LogTorments of the Righteous-Jason-15

Game log for the 2019/04/28 session of AW: Torments of the Righteous, as taken by Jason

We pick up with Carl, tied to a mast and nailed to a deck. Eventually some Guardsmen come to see what the commotion is about. The ship's crew give them the whole story about Carl stealing the deck boy's shape, thus to sneak aboard and kill them all. The Guardsmen rule that this is indeed an ecclesiastical matter, and they go fetch an Ecclesiarch, who looks like most other Church officials, but he's got a Dammerung holy symbol on. This doesn't bode well for Carl!

This new and menacing figure puts spiked manacles on Carl. He's small enough that they aren't digging into his flesh, but he can't pull hard against them without getting poked. Someone pulls the nail out of his foot, and then they begin leading Carl into town. Once he's off the ship, he starts pleading his case. The Ecclesiarch does not seem real sympathetic. Carl asks why the Dammerung is in the city and drops Barbarossa's name. That doesn't earn him any points. They assure him that by the time this is over, he'll have told his story.

Archimandrix Hike goes to speak to Archbishhop Kreuzmann about provisions for the march to Nachtburg. He tells her that he intends to bring overwhelming force to bear against Nachtburg. As they talk, he leads her down some stairs into a section of the cathedral she's never seen before. There are bones everywhere. She didn't know there were catacombs under this building. The Archbishop then explains that they have a rare opportunity. Something unusual has happened in the Capitol, and they may learn something, perhaps even something relating to what happened in Nachtburg. He leads her through a guarded door to find... Carl, strapped to a table, accompanied by a couple priests, one of them openly wearing a Dammerung symbol, who are pulling out various tools of their "trade".

Hike asks how the Dammerung are allowed here, and he explains that some Dammerung are focused not on killing demons, but on defeating the lesser evils that prey upon humans.

Anyway, the inquisitors explain Carl's misdeeds to the Archimandrix. Then they show her a new toy, a rod with a coiled end made of a shimmering metal. He touches it to Carl, and he begins to sizzle. The rod, they explain, burns things that aren't human. She asks if they've smelled a demon on Carl, and relates that in Hollewald, God told her how to smell the demon in the Bishop. They invite her to smell Carl, and she doesn't smell demon on him. Kreuzmann is delighted! If Carl isn't a demon, they can hurt him without offending God by interfering with the messengers of his divine punishment.

They begin interrogating Carl about his life in Hollewald, which includes a lot of details that Hike can confirm. Hike volunteers that Carl also travelled with her team to Nachtburg, and Carl talks about how he knew Barbarossa on the road, but let Nachtburg because the big Dammerung man got too weird. Kreuzmann asks whether Carl's presence and Barbarossa's madness are related, and while Hike denies it, he doesn't seem willing to let go of the idea. Hike tells them all that she feels like something more is coming, that they're going to hear from God too. Kreuzmann then tells the Dammerung inquisitors to ask their questions but to keep the boy/doppleganger in a "reasonable state", so that when the bring Barbarossa back to stand trial, they can fully investigate the connection between them. Then the Archbishop goes back to talking about logistics, and he leaves the room with Hike.

Hike warns Tendahl of what's coming, and they agree to watch each other's backs on the road. Neither one of them can see how anything good is going to come of this.

Inga's on trial. Einar is there, and so are several of Uli's creditors. Lord Eisenbach comes in and brings the court to order, then starts hearing cases. Most of them are routine village nonsense, so when Inga's assault case starts, it's got everyone's attention. When they ask for Uli's testimony, she gets into a rant, and the Lord has to cut her off. She pleads self-defense. When they ask for Inga's plea, Einer speaks for her, and pleads self-defense on her behalf. The pattern continues - whenever Uli talks, she's trying to start something, whereas Einar does most of the talking for Inga. Lord Eisenbach ends by requiring Uli to pay Inga for damages, which immediately causes a commotion, because Uli is already in debt all over town, and nobody's happy that there's another claimant in the mix. Einar suggests that Inga should speak up and propose a solution. She suggests to him, and he suggests to the Lord, that Inga could take over the facility, including debts against it, as compensation for the injuries done here. At first, the peanut gallery does not like this plan. Then Einar produces a flask of Inga's absinthe, which she pours for the judge, as a way to demonstrate her ability to successfully run an inn. He finds it quite acceptable and decides that she could make a go of it, but the creditors will need to be satisfied. With the Lord's positive review of her wares, she has no trouble convincing the rest of the town to let her have a go at it. The rule is, if Inga can make a profit on Der Flammenkamber for three months, and pay down the debt to a set value, she gets to keep running it indefinitely. If not, Uli gets it back. One creditor in particular, Jung, makes it known to her that he's no delighted with this deal and will take any opportunity he can to recoup expenses.

