session-2026-05-20

A Night of Shared Poisons and Severed Heads

Date: May 20th, 2026

Summary

The party made their way back to the Particularly Pickled inn, their weapons still wet with the blood of the soldiers they had cut down. They found Prince Cena in his room, seated on the edge of his bed in his silver and red armor, a golden sun emblazoned on his chest, a letter folded in his hand. His bodyguard, Watsie, stood across from him, and both looked up with measured, unreadable expressions as the party entered. Cena’s first words were cold and precise — he noted that one of the party’s axes was still wet — before tossing over a spare blanket and telling them to keep their weapons clean.

The party wasted no time bringing the prince up to speed, explaining that they had killed eleven of his soldiers who had been plotting against him, that the mayor had been hogtied, and that they had spiked the soldiers’ drinks with nightshade to incapacitate the rest of the army. There was a beat of stunned silence before Cena and Watsie exchanged a glance, and the prince revealed that he had independently done the exact same thing — spiked the drinks himself, without the party’s knowledge. The darkly comedic realization washed over the room: they had been working toward the same goal all along, neither side aware of the other’s plan. It was agreed, with some dry humor, that they really ought to cooperate more closely going forward.

The conversation turned to the broader threat facing the town. The gold that had been meant for the bandits had already been distributed to the townspeople, and the party argued that paying off bullies only invited more extortion. Prince Cena listened carefully, and the group settled on a plan: they would visit the mayor, smooth things over, and try to rally the townspeople into a militia capable of defending themselves. Cena agreed to come along personally, acknowledging that his presence might carry weight with the locals.

At the mayor’s house, they found the man still hogtied on the spit, surrounded by the corpses of the soldiers who had fallen in the earlier battle. His hands had gone purple from the bindings, and he was desperate to be freed. The party untied him, massaged feeling back into his swollen joints, and offered a measured apology, explaining that they had acted on limited information. The mayor, once the blood returned to his brain, confirmed what they had suspected: the bandits had been extorting the town for two or three years, and while he had never visited their camp, he estimated he had seen as many as twenty-five different faces among them. He also revealed that there was a blind scout living just outside of town — the only person he trusted to gather intelligence on the bandit encampment. He wrote a wax-sealed letter for the party to deliver to her, warning them with a grimace that she would not be happy to receive it.

With the mayor’s intelligence in hand, the group turned their attention to the military encampment on the outskirts of town. They approached cautiously, observing a large camp of roughly ten massive tents arranged around a central bonfire. About fifteen soldiers were visible outside, many of them drinking heavily and clearly inebriated, while others appeared to be sleeping inside the tents. A mercenary with a glass eye and an eye patch seemed to be in command, laughing and talking with a few of the men. Watsie, who formally introduced herself to the party here, kept her sword hand still and ready even as her posture remained relaxed.

Prince Cena took the lead, approaching the mercenary captain with a warmth and charisma that none of the party had seen from him before. He draped an arm around the man’s shoulders, praised his soldiers, and launched into a story about his own encounter with a massive lizardfolk, drawing the captain into a comfortable, laughing exchange. As the captain began recounting how he had lost his eye to a lizardfolk who had snatched it clean from his skull, Watsie quietly raised her hand. A bubble of magical silence fell over the area, swallowing all sound. In the same breath, Prince Cena drew his blade and took the captain’s head from his shoulders in a single, fluid motion — not a sound escaping into the night.

Combat erupted in the silence. The party moved swiftly, cutting down the soldiers nearest to them with fire, steel, and bursts of radiant light. Watsie carved through enemies with two precise swipes of her blade, and Prince Cena struck down another with practiced efficiency. The remaining soldiers, drunk and disoriented, grabbed their crossbows and returned fire, striking Thunder with multiple bolts and nearly dropping him before Izzy rushed in to stabilize him with a healer’s kit.

With the soldiers outside dealt with, the party devised a plan to clear the remaining tents. They split into pairs, moving tent by tent through the sleeping camp. Jolly proved devastatingly effective, slipping through the darkness with uncanny precision and dispatching dozens of sleeping soldiers without raising a single alarm. Barnabas, hoping to move more quietly, made the fateful decision to remove his armor before entering his assigned tents. It seemed like a reasonable idea at the time.

