Read previous installment here. This short session is the resolution of the combat that began at the end of the last...
Day 5
– continued [investigation in 1707, plains, favorable weather, random encounter
in the afternoon]
Posidonios is ensnared!
The wires cut into his flesh – and, alerted by his screams, the inhabitants of
the place crawl forward… Four grotesque, goblinish figures, their wrinkly sky parchment
dry and spotted. Some are emaciated and skeleton-like, some are potbellied. Dry
and twisted, like the plains around them. In fact, they seem to have emerged
from the barren ground itself.
Duke Seneb and
Eucarpus, who are scavenging nearby, also hear the scream, but don’t come
running just yet… They approach cautiously, behind the cover of the wreckage. They
split up, Seneb circles to the right, Eucarpus to the left, weapons at ready.
The four
creatures move closer to Posidonois. They aren’t in a hurry, and savor the
kill. “What do have us here?” one of them whispers in a raspy tone. “We have us
here some fresh meat,” the others reply in unison. They bare their pointy teeth.
Posidonios screams.
“Get away from him!”
shouts Eucarpus and rushes forward, brandishing his scimitar. The creatures are
startled, and turn towards the fighting-man. “Well-well-well…” intones their
leader. “Say, intruder, if you like our place so much, why don’t you just… stay
with us? F o r e v e r . . .” The creature’s yellow eyes light up with an
uncanny suggestive force. The mind of Eucarpus bends to the demonic will. “Y-yes,
I wish to become one with the dust,” he mumbles.
Duke Seneb jumps
out from his cover and mutters a string of syllables in an alien language. A
cone of clashing colors erupts from his outstretched left hand. Eucarpus and
the four monsters cry out in pain, cover their eyes, and fall to the ground.
Duke Seneb runs over to Posidonois and tries to free him, but the wires of the
snare are hard to cut. Knowing that the duration of his spell is limited, Seneb
instead starts slashing the throats of the unconscious monsters. The ground
swallows the black ichor instantly, without a trace.
But one of the creatures
regains consciousness and raises up, blood splurting from its neck. It lunges at
Seneb, but misses. “Get him,” he gurgles, and, to Seneb’s surprises, Eucarpus,
who is by now also conscious and standing, charges Seneb. Seneb deflects the
blade at the last minute and starts backing away. Posidonios, although his
movements are hindered, tries to throw himself at Eucarpus, but the wires pull
him back and he falls. Seneb faces two enemies alone – and one of these enemies
used to be his comrade. “Snap out of it! It is me, Seneb,” he shouts as he
tries and fails to hit the monster. But the charm is too strong, and Eucarpus
cannot overcome it. “Must… kill the intruders… the sacred place must not be
polluted,” he mumbles and buries his blade deep into Seneb’s body. Posidonios
manages to free one of his legs, and kicks Eucarpus – who loses balance and
also drops to the ground. This gives a bit of space for Seneb, and the Duke
delivers a final blow to the last remaining monster.
“What happened?”
gasps Eucarpus. A terrible hypnotic weight lifts from his mind with the death
of the last creature. His two comrades are bleeding or bound. The bodies of the
four monsters rapidly desiccate before their very eyes.
Duke Seneb
shrugs, and tries to staunch his bleeding. Then together they free Posidonios. “Creatures
of dust, the very soil of this wretched land,” Eucarpus verbalizes the weird
phrases that still echo in his head. Then he points at a hole in the ground. “This
is their burrow…” The underground hole hides a small hoard of 4,000 copper
scales and a silvery metal diadem. This last object buzzes slightly when touched,
and arcane glyphs light up on its inner surface. None of the adventurers feel
up to the task of trying the diadem on… so this artifact will have to be
identified at a later time.
For now, they set up camp in the cover of the wreckage and wait for the night to fall…
---------------
Notes: the generator gave me "spotted Dryads" with a Reaction of 2 - Hostile, so this is where I took it. Murderous barren plain dryads.
To be continued!
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