5 Leagues - Turn 5: Horror in the Hollow

Blightburners, Turn 5: Horror in the Hollow

If you missed it, the previous turn is here - Onward to Ironvein 

The Blightburners moved northwest into the mist. Dust ghosted ahead, eyes sharp. Rose sat on a broken stone, steel rasping slow along her rapier. She glanced at the length of the blade, smirked, and muttered, “Let’s just get this over with.”

Sigrid looked them over one by one. “Weapons free. Stay tight. We take the prize and leave nothing breathing.”

The Hollow swallowed them. Twisted ruins sank into a foggy depression. Fat mushrooms glowed sickly orange. Thick bushes and massive trees turned the place into a murder maze. Visibility was shit. Bows were limited to short, ugly shots.

Blightburners move in

The way forward

 

The setup

Turn One

Dust pushed to the first token. The trap punched him hard. He staggered back, blood already darkening his armor.

 

Turn Two

Grimwald worked fast, binding the wound while the others held. Dust and Finn advanced and loosed on the hovering vermin in the ruins ahead. Finn’s shaft vanished into mist. Dust’s arrow punched clean through one insect. It dropped twitching.  The rest of the group moved up cautiously.

Turn Three

Finn and Dust went fast again, pushing forward and shooting. Finn missed. Dust took out a second flyer. The rest of the group moved up to engage. The remaining swarms closed in and surrounded Rose. She had a vicious exchange. Steel flashed. The final bug lay dead at her feet. She moved forward to secure the token and sprang another trap—this one a hazard.  She threw herself backward, boots skidding, and came up clean. The rest of the warband drifted left. They could feel it now—the dagger was close.

Rose claims a prize....it's a trap!

Turn Four

This was it. Sigrid moved into the ruins of a once fine chamber. This is what they were after—the Verdant Fang, a jagged, thorn-wrapped dagger carved from a single piece of petrified Blightwomb root. Green veins pulsed faintly under the surface. Anyone who held it too long started hearing whispers about power and hunger. She carefully knelt as Grimwald moved up to assist. She picked the dagger carefully off a withered corpse while Grimwald claimed the loot token. Guarded stash. Two vile worms sprang from the ground, attacking them viciously. 

 

 

Worms spring from the ground

Sigrid met the first head-on. Steel and flesh and wet snaps. The worm died in pieces at her feet. She turned. Grimwald was already losing ground, staff spinning, the second worm coiling tight around him.

Turn Five

Grimwald spun his staff and somehow seized the initiative. Then the worm twisted faster. The old mystic went down hard. Silent. Still.

Finn didn’t hesitate. One clean arrow through the worm’s skull. Garric was already moving, hauling Grimwald up like a sack of grain. The mystic’s face was paper-white.

They had what they came for. Time to leave.

 Grimwald is down

Turn Six

Time to go. They came, they got it, and now they had four of the loot tokens. Dust and Finn moved up, looking out the old ruined windows of the crumbling building, and saw a group of vermin blocking their path. Both shot and scored hits, but only one of the creatures dropped. The vermin charged.

One smashed through the window at Finn. He jammed his bow into its path and drove a shaft into its eye. Another vaulted the wall straight onto Sigrid. She smashed it down without ceremony. Rose snarled, “Fuck this shit, time to go,” and leaped the wall alone. Two more vermin hit her. She cut one deep and kept moving.

 

Turn seven

Then the dice turned mean.  The bugs went first…

Both remaining vermin latched onto Rose. Claws and teeth burying into her shoulder. Blood ran down her arm. She fought like something cornered and vicious. One thrust through what passed for a face. The second died a heartbeat later on the same blade. She spat and kept walking.

The warband scrambled over the wall with Grimwald limp in Garric’s arms. Finn’s eyes caught a last glint near the exit—hidden stash. He claimed it without slowing.

They climbed out of that green-stained hell and didn’t look back.

 

Fuck you and fuck this, Rose mutters 

 

 

One last prize

 

Blightburners - Out of they hollow of horror..no man left behind

Resolution

Contract complete. Four Adventure Points. Sigrid forced silvertree leaf between Grimwald’s teeth. “Swallow it. No chances.” The old man lived. His armor did not.