It was not a reasonable idea. The soldiers in Barnabas’s tent stirred, and despite being heavily poisoned and half-delirious from the nightshade, they surrounded him in the magical silence and began stabbing him over and over. Corneleus transformed into a wolf and tore into the fray, and the rest of the party rushed to help, loosing arrows and hurling bolts of energy through the tent walls. Barnabas briefly sat up, declared he was fine, and then collapsed again as the soldiers continued their frenzied assault. By the time the last of them fell, Barnabas was gone — and a mercenary, wild-eyed and hallucinating, held his severed head aloft in a grim, soundless cheer.

It was at that moment that Bartholomew arrived. The twin brother of Barnabas had been searching for him, following ever-worsening rumors of danger, and the sight of his brother’s head — the face that was a mirror of his own — broke something open in his chest. A scream tore out of him before he could stop it, alerting the remaining thirty-five mercenaries still in the camp. Watsie threw a silence over him just in time to contain the sound, but the damage was done. The camp was roused.

Prince Cena whistled sharply and ordered everyone to the high ground. The party retreated into a tent, tossing out the weapons of fallen soldiers to buy time, while inside, Cena rolled a massive barrel of oil across the floor. Bartholomew, his grief curdling into rage, punched holes in the barrel and heaved the enormous thing — over a thousand pounds of wood and oil — toward the approaching mercenaries. A well-aimed burst of flame ignited the leaking oil, and the night erupted. Soldiers scattered, burning, rolling across the ground, crashing into tents. Prince Cena charged into the chaos with his blade, and the party followed, cutting down the last of the mercenaries amidst the roaring fire.

When it was over, the party built a funeral pyre for Barnabas from the wood of the ruined tents. They wrapped his body carefully in a tarp, placed coins over his eyes, and laid his sword across his chest. Each companion offered words — Izzy spoke haltingly of how Barnabas had absorbed punishment so the rest of them didn’t have to, and Bartholomew delivered a eulogy that was equal parts love and grim honesty, acknowledging that his brother’s headlong courage had always made this ending feel inevitable. A burst of magical flame ignited the pyre, and the group stood in silence as the orange light flickered across the dark forest. Bartholomew pledged his life to the group, swearing to finish what his brother had started.

The party began walking away from the camp, but something was wrong. A woozy, dreamlike feeling crept over them — the burning nightshade in the corpses was releasing toxic fumes, and they had been breathing it in. They debated wind direction with the fuzzy logic of the mildly poisoned and stumbled westward into the trees, away from the smoke. That was when they found the grove.

A campfire burned in a clearing, and around it danced a half-naked man with very dark skin and a bone through his nose, shaking bells and burning incense. He spoke in a language none of them recognized, but his gestures were clear — he was inviting them to sit. Corneleus released his owl companion, Archimedes, who transformed into a beautiful white bird with a long, luminous tail and began circling overhead beneath an impossibly large moon. The campfire shifted through colors — green, blue, yellow — before settling into a deep, permanent black.

The man pressed his hand to a party member’s chest and pulled free a smoky, writhing entity that pantomimed acts of violence in the air above them. Then another. Then two more — four shadow-like demons in total, extracted from the party members and left to drift and spin in the firelight. A small child appeared from the darkness and spoke quietly to the man, gesturing at the entities. The party felt a creeping anxiety settle over them, and then the fire went out.

The shadows attacked. They moved through the darkness, striking with touches that drained the very strength from their victims’ bodies, and every time the party managed to relight a torch or a candle or a lamp, the shadows snuffed it out again. Rattlesnakes materialized across the ground, hissing and snapping at anyone who tried to move. Party members fell one by one — Thunder struck down, Jolly reduced to barely a whisper of his former strength, Izzy collapsing under a flurry of blows. Corneleus transformed into a rattlesnake and slithered through the swarm to reach his fallen allies, reverting to his true form just long enough to press a healer’s kit to Thunder’s wounds before the chaos swallowed him again.

Bartholomew blasted a path through the spirit snakes with repeated bursts of flame, scattering them long enough to drag his companions to safety. With no better option available, he stuffed the most severely incapacitated members of the party into his magical Handy Haversack — treating his companions like luggage — and carried them bodily out of the grove. The last shadow was finally destroyed by a well-placed dagger throw from Thunder, who had clawed his way back to consciousness through sheer stubbornness. The rattlesnakes, revealed to be spirits rather than natural creatures, faded as the party stumbled into a clear, quiet space beyond the tree line.

