A Spooky Season Game in the Harrowmark

The Night of the Sorowmœn

Kalyustar peered out of the stained glass window of the mausoleum he had come to call home.
The pale daylight of the Harrowmark was fading into night.
'Into a most auspicious night, don't you think, Soulchemist?'
"Yes, old friend. Soon the moon will raise, but tonight the Moon's Daughters are not with her".
'Did you ever wondered way it is so?'
"If we were to listen to the simpletons of the Harrowmark, the Daughters are the fragment of another moon that got shattered in some ancient cataclysm. It makes little difference to me".
'Then why are you interested in this night?'
"Because it was on a night like this that the Necroquake hit the Harrowmark. And if my studies are correct, tonight we'll hear an echo of that wave of necrotic energy. That is why on Sorowmœn the dead rest even less easily and the simpletons shut themselves in their miserable hovels".
'And so what, Soulchemist?'
'So, I'll be out there tonight, to capture and preserve that echo, so that I can use it to bolster my Company".

In the deep darkness of Sorowmœn, Kalyustar had followed the echo of the Necroquake to a pumpkin field. Leylines converged in its center and there he could hear the taumathurgic echo far better, although still faintly. The Soulchemist closed his eyes and started to recite the incantation that would have trapped that energy.

But guttural voices sounded in a mockery of a whisper. In fact being as loud as only orruk voices could be. The Rotmoons were coming, split in three groups. Kalyustar tried to use the energy he had harvested so far to summon reiforcement, but it was too little. No restless dead answered his call.

Crude arrows started to whistle by, some finding their mark into Kalyustar's body. The Soulchemist fell back to a point from where he could drew sorcerous energies from two leyline nexuses.

The Rotmoons closed onto the pumpkin field, cutting all but one escape route. But at that point Kalyustar finally managed to harness enough necromantic energy. Two Dreadwardens and a Seneschal rose from the pumpkin field.

With a might swipe of his graveblade, the Seneschal felled Awkwardo, but then three more orruks ganged up on him and brought him down.

The Dreadwardens swirled around DaLeeva and Francot, but one was soon banished by the Kaptain's cutlass.

Kalyustar felt a pulse of aetheric energies as a low moan seemed to came down from the moon and then the Dreadwarden reappeared behind Bortagno, its ghostly fingers clutching at the orruk's heart. Kalyustar poured all his spite into bolts of necrotic energy and finally the big orruk fell. But in the meantime, more arrows and El Doktoro's magic rained on Kalyustar.

Another Seneschal rose from the pumpkin field and was soon surrounded by orruks. Yet, it stood his ground.

Kalyustar realised there was no escape. Somehow, the echo of the Necroquake was far less powerful than he had expected. And now that the Rotmoons were disrupting the leylines there was little he could do. He tried to fleee, but Tambor and Parch caught up with him and pummelled him with batons and clubs.

***
'Wake up, Soulchemist!'
The Shadeglass Skull called Kalyustar back to consciousness.
'Fear not, Soulchemist! It was not your fault, and the Master knows it... Something has changed. At the hands of the pesky aelf deities, the Necroquake has been blunted'.
"It maybe so, but that doesn't change the fact that the Rotmoons have once again bested me. This has to stop! I just need a better plan!"