The Troubled Road Home

My apologies for falling behind on the site
I’ve been very busy with work… but now that the
campaign has finished up and I’m finished with
English club.. I’ll be leading the lazy life of a
player rather than a GM… which means this site
will have the final 3 chapters updated… as I slowly
but surely pore over my notes and the player
write ups.

Once more, sorry for falling behind

Woken by beastman blood is not the way I, or any sane person, prefers to wake up yet that is exactly what happened. I was right in the middle of an amazing dream in which a hot Halfling chick had just straddled me when something hot and wet was sprayed over me. I woke up to find a monstrous beast looming over me with a spear through his chest and a recruit bravely fighting it. I screamed but no one seemed to notice. Durak slaughtered it and set me to rousing the troops. Somehow we couldn’t hear anything, there was no noise at all.
After waking Ada and the rest of the troops I ran to Kultzman’s room where he had dueled his bodyguard Leo to the death. Despite being dead Leo’s eyes were very much alive and wild in his head so, without thinking, I struck it from his shoulders. Lady Walder hadn’t escape the assault and her poor maid Helga had been torn apart while the other maid and Walder were mutated. I admit that I ran before I really checked if they were alright but there was no way I wanted to stand around in case whatever messed with them also messed with me.
Racing back on deck I let Kultzman know his bride to be was mutant freak. He took it surprisingly well and seems determined to marry the woman regardless. From there I ran about trying to restore order in the chaos. There were so many wounded and Kultzman had slipped into an almost catatonic state so he was in no way able to lead.
After a swift body count we realized that we were down two people. Zimmerman and the whore bitch Maglyn were missing. Durak had his troops search the ship where they found the lovers intertwined in a crate. Some dark magic had been used on them to lock them into a state of ecstasy and even the slightest touch seemed to stimulate. While it was an amusing enough situation there was a dark undertone and potential danger that they may not snap out of it. We didn’t have any way to help them so we just left them there.
Kultzman still hadn’t taken command of the situation and I deemed it necessary to ‘assist’ his recovery with a swift slap to his face. That seemed to do it! The mutant Walder bitch threatened to have me executed if I did anything like that again so I threatened to spill her snakesblood entrails over the deck if she threatened me ever again. I am growing strangely arrogant in my new position.
Between Kultzman and I we managed to rouse troop moral with several stirring speeches, I daresay mine was better but I didn’t mention that to Kultzman. From here on I want to be the one striking at our enemies in the dark. It was high time to take the fight to them and Durak seemed to agree. While our numbers were smaller and we lacked sorcery we did have the explosive blackpowder and resolved to use that in our raid.
Arriving at a small rivertown we were met by my brother! It was wonderful to see him again and I was shocked to find him in such a random place. He had great news of our family and it seems everyone is still working and surviving the roads. He was a bit surprised to see me in such a high position but I reassured him I was still a Rattlescratch under the finery. I was worried for his safety onboard as we are frequently attacked but he was fine and we left him running messages downstream in the Walder’s capitol.
The letter my brother had brought was an offer of alliance against some unnamed dark powers. Kultzman rejected his brother’s offer and resolved to continue fighting him. While in the town I recruited some new soldiers and some handmaidens for Lady Walder. The handmaidens were a family who needed their house sold, not my usual line of work but then I guess neither is battling demons and mutants! With the house sold it was time to turn our attention to the recruits. Several of them were turncoats and claimed to have left the other Kultzman’s service, citing experiences of dark chaotic powers. They wanted to join up and while I was dubious Kultzman knew their leader to be an honorable man and accepted them.
With the information gained from Dirk Fellanfeld and his men on the troops and barges of our enemy we planned the raid. It was to be a lightning fast strike against two of the barges involving skins filled with blackpowder, fire arrows, a rowboat and some, hopefully, persuasive speaking from Fellanfeld to recruit more men. The rest of us in the barge were to simply plough between two of the barges and make our escape.
Before we could strike at our enemies Herpen led the trainees in an escape of his own. He had knocked a hole in our barge and taken a rowboat. My spy Veit had been seen and stuffed into a crate so as not to warn me. Initially we wanted to hunt them down but decided to let them go as our goals were more important.
