#fort bronston

[brownstonearmy]

2021-05-08: Two-Ply Terror (Part 3)

Monday August 31 (late afternoon)

If that cliffhanger from last adventure wasn't bad enough, things get a little worse for the party. Shortly after the mummy lord's spell, Lucky seems to disappear from existence! On top of that, there is a hunter stalking the catacombs, and he smells a familiar scent in the dank air.

That smell is Jay.

When the hunter investigates the commotion deeper in the catacombs, he reveals himself to Jay and Spleenifer with an explosive toss of his Ash Fang shamanic battleaxe. But the axe doesn't hit Jay or Spleenifer; it only hits the mummy lord. OH SNAP, THAT HUNTER IS GRIEG!

As Spleenifer raises her holy book to defend herself from the mummy's onslaught, the pages erupt with a torrent of Ogaan's School flyers and send the book rocketing into the wall at the other side of the room. The mummy lord retaliates by summoning a swarm of biting flies to harass the party.

The deluge of Ogaan's flyers isn't letting up. Just as Spleenifer gets her book back, an even more massive flood of pamphlets is coming down the hall from whence the party came. Jay is able to wound the mummy lord's pride with vicious mockery and thrusts a dagger into the wall to brace themselves against the percolating pile of pamphlets.

Grieg and Spleenifer buffet the mummy lord with axe and staff, but the mummy just continues to trace some sort of ritual sigil with five spokes on the floor. The mummy lord blinds both attackers with a dust storm long enough to finish the drawing. A massive wheel with five spokes rises from the ground, rolls over Grieg, and travels down the corridor Grieg emerged from.

Jay tries to stop the rush of the pamphlets by setting the paper on fire, but the unburned pamphlets at the back of the flood are pushing the flames toward the party. Time for everyone to get the heck outta here!

Grieg leaps to his feet and knocks the mummy to the ground. But the mummy turns into sand as the flood approaches. Everyone in the party flees, just barely avoiding getting crushed by the pamphlet flood. They emerge from the catacombs to a world quite different from the one they left.

It appears that they are in some sort of fort whose walls are wooden palisades. The sky is a glowing red, and the dense forest around the fort is burning. A twisting spire of vines (also on fire) is reaching impossibly high into the sky, trying to touch what appears to be a jagged rip in the sky.

Only Grieg seems unfazed by this development. "Welcome to Fort Bronston in the Ragewood," he says. But this introduction is cut short as a large structure begins throwing itself against the walls of the fort, splintering the wood until it gains entry to the inside of the fort.

The fort's chieftain, Silgra Skinflayer, rushes out to defend the fort from the interloper. In this case, the interloper is a house built atop a five huge legs made of gnarled and knobby tree roots. Silgra puts up a good fight, but she gets captured before the party can get close enough to help.

Aside from the stark visual differences in this harsh environment, the party starts picking up on lots of details that seem like they were lifted directly from the Brownstone they just left. There are mountains that look exactly like those back home, and a river bed running in the same route. Even most of the main streets follow the same route. This is not a Brownstone in the past or future, but a separate reality, the party realizes.

The party chases after the house, and catches a glimpse of who is controlling it. BIG SURPRISE; IT'S BRYNNAN. But Brynnan looks a little different, like his body has swelled up and his skin is now too tight.

Although the house's defenses are formidable, Spleenifer positions herself under the moving house and summons a steed above her into a space that just so happens to be inside the house. The unorthodox idea proves useful, and moments later, Silgra leaps out of the house on horseback.

Silgra is uninjured; the horse, less so.

Grieg climbs one of the house's legs during the commotion and gains entrance to the house. Brynnan responds to Grieg's axe-centric communication by banishing him back to a terrible place Grieg thought he had escaped: the city of Brownstone.

Not realizing the banishment is only for a moment, Grieg believes he is stuck in Brownstone forever. He lays down in the middle of the street to wait for death. Two mushrooms in police uniforms prod him to see if he is ready to be composted.

Back in Fort Bronston, Spleenifer, Jay, and Silgra are trying to stop Brynnan and his mobile home. Brynnan unleashes a mighty bellow from a ram's horn, causing the burning spire of vines to grow until it touches the rip in the sky.

The party has managed to track the house through the burning trees of the Ragewood, all the way to the burning spire.

When Grieg reappears, he calls to Mirage, his faithful wolf companion who is about the size of a pony, to ask her to help in the fight. Everyone is able to grab hold of a leg as the house begins to ascend the burning spire.

Silgra warns that if Brynnan is able to reach the rip in the sky, the Ragewood will be destroyed and the Brownstone reality will be one layer closer to destruction as Norozogaan gains power. Mirage is unable to maintain her footing on the moving roots and falls safely to the ground; and Jay is having trouble making progress up the ropes and roots to reach the house, but Silgra helps them up.

The battle against time and Brynnan is in full swing now. Spleenifer tries to crush Brynnan under the Wait Watcher, but Brynnan avoids it and retaliates with a Cone of Cold. With all this magical chaos happening, a certain magically-chaotic someone appears in the middle of the fight: AW YISS, IT'S LUCKY!

Cracks begin to form in the back wall of the house from where the Wait Watcher hit. Grieg enters his rage state with a high-pitched scream. Spleenifer recovers the Wait Watcher and readies another attack, while Jay shoves their dagger into the crack to further weaken the strength of the wall. Lucky uses Papercut to cut off Brynnan's belt, climbs out of the main room of the house and suggests everyone do the same.

Brynnan responds to Lucky's warning with a lightning bolt, but Lucky has a counterspell ready. The lightning bolt turns into a puppy, but of course there is also a wild magic surge involved. The puppy is actually possessed by a demon, but only has the powers of a regular puppy, so prepare your floors for a lot of piddles.

Once Lucky's turn rolls around again, she polymorphs the legs of the house into another puppy and now the house portion is in freefall. Lucky is able to take herself and Jay to the ground safely, while Spleenifer is able to catch a rope on the way down to stop a painful fall.

Grieg does nothing to stop his fall. He continues to scream with rage, hits the ground and bounces off, taking only half damage from the fall. This dude is literally too angry to die! And since Grieg didn't take an action yet, he opts to kill Brynnan with a terminal-velocity axe blow to the head.

Spleenifer attempts to collect her tithe, only to realize that Brynnan's insides were completely made of poop. He was a overstuffed fecal sausage, if you can tolerate the metaphor.

Lucky scoops up the demon puppy and names it Bolt for obvious reasons. Bolt is gonna be a great present for Hilaria!

Silgra, once she reaches the ground, offers to escort the party to Ft. Bronston's prayer stone and return to Brownstone anyone who wishes to do so. As those who stepped into the light return to Brownstone, our adventure concludes for the evening.

Stay tuned next time for more!

[brownstonearmy]

Fort Bronston Dispatch: Monday August 31 (2021-05-08)

For those still alive to read:

The walls of the fort won’t hold much longer against the continued assault of the House of the Defiler. If the unthinkable happens, there is no backup plan. There is no safe space left when the walls fall. And there is no safe space when the Burning Spire touches the rip in the sky. We are on our own here, and that’s assuming there are still enough people for “we” to still exist by the time this goes to print. Iit might just be me, or it might just be you.

But I hope there’s still an “us” to keep up the fight against “them.” We owe it to Lennipur, and we owe it to the people on the layers we will never see in this life. When the end comes, let us all hope that it is sudden and clean. But when we fight, don’t make it easy for them. This is my last dispatch, Fort Bronston. I shall put down my quill and take up the axe of my ancestors. Remember me.

By Lennipur’s left hand, I am Vola the Uncharred.