Happy Thursday, Everyone!

Last time in my dear Mary Windfiddle’s adventures: she had nightmares about lord Dwendel’s mysterious box and the destruction of the Myth Adofhaer’s elves. She unsuccessfully recruited little William Dwendel to get her the box in question. Then, a fire started in the nearby town of Raxstrad and she went with her companions to investigate and try to help the locals.

Content warning: The text below contains descriptions that might be upsetting to some readers (blood, death). Proceed at your own caution.

There were two houses burning. The roof of the first was already fully on fire and the second was just now catching. They had already passed a dead body before they reached the actual scene of carnage. Several people were running and screaming, one was lying on the ground, another kneeling over him.

There was something wrong with that last one.

His skin was grey, patched with old wounds and decay, his eyes empty and vacant, and he was… he was eating that poor man’s arm!

“Get away from him!” Mary screamed and from her outstretched arm Eldritch energy erupted, pushing the creature away from its victim.

A wound opened in its shoulder but no blood came out. It rose its head, looked at Mary and gave out a screech. More joined it from all around.

There were two other creatures. Ghouls, Mary remembered reading on a page once. Flesh eaters. They only looked human but weren’t sentient. They were terrifying.

Jared, Aurum and Bruno passed her by and ran towards the ghouls. While the bard and the fighter distracted the creatures Bruno kneeled over their victim and healed him, then sent him away. There were still more civilians running around, screaming, but nobody else was hurt.

Mary stood back, gauging the scene, blasting her long-ranged magic at the ghouls whenever she saw her chance. She couldn’t do anything else, she wasn’t very strong from a short distance and she actually didn’t have any other offensive magic.

She maneuvered towards the burnt house to have line of sight with the ghoul currently fighting Aurum when, suddenly, something big fell on top of her and she felt a burst of pain in her right shoulder. She screamed and put her non-injured hand between herself and whatever had hurt her.

The Eldritch blast that followed was filled with panic and wasn’t as strong as usual but it did push the creature away from her.

It was bigger than the other ghouls. It was red and looked as if it was skinned. The huge axe in its hand was dripping Mary’s blood. She felt sick with the sight of it.

The creature smiled a black-toothed smile and started moving towards her companions. It was faster than the others, it reached Aurum in seconds and before Mary could do anything it brought his axe down on his side. The bard fell like a rag doll, blood pouring from his chest. The creature raised its weapon to hit again but Jared swooped in and pulled Aurum's limp body from under the axe's way.

Then it was all a blur. Mary remembered shooting Eldritch blast after Eldritch blast, she remembered Jared cutting and slashing, and Bruno lighting the night with his God's sacred flames.

And finally, the creature fell. Its body dropped on the ground and quickly began decomposing. Soon, no other trace was left by it than the huge axe lying on the ground.

“Aurum? Aurum!” Mary heard Bruno’s soft voice behind her.

She turned. The bard was lying on his back, unmoving, Bruno and Jared standing above him. Her heart sank. He wasn’t… he couldn’t have…

Bruno put his hands on Aurum's chest and they glowed with celestial light. Then, suddenly, the bard breathed again.

“That’s all I can do for him for now,” Bruno said. “He’s stable but he needs to heal.”

Mary sighed with relief. Then the adrenaline of the battle finally drained out of her system and she yelped with the sharp pain in her shoulder. Bruno was going to have a bit more work to do.

Oh, wow! That was a fight! I managed to describe a whole fight!
I hope I didn't forget anything important. Sometimes during the game, when I’m thinking about Mary’s next turn, I forget to observe what the other players are doing (I do that in real life, too, it's a thing) It's good that my group and our DM have the patience to remind me about all that stuff!

Anyway.
Thank you for reading ^.
Take care and be well!

P. S. Also, here's some good news. Since I have more time for writing during the holidays, you'll get more updates (yay!). I think I'll have four ready until the end of the year, starting with this Sunday with:

A Meta Interlude. How I level up Mary and choose her magic spells. And what I imagine her Patron was doing while she was fighting the ghouls (yes, I drew a little comic about it).