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[WotMK: Hexcrawl] Session Twenty-Five
Dramatis Personae:
Amos leveled his musket and fired at the shapes and then ran. He wasn't even sure he hit anything in the darkness, but he did see that the walking dead were coming for him. He arrived back at camp and explained, and after trying to start a prairie fire and failing due to the sodden grass from all the rain, the party mounted up and rode south for a mile in the lightening sky until they were sure that they weren't being pursued. They debated going back to try again, but eventually decided that now that knew where the necromancers were headed, they would go back to Gyere and see if they could raise a mob.
The ride back to town was uneventful and they were let in with only minimal hassling from the militia. They rounded up the militia captain and went to the tea house Three Wheat Sheaves, where they found the Band of the Red Dove drinking and dicing within. So they decided to call the mercenaries over as well, and with Captain Crimson of the Band of the Red Dove, they sketched out a map of the local area and asked the militia captain if there was anything that the necromancer could be heading for, a graveyard or a place of power or something. The militia captain recalled, in broken Floral and then in Muskalan with Bonnie translating, that he had heard stories of a cursed cave to the west of Rockfort during his childhood and maybe that was their destination. Then the party drew up a contract with the Band of the Red Dove and rode out at the head of a company of mercenaries.
There was some side discussion of getting mounts for the mercenaries to try to beat the necromancers to the cave, but it was eventually dismissed as unfeasible due to the cost of horses, the likelihood of actually finding thirty riding horses in a farming community, and the fact that oxen aren't suitable for riding.
The mercenaries force-marched, and Shining Star called up the witch-sight as she traveled, and by mid-afternoon she saw a grove in the distance with a shadow hanging over it like a cloud. Bonnie immediately drank spirit-flower tea when Shining Star mentioned the miasma, and she saw pairs of eyes watching them as they approached. The mercenaries sent out scouts, and when they reported back, the party drew up a plan.
The grove surrounded a cave mouth that reared out out of the ground in a tiny hill, with two skulls on posts in front of it. There were no walking dead or necromancers visible, and the party decided to move closer and take up positions in the surrounding woods and try to lure the necromancers out by activating the skull guardians. Elaphe would send his bob-omb familiar above the cave mouth and, when the necromancers appeared, it would drop on them and then they all would attack. The Green Knight gave a brief sermon to Drifting Snow and then summoned the power of the forest to armor him in bark. The bark split through his skin...but it was gnarled in strange ways, with odd purple moss growing on it. Drifting Snow stared, unsure if this was what was supposed to happen, as the mercenaries began their plan.
Two mercenaries charged forward into the sight of the skulls and, as they started to shriek, they tossed off small bombs that made loud noises and then ran back into the trees. As zombies started filtering up from the cave mouth, mercenary archers began firing at them...as did Amos and the Green Knight. The other members of the party waited as more of the walking dead appeared from the cave, as well as one ghul, which Amos and the Green Knight focused on until it ran forward and the mercenaries fell on it with swords.
Then, another figure walked up from the depths of the cave. Skeletal, with green balefire burning in its eyesockets and wearing black robes, it looked around the clearing, taking in the walking dead full of arrows and the shapes it could see in the trees, and shouted something back down the cave mouth.
Then, the party configured. The cave didn't seem harmed at all by the explosion and the opening had jagged edges that were uncomfortably reminiscent of teeth, so collapsing the entrance didn't seem like it would work. The Green Knight opined that it might be the corpse of some unholy beast that the necromancers were attempting to raise and they would have to go in after them, and that is ultimately the course they chose. One of the mercenaries pulled a crystal out of a pouch and squeezed it, producing a flickering orange-red light as bright as a bonfire, as the mercenaries and party together moved into the cave mouth.
I expected the party to ambush the necromancers, but I suppose that is what they tried! Maybe if Amos had done better on his Stealth roll.
The players were originally thinking of bringing along a bunch of the town militia, but once they realized the mercenaries were still there they immediately thought about hiring them. Trained warriors beats farmers with spears, especially when fighting the walking dead and necromancers. And thanks to some good tactical planning by Amos and outnumbering the walking dead (so far), they've done very well. Going into an evil cave? Well.
We stopped a little early because there wasn't time to run the final battle in the last twenty minutes we had, so exploring the cave will be next game.
- Shining Star, mandragora sorcerer-priestess of Nyahré.
- The Green Knight, mandragora briarwitch.
- Drifting Snow, chuzan former farmer.
- Bonnie, kong Auspicious Orator.
- Amos Burnham, a human from Earth.
- Elaphe, a chuzan junior member of the Black Rose.
