Burning Light ~ The Herb Store

The investigation and search for the Decanter of Burning Light continues and has, so far been easier than expected. This is likely to change as the Shadow Deep itself, becomes more and more aware of the presence of the ranger's incursions. 

The group has regrouped and decided their next step is to investigate the apothecary which adjoins the main courtyard. Vlaka the rogue, who was rendered unconscious previously, made a full recovery but is still low on health. He's still able to move freely but will need to avoid fighting if he can. So it's best if he sticks to the shadows this time around. The hound found locked in a storage shed has joined the group. His name is Arffa.

The apothecary is dark, damp and humid. The air smells of rot and and slithering sounds can be heard coming from within. What horrors await inside?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As soon as the party enters the room they are confronted by darkness and a putrid stench. The slithering sounds momentarily cease as if the room is holding it's breath. (The darkness of the room restricts shooting to a 12" range. So there's no standing back to stay nice and safe).

Suddenly the slithering resumes and a long tendril strikes up through the earthen floor and lunges at Osimund the Mage.

Quick as a snake, Guardsman Joco brings his two handed spear to bear but the creature is fast and moves back. But Hwyll is waiting and severs the tendril with his blade (Joco won the fight but didn't kill it. But he did drive it back into Hwyll).  The thing falls lifeless to the ground as if it had never owned life in the first place. It seems to be a root of some kind.

The archer, Gawne moves ahead of the group to scout and attracts the attention of two more of the roots which slither quickly towards him.

All around the room the slithering sounds increase as more roots make their blind way towards the champions.

With her bow at the ready Mouni, along with Arffa, approach one of the tendrils. The tracker looses an arrow that penetrates the tendril causing it to fall to the ground lifeless. What are these strange creatures and where do they come from?

Carryl  moves up behind the archer. She can see shelves and stacks of tomes in the gloom so surely her skills as a arcanist will come in useful when searching this place.

Hwyll takes aim at yet another tendril and pins it to the earthen floor with his shaft where it frantically tries to escape. Eventually it ceases its movement and stops still and, seemingly dead. 

Osimund stops. He hears a sound like a choir of heavenly angels and for a brief moment he is engulfed as if by a mystical light as, before him, a vision of The Decanter of Burning Light appears in the gloom. A miracle: he is restored to full health!

Always ready for a fight, Joco charges in to slice the root threatening Gawn and Carryl. His spear pins the grasping tendril to the floor and cuts off a good two yards of it as the stump retreats. 

With the way clear Gawne and Carryl rush forward to examine a set of shelves and cabinets that line the rooms' walls. Gawne sees a dark writhing mass in the far, corner. He releases an arrow which seems to have no effect.

Whilst the the others are fighting the slithering enemy Osimund is halted by a tendril as he tries to advance further into the room. It streaks across the floor and lashes out at the mage wrapping around his arm in a crushing embrace. (When it attacked he took a damaging wound.) 

As quick as lightening Arffa leaps upon the slimy dark root but takes a lashing for his efforts as it releases Osimund's arm. This gives the mage the chance to pin the root underfoot and crush it's whipping end with the butt of his staff.

Keeping well out of the way of the fighting, Vlaka has quickly made his way to one of the cupboards lining the walls. His first cursory search reveals nothing. (He only just made it to the shelves so couldn't search properly in this turn.) 

Mouni also sees the writhing mass in the far corner. To her hunters' eye it seems to be a huge plant. She looses a shaft which hits the main body. It causes the thing to shudder but has little effect otherwise.

(See below: Mouni managed a Critical Hit with her shot but the maximum damage that the Dark Root can take from an arrow is 2HP. Normally her shot would have caused 13HP for this shot but it was reduced to 2HP. Dang!)

With Mouni's arrow sticking from it's slimy girth the Dark Root emits a high, keening sound while it shudders and throbs as if in pain.

No sooner has the danger passed than another root breaks suddenly through the floor at Osimund's feet. (He failed a TN14 Move Roll so the root was placed in immediate base contact.) Taken by surprise the mage is unable to fight the slithering root effectively.

Hwyll comes to his aid but is himself lashed by this strange creature. Gathering his wits Osimund managed to push the whipping root back and quickly casts a Magic Bolt. But the tendril is too fast and the spell has no effect. Arffa leaps in and taking a firm hold of the root and shaking his great head, the hound rips it from the earth.

Osimund thinks: Three times he had been attacked. Was the intelligence that seemed to control the Shadow Deep deliberately targeting him because of his magical abilities and knowledge?

Elsewhere in the room the party begin to examine the shelves lining the walls. Carryl finds hers is locked and in unable to open the doors.

Vlaka examines a set of shelves and, on opening a cupboard door, sees that it is full of a greenish fungus. A cloud of cloying green vapor immediately puffs out directly into his face. The rogue begins to cough and retch as the fungal spores enter his lungs. (He failed a TN18 Health Roll and is now Poisoned.)

Now that they are free of grasping vines and roots both Gawne and Mouni move towards other bookcases in the room and begin to examine them.

As Carryl continues to struggle with her locked cupboard, a writhing enemy sneaks up from behind.

At last free to move about, Osimund examines the large, cluttered table at the center of the room in the belief that there could be something of importance here. However, the wise mage can find nothing of interest within the scattered tomes and other materials: "No, nothing to see here!"

(He failed a pretty easy Perception Roll and I fear an important clue has been lost!)

Following on from the shouts of Mouni and Gawne telling of the dark mass in the corner, Hwyll and Joco advance cautiously. Hwyll shoots an arrow which sinks into the great heaving mass with no noticeable effect.