Over in Nachtburg, Barbarossa notices that there's a lot less manpower than there should be. Klaus Mechner tells him that a lot of people are out sick with the seasonal crud. He goes around the town making people snap to it. Lord Barbarossa orders a call-out to make sure all the able-bodied men are at work, and it turns out that a lot of the man allegedly home sick aren't even home. Barbarossa begins to realize that he's lost control of this town. They've all gone somewhere, which implies that they're congregating against him. One of his faithful minions tells him that there are voices coming from inside the mill. Barbarossa has most of his men stay outside, and enters the mill with just a small honor guard. He quickly realizes that they're having a lottery, and one of the wives of one of the men present lost. They have her trussed up already. These assholes move fast. He gives them "not angry, just disappointed," and asks them why they're doing this. They're still Appeasers, and just don't buy into his demon-slayer mystique. His attempt to inspire them falls flat. He realizes that and tries to settle for freeing their victim, but fails, as they grab their victim and rush her out the back. Barbarossa declares that he's going to find the woman and bring her back.

He rides out to the sacrificial stone and finds three men there, who have already chained the woman to a rock. He tells them to cut her down. They refuse. He asks again, and her husband steps in front of her. The woman says she'll die first. He compliments her on her bravery and tells her that this isn't a sacrifice, being married to that idiot is a sacrifice, and then he kills her husband. The other two men run for it. Unfortunately, one of them has the key to her manacles. He breaks the manacles with pistol fire and frees the sacrifice, who spits in his face. He tries to convince her to join up with him. She sushes him and tells him that he's going to get his wish sooner than he thinks. He listens and realizes the demon is coming. On the plus side, she promises to pray for his soul until the moment the demon takes her.

Barbarossa drags the husband to the rock and props him up, as if he was the sacrifice. He hears a snap and senses something coming fast in the darkness, shoots at it, and gets hit by it. This demon seems to have ranged attacks. He tries to flank it, hears the snap again, and drops. Now he's close enough to sort of see it, and it looks like a cobra with a thousand little legs, moving incredibly fast, working the perimeter of the clearing he's in.

He charges it, broken-field style. He manages to get close to it, it turns and rears, and he stabs at it. The thing's flesh seems to part around the sword and close behind it, and then it tries to stomp him. He rolls clear and fires a pistol at it. That seems to hurt a little more, since the bullets are too fast for the flesh to part around them in a controlled way. Now the demon is angry!

Barbarossa decides that pistols seem to be working better and drops his sword in favor of dual wielding. Yeah, it hates that, but while he's been pulling pistols, it got its tail behind him and wrapped it around his legs. Now he's trapped, and then it wraps him up enough to lift him off the ground, with his gun hand trapped. He's a Dammerung. This is his comfort zone. The big wrapped around his arm is relatively thin, so he starts using his broadsword to saw through it. It tries to shapeshift around the injury again, but he can cut faster than it can compensate. When he cuts that chunk off, it drops to the ground and turns to black mist.

The demon responds to its injury by thrashing, which sends Barbarossa flying. He comes to his feet and hears the woman screaming. He charges again, focused on slicing more bits off that vile beast. His sword cuts deep, and on the backswing, he forces it to drop the woman so it can't eat her right away. He opens fire with his pistols again, trying to distract it and/or drive it off the woman. She doesn't have the sense to run, she just screams for God.

He hears the snapping noise again and ducks just in time to avoid getting struck by... whatever. He tears into it again but not fast enough, and gets slammed again. He's in a bad way now. This demon seems to be more than he can handle one on one. He grabs the girl, spots a place where its coils are off the ground, ducks under it, and runs for it. The thing tries to follow but it doesn't manage to catch them before they get to the torches. One of the villagers opens the door in the half-build palisade, and they go inside. Barbarossa orders Klaus to be ready in case it comes closer.

