Shalia (Alan), Griff (Paul), Eibon (Darren)
So we exalted last campaign. Now that we're helping the kingdom clean itself up there are a few things we must consider...
An announcement has been made that young Queen Rachel will be coronated, and that will immediately be followed by her wedding, to chief dufus Kevin, her long time inept boyfriend.
Also we are asked by Anna, the Druid who was with us and also exalted, and who is the queen's new advisor, if we would help her clear the Dragon turtle out of the swamp so she can beging to use her powers to start turning that back into a real forest. That would not be until after the coronation. Our sage has been installed as the queen's advisor on magic, and Edwin is the queen's new spiritaul advisor.
Two days before the ceremony, the Gypsies arrive in town and the queen insists on seeing them so she leaves the castle walls and, naturally, we are set upon by Vecna Assassins in mob formation, so we do our best to try and save her. (Remember the Eibon that was doing all sorts of arrow murder last campaign? Well... seems he's one in reverse and can't hit a thing). Eventually the bad guys are put down.
(+1 hp)
The night before the wedding, more vecna assassins penetrate the castle and try to kidnap the would-be-queen. Eibon opens the door of his room, takes two poison blow darts in the chest and goes down. Fortunately he made both poison saves or I'd be on charcter #3, but he's out the whole fight. Shalia throws daggers and gets more guards up there to help while Griff hacks away at the enemy. They get the unconscious queen into a sheet and attempt to lower her out the window on a rope, but that is foiled by some combination of Shalia and the guards. Only one villain escapes but he's empty-handed.
(Anima Banner unlocked)
Coronation comes and goes without issue. It's immediately followed by the wedding and that's fine but not long after we deal with more traditional, less hired-killery Vecna cultists. This too is not an easy fight but it's evil mob vs good mob plus us. Good mob goes down first but we mop up the rest of the bad guys.
Now let's talk celebratory dance. Seems the gypsies created a new song and dance in honor of the queen, and in mid-performance it's punctuated by an unexpected monlogue from the lead gypsy herself, as she goes into a trance and then proclaims a vision of darkness descending, a protracted quest, and a final battle in a dark land. Then she snaps out of it and obviously we have our future mapped out for us, in the vaguest possible way.
(Unlock the ability to perform a miracle; This is where you commit an effort and it lets you use an ability that normally doesn't cost effort and that lasts a scene. Correct me if I explained it wrong.)
We have to pass on Anna's immediate dragon turtle concern. Instead, our sage has come up with a place where we can gather more information. Seems there's an oracle in White Bridge, in the distant mountains, who can tell us things in return for knowledge. He/She/It wants a secret only we can tell it and in exchange it may be able to answer a question, or we're hoping, point us in the direction we need to go. So we head that way.
There are tales of giants the direction we are going. But what we run into instead is more likely an Ogre. We try a new tactic... We back up and Eibon tries ranged attacks while Griff intercedes. Shalia gets in close and is KO'd, but the Ogre does go down.
(Fray Die D8 unlocked)
We find giants on the road but manage to hide from them rather than taking them on, since the Ogre was no pushover and these guys are bigger and there's more than one.
We arrive in a village and the locals are dying for information. Their community, made up of a throughly mixed population of Elves, Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes, and Half-Orcs (But no Aasimar or Tieflings) likes to hear of our exploits and hosts us without attacking us in our sleep (that we know of). They give us directions to White Bridge.
White Bridge is made of white marble and extends across an enormous gorge. On the other side is an enormous earth golem or animated creature of some sort, who only lets us pass when we read the passage inscribed overhead that asks what we seek and we answer "Understanding".
Inside we find long hall that ends in a barred door. The voice on the other side (when we knock) belongs to Meery, a gnome who is the Oracle and librarian of this place. We try to give her a piece of our mind... in the form of things only we would know, but it's not satisfactory. So she offers us the same information we seek in excahnge for fixing a problem of hers. A demon that eats knowlege is in the cellar of this place. It's killed other exterminators, but if we succeed she'll help us.
We go in, fight a group of thought-eaters (Little guys with claws and one big eye), who upon a successful hit can take one of your skills, randomly determined. The first group isn't too bad.
(Gain 1 gift point!)
The second group are similarly small and take some more skills. By the time we get to the group of slightly larger ones, we're on fumes and Griff goes down. We close the door, Shalia bars it with daggers into the door frame, and we drag Griff away.
When we go back the next day it's similarly populated. We do more of the same but have a problem on the next sized up version (large) and while we take them down we sustain more loss.
(Gain 2nd Effort point)
And the next room with the big boss we have to retreat from in similar fashion back to the entrance. It's worth noting that at least now when we face these groups we have two things in our favor: They are finally dwindling in number, and Eibon now has a feet that lets him commit to automatically hit lesser foes, which all of these are.
The big boss is another story. This demon has spider and human parts and burns. This time when it gets to us, it comes through the doorway and Griff is waiting to one side and unleashes his miracle; a greater gift that lets him burn both his effort in essentially an all-or-nothing attack called (I believe) "Loosenging God's Teeth". He swings and if he can potentially do straight damage, which for him is quite a bit. And when he connects it works and the villain takes 9pts to add to the peppering he's been taking from Shalia from daggers.
(Gain 1 dominion point each, which can be spent on making artfiacts)
We are still injured and down some skills in the dungeon. We get one save per day to try to recover the skills.