LogTorments of the Righteous-Jason-10

Game log for the 2019/03/10 session of AW: Torments of the Righteous, as taken by Jason

Tendahl bounces off the walls of the well a couple times and then hits the water. It's cold water. Who'd have thunk well water in a world without sun would be cold? Amazing. He can't seem to find the surface, though he sees a light way off in the distance. He's trying hard not to panic but he's running out of air and can't figure out which way is up, so he tries looking in the bright place, which makes things much easier. Unfortunately, it seems like there's some sort of current pulling him down, and he's starting to drown. Then there's a hand reaching down toward him, and while that should be impossible, it's the best offer he seems likely to get, so he grabs it.

Up top, Barbarossa tries to look in the bright place to see if he can tell what happened to Tendahl. Suddenly he hears Bettina's voice asking if it's him. When he answers, she swears it's not Barbarossa.

Tendahl gets hauled out of the well by a woman wearing Dammerung armor, who expresses surprise that he's not Barbarossa. He asks if she's Bettina, and she asks how he knows, so he tells her he's been trabelling with Barbarossa. They're in a cave, and the well she pulled him out of is on the wall. How is there a pool on the wall? We don't make the rules here. She says they have to move, shushes him, and drags him aside, and he hears a low grumbling sound as he sees something pass through the pool. It's weird as hell because this is a dark cave, illuminated only by light from the pool, and this thing that passes through seems to glow a little bit until it passes into the pool, at which point it becomes absolutely dark instead.

On the surface, Hike sees Barbarossa stumbling around, calling Bettina's name. They hear a second splash from the well, followed by a snarling sound. They both step away from the well. Then there's a wet slapping noise getting louder, like something climbing out of the well. The Dammerung pulls his pistols, Hike readiers her hammer, and they square up for battle. Then there's a scratching noise, followed by laughter, almost human sounding laughter. Whatever it is, it's on Hike in a flash.

Hike leaps back but crosses Barbarossa's line of fire, preventing him from engaging. He rolls left to clear his line of fire, while she tees off on yon demonic sumbitch. Her reflexes are for real, and she delivers a crushing blow, cracking through the chitinous shell on one of the legs, but her hammer gets stuck in there and ripped out of her hands when it moves. Barbarossa blazes away with his pistols, but it doesn't seem to notice. He observes that the thing appears to be a spider in front but like a termite queen in back, which is surely a nastiness.

Hike retreats, trying to avoid being struck, and manages to elude even its monstrous speed. Four of its seven eyes are fixed on her. She can see where her hammer is stuck, but getting to it will be a challenge. Barbarossa finds a vulnerable spot for his pistols as the demon exits the well, putting a whole in one of its clawed rear parts.

Carl lies low and hopes not to be noticed.

Despite its huge bulk, the monster pivots smoothly and comes for Barbarossa. He shoots out one of its eyes but gets smacked solidly and knocked on his ass. Hike retrieves her hammer and does what she knows best, burying the pick end of the hammer into the demon's soft tissue and tearing it open. That has to hurt. The demon starts to laugh, a noise like a choir of small children laughing.

It stays focused on Barbarossa, who would really like to work his way out from under this beast. His barrage of pistol fire catches the thing right in the face, which it doesn't like. Something has reached out of the demon's pulpy bits to try to wrap itself around Hike's leg, but a blow from the dull end of the hammer pulverizes it. It's slowing down noticably as it turns its wrath back to Hike. She tries to use the dull end to pulverize one of its remaining eyesocket, trying to use its own momentum against it, and that lets her deal a vicious blow that audibly cracks the monster's face in exchange for getting a bite taken out of her abdomen, which also knocks her down. Barbarossa fires his pistol into the soft bits, to no great effect.

As the demon comes in again to attack Hike, she judges her timing carefully, and sits up at exactly the right time to shove her torch right into the thing's soft palate. There's a sound like searing meat, more childish giggling, and the entire monster bursts into flame. It flops off her and then begins convulsing. They both move aside to avoid the death throws. Hike does need to rush to take the torch off her back before she's covered in burning ichor, though.

Barbarossa gives Hike first aid to stabilize her. She'll live! Then he tries to access the bright place to check on Tendahl. They hear another splash. This bodes ill. Barbarossa gives Hike a boost and they get the hell out of this accursed standing circle.

