Doctor to the Grim and the Godless

About

Tobias Hale was one of the youngest members of the Hale household, a merchant family managing to make a modest living on the edge of the crater that was left of Walstein. He was the youngest of a handful of children, including his twin brother, Tedric. Tedric and Tobias were inseperable, causing trouble and going on adventures in the ash-choked city that was their home. Tedric was the more boisterous of the two, preferring to think with his fist and jumping headfirst into their adventures with little hesitation. Tobias, on the other hand, was a bit more reserved, and even if he was ever willing to follow his brother into whatever situation he led them into, he also had a thirst for knowledge and history, and an intelligence that was usually just enough to get the two of them out of trouble when needed.

Tobias' realm was books- stories of the gods and how they fell, histories of humans fighting to resist and control the wilds and magic around them, and even books of science and medicine, which he learned to respect as its own sort of magic. Tobias learned early on about the fate of his hometown- ravaged by a plague so great, the archmages actually came together to attempt to wipe it from the map. It was a story he would ruminate on regularly- would he, if given the chance and the power, make the same sort of call?

Eventually, sickness once again came to Walstein. The wailing, the blood, the smell of death filled the streets they had grown up in. The heads of the Hale household fell first, the life draining from them in front of their children's eyes. Then the oldest, then Tedric, and then finally, Tobias.

When Sigric Kyllyngworth finally made it out to Walstein to check up on his neice and her family, he found a manor drowned in shadows, and only Tobias left alive. White as a sheet, all color drained from his skin and his hair, but alive. It was abundantly clear that the rest of the family had passed from the wailing sickness, but what stuck out to Sigric that day was the wounds he found on Tedric, caused post-mortem, and the look of absolute shock and horror on Tobais' face when he was found.

Seeing there was nothing left for his poor great nephew in this ashen crater, Sigric took matters into his own hands and settled the affairs of his kin for the boy. With what was left, he purchased the equipment he could and the passage he would need to get somewhere the young man could get a proper education- the Morbus Doctore.

It's here we find our young adventurer, at the beginning of the first leg of his journey: getting from Walstein to Dusenberg.

Session Notes

I've been trying out varying angles on how I want to approach my note-taking both during and between sessions, and I think I've settled on hand-written notes during the session, then writing up a sort of narrative after the fact to reflect on Toby and his choices. I might go back and re-work the first session, but we'll see how much time and energy I have to put into that. For now, enjoy some overviews of his adventures!

Session 2

It was mostly combat this session, but Toby got the final blow on one of the big creatures thrown the caravan's way. He wanted to help Lilibet, the old gnomish worshipper of Aurelia, and her daughter, but instead fell back to his own wagon to provide cover fire for everyone. He saw Death again for probably the first time since his family died (alas, poor Yannick, we knew him well), and as such it was hard to summon anything forth past the mask for the rest of their travel for the day, feeling exhausted by the time they reached the waypoint. He told himself it wasn't cowardice that made him balk from attempting to save Lilibet, it was a calculated decision. He did his best to save Yannick when Yannick couldn't do it, himself, and only the seraphs know who that bear would have targeted if that poor boy had already been slain.

During the march, the Rocktumbler's wagon veered off the road for a moment. When Asvald halted the wagon for them, there was no response from the dwarf driving, named Klaus. When Tobias was summoned to look him over, he found nothing wrong with him besides his lapsed attention and his longing gaze fixed on the forest. He was easily shaken out of it, but Tobias made sure to keep a mental tab on him moving forward. The sight of the trail house was a welcome one as the woods around them grew dark and it came time for the caravan to take some much-needed rest.

Session 3

This was the first time that an indoor space didn't feel 100% safe to Tobias, and even though it was nice to sleep under a roof for a change, he couldn't help but notice the distinct lack of... relaxation, even despite the exhaustion he had come to expect at this point. Even though every door had its bar, there were still too many of them for Tobias' comfort. He was almost tempted to set up in the basement, but decided to stay on the first floor with everyone else in the candlelight. He set the Alarm for the back stable door, which wasn't tripped during the night, but tales of zombie dogs at the front door and half of the found rations going missing in the night made him wonder if there could have been a better spot to set it.

