Leaving Torchbearer Behind

Boy, this is not the post that I wanted to write. Nor was it something I expected to. But I will not be playing Torchbearer from here on out. Three things stick out to me: being told what to play, the advancement system, and The Grind. I've wrestled with these points for awhile, but I've found I can't compromise with them. This isn't me trash-talking Torchbearer. It's a fantastically designed game, with designers that I have a great deal of respect for. I'm just processing about a game that I wanted to like, but don't. If you do, please, have fun with it!

I am going to stick this paragraph right here to hopefully soften things. BWHQ games have a lot of extremely passionate supporters. I am one of them. And Torchbearer deserves it! I love how grounded and rooted the game can be. I like the incredibly gritty carrying system. Hell, I love it.  I love how they simplified conflicts while adding some additional stakes from Mouse Guard. I love the jokes that spring up around putting alcohol in your skin, because God knows you'll need to drink a little bit in real life from some of the bullshit that can happen to you.

But rules support conversations. And the conversations that come out of Torchbearer are not the ones I want to have.

I don't like very specific frameworks, by and large; I don't like being told what to care about. Torchbearer is about just exploring dungeons. Don't get me wrong, Torchbearer has a lot of variance and depth on characters! The new town variations are really cool, as are a number of the variant rules. That stuff looks interesting and I'm tempted to steal a lot of those structures for other games. 2e's instructions on building a dungeon are very well thought out; again, very stealable. But it is unabashedly a game about exploring dungeons. All the rest of those juicy mechanics is for dungeon exploration. And yes, that seems to trip off the "Don't tell me what to do!" instinct I have buried deep in my soul. Call it ornery, call it unreasonable, it is whatever it is.

I adore Burning Wheel's advancement system. There is a level of freedom to that system that, properly utilized, creates some really interesting puzzles. Since success and failure don't matter to the system, by and large, you're free to try all sorts of crazy things; you will get that stat or skill up. Torchbearer and Mouse Guard have another system, which I like a whole lot less. You instead have to get a number of successes and failures to improve your stats and skills.  I just... I don't like it as much. It's really that simple. There are things in Mouse Guard that make me put up with the system, but Torchbearer doesn't have the Player and GM turns going for it, which are simple and powerful ways of shifting narrative control. By proxy that means I don't like the Traits system all that much either; it's proven to be unintuitive to most of my players. Burning Wheel compensates its players by having a lot more rewards, meaning that the late game ramps up in power significantly as mastery of the system creates some truly impressive surges of power, a la temporary (and later permanent) shade-shifting. One could argue that tapping your Nature is similar, but I think it actually happens too frequently to be considered a rush of adrenaline you'll remember later. And I think those rushes of adrenaline are necessary to complex and difficult games like BWHQ's fair.

But the nail in the coffin is The Grind. I just can't do it. I like it when people roll. I like mechanics, I want them to generate mechanical inputs! I don't feel that with Torchbearer. Each and every roll gets you closer to earning punishing conditions, meaning that it's a downward spiral. Now, my players were learning to manage that situation and gauge when something was too risky and whatnot. And that was... interesting? But then they weren't advancing. Which then meant that they continued to get the crap kicked out of them.

Now, there's bound to be a number of people who adore Torchbearer who are going "YOU GOT IT ALL WRONG". You've already got a half dozen ways to tell me how to learn to adapt to the system. BWHQ games are meant to be taken on their own terms and all that.

That's fair.

I hear you.

I do this with Burning Wheel. And not very charitably at that.

But here's the thing. 

This is a game. And it's meant to be played over 20 or so sessions, which is a long time. If I'm going to invest that much time in even one campaign I have to be completely on board with the game. And that means little, irrational, things matter. I have to want to adapt. And I don't. Torchbearer is a great game and it deserves all the success it's gotten, and then some! I love that this game exists.

But it's not my game.

And that's okay.

All the best.

Death is a Patient Master: Session Two

 

Aria, Ember, Galina, and Wiztiyc the minotaur went into The Beautiful Caves to take out a group of orcs that were sitting outside of Ilona. What they found instead was a cult of goblins, possessed by a rot god; Aria was possessed by this rot god, temporarily. Beaten and scared the group retreated back to the surface, only to find the orcs had been trying to besiege the goblins. An alliance was promptly formed.

