If you missed them, the previous turns are linked here -The Blightburner's Story
Turn 7 – Blackthorn Returns
The inn at Blackthorn Manor still smelled of
woodsmoke and old stone when the Blightburners woke. Rain had washed the ridge
clean overnight. Outside the windows the blackthorn hedges stood dark against a
gray dawn.
Locals came before the bread was broken.
Farmers, a stable hand, the old woman who kept the keys to the cellar. They set
a heavy sack of rations on the table—dried meat, hard cheese, a few strings of
onions—and said little. Just nodded at Rose and left.
Sigrid counted out two gold marks across the
boards. Wages. No speeches. The coin disappeared into pouches and the meal went
on.
They spent the morning among the people.
Garric talked with the men who still remembered the old levy lists. Finn and
Dust listened in the stables. Grimwald sat with the manor’s half-blind clerk
and traded quiet words over a cracked ledger. By midday the word had settled:
the Blackthorns were back, and the warband rode with them. One more Adventure
Point locked into the tally. The locals were on their side.
Rose found the swordmaster in the practice
yard behind the old stables. A lean man with a scarred jaw and a wooden
practice blade. He looked her up and down once, then nodded at the rack.
They worked in silence. Footwork. Cuts. The
weight of steel against wood. When the session ended Rose’s shoulders burned
and her breath came hard. Something had settled deeper in her bones. She was
tougher for it.
That afternoon the warband spent what they
had earned. The maps shifted. Blackthorn Manor was no longer a shabby hamlet
clinging to the ridge. People were returning. Roofs were being mended. Smoke
rose from hearths that had been cold for years. A true village now, because a
Blackthorn stood on the stones again.
And the land gave up another secret: the
Curse of War’s hidden camp sat south in the wilderness between the manor and
the Ashen Cloister. Marked. Waiting.
They rode patrol at dusk.
The messenger found them on the southern
track, a tired man on a tired horse. He carried no banner, only a sealed note
and a careful look.
“An ally who wishes to see your Quest find
success,” he said, “offers you a respite, sheltered from the troubles of the
world.”
They followed him to a low stone lodge
half-hidden in the trees—the old Blackthorn hunting lodge, still standing. Fire
already lit. Food waiting. Beds that did not move. Every injury lightened by
two turns of recovery. Every Hero walked out the next morning carrying one more
point of hard-won experience. Five gold marks changed hands without ceremony.
They returned to the manor under a clearer
sky.
Word of the support had already traveled. The
soft-handed lords who still held the keys had taken notice. Same offer as the
patrol. Same quiet weight. This time they handed over the keys to the old
Blackthorn Manor residence wing itself. More rest. More experience. More gold.
The weight of it settled into Garric and
Grimwald that night. Garric’s strikes with the bastard sword grew cleaner,
harder. One more notch of combat skill. Grimwald’s eyes sharpened over the maps
and the half-remembered texts. Scholar. The old knowledge had finally taken
root.
Blightburners at the Lodge
Turn 8 - The
Forest Road
They left Blackthorn Manor at first light.
Rose looked once at the blackthorn hedges and did not look back. The road south
into the dark forest waited.
Camp went up in a stand of twisted oaks. Dust
and Finn slipped out before the fire was fully lit and walked the lay of the
land. Trails. Ridges. The places a man could die without anyone hearing. Two
more Adventure Points for the work.
Finn kept going. He returned near dark with
mud on his boots and a hard light in his eyes.
“I found the path,” he said. “Ancient ruins.
Deep in the forest. The ones the map marked.”
Garric stayed by the fire and trained until
his arms shook. One more experience point carved into the muscle.
A friend reached them that same evening—quiet
word, a small pouch, no names. Another Adventure Point. The land was starting
to notice who stood on its side.
The ruins waited lost in the dark forest
south of Blackthorn Manor. The next mark on the map. Decipher the ancient
writings. Whatever the Whispers had hidden there still needed reading.
The Blightburners checked their gear, banked
the fire, and faced the trees.
The forest did not care that a Blackthorn had
come home. It only cared who walked into it next.
Turn 8 – Haunts in the
Forgotten Ruins
The ruins waited in the
dark forest south of Blackthorn Manor like something that had never learned how
to die.
Stone arches leaned against
each other. Stairs climbed into empty air. A heavy portcullis hung half-open at
the far end, teeth black with old rust. The air smelled of wet leaves and
something older.
Table setup
Round 1
Finn and Dust took the high
ground without a word. The rocky outcrop gave them clean sight lines across the
broken courtyards.
Below, Sigrid, Rose, and
Garric moved toward the nearest stair. Grimwald drifted left, eyes already
hunting.
The grave haunts did not
notice them yet.
Grimwald’s fingers brushed
a scatter of stones near a toppled pillar. Five glittering gems winked up at him. He
pocketed them without breaking stride.
Dust drew Swift Eagle. The
arrow flew true—and passed straight through the grave haunt standing on the
fire tower as if the thing were made of smoke. The haunt never even flinched.
