Worm Food™: Now with 23% less salt! [Donjon]

[cameronpants]

http://wiki.lemmurg.com/uploads/AoW/ulgurstasta.orig.jpg
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The wind smelled like rotten meat.
This came as no surprise to the two scavengers moving between abandoned buildings of the farmstead. The wind always smelled like rotten meat. Spoiled, turned, expired flesh; maggot-filled, wretched carcasses of aged corpus cheese.
It was so encompassing that, when someone in the hinterlands actually smelled rotten meat, it meant a large contingent of wights were nearby.
And that, after a moment of stunned silence, did surprise the two wandering vagrants.

You are between a deserted barn and a boarded up farmhouse. A few dozen yards ahead is a silo, and behind you twice that far is a small hill with a well on it. You saw at least one open entrance to each building on your flanks, but you have no idea where the wights are coming from.

[Plerumque]

"Wights again," sighs Sol. "Most unfortunate. I had hoped to get something done today. But I suppose there are worse places to be surrounded. In fact... hmm." He takes a few steps closer to the door of the farmhouse. "I recognize this place. I was here a few years ago when I had a job as a bounty hunter. The family that lived here- the Asters, I believe- had a polyp infestation. They'd blown in from the sea, we thought, and attached themselves to the damp wood. The Asters nearly burnt the whole house down trying to get rid of them, but they were remarkably resilient. Then they called me in. I lured them out of the house, but then I got distracted and they escaped, went down that well over there. Couldn't get them out, but they weren't a danger. I recall the father of the family shook my hand, and told me I'd always be welcome. He's probably a wight now, but I understand these kind of invitations don't expire upon death, so let's go in." Sol walks towards the threshold of the farmhouse, and pauses to sniff the air again before he goes in.

To see if any of that lie is partially true: [roll0]
To determine the direction of the smell: [roll1]

[cameronpants]

I am starting at 'difficulty 3' for unmodified rolls. Makes for a more sinister game right off the bat.
Vs Seed of Truth [roll0]
Vs Smelling [roll1]

You get 1 success on each check.

[Plerumque]

Fact: There may not be magic polyps living in the well, but there's something.
Fact: The carrion smell is coming, at least in part, from inside the house.

[Eonas]

Tinkerslam claps her hands excitedly and flutters into the air. "Oh, goody! Do you think he'll have tea and biscuits out for us? It's been so long since we've had tea and biscuits. What's a polyp? Are they cuddly? Are they breakable? Do you think the Asters will let me strangle them?"

She rapidly follows Sol on the tips of her dainty little feet, stopping only once to smell a withered, rotting flower.

[Plerumque]

"I would certainly not stop you if you wish, but given that they are likely all wights now I doubt it would be as effective as we could wish. Polyps? Well, that's another story. Suffice it to say that they were a wizard's fault. A fairly plausible explanation in any circumstance, I suppose. Hmm, I shall have to think of a better one." Sol frowns.

[cameronpants]

The vagrants move into the farmhouse. Grime and gore cover the sitting room they walk into, the smell of decaying flesh slightly stronger there. A open door ahead of them leads into what looks to be a high-ceilinged kitchen, and a staircase to their left winds up to a top floor.

Against the corner of the room are two bodies, slumped together. One is male, has blood caked to its fingers and its skull caved in; the other is female, missing its lower jaw and holding, loosely, a broken broom handle.

A moment after the pair of scavengers enter the house, a soft tapping can be heard from the kitchen.

[Plerumque]

"Well," Sol says placidly, "it seems I was wrong about them being wights. I doubt this state would make them any easier to strangle, however. How about the tapping? Doesn't seem to resemble the methods of a wight, but you never know. Be prepared to punch something's face in. I know, I know- you always are." He moves over to the kitchen, checking to see if the tapping is coming from behind a door or one of the walls.

[cameronpants]

The kitchen is gloomy. Boarded windows block most of the light, but the odd spear of sunlight stabs through undaunted. A smell reminiscent of a field hospital bedpan wafts up from a clogged well-trough in the corner. The tapping emanates from behind a short stack of rubble near the center of the room. The kitchen ceiling, obscured by shadows in the dark house, is covered in a dozen small to medium sized holes. As the vagrants circle the rubble to determine the source of the noise, they hear a click and a hiss from above them. Suddenly, they find themselves covered, delicately, by a spray of mist coming from a hole above them. It smells of roses and is slightly more chill than the air outside. A ponderous moment studying the ceiling later, they hear the voice of a girl.

"You livin'? I'm livin'. Ma and pa ain't faring too good though."

