Hiya!

A lot of you have been asking what’s been going on in our lives and the short answer is “a whole damn lot”.

The longer answer is that it’s been difficult this year to continue my rehab at work while trying to write something. So, mostly this year, it’s been short stories on my other blog whenever I’ve had a moment to myself.

But yeah, I’ve had some time lately, so here we go again with the roll call of who’s joining us this time:

The background to this adventure was a rather lengthy discussion with Circe, during which she felt it was time to graduate from one magical two-handed sword to two. But, as I told her and everyone else, magical swords don’t really grow on trees and neither does money in the inner world. (Well, then again, maybe they do in the bizarre and violently fashionable Art Deco world we have, but nobody would ever venture into that realm of insanity voluntarily)

I’d been thinking about a macrocosm based on the lore behind Count Dracula and that did seem to fit the bill rather well. One evening, Circe and I decided that we’d at least take a look and see what kind of world we were dealing with there. A few commands to my omnipresent AI Sarah and we had an entry point from the gallery of worlds to a room in an inn where we’d be recognized as visiting travelers.

Circe joked before we left that she wanted to be a reformed succubus and that joke definitely was on her as when she arrived in her room, she found that her battle dress had been replaced with a demure outfit befitting a nun. Her weapons and gear had been replaced with new things as well. When I came to as well in the bed in the small room I was staying in, I also realized that all of my typical gear was gone as well. We then went downstairs and met the tavern owner who greeted us as if we’d already met him which was precisely the situation that we’d hoped to be in before.

It turned out that Circe was indeed a nun traveling somewhere and I was her aged guardian, we also had a couple of horses in the stables which was a nice bonus. Not wanting to make a whole evening out of it, we excused ourselves after a while, then returned to our rooms again and left the macrocosm.

Some discussion later in the real world and a few weeks after that, me and my SO Niky and some of her tulpas decided to go for a new adventure in that world using our tabletop system. I’d invited Mech and Colleen as well, but there’d been no definitive yes or no from them, so we decided to go for it without them.

When entering the door in the gallery, I found everything going dark as it had before, and I sat up in my bed in the inn. The pale moonlight streaked through a window and illuminated a small rickety bedside table next to me. As I stared at it trying to get my bearings, I realized it also had a crude candle that had burnt down to the holder it was sitting in.

I slipped into my worn armor and donned my shortsword. As before, I couldn’t seem to find my gun or my cutter on me, I did however find a small ornate dagger and a small pouch of what appeared to be my money.

Chuckling to myself I said, “Well, I’ve got good news for everyone, the money in my bag appears to be euros so that answers that burning question I guess.”

Rummaging through my bag I also found an old gnarly twig that I brought up to my nose and smelled for a bit before I said, “Mmm, weird twig I found on my belt, smells faintly of citrus, no idea what that does.”

Meanwhile, Niky and her tulpas Andrei, Kay, and Sasha had grouped up in the gallery of worlds outside of the door where they were waiting for Circe before entering the macrocosm.

As she met up with them, she asked me, “So, no answer from Mech or Colleen?”

“Let’s bring them in later, I’m fairly certain they’re busy,” I said with a wry grin on my face. Then I added, “We can treat this as session zero where we get to know each other and iron out the major details.”

Andrei groaned, “ask them at least?”

“Last I checked, they were on a boat with that old sailor guy,” I retorted.

Not wanting to give up, he pressed the issue, “Does that mean ‘not coming’ or ‘can’t ask right now?'”

“Not coming. I think they were having fun, but Mech said to count them in for the next session.”

Andrei just nodded as a response, and with that established, Circe piped up and said, “So… everyone’s ready?” As she looked around the group, when they all seemed to be waiting, she added, “All alright then, after me!” and went through the door to the macrocosm and vanished from view.

Now, a little side note on the door/portal itself. It’s not common for portals to have a fade-to-black transition in our inner world. Usually, they just work like normal doors where you can literally see straight into the macrocosm itself when you open it. But as we later discovered, this world absolutely did things in its own way, for better… and worse.

As Niky and her crew all regained their senses, they found themselves coming out of a large tent that was set up in a small clearing in the woods. In front of them was a road of sorts, leading off to what appeared to be a small town in the dark, the moon was starkly illuminating the harsh landscape around them.

