The Budgie Smugglers (Sorrow [Jeff], Argile [Richard], Moonlight [Chris], Lammy [Kevin], Tylin [Ian], and El Cid [Shane]) hurried back to the Sirensville ferry. Huilam had just collapsed into fits of marmalading, so they had to carry him as he coughed an retched.
 |
| Some Budgie Smugglers (a la Heroforge) |
Burrito [Darryl] was badly wounded, so he hobbled to the Panadine shrine next to the Governor's mansion. There happened to be a Panadine priestess there, but she wanted nothing to do with this unkempt blood-covered assassin, heavy crossbow and all, who gibbered that he worshiped Panadine and claimed he worked for Panadine back in Scabport. She shooed him away, so he headed to the ferry too.
They all eventually got back to Carl's Inn. Moonlight had cure spells, so he healed Burrito.
It was now 90 minutes left until dark.
They tucked up the marmalading Huilam in the stables and quickly decided that they would visit the other funeral parlour "Heavenly Rest", hoping that the vampires would be secreted there. So, it was another trip back over on the ferry - everyone except Tylin and Sorrow who headed to their temporary base (the one they had abandoned two days ago when Burrito sniped the detection-stick carrier).
Argile and El Cd played the grieving couple this time. Like last time, they distracted the staff enough to allow the others (Burrito, Lammy, and Moonlight) to break in to the back. And like last time, they all ended up relying on Lammy's surefire Sleep spells to drop all undertakers and admin staff.
Downstairs in the morgue there were eight body drawers here, three of which were occupied by corpses. But none had vampire fangs. Damn!
So, they hurried back on the last ferry, and got back to their temporary base before dark.
While the five were gone, Tylin and Sorrow had been busy and had fashioned some traps at the temporary base:
- A spear trap on the roof trapdoor.
- Twin crossbows on the large front roller doors.
- A spiked barrel to swing down to the single back door.
Night fell.
_________________
The group hunkered down in the main room of the temporary base. The wizard's trunk had been shifted here. Huilam's body was left in the stables in Carl's with the pack horses.
Speaking of which, with Huilam down, they wondered if someone else would get Camilla's husky voice in his head.
An hour passed. And then Lammy heard an echoey female voice in his head. Distant at first, but it soon became clearer.
"Hello Lammy," said Carmilla. "If you put trunk out in street, and tell me where, my comrades will leave you be."
With the rest of the group egging him on, Lammy point-blankly refused, of course.
"You haf been warned..."
El Cid had a collection of 16 vampire teeth. They wondered if this would help them fight vampires. Nothing to lose, they figured. So Burrito, El Cid and Argile affixed the fangs to a few select arrows. Argile got out his gnoll bow and would use that.
An hour later Carmilla tried again in Lammy's head. But she had nothing new to say, and Lammy played dumb.
But the instant she stopped, Tylin heard an ominous leathery flapping outside. Then silence.
Moonlight was sitting on a box by the back door and his breath started to steam, and frost appeared on the door knob and on the metal hinges of the door.
Then, there was an almighty crash, and the back door flew across the single large room and smashed to splinters on the far wall. Sorrow's trap triggered and the heavy spiked barrel swung down, like a pendulum as designed, right through the open doorway ... and didn't swing back.
A exquisitely-dressed woman stood there, beautiful and cold.
Burrito and Argile, bows ready, fired. Burrito's teeth-studded arrow landed in her chest a fraction before Argile's heavy barbed gnoll arrow landed. It was fired from his gnoll bow, and hit her right in the chest, right where he guessed her black heart ought to be. It had so much power behind it, that it passed clear through her body, leaving a nice clean hole which was big enough to see through. The arrow then sailed right across the street, and sank deep into the solid wooden warehouse door there.
She hardly flinched and looked down at the hole "good shot"
Then her eyes alighted on the wizards' trunk that Argile was sitting upon. "I zee you haf been caring for our trunk. May I come in?"
Burrito hit her again with another arrow (teeth-studded), next to the gaping hole in her chest (which was rapidly reforming).
"Sure thing," said Tylin, half joking. "Do come in."
They had heard that the "vampires need an invitation" story was a myth. A myth just like garlic. Nevertheless, there was always that shadow of doubt. Moonlight was totally bedecked in garlic at this moment and she wasn't menacing him! QED.
"And who is one called Lammy?" she asked.
Argile pointed at Lammy. She looked at Lammy coldly.
"You haf been naughty boy. Scorning Emissary Carmilla. Naughty boys die."
Then Agile fired at her again with another gnoll arrow; just a solid hit this time.
The next few seconds were a blur...
[Bitd's Resistance roll is more than a D&D Death Saving throw. It is a narrative tool that sort of rewrites the story after the fact. A churlish DM could use it just like a saving throw, or a finite resource, by simply revisiting the same identical attack upon the characters until their Stress is all used up.
