Cairn: Like a Ripe Pumpkin

Ah, springtime in Cairn. Here's last time.

It's a lovely spring evening in Cairn, and the Traveling Knights are hanging out at the Cider Mill Inn. Rumdiggle Sunsong is talking with Sarafina Bushytail about lyrics. Rummy's songs tend to be more topical and immediate, while Sarafina's are about classical poems and older stories. 

Russelet Leatherwind is playing darts with some of the other patrons of the bar, and maybe picking their pockets a little, just for fun (obviously he doesn't keep anything he pinches). 

Ratatosk Longberry is just vibin', dancing to the music, and chomping on a bowl of acorns (which Allyere Lovegood refills when he's not looking). 

Snootbur Shadowbough is, after probably too many glasses of cider, explaining her plan for an amphitheater to Mayor Keeble Brownberry using forks, bowls, saltshakers, and whatever else is handy. 

And then CRASH! A sugar glider slams through the front window, rolls along the floor, lands against the bar, and passes the heck out. Russelet rushes to the bar to get a sugary drink (he knows that sugar gliders burn through sugar so quickly that sometimes they just...fall asleep), and Rummy checks to see if the poor guy is injured. He's cut up a little, but once he laps up the honey water that Russ serves him, he comes to. 

"It's coming!" he shrieks. "It's coming! Coming to eat us!" The Knights ask him to clarify, and he gasps, "the Bloodwalker!"

None of the characters have ever heard of a "Bloodwalker," but it doesn't sound good, and Smyrna Flutterwind, the glider, continues talking. It's huge, he says, and walks on two legs. It's got a snout like a ripper, but hooked claws. And it grabs people and bites off their heads to drink the blood!

This is all sending the good citizens of Cairn into quite the tizzy, so Keeble and the Knights take Smyrna into a back room to talk further. Smyrna reveals that he's from Sweetthorn Roost, a treetop village east of Cairn (mostly squirrels, sugar gliders, and bats). He was out looking for greenfruit and got lost, and then the Bloodwalker started chasing him. He lost it before the Swiftwater River, but then he realized he was close to Cairn and probably wouldn't make it home, so he dropped into the Cider Mill Inn (literally) to warn them - the Bloodwalker is headed their way!

The Knights don't waste any time. They load up their gear, and Keeble calls out the guard to shore up defenses. The Knights head east, and cross the river. They pause at the entrance to the woods, and Russ listens carefully. In the distance, he hears something big moving in the trees, cracking branches and so on. Ratatosk feels something horrible and bloody out that way. This might be it.

Russ sets up a net trap, while Rummy calls on her various totems to increase in size and power. Snoot and Ratatosk scamper off to find the thing and lure it. And find it they do!

It's hunched over at the base of a tree, digging. It's bipedal, a sickly grey color, and seems to be wearing a shirt. It's got fur, though, and when it turns around (hearing Snoot yell "Hey, you!"), it's got a muzzle much like a ripper. It sees Snootabur and bares its horrible teeth, lunging at her. She misjudges how fast it is, and it picks her up. She instinctively rolls into a ball and her quills poke its flesh, but it doesn't seem to care. 

Ratatosk jumps down from the tree he's in, lands on the monster's snout, and throws sneezing powder, but misjudges and gets a snootful himself (fortunately he knows how to breathe through it). Snootabur unfurls and deftly leaps through the thing's grasp, but it grabs Ratatosk by the tail. He bats it with his staff, but it won't let go. 

Russ, hearing the commotion, flutters over and finds a solid perch. Horrified by the creature though he is, he fires arrow after arrow at it. Some find their marks well, piercing eyes and nose, others miss. Snootabur, likewise, takes shots at the creature, but it doesn't bleed, just oozes black sludge. 

Rummy, realizing that the original plan has failed, charges in and swings at the Bloodwalker's legs, trying to knock it down. It keeps its feet, leans down and chomps on Rummy, picking her up and shaking her. Ratatosk, not getting anywhere by smacking the thing's hand, casts Thornsting. The thorns spring up and piercing the monster, just as Russelet shoots it in the hand. It drops Rummy and Ratatosk, and Rummy strikes its legs just right, knocking it to the ground. Ratatosk flings sleeping draught into its mouth, but no effect! He realizes that this creature has neither blood nor breath - it's undead.

Snootabur lights an arrow and fires, striking it in the head. Its head swells and pops like a ripe pumpkin, spilling black sludge, and the Knights step back to catch their breath. 

Investigating the corpse, the Knights are unable to identify whatever this was before it was animated, but they're very sure that it was dead recently. Ratatosk knows about necromancy - it's a form of magic that the Primal Powers abhor, the practice of reanimating dead flesh. They decide to burn the body and fall back to the river. 

As they're preparing the pyre, Rummy hears more crashing and cracking in the woods. The set the fire and retreat, but Russelet flits off to investigate. At the riverbank, as the sun rises, Snootabur helps the others get clean, and then Ratatosk leads them in a ritual to greet the dawn and Rummy leads them in a chorus of "Yeet the Noodle." Their spirits raised a bit, they wait for Russelet to return.

He does, and reports that he's found two more of these loathsome monsters. They're sitting at the bottom of trees in the clearing where they killed the other one (which is now full of smoke - not much chance of forest fire with the woods as damp as they are). They appear dormant; perhaps they sleep by day?

The Knights decide to head back into the woods and burn these monsters before they wake. Of course, that assumes that they are unable to awaken during the day...