Vermundr mostly keeps his own company while enjoying the Count's hospitality. At some point during the night he cleans the ichor from his blade and does what he can to mend his tattered armor.
Can they stay father? Addam asks excitedly.
Of course. Any friends of Petros and particularly friends of yours are welcome here.
The next morning dawns over the gorge in a glorious blaze of gold and red and casts glittering rainbows along the depth of the falls.
It is almost dreamlike and makes you forget for a moment the events of yesterday evening.
But only for a moment.
As you get up for a breakfast, you hear Addam's child-like laugh echoing through the halls of the manse and come across him chasing around with the unseen servants.
His arm appears already to have been at least temporarily fixed already. The bone still hangs loosely but it has been sewn with thick metal wire back into the shoulder socket. The patches of burnt skin look as raw and scorched as ever. You are glad he seems incapable of feeling pain.
Constantin helps to prepare washing up for everyone once people have had a bite to eat and some rest. He does his best to clean the ruined clothes but notes that most of the group will probably need entirely new outfits.
Beyond that, he spends a great deal of time with the Count, talking about the process of making Addam and how to repair him. He seems especially keen to learn more about the physiology - can Addam be repaired with healing spells? What about spells that repair constructs? Will it require more pieces from cadavers or can his existing framework be rebuilt so that he's not flayed and burned?
Lastly, he spends one evening in a study carefully writing a letter, which he spends several hours polishing. He writes a draft and then a final version and then carefully tucks it away for delivery once the team returns to Lepistadt.
The Count, despite his quite obvious exhaustion, is only too happy to converse at length with Constantin.
At first, his discourse is at far too high a level. He talks of chemistry and bio-molecular science in such depth that, though Constantin tries to follow, it is no disgrace that he is lost in the detail.
Alpon smiles and tries again, taking things more slowly. He explains that Addam is made up of a collection of creatures taken from his museum - ogre, choker - his heart comes from a Frog Behemoth. The rarest and most expensive creature I had in my menagerie. the Count adds.
I understand that people could look at him and see a monster, a misshapen jigsaw. he looks at the giant from one of the windows of the manse. Addam is splashing about in the waters of the falls without a care in the world, as if the events of the past few months were nothing but another one of his bad dreams. But I just see my son. he sighs sadly then. Healing magic is useless. he says, somewhat bitterly, and you aren't sure if he is referring to Addam or his late wife with that statement.
But he told me yesterday that he cried. Do you know how remarkable that is Constantin? For everything I have learned and everything I poured into him, never did I think he would ever have a working physiology - more that he would be like a construct, just with the ability to feel and express emotion like no other of his kind. But when I was examining him earlier, blood was flowing from his head wound, he winced when I stitched his arm back into the joint and for the first time... he begins to choke with emotion; ...I could hear that stupid frog-heart beating. he covers his mouth with a trembling hand. ...he truly is alive. Perhaps I have Vrood to thank for that or perhaps life has just found a way... I don't think I will ever know for sure.
The party gathers and sits down to a hearty breakfast the next morning, bodies and spirits still in varying degrees of injury.
Kazamir and Vala feel much better after some magical healing and rest in a comfortable bed, even if the investigator was retiscent to stay the night. Kaz feels strong enough to haul himself from the bed to the breakfast table although it's plainly obvious he is still in significant pain form his endeavours the previous day.
Addam doesn't eat, but sits down with the groups nonetheless, chattering happily away about anything that seems to pop into his head.
As he meal continues, you all look up sharply at a sudden taptaptaptaptap on the window, made all the more strange given your altitude above the falls.
Vermundr puts down the meaty piece of bacon he was munching on in favor of his greatsword which rests nearby before standing from the breakfast table. He pauses and listens for the source of the tapping.
The tapping continues persistently. The big warrior looks around and determines that it is coming from outside one of the large leaded windows that overlook the glorious view of the falls and the valley below.
Without lowering his weapon, Vermundr finds the clasp holding it shut and opens the leaded window.
Vala glances around briefly at the sound of the tapping, and seeing Pyth perched atop a cabinet turns to the window with curiosity. "Constantin? Kazamir? Do either of you sense anything out there?" But if either of the pair could sense something, they'd hardly have the time as Vermundr fearlessly throws wide the window.
She watches wordlessly, suddenly tense and ready to rip Vermundr away from the window if something horrid should appear.
A strange foreboding grips Kazamir as VermundR opens the window - not of immediate danger, but some feeling of...he can't quite put his finger on it.
