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"If I die, I'll be most put out" snarled Randy petulantly.
"Me th-oo" lisped Zippo round his ever-lengthening fangs.
As the wary adventurers moved cautiously forward, deeper and higher into the craggy Bugbear Hills, and closer to the dark castle, the odd portions of conversation echo off the hills and reverberate across the silent valleys.
"... and no bloody raging fire tonight Zippo ..."
"... seen for miles. I don't care if its nice and bloody warm ..."
"... not sleeping in any dead-end cave again ..."
"... shhh ..."
"... up th-ors ..."
Argo, sent ahead earlier, slipped back to Bookem and reported that there is a well-situated cave a few minutes ahead that will do well for the night. Located on the side of the hill, overlooking the valley floor and dry creek-bed, the cave entrance was concealed from below by large boulders, and surrounded by scattered clumps of dry scrub and bush.
"Well, you idiots can sleep in the dead-end, fireball-sized cave if you like, but I'm spending my night hidden in the scrub outside" stated Randy.
"Ni-th and dry s-th-rub" comments Zippo with a gleam in his eye, "Ju-th in cas-th th-umthing a-th-ack"
Half the party set watches in the scrub round the cave entry, while the other half, and the prisoners, found semi-comfortable spots inside the cave. Zippo collected up quite a large stack of dry scrub, and positioned it strategically in the cave entrance, leaving just enough space to walk comfortably past on either side.
As REAL's light switched off for the night, the temperature dropped rapidly, and small coils of frosty breath could be seen rising from the scrub, provided infra-vision sight is engaged.
"Keep a sharp eye" commanded Bookem, snuggling down into his warm bed-roll.
"Amateurs" muttered Grunter to himself in Ogrish "the only warm cave in miles and they shiver the night away outside in the scrub where any infra-vision capable creature can spot them easily. When will these bloody-tasty humans ever learn?"
Predictably, it was during the third watch that the alarm was raised by Stanley and Nellie.
"Wake up, there is something coming" whispered Opera, who had already been woken by Stanley.
"Quick, a th-ire" yelled Zippo, plunging his glowing holy symbol into his prepared stack of very dry, and well-oiled, scrub. "Whooof"
The attackers turned out to be a group of ten skeletons who had clattered and rattled their way almost to the cave entrance before being heard.
Nellie and Stanley, who had raised the alarm and boldly placed themselves in the front line of defence, were cut down in an instant.
The flickering orange light from Zippo's conflagration revealed the bony shapes advancing past their prone bodies towards the cave.
"Oh shit, not again" muttered Lon, unsuccessfully attempting to hide in the shadows.
"GET THEE HENCE, THOU SPAWN OF SPINEY" yelled Bookem, waving his book towards the distant shapes. Miraculously, at least eight of the figures turned and rambled off into the darkness, leaving only two to face the party.
"Much better" muttered Lon, sending an arrow to clatter off a bony rib and ricochet into the night.
The last two were quickly dispatched, Stanley and Nellie healed, a Darkness cast over Zippo's fire, and everyone hurried back to their hiding places.
"Tha-ths hardly th-air" said Zippo, settling down in the middle of the dark fire, "at lea-th i-th s-th-ill hot"
As the party settled back into the routine of night, no-one realised that Opera, who along with Enrique had taken charge of the two female prisoners [ Catherine and Carolyn ] and was having second thoughts about being anywhere close to the cave mouth.
"Not waiting round here to be killed" thought Opera, "I'd be better off well away from these losers. I think I'll take the prisoners over there a bit"
Unfortunately, the eight "turned" skeletons were still lurking in the darkness, just over there in fact, and had quite a different idea about things.
Soon the party was again wakened, this time by distant screams and shouts by familiar voices.
"GET THEM" grunted Grunter, charging off into the darkness.
Bookem managed to cast a Light onto Grunter's huge club as he clomped off into the night. Bookem, Lon, and Argo then followed the bobbing light, at a slightly slower pace, and soon found themselves at the site of an ugly massacre. Well, not so much a massacre as a killing. Grunter was killing skeletons, pretty much one a blow, the skeletons had killed Enrique, who had collapsed over the fallen body of Opera (just unconscious), and the two prisoners were hobbling off as fast as their bound legs could take them. Bookem did another turn undead, and the last few surviving skeletons fled. Grunter took a parting swipe and shattered another one before deciding that they were of no further threat.
"Dust" he grunted.
Gathering up the various members of our crew, in their various states of health, we struggled back to the cave to rest up for the rest of the night.
No such luck. Another group of twelve skeletons attacked about an hour before dawn, but this time we were much better prepared. Bookem had recovered his full compliment of miracles, healed Opera, re-cast the Darkness to hide Zippo's bonfire (which Zippo continued to feed despite a number of suggestions to the contrary), and was fully prepared for another "turn" at the undead creatures. We saw then off without too much injury and awaited the dawn.
