LogTorments of the Righteous-Jason-12

Game log for the 2019/04/07 session of AW: Torments of the Righteous, as taken by Jason

Carl has made his own way to Hollewald, though nobody really knows how it happened. Hike, her crew, Tendahl, and Inga approach the front gate, and Hike encouraged her to hang back a little, since she's maybe not super popular there. Sure enough, the town opens the gate for the Torchbearers, though they recognize Hike, and one of the guards goes running to tell the Deacon she's there. One of them immediately runs off, though, so she's presumably on the clock. Inga sees Tambor acting as the gate guard, and he's clearly surprised to see her. Tendahl heads to his workshop, Inga goes to Rolf's house, and Hike waits to see what's going to happen next.

Rolf welcomes Inga and then immediately rushes her inside so that no one will see them together. He tells her that the Church has come and gone. Schmitto is still in town, and has had Inga excommunicated in absentia. He suggests that she should keep her stay short. They catch up about Julia's situation, and then he tells her that Hollewald has changed since the left. People don't trust one another. Finding out that the Bishop was possessed by a demon has made people distrustful. Rolf's working with Inman at the icehouse and trying to be content with his lot in life. He does suggest that it would be a good idea if she took Tambor with her out of town.

Schmitto greets Hike, and Ardner immediately complains about his favorite bar being closed. The Deacon assures them that the community is back on the path to righteousness. Hike nods along to his story and tells him that they're going to reopen Das Asylhaus as a place to bunk up, and also that after this stop, the Torchbearers are off to the capitol.

Hike tears down the "closed by order of" sign on the bar, though the Deacon picks it up and smooths it out for imminent future reuse. The bar seems to been pilfered - the better bedding is gone, the wine's been opened, the food's et, etc. Hike knows that there's a secret stash in the basement, and goes looking for it. It's intact and she pilfers 3-barter from it. Inga comes in as Hike's looting the place. Inga's surprised to find Hike there, but relieved that she was able to open the place up without the town rising up in opposition. Hike expresses no guilt about looting Inga's stash, and Inga's attempts to hint that she wanted some of that stuff don't really make much of an impression on Hike. The Archimandrix wants everything for the barter value, because the supplies to get them to the capitol will cost money. Inga just wants to keep her recipe book. On the one hand, it's the key to her future business success. On the other hand, Hike could sell it now, and it's definitely worth a couple barter. They bicker, and Hike gives her a long lecture about Inga's ability to make herself unwelcome in any town she visits. The long term value of the recipe book is zero if Inga never gets to establish a new business.

Having failed to convice Hike, Inga tries to appeal to the Torchbearer team, on the theory that they'll want the goods she brews. They finally come to her willingness to give her 1-barter for it. Hike will take that deal if Inga promises never to travel with them again.

When Tendahl opens his shop, Carl's rummaging around inside. He begins putting together a plan to leave town, and realizes he needs to know how much time he has. He gets to Das Asylhaus just as Inga pulls out her barter to make this deal with Hike. They make the deal, but before Hike finally lets go of the recipe book, she says, "You're going to fucking die because of this book."

Tendahl arrives and tells them both that life is just a process of deciding what you're willing to die for. He asks Hike how long they're staying, and she says that they're staying until he finishes the flamethrower, or rather, flammenwerfer. Doing so will require cost a fuckton of jingle or take a long time, and it will either expose people to danger, or be crappy, because making a good fuel system will require experimenting with pressurized flammable liquids. Also, Hike is really weirded out to see that Carl just turned up on his own.

Meanwhile, back in Nachtburg, Barbarossa is thinking about locking the gate, and seeks inspiration in the bright place. He can't think how to lock it up without Tendahl's help, but he realizes that he could put a guard on the pool and fight everything that comes out of it. He tells Klaus to gather building materials so that they can make a ring of torches around it. Of course, that means convincing the entire village of the Dammerung heresy, and that's an uphill struggle. He begins identifying the influential townsfolk who he needs to influence, on the assumption that the rest of the town would follow them. Henrich Dietz the Elder would be a key man there. On the other hand, Thaddius Margner will need to be kept quiet if he's going to make this happen. Oh, and to get the job done, he'll need Klemens Kiefer, but Klemens is not wild about working outside of the road network. For now, Barbarossa decides to gather the needed materials and prepare for the work. Henrich will help, but he thinks that to really sell the populace on this, they need to see a trophy from a dead demon. They need the concrete item to see and touch.

Barbarossa then sends for Sonja to heal him and advise him on working around the well. She's willing but she has something she must do first, and it's not something he can help with. She'll meet him in the rectory later. As they leave, he notices Sonja's mom looking daggers at him. Sonja comes to him a few hours later, and he doesn't even know she's in the building until she runs her hand along his arm and climbs into his lap. She can heal him, although there will be a cost. Then she leads him out on to the moor and they do that thing. When he wakes, he's healed.

