Session — 06/15/989
The Duel at the Boar, the Fall of Voryx, and a Terrible Revelation
The Black Boar Inn
The night outside the Black Boar Inn was already tense before fists were thrown.
Gideon Kael and Mol Potts stood just beyond the inn’s light, speaking quietly about the so-called duel Mol had provoked. The “alchemist” Mol had insulted was no scholar—he was pride wrapped in glass vials, and he wanted satisfaction. When he demanded retribution, Mol calmly named Gideon as his champion.
The unknown duelist sneered. He insulted Gideon’s intelligence.
Corwin Thorne, sensing how quickly this could become a corpse problem, worked the crowd. With words and timing, he convinced them the duel would be to knockout, not death. Cheers followed. Bloodlust dulled into anticipation.
Duel of Fates
Gideon stepped forward and swung—missed.
Then he closed the distance.
A crushing bear hug wrapped the duelist up like a sack of grain. The man struggled, failed, and absorbed a brutal sequence of punches as Gideon turned the fight into something simple and honest. When the duelist finally tore free and staggered back, he gulped down an elixir and hurled an acid flask in desperation.
Gideon answered by grappling him again.
A dagger flashed. Gideon bled.
So Gideon drew steel.
The fight ended with the duelist unconscious in the dirt, breathing but broken, the crowd roaring approval at the spectacle.
And then the dead arrived.
Skeleton Ambush
The cheers died fast.
Gideon was the first to see them—undead shapes shuffling in from the dark. He raised his buckler and backed toward the group as skeletons spread out, one breaking for Mol, another for Zel Cunningham, others converging on Corwin and Gideon.
Leda Gebhart rushed to Gideon’s side, spear in hand. Mol patched Gideon with practiced speed. Corwin offered a potion. Arrows hissed. Bone rattled.
One skeleton’s arrow slammed into Leda. Another grappled Corwin. A third dropped Mol hard, sending him crashing to the ground, dying.
Gideon fought like a wall that refused to fall—punching, slashing, smashing bone to fragments even as blows landed around him. Zel fired again and again, forcing the undead back. Leda’s magic pulled Mol back from the edge, healing him just in time.
The fight dragged—misses, near misses, exhaustion creeping in.
Finally, Gideon surged forward and crushed the last skeleton into ruin.
The crowd scattered in silence.
The night felt thinner afterward.
Aftermath at the Boar
The unconscious duelist was bound. Gideon and Mol searched him, finding acid flasks and a note. Zel asked about the undead—this wasn’t rare, not anymore. Skade was bleeding into the countryside.
Mol returned inside to finish testing the rival alchemist’s wares.
Morning came.
The man realized his supplies had been rummaged through. He introduced himself bitterly as Justly the Snakeoil Salesman. His letter—signed and sealed by the King—was missing.
Corwin returned it.
Justly’s anger cooled into calculation. He offered five crowns if the party would investigate Skade properly and find the source of the plague. His papers were legitimate. The problem was real.
The The Blades of Strangeways set out again.
Skade
They reached Skade to find a city already lost.
Zombies wandered openly through the streets. A regal-looking undead guard stood before an inn like it still remembered duty. From somewhere deeper in the city came the sound of rage—a tantrum echoing through broken stone.
Leda shifted into a gerbil and slipped ahead. The others spread out.
Three figures moved through the streets wearing plague doctor garb, tossing silver spheres that burned the undead on contact. Mol, for once, chose caution and withdrew.
The trio approached a building.
One of them spoke.
“Voryx. The brew was not ready. Coming this far west was not wise. We would have let the treachery go unpunished.”
Steel flashed.
Voryx the Necromancer fell—stabbed by a figure the party recognized from the catacombs.
The Blades did not fight.
They ran.
What Voryx Left Behind
Leda sent Tinky the Raven skyward with a message for Duke Elric Strangeways (Noble).
The party returned to Skade cautiously. The cauldron inside the inn was mundane. Voryx carried nothing of value.
But Corwin found a book.
Zel discovered an altar marked with a blood rune. Gideon questioned it—and grew flustered when Zel explained what she could.
Corwin read the book aloud.
It was the ravings of a madman… until it wasn’t.
“My masters are not as careful as they think. The great temple to The Beauty is the key to their research. I am convinced what they seek is there. Little do the foolish people of Strangeways know that below their church is a great cache of riches.”
The words sat heavy in the room.
The Beauty—goddess of life, fertility, and love—had nothing to do with necromancy.
And yet something beneath her church did.
Something valuable.
Something powerful.
Something already being hunted.
Next Session Reminders
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The implications of Voryx’s journal
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What lies beneath the Church of the Beauty
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Who Voryx’s “masters” truly are
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Duke Elric’s response to the message