The Road Back to Donegal
Irish Knights Act 2 Scene 4
After the meeting with the mysterious stranger on the road, and leading him toward the nearest town, the trio of knights moves back to the road. They know they are being watched, and they debate the best way to remove the marker that enchants them. Ulthorion decides to interrupt their musing.
A dimthread opens a portal and 6 men step out. Five of them are warriors in full armor, while the 6th appears to be a priest or wizard. The wizard, snaps a golden rope up from the ground, the portal snaps shut as he does this, and he wraps the rope around his waist. The sound of wolves howling in the woods announces the arrival of three of the creatures. Huge dire wolves, nearly the size of a horse run from the tree-line as the warriors hurl themselves into the Knights.
Advantage the Attackers:
The trio is flummoxed by the teleport tactics and the warriors slam into them. Two of them on Ash, two on Davey, and one on Ragnall. Ash and Davey shrug off or turn aside the attackers and escape unharmed, and even Ragnall is merely knocked back with a curse and a loss of breath. The wizard summons a glowing shield and yells encouragement to his warriors
The initial shock has worn off and Ash and Davey maneuver without having to speak to one another. They have meshed well as a team. Ash moves through the two men on himself and ends standing next to the warrior attacking Ragnall. During his movement his black blade moves in a single fluid motion. Two of the warriors drop to the ground, into piles of their spilled guts; the third man staggers back with his left arm missing.
Davey attacks his two foes, but his short machete style blades merely dent and batter the warriors’ armor. Davey sighs.
Ash: “We need to find you an enchanted blade. Those things are junk!”
Davey just shakes his head and the duo move to attack again; Davey and Ash moving through the three remaining warriors and switching positions at the end. Ash kills the one-armed warrior and then moves to wound the last two men. Davey batters the now wounded men down, and finishes his move standing in front of Ragnall.
The wizard now stands alone, he begins to chant and intone dark words and the clouds begin to gather overhead.
Don’t forget the Wolves!
The Irish Knights are about to step forward and silence the casting wizard, when the enormous wolves hurtle into them.
Ash and David manage to dodge aside from the furry death machines, but Ragnall goes down with a wolf rolling him over and over into the grass on the side of the road. The wizard finishes his chant and a massive bolt of lightning strikes from the heavens and smashes Ash to the earth. The elven swordsman is broken but not slain, he groans and tries to get back to his feet. The dire wolf snags Ash’s foot and keeps him from standing.
David dodges another strike from the dire wolf on him and is torn on whether he should help Ragnall or Ash. But the dire wolf on Ragnall closes his mouth over Ragnall’s throat and tears his entire head away…. [Ragnall spends a possibility to SOAK the damage and alter to a reality where the Dire Wolf missed the bite]. Realizing that Ash is tough enough to handle the wolves, David kicks the wolf off of Ragnall.
Ash ignores the wolves and his companions, he opens a portal of his own and steps out behind the wizard, and the wizard’s mystic shield that only protects his front. He jams the black blade through the wizard’s back and wiggles it until he feels the spine break in half. The dead wizard sort of falls over and folds in on himself.
Finishing it up.
With Ash teleporting away, David takes on all three pony sized wolves. He lashes out with his machetes and manages to wound the creatures. But unlike normal animals these creatures are not intimidated by wounds or loud noises. Ragnall has gotten back to his feet and he lays about with his staff, trying to help but the wolves are not impressed. David has wounded one of the creature’s enough that he backs off, grabs one of the dead warriors, and then jogs off back into the forest with its meal.
The last two wolves lunge in on David and Ragnall. David’s forearm tears open and the bones snap as he staggers back under the weight of the beast. Ragnall’s leg takes a dep gash and the old man limp’s back with a torrent of swearing.
Ash returns, wounding one of the wolves and Davey finishes off the rest. In an act of petulance, Ash spots the last wolf dragging the body toward the forest. He casts a fireball and burns the wounded creature before it can disappear into the forest.
The other two are far too wounded to make a comment on the extra savagery. They bind their wounds and Ragnall works his healing magic to cut back the bulk of the wounds. But none of them are back to fighting fit.
Gluttons for punishment:
[The players at this point decide that despite the last fight beating them up quite a bit they would like another one! Davey’s player drops a Cosm Card, extra encounter and we move into an unplanned fight.]
Barely an hour down the road from the previous fight the trio comes upon a series of odd dips and sink holes. These holes are fairly small, several of them about the size of a manhole cover. But they find one that is three times the size and deep enough that the bottom is in shadows. An odd smell, the mix of deep earth and rotting vegetation, and other less savory things wafts from the hole.
As they near the hole, a swarm of lurks boil from the shadows, a full score of the pale creatures come at them. The pitiful creatures aren’t even armed but their hands end in black claws that can easily scoop earth or rend flesh. Ragnall rears back and calls a blessing to the trio’s strength of arms.
Ash laughs, the sound more a bark than a sound of mirth. He throws himself directly into the thickest mass of the creatures and in a massive swing of his blade he downs seven of them. Seven in one blow!
It’s a massacre (and the beginning of MANY of them in this Campaign.)
Davey follows Ash and wades into the thickest of the remaining lurks and while he strikes many of them with his machete, he only bruises them. He really should have taken the time to actually sharpen that blade. At this point he is just smashing his foes with a dull bar of steel.
A handful of lurks duck around Ash, ignoring him and moving past. While on David, half of the creatures he struck try to drag him down while the rest also move past. He is merely battered, while his weapons are lacking his body armor is quite sufficient. A handful of lurks, still climbing out of the hole, take the time to throw rocks at Ragnall and the priest staggers back as few strike his face.
Ash chases down the three lurks that moved past him and kills them quickly. Annoyed that the creatures would ignore him and not face him head on. Davey’s fight is not going as well. While the creatures aren’t really hurting him, they are swarming all over him and he is equally ineffectual trying to fight back. Ragnall hurls some choice insults at the rock throwers and those lurks are actually intimidated by the old man.
Ash reverses course and charges back into the rock throwers, cutting down the four lurks before they can flee. Ash laughs at David.
Davey gets Mad:
Finally, Davey roars, scatters the lurks who are on him, and he then steps into them again. Lashing out with his dull machete’s he smashes six of the creatures to the ground and the few stragglers flee back into the pit.
Ash jumps in after but the tunnel has collapsed behind the creatures. He finds a bag at the bottom of the pit and hefts it back to the road and then climbs out of the pit. Within the bag he finds a potion of strength and Hammer of Thunder. The hammer is a massive maul that is enchanted to hurl foes away from the wield with each thundering strike.
Only 1 scene left:
We shall pause the story here. There is only one scene left in Act 2, and it devolves into another drag out fight, so I think two is enough for this week and next we will start with the final fight before the Trio return to Donegal.
In Donegal we will have a report and an RP session that might have been poorly planned on my part. We shall see as we start ACT 3.
