Aersalus B-Team: Season 1, Session 4 – Silence and Shadow

Dramatis Personae

Previously . . .

The players have decided to leave the Soro steading despite the twilight that is coming on figuring that whatever was there previously might come back and trap them there. But be careful when you try to avoid your fate as you might meet it on the road as you leave.

Road Agents

Listens-to-Ocean, Rhum, Trapper, and Unit 7
The Wolfrun Road
Shadowsday, Zhven 18th, 2,981 Fourth Reckoning, 3rd hour of the Moon
Wolftrap, Western Span

Listens checks around the area that seems rather resistant to Mama Blood’s abilities, in case there’s something that seems resistant to her. Though nothing appears to be. Rhum rewraps his hand that’s still bleeding from the deal he made with the spirits, it’s likely to continue bleeding until he completes his side of the deal of getting back the kani crystal that had been stolen from the farm. He wants to try to track down the bandits and is chomping at the bit and growling that he can’t seem to follow their trail. Trapper has his deal going down so he and the rest of the group start heading back towards Wolftrap.

The forest is still muffled, the sensory still veiled, even non-ranged senses are affected. Touch, taste, muted, like they’re remembering the memory of the sensations. Unit Seven checks its ferret that is currently running on the ground and gnawing on things like scorpions and similar. They follow the trail back towards Wolftrap, some of the trails being rather well worn and wide enough for a wagon, this being one of those.

Along the trail, Trapper notices that the ground is damp, though he doesn’t seem to recall there being any precipitation recently. There’s two men in a crossroads further along wearing armor and mottled green, greys, and browns. One is holding a crossbow and the other is holding a sword.

The man with the sword raises it to get the group’s attention, telling them to leave behind their shiny stuff. The magistrate tells them that it’s illegal while the bandit argues that nothing is illegal. The crossbow man notes that Seven is a cog, and Listens makes himself enough of an annoyance that the sword wielder tells the crossbow holder to kill Listens first.

Trapper gets shot in the chest, losing a lot of blood, Rhum gets hit several times without it actually doing any damage. Listens gets shot in the shin which cripples him. The sole arrow that strikes Seven in the shin doesn’t do any damage. However the arrows seem to have been poisoned.

Seven is now up, he moves to put Listens on his shield side and draws several spears. Another bandit fires at Listens only to miss. Trapper slips into stealth and behind a nearby statue while Listens, on the ground, tries to figure out where the arrow that hit him came from, down towards the southwest and starts calling in mists. Rhum charges ahead and charges at the lead bandit, smacking at him with his greataxe twice, missing once while the second cleaves through the bandit’s knees and points at the next mook intimidating him.

Several more crossbows fire from the woods as Seven throws spears at the bandit they can see standing at the crossroads. The bandit at Rhum’s feet stabs upwards towards the groin only for the tauron to block him. Tracker takes a moment to sniff one of the bandits in the trees near him and fires off a stone, breaking the bandit’s crossbow. Listens starts a song for a water blast as Rhum charges towards the crossbow bandit, slicing him down at the shins before blocking an arrow and dodging several others. Seven, now up, charges towards the swordsman on the ground and tries to whack him with his shield only for the bandit to roll away but fall unconscious at the effort. Trapper sniffs out another target in the woods and shoots out another crossbow. Listens, now without a target, tries to look for anyone in the woods that was shooting crossbow bolts at them. Rhum roars out in an attempt to intimidate the remaining bandits only to get arrows for his trouble.

One of the now, bow-less, bandits charges towards Seven only for Seven to thrust spears at the man’s arms only for the bandit to pirouette through the spears. Trapper slips forwards and fires off a boffin bolt at the back of a bandit’s head, knocking him out before slinking back into shadows while Listens fires randomly into the bushes and forest with his water blast, managing to knock two bandits out of the tree. Rhum charges the two new entrants into the fray, chopping a man upwards through the groin before facing the other bandit. An arrow comes from behind, stunning Rhum who barely manages to block a slash to his throat by the bandit in front of him. Seven blocks a weapon aggressively with his shield, slamming straight into it snapping off the sword’s tip.

