The last combat was a nice example of Tales of Argosa in action: Two rounds like the first combat round, and the PCs would have needed to flee or die. Two good rounds, and the skratts were routed. I wish the combat had been a touch more difficult—and next time, I need to remember to add a Heavy template to a monster to simulate a leader of something like the skratt swarm. Still, I liked the way the fight played out, focusing on a smaller battle between the PCs and handful of enemies while a larger fight raged around them.
Now they’re in the aftermath of the skratt attack. There is more to do before sleeping: Control the house fires, search for survivors, root out any lingering skratt threats, etc. The question is whether the PCs stay to help or not. I don’t normally like throwing PC actions to Fate questions, but in this case, I imagine a player discussion at the table weighing the merits of helping (and thus either being Fatigued the next day or losing a day to rest) versus letting the villagers handle tasks themselves while the party rests and presses on towards the Starless Rift. I’ll say it’s Likely that they help, and with Chaos Factor 7 that means 85% chance of Yes. I roll 70. They help.
Doing so allows me to try out the ToA Montage rules. The party will need 6 successes on attribute or skill checks to meaningfully help Vastren Hollow in the wake of the skratt horde. PCs take turns and cannot employ the same action more than once. If they achieve their target before failing 3 times (I’m setting the Montage challenge level at Moderate), they’ll get some sort of boon. Each failure leads to a complication of some kind, and failing the task will mean something Bad™. Here goes!
Vessa is up first. How does she help the village? I’ll play to her strengths and say she hunts disparate skratts down, making a Perception check. She rolls a 9, which is one away from a Great Success. Still, that’s one success in the books.
Maelen will help organize a fire brigade with the survivors. She’ll use Intelligence(Leadership) for this task, and rolls an 11, which is a second success!
Alric will also rely on his strengths and heal the wounded. To do so, he’ll roll Intelligence(Apothecary) and gets a 7, which is a Great Success! That’s four total successes in the montage.
We’re back to Vessa, and she now needs to choose a new task. It may be a little cheap, but she’ll search for survivors, which is another Perception check. She rolls a nat-20, though, which is a Terrible Failure! Oh my. What’s the complication? I’ll say that she not only finds no survivors, but the carnage she witnesses traumatizes her, making her be subject to Madness (the Madness table, by the way, is amazing). She now needs to make a Luck(Will) roll to resist. She rolls a 4 and succeeds, but doing so reduces her Luck score to 9. So, she avoids a long-term phobia or trauma, but that reduced Luck score could come back to bite her in all sorts of ways.
That’s 4/6 successes and 2/3 failures (yes, a Terrible Failure counts as 2 failures, just as a Great Success counts as 2 successes). Yikes!
Maelen is up next, and she’ll use her muscle to help rebuild some of the village defenses in the night. To do so, she’ll make a Strength(Athletics) check and rolls a 9, a success.
It all comes down to Alric, who will determine the outcome of the Montage. He’ll do something only he can do: Create wards against Orthuun’s future influence. He’ll thus try a Willpower(Arcane Lore) check, and rolls a 13, just under his target number of 14! The party successfully navigates the Montage. Fun system!
What’s the boon the party receives for their efforts? Two ideas come to mind: Loot and free Hirelings. I’m not quite ready to expand the party, so I’ll roll on the Carry Loot B table: 75, which is gold pieces equal the sum of the digits rolled. That’s 12 gp, which is sweet.
I’m finally ready to narrate…
XV.
Duskmarch 18, Hearthday, Year 731.
It was well past dawn when Maelen and Alric found her, though Vessa could hardly tell through the heavy rain. Inside the watch hall—a squat timber-and-stone building near the gate—it was chill and dry, but the roof still rattled with rain, and water streamed down to the packed earth outside. It smelled of sweat and dampness, with only the faint whiff of blood that seemed everywhere across the village.
Blood. Vessa shuddered. What she’d seen that night, hunting straggler skratts with her bow and looking for survivors, would haunt her remaining days. It was the nursery that she couldn’t shake. The babies’ faces… She shook her head, bone-weary. A voice broke through the haze.
“Vess?” Maelen asked, shaking her shoulder. She looked up blearily. The rain had washed the worst gore off her friend, though she was still filthy. “You okay, lass?”
“Tired,” she sighed, and rubbed at her bent nose absently. “I think the skratts are gone, though. You rest?”
Maelen scoffed, but it was Alric who answered. “You should have seen it, Vessa! Maelen organized a fire brigade, shaking people out of their shock. Her efforts saved the remaining buildings! And then, once the rain started, she fortified the palisade where the skratts had climbed over. It was inspired.”
Maelen frowned, seeming annoyed by the praise. “Just did what needed doing. The lad helped the healer. Good work, that.”
The scribe grinned and bobbed his head. “I also did what I could to ward the walls from Orthuun, though I honestly don’t know if it will help or not.”
“You’ve helped, all of you,” came a gruff voice. The Stonekin soldier stood in the doorway, rain dripping from his beard as he stamped mud from his boots. Like Maelen, he was dirty and wet, with dark circles beneath his eyes. “Vastren Hollow is gone, but thanks to you it may one day rebuild.”
“Where will you go?” asked Alric, turning to him and cocking his head.
The man sighed. He looked haggard. “Oakton, maybe,” he shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“You should sleep, sir,” the scribe offered. “That’s what, two nights now without rest?”
He grunted. “Right. Anything you lot need? I never asked why you were visiting the Hollow.”
“Just passing through,” Maelen answered. “Going west and south.”
The soldier nodded once, stroking his mud-caked beard. “Terrible luck for you, good for us. Well, you’re welcome to any bed you can find, and food. The gods know we won’t use them all.”
Vessa hardly remembered leaving the watch hall to find a nearby home. The rain muted everything, softening the horror of what remained. A few sparse survivors moved this way and that through the storm, some with dull-eyed shock and others with brisk purpose, and all hunching their shoulders against the constant wet.
Maelen led them to a modest timber house, its door hanging open but the rest untouched. Whoever had lived here must have run to help their neighbors, and died for it. The image of faceless corpses flashed behind Vessa’s eyes. She groaned and shook it away.
Inside, the place smelled of woodsmoke. The walls were rough-cut pine planks, reinforced with river stones, and its main room was built around a large stone fireplace, with cooking pots hanging from wooden pegs, a battered table, mismatched stools, and one frayed rug over the swept earth. Everything about the space felt lived-in and utilitarian, which Vessa supposed must be true for all these frontier villagers.
The structure had only one other room, a small bedroom with two straw mattresses on raised sleeping platforms, each covered in heavy woolen blankets. Without a word, Vessa dropped her pack and crawled into the bed, boots and all. She dimly heard Maelen’s voice behind her, then nothing.
Sleep came, mercifully dreamless.
The party gets some sleep, and both Alric and Maelen regain 2 lost hit points (since they’re sleeping in a safe and comfortable location). Alric is now back to a full 14 hp, Maelen at 15 of 20.
By the time all three get some rest (they’ll rotate a watch in case the skratts return) and continue helping out the village, it will be the morning a day later and time for more Hexploration. I won’t mark any rations for their two nights and day in Vastren Hollow since there’s plenty of food there, and I won’t make them pay for any food or lodging.
The PCs still have three days of travel remaining per Wink’s instruction, so they continue west into the Greenwood Rise (south of where they’d met Sarin). The rain has passed, but rolling on the Weather Shift table, it’s still cloudy and foggy today. Once again Maelen is the Guide and rolls Int(Wilderness Lore). She rolls a 10, succeeding in navigating the fog to move roughly due west into the forested hills. I Consult the Bones to see if a Travel Event occurs and the Twins say Yes/Nil, the Judgment die overrules them and says No, and the Fortune die provides an optimistic Sun. Hm. So, no event but something positive. Perhaps the camaraderie and conversation are good after their stilted beginning.
They then camp in the forest. Here I’ll deduct their first rations of the trip, and then the fateful Consult the Bones roll: The Twins say Yes/Yes, teaming up to overrule the No on the Judgment die. The Fortune die, meanwhile, provides a Skull. For Night Shift events, the Tales rulebook suggests rolling 1d12+8 on the Travel Events table, since entries 9-20 are mostly encounters. I roll 4+8=12, which is surprisingly Camarederie (I swear that I wrote the previous paragraph before this roll!). How cool: One PC chooses to spin a tale, reveal a secret, etc. If the table is entertained, each PC can choose to recover 1 Luck or take a Short Rest! Since I rolled a Skull, it feels like it will be a somewhat dark secret. Alric: I choose you!
