Before we continued searching the Barrowmaze, the party paused to discuss how the strange trash-covered creatures came to be, and Tatania wondered out loud if they might be the results of some unethical magic going on in the Barrowmaze. Tatania then sat and memorized spells while the rest of us ate some lunch and quietly considered the foreboding oppressive sense of evil in this place.
We started down the hall to the west of the room with the strange creatures—Tatania munching on hard tack as she walked—but seeing more hallways with questionable rubble in them, we reconsidered and returned to the unopened door in the previous room. Lhoss examined and then opened it to reveal a seemingly-empty room with yet another door. Opening that door, she discovered a skeleton on the floor and a glowing ball that started, somehow, throwing bits of burial urns at us all!
As clay pieces crashed around us, I cast color spray on the glowing thing, but all it seemed to do was to paint it and make it more angry. It continued tossing bits of clay as Lhoss stepped forward and swung at it with her staff, but she missed. Arnd then squeezed through and swung Bonesplitter at it, hitting it square in the center. The creature instantly vanished and in the process sprayed back magically-colored paint on Lhoss and Arnd.
Examining the room further, we discovered it was lined with many burial alcoves. We began searching and found a few coins but not much else. As we continued our search, we heard steps coming down the passageway to the east. We couldn’t see anything yet, but we quickly prepared for whatever might be coming. Arnd, Armaziti, and Kyro took the front line facing the hallway and Armaziti cast a blessing on the group. Soon we could see a faint blue light and a sense of dread came over us all as we remembered previous encounters with glowing creatures.
The creatures approached and we were troubled to see they were skeletons with glowing sapphires in their foreheads—something we have met before. Two approached Armaziti and Arnd. Armaziti swung and hit but Arnd swung and missed. Tatania fired a magic missile at the skeleton in front of Armaziti and Lhoss quickly finished it off with a second magic missle. I then ran up and easily catapulted over Arnd to land on the back of the skeleton in front of him, but the skeletons behind them advanced, one moving up to face Armaziti and the other behind me, hitting me hard. Armaziti swung and destroyed the gem of the skeleton in front of him as the skeleton I was clinging to swung and hit Arnd. Arnd returned an attack but missed and I was tearing up from the pain and couldn’t hit it properly either.
As we battled, Lhoss, Hilja, and Tatania grumbled amongst themselves about how they wished they had some vials of holy water that they could lob over the top of the fighters in the narrow hallway ahead of them. Of course the cost of such a holy weapon was more than the group could afford earlier, so we had dismissed the idea.
At that point the battle began to rage in a flurry of fighting. Lhoss targeted the skeleton in front of Arnd and hit it with a magic missile. Tatania did the same, destroying it right under me and I leapt down as it crumbled, turning to face the evil creature behind me. Armaziti swung at the skeleton in front of him again, hitting it with a loud crack as Kyro swung one of the sledgehammers into the gem on the crumbled skeleton.
Both Arnd and I attacked the last skeleton and damaged it but it was still fighting and hit me again, knocking me out so I missed the rest of the fight, which was recounted to me later. As I fell, Hilja moved in and swung at the skeleton on Armaziti, who also swung and hit it again, crushing it to dust with his hammer. Arnd swung and hit again as Hilja then turned to bandage me before I lost any more blood. Kyro smashed the third gem on the skeleton that Armazi had downed, as Lhoss ran forward and swung her staff at the last skeleton, destroying it. Tatania then sprung forward and destroyed the last gem.
Whew! Everyone breathed in relief as they looked around at the rubble of skeletons and Tatania carefully collected shards of the blue gems in a bottle. Armaziti healed me but I was exceptionally exhausted from the battle and we retreated to one of the rooms we had just traveled through to rest and re-memorize spells.
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