Each of you have received a letter from Venture-Captain Drendle Dreng, asking you to meet him outside the main gates of the Grand Lodge in Absalom, and also to wear formal attire.
Of course, this being the Pathfinder Society, it's not going as planned. A cold fall rain is blowing in, bringing with it the smell of a storm on the horizon. Passing Pathfinders nod in greeting, but look slightly confused as to why you cluster outside the gate in the rain rather than somewhere warmer and drier!
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An Aasimar with silver colored hair wearing heavy armor with a helmet tucked under his arm looks around with steely eyes, a falchion strapped to his back as he shakes his head to clear the rain from his eyes
"Formal attire....I wonder what they mean with that. Plate is formal attire for the Hellknights after all.."
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Miltwyne knew something of formal attire, as he had recently purchased some for a particular wedding that was quite... interesting. He strolls up to the gate wearing a dark blue outfit trimmed with silver threaded leaves, branches and birds and a silver finch for a broach that holds a silvery white cloak in place. The outfit would be quite stunning were it worn by a princeling or someone of more noble bearing, but seeing as how it is draped over a rather pudgy hafling fellow with smiling eyes, bare feet, a simple walking stick and sporting a well-worn satchel over his shoulder, the whole ensemble is a bit anachronistic.
Spotting the mountain of armour and blades, he moves to introduce himself, offering a friendly smile and a hand to shake that barely reaches the man's belt, "You look polished up and ready for the ball fine sir, are you waiting for Drandle Dreng as well? My name is Miltwyne Heatherstop or just Milt for short."
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"...did the tiny guy just make a short joke about himself? I never get this humor concept...he seems friendly though...."
Manius nods at Miltwyne and takes the offered hand and shakes it
"Indeed I am. I do hope he shows up soon, all this rain isn't good for the metal I carry. Do you know what we can expect?"
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Quick steps are heard down the street as an unusual figure gingerly jogs by townsfolk. A man with sea green skin and dark green, strait hair dodges an oncoming cart, circles around a startled man who has come to a halt, and dashes down the road passing the gates of the grand lodge before skidding to a stop.
Looking back, the green man notices the two pathfinders standing near the gate and smiles. Hurrying up to the heavily armored Aasamir, he bows his head and uses the remaining breath in his lungs to introduce himself.
“Augos.. pathfinder.. reporting.. sorry I'm late.”
Augos, now closer, stands 5'10 and has rather distinguishing features, apart from his color, such as finned ears and webbed hands and feet. On one side of his head hang silver beads woven into his hair.
Aside from the minor decoration, Augos' is barely clothed, wearing only a set of adventuring pants. Visible equipment includes a backpack, crossbow and spear.
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Inira looks at the summons, and then looks for a dress. Not finding one, she heads out to the shops to see what she can get. Eventually settling on something not too gaudy, she purchases it, packs the rest of her stuff into her backpack, and arrives at the main gate. She looks like an adventurer shoved in a dress, but she is trying to make it work.
The fall rains have come early this year, and a chill wind blows off the waters of Absalom’s harbor, bringing with it the smell of a storm somewhere far off at sea. Venture-Captain Drandle Dreng hurries down the street in a most unusual outfit for the aging Venture-Captain: some sort of blue military uniform complete with a green sash displaying a pair of ornate medals and a black umbrella.
“Ah, there you all are,” he half-mutters to himself. “Is everyone here?”
Without waiting for an answer, he turns on his heels and heads off at a brisk pace, occasionally turning around to make sure everyone is keeping up.
“You’re probably wondering where I’m dragging you, eh? Seven years ago I sent young agents much like yourselves on a preliminary exploration of the necropolis below the Drownyard in the Precipice Quarter. The Drownyard is the name that was given to the old Tri-Towers School, once home to some of Absalom’s wealthiest progeny. It was destroyed in the great earthquake of 4698 AR, and we thought that all of the children, teachers, and staff had perished.”
