What’s this? A midweek Tales of Calvenor post? Today is our first level-up day! I’m setting the prose aside momentarily to do the nerdy (but, arguably most fun) game-notes stuff for an entire post. This Saturday will return to our regularly scheduled narrative.
I’ve decided to change how I’m approaching level advancement for this campaign. Thus far, as you’ve seen from the game notes, I’ve been tracking individual xp by character. I haven’t enjoyed the xp bookkeeping, though, and it’s made me paranoid about putting each PC in situations where they can keep up with their peers. Instead, I’m switching to another option for advancement offered by the Tales of Argosa rulebook. Downtime Level Up says, “Using this method, adventurers who meaningfully participated in the last adventure advance one level during Downtime.” However, I want to make sure that levels get increasingly more difficult to attain, per the xp rules. Since it took me 10 posts for the PCs to reach Level 2 (and yes, all three will advance today), I’ll be looking for Level 3 around post 30, whenever a natural Downtime there makes sense. If I’m still writing these characters around post 60 (and wouldn’t that be great?!), they’ll achieve Level 4. Etcetera. If a character dies, I’ll decide whether to press on with two PCs or introduce a new one, and that character will start at Level 1 unless the story dictates otherwise, leveling up after 10 or so posts. That’s my current plan, subject to change through more play!
Let’s get to that juicy advancement and Downtime, tackling Vessa first. What happens at level-up? First, the PC gets +1 to an attribute of their choice, excluding Luck and Initiative, up to max 16. I’m going to say that the experience in Thornmere Hold increased Vessa’s self-confidence and mental fortitude, bringing her Willpower to 13. Doing so also increases her Death Save to 11. Next, Vessa’s hit points increase from 12 to 14 (yes, Tales is a brutal, deadly game). She also gains an extra Reroll.
Finally, Vessa’s class skills increase. Her Attack Bonus goes up by 1 (she now has a +4 to hit with her shortbow!). She gains a new skill, and Wilderness Lore makes the most sense given her romp in the woods. At Level 2, she also gains the ability Skirmisher, giving opponents’ free attacks due to movement disadvantage. She also now can use her Tricks 2 times / level and gains a new one: Smoke Bomb, which I’ll explain in play. I really need to use these Tricks more.
Now let’s talk Downtime. I love the Tales Downtime rules, which are designed around “activities for PCs to spend their silver on, to keep them hungry for coin.” First, I roll how much time passes before “something interesting” happens, which will constitute this Downtime period. I roll nine weeks.
Seven days of predominantly low-key activity in a safe location is called a Long Rest, and Vessa thus regains all hit points, class abilities, Rerolls, and attribute loss (minus Luck), plus recovers 1 Luck point. That leaves her at full strength, but at 10 of 11 possible Luck. “Wait a gosh-darned minute!” you might be saying, “but Downtime is nine weeks! Wouldn’t she be able to recover that other point in eight extra weeks?” Maybe. But she’s doing other things during that time, having her own mini adventures and peril. The sum total is that she’ll be down 1 Luck when the next adventure begins. Unless something happens during Downtime to diminish it further.
Speaking of which, for Vessa a big question is how much of the party’s gold she can pay back to the Latchkey Circle versus how much she spends on carousing and gambling. First, let’s decide how much she and Maelen need to pay off their debts. I’m going to roll 2d6x100 gold, an impossibly big sum for people in Oakton. I roll 80 gold of debt. Whew. Combining gold and silver from Thornmere Hold, they have 105 total gold, so theoretically they have enough. But while Maelen is in a coma, Vessa may be getting herself into trouble…
Let’s combine these two subsystems and see how it goes. Vessa will use 100 sp (or 10 gp) on gambling/carousing. How does the weeks worth of gambling go? Vessa must make a Luck save. She rolls a 14 and fails, losing the money. The only “good” news is that Vessa won’t lose a Luck point for failing.
Now, the fateful Carousing roll, the same roll that last time had Vessa lose her hair, a tooth, and create a complication that has yet to rear its head (but is on the Mythic Threads list!). Here goes the d100 roll… 04, which is Crime, “Your drunken endeavors lead you to commit a crime, roll 1d6.” Vessa rolls affray, a word I had to look up and means “an instance of fighting in a public place that disturbs the peace.” She is wanted for questioning for the next 4 (rolled on 1d6) months after Downtime ends for questioning. Well, this all fits perfectly into Vessa’s character flaws so far. The big question: How much money does she spend? Carousing from levels 1-3 can take anywhere from 20-100 silver. I’ll roll and get 80 silver. Dangit, Vessa!
Subtracting the 70 silver that Alric took with him, that’s 80 gold exactly left. Sometimes the dice just tell the story, don’t they? Vessa and Maelen will be dead broke after this downtime.
Here is Vessa’s Level 2 character sheet:
Alric Mistsong
Next up is Alric. He fully heals, and his Luck is now 10 of 11. Like Vessa, he will use his +1 attribute increase on Willpower, increasing it also to 13, giving him a +1 modifier and increasing his Death Save to 11. His hit points increase by a whopping 1, to 14 (brutal!). He gains a Reroll.
Next are his class bonuses. His Attack Bonus becomes +1 (all that staff-bashing he’s been doing paying off). He gains a new skill, and already has both Arcane Lore and Divine Lore. Hm. As squeamish as it makes me, I’ll give him Deception since he’s dabbling in dark forces, and it’s a skill he showed some aptitude for at the Root Gate in Chapter 2. As a Magic User, he also can construct a Mental Apparatus, which is “a circlet, cap, high rimmed collar, or other headgear that strengthens your mind against mental attacks.” He’ll gain advantage when resisting things like charm, fear, etc. But lo, it costs 50 silver to create, which means he can’t pay back his family! Again, this all feels very in-character.
Of course, the most exciting thing is Alric’s spellcraft. He can now cast 2 spells / level (regained with rest). Interestingly, Tales is the first game I’ve played that doesn’t just let spellcasters learn random new spells for free when they level up. Instead, Alric is allowed to learn one new spell this level, but only based on scrolls, spellbooks, etc. he’s acquired as loot. Thankfully, the vault in Thornmere Hold provided two scrolls. Though the idea of flying is cool, by far the most useful of the two is Mend Flesh, which Alric will spend a good chunk of his Downtime learning. He’s dabbling in dark magics, but at least the party now has a healer.
Studying his magic, learning new spells, and creating his Mental Apparatus seem like more than enough for Alric to be doing during his nine weeks of Downtime. That said, he’s likely the most transformed of the party, and will start the next adventure as much less a scribe and much more a full-blown magic user. Here is his Level 2 character sheet:
Maelen Marroson
Last but not least, let’s turn to the fallen Maelen. Most importantly, her Long Rest will allow her to recover from Sarin’s draining touch. If the party had gold left, I might say that the recovery took some of their money. Since I was harsh on Vessa’s Downtime and the party is starting effectively poor, I’ll handwave the healing this time. Again, one of the main goals of these nine weeks is to make the trio desperate enough to risk their lives for more wealth, and it’s “mission accomplished” there.
For Level 2, Maelen will use her attribute increase on Constitution, increasing it to 14 (which doesn’t change the modifier but will do so next increase). As a Fighter, her hit points increase from 16 to 20. She also gains an additional Reroll.
Class-wise, her attack bonus increases to +2. For her new skill, it’s a little boring but I do think Wilderness Lore makes sense, especially since she and Vessa are intent on going after Sarin’s treasure at some point. As a Level 2 Fighter, Maelen also gains Supplies, which means at any time during an adventure she can add 1d4 mundane items that she retroactively decided to pack. Pretty cool! Her Adaptable uses also go up to 2 uses / level. I misunderstood this ability last level… her default is Opportunist (which she used twice), and she has access to this ability as a default. The uses of Adaptable, then, are to switch to a different style (Two-Hander). Maelen also gains a new potential style: Charger, which allows her to knock foes prone with a successful Charge.
Here is her Level 2 sheet:
How does Maelen spend her Downtime? Recovering and getting her strength back, mostly, leaving Vessa to pay off the Circle, and then flit away their remaining wealth. I will say, just for fun, that Maelen is with her towards the end, maybe even starting the brawl that Vessa is now wanted for.
Level up complete! When we pick up the story this weekend, it will be nine weeks from the end of the Thornmere Hold story and kicking off the party’s next adventure (which will again be determined by random rolls… yeehaw!). See you then and there!
As always, if you have comments on either the story or game notes, feel free to post a comment below or email me at jaycms@yahoo.com.
A twig cracked nearby. Alric froze, hand reaching for his staff as he listened into the darkness. Nothing. He exhaled but his eyes still searched the surrounding mists.
The scribe sat with his back against a tree. Insects chittered and nightbirds called out mournfully, both sounds distorted by the fog. If he concentrated on it, he could hear Vessa lightly snoring nearby, curled on her side atop a bedroll. He groaned as he pushed himself up wearily, then shuffled his way to Maelen.
The warrior had remained unconscious all day. He knelt, frowning, and listened to her shallow, inconsistent breathing. With his waterskin, Alric dribbled a few drops onto her lips and into the small gap of her open mouth. It was all he or Vessa could do. That and get her to a true healer.
All day and evening, they had dragged Maelen’s litter through the hills of the Greenwood Rise. Her condition had not improved over that time, though neither had it obviously deteriorated. She lay on her back, motionless atop the drag-sled made from scavenged wood, rope, and a Lanternless cloak. Maelen’s scabbarded sword stretched to one side of her, and that alien black mace stretched across the other. Vessa had wrapped the spiked head of the weapon with a second cloak.
Alric pressed fingers to Maelen’s neck. The pulse was there, slow and sporadic. He sighed and returned to sit against the tree, lowering himself painfully.
Every muscle in Alric’s body screamed with exhaustion. But, he mused, perhaps they had successfully evaded Sarin and the Lanternless. Perhaps they would indeed find their way back to Oakton and survive this whole ordeal, safe within the walls of the city. Perhaps, the thought crept in… he’d done it.
For the first time in days, Alric allowed himself to fully reflect on what he’d accomplished. Thanks to his sharp wit and ability to see connections in obscure texts, he had discovered the existence and location of Thornmere Hold. Then, through his Lodge connections, he’d found two trustworthy mercenaries with the skills to find the Hold, offer protection, and break into its inner vault. Moreover, he’d paid them with coin he’d pilfered from his family’s meager holdings, promising more that he didn’t possess.
Alric felt a pang of guilt about that last part, but the gods had seen the matter resolved. Before they’d camped last night, Vessa had dragged the chests from the vault into the glade. There, they’d counted more money than he’d ever seen. The group’s coin purses now bulged heavily, Vessa and Maelen taking the gold and most of the silver. It left Alric with almost seventy thorns for his own purse, plus handfuls of oaks, more than enough to return the money to his family. It was a miraculous thing, to have gambled his inheritance for this mad quest, only to find himself richer for it. He’d had a far more convoluted plan brewing that would allow him to escape the final payment to the mercenaries, but his scheming had proved unnecessary. This entire adventure was an example of why it was best to be bold, then worry about the consequences later.
Vessa hadn’t spoken much all day. It seemed obvious that she had been equal parts giddy at their sudden treasure trove, concerned for Maelen’s well-being, and vigilant against possible threats within the wilds. There was companionship in their shared silence, however. Although she still smelled faintly like a sewer, Alric found himself increasingly fond of the hired thief, Vessa Velthorn. Indeed, he found her sharp features and lithe figure haunting his idle thoughts, and he couldn’t shake the vivid memory of the fierce hug she’d given him. On some level, he knew his attraction was borne from their survival in the face of danger, but it made the feelings no less real. Too often, his eyes lingered on her bent nose and freckled cheeks, wondering what it might be like to kiss those full lips. Alric shook his head grimly. Thoughts for a later day, to be sure.
He flicked open the satchel at his waist. A chill ran down his spine, and for the whisper of a moment he thought he heard something. He snapped his gaze up, listened, but sensed nothing.
Shadows and the night veiled the satchel’s contents, but Alric knew that inside was a small, black leatherbound book. The Tome of Unlit Paths, its title, was written within, in a looping, ancient script that he could decipher with moderate effort. Just briefly flipping through its heavy parchment pages, Alric felt confident that he would expand his understanding of magic significantly with time to fully absorb its contents. He had thus far been tapping into mysterious forces purely on instinct, yet this book would help guide and train him, he was sure of it. He had, he knew with certainty, finally found a teacher to develop his gifts.
The trick would be to avoid its corruption, for he guessed that it was the Tome for which the vault in Thornmere Hold was built, not the black-metal mace, stacks of coin, or the magical scrolls that now lay rolled into his scroll case. It was a theory he had not shared with Vessa, and a topic he hoped to avoid. Within the vault, the book had been bound in its own case of black wood and was the only chest that had been locked. Indeed, his working theory was that it was this book alone that had so twisted the bodies of the two knights entombed within the Hold. Perhaps it was the call of the book that had prevented Sarin from dying long ago, and instead birthed him as the Night Captain. Perhaps even, if his theory about the Tome’s power was correct, a common spider had been unwittingly sealed within the vault, and the eyeless monster Vessa had killed was the result of a century in the book’s presence. All these horrors shared certain traits that made them seem disciples of this… demon, this Orthuun, the Blind Sovereign. Their sightless eyes and silent manner, for example. There were connections here, threads on a tapestry that Alric couldn’t fully comprehend yet. But, with the Tome of Unlit Paths, he now possessed a tool with which to understand.
Then, once filled with the knowledge found therein, he would bury or burn the book and be rid of its demonic influence. After all, hadn’t the corruption he’d witnessed occurred over a hundred years or more? He only needed days with it, no more than a week.
He clung to his vow: be bold, worry later. Thus far, this approach had served him well. Indeed, his life felt blessed by Oakton’s gods. Though Alric was no Nametakers priest, it was as if the Herald himself was using Alric as his mortal instrument for preserving history and uncovering the power within knowledge. The events that had led him here, to the Tome, against all odds, very well could be divine providence.
Amidst his musing, Tatter the mouse crept out from another belt pouch and scampered across Alric’s lap. It looked at him, small eyes twinkling in the moonlight, and squeaked once. Alric smiled and ran a finger across its skull to the base of its furry neck. The fact that the mouse had survived its time with Maelen and her violent lifestyle was its own miracle. At first, he’d thought the idea of a traveling pet for mercenaries bizarre, but Tatter’s presence was comforting, especially after brushes with horror and darkness. He was happy to have the mouse accompany him until Maelen awoke.
Tatter squeaked again, this time with some distress. In a flash, it scampered to his belt pouch and disappeared. Alric blinked and tensed, scanning the darkened campsite and listening intently.
All sounds had ceased. No nightbirds called out. No insect chittered. No trees groaned and cracked in the breeze. Everything had grown still and silent, much like the glade surrounding Thornmere Hold. Patchy mists drifted all around, gilded by silvery moonlight from above, the trees standing like dark, mute sentinels.
Vessa lay three strides away, too far to shake awake. Alric found his throat constricted with sudden fear, unwilling to call out and draw attention to himself. Slowly, slowly, he returned the black book to its pouch—when had he removed it?—and reached for his staff.
The light in the campsite dimmed noticeably. Alric glanced up, and his eyes went wide. The moon had begun to turn black, as if someone had spilled ink upon a white dinner plate. The blackness crept inexorably across its celestial surface, until it was nothing but a black circle, limned ever so subtly in white against the night sky. Was he still awake? His pounding heart insisted he was.
Maelen shifted, the first movement he’d seen from her since the battle with Sarin. Her face twisted as if in pain, her body twitching. It looked as if she were moaning in agony, but Alric could hear nothing.
He pushed himself stiffly up, leaning his staff into the forest floor, his back still against the rough bark of a tree. Once he’d fully stood, the mists parted to reveal dark figures moving outside the campsite. There were four of them that he could see, each tall, black silhouettes, faces hidden beneath heavy cloaks and each holding an unlit lantern. Had Sarin returned, with a host of Nightwights? Alric’s eyes rolled in terror, his breath catching. Knuckles white on his staff, he shuffled through the fallen leaves and dirt towards the silent procession. Why he moved forward and not to wake Vessa, he couldn’t say. He would only later realize that his movements made no sound, as if he’d been struck deaf.
The four figures passed by, moving in loping, smooth steps. Alric stood, heart hammering, as they proceeded through the mists, never looking at him. The mountain fog enveloped the procession, one by one, until the last in line remained. Only then did it turn its shadowed, hooded head to look at him. Alric could do nothing but stare as it raised a white, bony hand to point in his direction. Then it too was gone.
Moonlight gradually brightened the woods, and with it the sounds of insects and nightbirds. Alric heard his own gasping, panting breath as he sunk to one knee. Then he vomited into the fallen leaves.
He did not wake Vessa for her watch. As the forest slowly awakened with sound, Alric’s heart pounded and worry gnawed at what the visitation might mean.
