This was the 2nd half of the One Shot (a problem I have, making my one shots too long!) where the group tried to get a number of gnomes to escape the Theocrat and the former gnomish homeland, the Nightwoods. We had interviewed and met with a new 6th player who did not make the game the prior week due to being sick. This resulted in a brief ret-con of the last 10 minutes of the game…Enjoy!)
The Original Ending:
Dame Fireball was at one point a member of the Arcane Academy but as the Theocrat was rising to power, she could see the way things were going and “retired”, moving to her ancestral estate and staying here and out of the public eye. She is part of the Underground Railroad and uses her estate as a way point for gnomes looking to flee. She has a hollow space set up under the grain silo and they will stay there. At midnight, her long time friend, Undark, will meet them and it is three days from here to the next stage of their escape – a Thorpe named “Hopeless” and a contact named Sintankerin “Skank” Skunkherder.
She wished them well, helped them get set up in the hollow under the silo, showed them where the water skins and food stuffs were, and instructed them to rest up for now, it’s three days hard travel overland to the next locale. Once inside, some healing was given to Scrambles by Peppy’s healing kit and a natural touch or magic by Sprink. We loaded up about 4 days of food and water – it was going to weigh more, but as Seagull suggested, it was better to have more than not enough.
Let’s assume that MOST of that happened, with some adjustments as seen to follow, shall we?
And now…on with the show!
Follows:
A good month or so earlier, Spatula, a gnomish scullion barely out of her 50’s (19 to you and I), and a penchant for violence and unnecessary altercations, had gotten into another of her spats and fights with a young gnomish woman in the kitchens of the cookhouse she was working in and unfortunately, the 2 of them attracted the attention of a local Theocrat Defender. The matter was resolved at that time, but the head chef had taken a shine on young Spatula, and informed her that she needed to get out of Nightwoods and soon, as her repeated offences regarding inner-fighting and assault on other gnomes was now a matter of public record…and the Defenders were looking to possibly bring her in for re-education.
She was given instructions to gather her belongings and make her way via rail from Foxmanor to Deepwoods, bringing a set of work papers with her (not in her name) to the Festival Manorhouse where she should make contact with a member of the underground railroad named Ruffles – her first point of contact in getting out of Nightwoods. After that, she found herself in a group of 5 other gnomes who were also being smuggled out. Their adventure and trip away followed a similar bent and path that the party would a month later. They made their way into the Manor House, found their way to Konami and used his code to make it through the tunnels. They met the half ogre clan known as the Baggers and stayed in their sacks until weather had turned and they could meet the Westward Gale and Captain Notchers.
It was here that the journey differed. Spatula had drunk the cups of pond water the half ogres had supplied and had gotten ill from it. So during the height of the lightning storm, she had gone to the head (bathroom on a ship) where she stayed for a few hours, cramping up, voiding, drinking a bit more, and then doing it all again and again. So when Squirrel had gotten the gnomes to take the “Dropship” down to the floor, assuming that it was the next stage of their journey, they were nowhere to be seen when the Westward Gale landed at the Helburn Estate.
And then Spatula staggered out of the head, made her way to the deck, and wondered where everyone else was. The ship was searched again, no other gnomes were on board, and this had gotten Captain Notchers bothered – it was about every 3rd time for the last 10 or so trips that some of the escapees just disappeared. Dame Hellburn suggested they might have been magiced off the ship by another vessel. However it was, Spatula was left here and the Westward Gale took off on its way to Clearmeadow.
As for the scullion, Dame Fireball was not going to send her along at this time. A lone gnome would be snatched up by the Monastics and it was prohibitively expensive to just send her. Instead she would work on the Dame’s estate in the same capacity she had been in other homes, except she was to be covered up at all time, have her own secretive quarters, and SAY NOTHING AND DO NOTHING THAT WOULD ATTRACT ANYONE’S ATTENTION!!.
Spatula got it.
