Undead behind, even more undead from the front. The priests are tired from all of the praying and Fren is hurt. The situation would seem completely hopeless if a little shining thing from the side of the keep wouldn’t reflect the moonlight and twinkle in Gregory’s eyes. It is very fortunate that it did, and instead of praying to turn undead he instead blurted some incoherent mumble and immediately shouted
“There! the tree!” He pointed at the twisted oak tree that grew at the side of the keep and peeks at a balcony. it seemed like a perfect place to climb onto the floor above, it may have been used to do the opposite recently with shattered glass and metal things that obviously originated from the balcony above scattered all around it. Without much explaining or waiting for the rest to understand on their own he decided to be an example and ran to the tree first.
“Where are you going?” Guy screamed at him, at first he thought Gregory was ‘sidequesting’ as he usually does, then his mind wondered whether Gregory lost his mind or even decided to desert them. It was when Gregory put his foot on the tree branch that Guy realized and shouted “Climb the tree!” before running after him.
Soon after, Lisa and Fren follow suit and climb the tree, with the undead behind it important to be hasteful, and they keep a good pace but to pass to the balcony they must jump. Gregory in the front stands on a hearty branch and prepares to jump. The branch is stable but not too girthy. He remembers what he needs to do and jumps. As a precaution he jumps too hard, and lands on the balcony with his face too much forward to stop. A hilarious face plant that the others were too focused on the climbing to see.
After Gregory, Lisa is up next, Guy scooted over to let her jump fist, after all he is the leader. This motivated her so much she didn’t even think about the jump.
“Uh… Fren, you’re next”
After observing while Fren replies “You first,”
Stuck in place with the undead fumbling over the lower branches, Guy does not know what to do. “Just jump, You’ll be alright!” Fren continues to try and motivate him. It seems that Fren had called Guy’s bluff, Guy is afraid to jump. Not only the height but the undead beneath is certain death if he fails. He looks down, the undead growl with low voices, it almost looks like they are salivating and waiting for him to fail the jump and fall into their rotten mouths.
“I can’t do it Fren, I’ll stay here, go in and… learn what you can.” He tries to reason with Fren, and maybe even convince himself he will be safe on the tree.
“I need you to jump, you can’t survive here. The longer the night lasts the more mobile the undead will become. They will climb this soon.” Fren leaves no room for second guessing.
Guy turns around to the balcony. He looks onward to the goal, where he want’s to find his feet after he jumps. He prepares himself and… jumps! no wait. He decides to take another breath. It is too late to go back though and with the momentum he loses balance and slips down. His hand reaches for the branch but it’s just shy from it. A big regret goes through his mind, he doesn’t know how it could have been better but he doesn’t want to die this way.
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Fran catches him by the forearm, and with his legs a bit above the hungry undead and their hands. Gregory and Lisa shoot more prayers at the undead, they are weak but they won’t let Guy go without a fight. “I got you, just try again.” With a few years taken from his heart he climbs back on and gets ready to go try jumping again, this time he counts to 3 “1… 2… “ and on 3 everyone yells with him “3!”. He can’t believe it, it only took a moment and he’s on the other side, and with a better landing than Gregory. Fren jumps over with little to no effort right behind him.
“That was scary.” Guy says, this throws Gregory and Lisa off, who never imagined Guy to say that, especially with that tone and face.
“We need to go through this before the undead find a way back inside.” Fren says and quickly goes to the door and closes it, there is no lock, but he puts a chair and a desk to block it from opening. The room they are in now is a childs bedroom, by the small bed and the toys and books.
“Oh dear, a child too, by now he must be with the undead too.” Gregory throws a comment into the room, if only just to break the tension. ‘Not doing a good job with the topic’ he thinks to himself after the fact.
“Might be, but I hadn’t seen a dog.” Lisa follows
“Not one of this size.” Fren looks at the giant canine footprint on the carpet, it must have been a horse sized mutt from the looks of it. All four look at it with a peculiar look.
“Fren, do you know what animal this is? you’re a wannabe adventurer, right?” Guy asks him
“No… I only ever saw goblins.” Fren answers.
“It actually looks like it was leaving the way we came.” Gregory notes after he spots familiar footprints around.
The door then knocks with banging similar to back at the church. It looks like their time here is done. It was short, but not too short. They leave to the balcony and now they can spot the foot prints more clearly, they are visible in a mud patch a little farther than the tree.
“I think we need to go after this, there might be someone who escaped with the dog”.
“You want to follow a giant dog?fighting undead isn’t enough for you? You didn’t even have time to heal the wound you have, you’re bleeding.” Guy is concerned about Fren, but Fren looks for some candle light from the little boy’s room before he goes back to the balcony. The undead were lured back into the mansion and now they can leave at relative peace.
“We might find something relating to the undead, and we need to get out anyway, it’s getting late and we haven't slept.” Fren does what he can to encourage the group, I wonder what’s going through his mind right now.
“I‘ll take a giant dog instead of a horde of undead any day, and especially at night.” Gregory backs Fren up. Lisa is uncertain and looks at Guy for confirmation.
“Alright, let’s barricade the door better though. The longer the undead spend on unlocking the door the more time we have to look for the other monster.”
A few more heavy pieces of furniture and they are ready to go, with Lisa healing Fren a little too while he was lifting things.
Instead of Gregory going on ‘side quests’ it’s Fren. They seem like a good duo.