Barrel Creek Brigade

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JimboJimbo
Posts: 442
Joined: Sat Jun 18, 2022 10:59 am

Re: Barrel Creek Brigade

Post by JimboJimbo »

(Can’t remember if gnomes detect secret doors as elves/dwarf, but a 5/d6 means Petunia doesn’t spot it anyway).

“We’ll sort this out later, but we have a job to do. The beast seems harmless enough, so it can come along. Now…”

Brother Ned pauses his speech, reaches for the pendant at his throat and closes his eyes. His lips move in silent prayer. He turns to face the room’s only unexplored exit.

The priest stiffens, muscles jarring as if lightning-struck. He ceases his soundless intonation. Eyes flick wide open.

“Do you hear that?”

Before his companions can respond, Brother Ned strides to the door.

“Can you hear it?” he repeats, pallid features twisted in dire discomfort.

Petunia Bong scampers to the door, presses her ear against the ancient staves. Her ruddy complexion melts into corpse grey. Her eyes spring wide.

“It’s…” she stammers, lurching away from the portal, “it’s horrible.”

“It is the souls of the damned cursed to haunt this fetid place. The scream for release,” Ned murmurs.

“Ogre, smite this door and allow us to free the accursed wretches.”

Gorfus pulls a finger from his bulbous snout, wipes thick green paste across his ill-fitting armour. Seeing three pairs of eyes patiently turned in his direction, he coughs.

“Right, yeah, sure,” he grunts, sweeping up his billhook.

The reborn half-ogre strides toward the door.

(Open doors. Strength 16 = 1-3/d6. Roll: 3).

His massive foot splinters ancient puncheons to kindling.

Any sound is lost behind a wall of noise that rushes into the chamber. The air quivers from the spectral presence. Shadows twitch and dance at the corners of vision, disappearing when eyes track the movement. Petunia’s choked whimper barely registers above the hellish screams.

“Come, in Solaris’ name we shall ablate this heresy and return these souls to the light.”

Face still pallid, eyes sunken, the cleric strides with a faltering gait into the chamber. Infernal shrieking pummels his mind. Tortured, anguished phantoms lurk at the corner of his vision.

“Solaris, Lord of light and life, guide your humble servants as we face the machinations of darkness.”

(Saves: Brother Ned – 19/pass. Jenny Crumpet: 15/pass. Petunia Bong: 9/fail. Gorfus: Automatic Fail).

Movements stilted and slow, Ned moves to cross the expansive chamber. Prowling beside him, her eyes chasing the same half-seen spirits that draw his gaze, Jenny Crumpet’s presence burns away a sliver of his fear and fills the gap with confidence.

“Ned,” the woman says, eyes almost bulging from her un-comely face.

The cleric swallows, pulls his attention from the half-devoured spirit that flickers at the corner of his eye.

“What is it, child?”

Jenny tilts her head back toward the doorway. Brother Ned follows the gesture, feels an iron fist clamp around his chest.
Petunia Bong huddles on the thing that was Gorfus’ foot, arms wrapped around his leg and face buried in his brawny thigh. The ogre’s arms flail wildly above the gnome’s head, hacking at illusions and hallucinations. Deep furrows crease the monster’s brow. Saliva drips from his open, silently-screaming mouth.

(Wandering monster: 1/d6 – yes).

(Is it Sinuvo, Thrall of Eshra? 6, yes &… + 6/1d6 CL1 accomplices)

(Surprise; Party - 4, monsters – 5. No surprise).

Chains rattle deep within ancient walls. Iron shrieks, raking stone and casting shattered chips to the floor. Hollow steps ring against mildewed flagstones. Cackling laughter rips through the unholy screams.

“Ned,” Crumpet barks, her voice pitched several octaves higher than usual, “we’re really going to need your Master to make an appearance!”

The urgency in her voice stabs into the priest’s chest. He whips his head around, following the line of her readied spear.

“Oh Lord Solaris,” he whispers, “please ready your arms to accept the souls of my brave comrades.”

A half-dozen warriors shamble into the chamber. Rotted hide hangs from fleshless shoulders. Stone clubs jut from skeletal fists. A dark form glides behind them, its form barely more than insubstantial shadow.

“Who dares trespass in the halls of the dead?”

The wight extends a parchment-coloured talon.

“Destroy these interlopers”.

(Party loses initiative 4:3)

(Round 1)

Bones rattle. Throat-less jaws drop in savage, cackling laughter. They march forward, forming a circle around Ned & Jenny.

“Back to back, Brother,” Crumpet growls, tossing aside her spear in favour of the heavy hammer looped at her belt, “and we’ll grind these bones to flour”.