The sun came up, as it always did. The orc sentries relaxed, even if only a little; goblins were afraid of sunlight. As much as orcs loved battle even they did not care much for their foe, for these goblins worked for the rot god. They were stronger, faster, meaner, more intelligent. With day the orcs could continue their scouting, which had been continuously interrupted by the falling of the sun. Their backs were turned when the goblins came pouring out of the Caves like fetid water out of a sewage pipe. The goblins washed over the surprised orcs, leaving blood and corpses where once were living bodies.

Ember, who was just waking up, heard the commotion. He blinked in disbelief; how were goblins out in broad daylight? The energy comeing from these goblins, which Ember could see with his arcane sight, was even stranger. Bits of Aria's aura were now in the eldritch strings that the rot god was using to boost the goblins. Looking at how the goblins were being strengthened by the rot god's aura Ember came to the realization that aura is a sort of language. Life is communicated in the way the object could best receive it. But what if one confused this language, confused the recipient? Ember realized he could do that. And so he did. He reached out to as many of the rampaging super goblins as he could and scrambled their ability to "hear" the rot god. He couldn't do it for long, but one doesn't need long for a group of terrified and confused creatures to be slaughtered. The eyes of the rot god were upon Ember; he could feel the gaze boring into him. No matter what Ember did he couldn't make the eyes go away. They hung in the air, as if they were purple smoke.

Galina and Aria had run up to one of the goblins who hadn't been slaughtered and-

It had Aria's eyes. Aria's eyes were staring back at her... and Aria found she couldn't see anything else. "What... what is this, Galina?"

An orc came running, scimitar out. Galina interposed herself between the goblin and orc. "No! Keep this one, for questioning! Back off! Go!" Growling, the orc went back to a campfire and sat down, kicking the campfire before him. Galina turned back to the goblin and looked at its aura; it thought of Aria as a mother! It looked at Aria with no small amount of adoration as it sat there, hogtied. Aria's revulsion was total. She'd hope the look on its face was-

"Aria... Aria...! Return to me" boomed the goblin. Who returned to his nervous giggling a moment later.

Galina and Aria stared, horrified. And yet fascinated.

Wiztiyc was staring at a fresh orc corpse. No one was looking. Galina and Aria were squabbling with some goblin, the orcs were driving off the rest of the goblins, Ember was just staring into space... the orc's arm looked so good. Just one nibble... it had to taste like chicken. Shaking, Wiztiyc picked up a severed orc arm. It loomed in his vision, blotting out all else.

The arm tasted like pork, raw.

No, that couldn't be right.

Wiztiyc knew orcs tasted like chicken and he'd had a hankering for months. There was a cooking fire just over there. Maybe, just maybe...

The orc shouts didn't matter. Not anymore.

The wind fled his lungs.

Just reach

REACH

"Mmmph.... chick- OOMPH!"

Ember didn't want to stop looking at The Eyes; he was scared they would become a face and the face would become a body and the body would come after him, if he so much as turned his back. But Ember could still hear things and there was orc shouting and Wiztiyc grunting in pain. Ember wrenched his gaze away.

And then looked back.

The eyes had not grown into a face. There was that much, at least.

Wiztiyc's grunts were fading under the thick thudding of orcish fists. The orc leader, impossibly beautiful sword strapped to his waste, appeared at Ember's side. He was watching with amusement, Ember knew.... maybe that could be turned, somehow. So Ember reached into the web of relationships in the orc leader's heart. Ember found the orc's relationship to Wiztiyc, which was... neutral, at best.. and forced it into the center of the orc leader's being.

Well, tried to anyway.

The orc leader's web was frozen into a hierarchical configuration. Forcing him to love Wiztiyc like a brother meant breaking and reforming that configuration. And the eyes were still watching, even here, even while Ember was deep within the orc leader's soul. Fright turned to fury; Ember pushed on the hierarchical web with all his strength.

The orc's eyes narrowed in the fury forced upon him. Running over to the pile of orcs and minotaur, he began breaking necks and ruining bodies. Pulling what was left off of Wiztiyc, the orc leader asked "You get in battle?"

"Well, yes," lied Wiztiyc.

The orc leader grabbed the arm from Wiztiyc. And took a big bite out of his fallen compatriot. The other orcs gawked in astonishment. with a gulp the orc leader clapped Wiztiyc on the shoulder and returned the arm to the minotaur. "Spoils sacred. Eat, friend, eat!"

Aria and Galina walked up to Ember and Wiztiyc, who was greedily chomping down the rest of the orc arm before the orc leader changed his mind. "I'm going back in," Aria declared. "I need to know why this... thing.. this god has done..." she gestured at the goblin in disgust and terror. "I would appreciate the company."