Andrei scanned the surroundings, looked back to the tent that was now just a normal tent, and muttered, “Well that was creepy” to himself.

Meanwhile, in the inn, Circe came to and set up in her bed, loudly complaining to herself that her corset was too tight. I poked my head out of the door to my room and saw Circe doing the same further down the hallway.

She smirked at me, “Couldn’t sleep?”

Addressing the others directly (which technically is cheating as we’re not in the same location and thus shouldn’t really be able to hear each other), I told the others that I had a bird’s eye view of their encampment and that it appeared that they had a carriage drawn by one horse, but also horses for personal use as well. Whatever the world was creating as the introduction, it seemed that we were all well prepared for it.

Then for the next thirty or so minutes, I decided to teleport to the others at the camp and help them figure out what types of creatures the world had changed them into and what gear they had. The summary was thus:

Andrei mostly looked normal except for the fact that he had two small horns protruding from his forehead and his eyes were glowing and shifting color between orange and red. He complained, of course, wanting Niky to polymorph him as she usually does with our looks and gear before a mission. But as I explained to him, she didn’t have that power there as it seemed that we were all going to have to step out of our various comfort zones quite a bit.

I asked him though if he could focus on his appearance and change it. A few seconds later as he lifted off his hood, we could all see that he now appeared to be a man in his mid-40s with a sturdy build. I looked down and saw two swords by his hips and told him to check his pouches for items.

Feeling a bit unnerved, he quickly checked his pockets and reported that while he did have the swords, he didn’t really seem to have anything else, including his typical pistol. He lamented that he definitely wasn’t good with swords.

I gave him a warm smile and patted his shoulder, telling him that I was very sure that he’d have a knack for it in this world, and then turned my attention to Niky.

She seemed to be wearing an odd patchwork of leather and other fabrics and on her back, she had a bit metallic canister that looked like a gothic furnace. But, overall, she appeared to be a human female as she’d always been. Examining the stick she was holding, we all mused that it was probably some kind of magical wand and that she likely had her old flame thrower setup converted.

After she found what appeared to be this world’s version of her spellbook in her backpack, Andrei encouraged her to try out her detect magic spell. After she read the usual incantation and focused, things around us started glowing. The swords that Kay and Andrei were holding glowed, as did a pendant that Kay was wearing along with her earrings. She could also spot a strange shadowy outline of a person further away that we identified as being Sasha.

As for me, my dagger wasn’t glowing at all, but my sword definitely was along with the pendant I was wearing. Confirming my suspicion that it was definitely not just a religious icon I was having on for fun.

Kay did some fancy acrobatics with her shiny bastard sword as she smiled and whistled into the darkness. A tell-tale caw coming back to her told her that her pet Raven Dhum had also made it to the macrocosm. While Niky was wearing a patchy outfit though, Kay was wearing a light leather cuirass, I got the distinct impression that she was some sort of brawler or even a huntress/ranger.

Having picked up on the same vibe as me, Sasha jokingly asked her where her bow was. Checking her inventory, she smirked as she got out a small hand-held crossbow.

Andrei seeing this of course complained that HE hadn’t been given a ranged weapon as he looked down bitterly at his two melee weapons. I rolled my eyes and told him that being a devil of some sort, he’d probably know a fire spell or two.

Pointing to a nearby stump, I asked him to focus on hatred and then try and project that towards it.

Hesitantly he did as I asked, but as he closed his eyes, he also started chanting in what definitely sounded like a demonic language and then the stump suddenly burst into fire. I snapped my fingers and put out the stump, no sense in burning down the woods. Feeling pleased with himself, he remarked that this would absolutely come in handy against vampires, and considering the setting well… he definitely wasn’t wrong!

Having not heard anything from Circe (which was very unusual) I used my mind’s eye to spy on her in the tavern and saw her delighting in a plate of cold meats, bread, and as always, a big goblet of wine. I chuckled to myself as I returned my attention back to the camp and asked everyone where Sasha was.

I was a bit startled as he simply seemed to emerge from the nearby shadows as he was tending to the horses that seemed a bit nervous around Andrei. He was calming down the horse that was connected to the carriage, talking to it and telling it that Andrei was on our side. To everyone’s surprise, the horse scoffed at him which made us all smile.

