Red Dead Annihilation: Campaign Thread

Ran looks over at Meili as she starts talking to the ghost. 

"I really should have paid more attention back in the port about the names of all these gods out here," Ran says quietly to Mica.

While Meili engages the ghost in conversation, Ran scans the room to see if there are any other doorways, maybe concealed.

Perception: 7  

Mica pauses at the door, studying the carving until it slides open.  A curious feeling washes over him, then it is gone.  He follows the others into the room, looking around to see what the room holds.  “The creature on the door is, or was, a hunter of evil.  I am not sure how I know this, but I don’t think we have anything to fear here.”   

As Meili approaches the ghost, Mica places a reassuring hand on Hew’s shoulder “Are you alright?  What worries you about this place? Have you seen something like this before?”

Ran, exploring around the first chamber you entered, you discover the outline of what you believe to be a hidden door.  It is on the opposite wall, across from the entrance to the room with the sarcophagus and the spirit.  It is just a solid piece of stone in an alcove, but there is the slimmest of gaps around it, making it stand out from the rest of the cut and fitted stone here.  There is no handle or hinge and its not clear how this is supposed to open.

Hew pulls back reflexively from Mica’s hand.  He is obviously unnerved about this place.  But there is something more… he turns away without answering but he coughs again, his teeth starting to chatter.

Before this can be explored further, the room rumbles, and a heavy slab of stone closes behind Meili.  Hew turns and dives for the door, “Look out, child” but is not fast enough to do anything but crash into the slab as it settles onto the floor.  Meili is separated alone in the sarcophagus chamber with the apparition, while Hew, Ran and Mica are in the room outside.

Meili, the heavy stone slams shut behind you, trapping you alone with the spectre.  Your torchlight casts dancing shadows on the room and you can see a colored gas, lighter than air, rising up from the floor.  It has a sweet, floral scent, and immediately your senses expand.  You feel as though you can taste the air, hear whispered voices within the flames of your torch, and feel the weight of the stone and earth that is both above and below you. 

The apparition begins to speak again in the same unfamiliar tongue… but something is different.  The words are still alien to you, but something about the tone… the expression… your mind cannot comprehend but your heart can feel some of the meaning.

It is no accident

Our mantle must pass

Darkness rises 

Light is extinguished

We must hunt death in the dark

Teach death to fear again

The path is grueling

Will you survive

First, you must become a shadow in the dark

By the flickering light of your torch, shadows dance and shapes form on the walls around you.  Hideous serpent men hurl spears at you, dripping with poison.  Great shadows, larger then a person, wheel overhead and swoop down, claws reaching out to rend your flesh.  From the floor, from the walls, from everywhere, the hands of the dead rise, and endless army of grasping fingers, cold and lifeless, but animated by a deathless will.  They pull your hair, grasp at your clothes, try to smother your torch.  DEX save DC 10 or take 4 psychic damage.

To proceed, you must leave pass beyond fear

The walls of the room are gone.  In the distance on great stone pillars, dead sorcerers shape the weave and spread death magic across the land.  Animals shudder and fall, plants wither, and an endless horde of undead shamble across the land.  Villages burn, voices cry out in terror, and you are alone, clutching a promontory rock, in a sea of zombies.  Overhead, witches cackle on broomsticks and toss screaming souls down into the darkness.  The dead around you become that darkness, a swirling void, a maelstrom… too much.  Unstoppable.  WIS save DC 13 or take 8 psychic damage.

To triumph, you must make death afraid

The other visions are gone.  It is only the apparition now.  It advances, looming larger and larger before you.  The blurry cloak obscuring it unfurls… a pair of vast wings.  They unwarp and then encircle you.  You see the face beneath the cloak.  A monster?  Another mask?  CHA save DC 16 or take 8 psychic damage.

Ran starts to move closer to the concealed door when the heavy stone falls down into place.

He moves forward and tries to find somewhere to grip the door near the bottom, or at least wedge his fingers underneath. If he can get any sort of purchase on the door he calls to the Hew and Mica.

"Push up on three," Ran says. "One, two, three."

On three, Ran pushes with as much strength as he can muster.