They collapsed there, tending to their wounds and resting through what remained of the night. The moon was still enormous overhead, and somewhere in the distance, the funeral pyre for Barnabas still burned. By the time morning came, the party had recovered enough to press on — battered, weakened, and carrying the weight of their losses, but still standing. Bartholomew stood among them, a stranger who had become a companion in the span of a single terrible night, ready to see his brother’s mission through to the end.

Short

Returning to the inn, the party briefed Prince Cena on their actions — killing eleven traitorous soldiers, hogtying the mayor, and poisoning the army’s drinks with nightshade — only to discover that Cena had independently spiked the drinks himself. After sharing a darkly comedic moment of realization, the group agreed to coordinate more closely going forward. They then visited the mayor, freed him from his bindings, and gathered key intelligence: the bandits had been extorting the town for years, with as many as twenty-five members, and a blind scout living outside of town was the only reliable source of information on their camp. Armed with a wax-sealed letter for the scout, the party turned their attention to the military encampment, where Prince Cena charmed the mercenary captain before Watsie dropped a silence spell and Cena beheaded him in one clean stroke. The ensuing battle was swift outside, but turned disastrous when Barnabas removed his armor before clearing a tent and was overwhelmed and killed by poisoned but frenzied soldiers. His twin brother Bartholomew arrived at that exact moment, witnessed his brother’s severed head held aloft, and his anguished scream nearly roused the remaining thirty-five mercenaries — only barely contained by Watsie’s silence spell.

The party regrouped, and Bartholomew channeled his grief into action, hurling a massive oil barrel into the advancing mercenaries before igniting it, allowing the group to cut down the last of the soldiers amid the chaos. They honored Barnabas with a funeral pyre, with Bartholomew delivering a eulogy that acknowledged his brother’s reckless courage before pledging himself to the group’s cause. As they walked away, toxic fumes from the burning nightshade-laced corpses left them disoriented, and they stumbled into a forest grove where a mysterious man extracted four shadow demons from party members before the fire went out and the shadows attacked. The brutal fight in the darkness — compounded by spirit rattlesnakes that drained the party’s strength and snuffed out every light source — left most members incapacitated. Bartholomew ultimately saved the group by blasting through the snakes and stuffing his most severely wounded companions into his magical Handy Haversack, carrying them to safety. Thunder landed the killing blow on the last shadow with a dagger throw, and the party collapsed beyond the tree line to rest, battered but alive, with Bartholomew now firmly among their ranks as they prepared to press on come morning.

Classic

Last we left off, our party returned to the Particularly Pickled inn with blood still fresh on their blades, bearing grim news for Prince Cena — eleven of his own soldiers cut down for their treachery, the mayor hogtied, and the rest of the army quietly poisoned with nightshade. What followed was one of those rare, darkly comic moments of revelation: Cena had done the very same thing, independently, without a word to anyone. Two plans, one goal, zero communication. With that uncomfortable irony acknowledged, the group resolved to work more closely together — and turned their attention to the mercenary encampment on the edge of town.

What began as a careful, coordinated assault became something far more costly. Prince Cena charmed the mercenary captain with disarming warmth before Watsie’s silence spell swallowed the night whole and his blade took the man’s head in a single stroke. The outer soldiers fell to fire, steel, and radiant light. But when Barnabas made the fateful choice to shed his armor before clearing his assigned tents, the poisoned soldiers within found him anyway — and they did not stop. By the time the last of them fell, Barnabas was gone, his severed head raised aloft in a grim, soundless mockery of triumph. It was at that moment that his twin brother, Bartholomew, arrived — and the scream that tore out of him nearly brought the rest of the camp down upon them. What followed was fire, chaos, and grief in equal measure, ending with a funeral pyre built from the wreckage of the battle, and Bartholomew pledging his life to see his brother’s mission through.

