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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