Frostmere 18, Moonday, Year 731.
“Oh, thank the gods,” Alric wheezed. He paused for the hundredth time that day to mop his brow and stretch his back.
Proceeding down the hill towards the Root Road had been far easier than traveling up the Greenwood Rise, but keeping Maelen’s unconscious form safe on the way down had been harrowing. He and Vessa were both bruised, bloody from whipping branches, and filthy. To make matters worse, today the fog had settled overhead into a thin, dismal rain. His hair clung to his face and neck, his robes hung heavy, damp, and muddy. Every muscle, tendon, and bone in his body ached with weariness and the need to rest, his lamed leg most of all.
“What is it?” Vessa asked. Without her hair, moisture collected in her eyebrows and spilled down her face. The thief already had the habit of rubbing at her bent nose, but today she also constantly shook her head like a dog to free it of water.
“We’re close,” Alric sighed, nodding with his chin to the road. “Here is where you’d turn up the hills to Skywarden Tower. If it were a clear day, I suspect we’d be able to see the Argenoak already.”
“Great,” Vessa smiled, then shook her head, spraying droplets of water. “I need a warm fire, a dry blanket, and a bed.”
Unwittingly, the vision of a tall, cloaked figure pointing a bony finger at him filled Alric’s mind. He winced and banished the image.
“That makes two of us,” He said wearily. Then, before they began dragging the litter once more, he asked, “What will you do now? With the gold?”
“Mm,” Vessa mused. “Get Maelen a proper healer first, of course. Then… well, we have debts.”
Alric scoffed. “Surely not more debt than you have gold, now?”
Vessa shrugged a thin, pale shoulder. She’d used her cloak to reinforce Maelen’s litter so was unprotected from the rain and chill of the day. “I guess we’ll see. And you’re sure you’re fine with us keeping the gold and mace?”
Alric cocked a grin. “If it will help your debts, yes. I have little need for gold once our expedition is done. I have the scrolls and book, which is more than I could have hoped for.”
Vessa shook her head in disbelief. “I’ve never met a person who refused gold, but I’m thankful for it. Mae will be too. So… that’s what next for you? Reading in an uncomfortable chair in a cramped room somewhere by candlelight?”
“That’s right,” then added somewhat defensively. “It’s a nicer vision than you make it sound.”
She smiled with white teeth, and his attraction stirred. Vessa looked like a drowned cat in this weather, but it made her no less lovely. “If you say so.”
“When Maelen is recovered,” Alric said, returning the smile. “Let’s have dinner, the three of us.”
“Done,” she nodded. “Now let’s get going. It’s not getting drier or warmer out here.”
“And you’re paying!” Alric added as he leaned to pick up his side of the litter.
She laughed. It was a wonderful sound, her laugh, full of surprise and wit, and utterly genuine.
The sound almost pushed the ominous foreboding of the night before out of his mind.
Almost… but the image of that cloaked procession… the pointing white finger… the blackened moon. Those images still sat there, etched into his waking thoughts, all through the dreary slog to Oakton.
On the plus side, our three PCs have survived Thornmere Hold and our PCs will be level 2 when they get a Long Rest! Unfortunately, the only way they’re going to achieve a Long Rest (defined in Tales of Argosa as “seven days of predominantly low key activity in a safe location”) is to return to Oakton. Doing so with an unconscious Maelen and a horde of treasure is going to be tough. I considered hand-waving the return home but quickly realized that doing so was against the spirit of the grittier tale I’m writing.
Interestingly enough, Tales’ cool equipment “slots” system helped me work out whether the PCs needed to bury some treasure before making the return trip or not. Their 3 torches are gone, and Vessa has added Fenn’s shortbow and quiver of arrows to her Battle Gear slots. With the torch gone, she can add one bag of 200 coins per the rules, so will take all the gold and 135 silver. Alric, meanwhile, already had a spellbook, which I’ll now replace with Orthuun’s grimoire, and he’ll take the 2 scrolls into his Battle Gear. With no torch, he can also carry a bag of coins of 65 silver and 135 copper. Maelen, though, is flush with empty slots. She can take The Bonebreaker mace, the gilded lantern, and a bag of 200 silver. As it turns out then: No buried treasure necessary!
Let’s return to the Hexploration rules. By the time our two PCs emerge from Thornmere Hold with a heavy Maelen and loot, it will be the Night Shift of their second day. I’ll reduce the 2 rations from Maelen’s stash. The rules say that if an encounter has already happened today that it’s GM’s call on whether another occurs. I’ll say that Sarin is the only reasonable encounter, and he’s fled to his “home turf” to heal and gather the rest of his Lanternless. Alric and Vessa have a tense but free night somewhere near the Hold.
Thanks to Sleep, each PC recovers 1 hit point, bringing both to 10. I never properly gave them a Short Rest, so will do that now. Vessa will make her two Willpower checks: Her first roll is another 3 and the second a 20. With her one success, she’ll recover her missing Reroll. Alric, meanwhile, rolls a 16 and 8, also achieving one success. He’ll recover his single spell slot.
Before I drop back into the narrative, let’s make Hexploration rolls for the day to see how quickly I move through their return trip. For Day 3 weather, I roll 5, which is “Similar,” which is a misty morning and clear day. Vessa is the Lookout and Alric is the Guide. He’ll make an Int+1 (bonus for the map) check to see how well he navigates, rolling a Nat-1! Okay, great. Thanks to Alric’s amazing roll, I’ll skip the Consult the Bones roll for the Day Shift. Then it’s time for the Night Shift, reducing another 2 rations from Maelen (who is now out of food, freeing up another slot if the party needs it).
Is there an encounter that evening? I Consult the Bones and roll a No/Nil on the Twins of Fate, a Yes on the Judgment die, and Nil on the Fortune die. So yes, something happens, but that something is neither good nor bad. Staring at my Threads and Character list makes me think that rolling on those tables would be bad for the party, so let me instead use the Travel Events table in Tales for inspiration. I roll a d20: 19, which is Random Encounter. Hmm. Okay, I have an idea that is neutral for the party but should shake up Alric quite a bit.
Finally, I’m going to dial the Chaos Factor back to 6. It appears that Vessa and Alric have successfully escaped Thornmere Hold. They’re in the wilds, but only a day’s journey from home!
Those rolls helped me figure out where to drop into the story. Here we go!
X.
Frostmere 17, Stillday, Year 731.
A twig cracked nearby. Alric froze, hand reaching for his staff as he listened into the darkness. Nothing. He exhaled but his eyes still searched the surrounding mists.
The scribe sat with his back against a tree. Insects chittered and nightbirds called out mournfully, both sounds distorted by the fog. If he concentrated on it, he could hear Vessa lightly snoring nearby, curled on her side atop a bedroll. He groaned as he pushed himself up wearily, then shuffled his way to Maelen.
The warrior had remained unconscious all day. He knelt, frowning, and listened to her shallow, inconsistent breathing. With his waterskin, Alric dribbled a few drops onto her lips and into the small gap of her open mouth. It was all he or Vessa could do. That and get her to a true healer.
All day and evening, they had dragged Maelen’s litter through the hills of the Greenwood Rise. Her condition had not improved over that time, though neither had it obviously deteriorated. She lay on her back, motionless atop the drag-sled made from scavenged wood, rope, and a Lanternless cloak. Maelen’s scabbarded sword stretched to one side of her, and that alien black mace stretched across the other. Vessa had wrapped the spiked head of the weapon with a second cloak.
Alric pressed fingers to Maelen’s neck. The pulse was there, slow and sporadic. He sighed and returned to sit against the tree, lowering himself painfully.
Every muscle in Alric’s body screamed with exhaustion. But, he mused, perhaps they had successfully evaded Sarin and the Lanternless. Perhaps they would indeed find their way back to Oakton and survive this whole ordeal, safe within the walls of the city. Perhaps, the thought crept in… he’d done it.
For the first time in days, Alric allowed himself to fully reflect on what he’d accomplished. Thanks to his sharp wit and ability to see connections in obscure texts, he had discovered the existence and location of Thornmere Hold. Then, through his Lodge connections, he’d found two trustworthy mercenaries with the skills to find the Hold, offer protection, and break into its inner vault. Moreover, he’d paid them with coin he’d pilfered from his family’s meager holdings, promising more that he didn’t possess.
Alric felt a pang of guilt about that last part, but the gods had seen the matter resolved. Before they’d camped last night, Vessa had dragged the chests from the vault into the glade. There, they’d counted more money than he’d ever seen. The group’s coin purses now bulged heavily, Vessa and Maelen taking the gold and most of the silver. It left Alric with almost seventy thorns for his own purse, plus handfuls of oaks, more than enough to return the money to his family. It was a miraculous thing, to have gambled his inheritance for this mad quest, only to find himself richer for it. He’d had a far more convoluted plan brewing that would allow him to escape the final payment to the mercenaries, but his scheming had proved unnecessary. This entire adventure was an example of why it was best to be bold, then worry about the consequences later.
Vessa hadn’t spoken much all day. It seemed obvious that she had been equal parts giddy at their sudden treasure trove, concerned for Maelen’s well-being, and vigilant against possible threats within the wilds. There was companionship in their shared silence, however. Although she still smelled faintly like a sewer, Alric found himself increasingly fond of the hired thief, Vessa Velthorn. Indeed, he found her sharp features and lithe figure haunting his idle thoughts, and he couldn’t shake the vivid memory of the fierce hug she’d given him. On some level, he knew his attraction was borne from their survival in the face of danger, but it made the feelings no less real. Too often, his eyes lingered on her bent nose and freckled cheeks, wondering what it might be like to kiss those full lips. Alric shook his head grimly. Thoughts for a later day, to be sure.
He flicked open the satchel at his waist. A chill ran down his spine, and for the whisper of a moment he thought he heard something. He snapped his gaze up, listened, but sensed nothing.
Shadows and the night veiled the satchel’s contents, but Alric knew that inside was a small, black leatherbound book. The Tome of Unlit Paths, its title, was written within, in a looping, ancient script that he could decipher with moderate effort. Just briefly flipping through its heavy parchment pages, Alric felt confident that he would expand his understanding of magic significantly with time to fully absorb its contents. He had thus far been tapping into mysterious forces purely on instinct, yet this book would help guide and train him, he was sure of it. He had, he knew with certainty, finally found a teacher to develop his gifts.
The trick would be to avoid its corruption, for he guessed that it was the Tome for which the vault in Thornmere Hold was built, not the black-metal mace, stacks of coin, or the magical scrolls that now lay rolled into his scroll case. It was a theory he had not shared with Vessa, and a topic he hoped to avoid. Within the vault, the book had been bound in its own case of black wood and was the only chest that had been locked. Indeed, his working theory was that it was this book alone that had so twisted the bodies of the two knights entombed within the Hold. Perhaps it was the call of the book that had prevented Sarin from dying long ago, and instead birthed him as the Night Captain. Perhaps even, if his theory about the Tome’s power was correct, a common spider had been unwittingly sealed within the vault, and the eyeless monster Vessa had killed was the result of a century in the book’s presence. All these horrors shared certain traits that made them seem disciples of this… demon, this Orthuun, the Blind Sovereign. Their sightless eyes and silent manner, for example. There were connections here, threads on a tapestry that Alric couldn’t fully comprehend yet. But, with the Tome of Unlit Paths, he now possessed a tool with which to understand.
Then, once filled with the knowledge found therein, he would bury or burn the book and be rid of its demonic influence. After all, hadn’t the corruption he’d witnessed occurred over a hundred years or more? He only needed days with it, no more than a week.
He clung to his vow: be bold, worry later. Thus far, this approach had served him well. Indeed, his life felt blessed by Oakton’s gods. Though Alric was no Nametakers priest, it was as if the Herald himself was using Alric as his mortal instrument for preserving history and uncovering the power within knowledge. The events that had led him here, to the Tome, against all odds, very well could be divine providence.
Amidst his musing, Tatter the mouse crept out from another belt pouch and scampered across Alric’s lap. It looked at him, small eyes twinkling in the moonlight, and squeaked once. Alric smiled and ran a finger across its skull to the base of its furry neck. The fact that the mouse had survived its time with Maelen and her violent lifestyle was its own miracle. At first, he’d thought the idea of a traveling pet for mercenaries bizarre, but Tatter’s presence was comforting, especially after brushes with horror and darkness. He was happy to have the mouse accompany him until Maelen awoke.
Tatter squeaked again, this time with some distress. In a flash, it scampered to his belt pouch and disappeared. Alric blinked and tensed, scanning the darkened campsite and listening intently.
All sounds had ceased. No nightbirds called out. No insect chittered. No trees groaned and cracked in the breeze. Everything had grown still and silent, much like the glade surrounding Thornmere Hold. Patchy mists drifted all around, gilded by silvery moonlight from above, the trees standing like dark, mute sentinels.
Vessa lay three strides away, too far to shake awake. Alric found his throat constricted with sudden fear, unwilling to call out and draw attention to himself. Slowly, slowly, he returned the black book to its pouch—when had he removed it?—and reached for his staff.
The light in the campsite dimmed noticeably. Alric glanced up, and his eyes went wide. The moon had begun to turn black, as if someone had spilled ink upon a white dinner plate. The blackness crept inexorably across its celestial surface, until it was nothing but a black circle, limned ever so subtly in white against the night sky. Was he still awake? His pounding heart insisted he was.
Maelen shifted, the first movement he’d seen from her since the battle with Sarin. Her face twisted as if in pain, her body twitching. It looked as if she were moaning in agony, but Alric could hear nothing.
He pushed himself stiffly up, leaning his staff into the forest floor, his back still against the rough bark of a tree. Once he’d fully stood, the mists parted to reveal dark figures moving outside the campsite. There were four of them that he could see, each tall, black silhouettes, faces hidden beneath heavy cloaks and each holding an unlit lantern. Had Sarin returned, with a host of Nightwights? Alric’s eyes rolled in terror, his breath catching. Knuckles white on his staff, he shuffled through the fallen leaves and dirt towards the silent procession. Why he moved forward and not to wake Vessa, he couldn’t say. He would only later realize that his movements made no sound, as if he’d been struck deaf.
The four figures passed by, moving in loping, smooth steps. Alric stood, heart hammering, as they proceeded through the mists, never looking at him. The mountain fog enveloped the procession, one by one, until the last in line remained. Only then did it turn its shadowed, hooded head to look at him. Alric could do nothing but stare as it raised a white, bony hand to point in his direction. Then it too was gone.
Moonlight gradually brightened the woods, and with it the sounds of insects and nightbirds. Alric heard his own gasping, panting breath as he sunk to one knee. Then he vomited into the fallen leaves.
He did not wake Vessa for her watch. As the forest slowly awakened with sound, Alric’s heart pounded and worry gnawed at what the visitation might mean.
Onto a new day! Alric and Vessa again each recover 1 hit point, and both are now at 11. I roll a 10 for weather, which means it’s gotten cooler and wetter. I don’t see any navigation checks needed this close to Oakton (they’re less than a day’s travel to the city), but I will Consult the Bones to see if something happens either that morning, or even at the Root Gate when they reach the city. The Twins say Yes/No, the Judgment die pushes that to a Yes, but the Fortune die has no result. Hm. Let’s roll a Travel Event and see what the dice say: I roll an 18, which is Taxing Terrain, “Difficult and unexpected terrain impedes explorers’ path…Progress is slow and taxing, requiring a Montage. If failed the party is Fatigued and a random PC uses up or loses a piece of relevant gear.”
What’s happened here feels obvious to me: Dragging Maelen and their gear up and through the Greenwood Rise is really, really difficult for Vessa and Alric. Neither of them possesses skills like Athletics, Wilderness Lore, or Leadership that would be useful to navigate such an arduous task. As a result, I won’t even roll a Montage (which we’ll save for some other time… they’re cool!). I’ll say that both are Fatigued, which means they each lose a point of Constitution until they can recover, and they’ve consumed all of their remaining rations.
Speaking of which, I did trigger an idea that may delay their downtime. I won’t let the PCs off the hook before asking a Fate question: Is there an unexpected complication trying to reenter the city (an opportunity to roll on my Mythic Threads list)? I’ll give it a 50/50 chance, but since the Chaos Factor is 6 that makes the likelihood 65%. I roll 68! Close, but no cigar. Despite my sinister inclinations, the party makes it back to Oakton unmolested and can finally get some rest.
Frostmere 18, Moonday, Year 731.
“Oh, thank the gods,” Alric wheezed. He paused for the hundredth time that day to mop his brow and stretch his back.
Proceeding down the hill towards the Root Road had been far easier than traveling up the Greenwood Rise, but keeping Maelen’s unconscious form safe on the way down had been harrowing. He and Vessa were both bruised, bloody from whipping branches, and filthy. To make matters worse, today the fog had settled overhead into a thin, dismal rain. His hair clung to his face and neck, his robes hung heavy, damp, and muddy. Every muscle, tendon, and bone in his body ached with weariness and the need to rest, his lamed leg most of all.
