Getting to the gate didn't take particularly long. I wasn't exactly sure where in the village we were, but I followed the others through a maze of densely packed dwellings to end up back on the main street, and from there a quick walk lead us to the gate.
Julie obviously recognised the pair of guards that were on duty today, as she moved off to the side to have a conversation with them. I briefly debated moving over to listen in, but it probably wasn't worth it. I doubted anything they were saying was worth the effort of trying, and the potential fuss it might cause.
A couple of minutes passed, and I used the time to examine the wood around me to see if I had any idea what kind of tree it came from (my lack of any kind of botanical knowledge presented me with the answer 'a big one', narrowing down the kind of area I was in exactly fuck-all). Our resident guardswoman friend then wandered back over from the other two, a blush staining her face. She'd been blushing a lot, which was weird, but maybe it was normal for her.
She spoke. "Let's get out of here, before I hit someone." She seemed antsy, something Lidda was quick to jump on.
"Anyone in particular, or are we just lashing out randomly? 'cause I've got a few targets I can think of," the halfling (I was 90% sure she was a halfling, but I was also pretty sure I'd reached the point where it was awkward to ask) slyly interjected.
"Well, we'll start with the irritatingly presumptuous, and work from there."
I decided that poking that particular bear was in no way worth it, and stayed quiet. The gate opened soon after, and we strolled out into the grasslands outside the village. Lidda took the lead, with Julie close behind. Zahri took the rear, and I ended up in the middle with Sabrina.
Our pace wasn't particularly hurried as we walked down the path. A couple of minutes walking later, and we took a left turn that I'd not noticed last night, and continued onwards.
A quick use of my ring wiped off all of the (hopefully) mud that had built up on my shoes while I'd been in the village, and also drew the attention of the woman next to me. It wouldn't hurt to be charitable, and might reduce the impact of my earlier dickishness.
"Want a clean?" I proffered my hand towards Sabrina, who looked at it confused.
"What?"
"The prestidigitation. Do you want me to clean up your boots as well?" I clarified.
We'd drawn the attention of the other three, as Sabrina nodded. "Sounds good to me. Can you get the inkstains as well?"
Shrugging, I hit her with the cleaning. It took a good half-minute or so, but by the end of it she was squeaky clean, and muttering in amazement. I turned from focusing on her to three expectant faces.
From the sounds of it, my crashing at the house had interrupted the normal schedule for them, along with their plans of preparing for this adventure the night before, so they hadn't had time to bathe, and their clothes were somewhat dirty. I was somewhat smug about it.
"All I'm saying is that the fire-breathing is great if I ever find myself in a fight, and it'll probably be useful real soon, but sometimes the day-to-day mundane shite is the best, you know?"
"Assuming you actually can breathe fire. You've talked it up a lot, but maybe you're just all smoke." Lidda teased.
I groaned at the pun. "Well, I wasn't exactly going to breathe fire inside a wooden building, was I? That strikes me as a terrible idea."
Zahri looked at Sabrina, and let out a "Hmmmm.", much to Sabrina's dismay.
"It was one time, and an accident. You don't have to keep going on about it, it was a small fire anyway. Anyway, let's see this fire!"
Alright, let's actually try this thing out. I stopped walking, and concentrated. Not breathed fire before, but I almost did last night, and I think I can do it without the anger. Focus on my throat and lungs, and breathe deep. More deeply than I normally do, feel it spark into being, and I wrenched my head up and back so the plume of fire shot into the sky. A glorious pillar of flame flowed out of my mouth, and I kept it up until I ran out of air in my lungs.
I had to take a couple of deep breaths afterwards, as I'd quite literally burnt through all of my oxygen, but it was absolutely worth it. The rush of literally spitting flames was amazing, everything I never knew I wanted. Getting impressed looks from four attractive women for it wasn't bad as well.
"Fire breath, as promised." I couldn't help but smirk. "You can see why I didn't want to do that in there, it probably wouldn't have gone down well."
"We're still close enough that you probably startled the guards, but doing that in the village would have made it a lot worse." Julie opined. "Glad I don't have to fight you, getting hit by that looks like it would be painful."
"I'm glad I don't have to fight me either." I joked. "Although talking about fighting, what are y'all like in a fight? You're adventurers, so I guess 'competent', but what are your skill sets like?" A damn shame I can't just ask what class people are, it would make things so much easier. We started walking again, and Sabrina spoke first.
"A sensible request. I am a conjurer, meaning that I focus on the conjuration school of magic. I have also dabbled in abjuration and illusion magic." Ok, that tells me arcane spellcaster. Going to prod a little and hope I guess right, based on her reading a book this morning (was that stereotyping?).
"So, a wizard, I guess?"
"Of course." A note of indignation crept into her voice. "I've actually had to work for my magic, unlike certain other spellcasters I could name."
Zahri harrumphed.
"Oh, I didn't mean you, Zahri, you've worked for your magic. It's sorcerers swanning around acting like they're so special because one of their ancestors fucked a dragon."
She looked like she was about to start ranting, so I cut her off by focusing on Zahri. "You're a spellcaster, then?" She was in armour, so probably a divine one?