Garric’s Will hardened another notch (gained a level). Fortune favors the bold and the loot table smiled: jewelry worth six gold, a Fey Rapier that fit Rose’s hand like it had been waiting, two more doses of silvertree leaf, salvageable camping gear, a thin magical necklace that hummed when Grimwald touched it (+1 to all casting), and the real prize—

Battering Storm 

 A heavy, storm-forged blade that feels like it wants to keep moving once it starts. The edge hums with a low, constant pressure—like distant thunder under the steel. When it hits, it hits harder than it has any right to. The trade-off is simple and ugly: on a pure draw the sword seems to pull the fight against you. But when it lands clean, the damage is savage.

A magnificent sword. Sigrid felt the weight settle into her grip and actually smiled.

They rode to the roadside inn outside Ironvein and handed over the Verdant Fang. The contact’s eyes drifted to the new sword on Sigrid’s hip, almost reached for it. She locked him with a flat stare.

“Contract was for the dagger. Not the sword. We clear?”

He nodded once. In return they received fresh intelligence: another unexplored mark on the map, north near Grimford Market.

The green river still flows. The Womb still hungers. The Blightburners ride on—richer, bloodier, and one step closer to the shrine.

5 Leagues - Turns 4 and 5 Onward to Ironvein and the Weight of the New Moon

 

Turns 4 and 5: Goodbye Mirefield Farms, hello Ironvein Trade Hub

If you missed it, Turn 3 Cruel Deserters at the Crumbling Inn is here 

The Blightburners would leave Mirefield Farms under a sky the color of old bruises. The fields behind them looked a shade less rotten, the people a shade less broken. They had cut the Curse of War down a peg—threat reduced to a low growl of 2—and the village breathed easier for it. But the note from the dead robber captain still burned in Sigrid’s pouch: Deliver the strong ones and the hunter alive to the shrine in the Hollow before the new moon. The Womb hungers. More meat means more coin.

The new moon was coming fast. No time for rest.

They would ride west. First stop: Ironvein Trade Hub. Then the blackthorns and the sink beyond.

No Hard Times bit them this stretch. Bringing Bren Carver home alive had bought goodwill and full bellies. While the warband saddled up, Grimwald drilled like a man trying to outrun his own bones. The old mystic’s spells came sharper afterward—his casting stronger by a full step. Finn and Dust ranged ahead, slipping through the wild like ghosts. Nothing on the road smelled of ambush. The way stayed clear.

Before the dust of departure settled, Bren Carver approached them in the muddy yard. The farmer pressed two gold marks into Sigrid’s hand, eyes steady. “More than thanks,” he said. “You pulled me out of hell.” The coin went straight to a battered but serviceable shield for Garric. The big man strapped it on without a word, testing the weight like an old friend returned.

 

 

Brenn Says thanks 

 

Scouting the way 

The journey passed quiet. No blood, no screams. Just the green river sliding beside them, thick and watchful.

Ironvein greeted them with open gates and wary respect. Tales of the Blightburners had already reached the smoke-choked hub—the ogre’s fall, the inn slaughter, the rescue of Mara Reed. Supportive locals meant open doors and loose tongues. One more Adventure Point slipped into their tally just from buying drinks and listening. Sigrid paid the crew two gold marks from the purse. Small wages for hard steel.

They earned a little more by swinging blades with the town guard—two fat sacks of rations for their trouble. Grimwald buried himself in old ledgers and whispered lore but came up empty. No new secrets from the books. The warband felt well-equipped enough; they left the traders alone.

 

News travels, welcome Blightburners 

 

Then came the research.

A quiet word in the right ear led them to a secretive knot of men in a back room thick with pipe smoke and iron dust. They had a contract: recover an item from an unexplored site northwest of town. Dangerous work. Worth it. Three more Adventure Points hit the ledger, and a fresh mark appeared on their map—unexplored ground in the direction they were already riding. Toward the Hollow. Toward the new moon.

Sigrid didn’t hesitate. “We take the contract.”

 

 

contract offered 

The decision was made.

Now the Blightburners gear up for blood at a forgotten treasure site. Lurking foes wait in the dark—giant bugs scuttling through the ruins, and a handful of imps twisted into the mix. A site battle with fat loot rolls on the line. The shrine in the Hollow still calls, but first they sharpen their steel on whatever Ironvein needs dead.

The green river flows on. The Womb still hungers. And the Blightburners ride straight into its teeth.