Having trouble seeing him properly because he kept blending in so well with the shadows, I asked him to step closer to the fire. As he did, we all saw that while he was a young and beautiful man, he was also armed with what seemed like a staff and two swords. One of the swords was longer than the other as well. But what caught everyone’s attention was the fact that his eyes were a very dull red and that his skin was a very unnatural shade of pale.

I grinned as I asked him to smile for us and while the rest couldn’t see them, I definitely saw a couple of vampire fangs. It was only after I’d said it that I realized that I was absentmindedly holding onto my pendant and likely was using some sort of true sight power. However, as I let go of the pendant, I suddenly felt all my strength leave my body in a way that felt like fainting. Then when my sight vanished and I sat down heavily on the ground, only my sense of hearing and touch told me that I was still conscious.

As Sasha helped me up, he of course couldn’t help himself as he nipped my neck gently and drank some of the blood oozing out. When I touched the wound a few seconds later, the holes were seemingly gone which was a relief. I told him to keep his hunger in check and made a mental note to follow up on that at a later time along with Circe’s own condition of being a former succubus.

You see, one of the things that I knew would be a thing in this macrocosm would be the cost of things. Magic wasn’t free, being a creature didn’t come without constraints and repercussions. This wasn’t some teen magic school novel after all. My own experience with the truesight and pendant definitely confirmed for me that magic in this world wasn’t something you’d casually be casting every day. If anything, it raised even more questions about how the magic systems worked here. Would there be a permanent bodily effect if overused? Would it replenish over time?

I mused about these things and decided that ultimately, the world would reveal these rules to us as we continued along the adventure. I blinked a few times after as my sight then returned. By my own estimate, it’d taken between five to ten minutes for the effect to wear off.

Deciding that some questions were better answered now rather than later in a panic, I teleported both me and Sasha to a temporary test construct with walls that glowed with a bright white light. I asked him how he was feeling. He told me that it felt like normal light, but a bit hot as if he was having a slight sunburn. I adjusted the lighting into a moonlit spectrum and immediately noticed his body taking on a shadowy quality. Sasha sighed with relief as he reported that it felt so much better. He asked me where we were, and I told him with a smirk that we were just slightly outside of the world at this point and that we needed to do some tests.

I handed him a piece of garlic which he said smelled terrible, but he didn’t really feel it hurting him. Tasting it myself, I spat it out as it was very pungent and bitter. Then again, considering the setting, it made sense as these people were probably breeding their garlic to be as harsh and smelly as possible to ward off vampires. (Which hilariously enough we’d just proven probably wasn’t even a thing!)

After some more tasting tests of water, blood, and vampire blood, we determined that Sasha was mostly a human-vampire hybrid. That of course could come in handy for us as it meant that he had a versatility to him. (And to be honest, I sighed inwardly with relief because only traveling at night in this macrocosm would probably not be a good idea as we approached the castle.)

As we both returned to the camp and the others, we shared our findings with them and briefly discussed all the particulars. Meanwhile, at the Inn, the tavern keeper was attempting to strike up a conversation with Circe:

He leaned across the bar with his most winning smile and said, “soo… you’re off traveling soon huh? I think I’ll miss ye… yer not like other nuns if yer askin’ me.”

Circe, in a very haughty tone, replied, “Sir, I assure you, I am a woman of the cloth. Please strike such thoughts from your mind.” Then after a moment’s reflection, she added, “Besides, my guardian will be with us presently.”

The barkeep of course, suddenly reminded that she wasn’t alone, glanced around the room nervously before he stammered out, “O-oh I ‘m.. uhm, uh… sorry madame, so sorry I didn’t mean…”

And here he got really quiet for a bit before he excused himself. “I’ll… be in the kitchen, got’s ta do a bit o’ cleanin’” before he quickly scurried out of view.

Circe stared at the door slamming shut in front of her with disdain as she emptied the rest of her red wine in one gulp and hissed, “Fairy, fucking hurry it up already!”

But despite that, I could tell she was secretly enjoying herself as a faux “reformed nun”.

