"What a treat! I get to test my new glaive!" said Varar as soon as he had walked into the room after Korro. "There are quite a few of them. They seem a bit pissed off. Maybe we should just get to the next room." Varar was a seasoned warrior, but he had never liked the undead, it was unnatural and frankly they scared him. However, it would not dull his fighting abilities.

"Quickly!" and Varar drew his scimitar and armed his glaive, and he began to move towards the small bridge that he could see, and the chasm below it.

"Is he always like this?" Luna asked before following Koro into the corridor. When she entered the next room she froze, noticing the undead in the gloom, "I uh, don't suppose any of you have a spare blade that I can borrow?" she said nervously "you see I'd rather not get into a fist fight with a zombie, they don't know when to quit, that and most of them reak"

After 'releasing' the women from the cage above, Dandel went straight back to sleep. At that moment he couldn't care less about her background and lifestory, it wouldn't matter to him, she looked suspicous and acted odd. It was enough to base a bad first impression on. However he refused to make a big deal out of it, instead decided to simply be catious around her, he didn't want a dagger sticking out of the back of his neck.

Dandel was frustrated that he couldn't just have a peaceful slumber after a long and tiring day. He awoke up moody and cranky, even if he was only sleeping for five minutes or so. ''Can't a guy get ten minutes sleep in this.......Ah.'' Before he could have a go at anyone, the Dunmer noticed another hidden door was opening, and the high pitched screech was what woke him up. ''Well holy sh*t, heh, we have another f***ing test to go through. Grand, just bloody grand.'' Dandel sound, throwing his hands into the air as he streched his aching muscles. Unlike Korro, he unenthusiasticly lumbered through the hidden door into another of the dark, dank corridors. Thankfully, this hallway was shorter then all the others and the next room was already open. Well at least is something to be pleased about.. Dandel thought as he scraqed his feet on the wet floor. At closer observation, he noticed that the 'wet' floor actually had blood adorning it, the Dunmer stepped back in shock. The blood was bright red and was in large puddles, not just splatters. His feelings and confidence for the next room dropped, starting to get a little nervous, Dandel unsheathed his dagger acting ever vigilant of his surroundings.

Before stepping into the room, Dandel hid behind the wall, taking a quick peak into the dome that beheld the group. It was absoloutly huge. The ceiling towered even higher then the last and there was a bridge annexing the two sides. Have to be careful on that, the Dunmer thought, having a hunch that it would either be unstable or engulfed with traps. The hall was almost pitch black but with the torches on the wall, Dandel couldn't spot anything. He was confident that this would be an easy walkthrough, and be the last room before the Khajit, it was evident in the tables, chairs and other furniture. However his smile quickly faded into shock and terror when his ears picked up the sound of moaning and groaning, almost like someone was dying. He had never seen a zombie, so wouldn't know what it actually was. The foul sounds took over Dandel's mind, he didn't even notice the vibrant stars around the room. Shaking in fear, the Dunmer stepped slowly into the room.

After catching sight of the Nord and Vavar unsheath their weapons, it was clear to Dandel that there was definatly something in the room, and that this 'test' was of your physical ability. The Dunmer peered into the distance, he saw vile creatures, walking corpses and bony skeletons. Some even wielding crude weapons. Dandel started to shake heavily in fear, almost urinating himself. ''F***! We're gonna die!'' Dandel spoke to Korro, Nord and Vavar. Who seemed reasonibly confident and unbothered.

The undead spotted them, as much as Dandel would've prefered to run there was no time. For the first time in his life, he had to fight properly. He dashed to a table, pulled it over and took cover, readying his bow. The arrow was on the verge of sailing away, but Dandel kept a tight grip, waiting for any hostile or aggressive movement.

"Watch out, the zombies may carry diseases," Tucharon warned, before casting a fireball at one of the zombies, knocking it back and scorching its decaying flesh. This caused it to smell even worse than before, but the smell was the least of their problems. He rushed forward at the zombie and holding his sword with both hands, cleanly sliced off one of its arms. It was unfazed by this, and clawed at the spellsword with its other arm. The blow seemingly bounced off Tucharon's ebony armor, but he could feel the impact, which was reasonably painful; zombies had unnatural strength.

