Red King 7: Herded Like Cattle!

After Vivian’s failed attempt to extract information about the Red King from the remnants of Kalamon Ryce’s mind, both Vladimir and her planned to take some time for their followers to rest. Unfortunately, chaos fell as the Herald of the Red King appeared and announced the Red King’s arrival in Frostgrave.

The ruins of Felstad shook as the fabric of reality was torn apart and demonic soldiers stormed into the streets. As shimmering fissures of nothingness drifted towards them, Vivian and Vladimir abandoned their bases and hurried towards safety.

With a wave of unreality approaching, both warbands needed to move quickly. Vivian spotted a few interesting items that had been discarded and decided to move in that direction along with with part of her warband while the others moved straight for safety. Vladimir kept his followers together on a path straight towards escape. Vivian attempted to cast Elemental Bolt to take out one of the demonic warriors near the treasure, but didn’t manage to harm it. Shani’s crossbow bolt missed too. Vladimir had better luck with Planar Tear and vanquished one of the demonic Hrut. The veil advanced faster than Vivian had expected and she was caught on the edge of it with Shani. The roiling unreality opened wounds on both of them, but they managed to avoid being completely swallowed by it.

Alaric and Dragomir both fell in combat with the Hrut warriors as they put themselves between the demons and Vivian. Vladimir’s warband was having much better luck thanks to the potency of his Planar Tear spell against the demons.

As the veil continued to push forward, Kari took out a demon nearing Vivian’s band with a lucky critical hit. On Vladimir’s side, Lionel scored a critical hit against one of the larger demon soldiers, but it managed to survive and blinked towards Vivian. Narcissa, cautious about whether Vivian could be trusted, cast Fog to create a barrier between the two groups.

Vladimir’s warband was now nearing escape, but then a trio of Hrut appeared in front of them. Vladimir cast Planar Tear again and managed to eliminate one of the demons, but his warband would still need to avoid the other two. In order to help with that, Narcissa directed the group’s zombie into melee.

A winged demon neared Abigail, but she used a well-placed Explosive Rune to have it be blasted on approach, and it blinked towards Vladimir’s warband instead and took a shot at him with its crossbow. He opened another planar rift to take it out and then his warband quickly made their exit.

During their hasty escapes, both Vladimir and Vivian secured a pair of treasures. All of Vladimir’s warband made it to safety, but Vivian lost Alaric and Dragomir in the chaos. As the survivors took a short rest along with a group of other survivors, Vivian convinced two strangers to work with her as they tried to form a plan to counter the Red King’s invasion.

Vivian’s Warband

• Vivian Flameborn
• Abigail the Apprentice
• Kastor the Apothecary
• Kari the Archer
• Shani the Demon Hunter
• Hans the Infantryman
• Dragomir the Man-at-Arms (taken out by a demon and then lost in the chaos)
• Alaric the Thief (taken out by a demon and then lost in the chaos)
• Dorina the Thug
• Sabastian the Treasure Hunter
• Rosaline the Apothecary (random recruit with +1 Will)
• Magnus the Captain (random recruit with a smashed jaw)

Vladimir’s Warband

• Vladimir Darkbringer
• Narcissa the Apprentice
• Yelena the Apothecary
• Liam the Demon Hunter
• Mila the Mystic Warrior
• Margot the Ranger
• Annabelle the Thief
• Franchesca the Thief
• Lionel the Thief
• Katya the Woman-at-Arms