Once again I find myself writing one of these from my player perspective, rather than my character’s, because, once again, after five sessions, my character has died. Yes, Makepeace is dead. Seems I just can’t get no luck.
To begin with, we got back to Crowhaven and explained what happened at the ambush to Commander Vyle. It looked like the soldiers were about to move out, and she decided she didn’t have the time to deal with us, so sent us away with the instructions to forget this fiasco ever happened. We rented a cart with a couple of horses and left for Runestone.
Half a day before reaching Runestone we crossed a bridge and were ambushed again by another group of bounty hunters. They started off by exploding a cart full of alchemical fire, dousing all of us but Leo. That fire nearly wiped us out. Because we were too busy fighting our enemies (who included a bard that nearly single-handedly took us all out) we didn’t put out the fires that were cooking us each round, and those extra lost hit points nearly did us in. Still, we managed to kill all the bounty hunters and reach Runestone safely.
The town had clearly recently taken a beating. According to information we received from both Anghus Kelder, the de facto leader of the town since their Lady died, and Hilde Dephrindel, proprietor of the Runestone Inn (where we spent the night), they had been attacked by giants about two weeks before. The giants came in a castle on a cloud – evidently the one both Leo and Hector saw previously – and dropped boulders all over town, the end result of which we could still see. A whole bunch of people were killed, including the inhabitants of the castle, and the giants stole the runestone that gave the town its name from the central square.
We also learned that Anghus was the emissary to ‘the Mothers’, some mysterious pseudo-deities that lived in the Redwood and were claimed to be protecting the town through a number of scarecrows, including one ginormous one where the runestone used to sit. Further prodding revealed to us that Rain had been asking about the Mothers when she disappeared about four days before we arrived.
Not liking anything going on, we decided to scout out the castle first, as Anghus had gone up there after the attack and proclaimed everyone dead and I wanted to investigate whether they all died in the attack or whether it was a quiet blade afterwards (didn’t end up finding anything to prove yay or nay to that theory). We took a long rest and headed out in the early hours of the morning. I slipped out a little before my companions and in the silent, empty town was drawn toward the sound of screaming. I discovered a woman giving birth, with Anghus helping and repeatedly reminding her it was ‘for the mothers’. I decided to leave Luna to keep an eye on that worrying situation while we headed to the castle.
The only exciting thing that happened in the castle was Hector triggering a trap and being attacked by a magical sword, but once we came out onto the roof we saw a dark figure crossing the town square, carrying a bundle. Anghus, of course. We rushed back to try to intercept him, but he spotted Luna, blasted her out of the sky, and said ‘slow them down’.
That’s when things went totally crazy. As Anghus summoned a mammoth and began riding it out of town, all of the scarecrows came to life and started to attack us. Leo cast fly on Hector so he could catch up to the mammoth, while I spurred Starstrider on, easily catching the beast between his speed and my innate teleportation. The others began fighting the scarecrows and slowly made their way to catch up.
My goal during the fight was clear: save the baby. My first move was to catch up and teleport in front of the mammoth. Because of my autumn eladrin awesomeness, both Anghus and the mammoth had to save against being charmed by me. Anghus succeeded, but the mammoth failed and was charmed. One hurdle down. As my backup plan, I cast Hold Person on Anghus, and thankfully, he failed his save. Two hurdles down.
At this point we were standing on the drawbridge over the moat that surrounded the town, and my teleport had taken me to the out-of-town side. There was a scarecrow on my side that started attacking me, but I ignored it and tried to climb the mammoth, going for the baby. Unfortunately, because I had a terribly low strength, I failed, so I called to Hector, who had flown over to us, and asked him to lift me onto the mammoth. He did, and I tried to pry the baby out of Anghus’ paralysed hands, but unfortunately, I once again failed due to incredible lack of strength.
Hector attacked Anghus, because paralysis equals auto-crits which equals tons of damage, but doing so caused him to lose concentration and the mammoth vanished out from under us. We crashed to the ground, I still trying to get the baby and Anghus finally snapping out of his paralysis.
My plan at this point was simple. Stab Anghus with my dagger, smiting as hard as I could, and hope he died so I could grab the baby and run. My previous plan was to grab the baby and jump off the back of the mammoth onto Starstrider, but with Starstrider just recently dissipated my only means of escape was to flee on foot.
I never even got to the stabbing.
Before I could act, the giant scarecrow came striding over, and since Hector was still flying thirty feet above us, I was its only target. Three swipes with its enormous scythe and I was unconscious.
Hector dropped to the ground and hacked into Anghus with his axe, but Anghus teleported as a reaction to the attack and bamf, no more Anghus. Without his primary target, Hector began to attack the scarecrows around him instead. Around about this time, I failed my first death saving throw, and Leo dropped Fly to cast Hex. Just setting the stage.
From the gatehouse, a villager threw a torch at the giant scarecrow and whoompf, now we were facing a flaming giant scarecrow. That could breathe fire, as it turned out. Cue burnt Hector, dead scarecrow, and death saving throw fail number two for me.
The others were still inside the town, and while Aelin was close enough to reach us (Leo and Gad had made a slightly slower defensive advance) and would have done to attempt to stabilise me, the giant, flaming scarecrow was taking up the entire width of the drawbridge and couldn’t be passed. Unable to help, she turned around to attack the scarecrows that were beginning to surround her instead.
Death saving throw roll two. Fail three. Makepeace = dead.
I took the liberty of flavouring Makepeace’s death as his body disintegrating into autumn leaves and moonlight, and I did so for several reasons. First, I thought it would be fitting considering he’s from the feywild and a servant of a moon goddess. Second, I figured it would be a way to possibly bring him back in the future; maybe he doesn’t die so much as go back to the feywild to lie ‘in stasis’ for a hundred years. Third, and foremost in my mind at the time, the hardest part of Spoon’s death wasn’t his dying (because I honestly thought it would be a TPK and was sort of waiting for everyone else to die) but it was the aftermath, his burial. No body, no burial. Save that for… well… let’s just say the tragedy this week didn’t end with Makepeace.
I will note, though, that I was proud of Makepeace’s death, and he would be too. He died trying to rescue a baby, and in his eyes, you would be hard pressed to find a nobler way to go. His only disappointment would be that he failed.
The fight progressed with Hector fighting the giant scarecrow, Aelin surrounded by the smaller ones, Leo doing his usual thing of blasting from a distance, and Gad eventually rushing into the fray to assist. Aelin was eventually hacked down, shortly before Hector managed to finish off Giantcrow. Who exploded. Turns out, not only can flaming giant scarecrows breathe fire, they also explode upon death.
Hector, Gad and the one remaining small scarecrow all went down because of the explosion. Aelin also took damage of course, bringing her second death saving throw failure. And, unfortunately, she failed her third before Leo could get to her.
So two characters dead this time, including one of the original party members. Not so good.
We finished up with Leo sitting watch over Hector and Gad’s unconscious but stable bodies.
Where do things go from here? Which two mysterious individuals will be joining our surviving heroes? Tune in next week to find out.