Seven turns from his attacker and shield rushes straight into the man that attacked Rhum, striking him in the skull and knocking the bandit backwards and unconscious. Trapper sniffs out another opponent and fires off a pellet, disabling the man’s dominant arm while Listens starts singing another song. Rhum breaks out of his stun as the bandit charges towards Unit Seven.

Seven turns around to grab onto the bandit, holding him tight as Rhum gets shot at again, but dodges all but one. Trapper sniffs out one more that he fires at from a ways away, managing to pin the bandit’s arm to the tree he’s in while missing his second shot at the bandit to the south of him. Listens spell goes off, creating a snowstorm within a mile radius as the remaining bandit surrenders.

Listens starts by casting a spell to help heal his leg and now that he can walk, he moves over to Trapper who has a sucking chest arrow. Some quick bandaging later, they also bandage up the legs of the bandits. They tie up the bandits in a chain and make them carry the injured parties, taking over an hour and half to get back to constabulary. Halfway there, the servant of bones comes carrying another member of the bandits. Trapper knocks the bandit out and has the skeleton to just toss it on the stretchers that the bandits are carrying.

Law and Justice

Listens-to-Ocean, Rhum, Trapper, and Unit 7
The Constabulary
Shadowsday, Zhven 18th, 2,981 Fourth Reckoning, 5th hour of the Moon
Wolftrap, Western Span

Back at the constabulary, somehow night has already started to fall and the servant strips the bandits and puts them into the holding cells after dragging its cot out of the holding cell. Listens checks on the camp and then the town, leaving word with Mieri and Kohana that people can come by the next day and identify the bandits. The skeleton chooses some armor and a weapon and puts it on before sitting on their cot.

Tesseikai is still getting used to her new prosthetic and is suturing and using a scalpel on a slab of meat that Meiri had given her. Trapper also gets a message that the deal has been moved to the next morning as a snowstorm had delayed the person that the deal was supposed to be made with. Listens casts a spell to awaken a spirit for the Constabulary to watch over the building before visiting the tailor with Trapper who hands over some clothing for her to use as a pattern while Listens gives her his robes so she can repair and clean them as well.

Aftermath

Trapper drags the bear skin he got over to the tailor in town, Jori Vanhatalo. She’s still working in her home when Trapper arrives. He asks for the pelt to be turned into some armor when she notes that he’s a gremian and injured. She immediately strips his shirt and applies ointment before she gets back down to business. She fails, several times to measure him so he has to bring her a set of his clothing so she can use them as a pattern for something that’d fit. She tells him that she’ll try to get it done quick because he’s part of the duke’s party, but Trapper tells her that it’s fine if she gets it done before he leaves.

Checking the bandits’ gear, they determine that their daggers, swords, and bolts were poisoned with Harrowthorn Poison that’ll cause injury, stunning, paralysis. Trapper gets Seven to start scraping the poison off while he gets to work repairing the crossbows he shot out of the hands of the bandits, turning out to be repeating pistol crossbows.

After Action Report (GM)

This was the first combat of the campaign (not including the pre-campaign arena tests). Overall, it was good for the players despite the difficulties I made:

• The footing was bad – the road was muddy and giving a penalty to active defenses and attack rolls.
• The sensory muting effect reduced attack rolls and helped to hide the bandits.
• The bandits had set up the ambush point with time to increase their skill thus hiding their positions pretty much through all 7 rounds of combat except toward the end.

On top of that (as always) I was rolling very well for the bad guys until…I wasn’t. The players also really shined by using careful, tactical actions and being thoughtful. We quickly discovered that Rhum was just immune to the crossbow bolts even if they maxed out the damage. Trapper and Listens-to-Ocean got hit and oof. Tiny people have tiny HP, Christopher. Keep that in mind next time. Unit 7 was attacked a few times, but took no damage. The bandits really wanted to take out the tauron – and honestly, that was mostly smart on them. There just wasn’t enough of them doing enough damage to make an impact. The melee combat was quick, brutal, and lopsided. I wasn’t trying to kill the players, but I did want them to realize they could be killed by strategic enemies – I think I got that point across and we’ll see how they react next combat (whenever that is.

Other Notes

Bonus Report from Rory.

Soundtrack

“Joker and the Thief” by Wolfmother

Aersalus B-Team: Season 1, Session 6 – Dogskull and Deals