(Strength/Athletics: 16  plus second roll if advantage from help from others: 15  )

It was so unbelievably stupid and reckless, especially in their circumstances, that should it be anyone else, Meili would insist for the person lay down and rest, for obvious head trauma. And yet, here she was - voluntarily (and actively!) separating herself from the group. What was worse - Meili did not even care, all caught up in the moment of ... union? She did not have the words for what was happening but meditation practises sometimes allowed to bring the mind to this state when one could feel and understand incomprehensible things. All while staying calm and keeping fears at bay.

Meili was trying to do just that - fight the combination of fear and excitement. It took all her attention now, pushing away the thoughts about anything else. Breathe in - breathe out, clear the mind, do not let imagination (she ordered herself to think of it as the tricks of imagination!) frighten you (DEX save DC 10: 18). She made another small step forward if only to prove that her body was still hers.

And then she stopped. Imagination or not, but the vast space in place of the narrow walls was disorienting. The scenery was terrifying even if familiar enough by now, echoing the visions she was sent - or even witnessed - on the way here. Another breath in, another exhale to calm agitated mind. (WIS save DC 13: 14)

Meili blinked, opening her eyes to the scariest - no, the most impactful? shocking? - definitely the most overwhelming vision yet. Was it even a vision? Or the apparition decided she was weakened enough for the final attack? No, it could not be! Even now Meili still believed in ... not the kindness of the nameless god in the picture, no, but benevolence in a broader meaning. She did not fight back, taking the terrifying stare as the last test and trying not to shake when she dared to look straight in the face of the creature. ( CHA save DC 16: 11)

Cursing quietly to herself as Velan's message came back through, Danica looked at her muddy surroundings, feeling rather helpless. She was not so optimistic as the wizard about the likelihood that whatever creature it was would overlook them. "Bad drop. Got banged up landing. Too much slack. Ninlil won't make it with wet muddy feathers. Without her, no warning on creature. Jump." Turning, the elf positions herself close to where she had fallen but not directly underneath the area. 

Mica is surprised when Hew pulls away, but doesn’t have time to press the old dwarf when the stone door slides shut “Meili!” he jumps to the door with Ran “Meili!  Can you hear us? Look for a lever or something on that side” He shouts through the door, slapping it with his hand.  Falling on his knees, he helpsRan try to open the door, using one of his hand axes for leverage under the door if possible.

Ran and Mica rush to the door.  Hew joins them in a desperate attempt to raise the stone or wedge something under it for leverage.  The door is as heavy as sin itself and you hear nothing from the other side.  After a minute of pushing with all of your combined strength, you feel as though it might be starting to give a little.  Just then, the stone rumbles and the door starts to rise up all on its own, revealing Meili on the other side.  The three of you spill onto the floor of the sarcophagus room, briefly spent from the exertion.  There is a slightly sweet scent in the air that makes your nose tingle and your head feel funny, but then the sensation passes.

Your years of training and mental conditioning serve you well.  You stand firm through most of this experience, though you cannot help but be shaken by the last test.  The apparition, while not attempting a possession, exactly, seemed to have been trying to... expose you to its personality.  It was no monster that you felt under the cloak... just a lonely warrior.  An isolated watcher on the wall; forever apart from those who depended upon their protection.  But at the same time, one with near fanatical devotion to the cause - to hunt the undead and the creatures of the night in their own element.  To sow fear among the servants of death itself.  The ferocity of the experience leaves your head throbbing and your heart pounding.

And then it is gone.  The apparition, the colored gas, the visions.  All of it.  And behind you the stone which had trapped you in the room rumbles back to life and rises, spilling Ran, Mica and Hew - who had been trying desperately to lift it from the other side - onto the floor.

Before explanations can be shared, the tomb has a final surprise.  Across the first chamber, a secret door [first discovered by Ran in #1305] in an alcove across the first chamber begins to open.  As it slowly slides up, scraping stone against stone and leaving whisps of dust in the air, you hear rhythmic clinks of trap mechanisms disengaging one by one.

Once fully opened, it reveals a musty chamber full of long decayed relics.  The remains of fabrics and tapestries hang from the walls, and dry-rotted spears and pole-weapons lean this way and that in their displays.  In the center of the room several items are displayed prominently and are seemingly immune from the ravages of time that have reduced the rest to ruin.

• On a bust in the center of the room, a long cloak made of bat or pterosaur leather hangs alongside a wooden mask, caved into a fiendish countenance.
• A boomerang carved out of bone and covered with scrimshaw depicting the phases of the moon.
• An ornate brass bottle, stoppered with lead and fixed with a silver chain.

