Chapter 10: Long Gone

The finale of my solo Cairn campaign

Opening the session

Welcome back to my solo Cairn campaign!

This is the finale, folks. Check out the poll at the end to help me decide what comes next.

Last session, Ralund drank away his woes in The Skunk-drunk Friar until retiring to his rented room. Later that night, Captain Qity and The Stag Knights ambushed him. Ralund slayed two of the knights in the market but soon the others surrounded him. With no where else to run, Ralund makes his last stand.

To start, I used my one-sheet to roll my theme, weather, and random event.

• Session theme: “Sacred” & “Rune”

• Weather: Cold & Foggy

• Random event: none

Blood ran down Ralund’s elbows to the manacles biting into his wrists. Pain pulsed in his fingers from all the hacking into meat and bone. He struggled to catch his breath as the rest of The Stag Knights surrounded him.

“You’re done, Ralund Steeleye,” said Captain Qity. Her voice was muffled and tinny under her helm.

“Any chance you had is long gone now. Put down the sword, lay on the ground, and it will go easier for you.”

The other Stag Knights circled Ralund like scavengers. Their bare swords caught the light and gleamed like teeth in the gloom.

She was right, he knew. He should have never come here. He should have never left the boy and his mother out there. He should have never left The Weald in the first place. But here he was. Surrounded. Alone. And dead to rights.

A blighted star.

Just like Addy. And just like Addy, any hope of victory or escape he might have had was long gone now.

Sketching the scene where it all goes wrong…

Game notes

Oracle: is there anyone else around watching Ralund? Yes, but…they’re terrified. No one is coming to help poor Ralund, and I can’t blame them.

— are Sysa and Ramil nearby? No. Curious…I’ll save that for later.

With nothing else to do, and nowhere to run, Ralund stood firm.

The only thing left was defiance.

Ralund Hexeye of The Wenderweald spit blood on the pale corpse at his feet and pointed the sword at Captain Qity.

“You had it right. I am a witch — a blighted star.”

The knights muttered warding prayers inside their helms. A chorus - a dirge of iron-edged coughs.

“Then you’re right where you’re supposed to be, Ralund.”

He knew what that meant too. They wanted him alive and he wasn’t going to give them that.

Game notes

I rolled a DEX save to keep the iniative — fail!

I considered the Stag Knights a detachment, but kept Captain Qity as an individual. I rolled stats for her too…sorry Ralund.

The battle begins…

The knights fell on Ralund like a wave. Blades cut through and gauntlets bruised and broke things. He never thought to win. He could only refuse to surrender. Refuse to die on their terms.

He fended off what he could, but he was outmatched and outnumbered.

Qity moved in to finish him. She raised her sword high and Ralund stepped under her guard, shouldering her back. Before she could bring her shield up, he scythed upwards and across her — a desperate, violent stroke.

The hilt caught her helm under the chin and tore her helmet away as the blade bit into her cheek.

He drew blood but threw off his balance. And Qity seized the moment. She kicked under his knee and he crashed hard onto his back. The wind rushed from his lungs. He couldn’t fight her off as she stood over him and drove the pummel of her sword into his face: twice. Two rapid cracks and Ralund’s vision swam with inky spots.

Game notes

Qity spun his top — not surprising — and Ralund suffered a “Rattling blow.” I used all his luck dice to survive her attack and score that one cut on Qity’s face. Ralund had nothing left.

The sword slipped from his grip.

It was over, Ralund knew. One quick cut, a rush of cold air and panic. And then rest. Soon enough now.

Qity stood up and over him. She gripped a clump of his hair in her gauntlet and dragged him to a horse tie. Another Stag Knight looped manacles over the crossbar and snapped the cuffs around Ralund’s ankles. He hung there like a field-dressed deer.

Captain Qity touched the wound on her face and looked at her gloved fingers where the blood stained the leather. Already, her face was swelling.

Game notes

We know The Stag Knights don’t miss an opportunity to question the witch. The fear and rely on them as discussed in “Building The Wenderweald 1.”

So, question for the oracle…

Does Qity take Ralund alive? Double 6’s — extreme yes!

Recalling the sessions themes — “Sacred” and “Rune” — I imagine Qity is keeping Ralund alive to make an example of him. Embarrassed that she didn’t trust her gut about him, Ralund needs to suffer and be seen to suffer by those who might be sympathetic to the witch.

