40: Crow's Hollow - Part 8 - The Reaper Comes

General Summary

We begin the session at Winfred's home. After the (majority of) the Players suddenly realising that they could have left Crow's Hollow at any time.   As Icarus returns from exploratory run, to see if he could leave Crow's Hollow or if he would be magically returned like Jasper told them he experienced. a letter is dropped at his feet from above. Ophellia's former Treyssim familiar had delivered it to them. The letter told the party that 'The Reaper' had their friend (Tilly from the apothacary) and demanded that they show up in the firleds behind the Abandoned Farmhouse they had investigated earlier at sunset, along with their prisoners for an exchange. If they didn't, then Tilly would suffer a terrible fate.   The party went back and forth about how they should handle this situation, eventually deciding that they didn't have enough time to risk doing something other than attending the meeting.   At sunset, they met with the Reaper and a number of other cultists. They demanded that they bring the prisoners forward and they would trade for their prisoners. However, the party were unwilling to give up Sarah, but didn't want anything to happen to Tilly. They provoked the cultists by having Zolv use Votex Warp to teleport Tilly over to safety. They succeeded in this, but provoked the cultists to attack them in response.   A brutal fight broke out. Corn Husk Zombies who had been laying in wait in the surrounding cornfields charged the party. While area of effect spells were proving effective against the horde of enemies, it was quite clear this was not going to be an easy fight to overome. Zolv was seriously hurt by the Reapers ranger Decomposing Ray attack (Critical Hit). After a few rounds of combat, the cornfields were ablaze with flames created by Zolv's fireballs. In the end, the Reaper was killed, causing the zombies to deanimate as they were controlled by him, and Sarah was attempting to escape. Zolv did kill Sarah with one last fireball as he tried to take out the remaining cultists. Icarus was nearly killed by the cultist they had taken prisoner. They seemed to want revenge for Icarus choking them out a couple of times during the captivity. They brought Icarus to verge of death before Darnalore and Zolv were able to kill the Cultist.