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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Old One" data-source="post: 1607622" data-attributes="member: 83">Session 24 (Part One)(DM’s Note: After the last posting, several of my players contacted me to let me know I had slightly messed up the timeline on some actions.  Due to their impertinence, they have been summarily executed <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />.  That’s what happens when you try to write from memory (mostly) from sessions a year ago.  We will stick with the version of events as written…since it really doesn’t change things all that much, as you will soon see <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />!  As a result, however, certain missed elements from the last post will be inserted into this one.)Sorrow of SorrowsA bruised, battered form slowly clawed its way out of the fast moving stream.  It laid on a large, round rock for several moments, chest heaving from pain and exertion.  Faint shouts and calls wafted from upstream, but the form’s addled brain couldn’t process the auditory signals into intelligible words.  The form rolled onto it’s left side and vomited a stomach full of water onto the rock.  Eyes fluttered for a moment, fighting to stay open.The eyes noted, with dull interest, two pairs of wide, frightened eyes staring back.  The eyes belonged to two small children who huddled between two large rocks, shielded from most observation by a screen of bushes.  Comprehension spread slowly across Röse’s blood-streaked face as he recognized two of the children from the caravan.  Rolling to his knees amidst his own bile, the Brigante raised a crooked finger to his mangled lips.“Shhhh…”The children, still as fawns that have caught the scent of a hunting wolf, stared and said nothing.  Röse nodded, climb painfully to his feet and forced himself to hopscotch across the stream.  Although his wounds threatened to incapacitate him, the young barbarian successfully navigated the obstacle and began climbing the northern slope back towards the bridge and his companions.Rowan shook his head.  “I don’t like it…they are ready for us now.”Quintus barely nodded in reply.  The sorcerer mouth was compressed in a thin, dangerous line.  Outwardly calm, the elder Scipio seethed with anger and despair inside.After the opening success of their ambush, everything had fallen apart.  The enemy’s powerful Fear effects had completely thwarted the element of surprise.  The party now stood at the extreme range of Quintus’s potent fire magic, following an equally disastrous parley with the female necromancer they assumed to be the mysterious “R”.  The husky voiced woman had commanded them to move aside and retreat south to the banks of the mighty Thunder River or the children would pay.Their first refusal had led to the death of a screaming young girl of six winters, hurled to her death on the rocks below the bridge.  Miriam of Glynden, tattletale and brat, had met an inglorious end.  More threats were exchanged, with Quintus offering total annihilation of the necromancer and her band and his opponent offering unending torment for the innocent children.“I can kill more,” she had retorted, “I have some to spare.  Do you want the blood of these innocents on your hands?  If so, then come ahead.”The necromancers had wisely interspersed the children amongst the balance of their troops, making a direct magical assault all but impossible.  Quintus used his considerable diplomatic skills to stall for time while the others tried to formulate a plan.  Their confab was briefly interrupted by the noisy arrival of the nearly dead Röse.  Cragen had patched him up as best he could, but the Brigante’s body still bore numerous wounds.Cragen and Rowan had counseled caution.  Better to withdraw, they urged, to refit and resume their attack when they had the advantage.  Despite his wounds, Röse was ready to charge again, stating simply, “They have my stuff.”Of the Emorians, Bato remained silent, but the Junior Tribune, anxious to redeem himself, sided with the barbarian.  Sextus and Drusilla remained strangely non-committal, each wrestling with private demons from the last abortive rescue attempt that had cost Drusilla’s sisters their lives.(DM’s Note: That event, so long ago, has shaped much of what Sextus has done in the intervening sessions.  Terrible, secret guilt – well role-played by Sextus’s player – has been an interesting undercurrent of the PCs psyche.)Rowan spoke again, snapping Quintus from his reverie.  “What are we going to do?”Quintus glanced around at his companions.  Their eyes reflected fear, doubt, anger and resolve.  ‘Why do they always look to me?’A screech from above, where the airborne Severus wheeled, reflected his master’s discomfiture.  The sorcerer’s heart and mind ached.  ‘Nothing but sorrow lays ahead,’ he thought glumly.The elder Scipio studied the ground for a brief moment, while his friends stood by.  Silent.  Waiting.When his head came up, his face was filled with a terrible resolve.  His voice came, barely above a whisper.  “I will not consign those children to whatever hell awaits them at that bitch’s hand.”With that, he spun on his heel and began stalking towards the Emorian bridge and the undead caravan.  Behind him, Cragen started to speak…started to urge caution…or at least something resembling a plan.  He closed his mouth and shook his head as the others fell in line behind Quintus.  No one heard the dwarf’s low lament.  “Ach…it would be like talkin’ ta stone anyway!”The Living Legend hitched up his weapon’s belt and began hustling after the rest of the group, harness jingling.  The rest of the small, battered band broke into jog to close the distance with the enemy as rapidly as possible.Standing in the ruin of her bone chariot, the shorter of the two necromancers smiled a grim smile.  “Yes,” she whispered, “Come to me!”She nodded to her taller companion, who raised a large, rune-carved horn, bound with dull, gray metal, to her lips.  She inhaled deeply and paused, her hooded eyes coming to rest on the now running form of Quintus.  Something flickered behind her eyes for a brief moment and was gone.  She blew the horn.A worm of dread and fear bored deeply into every sentient mind within sounding range.  The companions shook off the effect and continued forward.Half a league away from the bridge, to the north and east, a large cairn made of stacked stones rose from the gorse brush.  The notes of the horn, carried by a preternatural wind, settled on the cairn and slowly slid through the cracks in the stone.  At first, nothing happened.  Then, the cairn stones began to shift and slide as skeletal appendages burst from the mound.Within two turns of the minute glass, just over half a cohort of the Legio III Armorica stood at attention a stone’s throw from the place they had been interred over two hundred winters before, following their battle with a rogue band of rock trolls.  Empty eye-sockets swiveled to the bony animated corpse of Junior Centurion Q. Publis Sentor.  The skeleton drew a rusty gladius and pointed to the south and west.  The unnatural military unit responded with precision and leapt forward at the double, seeking the Master of the Horn of Doom.To Be Continued…Next: Not Enough Tears~ Old One</blockquote>

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