Going clubbing

The battle went on for quite some time, and that was the problem, how do you beat an enemy that reassembles themselves? Sure the ceiling axe passage helped a little (mainly because it is really inconvenient when you bend down to pick up one and a ceiling axe knocked off 20 or 30), but there was a problem. As they were reassembling themselves, they got better at it, and it seemed less particular about the bits in question being specifically theirs.

They had at this point fought off 10 or 12 skeletons with mismatched limbs, or upon losing their heads, just picked up the next nearest and got right back on with it as if it was only mismatched socks. One of them had kept trying to reclaim Errol’s tibia club, but he was hanging onto it like a baby with their favourite toy (anywhere but a pushchair, anybody who has ever dealt with babies knows their favourite toys become projectiles at that point, and woe betide anybody who was too slow in returning it.) until eventually it gave up and grabbed a spare from the pile nearby.

Eventually, they realised and accepted if they were going to beat this lot, they needed to find a more defensible position, and with Sir Leeroy acting as a rearguard, they headed off down one of the myriad passages into the depths of the crypt.

“These guys are a lot tougher since they started putting eyes in”, Mibbet gasped between swings at the skeletal horde that pursued them; she couldn’t help noticing this damned place felt pretty damn catacomby rather than tomby. It was not OK; false advertising is what it was. Skeletons should have a one per tomb limit, two at a stretch. But then some pillock had chosen to take the staff with them, maybe a loyal guard. Now everybody and their dog (and horse, camel beloved fighting dragon, and whatever the hell else) was packing into what should be single occupancy spaces; it truly was a grave issue.

That had resulted in the issue they had now, basically undead on tap and something at the heart of this place animating them all. What were they going to do, say “OK OK I give, we’ll leave sorry for the disturbance”? They were literally sealed in, and Mibbet was feeling rather panicky. She liked places she could jump for cover and be reasonably sure there wasn’t a skeleton waiting for her. Now that wasn’t really an option anymore; with the low ceilings in here, jumping at all was going to end up with her leaping headfirst into the ceiling, not an experience she really wished to... well.... experience. So she followed plan b; there were lots of cramped holes round here, but no, that wouldn’t work either. Human skeletons were really useless at fitting into confined spaces without popping bits out, and that hurt a lot. So she only had plan C left, go down fighting.

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Elvira was really not faring too much better; Spikey was a good weapon, but realistically pikes are not a flailing weapon, nor are they confined space friendly. Every few minutes, she was having to extricate her weapon from an enemy, or worse yet, flail the enemy WITH the long bloody pole, and while skeletons may be decidedly lighter than a human in their full meat suit, they still are not particularly light. The only silver lining was that they wriggled and kicked up a fuss when something stabbed them and swung em around like that, doing far more damage than the pike alone. But as inexhaustible as she often seemed, she was starting to get really, really tired.

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Errol was making a decent showing of himself (at least once that damn skeleton stopped trying to nick his tibia (not the one in his leg, the one in his hand,) If he got out of this, he was getting this thing weighted with lead shot, and capped, he really would make the superior anterior with which to kick a lot of posterior. He was fighting well and had cracked a lot of heads, but was quickly coming to the realisation that breaking skulls really works far better if the possessors of said skulls 1. care 2. don’t have a massive supply of spares, and 3. don’t have some kind of necromantic overlord somewhere down here patching them up. In this case, though, those conditions were rather set against him. He swung down again (he’d figured out a while ago that gravity was his friend in all donking endeavours, swinging took far more energy, and really you can’t shiv something with a leggy long-bone (though anybody who has ever caught a warning elbow from a skinny person may think otherwise, because even when you get caught by accident OOOF.) If he ever got out of this, then he really would be the champion clubber, though, at the moment, that possibility was looking a little too slim for his tastes.

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Sir Leeroy was doing his best too, and that blackjack hammer combo of his was making a good accounting of itself. After all, a blackjack is intended to do nothing less than break bones, so down here? Well, it really was spoiled for choice. Meanwhile, a hammer is probably the best choice to make around skeletons bar the old classic “don’t disturb them in the first place you pillock.” (Probably the best advice his mentor had ever given him, except the one about never eating meat in a friendly and well-provisioned village in the wilderness, or ask where it came from. The locals didn’t like that, and it was the screening process for finding new meat. He really wished he’d listened more now, could have saved himself a hell of a mess here, also prevented what would later be described as the Smiletown incident... but that’s a story we should never get into..... EVER.) But now he was starting to flag, and they were getting swarmed; it was not reassuring in the least to hear an ominous laugh in the distance as they were pinned.