“She precedes you into the room.”
“I shut the door,” said Carl. Mike grabbed a handful of chips and started eating them, noisily.
“And then...”
“I hit her on the back of the head with my mace. And I’m spending my Inspiration on this.”
“You WHAT?” cried Melissa. Mike stopped eating. Carl rolled.
“Nat 20!”
“NO WAY!” “Ohhhhhhhhh!”
“You crit.” I said. “Roll your damage.”
“Eighteen.”
“Okay, she’s dead,” I reply.
“I don’t want to murder her.” said Carl, raising a finger.
“Okay, she’s not dead.”
“Okay, well, I do want to murder her, but not here. I want to murder her… ritually,”
I looked at him. “Okay,” I said. “You can do that, if you want.”
“Excellent.” he replied.
“Do we need to go into detail, or… “
“Only if you want to.”
I was okay with leaving it at that, but Melissa was morbidly curious and Mike DEFINITELY wanted to hear more. I gestured for him to proceed.
“Okay, so I whack this tavern wench on the back of the head with my very large mace and knock her out. I drag her back to that creepy basement under the death house, tie her up and chuck her in a corner while I set things up. You guys can be there if you want to, but it’s up to you.”
“Oh, I’m definitely there. I REALLY want to know how this goes down.” said Melissa.
“Yeah,” said Mike.
“Okay, so you guys guard the wench and make sure she doesn’t scream when she wakes up.”
“Oh, she definitely screams when she wakes up.” I said.
“Okay, well that’s for you guys to deal with while I’m setting up.”
“We what?”
“She’s screaming,” I said to Melissa. “What do you do?”
She gestured with her hands, palms out. “Shhh! Sh! Sh!” She put a finger to her lips. “SH!!”
“I dive over and clap my hand over her mouth,” said Mike. “Do you want me to…?”
“Nah, you got her. She’s utterly terrified.”
“I try to calm her down.”
“Is this Persuasion, or Intimidation?”
“I don’t have either.”
“So that’s a straight Charisma check.”
“Don’t threaten her, I say from where I’m setting up the room,” interjected Carl. “I don’t need her to be in fear of her life… until later.”
Melissa just looked at him.
“And then I continue ignoring them,” said Carl.
Melissa rolled, and winced. “Twelve?”
“Sure, no problem. She’s not screaming any more.” I changed my focus back to Carl. “What have you been doing while this was happening?”
“Well, she was probably out for about an hour, more or less, so apart from the time spent getting here I guess I’ve had about half an hour to set up?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, so you’ve seen this guy, one of the things he carries is a little bag at the back of his belt, and he brings it out and it contains a whole pile of little strips of black cloth, which he drapes over things – rocks, shelves, the floor if nothing else. He lays his bedroll on the ground in the centre of the room, with just the stub of a black candle at each end.”
“And that’s your altar?”
“I’m working with what I’ve got. I also have a tiny piece of awful-smelling incense that I’ll light up as well. And I put her on the bedroll and… sacrifice her.”
“With the dagger?”
“With the dagger.”
“Okay. Do you say a prayer of some kind?”
“Sure.”
“Let’s hear it then.”
“Uh, okay,” replied Carl. He raised his hands. “Oh great and dark master,” he intoned, “hear now the voice of your humble and terrified servant. Accept now this soul taken by me from this human, and… uh… grant me your blessing or something.”
“Okay, roll a Religion check.”
“With advantage?”
I nodded. “With advantage.”
“Fifteen.”
“Okay. It’s done. You get one Sacrifice Point, which you can use like Inspiration at any time. This represents the favour of your dark god.
“Okay, cool,” said Carl, marking it down on his sheet.
“You did not attract any attention. You appear to have completely gotten away with it. How are you guys doing?” I asked Melissa and Mike.
“I do NOT like being a part of this.” said Melissa.
Mike shrugged. “I mean, it’s definitely evil, right? I’m not okay with it, but I’m also kind of scared of him, so I guess I’ll go along with it for now.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Are you going to confront him about it?” I asked.
“Yeah. I walk up to him and...”
“He stares you down,” said Carl.
“And...” there was a pause.
“Opposed Charisma checks,” I said. Carl and Melissa scrambled for their dice.
“Eleven!” cried Carl.
“Four,” said Melissa, and hung her head. “Okay… he scares me too.”
“You can both have Inspiration for that.” I said.
“Yes!” said Carl. Melissa pumped her fist and noted it on her sheet.
“And yeah, I clean up my candles and little strips of black cloth and stuff them all back into that little bag and put it back.”
“And what are you doing with the body?” I asked.
“Just leave it. We’re leaving in the morning. Let’s get a few hours sleep and just go far away from here. After all, he says, looking around him. Someone will find her… eventually.”
“Oh, I definitely don’t get any sleep,” said Melissa.
“I don’t think so,” said Mike.
“Okay, you guys don’t get more than a short rest. You?”
“I sleep like a baby!” said Carl.
“Okay, you get a long rest.”
“Cool. And in the morning we meet up with this Burgermeister guy and his sister, and we leave.”