The Night Belongs to the Bats

Session Summary: 03/12/2023

Ahhhh, how DELIGHTFUL it is to begin at the beginning! Before these sorry mortals even reached their first destination, the darkness reached out to test them! These so-called Gatewalkers, marked by an event they cannot remember, had barely set camp on the road from Lepidstadt to the distant village of Poiana when the night descended with fangs and wings. A werebat, a creature born of shadow and hunger, swooped from the black sky with a swarm of its lesser kin swirling behind it like a living storm of leather and tooth.

Their camp was chaos. The werebat's wings blotted out the stars and its fangs found flesh before the party could fully rouse themselves from sleep. For one glorious, hopeful moment, it truly seemed as though the adventure might end before it had properly begun! But NO. Mutu the automaton and Thulnir the dwarf proved themselves formidable with blade and axe, carving into the beast with commendable ferocity. Kiren, that pale-skinned fetchling thief, could not hit the broad side of a barn at that ungodly hour, and she knew it, but she survived through the sheer competence of her companions, which is its own kind of skill.

Charles, the fire-touched priest of the Dawnflower, turned his holy flames upon the bat swarm when it descended on him in a chittering cloud, burning them from the air with satisfying pops of scorched wing and fur. Even Kiren admitted afterward that watching that particular conflagration was DEEPLY satisfying, though she denied saying so when Charles looked pleased about it.

When the werebat finally crumpled and the last of its swarm scattered, Mutu laid hands on the wounded and healed what could be healed. They returned to their bedrolls, battered and wide-eyed, and tried to reclaim whatever sleep remained before the sun made its obnoxious return.

A promising start, oh yes. The party had survived their very first night on the road, and they had done it without dying, which by Gatewalker standards is an ACHIEVEMENT worth noting. But the road to Poiana was long, and the shadows along it held far worse than bats. Oh yes. FAR worse!