Tendahl and Bettina see another monster go through the pool. He asks how many monsters there are. She has no idea, they just keep coming. He looks around, trying to get a sense of the space, and Bettina tells him that the surfaces aren't far. There are two of them, one light, one dark. The beasts always come in one thing and leave different, she explains. He begins to worry that she might be the biggest threat of all. He asks why she thought he'd be Barbarossa, and she explains that since she left word, she expected him to come looking. She thinks they can seal this place, using the gold key, and that they must do so even at the cost of their own lives.

Inga's brewing away. She's about to go looking for wormwood when a perturbed Carl appears and asks if she has a long rope, since Tendahl fell. She offers to look in the shed. Sadly there's a small bit of utility cord but there's nothing that could reach nor support Tendahl. She offers Carl a deal: she'll help him find rope if he helps her find wormwood. He agrees, if he has time, depending on when they get back. She begins to understand that this is going to be a rescue attempt. She asks how far away the well is, and is not cheered to hear that it's a couple hours.

Inga and Carl go to ask the smith for rope. He doesn't have rope but he has chain. Carl estimates that he might need a couple hundred feet worth, which is a lot more than the smith has. Insert "Timmy/Tenny fell down the well" joke here. The smith stops and asks Carl to confirm that this is a deep hole someone fell into, then grabs his hammer, takes Carl's hand, and goes to Gerold's place.

Gerold Klemm responds to the knocking on his door by calling out that Barbarossa can't have his weapons back. Inga explains that it's actually Tendahl, but Gerold blames Barbarossa anyway. The smith and Gerold get into an argument about what to do, but neither one of them especially wants to help Inga out. It is clear that they both know all about the standing stones and the hill, and they both think that only fools get involved. Carl sneaks into Gerold's house, but can't find the secret cache of Dammerung weapons. Inga expresses frustration that Gerold and the smith won't help and goes off to the tavern to see if anyone there might help.

The Torchbearers are all in the tavern, and Inga goes right up to Ardner. (Carl, meanwhile, has vanished.) Inga gives Ardner and team a full briefing on everything she knows about the situation. Some of the Torchbearers want to grab rope (amongst the different group members, they can absolutely come up with a couple hundred feet of rope) and go rescue everyone, but a significant minority of the group won't go, it's not their job, and they're sick of Hike's bullshit anyway. Willem doesn't even care if Ardner tells Hike that he's willing to let her die. She finally appeals to the reluctant Torchbearers in simple terms: if they help, she'll tell Hike they helped, and if not, she'll tell Hike that too. Some of them still refuse, but she has a group of helpers and the necessary amount of rope. Unfortunately, none of the Torchbearers now how to get to the Dark Pool. Meanwhile, there's a growing hubub outside, caused by villagers gathering on the common. Inga leads the Torchbearers (Ardner, Gerhardt, and Franz out, trying to skirt the potential mob, and hoping to find someone she can reason with and who knows where they need to go.

Of course, the moment they ask a villager about the well, the villager calls out that they're the troublemakers, and in no time, they're shoved to the middle of the circle. Bertholdt seems to be the big man in this mob, and he blames the outsiders for all the recent difficulties. Not everyone agrees, and some of them kind of like the newcomers. Inga explains what they're trying to do, and someone calls out that they should go north-northeast and pray. Inga tries to make a case to the town that they owe the Dammerung and the Torchbearers for what he's done to help people in that town. The townsfolk don't respond well. The Torchbearers fight their way out, but Inga gets grabbed.

That's when Hike and Barbarossa arrive. He quickly susses out that Bertholdt has organized this mob, and they're about ready to burn Inga. Gerold would be the actual biggest threat, since he can control the rabble. Hike rejoins her crew, at which point Ardner asks what they should do with the rope. She ignores him and inspects her wound, finding out that a piece of demon claw or pincer or something is still stuck in the wound.

Meanwhile, the mob has tied Inga to a post. She produces her knife and cuts herself loose.

Barbarossa walks in and shoots Gerold dead. The mob scatters. The Dammerung looks for the miller next, and has no problem finding the fat bastard. Inga ducks out during all this commotion, though someone sees her. The miller is trundling away from Barbarossa but gets shot in the back, and Barbarossa entones, "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Then he kicks in the door of the rectory, tries to find his shotgun, fails, and starts grabbing the books he needs. Klaus Mechner shows up and asks for orders, and Barbarossa tells him to get people that he can rely on, because it's martial law time.

Hike's in the tavern, rehydrating, contemplating the nasty she took out of her side. She demonstrates for the Torchbearers that if you can crack the shell of one of them sumbitches, they burn just fine.

Carl hears the gunshots and heads back to town, since it's obvious that Hike and Barbarossa have returned.

