Darklands: Running like Mad

This is part of The Darklands story.

While taking refuge Jewel and Vagabond are taken under the care of "Liore Herder" a 30 year old nun and her 40 year old mentor "Tobold the Stout", a soldier turned friar who was interested in studies of the occult witches and hence their interest in the pair that survived the High Sabbat. Upon learning of the prayer books wanted by the Medici he convinces the group to go adventuring once more, easily retrieving the items from a den of giant spiders which killed hermit Wipo by running like mad.

Actually there was a lot of running... from bandits, wolves, boars, the wild hunt. It's very hard to put up a defense without basic adventuring gear - the cons of being poor. It is for this reason that they attempted to get the books back to the person that asked for them so that they could get some coin for their trouble.

Their mistake was trying to spend the night in the hamlet of Hoxter while trying to avoid a blizzard. The satanists there attacked the party in their sleep, and their schulz killed both Vagabond and Jewel while capturing the other two. He and his men left them to hang on a nearby tree but fortunately Liore managed to pull herself up and slip her ropes while they were distracted, saving herself and Tobold from an aspyxiating death.

Turns out evil chanting is handy after all.

Darklands: That was Unexpected

This is part of The Darklands story.

Jewel knew there was only one way to prove that evil sucked and that meant letting the cultists summon up their demon and then challenging it in the name of God. The winged beast accepted and flew right at the team with blinding speed (strangely the minotaur was faster) and though it was tough (HP wise) in a few minutes it lay broken and defeated on the ground as the heroes stood proudly over their defeated foe.

Well, shit.

Unlike the groups that follow the robber knights who flee once their leader is slain, these psycho cultists all attacked and suddenly the team was in combat in the midst all of them, with a high priest and a few witches to boot. The overwhelming numbers saw Jewel, Stubborn and Vagabond knocked out while Belghast was killed and sacrificed to satan.

When the other three awoke, the cultists were gone and they had been stripped of all worldly possessions. Hungry wolf familiars also came after them shortly after forcing them to flee into the swamp. While they eluded the dogs, they ran into a tatzelwurm (speedy lizard creature) that devoured Stubborn whole while Jewel and Vagabond escaped back to Gronnigen, visibly shaken by the experience.

Darklands: The High Sabbat

This is part of The Darklands story.

First stop is the feast preparation area where the cook is preparing some unbaptized babies for everyone to eat and asks for your help. Interestingly there's an option to baptize the kids first -then- cook them but Stubborn instead decides to do the more logical thing and just try convince everyone that eating babies is bad. Most of the crowd agrees and leaves in shame, some taking the babies with them to put into orphanages (or maybe eat them later). The cook is then disappointed that he only has regular food for the feast. No, there was no option to kill him.

Next up was the broom riding crowd where Vagabond totally convinced the them that Harry Potter was bad, so they too left in shame. Belghast tried next at the evil baptism ceremony but those guys were too hardcore in their belief which resulted in a combat that saw all the cultists dead. Jewel also did not have luck at the main altar, being unable to dismantle it before a high priest and two cronies came by, forcing the team to murderize them before anyone noticed.

Things were going well. The team even learned from a fat lady that their Great Monastery was located North West of Flensburg, a point of interest the team would have to visit later on. And then began the main event... at the main altar, a group of cultists were summoning up a demon.

Bring it on!

Darklands: Party Crashers

This is part of The Darklands story.

Just to irritate the Wild Hunt further, Jewel decided to destroy a random pagan altar they came across as they journeyed to the town of Speyer. Alas the monks there did not know of St. Thomas the Apostle, but Vagabond did learn of a job for the Medici - to collect ancient prayer books from a hermit called Wipo South-East of Bremen - which was a long way away. After more slayings of wolves and a pair of giant spiders, as well as hiding from the wild hunt, Stubborn scaring bandits, and Belghast killing bandits the team comes across the satanist village of Buckeburg which they purge of evil.

As usual, one of them yells out something about revenge as they flee - this time North West of Gronnigen on September 22. For a change the group decides to actually go see what this "revenge" is, and to their surprise when they get there on that day it is the witches high sabbat! A huge throng of people has gathered there in the marshlands for an unholy evil time.

Cunningly, Jewel convinces the perimiter guards that they are new initiates of evil and while the accompanying guard wolves growl a bit at first they are let through into the main grounds of dark revelry. With so many people and places to go, the team decides to plan out on how best to sabotage this event.

Nearly a hundred? Need to kill 25 each!

Darklands: Wanted

This is part of The Darklands story.

In the next second it was on them.

The delay of saving the caravan caused the team time and by the very next night the Wild Hunt had found them. It wasn't hell hounds this time, just one incredibly fast and powerful minotaur like creature which almost won against the party. Almost. The next morning the group was fortunate enough to find a group of pilgrims headed to Koln which they joined for a safer journey.

Strangely upon arriving at the city the guards wanted to arrest them! With Jewel unable to talk their way out of this and the others (Stubborn and Belghast are slow :P) unable to outrun them they had no choice but to fight a few waves of the law men before finally melding with the bustling crowd, selling off the Tarnhelm to that foreign trader for a good sum of gold. They also decided to hire the 30 year old sneaky thief "Vagabond Walker" to help them elude further guardsmen and hopefully, the wild hunt too. As a bonus, Vagabond knew his way around firearms.

Not wanting to tarry in Koln the team quickly departed via a sewer grate beneath the walls and once more were chased by the wild hunt but Vagabond's stealth and speed managed to let them out distance their pursuers easily. Not long after they were approached by a Holzfrau (perhaps the same one they saved previously) who advised them to learn of "St. Thomas the Apostle" as only he could protect them from the wild hunt.