SOTDL CAMPAIGN DIARY: SESSION 4 – THE TOWN OF NOR EGERTS. L2, 05/07/19

The Cast:

• Brother Aron: Human priest of the New God
• Calista: Ferren rogue
• Perry Flaxseed: Halfing Hunter
• Nikolai Petrechko: Human Veteran

The heroes travel many more days until they finally reach signs upon the King’s Road that point towards civilization.  They eventually encounter a strange scene as a band of goblins are surrounding a group of wagons with a cloaked clockwork man defending them with three large clockwork spiders.  The group decide to intervene and a fight breaks out with the goblins. The group is successful in killing a few and driving the rest off.  They learn the clockwork man is called Unit One or U-1 and he is delivering a farming machine to the nearby village of Nor Egerts for his master Ronson the Artificer.  They all climb aboard the strange, self-propelled wagons and head off towards the village.

They arrive in the village after dark and find several people in town milling about, going to and from building and several near what appears to be a tavern.  When the wagons pull up the town folk take an interest and begin chatting with the group.  The people seem friendly enough but strangely mannered.  In fact, some are outright odd as the group spies highly inappropriate acts being engaged in the open and between unlikely people.  They also spot some urinating and/or defecating in the open, expressing no shame or embarrassment at all.  Some of them enter the tavern where they again find highly inappropriate behavior. 

They leave the tavern and see Unit One hail them.  When they go over to the clockwork they find him engaged in discussion with a woman who claims to be the town’s Wisdom.  Speaking on behalf of the town Elder, she says he will not engage with the clockwork man due to his own prejudices against such beings, so Unit One asks the heroes to see the elder about the farming machine he ordered and collect payment.  All but Calista went to see the elder, as the rogue was wandering the town in cat form seeing what she could see, which were oddities after oddities.  Homes being lived in but not having been cleaned in months, people relieving themselves in public, others having sexual relations in plain sight, still others molesting animals.  The entire group surmises that there is something wrong with the people of this town. 

Meanwhile, the rest of the group are taken to the rear side of the Elder’s manor by the Wisdom, where he was supposedly gardening, but they find him in a shed and are horrified by the sight.  The elder’s body is bloated beyond mortal capacity, filling the entire shed.  His skin swam with creatures wriggling around just underneath.  The shed stank of urine and feces and something even worse and indescribable. The elder, seemingly unperturbed by his condition, says that payment shall be rendered but not before he collects his payment from them.  Confused, the heroes ask why they should render payment, and the elder states that it is payment for the Mother, of course.  She requires the payment of children for anyone new that enters town.  Gordy, having tagged along with the group, hides behind Brother Aron, cowering in fear.  The elder demands the child be given over and the Wisdom attempts to grab him.  A fight breaks out, with both the Wisdom and the Elder casting vile spells, one of which causes Brother Aron’s manhood to rot off and nearly killing him. 

Calista, on a nearby rooftop, sees the town folk moving in unison towards the elder’s garden as if summoned by some unseen and unheard message.  She also sees a swarm of worm-like creatures emerge from a nearby copse of woods and slither towards her companions.  She resumes human form and joins them as the group plans their escape. 

Using an alchemy weapon created by Weezer, they throw it into the shed and it explodes in a plume of dragonfire, consuming the shed and eating away at the elder.  The town folk all scream in unison with the elder, as though sharing his pain.  The group leaves the garden, gather Unit One and the wagons, and start to leave, until they realize that Lord Kornwall is missing.  He is spotted running down an alley, screaming in pain as one of the worm creatures attempted to enter his body through his wounds.  The group save Kornwall, removing the worm and they return to the wagons.  That’s when they notice another shack with the same reek as the elder’s shed, so the heroes fire flaming arrows into it and that shed also goes up in flames. 

The group use the self-propelled wagons to leave Nor Egerts and resume their journey to the City of Gold.

End of session.