The demon loops around, to the side of the building without a palisade, and starts firing its projectiles into the village. Lord Barbarossa orders his gang to defend the village from the demon. They get everyone safe, but the demon keeps circling the village for three or four hours before it goes away. Barbarosa goes looking for Sonja in hopes of getting some medical treatment. That does of course lead to questions about why the Lord wants the miller's daughter at a time like this.

Some of the villagers promptly argue that since the illicit lottery took place in the mill, she must also have been part of it. He dismisses those allegations and tells everyone to leave. He then tells her to be careful, because the situation may turn against her. He also asks for healing, because the final battle may be near. She's happy to do what she did before. Soon after, Klaus comes down with a wasting sickness.

Back in the Capitol, Carl totally loses it under torture, babbling all sorts of nonsense in a desperate attempt to get them to stop hurting him. Eventually they give up on him and leave him alone for a little while. He tries to slip the manacles and works his hands free, but he can't get his feet out. He vanishes and re-emerges in Tendahl's work area.

Tendahl's busy packing, but he stops and goes to give Carl a hug. Carl, of course, would like his ankle manacles off, so Tendahl starts working on that. When Hike comes to see why Tendahl isn't packed, she opens the door, sees what's going on, and closes it again. The caravan leaves without them, because of this manacle-induced delay, but Carl leads the cart-goats and thus helps Tendahl catch up.

Lt Sir Mads is one of the Kingsguard in the procession, and he does some talking with Hike along the way. It's good to have friends.

Inga gets Der Flammenkamber organized the way she wants it. Danziger shows her a series of hidden tunnels in the basement that go to various hiding places and tunnels, one of which would get her out of town. He also tells her that the far ends of the tunnels are mostly locked, and Uli has the keys.

The procession arrives in Schwartzhoele, and the Torchbearers promptly go to Der Flammenkamber. How happy is Hike to see that Inga runs the place now? Sooooo happy! She's so overcome with emotion that she shakes her head and walks away. Inga is at least pleased to see Tendahl and Carl. She leads Tendahl downstairs and tells him about her lock problem. He checks out the locks and finds they were made by the smith he worked with before. The lock is old and riveted shut, and he could probably chisel it open and then pop the lock. He gets Inga to help him muffle the noise of chiseling at the lock on the tunnel gate to High Street, pops the lock with a couple of hits, and then runs for it. She wants him to do the rest of the tunnels, but he's not interested in being gone that long. She feeds him in thanks, which triggers her Special Move. Tendahl realizes that she's paranoid, overly defensive, and can't be fixed, but feeling more secure might help. She's like this because her father died in the lottery when she was young, for which she blames Deacon Schmitto. He also comes to understand her fistfight with Uli.

Hike and Tendahl leave to go visit one of the local experts in tar, leaving Hermann in charge of the Torchbearers. They boil the tar under pressure to refine it into what passes for lamp oil in these parts, and Tendahl needs to understand that process to build a good flammenwerfer test chamber, and also maybe to learn something about refining. Tendahl sort of bluffs his way into a meeting with Master Klement. Klement is blind but he's still making a drawing when they walk in. He's willing to give them a tour. Tendahl keeps an eye out for any problems in the works, and finds a spot where a puddle shows that a tank is leaking out the backside, forming a wick. Tendahl tries to use his clever ability to notice these things to impress Klement, but he comes off as just another know-it-all asshole wasting his time.

Back at the bar, the Archimandrix has left her Torchbearers alone, under Hermann's command. She decides to leave the kitchen and do bar stuff, and if any of them came up to the bar and she served them, then that would just be a random occurrence. Gerhardt visits the bar but gets away before she can serve him, so she decides to serve the whole table shooters of absinthe. Hermann, Jens, and Fritz fall in love with her. Fritz actually follows her into the kitchen and starts hitting on her, poorly but vigorously. She shuts him down and leads him out of the kitchen.

Hike returns to see Inga leading Fritz out of the kitchen whule Hermann and Jens argue over which of them Inga likes better. She gives them both the evil eye and starts to lay some law out for them, as Fritz grabs Inga and turns her around to go back into the kitchen. Hike assures Hermann and Jens that Inga doesn't exist. She isn't in their world. They receive her frequency.

Fritz wants to hide in the kitchen so Hike won't murder him. Inga tries to tell him that it will be fine. He does not believe. Inga offers him use of the back door, and he gratefully accepts, although he also suggests that they use the rain barrel by the back door as sex furniture.