Shadowdark: Bloggah's Blog Part 7: The Road to Scorn

Oop – new file on the the tablet. Let's see what it holds. And why does my tablet smell like rotted cabbage?

***

Time to leave Hounds Head. The guys are done with the forest for the time being. Don't blame them. The town is buttoning up for winter anyhow. I drop my loose silver with the kin, no reason to have it loading me down. Everyone loads their packs – goodbye for now.

It's Columbo, Dremont, Burns and Gunrey, and me.

South of town, we run into a dozen mercs. Yellow Falcon banner. Their captain, a halfing called Millicent Stout, says they are headed to Hounds to winter there and do some work for Ivanoff. Columbo offers to sell her the map to the northman barrow, might as well unload that bit of cursed parchment. He's not too keen with math, but we each finally get fifteen silver out of the deal. Millicent gives us some news of Scorn, where to watch our step and all that. Burns, the stabby kid, asks about their corps, and she gives him a coin to show the guard, maybe get him some honest training.

On the way past, a goblin cousin laboring under a towering pack tosses me a crystal hook. Might be useful he says. I tell him where to find the kin, and he thanks me and stomps off after the rest of the “Falcons.”

I noodle with it while we walk, do some oogabooga at it. Seems it can be stuck to a wall and hang there. Fancy coathook. For really heavy coats.

The road's quiet. That's good. We come upon a tree with some hanging dead. Looks likes they were stripped and gutted, nothing left but for the crows. This place it so welcoming.

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Columbo steps off the road to take a leak. He's a prodigious urinator. While kicking around in the weeds, he finds a chest with a few vials in it. Looks like a few sketchy gnomish healing potions. We take them. Better than nothing (barely).

Further on the road, and we see hexes, ribbons, small animals hanging in the trees. Really folksy for these parts. We also come up on some folks whose family tree is a stick. Dremont has had some dealings with them. After some back and forth, we go to their little settlement. Might be a full set of teeth in the whole batch of them. Their headman and Dremont talk a bit, sounds like he's on a conversion bent. The boys go mess with some of their kids. No stabbing happens, so I guess that's all good. I don't like the vibe. Headman senses a 'smell' on Columbo. Something sinister. Wasn't last night's rations. If something creeps these creeps out, well... They offer us lodging, and while it's impolite to turn these things down, we choose to make an exception.

We hole up in a cave that Columbo knows about. Much more homey.

Next day, we push it a bit, and make it to the gates of Scorn around sundown. Wait while the gate guard shakes down a wagon full of folks, then give them our coin and promise not to burn the place down. Nigel, a representative of the Guild of Arcane Lore, lets me know where I might get hooked up with them and their magic shop. The boys ask about where to find the Yellow Falcon's hall, and we bid them adieu.

Time for a room. City's full of festival folks, so all the decent places seem to be full or charging extra coin. We suss out a room to rent in a place that only smells sorta bad. Course, the lock (and doorjam) is busted, so Dremont goes to work on the door and Columbo wanders off to find a lock. While that's going on, I talk with the neighbors, who seem to be another few mages. We end up drinking and gambling that night. I lose some coin, but that seems to be all. 

Getting back to the room the next morning, I find our repaired door has been kicked down again. Dremont seems to be gone, and some other body is in his bedroll. I give it a boot, and am assailed by stale drunk. Who are you? I'M TARIN DOOMSINGER! the lout says. Does he always talk at this volume? He sits up, crawls into his mail, giving us an early morning moon, and grabs his horned helmet. Grumbling about doom and gloom and apocalypse the whole time. Sunny personality. I got a feeling that if this guy hangs around, we're going to be flirting with disaster.

With morning comes more commotion. I hear aggravated voices, maybe calling for help – It's all garbled. Columbo and I step down the stairs, and see clouds of fog. The voices fade for me, but Columbo says he hears something. He steps into the fog for a moment, then retreats fast. We beat feet back up stairs and wedge the door into its jam, stuffing blankets into the gaps.

Columbo looks like he's sweating from the fog, but it's not sweat running down his face. It looks like raw bleeding flesh.

Welcome to Scorn.

***

A good transition to some city-crawling. The shorter half and I have "visited" Scorn before in a one-shot involving "wind wolves" and a demon in a warehouse. So I know that it's a lovely town. 

A couple of us were brave enough to roll on ShadowDark's carousing tables. Bloggah lost some coin for a couple extra xp, and Dremont is currently in the stocks somewhere...

Session vid below: 

And Paul's recap and thoughts, as well: