12 turns played. The first 9 or so were just walking and exploring, but now things are getting interesting.
Our small group explored the caves, moving north along a passage that came to a hub with 5 other passages radiating out like spokes. Skandix told us to take the southeast passage, down which we ran into some zombie bats -- a form of soulless, level 0 undead that spreads plague (new zombies if they make a kill). We fought past them and there was a keep, where Clammie found he could recruit more mimics (yay!) and pillagers (expensive but very yay!), plus the usual weaker critters. More "regular" zombies are coming from an opening to the south.
I recruited a few level 0 bats for scouting and village claiming, as usual. There was an altar in the southeast cave, so I sent a bat. We got a long dialogue, where we find out that Skandix had received a prophecy from his friend Kleesyx (or however this is spelled) that he would bring a friend's corpse to the altar. A specter shows up (named X-something) and talks with Skandix, telling him that Kleesyx was lying and has actually become a lich. But something went wrong with the lich transformation and now Kleesyx is a horrible mutant undead thing. Kleesyx then shows up, says he is hungry, and attacks Skandix who gets poisoned. Kleesyx then disappears, and the X-spectre says he has gone to bring his undead hordes. We also get a note that we hear stone shifting as passageways open.
The X-spectre guy moves to a nearby keep (only reachable by flying things) and starts recruiting ghosts and spectres. He is an ally, and his first group of ghosts heads northwest -- I guess that is where the enemy is coming from?
Skandix is poisoned and did not heal, despite being on a village. Apparently this is some mystic poison -- we were told he must go to the altar of the Dire Wolf to be saved. I don't think this is the altar near our keep -- probably something further into the caves that we will have to fight through undead to reach.
I have recruited a few more mimics for healing -- try to get them some easy kills on weakened undead, but be careful. The undead do a ton of damage and these mimic guys are really weak. I have also recalled Misris and recruited more pillagers. They are expensive but have fire attacks which will be good against undead. Most of our other units have blade or pierce attacks which are not very good against undead. The soulless at least have no ranged attack, so kill them safely if possible.
There is an unclaimed village to our east/southeast. The bat on the altar can claim it. Use the three bats to explore across the spokes, as they can fly over chasms and lava to explore and hopefully grab more villages. We are going to need the money -- Kleesyx has well over 1000 gold.
Our keep area, with green zombies (led by someone called Zombie Batmaker) coming from the south. We will need to finish this guy off and then fight Kleesyx' hordes. Control of the hub with its villages for healing will be important.
Also, Eeep picked up a holy water earlier and has arcane melee attacks for the rest of this scenario. In hindsight this wasn't the best choice, as Eeep already had fire attacks. Sorry.
![frown frown](https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/images/smilies/frown.gif)
Make use of him anyway, as he is one of our best units.
Good luck!
The Save - Turn 13