"Mmph. In a minute. Earned this," grunted Wiztiyc, as he pulled more flesh off his grizzly trophy.

The four returned to the cavern where Aria had been possessed by the rot god. The torchlight revealed more objects in the unreal feces. Everyone started collecting the gold they had found. But Galina was the only one to find anything other than small handfuls of gold: a chipped diamond, shining crooked rainbows in the light of her torch. 

Aria began to look at the chute she had seen before, where she knew that the rot god waited. She felt the pull again and... and...

The floor opened beneath Aria.

Darkness.

Darkness.

Darkness.

WHUMP

Aria grabbed whatever it was she'd bounced off of, even though her fingers tore. There wasn't time to think; she pulled herself up in a hurry. She was in pitch black, true darkness. Aria felt out the small island she'd found in this sea of fuligin she'd discovered.

"Why does it matter that I died?" asked Tonya's voice, without hardly a ripple in the darkness. "People die all the time, violently even. They're hanged, cut open, starve, jump off of bridges. Death is normal. So why does my death upset you so much?"

"HELP!" Aria called upward into the absolute darkness. "I'm down here! I'm alright, but it was a long drop!"

Back up in the cavern of shit and gold Galina, Ember, and Wiztiyc were standing by the new hole in the floor, trying to figure out a way down after Aria. They heard Aria calling out just as they were done splicing their ropes together. Ember looked down and saw the rot god's presence centered next to Aria. Terrified, he shouted down. "Hang on, we're coming for you!"

Wiztiyc went down first, torch in hand. The light could be seen by Aria who looked over-

-Tonya was hanging in the air, neck broken at a right angle, rotting eyes staring at Aria with a sight that she could not accept. She screamed and almost jumped off her island, heels in the infinite abyss.  Wobbling, Aria forced herself back to the island, facing the floating corpse.

"Why do I sadden you so?" croaked the floating Tonya. "Is that you think you caused it? You've had to kill others before, have you not? Is death acceptable so long as you're not responsible for it?"

Wiztiyc was there, torch in hand, rope around waist, reaching out. Tonya was gone.

A few exhausting tens of minutes later and Aria was back with the group. The rot god's aura had retreated a bit, allowing Ember a little bit of a breather; he could feel there were spells living in this complex, somewhere. And they were calling to him. "There is a spell I can find, if you'll help me. I can use it to help us in the future." Everyone took a moment, and then nodded. "Thank you," Ember said. Wiztiyc went to the passageway that led back towards the surface and threw their rope high, managing to catch it a on something in the gloom. 

The group pulled themselves up into the bright sun. The structures of an ancient civilization greeted them. Stone cubes with curious scrapings acrost the stone. But Ember didn't care to look. All he saw was the well; another way underground. The group, hungry and exhausted, lowered the trembling Ember down into the well.

The Eyes followed him.

The well broke off into a small room, covered in the usual shit, to Ember's right, and a rough shaft to Ember's left. After a second Ember could hear it: a low buzzing noise. It didn't stay low for long. Gigantic hornets, the size of Ember's forearm. But Ember saw the truth, even with the Eyes distracting him. These were what real hornets were imitating. This energy of rage... Ember could connect with it. He reached out, in his fear of The Eyes, in his helpless rage against them, and invited these hornets, the real hornets, into him. His soul. His very essence. Their energy filled Ember with warmth. The Eyes were still there. Ember was still afraid of them. But Ember didn't care.

They pulled Ember back up, out of the well. From beyond the ruins they heard the sounds of conflict; human and orc voices could be heard. Galina ran ahead... to witness what she hated most in the world: a nobleman leading. He sat atop his horse, full plate shining in the sun...

That's not what Ember saw. The man in shining armor, blonde-haired and blue-eyed, was an apparition, used to cover Ember's old foe, Lord Reynolds! Ember immediately hid himself in the crowd; if he was caught by his former mentor there'd be little he could do to defend himself.  

Galina, however did not hide from the prancing jackass she saw. "There's something worse under the ruins! The orcs were helping us fight it!"

"Something worse than orcs exists?" asked Lord Reynolds, incredulous. 

"A rot god, for one, you shiny fool!" spat Galina. The soldiers looked to their lord, but Lord Reynolds waved them off.

The orc leader came up to them. "We no enemies! Want rot god dead!"

"I see... I see..." Lord Reynolds rubbed his chiseled chin. "Would you be willing to come and help us eliminate this dark and heathen god?"

