The Soul of Rung Blood - S1
In the edge of the kingdom lies a poor mining town, home of the Fireball Tavern. Its owner, Barnaby, senses that today has a different air about it. As he is broken from his trance if thought, we meet the party.
We begin with the Bar-hand Luci Star, a Grey and black Teifling, who begin serving drinks to patrons as Barnaby make a round through the tavern. As Barnaby rounds the tavern, he meets a Harengon sell-sword named T, Braruk the Half Orc, and a short tall Tortle wanderer by the name of Alda.
After a short period of time, suddenly the doors to the tavern and a mysterious man stood in the doorway. He threw a large sack of gold in the ground, which the patrons quickly snatched up. The commotion stirred Barnaby, who pressed the mysterious man in why he was here.
The man was bringing promises of work in a new mine, and asks for workers. Alda was the first to volunteer, just before a patron named Lyndon rebukes the stranger with his sack. Even after getting the sack thrown back to him, the promise of work and gold was too much to pass up. T, along with the majority of the tavern, one by one start to raise their hands in volunteer.
After a short chat with Barnaby, Luci is convinced to go with the stranger for his work. As Barnaby is sending his bar-hand off to work, Braruk arranges a deal with the stranger to work as guard rather than miner. Everyone then heads outside to go through a few tests before heading off to the mine.
The party attempted to demonstrate their strength by lift a bar, their intelligence by sorting multiple metal bars, and finally their charisma by telling the man a joke. Some meta-joking leads to a party wide success, and then the folks who passed are invited on to the cart. The stranger then gets on the cart, and the group sets off to the new mine.
As the traveling group grows close to their destination, they see the fabled tower in the distance, causing a stir in the group. Everyone starts to get a little uneasy, but the stranger simply tells them that their destination is come where new, and the group must accept this.
The cart arrives at the mine, and lining the mouth of the cave are sets of mining equipment. The stranger send the workers off, and the group begins forming small teams. Alda, T, and Luci find themselves left to form their own team with Lyndon, who has been left behind as well. After some will they-won’t they (and a failure to produce comedy when put on the spot) Lyndon and the party enter the mine, with their guard Braruk on their tail. Just as they enter the mine, they all are put into a magical sleep, hearing in their head a mysterious “So it begins” as the world fades into black.
[Meta warnings from the DM. Don’t just run into rooms that you haven’t been in]
Suddenly the party wakes up with searing pain on their wrists, and find themselves in individual cells, shackled to the wall by chains. After some creative problem solving including brute force, bunny feet, and old fashioned team work, the party all free themselves from the walls and remove their shackles. On their wrists the find runes on each wrist, with feint magical power coming from them.
Left wrist - ᚺᛖᛚ
Right Wrist - ⸍⸝ו
After escaping their cells, the party find a long abandoned bonfire in the center of the room, and a door to a hallway to the south. Before entering the hallway, the party one by one enters a blood pact, losing 25% of their hp in the process. Magically, as the last person enters the pact, their wounds heal and the rune on their wrist glows.
As the party moves down the corridor to the south, they are suddenly beset by skeletons, and entered a fight for their life. One by one, the party goes down, until Alda is dealt a final blow, killing him outright. Suddenly, despite still having life of their own, the rest of the party feel their own life force slip away. The party fades to dark for the second time, this time seemly of the final time….
One by one, each member wakes up in an endless sky plane to a voice booming “CHOOSE”. The voice then tells them that they were summoned by Oriuphius, the soul trapped in the sword atop this tower. They are to free him, and then they will be freed from the tower. He bestows each one of them with power, and the party suddenly wakes bake up in the cells they first arrived in.
As the party shakes off their death and this feeling of new power, they notice that the bonfire is now lit, and there is now a dead body next to the fire. As they go to inspect the body, Oriuphius’ voice booms in their head, explaining few mechanics. After inspecting (and attacking) the dead body, they find a bloody not that says “tattoo - death - endless - trapped” and a piece of gold that is strikingly similar to the gold from the tavern. They turn the body over, and it’s Lyndon, the man from the tavern.
The party walks out and find chests with similar symbols to the powers they have been bequeathed. Upon opening the corresponding chest, the member receive items weapons and items that are paramount to their adventure. Curiously, there is one chest that would not open, with the symbol of a shield on the front.
The party continues on, encountering the skeletons that killed them before, including the one the party managed to kill previously. This time, though, they make quick work of the skeletons. As they die, they feel their essence absorbed into their runic tattoos, storing for future use. A well timed Nat 20 by Alda gives him the understanding that the essence has a strikingly similar feeling as the magic from the fire. Alda and the party head back to the fire, and take a long rest as an attempt to learn more about what happens when they interact with the fire. They get the feeling they need more essence to become more powerful, and wake up from the rest, minds set on farming skeletons for five sessions straight. But as they wake up, they find the body of Lyndon is missing, and are left with even more questions….
