11/26/2023 -- Operation Caduceus Caper

Damon Commander, Andreas Marshall, Bloom Lorekeeper
Pre-mission, everyone goes to the watchtower except Varos, who goes shopping to get a new tent and boots – we gossip about Varos, and how chill he was with his tent exploding
- We all get the extra die to a chosen stat after our watchtower bonding
We decide to go at night, and start in a risky position – Damon shifts into his werewolf form, and covers himself in mud
Our travel is generally good, no enemy squads, occasional chirp in the distance, Damon smells odd things on the wind, we arrive without incident to the Klaxon Hospital, in a small gnomish village – those who grew up on the Primordial Ring roll mental checks
- Damon, Thomas, and Andreas make checks
Only Thomas gets a success, knows village of Klaxon was home to a tradition of gnomish acrobats that traveled across the Primordial Ring, began because gnomes required doctors due to their habits of falling here and there, Klaxon Hospital grew and became its own thing
Upon approach, Talisman would barely catch sight of something – a small, black shape that darts out of his line of sight, close to the top of the hospital, vaguely humanoid
- He relays this to Bloom (loud enough for others to hear), since he’s next to him – I don’t see anything, but promise to keep an eye out
Damon gets the smell of rubbing alcohol, old beds, normal hospital smell – not one he’s a fan of, also decay and tallow [strange mixture passed by in the Church of the Ever-Glory]
He finds a simple wooden door left open a crack, goes through and hits a tripwire
He throws himself back, expecting an arrow or a bomb or something, but instead, he hears a bell, soft chimes begin to ring softly through the whole hospital, not loud, but it was an early warning system
We go through, find some dead ends, pass by waiting rooms and doctor’s offices – at one point, we hear a scraping noise and very fast footfalls beyond the hospital, there’s a soft scream in the distance that gets cut short
We decide to push forward here, in another section we find shattered bits of a Brigade longsword, pieces seem wedged into a nearby wall – no body, if there weren’t signs of the weapon being broken, there’d be no evidence of a fight
Blossomed’s spores leave residue – Bloom sees some here, but no more than anywhere else in the hospital
This place is very defensible, honestly close to a bunker – Andreas says he thinks someone tried to make a last stand here, defensible, one way in/out, can’t say what against
Damon hears a wet, snapping sound, one he would’ve heard while hunting – sound of a larger animal gnawing on bone, seems to be northwestern
We find a door marked laboratory, Damon smells a freshly put-out fire, and someone beyond the door. Andreas finds a small, silver bell nearby, probably hooked up to the mechanism by the door
Andreas opens the door, his shield up – walks into a hospital’s lab, tools for testing patients, other bits of equipment, part of the lab co-opted by a rudimentary alchemist of some sort, beakers and bottles here, congregated towards the tent and small firepit in the middle of the room, near a window that’s been opened a crack. Within the fire are one or two smoldering embers, fire put out quickly, individual left
Andreas makes a rummage check – 5, we hear some rustling and moving around as he does this, he finds some leftover medicine and scrap materials (1 recovery and 1 scrap)
Damon tries to help, gets a 6 – comes on a stack of metal ingots probably not from the hospital, there’s a wet spot on the floor, he trips and falls, all those metal ingots go banging down on the ground, our hearts all stop for a second (but he gets 2 scrap)
Andreas makes one last check (2), finds the false back of a cupboard, grey oil – has horrific effects when used against the Impure, a great, rare find
Gang still outside (Talisman, Thomas, Varos) – Talisman gets a dagger up against his throat, “don’t move, priest. Don’t want any trouble”. Talisman complies
They turn, see a darker red tiefling woman, striking blue eyes, longbow over her shoulder, belt with pockets and supplies
Varos is like “we were looking for you–”, the gang tries to talk her down and convince her we’re part of the Brigade, she cringes every time Talisman interjects, eventually tells Varos to get the Commander, Varos goes in and gives Andreas the lowdown – Andreas comes out, sees Kynaston’s insignia on a pin she wears on her belt, mentions Zetian’s weird slide in the cabin & that gets her to accept we’re Brigade
She tells us we need to go, that the Black Horn is here and has some survivors cornered in the north wing that it’s been picking off. Damon hears this and immediately wants to go get vengeance, but after some back and forth, we agree to go to the western medbay to get more supplies, then maybe distract the Black Horn to help the survivors escape
The woman’s name is Margot, and she’s an exorcist by trade – she offers to make a mental link between all of us, so we can communicate without making noise. Bloom declines the mental link, saying he doesn’t really want a mental link, or a stranger casting magic on him; Margot says he’s probably smart for that, to which Varos is a bit alarmed, but everyone sans Bloom joins the conference call (including Talisman, though she’s slightly begrudging about it).
Talisman gestures for Bloom to follow (and whispers parts of the conversations to him) as the party decides to set off. Varos asks Bloom if he’s afraid he’ll explode, to which Bloom says exorcists are a weird trade. Varos asks if he’s a demon, and Bloom says no, nothing like that – he’s visibly rattled by the exchange with Margot, though, despite trying to maintain an even tone.
We enter the western medbay, and find storage crates, though many are broken open – we do well on the rummage checks, and find 9 recovery, 1 scrap, and an entrance into a secret passage that appeared to be used for transporting bodies.
