AoD RPG 2

This week we replaced one player with a new one, and introduced two new characters. Nobody was willing to take up the mantle of Ash, but instead the new player created Bob, a gamer, and the player who played the Blacksmith created a new pirate character, Capt Frye. The player of Henry continued to play Henry, only this time with plate mail armor.

EPISODE 2
Arrival of the Promised One
We start a few weeks after Henry barely escaped from the Mill with his life. As deadites reaked havoc, Arthur and Henry have declared war on each other. Now Henry finds himself running from Arthur's warrior band who have captured Henry's escort Knights. Henry finds himself taking refuge in the last place he ever wanted to return; the Misty Woods.
Meanwhile the other two player characters are tumbling through a funnel cloud that inexplicably picked them up during an otherwise ordinary day. They tumble weightless through a soundless void. Only the steady beating of their hearts. Suddenly a bright light and the funnel cloud electrifies. Their bodies rip through time and space.
In the Misty Forest, Henry sees a supernatural electric portal open in the sky and two bodies fall through the canopy into the woods near him. Dark and heavy storm clouds blot out the sun.
Henry silently investigates the two strangers as they dust themselves off.

The two new characters introduce themselves as Pirate Captain Frye, and a smelly nerd named Bob. Bob is essentially a modern day table-top gamer, and is astounded by meeting a pirate in real life. "Scurvy my timbers!" Bob says to Frye, which only returns puzzled looks from Frye. They look around the foggy woods and see they are on a pebbled path with a sign post up ahead, pointing forward to 'The Mill' and wherever pointing backward is completely scratched off the sign. There is a dirt road branching off from the path but it looks less traveled. They decide to stick to the main path. The black of night covers the forest. Bob takes out his iphone and switches on his flashlight ap. Frye is puzzled at this strange and interesting device.
After several hours pass they realize they've been going around in circles. "Dirt path it is, then." [This is what we call 'railroading'] Henry follows the travelers as they take the dirt path, but stops as he hears a sound of hooves behind him. He turns to see one of Arthur's knights in full plate armor riding atop an armored war horse bearing Henry's own red and yellow colors. The horse stops at the end of the path and doesn't move. "Who are ya?" Henry asks.
"I've come for your pretty flesh... GIVE IT TO US!" The rider responds, and charges forward. Henry briefly considers using a crossbow, but promptly turns and runs for his life. He dashes through a startled Frye and Bob who follow Henry without second thought as he is clearly running from something dreadfully frightening.

The forest becomes less green until all the trees are dead and barren. The path opens up to a clearing, all the trees have been chopped down and there is a 12th century brick cabin with wooden window shutters smacking against the house in the wind. in front of the house a mound of dirt sits before a quickly constructed wooden cross. Henry makes straight for the door, but pauses at the memory of the blood geyser when they opened the Mill. The horseman is nowhere to be seen, but there is movement in the woods.
Bob tries the door, but it is locked.

The nearby grave explodes, blasting dirt everywhere as the silhouette of what might be a small child bursts from the ground. "I'VE COME FOR THE GROGNARD!" It says and points towards Bob.
Bob finds a key nearby and as he opens the door an arm bolts out and grabs him, pulling them inside.
A plain bearded man nervously locks the door and tries to console a woman and a small girl.
Bob questions the man, who reveals that the dead have begun to rise a fortnight ago. Evil lurks in the woods, but will leave at sunrise. Their home is all they had so they refuse to abandon it. Until now the evil has let their home without bother.
Bob pulls out a book, titled 'Dungeons and Dragons' and looks up Zombies. Frye checks out the front window for signs of danger, but can only hear the wind and a deep feint rumble saying "JOIN US." The woman sends the little girl to bed.
Bob's book tells him Zombies are weak against bash damage, so he asks for a hammer, but the man only has a small carpenter hammer, which Bob takes. Henry asks about the grave outside and about the dead rising.
"That's my son. He died recently." The man says. The group is interrupted by a scream from the bedroom where the girl went to sleep, followed by a crash of glass breaking. They open the door to a broken window, and an empty bed. The couple begin to weep. Bob and Frye prop the bed against the window to prevent anyone, or anything, from getting in. They go out to the main room and the woman spots something outside, running to the window she sees her daughter skipping outside.
"Come outside and play with me, Mommy." The little girl pleads.
"SHELLY!" The woman screams. Henry has had enough and fires a flaming crossbow bolt from across the room through the window at the little girl. Unfortunately he rolls a 1 and hits the man in the leg instead. His pant leg catches fire. The woman frantically opens the front door and bolts outside. Bob tried to tackle her down but is too slow. She flees into the night and Bob locks the door again. The man puts out his flaming leg and Frye wraps his crispy leg. He asks to be laid down on a bench. Henry pulls the bench from the window and puts it infront of the fire.

The candles lighting the room suddenly flicker and dim as a crash is heard from the back door; sounds of a horse kicking the wooden door. Frye pushes a bookshelf in front of the hallway leading to the back of the house, barricading themselves in the front room. The fire in the fireplace begins to go out. Seeing some kindling near the front window, Bob takes a fire-poker and tries to finagle a log from a safe distance from the window. He successfully retrieves a log and as he confidently turns around the undead boy leaps through the window and grabs Bob. Bob falls backward on top of the boy, releasing himself and then rolling over. The boy jumps up and dangles off the floor like a puppet with unseen strings.
Henry slices into the boy's head, and It tries to attack Henry back with its claws, which scrap harmlessly against his shiny new armor. Frye fires a musket-pistol under its chin. The deadite boy falls limp. They stab it through the heart to be sure it's dead. Henry is astounded by Frye's fire-stick, and Frye responds by refering to Bob's magic light device.

The man asks what is going on, and the party assures him it's nothing. There's a knock at the door and the woman's voice pleads, "Sam, please let me in. I found Shelly." The party refuses to open the door and instead Henry punches Sam in the head, knocking him unconscious. The check his pulse to be sure he's still among the living. The rest of the candles go out, leaving only a lantern near the front door, and the other unbroken window.
Bob cautiously goes for the lantern, but is again grabbed by a deadite crashing through the window, this time it's the woman. After the group fends her off, she escapes through the window.
The cabin quiets down and bob takes out a chemistry set to mix something flammable to feed the dwindling flame in the lantern. As the room briefly fills with light the group sees the little girl in a shadowy corner of the room. Henry runs over and rolls a 1, tripping over the lantern and extinguishing the last light source. Frye [who has a 'reckless' Quality] grabs Bob's iphone and throws the glowing thing at where the girl was. The girl catches it in the air, and points it at the party. They can only see the light source and not their tormentor.
"We're gonna get you... time to go to sleeeep... not another peeeep... we're gonna get you..." The girl taunts them. Frye is frozen in terror.
The bookshelf slams to the floor as the hallway becomes un-barricaded. Frye fires blindly into the hallway, [with a natural 10] shoots the woman in the torso, which he can see from the flash of his gun firing. The iphone has gone dark. Bob takes the gun and tries to shoot the lantern, which he assumes has spilled oil on the floor. He misses. Instead, they grab the flint and steel they find near the fireplace. Knocking over Sam, Henry flips the bench over and breaks off the legs. They tear the cloths off Henry and wrap the wooden clubs to make torches. The room is lit, and empty. They get the fireplace going again. Bob pours flammable liquid on the floor making a small perimeter around themselves and Sam. Hours pass.

Sam's burnt leg trembles and black veins snake from under his bandage, reaching across his body. With a new found fireaxe Bob and Henry go to chop off the offending leg, but Sam rockets from the floor and marionettes above them. Henry slices at its neck [reducing it to -100 Life Points] and decapitates the Sam-Deadite. Sam's head flies over to the other side of the room. They burn the body and wait for dawn, which comes without event.

The doorknob turns. The door slowly opens with a loud creak. Nothing comes through. There is no sound. Henry grabs Bob, picks him up, and tosses him in front of the doorway to see what's outside. Landing badly, Bob sees nothing. The party warily goes outside and wanders through the woods. As they navigate the shifty forest, the trees begin to animate and grab Bob [who rolls a few 1s and then fails a save throw] with vines. Two large branches wrap around his body and pull him at tremendous speed into a solid tree trunk [nearly taking all his Life Points]. Henry rushes over and chops away the moving tree parts, freeing Bob.

A few hours later they emerge from the Misty Forest and are greeted by the bright rising sun and dozens of Arthur's warriors. Mounted horsemen ride towards them, led by Arthur. Arthur points to the back of his band to Henry's men in chains, and tells Henry to surrender. Henry doesn't go without quarrel. Arthur positions his men around the group.
Bob speaks up, "Arthur? ...Pendragon?" At this, an elderly man in a dark cloak and long white beard steps out from behind Arthur, "My Lord Arthur, I believe he is the Promised One, written of in the Necronomicon."
Bob gawks at the old man and turns to Henry, "Is that Merlin?"
"That's the Wiseman." Henry responds.
The Wiseman stares at Bob, astounded.
Arthur Brings his sword down across Bob’s chest. A thin red gash.
Arthur declares, "He bleeds. As a man bleeds. The one written of in the Book would not bleed. I say to the pit with him! If he is truly the promised one... he will emerge."
Arthur's men cheer, "Aye! The pit's a fair test!"
Gold Toothed Warrior adds, "To the pit with the blackards!"
The Players are hit in the back of the head, surprised and stunned. They see cartoon bats floating above their head. Their weapons and most of their equipment are confiscated. Gold Tooth and the other warriors secure the party to a set of painful iron shackles.
Arthur shouts, "To the castle!"

[for the sake of brevity I'm going to omit the parts that are totally linear to the movie, like Arthur's and Sheila's dialogue]
So Arthur throws the group into the pit, where a deadite waits for them. The player of Henry asks me if Deadites are allergic to sunlight, and grabs the Deadite and uses 2 drama points to toss the Deadite 30 feat in the air, it bursts into flames, and Arthur's men chop it into little bits. The crowd begins to cheer for the players.
Three more Deadites apear and get real bitey with Frye, who drops unconscious. Henry charmed a knife from a warrior before he was dropped in the pit, and the party dispatches the rest of the monsters before finding a hidden rope to climb up. They find their weapons and Bob hold his shining iphone above his head to impress the primitive screwheads.