Irish Knights Act 1 Final

Finishing Act 1:

Last week, the Irish Knights had traveled into the catacombs and faced an assortment of undead creatures, including more wraiths and the Ghoul King. The last post ended with the heroes still standing in the Ghoul’s charnel throne room. There were more passages to deeper tunnels and caves, but the knights feared entering the “Down Below.”

Down Below is a mystical realm of tunnels that exist below Aysle and their twists and turns defy conventional physics of space and time. It is quite possible for the knights to enter a tunnel, walk for a few hours and end up coming out in London, and then hopping back in and minutes later entering Ulthorion’s base in Oslo Norway.

The temptation to wander aimlessly is ignored and they get back on mission.

Back on Track:

So, after resting in the underground for a few hours the Knights dragged themselves back to the surface and bright daylight. They estimated that they were still two days away from Londonderry. The road still has a few signs from Core Earth, after 90 days of the invasion most of this part of Ireland is about 50-50 changed. The houses in the small villages along the road are a mix of Tudor style and brick houses, and Davey makes a joke that they can’t tell if this is a before or after, the houses always looked this old.

They slow down at one of the larger villages along the way and ask some questions. The farmer asks them if they want to stay to do some field work, and Davey gently declines. They learn that pressgangs have come up and down the road though not in at least a few weeks and that many of the young men either joined or ran off later heading toward the north east. The fields are short of hands and the future of the village is in question with so many young people leaving.

They also discover that they are further from their goal than expected, with Ragnall’s slow pace they are at least a full three days away from Londonderry.

The Push:

Davey and Ash try to encourage Ragnall to up his pace and the old man says he has the stamina if not the speed. He’s willing to push on for longer periods between breaks but he doesn’t want to jog.

After a few hours the village is lost to sight behind them but ahead of them a group of large burly men walk down the road with axes resting on their shoulders and a swagger to their step.

Davey: They look like bloody Vikings.

Ash: Those are Ulthorion’s marauders, looks like they are still recruiting from the villages, also looks like we might have trouble.

The knights pause for a second, thinking about how they should react. The Vikings are drunkenly loud, their conversation reaching the trio long before them men are close enough to make out their features.

1 Viking: “…and then I cut of his f****** head!”

Other Vikings: laugh uproariously.

Davey turns to consult with Ash; “Should we fight or…”

Ragnall stands tall and slams his staff into the road, he begins to summon lightning, the clouds roiling overhead.

FIGHT!

Ash shakes his head, no choice now. He charges into the Vikings who are startled by the sudden peel of thunder. Ash trips right before he reaches the Vikings, his sword whistling through the air and the Vikings erupt in more laughter as he rolls into the grass on the verge.

But then David is among them and he slashes two of them open with his machete and then the Vikings stop laughing, realizing that they are legitimately under attack.

Ragnall unleashes his lightning bolt and reduces one of the Vikings to a smoking pile of charred meat and the Vikings scatter screaming warcries. David chases after the two men he already wounded, killing one and wounding the second further. Ash gets back to his feet and charges into a group of three men, he cuts down two of them and mortally wounds a third. The mortally wounded man tries to attack back but his sword falls from numb hands and Ash finishes him with a back-hand stroke.

In less than 30 seconds the Vikings have been dispatched. Davey begins to drag the bodies off the road and Ragnall does a quick rite over them.

Harder Push:

They double time it down the road and push on far later than normal, but it pays off as they arrive at an Inn and manage to sleep in beds for the evening. Refreshed by a full night’s sleep that was not interrupted by the undead. The trio of knights set out early in the morning.

[Thanks to me as game runner, screwing up the fact that Ireland uses meters but North Ireland uses miles, I totally messed up the distances on the maps and made the journey too far from Donegal to Londonderry, my players then decided to be total DICKS about it for the remainder of the game.]

White Stone, 60-mile mark:

Having pushed 60 miles in three days of the travel the Knights are saddened when they reach a tall white standing stone that has script carved into the surface. Reading the carvings, they realize they are still at least 4 hours away from Londonderry. Ragnall becomes especially cranky when he realizes he will not be sleeping in a bed tonight.

