Session 7 – Copious Amounts of Blood

We venture further into the hallways, and find a fountain adorned with skulls with blood pouring out of their mouths. There are dead ends that we check for secret doorways, deem that they are just there to support the blood god’s twisted aesthetic, and as we approach the fountain, the skulls atop it start to rotate and their jaws click.

As Rugnar approaches the well to attempt to smash one of the skulls, copious amounts of blood start to flow out of the fountain, splattering the entire room with blood. Amendel and Rugnar attempt to crack the fountain’s skulls, as the rest of us scramble out of the way. Barholomaeus peeks in to take a shot at the skulls with an arrow, but ends up going insane after catching a face full of blood. Meanwhile, Rugnar, resigned to being covered in blood, searches the room, and finds a skull-shaped button similar to what was used to gain entry into these accursed hallways.

Through the hallway, there is another room with a throne in it, and two skeletons climb out of the pile by the throne — we open fire. Rugnar and Lily are a bit too frightened to fight, but the rest of the group, who are not total wussies, stay and shoot the skeletons with some arrows, dispatching them without too much trouble. By the time Lily, Rugnar, and Barholomaeus regain their wits, the skeletons have all been killed. Barholomaeus waits outside the room of blood, however. As soon as the skeletons have been dispatched, we hear grinding noises from both sides as the doors open. The room to the left is heaped with broken weapons, dented shields, and tattered standards — including a standard from Middenheim. The group searches the debris; Amendel finds a helmet with an ornimental beast man head atop of it. Rugnar finds a runed toolhammer which he determines to bear the name of one of the Dwarven kings of the Black Mountains – an heirloom of a king.

Following to the other side, we see another rectangular room, with more blood and a sarcophagus rising from the middle of the pool, made of plain polished black stone. The walls bear carvings of bloody carnage battles glorifying a single warrior champion — including a carving of a defeated warrior wearing a helmet quite similar to the one we found in the other room. We start to pitch the stuff from the other room into the pool to make a footbridge across the pool of blood, and try to crack open the tomb, to raid it. Rugnar and Amendel slide the heavy top open and it splashes into the pool of blood.

Enclosed is a horned guy in giant evil armor, with runes carved in his teeth, in chain mail bearing the symbol of Korn, a greatsword, and holding in his clutches the brass skull that matches the blind man’s visions. We decide to take the skull out of this place so evil stuff won’t happen. The skull is considerably heavier than something made of brass ought to be. Amendel throws the skull in a sack on his back. Then we chuck the sword in the blood to get rid of it. Then we bolt.

The moment we step out of the wretched halls of anger, we feel much less angry. We chart a considerably more direct route back to Middenheim, and though it is getting dark we decide to trek on straight through the night rather than set up camp, and make it to the town of Pritztach mid-morning the following day. There is a coaching inn here that feels just a little too quiet — and we notice that the windows are boarded up. As we approach the door, a hatch opens on the door and a shot fires at the ground in front of us. They demand we identify ourselves, we introduce ourselves as on a mission for the church of Ulrich, the mumble a bit to themselves about us not looking like beastmen, and ask one of us to come forward. Thorgrim does, and Brother Reinhart does some talking for us, vouching for us, and Barholomaeus adds that the church will pay the innkeepers hansomely for a night’s stay. The shutter slams, they chatter amongst themselves, and the door pops open a creak with a blunderbuss trained on the party. We shuffle in quickly, and the innkeeper locks the door swiftly behind us. Indoors, we see the entire population of the town.

The innkeeper, Hans, tells us that the beast men fled west from Middenheim and many smaller towns have been razed to the ground. He asks what we were doing in the woods, and we tell him only that we were on a retrieval mission for the Church. Rugnar gets a bath to clean the blood off himself, which is more expensive due to the inflation of death. We spend the night in the common room, taking shifts to watch our stuff. Although we notice nothing suspicious over the night, when morning comes, we find the skull outside of Amendel’s backpack. Looking at the skull, we swear it moved, and that the shadow just doesn’t look quite proper. After hearing a sloshing inside, we decide we need to get the skull away from the townsfolk before the skull consumes them or douses them in blood or something. Our hasty departure confuses the townsfolk. Pressing on, on the brink of exhaustion, we come across a smaller, deserted town, secure the skull in a box, and take shifts for a brief overnight rest. Mal-ren hears chanting from the box.

Amendel goes blank, staring off into nothing, and has a vivid dream where he is standing on a twisted, impossible landscape. In front of him is an indistinct figure, bleeding from several wounds and writhing and pain — and it sounds like this figure, from miles away, cries “help me.” After running after the figure, for hours, he never comes any closer. Finally he comes to a nasty black fortress, to a dark and depressing crypt. At the center of the crypt is a large sarcophagus, hurling himself against the lid as he knows his spirit must be unjustly trapped in this sarcophagus.

Mal-ren, Rugnar, and Thorgrim see him at this point lunge for the box. The three of them grab a hold of him, wrestling him to the floor. Lily and Barholomaeus are woken by the scuffle. Amendel regains lucidity and has no memory of anything that happened.