Hi everyone!

We’re continuing the Dracula macrocosm adventure that began [at an Inn] a few weeks ago. So, if you’re feeling a bit lost, I suggest you start with the previous installment.

Players for this session are:

A big yellowish moon in the skies above was illuminating our camp in a faded golden light as we all surveyed the damage. In terms of real-life time, it’d been months since we last visited this macrocosm, and time as it seemed, had NOT stopped. It looked like a whirlwind had torn through everything.

Peeking through a hole in our tent, Circe frowned. “Something tore into our stuff, that’s for sure.”

Meanwhile, back in the gallery of worlds, Mech and Colleen went through the doorway to the macrocosm. They had wanted to be with us the last time, but due to a prior engagement, they’d been unable to join when we started. They found themselves exiting an old tomb located in the middle of a huge necropolis. Glancing around the immediate area, all they could see were countless gravestones, markers, and other buildings of the dead. Further beyond those, grass-covered hills had the occasional marker as well.

Sasha was investigating things around the camp when he stopped suddenly. “Wait. Do… the others know about our nature?” He paused pensively, “because, uh, with how hungry I am, it’s painfully obvious what I am now.”

I looked up at him and noticed that yes, his face was now slightly gaunt, his eyes that previously had just a dull hint of red now had a pronounced glow. “Don’t worry about it, they know, I gave them the cliff’s notes from the last session, they’ve got a general idea of what’s happened.”

Sasha looked down at his hands, then clenched them into fists. “On the flip side, I DO feel stronger, so there’s that.”

Kay smirked at him. “So, how come you don’t need a sarcophagus or something?”

Sasha was about to deliver a scathing reply when I interrupted him, “Well, how about you pack up the tents? I’m not a fan of traveling at night you know,” I said to him.

“Da, let’s get moving,” Andrei agreed, clearly feeling uneasy with the hills and stones surrounding our camp.

As I saw Sasha efficiently take down the tents in mere minutes, it dawned on me how they’d all managed to pack up their camp so fast the last time. Vampire celerity of course! While he didn’t have the full potential of a vampire, the speed at which he moved definitely gave me something to consider for if, or when, we’d run into the real thing.

While the rest of the party packed up their gear, I focused on the crate that had, for some reason, had its bottles with holy water strewn about the cart. None of the bottles had been broken, so whoever had examined the crate had probably felt the aura and wisely avoided breaking them open.

Suddenly the silence was shattered by Circe yelling, “WHERE THE FUCK ARE OUR HORSES?”

I peeked my head out of the cart and looked at her standing in front of the cart. I shrugged, “well, we’ve established that the world moves on without us now at least.”

Sasha looked towards some grassy plains, “I think the horses are that way, being horses.”

“Can you… call for them maybe?”

Sasha smiled, his face looking very pale. “I can… feel their heartbeats.” Then he started humming a low tune that undulated in a strange way.

A few moments later, we all heard some footfalls and excited neighing as two of the horses came rushing back. One seemed unscathed, the other one had a mostly healed scar on his side.

When no more horses came back, I turned to Sasha. “That’s all of them?”

Sasha nodded, “Yes, those are the only ones I hear. The others are either too far away or…”

The grim reality settled on the group as we all realized that in the span of two sessions, we’d lost four of our six horses to one encounter and one overnight rest.

Circe sighed, “It’s gonna be a cramped cart… unless…” She closed her eyes and quietly focused.

Meanwhile, Sasha was petting the horse with the scar, making sure it wasn’t having any other issues. “Oh yeah, you can definitely ride, can’t you, boy?”

I looked at Circe, who was now glowing slightly blue, “Circe, maybe you should’n—”

Everybody took a step back as something started to work its way up through the soft soil. First, we saw a hint of bone, and then more started to unearth itself as a giant skeletal horse dug itself out of the soil and shook off the mounds of dirt clinging to it.

Circe opened her eyes as the blue aura surrounding her faded, “Oh fuck, that’s… not a spirit animal.”

