LogTorments of the Righteous-Jason-3

Game log for the 2018/12/02 session of AW: Torments of the Righteous, as taken by Jason

The next morning, Jurgen has prepared the tiles for the Deacon. Everyone files into the chapel and awaits the result. As an occasional student of human nature, our humble scribe does not for one moment believe that this is an affair of honest chance. Still, it is handled as a solemn religious observance. This time, he draws Julia's name, and of course she bursts into tears. Rolf begins glaring at Barbarossa, who was observing in the back. After a beat, he screams, "this is your fault!" to the gunlugger. Barb, who gives absolutely zero fucks, says, "go hide yourself in a root cellar, little man." $dammerung_area_popularity--

The Dammerung, apparently doubling down on his plan to become unpopular in these environs, begins planning how he'll kill whatever demon shows up to eat Julia. Inga tries to think of something she can do about this.

As people file out, Deacon Schmitto asks Archimandrix Hike to lead the procession. She's not entirely comfortable with the notion, and doesn't answer out loud, but she gets up and starts walking. The townsfolk form their little formation and light their torches. They pass the circle of torches and go up to a rocky outcrop, a little ways away from the river, where there's a standing stone fitted with iron shackles. Schmitto sets a thumper going to let the demons know there's a sacrifice waiting, then blesses his victim and performs the littanies of sacrifice. The ritual complete, the townsfolk return to their lives. Barbarossa sets up his ambush.

The Archimandrix stays in the woods, out of site, after everyone leaves. She claims to have business elsewhere. She then snuffs her torch and opens her brain to the bright place. Off in the distance, she hears sobbing, coming from elsewhere on the river, followed by the clicky-growl sound of the demons on the prowl.

Barbarossa's first clue that the demon found him is the crack of a twig, very close by, followed by a tentacle wrapped around his neck. It throws him down and starts to drag him. Hike hears the sound of the struggle and heads that way, and she, too, gets grabbed by a tentacle. At the rock with Julia, Inga tries to figure out how to get her out of this, but with the demon between her and the village, the only plausible escape route is to run for the river and try to fight the current to get to town. She decides to hide for the moment, and finds a temporary hiding spot.

Barbarossa fires his shotgun at the demon, hoping to make it drop him. The tentacle goes slack, allowing him to get free. The tentacle quickly retracts off into the woods.

Hike lights her torch as the demon tries to crush her. The light causes it to hiss and let go, but she knows it's close. That's when she and Inga hear the sound of Barbarossa's shotgun. She can see the tentacle run for about fifteen feet and then go into the ground. She decides to sprint for the sacrifice rock. Inga tries to get her attention. Hike ignores her and starts hammering Julia's chains. Julia's thrashing causes Hike to accidentally break her wrist at the same time she breaks the chains.

Barbarossa hears hissing but can't tell where it's coming from. He gets to the rock.

Inga leaves her hidey-hole and asks Hike if she can get Julia to safety. She sas she can. Barbarossa offers to get the girl to Hegge's houe, but the Archimandrix ignores him. The big lug decides to go with her as far as the rock. All of them start running for the road, and of course, they're pursued.

Barbarossa gets separated from the other three in a bad patch of mist, and when it clears, he sees three different torches. He guesses which one is Hike's, and he guesses wrong. Now his best bet is probably to sneak back into the village. He finds himself in the river instead, which is not at all what he intended, and now he thinks he's upriver of the town. He runs into Carl as he wades back. Carl can tell that something is following his grown-up friend, so he helps him find his way back to town.

Hike realizes she's lost her Dammerung friend and carries on without. Eventually the three of them make it to the road, which is deserted, but well lit. Inga thinks she could probably follow the road back to town and be safe, while the Arhcimandrix leads Julia way the hell out of town. Julia is taking her smashed wrist as a reasonable price to pay for escaping her imminent demise.

Inga finds Friedrich at the gate. He asks why she was outside; she tearfully explains that she needed to be alone to grieve for Julia. Friedrich will let her in, but he wants her to go right to the Deacon. She wants to go home and clean up first. Friedrich asks if she was involved in the shooting. He ends up letting her in, and as soon as she comes in, something hard and heavy clouts her on the head.