He hit it with another fireball to push it back, then hacked off its remaining arm. There was no point in decapitating it, it'd probably only give the zombie better balance. The zombie remained oblivious to its dismemberment, and kicked the Altmer in the shin. Tucharon winced in pain, but was able to recover from the blow and cut off its leg. Now unable to balance, the zombie lunged towards him. These stupid things won't quit, Tucharon thought as at this point, more annoyed than anything else, cut off the zombie's last leg. Now devoid of limbs, the zombie still moaned menacingly at the ebony covered spellsword.

"Stupid things," he said as he turned towards a skeleton, ignoring the zombie's moaning.

OOC: Sorry, but I had to do that, considering the irony of it being done by someone in black armor.

Moving to the next room, Elissandre soon constated this test was physical in nature : the room held an unknown, but rather large, number of zombies and skeletons. Yuck, they match what I've heard about them, only worse. But how do you get rid of them . The damn things are dead....

Moving completely inside the room she unsheated her blade. She didn't expect the weapon to be heavy enough to do significant damage, but the blade's magic should help. Moving forward she got a better look at the room, whose most notable feature was a narrow bridge over some sort of chasm. Which suggested an obvious course of action, especially against the brainless undeads.

"You should clear our side of the room and hold the bridgehead ? they can't come in in more than one or twos. And if I remember right about undeads, you'll need chopping or blunt weapons, the heavier the better. Theses things don't feel pain and don't bleed, that make stabbing weapons close to useless. You need to break most of their bones or chop them to bits to get rid of them. Destruction magic is effective too."

While speaking, Elissandre moved to the left of the door, keeping close to the wall, to make sure this part of the room didn't hold something which could pounce on whoever moved to the bridgehead.

Acerbus looked around the room full of the undead. Well, it has been quite a while since I've seen one of these. He thought to himself as he sprinted towards one of them, jumped into the air, and brought his knee to the face of one of the zombies. It collapsed, though still wriggled about the floor with out its eyes.

He knelt beside it and shot his open palm into the spine of the corpse with immense strength, ensuring it wouldn't get up again.

Acerbus moved to the first glowing star and stepped inside, watching as it lit up in a beautiful glow. He readied his stance for the fight ahead.

Two zombies came lurching toward Luna as Elissandre said to hold them off at the bridge. Easy for her to say She thought at least she has a blade and I can't even use magic. As the two zombies got closer she dropped to a crouch and swung her leg in an arc knocking the first ones feet from underneath it, sending it spiraling to the floor, just before the second one took a swing at her head. She shifted her weight to dodge but lost her balence leaving her on the floor with the zombie about to attack and the other one recovering, there was nothing she could do but wait for the finishing blow and hope that one of the others was't to occupied to help.

Elissandre watched the zombies spring ? or rather hobble ? into action. Feeling a pang of fear as she saw the group's disordered reactions. Damn it don't looks good. I hoped I could keep safely to the rear, but that's not a option...

closing her eyes for a seemingly long second she focused her mind and called forth the magic of her blood, feeling it crawl on her skin, wrapping the flesh in a protective sheath of magic. Now confident she could withstand attacks she looked around for something to do while the magic lasted. Which meant helping Luna. Grumbling an orcish curse she rushed to the fight. Finding her experience with getting out of tavern brawls surprisingly handy, the zombies sharing the average belligerent drunk's clumsiness and indifference to pain.

As the the zombie started its strike on a sprawled down Luna, Elissandre barged in, slamming sword and shoulder first into it. Burying the blade into the zombie's chest and landing on top of him as he sprawled on it's back. Elissandre didn't try to get up, focusing on the downed zombie. Kneeling on it before it could try to get up, she grabbed her sword with both hands, alternatively stabbing and rocking the blade sideways to add to the damage. Feeling a mixture of pleasure and disgust as the blade's magic drank the zombie's animating force and poured it into her.