But the night was not finished with them. Stumbling away from the burning camp, the party wandered into a moonlit grove where a mysterious figure extracted shadow-like demons from within them — and then the fire went out. What followed was a desperate, lightless battle against entities that drained the very strength from their bodies, rattlesnakes that were not rattlesnakes, and an darkness that swallowed every flame they tried to kindle. They survived by the narrowest of margins, with Bartholomew stuffing his barely-conscious companions into a magical haversack and carrying them bodily to safety. Now, battered and diminished but unbroken, the party greets the morning with a new companion at their side, a blind scout’s letter in their pocket, and the long shadow of Barnabas behind them…

Middle English

Harke well, ye souls of valiant heart, Who tread where shadow and steel do part; The party returned with blades still red, To tell the Prince of soldiers dead.

The Prince did laugh with knowing eye, For he had poisoned the same supply; Two plans, one goal, no word between — The darkest comedy ever seen.

Then to the camp they turned their gaze, Where mercenaries drank in a drunken haze; The Prince did charm the captain well, Before his head in silence fell.

But Barnabas, bold and unarmored, strode Into the tent — a foolish road; The soldiers rose and dealt their blow, And laid the brave companion low.

His brother came and wept and swore, Then fire and fury settled the score; They built a pyre of ruined wood, And mourned him long, as mourners should.

Snarky

So the party waltzed back to the inn covered in soldier blood to deliver their extremely unhinged mission report to Prince Cena, only to discover that he had already done the exact same thing they did — independently, in secret, like two people who show up to a party in the same outfit and refuse to make eye contact. Great teamwork, everyone. Gold star. They then proceeded to “coordinate” by attacking a mercenary camp, during which Barnabas — a grown adult man who had survived countless battles — decided that the correct strategy for clearing a tent full of poisoned, hallucinating soldiers was to do it without his armor on. Reader, it was not. Barnabas was stabbed to death and then decapitated, which is genuinely the worst possible outcome of removing your armor before a fight, and somehow still not the most chaotic thing that happened that night.

That honor goes to the haunted grove they stumbled into while mildly high on nightshade fumes, where a mysterious shaman pulled literal shadow demons out of their chests, a child appeared from nowhere to evaluate the situation, and the party spent the better part of an hour getting their strength drained by darkness spirits while tripping over spirit rattlesnakes. Bartholomew — who had just watched his brother get decapitated an hour prior — responded to this new crisis by yeeting his incapacitated companions into a magic bag and carrying them out like groceries. Barnabas died as he lived: inspiring others to do the heavy lifting.

Limerick

The party came back, weapons wet, To brief the prince on every threat. He laughed — he’d done the same! Two plans, one poisoned game. The best team that had never met!

Prince Cena charmed the captain with flair, Then Watsie silenced the cold night air. One swing of his blade, The captain was slayed — Not a sound drifted out anywhere.

Bold Barnabas shed all his armor, Convinced it would make him much calmer. The soldiers disagreed, And made Barnabas bleed — His twin’s grief could not have been warmer.

A barrel of oil, a burst of flame, The mercenary camp went up the same. They built a pyre bright, And wept through the night, Then Bartholomew swore in his name.

They stumbled on shadows and snakes in the dark, Each torch they lit snuffed like a spark. Bartholomew packed His friends — and that’s that — And hauled them all out of the park!

Memorable Moments

Prince Cena reveals he had independently spiked his own soldiers’ drinks with nightshade — the same plan the party had — leading to a moment of stunned, darkly comedic realization that they had been working toward the same goal all along.

The party confesses to spiking the drinks, only to learn Cena had already done it himself, prompting the group to joke that they should cooperate more.

“Your axe is still wet.” — Prince Cena

Prince Cena’s first words to the blood-soaked party upon meeting them, delivered with a cold, unflinching stare before tossing them a blanket.

Under the cover of a magical silence spell, Prince Cena lulls the mercenary captain into a false sense of security with a charming story, then decapitates him in a single swift motion — not a sound escaping into the night.

The party watched as the stern, humorless prince transformed into a charismatic storyteller, then executed the captain without hesitation.

Jolly silently cleared tent after tent of sleeping soldiers, dispatching dozens without raising a single alarm — culminating in a critical strike that wiped out an entire tent’s worth of enemies in one pass.

The party’s stealthiest member proved devastatingly effective, single-handedly neutralizing the bulk of the sleeping mercenary force.