Back at the camp, I was starting to regain my vision:

“I’m starting to see the fire now, it’s hazy, but I’m getting there, I’m gonna port back to the tavern, you all ride on ahead and keep a sharp lookout!”

I snapped my fingers and found myself inside my room, facing the door, I blinked a few times as I muttered to myself, “fucking hell this is gonna be such a drag.”

As I opened the door, I rubbed my eyes before gingerly making it down the stairs into the main dining area.

Circe looked up at me bumbling down, “Hey there, you’re finally up and about. Is everyone alright?”

I smirked, “They’re uh… different. We should leave now and head off towards them on the road.”

Circe nodded, “finally.” And got up from her barstool.

I barked out, “Barkeep, we’re leaving!” Trying to sound as gruff as possible.

And like some well-worn Jack-in-the-box, the barkeep came bursting out of the kitchen in a way that suggested he’d been listening in on our conversation.

“Yes Sir?”, he said while staring at me with a fearful glance.

“I would like to settle our debt with you now”, I said as I wondered just how much he’d request for our stay.

The barkeep, making big eyes at us, raised both his hands as he said, “Oh, Sir, I’ll need nothin’ more from ye since ye paid more than enough before, I ain’t the greedy type.”

Wanting to settle something, I placed down one of my euro coins on the bar counter and said, “If you can identify this coin, I’ll let you keep it.”

Giving me a strange look, the barkeep picked up the coin, eyed it, and then bit into it before saying, “It be lookin’ like one of the King’s golds, honest it does. What? Is there some trickery with it?”

I shrugged, “No, it just looked a bit different to me is all. I bid you a fair evening Sir.”

As we both headed for the entrance, he quipped, “god bless ye and safe travels!”

Then as we were almost out of earshot, he grumbled, “They be as good as dead if they go to that infernal castle”

Circe chuckled. “Cheery fellow, isn’t he?”

I smiled warmly at her, “positively charming.”

As we entered the stables, two horses (presumably ours) started making tell-tale noises that confirmed they were eager to get out and stretch their legs.

“I guess these are ours,” I said as I looked over the horses which seemed to be quite sturdily built. A good quality to have in a world like this.

“Yes… but, how the fuck… I mean, how do we get these out?”

I opened the enclosures, whistled, and pointed to the road, both horses then obediently walked out and waited in front of the inn.

I grinned. “What? You think an old gruff guy like me wouldn’t have these trained?”

Then I started putting on the saddles and bites on them which wasn’t too much of an issue.

Circe gave me an incredulous look, “how do you know how to do that?”

I shrugged, “Back when I was a kid, way before I ever created you and Mech, I used to hang around a lot in stables in real life. Picked up a thing or two.” Then I picked up a small stone from my pocket and handed it to Circe. “While I’m doing this, you can try using this thing.”

“What’s this?” She asked while peering at the dull grey thing in her hand.

“Communications stone, if they have one, it should vibrate when you hold it and speak towards it.”

Circe made a face and spoke down towards her hand, “Uh, anyone hear me over there?”

Meanwhile, the carriage with Niky’s crew was slowly heading towards town, the occasional caw drifting past above as Dhum was happily scouting ahead.

“I feel a buzz in my toolbox. Weird.” Niky said as she opened it and started rummaging around in it.

Sighing to herself, she added, “At least this comes… quite well equipped.”

While she was doing that, I was giving both horses some treats and petting them a bit.

Niky said to herself, “Is this their version of a phone? How do I pick this up even?”

As she touched the stone, Circe’s voice floated up from it.

“Yeah Circe, I can hear you,” she replied back towards it.

“So, what did you get? Mystical powers? Super spicy flame thrower?” Circe asked with curiosity in her voice.

“I got uh… a magical toolbox. And my spellbook.”

“So, magical engineer huh?”

“Guess so,” Niky said, shrugging to herself.

As their wagon entered the village, Circe looked down at the stone and said, “Sooooo… how do I turn this off?”

I yanked it out of her hand and put it into my pouch. “Basically just put it into any container, when it loses skin contact, it goes inert.”

Smiling at Sasha, I opened up my arms as if to encompass the village and said, “Hi all, welcome to… uuuuh…” I shrugged as I said, “I have no idea what this town is called, to be honest.”

