Part 5: The Encounter

I raised my shield to fend off one of the monsters, and hewed at another with my sword, but I missed my first swing. Morningstar swung at one of the monsters and struck it, but her sword did the bony thing little harm. I saw that Apoqulis still stood by the door; of Barthal there was no sign. Fortunately, Apoqulis also had a torch. Apoqulis raised his holy symbol and called in a loud voice, "In the name of Tah, begone!" To my surprise, several of the monsters turned as if afraid and ran out the door, disappearing into the gloom. Unfortunately this left quite a few of them still in the room. Even as I saw all this I continued to hack at the monsters. It took two good blows to down the first one; it appeared that Morningstar was having similar trouble with the monsters. Then one of the skeletons hit her, just a minor wound, but still I felt good that I had invested my part of the proceeds of our last excursion in a suit of plate mail armor; I was shrugging off blows that would have harmed me were I still wearing chain mail. To my surprise, I saw Apoqulis down one of the monsters in a single blow, then do the same to another in his very next strike. His mace seemed to be much more effective against the monsters than our swords. As I finally managed to down a second skeleton, I heard a high-pitched yell… it was Barthal, a little ways down the hallway, and he was throwing something. There was a sound of glass breaking, and I felt a splash of water on my face. Several of the skeletons began to smoke, and then one of them fell in a heap. Holy water, I decided, but I didn't have time to think about it. I just kept hacking at the skeletons. By the time they were all gone, I had taken a wound, and Morningstar had taken a second. We had one potion of healing left of those that Apoqulis' temple had given us; Morningstar told me to drink it, but I could tell she was in worse shape than I, so I insisted she take it. Then we turned back to the sarcophagus…