The heroes prepare to enter into the tower but first take time to regroup and ward off attacks and threats. In the middle of the night, a strange event is witnessed...

from a photo by Paul Underwood on Unsplash

+1 Luck, each, for finding the key. Derron is back up to 9. Faruin is back up to 8.

I finally have an idea that makes me chuckle about [WIZARD] and [TOWER]. A hint towards that will show up at the end of this one.

BUT FIRST, two cards to see what happens in the night after they free the town...

  • 65 - 4D3 Skeletons. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. But these are "indifferent" and doing a task [digging a grave it says, we'll bank that].
  • 215 - 1d6+2 Skeletons. FRIENDLY. Wanting to perform a play.

So... let's do this Doctor Who style. Sort of. An invading force takes over a small (Dutch) town, they must digging for resources. Now that the party has THE EYE, the skeletons do not see them as threats. Because...yeah, I got this.

Some quick questions:

  • Is there anyone in town that can sell armor to Faruin? (50/50) → 55. A random event. Hmm. Ok... 39 Heavy 95 Stylish. There is not an armor shop there, but some old [heavy, ornate] armor can be loaned to protect the town. Something that will be too heavy for her.
  • Has [WIZARD] been spotted? (50/50) → 04. Exceptional Yes. Someone distinct, then.
  • Is [WIZARD] human? (50/50) → 56. No.
  • Let's pull one additional card to get a vibe for what [WIZARD] looks like... 53 - Ranger. Ranger makes me think green. Forest-y. She's green and maybe part plant.
  • What are they looking for? 282 - 4d4+4 Cultists doing something with an anti-magic sword. Ohhhhh, perfect. Do they find it tonight? (50/50) → 95. Exceptional No. But they are searching.

Ok, that's good enough to work with. Faruin has a total Armor score of 7. D3 = 1. It requires +1 points of armor to wear. So a chainmail cuirass. She will wear it, but it will bog her down [-2 to Skill].

It is also ornate. An additional -1 to Sneak.

The armor Faruin is wearing is a bit too large for her, and definitely too flashy. Like the tower at the edge of town and the bricks of the church, a remnant from a time when Yewsforth provided supplies for a war against goblin mages.

The trio are slowly tracking a group of skeletons who have been passing along the outskirts of town on some mission. Barston suggested they follow. Either to see what the skeletons are doing or to see where they go once they do it. Hopefully both.

The cultist and the fat man have both been gathered up from the tower and taken into what counts as Yewsforth's jail: an empty but locked-tight storeroom in the back of the general store. The store's owner being the town's current sheriff.

They had sought to settle in for the night at the local inn, being a couple of rooms over the tavern with a duck reading a book for a logo, but the tavern-owner's son had come back to say more skeletons had been spotted. Barston, Derron, and Faruin rushed to battle but found the skeletons mostly ignoring them. Barston urged caution.

Let's see if Faruin has managed to sneak. She's at 7-3=4. 4+10 = 14. Which is not a standard success. So no, they have heard her.

But even when Faruin's armor had let out a loud clang, and one of the skeletons had turned to look, the group had simply turned back around and kept going. Nine of them, these skeletons. Enough to be a serious problem. For some reason choosing, if that is the right word, not to be...

Soon enough, the skeletons reach what seems to be their destination. A pit. Partially pre-existing. Partially freshly dug. Some large, round stone structure has been cleared out and the skeletons crawl over and go down into the center of the excavation. Barston and Derron look at each other, then decide to follow.

Barston is forced to pull out his lantern to light the way. The skeletons seem to be at home in the dark. Whether they see or simply sense through some other method is unknown.

Down inside, they find a mass grave. A catacomb of many bones. Decades, centuries, of age have collapsed many of the rooms but the skeletons have been at work digging through room by room and re-opening the structure.

While most of the skeletons continue to hack away at the dirt with tier black bladed swords, two are carrying a small box full of black powder. Setting the box down, they take bones and put together people like solving a puzzle. When six are so assembled, the two take the box and sprinkle the powder upon them. With a whirring and clicking sound, the black powder spreads to cover the bones.

These new skeletons are slowly shaped to be like the others. Metal covers the teeth. Streaks of red and black vein across their ribs and skull. Within minutes, these six new skeletons stand up and start shuffling back the way the others came.

Only they stop and stare. At Derron. Then do a little dance. Bow. Cavort. Like putting on a little show. Finally, they disappear into the darkness and the sound of their bony feet clacking up the ladder can be heard.

Barston motions and the trio follow these new recruits. Some distance back.

Until on very nearly the other edge of town they stop as the new recruits seem to walk into nothingness and disappear.

Cautiously approaching, Barston walks to the same spot and hears a ding sound from Derron's robes. All at once, they can see the wizard tower for which they have been searching. Only Fenwick and his sources have been all wrong.

It is not so much a tower as a spearhead thrust into the ground. A large one, as tall as any building Barston has ever seen. Met of gleaming black metal in the same color as the dust from the box. Strange shapes protrude from it.

Windows shaped like tiny circles make Barston think of portholes on a ship. Only he does not have the words to understand that this particular ship sails between the stars and not the seas.

As they approach, the amulet in Derron's robes lets out a different sound and a glowing portal opens before them. It is only moments later before they step through.

Doug's Commentary

I have been sparse on commentary for this Advent Calendar series but now is possibly a good time to jump and explain some backstory while keeping things brief.

First, the reason I am excited about the sword is because Barston has a bow. A game-breaking one at that. In the year-long original arc, one of the very first things he found was a strange golden bow with runes on it. Over the course of some sessions, it turned out to be the Bow of Aeonatus. A special weapon designed to work wizards, sorcerers, warlocks, and the such. It is powerful enough that when fully activated can destroy magic creatures by turning them utterly mundane. Barston himself is an arcane sink. All this was just a bit of a joking way to explain why he was so awful at using magic early when he was supposed to be a semi-mage. The bow showed up through random things and there were some weird oracle results, and it eventually became part of the warlock war arc.

Therefore, a sword with similar properties makes sense as another anti-wizard weapon.

Second, the whole Ick + Humb series is strange. Not only is it deeply inspired by classic computer- and console-RPGs where the fantasy world is really high science — the "hum" where Humb took its name being a crashed spaceship that has altered the island — but it is also part of a strange Troika campaign where various wizards have built their own Spheres as playthings and this particular sphere is a basically a tabletop RPG nerd's domain. The people are miniatures given life and set into classic RPG tropes. Early on there were elements about giants and other things that are such deep lore that it only sometimes shows up.

In that light, it is fun to suddenly jump into one of those aspects of the campaign again. Barston is meant to be a bit of a glitch. The glitch finding another glitch should at least be entertaining. For me.

I can't believe I thought I would play a daily game like this and a) have time to play other games and b) only need 10-15 minutes per day. Word count wise, this one is smaller than others but the daily aspect has taken up a lot of my solo-play energy.

In that light, the other series will likely return the week after Christmas, maybe the week after New Year. That's ok, I'm having a blast returning to my original double-act of idiots.