It sidled up next to her and made a hissing sound, which caused the two horses to run away in panic.

Sasha ran after them shouting various profanities as the rest of us just stood there and stared at the creepy skeletal behemoth in front of us.

“So, necromantic powers, that’s new,” I said with a hint of surprise in my voice.

“I… uh… don’t think it’s finished yet,” Circe replied sheepishly.

Circe put her hand on the horse’s frame which started filling out with organs, skin, muscles, sinew, and blood. Soon enough, it even grew a nice coat and the tail filled out as well. Now it looked just like a very big horse, albeit pitch black.

Kay shook her head, “Hellraiser much?”

Niky took refuge behind Andrei as I looked at it closer.

“There’s something… off about this horse,” I said as I examined it closer, not finding anything out of the ordinary.

As I was reaching out to touch it, Circe grabbed my hand, “I don’t think anyone but me should be touching this horse, to be honest. But it seems normal enough right?”

Andrei scoffed, “Not with those eyes no, they’re as black as a moonless midnight in Siberia. They don’t reflect any light.”

Meanwhile, Sasha showed up again with the two horses now tethered to a rope. However, as they both moved past the black horse, it made a strange and very non-horse-sounding grunt, which again spooked everyone.

I backed away immediately and got into the cart. “I’ll stay in here, keep that fucking thing away from me, that’s not even remotely natural.”

Even Andrei seemed unnerved as he snarked back, “you don’t say?!”

Sasha quickly secured the two remaining horses to the cart and got into the driver’s seat. “Everyone, get in the cart before that abomination does something else.”

The rest of the group kept their eyes trained on the magic horse as they joined us inside the cart.

Circe grinned as she hopped onto it and said, “lead!” And to our surprise, a loop of sinew appeared to grow into some kind of lead that she grabbed onto. In her hands, it soon transformed into something that looked more natural.

Sasha shook his head dismissively at her, “you go first, or you’ll just spook them again.”

Circe’s smile grew almost satanic as she spurred the horse on and charged into the night. I shivered as I saw it move in ways a horse absolutely shouldn’t be moving.

Sasha also got the horses and the cart moving forward at a decent pace as he sang a different kind of tune this time to the horses.

I leaned out of the tarp covering the cart as I joked, “Sasha, I didn’t know you were vampire Legolas too!”

Sasha smiled as he kept the horses going steadfastly forward. “I don’t have a bow. But I’m good with animals.”

I ducked back into the cart. “So, everyone else has all their gear?”

“Yes, I’ve got everything,” replied Andrei.

Kay also replied, “same, but it feels like my leather armor is a bit darker than it was last time. Maybe it’s just my imagination.”

Sasha nodded, “I wasn’t going to say anything, but I thought my gear looked more worn as well.”

Andrei looked out towards the road. “Sasha, don’t lose track of her, that horse is blacker than pitch.”

Sasha grunted, “oh I see her alright, and I can smell it too. Don’t worry.”

Niky drew a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves a bit.

Andrei, seeing the tension in her, asked gently, “hey, you OK kiddo?”

She nodded, “that horse she rode away on. It’s…”

“Unnatural, that’s the only word to describe it,” I said.

“Da. Undead. Lots of weird stuff happening here. Starting with Sasha’s appearance, or…” And here Andrei let his hood down as his eyes glinted briefly with something resembling fire.

Kay added, “don’t worry, the moment that horse turns on us, my bolt will find his heart immediately.”

Meanwhile, further down the road between the graves in front of a mausoleum, Mech was looking up towards the road. Colleen was leaning impatiently against a tall gravestone.

“Soo… they’re takin’ their bloody sweet toime.”

Mech nodded, “indeed. They will be here eventually.” Looking around the place, he added, “I do not remember this from any vampire lore I have seen Fairy partake of.”

“Aye, this is damn old. Most o’ these graves haven’t got any writin’ on ’em.” She wrinkled her nose, “Wots that weird, sweet smell?”

Mech readied his big sledgehammer, as Circe, laughing manically seemed to burst out of the shadows. Relieved, he let his guard down.