The next morning, after a little while of listening to the group discuss amongst themselves how the rations could have gone missing, it struck Tobias that he hadn't checked up on his patient from the previous day, the good Klaus Rocktumbler, who'd had a dissociation episode and was probably worth looking into. It's what a proper doctor would do, after all, and it wouldn't hurt to see if the man showed any signs of over-eating, or possibly not sleeping through the night. Once satisfied with the dwarf's check-up, he caught one of the scouts accusing the Ogrish of the caravan of stealing the rations. All things considered, even if Tobias went along with the assumption, he couldn't exactly blame the Ogrish for it. So goes the spoils of the road sometimes.

A particularly terrifying but ultimately uneventful encounter brought the caravan into what Tobias easily recognized as the territory of a Blightscale Dragon. The thought of being anywhere *near* a dragon, let alone one called Blightscale, terrified Tobias, but once he had made sure his breathing was under control, he looked to make sure Captain Gerhard knew of the danger, and when the order was given to speed up their already doubled pace, Tobias at least felt they weren't unaware of what could lie- or fly- in this corrupted forest. He desperately tried to banish the facts he had read about the ferocious creatures from his mind as the wagons lurched forward as fast as they could, and was largely successful by way of forcing himself to focus on each tree that passed by as a marker of their progress away from the danger and letting the drone of the rain lull him into an easier state of mind. It wasn't until the foul stench faded and the trees returned to their normal green that the young wizard began to breathe easier, or even dared to mention the name of the danger they had hopefully left somewhere in the woods behind them.

The pouring rain and Asvald's watchful eye allowed for the guard to catch the first signs of a fever and excessive thirst from the gnomish wagon. Tobias was promptly notified, and he gave council on the next steps to take. The gnomes were to stay in the wagon, quarantined from the rest of the caravan. No one was to get within striking distance of either of them. Captain Gerhard was notified of the development, and with a heavy sigh and a curse under his breath, he gave the command for their wagon to be blocked from entering camp when the call was made to stop for the night.

Before returning to his wagon to continue the journey, Tobias discreetly pulled Korran aside and simply told the monk that their seraph's mercy could be needed soon. Despite the tension Granny Lisbet had caused with her worship of a goddess that could not save her and the grief the monk had given her for it, there was an understanding that no one wished to see the old woman suffer needlessly. Tobias knew that while he felt qualified to make the call for the old woman, he wouldn't be able to carry out the mercy sentence, himself, and felt relieved that the burden was easily but respectfully passed on to someone else.

The thunk of Asvald's javelin striking the back of the wagon out amongst the trees of the woods hit like a cannon shot to Tobias, and that relief manifested once again as a physical sigh that escaped from the beak of his mask, a breath he hadn't known he had been holding. He hoped Lisbet's soul could now find proper rest, perhaps reunited with her goddess in death, and found himself counting it among their blessings that she wouldn't get the chance to rise again to continue the torment.

Tobias volunteered for first watch that night, figuring that he'd barely gone a day without being exhausted even when he'd slept through the whole night, might as well chip in. It would be a good time to hold vigil for poor Lisbet, too. The wizard had been lost in his own thoughts for a while before realizing his watch partner, Ella, had disappeared. The minutes without a sign of her ticked on painfully, but as he hadn't heard any roars or screams, he decided to stay put. Once Ella returned and explained that she'd just been on a bathroom break, he made her promise to check in with him next time before she disappeared like that again.

Their watch ended without incident, but Tobias knew as he settled into his tent that the chances of sleeping through two nights in a row without waking to the sound of his Alarm bell was slim. He kept his component pouch close, going through his various knicknacks needed to cast his spells. A little figurine of a hedgehog, to keep him safe. A little bit of metal with eight sides, painted red, that would stop any baddie in their tracks. A small bottle of dried and crushed rose petals, for sleep in a pinch. And last but not least, a bit of string and wood in case some good old fashioned simple work was needed. One glaring hole in his kit that he had become aware of over his travels was his lack of a light source, but there was little to do about it now as he prepared for sleep, welcoming the darkness for just a little bit of reprieve.

Session 4

Just as expected, Tobias was awoken (along with over half the caravan) to the shrill ringing of his Alarm bell. Component pouch in hand, the young wizard dashed out the back of his tent into the rain to look out over the ridge they had camped on and saw the source of the whistling that had been haunting their caravan: Oblivion Stalkers, accompanied by the undead dogs from the night before.