[Plerumque]

Sol ***** an eyebrow at the girl's matter-of-fact tone. "We are indeed living, but I'm guessing you already figured that out. Holy water? Smart. We need people like you. Y'see, miss, we're with the Ministry of Menace Eradication. In the wake of this tragedy, we've been sent out to do what little we can to stop the undead threat. We're recruiting those we find that're quick enough on their feet or with their mind to have lasted this long. Some might balk at recruiting the young, but I say they're our future. Besides, you've seen more already than most people have in their entire lives. If you'd like, you can come with us, try and make this place safer for others. You get a shiny badge, and a pet alligator. That's part of our deal with our sister ministry, the League of Extraordinary Crocodiles. We had to leave ours behind today, though, due to a scale infection. So, what do you say? Come with us?"

[roll0]

[Eonas]

Tinkerslam calls up to the ceiling: "Hey! Your house could really do with some cleaning up! Don't you wish you could just wish it all away?"

I smiled at League of Extraordinary Crocodiles.
Gather Magic: [roll0]

[cameronpants]

VS Absurd Tales [roll0] - 5 successes!
VS Gather Magic [roll1] - 4 successes!

Wow!

[Plerumque]

Fact: The girl believes me.

You know, I'll leave the rest up to you. Saving the other four dice.

[cameronpants]

The girl above the hole is draped in filthy clothes and a cap. A length of cloth is tied around her face obscuring her mouth and nose. Her eyes linger on the fairy before glancing between the two scavengers below her.

"I do so wish ma and pa would get up. They be feeling kinna low, tired from the stress of the move, I guess. Poor pa got hisself stuck with a pointy metal pole. But, I wish I had me a pet gator even more than that! Count me in, fellow menace erradicker!"

Another noise, this one coming from the staircase across the house, signals the wandering vagrants that there are other beings in the house.

[Plerumque]

"I'm afraid the gator will have to come later," Sol replies. "We need to finish this job first, and that means scouting out all of this area to make sure there's no imminent threat. Why don't you show us around, so we can see what you've already done?" The noise intrudes upon his calm fabulation. "And what's that? You have a brother or something?"

[Eonas]

Tinkerslam sighs. "Excuse me, dearie, I'm just going to obliterate this sucker. There simply is no excuse to leave the house in such a mess, unless you're a child, dismembered, or both."

She puts her ear to the floor, listening carefully.

I want to find out what sort of creature this is. [roll0]

[cameronpants]

VS Identify Noise [roll0]

The floor rumbles under the fairy's ear with the unmistakable sounds of heavy footsteps. Footsteps made by entities with feet. Her closest estimation was that there was at least one of them.

A glance into the previous room reveals to the vagrants a man the size of a bipedal horse shambling across the room. A length of metal, no doubt used as a spear, dangled drunkenly before it as it shifts its heavy rotten muscles towards the kitchen and the voices of the scavengers.

"Here comes daddy. Maybe he'll help y'all clean up. That or paint the kitchen red an gray. He loves red an gray." The little girl disappears from the hole in the ceiling, leaving the roaming survivors to their fates.

[Plerumque]

"Well, I know one little girl who's not getting an alligator," Sol mutters under his breath. "But we can't just kill the poor dear's father. She's already had to deal with his death once, and I don't know about you, but to me it doesn't seem like she's coping too well. You got an idea?"

[Eonas]

Initiative!
Level 1 + Dis 3 = [roll0]

[Plerumque]

Sol watches as his companion drops into her fighting stance, surprisingly elegant for someone whose normal form of attack was to run screaming at her opponents and punch their kneecaps in. "Well, if we're going to have to do it that way..." he sighs.

[roll0]

[Eonas]

Tinkerslam smiles at her companion. "I'm waiting for her daddy to say hi to his little girl. Say 'Hi!', mister! Or I'll bloody beat your brains out."

[Plerumque]

"I'm afraid he may be beyond that now. Hopefully not beyond the realm of insult, but I've found that very little is, if you get to it through the right channels." Sol cracks his knuckles for dramatic effect. "Appearance, birth, intelligence, and competency. The best vitriol hits on all four. Hardly a challenge when we discuss the undead, but with the world the way it is today I'll hardly object to a few things being handed to me on a silver platter."

[cameronpants]

Dad's initiative [roll0]

The hulking man of rotten meat greets the interlopers with a smiling mouth filled with sharpened teeth. The bobbing metal in its grasp is coated in dried blood.

Yeah, simultaneous actions at initiative 20. I will post the dad's action, then you choose yours based on those.

[cameronpants]

The mountainous carcass lurches forward and hurls the metal bar as a javelin at the vagrant on the left- the one who left his mouth running, calling attention to himself.

Throw Javelin: [roll0]. If any successes: One spent on pinning Sol to the ground, the rest on damage.
Potential Damage Roll: [roll1], plus any of these, in order: [roll2] from the attack roll.

[Plerumque]

[roll0]

Adr 4 + Lucky Sock 2.