“Circe?” Mech said as he suspiciously studied the horse, no doubt sensing the demonic aura of it.

She smiled down at his reaction, “yeah, meet my new horse, it’s a pet!”

Collen, unconsciously gripping her staff tighter, walked in a half circle around the horse. “That is not fekkin’ natural.”

The rest of us at this point had now caught up with them as the cart rolled out and stopped as soon as Sasha changed his tune a bit.

Suddenly Colleen’s staff brightened, which caused Circe’s horse to get on its hindlegs and throw her off. As she brusquely landed on the hard road, the horse melted into a puddle of tar-like substance.

“Motherfucker!” Circe exclaimed.

Meanwhile, Sasha shied away from the light, yelling, “HEY! watch it, some of us are allergic to the light, okay?!?!”

Colleen looked at her staff and then back to both of them as she made a face, “Uh… damn… that was… I just reacted!”

As she looked at her staff, she recoiled a bit as the formerly mundane staff now looked like it was made out of fine polished wood with a beautifully wrought crescent copper moon crowning it. However, her clothes seemed like they’d been when she’d entered, a mundane-looking monk’s outfit with a hood, and a few metallic trinkets dangling as she moved.

Mech moved closer and we could see that he appeared also mostly as himself, except he was dressed in what appeared to be simple farmers’ clothing. In his hands was what appeared to be a normal sledgehammer meant for work. On his back, he had a heavy-duty rucksack as well. We could also see an intricate network of tattoos as his sleeves were rolled up.

In the distance, a loud caw was heard, which got Kay on alert. “Watch it. Something is on the horizon.”

Meanwhile, Circe had gotten up and was rubbing her back, “you killed my damn horse!”

Colleen stared daggers at her, “That lass, was no horse. That was somethin’ else.”

Sasha, having recovered, grinned at her, “we’re all something else… more or less.”

Kay, with her eyes peeled to the sky, scoffed at him, “speak for yourself.”

“At least you have a crossbow,” Sasha scoffed back.

“Yes, but I’m better with knives.”

I looked at Mech’s sledgehammer, “Did you retain your shotgun somehow?”

He slowly shook his head, “it does not seem to have followed me.”

“So, one less projectile user then,” I said grimly.

“Hey, I can sort of set things on fire you know,” Andrei said, flexing his fingers jokingly.

I sighed, “Colleen, does your magic work like it normally does?”

Another distant caw interrupted her before she answered, “no, this is very strange ta say the least.” She closed her eyes for a bit, focusing, and then opened them again and huffed a bit. “The lands here don’t talk ta me like back home. I’m not feelin’ a connection to them.”

Kay looked worried as she scanned the sky for Dhum, “I don’t like the sound of him, there’s something out there. No doubt thirsty for blood. We really should get moving.”

Andrei snarked, “you sure it’s not us?”

I shrugged my shoulders too, “there’s tons of things out there lurking in the shadows Kay.”

Kay shook her head, “he hasn’t warned me like this before, he’s called twice, he’s seen something.”

“Yeah, but let’s first address the big issues here,” I said, then I added, “one, we don’t have our powers or weapons, secondly, we lost all but two horses already. Mech and Colleen don’t have any either. That’s going to hamper our speed quite a bit.”

Kay impatiently said, “Yes, but can we discuss the finer qualities of that while we’re on the ro—”

With a loud crash, one of the double doors leading to a mausoleum behind us was thrown open.

“Too late,” she said through gritted teeth.

From inside the darkened doorway, we could all hear an oily, thick voice chuckle darkly to itself.

Circe grunted, “well shit.”

In the distance, Dhum cawed an additional two times, repeating his warning.

At this point, Kay readied her crossbow and climbed on top of the cart, precariously balancing on top of it.

Circe’s grin turned feral as, holding up her hands, she saw her nails growing longer into crooked, terrible claws. Throwing back her hood, her now blackened hair undulated out behind her. “Oh, this creature won’t be a problem.”

At this point, I set up our system with a crudely drawn map and positioned everyone on the board.

