope!

Although Willa was not really doing much to attract attention, she was also not contributing towards deflecting it either...

21:33, Today: Willa rolled 13 using 1d20+5. Stealth - Quiet as the (un)dead.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:35, Thu 09 July 2015.

It might have come as a surprise, or even a shock, that a being as big as the kaetyma would even dare to attempt to be inconspicious or even hiding. And yet he did it. With clever use of a rug and proper placement, he could pass as a pile of barrels. Or something like that.



19:22, Today: Iron Jubei rolled 15 using 1d20+1. Stealth roll. As if.

Daryl followed suit, wondering if he should crawl. Just walking on the tip of his toes, however, proved enough to dampen the noises of his movements. All to worry about now was not leaving his tail showing.

18:41, Today: Daryl Landgazer rolled 15 using 1d20+1. Stealth check. I feel this will be terrible. (It wasn't~)

Going unseen and unnoticed was second nature for Drex, this might be the reason the party heard and seen so little from him sins they left the library.

07:58, Today: Drex rolled 26 using 1d20+9. Stealth check.

    The shambling corpses passed by the alley within which the adventurers hid without noticing them, the adventurers counted themselves lucky that the undead had not found them as some of them had made a few bumps and scrapes in their hiding place which in the almost still and cold air seemed to be have been amplified.
  Counting down from a hundred after the undead passed Drex motioned that he believed it save to proceed towards their goal.

[Continue the challenge as before.]
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:20, Mon 13 July 2015.

After the undead had passed, Jubei again proceeded to lead the group. This time however he was slower. Maybe he had a splinter in his foot or something else awkward happened while hiding.

16:31, Thu 16 July 2015: Iron Jubei rolled 9 using 1d20+3 ((6)).

Things were going slow.  Too slow.  And though Willa was scared of causing problems by making a scene, she was becoming more scared of innocent people dying because of her inaction.

She was still interested in the way undead could see without eyes and had been thinking on it for some time now.  It seemed pretty obvious that they had some sort of magical sight.  Magic had created and animated them afterall.  Perhaps that meant she could use magic to obscure the group?  The problem was, she mused, that necromancy was at least as closely tied to divine power as it was arcane, if not more so.  She therefore had no idea wther she was actually capable of influencing the skeletons' senses or not.

Gulping down her apprehension, she decided that there was little chance of finding out unless she tried and spurred her relucatant legs forward.  Calling upon her superior speed, the little umbrean weaved her way forward, circling around her friends.  Once she reached the front of the group, she headed back in much the same manner before returning to the front.  Then back again.

As Willa moved, like so many times before, wispy shadows began to form around her.  However, this time she sought to extend their influence.  Envelope everyone and shield them form their enemy's attention.  She tried to make her shadows larger and last longer.  It was difficult and draining but, with a little luck, might help if only a little?

00:27, Today: Willa rolled 11 using 1d20+7. Arcana - Umbrean Shadowdance?
This message was last edited by the player at 23:35, Thu 16 July 2015.

The Narayah kept a careful lookout as he clambered along the building walls ahead of the group, giving them warnings for approaching undead. The previous danger had passed, but it wasn't over yet. He didn't need to see their destination, the incredibly flashy display from the sarcophagus was a very easy indicator for where they needed to go.

15:11, Today: Phelan Drixos rolled 15 using 1d20+9. Perception.

Using his knowledge he has gained in his years of living in urban environments, Drex guides the party trough the back alleys toward the Necropolis.

22:33, Today: Drex rolled 15 using 1d20+5. Streetwise.

    Only Willa really noticed the effect of her magic as the darkness made it almost impossible for anyone to see as the air shimmered only ever so slightly as the quick spell Willa cast threw up a mystic veil around the party, cloaking them from the sight of the undead.
[Well done Willa, you just barely made it, but you grant from now until the end of the encounter a +2 bonus to all checks related to Stealth or Athletics in evading the undead.]
  Despite Jubei’s haste he only managed almost run the party a dead end though Drex’s keen memory helped memory of the town’s layout lead them back on the proper path and with Phelan’s keen eyes the party managed to navigate around another party of undead.
[Nicely done everyone!]

  The adventures realized they were upon the final stretch, ahead of them was the town square and the band of zombies carrying the sarcophagus.  Though they were not alone, there was a group of undead accompanying them, a patrol it seemed which had only just met up with them.  They were composed of some of the same hounds the adventurers had fought days before upon the road to Kyssea as well as some skeletons and things which looked like death lanterns.
[You could sneak up and attack them or wait and move around when the patrol had gone.  The choice, as always, is yours.]

The temptation to just rush in to create a diversion so that Midagarra could make a break for the sarcophagus was exorbitant and Jubei only barely managed to reign himself in. Instead he focused his attention on the patrol that had just arrived, in order to determine when and where to they would leave, so that they would have a better chance at sneaking up on the sarcophagus carriers.


23:37, Today: Iron Jubei rolled 21 using 1d20+3. Insight Roll: Patrolling patrols .