Amos leveled his musket and fired at the shapes and then ran. He wasn't even sure he hit anything in the darkness, but he did see that the walking dead were coming for him. He arrived back at camp and explained, and after trying to start a prairie fire and failing due to the sodden grass from all the rain, the party mounted up and rode south for a mile in the lightening sky until they were sure that they weren't being pursued. They debated going back to try again, but eventually decided that now that knew where the necromancers were headed, they would go back to Gyere and see if they could raise a mob.
The ride back to town was uneventful and they were let in with only minimal hassling from the militia. They rounded up the militia captain and went to the tea house Three Wheat Sheaves, where they found the Band of the Red Dove drinking and dicing within. So they decided to call the mercenaries over as well, and with Captain Crimson of the Band of the Red Dove, they sketched out a map of the local area and asked the militia captain if there was anything that the necromancer could be heading for, a graveyard or a place of power or something. The militia captain recalled, in broken Floral and then in Muskalan with Bonnie translating, that he had heard stories of a cursed cave to the west of Rockfort during his childhood and maybe that was their destination. Then the party drew up a contract with the Band of the Red Dove and rode out at the head of a company of mercenaries.
There was some side discussion of getting mounts for the mercenaries to try to beat the necromancers to the cave, but it was eventually dismissed as unfeasible due to the cost of horses, the likelihood of actually finding thirty riding horses in a farming community, and the fact that oxen aren't suitable for riding.
The mercenaries force-marched, and Shining Star called up the witch-sight as she traveled, and by mid-afternoon she saw a grove in the distance with a shadow hanging over it like a cloud. Bonnie immediately drank spirit-flower tea when Shining Star mentioned the miasma, and she saw pairs of eyes watching them as they approached. The mercenaries sent out scouts, and when they reported back, the party drew up a plan.
The grove surrounded a cave mouth that reared out out of the ground in a tiny hill, with two skulls on posts in front of it. There were no walking dead or necromancers visible, and the party decided to move closer and take up positions in the surrounding woods and try to lure the necromancers out by activating the skull guardians. Elaphe would send his bob-omb familiar above the cave mouth and, when the necromancers appeared, it would drop on them and then they all would attack. The Green Knight gave a brief sermon to Drifting Snow and then summoned the power of the forest to armor him in bark. The bark split through his skin...but it was gnarled in strange ways, with odd purple moss growing on it. Drifting Snow stared, unsure if this was what was supposed to happen, as the mercenaries began their plan.
Two mercenaries charged forward into the sight of the skulls and, as they started to shriek, they tossed off small bombs that made loud noises and then ran back into the trees. As zombies started filtering up from the cave mouth, mercenary archers began firing at them...as did Amos and the Green Knight. The other members of the party waited as more of the walking dead appeared from the cave, as well as one ghul, which Amos and the Green Knight focused on until it ran forward and the mercenaries fell on it with swords.
Then, another figure walked up from the depths of the cave. Skeletal, with green balefire burning in its eyesockets and wearing black robes, it looked around the clearing, taking in the walking dead full of arrows and the shapes it could see in the trees, and shouted something back down the cave mouth.
Elaphe's player: "Are there any signs that this is a necromancer?"At his signal, Elaphe's bob-omb ran over the edge of the cave mouth and exploded as it hit the ground, sending the walking dead flying in all directions. The necromancer was barely visible in the smoke, fleeing back down the cave mouth, as the mercenary heavy foot charged forward, tossing a few bob-ombs as they did, and began dismembering the remaining zombies to prevent them from acting.
Me: "Other than the obvious necromancy?"
Then, the party configured. The cave didn't seem harmed at all by the explosion and the opening had jagged edges that were uncomfortably reminiscent of teeth, so collapsing the entrance didn't seem like it would work. The Green Knight opined that it might be the corpse of some unholy beast that the necromancers were attempting to raise and they would have to go in after them, and that is ultimately the course they chose. One of the mercenaries pulled a crystal out of a pouch and squeezed it, producing a flickering orange-red light as bright as a bonfire, as the mercenaries and party together moved into the cave mouth.I expected the party to ambush the necromancers, but I suppose that is what they tried! Maybe if Amos had done better on his Stealth roll.
The players were originally thinking of bringing along a bunch of the town militia, but once they realized the mercenaries were still there they immediately thought about hiring them. Trained warriors beats farmers with spears, especially when fighting the walking dead and necromancers. And thanks to some good tactical planning by Amos and outnumbering the walking dead (so far), they've done very well. Going into an evil cave? Well.
We stopped a little early because there wasn't time to run the final battle in the last twenty minutes we had, so exploring the cave will be next game.