Talis relays to Margot that we found the passage, Varos says Talisman should tell Margot we’re going in, and he thinks Talisman is growing on her – Talisman points out she can probably hear, and they hear Margot stifle a laugh.
Damon hung back while we went, and we found ourselves in another medbay – Bloom and Andreas discuss going back [Andreas still doesn’t want to leave the survivors behind], Andreas picks up 3 more recovery. Damon smells where the monster might be, and locates the survivors holed up to the northeast. He asks Margot what she suggests, and she says the Black Horn isn’t a fool, and leading it away will be difficult.
She mentions one of the Sky Weasels is holed up in there, and she might be able to make a connection with him, though it’s easier if she has eye contact – we decide against it for the moment(? – it doesn’t get established, in any case). At this point, we also hear the Black Horn outside the medbay, and decide to lay low until it passes.
20 min later, hear a man scream and a scraping sound, Damon smells it moving east quickly. We see four deep claw marks in the brick, and hear cracking and breaking in the distance as it finds another victim. Bloom gets 4 points for realizing it knows it’s being tracked by small, is using something to throw Damon off; we hear breathing from the hallway behind us, and see a long leg on the ceiling, stalking towards where it thought we were.
We see it’s big, 12-13ft fall, and see a hand wrap around an intersection corner, like it might be trying to double back towards us – we hear it whispering “care…free… Care…free…” and try to sneak away, make it to the boarded-up doors of the mess hall – Damon and Andreas struggle pulling the boards off, and Thomas just rips the door off its hinges. We see the turned-over mess hall, and behind us, a bone-white skull sniffing the air; it seems to be caught a bit off-guard by the false scent trail Damon’s been leaving. In the center of the room, we see a Brigade soldier torn in two, and Thomas recognizes the Sky Weasels insignia.
We still try to stealth it, Damon scent marks up another hall to make it look like we doubled back, and Andreas tosses his whistler up there – it lunges after it, and a mad scramble starts as we try to flee; Talisman tries to make a fire wall unsuccessfully, and it lunges at him, knocking out two health blocks with Sheer [72 sp] and knocking him aside.
We see black, matted fur, head like a deer skull, cut off, vaguely humanoid features, part of its shoulder flesh has been ripped off, we think it ripped off a piece of its skin for Damon to track – Andreas helps Talisman up and we run more, Andreas also gets swatted at, but uses 2 armor blocks to shield himself as he gets flung into the lab door. We continue running with some last physical checks, and multiple people fail, so on a roll, Bloom is targeted [Tal accidentally gets in Bloom’s way, and Bloom trips].
Bloom raises his shield to block the claws coming down at him, and as the claws touch his shield, he hears an all-consuming ringing in his head – he wakes up in what seems to be his home, and his son Ilia runs up to him, saying Galarian won’t eat, and asks him to help. Bloom agrees, and is led to a glass habitat that has a massive black widow in it, with a large, dead rat in the center. He fails his mental check, and can’t discern what exactly is wrong with the rat, just that the spider doesn’t seem happy. It moves around the rat, but its fangs can’t break through.
Bloom pulls out a black and jagged knife, dripping with venom, to try to cut open the rat – that’s when he realizes the rat hasn’t been thawed, and that it’s still frozen. He tells Ilia they’ll take it to the fire to thaw it, and picks it up. A faraway part of him realizes this memory never happened, nothing close to this ever happened, and in that moment, he bounces back; to everyone else, Black Horn tried to touch him and bounced back, slamming against the wall and writhing, eventually ripping its own arm off as it goes berserk.
Talis helps Bloom up, and Varos and Andreas drop to the back to hurry people along – we burst into the night, with it still screaming “free! Carefree!” behind us, hucking parts of its own body this way and that. The screams go on for far longer than they should.
We make it back to Margot, and Andreas tells her what happened – everyone’s very concerned about whatever it was Bloom did, but agree to address it back at camp. Margot thanks Damon for getting her out of there, and says she regrets not getting the others out; they seemed like nice people, though she only heard their names through shouting. Thomas asks for the names, and she lists off Colias [sic?], Charlotte, Philip… Thomas reacts to the name, and asks for a description, which confirms that that’s his son.
Thomas tries to bolt back to the hospital, and multiple people try to restrain him, but he breaks free – Damon and Talisman follow him, though Talisman lingers at the treeline, because he’s tapped on resources (but will help direct any survivors). They see a few bodies outside now, but Damon smells that the Black Horn has moved on, though he rampaged through the hospital first.
Thomas searches through the hospital, sees medicine that could’ve been extracted gone, sealed door ripped off its hinges, there are bodies inside, he finds a half-written piece of a journal – “Dear Dad, I don’t know when I’ll see you again, we’re still holed up here, whatever this thing is, it’s smart, I think we’re gonna try and make a break for it at some point, if I don’t make it out, I wanted to leave this note with someone, maybe I could give it to someone who could give it to yo[u]” [writing cuts off there], Thomas recognizes the handwriting of his son, but doesn’t find the body
Over at camp, the sun is beginning to rise, while a father lost his son, we return to camp with much-needed medicine, supplies and a new NPC. Morale goes up by 1, pressure down by 1, time clock ticks up
It’s here we leave the session, we all level-up