“But let be back up a bit. Eight years ago, the Society discovered an ancient necropolis under the Drownyard. It dates back to the third century AR, and if you know anything about Absalom’s history, you’ll know that we know almost nothing about those early years. It took me almost an entire year of negotiating with the parents of the children who died in the Tri-Towers Yard to convince them to grant us access to the site, and when we did, what did we find? A lot of spooky stuff: undead, haunts, and some nasty bugs. But we also found something completely unexpected: a survivor. A little slip of a girl named Junia Dacilane somehow survived in a death-like state for 10 years. The only thing that kept her alive was a ring of sustenance that she had found among the crypts. Junia’s mother, Lady Miranda Dacilane, was of course beside herself when we pulled her living daughter from the ruins and she vowed to not only give the Society full access to the property, but personally underwrite our archaeological efforts there. Soon thereafter I set up an archaeological dig at the Drownyard, and we’ve been pulling out fascinating fragments from Absalom’s early history ever since. Every year I visit Lady Dacilane to renew our contract to maintain the dig, but this year it seems that she wants us to jump through an additional hoop. She wants us, or rather you, to escort her daughter back to the Drownyard. It seems that Junia’s become a bit obsessed with
her alma mater, and since the Precipice Quarter is no place for pampered young noblewomen, she needs an escort. Think you can manage that?”
Without giving the PCs a chance to interrupt him, he quickly adds, “Oh, and don’t forget to call the Drownyard the Tri-Towers Yard while we’re at Dacilane Manor. No one who lost children in the earthquake likes to be reminded of that tragedy… even the ones who got their child back.”
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"Poor girl." Milt mutters as Dreng continues his tale.
Between heavy puffs, (for it takes quite the effort for the pudgy halfling to keep up with a man's brisk pace), he asks, "Master Dreng... in the time... that your dig has been... under way... have you found anything... dangerous down there... as in anything... actually deserving of... an escort... for young Junia?"
Dreng starts. "Dangerous? Dangerous? 'Course not. At least nothing you lot can't handle, eh?"
Dreng leads you through several roads, down alleys, across commons. Finally he stops in front of a townhouse. Dacilane Manor is an imposing four-story townhouse of heavy masonry with a parapet roof that is festooned with numerous leering, demonic gargoyles. After knocking on the door, a middle-aged halfling woman in a large apron answers it. “Please come in. My lady will join you momentarily in the drawing room.”
You are lead into a small drawing room where comfortable chairs have been placed around a fire. A platter with wine and cheeses awaits your pleasure. After a few minutes, the Lady Dacilane enters. She is a tall, stern-looking, yet attractive Chelaxian woman with sharp features, a fair complexion, and black hair accented with gray and white. She is dressed in a well-made, floor-length black gown streaked through with crimson. A plain looking silver pentagram necklace is her only jewelry. Dreng immediately jumps up to greet her, bowing and kissing her hand in a formal fashion. He then quickly introduces you all before launching into a prepared speech about the importance of Lady Dacilane’s ongoing support of the Society’s activities and the many important artifacts they have been able to recover from the Tri-Towers Yard necropolis. Lady Dacilane listens politely, making a few pro-forma inquiries into several details about the management of the site before getting to the heart of the negotiation and addressing you lot directly.
“As I am sure Master Dreng has already informed you, I have a particular request of the Pathfinder Society this year. My daughter Junia has recently celebrated her eighteenth birthday, but she maintains a certain obsession with the traumatic events that befell her at the Tri-Towers Yard so many years ago. I have stopped her from sneaking out of the manor and visiting that place several times, and I feel that her past is keeping her from fully embracing her future. I would ask that you accompany her to the gods-forsaken Precipice Quarter and let her see her fill of the decay and misery. Perhaps those sights will cure her of her unnatural obsessions.”
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Uncharacteristically, Milt keeps his handshakes to himself given the formality of Dreng's greeting. He replies, "Yes, we have heard her unfortunate story, and we are here to help. We'll keep her safe, my Lady Dacilane."
He bows with that last statement as a country halfling would expect he should, he continues, "May I ask, since the young Junia is not here at the moment, is there anything else about her personality or tendencies or her history that we should know to best protect her?"
Lady Dacilane hesitates before answering. “Junia did not age mentally or physically while sleeping in the crypt. It is a mystery that has never been explained. Even though we should be celebrating her twenty-eight birth year, she appears and acts like a child of eighteen.”
She sighs. “Junia’s experiences during and after the earthquake were terrible, and they have left lasting mental scars. Despite my efforts and those of some of Absalom’s best healers, I have been unable to truly help her. Nevertheless, it is time for her to put her childhood experiences behind her and face her adult responsibilities.”
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Milt agrees, convinced that the mother likely has very little to offer, "Yes, let's meet the lass and make ready."