[MAUSOLEUM FIGHT MAP GOES HERE]

Out from the building, a strange creature with smooth, taut, and shiny skin emerged. Jagged teeth crowded its mouth.

“Food… yes… food… so… long,” it slowly intoned, almost like it was unaccustomed to speaking at all.

On the creature’s head, there were a few strands of hair. Its tattered clothing a torn shirt and some remnants of pants– hung oddly from its deformed body. What had probably been a noble’s cloak judging by its purple coloration, was draped over its shoulders.

Circe’s eyes widened with excitement as she flexed her claws, “what IS this thing?”

No sooner had she said that, before the creature ran up to Mech and attempted to grab onto him. But Mech was faster and sidestepped it which caused it to run past him a bit.

Andrei focused his gaze on the creature and for a brief moment, his eyes flared up and the creature suddenly burst into flames.

But instead of going into a panic as we all expected it to do, it just lumbered around and silently stared at Andrei while the flames kept licking its body.

Andrei, keeping his gaze on the creature, slowly moved out of the way and behind the cart.

“What the hell is this creature?” I said.

Having gotten a running start, Circe zipped past us growling, “I know what it is, DEAD!” As she slashed at the creature’s torso.

However, her attack didn’t connect, as the creature grabbed hold of her arm and threw her sideways onto the ground with a grin.

“Oof! It’s fast!” She grunted as she hit the ground and recovered instantly.

Having no idea what I was doing at the time, I stretched out one hand as I grabbed my pendant, trying to somehow channel something through it. A moment passed, as nothing happened, I looked down at it. “Fuck! WHY won’t you work!?”

As if to answer me, we all heard howling in the far distance, but not from a wolf.

Kay, deciding that she wanted to get close and personal with the creature, rushed past me with her bastard sword and swung at it. But as before, the creature simply side-stepped her attack and then took a swing back at her.

Distancing herself from it, it grinned through the flames which were starting to die down a bit as it grumbled, “mmm nice smell… from all of you.” And here it made a short guttural sound. “Tasty.”

Then it focused on the ground and seemingly lost its trail of thought for a moment before it looked up at us again and seemingly remembered what it was doing. “Yeeeeeesssss…”

Mech had taken the opportunity to run up behind it and hit its back with his sledgehammer. The impact was so strong that the creature reeled a bit. As Mech’s hammer connected, it lit up briefly in an orange color as previously hidden runes along the shaft lit up. The strike itself had a sort of fiery glow to it. The creature glanced at Mech and grunted wetly before it resumed focusing on Kay.

Niky, seeing her opening then blasted it with her arcane flamethrower which didn’t seem to do much but just rekindled the blaze it was standing in. The creature didn’t flinch for a second as it remained fixated on Kay.

Sasha then raised his hands just barely past his head and his wrists opened briefly as several small bursts of blood emerged and struck at the creature. The effect of the blood hitting the creature surprised all of us as it howled in pain, clutching its chest, and staggered back from the impact.

My eyes widened as I looked at Sasha who shrunk down a bit and got down on his knee, I rushed over to him, “Are you alright? That was blood magic!”

Sasha chuckled, “and here I thought my staff would be the focal point… ow.”

Meanwhile, in the distance, we heard yet another caw from Dhum which made us all glance around the area nervously.

The creature, now having recovered, started rushing into all of us, swinging wildly. While Mech and Circe managed to dodge its slashes, Kay got hit along with Sasha. However, when Sasha’s blood stained its clawed hands, steam began to rise from them as the creature frantically buried its hands into the soil, attempting to get the blood off.

“Filthy… FILTHY!!!!” It roared out in pain as it got up and backed away from Sasha.

Andrei, again focusing his will on the creature, set it ablaze again. As before, the fire didn’t seem to affect it up until the point where it reached its hands. When it did, the creature again bellowed in pain and tried to shake off the fire, clearly hurt by it.

