Ugg, you were right, look at all those legs!!!
With that Grergof attacks
Darius takes a heavy swing at the creature with his Longsword
"Gergof look out!"
What!!! Arggggg.
Gods above, these overgrown garden pests hurt!
When he gets to go again:
Darius also intervenes when it's his turn. Overhead chop with his Longsword
What a fascinating creature! Spugnoir whacks with his morning star
Aada shrugs off the poison as she herself attacks with her scimitar.
"Is anyone hurt?" Father Grimburrow asks and heals everyone who is. No with his channel though to not raise the vermin again. But with the gently touch of a healing spell.
Thank you Father. Shall we gather your temple's equipment then move out into the light of the sun to discuss our where we go from here?
I know I have a few questions for you, but those would probably be best discussed in Miss Lorrimor's house.
You probably want to decide what to do with the tools we now have found. Obviously we could use some of them if we are going into Harrowstone as you suggested, but they are your temples property. As such I think it is only right that you decide what you think is the best use of them.
"Yes. Let's move to my room at the temple. There we can see what it is and what you need." Father Grimburrow replies.
He asks everyone to grab something and leads them all to the temple and to his room where all the things are laid out for inspection.
"Now what do we have here?"
"There's a lot of items in here. It's like the Professor was getting ready to fight a legion of the undead. What's in the box? Anyone know what this stuff is? I've never seen it before."
I am afraid I do not know what these vials are, but the other items look very useful.
Hmm. I also do not know what those flasks are. I have never seen something like them before.
But honestly Father before we can have a serious discussion about who might be best suited to keep those items, we should probably know what we might be facing at the Harrowstone.
Something bad obviously happened there, as the entire ground is covered in a shadow of evil. To still be there after so many years, and powerful enough to raise skeletons, either something still stalks the ruins there or it was a truely terrible event.
We know it was a prison and I suspect someone named. ... Umm
He stops to pull out his Journal
Lyver Hawkran had something to do with it, but beyond that we just don't know for sure.
"Hawkran? That was the warden of the Harrowstone. How did you get that idea he might be the cause?" The Father asks curiously.
Miss Bladotter mentioned the strange markings we found written in something like blood. For whatever reason his name was repeated over and over in them
"You're still planning to go to the Harrowstone and find out what happened there, to the Professor and what lead to him meeting this untimely demise, right?" Father Grimburrow asks. "What are your starting points? What is it you expect to find there? What open questions do you have that could be answered beforehand? What do you want to prepare for?"
Myi primary concerns are twofold: First, why are the dead rising and threatening this town, and second who killed the professor.
The first is clearly your concern too as you mentioned this morning. Clearly something is happening here with the dead rising from the grave in formerly consecrated ground and no Necromancer to be seen.
Second, the professor was killed by a stone statue that did not fall on his own, that means someone or something did him in. As he was clearly investigating the Harrowstone and..
He looks back in his journal
Some group called the Whispering way, our best bet to find who is responsible is to follow what he was looking into. That means looking at the Harrowstone. Given the shadow of evil over the place and strange skeletons there is clearly something going on there.
As for what we expect: the professors notes mention running into issues with the ghosts there, and we personally ran into strange blacked skeleton. So I expect more of the abominations that are the living dead. Ghosts imply more then just your mindless kind though, if I recall correctly, the are bound to a place of tragic events. So I would guess we need to understand what happened there if we were to deal with a ghost and find whoever killed the professor. That hopefully will also be the same person behind what is happening to the town.
"So you would need to know what happened at the Harrowstone. And if you're searching for tragic events then specifically the fire that destroyed it, correct?" If that is the case I can search our archive if there is something noted about that.
Oh so you don't know the history already? Given that the prison factored so heavily into the recent history of the town, I just assumed that would have been relayed to you when you took over the church here.
My appoligies for making that assumption.
But yes anything you could tell us about that event would be most helpful.
"The Harrowstone is like that unbearable relative everyone knows but no one talks about. You can't get rid of it so you ignore it the best you can." the Father replies.
After listening to the discussion and seeing things laid out he says. "I would like to head back and check on Lucy. perhaps she could identify there vials in the box. If it's okay with everyone and you Father Grimburrow and Lady Lorrimar I 'd like to take it to her to see what their purpose is and how they can help us going forward?"
"It looks as if some of these were of use to someone already as there are four missing. You may take them with you to have them identified."
"As it is a grave situation I'm willing to support you with what I have if you need it to get the job done." Father Grimburrow replies.
"Thank you. I will see you all back at Lady Lorrimar's."
And with that Darius takes the box and wraps it and places it out of sight in his pack and heads back to the Lotrimar place to consult with Lucy.