Meili turned to the sound of grating stone almost mechanically, as a reaction to the noise, still processing all of the events of her brief encounter with the inhabitant of this tomb. She looked the same as she was before entering (and no different from others) - pale, all beaten up and dirty from the tumbling down here. The torch in her hand was shaking a little and the "thousand-yard stare" was quite unfocused, but at least she was standing on her own. A few moments later she was able to fully return to reality and even talk, beginning with her usual, though not less sincere for that, apology. "I am very sorry for my reckless behaviour." She accompanied her words with a long saikeirei and sounded as sincere as one could. "I was shown those who lived here." Meili paused trying to put all her thoughts into words. "I was mistaken, they were not gods... Not really. They were warriors and protectors of the land. In life, they fought undead armies and then stayed here waiting for those who can continue their fight if the time comes again. And... I think they chose us?"

To the hidden chamber with the mysterious objects, she walked still full of thoughts about the meeting. Meili touched the cloak and then picked up the mask. "This looks like the one those warriors were wearing, they must have sent this to us."

Ran gets up off the ground with a laugh and looks over at Mica and Hew. "If any one asks, that opened because of us." 

He then frowns a little at Meili.

"If you think what you did was reckless, wait until you spend some time with my family," Ran says. "You'll need to make up new words."

Ran then approaches the three items in the middle of the room.

"Something has to be protecting these from getting all rotten and broken down like everything else in here." Ran says. "If these are what their protectors wore, you have to think there's magic in them. You going to try them on, Meili?"

"Try?" Meili almost dropped the mask once again awoken from her thoughts with another reality check. "We do need to take all these things out, that much I know." She quickly corrected herself. "No, that is what I think, but also sure of. I thought to show them first to Velan, maybe, but... you are right. The protectors might be gone - or they might be watching us and want to see if the legacy is carried on. And if so, we have to show the message was heard."

Just in case something will go wrong, Meili stepped away from others (only a couple of steps, she learned her lesson) and put on the cloak and the mask on.

[Cloak and Mask Items are added to your character sheet.  Upon putting the items on, you instantly attune to them.]

"...you must become a shadow in the dark"
She remembered the words first and then said them out loud. "This is what the ghosts of the past told me. I think I understand now, I know why they were wearing it!" The look of expected disaster on Meili's face, all smeared with dirt, changed into excitement. "This cloak... It does let you become a shadow and see in the shadows too!" That last feeling was incredibly new to her, so used to be practically blind from dusk to dawn. "If I am right, the other things should make "the death afraid". A weapon to destroy undead, probably. Or maybe to fight the one behind all of them."

"I can be wrong about all of this too," she stroked the strange cloak tenderly, "but I think the warriors were right, our coming here was not a coincidence and we are on the right path with - now! - more means to complete the task."

"Crikey," Ran says. "Could make a fortune with those things when this is all done."

He hefts the boomerang.

"What about this?" he asks Meili. "This is one of those returning spears, right? You miss and it comes back? And you think it kills the undead? Fairly handy in these parts."

Then he gestures to the bottle. "Should we open it?"

“Meili!” Mica rushes into the room as the door slides open, looking for the ghostly figure  “Where did it go, are you okay?”  The weapons and other relics quickly gained his attention as the hidden alcove opened and he looks over the items. 

“Protectors fighting the undead? And they chose us to carry on their fight?  A worthy mission to be sure.  Have you heard of these protectors, Hew?  That what got you all jumpy?”  Mica remembers Hew’s reaction when entering the room  Insight on Hew's response: 8.

 He draws in a breath as Meili puts on the cloak and mask “You look just like the carving on the door”.  Mica turns and looks at the boomerang and bottle with Ran.   “I don’t know, Ran. I wouldn’t open it until Velan had a chance to look at it, no telling what would come out of that bottle. Shake it, is anything in it?”  He pauses “Speaking of, we need to get back to the Captain and the others.  Find a way out of here.”

At Mica's suggestion, Ran nods and then shakes the bottle, listening for the sounds of anything inside..

Meili nodded to Mica's words and also looked at Hew hoping he could remember something.

It was her turn to hold her breath as Ran picked up first the weapon, then the bottle. She felt the effect of the things instantly. Would that be the same for Ran?