Tenkos, Cleric [plague doctor kit] (Sugarplum)
Viggo Marklund, Specialist [bounty hunter kit] (Peanut Butter)
Viggo Marklund, Specialist [bounty hunter kit] (Peanut Butter)
Last time Tenkos, Viggo, and Claus returned to the horrific basement of Cooper Thornhill's Stilton cheesemaking operation, slew (and dissected) the über muscle cow, and began investigating the library.
Barthelm rejoined the party! After getting his construction projects rolling back in Hommlet and making sure Polde was not in any danger after his return, Barthelm set out to catch up to his friends.
During his time in Hommlet he learned that there has been far more traffic through the southern mountain pass due to an increase in disappearances along the northern roads. No bodies were found, just ransacked wagons. Even for folks who eventually needed to head back north there were still many opting to take the long way around through Hommlet and the southern pass.
On the way after them Barthelm passed through the Crossroads. His companions asked if he had seen any giant wandering armies of the undead but the only thing he noted was a number of folks who had fled without explanation, especially after being seen with the party. It was hard to tell if the rest of the group was relieved or disappointed about the lack of skeletons.
They talked about how they could delay discovery of the barn's basement while they tried to remove as much of the library as possible. Idea to have the faceless doctor (plague doctor) quarantine the building to give them time to clear things out. Debate about whether to notify the authorities or not.
"Are we concerned about the arch at all?"
"It does seem pretty powerful, but we do like to run away from incredibly powerful things and just leave them."
What if we just holed up in the basement for the day? Would we just have a ton of people looking for Cooper later? Let's have a rotation for anyone that comes down. If they come down into the basement, they are definitely guilty, so we can kill them with no remorse. What do we do with our wagon? What about your drug dealer friend? He would definitely betray us. Let's just go kill him and stay at his house!
Started to come up with a plan where Barthelm impersonates a plague / faceless doctor and all this stuff but then just decided for Barthelm to get a room at the inn with the party's cart. On the way out he encountered someone claiming to be the night watchman for the barn but was able to avoid confrontation.
The "night watchman" made their way down the stairs but fortunately Viggo was waiting for him. The bounty hunter immediately recognized Stephen Miller, the town's miller and pusher of various illicit and addictive substances.
"See if he'll walk through the arch!"
Viggo got as much info as he could from Stephen Miller the drug dealer before showing him all of the horrible things in the basement. Miller threw up everywhere and begged to just go tell the captain of the guard about this place. Viggo dumped him in the corner with a threat to be quiet.
Barthelm met Cooper's wife, Mary, and procured some breakfast and a room after some incredibly difficult conversation. He was initially concerned but decided to sleep in case shit went down, propping a chair against the door for security.
Then Tenkos stabbed Stephen Miller! This was predicated by shouts and bangs from above as the sounds of a search party filtered down and it became clear that someone was going to be coming down into the basement. Tenkos' original plan was to setup Miller and Cooper like they had killed each other, so he started to drag him deeper into the basement but stopped when he started bleeding all over the place. Viggo took his manacles and they both retreated to the archway room, setting up some beartraps at the entrance just in case the guards were in on the whole operation.
Well and how! Captain Cuthill was calling out for Cooper the whole time but didn't get any response. His two lackeys seemed disturbed but the captain was not, and he rallied them. Cuthill began to call out for anyone else down here, saying that there didn't need to be bloodshed, until he got to the pens. Once he saw that all of the cow / human creatures were dead, especially Cooper's daughter Heather, he changed his tone. He sent one of his men ahead to check out the archway room and then
OH GOD THE SPIKES
Guard failed his saving throw and took the full force of fancy spikey bear trap and regular toothy beartrap. He died pretty quickly. Viggo leapt out to get the drop on Cuthill but wasn't able to connect. Tenkos tried the same to no effect (after realizing he didn't want to shoot into melee), and everyone spent a round swinging around and not hitting anything. Tenkos and Viggo backed off to give Tenkos room for a sticky fire bomb but Viggo hung back to put himself in between the faceless doctor and the attacking guards, shouting "Light 'em up!" back to his comrade.
It was unfortunately the last thing he would do. Cuthill and his remaining croney rushed up and BOTH hit crits on our poor bounty hunter. 20 damage later and Viggo was no more.
Sidebar: What are the fucking odds here!? Peanut Butter was surprisingly okay about it, opining that it was better than getting murdered by a murderous meat pyscho cow. We chatted after the session about some intriguing next PC ideas and both got pretty pumped about it.
Tenkos switched from sticky molotovs to one of his two remaining blackfyre bombs and blew them up with purple fire... and rolled TWO damage. Luckily he got it to burn for four rounds, so some potential for them to get burned up. Viggo's sliced up body was also engulfed in the burning purple flames.
Tenkos won initiative again (players opted for "roll every round" as opposed to roll once and alternate) and fled out. He ran up the stairs, got the drop on the hungover guard at the top (the one from the jail earlier that evening), and dispatched him in one blow. The remaining guard burned to a crisp before he could even give chase and Cuthill died horrifically from blackfire just steps away from Tenkos.
Barthelm meanwhile was awoken from his early morning sleep by a strong feeling of something being wrong. It broke him out of the dream he was having, full of a terrible sadness and longing to somehow bring his mother back from her early grave. He rushed out of the inn in the same moment that Tenkos came running out of the barn. Seeing Tenkos come out of the barn, Barthelm quickly started shouting about how there was a plague inside and how everyone needed to stay clear!
Tenkos' plague mask and their presence in Ghallia was enough to convince most of the crowd that at least something horrible was going on but Cooper's son James was not deterred. He ran up to Tenkos, cowbell still around his neck, and asked (in his stilted fashion) about his father and sister. Once he realized they were inside still, he bolted into the barn. Tenkos and Barthelm followed him, dashing through the now burning barn into the basement (taking some heat from the flames as they went).
Their primary goal was to destroy the arch. James was fully occupied in grieving over his dead sister, giving Tenkos and Barthelm the opportunity to pull down the arch with a rope they had set up earlier. The magic went out with a bright purple flash as all of the human/cow hybrids and the über cow reverted to their natural forms. Now, instead of disgusting mutants, each stall was occupied by a human woman chained to the wall, and James' cries reached a new height as his sister returned to how she used to be.
The duo took the opportunity to secure their second objective, the chest of silver, and retreat to the library with some bear traps for security. James ignored them both, dragging his sister's corpse back towards the stairs and throwing down the cowbell he had been so protective of previously.
Their position momentarily secure while the fire raged, Tenkos wrote up a letter to Prince Fabian detailing what had happened and Barthelm (I'm guessing) spent some time counting silver pieces in the chest. They also had the time for a couple of hours of proper planning. It was late, so we cut the session there.
Mood:
