Previously, in Nightwick Abbey...
Session 71 - 5th of Shocktober, 1392
This week's adventurers:
Mayfly (Magician 4)
Mechtilde (Fighter 4)
Verinka (Changeling 3)
Ulf (Magician 3)
Liminal Space (Changeling 3)
Bluegum (Changeling 1)
Hirelings: Gutteral Noises, Henr, Laur, Assman
This session was such a mess that it took two write-ups to cover. Read more about it at I Cast Light!
Downtime in Lychgate
Ulf spends the week searching for rumors about the Hund Prest and learns two things about him. First, during the night he rides across the bishopric, attended by his "hounds," as we learned last week, but by day sleeps in his old lodge in the middle of the Little Heath and second, many have slain him before but he always reappears the next year. A weapon "of particularly supernal puissant holiness" might be able to banish him to the Pit forever. We suspect the the Shard of God, the holy weapon currently held by Blossom, might do the trick.
Mayfly and Liminal Space both go carousing - Mayfly enjoys a night on the down drinking with the Corbies, but Liminal is poisoned by the Brotherhood (of Thieves and Assassins) and starts the session down 5hp.
Several potential hirelings offer up their services to us in Lychgate and we hire two of them.
A woodsmen named Henr offers his services for 10sp per month plus 10sp danger pay if combat should occur on a delve. Ulf hires him.
Laur, a crossbowman recently of Badder's Company who had a falling out with said group, offers up his services for 10sp a month and 10sp danger pay. Liminal hires him.
Into the Abbey
We uneventfully return to Nightwick Village with the Corbies in tow and decide to return to the Gardens of level 2 to continue exploring there. Delving down into the abbey, we quickly pass through level 1 and reach level 2 without incident.
Stepping out onto the landing, Verinka listens at the door to the south. She hears screaming not too far off and we all see a pulsing green light emanate from behind the door - surely Bloatus is behind this door.
How Does Phantasmal Force Actually Work?
We force open the door and see the green glow of Bloatus around the corner, in the room where we last fought fire babies.
Mayfly casts Fireball, hoping Bloatus is in range since he cannot see him.. We see an explosion of red and the screaming becomes louder - a hit!
Gutteral and Mechtilde advance into the doorway. Gutteral fires at Bloatus, hitting him with his crossbow.
Mayfly casts Protection from Evil and Ulf casts Phantasmal Force, projecting an image of the room burning down and the ceiling collapsing upon Bloatus.
The creatures begins screaming even louder and starts thrashing around.
The Very Deadly Caterpillar
From the hallway, we see a ray of light pass over Gutteral Noises, burning away the flesh of his head and melting his helmet. (RIP to a real one). He drops down, dead.
Suddenly much more fearful of Bloatus, we decide to back off. Verinka throws an oil flask behind her.
Bloatus now enters the hallway - he resembles a giant caterpillar whose legs end in hands and whose head is a skull. The whole creature glows green and is constantly screaming. It approaches Liminal and bites at him, but misses. Bloatus is glowing green, but fainter now than normal.
The next round, his glowing increases and it casts its gaze upon Liminal, who takes 4 points of damage.
GTFO
We retreat up the stairs and hear a loud noise behind us and Laur never follows us up - Bloatus got to him as he defended our flank.
We make it back to Level 1, and hear a voice off to our right while we plan our next move.
"My my my, leaving your friends to die..." - two Devilmen stand at the edge of our light.
"Hello, my name is Liminal," says Liminal.
"Is one of you a liar and the other always tells the truth?" asks Mechtilde.
"No," they say in unison.
Ulf asks them for help killing Bloatus, reasoning that he is a common enemy, but receives no reply.
Back Into the Abbey
We don't want to return to level 2 and Bloatus, so we leave the abbey and go around to the side and enter the Abbey through the graveyard entrance, straight to level 3.
We go through the catacombs, aiming to reach a set of stairs leading up to level 2 to continue exploring the Gardens.
We pass through an empty ossuary filled with ectoplasm and the room with a big meat altar.
Overrun
As we turn a corner to approach the stairs, two gaunt, withered, blackened hands grab Henr and rip him apart. In front of us are over a dozen horrid, blind undead. One grabs Mechtilde, but she slays it with her sword and drops another.
Mayfly casts Protection from Evil again and moves up to the front rank and Liminal falls in behind him on the second rank with his spear. One of the blind undead strikes Mechtilde for 8 damage, and she responds by killing it and another.
GTFO x2
Despite our kills, we don't think we can kill them all without significant losses, and so we decide to flee the dungeon a second time.
In the end, we lost three hirelings: Gutteral Noises, Henr, and Laur, and left all of their bodies in the dungeon, where they will surely rise again as undead agents of the abbey.
We gain 50xp each and no treasure - overall, we did really poorly. We need to find a way to deal with Bloatus. We honestly don't know much about him and his radiation attack is strong. Getting blindsided by 13 undead also hurt! While it's lucky we didn't lose any PCs, losing 3 hirelings is pretty bad for us. Even with a mix of level 3 and 4 PCs, B/X is still dangerous and we can't drop our guard. An important we've learned is to run away when you're in over your head. That's what saved us from losing PCs and really exemplifies one of the differences between playstyles. In old-school play, combat isn't a set piece or the purpose of the session, but something that stands between you and your goal - to me, it makes combat more thrilling when you do commit to a battle.
While we didn't accomplish any of our goals this week, sessions like this are a part of the contours of the overall campaign - we really have to play smart and fight hard to get our victories. This week we ran, but we will get our revenge on Bloatus!
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