The group watches with astonishment as the tengu, just because he felt like it, changes into an octopus. Kawrock is overwhelmed with the strange, hypersensitive feeling of his eight tentacles and the bizarre, powerful flexibility that he feels. He fires himself downards into the murky waters, seeing easily. It does not take much for him to find a few objects, and bring them back to the surface.
The group sees the Kawrocktopus emerge and dump a longsword, a dagger, and a ring on the ground.
All of the items radiate as magic. Lena identifies them as a +1 keen longsword, a +1 mithral dagger, and a ring of protection +1.
While Kawrock changes into an octopus Arval looks with big eyes. He barely notices the healing Whiskey is giving him.
"Thanks..." ... "Do you know....?"
As he changes back he starts to feel more comfortable again.
"Those are some really nice weapons! And what a ring!"
As the group looks over the weapons a little of the gloom of Harrowstone seems to have lifted. They recall that there is still the unopened alcove in the Captain's Office, the safe upstairs, and the request from Vesorianna to return the warden's badge to her in order to lift the haunting from Harrowstone.
"Thanks, Whiskey! I feel much better now!"
Eldon's mouth drops open as he stares at Kawrock. even when Kawrock changes back, Eldon's mouth remains open for a little longer.
After give or take a minute Eldon closes his mouth, but that doesn't take long: "I'd like to suggest we let Vesorianna lift the haunting, before we check out the alcove and safe. It may save us some encounters with ghosts and haunts that'd like to see us join them in death."
"Dinnae know why ye'd think t' say dinnae t' ea' ye. Tha's not somethin' I care t' be puttin' in me own mouth. Still, useful bit tha'."
Whiskeyjack chewed on his beard for a moment, then said "Well, did we ge' 'em all? Anythin' else t' be doin' here? I kinda came late t' this party."
Kawrock pulls himself back onto dry land and shifts back to his regular form. He clicks his tongue clearly pleased with himself, "I did it! I am growing stronger and completed another trial toward my phoenix form." He looks over at Eldon, "Why are you holding your mouth open like a hatch-ling? Are you hungry?"
The group heads back to the poor tortured chap, and sure enough locate the warden's badge after searching the tatters of his clothing. They return upstairs and stride triumphantly into the chamber where Vesorianna died, presenting the badge.
"You have saved me..." the tears that flow down her ghostly cheeks are tears of joy. "You have saved my husband. You have saved Ravengro." She proudly holds forth the badge. With the power of the prisoners shattered and her symbolic authority as warden, a burst of white light fires from the badge, enveloping all of you and spreading throughout the prison. There is a shudder, and the horrible, constant sense of claustrophobia that plagued you is gone once more. The five items of the prisoners crumbles in your hands, removing you from their respective curses.
Images play past your eyes as you witness the final hours of the prison. You see the notorious serial killer, Professor Feramin aka the Splatter Man raving and beating at the walls of the oubliette the horrid pit he has been trapped in, calling for his spellbook. As days past he calms down, and begins to scrape together bits of goo, scraps of this and that, and what magic was left to him to concoct a potion. He then summons a small air elemental and sends it, and the potion northwards to the cell of The Lopper.
The Lopper greedily drinks the potion and hides from the guard, who steps into the room only to have his neck snapped. Shrieking, The Lopper runs through the cells, killing and freeing prisoners everywhere. The prison riots grows and Warden Hawkran grabs a lever, yanking it down and triggering a deadfall which destroys the stairs. He and his guards fight to the lift, but the terrified guards above refuse to lower it. The warden is overwhelmed by the riot and carried to the torture chamber.
Hours pass, and the warden's wife, Vesorianna, arrives to wonder why her husband has not come home. The panicked guards lock her in a store room. At the lift, the guards are doing what they can to stop the prisoners, and failing. Once The Splatter Man begins casting spells, they start rolling barrels down upon him and the prisoners, trying to dislodge them. Finally, in a panic, one guard throws a torch. The barrels were full of oil. Fire rips through the dungeon, incinerating the prisoners. Vesorianna dies from smoke inhalation in her room, banging on the door and screaming as she is forgotten by the guards who locked her in there.
In his cell, you see the Piper of Illmarsh burned to death before his ghost floats upwards to enjoy the vile of the moors and play with his beloved stirges.