Inga's headed for her shed, so she can grab all her worldly possessions before she gets run out of town. She finds someone lurking outside the shed. She begins gathering her stuff while staying out of sight, and then someone knocks on the door and calls her name. It's Sonja, asking Inga to come with her. Inga takes her up on it and follows her out of town. Of course, someone sees her and calls for the mob to go after her, so there's a long chase that ends deep in the moors.

Hike finds the town veterinarian, Naia, and asks her to treat her wounds. Naia tells Hike she doesn't want any trouble, but when Hike shows her injury, Naia's willing to try her best, but even with the wound cauterized and stitched up, it will obviously take time to heal.

Barbarossa tells the town that this burg is a Dammerung town now, and it's demon-killing time. Klaus testifies that a demon was stealing his son, and only Barbarossa saved him. The Dammerung way works.

Tendahl asks Bettina to perform the evening service. She does. Tendahl takes this as confirmation that she's a real Dammerung, even if she's been crazed by time and circumstance. They talk about life at the monastary, and about the desperate need to seal the well. Tendahl talks her through his plan to get the well sealed, as a project for his craft, and then yells at her when she skips to the idea that he's going to fail and need to be killed.

Barbarossa goes to get his drink on. Carl turns up, and Barbarossa immediately asks where his weapons are. The poor kid points out that this is rather rude behavior. Carl feels hard done by today.

Barbie then goes to see Hike, who confesses to feeling a little the worse for wear. Unfortunately, she's got this wound in her side, which makes travel an unappealing idea. He tries to talk her into going with, but she's just not able to work right now. Ardner and Franz tell him that the entire Torchbearer gang is united to keep him from interfering with Hike. They talk tough, he talks tough back, and in short order, there's a fistfight. It's a minor thing, just an explosion of temper and macho, not anyone wanting to hurt anyone else.

Hike calms the gang down and tells Barbarossa to come up to her room and talk. She promises that she'll help out as soon as she's able.

Out on the moors, Sonja leads Inga to a big rock, which looks like it might be a stepping stone that got knocked over. Sonja picks up a chunk of sod, pulls out a knapsack, and says, "OK, we're ready, let's go." Inga asks her to explain more about what she knows and what they're going to do, but the witch insists that if they're going to talk, they're going to do it on the move. Sonja explains about the hill and the stones, she sings the nursery rhyme about the Dark Pool, and that she's been going out to visit the well since she was a child. They go deeper into the moor, until they stop and Sonja tells Inga to lay down and close her eyes. Sonja does weird humming/singing thing, then she waits for a bit, and then she tells Inga to stand up and go. Inga checks the bright place, and sees that while they've been doing this, a shadow has passed over them. Hours later, they come within sight of the standing stones. Sonja leads them right up the hill, sits on the edge of the well, and starts to sing.

In the cave, Tendahl knows the tune, though not these words. It's a call and response song, and Bettina begins to sing the response.

Inga hears the well singing back, though it's muffled and far away. Sonja throws something into the well.

Bettina tells Tendahl that she'll be back, and dives into the pool. She swims away, then swims back with something in her teeth. Tendahl reaches in to help her, and finds that she's retrieved a package of jerky from the pool. Tendahl expresses a little frustration that someone cares enough to feed them but not enough to throw them, you know, a rope.

Hike sends one of her Torchbearers to find Klaus and bring him to her. She tries to explain to him that the Church is going to see Barbarossa as a heretic, and probably want to punish him, so the people of the town need to try to help Barbarossa out by playing up his piety. Then she makes an arrangement with the blacksmith to make some better weapons for the gang. The smith is happy to help, since he's a scared man, and actually lets the Archimandrix into the old armory.

After a while, Sonja tells Inga that they should go. As they discuss their plans, Sonja casually mentions that Barbarossa is her champion and protector now. She also suggests that it might be good to stay out of site for a few days while things calm down.

Barbarossa tries to find Tendahl in the bright place. He catches some singing, way off in the distance, but that's all. The singer is Bettina- so that's encouraging.

Time passes, and people heal. Well, not Barbarossa. The town healer poisoned him, or something. That's when Inga and Sonja show up. Sonja's happy to help Barbarossa, of course, but he wants to talk before she does anything. She's undressing him and he's stammering, but she explains that her treatment will hurt, but it will cure him. She doesn't ask for payment, since she's already determined that Barbarossa is her protector. Oh, and she confesses to being a witch. They realize that both of them hear Bettina sing, at which point he concludes that he really is her servant. He kisses her, and then she kisses him to muffle his screams as she burns the poison out of him.