They walk a few meters off the road and settle down behind some brush that blocks them from being sighted from the road. After complaining for a while, mostly about not bringing enough hard alcohol for such a long trip Ragnall settles down and goes instantly to sleep. With the trees and the cover and the fact that the only hill is a gentle rise behind them the other two also decide to sleep.

Ash has troubled dreams but Ragnall’s are worse. The old man starts awake only to find that his dreams are actually fact. Four pasty white lurks are quietly bundling him up in his blanket. A wight and more lurks stand off to the side of him and further up the hill another dozen lurks and wights stand, two long blanket wrapped bundles carried amongst them.

Ragnall screams obscenities.

Abduction:

Ragnall struggles in his blankets and manages to pray for a ward against his enemies. The lurks lose their grip on his blankets and become highly agitated and startled. The wight leader steps forward and he tries to intimidate Ragnall with the power of his gaze. Fear rolls over the old priest but Ragnall is a nasty codger and he spits in the wight’s face. Two of the lurks drop across Ragnall’s legs, trying to hold him to the ground while the other two start clubbing him on the head with their fists. “Go back to sleep old man!”

Ash who was having troubled dreams wakes at the commotion and the wight sends the rest of his lurks to deal with the elf. Davey is still snoring in his sleeping bag.

The four lurks continue to smash Ragnall in his blankets. Punching and kneeing the struggling man. Ash is enraged at this treatment and gains his feet before the two lurks close the distance to his sleeping spot. He lunges into them and cuts them both down with his sword.

Davey finally wakes up as the bodies of the lurks hit the ground, he rolls to his feet and throws himself across Ragnall, knocking the lurks away from the old man. Dave manages to kill two of the four lurks and Ragnall, slightly punch-drunk thanks the huge body-builder. Ragnall casts another spell, bolstering his defenses as he crawls out of his blankets and finds his feet.

Tides turn:

With David and Ash on their feet and swords out it’s merely a question of numbers. Specifically, the lurks and wights don’t have enough of them. The group further up the hill decide that they don’t need the trouble down in the camp, they turn to fade into the trees.

Ash says no. He opens a portal and jumps to a point 50 meters away, further up the hill. The main group of wights and lurks are now heading into him. Six of the lurks are dragging two blanket wrapped bundles, human shaped bundles. Ash moves into the lurks, his sudden appearance in a flash of light has them totally defenseless and he cuts down four of them instantly. The human shaped bundles are dropped to the ground and Ash sees them start to move. The people are still alive.

[Ash’s attack was totally badass and his roll was amazing, Ragnall gets to play a GLORY card off of the role, this is now the 3^rd card played in the first ACT, but this is the second gaming session. Amazing.]

Everything goes off Script:

[Everything went off script when Ash attacked the group up the hill instead of dealing with the guys in the camp, these guys were supposed to go into the trees and then it was optional if the players would do after them or not.]

Back in the camp, Davey-boy finishes off the last 2 lurks and Ragnall in all his anger decides to attack the wight with his staff. Enraged the old man smashes his staff into the wight and caves his skull in and kills the undead instantly. [At this point Ragnall’s player ALSO rolled super well and Ash’s player dropped a glory card, making that 4 in the first ACT. Insane.]

With the camp cleared the duo headed up the hill toward the fight between Ash and the remainder of the cultists. Ash is already cutting his way through wights, including the leader of the whole group. By the time Davey arrives on the top of the hill the last two lurks have grabbed one of the fallen bundles and were running into the trees.

Ash does his teleport trick again, getting ahead of the two and kills the last 2 lurks and comes back with the struggling bundle. [At this point another GLORY card was played and that made 3 in this session and 5 cards in the ACT.]

Aftermath, and Bundles:

The bundles are a teenage buy and a 20-something woman who were both abducted from a small hamlet nearby. They were both abducted during different tasks earlier in the day, at least a few hours ago. Ragnall recognizes the name of the Hamlet and states its only a thirty-minute walk back down the road, and that’s at his pace.

Checking over the bodies and the area they find different things. Davey discovers a trail in the tree line, it is on a direct path that the last lurks had been heading toward. Ash discovers a bunch of magical items between the wights.

After talking it out the knights determine that they need to see where the wights where going with the humans. But they agree that they can’t take the boy and girl with them. Davey walks the duo back to the road and instructs them to run all the back to their homes, and to pray to the light for their salvation.

