Welcome to Purgatory
General Summary
Tepcat: surely we are safe in town
Kummer Wolf: :rofl:
GM: as is the tradition in all spaghetti westerns
Tepcat: ask for whom the bell tolls - it tolls for thee
Chapter 2:
Welcome
to
Purgatory
Bruthazmus and the SNAFU Guild took the "divide and conquer" approach to information gathering on a hot summer morning along the main street of Purgatory Gulch.
Simultaneous accounts:
Some residents of the town were genuinely astonished to hear about the evil-endowed cattle that attacked in the night, others were less uninformed than they tried to pretend, but everyone agrees that Steps Must Be Taken to save the Bicchieri Caravan in the wake of the storm.
Padre Cirino De Mario leads the druid and two rangers toward Tarntaise Farm, picking up the monk and his apprentice along the way. This rutabaga farm south-southeast of main street does not know much. One farmhand passes a quick hint that something unnatural has happened in the scrub between their fields and the caravan's last known location.
The explorers divert to collect their sorcerer, who is far to their west -- less than an hour away from the border of Whippetal Ranch -- trying to rescue a badly injured human he found dying in the badlands.
By the time Ranger Horn is settled in Jasper Chapel and the posse points its mounts toward the alleged pop-up cemetery, it's well after noon.
A scar has opened up in the land. The dirt should be gray, it's so dead: not worms, not tiny weeds, nothing lives here. Any plants within the three-mile-long rip are dead and collapsed as if they a salt storm came through here. In no particular pattern at the widest point in the center, five mounds of earth and debris mark graves. One of the graves is headed by a rib from an oak cask, and draped on that is the mud-encrusted rope necklace that used to be a Stormborn sorcerer's power focus.
The biggest grave is bound across its center by a dead willow bough, on which was wrapped the thoroughly shattered necklace of an elven cleric. They know she was elven not because anyone dug to find the body, but because her banshee form is visible in the shadow of Bruthazmus the undead hunter.
She is not, in death, a nice person.
She still possesses that Samakarii arrogance.
She can communicate only in the language of her birth or in pure rage. She does not offer Lee Chung any rewards for the services she demands. She speaks of The Last Stand of the Whistling Wind, of promises failed, of needful actions to see the dead at rest.
The posse sets out northward, following scent trails of rosemary and garlic, following the path toward the expected mail coach. They divert to Braunvieh Farm where the donkeys, mules, chickens, and taro fields have been neglected for two days ... but around the same time that the four resident farm hands were taken from their breakfast table, the bunnies in their hutch were also taken.
More investigation might have happened there, except that Zhang Sephia spots a sudden increase in speed in the distant Arjory Arroyo, where the stagecoach's protected route has become a trap. Cattle stampede with hellfire accents are in pursuit of the mail coach!
Rewards Granted
- One somewhat damaged spellbook, formerly belonging to deceased Stormborn sorcerer Agesilao Tiraboschi, is now in the possession of Miro Teague. He has a plan to carefully dry it out, clean it, and repair it.
- Falcon's Rangers member Bruthazmus has the shattered holy symbol of Yathue Ilphendurl which was discovered by Jesse Devonshire. Bruthazmus plans to bring that destroyed relic back to Samakar so that the elven banshee can be at rest.
- SNAFU Guild sorcerer Miro Teague has the mud-encrusted power focus crafted by goblin Stormborn sorcerer Agesilao Tiraboschi. Miro might not ever be able to restore the artifact to functionality, but it makes a good personal symbol to return to the Whistling Wind's waiting family.
- Each Player Character and each Companion (Chef y Los Tres Amigos Voladores and Padre Cirino De Mario too) receives 7200 XP for defeating 3 herds of Hell Bovines and saving the stagecoach!
Notes
Join us next episode!
- Why were the Hell Bovine Herds trying to run down the stagecoach?
- Have the stagecoach team spotted any signs of the missing Bicchieri Caravan, living or dead?
- Just how many villainous forces are at war in this tiny town?
- Someone infused cattle with demonic energy, creating an army of Hell Bovine and sending them out on evil deeds.
- Someone turns plants into Undead Vegetables, sending those after the Hell Bovines and possibly after the local domestic bunny population.
- Someone has control of a Stormborn hurricane, and the soul of the murdered creator, and is keeping the storm in "a bottle" somewhere for future use.
- Someone tried to raise five who died in The Last Stand of the Whistling Wind as undead ... and someone else entirely acted to prevent it by reshaping the earth itself.
- Where is Dacio Bicchieri's pa? Is he dead? Alive? Why did the caravan never arrive in town?
And what in this impoverished land is worth all this feuding in the first place?