While Elissandre was busy dismantling the first zombie, his comrade didn't stand idle. Having found back it's balance, it lurched, bashing her with a heavy swing. Which Elissandre barely noticed, the protective magic combining with adrenaline to turn it from back-breaking to merely bruising. It dragged her attention away from the first zombie and back to the world. She realized that she had been tearing appart a piece of carrion as the zombie had been destroyed several strikes earlier.

She hurried back on her feets, yelling to Luna "Bring that thing to the ground, I'll make sure it stays there."

Several corridors behind, a startled yell rang out. Arnand gasped to himself:

"I FELL ASLEEP!"

He knew he had been stupid to use so much Chronomancy in one go. It had drained him completely.

Arnand got up and ran as fast as he could onwards through the corridor - To a closed door.

"DAMNIT!" He yelled furiously. He let out a kick at the door, yowled at the pain, then took a step backwards and settled for glaring at it instead. Then, he had a thought, and pushed the door. It opened a little. Arnand pushed it for a while until he could squeeze through a space between the stone slabs.

He was now standing in a completely empty room, apart from a cage. Wondering what the rest of the party had done here, Arnand ran on to the other end, into a thankfully open corridor.

But he stopped all too soon at the noise he heard at the end of the corridor. A distinctive, ethereal growl he knew all too well.

"GAAAAAHGH"

Arnand was almost paralyzed with fear, but withdrew his staff and walked on. Zombies. ZOMBIES. Eurgh, Arnand hated Zombies. Well, when they wern't his, of course.

He could see them up ahead now, fighting with the rest of the group. They all seemed to be agitated by some kind of bright light at the end of the room.

Arnand raised his staff and send paralyze rays all across the room, hitting Zombies and Skeletons alike, whilst he started firing bolts at the bright light.

OOC: Perapsam, the dead can't be paralyzed.

OOC: I'm afraid I'll be pulling out of this one. I've got my hands full with the Timeline and writting and can't really post good nor much. You can just make Heinrich disappear, kill him off with the undead or keep him as an NPC rebuilding the fort.

Tucharon hacked the skeleton's spine in two, causing it to crumble. Before he could turn to face another, however, the skeleton reassembled itself, striking the spellsword in the head with an iron mace. The blow disoriented Tucharon, nearly causing him to fall, but he managed to regain his bearings long enough to move out of the weapon's arc just it swung its mace again.

The spellsword then chopped off the skeleton's forearm as it swung past him, and before the skeleton could regain its appendage and weapon, the Altmer lunged for it and pried the weapon from it. He smashed the skeleton's ribcage in with its own mace, causing it to crumple, this time for good.

He looked at the skeleton's weapon. Crude, but effective. Nonetheless, he had little skill with blunt weapons, so he dropped the mace on the ground. He also took the opportunity to remove his satchel in order to better free up his movements.

OOC: Sorry to see you go Person, maybe at a later date you could come back

IC: As most of the group stepped right up and into the action, Korro still stood crouched at the star watching it flicker with a magical glow, almost entranced. That was until Acerbus stepped into it and reactivated the bright glow and the eery hum. The undead within the room growled, as if it were a form of turn undead enchantment, causing them all pain yet boosting there aggression. Korro looked around, he noticed that Elissandre and the girl they had just found were about to be pounced on by yet another zombie that was sliding along the wall, and it appeared Luna didn't have a weapon to defend herself with. He didnt have time to play the cool cat and decided to be the hero in the darkness.

With a few quick strides Korro leapt into action and charged at the zombie about to attack luna, knocking it off balance and almost sacrificing his own stability in the process, with the zombie staggering he brought back his knives and closed them into the wretch's flesh in a wide arc cross slash; catching the thing's stomach. Seeing it hadn't been at all phased and noting that he was about to fall atop the staggering zombie anywayl; Korro made an effort to bring back his head and charge it crashing into the zombies skull as they both went down, ricocheting its head off his and smack onto the stone slab.