"Already trying to!" roared the orcs. 

"Then let us battle together!" cried Lord Reynolds, and all cheered except Wiztiyc, Ember, Galina, and Aria. They were in various stages of pain and exhaustion.

The orc leader strode up to Ember and Wiztiyc, clapping them on the shoulders: "Friends come! Kill rot god! We have numbers!"

"Yeah, I'd love to die today," quipped Wiztiyc. "No thanks."

The orc leader, shocked, looked to the others. Not one was able or willing. "Die for glory better than live as coward!"

"I dunno, I like living to spend my hard-earned cash, so you can keep the death, thanks," insisted Wiztiyc.

The orc leader was forced to like Ember and Wiztiyc, thanks to the spell Ember had cast on him. So he didn't have his orcs kill them.

Just beat them within an inch of their lives. And then left them there.

Somehow the quartet dragged themselves back to the town of Ilona, practically penniless.They found the town inhospitable, particularly as Lord Reynolds was clearly solving the problems they had not. Not that anyone was paying attention, as new visitors had come to town: a group of gith monks, said to come from the stars themselves. The week was spent ignored, injured, and trying desperately not to let their wounds become infected. Finally they'd had had enough. It was time to go.

Creditors followed Aria and Ember, yelling about unpaid debts that both swore they'd paid. Just as weapons were drawn, one of the yellow-skinned gith everyone had been raving about. "Will this cover them, friend?" asked the odd monk, holding out a few jewels. The creditor's eyes were like dinner plates. He left happy.

The monk drew near to Aria and Ember, who were stunned to silence. "There is a weapon in the Beautiful Caves that had killed Neizbezhnyy, the rot god also known as The Inevitable, once before. The goblins you've seen had originally brought it to kill Neizbezhnyy, but he had used it to enslave them. You will know it when you see it. Bring it back to this town and I'll find you. Your debt to me will be rectified then." Ember and Aria nodded, and went to talk to Galina and Wiztiyc.

Lord Reynold's white stallion came running up to the gate of Ilona, were the four stood, white fur turned pink.

Death is a Patient Master: Session One

A few weeks ago orcs were seen near the sarcastically-named Beautiful Caves by the inhabitants of the metropolis Ilona. They attacked the orcs, who slew all who came after them... except one, who managed to flee and warn the city of Ilona of what was undoubtedly an incoming invasion. The townsfolk of Ilona braced themselves for an assault, possibly a siege; panic was in the air as supplies were laid, troops mustered, and everyone thought their days were numbered.

The invasion never came. the orcs camped outside the inhuman and twisting structures that marked the entrance to the Beautiful Caves; the orcs didn't move one inch towards Ilona. The Lord Mayor of Ilona, moved by the outcries to drive the orcs away, but not willing to send his own men to attack a group of orcs who had made no further aggressive moves against his populace, issued a substantial bounty to whomever could either clear the caves or report back what the orcs were planning, as well as if the force actually required the town militia.

Galina, the reluctant Celestial Knight of the star Ilona, the rogue mage Ember, the thief Aria, and Wizktiyc the minotaur decided that bounty was worth their while. They had never met before (well, Ember and Wiztiyc had met and been on a job before), only having met at an inn, looking over the same proclamation of the Lord Mayor. They made a plan to scout for alternative entrances to the Beautiful Caves, so as to catch the orcs by surprise and pick them off, one by one. Wiztiyc in particular had developed a taste for orc meat, something he was very vocal about. "It tastes just like chicken. I want more."

That may have been enough reason for Aria and Galina to offer to scout ahead, leaving the not as stealthy Ember holding the bag that was the awful conversation Wiztiyc wanted to have about how to cook orc flesh. Aria and Galina chuckled as they made their way along the ridge before the Beautiful Caves. Aria's foot landed on a section of ground that was definitely hollow. With Galina's help They pulled up a section of the earth that had grown over a section of wood. They pulled that up to reveal darkness, which fled away from the light fifteen feet, abandoning unworked stone. Securing a rope with the help of Galina, Aria repelled down down into the hole. 

The instant her feet sunk into it Aria was almost overwhelmed by the smell of feces. Gagging, she called up "Galina! - HACK - careful about the smell! The walls are - UGH - covered in shit!"

Galina didn't smell it until her feet sunk into it.  "Oh, oh!" She gagged, remembered the money, and found a way to not throw up. She stumbled over to Aria, who had lit a torch. The darkness continued its retreat, this time into a passageway at the far end of the shit-covered opening they were in. Something glinted in Galina's periphery; a silvery response to Aria's torchlight. Galina grimaced as she wiped the caked droppings off the wall. It wasn't silver Galina had found: it was a vein of mithril. Galina touched the vein in silent awe.

