The Second Hellmouth: Early Signs
| The Second Hellmouth: Early Signs | |
|---|---|
| Date | 6/18/2024 |
| Storyteller | Foster |
| Tier | Expert |
| Player Characters | Victoria Honeystride, Tarina "Taru" Autio, Mutt, Vara |
| Rewards | 280 xp, 1000 gold |
| Result | Success |
| Author | Victoria |
| Downtime | 3 |
We were summoned by Fen Ergivald to assist in finding a Hellmouth. Apparently they also made a deal to open one bound to them when Lictor Mutt got kidnapped by the fiends that one time. Are there any more of these infernal gates that I was never told about? Anyways, there were rumors of local bandits making deals with the fiends that were spat out by the gate, so we went to go investigate. Taru seemed surprised by me not agreeing with Vara and Lictor Mutt's stance in wanting to kill all of the bandits. I'm not sure why, but it is probably because of my reputation as a former hellknight. It is not important as of right now. We found a few lemures and imps controlling a small group of bandits near a river. They weren't very strong, but there were a lot of them. They were mostly armed with crossbows, clubs, and shortswords, though there were a few mages and fighters with warhammers that gave us some trouble later on. We got into a skirmish over a few small forts and a house that were oddly out of the way, positioned in a forest near the edge of where we were fighting. In hindsight, this may not have been the most tactically advantageous place to fight over, as we were being harried by a platoon of crossbow weilding bandits from a more centralized forest. After we had significantly thinned their numbers, I went to deal with a mage to the south who had been using a lot of spells on us. I did have some trouble dealing with them, but eventually they ran into a field of darkness that Taru had set up to prevent the aforementioned crossbow platoon from firing on us. There was another mage that I shoved into the river. After Taru had convinced the mage who ran away to surrender, we found out that the rest of the nearby fiends had ran away. We were tired from the skirmish with the forts and dealing with the mages, so we decided to take the surrendering mage, who's name is Ephraim, to come to Desperate Hope so we could learn anything they knew. Lictor Mutt wanted to torture them, but Taru, and later I, for reasons I do not understand myself, objected to this. In the end, I took Ephraim into my own custody, and have given them a job in the guard. As easy as it was to get information out of them, I am sure we can rehabilitate them, and set them on an honest life where they do not feel the need for banditry. As I write this, I am still shocked with myself that I was able to stand up to a Lictor and defy their wishes like that. Truly, being given a second chance at life has changed me in ways that confuse even me.