Almost 4 weeks passed before it was announced “Ship coming in!” and the entire staff came to the clearing to see the Westward Gale settling down. Spatula was enticed to gather her belongings and material and was escorted to the grain silo where she was given instructions to introduce herself to the other group and this would be her travelling companions on the next leg of their journey out of the Nightwoods.
When they entered the silo, Dame Fireball started the introductions and informed them that they would all be leaving at midnight. Her familiar, Undark, a large mole, would be guiding them on the next leg of their journey. 3 days to a small town named Undark where they will make contact with Sintankerin Skunk Skunkherder. The silo was sealed up and the group loaded up on foods and water, opting to get as much sleep as they could before midnight.
The mole burrowed into the area through the western wall, scooping out the hard packed dirt and then coming in. It was big, some 3’ tall, 4 and a half feet long, and had to weigh in the vicinity of 100 plus pounds. Sprinkle, as an Adept, found he could communicate with the Dame’s familiar without the need of using his ability to speak with burrowing animals, so he acted as the translator for the party, fielding questions of the big guy as need be.
We left the silo where Undark refilled the hole, and then he had us follow him through some tunnels until we came upon the surface. From there, he kept up a tight pace and exacting schedule, escorting the group through the primeval forest and leading them on. We had a good pace in the beginning before we came upon the presence of an ogre. It was wandering about, beating the bushes with a length of tree, and sniffing about.
As the rest of the group hid in the bushes, Spatula went the other way, clambering up the nearest tree and hiding in the foliage. We waited and watched, nervous as it got closer and closer. Spatula contemplated leaping out of the tree and stabbing the brute with her stiletto, but was getting waved off by the party below that that was a TERRIBLE idea.
We needed to get it away from us, so Peppy made the sound of foxes scattering through the underbrush and ran off to the north. As the ogre gave chase, we moved off at a good clip to the west again, Spatula scaling down the tree face first in a spooky and freaky fashion. After a bit of a jog, we slowed down and continued our trek, eyes wide. Peppy was gathering the odd berry, moss, tuber, and fungus along the way, just in case we were to starve needlessly!
Sprinkle tried to let us know some of the thoughts and feelings that Undark had, but the group felt that he was unduly embellishing the mole’s comments to give them a skeptical and sarcastic tone. We continued on through the night but it was in the early hours of the morn that Undark let the group know that the ogre was on our trail and hunting the party. Not for anything to do with the Theocrat, but merely to catch and cook us. We sped up, running through the woods fast. Scrambles had the easiest time of it all, taking deep breaths as we charged on.
The ewerer was getting into a fight with Undark, telling him to just dig us a hole and we can all hide in it and the mole was snapping back that in the time we had, it would be big enough for HIM only, and none of the gnomes. He was looking for a rabbit warren that he could swiftly widen up and get us all in in time. The party, only hearing Sprinkle’s side of it, admonished the gnome to leave Undark alone.
Sprink became winded and then some of the others followed, Garrick and Peppy. We started stumbling along, looking behind us, worried as the ogre grunted out as it ran after us. It still hadn’t spotted us, relying on its sense of smell for now, but we were losing ground. We came upon a small creek (barely 3’ wide, maybe 8” deep) and ran Upstream, hard and fast, boots and shoes muddying as we high stepped it through the gravel and wet dirt. We continued on until we were mostly exhausted. Finally we came upon a tree at the creek’s edge that had fallen over. Undark crawled under it and dug us out a wider hollow and the party all filed in and with no energy left, passed out and rested.
We awoke the next evening tired, muscles hurting. Most of the group had never run like that before and were unused to such periods of exercise. Our packs and skins were a bit lighter and we felt we were going to make better time, and followed Undark as he led us out of the hollow and we moved off through the evening westward some more. It was a long walk through the woods and we noticed something. The average age of the trees was getting younger, testament to our approach of the edge of Nightwoods. The trees were still old, one or two centuries, but not the 4, 5, or even older growths that had been part of our world for the longest time. It made the party sad in some way, but they were also excited to note they were getting closer to their goal.