Desperate to buy some time and mildly aware that he was probably one of the first alerted to the danger, Tobias' first instinct was to reach for the edges of his toy sign and cast Delay. It wouldn't halt them forever, but it would give the rest time to wake up and get battle-ready. His hands shook as he recited the incantation and held out his component, finishing off with a quick utterance of, "*Nopenopenopenope!*" as he waited, each moment that passed, for the spell to take place. The shadows still struck, seemingly unperturbed.

Instantly regretting not casting his protective Arcane Aegis upon himself first, he waited for the shadows to eat him alive, but found Ella at his side instead as she clambered from the back of her wagon. Blows were traded between the beast and the rogue, but ultimately the creature won by locking its jaws down on the halfling's wrist, the pain and whatever other shadowy arcana that was at play proving too much for her to remain conscious. She fell just in front of Tobias, deadly still, but still breathing.

More mundane curses escaped from Tobias' lips as he watched his companion go down and saw Madog round the corner of the wagon and unleash his fists, axes, and knives into the beast. Otherworldly whistles, screams, and barks were starting to come from other parts of the camp- more attackers, more than enough to wipe him from the map. Finally, his hands found his beloved hedgehog figurine, and with a quick whispered apology to his newest patient before him and a promise he'd get her up soon, he cast his next spell. The arcane glow that washed over him made him feel more invigorated than he had ever before, instilling a little more confidence in his outlook for how the next few minutes would unfold.

Turning to a different spot on his belt, Tobias finally found the Potion of Healing they had scavenged a few days prior and knelt beside the unconscious halfling before him. Casting glances over both shoulders, then finally making sure Madog was fully engaged in his own fight, he began his work.

"Come on, Ella," he muttered to her, lifting his mask just a tad so he could see properly and carefully lifting hers just enough to get the bottle to her mouth, "it didn't get us before, it won't get us this time, either." The deathly plale skin of her face he had revealed under her burlap sack came as no surprise to him, though he did make note of her age. There wasn't anything he could do about the broken wrist just yet, but it would have to be enough. With that, Ella sprang to her feet once more and joined the fight again, albeit with only one working hand.

The feeling of satisfaction with his work was cut short by an alarming pressure on his calf as another shadowy dog lunged from the shadows of his tent and attempted to sink its teeth into his leg. Before he could react, a flash of golden light and a yip escaped from the beast as it chipped against his arcane protection and subsequently vanished back into the shadows.

Emboldened by his spells and his crafts, Tobias chased the shadow through his tent, losing it in the center of the camp and instead catching sight of a caravan scout up yet another ridge, striking out with her sword at another shadow. Closing his eyes and envisioning his best approximation of the beast in his mind, the arcane words spilled from his mask as he made the motions of tying a tourniquet- tighter, and tighter, and tighter- until he heard another yip of pain and looked to see their scout alone on the ridge, the beast defeated.

Seeing the other members of their party coming up the hill from below, looking bloodied but upright and generally expecting the fight to be over, Tobias helped them zero in on the final attacker and make sure the camp had been cleared. As the adrenaline began to wear off, Tobias busied himself with collecting samples of what little was left behind of the undead creatures- a strange shadowy sort of sand. Promises were made that injuries that could wait as long would be looked to once the sun was up, and the camp settled back down for a precious few more hours of rest.

In the morning, Tobias made his rounds, seeing to Madog's wounds from the night before and also noting that Ella had put it upon herself to set her own wrist.

"About what happened during the fight last night," the rouge said sheepishly, "what you saw, you won't tell anyone about it, will you?"

"Of course," came Tobias' answer, easily and without hesitation, "Doctor-patient confidentiality and all that."

"Oh. Well, thank you," she replied, giving a bit of a surprised laugh before continuing, "I'm glad I never took any of those oaths." Tobias laughed along, nodding in acknowledgement. He knew the risk both of them faced if the others became paranoid that the pox-touched were still able to transmit the disease, or worse- become superstitious and assume they'd made deals with devils to avoid their fate.

As he helped the rest of the caravan get packed up once again and settle into another day of travel, Tobias mused over how he could draw from his experience from the night before, thinking of how to replicate the healing potion with ingredients from his herbalist's kit and coming up with ideas that he was fairly certain could result in some good medicine. With a little magical nudge, he was confident he could craft potions from just about anything he could find.