Against the Cult: Party at the Mill (1.1)

ROUND SEVEN

Xana, Morgran and Quest (who are all upstairs) have been watching and conversing with Durren, at the top of the ladder, as he grunts and strains, trying to lift the trap door above him at an angle from the ladder. He gives up, draws his ornate sword, and drives it savagely through the trap door. There is a scream of shock and pain.

On the roof, Sara slaps the roof thatch, tucks into a roll, and manages to stop herself before dropping off the edge of the roof. She stands up, relieved...

...and falls through the thatch into the attic space below. By the light of of the windows (and the hole in the roof), she has a quick glimpse of room dominated by a cluster of noisily thumping pipes and gears, a man standing on the trapdoor, and a bound person on the ground. Sara and the man exchange a look of surprise, and then a sword blade skewers the man's foot from below and he shrieks.

END OF ROUND SEVEN

ROUND EIGHT

Keb, battered, bewildered and beaten, sits by the north door of the mill. A group of terrified and demoralized thugs cowers on the stairs to the basement (one of them has fainted). It doesn't help that a man they knew, driven insane by his brush with Terrible Darkness, babbles incoherently in the basement. Someone is bound in the attic, and the only remaining fighting thug any of you sees is in the attic with Sara, Durren's sword through his right foot from below.

- Aanbo (ground floor)
- Thacogygax (ground floor)
- in the attic
- Xana (second floor)
- Ogbar (ground floor)
- Klak (ground floor)
- Quest (second floor)
- Sara (attic)
- Morgren (second floor)
- Durren (second floor)

I'm going to jump ahead to Sara, as she's the only one in sight of an opponent. The rest of you can chime in how you like. Sara can do a persuasion or intimidation with ADV, considering both Durren's sword and Quest's call as effectively help actions.

Between the shrieking, cackling laughter and sobbing coming from the basement (which honestly is making everyone in the mill uneasy) and the agonized death screams that were cut off just a few moments ago, the guy in the attic is absolutely terrified. Weeping, he has reverted to a childish belief that if he just keeps the door shut he'll be safe from the monsters. And now his foot is bleeding profusely and someone has crashed through the roof, almost on top of him! The thug is fully in flight-or-fight mode, and could go either way, based on Sara's actions (or the actions of anyone else who can influence him further).

The thug in the attic is terrified. With a shriek, he runs to the open window and leaps out of it, choosing perhaps that a long drop if preferable to death kicking on the end of a sword. Sara hears the shriek cut off with a crunch as his body hits the ground outside, two floors down. There is a bound body near her.

Durren has been shoving on the trap door, then he heard a huge crash and thud, some muffled words, and a shriek. The weight is removed from the trap door suddenly, and it flies open. Durren blinks in surprise to see Sara in the attic before him.

Keb tells Aanbo: "This man talked to me in town, at the Cube, and I told him about Shalla and my job and everything. Then, later at home, some men grabbed Shalla and me and told me they'd..." His story is interrupted by a shriek and a thud of a body landing outside the western door. Everyone in the mill room can see the crumpled body of a person lying there.