Finn’s shot missed clean.
Blightburners move, Grimwald finds gems
Round 2
Dust did not hesitate.
Swift Eagle howled again. This time the arrow bit deep. The haunt on the tower
staggered, then fled screaming into the trees beyond the ruins.
Finn missed a second time.
Grimwald moved up and
searched the base of a weathered statue. Nothing. No writing. Just cold stone.
Sigrid, Rose, and Garric
climbed the stairs onto the upper level. Rose’s eyes narrowed. Across the
ramparts, three skeletal warriors stood guard over a glint of metal and
leather. A stash.
Forgotten Ruins in the Dark forest
Round 3
Sigrid and Rose hit the
rampart at a run.
Battering Storm rose and
fell. The first skeleton came apart in a wet crash of molding bone. Rose’s Fey
Rapier flickered once, twice. The second skeleton collapsed in pieces.
The haunt that had been
with them lunged for Rose. Steel rang. Neither gave ground.
Across the Rampart
Garric never saw the ones
that hit him from the side.
Two skeletons charged
across a lower rampart and swarmed him. He crushed the first with a brutal
overhand, the old bastard sword biting deep. The bones crumbled around the
blade and locked it. The second skeleton slammed a rusty sword across the side
of his head. Garric dropped like a cut rope.
Rose turned, voice raw.
“You fucking bastards—”
Finn’s arrow took another
haunt clean off the wall and drove it into the woods. Dust’s shot went wide.
Grimwald reached the
staircase and checked for more writing. Nothing.
Grave haunt on the far tower
Round 4
Dust’s next arrow sent the
last haunt on the far tower deep into the gloomy forest. It did not come back.
The skeleton that had
dropped Garric charged Sigrid. She took the blow on her shield, then answered
with everything she had. Battering Storm smashed it into a pile of yellowed
fragments.
“For Garric,” she snarled.
Rose looked down at the
bones at her feet and smirked. “Should’ve stayed dead, you ugly fuck.”
Grimwald dropped to one
knee beside Garric and began to work.
Finn fired at another
skeleton prowling the lower ruins and missed.
For Garric!
Grimwald tends Garric
Round 5
The three skeletons that
had been guarding the stash finally came. They crossed the rampart in a clatter
of dry joints, drawn by the blood.
Sigrid and Rose met them
head-on.
Rose’s rapier took one
apart joint by joint. Sigrid’s sword boomed and the second simply ceased to
exist. The third hesitated. Sigrid poured pure devotion into her voice and
screamed. The thing staggered backward, lost its footing, and fell from the
edge. It hit the ground below in a final, wet collapse of bone.
Finn and Dust took turns
clearing the ruins of the remaining skeleton prowling on the high ramparts, Swift
Eagle thrumming as Finn matched every shot.
Silence settled over the
ruins.
Grimwald left Garric long
enough to reach the broken pedestal the last haunt had been guarding. Weathered
script ran across the cracked stone. He read it once, then again. The Scholar
skill settled into place like a key in a lock.
The words were old.
Pre-Blight. They spoke of a sealed vault deeper in the southern wilds, hidden
beneath a drowned chapel the maps no longer named. Inside waited an artifact
the old warlords had buried when the Womb first opened—something that could bind
or break the hunger in the land. The next step was clear: locate the artifact.
Rose crossed to the stash
she had spotted from across the ruins and swept everything into a sack without
looking. Tools. A repair kit. A fine long bow. Partial armor and a solid
shield. Six more gold marks.
Sigrid hauled Garric over
one shoulder like a sack of grain. She looked up at the high rock where Dust
and Finn still waited.
“We’re done here. Move
before the rest of those bastards decide to come back.”
They left the ruins the way
they had come—quiet, loaded, and one man short of upright.
A dose of silvertree leaf
brought Garric around on the trail. He was only knocked out. The warband
counted the cost and the gain in the fading light.
Dust and Finn both walked
away harder to kill than they had been that morning. Sigrid felt the weight of
pure devotion settle into her bones like a new scar.
They reached Blackthorn
Manor after dark and went straight to the residence wing the soft-handed lords
had finally handed over. A letter waited on the table, sealed with a simple
blackthorn mark. Elara’s hand. She needed them. A contract. Sigrid tucked it
inside her armor without opening it.
“Tomorrow,” she said.
They were about to bank the
fire when the knock came—three soft raps, no more.
Sigrid opened the door.
A hooded figure stood in
the threshold. She pulled the hood back. Pale hair. Cold blue eyes that had
never known warmth. Fey-blood, armed and carrying herself like someone who had
already decided how the next fight would end.
“I am Vaelith,” she said.
Her voice was quiet and precise. “I was told the Blackthorns had returned, and
that their warband walks the same path I do. The writings you found lead to
something that should not stay buried. I can help you find it. Or I can watch
you die trying. Your choice.”
She stepped inside without
waiting for an answer.
Outside, the blackthorn
hedges whispered in the dark. The forest beyond them kept its secrets a little
longer.
The Blightburners had their
next mark.
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