Move 154:  The Long Hard Fight

The Garlstone Mines--Afternoon, 2 Eleint 1374 DR

Echo and Jana went after different opponents after the priestess and her undead went down.  Echo attacked the halfling with the threatening dagger before he could finish off any of the held or bleeding party members.  She
buried her dagger in his gut, through his leather armor, taking him down.  One of the zombies, however, caught her across the chest and left arm with its claw, leaving her on the verge of collapse.

Jana moved to help the surrounded Renn.  Both elven priest and human fighter hit the Strifeleader.  Ranchefus belted Renn with his flail, finally taking the elf down and now leaving Jana just as surrounded as he had been before.  One of the zombies scratched her, but she remained standing--barely.

The first holding spell wore off, giving Arachne and Daelen the ability to move once more.  Now that they could fully survey the situation, they saw Echo facing three zombies and Jana surrounded by Ranchefus, four zombies, and the longsword wielder.  Both women looked practically dead on their feet.

Blacky was still standing motionless, and the others lay bleeding on the cavern floor.  An uninjured priest stood near the tunnel entrance into the cavern, chanting in ominous tones.

Echo stumbled when the zombie hit her but with no real way out of this, stayed in the fight.

When Daelen was finaly able to move, then see the condition the party was in the frustration he had been feeling turned into sheer rage. He charged at the closest opponents, letting out what sounded like a primordial battlecry
as he hacked at any foe in his path.

Daelen charged towards the closest opponents, the zombies fighting Echo.  He took one down easily with his sword.  Echo managed to keep from getting hit, but Daelen took a light injury from one of the zombies.

The chanting priest ceased his chanting as he was overtaken by another fit of coughing.

Jana took a frantic swing at Ranchefus, missing badly.  He missed her with his flail almost as badly.  The swordsman was beginning to falter with fatigue from the long fight, his attacks becoming even more ineffective.
Jana had more success with hitting the priest when she brought her sword back around.  Two of the zombies continued to attack the greatly weakened woman, but the other two, detecting movement again from the formerly held people, shambled in the direction of Arachne and Daelen.

Jana gritted her teeth and found the strength for one more swing at Ranchefus.

Arachne fetched out her knife and another rock for her sling.  She waited until he _seemed_ about the same size as the broad side of a barn door that she'd practiced against (with indifferent success), then launched the missile at the nearer approaching zombie.

"I'll handle these," Daelen said to Echo and Arachne as he took a vicious swipe at the zombie who had hit him, "You two get that coughing bastard!"

"Uh..."  Arachne counted zombies...

"OK."  Arachne changed targets, except that the coughing chanter wasn't charging toward her in slow motion -- so she had to advance toward him to get a big enough target to make her happy.  Readying the sling and hopefully dodging away from the zombies, she went toward the coughing priest.

Echo gave Daelen a look like he was crazy.  She shook her head, swallowed hard, and moved toward the priest.

Jana swung at Ranchefus and missed as the priest cast another spell.  The swordsman and the zombies remained ineffectual.  Ranchefus watched Jana warily and began to withdraw from the melee.

Daelen took down the two zombies he was facing.

Echo nicked the balding priest with a dagger.  Arachne missed him with a sling stone.  The balding priest took a few steps back into the tunnel.  "In Cyric's holy name, I command you back into this fight!" he told the turned
zombies.  Four of them complied and started towards the melee.  The two zombies who had abandoned the fight with Jana caught up with Arachne and Echo.  One of them missed Echo; the other swatted Arachne.

Blacky regained his ability to move.

Blacky made a beeline for Ranchy backside.

Jana looked around for an instant, confused, then attacked the swordsman.

Daelen growled as he moved to attacked these walking corpses.

Rolling with the swat, trying to defend herself with the knife she held, Arachne also tried to bring the zombie attacking her to Daelen for disposal.

"Leave the zombies!  Get the priest!" Echo yelped at Daelen.  She tried to get away from the zombie after her.

Jana turned her attacks on the swordsman, but missed him.  When Blacky moved after Ranchefus, he lost track of him as well.  One of the zombies hit the newly mobile warrior; both swordsman and zombie missed Jana.

The oft coughing priest solved any questions on who Daelen should fight by going after him with a mace.  The man got more than he bargained for in Daelen and his sword, however, and soon fell.  Along with him went the four
zombies that he had brought back into the fight.

Arachne and Echo attempted dodge maneuvers against their zombies, but only Echo's was successful.  Arachne took another swat, leaving the small gnome looking as bad off as Echo and Jana.

Everyone other than Blacky and Jana noted that Ranchefus moved to the dead priestess' side and took something from around her neck.

Daelen finished off the two zombies attacking the ladies before they could cause any more harm.  Between Jana and Blacky, the swordsman finally fell.  With a little help from Daelen, the zombies were finished off soon afterwards.

While this was going on, Ranchefus strolled out of the cavern down the tunnel.

Jana, seeing no more opponents, stumbled a bit as she noticed the four lying unmoving.  "Oh, damn," she mumbled and moved toward Etienne.  "Help them," she said and knelt down beside him, trying to stop the bleeding.  "Oh, gods, don't die," she whispered.

Daelen removed his cloak and knelt beside Aloysius. He ripped strips of cloth off methodicaly and bound the wizard's wounds as best he could.

Dazed and confused from zombie-battering, Arachne nonetheless went looking for the nearest fallen comrades to try to persuade them to please stop bleeding.  Portions of her dress, which was a mess by now anyway, were employed for bandaging, tourniquets, whatever.

Echo went to bandage the one of the four fallen not yet being bandaged. Using the Arachne method, she cut
strips off the tail of her tattered cloak to use for wound dressing.

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