DM: The ogre crushes your head with his club.
Repeat {
Player: I roll Resistance. Success.
DM: You turn to the side and the club misses!
He swings again and crushes your skull.
} until
Player: I'm out of Stress.
DM: You get a Trauma. And then he kills you.
But that hardly seems fair.
So, I shall give two versions, before and after Resistance.]
The vampire lady moved with unnatural speed. Ignoring the arrow fire, she darted to Agile on the trunk, sank her hand in his chest, and ripped out his still-beating heart, to feast on it in two giant bites. Gone was any grace and poise, she was now just teeth and blood and rage.
El Cid bounded across the floor, slow motion compared to her, but managed to land a solid punch into her body with his black IMAG fists.
El Cid, lying in his own blood, had stopped screaming by now and was barely aware when she smashed his skull to pieces - with the severed arm and black fist. The last thing he heard was "Why you hitting yourself? Why you hitting yourself?"
Lammy was looking rather green around the gills as he watched this. Then she sprang over to him, a full ten paces away, without touching the floor, and speared his throat with her hand, splintering the cervical vertebrae and decapitating his head, which sailed into the air in a graceful arc. Before it had landed, she shot over to Burrito, who was fumbling with another arrow, grabbed the bow from his hands, and savagely impaled it into his butt, so hard that it came out of his mouth, with a fountain of blood and mucous, and two arrows, which had inadvertently been clasped against the bow.
Lammy's head landed and rolled across the floor
The other three, Moonlight, Tylin and Sorrow had fled out the open door. Which was probably just as well, because there was now a second vampire, a man this time, standing there.
[Argile was the only one with significant Stress points left at this stage. One of the combat manoeuvres you can do is Protect, which allows you to protect another character - which means you take their damage. Argile has the Bodyguard feat which gives a bonus when he Protects. So, he effectively saved the lives of El Cid, Lammy, Burrito and himself with four separate Resistance rolls (using Protect).
So, here is the same scene with Resistance: ]
The vampire lady moved with unnatural speed. Ignoring the arrow fire, she darted to Agile on the trunk, and raised her hand to sink it into his chest. He twisted around at the right time, and her hand glanced off his armour.
Then El Cid was there, and with a dark flash, he punched her with his black IMAG fist, the blow enough to knock her off Agile to the side wall.
She turned on El Cid, but was hit by another arrow from Burrito and a shove from Argile, and that focussed her gaze on Lammy. So, she rushed over to him to spear his throat. But lumbering Argile manages to deftly catch her ankle so that she stumbled and missed Lammy.
The other three, Moonlight, Tylin and Sorrow, had fled out the open door. Which was probably just as well, because there was now a second vampire, a man this time, standing there. He strode over to the heavy wizards' trunk, picked it up, and put it over his shoulder.
Argile yelled "We have to go, now!"
Burrito kept firing "No, I shoot them."
Argile hooked his fingers in Burrito's nostrils and hauled him bodily out the door, following El Cid and Lammy into the night.
_________________
Sorrow bravely and sneakily followed the two vampires through the streets, while rest of the group cowered at Carl's.
Unable to turn into bat form while carrying the heavy wizards' trunk, the two vampires were forced to walk.
 |
| Wizards' Trunk |
Sorrow climbed the wall and perched on top. He watched the two figures (and trunk) until they disappeared into the distance. He guessed they would meet up with those wagons where the ballista was.
Rest of night was quiet.
______________
The next morning they all sheepishly went to the Wizards' Guild to face up to Daisy Crown.
"We have good news and bad news."
"Hmm?" said Daisy
"The good news is that we are all still alive."
She didn't look very pleased "And the bad news?"
"Uh, we lost the trunk."
"But we still get paid, no?" said Burrito.
 |
| Smoking Loon |
_________________
The Smoking Loon, their shallop, arrived later that day, as predicted.
As the Budgie Smugglers had a bunch of credits with the Wizards' Guild (for past successful jobs), Daisy agreed to let them spend four of those to buy their boat back.
The fast schooner arrived and docked too. It was the Debonair.
THE END (for a while)
[I was planning on stopping here regardless of success or failure of this mission.
In case you wondered, the two vampires were "sleeping" in the Storm tomb.
We will be giving Fantasy (in the Known World) a rest for a while.
I plan to start up a horror (Cthulhu) story (last time I DMed horror was 1985!). As I don't like the CoC system, even version 7 (or Pulp CoC), I will be trying out the PbtA system ("Powered By The Apocalypse" - where do they come up with these names?). PbtA is 2010 vintage. Like BitD (Blades in the Dark, this current system), PbtA is another reflexive, broad-skilled, class-feats system, but is more widespread than BitD. It's used by Dungeon World, Apocalypse World, KULT, Legacy, et al.
]
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