Another hand placed itself upon hers. A familiar hand. A hand from a dead man. Galina turned to her right, to see Corin, her husband, looking at the mithril with her. Corin had been dead awhile now, since before Galina had met Ilona. "That is so beautiful," declared the dead man. And then he was gone.

Aria, for her part, had found something round in a deeper section of poop: a goblin skull. Aria hated goblins. No one had talked about them when the bounty was announced, just orcs. Aria heard Galina gasp; she was pale in the torchlight. And she had her hand in the smelly wall. "Something happen?" Aria asked, concerned.

"Uh... um... mithril!" Galina said a touch too hastily. "Mithril, mithril right here!" Aria walked over, wincing at every footstep as it sank into the muck. They didn't need to stay another minute, and so therefore they didn't.

When they got out of the cave there was not one bit of feces on them. When they looked back down they couldn't see even a trace of the foulness that was in the cave.

Wiztiyc and Ember were having a conversation about eating orcs, a bit farther down the Beautiful Mountain. Well, Wiztiyc was trying to, with Ember trying to redirect the conversation to something, anything, else, and failing. So he was excited when Aria and Galina came back with a sure way forward. Wiztiyc, however, was disappointed when he heard that the route didn't include orcs he could chew on the bones of. 

"Wiztiyc sank much lower into the horrific muck than the others, and his sensitive nose made the experience a whole order of magnitude worse. Ember, however, didn't notice the filth at all. The whole complex was roiling with the most awful eldritch energy he'd ever seen, surrounding him, hugging the walls, forcing its way into his nostrils, into his lungs, his heart...

Goblins. Way, deep, deep down.

Spells. Living, sparking, beautiful spells.

A gigantic. Rotting. Rotting to eternity but never running out of a thing to rot corpse.

Eyes. Burning through eyelids that never would fully go away. Staring out. Staring at him. Beckoning. 

Deeper. 

Deeper. 

Deeper.

While he was gagging on the stench Wiztiyc noticed that Ember wasn't in the cave with them. Footprints led down the adjacent hall. The minotaur barreled ahead of the torch Aria was holding to find Ember standing at the edge of an abyss. His eyes were glazed and he teetered, mouth forming words that made no sound. Wiztiyc grabbed Ember, whose eyes cleared; the tunnel reverberated with Ember's scream. As Wiztiyc pulled Ember back to Aria, who had come running with the torch, Ember somehow regained his composure. "There's a lot of really evil energy around us. And there's something... I think it's a god of rot. Or it was. This is not what we signed up for."

Galina had not followed Wiztiyc and Aria to help with Ember. She had been looking at the vein of mithril, wistfully. Corin had come back. He had loved it. She couldn't leave it behind. She took a hammer and began to chisel out some of the mithril, just to keep. For Corin. Forever for Corin. Galina was tired. So tired. She just wanted all this to be over. And it soon would be. She'd settle down, with this one piece of mithril, and forget about the rest. 

Corin grabbed Galina and shook her. "Get rid of that and get away! This place is evil!" Galina's scream joined with Ember's, just down the hall. Nobody knew they were the same cry.

When Wiztiyc, Ember, and Aria to Galina a moment later they grabbed a swig of wine from their skins. When they'd taken a moment in the pregnant filthy darkness they all walked back to the abyss that Ember had almost fallen into. Turns out that abyss was about thirty feet deep, easily reachable with the ropes everyone had brought. They repelled down the thirty feet, to discover another hallway that went further down. The giggling of goblins echoed down the shit-covered walls. Galina, using the aura reading powers Ilona had granted her, counted seven goblins. Aria made out their voices. "They're saying they'll find us when the sun goes down and cut us open. They're about to start gathering their friends to get ready for it." They all shuddered and began to think of what to do next.

Snarls and the yells of orcs interrupted their internal reverie. The echoes of steel and death followed. Wiztiyc desired to go and see what was going on, but Galina and Aria insisted on going. Galina's astral blade, received from Ilona, glowed lightly. It would be enough to see without attracting too much attention. So they snuck down the smelly passageway.

The orcs were having the fight of their lives. They were fighting the oddest goblins Aria had ever seen. Dark brown green and markedly bigger than normal goblins, they moved with a manner that Aria found deeply disgusting. She wanted to grind them beneath her foot, to feel them squirm in the shit, to suffocate in it. She wanted them to vanish.