"I am a cleric of Pelor." Explains the symbol around her neck, and is surprisingly useful in telling me what kind of world I'm in. It pegs it as 'default' style D&D, and rules out both the Ravenloft setting (which is great, as no one sane would want to live there) and the Forgotten Realms setting (also great, as it's full of overpowered arseholes and, depending on what timeframe I'm in, the Wall of the Faithless, which can fuck right off).
Zahri stayed quiet after that, with Lidda taking the opportunity to speak up. "I'm the scout, and a decent shot with a bow." Hmmm, class of scout maybe? "I'm also the designated trapfinder, and responsible for dealing with any locked doors." Ah, rogue.
Julie shrugged, shifting her splint mail around with a clanking noise. "I'm halfway decent in a fight." Well, when all you can do to describe your skillset is 'fight gud', if that wasn't a fighter, nothing was. Still, that sounded somewhat self deprecating, and if anyone should be able to recognise that, it'd be me (not that I'd done a lot of it over the past couple of days, given the sheer rush magic and breathing fire was).
"Useful. Spell slots come, and spell slots go, but being able to hit people with a chunk of steel is always in fashion." I smiled encouragingly at her, and got a weak smile in response. Bah, sure, at high levels the basic fighter isn't the best, but at low levels 'hit thing with weapon' is still a vital skill to have.
The conversation kind of died from there, as we continued walking. The path was barely deserving of the name, a dirt path made from trodding on the grass over and over again rather than anything actually built or designed. Small insects of some kind flew out of the grass whenever one of us brushed against some that hadn't been trampled, and I enjoyed a hitherto unnoticed bonus of the damage reduction that I had: small insects couldn't do a goddamn thing to me. I proclaim myself Ironskin, bane of all midges! Heh.
My involuntary snort at the thought drew attention, and given the choice between explaining my thought process, and in the process bragging about my insect immunity to those who didn't have the luxury, and changing the topic by talking about literally anything else, I chose the latter.
"So what kind of spells do you have prepared? Just to make sure that we're on the same page, and I know when to close my eyes and duck or whatever." Friendly fire sucks, and I'd rather find out now if there's a chance of a 'I didn't ask how big the room was, I said I cast Fireball' situation.
"Healing." Zahri grunted. Huh, ok. Not optimal, I guess, but certainly better than dying.
Sabrina was slightly more verbose. "Of the three spells that I have prepared, I have one support, one offensive, and one defensive spell prepared. The first, my support spell, allows me to call forth a creature from the upper planes, manifesting a Fire Beetle to fight our enemies for us for a brief time. My offensive spell creates a scintillating rainbow of colours that bursts forth from my hands to render foes insensate. The final spell I have prepared creates a field of force around my skin, blocking the attacks of my enemies. A useful combination, I've found."
Three prepared spells, and by the sounds of it all 1st level. More confirmation for me that I'm looking at a party of level 1's, maybe 2's at a push? I don't know what edition everyone else is running on, or even if they're following the rules at all in the way I seem to be. Still, it gives me a decent guideline on what kind of undead we're likely to be... able... to... Hang on a sec.
"Sorry, did you just say that you prepared Colour Spray as your offensive spell?"
"Of course! Remarkably effective at stunning people."
"You know we're going to be fighting undead, right?"
"Yes."
"And you prepared Colour Spray to fight undead."
"Yes?"
"Colour Spray."
"Is there a problem with that?" She seemed confused by my line of questioning.
"You know Colour Spray doesn't work against undead, right?" I was 90% sure it was a mind-affecting spell, and 95% sure those flat out don't work against the undead. What I wouldn't give for a wiki right now, or at least a better memory.
Sabrina stopped walking, reached into her backpack and pulled out the book she was reading this morning, quickly flicking through the pages. "I don't have anything in my notes about that... any particular reason it won't work?"
Well, confirm one part first. "It's a mind-affecting spell, right?"
She nodded. "Of the pattern type, yes." The others had stopped walking as well by this point, and were watching the conversation.
"Undead are immune to mind-affecting abilities, as a general rule. I can't remember if it's just the unintelligent ones, or all of them, but yeah, it won't do shite against them," I explained.
Having found the pages she was after, Sabrina scanned them briefly. "No, nothing in my notes, but I didn't really focus on undead, I'll admit. I ignored necromancy as a school pretty much completely. Zahri, did you know?"
Zahri shook her head. "Never really studied."
Making a noise partway between agreement and disappointment, Sabrina stowed her book away and started walking again, the rest of us following suit after a second.
"Do you know a lot about undead, then?" Julie asked over her shoulder.
I shrugged. "I wouldn't say a lot. I have a surface level knowledge of lots of different types of enemies. More of a 'That's one of these, they can do this and this, and are immune or weak to whatever' type of knowledge rather than, you know, ecology or shite." Especially since whenever I DMed the ecology was made up on the spot more often than not.
"So you only have information directly relevant to what we're about to do? Oh no, what a shame, however could we use that." Lidda deadpanned from the front.
