Yesterday we played a one-shot of Darkest Days, about which I shall tell you.
Our "heroes", and I use the term somewhat loosely, are all fallen warriors from ages past, enjoying their eternal slumber or waiting in the black void of death, who knows? But then that endless nothing is interrupted.
In a valley where moonlight never touches the ground is a patch of sand blasted into glass by some powerful magic. It is the resting place of Horace, Scion of the Blackened Sky, a member of a death cult that has long since been wiped out. A man in dark robes strikes the glass and it cracks, and Horace pulls himself out of the ground. "You've got some balls," he rasps as his throat reformed. The man in robes simply says "Follow." And Horace does, his feet moving on their own.
They walk for days, until they come to a mountain. The entrance to a cave, now collapsed into a pile of rubble, lays before them, and on the rocks, a carved epitaph to Hilfgar the Mighty, who pulled down the mountain on top of him to destroy the monster within. The man in robes taps the rock with his staff, and the rocks begin to quake, and Horace is rather expecting Hilfgar himself to crawl out of the rubble. Instead, the rocks themselves form into a humanoid mass, and then vibrate until the dust falls off, revealing a being made of a million crystals, The Resplendence. "Follow," says the man in robes, and despite being the lord of this place in life, the Resplendence can only obey.
The trio walks for days longer, until they pass into a deep, dark, forest. The man in robes stops at the foot of a huge, gnarled oak, and taps the root with his staff. From the earth, a skeletal hand rises up, and the loam and plants around it give way to flesh, until the witch Babs stands there, resurrected. "Why do you interrupt my sleep?" she says. "Follow," replies the man in robes.
Finally, after more days of walking, they arrive at the crypt of Bartholomew, the Mad King, a tyrant who ruled these lands with terror and blood. "You're not going to bring the Mad King back?" asks Horace. "Oh, no," says the man in robes. "He couldn't fight." He nods to the Resplendence and indicates the stone slab blocking off the crypt. "Break it."
The Resplendence forces most of his crystals into his fist, draws back, and smashes the slab. The man in robes steps through and moments late, steps out with Sir Pancraft, one of the Mad King's knights. "Follow," he says.
The five of them walk a little ways further, until they come to a high wall surrounding a manor estate. "This," says the man in robes, "is the Bram Estate. You are to infiltrate it and killed everything you find within. You must especially kill the master of the estate, Urqia Bram, my brother."
"Why should we?" asks Pancraft.
"Because if you do not, I shall make you," replies the necromancer. "I chose to raise you with your minds intact because mindless slaves are not effective combatants, but if you would rather..."
None of them would rather be zombies, of course. "What do we get if we succeed?"
"You get to return to the sweet rest from which I called you," retorts the man. For Babs, that's enough of a reward. Horace agrees, though he does wish to be returned to his resting place as well. But Pancraft and the Resplendence would rather stay in the world of the living. The man ponders this. "I am willing to discuss it," he says, "after you complete the task for which I have raised you."
"There is a village down this path," he continues. "If you wish to go there for supplies before assaulting the estate, feel free. But no harm comes to the villagers." The Resplendence, still bristling at being under anyone's control, finds a red gem within his many gems that isn't his. He brings it to his hand and asks the man what it is, but it pulls against his control and slips back into his mass. The others prod their throats and feel a similar gem just behind the thyroid notch. "What's this?" asks Horace. The man smirks. "Insurance," he says, "that no harms comes to the villages." And with that, he steps into his own robes and vanishes.
The warriors check themselves and find that their weapons and, in some cases, magical potions are still intact (the Resplendence also finds some dude's skull mixed in with his rocks, which he discards; "How'd that get in there?"). Horace has a jeweled torc that he suspects is worth something, so they head to the village to do a little trading. The village, they discover, is called Hollowton, and it sits on a series of tunnels and caverns from which the locals mine ore and gems.
Horace trades in the torc for a magic ring, Pancraft trades his sword and shield for a big, heavy battleaxe, and the Resplendence trades a collection of adventurer's gear he's picked up (probably from idiots who chose to invade his home) for a necklace with a finger-bone of the God of Luck.
Pancraft finds a very, very old man sitting on the fountain in the center of town. "You dressed for war? Which war? Where?" he asks.
"There's always a war," answers Pancraft. "You look like you've lived here for a long time. Tell me of the estate."
"The Bram Estate?" he answers. "Urqia Bram went mad! Went mad and started writing runes on everything. Everything! And now the estate is shut off and anyone who goes in, never comes out!"
The Resplendence, listening, recalls a farming family named "Bram" back in his days. Apparently they made good.
"Yeah," says Pancraft, "but is there a way into the estate other than the door? Tunnels, perhaps?"
The old man considers. "There's a tunnel entrance over there that connects to the tunnels under the estate, but I think a lot of them are closed off now."
Pancraft thanks him, and the four of them decide to enter the tunnels that way and infiltrate the estate from below, if they can.
They head into the tunnels, and after walking for a while, cross a barrier. Babs and Horace both feel it, the magic in the air getting stronger. They notice runes on the walls as well, but they don't have time to decipher them before a horde of little ugly humanoids attacks!
The creatures skitter around on the walls and ceiling and drop down to attack, but the Resplendence forms his crystals into huge, jagged claws and rips some of them apart. Pancraft advances and lays waste with his axe, and Babs hurls magical death. Horace lashes out with his holy symbol (a disc made of sharpened, obsidian glass), and within moments all of the little beasties lie dead.