Father Charlatan is chained to the wall, covered in the same holy symbols he used to manipulate thousands. He chokes, and dies as the smoke rises.
The Mosswater Marauder storms into the captain's office, overpowering and killing two guards. Weeping, he then smashes their heads and picks through the bones, desperately trying to find the perfect shard to repair the skull of his long-dead wife.
The Lopper, shrieking and wielding an axe and killing anyone that moves, realises his days are done and grabs a rope, climbing down into his oubliette in an attempt to avoid the smoke and fire. His rope burns, and he starves to death.
The Splatter Man, in the thick of the mayhem, emerges from the crowd shrieking and burning alive. In his confusion, he runs back into his cell, and falls into the oubliette where he dies.
The ghosts all arise, and the warden resumes his duty. Harrowstone is haunted, but harmless. 50 years later, the robed cultists arrive and cast a ritual outside of the gates, stealing the soul of the warden. Vesorianna rises to protect, but without the authority of the warden the ghosts grow restless and The Splatter Man begins to possess Gibs in town, writing the name of Vesorianna with his favorite spell to destroy the last of Harrowstone's protections.
Vesorianna whispers a thank you, and vanishes.
Kawrock would like to try the key they found on the warden to see if it will open his safe.
Arval ends up on his knees crying at the end of the visual torture.
"How?! Why?!"
He whimpers as everything ends. He takes his time recovering from the visual onslaught and keeps very quiet. Not knowing what to say or do.
At last he decides it has been long enough and he seems to want to move on.
"Shall we..."
Still really sober.
The safe in the warden's office upstairs, which the party had previously beat the everloving hell out of, opens easily. Within are the remains of twelve broken potions that could have been really useful before they were broken. Some legal documents within have been soaked through and are no longer usable. However, there is 750 gold that nobody managed to ruin.
Upon opening the safe Arval looks a bit dumbstruck.
"Did my shovel... ... ?"
-Posted with Wayfinder
Rustom looks at the ruined contents of the safe, just shakes his head and moves away.
"Who th' flamin' fur did tha'? Were it th' prisoners?" Whiskeyjack looked athe ruined safe and its even more ruined contents a little confusedly. His bloodshot eyes narrowed at Arval's contents and he leaned in to sniff at the busted potions. One stubby finger dipped into the liquid inside the safe and then into his mouth as he tried to identify the potions.
Whiskeyjack distinctly tastes the soothing, menthol flavour of a healing potion and the strangely meaty texture of lesser restoration. There's a little bit of acid balancing out the palate; likely a potion or two of remove disease.
The warpriest furrowed his brow and glared at the young man for a moment, then chnaged his mins on what he was about to say. "Well, i' ain't doing no good in there. Greab th' gold an' le's be gone from this place."
"Tastes good right? I had some earlier."
After the major flashback even Eldon doesn't know what to say. He can't quite grasp that he, with some aid from these other people, was able to stop the awful events at Harrowstone so quickly.
I'm even more amazing than I thought!
"I recall there being some kind of alcove we couldn't open," Eldon says after gives the ruined contents of the save a quick glance. "I'd like to check that out, now the dangers of Harrowstone are gone."
I'm sure I had nothing to do with those ruined flasks, did I? No, that was just Arval.
"Maybe the keys that we found with the warden will also open that alcove in the captain's office."
Arval jumps to Rustom's idea, really glad to leave the damage he had done to the place.
"Yes let us go! Never hurts to try it!"
He says as he starts walking, at a very quick pace, out of the room.
Back in the dungeon, the group triumphantly try the key on the alcove. It does not open.
"Did we ever go down into the other pit and check the Loppers body?"
Our plucky band of adventurers makes their way northwards into the Lopper's oubliette. A quick inspection of the pit below unearths a pile of items the Lopper likely looted while on the rampage before his death:
- a heavy mace
- a ring of keys
- a masterwork longsword
- a perfect stone cube
- 160 gp
The ring of keys, once found, unlocks the alcove in the captain's room! In there, the following are found:
- a wand
- six suits of masterwork chainmail
- six suits of masterwork studded leather
- four masterwork heavy maces
- two masterwork heavy crossbows
- 120 bolts
- 10 bolts of exceptional quality
- 4 potions
- a beautiful grey silk rope
Of the items above the mace, cube, rope, wand, potion, and 10 bolts radiate magic.