Seeing another of the dark roots thrashing about, Arffa bounds towards it and makes a lunge. But the root is fast and the dog is injured and this time the root gets a good hold and squeezes the life from the brave beast.

(In the background Gawne finds something of great interest. Bones. Old bones. The sacred bones of St Emelia. He gathers them up for safety.)

Alerted by Arffa's struggle and seeing his plight, Carryl leaves off her investigations and dashes to the hounds' aid. 

Carryl's attack doesn't harm the tendril but it does drive it away from the prone dog. Hearing the commotion near at hand, Joco rushes in and severs the thrashing thing at it's very base. 

Mouni, meanwhile discovers a large cache of herbs which she gathers. Then, following Hwyll's direction, she moves into position for an attack on the massive Dark Root. 

Feeling decidedly unwell from both poison and wounds, Vlaka stumbles around in the dark trying to keep out of trouble.

Like Osimund, the arcanist Carryl seems to be the target of the enemies attacks as another root springs up from behind and attacks.

Hwyll gathers his followers for the attack on the Dark Root. The elfin ranger moves aside as he and Gawne both put arrows into the mass of slithering darkness to no effect. Osimund steps forward and casts a Fireball spell but as it reaches the great tangle of weeds it fizzles out to a mere spark. Something is definitely targeting and defeating his magical abilities.

More thrashing roots gather in the darkness as the heroes prepare to attack. Mouni is distracted and shoots at a root close behind them. Hwyll cries "Charge!" and, as one the heroes charge into the fight.

(In this instance I used a Group Move, which is something I've rarely used. This enabled Hwyll, Joco and Gawne to each make a simultaneous move (charge) and then perform an individual second action (fight). Because of this they each gained a +4 Fight advantage for having two allies in the fight).

The heroes fight the massive creature with Hwyll taking the brunt of the creatures' counter attacks and receiving a wound for his efforts. Gawne holds his own but is unable to get past the Dark Root's defences. Only Joco, with his great spear is able to wound the thing but his mighty thrusts only cause minor damage.

As the heroes battle the main body, the Dark Root's tendrils still slither around the room attacking the unwary in the fetid gloom.

With no one able to help Vlaka finds himself confronted by a thrashing, slimy root. Even in his poorly state the quick thinking rogue is able to defend himself and cut off a sizable portion of the attacking root. Maybe his luck is starting to return!

Having to leave Vlaka to his own defences, Mouni charges into the main fight. With a great leap and a thrust of her quarter staff, the tracker's attack causes the creature to momentarily draw back as if hurt. Hwyll's swordplay is thwarted by the thrashing vines as is Gawne's attack.

Amidst the noise of battle a familiar droning buzz is heard from from behind. 

The fight with the Dark Root is getting desperate with the rangers unable to get past the Dark Root's defence. Even when the do they cause no damage to it. With a sudden war cry, Joco dashes forward and with a mighty thrust sinks his two handed spear deep into the fleshy face of the Dark Root. The creature shudders, stiffens and then flops to the ground. All the unearthly life has been sapped from it. The tendrils it has been sending through the earthen floor also fall lifeless to the ground.

(Joco rolled a Critical Hit just when it was needed. The creature had taken several minor wounds of 1 or 2 HP and Mouni's attack caused 7HP damage. But it still had enough in the tank to keep going for a turn or two. Until Joco struck home.)

Osimund had been moving to aid Vlaka but the death of the Dark Root saw the death of the attacking tendril. Osimund set his sights on the giant flies hovering in the darkness. He cast a Swat spell and this time his magic worked as one of the flying creatures was pulverised by the magical force. (I don't read the scenarios before playing them but I half expected giant flies to make an appearance. So I gave Osimund the Swat spell.)

Mouni took aim and tumbled the second fly from the air. It was time to leave this foul place. Hwyll cast his Heal spell (with Split Cast) on himself and Vlaka. This restored Vlakas health to almost full and also removed the poison from his system.

As an oppressive presence fills the room and the gloom darkens, the party of rangers leave the herbalist store. Seeing to Arffa, the hound manages to wag his tail and limps out with the rest of the group. 

(The oppressive presence and the increased darkness as caused by the two Black Event Cards. Fortunately these were both the last cards to be drawn and they had no effect on the game.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That was The Herb Store ~ Area D, of Burning Light. It was a lot easier than I expected and it wasn't much of a challenge to this group of rangers. Hwyll is level 7 and I don't know if that's too high for the mission. Following this game I recalculated the characters health and most of them are back to full health after in-game healing and stuff. They're not in any sort of trouble.

The scenario itself was okay but without a real challenge it's less immersive and the game loses it's impact. I've decided that the next scenario I play (regardless of which one) I'm going to add the Challenge Level. 

The thing with Osimund and Carryl being targeted because of their magical knowledge is just coincidence. The dice just decide to target them and so I wrote it into the narrative. The same with Osimund's spells failing: A mystical, interfering force works better than "dud dice rolls."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you're wondering what my Dark Root plant is, it's one of these:

With this stuck onto the front of it:

I took the plant off its base and stuck a big lump of blu-tack to it and stuck it on the front of the worm. Both piece have now been separated and the Cthulhu Plant (as I call it) has been re-glued to its base.

The rest of it was clumped up rubberised horse hair and fake foliage tape I picked up at a craft store. I didn't notice at the time but pieces of this stuff fell and scattered on the table surface. In the photo's they looked like stray pubic hairs so I had to edit them out.

Truly the work of a wargaming blogger is challenging.

No models were harmed in the making of this blog post.