“What is it?” Vessa asked. Without her hair, moisture collected in her eyebrows and spilled down her face. The thief already had the habit of rubbing at her bent nose, but today she also constantly shook her head like a dog to free it of water.
“We’re close,” Alric sighed, nodding with his chin to the road. “Here is where you’d turn up the hills to Skywarden Tower. If it were a clear day, I suspect we’d be able to see the Argenoak already.”
“Great,” Vessa smiled, then shook her head, spraying droplets of water. “I need a warm fire, a dry blanket, and a bed.”
Unwittingly, the vision of a tall, cloaked figure pointing a bony finger at him filled Alric’s mind. He winced and banished the image.
“That makes two of us,” He said wearily. Then, before they began dragging the litter once more, he asked, “What will you do now? With the gold?”
“Mm,” Vessa mused. “Get Maelen a proper healer first, of course. Then… well, we have debts.”
Alric scoffed. “Surely not more debt than you have gold, now?”
Vessa shrugged a thin, pale shoulder. She’d used her cloak to reinforce Maelen’s litter so was unprotected from the rain and chill of the day. “I guess we’ll see. And you’re sure you’re fine with us keeping the gold and mace?”
Alric cocked a grin. “If it will help your debts, yes. I have little need for gold once our expedition is done. I have the scrolls and book, which is more than I could have hoped for.”
Vessa shook her head in disbelief. “I’ve never met a person who refused gold, but I’m thankful for it. Mae will be too. So… that’s what next for you? Reading in an uncomfortable chair in a cramped room somewhere by candlelight?”
“That’s right,” then added somewhat defensively. “It’s a nicer vision than you make it sound.”
She smiled with white teeth, and his attraction stirred. Vessa looked like a drowned cat in this weather, but it made her no less lovely. “If you say so.”
“When Maelen is recovered,” Alric said, returning the smile. “Let’s have dinner, the three of us.”
“Done,” she nodded. “Now let’s get going. It’s not getting drier or warmer out here.”
“And you’re paying!” Alric added as he leaned to pick up his side of the litter.
She laughed. It was a wonderful sound, her laugh, full of surprise and wit, and utterly genuine.
The sound almost pushed the ominous foreboding of the night before out of his mind.
Almost… but the image of that cloaked procession… the pointing white finger… the blackened moon. Those images still sat there, etched into his waking thoughts, all through the dreary slog to Oakton.
“What are you waiting for? Help her!” Vessa blurted. Tears streaked her cheeks as she sat by helplessly. The stone floor bruised her knees and the cut on her arm burned, but none of that mattered right now. All that mattered was her friend.
Maelen lay sprawled on her back, arms splayed as if after a night of carousing. Bloody drool trickled from the corner of her mouth and down to one ear. Maelen’s skin looked ashen and sallow, her closed eyes sunken. For some reason, most disturbing to Vessa was the wide lock upon Maelen’s head that had turned a dull gray amidst her otherwise black hair. What had Sarin done to her? She couldn’t die and leave Vessa all alone. And yet, Maelen’s desperate and hopeless scream would haunt her dreams for years to come. How could she still be alive after the Nightwight’s dread touch? Was Vessa doomed to witness all the Larkhands’ deaths but never join them? Was she… alone? New tears blurred her vision.
The scribe hadn’t answered her. He had a hand on each side of Maelen’s head, above each ear, and he was murmuring something, eyes closed. Vessa wanted to throw him off her friend and beat the boy senseless, but she knew on some level that he was trying to help. Had he banished Sarin’s darkness, or had the magic disappeared when the Nightwight vanished? Vessa could have sworn she’d seen Alric, as the blackness had dissipated like lingering smoke, with eyes closed and murmuring just as he was doing now. Could he use magic, this lamed, ink-fingered scribe?
Suddenly, Maelen inhaled once, sharp and deep, her back arching. Then she exhaled with a moan and stilled. Alric’s eyes fluttered open and he looked down, releasing her head and frowning.
“I… I’ve done all I can,” he said weakly. He sounded… uncertain. Fragile. “She lives, for now. But I’m no healer, and don’t truly understand what’s hap–”
Before she realized she was doing it, Vessa lunged at Alric and fiercely embraced him. It was awkward with them both on their knees, and they almost toppled over. He stiffened, and then hesitantly returned the hug, patting her back with one hand.
Vessa released him without a word, sniffled loudly, and set to caretaking Maelen. She wiped the drool from her face, cut the shirt from the tracker she’d killed and used it to wrap Maelen’s hip where she’d taken a sword wound, and then pushed her friend’s bedroll beneath her unconscious head. Tatter, still nestled in a belt pouch, appeared unharmed. She left him there, hoping his presence might comfort Maelen. That done, she used yet more Lanternless shirt to bind her arm wound, then went about carefully extinguishing two of the torches to extend their chances at retaining light. When she felt satisfied, she looked up to find Alric’s back to her. He was studying the black, basalt door at the back of the room.
She stood, limbs protesting, and approached him. “This torch won’t last much longer,” she said into the silence. “And the other two won’t either. We need to get ourselves and Maelen out of here.”
“Mmm,” Alric said thoughtfully, his voice his own again. “And yet, wouldn’t Maelen want us to see what the Lodge has been hiding, all these many years? I can almost hear her berating us for not opening the door.”
She cocked her head. “For all we know, a whole host of silent zombies will spill out of that door.”
“I doubt it,” he said, turning to regard her. “The knights Meren and Edran had volunteered to guard this place for eternity. I don’t imagine that there is another company of noble warriors waiting beyond. The documents in this room are fascinating, but it’s not why Thornmere Hold was built.”
“What do you think is there, then?” she asked. Her stubbled scalp was still novel and startling, and she found herself rubbing a palm across it, watching him.
“I… don’t know, honestly,” he exhaled. “But I can sense… something. Some sort of power.”
“Which could be something that will tear our limbs off…” Vessa said with a smirk.
She had meant it as a joke, but he scoffed with irritation. “Aren’t you a thief?” he said, mouth twisting. “Don’t you want treasure? There is something important in there.”
The palm rubbing across her scalp stilled and she regarded the man before her. He leaned on his staff with both hands, knuckles white as they clutched the wood. His dark eyes almost pleaded with her, though they darted around, never lingering on one thing overly long. He was terrified, this young scribe, and yet desperate to see what lay beyond the heavy black door. Vessa considered for a moment whether Alric had known all along what lay in Thornmere Hold and had withheld it from them but quickly discarded the idea. It was the mystery beyond that door that was battering at him.
“Fine,” she shrugged a shoulder.
Before Sarin and his Lanternless had arrived, Vessa had worked out how to slip past the arcane seal on the vault door without triggering whatever would happen if opened. She’d also already unlocked the two wheel-locks, untrapped, with her tools. As a result, it took her remarkably little time to open the large, black door before her. She barked clipped instructions for Alric on the position of the dwindling torch, and, thanks to a series of fingertip presses in a complex pattern she’d worked out based on the slight wear of the inlaid bronze. The seal hissed like escaping steam, rotated with a click, and pulsed once with a sickly green light before fading.
Then silence.
The dying flame of the torch was almost entirely gone. She lit a second torch from the first just before it died, the new flame sputtering weakly. Alric took it, but it already burned with a desperate flicker.
“We don’t have much time,” she said. “Let’s see what’s inside.”
Legs straining, she leaned forward and pushed the central wheel lock. There was a crack as the seal of the vault door broke free from its frame, but the door swung open easily and without incident.
“By the Herald,” Alric whispered in awe. He stepped forward, torch held aloft.
It was a small room, perhaps five or six strides across each side, with the same high ceiling as the previous chamber. Flickering light showed three iron-bound wooden chests upon the stone floor and a fourth, smaller than the others but entirely iron, lay nestled in a corner. Upon the wall, displayed by two iron hooks, hung a large, spiked mace that was entirely black and unlike anything Vessa had seen before. A fancy gilded lantern hung from a hook near the door, but upon inspection it contained no oil with which to light it. She did spy, however, the detailed, inscribed emblem of the stag upon the lantern, a symbol of the Princehold of Calvenor, not Oakton or one of its guilds. She didn’t know why a symbol of the Princehold hung here, so far from the Tower of Public Record, but she’d seen that stag stamped on royal warrants before, and if the lantern’s filigree was real gold… the lantern itself might be worth more than Alric was paying them for this job.
Her lips tugged into a grin. Alric had been correct to push them to open the vault door. She guessed that at least one of those chests contained coins. There could be ancient artifacts here. Magical trinkets. The contents of this place might even pay off her and Maelen’s debt to the Latchkey Circle!
“We don’t have much light left,” Vessa said, clapping Alric on the shoulder and stepping into the center of the room. “Let’s see what we can carry, and we’ll come back for the–”
She paused. Alric stood still and unmoving, staring up and wide-eyed. She followed his gaze.
The ceiling was vaulted with stone ribs, like the previous one, meant to prevent collapse. Yet here, strung across the space above was something like spiderwebs, though appearing jet black in the fading light.
Clinging to those dark webs was an enormous spider. Its massive, bloated body looked as large as a person and covered in chitinous black plates, the smooth surface reflecting the torchlight below. Perhaps most unnerving, unlike a spider it had absolutely no eyes… just a black, shiny ball for a head, bristling with mandibles. At first Vessa thought it was a desiccated husk, until one long limb twitched, cracking the webbing as it moved.
Without consciously deciding, Vessa was backing up, moving as silently as she’d been trained to do. Alric hesitated a heartbeat, then did likewise. Once they both had exited beyond the vault door, the scribe stumbled and backpedaled with a gasp.
Whether it was the sudden sound, movement, or a chance at freedom, the enormous eyeless spider dropped to the stone floor. It bobbed once on its long, shiny black legs, and then it advanced without sound.
Vessa dashed towards the room’s entrance. When she’d stripped him of the shirt she’d used to bind both her and Maelen’s wounds, she’d placed the tracker’s bow and quiver of arrows aside. Vessa was a competent shot with a bow, though she generally disliked the feel of wearing them on long journeys and the labor involved in maintaining the bowstring. She had no desire to engage the enormous black spider in melee, however.
By the time she’d raised the bow and nocked an arrow, the creature loomed over Alric, two long legs raised like it was going to embrace him. Once again, she found herself impressed at the young scribe’s moxy. He held the dwindling torch in front of him, swinging it back and forth and yelling to keep it away. As she pulled back the arrow’s feathers to her ear and aimed, however, the spider lunged forward, its head descending near Alric’s shoulder. He cried out and she loosed. The arrow buried itself in the thing’s bloated body and it jumped off Alric as if shocked. It didn’t make a single sound, however, just like the zombies. Whatever magic was corrupting the creatures in Thornmere Hold, it seemed to rob its victims of their eyes and voices. The effect was wholly unnerving.
With practiced grace, Vessa pulled a second arrow from the quiver lying on the floor at her knee. From the crouch she readied another shot. The giant, shining spider reared up again, raising its two front legs over Alric’s stagging form, torch faltering and almost out, and Vessa fired.
The arrow punched through the black shell of its head, and the spider reared violently. Its limbs curled as if in pain, then it collapsed in a heap, twitching once more before going still.
Only Alric’s shuddering gasps and the hammering of Vessa’s heart broke the silence in Thornmere Hold.
Let’s not pussyfoot around. In the battle with the Nightwight last week, our fighter Maelen fell to zero hit points. Sarin has fled, but the question remains: Is Maelen dead?
Here is a paragraph straight from the Tales of Argosa rulebook: “After the fight or encounter, if the character’s body is recovered and inspected, the PC makes a Death save: a roll equal to or under check vs 10 + Con mod or Will mod (whichever is higher, ignore negatives, Reroll available). … On a success, the character is Dying (below). On a failure, or if the body cannot be recovered, the adventurer really is dead and gone. Shed a tear, frown as the party loots the still warm corpse, then ask the GM about taking over a hireling, playing the monsters, or dropping in a new PC.”
So, the stakes are clear. Maelen’s 10 + Con mod and Will scores are the same. She’ll need an 11 or under on d20, which is a 55% chance of survival. She rolls a 13! Thankfully, she has one Reroll left. Here goes… 10! Maelen is officially alive, but Dying (and also has no more Rerolls). Now Alric and Vessa can attempt to Stabilize her.
In a moment of regret, I realize that none of the PCs have bandages. But then I look in the rulebook and see that a Healer’s Kit is actually Rare gear, so my regret is short lived. Besides, bandages won’t help Maelen. Because the attack that took her down was Sarin’s eerie grab, stabilizing her condition is not a matter of staunching bleeding or counteracting poison. Instead, I’m going to let both remaining PCs try an Intelligence(Apothecary) check since both have that skill. A success means that Maelen is stabilized, and a Great Success means she’ll be conscious at 1 hp. Vessa rolls a 12, which fails by 1. Alric, meanwhile, rolls a 10! An 8 would have been a Great Success, but at least Maelen will continue in the party.
Except for the small matter of Draining 1 level. There aren’t explicit rules in Tales for how to handle Drain, but I assume it means rolling a character back to the previous level’s stats. How do I do that for a Level 1 character, however? To answer this question, I went to the Low Fantasy Gaming Discord to ask. Answers ranged from “dead” to “give them 1d4 hit points with no abilities.” I might have done that last one if Maelen was conscious, but instead I’ll go with another common answer from the Discord (including from Tales creator Stephen Grodzicki, who it turns out is awesome): The PC remains in a coma / unconscious until Downtime can restore the level. That is ROUGH for poor ‘ol Maelen and the party, but better than dead!
Now that the dread Death Save is done, I’ll handle a few other housekeeping items. After the harrowing ambush by Sarin and his Lanternless, I’m moving the Mythic Chaos Factor up to 7—Vessa and Alric are alone in a tomb without their best fighter, and they know the Night Captain is wounded but still out there somewhere. I’ll also award all PCs 2 xp for that fight, plus 1 for Alric successfully doing research (and stabilizing Maelen). Now Alric and Vessa are at 7 xp and Maelen 5. Finally, I’ll update my Mythic Threads and Characters lists for future random event rolls.
IX.
Frostmere 16, Hearthday, Year 731.
“What are you waiting for? Help her!” Vessa blurted. Tears streaked her cheeks as she sat by helplessly. The stone floor bruised her knees and the cut on her arm burned, but none of that mattered right now. All that mattered was her friend.
Maelen lay sprawled on her back, arms splayed as if after a night of carousing. Bloody drool trickled from the corner of her mouth and down to one ear. Maelen’s skin looked ashen and sallow, her closed eyes sunken. For some reason, most disturbing to Vessa was the wide lock upon Maelen’s head that had turned a dull gray amidst her otherwise black hair. What had Sarin done to her? She couldn’t die and leave Vessa all alone. And yet, Maelen’s desperate and hopeless scream would haunt her dreams for years to come. How could she still be alive after the Nightwight’s dread touch? Was Vessa doomed to witness all the Larkhands’ deaths but never join them? Was she… alone? New tears blurred her vision.
The scribe hadn’t answered her. He had a hand on each side of Maelen’s head, above each ear, and he was murmuring something, eyes closed. Vessa wanted to throw him off her friend and beat the boy senseless, but she knew on some level that he was trying to help. Had he banished Sarin’s darkness, or had the magic disappeared when the Nightwight vanished? Vessa could have sworn she’d seen Alric, as the blackness had dissipated like lingering smoke, with eyes closed and murmuring just as he was doing now. Could he use magic, this lamed, ink-fingered scribe?
Suddenly, Maelen inhaled once, sharp and deep, her back arching. Then she exhaled with a moan and stilled. Alric’s eyes fluttered open and he looked down, releasing her head and frowning.
“I… I’ve done all I can,” he said weakly. He sounded… uncertain. Fragile. “She lives, for now. But I’m no healer, and don’t truly understand what’s hap–”
Before she realized she was doing it, Vessa lunged at Alric and fiercely embraced him. It was awkward with them both on their knees, and they almost toppled over. He stiffened, and then hesitantly returned the hug, patting her back with one hand.
Vessa released him without a word, sniffled loudly, and set to caretaking Maelen. She wiped the drool from her face, cut the shirt from the tracker she’d killed and used it to wrap Maelen’s hip where she’d taken a sword wound, and then pushed her friend’s bedroll beneath her unconscious head. Tatter, still nestled in a belt pouch, appeared unharmed. She left him there, hoping his presence might comfort Maelen. That done, she used yet more Lanternless shirt to bind her arm wound, then went about carefully extinguishing two of the torches to extend their chances at retaining light. When she felt satisfied, she looked up to find Alric’s back to her. He was studying the black, basalt door at the back of the room.
She stood, limbs protesting, and approached him. “This torch won’t last much longer,” she said into the silence. “And the other two won’t either. We need to get ourselves and Maelen out of here.”