Outside of the stray owl, field mouse, or other night animal, out trip this night was without issue and we came in due time to an abandoned woodcutters cottage. It had to have been abandoned a decade or more. Ceiling sagged, and other signs of the place being weary, but we were able to get inside and once there, dropped our bags and packs and ate. We talked for a while about our journey and once more there was some concern about how Sprinkle was displaying Undark’s attitude. Either way, we rested and slept real well.
The next night had us tighten our straps even more as our packs were lighter again. We left the cottage and moved on, following Undark again into the woods. We had a good run for a while until the mole sighed and commented that “they” were here. Who? That was to be seen as a brownie appeared on the path before us, 8 inches of tremendous ego, and demanded tribute as “King of the Brownies!” Someone mentioned leprechauns which only insulted him, making him land on the ground and stride up imperiously. A number of others were in the trees and it was telling we needed to give him 2 commons or he’d “gut us where we stand” with his very small sword – practically a needle.
So Spatula snapped him up and stuffed him into her small sack.
He cussed and screamed and she shook the sack around, holding the top tight, slapping it into the trees and from within, the brownie tried to stab at her through the bag but couldn’t get a good shot. Eventually he was reduced to tears and begged to be let free. So she dumped it out and he rolled to his feet, crying and miserable. As for the rest of us, they wanted tribute and Garrick and Seagull worked up a system where they gave 10 bits and a sewing needle, which the brownies were fascinated with as it was so sharp. We left them and moved on, continuing our journey until at long last, we could smell the Thorpe of Hopeless.
And it smelled like it sounded.
4 ramshackle buildings and part of a stone building that was at one point a tower or keep were here. A number of wagons and tired looking ponies along with maybe 20 or so gnomes that we could see. And skunks. Lots of skunks. A damned ugly gnome with pocks, a reek, and some old scars met the group. He was Skunk and he thanked Undark for getting them here. The mole left and wished us well, and the group once more, was unsure if Sprink was translating properly for us. Skank got us off the street (mud path?) and into the stone house. He let us know that we would be able to rest (we were exhausted) and we would be leaving tomorrow morning. There would be 3 wagons set up, we had to sneak in the bottom of one of them (trap door on the bottom), under the bark chips and skunk gland extract, and would take us out of Nightwoods where we would meet up with a tribe of centaurs headed by a Stallion named Ravage. Ravage would then take us to Tradeford and our last leg of the journey. As for which wagon? Leave it up to chance. There was a cup with 3 marbles in it, 2 brown and one black. We choose a marble and then get in the wagon of that color – all 3 wagons were going out, and no one would know which one we were in.
We talked about what was waiting for us. There were a number of gnomes in and out of Nightwoods who were making this possible, but it was expensive to maintain as well as suss out good roads and avenues to use to escape. This particular journey was being funded by a pair of gnome brothers, the only ones of their family to escape re-education, who had a confectionary factory in a far town named Stivil. Malik “Malted” Dingrel Falser and Yultar “Uke” Dingrel Falser were helping to make sure the group made it out ok, and they were eventually waiting for the party in Stivil – some 12 days from Tradeford.
We rested the day, woke up, happy and disturbed to note that we were no longer bothered by or noticed the skunk smell, ate and drank, laughed with Skank a bit, the trader reminding us about the marble and just “pick the right one, you’ll know!” and then got a great night sleep. Scrambles was much better after her tumble with Squirrel and even though she still sported a wound, it didn’t seem to affect her much anymore. We checked out the cup and there were 2 brown and a black one. We randomly drew one (brown) and went outside to look. 3 wagons, each loaded, each with a pony in the front. All brown, one had a black backboard. Going back inside the talk was then, how would we be on the RIGHT wagon to take us to Ravage? Where would the other 2 go? The wagons looked the same except for the paint backboard. Peppy snapped one of them black and we all snuck out, climbed into the hollow spot under the wagon, and dragged the floordoor up in place, pegging it closed.