Looking at the magical auras of the found equipment, Whiskeyjack scratches his head. "I ain't be knowin' too much about identifyin' magic items. Me teacher had more on 'is mind than teachin' about identifyin' items we weren't like t' have anyways. Drinkin' though, he knew a lot abou' tha'"
"What a treasure! I'm sure the things we don't want to keep will sell for a good price!"
Eldon decides to take his sweet time to identify the items Whiskeyjack can't.
Arval looks at the treasure and whistles.
"Phiieeeeew. That is one hell of a haul. One of those maces might serve me very well as a secondary weapon. Would love to smash someone's brain out with one of those."
He grins at the prospect.
With their new loot in tow, our heroes return to Ravengro, leaving the cold stone walls of Harrowstone behind for good. A cheer rises up from the amassed populace, with Kendra, the Councillor and the Sheriff at the lead. Kendra rushes up to the group.
"We all saw what happened! The dead were walking the town again and then white light came from the prison, all the zombies and other creatures fell apart. Thank you! Thank you so much!"
She flings herself at Arval, hugging him tightly before embracing the rest of the group in turn.
Councilor Vashian Hearthmount approaches the group with an enormous bag of money.
"Heroes of Ravengro, the good people of this town have pooled what money they can for you and we would like to present this as a token of our greatest esteem. You and your kin are always welcome in our town."
He presents a bag of assorted coins totalling 3,000 gp to a huge cheer from the crowd.
Whiskeyjack takes his hug from the tall woman stoically, rolling his eyes at Kawrock. When the councilor presented them with the bag of coinage, he waved to the cheering crowd and peeked in, mentally running through a list of what this could buy.
"Happy t' help. Undead're no' th' kind o' thing we be likin' t' leave walkin' abou'. "
As the group settle in the items are all identified:
- +1 heavy mace
- stone of alarm
- 10 +1 crossbow bolts
- wand of hold person (11 charges)
- 4 potions cure moderate wounds
- rope of climbing (ironically and sadly locked away while everyone died in a pit while on fire)
"We should!" Eldon agrees, and directly steps up. "I'll tell everyone all about what's transpired at Harrowstone during the party! It's a grand tale, filled with adventure and intrigue!"
"A party it is then! Who plays an instrument?! And we need beer, lots of beer. And food that too. What else might we need?"
Arval seems very enthusiastic about the whole idea.
"I could make pancakes! Those are delicious!"
And so the next night Kendra throws open the doors of Lorrimor Place to the people of the town. Normally suspicious, you still get a good fifty people cramming the old family manor to the gills. Arval has kept a magnificent stack of pancakes warm by the hearth while Kendra has used an unseen servant to roll in several casks of the local red wine. Musicians pile into the living room and strike up a jolly chorus of a somewhat poorly-written tribute to our heroes.
This is the tale of our heroes, who saved Ravengro town,
We were under a dreadful haunt, oh Ravengro!
Ol' Gibs was writing out some dead bird's name in cat gut's on the monumeennnnnt
And so they beat his face in and they showed him who was boss!
Kendra sways around the living room with a full mug of wine in her hand.
"Don't touch that! It's made of spiders! Go have a pancake!" she shouts at an adventurous child who pokes at a grotesque piece of art her father had collected.
She moves into a room with the party. "Before Eldon gets started we need to talk about the next steps! Remember that you've agreed to stay here for a full month, so we have a couple of weeks left on that. After that, there's the offer to take my father's books to Lepidstadt to a couple of his friends. You'll get paid a hundred platinum each on delivery. I've got all the information from the will!"
"Oh, aye Kendra. We be stayin' all right. Seems tha' there be more celebratin' t' do!" Whiskeyjack took a quaff of whiskey from a glass in his hand, emptying it. He glanced down at the small glass and thundered, "I be done tastin' th' whiskey, now bring me a mug!"
He wiped his beard with the back of his hand and continued, If'n I recall cerrectly, ye're father be wantin' us t' stay wit' ye 'til ye got on yer feet. Now, yer a likely lass wit' more'n a bi' o' brains, so wha' d' ye need us t' be doin' fer yer fer th' next few weeks?"