“Mmm,” Alric said thoughtfully, his voice his own again. “And yet, wouldn’t Maelen want us to see what the Lodge has been hiding, all these many years? I can almost hear her berating us for not opening the door.”
She cocked her head. “For all we know, a whole host of silent zombies will spill out of that door.”
“I doubt it,” he said, turning to regard her. “The knights Meren and Edran had volunteered to guard this place for eternity. I don’t imagine that there is another company of noble warriors waiting beyond. The documents in this room are fascinating, but it’s not why Thornmere Hold was built.”
“What do you think is there, then?” she asked. Her stubbled scalp was still novel and startling, and she found herself rubbing a palm across it, watching him.
“I… don’t know, honestly,” he exhaled. “But I can sense… something. Some sort of power.”
“Which could be something that will tear our limbs off…” Vessa said with a smirk.
She had meant it as a joke, but he scoffed with irritation. “Aren’t you a thief?” he said, mouth twisting. “Don’t you want treasure? There is something important in there.”
The palm rubbing across her scalp stilled and she regarded the man before her. He leaned on his staff with both hands, knuckles white as they clutched the wood. His dark eyes almost pleaded with her, though they darted around, never lingering on one thing overly long. He was terrified, this young scribe, and yet desperate to see what lay beyond the heavy black door. Vessa considered for a moment whether Alric had known all along what lay in Thornmere Hold and had withheld it from them but quickly discarded the idea. It was the mystery beyond that door that was battering at him.
“Fine,” she shrugged a shoulder.
In a previous installment, I’d already rolled the skill checks needed for Vessa to successfully unlock the vault door and bypass its trap. I had also, when first encountering Thornmere Hold, rolled that a Major Magical Item was the big prize at the end of the mini-dungeon. Now it’s time to figure out exactly what is in this precious vault, and what the Inkbinders Lodge wanted locked away.
First, a Fate question: Is there more than just the Major Magical Item in the vault? I’ll give this a “Likely” rating, which at Chaos Factor 7 means there is a 85% chance of the answer being yes. I roll 56. Yep! In that case, I’m going to use the Lair rules in Tales, and I’ll use Sarin’s 4 HD as the basis for it. With that in mind, I’ll need to roll the total number of coins, plus some other loot. Fun!
On coins, I roll 89 cp, 400 sp, and 65 gp. That’s a lot of money, and probably more than Alric and Vessa will be able to carry. For the Loot A table, I roll a gold-gilded lantern with a Calvenor seal on it, worth 60 sp. There is a 50% chance of a Loot B item and I roll 34, so yes. Then I roll that it’s a scroll, which is perfect for the Lodge. What sort of scroll? I roll on the Spells table and get… Mend Flesh! A healing scroll! That’s great. Now the Trinket & Curios table: “A varnished case containing a string of garlic, two wooden stakes, and a silver holy symbol” for that last one, I’ll say it’s a symbol of the Argenoak, honoring the Rootmother. Well that is now going on the potential Threads list. Vampires!
One final step before the big kahuna, let’s roll 2 Minor Magical Items: I roll another scroll, this time Wings of the Raven King, giving the party access to flight. And… ohhhh… a Spellbook! How many spells are contained? I roll a 9 on a d10, which means it’s an Old Magic Grimoire! Oh my goodness… this is amazing. Rather than roll a d12 on the table, I’m going to limit the options and say this is a book of Orthuun, the Blind Sovereign, and want the spell to be appropriate for a demonic god of nothingness. Five of the twelve fit my purpose, so rolling a d6 (ignoring 6): I roll a 3, which is Ray of Unmaking. No need to describe what this does yet, as it will take Alric a lot of Downtime to uncover the mysteries here. Suffice it to say, though, conscious or not, Alric’s magic is coming from Orthuun as a patron, which fits right into the narrative I have up to this point.
Dizzy with story possibility, let’s finally roll on the Major Magical Item in this vault. First, a word on Major Magical Items in Tales of Argosa: Each item is rare, unique, virtually impossible to destroy, and:
“When an adventurer first acquires a Major Magical Item, they gain access to its first power. The precise way in which they become aware of this is left to the referee to decide, but might include innate understanding, research, intrinsic clues such as lightning flickering about the head of the Storm Spear coupled with trial and error, and so on.
As a character levels up however, they become more attuned to the item, unlocking further powers as their sorcerous connection with the object grows. Unless the GM determines otherwise, with each new level the adventurer unlocks a further power, until all powers have been unlocked.
In addition to specific powers, Major Magical Items may have other properties as noted in the last row under Special, which may apply at different times.”
Excited yet? Me too! I roll Yûlnvorg The Bonebreaker, a preternaturally heavy, spiked mace with a bound leather grip. What does it doooooo, though?! Let’s just say that, at least initially, a) if Maelen wakes up, and b) rolls a natural 20, good things will happen and bones will break. In addition, the wielder is particularly resistant to Dark & Dangerous Magic rolls. Huzzah!
This is all thrilling. However, there is one more roll to make: Does the vault contain a monster, as Vessa feared? I’ll Consult the Bones here: The Twins of Fate say Yes/Nil, the Hammer of Judgment says Yes, and the Fortune die says Skull. Well, that’s very clear. Yes, there is something here, either guarding the treasure or simply trapped and wishing the party harm. Hoo boy.
I’ll quickly make a custom random table to see what it might be that fits with my idea: That something has been trapped in here and over the last century been corrupted by the magic in the vault (particularly the Grimoire of Orthuun). I roll a Giant Spider, which I’ll reflavor into something awful. It is a 2+2 HD creature, so let’s roll hit points: 12. Finally, let’s check its Reaction roll: Cautious. Small blessing, then: It won’t immediately drop on the first person in the vault.
Here goes nothing…
Before Sarin and his Lanternless had arrived, Vessa had worked out how to slip past the arcane seal on the vault door without triggering whatever would happen if opened. She’d also already unlocked the two wheel-locks, untrapped, with her tools. As a result, it took her remarkably little time to open the large, black door before her. She barked clipped instructions for Alric on the position of the dwindling torch, and, thanks to a series of fingertip presses in a complex pattern she’d worked out based on the slight wear of the inlaid bronze. The seal hissed like escaping steam, rotated with a click, and pulsed once with a sickly green light before fading.
Then silence.
The dying flame of the torch was almost entirely gone. She lit a second torch from the first just before it died, the new flame sputtering weakly. Alric took it, but it already burned with a desperate flicker.
“We don’t have much time,” she said. “Let’s see what’s inside.”
Legs straining, she leaned forward and pushed the central wheel lock. There was a crack as the seal of the vault door broke free from its frame, but the door swung open easily and without incident.
“By the Herald,” Alric whispered in awe. He stepped forward, torch held aloft.
It was a small room, perhaps five or six strides across each side, with the same high ceiling as the previous chamber. Flickering light showed three iron-bound wooden chests upon the stone floor and a fourth, smaller than the others but entirely iron, lay nestled in a corner. Upon the wall, displayed by two iron hooks, hung a large, spiked mace that was entirely black and unlike anything Vessa had seen before. A fancy gilded lantern hung from a hook near the door, but upon inspection it contained no oil with which to light it. She did spy, however, the detailed, inscribed emblem of the stag upon the lantern, a symbol of the Princehold of Calvenor, not Oakton or one of its guilds. She didn’t know why a symbol of the Princehold hung here, so far from the Tower of Public Record, but she’d seen that stag stamped on royal warrants before, and if the lantern’s filigree was real gold… the lantern itself might be worth more than Alric was paying them for this job.
Her lips tugged into a grin. Alric had been correct to push them to open the vault door. She guessed that at least one of those chests contained coins. There could be ancient artifacts here. Magical trinkets. The contents of this place might even pay off her and Maelen’s debt to the Latchkey Circle!
“We don’t have much light left,” Vessa said, clapping Alric on the shoulder and stepping into the center of the room. “Let’s see what we can carry, and we’ll come back for the–”
She paused. Alric stood still and unmoving, staring up and wide-eyed. She followed his gaze.
The ceiling was vaulted with stone ribs, like the previous one, meant to prevent collapse. Yet here, strung across the space above was something like spiderwebs, though appearing jet black in the fading light.
Clinging to those dark webs was an enormous spider. Its massive, bloated body looked as large as a person and covered in chitinous black plates, the smooth surface reflecting the torchlight below. Perhaps most unnerving, unlike a spider it had absolutely no eyes… just a black, shiny ball for a head, bristling with mandibles. At first Vessa thought it was a desiccated husk, until one long limb twitched, cracking the webbing as it moved.
Without consciously deciding, Vessa was backing up, moving as silently as she’d been trained to do. Alric hesitated a heartbeat, then did likewise. Once they both had exited beyond the vault door, the scribe stumbled and backpedaled with a gasp.
Whether it was the sudden sound, movement, or a chance at freedom, the enormous eyeless spider dropped to the stone floor. It bobbed once on its long, shiny black legs, and then it advanced without sound.
Am I confident that our two adventurers can defeat a giant spider without Maelen? No, no I’m not. But here we are, and it’s Round 1. Vessa will start off our initiative, and succeeds with a 12. She will move to the tracker Fenn’s body and retrieve his shortbow and arrows, which she’d likely set aside when stripping him of his shirt. I’ll say that’s her full turn.
Even if Alric had offensive spells, he’s used his one spell to dispel Sarin’s darkness. He’s a brave and impulsive lad, so I guess he’ll do what he’s done before and try and bash the thing with his staff. The spider has a 13 AC, and he rolls an 11.
Because he’s right in front of it, the spider will attempt to bite and poison Alric. His AC is a lowly 10, but even with a +2 to hit it rolls a 6! Whew.
Let’s move to Round 2. Alric’s turn to roll initiative, and he rolls a 5! That gives him a chance to try and swing again with the staff. Unfortunately, his attack roll of 10 isn’t enough to hit. What about Vessa? With a bow she has a +3 total to hit. She rolls 16 total and hits for a max 6 damage! The spider’s hit points are halved.
First, a morale roll now that the spider has lost half its hp. It rolls a 7, under its 10 Will score and so will continue to fight. However, will it attack the seemingly harmless Alric or this new threat? I’ll roll evens/odds: Evens, so sticks with Alric. The giant spider this time rolls a 16 and hits. It rolls 2+2=4 damage, bringing Alric’s hit points to 9. More importantly, he now needs to make a Luck(Con) save against its poison (what’s the poison? I roll: 1d6 Will loss). Alric rolls a 5! In this case, I’ll say a success negates the effect (the other option is halving it, but I’m worried enough as it is). That success reduces his Luck score to 9.
As always, I’m going to take some creative license when describing the above turns. In this case, I’m also going to reorder some of the actions.
Vessa dashed towards the room’s entrance. When she’d stripped him of the shirt she’d used to bind both her and Maelen’s wounds, she’d placed the tracker’s bow and quiver of arrows aside. Vessa was a competent shot with a bow, though she generally disliked the feel of wearing them on long journeys and the labor involved in maintaining the bowstring. She had no desire to engage the enormous black spider in melee, however.
By the time she’d raised the bow and nocked an arrow, the creature loomed over Alric, two long legs raised like it was going to embrace him. Once again, she found herself impressed at the young scribe’s moxy. He held the dwindling torch in front of him, swinging it back and forth and yelling to keep it away. As she pulled back the arrow’s feathers to her ear and aimed, however, the spider lunged forward, its head descending near Alric’s shoulder. He cried out and she loosed. The arrow buried itself in the thing’s bloated body and it jumped off Alric as if shocked. It didn’t make a single sound, however, just like the zombies. Whatever magic was corrupting the creatures in Thornmere Hold, it seemed to rob its victims of their eyes and voices. The effect was wholly unnerving.
Round 3! Back to Vessa’s turn to roll initiative. She rolls a 2 and succeeds, and will indeed loose a second bow shot. This time she rolls a Nat-19! Amazing! She rolls a 1d10 damage: 8! The spider is dead, with no need to roll on the Missile Trauma table. Wow, combat in Tales of Argosa is fast, brutal, and fun.
With that battle (+1 xp, given to Vessa and Alric) and loot (+2 xp, given to all three), Alric and Vessa have 10 xp and will achieve level 2 when and if they can find time for a Long Rest! Maelen sits at 7 xp, so will have to climb out of her Nightwight-induced coma to catch up a bit. Again, assuming all of them make it out of Thornmere Hold and back to Oakton alive.
With practiced grace, Vessa pulled a second arrow from the quiver lying on the floor at her knee. From the crouch she readied another shot. The giant, shining spider reared up again, raising its two front legs over Alric’s stagging form, torch faltering and almost out, and Vessa fired.
The arrow punched through the black shell of its head, and the spider reared violently. Its limbs curled as if in pain, then it collapsed in a heap, twitching once more before going still.
Only Alric’s shuddering gasps and the hammering of Vessa’s heart broke the silence in Thornmere Hold.
Alric’s mouth went dry. The Nightwight was here?! In Thornmere Hold? But… but there were no other exits! The air felt suddenly thinner, the stone walls closer. The heavy vault door at their backs may as well have been a cliff face. There was nowhere to run. His mind whirled. They were trapped.
“Now, now Old Yara,” a hollow voice echoed in the underground chambers, somehow both raspy and resonant. The words entered the vault room like a physical presence, making the torches flicker. “I come with… curiosity. Who are these little fireflies, who kill my Lanternless? And where has their meager light led me?”
In a panic, Alric spun to look at his two companions. Maelen was adjusting the grip of her huge sword, swearing softly, eyes searching for some sort of tactical advantage in the room. She had jammed her torch into a wall sconce to wield her weapon two-handed. Vessa, face shining with sweat, was busily trying to extinguish her own torch.
“Keep the light,” Alric hissed at her urgently. She stopped and regarded him, eyes wide. “It’s a Nightwight. He shuns it!”
“What does that mean?” Vessa whispered back. “I’m better if I can hide.”
“Shut it,” Maelen grunted. “They’re here.”
The three of them had congregated at the back of the long room with alcove-riddled walls, near the immense black vault door. Vessa let out a low curse and shuffled quietly towards a corner, yet he was grateful that she kept her torch in hand.
The first through the doorway on the far side was skinny, long-limbed man with a shiny bald scalp riddled with scars. Thick, tarry lines ran under each eye, the signature of the Lanternless.
“We got ‘em, Night Captain!” he called over his shoulder, then hocked and spit to one side. “They’re in ‘ere.”
Two more human figures stepped through the doorway, one after the other. The man was a broad-shouldered bruiser, scalp shaved to stubble like Vessa, with leather armor and longsword. The woman was squat, pig-nosed, and dour, carrying a battered wooden shield and a woodcutter’s axe. The two of them moved in opposite directions, flanking the doorway like palace guards. Alric supposed it made sense that, if the Lanternless had been hunting them since the encounter on the hillside, Sarin would have brought seasoned warriors. The first man, then, was probably their tracker. These thoughts passed through the scribe’s mind like a catalogue of facts, distant and detached. His panic had given way to abstract interest. It was like watching an artist carefully lay out her paints and brushes—these were to be the instruments of Alric’s demise, and he found himself in as much wonder as terror as it unfolded.
Old Yara followed the pair, smiling with gums that held few teeth. The white-haired, stooped woman rubbed her dry palms together as she entered the room, as if anticipating a feast. Her black eyes glittered with malice in the torchlight.
“Now you done it!” she cackled, hopping ahead and out of the way. “Sarin the Night Captain is ‘ere!”
Alric held his breath, waiting. The figure who entered the scroll-room was so tall that he had to duck slightly through the doorway, leading first with a long lamplighter’s pole, its iron hook bent. When he straightened, Alric guessed he towered over seven feet high, his figure unnaturally gaunt and skeletal beneath a heavy black cloak. His face was uncovered, skin pale as parchment stretched thin across sharp cheekbones, proud nose, and jutting jaw. Veins, dark as ink, traced visibly along Sarin’s neck and temples.
But it was the Nightwight’s eyes that were most disturbing. The sockets were sunken and hollow, but where his eyes should have been were pools of ash-gray light that managed to dance and waver without noticeably illuminating the room. Alric found himself staring fixedly at those simmering werelights before blinking and pulling his gaze away forcibly.
“Ah,” Sarin said, thin lips grinning like an indulgent grandfather. “Here we are. Where have you led us, little fireflies?”
“What happened on the hill was a misunderstanding,” Maelen said grimly, sword held in front of her. “Your people attacked us before we could talk. We meant them no ill will.”
“Mmmm,” Sarin said thoughtfully, thin lips pressed together. “And yet, this is not the question I asked.” Once again, when he spoke the torches flickered as if buffeted by a wind only they could feel.
Alric swallowed. The detachment filled him, so that when he spoke his voice was clear and calm. “It’s called Thornmere Hold,” he said, and the Nightwight’s gray lights focused on him. “A former vault of the Inkbinders Lodge. We had hoped to find treasure, but it’s merely historical documents. You’re welcome to them.”
