Session 27 (Part One)
Hey Gang!
After an inexcusable hiatus, I am back with not one, but two (short) updates! Thanks for everyone's patience and hope you enjoy!
The Green, Green Fog of Home - Prelude
Rowan cursed under his breath and slammed his fist into the steep side of the arroyo. Disaster. Followed by denied expectations. Followed by yet another disaster. His tired brain wove the experiences of the last several moons into a quilted tapestry of disappointment and frustration. Like an agitated hummingbird, his thoughts cataloged scene after scene of death and sorrow, flitting to and fro.
The corruption of the catacombs and undead Sack of Glynden…the theft of the innocents…the pursuit north with the pitched battle in the ruins of Bremerton and the disastrous Battle of the Bridge…the awful smell of burned child-flesh…the hellish confrontation in the cursed Hall of Flayed Skin. And now…after all of their trials…the latest indignation in a long, sordid line of indignations.
Sextus has shared Abigail’s warning with them…to leave…to stay away, along with the cryptic warning of ‘A year and a day’. Had they listened? Of course not!
After retreating just outside the accursed underground lair, they had reconstituted their strength and, urged on by Rowan’s own righteous indignation, plunged once more into the vile stronghold to find…
Nothing.
All evidence of their last visit had vanished. No remains – living or undead – remained. Cragen speculated that the stitched skin floor absorbed that which remained motionless for long and a quick experiment proved his guess true. They had pressed on, determined to rescue the balance of the children and win free…undead guardians and necromancers be damned. They should have heeded Abigail’s warnings.
A mocking note, attached by a severed finger-bone to a door deep within the complex chided their persistence. Removal of the note triggered a fiendish trap and the walls and ceiling began to “weep” the viscous green liquid. Their headlong flight, dodging rivulets, streams and then torrents of the deadly flow might have been an escape worthy of a legendary song, but the only member of the band capable of penning such a ballad - the diminutive Sextus Scipio - lay pale and cold…a finger’s breadth from death.
Cragen and Rosë, equally burned by the fiendish trap, slumped in their makeshift camp, snoring uneasily. Somewhere during their retreat, Garrick’s revenant had disappeared, either swallowed by the ground or diverted by its own agenda. Rowan, by luck or happenstance, had dodged the worst of it…coming away with but a dozen superficial burns. The thin layer of new skin provided by a minor bit of Moradin’s blessing, channeled through Cragen, tore and began to weep anew as the ranger turned and pounded his scarred fist into the dirt in helpless frustration.
“Why”, he whispered, voice husky with anger, “does the Light allow such foul things to happen? Corelian – I have asked for naught but your guiding hand – do you abandon me now?”
His pleas, carried by a soft westerly breeze that danced through the arroyo, floated off on wings of air.
To Be Continued…
Next: The Green, Green Fog of Home – Interlude
~ OO
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