Circe sensing its weakness, rushed past and raked at it with both her claws, yelling “CROSS AND CUT ahahahahah!” She stopped a few paces away and licked the creature’s ichor off her claws, she made a sour face and spat it out. “Bitter…”

Colleen raised her staff, but when nothing happened, she cursed and rushed the creature, smacking the staff into the side of its head. The crescent moon broke off from the staff and buried itself into the scalp and started to glow red hot. The creature again, seemed affected by it and grunted as it managed to swipe it off a few seconds later.

Moving behind it, I swiped at it with my shortsword which opened a fresh gash into its back, causing it to turn around, now mewling with pain as it seemed to have been permanently weakened by Sasha’s blood.

Meanwhile, Kay had loaded up her crossbow and hit a bolt that penetrated deep into its left shoulder. Hissing and growling, it swerved around again, then pulled out the bolt along with a sizable chunk of its flesh, and threw it on the ground.

It didn’t have much time to recover as Mech went in for another hammer swing, it pushed him back just as Niky smacked its head with her staff, causing it to reel back.

“Paaaaain,” it now groaned.

Things it seemed, had taken a turn for the better. But it wasn’t to last as a strange howl dissolving into laughter suddenly echoed around all of us as pale figures started emerging from the darkness all around us.

[Insert board status here showing the creatures]

The creatures had pale skin, definite female bodies, six arms, and a sort of ethereal, wispy ghost-like quality to them. As they closed in on us, we could see them smile lustfully while they all chuckled disturbingly.

Sasha, reacting instinctively, swung both his swords at the creature who dodged the first swing, but managed to catch the second blade with its hand. As the blade cut into its hand, it howled as now its hand was severely mangled and bleeding profusely. Letting go of the blade, the creature swung back towards Sasha but only managed to splatter him with its blood that was oozing from the new wound.

Sasha smiled demonically as he was hit on the chest and face, he licked some of the bitter blood, while it didn’t nourish him, it certainly made him feel good.

Meanwhile, the wispy women converged on Mech, their athletic, alluring bodies pressing at him from all sides. As they started covering him with kisses everywhere, he swiped out at some of them with his hammer, but his attacks seemed pointless as all they did was temporarily make them blink out and vanish momentarily.

The creature, already in a defensive position, grinned as it looked past everyone and jumped towards Andrei, trying to strike him as it was coming down on him. Andrei was only a fraction faster than the creature as he just barely dodged the fist coming down. All the creature hit though was dirt.

The horses, having been relatively spooked the whole encounter, now seemed like they were going to panic as the creature was now uncomfortably close to them. Sasha, sensing their budding panic, started singing a lilting song that calmed their minds.

Andrei, now trying to get away from the creature, ran towards Mech, intending to cast a circle of fire to deter the wisps clustered around him. But what came out was mostly something like a fireball that hit one of the wisps straight on. As she turned towards him, her entire body was engulfed in flames as she stared at him mournfully, and then she shrieked as the flames consumed her in an instant.

Andrei grimly said, “see you in hell,” as he grinned with satisfaction.

The other wisps centered their attention on him, hatred shining out of their eyes instead of lust. Circe, dashing in towards them swiped at one of them with her claws, but the wisp, now aware that we weren’t just random travelers was ready for it and dodged them. Then the wisp planted a kiss on Circe’s mouth, clearly intending to attack her in the same way as they tried to do with Mech.

However, then something unexpected happened as the wisp’s body coalesced into a solid corporeal naked female form. Circe, clearly enjoying the kiss, pulled her closer and intensified it to the wisp’s alarm. For the next several seconds, Circe hungrily kissed the wisp that had no choice but to return her kisses, being completely enraptured by her charms. Then the wisp suddenly went limp as Circe let go of her, letting her dead body fall to the ground with a solid thud.

Circe grinned lustfully. “Mmm, now that was a kiss!” as she turned towards the remaining wisp and beckoned it closer with a finger. “Come little one, let deary show you how it’s done…”

“Come on ya fekkin bugger, WERK!” Colleen yelled as she was trying to cast a spell at the remaining wisp. When her broken staff failed to do anything, she broke the remaining part of it over her knee and threw it away, then raised her hands instead. Nothing happened for a few seconds until a ray of pure white light (that blinded most of us momentarily) shot out from between her hands and struck the remaining wisp that was enveloped in a dazzling bright light.

