Immediately the two Zombie bowmen shot arrows at Erevel. The other started saying "Intruders, Intruders," while looking toward the stairs.
Armania cast haste and moved down the stairs next to a pile of gear. Ciprian, hearing Erevel's description, started his Bardic Performance against the Zombies. Then he moved past the Zombies to the eastern most door. Erevel, raging moved forward to the southern Zombie and slashed with her greatsword.
Taking advantage of the haste, Gavril moved behind the Zombie to the east and attacked with Red Destiny. Ursina blessed the party and then moved to give Gavril flanking. Finally Paullus moved beside Erevel to attack with his War Razor.
The two Zombie bowmen dropped their bows and attacked with drawn swords. The last Zombie moved up to attack Paullus. Now the battle was in full gear as slashing, piercing and bludgeoning weapons hit with various degrees of damage. The Zombies as before had some ability to reduce the damage and Armania knew they resisted Magic Missiles. The party just thought they were gaining the edge when the south most door opened and two more Zombies with bows entered the fray. Armania threw acid darts at the enemy while the rest of the party continued to attack, Gavril appreciating the flanking given by Ursina.
Then Armania saw a version of herself walk through the southern door, actually she saw four figures in the same area, a mirror image of her mirror image. Presently Erevel and Paullus felt the cleave attack of one of the Zombies they were fighting. Gavril, Ursina and Ciprian finished off the Zombie to the north and thinking he was clever, Gavril flung open the door to his south which led to the courtyard.
He gulped seeing that there were four hounds surrounding a well, but he still ran to the west door of the courtyard and flung it open stepping into a space between the multiple Armanias and a Zombie. This really put him in harms way as the multiple Armanias attacked with short swords in each hand. She seemed to relish the flanking given by the Zombie as Gavril started to bleed. Barnabas was able to make one of the mirror images disappear before he retreated.
Erevel finished off another Zombie and moved up to start attacking the mirror Armania. Ursina saw an almost dead body on the floor and pulled the wand of Death Knell out to steal the creatures life force. Ciprian moved to help Paullus attack the last remaining original Zombie.
The mirror Armania seemed to have some sort of healing ability as Gavril saw some of her wounds disappear. Again there was an exchange of blows between all the combatants around the mirror Armania and the two Zombie bowmen kept firing away at the party. Armania cast Flaming Sphere on one of the bowmen, who eluded it at first but later took a little damage.
"Damn, they must have fire resistance also," screamed Armania.
"Attack her, I am the real Armania," called out the short sword wielder.
Erevel retreated as she stopped raging, hoping to move beyond her fatigue before entering the fray again. Ursina doled out some healing to Erevel and Paullus drank a potion to begin healing himself. The attacks continued and just as Gavril was trying to catch his breath another Zombie entered from the south firing arrows at the party.
The flaming sphere was doing little if any damage as Armania though about webbing the creatures. Gavril yelled back that they would still be able to attack and everyone was face to face. Paullus moved up the stairs to get a better shot at the bowman in the rear while Gavril and Ciprian attacked the rest of the Zombies.
Two more Zombies fell and just as Ciprian move up to the last one standing he felt the sting of a vicious attack and fell to the floor unconscious. At this point Erevel rushed back into the fray and Ursina drug Ciprian out and hurled Rebuke Death at him. This seemed to stabilize the Bard as the party finally finished off the last Zombie. Gavril immediately shut the door.
Healing was the order of the next few minutes followed by searching the area and looking for magic. The piles of gear was camping equipment, tents, cooking vessels, and so forth. Between the three piles it seemed that there was equipment for about 10 soldiers. Besides the box of arrows and the hooded lantern, there was a box of twenty twigs near the lantern. The twigs were not from a tree or bush, but were wood and had a clump of material on one end.
After healing everyone and collecting the items from room the Gavril opened the door to the south and saw a dimly lit room with a couple of bunk beds, chests and a circular stair going up. Ursina came up and saw that there were more bunk beds, chests and a door on the east with a hallway going south at the far eastern end of the room. Gavril sneaked into the room and peered around the corner into the hall. He saw another door leading east and another circular stair again going up. He saw a mirror hanging on the wall which he quickly smashed into smithereens. The rest of the party entered and seeing nothing magical, Gavril listened at the eastern door which he thought would lead back to the entrance.
Assuming that the guards that were in the entrance had been the earlier late entries to the battle, Gavril flung the door open, startling the three Zombies standing inside. As the party had surprised the guards the party moved quickly into the room, with Gavril heading toward the standing mirror in the northeast corner. Ciprian disappeared from view, while Erevel swung at the nearest guard.
Ciprian started his cast Contagious Zeal on himself and started spreading it around, while he attacked with surprise while flanking with Gavril. Gavril smashed the mirror and attacked. Erevel and Paullus again had two enemies around them as they battled back from a cleave attack from one of the Zombies again.
The battle was vicious as the heroes were tired of the Zombies appearing again and again and they focused their energy on attacks that did the most damage. Armania even entered the skirmish with her returning dagger.
At last all three of the Zombies fell victim to the heroes attacks and the group again set out healing each other.
DM's Notes: The party earned 2200XP for the nights work and are now within 1770 XP of reaching 6th level.
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