Falling asleep was easy.

Waking up was still a mild shock to Jason. He opened his eyes, the heavy winter blanket provided plenty of warmth and security but as his eyes adjusted, the first faces he saw were Nanda, Triuk and Masin.

Brutish, large, dark green faces. Weather worn, scarred and gruesome.

Jason felt a surge of fear turn up in the first moments of awareness, then his mind remembered he was in a game. A cut neck, tired body, smelly game.

Grarl: HP increased by 1 during the night.

Current HP: 6 out of 10

He sat up to look around, the sun was just beginning to deliver its light, the builders were up and about cooking meals, heating up the water for the morning brew. Talking among themselves.

Grarl lifted himself off the ground, stretched his limbs and gave a massive yawn. When he brought his eyes back to the men, they were all looking at him in mild fear, at worst respect for how large and unpleasant he looked.

Nobody looked comfortable.

Grarl called out them “Good morning.”

They gave a round of welcome head nods, looking away and a few shy “Good mornings” made their way back to his ears. The talking became less relaxed and the serious talk began about which trees to fell, where to put them, the design of the house and when morning break would be.

Masin stirred, then noticed the sun light. He stood up and immediately walked over to the humans, greeting each in turn, shaking hands, nodding and smiling his way through the small camp. He made it to the pot of brew and used the ladle to fill several mugs then started handing the out to people.

Nanda said, “He wants them to like us.”

Grarl answered, “Yeah.”

She said, “They will never like us.”

Grarl felt a little sad inside, he understood the need to feel wanted and accepted. How it felt like the right thing to do things for others to get them to like you, and while it should work, it doesn’t.

Triuk added, “We are not here to be liked, we are here to keep the peace.”

Grarl was watching Masin cheerfully talking to the people, at how they used their fake smiles, hid the fears, and how their shoulders were tense in apprehension.

Triuk said, “We are in between two worlds, neither side will ever like us, but both accept our position. If we must be between their worlds, we may as well stand between them to stop the blood from flowing.”

Nanda asked, “Are we going to the graveyard to finish the rest of the undead off, or leaving them for the farmer to do?”

Triuk got up, gave her a curt look then said, “We will finish the job and accept no thanks for it. That is the way of it.” He walked off to the orckin firepit, the embers were still there so within a few minutes Triuk had a good fire going and was cooking up eggs with potato and leeks for all of them.

Over the course of the next hour the camp was buzzing with movement. Trees were being chopped, others were making wooden nails, while several of the men, using two horses, were dragging logs onto the base of the house to form the wall.

Nanda headed over to help by picking up her axe and swinging it into a tree. The men stood back in awe at the power she put into the swings. The tree, compared to the time it took two men to chop through it, went down faster with her chopping solo. Grarl wondered if she was stronger them him. And he knew he was powerful, but Nanda had more of it. Her muscles were leaner but thick. Nothing about her disagreed with the immense strength she possessed.

Grarl said to Triuk as he joined him for breakfast, “I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of her sword.”

Triuk laughed, “No, you wouldn’t. While you are bloody strong, she is stronger. I have no idea where her strength comes from, but it is frightening to witness.”

Masin eventually finished his round, giving instructions for while he was gone. Nanda was finished with her warm up and Triuk and Grarl were well fed and satisfied.

Again they carried few things with them, other than their weapons, a few torches and bandages. The assumption being they would be needed. When they left the camp, it was done with little fuss or talking. Each of them were contemplating what was ahead. While zombies and skeletons were not the most dangerous monsters out there, they had the potential to kill.

Jason was feeling uncomfortable with returning to the graveyard. He was thinking that there must be another way to earn experience, one that included progress towards the safe point and home.

He thought, “I shouldn’t be risking my neck on this, I need to focus on things and actions that always lead to home.”

These ideas went round and round his head, until the farmhouse appeared. Then his mind switched over to being focused on the immediate danger of the undead.

He saw Abagail working the land, she smiled and waved at Grarl but stayed where she was. He father, the man who only peered through the door last night, just glared at them all, then returned to working the soil.

Triuk said, “We are here to create peace, not create friendships.” With that, he turned off the road to cross the farmland to the edge of the forest. They all withdrew their weapons and readied themselves.

Grarl said, “My guess is three zombies and two skeletons.”

Nanda said, “My guess is you will only kill one.” Then laughed.

“Want to put gold on that?”

Triuk said, “Shut up, both of you. But I will give one gold piece for each kill you make.”

Triuk took the first steps into the trees, Nanda beside him. Masin and Grarl followed closely behind. They were able to easily follow their own tracks to the graveyard, Grarl was surprised how close to the forest edge it was, lst night it seemed further away.

They were all looking for undead on the outer side of the fence but saw nothing. It didn’t take long to hear the groan from a zombie as it made its way toward them. Masin and Nanda took the lead to the gate, then waited for the sole zombie to come within reach.

Initiative

Masin: 20 + 3 = 23

Nanda: 4 + 1 = 5

Zombie: 4 – 1 = 3

The zombie made it into the space of Masin first, so he made his move before Nanda could do her thing.

Masin attack Zombie: 21: Hit

Damage: 7

His sword rocked the zombie, throwing it off balance, giving Nanda room to move in with her battle axe.

Nanda attack Zombie: 14 + 7 = 21: Hit

Damage: 7 + 5 = 13

Her axe landed plumb in the middle of the head splitting it half. The zombie groaned one more time before falling to the ground, dead once and for good.