Vermundr draws back the drape that covers the window and can see the vague outline of a bird on the other side, obscured by the partly frosted glass, persistently taptaptapping with it's beak.
For a moment he takes it as a good sign - beasts of flight such as birds and butterflies are often seen as servants of benevolent gods like Desna, well-worshipped in his homeland. He opens the window and quickly sees this wretched animal is no servant of the Song of Spheres.
The crow is a mangled, skeletal corpse. One of it's wings is broken and flaps awkwardly, and the flesh along it's breast has been peeled away by some animal or other to reveal the thin rib cage beneath. It has no eyes. Both have been eaten away by maggots that still hungrily burrow into the empty sockets but despite all this, it caws relentlessly.
As soon as the window is opened, however, it flops forward over the sill and crashes to the floor, completely deanimated. That feeling of foreboding rising within Kazamir's psyche stronger than ever, the keen-eyed investigator notices a small message pouch and tiny package attached to it's leg.
Before the message is even plucked from the carcass' leg, Vala remarks with undisguised disdain, "Looks like that snake Vrood likes to have the last word. Hmpf."
Zed has been uncharacteristically quiet since the end of the most recent fight. He almost seems to have withdrawn into himself, cutting himself off from the outside world. He either is within his room or 'out' at infrequent intervals.
As the crow is received Zed looms down from the stairs, staring silently.
Constantin stares at the de-animated crow for a time. Then he says, "We should leave as soon as we can. With the engine destroyed, Vrood has no reason to come back here... unless he comes after us."
Tight-lipped, Kazamir rises, walking a little unsteadily over to the now-defunct messenger. With a slight grimace of distaste, he detaches the pouch from the rotted leg.
The minor tremble in his fingers as he opens it could very well just be from his injuries. Of course.
He reads aloud:
With some trepidation, he reaches down and takes both, unfurling the message first.
My old acquaintances:
How unexpectedly delightful to come across you again!
In the aftermath of my servants' visit to Lepidstadt, I fully expected that some band of adventurers would seek to penetrate the Schloss, but I wouldn't have dared hope that the band would be the same one from Ravengro! It was indeed a delightful surprise.
I must apologize for the difficulties you faced within the castle; it seemed prudent that some measure of delaying tactic would be necessary should the aforementioned band of adventurers indeed stumble across the events at the Schloss.
Still, you overcame both Caromarc's and my own safeguards in marvellous fashion, and your triumph over the Aberrant Promethian was truly impressive. The specimen was powerful, but flawed. It's destruction was not a great disappointment to me but rather an entertaining sideshow.
However, I urge you not to seek me out but to learn a lesson from this episode, for knowledge is the path to redemption, enlightenment and power.
Thus far, your actions have not significantly hindered my plans or the activities of my servants. The loss of the Promethian was inevitable - it was far too unstable to serve our purposes. Caromarc's creation however, was a wonderful tool and one that shall be something of an inconvenience to replace.
And so, to the lesson.
The world is a place of equivalence. Fire destroys but the land that remains is richer and more fertile. I gave of myself so that the crow that delivered this message could live - albeit for a short time - and so on. So just as you have denied me something, I shall deny you.
Please turn your attention to the package that accompanies this missive.
Kazamir begins unwrapping the paper with trembling hands and feels his stomach knot as the wax paper begins to feel wet and tacky.
I know you will get to the bottom of whatever this is, but I fear what might happen to you along the way.I... ummm.... I got these.
She takes from her purse a pair of perfect, plain silver rings.
They call them Sanctified Rings. It just... if something happens to you... I'll know. she shrugs and looks a little embarrassed. It's just for my peace of mind, ok? and smiles wanly.
-----------------------
He unbundles the package and to his disgust and horror he reveals a slender index finger of creamy white skin, the nail broken and chipped. It wears a single, silver ring.
Unless I am wrong - and I am never wrong - you should be looking upon the teaching aid for my lesson at this very moment.
Vala's silver ring, the partner to the one she gazes at, suddenly trembles and shatters like a crystal glass.
I hope you appreciate this lesson for what it is - an invitation to appreciate my perspective. I've always found the idea of death comforting. The thought that my life could end at any moment frees me to fully appreciate the beauty and art and horror of everything this world has to offer. Please trust that I really do hold you in the highest regard.
Perhaps later, once my plans have borne fruit, we shall meet each other face to face. And at that time, I would hope it were not as enemies, but peers.
Until then, I remain:
Your most appreciative observer.
Kazamir drops the letter from his trembling fingers and it flutters as helplessly to the ground as the creature that delivered it.