(Skellies vs. Jenny: 4,5,11 vs AC 16. Miss)

Granite clubs rise and fall but the mercenary woman knows her work. Shield and hammer-haft move with lightning speed, blocking and parrying clumsy
attacks.

(Skellies vs Ned: 3,8,12 vs AC16. Miss)

Shoulders pressed against Crumpet’s, Brother Ned moves his aspis and mace with savage ferocity. Prayers form on his lips, filling his soul with Solaris’ nourishing warmth.

A rasping hiss cuts through his prayer. Ice cold winds gust from the folds of a midnight cloak. A shadow, the wight slips between its ranks of minions.

(20 vs AC 16. 1hp + level drain)

Its extended claw brushes the insignia on his breastplate, rakes through Solaris’ star-burst emblem.

Brother Ned gasps, feels heat drain from his body.

His frozen corpse hits the floor, shatters into a thousand pieces.

(Petunia: Save 5, fail. Gorfus – no roll, fail).

“No!”

(Jenny Crumpet: 12 vs AC 12. Hit. 5 vs 5hp)

Jenny Crumpet throws her hate, her fear, and her grief behind the weight of her hammer. The blunt surface strikes home. A grinning skull splits, follows its rot-swaddled body to the ground.

(Drop & Chop. 18 vs AC 12, hit. 2 vs 5HP)

She catches another with the edge of her shield. Shattered teeth clatter among Ned’s frozen remains.

(Round 2)

(Skellies vs Jenny: 20(n), 17, 17, 10, 8, vs AC 16: 6+5+3 vs 6hp)

Weight punches Jenny Crumpet’s temple. Stars flash before the woman’s eyes. Memories flash through her spinning brain, force her shield-arm up. Half-blurred images can’t stop the buckling of her knees, are no protection against the flurry of blows that pummel her to unconsciousness.

“Come, Sister,” Brother Ned’s voice sounds so close yet so far away.

Black robes twitch. Pits of darkness scan the unholy chamber. The wight floats on pools of shadow. It draws up beside the paralysed ogre. Death-cold laughter issues from within its benighted cowl.

“Desecrator,” it rasps, extending a clawed hand, “warm my frozen bones.”

(Wight. 14 vs AC 12. Hit. 1 hp + level drain vs 9hp)

Mind trapped in a phantom prison, Gorfus doesn’t even notice the life drained from his bones.

(Petunia Bong: Save 18. Success)

Ogrish flesh thuds down. Bones snap and breath rasps from frozen lungs. Petunia gasps, scans the room with blurred vision. The visions in her mind burn with hellish fury. The scene around her is far worse.

Rasping, savage laughter rips through her soul, digs frosted knives into her heart. Black eyes stare from a darker hood, a rime-frosted claw hovers inches from her cheek.

Rage burns in Petunia’s tiny frame, pulls power from the World Weave and into her hands. Dancing fingers twist and turn, knit universal fabric to her will.

“You’ll pay,” she whispers, body shuddering under the weight of arcane power.

Silver-green force bursts from her extended palm, slamming into the monstrosity’s chest. Gnomic magish rips through its shadow cloak. Rotted flesh and corroded armour glows for a moment with pastel light.

(magic missile: 5/1d4+1 vs 15 hp)

The cadaver staggers. Petunia turns, flees.

(Wight, 10 vs AC 12. Miss).

(Round 3)

Rattling bones and cackling laughter follow the fleeing gnome.

(Skellies: 10, 12, 14, 5, 8 vs AC 12. 1+2 vs 5hp)

Bone claws and stone clubs rake and hammer her limbs.

(Wight: 25 vs AC 12. Hit. 1 hp + level drain vs 2hp).

Frozen hell punctures her flesh, rips deep into her spine. She feels herself falter, feels her consciousness drain into that hellish claw.
She falls to her knees. Her cheek smashes into the stone cold floor. Teeth spray on tails of blood.

Petunia Bong is no more.
(I was probably a bit harsh with Gorf’s fail-all-saves-until-the-thrall-is-dead curse. If he’d made his rolls, they should have been able to get through that fight (Gorfus had Tobin’s silver dagger). Still, it was fun to play & I regret nothing).

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badams30
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Joined: Mon May 07, 2018 6:50 pm

Re: Barrel Creek Brigade

Post by badams30 »

Yikes! What a bloodbath. Great write up!

JimboJimbo
Posts: 442
Joined: Sat Jun 18, 2022 10:59 am

Re: Barrel Creek Brigade

Post by JimboJimbo »

badams30 wrote:
Fri Nov 18, 2022 1:58 am
Yikes! What a bloodbath. Great write up!
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it .

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