Barnabas, having removed his armor to move quietly, is surrounded by waking soldiers and stabbed repeatedly until he falls. A mercenary then decapitates him and holds his head aloft in a silent, grim victory.

The decision to remove his armor for stealth proved fatal, as the soldiers overwhelmed him before the party could intervene.

Bartholomew, fueled by grief over his twin brother’s death, heaves a 150-gallon barrel of oil into the mercenary ranks. A firebolt ignites it, engulfing thirty-five soldiers in a massive inferno.

Arriving just in time to see his brother’s severed head, Bartholomew channeled his rage into a devastating act of vengeance.

“You were a great brother. You were always very headstrong. Charging into battle with odds that were never in your favor. Somehow succeeding. It was fairly understood, at least between me and your brethren, that this was an inevitability.” — Bartholomew

Bartholomew’s eulogy for his fallen twin, a bittersweet mix of love and the grim acknowledgment that Barnabas’s death was always a matter of when, not if.

A mysterious tribal man in a forest grove pulls smoky demonic entities from the chests of the party members, causing the campfire to shift through colors before turning permanently black.

The woozy party stumbled upon the ritual after inhaling nightshade fumes, unsure if what they were seeing was real or a hallucination.

Corneleus transforms into a rattlesnake and slithers through a carpet of hostile spirit snakes toward his fallen allies, blending in perfectly with the swarm.

With the party incapacitated and surrounded by spirit snakes, the druid’s solution was to simply become one of them.

Bartholomew stuffs his severely weakened and unconscious party members into a magical Handy Haversack to carry them out of the snake-infested grove, treating his companions like luggage.

With no other options and snakes everywhere, the solution was to simply pack the party into a backpack and run.

Scenes

Reunion at the Particularly Pickled

The party returns to the inn to update Prince Cena on the recent violence and the betrayal of his soldiers.

• The party heads back to the inn, the Particularly Pickled, to find Prince Cena.
• They find the Prince in his room with his bodyguard, looking over a letter.
• The party informs the Prince that they have killed eleven of his soldiers who were plotting against him.
• The party reveals they have hogtied the mayor and spiked the soldiers’ drinks with nightshade to incapacitate the rest of the army.
• A discussion ensues regarding the gold intended for bandits, which the party has instead distributed to the townspeople.
• It is revealed that Prince Cena had also independently spiked the soldiers’ drinks with nightshade, unbeknownst to the party.
• Prince Cena admits his suspicions about the soldiers’ lack of professionalism and agrees to cooperate more closely with the party.

A Plan for the Town

The party discusses the moral and strategic implications of the bandit threat and the corrupted military presence with Prince Cena.

• The party debates whether to defend the town or evacuate the citizens in the face of the bandit threat.
• The group suggests arming the local farmers with the equipment of fallen soldiers to bolster the town’s defenses.
• Prince Cena agrees to cooperate more openly with the party and suggests recruiting a local militia.
• The group decides to visit the Mayor’s house to smooth things over and gather more intelligence.

Confronting the Mayor

The party returns to the Mayor’s house to untie him and convince him to rally his people against the bandits.

• The party finds the Mayor still hogtied on a spit in a room filled with the corpses of fallen soldiers.
• The Mayor is untied, his hands purple and swollen from being bound.
• The party convinces the Mayor that paying off the bandits is a losing strategy and that he must rally the townspeople.
• The Mayor reveals the bandits have been extorting the town for two or three years, and he estimates he has seen twenty to twenty-five different bandit faces.
• The Mayor reveals information about a blind scout living on the outskirts of town who might be able to help.
• The Mayor writes a wax-sealed letter for the party to deliver to the scout, warning she will be angry.

Approaching the Military Camp

The party and Prince Cena scout the military encampment to assess the status of the soldiers.

• The group approaches a camp consisting of about ten large tents and a central bonfire.
• They observe roughly fifteen soldiers visible outside, many drinking and heavily inebriated.
• A mercenary with a glass eye and an eye patch appears to be in command, talking with a few of the men.
• Prince Cena’s bodyguard introduces herself as Watsie.
• A medicine check reveals that many of the soldiers are breathing poorly and are severely affected by the nightshade.

The Silent Execution of the Captain

Prince Cena uses charm and deception to lull the mercenary captain into a false sense of security before executing him under the cover of a magical silence spell.