“Now, see?” Sarin intoned. “This firefly can answer a question. But lo, there is something else about this place, something perhaps you cannot sense. Orthuun, the Blind Sovereign and my eternal patron holds sway here. Did you not feel his influence outside? The silence and shadows are his domain. And here, there is yet more evidence of his blessing, including those two servants of Orthuun you’ve slain in the room beyond. Yes, the Shadow King favors this place.” The Nightwight turned his head, taking in the entirety of the vault, as if savoring a beautiful hilltop view or an enticing aroma. Alric noted that when his gaze passed over the torches, Sarin seemed to squint and recoil somewhat, and the flames did the same, their light dimming. The scene made Alric’s stomach roil with nausea, breaking through the detachment.
The Nightwight waved his free hand. His knobby, thin fingers were too long, like the branches of a dead tree. “And so, I claim this place as sanctuary and holy ground for my Lanternless. Thank you, little fireflies. As boon for leading me here, I will forgive your earlier transgressions.”
Alric blinked.
Maelen’s eyes narrowed. Instead of relaxing her grip, she tensed. “So we can leave, then?”
“Oh,” Sarin chuckled, and when he spoke next it was with no more nor less singsong gravity than before. “I’m afraid not. You are forgiven your earlier sins, but now I find you trespassing upon my lord’s holy place. This will not do.” His bony hand waved again. “Kill them. Their blood will anoint our new church.”
The two warriors let out a whoop of violence and rushed at Maelen, feet stomping the stone floor. The burn-scarred woman got there first, swinging her axe in an overhand arc. Maelen parried with a clang! of iron, but then the musclebound man was upon her. His longsword bit into Maelen’s hip, eliciting a snarl of pain and anger. She kicked the axe-wielding foe away and chopped horizontally with her sword. The blade sliced across the bald man’s exposed throat. Blood fountained from the wound and he dropped his weapon, clutching at his ruined neck and falling sideways.
Intentional or not, Maelen had kicked the woman towards Vessa. With a fierce snarl, Vessa lunged with her shortsword, plunging it through the woman’s back. The red-smeared steel erupted from her chest, and then Vessa pulled her weapon free with a yank. The woman dropped her axe clattering to the floor and slumped forward, gurgling and wide-eyed.
Alric couldn’t believe it. In the space of three heartbeats, the Lanternless’ two hulking warriors were down. The tracker with the hunting knife seemed equally startled, and he paused his charge to stare wide-eyed at the carnage.
“C’mere, boy!” Old Yara spat, dancing towards him in the torchlight. Her eyes glittered with malice, and she held a small knife out front, jabbing out in jerky thrusts.
Perhaps he was inspired by his companions’ prowess, or perhaps it was the surreal, detached acceptance of his death returning to him, but Alric curled his lip and swung his staff out one-handed. Before the white-haired elder could close on him, the end of the staff struck her across the head. She screeched momentarily, then went down in a heap.
Vessa hissed in pain and Alric’s head whipped to see her arm wet with blood. The tracker’s shirt was also stained from a wound, and his face shone in the torchlight with sweat. The two wiry combatants danced and circled between the central table in the room and one of the alcoved walls.
She caught Alric staring and flicked him an angry look. “I’ve got it! Help Mae!”
The central table blocked a straight path, but Alric angled around it toward the front, near the arch where Sarin still loomed over Maelen. The warrior whirled her sword down and across in a diagonal slash, and it seemed to connect. Yet the long black robe did not tear. Instead, it seemed to pull and flow around Maelen’s blade, like she was chopping through thick, black mud. Sarin grunted, almost like reading a clever line in a poem, but showed no other effect. Alric suddenly wondered if their weapons could damage a Nightwight, something he hadn’t even considered until now.
“Enough!” Sarin intoned, and as he said the word he stretched his free hand out in front of him, spindly pale fingers curled like an enormous spider. The Nightwight muttered something in a language just beyond Alric’s hearing, but the back of his throat and spine itched as some part of him registered the words. Sarin the Night Captain was using magic.
A wave burst out from the Nightwight, unseen but causing the three torches in the room to dance madly as if caught in a sudden gale. As it did, Alric’s jaw locked, and his stomach heaved in abject terror. This was not the fear of seeing a wolf in the forest; it was the fear of knowing that an entire pack of unseen predators watched you in the darkness, waiting for you to drop from fatigue. It was an anticipatory, abstract, and primal sort of terror, and for a moment Alric’s eyes rolled and he meant to drop his torch and staff, fleeing and screaming from Thornmere Hold.
“No!” he yelled, his voice resonant and echoing in the vault, and as he said it the fear retreated. He didn’t know what words he muttered next, only that they weren’t his. They rose like echoes from a memory of a dream, strange syllables that burned on his tongue. His torch’s flame ceased dancing, and the scribe stood straighter. Ahead of him, Maelen paused and lowered her guard for a fraction of a moment, and then, snarling, raised the sword defiantly and swung again at the tall, thin creature before her.
Sarin was faster than his deliberate speech and fluid steps would suggest, and he brought the lamplighter’s pole up to block the sword. Then, quick as an adder’s strike, his still-outstretched hand fell upon Maelen’s head.
Whatever happened next—the Nightwight’s palm atop the crown of her head, the long fingers reaching down across her skull—Maelen screamed, a voice high and desperate and undignified. She dropped to the ground lifelessly as Sarin released her head like an overripe piece of fruit.
“Maelen!” Alric yelled. Before he understood what he was doing, he had surged forward, torch cocked back like a mace. He swung it with all his strength and, when the torch struck the creature’s black robes, the fabric seemed to wither and retreat from the flames. Sarin hissed in surprise and pain, those gray ember eyes looking down upon him incredulously.
Without conscious thought, Alric swung his torch back and forth, yelling and beating at Sarin’s tall, cloaked form. But he was not a trained fighter like his companions, and the Nightwight seemed to flow away from each blow, avoiding the flickering fire. His pale, dark-veined face peered down, thin lips snarling.
“Irritating firefly!” Sarin rasped, “Begone!” He began murmuring again in susurrant, alien words. This close to the Nightwight, Alric could… almost… understand…
And then the world went black.
It was as if someone had thrown a hood over his head. This was no absence of light. This was light swallowed whole. At first, Alric thought that perhaps he’d inadvertently closed his eyes, but as he stumbled backwards into a wall, he blinked and stared wide. He could feel the wall at his back, his staff in one sweaty hand, torch in another. He could even, bizarrely, hear the telltale guttering of the flame at the end of his torch. But though he could feel these things, everything in Thornmere Hold was utterly and completely without light.
“Alric?” he heard Vessa’s voice call out from several strides away. “Are you there?”
“I’m here,” he said. “He’s cast a spell. We’re either blind or this is darkness.”
“Where is he? Where’s Sarin?”
Alric swallowed, his eyes uselessly darting left and right. The Nightwight could kill them at his leisure now, with both of them defenseless. They were doomed. He pressed his form against the alcoved wall, shuffling back towards the vault door and away from where he’d just seen Sarin looming over him.
In desperation, he began murmuring once more. Alric could not have said what words he spoke, nor their meaning. He called on the feeling when he’d first stepped into the glade above Thornmere Hold, that lingering sense of… something, just beyond his senses. He called on the barely remembered syllables he’d just heard from Sarin the Night Captain. And, most especially, he called on the words from the slim, leatherbound book, etched in a script that never stayed still when he looked at it too long, which lay stuffed deep within his travel pack. As he spoke, all muscles in Alric’s body slackened, and he almost lost his grip on the torch and staff. Then he closed his eyes, concentrating on pulling the energy around him apart, like fanning away smoke from a fire.
When he opened his eyes, the darkness was gone. Three torches—one in his hand, one in Vessa’s, and another mounted in the wall—burned weakly but illuminated the long room in dull orange and yellow light. The thief stared back at him with round, frightened eyes.
Sarin was gone, but five bodies lay sprawled across the stone floor: The two fighters and tracker, all in widening pools of dark blood, and Old Yara, bloody face staring sightlessly at the vaulted ceiling with her mouth agape.
And there, near the doorway, was Maelen Marrosen, face down and still.
Alric’s mouth went dry. The Nightwight was here?! In Thornmere Hold? But… but there were no other exits! The air felt suddenly thinner, the stone walls closer. The heavy vault door at their backs may as well have been a cliff face. There was nowhere to run. His mind whirled. They were trapped.
“Now, now Old Yara,” a hollow voice echoed in the underground chambers, somehow both raspy and resonant. The words entered the vault room like a physical presence, making the torches flicker. “I come with… curiosity. Who are these little fireflies, who kill my Lanternless? And where has their meager light led me?”
In a panic, Alric spun to look at his two companions. Maelen was adjusting the grip of her huge sword, swearing softly, eyes searching for some sort of tactical advantage in the room. She had jammed her torch into a wall sconce to wield her weapon two-handed. Vessa, face shining with sweat, was busily trying to extinguish her own torch.
“Keep the light,” Alric hissed at her urgently. She stopped and regarded him, eyes wide. “It’s a Nightwight. He shuns it!”
“What does that mean?” Vessa whispered back. “I’m better if I can hide.”
“Shut it,” Maelen grunted. “They’re here.”
The three of them had congregated at the back of the long room with alcove-riddled walls, near the immense black vault door. Vessa let out a low curse and shuffled quietly towards a corner, yet he was grateful that she kept her torch in hand.
The first through the doorway on the far side was skinny, long-limbed man with a shiny bald scalp riddled with scars. Thick, tarry lines ran under each eye, the signature of the Lanternless.
“We got ‘em, Night Captain!” he called over his shoulder, then hocked and spit to one side. “They’re in ‘ere.”
Two more human figures stepped through the doorway, one after the other. The man was a broad-shouldered bruiser, scalp shaved to stubble like Vessa, with leather armor and longsword. The woman was squat, pig-nosed, and dour, carrying a battered wooden shield and a woodcutter’s axe. The two of them moved in opposite directions, flanking the doorway like palace guards. Alric supposed it made sense that, if the Lanternless had been hunting them since the encounter on the hillside, Sarin would have brought seasoned warriors. The first man, then, was probably their tracker. These thoughts passed through the scribe’s mind like a catalogue of facts, distant and detached. His panic had given way to abstract interest. It was like watching an artist carefully lay out her paints and brushes—these were to be the instruments of Alric’s demise, and he found himself in as much wonder as terror as it unfolded.
Old Yara followed the pair, smiling with gums that held few teeth. The white-haired, stooped woman rubbed her dry palms together as she entered the room, as if anticipating a feast. Her black eyes glittered with malice in the torchlight.
“Now you done it!” she cackled, hopping ahead and out of the way. “Sarin the Night Captain is ‘ere!”
Alric held his breath, waiting. The figure who entered the scroll-room was so tall that he had to duck slightly through the doorway, leading first with a long lamplighter’s pole, its iron hook bent. When he straightened, Alric guessed he towered over seven feet high, his figure unnaturally gaunt and skeletal beneath a heavy black cloak. His face was uncovered, skin pale as parchment stretched thin across sharp cheekbones, proud nose, and jutting jaw. Veins, dark as ink, traced visibly along Sarin’s neck and temples.
But it was the Nightwight’s eyes that were most disturbing. The sockets were sunken and hollow, but where his eyes should have been were pools of ash-gray light that managed to dance and waver without noticeably illuminating the room. Alric found himself staring fixedly at those simmering werelights before blinking and pulling his gaze away forcibly.
“Ah,” Sarin said, thin lips grinning like an indulgent grandfather. “Here we are. Where have you led us, little fireflies?”
“What happened on the hill was a misunderstanding,” Maelen said grimly, sword held in front of her. “Your people attacked us before we could talk. We meant them no ill will.”
“Mmmm,” Sarin said thoughtfully, thin lips pressed together. “And yet, this is not the question I asked.” Once again, when he spoke the torches flickered as if buffeted by a wind only they could feel.
Alric swallowed. The detachment filled him, so that when he spoke his voice was clear and calm. “It’s called Thornmere Hold,” he said, and the Nightwight’s gray lights focused on him. “A former vault of the Inkbinders Lodge. We had hoped to find treasure, but it’s merely historical documents. You’re welcome to them.”
“Now, see?” Sarin intoned. “This firefly can answer a question. But lo, there is something else about this place, something perhaps you cannot sense. Orthuun, the Blind Sovereign and my eternal patron holds sway here. Did you not feel his influence outside? The silence and shadows are his domain. And here, there is yet more evidence of his blessing, including those two servants of Orthuun you’ve slain in the room beyond. Yes, the Shadow King favors this place.” The Nightwight turned his head, taking in the entirety of the vault, as if savoring a beautiful hilltop view or an enticing aroma. Alric noted that when his gaze passed over the torches, Sarin seemed to squint and recoil somewhat, and the flames did the same, their light dimming. The scene made Alric’s stomach roil with nausea, breaking through the detachment.
The Nightwight waved his free hand. His knobby, thin fingers were too long, like the branches of a dead tree. “And so, I claim this place as sanctuary and holy ground for my Lanternless. Thank you, little fireflies. As boon for leading me here, I will forgive your earlier transgressions.”
Alric blinked.
Maelen’s eyes narrowed. Instead of relaxing her grip, she tensed. “So we can leave, then?”
“Oh,” Sarin chuckled, and when he spoke next it was with no more nor less singsong gravity than before. “I’m afraid not. You are forgiven your earlier sins, but now I find you trespassing upon my lord’s holy place. This will not do.” His bony hand waved again. “Kill them. Their blood will anoint our new church.”
And with that, it’s initiative time! Once again, we have no surprise to take into consideration. Also once again, I’ll have Maelen start the party off by doing the initiative roll. Her Initiative score is 13, and I roll… a 19! Oh dear.
Thankfully, Sarin is going to sit out the beginning of the combat to assess the party’s capabilities. That leaves Fenn (the tracker), Targen and Brona (the fighters), and Old Yara to leap into action. It makes sense to me that Targen and Brona, as trained toughs, would mechanically Charge their opponents, giving them each a +2 to attack this round but giving opponents a +2 to hit them until next turn. First, Targen Charges Maelen, and I’ll again use the “Human, Bandit” entry in the Tales rulebook. As a 1 HD creature, it has a total of +3 to hit Maelen’s 14 AC. I roll a 16, which is a hit. That’s 1d6+1 damage, and I roll 6 total. Damn. Maelen drops to 9 hit points in the first moments of the combat. Brona will also Charge Maelen, hoping to finish her. But I thankfully only roll a 3, so she sails by.
The tracker, Fenn, will move around the perimeter of the room towards Vessa. Her AC is 13 and he has a +1, rolling 10 and missing. That leaves Old Yara to jab her little knife at Alric. His AC is only 10, but she rolls a 7! Okay. That could have gone a lot worse, all things considered.
Now it’s the PC’s turn. Maelen will swing back at Targen. With his Charge, she has a whopping +5 to hit his 11 AC. I roll 10, so she hits. I’ve rolled the Lanternless’ hit points on 1d8 each, so know that he has 7 hp. I roll 1d8+3 damage and roll 8 total. With one strike, she downs one of the toughs. Because of the rest the night before, she has her Opportunist ability loaded, so she’ll use it to take a swing at Brona. Maelen rolls a 12 total, hitting her. Brona has a whopping 8 hp, and the sword takes 5 of them, dropping her to 3 and making her Wounded (below half hit points).
At this point, Vessa sees an opportunity. She dodges by Fenn to engage Brona. She also has the Charge bonus from before, for a total of +3. Nat-20! Vessa’s strike does max damage +1 (half her level, rounded up). With the Finisher ability (only available on Wounded opponents), that’s 17 friggin’ damage. Broma’s end is sudden and brutal.
Alric will swing his staff one-handed (because of holding a torch) at Old Yara. He rolls a 12, hitting (has he ever missed with his staff?!). He does only 2 damage, but that was her hit point total. Bye bye, creepy cackling old lady.
Well, that was a phenomenal turn for the party! Unfortunately, they now face a Nightwight…
The two warriors let out a whoop of violence and rushed at Maelen, feet stomping the stone floor. The burn-scarred woman got there first, swinging her axe in an overhand arc. Maelen parried with a clang! of iron, but then the musclebound man was upon her. His longsword bit into Maelen’s hip, eliciting a snarl of pain and anger. She kicked the axe-wielding foe away and chopped horizontally with her sword. The blade sliced across the bald man’s exposed throat. Blood fountained from the wound and he dropped his weapon, clutching at his ruined neck and falling sideways.
Intentional or not, Maelen had kicked the woman towards Vessa. With a fierce snarl, Vessa lunged with her shortsword, plunging it through the woman’s back. The red-smeared steel erupted from her chest, and then Vessa pulled her weapon free with a yank. The woman dropped her axe clattering to the floor and slumped forward, gurgling and wide-eyed.