Hike leads Julia back to Hoddard's rock by evening, where she finds her gang worried because she's overdue, and even more antsy because she's got a sacrifice in train. One of the Torchbearers has a roll of lace they use to bind up Julia's wrist, but Ardner doesn't really understand why rescuing sacrifices is part of their job description. He's not the only member of the gang who's a little concerned at the idea of brazenly opposing the Appeaser church.

Tendahl tries to figure out what he can do about his imminent demon infestation. He examines it as best he can, but he realizes he will need Barbarossa's help, it will be dangerous, and the best he can accomplish is a crap version. Well, crappily non-demonic is better than straight demonic.

Carl leads Barbarossa into town, trying to avoid being seen. He realizes that he could sneak in, but he can't get an adult in that way. He won't leave his buddy behind, though. Just to keep the motivated, Barbarossa can hear more than one demon out there. He thinks that these demons are tied to a weird sort of fungus he sees sprouting out there and extruding tentacles, which means they could be almost anywhere. They get back to the road, but things are getting hectic out there. It starts to rain.

Tendahl awakens from his sleep and sees Friedrich and Samson dragging Inga down the street. He asks why, they explain that she's on her way to the Deacon, and then they ask for his help with her legs. He accepts, because he wants to know what's going on, and they all take her to the Deacon.

When they get there, the chapel is still full of freaked-out perishioners, all concerned because there was a gunshot but no screaming out in the woods. Friedrich explains that Inga was outside the walls, that her story made no sense, and that she has blood on her, but no wounds. Schmitto orders her bound. Tendahl ducks out, 'cause this is not cool, nor can he stop it.

She wakes up to Schmitto sprinkling holy water on her- but before that, she opens her mind. She sees the lottery jar again, but this time, all the tiles have her name on them. She tells him that he's clearly gotten all the demons off her, so they can let her go open the bar now. Her lack of repentance really pisses the Deacon off. She tries to kick him in the crotch, and in the ensuing fracas, runs for it, taking a spear wound from Friedrich in the process. She does see Leopold slyly trip one of her pursuers, but she's still got her hands tied behind her and a mob on her tail.

She runs for Tendahl's junkyard, passing Tendahl as she does so. She promptly sets off one of his bear traps. He tries to warn people not to go in, because there are booby traps, but that just tells everyone that they've got her. The posse pours into the yard and surrounds her. Someone congratulates Tendahl on his good thinking. This is a nice town.

Barbarossa can hear the commotion in town, and he knows he's not exactly well-liked there, so he's thinking a lot about the better part of valor. Then he decides to be foolhardy instead. He gets to the gate, finds it unattended, and scrambles over. Someone sees him, though, and there's a rapid hue and cry. Friedrich comes running his way with a spear pointed at him. "Sir, you brought trouble on this town!" The Dammerung is willing to go to Schmitto's but he ain't going at spearpoint, wimpy little spears notwithstanding.

Barb reads the situation and feels that Schmitto is definitely in control of the situation. As he enters the chapel, the townsfolk get real riled up. He refuses to surrender, and the town is not in a compromising mood, so it comes to a fight. Someone throws something at him almost as soon as he walks in, someone else comes to grab him, and he opens fire. That opens up space for him to move, so while he takes a lot of bumps and bruises, including a shot to the kidneys, he forces his way right up to Deacon Schmitto and takes him hostage. Enough people have been scared away to drop the gang down to size small, too.

Tendahl runs to pack hastily, figuring he needs Barbarossa's help to survive his demon problem, and Barb is about to leave town.

Carl tries to look in the bright place. He finds himself sitting in a patch of fungus. He runs, following the palisade to his den by the river.

Barbarossa drags Schmitto toward the gate. The townsfolk back away, but people are coming with bows and crossbows. As they open the gate to let him out, Carl hears it open, and goes running back toward it. Inga follows along. Carl gets there and realizes that Barbarossa has the situation under control, for now. Inga asks for his help, but he wavers, even with Barbarossa calling out to him as well. On the other hand, the Deacon is yelling for him to aid them not, at peril of his soul. Carl hesitates and then decides to cut Inga free. He then sets about improvising a torch, since there's at least one torch out further down. They get to that bad torch, with the Deacon ranting the whole time. When they get to the bad torch, they see a ring of mushrooms all around it, even growing in the road. They skirt them, with Barbarossa pointing them out to the Deacon. They go down the road a bit and tie him to a torch pole.

