Veil of Whispers 8: Army of Darkness

The party investigates yet another kidnapping and uncovers a great threat. They also launch themselves from a catapult.

Date: March 9, 2024

Characters present:

• Cut: Half-orc barbarian
• Montgomery: Owlin ranger
• Theelf: Wood elf rogue

Character level: 5

Picking up right where we left off, the party was in the middle of celebrating Snake Day when a royal-looking owlin appeared in the sky and landed before them. He introduced himself as Sir Hootsalot¹ and asked if the party was the Shadow Chasers. Technically, none of them were, since all the members of the Shadow Chasers had either died or couldn’t make it to the session. Monty said that for the right price, they could be whatever Sir Hootsalot wanted. Hootsalot explained that the royal caravan from Duskridge had been attacked on the way to Emberfall to celebrate Snake Day. He needed a group of brave adventures to investigate and save King Duskrim. That’s the king who was somehow involved in the plot to kidnap princess Elloween, and who was also related to Rosa and her twin sister Cut. The party agreed to investigate all the same, hoping for a juicy reward.

King George of Emberfall was kind enough to lend the party some horses, and off they went. Hootsalot guided them to the location of the attack and, several days later, they arrived. The scene was in the middle of a dirt road between the two cities, near the woods. There were dead animals and looted wagons aplenty. Dead skeletons also littered the ground. Hootsalot forgot to mention that the attackers were, in fact, skeletons. The king was nowhere to be found, but there were plenty of skeletal footprints in the ground, leading into the forest. The party followed, leaving Hootsalot behind. As they walked, the forest grew increasingly misty. It wasn’t long before they could barely see anything at all. The next thing they knew, they were somewhere else entirely. They were still in the woods, but the leaves and grass were greener, and the sky was bluer. Monty recognized this place. They were in the Feywild.

The group heard the sound of an ice cream truck² in the distance, which they followed to a small village. There was a tavern, a nightclub, a general store, a less general store, a hill with a tree and a catapult on it, and a fountain with an old statue that looked exactly like Monty. Every place had silly jokes about philosophy for names, such as the nihilistic nightclub. After buying some ice cream, Monty went to take a closer look at the statue. It made a creaking noise, like it was trying to move but couldn’t because it was made out of stone. Monty found it very strange. A man next to the fountain said it was a gift to the village from the legendary greasard. Upon hearing that, Monty ran away. The group then headed for the not-so-general–store.

The group bought some tea and soap. It seems soap is a recurring theme in the campaign. Some of the bars were magic-removing soap, which Monty immediately went to use on the statue. The statue came to life and lashed out violently. Monty told the others not to attack it—it was such a beautiful statue and was probably just confused. Cut threw it through the wall of the soap store. It immediately killed the owner and ran away through the forest.

Deciding to ignore what just happened, the party went to check out the catapult next to the tree on the hill. The tree was no ordinary tree—it could speak. When asked, it said that the catapult is used for transporting people from the Feywild back to the material realm. But if the party wanted to use it, they’d have to come back at midnight. The party went to the tavern to pass the time. There they med the cheesemancer himself—Goudar Briebeard. He was there to gather ingredients for exotic cheeses. He sold the party some speed cheese (whatever that is) and explained that the statue was the phylactery of a noseless lich named Valdemar. So, for whatever reason, a guy without a nose had decided to put his soul into a giant stone statue of Monty so he could live forever. And for whatever reason, the late greasard had donated the soulful statue to a village in the Feywild. The whole party was confused. They hung out in the tavern until midnight. Then they launched from the catapult and flew all the way home.

They landed harmlessly on a ship bound for the city of Baldur’s Gate. They had an enemy in Baldur’s Gate; the wizard who hosted an archery compeition and cursed the party with ridiculous mutations when they caught him cheating. Their first stop upon arrival was to break into his house. He wasn’t there, so they waited until he got home. As he walked through the door, he suffered a minor fatal accident in the form of three arrows to the chest. The group took his stuff and got out of there. Cut had taken some magical branches from the tree in the Feywild and wanted to turn them into weapons, so the gang visited a blacksmith. He made three javelins of lightning for Cut and one arrow of humanoid slaying for Monty. Then they bought some donkeys, except for Cut who bought a worg, and headed all the way back to the tracks they’d been following when the magical mist transported them to the Feywild. It took several days and they were attacked by wolves along the way, but that barely slowed them down.