Some time passed and we heard the wagons load up and then Skunk stomped on the baseboard and said, “Yeah, hope we’re ready to go?” When no one replied, he did it again and we knocked back quietly in response, hearing him chuckle. And then they all left Hopeless and moved on.
As we rocked along in the wagon, we could see the light filtering in through the cracks was getting brighter and brighter as the hours passed until some time after lunch, Skunk stopped the wagon and we could hear other voices talking to him. He climbed off and the party was coaxed to come out through the hollow door again. We were out…in a grassy area…with NO trees at all over head or nearby. Looking east, we could see the wall of Nightwoods running to the horizon north and south, a mile or two from where we were (6 checks had us all negative for agoraphobia – thank gods!)., We laughed and smiled and thanked Skank for getting us this far.
He introduced us to Ravage, a huge centaur with a bit of an attitude but was happy to meet us. His herd had 5 other centaurs, all females, and all his mates. There was the discussion of centaur clothes that invariably followed as well as from our vantage point…just HOW blessed Ravage was…down there and that Garl damn it, how could we NOT look at it! It’s fucking eye level with us!
Since Sprink was the only one with riding skill, he was invited to ride in a fanny pack on Ravage’s back, the rest of the group was enticed to climb into various backpacks and get ready. We all got prepared, thanked the centaur for this, it was well known that centaurs do not like people to ride them, Ravage assured the group that because of this, they should be able to make their way through any Theocratic interference. And then we were off.
It was a few hours later that we could hear an airship descending not too far away and a contingent of gnomish Defenders stopped Ravage. It was Monastic Vulpurus. He was following a group of escaped gnomes and wanted to know what the Centaur was doing out here. Words were exchanged as well as threats. Centaurs reminded Vulpurus that they were NOT citizens of Nightwoods, and are not bound by their laws. And they can come and go as they see fit. Carry anyone? Ride them> Are you kidding? Tensions rose and the Defenders reminded Ravage that their special status could be revoked at any time in the future if the Council wishes.
Ravage reminded them that they had been here as far back as history says, and know the woods better than most any gnomes. Want to see hunts dry up? Riders harassed? Internal trade disputes? Just try and flex your muscles. Until then, turn and get the fuck back on your ship, as you are very much out of your jurisdiction. Vulpurus agreed, letting Ravage know that he’ll see them later to discuss this matter. The gnomes went back to the ship and eventually it took off, heading back to Nightwoods.
The centaurs reassured the group and we moved on for a another few hours, stopping at a small stand of trees. A fire was lit and the centaur herd and our group took to talking and laughing, sharing food and stories. Then one of the women gave a shout and then Ravage as well, and fell over. Then another, and another! We looked around and in the space a couple dozen seconds, all the centaurs had been knocked out, crossbow bolts in their flanks and rumps.
Striding up to the party was Vulpurus and two of his Defenders. “I’ve been tracking you for a while now. It’s time to take you back and get you reeducated as soon as possible.” They were loading up their crossbows for another round of fire when the group tried to hide behind the fallen centaurs.
Garrick took out his canister of lightning and took aim at Vulpurus, letting the bolt fly! It struck the Defender in the chest, blowing his back and knocking him down. “Get them!” he cried out, and they readied to fire. Spatula ran up to try and attack them, jo stick sliding free. Peppy and Seagull were hoping to wake the centaurs up, the apothecist letting the party know that they were down for the count for now. Spatula jumped and hit, cracking one of the other crossbowers. Scrambles drew her sword and ran to help.