Nanda said, “That was easy, not sure why you two had so many problems earlier.”

She made her way forward, stepping over the corpse with Masin in two laughing at her comment. Triuk and Grarl followed with Triuk saying, “We are going to look inside the tomb, outside looks like it is cleared from out hard work last night.”

Nanda looked enthusiastic about entering the tomb, Masin wasn’t as sure but with Nanda in front, he followed.

Grarl asked Triuk, “We should check it out before going in.” but as he finished the sentence Nanda had already descended into the tomb, Masin soon after. Triuk said, “Yeah, we should, too late now. Let’s hope we have better luck than I did last night when I didn’t check first.”

Grarl did one last look through the graveyard, he spotted two zombies standing in the corner, but they hadn’t noticed them, so he ducked into the tomb quickly to catch Triuk to tell him.

But before he caught up, two zombie-like creatures leapt up from the ground and assaulted Nanda and Masin. At first Grarl thought they were zombies, but they were moving like skeletons, their skin was rotten and gnarled.

Grarl wasn’t sure what they were, but he knew they were not zombies.

Initiative

Grarl: 12 + 2 = 14

Nanda: 12 + 1 = 13

Ghouls: 10 + 2 = 12

Masin: 8 + 3 = 11

Triuk: 2 + 2 = 4

Grarl was already hyped up and ready for battle, he had a feeling the others were taking this lightly. So when the fast moving zombies sprang up, he was basically ready to smash anything that moved regardless of what it was.

He instinctively knew Masin was not ready and knew Nanda could handle herself better than anyone, so he ran at the fast zombie by Masin first.

Grarl attack Ghoul: 13 + 6 = 19: Hit

Damage: 6 + 4 = 10

His sword swept through its shoulder, biting deep into it, but it somehow stayed up and angry.

Nanda was readier than she appeared, she somehow turned a potential bad start into something that mirror awesomeness and lifted the sword upwards and into the ghoul torso under its outstretched arms.

Nanda attack Ghoul: 18 + 7 = 25: Hit

Damage: 3 + 5 = 8

She struck it cleanly, but something hindered her power. The ghoul went down anyway into a heap a rotting meat and bones.

The ghoul in front of Masin, having a sword thrust into its shoulder, turned its attention to Grarl.

Ghoul bite attack Grarl: 2 + 2 = 4: Miss

It came at him with its mouth full of sharpened teeth and attempted to rip his neck apart, but Grarl elbowed it in the head as it got too close. This staggered the ghoul, allowing Masin to step in for his attack.

Masin attack Ghoul: 10 + 0 = 10: Miss

He seemed flustered in his movement, while not a total disaster of a move, Masin should have been able to finish the ghoul off, Grarl decided that he couldn’t be a dedicated fighter as he felt the move should have worked but somehow didn’t.

Triuk leapt into the fray, his polished sword looking like it hadn’t been ever used it was so clean.

Triuk attack Ghoul: 12 + 4 = 16: Hit

Damage: 8 + 3 = 13

He brought the sword down, and he almost looked like he was going to miss but didn’t. The hit was clean, the ghoul collapsed and surrendered itself to a true death.

Nanda said, “That was easy.”

Grarl answered, “There are two more zombies walking around above us. We are not done yet.”

Masin said, “Treasure, where is it?” He began working his way through the tomb looking for traps and secret doors.

Nanda said, “I don’t mind going up and dealing to them. Want to come, Grarl?”

“Sure, why not?”

Masin called out, “Hey, I can’t find anything. Where the hells blazers is the treasure?”

Nanda and Grarl returned to the top, peered carefully around for the zombies, saw them then Nanda said, “Lets have some fun with them.” She walked out into the graveyard, sneaking to a large headstone that was blocked on both sides by thick bushes. She waved to Grarl to follow her, so he did. When he caught up, she stood up and called out, “Hey, zombies, over here.”

Both zombies came to life, groaned loudly then shuffled themselves directly towards Nanda and Grarl. When they reached them, with the tombstone and bushed blocking their progress, Nanda lined them up, lifted her sword, swung and beheaded them both with one strike.

She laughed then said to Grarl, “And that is how you kill a zombie the right way.”

Triuk and Masin exited the underground tomb with Masin saying, “Mate, if we don’t find gold, we run out of the stuff. We need to find something bad that has gold so we can pay for the expenses.”

Triuk said, “We will find the answer. Be patient.”

Nanda called out, “Speaking of expense Triuk, I killed three zombies and one ghoul, you owe me three gold.” She looked to Grarl and asked, “And Grarl gets nothing.”

Experience Earned.

3 x zombies = 450xp

2 x ghouls = 600xp

Total = 1050xp

Split Evenly between four characters

263xp each

Grarl Total XP: 913

Next Level achieved at 1000xp

Triuk took out three gold pieces, handed them to Nanda who then pocketed them.

They decided it was best to scout around for more wandering undead monsters, but they found nothing exciting beyond a few rats. Triuk was happy and called the mission a success.

Masin was complaining about running out of gold and the need to find some by killing bad things with gold.

Nanda laughed.

Grarl just led the way out, towards the farm. When they reached the farm, Triuk called to the farmer “They are gone now. If you have any other issues, let us know.”

The farmer waved that he heard and understood, then went back to work. Abagail and her sister kept waving until their father told them to stop.

Masin waved back with a smile. “They seem nice.”