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.
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.
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.
One last prize
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.
Just wanted to thank anyone reading this. Really appreciated you checking it out!
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