I can make that happen whispered something old. Rotting. Powerful. It frightened Aria, but only because she longed for it with every fiber of her being. That power... she could have prevented Tonya's death with that power. Yes, you could have It whispered in heart, in her mind, in the most secret  recesses that not even Aria could have known were there until It talked to them. Oh, how sad, this vow you made. Never again. It cooed. You're right, my dear. Never again. Aria knew something about this was wrong, tried to pry it away from the raw and screaming part of her heart that had sworn that stupid vow up and down and demanded Aria fix the impossible, morality and rationality be damned. Don't worry, my dear, I'll fix it. I'll fix it all. 

There may have been one last scream of Aria's conscience.

She didn't care. Not anymore. Because she could see, perfectly clearly, where there had been darkness, both in her heart and in this shit-filled cavern. There they were: those fucking goblins. All the anger and fear were gone. In its place was confidence as she looked down the twenty foot drop, at the top of the head of a goblin as it slurped down the throat tendon of an orc. That's it, she felt her deep in her body. That's it.

HUNT, MY BEAUTY.

Galina looked over and almost dropped her sword. Aria was now a dark green-brown, her eyes emitted a fuligin glow that drank in the light from Galina's blade like a desert in a monsoon. Aria's smile was now a hellish skull-mask of a grin, with her cheeks beginning to sink visibly before Galina's gaze like quicksand. "Don't worry," said Aria. The voice was the same. And then Aria jumped the twenty feet, laughing at the thrill of the fall, landing on the goblin below with a sickening KRUNCH. The orcs and goblins stopped and looked up, but the thing that was Aria and the god had already charged them all. Galina's jaw went slack as Aria's touched turned goblin after goblin, orc after orc, into dust. Stumbling as she got up, Galina ran back to Wiztiyc and Ember.

Ember recoiled in horror when he saw Aria. Eldritch strings, crackling purple things of energy that buried themselves into Aria's soul like fishhooks. The strings went back and back, through the floor, down back to...

It could see him. 

It hated him. 

Blood popped out of Ember's eyes, nose, ears, and fingers and he fell over. He practically drowned in the overflow of red coming from his mouth, which was open so the scream could come escape the blinding pain he was in.

Wiztiyck almost didn't hear the scream. He was staring at the piles around the massacre at the bottom. There was that telltale glint. Wiztiyck hurriedly tied a rope, ignoring the screams of his friend as he got down to the bottom to fill his pockets and knapsack with the loose gold coins he had seen instead of the death and carnage. Aria disintegrated the last orc and looked around. She saw Wiztiyck, who was busy throwing gold into backpack.  Him too, It hissed. Aria pushed back as hard as she could. It was not amused. All must go eventually, It told her. He is ours. Aria pushed and pushed, but she couldn't get It to let go. Wiztiyc looked up and saw the fuligin eyed Aria advancing on him, eyes drinking in the torchlight that Wiztiyc offered. He looked up and saw the darkness backing into a shaft high above them, as well as a chute behind whatever the hell Aria was now. 

Ember forced himself to his feet, Galina helping him not to lean against the feces encrusted wall. Ember began to weave a music of great beauty, something that spoke of friendships remembered but long since cracked open to the dust of time. Aria convulsed for a moment as It forced Itself to stay in that wound in her heart. But there had been a moment of weakness and Aria knew it. Galina, sensing the opening, began to push on Aria's aura. Aria, we are here. This isn't you.

I know.

Even a god must flee those two words.

They went back to the entrance, carrying the wounded Ember. As they climbed all the shit vanished as soon as the light hit it. They were greeted by a white flag and fifteen orcs. 

"At least let me have a fingernail to nibble on, before they kill us," whinged Wiztiyc.

But Ember could see their auras, as could Galina; they were utterly sincere. One of the orcs advanced. Ember took of his glove and offered it to the orc. They shook. "We have come to kill... monster," said the orc. A beautiful sword hilt was buried in an equally beautiful sheath at his hip. "Lost many already. Want to.. how you say... ally. At least make camp. Together."

The last part was agreed upon. And it was just as well: rats got into camp's rations, so Aria had to preserve what they had left. Ember drew a map of what he'd seen while they were in the Beautiful Caves, but that hadn't included the shaft and chute in the room of gold, so the others helped him draft it again.

The night was busy, but ultimately quiet.

