Previously, in Nightwick Abbey...
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Session 119 - 11th of Youngers, 1399
This week's adventurers:
Blossom (Rogue 6)
Thekla (Magician 5)
Ulf (Magician 5)
Liminal Space (Changeling 5)
Poppy (Fighter 5)
Back in the Action
Last week, the session ended with a tense standoff between the noble Bartlemebis and the warlock Mayfly.
Things took a turn towards hostilities and Mayfly casts Fireball upon the noble and his camp.
The rest of the party awakens to a great scream as a number of tents go up in flame.
Of the noble's hunting party, only one of the squires is left alive, badly burned - the rest all dead.
As we scramble out of our tents, we see Mayfly mount the back of a great beast and fly off towards the moon.
Mayfly's player was away this week but left Miranda with some prepared actions that he would take at the start of the session, seeing as it picked up in the midst of a tense moment involving Mayfly.
Picking Up the Pieces
We patch up and question the living squire about what transpired, but he claims to know nothing, having been asleep at the time.
We assume Mayfly's involvement, but present forth a lie about a demon or hideous beast of the Dark Country attacking the group to mask our guilt by association.
The squire gives his name as Gerlach von Talbut and we offer him new, almost as gainful, employment with our group.
He agrees to join up for a half share of treasure and Poppy hires him.
New Hireling: Gerlach (Fighter 2)
We Gotta Figure Out How to Make Money On This Thing [Murdering Nobles]
We search through the whole camp and find, in a small barrel, a bundle of crossbow bolts, each with a rune upon the shaft.
We also find, among the noble's surviving possessions:
- A number of jeweled badges of the Talbut household (worth 2,250sp all together)
- A large number of slated venison (750sp)
- Three noble hunting outfits (750sp in total)
- Ten riding horses
The Talbuts have more of their family in Nunshead, Blackleg, and Lichgate. They will probably want to hear of Bartlemebis's expiration.
Liminal wants to go to back to Gerlach's master's house - to either loot it or install himself as its new lord, he does not clarify which.
This Part Isn't Really Important
We return to bed and an uneventful night and continue on our journey south to Blackleg through Frogguts, to heal Thekla.
Blossom, scouting ahead, sees a group of 10 or so armored Froglings on warhorses.
Some of them have dismounted and appear to be examining the road.
Liminal greets them and they appear to be hunting bandits in the region, showing little interest in either us or the deceased nobles.
We continue on and pass Frogguts and around noon come to a bend in the road that has a large number of figures hanged from trees. Gerlach stresses that he wasn't there for that but this was the doing of his former master.
Things Start to Happen Again
Further along, we come across a group of the local Bogdoni herding a group of reindeer.
They wave at us and Liminal invites them to make camp with us.
The recognize Liminal Space as an offspring of one of their gods, Saint Santa Claus (by having been reincarnated by him), and happily agree.
12th of Youngers, 1399
At night, during 2nd watch, Blossom spies a group of five figures off in the distance, dressed in white, slowly coming to the camp.
She awakens Liminal to help her examine them in the dark and once they're about 100 yards out, they hear someone call out, "help! help!"
The Weary Pilgrims
Blossom and Liminal converse with them, while not letting them get close to the camp yet.
The figures explain they were on a pilgrimage to the nearby shrine of Saint Santa Claus and had been set upon by a host of beastmen.
Liminal doesn't believe them and thinks they might be Varkalaks (vampires) and casts Turn Undead on them, using his magical ring, just to be safe.
It has no effect and the men are confused, but we let them into our camp.
A Sad Story
We welcome them into camp and up close, we see that they're all badly beaten humans with shaven heads.
We bandage up their wounds as they continue to explain that while they were able to slip away from a nearby village occupied by beastmen and other forces of hell, others from their party are still captured and they beg us to help free them.
We agree and return to bed for the evening.
In the morning, the Bogdani bid us farewell, advising us that we are making a mistake, and continue moving their reindeer up the road. We set out with the pilgrims towards the camp where they were kept prisoner.
Navigating our way through the forest is slow but in the afternoon we make it to the beastman village.
It's on a small rise and Blossom thinks the village is big enough to house some 300 beings. Bigger than we'd like to take on with our smaller party.
Thekla proposes waiting a day so she can prepare an invisibility spell and sneak the prisoners out.
We end the session early there, hopefully next week we'll have more firepower (i.e. Mayfly) at our disposal.
"A large number of slated venison (750sp)- flame broiled"
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