Session 0036 - More Necromancers

Roster

List of characters who's player was in attendance

Player characters who's player is attending the game start with 1 Hero Point, and can get more during the session.

Absent

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Player characters for missing players do not start the session with a hero point, and can not get any more during the session.

Session Log

The party explore the north east passage from the large chamber where they recently fought four skeletal warriors.
It leads down a hallway about 35 feet and turns north. Everyone quietly moves down the passage and when they look around the corner they can see the passage goes for about 30 feet before ending in a door. There are also doors to their left and right 15 feet along the passage.
From the corner the party can hear faint voices that give the impression of people chanting.
They move cautiously up to the nearest doors and listen at each. They do hear voices chanting behind each door - at least a couple of people behind both doors.
Moving to the door at the end of the hall, they listen there also. Chanting can be heard behind this door, but it seems to be a single voice.
The party believe this must be more necromancers. They decide to rush into the room with the single chanting voice. They hope to overwhelm them and capture them, and if everyone rushes into the room they can close the door and defend themselves better against anyone coming out of the other rooms.
Sarroxtíoð leads by opening the door. They see a lone human figure in ropes sitting cross legged in a 25 foot square chamber. The person is flanked by two skeletal warriors standing silent and motionless. As the party open the door and rush in, he looks up in surprise and stands up and exclaims "what?!", and "who are you?".
Wasting no time to chat, the party move in and attack. The skeletons quickly respond, raising their shields and attacking with rusty longswords.
Both Sarroxtíoð and Eriana rush at the necromancer, with Ferdinand following close behind. One skeleton moves to attack Sarroxtíoð and the other blocks Ferdinand.
In the initial attack the necromancer casts a spell and touches Eriana. she reels in pain, nearly collapsing from the effect (falling from full health to single-digit hit points) while at the same time the necromancer seems to swell with power, his eyes wild as he grins menacingly at the swashbuckler.
The skeleton fighting Sarroxtíoð critically hits the half-orc and the shock from the attack leaves him badly shaking, impeding his ability to fight. Realizing the skeleton will be a harder target, he instead focuses his attention on the necromancer.
Ferdinand ends up dancing around the skeleton, exchanging blows and begins to whittle it down.
Meanwhile, Alicia moves into a central position in the room to support the party, getting a good shot in on the skeleton that hit Sarroxtíoð. Harbek and Leodegar take a bit longer to get into the room, with the sturdy dwarf blocking the door for the moment if/when the necromancer allies arrive.
In the next few rounds the necromancer absorbs a barrage of attacks from Eriana, Sarroxtíoð, Alicia Leodegar, but absorbs a tremendous amount of damage without showing serious signs of injury.
It isn't long before Harbek announces that someone is trying to force open the door, but he successfully keeps it shut. While doing this he is able to help by using his magic to heal Eriana slightly, and attack the skeletons with a Divine Lance cantrip.
Alicia is also able to get to Eriana and use her Lay on Hands ability to cure her. It becomes clear at this point that healing is not as effective as it should be here. While they do cure Eriana she is getting only have the healing benefit as expected.
While the party initially thought to catch another prisoner, Eriana now has no reservation on killing the necromancer. She does grapple them and stabs at the caster. The caster is able to get free, and cast some sort of spell that seemed to compel Eriana not to attack.
Once freed, it touches Sarroxtíoð after casting another spell and like Eriana he feels great pain, but is able to resist much of the damage. The necromancer also seems to recover somewhat from this, showing renewed vigor. He is also able to wave a hand at Alicia and similarly drain her from a distance, becoming even more invigorated.
Eventually both skeletons are destroyed and the necromancer finally falls despite the life it managed to sap from the party into themself. During the last part of combat, Sarroxtíoð takes a healing potion and it works perhaps less effectively than expected but does fix the shaking he had from the critical hit he received.
During the last few rounds Harbek successfully held the door from being forced open. He heard shouting from the other side, and at one point it went a bit quiet before he heard growls and scratches at the door with a renewed attempt to force it open.
When the skeletons and necromancer are all defeated in the chamber he calls for Sarroxtíoð to come hold the door and promises to patch him up when he does so.
Alicia uses the brief lull in combat to try and patch people up by treating their wounds conventionally, without the aid of magic. Some healing potions are also consumed to get people in better shape to prepare for whatever is behind the door.
Sarroxtíoð then moves to hold the door. Once everyone is ready he pulls it open and prepares to attack.
In the hallway they see four undead lined up on the other side of the door, eager to attack. There are four cloaked figures, presumed necromancers, behind them, also lined up down the hall.
They have successfully bottled up the enemy in the hallway while they hold the door to the chamber. Sarroxtíoð hacks away at the undead with others providing ranged support. Alicia uses her arbalest and Leodegar has his hand crossbow. They are running short of bolts, but Ferdinand tossed Leodegar some during the fight with the necromancer and Sarroxtíoð says he has some he can spare.
Eriana is able to hurl throwing daggers at the undead in support.
Harbek casts a spell down the hallway that conjures up tentacles that briefly flay at the enemy, nearly reaching the end of the passage. It seems to damage the necromancers, but the undead are not damaged by it.
At one point a necromancer cast a spell at Leodegar and critically hits him with a harm spell, nearly dropping him.
One of the undead manages to hit Sarroxtíoð and paralyzes the barbarian! Fortunately, he recovers fairly quickly but is momentarily taken out of the fight.
Ferdinand is able to get into position next to 006-Sarroxtíoð to stab at the undead on the other side of the doorway. He takes out the first one, and another one is destroyed shortly after that. The undead crumble then disappear, confirming their suspicion these are summoned creatures.
That becomes obvious, when the necromancers respond by casting a spell and two new undead are conjured up to replace the ones who have fallen.
It now seems to be a battle of attrition. The expectation is that the necromancers will eventually run out of summoned creatures and spells, or their undead will break through while the spellcasters harm the party from a distance.
The session ends mid-combat in this state, beginning at the 9th round of melee since the party attacked the first necromancer and the two skeletons.