Tendahl fashions a man-sized catapault, so he can just zoom himself right over the wall, undetected. He figures his best move is to slip out the gate when they go to rescue the deacon. He does so, and while Rolf sees him, he does not raise the hue and cry. Working with the party from the town gives him a safe path past the bad torch.

Hike leads the gang to Schwarzhoele and gives them some extra R&R time there, to make up for the time they were stuck waiting for her. It's a Redemptionist town, so their trouble with the Appeasers is maybe more tenable here.

Tendahl hurries his best to catch up to Tendahl, Inga, and Carl. The group gets to Hoddard's Rock, and they reckon that Hike's gang went from there to the Hoele. Inga splits off to follow Hike, while Bsrbarossa and Tendahl head for the Dammerung monastary. Carl tries to look in the bright place to see if Inga could make it without him. Signs point to no! In fact, he's not sure they could make it together. But she insists on going, and he knows that if he goes with her, her odds improve. He refuses. Barbarossa then settles it by saying that he's going to town to provision anyway, so hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to Schwarzhoele they go.

Carl spots bandits waiting for us on the trail and warns the group. They decide to work around the ambush, which means going off-road, which means that as we approach town, we have to go through the tar fields. Barbarossa leads the team through, though at one point, we hear the sound of fighting, suggesting that someone else got jumped by the bandits. They all arrive late that evening, and post up at the tavern nearest the east gate, which is right where Hike is.

Barbarossa unpacks his kit and treats himself and Inga. He gets her stabilized. Inga and Tendahl have barter for lodging, but Barb doesn't, and Tendahl has to cover him.

Inga starts looking for work. This in we're in is called Der Flammenkamber, and the proprietress, Uli, takes her on as temp help.

Tendahl also needs a gig. The west gate porcullis has lost a couple teeth from its drive gear, and he can fix that. It's a wooden cog wheel with iron strap, and he's able to replace it. He uses Things Speak on it, and finds that it's an old gate, with a maker mark of crossed hammer and sword, the mark of Solingen the smith, long deceased. He also finds that it's been sabotaged. The sort of failure it suffered is not a natural one. For it to break the way it did, someone must have popped the rivets off. It's so dirty that it's impossible to prove that it's broken. Dahlgren takes him to meet Captain Schmitto in the schloss.

The schloss is functional, unornamented stone, and the Captain's room is tiny. Tendahl tries to explain how the sabotage might have been done, and gets so wrapped up in it that the Captain gets all nervous about it. Schmitto dismisses Dahlgren, and they take the Savvyhead to a cell where he can wait for Artzt, though they don't him that Artzt is the torturer. Obviously they relieve him of his tools.

Barbarossa goes looking for Tendahl at the gate. The guard takes him to Dahlgren. Dahlgren explains that Tendahl met with Schmitto. When asked about Tendahl, Schmitto denies all knowledge of such a man, but the repaired gear is still on the table. Hint, hint!

Archimandrix Hike and her crew are drinking tar ale and playing card games. Things seem to be fairly normal until suddenly Ardner stabs someone and yells "cheaters never prosper!" Now it's on. She keeps it to bare hands, but she's still a trainer fighter in armor, and he's a cheap drunk. She's won that round, but the fight spirals out of control from there.

Inga decides to go hide in the kitchen. It's not her first rodeo. Also, Helmut has taken some crockery to the head, the other Torchbearers are rallying him, and Jens has thrown a dude into the fireplace. Hike realizes that at this point, her worst enemy is her own gang, and their woeful penchant for disorderly violence. She yanks Ardner off the guy he's still stabbing, throwing him bodily into Jens, and warns them that she's 'bout ready to hurt people. Which is when Barbarossa walks in. He declines involvement. Once Hike has ended the fight with her pack alpha mojo, he rescues the guy Hike kicked from imminent death by plucking out his fractured xyphoid process.