I snorted. "Alright, miss snark." I had a reasonable idea of what kind of undead this party could actually take in a fight, but let's try and narrow it down a little first. "So, do you know what's caused the undead to appear? Is it recent, or have they always been there?"
"The last three months or so." Julie answered. "The crypt was sealed when the loggers first turned up, but about three months ago a group of lasses decided to make their fortune looting the place, and pried it open. Some kind of corpse came out of it and killed one of them, apparently, and the rest ran away. The guards didn't have the people or the willingness to risk themselves to clear it out, so here we are."
Nodding along to Julie's answer, I ran it over in my head. "Ok, so that... I was about to say it tells me a few things, but it doesn't really tell me them, it just allows me to make confident guesses, if that makes sense?" Julie and Sabrina both nodded, so I rolled with it. "So, first of all, there probably isn't a necromancer involved, which is good." Animating undead is a third level spell, and that's when Fireball starts cropping up. I do not want to get hit by a Fireball, pretty sure it'd just instantly fry me. "And only one person killed means that whatever is in there doesn't have the power or numbers to kill more than one, and I think that puts them on a 'we can take them' kind of level."
"What if there's an undead necromancer? Or the undead just didn't want to kill more than one?" Lidda interrupted with what I had to admit were perfectly reasonable questions. Unfortunately, the answer to them sucked.
"Then we probably die. Any undead spellcaster, or any undead reasonable enough to look at the living and decide not to kill them for some reason, is powerful enough to wipe us out. So I'm choosing to, you know, not focus on that." Denial is a great tool, and has no long term mental health side effects, honest.
Julie shuddered slightly at that, and Lidda scowled at me. I just shrugged again. "Still, those options are unlikely, so let's not think about that. Not much point going into it anyway, it'd be like trying to learn the temperature of the volcano you're about to jump into, you're fucked either way." Sabrina pouted when I said that, the mad woman.
"And those we can fight?" Zahri was looking at me impassively, one hand resting on the head of the mace hanging at her waist. She shifted slightly, the shield attached to the side of her backpack clanging off of her armour.,
I delayed briefly by pulling out my flask of tea and having a drink while I thought about it. "So there's two, maybe three, types of undead we can reasonably fight. Skeletons and zombies are the default kind of undead, and then possibly ghouls at a push. I dunno how much you know, so I'll cover all of the basics, yeah? Zombies are..."
"Hang on, hang on, lemme write this down!" Sabrina had stopped walking again, and was rummaging around in the bottom of her backpack. "Got it!" She cried triumphantly, holding up a sheaf of loose-leaf paper and a stick of charcoal. Slinging her backpack back on, she held charcoal to paper. "Continue."
The thought of raising an eyebrow at her crossed my mind, but I decided against it. It wasn't a bad decision, to be honest. Assuming my information was correct (I hoped it was. If it turns out the rules of the world were completely different, this would be a bad way to find out) then it'd probably be the kind of thing worth recording and remembering. If the printing press didn't exist, for example, information and knowledge on things might be substantially difficult to get ahold of. It might well be worth having a record for the future.
"Sure, where was... Zombies, right. Zombies are a corpse animated by magic. Yes, yes." I waved down the snickers from Lidda. "I mean that in a more literal sense. Not all undead are just a corpse. Zombies are one intact dead body, that's stood up and moving. Advantages are that they're slow. Their battle tactic is pretty much stumble at you, and then hit you with their arms or whatever. Disadvantages is that they're tough." Skeletons are bludgeoning, so zombies are, not piercing, slashing? Slashing. "They also ignore a lot of damage. You want to take one out with blunt force, or arrows, you're going to need to hit them very hard, or very very often. Your best bet is to use a sharp blade and chop bits off of them."
I proceeded to cover skeletons ("Like faster zombies", "They'll probably use a weapon" and "Use blunt force") and warned Lidda ("They're not actually using their vital organs for anything, so there's no point stabbing them in the kidney or whatever") about their immunity to sneak attacks.
"Finally, you've got ghouls. Ghouls are bastards. If I remember correctly, they can spontaneously arise from the corpses of cannibals, and they keep that little habit in undeath. They have huge, fuck off claws, and a long tongue for getting marrow out of bones." Huh, a couple of green faces at that. Well buckle up, it's about to get worse. "They're worse than skeletons and zombies for a couple of reasons. The first is they're intelligent. The other two types are mindless, incapable of thinking, they'll just move towards you and try and hit you. Ghouls are cunning, and can use basic tactics. The second is the paralysis. You get hit by a ghoul, it'll try and freeze you in place. It can be resisted, and elves are immune, I think, but they'll lock you in place, drag you off, and then eat you alive." I smiled cheerily. "Try not to let that happen, yeah?"
Julie had gone an interestingly pale green at this information, but as I finished talking I watched her visibly straighten her shoulders and firm herself. "You don't need to worry. I won't let that happen." Huh, there was a note of conviction in her voice that made that oddly inspiring.
The next few minutes were a barrage of questions from Sabrina, only a few of which I could answer ("No, I don't think they need to eat, I'm pretty sure they just do it because they're bastards") before we were interrupted by Lidda.
"Look sharp, everyone. We're here."