As the light erupts, Aftari and Haliday see their comrades obliterated, a split second before blinding light envelopes you, searing your skin. You feel your body unraveling at the seams as your flesh burns, bubbles, then peels away in ragged strips. The pain is beyond words, the heat so intense it boils your insides. The light grows hotter and brighter still, until suddenly, just as the agony reaches its apex—darkness.

Nothing remains but blackness. There is no heat, no cold, just the gentle sensation of nothingness. Time passes—you cannot fathom how long, whether seconds or centuries.

There is a vague notion of falling.

You drift in blackness, painlessness, and silence for time without measure.

Then, something pierces the darkness. It emerges from your chest—or what would be your chest if you had physical form. A tiny mote of light, no larger than a marble. It is warm, comfortingly so. Where before there was a sensation of total numbness, the light has awakened a tingling in your fingertips, then your hands, and arms, through your chest and down your legs.

You exist. As the thought crosses your mind, you realise: You exist!

You plummet through darkness, and you exist. You hear the wind rushing past, and the tiny golden mote slowly drifts back into your chest. Then, just before you strike the invisible ground beneath you, you feel hands cradling your fall, and a gentle, sacred voice in your ear: “Death is not the end.”

Your eyes flutter open. You are covered in mud, lying on your back in a dirty cavern. You ache, your head swims, but you are alive—and your fellow adventurers are all scattered about in the muck around you, also slowly coming to.

It takes all of you several moments to take in your surroundings, and find your bearings. You didn't go to sleep here, so the tomb, the lich, the blinding, burning light, it was all real. You all died. Yet you are here.

The hollow sounds of clacking bones pervade the room as you come to, each breath and motion producing a clattering beneath you. Gathering your bearings, you find the room lit from above by a pale light, which doesn’t quite reach the stone walls. You find you and your companions resting atop a towering mound of bones, rising some thirty feet from the floor of the cavern.

The chamber smells strongly of mold and wet earth, and somewhere distant comes the dull thuds and rasps of something scraping along the ground. The bone pile provides no comfort—how could it?—and each movement threatens a sudden landslide of macabre material. A single doorway stands below you and to the north.

Moaning. "Ooh my head" Haliday partially sits up and looks around.  After a brief frantic search he pulls his flask and takes a mouthful.

"Is everyone alive?"

Sitting up slowly so as not to disturb the large mound of bones Ekaterina groans, “I think so?… where are we? Is this still the same place?” She then tries to determine if the mound of bones would be able to handle her moving to inspect the door. (Int roll maybe?)

     Upon waking Dr. Buddie would look around and try to determine if he is truly awake or if this could be some kind of charm or hypnosis.  He’d do some mental exercises, he’d pinch himself, he’d check his belongings and reach out to Shelley, his familiar to see if all was where it belonged.  With a bit of a start he’ll mutter “the circlet,” to himself and scramble to check if he still had it in his possession…

     But in the end, if you cannot disprove your current reality then you must treat it as reality.  “I think we must try for the door…”

Morrow, waking up with a cramp in his wings, rolls onto his stomach foremost. Curling into a ball as he brings his arms under him to slowly stand up, his wings shoot out over head to stretch as he groans. "Alive...but feel like death." Looking down at the pile of bones that they rested upon, Morrow grimaced and slowly brought himself to his feet, "And going off what I think happened and where we are...I don't think I'm to far off."

Growling lightly the Tiefling jumps and starts to hover over the pile, glancing about as he takes a moment to circle the mound, and inspect the cavern.

(are we naked/do we have our items and gear?)

Aftari lays there on the bones for several seconds and quietly says "I didn't see my parents, I wonder if that's a good thing?" After another moment she sits up slowly and says a bit louder "Well, it seems there really is no rest for the wicked, eh Morrow?" Then carefully stands and prepares to make her way down toward the door.

((ooc, trying to reference the mistrust that they as tieflings experience))

As you rise and take in your macabre surroundings, bones clattering and tumbling, you see a gnome approaching slowly from the room’s single entrance, about fortyfive feet away. His appearance is haggard, exhausted. Worn work clothes and a tattered leather apron hang like curtains upon gaunt limbs, with craven fingers wrapped firmly around the stock of a crossbow.

The gnome approaches slowly, cautiously, taking care not to disturb any strewn bones, before peering up at your group, eyes wide. He shouts to you: “Have you lost your minds? Get down from there, before you wake the—” The bones shift beneath you.

As you carefully step back, skeletal hands burst from the large pile, clawing and grabbing at any limbs that they can reach.

Everyone, please roll Initiative and give me a Dexterity saving throw. Morrow, you roll your save with advantage for hovering slightly above the pile.

Initiative: 17

dex save: 17

Initiative: 19

Dex save: 11

Dr. Buddy initiative:  16
Dex save:  6

…

Initiative: 21

Dex Save: 10

((Still wondering if we have our equipment and such?  If Buddie’s familiar is here or not?))

((We have all our stuff))

Init: 12

Dex save: 20

Haliday, as the claws grapple you, tearing at your legs, you're being scratched for 4 and held in place by several of the hands, grappling you for the moment. Buddie, you are also grasped by several bony claws, leaving crimson furrows on your calf as you are slashed for 5. As the hands cling to you, you feel them restrain your movement as slowly, your consciousness fades.

As the rest of you hear the grunts from Haliday and Dr Buddie, you see out of the bones and skulls emerges a lone skeleton, clambering over the loose bones in an attempt to reach you. Scrambling over the bones is difficult and you imagine it's likely going to be the same for you to get down and off the pile. Even though, the Skeleton reaches close to the top of the heap andswings a bony hand at the hovering Morrow.

 Hal, Aftari and Ekaterina, you're all up, what would you like to do?

Turn order: Skeleton I Hal I Aftari I Ekaterina I Buddie I Morrow I Hadar

Acrobatics to attempt to break grapple 9

At which point Hailday is going full bore to get off the pile

Using his action to disengage from the clawing hands and the rushing skeleton, Hal makes it downover the bone pile, scrambling and tumbling, and rapidly moves up to the gnomish figure. Arriving there,the gnome says: "Carry on down the corridor, there's a big chamber and a passageway to the left. Watch out for the bridge, the wood is old."

Perception: 16

Getting a moment to calm himself and look around, Haliday notices that the crossbow is old, but unlike the rest of their haggard expression and tattered appearance, the weapon is well-maintained and the spring seems to be oiled.