Darius leaves the temple and takes a bit of a casual walk through to the Lorimar home. The sun today seems less brighter. Was it like this all around or did it just feel that way with all the recent revelations that had come to pass over the last 24 hours.
So lost was he in his contemplations that he didn't realize that he went the long way around when he found himself strolling across the northern bridge.
This place would be quite lovely if it didn't feel so dark and gray here.
He continued onwards and tried to enjoy the stroll through town. Smiling and giving a wave to the locals who scowled at this stranger in their land. Perhaps this time instead of meeting them with force and gruffness that he instinctually went to, being more like Brother Grergof had the better idea to try win them over.
As Darius stands on the marketplace watching the dog the Sheriff comes out of Jominda's Apothecary and walks over to his office. On seeing Darius he greets him by hinting at lifting his hat.
Darius calmly and slowly takes some fried meat rations and slowly sets it on the floor as close as possible to the dog. He waits a moment then backs away and with a warm smile, turns and continues on his way. Glancing back to see if the dog accepted his meal.
SPugnoir heads back to Kendra's, planning on helping do research.
"If that is all you need now I would ask you to leave so I can start with my investigation about the Harrowstone. If you need more of this material later you can come back. I'll store it here in my room." Father Grimburrow explains.
He makes some room on a shelf by rearranging some books and puts all the arrows, scrolls and potions into it.
Seeing nothing out of the ordinary he gets to the Lorimar place and knocks on the door.
After about a minute Lucy answers, her hair pulled into a messy ponytail and reading glasses crooked on her face. "Darius. Great. Get in here and we'll swap stories." She steps back, leaving the door open for him.
While the others investigate the crypt, Hailiss elects to spend the morning quietly reading in the late professor's library - she'd been itching to take a look at it anyway. Hmm. She should probably ask Kendra first, that'd be polite, right?
She corners the other woman after breakfast.
"Hey Kendra? I was wondering if I could take a look in the professor's library, see if I can look up this 'Whispering Way', if that's okay. I wouldn't want to impose."
Gives a +2 bonus to the check.
She hummed happily as she went about the research. It was quite calming, being surrounded by stuffy tomes, working with a clear goal in mind.
"Of course" Kendra replies.
The Whispering Way is a sinister organization of necromancers that has been active in the Inner Sea region for thousands of years.
Agents of the Whispering Way often seek alliances with undead creatures, or are themselves undead. The Whispering Way’s most notorious member was Tar-Baphon, the Whispering Tyrant, although the society itself has existed much longer than even that mighty necromancer.
The Whispering Way itself is a series of philosophies that can only be transferred via whispers — the philosophies are never written or spoken of loudly, making the exact goals and nature of the secretive philosophy difficult for outsiders to learn much about.
Exact details on the society are difficult to discern, but chief among the Whispering Way’s goals are discovering formulae for creating liches and engineering the release of the Whispering Tyrant. Agents often travel to remote sites or areas plagued by notorious haunts or undead menaces to perform field research or even to capture unique monsters. Their symbol is a gagged skull, and those who learn too many of the Way’s secrets are
often murdered, and their mouths mutilated to prevent their bodies from divulging secrets via speak with dead.
"Well met Lucy. How goes the research? Any luck?" he says as he enters and closes the door behind him.
Hailiss looks up from her book at the sound of Darius coming back, and them talking in the hallway.
"Great! I wanted to ask you guys something." she calls. "Can we sit down at the dining table maybe?"
I will try to lend what aid I can. Spugnoir sits down.
Aada goes off back to her room, the sound of metal being scrapped by whet stone heard to those nearby.
Brother Varsk thanks the Father again and then leads whoever is left back to the Lorrimor house. As he walks he tries to keep the conversation light and offers a respectful but sunny presence to any the group passes on the road.
"Hayliss! Of course. Please." he says as he opens up some seats at the table for Hayliss, Luxy and Spugnoir at the dining room table, before sitting down himself.
He takes out the box from his bag and places it in the center of the table. "Once we've addressed your concerns we should talk about this. It was one of the things we found at the Restlands in the hidden cache. But none of us who went there know what they're for."
Hailiss suddenly feels like she's made too big a production of the whole thing.
She sits down. "It's not a big deal, really. I just wondered if any of you remember what the professor's face looked like, when he animated. Did they break off his jaw? It seems it's a calling card of the Whispering Way, kind of. I don't recall either way, so I thought I'd ask you. It'd be a very clear indicator of their involvement."
She reaches for the case on the table. "Can I?"
She carefully opens the box, and peruses the contents, muttering a few words to reveal the magic to her senses.
Her face lights up in a smile.
"Ooh, I haven't seen these in a while."
I believe his head was damaged, quite extensively.
That is a discussion Kendra doesn't want to witness as the wounds are to fresh that the death of her father left her with. She moves to the kitchen preparing some food to distract herself.