26/03/2024 - Cultist Attack (3)

Following the Trail

The Companions head off north in the dark, following an obvious trail. They walk their horses carefully as the terrain is unfamiliar, with Fraser MacRuaidhri taking point. Brother Gregory looks after the man from the village, giving him small amounts of water to help him recover.

Logan is concerned that they are exposed in strange lands. After an hour or so, he arranges for them to set camp in a decent area. He asks if they should get a fire and Banquo says yes, they are not going to be able to hide their location.

They have a single gazebo to cover their bed area, with the horses tied off nearby. The fire is set on the edge.

Logan and Lachlan MacRuaidhri take the first watch, during which Logan starts to notice movement outside the camp. He takes a burning torch to investigate, but he seems nothing.

It then starts to rain and the wind picks up. The horses then seem to become very jittery. Logan attempts to calm them down, but despite his experience in handling animals, they become more agitated and pull at their ropes.

Lochlann MacRuaidhri suddenly starts saying he can see snakes all around him, but Logan can see nothing. Then Logan is gripped with fear that the ground is opening up below him and trying to drag him under. He falls over and grabs a tree to stop this from happening.

Malcolm is woken up by the disturbance and is confused to see Logan holding onto a tree for dear life for no reason. Malcolm approaches carefully and asks him what is going on. Logan says he is falling off the edge of the world but Malcolm manages to convince him to snap out of it.

Logan is left confused and embarrassed, but does not have much time to recover before the horse panic increases and Malcolm’s horse pulls free and bolts. Logan focuses on this event and goes after the horse.

Malcolm wakes the rest of the camp up, as it’s clear they are under attack. He tries to calm Lochlann down, but the MacRuaidhri man is lighting a torch to burn the snakes.

Sam emerges from a bad dream and announces that some sort of magic is happening, though he does not know much more.

Logan keeps whistling and trying to calm down Malcolm’s horse, after it runs into a tree and stuns itself. He manages to use his animal handling skills to take hold of its harness and take back control.

Suddenly, an armed man walks out of the trees and attacks Logan with an axe. He is big built wearing furs and a wooden mask, though a red symbol on his forehead is visible. Logan quickly mounts the horse and rides back to the camp, knocking aside his attacker as he does.

When he gets back to the camp, Logan tells them what has happened. He thinks they will attack the camp any moment, although everything falls quiet. Even the rain stops. They wait and watch, but nothing happens.

Logan says to wake the man they rescued from the village. Brother Gregory suggests waiting until the morning, but Logan insists. Gregory gives the man some water and something to eat, then tells them his name is Tomas.

Logan tells him they have been attacked by the cult. He would like to talk to the cult, but Tomas tells him they only talk to members of the cult and are hostile to strangers. Logan tries to talk further but Tomas is very weak and unengaging.

Suddenly Fraser and Banquo are surprised by attackers coming out of the darkness. The camp comes under attack from several cultists.

The MacRuaidhri Clansmen, Fraser, Eóghan, Ruairí and Lochlann step up to defend the camp, along with Banquo, Logan and Malcolm. Sam, Baldrick and Brother Gregory stay back, though Sam does use his crossbow.

Banquo sees the bald-headed man from the village, shaking some sort of staff with a skull head on the end at him. The skull seems to be alive and wants to draw his soul out, causing Banquo have an intense anxiety attack and become distracted. The two cultists attacking him are able to wound him a few times, but his armour helps to reduce the damage. Banquo is able to hold his hand up to block the skull from his line of vision, but it makes the fight very difficult for him.

The cultist attacking Fraser gets some lucky hits on him and he collapses. Logan ends up coming to his aid.

It takes a while before the Companions eventually manage to turn the tide against the cultists and cut them down, with four of their attackers dead and the last one fled. When Banquo looks up to go after the bald man, but there is no sign of him.

Logan immediately tries to help Fraser and keep him alive. He is forced to use some nature magic to heal him enough to stop him from dying. Brother Gregory then takes over his care and suggests creating a stretcher that could hang off the back of a horse, which Logan ones.

Banquo considers that under Guardian rules, cultists are little better than bandits and deserve summary execution. He finishes off any of their wounded who are not yet dead. Their bodies are then moved to a ditch nearby.

Sam talks further with Tomas, who tells them the bald man from the village is called Gulnar, who hates him. Gulnar and told the Lord (Blair Allardice) that Tomas was a cultist, which got him arrested and tortured.

Tomas says he is a member of the cult, but he did not force his son to join the cult when Gulnar ordered him to. The bald man did not like being defied and so had Tomas punished as an example.

A lot of people in the village are members. The Lord does not know that Gulnar is actually a member of the cult and thinks he is a friend and trusted advisor.

The cult promise that one day they will make the foreigners pay and more are coming over to their side. There is a camp to the north that is the main base of the cult, where other local commanders have the power of Fire, the power of the Dragon. While Gulnar has magical power, he lacks the power of the Dragon, so is not so well respected. The leaders of the cult though live higher up in the mountains.

Tomas says he would not tell them this, but Gulnar came for his family. He wants to go back to Greenest to save them from Gulnar’s retribution.

Logan now wonders whether they should continue on their mission, or go back and deal with Gulnar and free Greenest. The others consider if this is a good idea.

End of Episode Three