The Lays of the Thirteen Claws League - Session 88

    I have been slow in updating the blog. We have played two sessions since the last update. The following is from the session played on 2021/02/25. This is another sort-of-IC retrospective by Bert, the party's thief locksmith-turned-bard. Bert himself pulled a sicky, so that his player could try out a new character, Anubesia of Ultioch, for the fight with the lich. I give +1 character point (XP) for those players who submit a summary for me to post here on the blog. 

    The Lays of the Thirteen Claws League

Canto 7:

So, Bert lay in bed, fevered eyes streaming,

shivering, aching, fearing death’s rattle

with his open eyes he began dreaming,

of his brave colleagues and the battle -

where they may all be slaughtered like cattle –

he’d miss. He saw, before their exeunt,

they met a woman who didn’t prattle:

with her face cadaverous white this silent

armed woman looked serious and very, violent.

She was brought to them by Frere Warian

she walked into the inn and stood proud

(proud of looking like walking carrion?)

wrapped in black armour, bandages and shroud

black rose on black shield, with no word aloud.

Introductions have been much easier

than with this foreigner who’d not be cowed.

But, you’ll not forget her once you see her:

introducing Paladin Anubesia.

“She may help us”, the monk said, “Sirs, Madams,

she has skills that will be of use in this

case.”  She received their names, all but Adam’s:

he was not there.  The guards of the polis

arrived to take Hemmu: an injustice!

They took her solely as she was half-orc:

a crime committed had stoked prejudice –

Aesalor too had  been pulled in to talk.

Hemmu didn’t fit the bill, so they let her walk.

She was upset: they said she was too small

to be the criminal.  Adam was freed,

as well, when he was found to be too tall.

The guard captain had witnessed the foul deed:

a vanishing thief in her room, indeed,

had robbed from a box (still locked and intact!)

that held the thing they’d  required to succeed

in their dangerous mission when they attacked

the she-lich: the teleportation artefact. 

This theft really was a surprising twist:

their options were now becoming fewer

if it was a necromantic cultist

stole it, they’d have to speed to the sewer,

to frustrate the plans of the saboteur.

Before they breeched the portal to the stair

the new party member with her dour

face knelt down, and made the party aware

they should all fall down her and join her in righteous prayer.

In the cloacal stream they battled once more.

They were surprised from behind: Davin had

to blink away twice from a rushing score

of ghouls with sharp rotten talons and bad

teeth, but they just made Emberwood get mad,

his sharp iron flashed, and Aesalor now

unleashed lightning, and Yvor, armour clad,

gave cry: it was over.  With a bow

Davin declared that he’d killed as many as Miao.

Black as a corpse eye-socket, the ruin

lay before them, like a rotten rebuke

to life and goodness, as they all went in:

they were unopposed: by design or fluke?

Had the Lich-Marquessa withdrawn each mook

to defend her?  But as they descended

the foul air caused poor Emberwood to puke,

maybe now the place was just defended

with putrescence to stop the Lich being ended.

At the grate, that the time before was locked,

they paused, to rest and to gather their will.

It was now gaping open, they were shocked

to learn – was the undead fiend in there still?

Davin gave magick wards against evil:

they would all need shielding against the cons 

they would face while going in for the kill:

Miao, had, feeling the urge to “safe guard one’s,

love,” given Yvor a protective ring of bronze.

Beyond the grate was a thick magick mist

that neither party wizard could dispel

    – nevertheless they stepped into the list

unable to see neither far nor well –

shoulder to shoulder they each could not tell

where their neighbour was in the misty toss.

There was the great risk in that blinding hell

of separation from each other: loss

of companions in that evil den of chaos.