Sasha’s voice echoed in all our minds. “We could all just use telepathy you know?”

I chuckled, “Nope, you can use telepathy, that’s a far cry from the rest of us. Besides, if I were you, I’d be careful when I open my mind like that in these parts of the world at night.”

We all felt Sasha smile, but his smile faded as he sensed something making a very big and very toothy smile somewhere else in the landscape around us. He quickly closed his awareness and nodded.

With that discussion tabled, we rode through the small village which had a few respectable houses strewn about, some were situated higher in the hills around. Some even had stairs leading to a second floor on the outside. Finally, we came to a big tunnel that had houses on each side of it like guardians.

Circe wrinkled her nose at it, “ugh, this tunnel smells.”

As if to respond to her, we all saw a small creature growl meekly as it darted inside the tunnel.

When we brought the carriage closer, a few bats shrieked as they came flying out and briefly silhouetted themselves against the moon before vanishing off into the countryside.

I chuckled to myself, clearly my subconscious that was creating this world had a sense of humor about it. As we passed through the dark and damp tunnel, all that we could hear was the footfalls of the horses and the crackling of dried leaves being crushed under the wheels of the wagon.

Once we exited the tunnel, there was another segment of houses that marked the ending of the small town. There was also a small bridge that curved over a narrow river. However, to our surprise, past the bridge, there was also a small beautiful square whose other end faded into a rough country road. What caught our eyes in the moonlight was a beautifully carved marble fountain of a busty woman pouring water out of a big jug hoisted over her shoulder.

As we all got closer to it and started riding around it on both sides, Sasha made a face and veered away from it.

Sasha stopped the wagon and looked at the fountain. “It’s strange, I feel repelled by this fountain somehow.”

Noticing his discomfort, Andrei said, “Are you OK Sasha?”, But then quickly added, “Ah, yes, this aura around it is very strong. I can feel it too now.”

Nodding to myself, it all made sense why this beautiful fountain had been left undisturbed by the creatures lurking in the shadows of the surrounding countryside. I looked over to the group and said, “Does anyone have any empty bottles or something?”

Circe got off her horse laboriously and started rummaging through our saddlebags which had been left alone for the time being. She groaned, “This is VERY unbecoming of a nun you know?”

I smiled back down at her as I made a gesture with my hand and said, “As the Good Book states. ‘pride comes before a fall’, or at least something like that. Haven’t read that thing in decades you know?”

Circe’s face lit up as she pulled out a flask which she uncorked and smelled, she gagged as she quickly corked it again. “That’s nasty, no idea what’s in there.” As she handed it to me for inspection.

I uncorked it again wafted some of the fumes towards my nose, and then immediately recoiled.

“Nothing good, that’s for sure”, I said as I handed over the open bottle to Niky. “Can you identify what’s in this bottle?”

Sasha’s nostrils flared as he gave us all a toothy smile as he licked his teeth. “No need, that’s rancid blood or a humor of sorts from a creature.”

I shrugged as I got the bottle back and rinsed it out in the nearby river with some effort. After a while, I went over to the fountain and filled it to the brim. Then I handed it to Sasha.

“Smell this again, is it safe?”

“Smells like regular water, but please don’t touch me with it. Andrei was right, this fountain does have a strong aura to it.”

I held out a droplet on my finger towards him. “Please, we need to find out if this is the real deal.”

“Find out what?” Circe said with a look that suggested she hadn’t been following our conversation for the last few minutes.

Sasha sighed as he offered up his arm. “Touch there.”

I gently touched him with a tiny droplet which I immediately wiped off with my tunic.

He grunted, “Not fun.”

In the background, Circe made an O face as the other shoe finally dropped for her.

I nodded sympathetically at him as I looked around at the others, “so anyone else have bottles or something to spare?”

After a while of rummaging around in the cart, Niky popped her head out and said, “Found a whole crate of empty beer bottles in a case.”

I looked at her as I said breathlessly, “How many?” And I swear I could almost feel my eyes glittering in the moonlight.

“I think there’s about 24 bottles in here, come check it out!” she said.

I quickly hopped off my horse and crawled into the cramped cart. Niky opened up a small compartment under the seats which held a classic bar crate.

