Cold Children at Your Door

Summary of Events (11/13/2025):
11/27/4722

Ahhhh… the battle begins.

The snow hangs frozen in the air. The buildings loom impossibly large—a child’s nightmare of the adult world made manifest. And standing before our so-called heroes… the children. Forty-eight of them. Perhaps more. Perhaps less. Who can count when shadows writhe and multiply? But these are no ordinary children, no. From each small form erupts a dark entity—translucent, death-touched, grasping with cold fingers. The children themselves stand motionless, white-eyed, chanting in unison with a voice that is NOT their own, mocking them. A man’s voice. Deep. Arrogant. How delightful!

Watch as Hugh Manshield—mighty warrior of the dead lands—raises his warhammer against… children. The voice taunts him:

“Oh, how noble! How brave! Taunting children, are we?”

But Hugh is resolute. He must be. For these are no longer children—they are vessels. Puppets. The innocent made into instruments of… something else. Sweetback Willie, the goblin mercenary, has no such moral quandaries.

“I’ll smack anybody,” he declares with admirable brevity. His rifle barks thunder in the narrow streets. “Die, you little bitch!” he shouts, as one falls. But there are so many more.

Ah, but the children—the SWARMS—they are relentless!

They flow like water, like darkness, surrounding our heroes. Nadja, the fragmented poppet witch, feels her stitching come undone beneath their assault. Twice she nearly falls. Twice she is pulled back from oblivion’s edge.

Kong, the tengu kineticist, conjures… a tree? How peculiar. A tree that remember standing strong. A tree that interpose itsefl to protect his allies. He also produces… fruit. Magical fruit. That he places in his companions’ hands with what can only be described as… full of innuendo. Yet, even in darkness, mortals find crude humor. How very mortal of them.

And Jotaro! Bearer of the manifestation Shining Fist—that angry spirit of righteous fury! Watch as the fist appears, disappears, appears again! It strikes with the fury of… well, a fist.

“SHINING FIST!” it roars, attempting to intimidate the possessed children. They barely notice. The fist falls. Jotaro falls. Once. Twice. Each time, the shadows swarm over him like waves. Each time, healing magic—from Shakum the orcish sorcerer or Kong’s strange preparations—pulls him gasping back to consciousness.

Shakum himself commands fear incarnate. The children tremble at his words—but only briefly. His flaming sphere rolls through the street, attempting to burn away the darkness. His healing keeps his allies standing when all seems lost. Yet, he hides behind light itself, enhancing the street lamps with divine radiance.

“Cold little fingers, cold little toes, cold little brains where the black sand flows,” voice of the man continues mockingly sing through the possessed children.

The battle rages. Minutes feel like hours. The children surge in waves—Mad children from the north! Scary children from the west! Angry children from the south! Each group a swarm of grasping shadows, each testing the heroes’ resolve and bodies.

Hugh’s hammer rises and falls. “You’re such a bad, bad man,” the children mock him. But he does not stop. Sweetback’s rifle cracks again and again. Children scatter before his marksmanship. Nadja, in desperation, hurls cutting words—insults delivered with such Slavic venom that they wound deeper than steel. The children bleed from mockery itself.

And then…

The last group stands. Weakened. Bleeding. Still chanting. The heroes are battered. Exhausted. Out of options. And the children… they bleed. They bleed from the words. They bleed from wounds accumulated across this terrible battle. They bleed…and they FALL.

Silence descends. The snow begins to fall normally once more. The buildings shrink back to their proper size. The possessed children lie still in the street—unconscious? Dead? Who can say? The shadows have fled.

But the voice… the man’s voice that spoke through them…

It has not explained itself. It has not revealed its purpose. It warned them to abandon their quest. To walk away from Professor Sabine’s mission.

They did not walk away. Behind them lie cold children in a cold street. Now they stand victorious—if victory can be called standing amid the bodies of children, however corrupted.

And watching from somewhere… Something laughs.