The tracks were still there, but the mist, fortunately, wasn’t. They followed the skeletal footprints into a cave in a hill. Inside was darkness, and a bunch of skeletons. Monty used his magical sock puppet to force one of the skeletons to shout “Yo momma’s big-boned” to the one next to him. This caused the other skeleton to attack him, and miss. No further aggression occurred between the skeletons, but it had been worth a shot at least. They happened to be standing in a single long line, so Cut rushed at them and fried them all with her new lightning javelins, activating them with the command word “greased lightning”.

Deeper inside the cave, the party found rows of cages with people locked up inside. King Duskrim was one of the prisoners. Cut drafted up a contract with all the rewards the party should get for freeing him and defeating the skeleton army. It include royal titles, castles, and a blank space at the bottom where she could add anything she could think of after he’d signed. And sign he did, so the party let him and his friends out of their cages. Cut remembered that she was distantly related to the king, and had Monty take a photo of them shaking hands. We decided that Monty had a magic-powered Polaroid camera to do this with. They also found a wizard staff and some kind of magical rod. The group escorted the freed men back to Duskridge.

There were no people in Duskridge, and the streets were empty but for blood and bones. The skeleton army had been here. The king was in despair. He ran to his castle, and the party followed. The castle was empty too. They had even taken the king’s beloved painting of the mother cow, which had been lost for many decades until a wizard named Agroza recovered it. The party remembered selling it to the wizard for ten gold. Guess they should’ve charged more. Monty added “scroll of tarrasque summoning” to the blank space on the contract. After a quick knighting ceremony, as per the contract, the party set off to find the skeleton army and kill their leader.

Following the skeletal footprints along the road leading away from the city, the party eventually spotted a troop of skeletons. There were only about twenty of them, and they had no hostages with them. The party approached, but the skellies didn’t react, so the party simply went ahead. There were bony footprints ahead of them too. This eventually led to the party finding a second group of skeletons. One of them sat atop a skeletal horse, and when he turned his head to look at the party with his empty sockets, so did all the other skeletons. He didn’t want to take the party to his leader. When they asked politely, he took out a magical stone which he seemingly used to communicate with someone far away. After a brief conversation, he reiterated that his master definitely didn’t want to meet the party, so the party continued on ahead. There were more boneprints ahead of them still.

The party eventually arrived at the final and largest gang of skeletons. Some of them were pulling a large coach. Peeking inside, the party found what appeared to be a magical teleportation circle on the floor. Having no clue how to use it, they decided to set up an ambush, kill the riding skeleton, and take the stone he was using to speak to someone—presumably his master.

The rider and his troops arrived by nightfall. Theelf and Monty were hiding in the trees. Cut was on the ground, ready with her greatsword and javelins. Monty brought out his arrow of humanoid slaying and fired it, along with two other arrows in quick succession, at the rider. He dealt about seventy damage in a single turn, which was enough to cause the rider to collapse into a pile of bones. Monty, invisible in the dark, swooped down, grabbed the stone and returned to the treetops. Theelf began firing at the thirty or so other skeletons. Cut jumped out from behind a tree and electrocuted a whole bunch of skellies. Monty ate his speed cheese and used his necklace to throw two fireballs at the skeletons, cremating them all. Theelf and Cut were caught in the blast but, being a rogue and a raging barbarian, mostly shrugged it off. It wasn’t until after the combat was over that the group (and the players) realized that Cut’s worg, The Woffle, had been caught in the blast and was very, very dead. Whoopsie.

The next morning, Monty used the sending stone to send a message to the leader of the skeleton army. He said “New stone, who dis?” and what was all we had time for.