Captain Qity sheathed her sword and turned to her knights. “Fetch the Apothecary,” she said. “Tell her to bring the binding runes.”

They were going to brand him. Mark him as a witch and string him up for all to see. Ralund tried to hold his head up, tried to stay awake, but his mind was foggy. He could feel blood running through his thin hair. It rolled down his face and into his eyes. He wanted to sleep.

When The Apothecary arrived, she rode in on a cart-drawn forge pulled by a burned, soot-stained donkey. She dismounted with a wheezing pain that filtered through her beaked mask and stooped over Ralund. He could see his own bloody reflection in the glass of her goggles but nothing of the woman behind them.

She gripped him by the chin and twisted his face left, then right before standing again and nodding at Captain Qity.

Smoke poured from the forge and choked the air. The Apothecary withdrew from the cloud with a fiery brand, held it to the moonlight, and moved towards Ralund.

“Hold him,” she said. Qity lifted Ralund from under his arms, and blackness took him. Then heat and searing pain. The stench of burning flesh.

He felt the wet stones on his back when they cut him loose. The ripping of his clothes. His heels dragged on the pavers. The dogs barked at him.

Then came the creaking of chains — the halting, hitching groan of wood and metal sighing. The crows mocked him from the rooftops.

Then it was cold.

Ralund was calm when he finally fell asleep in the swaying gibbet.

Oracle: did Sysa and Ramil betray Ralund? Yes, but…they did it to save themselves.

Knowing what happened to Ralund, who could blame them. There are no heroes in The Wenderweald.

Still, I had to know what happened to them.

Sysa and Ramil passed under the Gate of Gideon in a trundling cart pulled by their swayback mule: Eveleen.

They kept quiet and cloaked, careful not to meet eyes or draw eyes or warrant a second thought from the guards.

When they were clear of the town, long gone up the muddy road west, Sysa felt the air and tightness leaving her body. Ramil forced down a laugh he couldn’t explain.

“I think we’re far enough out now,” Sysa said as she pulled back her cloak.

“They’ll come looking for us before long,” Ramil warned. “The inn will have visitors and no one to take them in.” He pulled his cloak back too and replaced it with a leather skull cap. He handed the reigns to Sysa while he dug up his axe, longbow, and quiver from under the hay in the back of the cart.

He watched Gidoeon’s Reach recede into the fog behind them.

She watched the trees ahead of them and their reaching shadows. “Probably,” she said. “We’ll have time to sort that out.”

Ramil found his seat again and landed heavily, slushing the chainmail he wore under his cloak. “What do you think they’ll do to him?”

“You know what they do to witches, Ramil.” She didn’t want to talk about it. He knew that. But this felt different.

“You said he was a…blight star or some such?”

“A blighted star,” she sighed. “He’s marked. I saw what he saw. I saw what he did and what’s out there.” Sysa nodded ahead at the black tendrils of The Wenderweald.

“You’re sure it was Razvan?”

“She’s my blood, Ramil. And she’s in danger.” Sysa snapped the reigns lightly to put some speed into Eveleen. Eveleen ignored her.

“I don’t doubt you, love. I don’t understand the witching, is all.”

“I know.”

“I’m afraid of it, being honest.”

“Me too,” Sysa said, relenting.

A streak of blue lightning bolted from the gray clouds above and a raven lighted down to perch on the cart beside Sysa.

The raven cawed: “Blighted star! Blighted star!”

“We’ll find her, love” Ramil said, knocking his bulk into her playfully. “I never doubt Rowena.”

Rowena snapped at him and cawed again: “Ironhands! Ironhands!”

A storm was brooding over The Wenderweald where witches and worse dwelled. Somewhere out there, Sysa’s sister — Razvan — was still alive.

“We will,” Sysa said. She hoped she was right this time.

Closing the session

After closing this session, I wanted to reflect on what I’ve learned as a DM and player. For me, that means ending this campaign and beginning a new one.

I’m staying in The Wenderweald — I’ve only scratched the surface of this setting, and I have more plans for its development.

I’m sticking with my new characters too. Sysa and Ramil have a story to tell, and I want to see where it goes.

I want to learn how other systems can expand and develop The Wenderweald. To that end, I’m opening a poll to everyone to choose what game I play for the next campaign.

Choose your weapon…