Sunday, September 17, 2023

Nightwick Abbey - Session 69 - A Not Nice a Day for Mechtilde

Previously, in Nightwick Abbey...

Session 69 - 14th of September, 1392

This week's adventurers:

Blossom (Rogue 5)

Mayfly (Magician 4)

Mechtilde (Fighter 4)

Cherwe (Cleric 4)

Ulf (Magician 3) 

Gerung (Magician 3) LIMINAL SPACE!!! (Changeling 3)

Krupe (Cleric 1)

Bluegum (Changeling 1)

Hirelings: Assman, Gutteral Noises

Downtime in the Village

Lord Eckhard, Lord of Nightwick, has returned from his work putting down the peasant rebellion in the south. The battle apparently went poorly, as less than half of his forces returned home with him. We find out in the Medusa's Head, the local tavern, that the rebels are under the leadership of Yim Yimsley and led Lord Eckhard and his troops into a trap in the Great Swamp.

Fortunately, it seems like the rebels have not followed the army back to Nightwick to besiege it.

Unfortunately, strange events have come to Nightwick. Some members of the militia and other notables of Nightwick, all of Realmish descent have going missing. Dog-like barking has been heard off in the distance in connection with the disappearances. The Bogdani villagers have started hanging garlic and wolfsbane on their doors. Ulf follows their lead and spends the week buying up the remaining garlic and wolfsbane in the village, hanging it up outside their house.

Mayfly investigates the disappearances and discovers that everyone who disappeared has ancestors in the region going back to the days of the Sword Brothers and were likely members of the order. 

Bluegum buys more armor with her first haul of treasure and Gerung returns to the Bogdani sewing bee late at night with a sackful of coin. An agreement is made and, a few days later, Liminal Space strolls out of the Fog-Bound Forest, reincarnated by Father Winter! As a side effect of the spell, his skin now has the appearance and texture of a Hummel figurine.

Liminal is back, and better than ever!

Mechtilde researches the geometry of Nightwick Abbey, in search of a way to retrieve the lost treasure from last week. She learns two things about the abbey, sending for a book from Lychgate with writings on the matter. First, the abbey "makes space" in an infinite way and, second, it can invent rooms and the "history" of the room is seemingly back written.

Down into the Abbey

For this auspicious session, we decide to return to the realm of the Manimals (one of the levels 2) and mess around down there.

We make it to the entrance landing of the floor uneventfully and are faced with the familiar doors north, east, and south.

Zombies?

We debate opening the door north and just fireballing the zombies behind it, but after Blossom fails to open the door we immediately abandon the plan. The door vibrates in its archway and makes a noise halfway between a scream and a laugh.

This weirds us out so much that we decide to go south, to an area we've never been in before.

Babies.

We open the door easily and hear the sound of numerous fire babies in the distance.

We cautiously advance down the hallway and find the fire babies in the first room on our right.

Combat begins immediately and our front line charges into the babies.

A Prolonged Combat

We kill one in the first round, but then have several rounds where we fail to land our blows while Mechtilde, Cherwe, and Blossom get scraped up by the fire babies claws.

Mechtilde finally lands another killing blow and the babies flee.

We bind our wounds and inspect our surroundings.

Herbs and Herb Accessory

The room is 20' by 30' and has a grate in the floor with smoke rising our of it. Hung above the fire are dried herbs - Demon's Horn (an aphrodisiac), Gax's Quill (used to make spell scrolls), and Sweet Leaf (self explanatory). We collect the herbs for sale and notice a flickering red light to the west.

It looks like the grow lights in the Manimals' area of the dungeon.

Local Fauna

We approach the room and see a group of bushes growing in the dirt - at least, when the light flickers off. When if flickers on, the bushes turn into a group of screaming heads and hands sticking out of the ground.

The party isn't quite sure what to do with this discovery, but before we can act, some of us notice movement in the darkness to the west, in the next room.

Changeling Diplomacy

Liminal steps forward and calls out.

"Hello there!"

"Here he goes again. He was dead for a while and it was so peaceful," Mechtilde complains.

A great creature, like a small tree on two legs, lumbers forward out of the dark and strikes Mechtilde.

A thing between a leech and a billhook shoot out of it and latches onto Mechtilde's face.

Two more of the great monstrosities follow behind it from the next room. 

A Brief Combat

Mayfly casts Fireball, destroying two of the beings, and damaging the third, which Bluegum finishes off with her bow.

However, Mechtilde appears to have been poisoned by the creature!

Her heartbeat becomes shallow and her muscles tighten until she is completely paralyzed!

It will take weeks for her to recover from this, but she is still awake and alert and, most importantly, alive.

Back to the Village

With our best fighter down and not floating disk to put her on, we decide to call it a day there. We safely carry her out of the dungeon and return to the village.

Selling the dried herbs nets us 1,000sp, for 125sp each. We also receive 256xp each.




2 comments:

  1. Liminal space is back! I’m so happy, he’s one of my favorite characters of all time. The name is just perfect. If there’s anyone that makes it to great success, I hope it’s him!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Honestly, I'm thrilled too. His passion for attempting diplomacy with everyone we meet often leads to interesting outcomes. I have a dream that we overthrow the Lord of Nightwick and replace him with Liminal.

      Delete

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