Not the Chosen Ones (Part 2)

Winnie and the Cheshire Cat (by Kat)

Stories on occasion begin with the heroes being foretold in legend and myth. Those around them are keenly aware that the heroes will defeat some great threat, or deliver the populace to safety. Last night the group proved that they are not those kind of heroes, or at least not yet.

For those with a copy of "A Red and Pleasant Land" to hand, I started the players off with the Frozen Battle scene. The general setup is that there is currently a battle going on between two factions but they have frozen in time.  In order for time to resume, the players would have to investigate and solve the issue, a task that the Cheshire Cat felt confident they could do.

As our missing player from last week +Anthony Edmonds was here this week, I rolled initially on the "Where have you been?" table. Turns out his character had wandered off and found 71 gold pieces. His character in question being Maximus, a man who believes himself to be a commander "of the north" and speaks with a gravelly voice. Out of all the characters he is the only one who perhaps belonged in Bethlem.

They started to make their way down the side of the building they were standing on, realising with surprise that they could walk normally down the side of the building. At the foot, Cuthbert made sure his Colourless tabard was neat and approached the Colourless Knight who was stationed there. He began demanding that the knight escort them to the Queen, an action which did not go down well with the knight who promptly twatted Cuthbert with the flat of his sword. Combat began but ended quickly after Eliza knocked the knight off his horse with a volley of magic missiles and the group tried to restrain him. The knight turned into a manta ray in an attempt to flounder away before Cuthbert stabbed him with his vorpal blade. At this point the knight dissolved into a white mist that accelerated away.

Turning their attention to the horse, they found a random piece of communication in it, a report of how the battle was going (it was blank after the headline), and a pink parasol covered in veins. They then proceed to the topiary garden and pond they could see a little way ahead of them. After throwing a stone into the pond they realised that the pond was alive as it scampered off to hide behind one of the carefully pruned bushes. Despite the soothing attention of Winnie, the pond ran off quickly after Lemule threatened to drink it and Eric generally yelled at it. It was at this point however that, despite Maximus trying hard to be a voice of reason, Eric decided to walk into the frozen battle.

He froze.

Winnie decided to try and hook him back out using the parasol, but failed her saving roll and promptly froze too. Cuthbert and Maximus inexplicably marched in after them, promptly freezing too.

Eliza grew flustered, "We need to save them, they're our only friends!"

"Well they might be your only friends." Lemule replied, "I think they're cunts."

We should not have done that, we should not have done that.

Despite that statement, they both stepped forwards. The entire party were now trapped in a frozen battle. Time to roll some new characters?

Thankfully not because, 70 years later, some other adventurers happened upon the scene and solved the problem, releasing the soldiers (who shuffled awkwardly away) and the party. In the 70 years many games of croquet had played out, many political machinations had unfolded, and many earthworms had died in the great Battle of Deadhorse Field.

The battlefield was quietly and quickly emptying as the group decided to work back round to the bridge and cross it. After a close call where Lemule nearly threw Winnie to her death, they encountered a strange plant like creature. It cast something on Winnie, causing her to try and wander back the way she came, while Cuthbert burned the plant with a torch. This caused the plants to start wailing and crying like small children as the party hurriedly made their way across the bridge to the other side.

On the other side they made their way past a well to a ruined library. They found there all the info they needed to solve the initial frozen battle (left behind by the other adventurers). They also found some books to burn as they wanted a fire and a chance to rest up a bit.

Winnie, Eric, and Cuthbert wandered back to the well to find some water and were surprised instead to find a collection of small children living inside the well. After Winnie fell down on top of them, they learnt that the children lived there to hide from the vampires. They had plenty of jam down there with them and some water to keep them alive but Winnie stole most their jam and some water before escaping upwards. They also learnt some of the standard facts about vampires - can't cross running water, can't abide silver or garlic, hate sunlight.

Back at camp, two large green boars entered the library and were surprised to find people there. Insulting to Eliza, they engaged Maximus and Lemule in conversation. Lemule spoiled the mood somewhat by knocking over a pile of books while trying to sneak up on the pigs. He then lunged at one of them, swinging a steak down into its back but failed to damage the pig. A convincing charisma roll left Lemule assuring the pig that he had seen a fly and was just getting it for him.

While the boars pressed Maximus to write something to contribute to the library, Lemule tried again to sneak up on them but knocked another pile of books over. As the rest of the group arrived back, it was agreed they'd get, say, 8 hours sleep before proceeding north to find the Heart Queen.

The session has ended with the players formulating a goal of sorts - they want to find the Red Queen. Next session is on Tuesday 13th of October, circle me to receive the next update straight into your G+ stream!