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Play Report 19: Horse Execution
Warning for some gore, animal harm, and talk about dissection in this
one.
Please enjoy this art by my friend Kai, who plays Almuund, based on the
events of this session.
The party plans the route to the nightmare, and decides to return down
the trail on 0406 and then take the small path they spotted on their
journey their into 0306. They suspect that even if that isn’t the exact
location, they should be able to pick up on signs that will lead them to
the entrance. They trundle down the hill, tuck themselves out of the
wind for the evening, and head to sleep.
The party awakens in the dark hours of the morning to the sound of a
large creature approaching the campsite. Almuund watches in horror as
a huge horse with a “rider”
wearing gray rags and wielding a longsword emerges into the dying
glow of the campfire. The cultist waves, and in response the intruding
horseman considers the campers disdainfully, and steps forward with
sword raised as if to strike. Almuund just barely has time to cast
Immobilize Monster, and the spell misfires slightly — the spell is
corrupted and in addition to the wanted effect, a second unintended
spell is released onto the nearby Cleo, who finds it disorienting.
Almuund scrambles away and maintains the spell as the rest of the camp
comes to their senses. The horseman is stuck with its sword raised.
Almuund asks it if it will do them harm if he releases it, and the
horseman answers that it will. Hant draws a pistol and shoots the horse
in the head. The human portion of the horseman screams and tries to
staunch the bleeding but it is too grievous a wound, and the whole
creature falls down and lies still. There is some silence, and then Cleo
steps forward, invoking her contractual right to first pick when
harvesting trophies beasts defeated, and intending to perform an autopsy
on the monster. Hant is curious to watch, though he makes it clear that
he will not eat any meat from this creature, for fear of spiritual harm.
He is reasonably sure this is the same horseman that menaced him
previously — it seems identical.
The autopsy reveals that the horse and man portions of the horseman are
in fact one continuous unit. It could eat, breathe, and see through
either head, and it would all end up in the same place — though, Cleo
notes, the man portion is much more vestigial than the horse. The skull
is filled with a solid that is distinctly non brain like, and there is
little in the way of organs in the human torso, which relies on the
horse organs to provide for it. Its stomach contents are primarily loam
from the woodland.
Cleo keeps some meat for her own purposes, and eats a handful raw when
nobody is looking. Hant keeps the sword, taking note of it being in the
style of pre-wall antiques from Catage, and the motif of birds slaying
snakes engraved on its hilt.
The next day the party hurries down the woods trail into 0306. They
smell wood smoke from up ahead, and cautiously approach what turns out
to be a
cabin with a small yard cleared from the brambles around it. A
figure chops firewood in this clearing, but when Almuund calls out to
them, they choke out an astonished “hello!” before running inside. A new
person comes out to talk, while the wood chopper peers out a window
nervously.
The party makes their intention to hunt the nightmare known, and the
cabin dweller, though still guarded, directs them further south to 0307
where various strange changes have overtaken the woods. They say that,
while out gathering plants for some un-shared purpose, they saw
strangely manicured trees and a cluster of long tailed hunched beasts
eating a deer carcass.
The party ventures to 0307, and finds a ring of carefully spaced trees
with an arched entryway. They prepare to set up a camp from which to
venture into the nightmare,