Back in Hollewald, Tendahl tries to convince Hike to give him the time and resources required to build a really nice heirloom flamethrower, but he totally botches the pitch, and just makes Hike angry. They agree that Tendahl will make his setup mobile and travel with the Torchbearers until he's got the flamethrower built and working. That would let them test it in unimproved areas.

Inga goes to the bright place, and sees Gerold Klemm beckoning to her, and a feeling she's being watched. She doesn't follow. When she comes to, she's in the dark basement of the Das Asylhaus, but she still feels like she isn't alone.

The Archimandrix goes to see Deacon Schmitto at the rectory. He tells her all about how Barbarossa and Inga tore up the town, and how they abducted him and made him their hostage. He claims to have forgiven them, but he's not real convincing about it. Hike points out that the Inga's old place has been pretty well looted. Schmitto says he meant to seal it, if only to placate the Bishop who wanted to burn it, but there were clearly those in the village who just took advantage. She then asks about getting provisions, and the Deacon is happy to point her in the right direction. The Archimandrix them asks after the heretics, and is interested to hear that there's a bounty for their capture.

Hike returns to Das Asylhaus and updates Ardner on the plan. Just then, Inga comes up from the basement, followed by a vaguely man-shaped shadow. Once Hike sees the shadow, she goes into battle mode, and goes rushing at it. Hike's gang punks out on her, though, except for Ardner. Whatever this thing is, it grabs Inga and pulls her down the stairs, and it makes shushing noises at her, with the Archimandrix and Ardner in pursuit. The shadowy thing drags Inga toward a corner of the cellar where she used to hang provisions.

Hike reverses her hammer so she can poke at this presumptive demon with the haft, like it was a spear. Inga resists being dragged to set the Archimandrix up, which gives her a clear shot. The hammer's haft goes right through the monster, and comes back out with a weird sucking noise. The monster's only reaction is to shush Inga again. Inga tries to stab it with her knife while Hike distracts it, and the threat of being sliced up seems to convince the thing to release her, although it's not clear if she actually hurt it. It then jets to the corner of the cellar and goes downward.

Hike rushes over to investigate that corner and doesn't see any sort of hole or portal there, but she does find a twig-and-rattan stick figure like the ones Hegge the witch made.

Hike goes over to Inga, who's barely upright, and grabs her collar. The Archimdnadrix demands to know why there's witch stuff in the basement, and why she shouldn't take her to the Deacon for the bounty right now. Inga just barely convinces the Archimandrix to turn her in for the money. Hike decides that it's time to get out of this town.

They both go to Tendahl's, because the Archimandrix hopes that he'll know a quick way out of town. Well, back in the day, Tendahl once built a catapult to toss people over the wall, so that might work! Inga asks what the plan is, and Hike explains that the plan is that she is separating Inga from her life, completely, right now. She gives her a torch, for luck.

Tendahl positions Inga appropriately, makes a couple adjustments, and lets fly. Fwooosh! She flies about thirty yards through the air, up over the wall, into the woods, onto a spot thick with leaf loam and pine needles. She actually manages to roll through the landing and come up unharmed. It doesn't take her long at all to get to the path.

Tendahl looks at Hike and says, "Now that we're along, I have to tell you, I never really thought that would work. That's why I never tried it." He goes back to packing, and she goes back to Das Asylhaus to mock the men who wouldn't follow her.

Henrich comes to Barbarossa and tells him that he must go home, because Henrich the younger has taken ill. The boy has some sort of fast-acting wasting sickness. Barbarossa leaves Klaus in charge so he can go out to the pool site and make some rubbings of the standing stones.

Back at Das Asylhaus, there are villagers gathered. Some of the Torchbearers who fled must have talked. Hike reads the situation and sees that Schmitto is on his way, and when he arrives, he'll be in charge of the situation, but she has a window in which to control what happens next. She goes right up to the noisiest villager, asks what happened, and begins to take control of the story, only to have one of the Torchbearers blurt out that "that bitch" is trouble and they should never have brought her back. So they just confessed to bring an excommunicate fugitive to town. Hike orders everyone back into the Asylhaus, and even if they think it's haunted, that's safer than what she'll do to them.

So Schmitto comes in, furious about Hike's treachery, and Hike leads him to the basement and shows the witchcraft prop. She also claims that she didn't know the woman travelling with them was Inga. She has just sold the Deacon on the idea that Inga is some sort of shapeshifter. This story has the Deacon leaning toward burning the inn after all, but it gets the Torchbearers in the clear. Hike tells him that her Torchbearers will stay in the inn until they leave, because they can deal with the risk. He can't believe that, but she shows him her demon claw and assures him that she can handle such things, though she's perilously close to the Dammerung heresy.

Ardner asks what they're going to do about the witchworks, and when the Archimandrix isn't sure, he suggests that maybe Tendahl could help. She's open to that. She then spends a barter on provisions for the rest of the Torchbearers, to motivate them to stay in for the duration of their visit to town.