Session 71

# October 21st, 2021 - Round One, Fight!

## Round One, Fight!

The session began with our heroes slowly coming out of their magical *sleep* while Thia and Lachlan looked around their new location. After being dropped through a magical gate into this unknown place, they were surrounded by stone in a large chamber with multiple stone pillars throughout the space. The ceiling was low, and the only light was from torch sconces attached to each of the pillars and along the walls. The space was nasty, stinking with decomposing bodies and blood stains all over. They still had the golden armored dwarven honor guard with them.

Piles of bodies lay around clumped in corners, but there was one living warrior, sitting near the only exit tunnel. The tunnel slightly slanted upwards and at the end there was a large metal portcullis, with a stone wall beyond. The group spoke with the warrior, trying to understand where they were and what was going on. He only spoke of the gauntlet, and how he was the only survivor from the previous round. After a few hours passed, the quiet in the space was replaced with a low, deep rumbling from above. Then, the torches furthest away from the tunnel started going out, in sequence, throughout the space.

This was a clear signal, and the warrior reluctantly picked up his axe and started dragging it as he plodded slowly up the tunnel. The Champions and the dwarves followed suit. Walking up the tunnel the massive stone wall on the other side of the portcullis lowered, streaming in light and the noise of a large crowd. The portcullis itself lowered, and the group walked out onto the floor of a massive circular colosseum. It was night, but the place was lit up with hundreds of torch lights. The crowd full of humans was cheering and screaming.

The walls of the arena were thirty or forty feet high, and from the rim of those walls, all around was a magical dome enclosing them within the space. There would be no flying out. There were over a dozen other doors similar to the one they exited, all around the circular space. Opposite them was a much larger door, and above which sat a raised dais where the clear rulers of the area sat. A series of thrones were set up, maybe 11 or 13.

A male sitting in the center throne stood up and yelled with a magical boom, “Everyone welcome, the Champions of the Storm Coast!” The crowd erupted in another wave of cheers as all the stone doorways around the area, except the one they entered and the largest, all lowered. From each, masses of zombies began shambling out into the arena towards the living. Among the groups were zombies on fire, and some were partially deteriorated like skeletons. The battle begun, as the Champions held their ground, with Rufus and Thia sniping the burning zombies, which as expected exploded upon being shot. The dwarven honor guard held around a half circle with Rachen and Cadmus, cutting down zombies as they approached. Thia’s dragon Maximus flew around the space ripping dead bodies apart as the crowd erupted in cheers at each of the various melees ongoing. The veteran warrior that walked out with the group was felled, but in a short time the Champions got the upper hand, and they soon were cleaning up the remaining undead.

The dwarven honor guard cheered along with the crowd, elated and feeling victorious. As the clamor settled down, just after the last zombie was felled, the stone gates began lowering around the colosseum a second time. Maximus landed back next to Thia as the group watched zombified trolls and ogres pour out of the doorways. One of the dwarves exclaimed, “round two I guess”.

And that is where the short session ended. It was the night of the two hundred and seventy second (272nd) day since the raid on Greenest.

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