Bolts flew, knives were thrown. Garrick drew his hand crossbow and fired off. Vulpurus got up with a snarl and strode forward. Spatula took a wicked shot in the side but remained standing. Seagull was trying to get Ravage up, water and slapping wasn’t working. He then had the idea of sticking his finger…in the centaur’s ass. Although it did creep out the party, Ravage remained unconscious.
Peppy used his pewter mug and got a cup full of embers, going to run to the party. Garrick fired again. The gnomes were having a rough time. Scrambles caught a deep stab, but she and Spatula took down one of the gnomes. And then Sprink took out his own canister of lightning, took aim at Vulpurus, and fired.
The Monastic had no idea the bolt was coming and it tore through him, blowing a hole in his chest and shredding his side so hard, that his arm flew off and it cauterized the wounds instantly – but the gnome fell to the ground dead before he even hit. And Sprink was once more horrified by how effective he seemed to be at killing other gnomes with such brutal mortal effectiveness.
Seagull then had the idea of jamming his finger into Ravage’s open crossbow wound….and this time it was effective. Very effective. The spinster was hit in the upper chest and shoulder, busting his collar bone and sending him flying a good 7 feet from the centaur’s spasmodic hoof kick. He rolled to a stop, in agony and at 1 hp. Ravage got up and saw his herd had been knocked out, Garrick firing, Sprink just pointing in horror, and Seagull on the ground in pain. Across the area Peppy was beating a gnome with his mug after hurling fire on his face neck and clothes, and Scrambles and Spatula, very hurt, were plying their sticks and swords at the last gnome Defender.
He snatched up his bow, loaded a 7’ arrow to it, and fired – ripping into the gnome with the first shot. And then a second one went off, killing it outright. We dragged the bodies close and looked them over, taking what we could from them, Garrick taking a full sized crossbow. Once the women were up, Ravage told us we had to bury the bodies deep, so no one would know what happened to them, especially that centaurs were involved in the killing of gnomes.
For the most part, the group was uneasy with the combat, killing other gnomes just seemed wrong. This whole thing was just wrong. And the wrong started with one gnome – the Theocrat. Fish rots from the head down, and the Theocrat was the person, for whatever good intentions he had in the beginning, for the ultimate way that gnomish society and home had been perverted and warped. And they had to leave because of it.
We healed what we could and then rested, some of us just not feeling it. The next day had us on our way and by afternoon we arrived at Tradeford. A gnomish friendly caravan group of wagons was situated there and waiting for us. Ravage arranged payment and wished us the best. And we went. We saw hills and dales. Small human cities and larger former orcish keeps and garrisons. We beheld the majesty of the Borbuta Sea, an inland body of water so large it had its own tide and affected weather patterns for 3 days around it. We travelled through cities so massive, it had to house 50 thousand souls. And we saw poverty and misery unlike we had ever known before. There were people starving on the sides of the roads for lack of food, lame and sick were there as well, poor medicine and lack of basic sanitation their downfall.
But through it all, 12 days of travel, we noted that as gnomes, we were looked on as “quaint” and “neat”..but then just as fast, dismissed and ignored. It was weird and humbling. To come from a society where most everyone looked like you and the world was your size, to another where you were at a size disadvantage for everything from doors to chairs to steps…and to be also ignored as unimportant…was humbling. And there were things that showed how dire things were for the people of Rand, and they didn’t even know any better.
Eventually the caravan arrived at Stivil, a former orcish walled city that had been opened up some time ago. We went to a section of the town that appeared to be an industrial center, more shapeless and bland buildings with more misery to spread around. But at the end of a block, was a large 3 story structure, painted in the bright reds, pinks, and whites. And there were gnomes here, half orcs and half ogres as well, but gnomes, lots of gnomes. They were well fed, clothed in clean raiments, and in good health. We were met with hugs and cheers, songs and tears. Two older gnomes came and held our hands and wished us welcome and that we were for now safe and amongst friends and family. Malted and Uke, led the party into the Falser Confectionary where for the first time in 15, 20 years, the party felt..safe.
And home.
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