Hallucinations: Session Seven

Karel: the human barbarian, played by David. He's got a map of the great northern mountain reaches, where more Ensivalen posts are mapped. His left arm has a nasty cut that's slowly starting to infect, and he has sustained multiple ghoul bites.

Zilya: the human assassin, played by Bryna. She's been taking care of a little girl they had been paid by the town of Yerwo to find. She started hearing a voice last session, but refused to take its advice. The voice promised she would hear from it again.

Natskin: a minotaur pit fighter, played by Will. He went down the well with Karel and Zilya because good money was involved, and now that they're staring at a bunch of supposedly mythical vinteralfen he can't help but wonder what he just got himself into. Natskin's ribs are broken and he's sustained a few ghoul bites.

Vinteralven: tall and thin humanoids, with blue skin and pointed ears. They're regarded as a myth.

The vinteralven stared at the four beaten and battered adventurers in bewilderment,  the teal light of the lichen lamps throwing them all into extreme shadow.  One vinteralf came forward and asked them how they got through that arch. Taking his last swig of mead, Natskin told them they were trying to rescue this little girl (shivering, she said "I feel down a well") and they were attacked by ghouls, and then a dragon came after them, and they got the dragon and the ghouls to attack each other. Karel drew a picture of the arch they went through and tried to describe the helter-skelter nature of turning it on. Zilya asked for help; the girl was freezing and had a broken arm, not to mention the rest of them were in bad shape. The girl winced from shivering in the icy room, as she had accidentally jarred her arm. The vinteralven showed a brief moment of pity, and then asked if the group had anything to offer the Winter King of Solonphang, their city. Looking at each other a moment, they nodded.

They were led out the small room into a vast cavern. Icy stalactites and stalagmites abounded. The soft teal glow of the lichen showed a variety of stone structures, made primarily from a died blue stone. Vinteralven stopped and stared at them, particularly Natskin. He winked at one of the viteralven women and told her his ex-wife was an elf. She screamed and ran. The vinteralfen who led them chuckled, but told Natskin not to do that again.

They got to the back of the cavern, to the largest structure in the place. Going up the steps, the doors were opened onto a huge room, filled with ice sculptures and a whispering court. On an enormous ice throne sat a vinteralf at least seven feet tall. He stood up to his full height and came walking down to Karel, Zilya, Natskin, and the little girl, who bowed. The Winter King asked them for their offering. Karel produced the last bit of shaved gold they ahd from the Ensivalen Meditation Cube. They knew it wasn't enough, but it was all they had. But the Winter King was staring intently at the gold: he knew it came from Novstrech! He mentioned the city by name!  They had been to the meditation cube beneath Novstrech, he declared. The Winter King immediately asked about The Map. It was in an armoire... a cabinet, that was the word! Yes! That was it! Did they have The Map? Karel nodded and the Winter King eagerly asked for it. The map had immense personal value to the king. Karel asked if he could make a copy first. The Winter King refused; "warmbloods" such as them had no need for that map.

Natskin puked on the floor, still sick from the ghoul bites.

Besides, the Winter King continued, he was willing to trade the map for whatever they needed, carte blanche! That included medical care for their young ward, not to mention a proper set of clothes for her. Ignoring Natskin's glare, Karel produced the map. The Winter King noticed Natskin's dislike for handing over the map.

The little girl was rushed away, to be given warm clothes and medical care for her arm. Zilya, Natskin, and Karel were shown to a stone longhouse. News of the "rapist minotaur" had spread, and no one went near them. That suited them just fine.

They sat for a little while. Karel munched the mushrooms he'd found in the well; his arm finally started feeling better. As he munched he realized just how much stronger his pain could make him, how much more aware of his surroundings. He would use that from then on.

The trio finally felt... normal? Natskin's ribs were taped (and he finally didn't feel nauseous anymore!!), and they all felt more relaxed than they had in awhile.  Well, not Zilya, she was still on edge. They were not amongst friends; the vinteralven could kill them at any moment, and the sooner they got away the better. Natskin scoffed. If the vinteralven had actually wanted to kill them they could have done so at any time, whatsoever. But Natskin was fine with that. He'd made peace with dying awhile back. His people cremated their dead and spread the ashes in the fields, where they returned to feed others. The minotaur people taught that there was a pasture somewhere, far away, where all souls went to live in peace. But Natskin wasn't sure if that was a real place. He'd seen so much, so many horrors, he wasn't sure about much anymore, only that he wasn't afraid to die.