Duskmarch 20, Moonday, Year 731.
By late afternoon they’d rested. Maelen, unable to sit still, spent the evening outside barking orders and shoring up defenses, even as most villagers packed to flee. Alric kept his nose buried in his book, under candlelight, muttering to himself and rarely leaving the common room. With both of them occupied, Vessa rummaged through the house until she found a hidden bottle of wine, saved for some long-lost celebration. She drank by the fire, wishing for lotus leaf instead.
Eventually, she reached the bottom of the bottle and must have gone back to sleep. When she next woke, curled under a woolen blanket by a cold hearth, weak winter light touched the shudders. Maelen stood in the doorway to the bedroom, buckling her belt.
“Get ready, lass,” she said. Vessa blinked and looked around blearily. Alric was already up and bustling unseen in the bedroom. “Time to go.”
A knock made them all tense. With the casual grace of a predator, Maelen crossed the room to open the door while Vessa eased the shortsword from its scabbard and crouched in the shadows. Alric poked his head into the doorway, curious.
But it was just the Stonekin soldier, still looking haggard. Perhaps he always appeared frayed, Vessa thought, sheathing her blade. Or perhaps he had simply been unable to sleep given everything that had transpired the last two days. Visions of faceless corpses again swam in her vision. Dammit all but she yearned for some lotus leaf.
“You’re off, then?” he said, looking at Alric cinching his travel pack closed.
“We are. Anything else you need?” Maelen asked.
The man shook his head. “You’ve done more than anyone could ask,” he said, handing her a small, coin-heavy pouch
“You don’t have to–” Alric began, but Maelen silenced him with a sharp look. She nodded at the soldier, who was two fingerwidths shorter than her but just as broad.
“Many thanks, and good luck to you and your people,” she held out her hand and they gripped forearms, a common salutation among mercenaries.
“My name’s Brodan,” he said, releasing the grip.
Maelen’s common retort to someone giving their name was “Don’t care,” which Vessa saw her poised to say on reflex. She seemed to think better of it, though, and nodded back. “Maelen,” she said. “I hope to see you again in Oakton. You can find me through the Latchkey Circle.”
They left shortly after Brodan bid farewell to them. No one that Vessa could see watched them leave. There were simply too few survivors and too many tasks burdening them. Even the front guardhouse was momentarily empty when they passed it. Vessa shook her head. Vastren Hollow was dead, even if its corpse had not yet begun to rot. The sooner the survivors could leave, the sooner the wilds could reclaim the land.
The rain stopped in the night, leaving winter fog. They trudged west through muddy trails. Maelen, unlike two days ago, seemed almost cheerful—less swearing, anyway, and the warrior was quick to poke fun at Alric and Vessa in a way borne of camaraderie. When Vessa commented on her mood, though, Maelen brushed it off.
“Just balancing you and your sour face,” she grinned, slapping Vessa on the shoulder.
They moved up and into the forested hills, the trails gone after less than half a day. The terrain was much like two months before, but the trees in this part of the Greenwood Rise were less dense, the canopy more open to the gray sky above. Vessa kept her eyes sharp but saw no signs of the skratt horde or other dangerous predators. As the afternoon wore on, the fog lessened, until it was simply low-hanging clouds that drifted among the treetops overhead. They’d crested the hills and begun to dip into whatever lay beyond the Greenwood Rise when Maelen called for them to make camp.
Her good mood seemed to have infected Alric, and they ate cheese and hard bread from Leandra’s Rest by a low campfire in companionable silence while Vessa sat apart, quiet and listening to the nightbirds and insects. For the most part, their conversation was brief and uninteresting, until Maelen asked, almost casually, “So, lad. You can do magic now, can you?”
Vessa couldn’t tell in the firelight, but she thought he may have blushed. He grinned through finishing what was in his mouth and said, “It appears so. This Tome of Unlit Paths that Hadren thinks belongs to him is a very old book. Ancient. It’s teaching me things that have likely been forgotten generations before us.”