Ada had me play matchmaker between her and Heath, a new recruit who had been chosen to attach the blackpowder to the ships. All was going really well until he was shot down during the raid and sadly died. Ada has been distant again since.
The assault was an amazing success! Watching unfold from afar was also much better than taking part in it myself. The Quintus barge and a troop barge were both badly damaged by the blackpowder and, aside from Heath, we didn’t lose anyone. Fellanfeld was good to his word and between his speeches and mine we recruited something like fifty soldiers to our cause as we raced between the stricken ships. There were even reports that Lenora had been killed during the combats which cheered me up no end.
We were almost to safety when river trolls ripped our barge out from under us. However, with our new forces, it was an easy thing to destroy them and I, for one, love traveling with such a strong force.
From here things were a blur of events. Kultzman was married, Zimmerman and Maglyn disappeared but I suspect Durak helped them out, we left non-essential staff behind and once re-supplied we struck deep into Kultzman’s home province. I made a case to be left behind as my fighting skills are well known to be almost non-existent but Kultzman demanded I come along as my abilities at garnering support from even the most unlikely of people is fast becoming legendary. I had little choice but to agree.
When we arrived at Kultzman’s capitol we were met by an armed refugee encampment outside the city walls. A man named Adolf claimed to be leading them to the safety of the forest and a city therein. Given that I later found out the name of that forest to be the Forest of Ghouls, bloody Durak, I have to question the sanity of that. He seemed hospitable enough and was a decent source of information on the town and what we faced.
It seemed that monsters, plague and chaos had invaded the city with magic affecting the gates and anarchy reigning in most places. A group of ‘faithful’ had clustered around the temples and were holding strong there. Kultzman’s brother had beaten us to the town but it seemed his men had all been slaughtered by some beast from the forest and his own barge sunk, likely by more trolls.
Durak scouted the edges of the town and while exploring the graveyard Josie was cut by something I don’t even want to think about and almost immediately showed symptoms of the plague. This sickness is clearly not natural. Our healer priest was reluctant to enter the town, citing that the people within had abandoned hope and given into the darkness. Made me wonder why we were going in.
Kultzman led the troops into the west wing of his family’s manor. They seemed to have an easy time getting in and everything was strangely clean, neat and tidy inside. Durak and I took Dragon and Lion squads to scout inside the town. People were strangely resistant to my charms. I tried logic, pleading, cajoling, threatening, imploring and befriending but they wouldn’t come out. Dragon squad shot a crazed man dressed as a beastman but he was the only one who would leave his home to greet us.
At the edge of the shanty town we were met by the people within but they were too scared to come out. Despite my best rhetoric we couldn’t shift them. That’s when we noticed some people who were clearly the shepherds controlling the people with fear. I stopped dealing with the mob and focused on one of these controllers. He reacted badly and threw a knife soaked in some foul effluent at me. Dragon squad again proved their skills and blasted him down before he could strike again. With this man dead around forty people left their homes and ran to join us. Incensed that these people were being kept from their freedom I raged and railed at the remaining controllers. I will see those people freed and everyone one of those bastards burnt for their deeds.
With our newly freed townsfolk in tow we returned to Adolf’s encampment but were stopped by a guard. Still flushed with adrenaline and running on anger I brushed right past him and roared for Adolf to come out. It was a tense moment but he relented and the un-afflicted townsfolk were allowed entry. Felix had set up an infirmary for the afflicted so we left them with him and returned to the Kultzman manor.
I barricaded myself inside my room and prayed that I would survive the night. I did but many didn’t. Even Durak is now a plague victim and many of our men were killed. They battled pustulent corpses animated by foul magic and the guards outside were slaughtered by some invisible force that threw them bodily against the ground hard enough to kill them instantly. I am so glad nothing came into my room.
The next day amid the carnage I convinced Kultzman that sitting in his room waiting for his men to be slaughtered night after night is an insane plan. We need to cleanse this town by fire and sword. I know I am a coward but it is the coward within me that demands action. The safest path this time is actually fighting. Every day of inaction on our part allows our enemy to grow stronger while we grow weaker. We must fight.