How Many Are There? last two session recaps

The party ventured down the grand staircase to find a barricaded double door at the bottom. After setting up for ambush, they unbarricaded and opened the doors. Chained to the floor on the other side were three undead warriors, still wearing their nice armor and weaponry. The chains were long enough to allow them to engage the party, and a quick combat ensued.

A few magical trinkets were looted from the chained guardian zombies, including an amulet that did not seem to be fully functional yet. There was also a leather map of the mesa keep that indicated a secret room in the servant's quarters.

Moving down to the kitchen level, the party wandered into a zone of intense cold that was emanating from several chillborn zombies. After they had engaged these foes, an imp the size of a human attacked from above and then disappeared again. The imp continued to harass the party during the combat, but eventually fell to their attacks. As he faded away he rasped, "Finally, after a thousand years! Release!"

Single zombies popped out here and there while the party continued to explore the kitchens and servant's quarters. They found the secret room easily. It was a small closet with a single lever mechanism. They left this for later, and went to check out the main elevator.

There followed a discussion about the nature of Thorium, a metal which Thoric revealed to the party as being both antimagic and toxic to non-dwarves. He put forth the theory that Caelebhan had handled some Thorium, perhaps during his fight against the dragonlords, which was why he was withered and losing his hair prematurely. He hypothesized that Caelebhan was seeking some remedy for his illness that perhaps Orvalion could provide. He also suspected that some amount of Thorium was in the mesa, since there was an anti-magic effect negating the teleportation circle.

The party's response was hostile, as usual. Two phrases were uttered back-to-back : "Why are the dwarves hoarding Thorium?!" and "Why are the dwarves thording Whorium?" Thoric was able to convince them that knowledge of Thorium was not something to be given out freely. Not only was it a potent weapon against magic, but also a great danger to those who carried it. Better that it remain a somewhat secretive piece of information. The party grudgingly agreed, for the most part.

The main elevator was packed with zombies. Ander single-handedly neutralized them with a flurry of shuriken headshots. Before heading down, the party went back to the secret lever. After a bit of fiddling with it, they activated it, and heard a gurgling rush that merged into the sound of rumbling that persisted for about 30 seconds.

Curious, they scaled 500 feet worth of stairs to get to the top of the mesa. As Ander had suspected, the pool at the top was almost drained. Nothing else could be discerned about the pool, however, except that there was an inanimate skeleton in one corner. Heading down one level to the mage lab, they found that the stone pillar covering the teleportation circle had been raised again. Curiosity satisfied, they rested the night in the mage apartment.

In the morning, they headed to the elevator. It dropped with a sickening lurch, but did not injure anyone. The doors opened onto the gate room on the lowest level of the keep. A wide ramp led down into the entrance area, a full twenty feet below the level of the elevator. Along two sides, crenellated walls enclosed the room at the same level of the elevator. It appeared that in better days, this area would have afforded archers a clear field of fire on anyone entering through the gate. Since these were not better days, the room below was filled with zombies.

Boreas unleashed the fury of the elements upon a large area of zombies, destroying many of them. Many still remained active, however, including a fairly large zombie that looked much stronger than the others. Boreas moved to a better firing position along the crenellated section of the wall, and started to cast spells down at the horde while his companions remained a little further back towards the elevator.

The zombie brute charged Xakoraki and smashed her into the ground with his long, powerful arms. At the same time, zombies started pouring out from a doorway near Boreas, flooding his area of the wall with undead. Ander moved forward to help Boreas, and Thoric stayed back to help Xakoraki. The party was fighting on two fronts.

The brute smashed Xakoraki back down to the ground after she regained her feet, but Thoric healed her with his divine magic. Ander quickly realized that he was needed to repel the brute zombie, and left Boreas to continue his barrage of thunderwave spells. Thoric helped with his blessings as Xakoraki got back to her feet. Then she and Ander coordinated their attacks to bring down the brute zombie. While they were mopping up the crowd of regular zombies around them, the brute reanimated amongst them and attacked Thoric. It was hacked down a second time. Boreas continued his holding action against a seemingly never ending stream of animated corpses.

Eventually there was a break in the flow of undead, and the party caught their breath to assess their options. The approaching moans from the doorway told them that they didn't have much time before the next wave, and that they had better come up with a plan.