“But you could already do magic,” Vessa voiced her thoughts. “In Thornmere Hold, it was you that dispelled Sarin’s darkness, wasn’t it?”
“Probably,” Alric said hesitantly. “Though I don’t know for sure. I think… I think it’s like singing. Everyone can do magic, but some have a natural talent for it. Back in Thornmere Hold, I didn’t really know what I was doing. Now I do,” His teeth ripped the end of a tough piece of bread. With a full mouth he added, “Or at least have the beginnings of a grasp. I have so much to learn, still.”
“Healing magic, though,” Maelen said, looking at her hand thoughtfully as she flexed it into a fist and relaxed it. “That’s rare, lad. You could make good coin with that talent.”
“Yes, well,” Alric said, finishing his bite and swallowing. “Perhaps that’s how it’s different from singing. Using the magic…” he faltered, his voice dying as some thought seemed to overtake his mind. He shook his head. “It costs me something.”
“What do you mean?” Vessa asked. She moved to join the campfire circle without thinking about it, interested.
“I don’t have the words,” he said, embarrassed. “It’s just… I keep thinking about that blind seer’s words from Leandra’s Rest. She said that I was damned, held by the tail by a dark god.”
“I didn’t like her,” Vessa spat. “Bitch. Forget what she said, Alric.”
“No. I think she’s right.” He looked into the fire, orange light dancing across his solemn features. “It doesn’t feel like mine. It’s like… someone’s using me. Orthuun.”
Alric’s voice dropped. “Every time I use magic, it’s like I’m inviting him closer. To be with me.”
Vessa and Maelen waited for him to continue. When he next spoke, it was with a grimace. “I can’t explain it. But it’s bad.”
“So, lad. In that case, don’t use the magic,” Maelen shrugged, as if the problem had been solved. She took a long drink from her waterskin and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “We can heal ourselves without it.”
Alric chuckled. “First, no you couldn’t have. You may not remember, Maelen, but your wounds were severe. And anyway, it’s not something I always choose to do. Sometimes it’s like a reflex. But,” he paused, again lost in thought. “I suppose I do have a request.” He looked up at each of them. Vessa raised her eyebrows, a signal for him to continue.
“When we get to the Starless Rift and it’s time to trade the book to Hadren,” he swallowed and licked his lips. “Can you… make sure I do it?”
Vessa blinked and she cocked her head. “You don’t think you’ll want to?”
“I’ll want to,” Alric said hastily, and then added, “Probably. But it’s just, well, I may not be able to. I’ve wanted to get rid of it for weeks now. It… there’s something that won’t let me.”
The three of them fell silent as the low fire crackled and smoked. Vessa watched Alric as he stared into the flames, his face full of worry.
After what felt like a long while, Maelen said, “Lad,” then repeated the word to make his head snap up. “Lad!”
“Mm?”
“When it comes to it, we’ll make you,” Her face was serious, her words heavy with the oath. “I promise.”
“Whatever it takes?” he asked quietly.
“What do you mean?” Vessa asked, confused, her head swiveling between them.
Maelen nodded. “Whatever it takes, lad. You’ll be rid of the book. I promise.”
Alric nodded back, seemingly unable to speak. He bowed his head and, Vessa thought, he wept quietly, his shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs.
Alrighty, the party vibes will be stronger after this ominous (but connecting!) conversation. And, because of the secret shared by Alric, the party will benefit from the camaraderie. Vessa and Alric will each regain 1 Luck (Vessa recovering the one lost from the previous night), and Maelen will try two Will rolls to benefit from a Short Rest. She crushes the rolls with a 2 & 3, so recovers 3 of her lost hit points. That puts her at 18 of 20, and after another night’s sleep she’ll be almost back to full strength.
Indeed, the party has been remarkably unscathed so far as they head south the next day. As they near the Starless Rift, however, things will only get more corrupted by Orthuun and dangerous. And what’s waiting for them at their destination? We’ll find out together! For now, though, I’ll lower the Chaos Factor to 6. The calm before the storm, as it were.
Next: Orthuun’s Eyes [with game notes]
My Hero Brain 
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Love Alric’s secret!
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