[Plerumque]

Sol ducks out of the bar's path, and it smashes into the wall where his head was. He dusts off his sleeve, mutters something about having no sense of style, and clears his throat loudly to get the wight's attention. "You know, sir-" the word has a mocking edge- "they say some very strange things about folks up here in the scrublands, and I regret to say that your existence confirms them all. The story about a lonely farmer, a few bottles of wine, and an attractive she-goat? It must be true, as your monstrous visage could only be the product of such an unholy union. The story about your kind of folk being thick-headed backwater heathens whose education consists of the first three letters of the alphabet and their only needed skill moving heavy objects? Well, no one in particular doubted that one. It seems only your daughter has escaped that particular genetic curse. But at least I can return to the echelons of the literate with the news that not only are you people ghastly in countenance and brutish in manner, but also so grossly incompetent at protecting your meager holdings and your family that you go and get yourself killed at the first opportunity, leaving your daughter to fend for herself in this new world so unforgiving of mistakes." Sol softens his voice at this last part and shakes his head sadly. "I would never have thought anyone could make so poor a father. I tell you, sir, that it's a godsdamned shame that people like you even exist." He draws himself up and looks the wight in the rotting eye for the last part, brows beetled together. "And my companion and I will be nothing but true and good if we choose to rectify that mistake, doing what we can to protect your daughter where you failed." Sol stands, breathing heavily for a moment, then whispers to Tinkerslam, "And that's how it's done. Now go smush his face through the floorboards."

[roll0]

Using successes to lower the wight's Adr and then his Whe if possible. Otherwise, all successes go to Tinkerslam's next action.

[cameronpants]

VS Insult [roll0]

That's one bonus die to Tinkerslam. Tinkerslam's turn, followed by a double action for Sol and a single one for the Wight.

[Eonas]

Tinkerslam briefly considers this suggestion. "You know, Sol, I don't think violence is the best policy here. I think what this man really wishes for is some love, affection, and searing light."

I'm a-castin' Blinding Sparkles, to make this guy take a penalty on attack rolls for the rest of the combat. So I've got 4 successes from my Gather Magic attempt early on (remember that?) and 1 from Sol's lie, for a total of 5 Cer + 4 Cast Spells + 4 + 1 = 14 dice to use on the roll, minus one for making it last a full combat. I guess that's excessive, but hey. It'll shut him right the hell down.

Cast Spells: [roll0]

[Plerumque]

"Really, Tink? Using your Magic Words instead of your fists? You'd better hope word of this never gets back to the Pugilist's Guild." Sol watches as the wight stumbles slightly in reaction to his tirade. "I'd hoped for a more impressive effect, but such is the life of a wordsmith. Well, we've got a moment until he regains balance. I would try to convince him you're his daughter, but I fear the tirade I smothered him in makes that no longer so feasible. Hmm... speaking of the girl, let's see what she's up to." Sol takes a few steps and makes a leap into the air, scrabbling for the edge of the hole with his fingers.

[roll0]

[cameronpants]

The wight, not really comprehending what Tinkerslam was doing, did not attempt to resist the magic- instead, it's going to merely be trying to overcome the huge sparkly blind spots it has.
[roll0]

Climbing difficulty from ground floor [roll1]

The wight steps forward, slashing at the brawling fey with the sparkling magic.


Attack [roll2] minus, in order, the successes from Tinkerslam's spell.
Damage: [roll3] plus up to [roll4] from successes. All to damage.

[Plerumque]

Sol swings forward and heaves himself up into the space above the roof with a tremendous effort. "Look, miss, you have to stop your father," he says, panting. "My associate prefers much more, ah, lethal methods than I do. We won't be painting the walls today, I don't think, unless the paint is supplied by your father. If you don't help us stop him, the fairy won't go easy, and you may not have either a father or a house to come back down to."

Fact: Sol makes it to where the girl is. My second action will be Sociality to convince the girl: [roll0]. Well, damnit. Sol's hardly as charismatic as he likes to make himself out to be, is he?

[Eonas]

Tinkerslam flutters into the air to look the wight at eye level as she flails her arms back at it. "Don't like the sparkles, eh? I'll make you see different sparkles, hogsucker!"

Parry! (So my next turn in the initiative order is spent, but if I win the opposed attack roll, I get to deal damage to him instead him to me.) [roll0] All success dice go to damage, except for one fact if I have 3 or more successes: I punch the wight's head clean off.
Damage dealt if I win (4 Vir -1 DR for Fists): [roll1] Successes (only use the first relevant dice): [roll2]
Damage resist if I lose: [roll3]

I dunno from which side I'm supposed to take off your attack roll dice, but it makes no difference: I get 2 successes on the opposed attack roll and so get a damage roll of [17][16][17][13][20]
That's actually pretty lucky. If I get over 3 successes on the damage roll, I'm using them to damage its Adroitness.