"Welcome to the Old World" (Session 3)

Before the group continued on, Kameena spent some time talking to the Roadwardens who treated her as a celebrity for her dead-on slinging. They decided to give her Gaffin’s pony and she also bore witness to his fate: after a beating from the Roadwardens, he was thrown in the very pit his lies landed Emmerich in. Naked, his hair and muttonchops shaved, he would be left in the pit with no food and water until the Roadwardens made a return patrol a week later. If he was still alive, he’d be turned loose in the wilderness to fend for himself.

Kameena and friends didn’t feel much pity for Gaffin, but it turned out his pony, Gildiril, wouldn’t budge without a secret phrase from his master. In exchange for food and water, Gaffin shouted the vulgar Halfling phrase to her, and he was left to his fate.

With fair weather in the skies, the party continued south along the Stir. After a full day’s travel, they made camp in the woods, erecting a simple tent. The woods of the Old World are dangerous, though, and the trio were awakened in the night by a ravenous pack of wolves. The group made fast work of the wolves, with even Brunhilda the goat managing to kill one. Flush with victory, Bargrimm took what skins he could from the mangled wolves and regaled the party with the dirtiest dwarf jokes he knew. Meanwhile, Kameena put her surgical blades to use and fashioned a helmet for Brunhilda from one of the wolf skulls. She also made a necklace of teeth for Nicodemus.

The next day, the group was approaching a bend in the road when a strange feeling came over Nicodemus – his sixth sense warning him of danger! The group hid in the trees as a small group of sword-wielding priests of Sigmar rounded the bend, a cart of their injured just behind them. They spotted the group, declared them bandits, and readied to fight them, but when Bargrimm sheathed his sword and the others followed, tensions disappeared. The priests claimed to have survived a recent attack by bandits, but curiously refused to allow Kameena to treat any of their injuries; they claimed they were tests from Sigmar that they alone had to bear. Nicodemus warned them of reports of goblins, and the two parties went their separate ways.

Not an hour later, Bargrimm spotted a murder of crows hovering just beyond a rise in the road ahead. Creeping up, he came across a scene of carnage. There were ten bodies in all – two in priest robes, the rest apparently farmers - all bearing violent sword wounds. When Kameena and Nicodemus took the scene in, both were chilled to the bone and Nicodemus actually lost his morning breakfast. When he recovered, he remarked how odd it was that the Sigmarite priests would leave their dead behind, unburied.

The mystery was shortly cleared up when a lone survivor, a grievously injured middle-aged woman, was discovered. Even Kameena’s considerable skills weren’t enough to save her, but before dying she managed to gurgle out her tale: seven years ago, the Baron von Radische had entrusted she and her husband to care for his newborn daughter. They were returning the girl to the Baron in Hermsdorf when bandits disguised as priests set upon them, killing all save the girl. The woman charged the group with saving the girl – Bianka – and returning her to Hermsdorf where they were sure to collect a great reward.

Kameena found a medallion in the woman’s possession and her knowledge of heraldry confirmed it to be the genuine crest of the Baron (a ferret standing upright, holding a sword). The fact that the woman had invoked the gods weighed heavily on the superstitious Nicodemus. Bargrimm, on the other hand, wasn’t in a hurry to get involved until Kameena, the person he was most indebted to, managed to sway him. The party set off after the bandits.

Travelling late into the gloomy night with occasional wolves pacing them, the group finally made camp upon realizing they might have actually overtaken and passed the bandits in the dark. The next morning, the scouted a little further ahead, found the burnt-out tollhouse they’d passed the previous day, and the remains of a recent campfire. Bargrimm was sure it was the bandits’, and from the handful of still glowing embers, knew that the group must be close on their heels.

Within an hour, the group had caught up with the bandits, only to discover the bandits had met an ironic fate. They themselves had been ambushed by goblins, and not a man survived. Among the carnage were several goblin bodies and hacked limbs, one of the goblins having an image of a split skull etched into his forehead as a scar, but Bianka was nowhere to be seen. The party did find some grain and other supplies in the overturned cart of the bandits, along with the note from the Baron that called for the girl's return. Clearly the bandits had taken it off the girl’s foster parents and realized her worth. Whether the goblins had taken her for the same reason or something more sinister, their trail into the gloomy forest beckoned...