Session 38: We'd Like to Axe You A Question

A low sun smeared the Blackroot Bog in umber and gold as the companions paused at the edge of a matted thicket. Behind them lay the hag’s crooked cottage and her warnings about the necromancer Sereth Hollow Voice; ahead, a lonely rise called Decay’s Rest slouched beneath a cloud of buzzing insects. The air tasted of rot and salt, and each breath carried the promise of grave‑soil and old magic.

Bartholemeow slipped from his friends’ sight like a smear of dusk and ghosted up the slope. Mud sucked at feline paws while reeds rasped across tabby fur, yet the shapeshifter’s tread remained soundless. At the crest he crouched behind briars and peered into a tableau of corruption: four reeling cadavers in mildewed livery, two lank ghouls with lips peeled from fangs, and—towering among them—a skeletal noble whose tattered robes still bore symbols of forgotten office. Sereth’s staff of split elder‑wood bled a resinous ooze that dripped to the earth, and insects—fat, black, and mindless—swarmed the fissure in worship.

Beyond, a wagon sagged beneath a mound of pale forms Bartholomeow dared not count.

He slunk back, heart thundering, and materialised behind Thalmiir just long enough to hiss a report. Seven—perhaps more—foes. One of them “extra creepy,” he added, eyelids narrowing at the memory of that weeping staff. Waer’dara’s spider eyes glittered; Hat’s brass dog‑cannon clanked with anticipatory heat; Pebblesong pressed fingertips to the damp earth and felt its pain. There would be no more delay.

Pebblesong drew a breath scented with peat and whispered to the shadows. A hush settled over the band—footfalls vanished, cloaks melted into gloom—and together they fanned through the stunted brush as though carved from the mist itself. At the verge of the clearing they halted: brackish channels wound like black veins round the hill, and the summit lay bare, a stage of cracked clay where the dead shuffled in restless circles.

Thalmiir broke the silence with a dwarven roar. Axe aloft, the old soldier hurdled the last tangle of roots and met the nearest zombie chest‑on, cleaving rotted ribs with a crunch that rattled the corpse’s spine. It toppled, but undead sinews twitched even as they fell. Behind him Pebblesong planted a curved branch in the soil and murmured to wild constellations—thorny vines erupted, unseen beneath moss, eager to drink corrupted blood.

The ghouls sensed living warmth and bounded forward. Their first steps into the hidden snare drew shrieks of splitting flesh; barbs tore feet and shins, yet hunger drove them on. One reached Pebblesong, snapping dead jaws. A starry shimmer enfolded the dwarf—her flesh reshaped into the outline of a draconic constellation—and she darted away, sapphire motes swirling like breath from new‑forged steel.

High on the rise Sereth abandoned his ritual, letting the oozing staff slump into the turf. From a sling across his back he drew a longbow fashioned from bleached bone, its string green with oxidised sinew. His first arrow sought Thalmiir’s heart but shattered against an iridescent ripple of mocking syllables—Bartholemeow’s voice, all velvet derision. The second quarrel found purchase in the dwarf’s arm, yet rage dulled pain to a dull ember.

Hat’s cannon bellowed, a concussive thud flinging the wounded ghoul backward into Pebblesong’s living briar where it was shredded to ribbons. The goblin cackled, seized a splintered limb from the muck, and with a gesture hurled it like a catapult stone into the remaining ghoul. Wood met with wet crack; the creature staggered, black ichor oozing from a caved sternum.

On the slope, Thalmiir and the zombies traded savage blows—steel against bone, spiked mail against splitting cartilage. Each time he hammered a corpse into the dust its frame spasmed, knitting itself back together on a wave of necrotic spite. The barbarian snarled, driving iron fist after iron fist until at last one skull imploded beyond restoration, and the headless trunk lay still.

Sereth’s hiss of frustration slithered across the bog. He raised his bow anew, this time casting his gaze toward Pebblesong’s celestial blaze—yet before he could loose, a quartet of ghost‑like spiders skittered into his periphery. Waer’dara had woven mirrored images of herself, each arachnid double weaving in and out of reality with dizzying precision. The necromancer’s arrow flew wide; he recoiled, retreating behind the wagon and its grisly freight.

Bartholemeow, crouched amid reeds, lifted a reed‑thin flute. A radiant mote coalesced at its tip and streaked toward the hulking shape lumbering below—an abomination stitched of many corpses that had begun to heave itself free of the spike‑growth. Light seared necrotic tissue, but still the creature advanced, dragging torsos like clubbed limbs. It swung, and Bhakris felt bone—some stranger’s, some his own—shatter beneath the blow. The paladin inhaled through cracked lips, his earth‑tinted skin mottled with bruise, and called upon the wellspring buried in his heart. Warmth flooded torn muscle; he stepped back, daring the monster to cross the thorns again.

It obliged. Hat’s cannon thundered once more, hurling the mass north‑west into brambles where barbs feasted greedily. Yet still it writhed, stubborn as grave‑moss.

Blood‑slicked axe in hand, Thalmiir leapt across a rivulet to aid Waer’dara, but another cadaver lashed at the spider first. Mandibles struck back, glancing from rancid hide, and Waer’dara gagged on the sour stink. Pebblesong, her form now a constellation of argent scales, sent a lance of radiant fire that consumed that corpse in a single heartbeat—white fire blossomed, and ash drifted on the breeze.

For an instant victory seemed within reach—then the scattered bodies in Pebblesong’s briar shuddered. Missing limbs crawled toward torsos; spines arched to accept foreign skulls. Flesh welded to flesh until a new abomination—larger than the last—rose, dripping pus and bramble thorns. Zombitron, Thalmiir spat, hefting his axe with weary wrath.

Downhill, Sereth’s laughter crackled through reeds. The necromancer nocked another arrow, edged in green light. He found Bartholemeow in his sights and loosed; the shaft grazed the cat’s flank, drawing only a line of crimson. The bard answered with hissing whispers that filled Sereth’s mind with spectral dwarves on winged steeds, jabbing spears at his eyes. Yowling, the undead noble scrambled farther behind the wagon, oblivious to lacerating vines that tore his trailing robes.

Night did not fall; yet a hush descended, broken only by insect wings and the distant gurgle of blackwater. On the hilltop a battered group of heroes squared against stitched monstrosity and hidden archer, while a wagon piled high with naked corpses creaked in the wind.

The fight was far from over, and the bog held its breath, waiting to see who would rise—and who would rot—upon Decay’s Rest.