“Guess the boys had a party before we got here.” She said with a grin.

I was about to answer her when we were both interrupted by an old man’s voice ringing out across the square, “What’s this commotion that I hear? Who disturbs the night’s peace? Declare yourselves!”

Reacting instinctively, I tried to stand up straight and hit my head against one of the beams of the cart roof, I groaned as Niky and Kay both laughed at me. Scrambling out of the cart, we all saw that around the left side of the fountain, an old grizzled town guard suddenly came into view. As he had a bit of a limp to his gait, it took him a bit of time to reach our group.

I addressed the guard, “Good Sir! Our apologies, we were just passing through and we’d heard the stories about the legendary holy fountain, I did not think it would be here!”

When I made my way into the light of the square, the guard looked at my pendant and relaxed visibly as he sighed, “Oh a knight of the faith. My mistake, I thought you might be troublemakers.”

He got out an old pipe and lit it with some effort as he puffed out a big plume of smoke. “Had a rash of them recently.”

I nodded at him, “But of course, can’t ever lose your vigilance.” Then I added, “We are heading into dangerous lands and a crate of this holy water would be quite the boon for us. Do we have the Sir’s permission to fill our stores as needed?”

He smiled as he huffed out some smoke through his nose and said, “Yes, of that I can be sure of Sir Knight, or my name isn’t Sham. Besides, ” he added with a smile. “I’m no Sir, merely a lowly squire doing the midnight rounds.”

Scratching my temple, I muttered to myself, “Sham… Sham… where have I heard that name before?”

Sham shook his head, “I assure you Sir Knight, I’m not of noble stock. Just a squire born to parents who were peasants.”

I motioned for the rest to begin filling up the bottles as I walked over to him and reassuringly put my hand on his grizzled leather armored shoulder. “I do not jest when I say that people like you are what keep the citizens safe during nights like these. Sure, this town has the protection of the holy fountain, but able bodies are needed if and when the darkness decides to strike.”

Sham stiffened up a bit, trying of course to hide his emotional response to it, but he gave me a brave smile as he replied, “I’m an old man, I have no deeds befitting of such praise. But I thank ye for the kind words Sir Knight!”

Lowering my voice to a whisper, I said, “Between you and me, this is where the real action happens though, not in the safe and cozy towers of the clergy which we mostly defend.”

(Meanwhile, in the background, Kay and Niky were filling (and corking) the bottles as fast as they could. They noticed a few of them were cracked and that some wouldn’t hold water. So they put those upside down in their holders in case we needed the glass for something else later.)

Sham scoffed at me as he barked out, “Hardly! I bet you have a few stories under your belt though Sir Knight! May I ask you for your name?”

At this time, I felt myself blush as I realized that I’d completely forgotten to introduce ourselves to him. I smiled at him as I said, “I’m Sir Fairen Of The House Of Wonder.”

Sham exhaled another puff of smoke from his pipe and raised his eyebrow, “Never heard of a family name like that.”

Kay smiled at him as she helped Niky load the extremely heavy crate back into the cart and said, “We just call him Mister F for short.”

I shrugged. “I was only inducted a bit less of a decade ago, I’ve mostly been overseas, studying the wonders of the East.”

Sham nodded. “I see, ain’t much wonders here, unless you count the ghoulies and beasties.”

“Well, with the castle nearby, I bet you see all sorts of interesting things around here,” I said, hoping to get some info out of him on what we might face along the trip.

Sham’s eyes went wide as he crossed himself. “Best not to mention that cursed place Sir Knight. Tales say -“

“Tales say that you’ve got the heart of an old woman, hah!”

The terse voice belonged to a man, clearly of noble birth who stepped out from behind Sham. He was wearing a fine shirt and pants along with a dusty brown cape that had seen better days. However, we all recognized the authority that was coming from his attitude. He studied us all with a disdain that only mildly lightened as he caught sight of my pendant.

He scoffed, “Let me guess, you’re a band of ‘adventurers’ here to take in the sights?”

Kay, leaning against the side of the cart smiled at him. “guess you could say that.”

I gave him an authoritative glance as I lowered my tone of voice. “I do not take kindly to strangers butting in on conversations where they are not invited.”