• Prince Cena approaches the mercenary captain and feigns warm camaraderie, putting his arm around him and praising his men.
• The captain, a man with a glass eye and an eye patch, begins recounting the story of how he lost his eye to a lizardfolk.
• Prince Cena begins telling his own tale of a massive lizardfolk encounter to further distract the captain.
• Watsie casts a silence spell, dampening all sound in the immediate area.
• Under the cover of magical silence, Prince Cena draws his blade and decapitates the captain in a single swift motion.
• The party prepares for combat as the surrounding soldiers begin to realize the ambush has begun.

Ambush in the Silent Camp

The party initiates a surprise attack on the remaining mercenaries under the cover of the magical silence spell.

• Thunder launches a firebolt at a nearby mercenary, scorching him.
• Jolly attempts to strike a mercenary with a short sword and dagger, landing a glancing blow.
• Izzy steps out of the silence to cast starry whispers, causing a wounded mercenary to glow with light.
• Barnabas cleaves through two mercenaries with his great axe, decapitating one and splitting another.
• The remaining mercenaries retaliate with light crossbows, striking Thunder with multiple bolts and nearly dropping him.
• Watsie decapitates another foe with two swift swipes of her blade, and Prince Cena strikes down another.

Clearing the Tents

The party splits up to stealthily eliminate the remaining sleeping soldiers in their tents.

• The party devises a plan to go tent by tent in pairs, with one person killing and one keeping watch.
• Jolly and Thunder successfully clear several tents of sleeping soldiers using stealth and precision strikes, dispatching dozens without raising an alarm.
• Barnabas removes his armor to move more quietly before attempting to clear his assigned tents.
• Barnabas alerts the occupants of a tent, waking a group of soldiers who spring up to defend themselves.
• Corneleus transforms into a wolf to assist in the ensuing chaotic struggle within the silent tent.
• Izzy rushes to stabilize Thunder after he is struck down by crossbow bolts during the earlier skirmish.

The Fall of Barnabas

The stealthy infiltration turns deadly when Barnabas is discovered and overwhelmed by waking soldiers.

• The soldiers in the tent, though intoxicated and poisoned by nightshade, surround and repeatedly stab Barnabas.
• Barnabas briefly sits up and declares he is okay before falling back down.
• Barnabas falls in battle, suffering fatal wounds as the soldiers continue to strike his fallen form.
• A mercenary decapitates Barnabas and holds his head aloft in a silent cheer within the magical field of silence.
• Corneleus, in wolf form, attempts to drag the situation to safety while Watsie maintains the silence.
• The rest of the party rushes to the tent, firing arrows and casting spells to cut down the remaining soldiers.
• Bartholomew, the twin brother of Barnabas, arrives at the camp and witnesses the gruesome display of his brother’s severed head.
• Overcome by grief and rage, Bartholomew lets out a scream that alerts the remaining mercenaries in the camp.

The Oil Barrel Gambit

The party retreats to a defensive position and uses a massive barrel of oil to create a fiery trap for the remaining thirty-five mercenaries.

• Prince Cena directs the party to retreat to a mound and take cover inside a tent as the remaining mercenaries close in.
• The party discards the weapons of fallen soldiers outside the tent to deceive the mercenaries into thinking they are disarming.
• Prince Cena discovers a massive barrel of oil inside the tent and proposes using it as a weapon.
• Bartholomew, fueled by grief and rage, pokes holes in the barrel and heaves the massive object toward the approaching soldiers.
• A well-timed firebolt ignites the leaking oil, engulfing the mercenaries in a massive inferno.
• Prince Cena and the party charge into the chaos, finishing off the remaining soldiers amidst the flames.

A Warrior’s Farewell

The party gathers to honor their fallen comrade Barnabas with a traditional funeral pyre.

• The party gathers the remains of Barnabas, carefully placing his head back near his body and wrapping him in a tarp.
• Bartholomew, the twin brother of the deceased, joins the group to oversee the final rites.
• A funeral pyre is constructed using wood scavenged from nearby tents.
• Coins are placed over Barnabas’s eyes as a final gesture for his journey to the afterlife.
• Each companion offers words of remembrance, acknowledging Barnabas’s bravery and his role as the party’s shield.
• The pyre is ignited with a burst of magical flame, casting an orange glow over the silent forest.
• Bartholomew formally pledges his life to the group, honoring the trust his brother had placed in them.

