A Week in the Life of a Witch Hunter: Session 4

The friends looked around the courtyard, then back to each other. Sister Carlotta raised a quizzical eyebrow, “Inside?” The others nodded and moved cautiously towards the doors of the inner keep. The doors were open and creaking in the light breeze that bristled through the courtyard.

“Hey,” Aidan looked at the others, “wasn’t this place supposed to be warded against magic?”
“It is…” Sister Carlotta waved a hand around her, “the place is built on a primal magic zone. Any casting here carries the risk of unexpected and catastrophic results. We’ve just been lucky so far…”
“So what’ll happen if we’re unlucky?”
“Ummm…raining fire…the ground coming to life to attack you…that sort of thing…”

Sir Fallon peered inside the main hall. Other than burn marks and bloodstains it looked like the keep had been stripped and abandoned. “The stairs at the end of this hall should lead down to the prison cells. Let’s check there first…”

The group approached the stairs slowly, carefully searching the floors, ceiling, and every passed doorway for traps or other surprises. Sir Robert took the lead as they neared the stairs, “It looks all clear up here, but I sense a great evil below, everyone be on your guard.”

Sister Carlotta nodded, “Yeah…I’m detecting a huge amount of magic…Abjuration, Necromancy, Conjuration. Judging from this we should be ready for more undead. Possibly even a bound demon or the like.”

Sir Willem waved his hand and said a brief prayer, “Alright, that should shield us all from evil.”

“Good idea,” Sister Carlotta nodded, “I can hide some of us from any undead below.” She began to chant and suddenly the entire hallway went black.
“Sh*t!” Aidan exclaimed, “We just got unlucky didn’t we?”

A roar rang out through the hallway behind them.

“Everyone downstairs!” Sister Carlotta yelled.
“What?!” came the collective cry.
“I don’t want to fight blind. The spell should be localized to this level. Our lights should work once we’re out of it.” She pushed past the others towards the stairs and gave a sudden cry of alarm as her feet stepped into open air. Sir Willem, able to see in the darkness, reached out but were unable to catch her as she appeared to tumble through the stairs.

As she struggled to her feet she felt something long and snake-like reach around her and bite her leg, causing her to feel suddenly weaker. Then a pair of jaws clamped onto her arm, and claws tore at her, bearing her to the ground.

Sir Robert leaped into the darkness, landing awkwardly, but still on his feat and stabbed blindly at the snarling thing tearing at the nun. It gave a hideous cry, but Sister Carlotta’s screams only intensified as a swarm of biting insects poured from the wound.

The others felt something large rush past them, Sir Fallon swung widely, feeling his blade connect, but it was Aidan that cried out. Below Sir Robert felt five-hundred pounds of fur and claws come crashing down on him, and his armor being crushed as a pair of mighty jaws locked onto him.

Sir Fallon quickly followed, his blade bursting into flames as he dove into the pit. This time his blow struck true and the lion let out a growl of pain, but did not release Sir Robert, but he quickly succumbed to the pain of the swarming insects.

Sister Carlotta managed to get out one last scream of “Fire!” before she the beast that was upon her drained the last of her life. Gritting his teeth, Sir Ainsley pointed his dragon-pistol towards the sound and released a goat of flame that dispersed both the bugs and the darkness, but which badly burned Sir Robert.

In the brief light from the flames, Sir Willem, Sir Ainsley, and Aidan could see the stairs, but not their friends. “Another f*cking illusion!” Aidan blurted, then charged headfirst down the stairs, tumbling into the unseen pit. Seeing their friend vanish before their eyes, Ainsley and Willem disbelieved the illusion and could suddenly see their friends engaged in a deadly struggle against the lion and another undead dog.

The lion tightened his jaws where they were clamped onto Sir Robert’s side and tore at him with its claws, shredding his armor and spilling his entrails over the already dead Sister Carlotta. Landing rather startledly beside the thing, Aidan swung wildly with his sword, landing a telling blow directly in the lion’s face. Sir Willem jumped down beside him, landing badly and twisting his ankle, which was instantly healed in a flash of light by a spell he had laid upon himself beforehand.