Alric couldn’t believe it. In the space of three heartbeats, the Lanternless’ two hulking warriors were down. The tracker with the hunting knife seemed equally startled, and he paused his charge to stare wide-eyed at the carnage.
“C’mere, boy!” Old Yara spat, dancing towards him in the torchlight. Her eyes glittered with malice, and she held a small knife out front, jabbing out in jerky thrusts.
Perhaps he was inspired by his companions’ prowess, or perhaps it was the surreal, detached acceptance of his death returning to him, but Alric curled his lip and swung his staff out one-handed. Before the white-haired elder could close on him, the end of the staff struck her across the head. She screeched momentarily, then went down in a heap.
Round 2! Let’s have Vessa make the roll with her 13 Initiative. I roll a 4! The party will act first, and at least try and take the Nightwight down before he does something nasty.
Maelen seems most free to attack, so she will move towards Sarin and swing two-handed. She has a +3 to hit the Nightwight’s 15 AC (I’m lowering it by 1 to account for its weakened state being far from his buried focus, as described last time). She rolls a 12, which hits exactly! That’s 1d8+3 damage, for 9 total. Sarin takes half damage from nonmagical weapons, so only 4 goes through, dropping Sarin to 10 hp. She has his attention!
Since Fenn has moved to Vessa, it makes sense that she’ll try and finish off the last of the Lanternless opponents. She rolls an 18, hitting easily. She does 1d6+1 damage, for 3 total. Fenn is down to a single hit point. Can Alric finish him off? He swings his staff and rolls an 8. Nope.
We begin the opponent’s turn with a Morale check. First, does Sarin call a retreat now that he’s been hurt and lost three-quarters of his strike team? With a 15 Will, probably not, but let’s check: 3. Sarin is here and untroubled, it seems. How about Fenn? His Will is only 10, but I’ll give a +1 since Sarin is staying. I roll 10, so he’s fighting to the death.
Let’s get Fenn’s attack on Vessa out of the way. He rolls a 15 and hits, doing 3 damage and taking Vessa to 9 hp (same as Maelen).
Now it’s Sarin’s turn. Does he strike at Maelen or cast one of his four spells for the day? Both are killer for Wights, but since I haven’t seen magic in Tales of Argosa yet, let’s pick a spell (and a reminder that he’s operating off a different spell list than a typical Wight). It makes the most sense for him to begin with Glimpse the True Gods—also thematically perfect for this scene!—which is basically a widespread fear effect. First, Sarin needs to make an Int check, which is a whopping 15. He rolls a 6, which is a Great Success. Uh oh! Before I resolve that awfulness, I’ll do a Dark & Dangerous Magic check, which for Sarin means rolling a d10 and not rolling a 1. I roll 8, so his DDM score goes up to 2.
On a Great Success, Glimpse the True Gods makes 1d4+2 creatures flee in pure terror. I roll a 1, which is conveniently just the three PCs. Each character will have to make a Luck(Will) save or be out of this fight. Maelen rolls a 19 and fails. Because this is so important, she’ll use one of her two Rerolls to try again: Nat-1!Vessa rolls a 12 and also fails, and will also use a Reroll: 8 and success! Alric rolls a 7 and succeeds! On a successful check, all three PCs reduce their Luck scores by 1. In Tales of Argosa, as the adventure wears on, characters’ Luck runs thin. Still, a great use of Rerolls, and everyone is still in the fight.
Vessa hissed in pain and Alric’s head whipped to see her arm wet with blood. The tracker’s shirt was also stained from a wound, and his face shone in the torchlight with sweat. The two wiry combatants danced and circled between the central table in the room and one of the alcoved walls.
She caught Alric staring and flicked him an angry look. “I’ve got it! Help Mae!”
The central table blocked a straight path, but Alric angled around it toward the front, near the arch where Sarin still loomed over Maelen. The warrior whirled her sword down and across in a diagonal slash, and it seemed to connect. Yet the long black robe did not tear. Instead, it seemed to pull and flow around Maelen’s blade, like she was chopping through thick, black mud. Sarin grunted, almost like reading a clever line in a poem, but showed no other effect. Alric suddenly wondered if their weapons could damage a Nightwight, something he hadn’t even considered until now.
“Enough!” Sarin intoned, and as he said the word he stretched his free hand out in front of him, spindly pale fingers curled like an enormous spider. The Nightwight muttered something in a language just beyond Alric’s hearing, but the back of his throat and spine itched as some part of him registered the words. Sarin the Night Captain was using magic.
A wave burst out from the Nightwight, unseen but causing the three torches in the room to dance madly as if caught in a sudden gale. As it did, Alric’s jaw locked, and his stomach heaved in abject terror. This was not the fear of seeing a wolf in the forest; it was the fear of knowing that an entire pack of unseen predators watched you in the darkness, waiting for you to drop from fatigue. It was an anticipatory, abstract, and primal sort of terror, and for a moment Alric’s eyes rolled and he meant to drop his torch and staff, fleeing and screaming from Thornmere Hold.
“No!” he yelled, his voice resonant and echoing in the vault, and as he said it the fear retreated. He didn’t know what words he muttered next, only that they weren’t his. They rose like echoes from a memory of a dream, strange syllables that burned on his tongue. His torch’s flame ceased dancing, and the scribe stood straighter. Ahead of him, Maelen paused and lowered her guard for a fraction of a moment, and then, snarling, raised the sword defiantly and swung again at the tall, thin creature before her.
Whew that was a close one. But the fight is far from over. Round 3, and it’s Alric’s turn to roll initiative. His Initiative score is the lowest of the bunch at 11, and I roll a Nat-20. Thankfully, there is no effect from a Terrible Failure for this roll, but it still means that the party acts last.
Fenn rolls a 5 against Vessa and misses. Sarin, meanwhile, will either now strike out at Maelen or cast a spell on her. Hm. Let’s make it a 50/50 roll, evens a strike and odds a spell: 6, so it’s a strike. As a 4 HD creature, Sarin gains a +4 to hit and rolls a 7, which misses Maelen’s 14 AC, and a good thing: Wight’s strikes are nasty if they hit.
Vessa, can you finish this tracker battle? She rolls a 14, so yes. Fenn has 1 hp remaining, so any damage kills him. Now it’s the full party versus Sarin.
Maelen will roll to hit, and oh dear… she rolls a Nat-1! This time, a Fumble does matter. Per the rules, Sarin gets a free melee attack on Maelen. He rolls a 14 and hits. Remember how I just said that Wight’s attacks are nasty? Well, Sarin does 1d10 damage, plus Drains 1 level until the party gets Downtime. Not that the level-drain matters much, because I roll max damage: 10. Maelen drops Unconscious and is either Dead or Dying (we’ll find out which after the battle)! Ack!
Alric will move forward and attempt to strike Sarin with his torch, the clever lad, and I’ll give him a -1 to hit since it’s an improvised weapon (normally I’d give -2 but a torch is fairly straightforward as a club). Against all reason, he rolls an 18 and hits! Because it’s a light source, I’ll say it does full damage to Sarin. Now, how much damage should it do? I’ll say 1d3 damage for the torch itself, plus 1d3 fire. Is that too powerful? Since I’m the only player here, this is a specific use case (fighting a creature of darkness with light) and won’t make a habit of attacking with it. In the moment, it’s too cool an image not to let it happen. Anyway, I roll 2 damage for the torch and 3 damage for the fire, for 5 total. That’s half his remaining hit points! The party might have a chance.
Sarin was faster than his deliberate speech and fluid steps would suggest, and he brought the lamplighter’s pole up to block the sword. Then, quick as an adder’s strike, his still-outstretched hand fell upon Maelen’s head.
Whatever happened next—the Nightwight’s palm atop the crown of her head, the long fingers reaching down across her skull—Maelen screamed, a voice high and desperate and undignified. She dropped to the ground lifelessly as Sarin released her head like an overripe piece of fruit.
“Maelen!” Alric yelled. Before he understood what he was doing, he had surged forward, torch cocked back like a mace. He swung it with all his strength and, when the torch struck the creature’s black robes, the fabric seemed to wither and retreat from the flames. Sarin hissed in surprise and pain, those gray ember eyes looking down upon him incredulously.
It would have been Maelen’s turn to roll initiative on Round 4, but since she’s out of the fight the duty falls to Vessa. She rolls 11, which is a success against her 13 Initiative.
Now, if we were a group of friends sitting around a table and playing, I’m 100% sure that Vessa’s player would ask if Sarin was distracted and the rogue could sneak up to Backstab the Nightwight. So… can she? I’ll let her roll a Stealth check, but say she needs a Great Success to succeed. With her skill and high Agility, that means she needs a 9 or lower on a d20. She rolls a Nat-1! My goodness. So absolutely yes, she has snuck up to Sarin and can attempt a killing blow.
Will her luck continue on the strike itself? Because of the Nat-1, I’ll give her a +2 to the attack as if Sarin were Prone or Grabbed, an acknowledgement of her Critical Success. That bonus means she needs a 12 or better to hit: Unfortunately, a 4 misses. Dang.
Alric, can you somehow hit again with the torch? I roll a 13 total, which is a good roll but still can’t hit the 15 AC.
Now let’s do another Morale check on Sarin. He needs a 15 or lower on d20. He rolls… a 17 and fails! Okay then! Our Night Captain is apparently freaked out enough by the surprising torch attack and, perhaps, momentarily losing sight of Vessa. He will then decide to cast Place of Perfect Night and shroud Thornmere Hold with magical darkness to cover his escape. His Intelligence score is 15, and rolls a 6, succeeding on the spell. How about Dark & Dangerous Magic? I roll a 9, increasing the DDM score to 3 (though it’s unlikely to matter now). Sarin then disappears back the way he came and into the forest, shrouded by magical darkness.
One more check to end our scene: It’s time for Alric to cast the first real spell of his life and try Sever Arcanum to dispel the darkness. First, let’s do the DDM roll. Alric rolls a d8 (instead of d10 like Sarin), needing above a 1: He rolls a 2. Whew! His DDM score now increases to 2.
Now, instead of requiring a successful cast of the spell, then an opposed check, I’m just going to go straight to the opposed check (otherwise it seems unnecessarily punishing, particularly because failing means straight to the DDM table). Alric and Sarin will both roll a Int check, and Alric can add +1 because of his Arcane Lore skill. Whoever succeeds their roll by more wins. Here we go: Sarin rolls a 7, succeeding by 8. Alric rolls… 6, succeeding by 10! Woo!
Wait a minute! What about Maelen?! Is she dead, or what?!? Well, THAT roll will have to wait until next week…
Without conscious thought, Alric swung his torch back and forth, yelling and beating at Sarin’s tall, cloaked form. But he was not a trained fighter like his companions, and the Nightwight seemed to flow away from each blow, avoiding the flickering fire. His pale, dark-veined face peered down, thin lips snarling.
“Irritating firefly!” Sarin rasped, “Begone!” He began murmuring again in susurrant, alien words. This close to the Nightwight, Alric could… almost… understand…
And then the world went black.
It was as if someone had thrown a hood over his head. This was no absence of light. This was light swallowed whole. At first, Alric thought that perhaps he’d inadvertently closed his eyes, but as he stumbled backwards into a wall, he blinked and stared wide. He could feel the wall at his back, his staff in one sweaty hand, torch in another. He could even, bizarrely, hear the telltale guttering of the flame at the end of his torch. But though he could feel these things, everything in Thornmere Hold was utterly and completely without light.
“Alric?” he heard Vessa’s voice call out from several strides away. “Are you there?”
“I’m here,” he said. “He’s cast a spell. We’re either blind or this is darkness.”
“Where is he? Where’s Sarin?”
Alric swallowed, his eyes uselessly darting left and right. The Nightwight could kill them at his leisure now, with both of them defenseless. They were doomed. He pressed his form against the alcoved wall, shuffling back towards the vault door and away from where he’d just seen Sarin looming over him.
In desperation, he began murmuring once more. Alric could not have said what words he spoke, nor their meaning. He called on the feeling when he’d first stepped into the glade above Thornmere Hold, that lingering sense of… something, just beyond his senses. He called on the barely remembered syllables he’d just heard from Sarin the Night Captain. And, most especially, he called on the words from the slim, leatherbound book, etched in a script that never stayed still when he looked at it too long, which lay stuffed deep within his travel pack. As he spoke, all muscles in Alric’s body slackened, and he almost lost his grip on the torch and staff. Then he closed his eyes, concentrating on pulling the energy around him apart, like fanning away smoke from a fire.
When he opened his eyes, the darkness was gone. Three torches—one in his hand, one in Vessa’s, and another mounted in the wall—burned weakly but illuminated the long room in dull orange and yellow light. The thief stared back at him with round, frightened eyes.
Sarin was gone, but five bodies lay sprawled across the stone floor: The two fighters and tracker, all in widening pools of dark blood, and Old Yara, bloody face staring sightlessly at the vaulted ceiling with her mouth agape.
And there, near the doorway, was Maelen Marrosen, face down and still.
Maelen stepped into the room beyond, but both Alric and Vessa’s eyes were fixed on the gray-skinned bodies on the stone floor. With Maelen’s torch in the room beyond, only dim light remained, shrouding any details in deep shadows. Most distinct was the woman’s decapitated head, which lay at Vessa’s feet, empty pits where her eyes should be staring sightlessly at her, black tears down her drooping cheeks. Oily, black hair clung to the floor in a wide, wild pattern. She’d slit plenty of throats, seen plenty of corpses, but those black tears would haunt her dreams.
Vessa’s nose wrinkled. She had been around dead bodies before, yet there was no stench here, just the faint scent of mildew and lichen where damp has kissed the corners of this place. There was the coppery tang of the automaton impaled on the wall and lamp oil gone rancid long ago. But no rotting flesh, blood, or offal. Whatever had happened to the bodies of the things they’d just fought, it left them with only the faint scent of something acrid and alien, but so scant it may have been merely her expectations.
“Zombies, yeah?” she asked the scribe in a low whisper. “I heard tales in the guildhall once. The dead brought back to life?”
“Not life,” Alric said carefully, deep in thought. “An un-life, I’ve heard it called. Their bodies were like puppets to some darker force, their minds gone. It’s… troubling. Some arcane force twisted them in this way, left them trapped down here. Is whatever created these undead still here, I wonder?”
“And why were they locked in a vault?” Vessa built on the scribe’s words. “Had they already been transformed? If not, why seal living people down here?”
“Indeed,” he answered, rubbing at his chin. “Something about this is deeply wrong.”
“You want to stand in a dark room yapping or find what we came to find?” came Maelen’s harsh words echoing from the other room. Alric’s head snapped up. “Come here, idiots.”
Vessa followed him, sparing one last glance back at the fallen bodies. A shiver crept from the base of her stubbled head down her spine.
It was a narrow, rectangular room with a high, vaulted ceiling held aloft by stone ribs. Two wall sconces flanking the doorway held broken oil lamps, seemingly battered into shapeless brass by some blunt object, perhaps the zombies’ fists. A central wooden table, low and wide, was the room’s only furniture, its surface pitted by age and scarred with knife marks. Yet there were also broken pieces of wood littering the floor, which Vessa suspected had once been stools. Deep alcoves had been carved into both long walls, fitted with sealed copper scroll tubes and thick leather cases, many intact.
Maelen passed her torch around as she took in the details of the place. “Lad, light your torch off mine and get to searching what’s here.”
“Yes, of course,” he answered. Alric unshouldered his pack and began rummaging through it.
With a second torch lit, details of the room became even clearer. Dust covered everything, disturbed by the dragging footsteps of the zombies. If Vessa were to guess, they had rarely moved in the past many years, and touched nothing upon the shelves. Her eyes roamed over the alcoves, wondering what could be so important to create this place and hide it away from Oakton. Everything here appeared so mundane.
“Vess, come here. Look at this with me,” Maelen said in a low, urgent tone.
She cocked an eyebrow, her tongue working at the gap left by her mysterious missing tooth from two nights before, and left the scribe to begin his exploration of the alcoves. Maelen stood at the far end of the long room, facing another closed door. The broad-shouldered warrior had sheathed her sword and held the torch up close to the door’s surface for Vessa to see.
Vessa sucked in a breath as she approached. The door itself was a slab of black basalt, reinforced with copper bands etched in glyphs similar to what she’d seen on the automaton from the previous room. Built along the center of the door were three separate locks, one at knee height, one at her ribs, and the last at eye level. The lowest two locks were conventional but sturdy turn-wheel designs like one might find in any Coinmarch vault, though of a construction older than she’d seen before and each distinct. The top lock, meanwhile, was clearly an arcane seal, a recessed copper disc engraved with a fading sigil.
“By the Rootmother’s tangled knots, Mae,” Vessa breathed. “I’ve never seen something like that. It’s worse than the Argenoak vault from… from before.” Without thinking, her free hand scratched the lark tattoo on her wrist.
“Can you break in?” Maelen asked, resting a hand on her shoulder.
