LogTorments of the Righteous-Jason-28

Game log for the 2019/11/10 session of AW: Torments of the Righteous, as taken by Jason

To the surprise of most of the travelling group, Inga's crew take the fork to Schwarzhoele. The rest of us are trying to find a path through the tar swamp. This place smells notably bad. Since it got chilly lately, a mist covers the area. We can alreeady tell that Duchess Chloe's sedan chair isn't going to survive the rigors of the swamp. Egon tries to make that case, and after a conversation about the threat to her hosiery posed by these circumstances, she tells Egon not to be ridiculous.

Meanwhile, the Archimandrix tries to figure out the threat axis. She catches a whiff of brimstone on the air and knows that demons are a real possibility, but the real problem is going to be getting the Duchess through this without compromising everyone's safety. She asks Archimandrite Tamiloff what experience he has with the Duchess, but unfortunately, he has nothing to contribute. So far, the bearers are somehow managing to keep the sedan chair moving, but it's definitely slowing the party down. Hike decides that the priority is the speed of the column, rather than worrying about the tail of the column, and finds a route that works for the Torchbearers and the more mobile followers, but Egon, the Duchess, and her bearers fall behind.

Egon tries to stay on the trail, but he's not an outdoorsman, and the Duchess just keeps yammering. He tries to motivate the bearers by getting farther and farther ahead and challenging them to catch up, but then there's a sound like wet silk tearing, followed by screaming, and the right rear sedan bearer gets ripped away, instantly. Screaming starts. Egon yells "run for your lives!"

The Champion asks his Archimandrix' permission to investigate, but she doesn't pay him for that. He realizes that she'd respect him more for going anyway than for trying some fast talk on her, so he bows, says, "As you command, Archimandrix," and runs back to see what he can do to save people from demons.

Egon spies a hummock of solid ground and runs toward it. It stands up. Aaiieeee! It's a monster of muck, with a branch sticking out of it like a parody of a horn, and he turns and runs the other direction immediately, possibly trailing piss. He manages to turn and run, but as he does so, he stumbles and puts his torch out.

Champion comes barreling in, catches the monster full in the side with his Damerrung greatsword, and cuts all the way through it. There's a veritable explosion of muck. Egon gets covered in foulness, in his mouth, everywhere, and he can feel it moving. The demon turns around and tries to land a haymaker on the Champion. Champion tries to parry as Egon tries to swat it in the leg with its staff. Champions's parry fails, and the demon just grabs him and tosses him aside. Champion goes ass-over-teakettle into the swamp. His boot catches Egon in the head and knocks him right out.

Champion collects himself and charges the demon. He notices that Egon's face down in the mud, but decides he can't spare the time to turn the poor guy over. He sees the demon packing its wound with fresh muck. His renewed assault takes off the creature's head, which staggers it, but doesn't kill it. In its throes, it steps on Egon and pushes him deeper into the water. Then it replaces its head. It stops, twitches, and extrudes an arm that grabs the Champion by the chest and lifts, and then it starts to squeeze. The Champion reverses his sword and cuts the arm off, and suddenly, the arm is just muck. The demon staggers back and starts circling him. The Champion pivots and realizes that they're both working around Egon. It stops briefly, and Champion just barely notices a line of ripples heading toward Egon - it's gone underground, as it were. Champion leaps and stabs down into the earth, where the thing is tunneling, and feels his blade bite into the monster. There's a sudden hiss and the monster retreats, and that gives him time to turn Egon over and pull his head free. Is it a standoff? It won't last. The Champion picks Egon up and gives him a squeeze, to try to get him breathing again, and starts working his way toward the sedan chair. The monster doesn't want to come to grips, but it won't leave, either.

Champion calls out and finds that three of the Duchess' party live. One of the bearers slaps Egon awake, and he promptly rips a torch off the sedan chair, then tries to light the chair on fire. That gets the Duchess right out of there, and Egon drags her after Champion, with the bearers in tow. Having looted the chair, everyone has a torch. Meanwhile, Champion tries to look in the bright place for inspiration, goes blank, and then murders one of the sedan chair bearers. Egon sees that Champion's eyes are glowing. Egon tries to hand Champion the torch, and Champion hisses and backs away from it. Egon tells him to get them out of there, but Champion doesn't respond like a human being. Egon keeps trying to appeal to the Damerrung's sense of mission, but meanwhile, the other sedan chair bearer is trying to push Champion back with his torch. Meanwhile, they can hear the other demon, moving around in the muck. The only good news is that Egon can just barely see the Torchbearers' lights, so he knows where to go. He also realizes that his best way out is to wound the remaining bearer and leave him for the demons.

Egon hands his knife to the Duchess, grabs her knife, and tries to cut the other bearer. He catches the guy on the back of the knee, sending blood flying and dropping the man to his knees. "Oh, the betrayal!" Egon then goes running after the Torchbearers.