The Nightshade Fog and the Mysterious Grove

The party, feeling woozy from burning nightshade fumes, wanders away from the camp and stumbles upon a mysterious tribal man performing a ritual.

• The party begins to feel woozy and exhausted, realizing they are inhaling fumes from the burning nightshade in the corpses.
• They debate wind direction and head away from the toxic mist.
• The party discovers a campfire in a grove where a half-naked tribal man with dark skin and a bone through his nose is performing a ritual dance.
• Corneleus summons Archimedes, who transforms into a beautiful white bird with a long tail, circling the group under a massive moon.
• The tribal man uses bells and incense, causing the campfire to flash through various colors before turning a permanent, ominous black.
• The man places his hand on a party member’s chest and pulls out a smoky, demonic entity that pantomimes acts of violence.
• A small child appears and converses with the tribal man about the extracted entities.
• Three more smoky demons are extracted from other party members, leaving them feeling anxious.

The Shadow Ambush

The extracted shadow entities turn hostile and attack the party in the dark grove, draining their physical strength.

• The four shadow entities manifest and begin attacking the party, draining their physical strength with necrotic touches.
• The shadows repeatedly snuff out the party’s light sources, plunging the grove back into darkness after each round.
• Rattlesnakes are discovered swarming the ground beneath the party’s feet, adding to the chaos.
• Party members frantically relight torches, candles, and lamps to reveal the hidden shadows and coordinate attacks.
• Watsie and Prince Cena join the fray, with Watsie eviscerating one shadow and Cena striking down another.
• Several party members are severely weakened by the shadows’ strength-draining attacks, with some falling unconscious.
• Corneleus transforms into a rattlesnake to navigate through the swarm and reach fallen allies.
• Corneleus reverts to human form to use a healing kit on a downed companion.
• The last shadow is finally destroyed by a well-placed dagger throw, ending the supernatural assault.

Escape from the Spirit Snakes

With the shadows defeated, the party struggles to escape a grove carpeted with hostile spiritual rattlesnakes.

• Corneleus attempts to communicate with the spirit snakes through a druidic performance, but the spirits rebuff him entirely.
• Several party members are bitten by the spectral snakes and fall unconscious or become severely weakened.
• Bartholomew uses repeated firebolts to blast a path through the swarming spirit snakes, scaring them away with bursts of flame.
• Bartholomew stuffs his incapacitated allies into a magical Handy Haversack to transport them safely out of the grove.
• The group retreats to a safe clearing away from the grove to administer medical aid and take a long rest.
• The party levels up after the harrowing night of combat.

NPCs

Prince Cena

A stern-looking man in his 40s wearing silver and red armor with a golden sun emblem on the chest. He is the target of a coup by his own army and is working with the party to navigate the political and physical threats in the town. He reveals he had independently spiked his soldiers’ drinks with nightshade, and demonstrates cold, calculated charisma when manipulating his disloyal officers.

Watsie

Prince Cena’s bodyguard who introduces herself to the party at the military camp. She is a capable warrior and magic user who remains vigilant, keeping her sword hand ready even when appearing relaxed. She uses a silence spell to mask the execution of the captain and contributes meaningfully in combat throughout the session.

The Mayor

The leader of the tourist town who had been secretly paying off bandits with town gold to prevent attacks, leading to his temporary imprisonment by the party. He reveals the bandits have extorted the town for two to three years and that he has seen roughly twenty to twenty-five different bandit faces. He provides the party with a wax-sealed letter for a blind scout outside of town.

The Mercenary Captain

The leader of the mercenary soldiers, a man with a glass eye and an eye patch. He is lulled into a false sense of security by Prince Cena’s charm before being decapitated under the cover of a silence spell.

Bartholomew

The twin brother of the fallen warrior Barnabas, who arrives at the camp just in time to witness his brother’s decapitation. Overcome by grief and rage, he joins the party and pledges his life to finish the mission his brother started.

The Tribal Man

A mysterious half-naked figure with very dark skin and a bone through his nose who is found performing a ritual dance around a campfire in a forest grove. He possesses the power to extract smoky demonic entities from people’s chests and communicates in an unknown language.

