The Wilds - Bring Out Your Dead

Had a bit of a low-response turn this weekend, so the corresponding turn is short. The good thing about play-by-email games is that everyone can participate on their own schedule. That bad thing about play-by-email games is that it's easy to push things off. My players and I seem to run through a cycle of ups and downs in this regard. Anyhow, here's what's going on...

As the others keep watch, Durego and Rawon take the lead on checking over the bodies for any identifying marks. Dagmarten joins in, mumbling Agnia's prayer for the dead as he steps between the piled corpses. As they work, Ingvild checks around the room for anything that might shed more light on how these people ended up here. Rough hands, weathered skin, and plain homespun clothing show that these were poor folk, farmers and laborers from the outlying farms and settlements taken by the kobolds and their ogre-overlords. They've been stripped of whatever meager valuables they might have carried, and death has twisted and distorted their features, making it impossible to identify who they once were. Only the corpse nearest the door, a gray-haired, old man with a hooked nose and a deep scar on his forehead, is whole enough to describe in a way that might be useful.

"Hey guys, take a look at this." Ingvild is squatting in front of the open door, studying something near the bottom.

"What is it?" asks Locky.

"Writing. Someone scratched something here."

By turns everyone takes a look at the door. "It's hard to tell by lantern light, but... is that blood?" asks Ohwatoo.

"I think so. It looks like whoever wrote this scratched it with their fingernails... Wait a minute." Durego moves to the nearest remains, those of the old man. "He did it. See, his fingers are bloodied, the nails broken."

"But what does it mean?" asks Urúuvion, still hunched over the writing.

"I don't know. But we ought to find out." Durego turns back to the grisly task at hand. "Let's finish this and get out of here. We can put the bar back on the door when we're done. At least that'll slow down anything else trying to get in here."

"You don't think we should bury them? It seems wrong to just leave them here, alone in the dark." Raúguey looks at Durego as he speaks. "Isn't that the right thing to do?"

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