In moments Sir Fallon, Sir Willem, and Aidan dispatched the two beasts, but found that they were too late to save their two friends.

Way of the Wicked Play Report: Session 2

Braunheld rushed up the stairs behind the vanguard of skeletons, she could hear the guards mustering above and hoped to take them quickly. Then the ball of flame careened down the stairs, bouncing and crashing, taking skeleton after skeleton with it. Braunheld ducked, using the door she carried as a shield. The impact of the ball of flaming bones was jarring, but the shield held. The mass of flames bounced over her head and continued down the corridor below, killing dozens of the other prisoners.

The three witches who had freed them called for everyone to regroup. Concentrating together they raised a wall of force over the stairs. “Got a plan B?” the ogre asked them.
“There,” the red-head pointed at the fireplace. “We should be able to chimney up that to the ground floor.”
“What about fire?” the ogre asked.
“Who cares about fire?” the dark-haired tiefling laughed. “I’ll go up first…but, before that…” The three girls began to sing in unison again and the felled prisoners animated, their bones and flesh bursting into flames as they stood up. The girls dropped the force barrier and allowed the burning skeletons to rush up the stairs. “That should keep them busy…”

They raised another wall of force behind the skeletons and the blond sent a rat scurrying up the chimney with a rope in its mouth. Moments later she gave a tug on the rope and proclaimed it safe to climb. One after the other the prisoners slipped up chimney and into the first-floor kitchen. Braunheld could only shake her head and marvel at the magical power wielded by the three girls.

The ten prisoners still standing grabbed bags, bowls, and any other containers they could find, shoving as much food as they could carry in them. Outside the door they could hear battle raging between the guards and the skeletons out in the hallway.

The red-head, Heather, crept over to the exterior door leading to the kitchen gardens and peaked out. “There are archers on the walls…” The girls gathered at the door and peered at the guards, then began again to sing. The archers vanished. Just…vanished. Braunheld could not believe what she was seeing. When they reappeared, this time in different locations, she was flabbergasted. Then they began to fall. They reappeared in mid-air. They re-appeared perched precariously on the battlements. They reappeared fused waste-deep in the walls or ground.

In less than a minute, the walls were clear of archers…

But, for some reason that Braunheld could not fathom, they opened the other door. Rather than fleeing across the undefended yard to freedom, the girls opened the door to the hallway where an entire regiment of guards were in the last phases of mopping up their skeletal assailants.

Then she understood. The blonde, Talia, raised her hand and unleashed a burst of brightly coloured lights that left the guards reeling and unable to defend themselves. Then the girls neatly sectioned off the room with more force-walls…

What followed was slaughter, complete and wholesale. The prisoners rushed their defenseless jailors and beat them mercilessly. The ogre casually walked up to the warden and caved his head in.

It was miraculous. Not only were they free, but every single one of the guards was dead or dying.

The prisoners rushed throughout the prison keep, looting to their hearts content. They found weapons. They found food. They found silver. They found a wagon and loaded it to the brim with everything they could carry. They were ready to flee with their prizes when the three girls stopped them again.

“Now to leave some gifts for our pursuers…” the dark-haired girl said.

And they did.

The girls knelt by one of the dead prisoners and laid hands on him, the burned and battered corpse crumbling away to ash and reforming. Where once there was a dead man, now there was a quite living adult male lion, a mass of claws, teeth, and sinew. The lion spoke its gratitude and vowed to cover their escape.

Then the girls set about animating the guards. Their former captors now formed a small army of bloody, groteque undead. The girls gave them back their swords and their bows and set them to watch upon the walls. The guard dogs were likewise raised, changed into horrible slavering beasts with long tongues and swarms of roaches crawling in and out of their still-fresh wounds.

