Pizazz's Ravenloft and Beyond

(Can we use hit dice? If so: 30 + 10

Lionel took a slow breath and opened his eyes, not trying to stand up, though. Not yet. He was calm now, enough to listen first. He remembered his fight with the skulls. How many did he get? Two? Is the last one still near by? Where are all his companions? It was as if nightmare of his arrival to Strahd's domain repeated itself all over again!

He ordered himself to remain calm and listen again...

Lionel's eyes feel crusted shut, and he lifts a numb hand to his face, brushing ice from his eyelashes. He blinks his eyes open, staring upwards. His hands and feet are so numb he can't feel them, his exposed flesh is burning. Shivers wrack his body as he slowly forces himself to sit up. His memories slowly start to come back to him. He glances around the dark room, but it's not the same place with flaming skulls were. He's in a new room he doesn't recognize.  This bare stone room consists of a foyer on one side and a shrine on the other. Candlesticks draped in cobwebs stand in the four corners of the foyer. In the shrine, a faceless obsidian statue stands in a raised alcove at the western end of the chamber. Slumped before the statue are two desiccated corpses in tattered garments. Two pairs of al­coves line the walls of the shrine. There are two sets of closed double doors leading out of this room in two directions from the foyer. 

Wisdom Saving throw please.

Rolling 5 hit dice: 32

Is Meepo awake? Or still unconscious?

Meepo awakens as well, assuming he has HD to spend, which he should have. 

Lionel, you hear only a deathly silence. Not a bug moves. Not a breeze stir the air. You are alone. 

Lionel Wisdom save: 19

He tried to move - carefully and slowly - to the statue, hoping to understand whose shrine is it. Religion: 14

The large statue seems to draw Lionel's eye, and he carefully approaches, examining with great interest. It seems to resemble the dark god in the main temple they saw. It's a moment later that he realizes he's kneeling between the two long dead skeletal remains of people. When he looks down he seems to shake the sudden and strong desire to just stay there....sitting by the statue, being close to it...forever....  He shakes himself free and backs away from the accursed thing that seeks to anchor him next to it.  He doesn't know what god this is, but it's evil for certain. 

Lionel was still unsure if he is alive - the pain screamed he is, but the chips of ice and unknown surrounding ... it looked as if he was killed and drugged to some level of Hell. Yet, that statue - the resemblance and that overwhelming sense of evil... He must have been in the Temple. May be his last move, the one he did not remember, was to crawl to "safety" of that chamber? He turned his back to the statue and pushed the closest doors.

Assuming Meepo is awake, Mordekai will begin talking about the evil of the place surrounding them.  Meepo recognises that Mordekai is about to go into one of his speeches again, for the next ten minutes.

(Not sure if Meepo allows Mordekai to continue, rather than cutting him off because we have no time for a speech right now...I'll leave that up to Meepo!  If Meepo gets up and heads out, Mordekai will quietly trail off after the first sentence and go too, but if Meepo is still recovering, getting his bearings and allows Mordekai's speech to continue, then...)

It's not the same as Mordekai's usual uplifting speeches.  More somber, more reflective.  Not so much a triumphant retelling of their deeds so far, but a much more introspective account of the perils of the world and the importance of them surviving to continue what they've started.  It's inspiring nonetheless, and Mordekai and Meepo (presumably the only ones who can hear it) gain 12 temporary HP. 

(Again, I'm not going to dictate what Meepo does, so DragonDenn feel free to overrule!)

Meepo hd: starting with 5... 26

Just as well do the other 2 as well... 13

Meepo doesn't stop Mordekai in his speech.  He figures they have been there for a while already, so a few more minutes aren't going to make a difference, and the guy can do anything he likes right now, he got Meepo out of there after all, somehow.

Meepo, now awake, nursing wounds, looks about.  The amber door to this room is open, and he recognizes that he is in the small room, just near the hallway in.  A quick look shows him the double doors to where all the barbarians were is closed.  A dim sliver of light shows between the cracks.  The blackness of the main temple room stretches away.   Mordekai begins a somber account of grit, and drive, and determination that would see the hero's through this time in the dark evil temple. 