He looks down at his velvet and silver thread outfit with regret and suddenly thinks himself woefully overdressed for a delving into a crypt and resolves to find a place to slip into his leathers and cotton-thread adventuring gear.
Lady Dacilane smiles tightly and rings a bell. When her halfling servant arrives, she sends her to fetch her daughter.
Lady Dacilane’s daughter comes bounding down the stairs and into the sitting room a few moments after he mother calls her. She has her mother’s height, black hair, and fine facial features, but that’s where the similarities end. Unlike her mother’s carefully coiffed hair, Junia’s is short and practical, and she carries herself with a confident and unladylike swagger. She is dressed in grey breeches, knee-high leather boots, a white cotton shirt, and an azure blue riding coat with tails with a golden eagle pin on the lapel. Beneath her coat, it is clear that she is wearing a mithral chain shirt.
Any PC from Andoran or a member of the Liberty’s Edge faction immediately recognizes that Junia is attempting to look like a member of the Andoran Eagle Knights.
Upon arriving in the drawing room, Junia clicks her heels in a military manner and greets her mother with a mischievous grin. Lady Dacilane immediately turns bright red with embarrassment, reprimanding her daughter for appearing in such a “ridiculous outfit in front of our guests”, and then throws up her hands and storms out of the room without another word. Junia introduces herself to each of the PCs as not Junia but “J., like the letter”, and shakes everyone’s hand. If the PCs ask about her outfit, she claims that it is just something she threw together, but gives away her true intention with a conspiratorial wink.
Dreng excuses himself at this point, claiming that he is needed back at the Grand Lodge. Before he leaves, he hands over a large, iron key to you lot, telling you that it opens the wrought iron gates to the Tri-Towers Yard. He warns you that although the necropolis below has been cleared of undead, the partially restored surface structure still holds a dangerous haunt. “Try to stay away from there,” he mutters, “we’ve tried to eliminate it several times, but it keep coming back. If you do need to go in there, take a look in the supply closet, you may find it useful.”
Once the Venture Captain leaves, J. picks up a backpack from a stool in the corner and pulls out a kukri, which she sheathes at her hip. She then straps on the backpack and looks expectantly at the PCs. “Well, shall we go? I’m ready when you are.”
J shrugs. "Toward the Drownyards, I guess."
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Miltwyne looks with dismay at his clothing once more and excuses himself for a moment. After a quick change, and meeting the group back on the street, he returns in more modest travellers clothes and says his apologies, "Dreng said to dress formal, but I'm not wearing my feastday finest into the Necropolis."
He laughs a bit at himself and turns to the young woman, "You seem to carry that kukri well, Miss J, I hope you don't have to use it."
He draws a narrow wand out and activates it and returns it to his pocket. "I suggest we go the docks way. It should be quicker and we're all up for a little adventure, right?"
You decide to head down to the Docks to avoid the crowds cramming the Coin. You slip through wet alleyways, cramped passages and across docks, but finally you find yourselves in a narrow alleyway. At the far end of the alleyway four young Chelish marines are drunkenly staggering out of the back door of a bar. They spot J's Eagle Knight outfit and nudge each other, spitting in your direction.
"Oy! Andoran scum! Why doncha come over 'ere and I'll show what a real Chelish man looks like, eh?" This is accompanied by peels of laughter and catcalls as the drunks stagger toward you. J tenses up, looking worried.
A couple of the Marines look cowed by the sudden display of strength, but one looks drunker than the others, judging by his shambling gait and slurred words. "Oy, girl! I was talkin' to ya! Wanna see what I think of yer Eagle Knights, eh?" He starts to move toward J, when suddenly a clod of mud from the ground near J's feet rises into the air and strikes him on the temple! He stumbles and fumbles for his sword belt. "'At's it! If you wanna fight, I'll fight ya! I'll fight ya all!"
The drunken Marine looks at the halfling with a sneer. "Doncha try to talk ta me, slip! I'm gonna break yer face!" The drunken marine suddenly abandons his attempts to draw his sword and instead lunges at J, shoving her hard to the ground. She hits the ground and as she does, a strange sight greets you: a small boy, blue and glowing with hollow eyes erupts from her and runs at the Marine, his face enraged. He disappears just as he's about to barrel into the Marine, whose face has gone white and slack with fear!
"Whaazat? Wha kinda demons are you?!?" He resumed trying to draw his sword!
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Wait, what was that?
