The Field of Bones

"The Field of Bones" is episode 5 of SuperQuest Saga. Carter, Persephone, and Sebastian march across the dead world of Meridar 3, but the dead here don't seem to sleep.

Introduction

 * Will is your humble dungeon master for this evening
 * Let’s just get into it

Recap
The group was making their way to the giant goblin ship and had to traverse through a field of dead bodies. The bones of the bodies have coalesced into a Bone Behemoth and Dag has yelled that the monster is being driven by creatures called bone mites.

Cue Battle Music
Carter utters some horrible sounding shit in another language and casts Hex on the Bone Behemoth and the bone mites become less wise. He also fires an Eldritch Blast, missing as he runs away from it. The Bone Behemoth (a.k.a. Bonesy) looks at the group, opens its mouth and an infestation of tiny bugs pours out and swarms on Persephone, Sebastian, and some of the crew before disperses into the bones around on the field. Persephone casts Faerie Fire on Bonesy but it doesn’t work. She Wild Shapes into an albino brown bear, a transformation that leaves her feeling like her entire body has been punched. Sebastian casts Bless on himself, Victoria, and Persephone but instead of the flow of power he normally feels, it feels more like a flicker and he realizes his power is waning. Victoria pulls out a pistol and starts open firing, hitting the creature drawing first blood. Her crew also shoots at the Bonesy but they miss.

Carter again casts Eldritch Blast but the crackling energy fires through the bones, missing the creature, and he continues to move back. Bonesy moves towards Victoria and takes a huge bite, grappling her in its mouth and wounding her grievously. Persephone rears up on her hind legs, roars, and runs in biting and clawing at Bonesy and successfully breaking apart some bones. The broken bones are quickly replaced by other bones from the massive collection. Sebastian runs in and smashes at the Bonesy, bloodying it. Victoria attempts to break free from its jaws but fails and she fires her pistol dealing some more damage. Dag and Dirk yell “Let go of our cousin!” as they and Ira fire at it.

Carter hits Bonesy with an Eldritch Blast, breaking through its rib cage and knocking it back ten feet. The Bonesy is visibly falling apart but it attempts to kill Victoria and her body falls limp in its jaw. Persephone lunges at the dying Bonesy, grabs its femur and charges through it as the bone mites scatter and the behemoth falls to pieces.

Sebastian runs in and uses Lay on Hands to heal Victoria. As she stands the party hears rattling and some bone velociraptors form and begin to give chase. Victoria says they have to run, and Carter Curses one.

Theater Mode
Sebastian, Carter, and Persephone as the bear are faced with a skill challenge to escape the growing number of bone velociraptors intent on hunting them down. As they flee, they see the bones on the ground around and ahead of them start to flow back to join the army.

Sebastian uses his shield to ram into a support beam of a ship in an attempt to knock it in the way. He doesn’t have the strength and bounces off, losing ground. Carter fires an Eldritch Blast at the support beam and it loop-de-loops from afar to successfully knock down the beam, causing the ship to fall in the path. Persephone as the bear starts crushing the bones on the ground as they are moving back to form raptors and slightly slows the growth of the horde.

Since Sebastian started to fall behind he makes an attempt to speed up and rejoin his group, but is unable to catch up this round. Carter tries to scout ahead to find a more advantageous path and spots a narrow diagonal route that is clear. Persephone jumps as a bear and morphs into a giant spider, a transformation so painful that it causes her damage, and shoots a web blocking some of the bone velociraptors. They can see that other bone velociraptors have managed to climb around the walls and are fusing with one another to become larger bone velociraptors.

Sebastian zig zags and jukes a pursuing bone velociraptor into a wall. Carter turns to cast Eldritch Blast, but sees a bone velociraptor right on his tail so he turns to flee instead. He’s also been shifting his curse to different raptors as his targets are destroyed. Persephone shifts back into firbolg form and casts Entangle behind them, whispering at the ground encouraging the plants to grow and tangle up their pursuers.

Sebastian pulls out his heavy plasma auto cannon to take out some bone velociraptors but because he is new to the technology he can’t quite get it going before he needs to flee. Carter tries to get as close as he can to the bone velociraptors without being in danger of injury and casts Arms of Hadar. He opens the little box that is his spellcasting focus and a small light travels in a circle around him and tentacles of Hadar appear along the perimeter and start smacking the ground around him. Unfortunately the waves of bones that are turning into the bone velociraptors is so overwhelming that the attack does not slow them down.

Swing Low Sweet Chariot
Victoria yells that the edge of the city is in sight. Dag and Ira have fallen behind the group, one bone velociraptor lunges on them and starts slicing into them. Ira fires her cannon into the bone velociraptor and destroys it. Dirk goes running back for both of them. Carter sees they’re both very injured. Dag’s legs are slashed and he cannot get up. Ira manages to stand but is limping and cannot run. Dirk picks up his brother and starts bolting. Ira turns on the bone velociraptors and lets loose her autocannon destroying them, but new ones form faster than she can take them out. She tells the others to “go on without me.” Carter runs, Dirk is hesitant but Ira and Carter urge him to go as she fires at the bone creatures. As the three of them run away they hear her scream as she is overwhelmed and the bone mites shred her apart, her sacrifice allowing the group to escape the city. The bone mites disperse as soon as the party is clear of the city limits.

