3. Jombies In the Well

One fine afternoon, there is a pounding on the church door. "Shale! Shale! Help!" Shale opened the door to find Sheriff Malcolm at her door, with the limp body of the widow Mae in his arms. The widow was drawing water at the well and had a difficult time pulling up her bucket. Two farmers helped her, and as the bucket neared the top of the well a creature leaped forward and bit her on her arm. Shale was able to determine that the bite on Widow Mae's arm was made by a zombie. After healing her and leaving her in the care of an acolyte, she asked the Sheriff to accompany her to Arka's house.

Arka answered the door, face blackened and hair standing on end. "Oh, sorry - experiment gone bad. How can I help you?" After being filled in on the details, Arka recalled that the town well is fed by an underground stream. As she and Shale discuss whether or not zombie-ism is contagious (it isn't), they hear the sound of a stream of water running down the side of Arka's house. Shale peeked out to discover Sarin peeing on the wall, listening intently to their conversation. Sarin hastily zips up his fly and joins Shale at the door.

The three friends agree to look into the zombie attack. As they take their leave of the Sherrif, he mentions that there has been quite a bit of talk in town lately. Apparently the recent demolition of the pig pasture is being blamed for rocking the foundations of the town, possibly unleashing this latest undead terror. Shale uses her ability to speak to stone to find out what the well may be able to tell her about what is happening under the town of Winterbottom. The water has flowed into the well for as long as can be remembered, but there was recently a massive explosion. This resulted in a crack in the stone leading to the well, and this crack opened into an ancient temple of evil. The timing of the explosion coincides with the eruption of the volcanic mass under the town.

As Shale and Arka discuss the best way to enter the well, they realize the Sarin has already made his way down the rope towards the water. Shale scrambles to catch up with him, followed closely by Arka. Arka's torch lights the way as the group follows the water towards its source, with Sarin sneaking ahead just out of the range of the torchlight. As they move forward, Shale notices that there are quite a few hunks of ice floating in the water. Arka believes that the source of the water must be glacial to produce this amount of ice, but it must have traveled quite a distance underground to keep it intact. When Arka holds it near her torch, the group realizes that the ice does not melt as fast as expected. Wherever the ice touched her hands, Arka notices that she is sluggish and her fingers are slow to move.

Arka and Shale suddenly hear a squeak from Sarin and they realize that they have been ambushed by two zombies! Sarin attempted to hit a zombie, but his arrow bounced off of its armor. Arka used her ghost sound ability to distract the zombie that Sarin attacked and then crossed the water towards the other zombie. The first zombie makes a grab at Sarin, but misses him. Shale prepared to attack the second zombie as soon as it moved towards her, but she is completely stunned when it instead moves to attack Sarin. Arka hits the second zombie with her phantom cage ability but the zombie is unhurt by her attack as it absorbs and then shakes off the damage. Shale realizes that these are actually dreaded jombies who's bones are jelly. They can only be hurt when they are frozen. With this new knowledge, Sarin uses his icy skewer ability to attack the second jombie. This freezes the creature, and Arka follows up the attack and shatters it. Shale attempts to grapple the first zombie and dunk it under the icy water, but it evades her attack. Sarin uses his icy skewer again to freeze it. Arka misses the jombie, but Shale hits and shatters it.

The friends search the walls of the well passage to ensure that they have not yet come across the evil temple. There is a waterfall at one end of the passage, so Arka attempts to climb it. This doesn't go well, but Shale helps and is able to push Sarin and Arka over the waterfall and then Arka tries to help Shale to climb up and over. This doesn't go so well, and Sarin is also unable to help. With another try, Shale joins her friends. Sarin sneaks ahead again until he comes to an intersection of two streams. There is a pool there, but nothing to be found in it's depths but reflections of heroes.

Sarin comes across another jombie standing in front of a cave entrance, and can hear more beyond the entrance. He waits for his friends to join him and then uses his icy skewer to freeze the jombie in the doorway and demolishes it with another skewer. Shale determines that this cave is actually a temple to the ancient frog cult. This cult was made up of frog people who would eat humans and would sacrifice them to their dark frog god, and reanimate their corpses to do their evil bidding. Shale and Arka make quite a bit of noise as they join Sarin, attracting the notice of yet more jombies and jeletons.

Arka encourages her friends to scoop ice out of the water and throw it at the jombies and jeletons to freeze them. Sarin freezes one which is immediately demolished by Arka. The jeletons shoot at Sarin with their bows, hitting him with three arrows. The jombies also attack Sarin, but only one of them hit him. Shale comes up behind her friend, heals him, and destroys the jombie next to him. Arka throws an ice ball at one of the jombies, freezing it in place. The jeletons shoot Sarin again, hitting him with two arrows. One jombie attempts to grab Sarin but misses. Another hits Sarin while a third hits Shale. Shale heals Sarin again and shatters another jombie. Sarin attempts to freeze another jombie, but instead trips and is dazed when he hits his forehead on an overhang. Arka hurls another ball of ice at a jombie, freezing it and turns to grab 5 more pieces of ice from the water. Jeletons shoot their arrows at Shale and hit her. The jombies attempt to grab Sarin but miss. Sarin blasts apart the frozen jombie. Arka freezes another jombie, the jeletons shoot Shale and hit her again. The last remaining jombie misses Shale but she shatters it with her warhammer. Sarin freezes one of the jeletons and Arka destroys it. One jeleton stabs Sarin, but the arrows shot by the rest of them miss. Shale heals Sarin again and Sarin freezes a jeleton, which is subsequently shattered by Arka. The three remaining jeletons miss all of their attacks. Sarin freezes another jombie which is demolished by Shale. Arka throws an ice ball and freezes another jeleton. The two jeletons shoot their arrows, one of which hits Shale. Sarin uses his mists of madness ability to make one of the jeletons attack his friend which results in the destruction of the frozen jeleton. Arka throws another ice ball but misses. The jeleton stabs Sarin, who returns the favor by freezing it. Arka demolishes the last jeleton.

Shale believes that she can consecrate this temple so that jombies and jeletons are no longer spawned, but she feels she must return to consult her tomes before she can proceed. She notices that the temple has two pits with corpses still in them that need to be buried. It doesn't look like they can be reanimated, but better safe than sorry. Arka decides to further investigate the well passage and finds that there is a pipe that is blocked by something magical. There is green swirling in the water, but she believes that it's just moss or some other vegetation. Arka jumps over the water and closely examines the pipe blockage and then throws an ice ball into it. When it hits the magical blockage, the ice ball freezes even harder and bounces back out. Arka chips off some of the moss and then puts the entire plug in her bag, noticing that it's unnaturally heavy. When the plug is removed, the ice stops forming.

Shale returns with her equipment and acolytes to sanctify the temple of evil, turning it into consecrated ground. The remaining corpses are properly buried. Meanwhile, Arka takes the plug back to her tower and examines it. She realizes that it is actually a warhammer head, and belongs to a warhammer of frost. This could be turned into a weapon if fitted with a proper handle. The local blacksmith believes that he could make a handle, but it would be better to find one already designed for the purpose. Shale spends the 10 gold that she earned in her last adventure to pay the smith to create the +1 warhammer of frost. The old temple becomes Sarin's new secret lair.