Vessa swallowed with a dry throat. “I have no idea.”
“Well, we’ve got time. The lad is going to be busy. Study it and see what you think.” The heavy hand landed hard on her shoulder twice, causing her to stumble.
“I’ll need to light my own torch,” she breathed, never taking her eyes from the trio of locks. “What are you going to do?”
Maelen exhaled through her nose. “I’ll wander back the way we came, see if we missed anything.” She paused, then said, “I want to find out what’s on the other side of that door, Vess. The Lodge damned well put something valuable there.” She lowered her voice to a low, hissing whisper. “Might be our ticket out from under the Circle’s thumb.” The woman’s gaze burned into the seal as she spoke.
“Yeah… okay,” Vessa nodded, licking her lips. Where Maelen had punched her the day before was still swollen and sore. She tasted blood with her tongue. “I’ll get to work,” she whispered, as if the door might be listening.
Vessa lost track of time as she studied the black door and its trio of locks. She was dimly aware of Maelen’s torch leaving the room, and of Alric muttering to himself as he unrolled scrolls and studied them. Mostly, though, her world narrowed to the mighty vault door.
It was the most daunting challenge she’d faced in her several years of thieving. The two lower locks weren’t trapped that she could see, but neither were they the flat-faced padlocks or inset cylinders she knew from modern Oakton. These were older, heavier things, seemingly meant to intimidate her with their sheer bulk, and doing a good job of it.
She laid her kit on a scrap of folded cloth to keep her tools from clinking against the stone, and found a place nearby to wedge her torch. Crouching before the first lock, she pulled a thin hooked pick and tension rod from her roll, hesitated, then swapped the hook for a stubbier probe. Somewhere behind each wheel, she reasoned, lay a stack of interlocked plates, teeth meshing in a pattern the original key would have set in one smooth motion. Without the key, she would have to feel the tumblers through the metal’s bones.
Bracing one knee against the door for leverage, she pressed the tension rod into the wheel’s side channel, twisting slowly, slowly… She felt subtle resistance and shifted her weight. Careful now. Click. The wheel sagged a fraction in its socket, not fully unlocked but on its way.
Sometime after she’d conquered both mundane locks and was sweating, Maelen returned and struck up a conversation with Alric about his findings. She allowed herself the ghost of a grin. Two down. One nightmare to go. Vessa blew out a breath and sat, giving her knees and fingers some relief and listening with a cocked ear, her back to them.
“What are you finding, lad?”
“Hm? Oh! Maelen, hello,” Alric answered with his rich baritone voice. “This is all fascinating! There are battlefield grimoires, civic decrees from hundreds of years ago, genealogical scrolls, arcane treatises, and royal correspondence. It appears as if anything the Castellan wished to hide from the Guild Council or Prince, he placed here.”
Maelen grunted. “Doesn’t sound valuable.”
“Oh, it depends, I suppose. I’m sure there are countless things here someone could use for political leverage for bribes and such, and there is more than one arcane formula. Oh! And I believe I’ve solved the mystery of our two zombies.”
“Yeah?”
“Indeed. They were,” he paused, and Vessa could hear the shuffling of parchment. “Lady Meren of the Locks and Sir Edran the Bright, both knights of Thornmere, and actually volunteered to be sealed in here to protect the vault and documents, if you can believe it. Apparently, they were given magical sustenance and enchantments to preserve both their bodies and minds. It’s truly staggering magic, but localized only to these rooms.”
Vessa turned, still seated, resting her weight on one hip to face the others. “Did the magic go wrong, then? Is that why they became zombies?”
“Not that I can tell,” Alric said carefully, tapping his lip with a finger. “They kept a log, and it appears that something tainted was creeping into the vault. ‘A dark presence,’ Lady Meren called it. She held out longer than Sir Edran, but it drove them both quite mad. Towards the end, the journal talks about,” and he moved some more parchments, laid out over the low table. The scribe held his torch over an unrolled parchment and squinted. “Orthuun, The Blind Sovereign, Orthuun, Shadow-King of the Endless Black, Orthuun, The Sightless God, Orthuun, The Eater of Lanterns, Orthuun, the Father of Forgotten Paths. It gets nonsensical after that,” he swallowed and winced. “And quite disturbing.”
The shiver returned down Vessa’s spine. “The Blind Sovereign?” she whispered. “That… That’s what Old Yara said the Nightwight was waiting for. ‘The Blind Sovereign will send a herald,’ right?”
Alric blinked, looking stunned. “By the Rootmother, you’re right! I didn’t even think of the connection there, and The Eater of Lanterns might have been why Sarin called the group the Lanternless. They talk about this Orthuun like some sort of god, but the gods only exist in the city, of course. It must be a demon of some kind. Vessa, I must say, your memory is incredible.”
She felt her cheeks flush at the words, but shook her head. “Not really, but I have eye for connections. Makes me a good thief.”
“Speaking of which,” Maelen placed a fist on one hip. “How goes the door?”
“Not bad,” she grinned. “Lower locks are done, and I have a bead on how to get the last one, but it’s arcane, and nasty.”
“You got the tools you need?” she arched an eyebrow.
Vessa rubbed her crooked nose with one finger and passed her other palm over her stubbled head. “Should do. Just need time.”
“Get to it, then, lass,” she smiled, scar on her cheek creasing. “The torches won’t last forever.”
As she finished the sentence, Maelen’s head snapped around. “Shh!” she whispered. “Did you hear that?”
Vessa listened.
There was a faint creak. Then another. And then: footsteps. Many of them. Vessa froze. She knew that sound. Hushed voices. Someone had entered descended the stairs and were making their way through the darkness towards them. Vessa couldn’t tell exactly, but it sounded like many people. Her blood ran cold.
“Pig shit!” Maelen muttered angrily, pulling the enormous sword from her back.
“What is it?” Alric whispered, his voice small. “Who could be in here?”
Vessa was already on her feet, shortsword drawn. Her eyes darted in the torchlight to the rotting fragments of wood at the far end of the room, laying scattered across the floor. There was no chance to barricade themselves in here. Whoever was down here would walk in a straight line directly to them.
“Torches!” someone yelled triumphantly, the sound echoing and distant. “We found ‘em, Night Captain!”
Then a familiar, dry voice carried to them. “Din’t I tell you, Maelen the Skinless?” Old Yara cackled. “The Night Captain is here! And he’s gon’ pay you back for whatcha done to his people!”
After utterly dismantling two zombies trapped in Thornmere Hold, the way to secret lore is open! I have a couple of possible options as to why the zombies existed, which could mean an encounter in this room or not. Instead of rolling on “is this an expected scene?” a la Mythic GM Emulator, I’ll instead Consult the Bones to see whether there’s an encounter in this next room, and the results will help determine which history is true. I grab my handful of special dice and roll: Once again, the Twins of Fate are divided, but the Hammer of Judgment plays tiebreaker and says no encounter here. Meanwhile, the Fortune die shows a skull, which means generally bad stuff. Easy enough. Not only does this roll crystallize the origin of the zombies and what lies in the chamber beyond, it means that (because of that skull) I’ll increase the difficulty of getting the “major item” in the next room.
I’ll also make a couple of Attribute checks before we get started. Does Vessa know the general nature of the things they just fought? I roll a Gather Info(Int) and get a 12, which is a success. Does Alric have a sense of why the zombies may have been created? Here I roll an Arcane Lore(Int) and get a 9, also a success. Okay great… that helps define my initial dialogue.
VII.
Frostmere 16, Hearthday, Year 731.
Maelen stepped into the room beyond, but both Alric and Vessa’s eyes were fixed on the gray-skinned bodies on the stone floor. With Maelen’s torch in the room beyond, only dim light remained, shrouding any details in deep shadows. Most distinct was the woman’s decapitated head, which lay at Vessa’s feet, empty pits where her eyes should be staring sightlessly at her, black tears down her drooping cheeks. Oily, black hair clung to the floor in a wide, wild pattern. She’d slit plenty of throats, seen plenty of corpses, but those black tears would haunt her dreams.
Vessa’s nose wrinkled. She had been around dead bodies before, yet there was no stench here, just the faint scent of mildew and lichen where damp has kissed the corners of this place. There was the coppery tang of the automaton impaled on the wall and lamp oil gone rancid long ago. But no rotting flesh, blood, or offal. Whatever had happened to the bodies of the things they’d just fought, it left them with only the faint scent of something acrid and alien, but so scant it may have been merely her expectations.
“Zombies, yeah?” she asked the scribe in a low whisper. “I heard tales in the guildhall once. The dead brought back to life?”
“Not life,” Alric said carefully, deep in thought. “An un-life, I’ve heard it called. Their bodies were like puppets to some darker force, their minds gone. It’s… troubling. Some arcane force twisted them in this way, left them trapped down here. Is whatever created these undead still here, I wonder?”
“And why were they locked in a vault?” Vessa built on the scribe’s words. “Had they already been transformed? If not, why seal living people down here?”
“Indeed,” he answered, rubbing at his chin. “Something about this is deeply wrong.”
“You want to stand in a dark room yapping or find what we came to find?” came Maelen’s harsh words echoing from the other room. Alric’s head snapped up. “Come here, idiots.”
Vessa followed him, sparing one last glance back at the fallen bodies. A shiver crept from the base of her stubbled head down her spine.
It was a narrow, rectangular room with a high, vaulted ceiling held aloft by stone ribs. Two wall sconces flanking the doorway held broken oil lamps, seemingly battered into shapeless brass by some blunt object, perhaps the zombies’ fists. A central wooden table, low and wide, was the room’s only furniture, its surface pitted by age and scarred with knife marks. Yet there were also broken pieces of wood littering the floor, which Vessa suspected had once been stools. Deep alcoves had been carved into both long walls, fitted with sealed copper scroll tubes and thick leather cases, many intact.
Maelen passed her torch around as she took in the details of the place. “Lad, light your torch off mine and get to searching what’s here.”
“Yes, of course,” he answered. Alric unshouldered his pack and began rummaging through it.
With a second torch lit, details of the room became even clearer. Dust covered everything, disturbed by the dragging footsteps of the zombies. If Vessa were to guess, they had rarely moved in the past many years, and touched nothing upon the shelves. Her eyes roamed over the alcoves, wondering what could be so important to create this place and hide it away from Oakton. Everything here appeared so mundane.
“Vess, come here. Look at this with me,” Maelen said in a low, urgent tone.
She cocked an eyebrow, her tongue working at the gap left by her mysterious missing tooth from two nights before, and left the scribe to begin his exploration of the alcoves. Maelen stood at the far end of the long room, facing another closed door. The broad-shouldered warrior had sheathed her sword and held the torch up close to the door’s surface for Vessa to see.
Vessa sucked in a breath as she approached. The door itself was a slab of black basalt, reinforced with copper bands etched in glyphs similar to what she’d seen on the automaton from the previous room. Built along the center of the door were three separate locks, one at knee height, one at her ribs, and the last at eye level. The lowest two locks were conventional but sturdy turn-wheel designs like one might find in any Coinmarch vault, though of a construction older than she’d seen before and each distinct. The top lock, meanwhile, was clearly an arcane seal, a recessed copper disc engraved with a fading sigil.
“By the Rootmother’s tangled knots, Mae,” Vessa breathed. “I’ve never seen something like that. It’s worse than the Argenoak vault from… from before.” Without thinking, her free hand scratched the lark tattoo on her wrist.
“Can you break in?” Maelen asked, resting a hand on her shoulder.
Vessa swallowed with a dry throat. “I have no idea.”
“Well, we’ve got time. The lad is going to be busy. Study it and see what you think.” The heavy hand landed hard on her shoulder twice, causing her to stumble.
“I’ll need to light my own torch,” she breathed, never taking her eyes from the trio of locks. “What are you going to do?”
Maelen exhaled through her nose. “I’ll wander back the way we came, see if we missed anything.” She paused, then said, “I want to find out what’s on the other side of that door, Vess. The Lodge damned well put something valuable there.” She lowered her voice to a low, hissing whisper. “Might be our ticket out from under the Circle’s thumb.” The woman’s gaze burned into the seal as she spoke.
“Yeah… okay,” Vessa nodded, licking her lips. Where Maelen had punched her the day before was still swollen and sore. She tasted blood with her tongue. “I’ll get to work,” she whispered, as if the door might be listening.
For the next hours, the three PCs will be pursuing separate activities: Maelen searching, Alric reading through scrolls, and Vessa studying the locked door. Let’s make some rolls to see how these things go.
For a couple of hours of Maelen poking through the previous rooms and hallway, how should I handle it mechanically? I could just Consult the Bones, or ask a Fate question, or roll an Attribute check. Let’s start with a straight Perception roll, which for Maelen is 12. I roll 8, so she does a good job searching. Now I’ll Consult the Bones to see if there’s anything worth finding: The Twins say Yes/Nil, but the Judgment die says No, and it’s the tiebreaker. As a result, there’s no real “discovery moment” to speak of. But the Fortune die is a Sun, which means something positive. Seems like Maelen found some loot, so I’ll roll d20 on the Tales of Argosa Valuables table: 3, which leads me to the Carry Loot A table: 37, which is “coppers equal to the sum of the digits from the d100 roll.” 10 copper “oaks” is not a lot of money, but it’s something.
Next up is Alric, and I’ll follow the same basic procedure. First is a Perception roll, which for him is 11. I roll 5, which is a Great Success! He will find all sorts of interesting information in the scrolls, tomes, and miscellany in the alcoves. Now let’s Consult the Bones to get a bit clearer: Double-No on the Twins negates the Yes on the Judgment die, so again there’s no real “discovery moment.” But there is a Skull on the Fortune die. Hmmm. So, in addition to gathering a lot of good info, he’ll find something bad. But what? Now is a great time for one of the Oracle tables in Mythic. I’ll roll on Descriptor Tables 1 & 2: Fortunately Pale. What is this supposed to mean? It’s mine to interpret, wherever my mind takes me based on those descriptive words. For me, I’m going to give Alric a mixed blessing: An access to unlock his magical abilities (since he hasn’t used them yet, might as well say this is the place his magic begins), but which will lead him down a dangerous, dangerous road.
Finally, it’s our POV-of-the-week character Vessa’s turn. First is the Perception check, which is a whopping 17 for her. I roll 16, so thank goodness her Attribute is so high. She will get a sense of what’s needed to open the vault. Now we Consult the Bones: The Twins are Yes/Nil, but Judgment again trumps with a No. There is no “moment” while studying the door. And maybe for the first time ever, our Fortune die is silent, with a Nil result. Basically, Vessa studies the lock carefully, gets a sense of what it’s going to take to open it, and that’s basically it.
Since that’s boring for Vessa, let’s say she spends her time actually working to open the lock. She needs three successful Traps & Locks checks to get it open, one for each lock. With her high Dexterity, that should be relatively easy, so I’ll say that if she fails on either of the first two checks (the mundane locks), she doesn’t have the tools necessary and will need to return after visiting Oakton again. If she fails on the third, she will trigger a trap. I’ll also say the degree of success will determine how much time it takes, and if she doesn’t achieve a Great Success at least once, I’m going to make a Random Encounter roll.
Here we go: First lock I roll 16, success. Second lock I roll 16, success. Third and most dangerous lock I roll 10. She gets the vault door open! But she didn’t achieve a Great Success. So now I’ll ask the simple Fate question: Do the Lanternless catch up to them in this time? I’ll give it a “50/50” chance, but with the Chaos Factor at 6, that means a 65% chance of Yes. I roll… 45.
Vessa lost track of time as she studied the black door and its trio of locks. She was dimly aware of Maelen’s torch leaving the room, and of Alric muttering to himself as he unrolled scrolls and studied them. Mostly, though, her world narrowed to the mighty vault door.
It was the most daunting challenge she’d faced in her several years of thieving. The two lower locks weren’t trapped that she could see, but neither were they the flat-faced padlocks or inset cylinders she knew from modern Oakton. These were older, heavier things, seemingly meant to intimidate her with their sheer bulk, and doing a good job of it.
She laid her kit on a scrap of folded cloth to keep her tools from clinking against the stone, and found a place nearby to wedge her torch. Crouching before the first lock, she pulled a thin hooked pick and tension rod from her roll, hesitated, then swapped the hook for a stubbier probe. Somewhere behind each wheel, she reasoned, lay a stack of interlocked plates, teeth meshing in a pattern the original key would have set in one smooth motion. Without the key, she would have to feel the tumblers through the metal’s bones.
Bracing one knee against the door for leverage, she pressed the tension rod into the wheel’s side channel, twisting slowly, slowly… She felt subtle resistance and shifted her weight. Careful now. Click. The wheel sagged a fraction in its socket, not fully unlocked but on its way.
Sometime after she’d conquered both mundane locks and was sweating, Maelen returned and struck up a conversation with Alric about his findings. She allowed herself the ghost of a grin. Two down. One nightmare to go. Vessa blew out a breath and sat, giving her knees and fingers some relief and listening with a cocked ear, her back to them.