The magic items then get shared among the three of them, Ragnall taking a magical staff that bolsters faith and Ash taking a pair of gloves that are meant for dueling. There is also a circlet of command that Davey hands back to the group, let Ragnall or Ash deal with that.

The Trail and Dark Rituals:

The trails winds through the trees, which become older and thicker and darker. The temperature drops and when the party finally steps out into the clearing their breath blooms on the air. The clearing is dominated by an ancient and gnarled tree that appears to have a massive weeping face on it. Before the tree is a makeshift altar and mixed amongst the vines and thick trunks of the trees around the clearing are a series of stones that makes a circle.

The altar is stained with old blood and the mouth of the tree, a slightly open aperture is crusted with old blood. It doesn’t take much intelligence to realize the opening is too small to shove a full body into and how the altar has been used.

The heads of the slain are piled around the bases of the trees or hanging from vines in the branches, they number in the hundreds. A massive tin pain rests below the mouth of the tree, collecting any bloody run off from the feedings.

Waves of cold emanate from the tree and it chills the knights to the bone, the ground moves as roots writhe in their presence. Waves of fear strike them and Ragnall blesses the party as the Ash and Davey draw blades.

Tree of Woe:

Ash and Davey smack into the tree, Ash’s longsword breaking off some bark and oozing blood coming to the surface. Davey’s machete seems better suited to chopping wood and he gets sprayed in the face by a stream of slimy blood.

The eyes in the tree open up revealing insanity and pain, the tree moans and the ground erupts with tendrils that lash the air and grasp at the knights’ legs. The tendrils seem blind and weak, slapping at their legs to little effect. Though Ash doers find his right leg immobilized in their grasp. Ragnall falls back to the entrance of the clearing.

Ragnall: I think I know what this is… I remember something about trees as scared sights, but it was sidhe magic not human.

Ash cuts the tendrils from his lag and then doges as more of them swarm him; “Less thinking and more helping, Ragnall!”

Davey chops into the trunk again and again, but his machete is dulling quickly.

Struggle:

Ragnall ignores Ash and continues to pace on the trail trying to remember what he read about Tree’s with Faces. The tendrils keep smacking at the two fighters, it is a give and take struggle where the tendrils grasp and hold only to be cut off moments later. In one scary moment tendrils grab Ash and pull him toward the mouth, which suddenly yawns wide. But Davey cuts tendrils and Ash struggles to his feet and jams his black blade into the tree trunk. Cracks widen across the trunk and red-light glows within the tree.

Ragnall finally remembers something; “Usually these trees are dormant, sleeping, the wights must have woke this and done things to it. The sacrifices and such riled it up. Given hours or days I could probably purify it and put it back to sleep!”

Ash and Davey are both covered in blood from the superficial wounds dealt by the tendrils. Welts and cuts cover their legs and faces. The tree is covered in marks from their blades, but the tree seems mostly unharmed. Save for the glowing crack that Ash has just put in it. They glare at the old priest.

Ragnall: “I guess we don’t have time for that.”

Ash screams and attacks the trunk with two great cleaving blows. The cracks widen and then the tree gasps, the eyes roll up and the tendrils fall to the ground.

That is not dead…

As the tree gasps its final breath, the eyes roll back down, they are clear of pain and madness, now terror fills them. A voice fills the head of the three knights: “No… what has been done to me. Too late, I am done… thank you… but FLEE!!”

Cracks burst up the length of the tree, more red light flaring out from deep within. Shadow shapes claw and scream as they pull themselves from within the tree. Wraiths and shadows struggling to be free. Screams fill the air of things long thought dead, things long forgotten from the world. The light grows brighter.

Ash opens a portal and pushes his companions through it without a word. They reappear 50 meters down the trail, the screaming and lights behind them in the trees. They run back toward their camp and the road beyond.

Ragnall: “I thinking killing the tree might have been a bad idea.”

End of Act I.

More than I thought:

So my first act was huge, very huge… I thought it wouldn’t take up this much of the post. But this is a good stopping point. So next week will be the beginning of act 2 and the rest of this gaming session. To be honest there is only a single scene of Act 2 left in this gaming session, but it will be an exciting one!

Still can’t get over 5 glory cards in a single act and 3 in this one night alone!