When the light faded, the beautiful wisp had turned corporeal, but its skin was wrinkled with advanced age and its eye sockets were empty as it stared at Colleen in surprise.

Sasha, blinded and narrowly hit by Colleen’s massive beam, turned towards her and hissed, “can you be CAREFUL with that light?!”

Colleen smiled sheepishly. “Sorry! I had to blast that dam woman-thing! She wos KISSING ME GUY!”

Kay during this exchange, had snuck around the wagon and smiled grimly as she aimed her crossbow at the creature and fired. The bolt hit straight into the neck of the creature as it gurgled and pulled it out, this time, an even bigger chunk of flesh came off with the arrow. Blood poured out of the fresh wound, but along with it also came maggots and insects that no doubt had made the body their home.

Mech, now having recovered, swung his hammer sideways at the remaining wisp, hitting her head and severing it cleanly off the body. As the head rolled a bit and came to rest against the side of the mausoleum, the rest of the body turned into black ash.

Grunting to himself, Mech tried to get the kissing marks off his arms and torso, but he had very little success with that.

Sasha glanced at Andrei who nodded back at him and on his cue, they peppered the creature who was now looking really beat up with a combination of blood missiles and fire. Niky, having readied her arcane flamethrower, joined in as she let out a big flame towards it.

The creature simply exploded into a fiery ball of maggots, insects, and black viscera that burned hot, most of it hit Andrei and some of the black viscera absorbed into his skin, healing some of his injuries.

“I feel stronger than ever now, perhaps even more than I was before. This is going to come in handy,” he said while grinning fiendishly.

Colleen, having collapsed into a heap, looked around to make sure everyone was alright. “Sooo, it’s bloody over now?”

Circe, having retracted her claws and now appearing like any other nun again, sighed with relief as she nodded to her.

Heading over towards Andrei, I grasped my pendant as my vision went into that ultra-sharp-enhanced state. From around him, I could see the outline of a black aura, and around Circe a similar, but less intense one. Looking at Sasha, I didn’t see much, which surprised me.

“You know, had that stuff hit anyone else than you Andrei, they’d probably be in trouble.”

Andrei grunted in satisfaction, “Sasha would have liked it too. He’s into blood you know?”

Circe groaned as she got back up and helped Colleen stand as well. “I don’t know about all of you, but I could really go for a camping site right about now.”

Niky nodded tiredly as she put away her flame thrower, “Yeah I could go for some sleep.”

Andrei, surveying the mausoleum smiled appreciatively, “why not camp inside the tomb? It’s now VERY empty da?”

I chuckled, “camping in a graveyard city? I guess, hopefully there isn’t anything else in there.”

“I mean, it’s a defensible place,” replied Andrei.

Kay stepped closer to the big doors, she smelled the decay coming out of them as if to greet her. “Or a perfect place to get trapped in. I say, the Omen has spoken… we should get moving. I’m sure we can sleep in the cart.”

Andrei looked thoughtful as he added, “he has been quiet as of late, hasn’t he?”

“Yes, but he saw something, we should move.” She replied as she kept scanning the area around the doors with a critical gaze.

Circe looked at Andrei, “I vote yes for creepy grave camp. Besides, since SOMEONE killed my damn horse, we’re kind of stranded here I think.”

“Who’s… omen?” I said, feeling like I was missing part of the discussion.

Kay smiled, “Dhum.”

I nodded, “Ooohh… right. So everyone, let’s vote, who’s in favor of staying here?”

Circe, Colleen, Mech, Sasha, and Kay, all raised their hands.

“Oim bloody knackered,” Colleen added.

I nodded, “I vote to move as well, so let’s get go-,” as before when the enhanced spell vision ended, my vision also cut out at the same time. “Fuck, I’m blind again, can somebody… uh… lead me to the cart?”