In the Torchbearer party, nobody has any problem with Hike's leadership style. Things are going kind of OK until Magnus alerts her to a threat from behind. She moves to the back and sees Egon, carrying the Duchess, running toward them, chased by something. Egon calls out, "it's behind me!" Hike prepares for battle. Egon runs right past, to the head of the column.

Hike delivers a perfectly timed blow, which goes through to some hard body in the core of it, and which stops the thing in its tracks. There's a loud crack and it stops dead in its tracks. It punches Hike, but not hard enough to hurt her through the armor. The only problem is that the Archimandrix can't get her hammer out. Ruh roh! Hike orders her gang into the fray, and quickly, a ring of Torchbearers start flanking the demon. She rips her hammer free, and the onslaught of so many Torchbearers drive the demon away. Even muck demons eventually decide that this isn't fun anymore. It doesn't flee, it just suddenly stops being a muck demon and turns into muck again.

Champion finds himself standing near the sedan chair, looking at the guy who got hamstrung. The bearer is begging for his life. Something serpentine grabs him and yanks him into the swamp. That jars Champion's human side to the fore, and he quickly looks around and assesses his best escape route. He hacks himself an improvised torch and tries to let his demonic half pass him past the demons without being noticed. Unfortunately, his control of his demon half is very poor right now.

Magnus once again warns the Archimandrix that something is closing from behind. It's a little clanky, maybe a little squelchy, and it looks like Champion, dragging a bigass sword, with his eyes glowing. When he sees Hike, he lifts the sword above his head and tries to cut her in two. Hike's hammer blow staggers him and knocks him down, while his sword can't penetrate the Archimandrix' armor, but it breaks her collarbone. Champion chokes out, "demon in me!" Hike leaps on top of him, trying to pin him down and make skin contact with him. Champion has enough control to keep the demon from resisting effectively, but the Damerrung plate armor is full of spikes and edges for infighting, so Hike gets cut a bit as she gets on top of him. Champion fights to retain control of his body, but for now, the best he can do is prevent the demon from fighting Hike.

Champion feels a hand extending into his brain, and tries to help it, but he's terribly bad at it. Hike discovers that there's a demon bound to Champion's body. She decides to drown him.

The rest of the Torchbearer group has stopped in place to see what the hell is going on. Egon takes the Duchess over to Abbot Matthias, where they stick close and stay out of trouble. Inga hears the Abbot telling Archimandrite Tamiloff that they need to keep moving, and leave Hike and her crew to deal with whatever this is. Carl looks in the bright place to see what the hell is going on, and clearly perceives Champion's true nature, and sees the struggle of human and demon within. He can't think of any way to get the Archimandrix to stop trying to kill Champion without trying to actually get into the fray, so he runs in and tries to tackle Hike off. Inga sees him running and heads Carl off, which draws Hike's attention to the threat.

Champion uses the moment of inattention to break Hike's grip and flip her off him, though he loses his grip on his sword in the process.

Egon and his flock begin praying, trying to protect the combatants from the psychic maelstrom. The Duchess starts screaming, "I cannot see it! I cannot see it!" Shortly after, Emmaline Kunstler also shouts that she can no longer see it. The bright place is gone for both of them. Tamiloff shouts that someone needs to shut them up, and Egon deploys violence to that end. The Duchess goes silent immediately, but Emmaline won't stop screaming until he beats her down. The Duchess looks at Egon with complete loathing, and he looks back at her and says, "If we'd kept moving, none of this would have happened."

Hike's torch has gone out from being thrown, and she moves to rejoin her gang. Magnus tosses her a shortsword. Carl shouts out that Champion is regaining control and deserves a chance to talk. She doesn't care, but she stays in a defensive stance. Champion is back on his feet. If his face is still glowing, it's much less bright. He kneels, takes a couple deep breaths, and begins to recite the Damerrung catechism.

Inga makes eye contact with Matthias and Tamiloff, and suddenly they realizes they've been overheard, and won't be able to get away with abandoning anyone.

Carl goes to drag the sword away from Champion, as Hike backs her gang away. Champion regains control of himself. Abott Matthias yields his goat to Emmaline, so that the group can move. Hike approaches the command group, hammer in hand, and tells them to get walking. Nobody argues. Champion rejoins the group. Carl's carrying Champion's sword. Hike orders Champion to always walk in front of her, and she keeps her hammer firmly in her hands. Gerhardt asks what's going on here, and she explains that the mud demon did something to him. Gerhardt assures her that if she says the word, they'll take Champion out, no problem.

The good news is that the group really picks up the tempo, but once again, Magnus warns her of contact behind, and they see a line of torches approaching from behind.