"The wheel continues to turn." Zed says, the most he has said in a while.
An invitation disguised as a warning. A nihilistic narcissist. Zed gives a humorless exhale. Not unsimilar to what I could have become.
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Constantin sees the ring shatter and his pupils narrow to points. He stands from the table and for a moment it appears that his feet rise off the ground, just by a hair.
"He took Kendra?" says Constantin. He fumbles in his pouch and retrieves the letter that he painstakingly wrote for hours the previous night.
His pinpoint eyes focus on the letter that he wrote and he says in an strangely calm, symphonic voice that sounds like there is a distant chorus somewhere behind it, "He will observe long enough to see his own destruction - his essence scattered across the cosmic wind, his soul shredded in the psychic storm of astral space, every evil he has committed returned upon him through the karmic wheel."
The letter in Constantin's hand suddenly bursts into violet flames, which quickly consume it, sending motes of ash rising up and breaking apart into nothingness.
"From nothingness you came, Vrood," says Constantin, his voice now a quivering echo of the mind-shattering power boiling under a thin veneer of humanity, "and thence you return. The sand runs out."
For a brief moment there is a scintillating, rainbow-hued aura about Constantin. Looking straight at it induces vertigo and a headache. His pupils are gone. Some kind of etheric fire - the kundalini serpent-fire - crawls up inside his body, like a candle being devoured from within. Then, a moment later, it is all gone, and he is the same fragile man, falling to the floor, scrabbling at the tiny bits of broken glass from the shattered ring.
Addam looks suddenly afraid and rings his hands and the Count himself rises, his hands pressed on the table.
Vrood...? he asks in a quiet voice.
Vala's head shakes slowly from side to side, her lips moving in mute protestation of what her mind has pieced together. The color fades from her face and she reaches a trembling hand out across the table before suddenly going limp and collapsing back into her chair with a harsh and ragged scream. The sound is raw; wet like clay and sharp as glass shattering against stone. A second scream tears from her throat, choked with sadness, then a third. This last is the loudest, and it leaves her shaking, her cheeks wet and her eyes red as she stares powerlessly at the severed digit within the package in Kazamir's hands.
Vermundr stares at the grisly token in confusion until Constanin explains its meaning aloud and Vala goes into shock.
"Vrood knows about Lady Kendra? And we left her alone..." the big man growls in powerless anger. "I'll tear whatever passes for a spine from his back."
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Kazamir retrieves the letter and its grisly package, folding the letter neatly and tucking both into his jacket pocket. He straightens fully, the only crack in his stone-face a slight whitening of his nostrils.
"We should, of course, return to Lepistadt at once. We will not know if he abducted, killed, or merely maimed Mistress Lorrimor until we do."
Kaz'z voice is flat, but cold enough to make an efreeti shiver.
"I have always been puzzled by a tactic like this. An enemy lashes out to demonstrate that he can harm one that his pursuers hold dear, to prove that he can strike at any time, hoping to dissuade them from their course." He is looking at no-one in particular as he talks, a faint puzzled expression now crossing his plain face. "Who in our position would stop at anything to eliminate someone that has demonstrated that they are such a threat? Does he know that he has practically demanded we neutralize any threat that he can bring?"
His voice now carries an inflection of slightly interested, academic curiosity. It is belied by his right hand, clenched so hard in white-knuckled fist at the small of his back that it shakes, and a drop of blood slithers out from where his nails have been driven into flesh.
"Herr Caromac, do you have the letter of introduction and the work orders ready? I do not know if I speak for my companions, but I for one am struck by a powerful urge to depart, no disrespect to your hospitality. Bla...Addam, I am sorry we must part under such circumstances. Take care of your father well."
Yes, yes... I - I will prepare it directly. I... he doesn't seem to know what else to say and excuses himself from the table.
Addam stands and backs away, also unsure what to say, not really understanding what is happening;
You...um.... you visit soon? he asks tentatively, shocked by Vala's screams of woe and anger.
Kazamir's face softens at Addam's question.
"I would like that, Addam...but I truly do not know. This task may take quite some time, but I would like to visit again if I am able. When it is done."
Vala remains stricken in her chair, her eyes wide as saucers with pupils like pinpricks of coal as she stares sightlessly at the center of the table, oblivious to everything around her but for the damning nearness of her sweet niece's severed finger.
Zed looks at the mournfulness and anger of the others, seeping over and erupting like a boiling cauldron. It is always fascinating to him to see how the short-lived races are driven so harshly by emotion. He had never found it useful, and more often it could be a crippling distraction.