“Hah! Then let me be the nobler one and introduce myself. I am Sir Jeremiah Smith, the lord and commander of this quaint little township.”

Circe smiled sarcastically at him. “Enchanting.”

Jeremiah looked at her and then at the rest of us clearly puzzled. Then he recomposed himself and said, “Well, let me make one thing clear to the lot of you: I expect you to be out of here by sunrise, is that understood?”

Kay smiled at him angelically. “That will be no trouble on our part Sir.”

He scoffed at her, “Our little community does not need such ‘assistance’ as you’re no doubt going to try and offer us.”

When she opened her mouth to snap something back at him, I interrupted her. “Yes, my companion here is right. We were just leaving when we happened upon this glorious artifact of old. But yes, we’ll take our leave now. Blessings upon you Sir Town Guard. And you… lordly one.”

Then we all started heading past them. As Circe led her horse past Sham, she leaned over and gave him a solemn kiss on his bald head. Then she bit her lip and gave Jeremiah such an openly horny smile that we could all see his knees get weak.

I should back at him, “Be careful who you bed melord!” And we all laughed as his face turned beet red as he knew that we’d all seen him taking off his cape to hide the beginnings of an erection.

Andrei grinned. “Evil, I like her.”

Heading up the rough country road, Circe and I, who were on horseback arranged into a loose formation so that we were more or less equal on both sides of the cart. Soon enough we entered a small forested region with dense trees lining the road which winded back and forth through it.

I slowed down my horse and looked at Niky in the back of the cart who was examining one of the bottles of holy water. “You managed to fill all of them?”

Niky shrugged. “two bottles were cracked, rest were good.”

“Damn, that’s 22 bottles, how many centiliters do you think one of these bottles are?”

“20 I think,” she said, still turning the bottle around.

“Interesting, so a bit less than a beer then. That’s really good. That saves us a fortune in holy water.” I said, wondering what we were getting into if the world was already giving us an infinite holy water fountain.

I tossed her my bottle as well which was about double the size. “Add that to your collection too.”

But, she quickly tossed it back to me. “You’ll have to carry it yourself, it doesn’t fit in the crate”

Andrei got up beside her and said, “Hand me one of those, I’ve got to try it too.”

He carefully grazed a small droplet with his fingers and hissed. “OW! That burns!” And then quickly tossed the bottle back to Niky who returned it to the crate.

Suddenly something zipped past the group and hit me on the lower right-hand side of my chest, knocking me off my horse. I tumbled into the ditch, my mind filled with pain as my horse neighed and got up on its hind legs.

“Ah! FUCK!” I yelled out in surprise.

As everybody started to take stock of what had happened, Sasha seemed to vanish into the shadows.

Down in the ditch, I was clutching the arrow, feeling where it had penetrated through my armor. And with a sickening feeling, I realized that it had gone limp and that it was squirming. Feeling the full extent of body horror, I immediately reached for my bottle of holy water, uncorked it, and poured it onto the writhing mass that with a hissing noise started to pull themselves out of the wound. With disgust, I grabbed as many of the small snakes as I could and tossed them as far away as I could muster. But the dullness in my body already told me that the damage was done. I was definitely poisoned.

I yelled up towards the others, “WATCH OUT! WE’VE GOT A MEDUSA!” as several more of the snake projectiles hit the right side of the wagon.

More arrows followed almost immediately, and one of the four horses attached to the cart was hit in the throat. With a deep sense of horror, everyone in the cart watched as the bundle of snakes aggressively squirmed inside the wound into the horse. Within seconds, the horse shivered and made a grunting sound as its mouth filled with bloodied foam and it collapsed onto the ground, very much dead. On Andrei’s signal, those in the cart jumped out of it and took refuge on the left side of it.

At this point, we were setting up our RPG system for a fight, so naturally, I quickly sketched an MSpaint picture of the area we were in and posted it:

Forcing himself to stay calm, Andrei poked out his head and scanned the general direction of where the arrows had come from, but the only thing he could see was a brief flash of the moonlight glinting off what seemed to be scales moving about in the shadows.

Circe also peered into the darkness but quickly jumped off her horse and dashed to join the group. “I can’t see shit in this damn darkness.” Then she summoned her familiar, a disembodied hand which quickly scurried off somewhere out of sight.

