Eldermourne Episode 2: Jabs and Hooks

**Jabs and Hooks** is the second episode of campaign 2.

Our new heroes deal with the aftermath of the mysterious horror's attack on Thornkirk. Fia adds a new book to her collection, Zirk gets a nickname, and Henry shakes off some ring rust.

## Plot Synopsis

Episode 2 opens on the trio on the docks with Fia looking over the book she retrieved from the water while Zirk attempts to heal the sprite found floating in the water. As Zirk performs what Henry calls "lowercase CPR", Fia pores over the book "Guardians of the Grove". After the sprite is healed, it flies up and perches on Zirk's ear, remaining there even when he flicks his ear. Henry then reveals that he'd seen the horror they'd encountered before when he was in Scaletip Valley, a location in Innerborough (which is south of Outerborough) and that it got the jump on him and knocked him out and tried to “carve the shadow away from his body".

With that, the guard who was supposed to be guarding Henry, Willie, returns with a dozen others from the town guard and the Inspector, a woman named Marcy who has "Henry Hogfish energy" with graying brown hair, a saber at her side and clearly hates her job, as she seems frustrated and angry as soon as she arrives at the crime scene. She doesn't seem too concerned, though, as it's Reaping Season and horrors are known to kill people often and brutally. The trio decide to go back to Fia's house (an abandoned railway car) for drinks and to chat about the horror and their next move.

Back at Fia's house, Bukvar makes the trio some truly awful pizza including his own cheese from when Fia transformed him into a goat and milked him. Zirk asks Fia to teach him some healing magic and Henry agrees to teach both of them to fight, and they discuss what to do next as they need to find out where Nebble was going in order to find out more about this horror and why it's targeting the Blades. Zirk suggests going to Blackthorn Hall, a local gambling casino and Rook hangout, first because the Rooks were escorting Nebble out of town and second as he still owes Syb a debt for sparing his life when he fought them. They agree to meet up there tomorrow, and Zirk briefly dips back to the coroner's office to find the Inspector and another doctor taking over Nebble's duties. When the trio meet up again, Henry and Fia have a chat in which she asks him if he meant what he said when he told her that if she did something for him, he'd be her friend forever. He says yes, and sprites circle around them, indicating that a sort of friendship oath has been formed between the two. Zirk joins in as well, his sprite flying to the others to join him in the oath.

The three of them make their way towards Blackthorn Hall, and when they enter, they immediately see Syb leaning over a balcony and watching a fight below, throwing a ticket in the air angrily as they appear to lose. They talk the trio, first complaining about how they have no one to bet on in the fight and then telling Fia and Zirk that the Boss, the leader of the Rooks, wants to talk to them. Henry is volunteered to fight while Fia and Zirk go to talk to the Boss, a woman named Madame Whitlocke in a pristine white hoopskirt carrying a parasol. Madame Whitlock asks Fia and Zirk to investigate the death of several members of the Rooks, the first of which appeared to have died of a heart attack but was followed by two other Rooks also seemingly dying of heart attacks. In exchange for this, she offers information on where Nebble was going before he was killed. Fia and Zirk head down to the basement as Henry enters his first fight against the guard Willie and beats him handily, inspiring a bit of confidence in him from Syb.

Meanwhile, Zirk and Fia peform an autopsy on a dead Rook guard downstairs and discover that their heart is completely missing with very little evidence of how. Unfortunately for the two of them, the guard standing at the door drops dead from an apparent heart attack and the meat hooks on the wall behind them animate as the scene switches over to Henry in his second fight of the night against a casino favorite called Sullivan the Specimen, who Henry is able to defeat after a taxing back and forth between the two of them. Downstairs, Fia is able to call for Bukvar to get them out of the basement and the two of them escape unscathed. As they run upstairs, Fia attempts to cast *Guidance* to help Henry in his final fight against Fergus, the Rook who would've killed Zirk if not for Syb's intervention, but she is caught and the episode ends with Fergus holding Henry around the neck as the casino screams behind them.

## Quotes

* "Weird cube, but okay." - Syb Bonkginya
* "Fia Boginya thinks Brian Murphy is a sick fuck." - Fia Boginya
* "I'll be your friend as long as you want me to." - Henry Hogfish

## Music/Sound Effects

* "Club chatter, London" by mlteenie at Freesound.org.
* "Rowdy Crowd" by xtrgamr at Freesound.org.
* "Boginya, Fia Boginya" by Emily Axford.
* "Into the Fire" by Emily Axford.
* "Spare the Spritely" by Emily Axford.
* "The Witch's Hut" by Emily Axford.
* "Blackthorn Hall" by Emily Axford.
* "The Lonely Autumn" by Emily Axford.
* "A Friend For Life" by Emily Axford.
* "Guardians of the Grove" by Emily Axford.
* "Kingshammer" by Emily Axford.
* "Fia" by Emily Axford.
* "Henry" by Emily Axford.
* "The Posse" by Emily Axford.
* "Unknown Tome" by Emily Axford.
* "Langston" by Emily Axford.

## External Links

* Headgum
* Spotify
* NADDPOD Subreddit Thread