As Circe unexpectedly grabbed my hand, I yelped.

She giggled, “oh stop being such a baby. Come, old man, let me show you to the cart.”

She then led me to the cart (smirking the whole time) where I still proceeded to bump my head into the wood as I was climbing up into it. She also got into the back, making sure I didn’t stumble on anything inside.

Andrei laughed as he quipped, “you could carry him in your strong arms, you know, like an old baby!”

Having sat down, I furrowed my brows, “Wait, we’re… too many people for this cart aren’t we?”

Sasha, having gotten back into the driver’s seat, leaned back in.”Nah. it’ll go slower than before, but we can do it.”

I groaned, “if some of us walk, we’ll be a sitting duck for even more creatures. Damn, if we only had one of those hut spells like DnD does.” As unexpectedly as before, my vision changed back to its normal state again.”Circe, can you summon more horses like the one you had?”

Circe shook her head, “I tried before during the fight, I’m guessing that was either a once-off or something I can probably only do at full strength.”

Sasha pointed to the horses in front of the cart, “the less tired people can ride on the horses. I’ll be in the driver’s seat, someone else — who’s not too big— can ride by my side if needed.”

“Aye, I’ll be on yer side then,” Colleen said as she slowly got helped up beside him.

“Wouldn’t you rather sleep inside?” he said to her. But she just shook her head as she leaned tiredly against him.

After Mech and Circe had mounted the horses and the rest had piled into the cart, I looked out to Sasha and said, “you know, I think we could have fit all inside of here.”

Sasha, as before, started humming a tune that got the horses resolutely moving, they were no doubt happy to be going away from this place as much as we were.

Heading down the long road that winded through the expansive necropolis, we all remained very quiet. Mech and Circe in the front kept a close guard and made sure nothing disturbed us. As the cart quietly rolled past the numerous buildings, it had gotten a lot darker and the moon was shining brightly overhead. Circe was the first one to spot the lights moving around the tombs and graves and pointed them out to Sasha who quietly informed us in the cart. After that, we saw them numerous times, but fortunately for us, they didn’t seem very interested in pursuing us.

Colleen, having fallen asleep against Sasha’s shoulder, softly began to snore a bit.

As we rolled out of the necropolis and into the green hills beyond, Sasha spotted a figure in the dark and alerted us. But as we got closer, we saw that it was a man in monk robes, his face obscured by the shadows. When we passed him, he merely bowed in respect. Sasha bowed back to him in respect but stopped the horses immediately when the mysterious monk suddenly vanished into thin air.

Circe leaned down and eyed the terrain, “what the hell was that?”

Mech, having now gotten off his horse, slowly walked over to where the monk had stood and retrieved what seemed to be a sizable head of garlic, except it was made out of some kind of highly reflective metal. He shrugged as he returned to the back of the cart and handed it over to Niky who leaned out to get it. “Curious. Perhaps you can figure out what this does.”

“I’ll see what I can do, ” she said as she focused on the object with her detection spell and then added, “magic. Lots of it. Can’t tell you much more than that. It seems to be hiding its true nature for some reason.”

I smiled as I looked at it, “oh subconscious, that’s a subtle piece of business isn’t it? That’s silver that it’s made of.”

“What do you mean?”

“In one of the old games about Dracula, there was a graveyard where you could sacrifice a head of garlic to get a silver knife from a hooded character.” I mused to myself, “subconscious, what are you up to this time?” as I knew that when things like these happened in any of our worlds, it was definitely something to take note of.

Suddenly streaking out from the sky, Dhum cawed excitedly as he tried to grab the item from Niky’s hands, no doubt attracted by its shiny quality.

Kay shouted at him, “SHOOO!!! NO!” as he gave up and flew off into the shadows.

Colleen, having woken up from the shouting, mumbled tiredly, “wots this bloody racket about?” as she looked up at Sasha with bleary eyes.

“Don’t worry, just go back to sleep, it’s all fine.” He murmured back at her as she nodded and settled against his shoulder again.

