#first fighter

After a few days of not much going on, Martin and compatriots all receive notes asking to come to the Green doored building on Bard Street at Midnight. Seeing nothing wrong with this, not thinking it sounded like a trap, we all agreed to meet one another at the Green Door.

It was dark on Bard Street that night. We all arrived, slightly sleepy and confused why this couldn’t take place during the day instead of the middle of the night when we should be sleeping. We examined the building with the green door and discovered it to be empty and very damaged from the battle of Bastion. Martin knocked, rolling a 22 Strength check, shattering the green door into pieces. The room was dreary and mostly empty. After a time of searching our Cleric noticed a small Gnome across the street waving for us to join him. We waddled across the road and he told us to hush and come in. Immediately we asked what was all of this about, ignoring his pleas for us to be quiet.

Once inside he introduced himself as Cornelius Finch, a scribe in service to the city. He told us that he had been transcribing a book in Abyssal for a man named Ben Kelson who had been killed earlier this week. He was afraid for his life and needed to leave town. Handing us the book, which the necromancer took gleefully, he attempted to scurry out the door. We attempted to make the argument that he would probably be safer with us than alone on the dark roads outside of Bastion. He didn’t want to hear any of this, so scared that he was stuttering and shaking in his little boots. That’s when we heard a sudden bang on the wall.

The window shattered and what appeared to be a chaos infused Mud Mephit burst into the room launching its bile at all of us! This was quickly followed by what appeared to be more cultists like the ones we dealt with the week before. The Mephit was successful in trapping a few of us in its bile, luckily I’m quick on my feet and slipped past the disgusting creatures attack with ease. Martin charged one of the cultists and cleaved his head off launching it at the other two. Surprisingly this did not phase the evil doers and they charged our Dwarven Paladin, who gladly yelled at them to repent their evil ways or she would have to do it for them. After some squabbling with the filth of the Mephit, the rest of the party joined the fray. After exchanging some blows, a man entered the room and told us to stand down or be killed. Since we were already up to our knees in blood and Mephit vomit we ignored him and continued to attack.

A sudden rumbling from outside quickly followed by a large bang against the far wall drew our attention. A hulking undead like figure burst the wall down and groaned threateningly at us. Martin rushed forward and cleaved the beast down with my mighty glaive! This, of course, resulted in bile and who knows what else exploding from its gut and covering us. (This had been a very messy and slightly disturbing fight all things considered). The Mephit still fighting and vomiting on the group was grappled by our Monk and thrown towards the man leading this ill begotten attack. Alvin, our necromancer, seizing upon the opportunity used Thunder Wave and blasted the Mephit into the robed figure, ending both of them.

Once the fighting ended Martin turned to Cornelius, who was now scared shittless, and said: “See! I told you, you’d be safer with us!” He bolted out the door as quickly as he could. Alvin took the time to examine the remains of the undead figure while we looted the bodies of the cultists. We uncovered a Cultist Book that referenced people in town called “The Coin Keeper, The Watchdog, and the Vulture.” We decided to call it a night and headed back to our Inn. All of us smelling of something awful.

The next day we began talking to people around town, gathering information about anything odd happening. We discovered that corpses had been going missing from their graves and that an odd death had occurred at the guard house. The guard house was the place to be so it would seem and we headed out. Approaching the GH we met a guard who seemed to be a little out of it. We introduced ourselves and asked about the death, we were met with rudeness and aggression. How odd. Seeing a name tag that named him James, Martin immediately started calling him Jimmy or “My good friend Jimmy” and tried to show him a few card tricks to lighten the mood. Jimmy did not appreciate either of these things, demanding that we call him James and that he hated card tricks and that we should leave before he had to make us leave! Seeing as he hadn’t helped us in the slightest we kept asking questions all the while calling him Jimmy over and over. Finally, he cracked and told us the death happened during the changing of the guards. Tom, another guard, had been late for his shift and Jimmy didn’t want to wait any further! He asked Alex, another guard if he could cover the watch until Tom arrived. So this was our situation, Jimmy wanted to leave his shift but couldn’t because Tom was late, Alex checked on the prisoner twice during the hour that Tom was not there. And Finally Tom arrived and the prisoner was dead. The prisoner had been a cultist and was going to make a deal with the guards for information. That clearly never happened. So.. the question was how did this man die and who killed him?

We went and talked to the Guard Captain since Jimmy was useless and rude (suspicious), The captain wasn’t exactly helpful either he also had a very strict policy of no swearing… ever, but eventually, he agreed to let us question his men in exchange for the information we had on the cultists. We questioned Jimmy first since this death happened when he was supposed to still be on duty since Tom hadn’t shown up on time. Jimmy was less than useful. Martin kept calling him buddy, friend, Jimmy to help calm him and show Martin was his best friend and Martin just wanted to know what he knew, we notice he seemed extra nervous and started sweating. To help encourage Jimmy, Alvin cast Charm Person on him, which convinced Jimmy that we were indeed his best friends… but he still didn’t want us to call him Jimmy. But it only made sense that we continued to call him that since only his friends call him Jimmy. After the questioning, Alvin sent his raven to follow Jimmy... just in case. We then talked to Tom who hadn’t seen anything other than the dead body, Tom appeared to be clean. We were about to start questioning Alex when Alvin yelled out that Jimmy was stabbing the guard Lieutenant! We rushed out of the interrogation room and over to where Jimmy was!

Martin: “Okay, best friend Jimmy. We can talk this out”

Jimmy: “WE ARE NOT FRIENDS! MY NAME IS JAMES!”

Jimmy then lunged at Martin with his dagger, Martin easily knocked it away. Suddenly, Martin became very sleepy and so it appeared did Jimmy. Martin stumbled forward into him and whispered, “See, we are friends. We’re cuddling up for a nice old nap.”

Jimmy was executed after we found proof on his person that he was tied to the cultists. He was the Watchdog that we had found mention of in the cultist's book. We also learned the location of one of the cultist hideouts from him. The guard captain gained this information and we were left out about how it was acquired. We geared up and set out to the hideout, the cultists unaware of Jimmy’s failure, were caught unprepared by our assault and we dealt with them quite easily all things considered. The leader in charge of this group of cultists had been the Vulture, named for a number of corpses he had been stockpiling under the building we raided. The guards set up a perimeter and we were told that they would take it from there.

We called it a night here after successfully thwarting Jimmy and his cultist buddies. Fucking Jimmy. End of Game Two.

Again I’ll explain what this game is part of, The idea behind Vigilante’s games are that several D&D groups are all active in the same world and are all influencing the happenings and goings on of the Town of Bastion and surrounding area. This has been going on for several months now and I have just joined the fun about two weeks ago. While I’m not sure where this will lead I think it is an interesting idea to have Seven+ groups all playing in the same world. This allows groups to exchange items with each other and also allow players to switch parties to pursue different quests. Overall I think it will work out great and I’ll keep posting updates of my weekly games.