Kendra slurps from a glass of wine as the somewhat frazzled mage speaks with the party.
"Alas, that's more or less sorted. Well, not entirely. But my father was murdered by the Whispering Way. The story your ghost told confiirms that, he got wind of what they were up to, but was killed after they captured the Warden's soul. So the question for you is where you can find the cult? The people you're supposed to meet in Lepistadt to deliver the books, I think they can help you."
Kawrock gobbles down some pancakes. "So nothing left to do here except deliver these books and find some more leads on the Whispering Way? I see no reason not to, this trip has been very eventful so far and I am pleased with the strength I have gained from our adventures."
The party winds down, and the party settles in for a relaxing stay in Ravengro as they wait out the remaining weeks of their contract to protect Kendra.
Time passes...
Your month is now up and the group's next task awaits them, bring Professor Lorrimor's books to the city of Lepidstadt. The journey is roughly 100 miles, with an old mountain road considered the bust route. The road follows the southeastern foothills of the Tusk Mountains, passing through the towns of Tamrivena and Courtaud before following the Lesser Moutray River up at Lepidstadt.
The city of Lepidstadt is currently the scene of intense local excitement. The dreaded Beast of Lepidstadt—a terrifying abomination that has terrorized the people of Vieland for years—has been captured. Hundreds of people have flocked to the city hoping to catch a glimpse of the horror and watch it burn for its crimes.
It is a cold autumn day as Kendra prepares to bid you farewell. The normally proper woman is tearful as she waves goodbye.
"Thank you so much! Everyone! Eldon, Lena, Arval, Kawrock, Rustom, and dear, dear Whiskeyjack - please be careful. Remember that the books are to go to Judge Embreth Daramid at the courthouse and Dr. Montaigne Cowl at the Univesity."
Arval waves Kendra goodbye, somewhat tearful himself.
"Take care of yourself!"
"Farewell dear Kendra, I will be sure drop in from time to time to see how you fare." With that Rustom kisses her hand in farewell and turns to depart.
Kendra has the good grace to blush and she wishes the chivalrous paladin his best on his journey.
You begin your long trek northwards, slowed somewhat by the new suits of plate mail. After making your way through the moorland around Lake Lias you find yourselves in the foothills of the Tusk Mountains. Fewer and fewer people are seen as you continue along the western border of Ustalav, constantly on guard for danger. However, your journey is unmolested.
The terrain becomes swampy on your third day, and it is here you are greeted by a strange sight. A caravan of nine garishly painted Varisian wagons has stopped at the side of the road. Some words can distantly be seen painted on the side of a wagon.
A variety of strange-looking people mill around outside the wagon. You can distantly hear the sound of someone crying. The group has not been noticed yet.
"If you like I can try and speak with them. I started studying the language after I saw the letters outside the prison."
Whiskeyjack walked with the others, smiling grimly at Rustom and Arval's complaints on the weight of the armor. You'd never hear a dwarf complaining about an armor's weight and how it slowed him down. He himself wanted to have the left side of his new armor re-adjusted, as it was chafing just above his hip. Every now and then, the dwarf would slap his armor to adjust the fit, smiling after each "dwarven precision fit".
When they saw the caravan, Whiskeyjack replied to Kawrock, "Mebbe ye should jest talk t' 'em in common. Like as no' they ken speak i', an' tha' way ye ken listen if'n they bad abou' us in their own tongue."
Eldon waves Kendra goodbye. "Take care, Kendra! We'll inform you when we've dealt with the Whispering Way!"
During the long trek, Eldon decides to share what he knows about Lepidstadt: "Did you know the city of Lepidstadt is currently the scene of intense local excitement? The dreaded Beast of Lepidstadt—a terrifying abomination that has terrorized the people of Vieland for years—has been captured. Hundreds of people have flocked to the city hoping to catch a glimpse of the horror and watch it burn for its crimes."
At the sound of crying, Eldon tries to make himself taller to see what's going on. "Shall I approach them first? As you have undoubtedly noticed, I'm very skilled in the art of diplomacy. My charms will ensure there'll be cause for violence."