"Eurgh" Korro muttered as he found himself laying atop a brain splattered gut spillage. "I won't be trying that again soon."

As he got to his feet he looked at Luna and offered her the handle of one of his oversized knives. It looked a pretty awkward weapon but was suprisingly well balanced and perfect for Narkiorrou's style of fighting. Hopefully Luna would be able to put it to good use too.

"Here, just till we dispatch these gut buckets, 'Kay?"



EDITED A BIT

Luna got up as Elissandre was hacking away at the now ravaged corpse and turned just in time to see Korro take down another of the undead. He offered her one of his knives and she took it muttering a quick thanks. She took up a fighting stance and whirled the blade in her hand suprised that it was perfectly balanced, "this is more like it" she smirked before scanning the room for any more undead.

Elissandre nodded in approval as Korro dispatched a zombie she had not seen closing on her and Luna. A good thing, which still left one of the smelly threats bashing at her back. Straining her protective magic and bruising her.

Still high on adrenaline and decided to act while the magic lasted, Elissandre faced the zombie. As it once again lurched forward and flailed with its arms, she dodged to the side under the poorly coordinated assault. Which let her strike at the bend of knee, the razor-sharp dwemer alloy slicing through rotting flesh and sinew. Unbalancing the zombie and sending it to the ground.Following suit, Elissandre let herself drop on it, straddling the creature and driving her sword in its back and repeating her previous stab-and-shake method. Which soon reduced her opponent to a twitching, then inert, lump of carrion.

As she stood up again, Elissandre looked around to see the battle could be considered over, at least on their side of the bridge. A situation she thought fortunates when she felt the last tingle of her magical defense fade away... Allowing herself to relax and get down from her adrenaline high, Elissandre now felt the consequences of her careless fight. First what promised to be an impressive set of bruises, then the remarkable mess resulting from her fighting style. Leaving her liberally sprayed with rotting zombie bits and juices... Even if her practice of surgery had done wonders to remove any trace of squeamishness, she had never dealt with something as... ripe as a zombie. The sight and smell overcame her, sending her down to her knee, retching and gagging as she added a fresh layer of her own on her last kill.

After what seemed a lifetime, her now empty stomach feeling marginally better she managed to get her nausea under some semblance of control and managed to get up once again. Yerk, I made an even worse mess of myself than the first time I helped Ashag to do surgery. He had a bucket ready.... She gave Korro and Luna a somewhat embarrassed smile. "Not exactly martial glory at it's best eh ? Now I understand why peoples hate fighting zombies... I'd like to have some nice and hafted weapon, like an halberd. That would keep the mess on the floor rather than on me.". Fighting back at surge of nausea at the thought.

OOC: Ya guys, I'm going to be pulling out of this one for a while as well, I will come back eventually. I would ask that Varar stays and still helps out and whatnot, but sort of remains silent. See all of you soon

OOC: I hope it'll be alive when you get back to it.

Tucharnon turned towards the bridge, two skeletons were crossing it. "Too easy," he said as he cast a fireball at the ground under them. The fireball hit, causing one to fly off the bridge into the chasm and the other to lose its balance, falling in after a few seconds. The spell probably didn't kill either one, but as long as they couldn't climb out, they won't be a problem. The others had killed any other undead that had gotten past the bridge, but there were still several on the other side.

It looked like it was up to him to keep the undead from getting across, at least for the time being. Unfortunately, he was concerned about how long his magicka would hold out, he didn't want to have to sacrifice his Welkynd Stone, and he didn't enjoy going toe-to-toe with decaying corpses that won't stay down.

Luna relaxed when she realised there were were no undead on their side of the room. "so how are we going to procede?" she asked facing the others "there has got to be another door and who knows whats down there". A flash of light from a fireball got her attention. Tucharnon was still guarding the bridge but he looked exhausted "hey" she called walking over "you look exhausted let me take over for a while"

Now in control of her stomach, Elissandre moved to the bridgehead. "Tucharon, you should back up a bit. With three of us to hit and only one of the damned things coming at a time, there shouldn't be too much trouble. Human opponents might try to play it smart with us, but zombies are mindless and skeletons aren't much better. Unless someone is directly controling them, but it doesn't seems to be the case here."