"Hey, what's Zippo up too?" asked Randy once day arrived, "Yuk, get away from her you animal"
Zippo was bent over the injured and sleeping Catherine, and appeared to be sucking at her wrist.
"Yum, ni-th" he lisped as he stood up and turned towards us, "All fini-th-ed"
Zippo was fine, in perfect health, all cuts and scratches gone, while Catherine looked terrible, worse than she had been after the roughening up by the skeletons.
Something was definitely amiss, but Zippo protested that there was nothing wrong, as blood drooled down the sides of his jaw.
"Time to move on, and quickly" thought Lon.
After a quick breakfast and an even shorter burial for Enrique, we packed up and hurried off toward the next ridge top.
The track we were following lead us over the ridge and down into a valley. The dark castle could be made out in the distance, on the top of a rocky crag a few valleys further on, but directly below us on the valley floor was our next big problem.
A cairn!
The track continued down the rocky hillside below us, entered some stunted bush that covered the lower half of the valley sides, and presumably crossed the exposed valley floor. The bush stopped at the base of the hillside and the valley floor appeared relatively flat. A small stream meandered along the centre of the valley, with about 400-500 yards of open shingle down either side, till the edge of the bush line. In the centre of the open space, just to the side of the stream, stood a cairn, roughly 4 foot high, made of stacked stones, and atop the cairn was a skeletal head.
As we peered out from the edge of the bush, we noted that the head was actually a humanoid skull, mounted on a short pole, empty eye sockets looking directly towards us. Well weathered and bleached by REAL's light the skull looked harmless, but the way those empty eyes appeared to stare straight at you was enough to give anyone the shivers.
"Ugh" shivered Opera.
"What do you think?" whispered Bookem.
"Smash it" grunted Grunter.
"Don't get any closer, it'll probably kill us" moaned Randy.
"Look, there is another one over there" pointed out Argo.
In fact, once we investigated further we found there was a continuous row of cairns with similar skulls running right along the valley, and extending up and over the sides in the distance. A quick geographical survey (sketch in the mud on the ground) suggested that there might be a complete circle of these things running in an approximate ring completely around the dark castle. The castle looked to be about five or so leagues away, and Stanley was able to deduce that to walk right around the suspected perimeter might mean a 30 league walk.
"They are bloody watchers" stated Randy, "they can see anything that approaches; I bet"
"What about invisible?" asked Stanley.
"Ni-th one" Zippo replied sarcastically, "no one can do fat"
"But I can do Invisibility to Undead" stated Opera.
"Me too" said Bookem, "for one minute exactly. To cross that open ground will take three times that."
"I could do it with my amazing Chameleon ability" declared Randy.
A moment's silence descended as everyone turned to look at Randy in confusion.
"I thought all your abilities were crap?" wondered Bookem out loud.
"Just watch this" Randy replied.
He slipped off his wig and tucked it carefully into his bag, closed his eyes, and screwed up his face. Steam started to sizzle from his head. His eyes flicked open briefly and he muttered unintelligibly for a few seconds. Suddenly, a blast of heat and the odour of singed hair follicles radiated from his head and Randy faded from view, leaving only a slight shimmer, like a heat haze, where he had been standing. The shimmer moved off out of the cover of the bush and disappeared over the rocky ground in the direction of the nearest cairn. Shortly we noticed the skull turning to the side, away from our location. Had it seen him, or was Randy actually doing something useful?
The skull turned back towards us, appeared to look around in either direction a bit then settled down staring straight ahead. Then Randy re-appeared just in front of us, looking hot and puffed, but grinning fit to bust.
"So, how about that aye?" he proudly stated, "Just need to do that to two of them and we can just walk between them as they look away from each other"
"But look" replied Opera, "it just turned back straight away"
"Oh shit" puffed Randy.
And it wasn't long before three creatures ambled into view from the bush on the other side of the valley. We retreated slightly to where we had a good view and watched them approach the cairn where they scratched around for a while, poking at the skull and looking round.
"Two ghouls" stated Bookem, "and an undead bugbear. Nasty creatures ghouls, they can paralyse you if they hit"
Suddenly one of the ghouls who had been looking at the ground, started to move in our direction. The other two followed. They picked up speed. Straight towards us.
"Bus-thed" stated Zippo drawing his double handed sword.
"Haven't we done enough already?" panicked Randy, "lets just go home"
"I agree" said Bookem fingering a ring and rolling up his sleeves, "everyone grab hold of my arm"
"POP" went the air, rushing to fill the sudden vacuum created by the physical displacement of a volume of air of approximately eight humanoid sized creatures, and one ogre.
The sound echoed around the valley, and the ghouls looked up in surprise.
"POP" went the air, rushing out to allow for the volume of approximately eight humanoid sized creatures, and one ogre.
"Safe at last" thought Randy, "back in the Hickford militia headquarters building at last"
The rain was falling hard and fast, running down over each of us to puddle and pool on the blackened and lampblack-stained ground.
"Oh th-it" lisped Zippo.
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