Play Report: To Death, Frost, and Doom, Session 2
Ok, it's taken me a little longer to get this up than I'd wanted but hey, we're working on my time here. Holyyyy shit this was one hell of a session and - no spoilers - I'm not sure we're going to make it out of the next session with the full party still standing. I'm having such a fun time with this campaign so far, I really can't overstate it.
Characters Present
Grigori - Level 1 Magic-User (my character)
Hilt - Level 4 Fighter
Waylon J Smithers Jr - Level 1 Specialist
The Events
Day 3 - Night
We picked up on the 5th of 6 watches, just as Grigori had come across a large horse stood right outside the party's tent and spied a filthy hand going through Waylon's bag. He shouted to rouse the group and then kicked at the hand, breaking a few fingers. The stranger retreated and we checked over everything to see what had been taken, and found he got away with one of the axes on the sled as well as some of Waylon's chalk (truly the more concerning loss.) We decided, like sane people, to not pursue this stranger we know to have an axe through dense forest in the middle of the night.
Later that same night, a few hours before dawn on Waylon's watch, he heard footsteps in the snow. He stepped out of the tent to grab a log to potentially swing at the intruder, and then saw the figure walking out of the darkness. A tall, broad man with a scraggly beard and scar tissue zig-zagging across his face. In one hand, he carried the stolen axe, in the other hand, a burning torch. He answered no greeting, just kept marching toward the tent and cut a long, vertical slit into the fabric while pressing the lit torch to it. Hilt, awake at this stage, threw her enormous cursed sword to Waylon who used it to stab the man in the back as he began to trudge away from the camp. Combat ensued.
Hilt threw herself out of the tent and started to shovel snow onto the burning fabric while Grigori picked up the discarded log and swung at the stranger's head, cracking his skull in the process. The man collapsed, and we thought we were safe as Waylon stabbed in the back twice more to make sure he was dead. The man grabbed the sword and hurled it into the dark before collapsing once more. Grigori decided to make absolutely sure he was dead by picking up the axe and swinging at the big man's neck, but it deflected off a metal collar around his neck. Waylon decided to try willing the weird Shadow Fox Thing into the stranger, who then rolled over, screaming obscenities at us and went for Waylon's throat. Eventually we managed to get him to talk.
His name is Vaasili, from the mountains, and he had been hunting Hilt's sword, wishing to make sure it was lost and never found again. He said that no one should have it, its curse is so terrible. Hilt willingly dropped the sword in response. We tried to convince him to come with us to the mountain to help us reduce the evil in the world and he refused. He refused again when Hilt suggested sealing the sword in the mountain with the death cult. As an aside, I wasn't keen on the idea either, this death cult escaped the mountain once, they can probably do it again and they would be armed with a very powerful cursed sword. He did give us a warning however "There are things in this world that should not be meddled with. There is nothing but death up on that mountain." We weren't sure we trusted Vaasili not to use the blade for evil himself, to which he responded "Unlike you, I will not stop being myself in the morning, despite touching it." We managed to reach an agreement with him in the end: we would remain here the next day, with no one touching the sword, to verify that he was being truthful about being different in the morning.
Day 4
As the sun rose we set about our various tasks, mending things around the camp that had been broken during the night. We didn't manage to get much out Vaasili during this time, only that he was well-traveled. We alternated who caught up on the missed sleep, making sure that someone was always with the strange man to watch the sword. By the middle of the day, Waylon's hand had turned mummified just like Hilt's and was also trying to kill him. Touching the sword does not curse you, but attacking with it does, hence why Waylon and Hilt were both cursed in this way but Vaasili was not. Having verified that he had been truthful, Vaasili took the sword and went on his way, while the rest of us made use of the remaining daylight to gather firewood, hunt and forage.
We hoped that we would have a peaceful night this time, and clearly the world took that personally. Hilt took first watch, and shortly after everyone had fallen asleep the dogs started to act strange. They all woke up, agitated and whimpering. Hilt woke Grigori, who tried to see if the dogs would leave the tent; they would not. Whatever was scaring them so much was outside. With us.
We did a perimeter of the camp and could see nothing around us in the darkness. Then I asked what Grigori could see if he looked in the branches of the trees: a large stone mask sat on one of the branches, which began to taunt us in an eerie voice. Grigori immediately woke Waylon while the voice demanded our surrender and mocked our formation, our lack of "will to fight." We stood in the camp, back-to-back as the mask dropped from branch to branch and footsteps closed in from the other side of the camp. Hilt proclaimed her deeds in an attempt to warn them away, but they only continued to approach. As they came into the firelight we saw 3 skeletons, 2 of them each wielding a bronze gladius, while the masked one, fleshier than the others was unarmed. We readied ourselves for battle, and Hilt managed to Turn them successfully. The masked one continued to taunt us as they retreated into the dark.
Surprising absolutely no one, the skeletons came back just an hour or two later that night. Hilt attempted to Turn them again, and succeeded against the two gladius wielding skeletons, but not the one in the mask. Combat ensued once again.
No hits were landed initially, but Waylon managed to reverse the masked skeleton's grapple and slammed it to the ground. In the second round Grigori was hit in the head and immediately reduced to 0HP. A pretty vicious battle ensued that definitely went back and forth a lot. Waylon cracked the skeleton's mask using Grigori's dropped quarterstaff; Hilt attempted to use her holy symbol as brass knuckles - sick af - which sadly failed to make a dent in the monster. The skeleton, to our horror, began to drag Grigori's unconscious body away. Thankfully, Hilt and Waylon charged the skeleton and managed to bring Grigori back to the tent. Hilt decided to start gearing up as she knew the other skeletons wouldn't stay gone forever, and the skeleton struck Waylon hard, dislocating his left shoulder and rendering him unconscious. Just before he lost consciousness he saw an army of ghosts all throughout and surrounding the camp. Hilt managed to Turn it one more time, and we had momentary peace again.
Grigori and Waylon eventually woke up at 1HP, and with no way to heal up. Grigori popped Waylon's shoulder back in, and we started to prepare for the skeletons' inevitable return. Using Grigori's vial of holy water we made holy snowballs ready for Waylon and Hilt to sling at the attackers. We also set up a triangle of campfires to give ourselves more light, and things got worse for the party. Around the camp was drawn a circle, crossed with lines in some sort of arcane symbol. Hilt told us she'd seen it before, the first time in a church, and Hilt vomited and nearly died after seeing it there. The second time was in a dungeon somewhere. Lastly, Hilt's player had seen it in another game in a spooky mansion, where it had been drawn in blood and faeces. We ended the session as the sun rose and the party waited to defend themselves again, bloody and exhausted.
Closing Thoughts
I honestly don't know if I've ever felt more tense in a game session than I did during this one. Sahh did an absolutely incredible job of conveying the exhaustion that comes with that kind of constant onslaught, it was a really harrowing session in the best way possible. I keep on picturing Vaasili stalking out of the darkness between the trees, just barely lit by the campfire and his own torch, carrying an axe with bloody intent. Hopefully, we should have our full group next time and we might just be able to get out of it alive. I can't wait to find out what happens.
Until next time folks!