The Lays of the Thirteen Claws League - Session 90

    This brings us up to date with last Thursday's session (2021/03/11). 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 8:

Part 2:

Thick in the fray, Gahrol, challenged the lich.

The subterranean nightmare continued,

a hellish tapestry by sew and stitch

of arms, a test of my friends’ fortitude.

Davin cast a spell: comedy ensued

as ghouls slipped on grease, it was all a mess.

Adam cast his spell, his staff now imbued

with lightning charge he thrust it in the press

of monsters fighting for the dark lich Marchioness.

Right at the back of the scrum, the green fog

returned and it’s tendrils began to choke

there: Miao felt it was beginning to dog

the party, so she resisted the toke

she took to draw breath for a mighty stroke

into the inmost core of The Asphyx

(as I call it) and which tore through and broke

the thing, sending it back over the Styx

ending another one of the Foe’s deadly tricks.

Anubesia took a serious blow

    – a skeleton’s sword got under her shield –

and this was the beginning of the slow

fraying of our line: gaps were being revealed.

Our impatient Knight, Hemmu, unpeeled,

to charge down a ghoul, herself from our pack –

the foes’ noose also seemed to be unsealed,

as the pressing throng took several steps back:

Yvor shouted out for Hemmu to “stay on track!”

He too bellowed a challenge, stepped forward

into the throng toward the one he hated:

“Come out and face me! Face me you coward!”

It would have been better if he’d waited:

our front line became etiolated

when he stepped out, Warian was exposed

perilously to the unabated

ghouls’ fury: wounded, and it is supposed

he was close to being eternally reposed.

The mist swirled and twisted and then parted

revealing a monster with many arms

and two heads: the lichess! (the faint hearted

may look away now) her magical charms

had raised a pillar of fire from her palms.

Then she cast yet another mighty spell

for the infliction of many great harms

undoing all Davin’s workings as well

as unleashing the very worst torments of Hell.

The dread enchantress lived up to her name:

immediately Yvor had to block

her terrifying fusillade of flame

    – which was even hot enough to melt rock –

but The Gryphon grinned and withstood that shock

    – he was dedicated to the mission –

but the lich magic was running amok:

and she cursed Sir Yvor with a vision

of living in hell without any remission.

I see what he saw: all of his friends dead

their eviscerated corpses all strewn

round him, the lich poised to remove his head:

horror froze him, this phantasy would soon

come true if he did not move. This swoon

could be fatal for the rest of the band

and they could all be facing their high noon –

had the lichess shown him the future and

his friends and his lover were facing their last stand?

Wise Hemmu, seeing Yvor was frozen,

let out a penetrating battle yell

which shook the very dungeon walls and un-

stunned him freeing him from his unreal hell

the bellow rallied her team mates as well

but now they were surrounded by their foes

and the ghoul acid was starting to tell

on their armour thus adding to their woes:

what will happen next? Can they escape? Well, who knows?