An Encounter of the Undead Kind
Ubys burned the body at first light.
Whatever the minotaur had been before it was a minotaur — a man, missing two toes — it was ash now, wind-scattered, beyond reach of the curse. A small mercy.
You followed the hoofprints back toward where they came from. Three days walk, give or take. A village called Lodestone — out beyond the tree-lined road, somewhere to the west.
The party split. Moist, KeYs, and Dhuxtyn went ahead. The rest doubled back to the Toke Inn — to leave Holy Water and salves with Jorry for Roz and Dorrin (still bedridden, still slipping), to pick up Talon for safekeeping, and then to chase down the others.
You met them halfway.
You also met four zombies.
AC said the obvious thing: we can't leave them out here. You agreed. Lessie cracked open her bag of stones and forgot to be quiet, and the zombies came at you. They didn't stay down. Sacred Flame finished what stones started. You lost no one and barely a hit point.
Then three figures stepped out of the dark.
A man in a three-piece suit and a handlebar moustache. The Engineer. An Orc woman, alluring, covered in grey tattoos. The Tracker. A third in a travelling cloak, glasses, a floppish hat, with a surveyor's kit. The Surveyor.
The Engineer was unhappy that you'd destroyed his property.
You were unhappy he had property like that.
He told you they'd find you again at the Toke Inn. Then they walked back into the dark.
You camped together that night. Lessie asked Moist what kind of name "Moist" is, exactly, and got a story about a river and many siblings and a swimming pool. Ubys meditated and asked the Lady for guidance and got silence. AC whittled. Lessie asked him what AC stood for — Adorable + Cute? Aggressive + Cutting? — and he didn't answer.
The Lodestone fires were visible across the dark, ten miles off, flickering small.
Next session: Knights in the dark, and a sleeping giant.