The girls commanded Braunheld, the ogre, and the other prisoners to begin digging a great pit in the midst of the gatehouse. They filled it with spears and sharpened stakes. They set skeletons in the gatehouse above with a great vat of boiling oil. The brunette took the animated bodies of the guards and commanded them to lay down in the courtyard, forming some horrible infernal symbol with their bodies. Then they covered it all…

The girls sang and the walls crumbled. They sang and the pit vanished. The skeletons vanished. All signs of their passing here were gone, and behind them they left a death-trap. Braunheld was beyond impressed.

Done with their work, the prisoners and a small escort of skeletons set off across the old moor. The ogre hauled the wagon filled with their treasures while a pair of tieflings carefully picked a path across the soggy ground for them. The blonde pointed them to a spot on a map she had taken, “the Old Moor Road…we most go there…a house on a hill waits for us.”

Crazy as she sounded, the other prisoners dare not question the girls.

A Week in the Life of a Witch Hunter: Session 3

Within the first tower, Sir Robert, Sir Willem, Sir Fallon, and Aidan the Herald rested, occasionally firing a bolt at one of the other towers.
"Archers...we need archers," Aidan said to the others.
"Archers won't help us much if that witch-lion returns." Sir Fallon peered cautiously out of an arrow-slit. "It has taken refuge in the keep. We can leave the towers for later...we have to get to the keep and avenge Brother Justice." He peeked out again, "It looks like the postern door is open as well. I say we get down to the ground entrance and make a run for their."
"But we need rest," Sir Robert complained. "We're out of healing and the courtyard is still full of those bugs..."
"I have spells left," Sir Willem spoke up, "and I'm with Sir Fallon. Let's get off these walls. The lion and his skeletal servants clearly have the advantage up here..."

While the party deliberated, Oswald the scribe sat on his ass and cried. Brother Justice paid him well, even paying him 12 months in advance to accompany him and record his daring deeds, but as he sat outside Branderscar Prison and watched a lion leap from a tower with his master clutched in its jaws, he knew he wasn't getting paid nearly enough to witness this. Shoving his quill back in his saddlebags, he grabbed the reins of Icewind, his master's warhorse, wheeled his donkey around, and rode back to Varyston with all haste.

Sister Carlotta held up a hand to her eyes, straining to see what was making the dust-cloud coming towards the town. "Ainsley, get up here, something's coming...fast!" Ainsley climbed up the low fortifications to stand beside the militant nun. "A rider...riding an ass...and leading a charger," he said, "something must have happened at the prison..." He jumped over the low battlement, landing in a crouch outside the walls.

"Ho, friend, what news?!"

Oswald pulled his panicked steed to a halt with some effort and dismounted shakily. "Demons! Unliving demons have overtaken the prison! Bloody and skeletal and led by a great lion that flies! My master, Brother Justice is fallen! I have seen no sign of his companions...you must send help...NOW!"

Sister Carlotta ran and grabbed her and Ainsley's horses. "Right, we're headed for the prison. You...what is your name, friend?"
"Oswald..."
"Right, Oswald, go into the town and tell the king what you told us, tell him to send a full contingent to re-take the keep. Ainsley...let's go!"

"Nice ass by the way," Ainsley said.
"Oh thank you, it was a gift from my master..." Oswald stammered a reply.
"I wasn't talking to you, Oswald..."

The knight and the nun rode for the prison at top speed, pushing their chargers to their limits and beyond. In just over an hour they reached Branderscar Prison to find the gates open and the place in ruins. They dismounted their exhausted horses and tied them up near the waiting steeds of the vanguard group.
Sir Ainsley shook his head, "What the f*ck happened here?"
"Mind your tongue son," Sister Carlotta pointed at the courtyard where a mass of cockroaches were swarming over a fleshly corpse in armor, "that looks like one of the vanguard...and those bugs don't look friendly."

Sir Ainsley drew out his dragon pistol and loaded it with an incendiary round. "Right, stay behind me." The two walked cautiously towards the gatehouse and paused at the edge of a large, spiked pit. "There's no way across...Up?" he asked.

"Right." Sister Carlotta pulled a rope and grapnel from her saddlebags and threw the line deftly up to the battlements. The two quickly climbed up to the gatehouse roof...