Lionel limps, his body shivering in the cold and dark, his poor spirit assaulted by the evil here, and pushes at one of the double amber doors.  He sees the cracked and crumblings balcony from the main temple.  He sees the main statue to the left of him, the double doors to the right lead into that lit feast room, and then through to the skulls.  The whole chamber is dark, frigid cold, and empty.  He hears a whispering voice echo through the darkness, "Psssh, psssh.....my play thing is awake...."  

Wisdom saving throw. 

When he's finished his speech, Mordekai says to Meepo, "I thought we'd lost you there, friend. But then they just shut us out and didn't pursue us. Perhaps they assumed the pervasive evil of this temple would deal with us by itself. But we have lost the others. I believe Olin and Kasimir are dead. As for Lionel, Ulthan and Ismark, I have no idea where they are. But we should try to find them. Do you have any way of communicating with them?"

Lionel WIS save: 24

That was the moment, when Lionel realized, his sword, that he counted as part of himself already, was not with him! At first it struck like loosing a limb - a hopeless denial and overwhelming grief. But that mocking voice, that evil wisper, made Lionel to collect himself. He is alive, all is not lost just yet.

First, he returned to the statue, or, to be precise, to the bodies - any weapon would be useful now - some club, a quarterstaff, even a rock would do. Then he tried the second door, prepared (as much as he could) to the danger on the other side. 

"We go find." Meepo says, getting to his feet.  He sends Rat out to do a quick scout as well, the familiar moving to look around the area outside of the room as Meepo moves to the door and glances out.

Lionel feels his limbs tighten and his will to move being attacked, but shirks it off easily enough. He glances around in the darkness, but beyond 60 feet is just inky darkness. He moves forward on the broken balcony to the edge.  It's 30 feet down.  He carefully climbs over the edge of black crumbling marble, and shimmies down the support beam which is also full of cracks, then drops to the floor.  He glances around in the darkness.  Kasimir's gruesome zombie body lays in a heap nearby with two arrows through his chest. His hand outstretched, Lionel notices the glint of the ring on his finger, and the finely made elven rapier at his side. 

Lionel also looks to his right, and slumped on the ground just outside an alcove that holds a large statue of a wizard, he sees Olin's body. The red stained spear that Olin had found and fought with lays on the ground, his magic protective cloak lays across his back.  Olin's body is cold and unmoving.  

In his mind, worming around in his head, he hears, "Tsk, tsk tsk, soooo stubborn my pet. Come, don't be mad, let's play. I shall make you a play thing." 

bad guy roll: 4

Roll intelligence saving throw.  Lionel hears a scuff from the other side of the statue, and up at the top of the other intact balcony he sees the old man, crouched just on the edge of his vision in the darkness. 

The body of Kasimir twitches.  Then his head begins to smoke, acrid burning flesh smell pouring off the thing, and then the flesh itself splits open and green flames lick out of it, as Kasimir's skull lifts out of the ruined flesh and into the air. He turns, two burning red eyes inside it's gruesome blood covered bone, the blood blackening and sizzling as the green flames consume it.  The skull laughs an echoing terrible laugh that fills the room.....

(Meepo, Mordekai, from a timing perspective, you're both still in the room, and Mordekai is telling a rousing inspiring story.  If you hear anything out in the main temple or elsewhere that disrupts the story, I'll let you know, and I'll let you react, in which case you won't receive the temporary HP's, but you'll be able to act. But for the time being, you're still enjoying a rousing story.)

Lionel INT save: 11

Initiative: 11

(What kind of rapier should I add to inventory? Olin had the Blood Spear, Lionel takes it too. Oh, is there any shield around?)

Olin had a shield, it's laying near him.  It's a normal rapier, just a bit stylish.  Olin steps over to Olin, grabbing his shield and spear, and then rushes over towards Kasimir, where the skull floats, and yanks the rapier from the sheath.  

The floating skull blasts a ray of energy at Olin.  Take 1 psychic damage as the blast strikes you.  

The old man moves further back onto the balcony he's on, fading away into the darkness.

Your action. 

Mordekai, Meepo, roll perception. 

The feeling of spear was not wrong, but it was not his sword either - no light, not shared joy of battle. Lionel was on his own here:

Attack: 11 Damage: 10

Attack: 9 Damage: 7

Mordekai perception: 19