You want a recap? I'll give you a recap.
But first, our cast of (player) characters!
Goode and Brad Twinne (you may groan), half-elves, played by Sopko and Andrew: A pair of identical twins, a warlord and a paladin respectively. Goode is cheerful and optimistic, whereas Brad is a surly and sarcastic jackass (who nevertheless serves his god faithfully). They just finished a tour of duty with the local military. Since Soppy's usually the jerk and Andy the nice guy, both of them have goatees.
Rui, played by Namagomi: A human greatspear fighter, one of the youngest sons of a noble family. He's out to make his fortune, since there's not much inheritance lined up for him. He can fuck you up to the tune of 1d10+12 damage with an at-will attack.
Rushault, played by Pyro: A human wizard, also a journeyman type, looking for a court somewhere to study the arcane arts.
Morrie, played by Nephrite: An elf druid who generally keeps to himself on the elves' side of the country, but came to the mainland briefly and got caught up in a kobold attack.
Vedes, played by Shale: An elf archer ranger, who lives as a hermit in one of the forests on the elves' island. Morrie took him along for the ride.
Today: Fighting!
When we left off last week, we were settling in for a night's rest in the newly locked-down town after an almost-barfight. We got most of the way through a night's sleep in a nearby inn when the sounds of breaking glass, screaming and the entire building being on fucking fire awoke us from slumber. Rui, Rush, Morrie and Goode gathered their stuff in preparation for getting the hell out of there, while Brad sat in a corner in some kind of trance. Vedes, upon realizing that his door was on fire, took the direct route and jumped out the (ground-floor) window, only to come face-to-face with one of the douchebags from last session's bar-squabble, and then face-to-mace with his melee attack. Fortunately his accuracy sucks ass and he missed twice. Unfortunately, he brought friends.
So begins a not-all-that-epic battle against rabid townspeople. It started with them just beating up on Vedes a lot (rangers are not built for melee tanking!), but once the others got out of bed and started helping out it got a lot more manageable. Rush and Morrie disposed of the five minions with a few very unpleasant fire spells, and over in melee Vedes was dropped to 8 HP (out of 30) before downing some pseudo-Rogue who packed a nasty sneak attack, thanks in large part to a 31-damage crit on an encounter power. Meanwhile, Brad woke up just in time to join in the fight but too late to actually put on his heavy armor, which meant he entered the fray clad nobly in his divine boxer shorts. He didn't do much damage, but tanked up 30-odd points of PAIN when one of the enemies turned out to be a berserker. Protip: reducing a berserker to half HP may be hazardous to your health, if you don't like being axed in the face for 16 damage a shot.
The battle ended when Rui unloaded everything he had to take down said berserker, using powers that dealt enough recoil damage to drop him under half health to deal a staggering 19 damage, killing the guy instantly.
Then VSM mentioned that he only had 3 HP left. This is why you keep a running total of damage done.
Once we got a chance to survey the situation, we saw that the entire city was burning, and the jerks from the bar weren't the only ones who'd turned violent. Townspeople were literally foaming-at-the-mouth crazy, and attacking anything in sight. Local military and unaffected civilians were organizing bucket brigades to fight the fires, and we were lucky enough to run into some of the good guys. Luckier still, they recognized the military armor Goode was still wearing, and assumed he was still an officer, which means free intel on the city and an NPC guide. Rushault said a magic ritual could be causing the people to flip out, and the divine voices in Brad's head (Did I mention his god talks to him personally? Well, neither did he, so we're even.) said some statues in the center of town were the focal point for the bad mojo in question. We made our way there unaccosted, only to find the statues covered in blood, a human sacrifice in the center, and disembodied voices chanting, "Blood and souls! Blood and souls! Blood for thou and souls for US!"
So yeah, I'm thinking this isn't a harvest festival. What IS it? Hell if I know, that's where we finished. Find out what happens when a bunch of poor saps walk right into the middle of a blood sacrifice to dark gods of some sort or another next week, same VSM-time, same VSM-channel.