“What are you finding, lad?”
“Hm? Oh! Maelen, hello,” Alric answered with his rich baritone voice. “This is all fascinating! There are battlefield grimoires, civic decrees from hundreds of years ago, genealogical scrolls, arcane treatises, and royal correspondence. It appears as if anything the Castellan wished to hide from the Guild Council or Prince, he placed here.”
Maelen grunted. “Doesn’t sound valuable.”
“Oh, it depends, I suppose. I’m sure there are countless things here someone could use for political leverage for bribes and such, and there is more than one arcane formula. Oh! And I believe I’ve solved the mystery of our two zombies.”
“Yeah?”
“Indeed. They were,” he paused, and Vessa could hear the shuffling of parchment. “Lady Meren of the Locks and Sir Edran the Bright, both knights of Thornmere, and actually volunteered to be sealed in here to protect the vault and documents, if you can believe it. Apparently, they were given magical sustenance and enchantments to preserve both their bodies and minds. It’s truly staggering magic, but localized only to these rooms.”
Vessa turned, still seated, resting her weight on one hip to face the others. “Did the magic go wrong, then? Is that why they became zombies?”
“Not that I can tell,” Alric said carefully, tapping his lip with a finger. “They kept a log, and it appears that something tainted was creeping into the vault. ‘A dark presence,’ Lady Meren called it. She held out longer than Sir Edran, but it drove them both quite mad. Towards the end, the journal talks about,” and he moved some more parchments, laid out over the low table. The scribe held his torch over an unrolled parchment and squinted. “Orthuun, The Blind Sovereign, Orthuun, Shadow-King of the Endless Black, Orthuun, The Sightless God, Orthuun, The Eater of Lanterns, Orthuun, the Father of Forgotten Paths. It gets nonsensical after that,” he swallowed and winced. “And quite disturbing.”
The shiver returned down Vessa’s spine. “The Blind Sovereign?” she whispered. “That… That’s what Old Yara said the Nightwight was waiting for. ‘The Blind Sovereign will send a herald,’ right?”
Alric blinked, looking stunned. “By the Rootmother, you’re right! I didn’t even think of the connection there, and The Eater of Lanterns might have been why Sarin called the group the Lanternless. They talk about this Orthuun like some sort of god, but the gods only exist in the city, of course. It must be a demon of some kind. Vessa, I must say, your memory is incredible.”
She felt her cheeks flush at the words, but shook her head. “Not really, but I have eye for connections. Makes me a good thief.”
“Speaking of which,” Maelen placed a fist on one hip. “How goes the door?”
“Not bad,” she grinned. “Lower locks are done, and I have a bead on how to get the last one, but it’s arcane, and nasty.”
“You got the tools you need?” she arched an eyebrow.
Vessa rubbed her crooked nose with one finger and passed her other palm over her stubbled head. “Should do. Just need time.”
“Get to it, then, lass,” she smiled, scar on her cheek creasing. “The torches won’t last forever.”
As she finished the sentence, Maelen’s head snapped around. “Shh!” she whispered. “Did you hear that?”
Vessa listened.
The Lanternless have entered the building! But that’s all I’ve decided, and I need to know more about the cult of Sarin the Night Captain more. So, let’s roll some dice.
First, how many Lanternless are left after the three deaths? I’ll roll 3d6: 9 total outcasts left in Sarin’s cult. That begs the second question: How many of those nine have pursued the party? I’ll roll 2d4+1: 4 of them, or roughly half the group.
Now, the third and most important question: Is Sarin with them? Did he simply send out search parties, and this is the one who found the PCs, or did he lead a group to hunt them? I’ll give it a 50/50 chance, but since the Chaos Factor is 6 that will push the likelihood of Sarin’s presence to 65%. Here we go: I roll 31. Sarin has led his four best warriors right to Thornmere’s Vault!
Finally, the question I’ve resisted answering until it mattered: what is a Nightwight? I think the easiest answer is that it’s simply a flavorful Wight, so I’ll look that up in the Tales rulebook: “Wights are semi decayed humanoid Undead, often bound to graveyards or other resting places of the departed. All Wights develop cursed insights into the Veil, gaining the ability to cast spells whilst falling deeper into madness.” Yep. That fits the concept of the Night Captain. The only tweaks I’ll make are 1) Sarin is bound to a broad area, becoming weaker the further he is from his buried… whatever-it-is. This means he won’t have the full statblock of a Wight when facing the party. I’ll move him down a Hit Die as a result from being so far from his sacred spot, from 5 HD to 4 (might as well roll the 4d8 now: 14 hit points). 2) He is not immune to non-magical weapons—which would make him impossible to damage by the party—but instead will take half damage. We’ll say that’s another effect of being far from his home ground. 3) Creatures killed by Sarin won’t become Zombies as per regular Wights. Instead, they will be handed over to the dark god Orthuun and return as… something cool that I’ll decide later if it happens. Finally, a Wight has 4 spells, and I’m going to switch half of them to fit Sarin’s patron god. He will be able to cast Glimpse the True Gods, Hand of the Void, Place of Perfect Night, and Thrice Bound Curse. What do these spells do? Maybe we’ll find out!
Wights have a fun Reaction table, so let’s roll a d12 and see how Sarin is approaching this encounter: I roll an 11, so he is Inquiring. Excellent!
There was a faint creak. Then another. And then: footsteps. Many of them. Vessa froze. She knew that sound. Hushed voices. Someone had entered descended the stairs and were making their way through the darkness towards them. Vessa couldn’t tell exactly, but it sounded like many people. Her blood ran cold.
“Pig shit!” Maelen muttered angrily, pulling the enormous sword from her back.
“What is it?” Alric whispered, his voice small. “Who could be in here?”
Vessa was already on her feet, shortsword drawn. Her eyes darted in the torchlight to the rotting fragments of wood at the far end of the room, laying scattered across the floor. There was no chance to barricade themselves in here. Whoever was down here would walk in a straight line directly to them.
“Torches!” someone yelled triumphantly, the sound echoing and distant. “We found ‘em, Night Captain!”
Then a familiar, dry voice carried to them. “Din’t I tell you, Maelen the Skinless?” Old Yara cackled. “The Night Captain is here! And he’s gon’ pay you back for whatcha done to his people!”
“So you know there’s scrolls down there, but not the layout?” Maelen asked, rubbing her chin and studying the stone stairs into darkness. There was something unnatural about the shadows, like they had substance. Something like black fog, she decided.
“That’s right,” the lad swallowed. His voice was unexpectedly deep and resonant.
“Alright, well. You follow me, Vessa in back. We stick close, but don’t bump me from behind if you want to keep your head attached to your shoulders, understand?” She threw a hard glare at him. The kid nodded, wide-eyed intimidation taking over the hungry, eager look she’d seen a few heartbeats before. Good. The last thing they needed was him setting off traps in a vault or stumbling off to another room on his own. She and Vessa didn’t want a repeat of the debacle that landed them in debt to the Latchkey Circle in the first place.
For just a moment, the horror of that day filled her mind. There had been ten of them in the Larkhands, their band of thieves, and Maelen was their second-in-command. They’d been planning the break-in at a sealed vault beneath the Argenoak’s root foundations for weeks. When they’d breached the vault, however, instead of a mountain of coins they’d found glyph-marked relics and an ancient warding seal. Maelen could still remember their little thief Grale reaching for the seal… Maelen’s shout of warning, unheard. Vessa had been the only Larkhand within reach, so Maelen had tackled her and taken cover beneath a slab of stone. When the seal cracked and the screams began, she and Vessa had been spared. Those tortured screams, though, took a long time to stop. And their twisted bodies when the dust had settled…
Maelen shook her head, banishing the images. She unshouldered her pack with a grunt and tugged free one of the torches lashed to its side, a rough shaft of pinewood, about as long as her forearm, wrapped tightly at one end with resin-soaked cloth. The wrapping was stained dark with pitch, a homemade mix of pine tar, lard, and scrap linen meant to burn hot and slow. It smelled faintly of smoke and tallow, even unlit.
From a leather pouch on her belt, she retrieved her tinderbox. It was a small, square tin with a hinged lid, scratched and blackened with use. She crouched by the edge of the stone doorway, opened the box, and struck flint to steel. Sparks danced, catching the charcloth with a faint red glow. She leaned close, coaxed the ember with a steady breath, then pressed the cloth into a small bundle of dry moss and bark scrap. The kindling flared. Maelen touched the flame to the cloth-wrapped end of the torch. It caught with a hungry whoosh, casting flickering orange light over the carved stone and the gaping stairwell below.
She gave the torch a testing shake, nodded, and said, “Alright, let’s go see what’s so secret that the Inkbinders locked it away out here.” There was a light scrabbling sound as Tatter scampered from one shoulder to the next. Tatter squeaked once, an unusual amount of noise from the mouse. Maelen grinned, her scar tugging. Vessa gave her a nod.
She turned her back on them, torch held out front, and descended the stairs.
Though the shadows had an opaque appearance, they were just shadows, and retreated from her torchlight, revealing a well-hewn set of narrow stairs, twenty in all, and an otherwise undecorated corridor. Orange light flickered and smoke pooled on the low ceiling of the corridor as she squinted and looked around.
Vessa was an expert in trap-finding, but Maelen’s practiced eye could spot them well enough. She spied no tripwires, pressure plates, or loose stones that might spell danger. She stepped forward cautiously, toe-to-heel, one foot after another, through undisturbed dust. The scribes who guarded this place already trapped the door, she reasoned, why trap the corridor as well? It all depended on how often they walked these halls back when Thornmere Hold was active and how forbidden the knowledge. Maelen admitted to herself that she was more than a little curious as to what they’d find down here.
As she suspected, they reached the simple door at the end of the short corridor without incident. Tatter squeaked again, tightening Maelen’s jaw muscles. Did the little critter know something she didn’t? But that was stupid, she scolded herself.
“Shh, mouse,” she lightly scolded.
Maelen examined the door carefully, but it wasn’t trapped either as far as she could see. Some faded script had been carved in an archway over the door frame. She held the torch at head height so the lad could see.
“What does it say?” she asked in a low whisper.
“It… hm. It’s an old script, but I can read it. ‘The Vigil Endures, Though the World Forgets,’” he said in reverent awe.
She could hear the excitement in his voice, so she hissed, “Don’t bloody touch anything until we know it’s safe.”
“Of course,” he said defensively as she turned to face the door, but once her back was to him, she grinned. What sort of knowledge is dangerous enough to lock in a hidden vault out in the wilds?
The door was a thick slab of hardwood, copper-banded and hanging on rusted iron hinges set in the stone wall. The iron had rusted and copper corroded, but was otherwise in decent repair.
“You okay, Mae? Need me to look it over?” Vessa asked in a low voice from the back.
“I got it,” she said, and pushed the door open. It groaned like something in pain, its hinges frozen and wood bloated from the moisture down here, but she leaned her shoulder into it, grunting.
Maelen faced a small square room, maybe five strides across. Two decorative iron wall sconces sat empty on the walls, one hanging askew, and a broken oil lamp lay discarded on the floor. Directly across from her was a shattered door, fragments of rotting wood lying both within the room and beyond. Her torchlight didn’t reach far enough to see much beyond, but she wouldn’t have been able to focus on the next room anyway. Instead, her eyes snapped to the figure near the doorway.
At first, she thought it was an armored corpse, its copper plates dulled to verdigris. As she brought her torch forward, however, she could see that its helmet-like head bore a single circle of black glass, like the lens of the dead lantern on the floor. Its limbs did not end in fingers, but instead one a three-pronged claw and the other a heavy, fingerless club. Arcane runes, worn nearly smooth, had been etched along the chest plate, shoulder joints, and encircling the clubbed hand.
She knew there wasn’t anyone in the copper armor because a blackened steel spear had been driven deep into its chest and the stone wall beyond, pinning it upright. A thin trail of scorching marked the wall behind it, as though fire had erupted from the blow. Hanging from the cracked chest and back were broken gears and empty beakers. No skeleton or body lay within, only metal and glass.
“Lad,” she whispered urgently. “What is this?”
“I– I… I don’t… Oh! It’s an automaton! Crafted by guild artificers, a dying skill indeed! I’ve never seen one, only read about them. It must have been Thornmere Hold’s guardian. Amazing!”
“But what killed it?” Vessa asked warily, and Maelen could hear her unsheathing her shortsword.
Maelen had the same question. “Hold the light,” she offered to the lad, and he took it, staff in one hand and torch in the other. Maelen pulled her blade from the scabbard across her back, settling her grip two-handed, sword pointed at the shattered, open doorway. She listened, but could hear nothing but the flickering torch and the scribe’s excited mumbling as he examined the copper guardian. Tatter squeaked and ran from one shoulder to a pouch across Maelen’s chest, seeking safety. Smart mouse.
The darkness beyond the shattered door pulsed like a held breath.
Something shuffled in the gloom beyond the shattered doorway, like slow, dragging steps. Then more, slightly further away. Maelen set her mouth and exhaled through her nose, bringing her immense sword to guard.
“What in the seven unshacklings was that?” Vessa cursed behind her.
“Keep that bloody torch up!” Maelen hissed at the scribe over her shoulder. “We can’t fight if we can’t see!”
The first figure lurched into the doorway. It was a lightly armored man, with pauldrons and bracers of steel over a leather cuirass and sturdy shirt and padded pants. Even at a glance, Maelen could see that everything he wore was of the highest quality, like a nobleman dressed for a formal duel, but old and even tattered in places. He wore no helmet, which allowed her to see that his skin was gray and sagging like melted wax. His mouth hung open and toothless, a dark maw …but no sound came out. Yet by far the most disturbing were the sunken black pits where his eyes should have been. It was as if the man’s eyes had turned black and burst, running in thick rivulets down his cheeks.
A second figure shambled behind the man, this one a woman, dressed similarly, with the same empty, weeping eyes and gaping mouth. Her thin black hair clung to her head and neck as if she’d recently taken a bath, wet and stringy, almost oily.
As he stepped into the room, the man raised his gray gnarled hands towards Maelen, the skin hanging loose at his thin wrists.
The move startled her, and the eyeless man lunged at the last moment. He made no sound—no breath, no snarl, no voice—just the soft scrape of boots on stone. Maelen stepped sideways and pushed him away with the flat of her blade, shouting in surprise. Unfortunately, the move sent the man stumbling directly towards the scribe, who, to his credit, swung that walking stick of his in response and kept the armored thing at arm’s length. Damned if she wasn’t more and more impressed with the lad.
The other figure lurched forward in a burst of speed, and Maelen saw that she wielded a spear identical to the one pinning the copper guardian to the wall in her two hands. Silently—and Maelen just now realized that the things made absolutely no noise except for their shuffling steps—the woman thrust the spear forward awkwardly. The blow had power but no grace, and Maelen parried and, on the backswing, scored a hit on her arm. The fabric of her sleeve tore under Maelen’s blade, but no blood spilled. Whatever these things were, they weren’t human. At least not anymore.
With a roar, Maelen gave her no chance to recover. She’d seen one of those spears driven through the breastplate of the automaton and into the stone wall. These things may not be fast or skilled, but they were strong. She swung her longsword in a horizontal arc, cleanly lopping off the woman’s head. The head rolled with a wet flop, the oily hair clinging to the stone like seaweed.
Maelen allowed the momentum of her attack to spin her towards the armored man. Without pausing the swing or her battle cry, the blade sunk into man’s leather-clad side with a thunk. It turned its eyeless head towards her, mouth gaping horribly and silently. It began to reach out towards her with gray, withered hands.
A flicker of motion at the edge of her vision, and then Vessa was there, her short blade buried into the back of the thing’s neck. The tip of her blade erupted from the man’s throat, again bloodlessly. Without a sound, it slumped to the stone floor and did not move.
The three of them panted and Maelen pulled her sword free of the cuirass to point at the shattered doorway. She stood, stance wide and ready, for several heartbeats. Nothing else emerged from the darkness.
“Torch,” she barked at the scribe, empty hand outstretched. He blinked at her in the firelight and then nodded quickly, handing it over. Maelen stepped forward, light in front of her, into the doorway. Shards of old, rotting wood crunched beneath her boot.
“Did you see their faces?” the lad was saying behind her. “Black tears, like the Lanternless! What does that mean?”
“There’s no blood,” Vessa’s voice added. Maelen could almost hear the frown in her voice. “And look at the scrollwork on this armor, Alric, and the tower emblem. These were humans once, I think. Worshippers of the Herald. But why would they lock their own down here and seal the door? What did they become?”
“Shut it, both of you,” Maelen said, moving her torch around in the shadows. “Come here. We’ve found your secret knowledge, lad. Let’s find out what they were guarding, eh?”
She stepped into the dark, and the dark seemed to lean closer to embrace her.
My Hero Brain 