The Spirit Child

A small child who appears during the ritual in the grove to converse with the tribal man about the extracted shadow entities.

Shadow Entities

Four malevolent, smoke-like spirits extracted from the party members by the tribal man’s ritual. They attack by draining the physical strength of their victims with necrotic touches and repeatedly snuff out light sources to hide in the darkness.

Locations

The Particularly Pickled

The local inn where Prince Cena and his bodyguard Watsie have been staying. The party reconvenes here to brief the Prince on recent events.

The Mayor’s House

A residence filled with the grim aftermath of a battle, featuring the corpses of soldiers and a spit where the Mayor was held captive by the party.

Military Encampment

A camp on the outskirts of town featuring about ten large tents and a central bonfire, where Prince Cena’s army is stationed. Many soldiers are incapacitated by nightshade or heavy drinking.

The Mysterious Grove

A clearing in the forest where a tribal man maintains a campfire and performs spiritual rituals under the light of an unnaturally large moon. The site of a harrowing encounter with shadow entities and spirit snakes.

Items

Captain’s Armor

A set of high-quality armor taken from the fallen captain of the guard. Though currently non-functional and damaged from the battle, it is noted as being superior to standard gear and potentially worth repairing.

Town Gold

A significant amount of wealth originally intended as a bribe for bandits, which the party confiscated and distributed to the citizens of the town.

Mayor’s Letter

A wax-sealed letter written by the Mayor to a blind scout living outside the town, requesting her assistance. The Mayor warns the party that she will not be happy to receive it.

Oil Barrel

A massive 150-gallon wooden barrel of flammable oil found inside a tent at the military camp. Bartholomew punctured it and hurled it into the ranks of the remaining mercenaries before it was ignited by a firebolt, creating a devastating inferno.

Funeral Pyre

A structure built from scavenged wood and tent materials, used to cremate the body of Barnabas in a traditional warrior’s ceremony. Coins were placed over his eyes before the pyre was ignited with a burst of magical flame.

Barnabas’s Belongings

The personal effects, family emblems, weapons, and a hefty pouch of coins belonging to the deceased warrior Barnabas, handed over to his twin brother Bartholomew as his inheritance.

Healer’s Kit

A collection of bandages and medicinal supplies used multiple times during the session to stabilize and revive fallen party members, including Thunder after he was struck by crossbow bolts and later after the shadow attack.

Tinderbox

A small fire-starting kit used repeatedly by party members to relight torches and candles as the shadow entities snuffed out their light sources during the grove ambush.

Handy Haversack

A magical backpack with multiple pouches capable of holding far more than its external dimensions suggest, weighing only five pounds regardless of its contents. Bartholomew used it to carry incapacitated party members out of the snake-infested grove.

Ritual Bells

Instruments used by the tribal man to create a rhythmic sound during the spiritual extraction ritual in the forest grove.

Spells

Silence

Cast by Watsie to create a zone of magical quiet around the mercenary captain, allowing Prince Cena to execute him without alerting the rest of the camp. The spell was used multiple times throughout the session to mask the sounds of combat during the tent infiltrations.

Firebolt

A mote of fire hurled at enemies during the camp ambush, and later used repeatedly by Bartholomew to blast a path through the spiritual rattlesnakes in the grove. A well-timed firebolt also ignited the leaking oil barrel, engulfing the remaining mercenaries in flames.

Starry Wisp

Cast by Izzy to launch a sparkling mote of light at enemies, causing them to glow and become easier targets. Used during the camp ambush and again during the shadow battle in the grove.

Wild Shape

Used by Corneleus to transform first into a wolf to assist in the chaotic tent battle, and later into a rattlesnake to safely navigate through the swarm of spirit snakes in the grove and reach fallen allies.

Toll the Dead

A necrotic cantrip used against the mercenaries as they swarmed Barnabas, causing them to glow with eerie energy as they were struck.

Light

A cantrip cast by Watsie to illuminate the campfire area and reveal the positions of the shadow entities, providing the party with much-needed visibility during the dark grove ambush.

Healing Word

A restorative spell mentioned as a potential action for Watsie to aid wounded party members, though its verbal component made it incompatible with the active silence spell.