Adventures in a Doomed World: Session 23

I'm playing a mashup of Scarlet Heroes and Basic Fantasy RPG with a few supplements to turn it into a solo fantasy hexcrawl in the world of Eilobar, a doomed land entering its end times. I'm using the Level 0 Character Tumbler, Hexcrawl Adventures and some homebrew rules. The characters started as level 0 peasants and have since levelled up to become heroes.

The Adventure

After moving Helia's body outside the heroes search the cultists' bodies, finding a cheap pewter amulet worth 30GP.

I've rolled a feature for the next room. The tables say "A dangerous intruder or beast who has entered the site", and for the motivation, "Rescue another person within the site".

The heroes follow the spiralling tunnel deeper into the earth until it opens out into a cavern. They can hear the sounds of fighting so they move further in, walking past an underground stream. They can see the acolyte who fled from battle, and he's in combat with a man not dressed in the cult's red robes. This man is a human wearing leather armour and using a longsword. The heroes move in to help him.

The man gets initiative. He swings his longsword and cuts into the cultist, bringing him down. Then he spins around and shouts "Get back you bastards, I'll have you all!"

"Wait!" Stilda shouts, "We're not with them, we're here to bring them to justice."

Stilda rolls a charisma check (9: Simple)
3 -2 Cha bonus = 1. Failure!

"Liar!" He shouts, and charges at them. Since the heroes always act first in combat unless surprised, they'll each get a chance to persuade him.

Cyna rolls a charisma check (9: Simple)
8 +1 Cha bonus = 9. Success! 10 XP.

Cyna drops her shield and pitchfork. "We were sent by Dalla, High Priest of Wastow to cleanse these caves of demon worshippers. I will not fight you, sir!"

He looks shocked at this, then sheathes his sword. He introduces himself as Egon, from Wastow.

Who is he looking for?
Cousin.

He explains that his cousin Otkatla was kidnapped during the night and he's tracked the kidnappers down to these caves. He fears she's going to be sacrificed to whatever demons these people serve if he doesn't find her in time, so the heroes agree to protect him while he searches for her.

As Egon hasn't gone through the same level zero character funnel as the party, he's not a hero so he doesn't have stats or a fray die, just a measly 2 hit dice. They'll have to look after him. They follow a tunnel north out of the cavern to find themselves in a smaller cave with a domed ceiling. This one is empty though, so they backtrack and find another tunnel near the stream.

Following this tunnel east the ground soon narrows into a thin ledge over a deep pit. Across it they can see a circular chamber lit by sconces with two tunnels leading away into the darkness. There's no sign of the cult yet though, so they easily hug the wall and move across the ledge to the other side. They choose the tunnel leading north which opens out into another large cavern. The walls here contain layers of strata - different types of rock that has built up on top of each other over aeons.

"Listen!" exclaims Egon. They all listen and start to hear a quiet whimpering somewhere in the darkness. Stilda rushes towards it with her lantern aloft.

The dungeon feature oracle says "A hideously tormented victim of the inhabitants".

Is it Otkatla? (50/50)
Yes!

Is she restrained in some way? (Likely)
Yes, but...

I'll go with "only with rope" here instead of asking for more detail, since it's the most logical conclusion.

They all rush over to Otkatla and cut through the ropes binding her. Unfortunately she's in a bad way, wounded all over.

Can she walk? (50/50)
No.

Stilda bandages some of her wounds but she's unable to do much else with her healing skill since they're underground and she can't go foraging for useful herbs or anything. Egon lifts her up and carries her, and they start making their way back out. The heroes offer to travel with them since they can put Otkatla on one of their horses, and Egon agrees. There's a tunnel leading south from the circular chamber and Egon volunteers to go with them for revenge, but he's no warrior and they persuade him to stay and guard Otkatla.

They enter the tunnel and follow it to a dimly lit cavern with an altar in the centre. The walls here look porous and crumbly, as if they're in danger of collapse. In front of the altar are three robed figures and one in studded leather armour. "Come no further!" One of them shouts. "I am Jovia, high priestess of the demon lord Zozu."

"You're not high priestess of anything, bitch!" shouts Cyna, and rushes into battle.

The heroes stride forward. Bryne scans the four figures and decides the armoured one must be the most dangerous - the enforcer. She casts Magic Missile at him and the glowing ball smashes into his chest, exploding.

Jovia the leader begins chanting, and the heroes catch the name "Zozu" amid the babbling. The enforcer starts to glow an eerie red colour - this is Protection From Good, so he gains +2 AC and to any checks he makes. The cultists march towards the heroes across the cave.

Stilda darts forward and slashes the fanatic across the chest with her longsword then hits the acoylte next to her in the same movement, killing them both. That was a max damage attack roll and she gets max damage on her fray die too, but she holds back from hitting Jovia since she wants to take her alive. Cyna approaches the armour-clad enforcer and lunges with her pitchfork, hitting him in the stomach and badly wounding him. Bryne shoots a stone from her sling at him but misses.

Jovia and the enforcer both hold their nerve, the enforcer passing his morale check due to the Protection From Good spell. Jovia chants a prayer and suddenly a cut opens on Stilda's arm, under her splintmail (Cause Light Wounds). Jovia backs away. The enforcer swings his morningstar at Cyna but she blocks it with her shield.

Stilda attacks the enforcer but her sword gets tangled in his morningstar's chain. He yanks it out of her hand (critical miss!). Cyna attacks him again but he dodges out of the way, and Bryne misses again.

Jovia comes back into the fight, slashing at Stilda while she's reaching for her sword, but she manages to squirm out of the way. The enforcer tries to hit Cyna but misses. The red glow slowly fades away from him.

The fight continues like this, the heroes trying to kill the enforcer so they can force Jovia to surrender. While he's distracted fighting Cyna, Bryne manages to shoot a sharp stone that buries itself in his forehead, killing him. This doesn't deter Jovia though, she seems intent on going down fighting.

As the character with the highest charisma, Cyna will try to reason with her. We'll make it a hard check (13) as she's a fanatical cultist.

Cyna makes a hard charisma check (13).
9 +1 Cha modifier = 10
Failure!

"It's over Jovia, your little gang's dead. Just drop the dagger and come back to Wastow with us!" Cyna says.

"Never!" the woman spits, and suddenly jabs Cyna in the side with her dagger, wounding her a bit.

"We'll see justice done yet. Put your weapons away and let's knock her out!" Stilda shouts. The others do as she says, then she smacks Jovia in the face as hard as she can, knocking the woman out cold.

What a fight! I stupidly forgot about fray dice in the middle of the fight - I'm still getting back into the swing of Scarlet Heroes after a long break.

Stilda bandages the wounds of herself, Cyna and the unconscious Jovia, and then binds her hands and feet. Jovia will be unconscious for 1D4 hours: 4.

They search the bodies and find 50 gold pieces and some jewellery worth 210GP in total: a bronze jasper ring, a bronze bracelet and a bronze belly chain. They carry Jovia down the tunnel to where Egon waits with Otkatla and they now have two problems to solve: how to get the willing but wounded Otkatla and the unconscious and unwilling Jovia both across the narrow ledge over the deep pit. We'll tackle that next time.