After an hour or so of walking it becomes apparent to the party that they are well and truly lost and they have no idea where West is. Alexa brings her outdoor survival skills to bear and figures out where West is using the moss growing on some of the trees.The party regroups and still clinging to their rope head in the direction they believe west to be.
The fog is a dirty grey and seems to swallow all sound. For hours all the party hears is the muffled sounds of their fellows pushing their way through the dense forest.
Suddenly Grim Gorgson hears what appears to be singing. After a hushed discussion the party decides to investigate the source of the singing.
Creeping towards the singing the heroes begin to make out the words...it appears to be gibberish, nonsensical, using words from a variety of languages the characters know. The singing suddenly cuts off and a crackling voice calls out "Well dears, don't stand out there in the fog. Come, sit by my fire. I wont bite"
After a moments hesitation Grim Gorgson forges ahead followed by the rest of the group. They step out of the woods in to a clearing remarkedly free of fog. Sitting near a small fire is an old woman, behind her is a rude hut constructed out of branches and poorly cured hides. The woman's eyes are missing and her eye sockets are a mess of scarred tissue.
She looks directly and Grim Gorgson and says "Welcome to my fire. Sit and rest. Perhaps I can tell your fortune to pass the time?"
Grim Gorgson sits and the old woman passes him some bones. Alexa and Alane remain standing looking suspicious whilst Urgim and Falandar start investigating the clearing. When Falandar starts towards the hut, the old woman, turns to look directly at him and asks where he thinks he is going.
The old woman instructs Grim Gorgson to choose a bone and to throw the rest. When he throws the bones, the old woman starts to chant in a low voice and then pronounces: "Not all are who they seem to be,listen carefully; The bravest one of you will die...Water I see water rushing, consuming!". Abruptly she cuts off exclaiming "oh my, this is not right. Please throw the bones again dear". Grim Gorgson gingerly picks up the bones and throws them again.
The old woman looks down at the bones, shrieks and starts to fit. Grim Gorgson and Alane leap forward to help the thrashing crone. She flails and grabs Alane by the shirt, pulls her close and says "The stars will fall and all will be consumed unless you choose the right path".
Alexa steps in and uses her healing skills to calm the old woman, who eventually falls into a deep sleep.
The party decides to camp in the clearing. Alane takes the first watch, followed by Alexa, Andreus and then Falandar. The party awakes in the early morning to find that Andreus failed to wake Falandar for his watch and he is now nowhere to be found.
Alexa freaks out yelling for Andreus, ashing her face. Eventually she calms down and locates some tracks leading from the camp. Urgim surreptitiously sticks Andreus's bed roll into the fire.Grabbing their gear they race off into the woods leaving the camp and old woman behind.
A short distance into the woods the group finds evidence of Andreus's pit-stop and further tracks leading away. A few yards along there is evidence of a struggle and drags marks continue deeper into the forest.
Grim Gorgson's dog picks up the trail and leads the party to a cave entrance. Alane and Falandar cast light spells and the party inches their way in. Alane asks (in a slightly paranoid tone) if there could be water in the caves. Grim Gorgson helpfully identifies the cave walls as being limestone and the caves most likely carved by the actions of water.
Hearing some grunting noises up-ahead the group bursts into a large cave and disturb a group of 5 ghouls feasting on some animal remains. The party and the ghouls launch themselves at each other and a viscous fight ensues. Grim Gorgson is savaged by a lucky blow and takes a critical hit. Alane kills a ghoul with single powerful magic dart but is also badly wounded however the party makes short work of the ghouls.
Proceeding more cautiously through the caves the party eventually find a Andreus. He is chained to the far wall of a cave chamber and appears to be unconscious and badly hurt. As the group enters the chamber, a bat flutters down from the roof and transforms into a humanoid form. The vampire launches a savage attack on Urgim injuring the heavily armoured dwarf in the head and shoulders. With Urgim yelling “Get it off, get it off” the rest of the group springs into action.
Without warning a further 5 ghouls rush into the cave attacking the badly injured Grim Gorgson and Alane who were hanging back from the fight with the vampire. At great risk to himself Grim Gorgson, ignores the attacking ghouls and instead attacks the vampire with his holy symbol and water. The enraged vampire retaliates striking a critical blow and incapacitating Grim Gorgson's right hand.
The fighting is brutal and Alane takes a critical strike which smashes her face in, leaving her unconscious and bleeding out. Falandar tired of failing to cast a magic dart, resorts to hitting things with his sword. After several rounds of combat, Alexa kills the vampire, cleaving through its arm and decapitating it. The ghouls fall to the group a couple of rounds later.
During the fight Alane dies from bloodloss but using up a fate point she avoids this messy end and instead slips in to a deep coma.
Alexa rushes over to Andreus and find him critically wounded. Urgim loots the vampires body, locating some grubby jewellery and a rusty key. The key unlocks the manacle around Andreus's leg.
Alexa attempts to heal the various members of the group with limited success. Urgim shoulders Alane, Alexa and Grim Gorgson grab Andreus between them and the party slinks out of the caves.
The battered group make their way back to the old woman's clearing. With the fog lifting the group stumbles into the clearing to find the hut collapsed and no sign of the old woman, in fact it looks like the clearing has been abandoned for years. The party makes camp and tend their wounded, wondering what will befall them next.
GM's Notes
- This is the first time that the party has been significantly beaten up. I think I have the "monsters" at just about the right toughness level now.
- Poor Falandar is having a hard time keeping up with the group. He is a first career character, the others are 2nd & 3rd career characters.
- Grim Gorgson's player couldn't come out and play so we video conferenced him into the session using Skype running on my HTPC with a Logitech Webcam Pro 9000 sitting on top of my LCD TV. This worked really well. Here is a picture of his view of the rest of us. Note the iPad on the right which had a scan of his character sheet (in .PDF) and a dice rolling app installed (just for extra geek cred)!