They move on, and eventually come to a split in the tunnel. The Resplendence sends a shard upwards through the earth, like a periscope, to figure out where they are in relation to the estate, but when it breaches the ground, something swallows it! Two mutated dog-creatures, with two extra clawed arms coming out of their chests (which they use to dig), tunnel down into the caverns to attack!
The warriors battle them successfully, Babs freezing one to the floor while Pancraft lays into it with his axe, the Resplendence flowing around the other to stab it in its vulnerable hindquarters, and Horace healing his fellows and using his necromantic magic to wither the creatures. Pancraft finally beheads the last surviving mutant creature, and the warriors press on, though they decide they're tired of being in the tunnels and climb up to the surface.
They get their bearings, and see that they are indeed inside the grounds and close to the estate. But then in the distance they see something running at them. As it gets closer, they see it's running on all fours, big and boxy like a bear, but it has an ape-like head and it gibbers and laughs as it runs!
The warriors square off and return to battle, but this foe is tougher than anything they've faced so far. It grabs Horace and breaks his spine, throwing his lifeless body away as it presses the attack. They notice, too, that as they attack, flesh sloughs off but regrows almost immediately. The Resplendence realizes that elemental or magical attacks might hurt it more effectively, and focuses his crystals to fire magical bolts of energy. The three manage to slay it through magic and steel, and then take a moment to rest. Horace's corpse rises, the bones crackling into place, and he rejoins them.
They walk around the estate, not wanting to crash through the front door, and find an entrance into the kitchen. Everything is covered in those runes, and Horace realizes that they're an ancient, otherworldly language, the kind of thing his order used to scribble when they were communing with the outer darkness. These runes are spells for companionship, though, not power or riches. Maybe Urqia was just lonely?
"Touching," mutters the Resplendence. They consider whether to head further into the manse, but decide to check the cellar first. They descend and arrive in a wine cellar, but everything is smashed - piles of rubble and the smell of vinegar and rotting liquor everywhere. As they continue, a bunch of rats emerge from the rubble, rats the size of dogs, and they skitter to the attack! But also, the wine-sludge rises up and forms into a blob-like monster!
The rats surround Pancraft and Horace and start nibbling, but they don't make much headway against the knight's armor. Babs grabs a rat and devours it whole, but then the wine-slime lashes out with a pseudopod and traps her! It tries to pull her in and eat her, but she holds her footing and throws magic at it. The Resplendence, likewise, continues experimenting with his magical understanding and tries to lock the slime in place, to freeze it, but then realizes that diluting it is the best way to destroy it!
Horace calls down brackish, rotting water from nowhere and Babs tries to summon up a rainstorm, while Pancraft crushes the last of the rats. Finally, they manage to overload the sludge with enough water to thin it out so much that it can't maintain cohesion, and it dies, leaving behind fetid, smelly, ankle-deep liquid.
The warriors search the room and Pancraft finds a huge mace. Taking a few practice swings, he hits a wall and hears a hollow thunk. "Secret door," he says, and decides to take a stealthy, subtle approach- no, hang on. He smashes through it like the goddamn Kool-Aid man.
The room he smashes into is small and the back wall is lined with bookshelves ("ugh, books, King Bartholomew had us burn these"). A man stands against the far wall, writing runes on it frantically. This, Pancraft realizes, must be Urqia Bram. He walks over and grabs his shoulder, and Urqia dismissively gestures at the bookshelves, whereupon the books fly off, open hideous, fanged mouths, and attack!
The Resplendence, standing at the doorway, cows a book into submission and it drops, and Pancraft lays about with his axe, but there are too many! Babs throws fire at them, burning on, and Horace charges into the room and tries to rot them, but the books focus on Pancraft and chew him to pieces! His body collapses to the floor, and the book-swarm splits up and goes after the others.
The Resplendence charges across the room, turns his arm into a huge spike, and moves to impale Urqia, but then time and space go wibbly and his misses. Babs and Horace attack with magic, but can't penetrate Urqia's defenses, and he unleashes the spell he'd been building. All of the runes on the walls of the room fly off and spin like whirling blades, heading straight at Horace...but he ducks, and the blades strike Babs, killing her. The Resplendence continues to strike, and does manage to harm the mage, but Urqia turns his attention to the living crystals and sends the runes at him. The Resplendence collapses into sparkly rocks, its life extinguished, leaving only Horace alive.
Horace summons up all of the magic he can, and hurls it at Urqia, multiple bolts of magical lightning that lock Urqia's muscles and prevent him from casting spells. Urqia tries to counter, but cannot, and falls dead. The remaining books collapse as well, and all over the estate the runes lose their power.
The dead warriors return to life as Tolv Bram, the man in robes, steps out of nowhere. "My brother is dead, and the estate is mine," he says. "Well done. Now what? Would you return to death?"
Babs enthusiastically wishes to slumber once again, but Horace and Pancraft have a revived thirst for life (and violence). Tolv makes Pancraft the head of his guard, and Horace his priest the lich-in-residence. The Resplendence, of course, has no intention of dying again, but Tolv doesn't want him nearby (he knows very well that the Resplendence intends to kill him and regain his freedom), so he sends the living crystals on missions to assassinate rivals.
The Resplendence accepts this indignity, but it prowls the land, looking for a way to free itself. Soon.