Back within the tower Sir Fallon heard a series of loud bangs. He peaked out the arrow slit to see Sir Ainsley standing atop the gatehouse, arrows falling around him, firing shot after shot at the skeletons, Sister Carlotta standing by his side to reload his musket. Shot after shot rang out, skeletons, even on the farthest towers, being blown to pieces by them more often than not.

With a shout of relief the four friends opened the tower door and ran out onto the walls towards the gatehouse, all but Sir Robert pausing briefly to ogle the beautiful, and somewhat inappropriately garbed, nun. Sir Willem clapped Ainsley on the back when they arrived. "Thank you, brother...and sister, we thought we were done for." Sir Ainsley fired a few more times, taking out the last of the skeletal archers.

"Glad that you're all alright...but I'm out of ammo." Ainsley set down the musket, and pulled out his pistol. "I hope anything else we fight is at closer range..."

"We need to take the towers now," Sister Carlotta said, looking at the distant bones clattering down the sides of the towers and calling upon her extensive religious training. "If we don't bless the corpses, those skeletons will be back up within the hour..."

Aidan the Herald looked over the edge at the courtyard below and shook his head. "We have bigger problems...the bugs can fly..."

"What!" Sir Robert cried, just as the massive swarm crested the battlements.

Sir Willem said a quick and very short prayer to Mitra, causing the bugs to hesitate briefly, allowing Sir Ainley to blast the swarm with a gout of flame from his dragon-pistol, killing thousands of the insects, but not stopping the main mass. Sir Robert and Aidan swung uselessly at the creatures, but Sir Fallon's axe suddenly burst into flames, clearing a swath through the swarm as he swung. Then the swarm was over them...

Everyone in the party save Sir Robert and Sir Ainsley were too distracted by the painful bites to defend themselves. Sir Ainsley fired another incendiary cartridge, seriously depleting the bugs. Retching, Sister Carlotta blurted out "I...have...spells...that would help..." On queue, Sir Robert grabbed her and ran along the wall back towards the tower until she was out of the swarm.

Free of the swarm, Sister Carlotta conjured a blast of wind, somewhat dispersing it, as Sir Robert ran back to help Sir Willem out of the area. Ainsley continued to hold his ground, ignoring the many tiny bites and firing his dragon pistol again. The other struggled to get free of the swarm as it moved to follow them. As the swarm neared Sister Carlotta again, a blast of flame from her hands killed or dispersed the last of the insects.

A burst of positive energy from Sister Carlotta had everyone back on their feet. "Hurry, the skeletons."

"Right," said Sir Robert, "several fell into the courtyard and there are six towers to check for bodies. We'll have to split up." Noticing the despairing and incredulous faces of his friends, he continued, passing out vials of holy water. "No one goes alone. We'll split into three groups. Willem and Aidan take the right towers. Sister Carlotta and Fallon go left. Ainsley and I will take the courtyard. Regroup in the main courtyard when your done...shout if you encounter something."
"Great...that worked well last time." Aidan complained.
"Got a better idea?"
"No..."

They split up...and they ran. Sprinting along the walls and down the stairs, the six friends quickly found the remains of the skeletons and doused them with holy water. The towers were cleared and the walls reclaimed.

In the courtyard, Sir Robert and Sir Ainsley doused Tristram's body, as well as the undead hounds, zombies, and skeletons. When the others joined them Aidan knelt by Tristram's corpse and began looting it.

"Why are you disrespecting the dead?" Sister Carlotta gave him a glaring look.
"He has useful magic items," Aidan responded, holding up a wand and a potion vial, "I'll return them if we manage to raise him, but for now we need all the help we can get."

"Right..." Sister Carlotta turned and examined the other bodies. "Hmmm..." She said, kneeling over one of the zombies. "It has a magic ring." She pulled a plain iron ring off of it, saying a prayer for the deceased's soul. "Can anyone tell what this does?"
Sir Fallon gave it a hairy eye, "leave it...its cursed."

Sister Carlotta sighed and threw the ring into the pit by the gatehouse...