Man Down! Man Down!

We are still playing in the HackMaster adventure Dusk of the Dead, because it takes a long time to clear out the undead.  We managed to go through every room in the waystation and get the comatose cleric into a nice warm bed near a fire.  The room we left her in seemed relatively defensible.  It was clear a losing battle was fought here, with zombies coming in through both windows as the door was well barricaded.  The floor was littered with bit of gore and chopped off zombie hands and fingers.


Out of Character (OOC) we new the cleric would come to in a couple days, In Character (IC) we new she was badly injured and may very well die.  She was the only one who new any first aid.  My fighter, having been badly injured and bandaged many times in the past, did what he could for "his" cleric.  OOC next level I'm not spending any build points on combat specialization and instead I'm going to pick up some First Aid and maybe another skill.  IC, leaving the Caregiver Cleric so we can flee is NOT an option.  To the best of our knowledge we've cleared the place, but then we find a trapdoor to some sort of cellar.  Our normal method of clearing rooms was to walk up to the room and rap on the door/window, call out something to the effect of "here zombie, zombie" and wait for a response.  When we did that in the cellar we got a very strong response.

Instead of opening up the interior door down there, we set up around the trap door and sent Cazon, our Human Rogue, down to open the door a crack and run back up.  He got the detail since he is the fastest of the group.  Once the zombies started shambling towards us, we just whacked on them at the natural choke-point which was the trapdoor.  It took a lot of time, but it worked.

Once we were sure we had checked every single room in the place we ventured outside.  The first thing we noticed was there was another outbuilding that Cazon had failed to mention when he scouted around outside the day before.  It was only a small chicken coop, but it had to be checked anyway....and then those poor chickens needed to be fed, and then the animals holed up in the barn as well.  Some poor stablehand is going to have one helluva mess to contend with when they clean that place out.

We start a fire and call out to the woods, "Fresh unwashed Dwarf here for you culinary pleasure!"  we figured there would be a few stragglers in the woods somewhere, and we were right...to an extent.  A few more zombies came shambling out than we expected.  The initial plan was to retreat back to the waystation should there be too many, but they got the drop on us and I was the only one able to move before they surrounded us.  I couldn't leave my party for the relative safety of the waystation, so I moved in between the fire and Salt, the other Dwarf.  I called for Cazon to form up close to my back, but he was too slow.  A couple of zombies got a hold of him before he could do much anything.  Salt and I are fighting off zombies and after I down one I finally hear Cazon call out that he is in trouble.  A quick side-step towards him leave me more exposed, but I'm able to help him by knocking back and killing one of his attackers.  Another zed grabs him and pretty soon he has four of the foul undead chomping on him.  It was grisly and he succumbs to his wounds.

Salt and I decide to fall-back to the waystation, and while the zombies feast on Cazon she has an opportunity to disengage.  I'm surrounded and after I knock back one zombie I think I have a chance to make a break for it.  I'm grabbed by two zombies and they each take a small bite out of me.  I am very fortunate in that I'm able to knock back one zombie that ends up landing in the fire.  With only a second to spare I just start jogging away from the zombies, dragging one away with me.  It continues to bite at me as I make my way to the side door of the waystation, but I just have to take it.  Salt unbars the door just in tie and helps me kill the one that latched onto me.

We make a very quick plan.  We make our way to the front door of the waystation and open it up.  We will attack one zombie at a time (hopefully) and if we need to we will fall back to the door to the inner courtyard and reset.  If we have to we will then fallback to the room we left the Cleric in and fight to our deaths defending her as long as we can.

As bad as the combat at the fire had gone for us, it was far worse for the zombies at the door.  We were practically knocking them back through the door more forcefully than they could claw their way in.  We were able to whittle the zombies down at a really fast pace.

Now we need to rest and to properly bury Cazon.  I'm hoping that Tecane will come to soon, but if I have to I'll carry her out of here.