I held out my hand towards Niky, “Can you hand me that? I want to take a closer look at it.” As she handed me the object, I turned it around in my hand a bit, shaking my head in disbelief.

Sasha, starting the horses again said, “just don’t get it too close to me. It stinks of garlic.”

“Huh?” I smelled the item which didn’t really give off any scent at all to me. “I think you’re just hallucinating.”

“No, I’m not, that thing positively REEKS of garlic. Clearly, it’s some kind of holy artifact.”

I examined the item a bit more, but couldn’t really find any mechanism to open or activate it, so I handed it back to Niky who put it away into her toolkit.

Kay, having stayed silent for a bit, offered, “maybe it’s something we’re supposed to give to the count in exchange for the sword?”

I chuckled, “oh no no no, we do NOT want to run into whatever this world would create as the count. Not even a little bit. We’d probably be dead before we knew what’d happened. Or worse. I mean, the drunkard certainly painted a vivid picture.”

Circe added, “the drunk’s story about the jewels has me convinced, I don’t wanna meet the guy.”

Kay gave me a curious glance. “What do you mean? You met a drunkard?”

At this point, I realized that I hadn’t told them about [The Drunkard’s Story], so I quickly filled everybody in on what had been told to us in the first inn. Much like the first time the story was told, everyone was pretty quiet when it ended.

Then Andrei sighed and wearily said, “yup, we’re dead alright.” Then he looked over at Circe and shook his head. “Circe, are you sure you want a cursed sword that tries to kill you in your sleep?”

Circe laughed, “oh I’ve had plenty of cursed things. Like this dress here that absorbs blood.”

Kay stared daggers at everyone. “No, I know how this goes. We gotta make a deal. like Andrei did once.” Then she smirked at Circe, “come on, don’t you wanna be his personal succubus?”

Circe chuckled, “sorry, I’m already taken,” as she grinned in a lurid way.

“Oh, are you now my dear?” She spat back at her.

“I already have all the male lords I’ll ever need,” Circe said as she teasingly bit her lower lip and winked at me.

“Easy. Don’t provoke her,” Andrei joked at Kay who giggled.

Then we all quieted down once again as the story and our experiences today were still weighing heavily on us all. Colleen kept snoring away, oblivious to the world around her until Circe and Mech notified us that they could see what looked like a ruin in the distance. As the wagon steadily made progress, the ruin turned out to be a house that seemed like it was still pretty sturdy.

After dismounting the cart from the horses and inspecting the house itself, we made some make-shift repairs with the debris we found inside and then gathered some wood, and lit a fire outside of it. (We didn’t dare light the fire indoors.)

As before, we realized that if there was any significant time between now and our next session, it would be better to keep the horses free. Dozing off in front of the warm fire reflecting some heat into the place, we all felt more or less ready to call it a night.

In real life, it was late for both me and Niky, so we decided that in the interest of roleplaying, we would take shifts throughout the night just to see what went on in the land outside. This, of course, happened in accelerated time, because there was no way we were going to do this in real time. Other than a few wolves skulking around, there was nothing of importance that happened during the night. When the sun started rising again to a cold and clammy morning, our last couple of guards Sasha and Andrei, woke the rest of us up.

We then prepared the place for a long period of inactivity as we tried to hide the cart as much as we could behind the ruins and we ensured that everything was packed away as well.

Colleen smiled as she now noticed Mech still had those kiss marks from the wispy women and said, “Me lad, before we head off to bed, maybe we should be gettin’ those lovely kisses off ya?”

Mech seemed bothered as he replied, “Ah yes, those, I did try to clean them off you know.”

She barked out a laugh. “Obviously, who would want kisses from sexeh ethereal women on their body?”

And with that, we all called it a day and ended the session. But I bet I wasn’t the only one who was wondering what would happen between this session and the next.

Either way, thanks for reading this far, I hope you’re all liking the story so far. Any and all comments are always appreciated by everyone!

As always, I’m your chronicler.

– Wondrous Fairy