Karel said he didn't really feel any sense of gloom, or that he had thought about death at all. They were in the mountains, that much was obvious, and that was home to Karel. Karel hadn't felt this relaxed in a long time. He couldn't quite get his peoples' story about mountains out of his head. The mountains were formed because the god of ice and the god of snow couldn't agree on anything. So they had a war. So fiercely did they fight that the mountains were born in the ensuing wind blasts and struggle. And that was where his people lived: in the footprints of the gods.

That's all they were doing end. Living in the footprints of those that had shaped the world.

Karel, Natskin, and Zilya sat awhile, silent. The world outside continued.

Hallucinations: Session Six

Last time... Zilya, Natskin, and Karel went down a well after a missing girl. They found her, but ran afoul of the security statues of the dungeon they had inadvertently found. Natskin's ribs and lantern were broken, Karel's napsack, with all his extra torches, were destroyed, the facility was put on lockdown, and they're now staring at five hungry ghouls, scared little girl in tow. What a time to be alive!

Yes, there were five ghouls staring at them. Karel did want to live. But he was very curious about the room. It was very similar to one of the rooms in the cube: a golden room, with glass tubes lining the walls. There could very well be a secret door on this floor, and Karel wanted to find out if there was one  before they were all eaten. He handed his torch to Natskin and made a break for it, hoping to get to the other side of the room to try and find something, anything! One of the ghouls lunged out and bit Karel as he ran; he almost threw up from the immediate nausea. Karel threw the ghoul off and got away. He was going to live, damnit! At the other end of the room he found the door he was looking for; it opened with a whoosh.

Natskin strode forward and dropped into a boxing stance. He was a beefy minotaur; it didn't take much to distract the ghouls from everything else. He lunged out and punched at them, daring them to take him on. They took him at his word.

Zilya grabbed the little girl, who could barely move from the terror, and dragged her away, hiding behind one of the glass tubes, trying to work out a plan of engagement. A small whisper, stately but sad, sighed over her shoulder: "You can use the tubes against them". The girl didn't react to the whisper. Karel yelled that he'd found another door.  They all made a break for it, torch guttering wildly. The stately but sad whisper voice told Zilya they'd meet again. No one else heard it but her. There was only one button in the elevator.

The doors closed on the charging ghouls just in time. But only just. They opened again on a rotting room: furniture barely held together against time, dampness, and a cracked ceiling, which let in just enough light.

Oh, and a sleeping black dragon. He's important too!

Everyone froze. Except Natskin. He wanted to fight the dragon, maybe even tame it and make it a pet! He tried to stride forward, but was restrained forcibly.

The dragon stirred.

It sat up.

They could see a door behind the dragon.  They were jamming the button to the elevator like mad. The doors whooshed shut, just in time.

They opened upon the snarling ghouls. Putting herself between the girl and the undead monsters, Zilya yelled at Natskin to get the ghouls in the elevator. Natskin yelled at the ghouls. They remembered him from before, so it didn't take too much work to get them into the elevator to feast on his enormous frame. But Natskin couldn't get out. Karel got himself next to the elevator door. Zilya tried to duck under a ghoul's reach, so she and the little girl could get out.

The doors closed before she could.

The torch went out. The girl screamed over the snarling of the ghouls.

Somehow nobody got bit before doors opened again. The four friends heard it: a deep breath, from something large. They hit the deck. A pillar of acid flew over them. The ghouls screamed in agony. And then they charged the dragon, falling apart as they did. They engaged the beast, biting and and clawing at it, as they disintegrated.

The crack in the ceiling looked too small for Natskin, so the group tried the door at the far end of the rotting room. It was locked. Pressing any next next to it resulted in a voice saying "Lockdown initiated. Access denied". They all charged the steel door, even the little girl, with Natskin in the lead.

KRUNCH

There was a hallway, ending in a room. In the room was a stone archway. They could hear the sounds of the fighting dying down, as the ghouls fell apart. Zilya tried running through the archway. Nothing happened. There was a control panel on an adjacent wall. They all pounded on the buttons. A voice, mechanical and cold, spoke: "Lockdown measures in effect. Only emergency destinations are authorized."

The archway sprang to life, a light crackling between the posts. They dove through. Natskin was the last to go through. He so desperately wanted a pet dragon...

It turned and saw him. And it took a deep breath.

The room Natskin entered was bitterly cold, even for him. Standing before the group were three blue humanoids, with pointy ears: the vinteralfen.

"How did you get an Ensivalen Arch to work...?" one of them asked after a second.

They looked startled. Not to mention confused.