Elissandre grabbed the mace from one of Tucharon's downed opponents, swinging it a bit to feel it's balance. Then she backed to her position on Tucharon's right, keeping a slight crouch to strike low. "Here's what I suggest : Tucharon, you're wearing heavy armor and you're skilled with that blade of yours, you should be the bait. Stay on the defense, when they strike. Me and Luna will go for the knees. Once they're down, it's messy pulp time. Then we lure another of them here ? some cheap and weak damage spell should do the trick nicely and spare enough magicka in case of trouble. Rinse and repeat until the room is cleared. Long, boring and messy, but I prefer that to quick and dangerous. If someone gets hurt, I've enough magic left to do a few healings, even if they're on the heavy side."

"I'll see what I can do," Tucharon replied to Elissandre. He himself was never a tactician, as he was more used to solo adventuring. That was one of the reasons he traded his family's wealth for ebony equipment; with stunted magicka and nobody watching his back, the danger of death was always there. Even in Ayleid ruins, where magicka-replenishing Welkynd stones were everywhere, he didn't want to use one unless it was absolutely necessary. This was a different variety of adventure, something he had rarely experienced. He was so used to watching just his own back it felt a bit strange to be in a group again.

Tucharon cast a weak spell at a zombie on the other side of the bridge. It caught the attention of both the target as well as two skeletons. They shambled towards him, each crossing the bridge in single file, oblivious to the others who were waiting to attack them. He held his sword in front of him, hoping that it would suffice in blocking their attacks.

"They're coming, I hope you ladies know what you're doing."

"I hope too" answered Elissandre, her tone lighter than what she truly felt. "Honestly it should work just fine. Unless one of us backs off and let them spread, it's a serie of three-on-one fight. I've seen the watch do it to block the back door of a tavern they were cleaning and it worked like a breeze."

She stopped speaking as the first zombie reached the bridghead, letting out a loud moan while attacking Tucharon with a clumsy two-fisted bash. As she had hoped, the move left it's legs wide open to attack. Even if she hadn't much practice with maces and their ilk, she swung as powerfully as she could, crouching to hit roughly at knee height. A tactic which paid an immediate reward when the zombie's knee gave with a sickening crunch as the mace broke the articulation.

As the zombie was recovering his balance after it's strike, the loss of one leg sent it sprawling to the ground, almost falling on Elissandre. Letting her bash it with alternating mace and sword strike to a messy, but definitive result. Which still left one zombie and skeleton to deal with.

OOC: I think there might be something about the stars. Korpse said they had a turn undead spell cast when someone stepped inside.

ooc: yes but one of the stars is on the other side and the other is down the steps and we havn't actually crossed the bridge yet.

IC: Luna waited for Elissandre to take down the first zombie before stepping up to take on the next. She grabed it's arm as it took a swing at her and stabbed Korro's blade into it's chest. She pulled the zombie to the side strugling to keep it between her and the aproaching skeleton. Using it as a shield she let the skeleton tear apart the flailing zombie for her, with each blow the zombie weakened until it was just a corpse. Luna threw the now lifeless corpse at the skeleton forcing it back a few steps, "who wants this one?" she asked, stepping back to her original position beside Tucharon.

Arnand, having forgotten undead were immune to paralysis, had been standing at the edge of the abyss and concentrating. Most of the adventurers, having larger problems, were ignoring him. Suddenly, a Lich appeared to his left, which immediately joined the others.

Arnand collapsed onto the ground, panting. He was very tired. Out of his satchel he pulled the potion and downed all of it before standing and walking across the bridge, past the others and casting a fiery aura around himself to deter the reanimated corpses. Once he got to the other end, Arnand began casting spells at the star.

OOC: Perapsam, I think you might want to ask Korpse about a Lich because they are a lot more powerful lore-wise than game-wise and could kill everyone in the room.