Having gotten up, I managed to crawl/limp/creep up the side of the road. Seeing this, Andrei hissed at me, “Wait, you can walk?”

I grinned at him as I winced in pain. “Yeah, barely.”

“Then why the hell did we all exit the cart for? We were going to get you since we didn’t think you’d be able to move yourself!”

“That’s about as much as I can move now, I’m done,” I said as I sank to the ground, trying to keep myself concealed as much as I could behind the wheels.

After some deliberation, we all agreed that Kay would help me into the cart first, and then the others would pile in behind us while Sasha would run up to the front of the cart and uncouple the dead horse. Then he’d signal our horses and theirs to simply RUN by sending them a telepathic panic signal.

And it all pretty much went according to plan. But, as Sasha got the cart moving and spooked all the horses into running for their lives, my horse, sped out in front and was shot down immediately by a barrage of arrows coming from the shadows. However, my horse, serving as a distraction, enabled the three remaining horses of the carriage and Circe’s horse to escape unscathed.

Hearing my horse go down made me yell out in anger, but Kay quickly muffled me as she whispered, “Quiet.”

When she removed her hand, I coughed up some blood and said, “Keep your hands away from me, we don’t know if my blood is dangerous to you all now. This is very, very bad.”

Niky looked at me sternly as she pulled out her book and flipped to the page with the healing spell that she cast as she touched the sides of my wound. Then she handed me a bottle of holy water. “Drink this, just to be safe.”

I wasn’t going to argue with her, so I drank half the bottle which tasted like the best water I’d ever had. Second, by second I felt my strength return as the wound closed itself up. The poisoned blood around the wound simply evaporated into a red mist and was swept away by the wind instantly.

I took a deep breath, not feeling anything hurting as I nodded to Niky. “Thank you, that was really fucking painful.”

She shrugged, “just doing my job.”

I handed her the bottle. “Now, since you touched the wound, you should have the rest of this, just to be safe. This world isn’t pulling its punches.”

“I’m fine,” she said as she put the half-filled bottle back into the crate.

“I wanna have a sip,” Circe said as she motioned to pick up the half-filled bottle. But the moment her fingers touched the moist side of it, it burnt her fingers and she recoiled them, hissing.

“WHAT?! But I’m not a devil!”

I chuckled, “You are a reformed succubus though. Still counts.”

Andrei smirked at her as he looked away from the forest vanishing behind our cart. “Bingo.”

And with that, the cart sped further down the road with the country around us now being grassy hills, gravel, rocks, and the occasional dried and bare tree. As the moon was illuminating the landscape again, the horses kept charging into the darkness, eager to put as much distance as they could between us and the being that had lurked in the forest.

But, soon enough clouds started obscuring the moon and we slowed down the cart to scout for a good campsite to hole up for the night. As Andrei and Sasha peered out into the darkness, Niky patched up my wound with some rags she found in another crate as she’d noticed that I kept touching my wound, expecting something inside to squirm.

Soon enough they’d located a few bigger rocks that formed a decent semi-circle with some gaps in-between. Sasha made quick work of pitching the big tent and at this point, I asked everyone (as a sort of DM) if they had anything else they wanted to do before we ended the session.

So, we agreed that we’d handwave us doing the usual things like feeding and inspecting the horses (and setting them free to graze). We also cooked some food (and I made sure we all detracted the rations from our inventories)

Circe, remembering her succubus nature, snuck off to jill off a few times before bed, which is something I scribbled down as well. What I also noted down was that Sasha, despite being told that he was a half vampire didn’t go hunting or drink any blood during the day.

As we fell asleep in our backpacks, bags, and blankets, we had no idea that it would be weeks and months before we’d return to this place.

And that wraps up the first session of our RPG adventures in Dracula’s world. If you made it all the way down here, thanks for taking an interest in reading this! While I’ve stripped out most of the technical discussion and all the dice rolls, I have some plans for maybe putting up a Patreon with the “behind the scenes” talk that usually gets edited out between tulpas and hosts. But for now, just know that about 40% of all the raw discussion in any given adventure is just us bickering and trying to figure out how stuff works really.

As always, I’m your scribe.

– Wondrous Fairy