Milt reels at the strange spirit exiting the girl. He looks back at their charge to make sure that J is OK and turns back to the marine, "Honestly, you don't want to tangle with us. Just go home to your family. I don't even know what that was, and I doubt it would be good for you to push it too far."
The drunken marine blinks, but even in his drunken state he can't refute the logic of Miltwyne and Manius' words! He shakes his head as if to clear it and mumbles something about crazy people in alleys and staggers back to his friends. Without looking back they double step out of the alley and are gone.
Looking back, J stands and is brushing herself off without meeting anyone's eyes. Finally she takes a steeling breath and looks up. “I guess I should tell you, considering who you are and where we are going. I’ve been keeping him a secret for far too long in any case.”
“Grishan, can you come out, please. These people would like to meet you.”
'Grishan' steps out of J.’s body, revealing himself to be a green-tinted apparition that resembles an emaciated 14-year-old boy with sunken cheeks and hollow eyes. He is still wearing his school uniform consisting of a blouse covered by a vest. His legs end just below the knees, trailing off into nothingness and he floats above the ground at the same height he stood in life.
In a slightly echoing voice that sounds as if it comes from far away, the spirit speaks. "My name is Grishan Maldris. I was Juni's classmate before the... before the earthquake. When it happened we were playing in the necropolis. We weren't supposed to be there, but it saved us. Well, for a while anyway. The tombs didn't collapse, but the entrances did and it trapped three of us: me, Juni and Cass. We had no food, no water. Cass and me got hungrier and thirstier. Juni didn't, cause she had put on a weird ring."
J looks stricken. "But I didn't know then..."
Grishan smiles fondly at her. "It's not your fault, Juni. Anyway, Cass died first. She just sorta faded away, hungry and thirsty. Then I died. But I didn't wanna leave Juni, so I guess I became a ghost?"
J looks close to sobs. "I didn't die. I crawled into a coffin and the Pathfinders found me, 10 years later. Grishan watched over me and made sure nothing got me while I was in a daze. When I got older, he came back and appeared to me. He can hide inside me... and live like he ... never had a chance to..." J breaks into tears and begins sobbing.
Grishan smiles sadly at her and hugs her. "It's not your fault, Juni. I could never blame you. It was me who wanted to play down there and if we hadn't, you'd just be dead, too."
J starts to say something, but Grishan interrupts suddenly. "It was I who pushed Juni to go back. I feel like there's something there she needs to see or do, something that will allow her to finally move past that dark place. But there's something else..."
The spirit looks embarassed and reluctant to speak, but seems to summon his courage and tells you his tale. Grishan grew up in the shadow of his older brother Colson Maldris. Grishan idolized his brother, and wanted more than anything to become an Eagle Knight just like him. When Colson approached Grishan and asked his brother to spy on the families of his classmates at the Tri-Towers Yard in order to gather intelligence for the Eagle Knights, Grishan immediately accepted. Colson promised Grishan that the information he collected would be put to use to defend and promote the egalitarian ideals of Andoran. Grishan began accepting invitations to all of his classmates’ parties, and snooping around in their parents’ offices and studies. After a few months, Grishan had collected enough secrets that he felt he could finally take them to his brother’s contact in the Eagle Knights; sadly, fate intervened.
"I need to finish this mission, to finally let go of it for once and all. Please, will you help me?"
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"It seems noble to help the ..lad? ghost? ..but getting secrets to the Eagle Knights..that might not be good...still, the information will be 10 years old....maybe it can't do any harm anymore. And it would help to know what information was gathered in case someone else decides to "help" instead."
Manius nods
"We said we would help "J", so we will"
J looks surprised, but Grishan speaks. "I don't know. I didn't encounter her spirit while we were down there, but..." He shrugs, looking lost.
Grishan recalls some things dimly, but he remembers the intelligence he hid was somewhere in the Arboretum Arcanis. Navigating the now broken land, J leads you there.
The foyer of the Arboretum Arcanis is in shambles. Debris and dead or dying plant matter cover the mosaic-tiled floor. A gnarled black thorn tree still clings to life in a giant masonry planter. Two massive skylights in the ceiling afford a view of low-hanging, purple and black clouds above; the crystal dome is completely obscured. Piles of rubble obscure most of what once may have been doorways, but a door to the west is free from debris.
Grishan has been returned to Junia, but J stops and looks around. "Grishan says this looks familiar to him."
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Inira readies her bow, in case of trouble.