Of Undead Hordes and Almost Dead Adventurers

We set about clearing the upper reaches of Axeholm. Our first discovery was that something(s) have dug rough tunnels into the fortress, on either side of the keep. Also, the tunnels reek of death and rotting corpses. Which might have been our first sign. I was unable to assess what sort of tracks the creatures left behind, other than the claw marks were unusually twisty.
 
We ran into our first set of bitey/scratchy creatures, which turned out to be undead dwarves. Which may solve the larger mystery at hand, which is: What happened hundreds of years ago that brought down Axeholm from its days of glory? We survived the first encounter, with Dash volunteering to take all the damage for us. (Thanks, Dash!) Oz was difficult -- but not impossible -- to hit, and I was in my usual Death From Far Away position. Baric did his usual swingy sword and dolorus bell thing, and healed us back up after the first encounter.
 
Mostly healed, but out of spells, the party bravely (read: foolishly) let the raging berserker dwarf decide if it was wise to push on, or to safely retreat and rest. He chose, unsurprisingly, to push on. We encountered another lot of the zombie dwarves, but fortunately we did so in a narrow hallway. Oz took the point, and the rest of us moved in to knock off the queue that was forming behind him from a distance. (NB: I didn't hear anyone complain about the dwarf or the cleric doing damage from a distance here, yet I get nothing but shit for the flurry of death I rain down upon our enemies heads. Rotten double-standard hypocrites.)
 
At this point, cooler heads did prevail, and we turned our attention to the portcullis. After a few false starts, we managed to raise it enough (with a party on either side) to allow us to get past it. I practiced my lock-picking skills (typecast, amiright?) and managed to open the great door that led through the kill zone and allowed us to go out and bring in our pack animals.
 
Mules in tow, we shut the place down as best we could, lowering and locking the portcullis, re-locking the great door, and shutting all the doors we had opened as we made our way back to the original bunk room to rest up, heal up, and recover spells.
 
Fresh from our rest and full of hope, we extended our push into Axeholm, stopping at the tunnels to let the dwarves cast their special racial spells of summoning. No-one answered. Yet.
 
We eventually made it to an obvious temple, and the party spread out to explore. Oz and I were at the dias when one of the nasty creatures took me utterly by surprise and slashed at me from behind the raised altar. I was even more surprised when Undead Santa Dwarves started popping out of the goddamn fireplace. Eight total came rushing at us, (nine including the one behind the altar) and before you could blink we were completely surrounded. These were especially nasty, seemingly much harder to hit, and much more likely to land a blow on us. During our first round of combat, every party member missed. Which, for those of you counting, was a total of seven: 2 misses from Oz, 2 misses from me, 2 misses from Baric (once with the Swooshy Sword and once with the Tinkly Bells), and one miss from Dash.
 
"Death. We are going to die horrible, nasty deaths. There is no hope and unlikely escape." These were my initial impressions. They were also my second, third, and all following impressions.
 
Dash went down. Baric went down. Oz was injured and surprisingly not immune to being hit. I was injured. We were in deep trouble. There were six creatures still left. Death, death, death. I plotted out my likely escape, had an Ensnaring Strike spell at the ready, but as long as Oz still stood, I was going to stand with him. Baric and Dash appeared to be badly wounded, but stabilizing. I considered whether I should attempt to disengage and run to shove a goodberry into Baric's mouth, but quickly ruled it out -- I would be an easy target, but more to the point, so would Baric and likely he would be knocked down again before he was able to cast a spell.
 
Oz and I finally started landing some shots, but they didn't relent with theirs. Each time I felt a glimmer of hope, another blow would land on Oz's head, or on mine. One went down. Then two more. Oz was barely standing. I got another nasty scratchy attack. Then one more went down, and now it was 2 v 2. For the first time since we were rushed I allowed myself the barest glimmer of hope. Another blow to Oz. Another went down, and just one remained, and in full health. Even now I did not count our chances better than 50/50. All it would take is for us to miss (as we had been earlier) and for him to land one solid hit (which they had been earlier) and all would still have been lost. But, through grace or luck or skill, we managed to finish the last standing enemy.
 
We rushed to Baric and Dash to administer first aid, and all of us had some pretty somber thoughts regarding the state of our party. First order of business: Eat some goodberries, take a quick healing rest, let Baric do his healing flashy light thing, and retreat as stealthily as possible back to the relative safety of the barracks on the second floor to recuperate.
 
I am hopeful we will find some dwarven armor in here for Dash -- it doesn't seem terribly unlikely, especially if the dwarven keep fell because the residents all turned undead. Perhaps we will even run across an undead dwarf still in its armor. It can't be much stinkier than the living dwarves.
 
As a final note, I kept having this feeling that we were being watched, or followed, through the keep. But each time I'd turn to see what was there, I could see or hear nothing. But it felt like a friendly presence, and I was thankful for it being there with us. I named our invisible friend Cooper.