The group makes it over the crest of a hill and into the last stretch of barren wasteland before the goblin ship. Carter starts to sing Swing Low Sweet Chariot for Ira, and Persephone casts Cure Wounds on Dag’s injuries. The spell does help and he regains consciousness but his legs are still very badly hurt. If he does not see a surgeon soon he may not walk again. Victoria finds shelter between three large rocks that almost form a cave so they can rest for the night, Victoria suggests they form a watch, she will go first followed by Percy, Sebastian, and then Carter. Victoria’s watch goes by uneventfully.

About half an hour into Persephone’s watch, she feels the sense of something watching her and has an instinctual urge to go outside. She walks outside into the dark and quiet night. In the sky she sees two moons, one glows soft pink and the other a deep, dark blue, and becomes entranced as she stares up at them. She begins to have empathic feelings and visions as she becomes awash with an overwhelming sorrow and profound loss. Visions of fire, death, and war fill her mind. She sees forests razed and burned to the ground. Oceans polluted and acidified. Acrid smoke filling the skies. Then she is back and alone on this barren, broken planet. The visions of the planet’s past fade from her mind but she is left with the feeling of loss and she feels connected to the planet. She has the urge to Wild Shape and transforms into Toasty the lizard, accessing her first future form. Carter and Sebastian are awakened by the sound of a snapping branch and they do not see Persephone. They run outside and see an albino Meridar Lizard, who turns to them in excitement. The rest of the night passes uneventfully.

Reaching the Goblin Ship
The next day Dag’s injuries are not better so Dirk offers to stay behind with him. Victoria is in a very bad mood as she leads Carter, Persephone and Sebastian towards the goblin dreadnought. Carter asks her what the odds are of the ship's defense systems picking them up since it picked up their ship. Victoria shrugs saying they’ll find out.

As they finally approach the ship they notice a 50-foot clearing around it that could be an impact crater. Carter throws a rock into the perimeter and nothing happens. Victoria suggests they draw straws to see who goes first. Sebastian volunteers, but as soon as he steps out from behind cover some of the ship's turrets fire on him. Victoria can see an emergency hatch that they can use to enter if they can reach it.

Persephone suggests that she can use her Hidden Step ability to turn invisible. She imagines her climbing skills are super good so she can possibly reach the hatch easily. Victoria passes her a grappling kit and tells her to set up the rope so the rest of them can make a break for it and climb up. Persephone dashes across invisibly and safely makes it to the ship. She pops open the kit and finds a grappling hook, some nylon rope, and a couple of magnetic handles. She yells back to Victoria for instructions and Victoria walks her through climbing up.

Once the rope is set up, Victoria tells Carter and Sebastian to get ready to run. Carter suggests they split up, Victoria agrees. All three of them take some damage but make it to the rope. Victoria and Sebastian are able to climb up the rope. Carter tries to climb but fails since his arm was injured when he used an Eldritch Blast to deflect one of the turret blasts causing blowback. Victoria suggests he tie himself to the end and they'll pull him up once the hatch is open.

Up at the hatch, Victoria stabilizes herself and pulls out a device to hack the mainframe. She opens the hatch and jumps right in. Carter has made a rope swing and is swinging around on the bottom waiting for Sebastian and Persephone to pull him up so they can all join Victoria in the hallway. She pops open the next door and hops in, and in the dim light they notice that they are on the right wall of the ship, standing at the entrance of their next hurdle: a vertical dungeon.

The Party

 * Sebastian Crenshaw: A level 2 half-orc paladin.
 * Persephone Goldpetal: A level 2 firbolg druid.
 * Carter Huttenburg: A level 2 human warlock.

NPCS

 * Victoria: A tiefling woman. Definitely in charge.
 * Dag: A tiefling male. Twin brother to Dirk and cousin of Victoria.
 * Dirk: A tiefling male. Twin brother to Dag and cousin of Victoria.
 * Ira: A gith woman. We didn't know much about her and now we never will.

Music

 * SuperQuest Saga Theme - by Brian

Out of Character

 * Canonically, Carter is not surprised by bone mites even though he does not know what they are. He can't be surprised.
 * Will makes Victoria's HP a 20.

Mechanics

 * The skill challenge theater mode was a chase challenge. On their turn each player had an opportunity to use a skill, ability check, spell, or feat to do something creative to escape the situation. They needed 8 successes before they hit 5 failures. They failed, so Ira was killed as a consequence.

Nat 20's (1 total)

 * Will (Strength Save as bone velociraptors)