Zed compartmentalized what has happened. A new, higher threat was present. They had taken a companion. They are a threat and must be eliminated.
With a grim frown Zed descends down the stairs.
"Come. We have work to do."
As Zed turns to leave, Vala still seems oblivious to everyone around her. Her gaze flickers from the empty space in the middle of the table to where the ring on her finger was now replaced by an angry, red welt. Breathlessly, she muttered to herself, "No. No no. Oh no. Don't be gone, sweetheart. Please don't be gone."
Sadness and despair quickly rush in to fill the spaces vented by her anger and horror a few breaths before, and the former history professor's whole posture collapses into a sorrowful, sobbing wreck.
Kazamir moves to stand behind Vala, gently laying a hand on her shoulder, but not speaking, just reminding her of the presence of friends. When the former Count returns, he quietly asks if the count has some magical or alchemical means of preserving their terrible package.
When the count answers and provides the letters and other items, Kaz will do his best to gently steer Vala towards the doors, to depart for Lepistadt.
Ummm.. yes, yes I might have.... something. the Count says, obviously thinking over the problem.
He disappears from the room and returns a few minutes later with a sealed envelope and a wand made of ash.
I don't have any unguent, and I don't suppose you want to delay long enough for me to make any. But take this, it's a Wand of Gentle Repose. I think you could probably use it six or seven times which should give you the time to acquire something more permanent.
Vala sits on the ground for a long time, trying to digest everything that has happened. The others, too lost in their own fury or confusion to help, move aside as the massive form of Addam bends and helps her to her feet with remarkable gentleness.
Don't cry Fr-.... Auntie Vala. he says, offering the elderly historian a hug.
.......................
I miss you already, friends. Addam says, but not sadly. Look after Auntie-Vala? he asks kindly.
The Count shakes Constantin's hand among the others but says to the psychic;
I'm sorry if the worst has happened to your friend. The Way... his hand covers his eyes, ...whatever they are doing, it's clear they are prepared to do anything to achieve it. Be safe.
---------------
You ride your his horses hard, heels digging painfully into their flanks as you lay low over the saddle.
Within hours it's flanks are bathed in sweat and it's eyes are rolling. Concerned at the creature's condition, Hazel calls on her divine magic to heal the suffering beasts before pressing on.
By mid-afternoon you pull to a halt outside Kendra's small townhouse and rush up the path to the door.
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At Kazamir's touch, and then Addam's, Vala is drawn from whatever depths she'd fallen into. She looks at the wand and offers quietly, "Thank you, but, ah - that won't be necessary. She's- she's gone." She pats Addam's hand, returning the hug and giving him a grateful look as her eyes well up, then turns to Kazamir once Addam releases her and she wraps her arms around him in turn.
She sniffles for a bit, then slowly offers to the group, "We should- I mean, I would like to go back to Leipstadt. Daramid is expecting an update on what transpired and I'll need to see to... arrangements."
Whatever fire might once have been in her voice is now utterly extinguished.
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After composing himself, Constantin shakes the count's hand and says, "We'll stop them. Be assured of it."
~~~~~~~~~~
As the group rushes overland on horseback, Constantin is frustrated by his lack of riding skill. He white-knuckles the reins as he drives the horse forward, heedless of his own safety as he slips about in the saddle.
Once the team arrives in Lepistadt, he practically leaps from the saddle and there is only a moment's hesitation and a wince of pain before he rushes to the front door. He reaches out and grabs Hazel's hand before she can land the knock.
"We don't know who's there. What if the Way left assassins or monsters for us?" he says. "If they took Kendra... the first thing Vrood will expect is for us to come here. It's like a game for him. Our move is predictable. He may have a counter-move. Or he may not; he sees this as an amusement, not as a true threat to his plans."
The psychic focuses and sends his mind questing into the home, searching out unfamiliar thoughts.
Kazamir joins them at the door, his face hard again.
"It may be worse than that," he says, voice pitched low. "Just as we faced Brand, just as we faced the body of the Profesor himself...our enemy is a necromancer. It might become our burden to lay Kendra to rest. Vrood does seem to take a diabolical pleasure in turning our friends against us in the most blasphemous way possible."
Constantin frowns slightly, then says, "I detect no thoughts - but I can't sense undead. Go now, Hazel."
"A moment - Zed or I can sense undead..."
Expecting some kind of trap or guardian, Vermundr readies his blade and moves to guard the garden exit.