"Perhaps you're right. I am thankful that you silenced their moaning at least. Perhaps... perhaps one day I might follow them to the Boneyard - not that I deserve it."
"That's him... the one behind all this, whatever all this is..."
The spirit looks over the man that was once Auren Vrood. He wrings his hands before him in the way you have become accustomed and then reaches them inside Vrood's head.
He frowns, a look of concentration crossing his face.
"There is so much pain here. And fear as well. But tempered with hate and ambition. Give me time with him, a day or two. He can't hide his thoughts from the dead." he says once again.
"We'll need food in the meantime and someplace to clean up", Vermundr adds regarding Vala and Constantin.
The journey back to Lepistadt is solemn but uneventful. By the time you pass by the Lodge you find it empty and abandoned, the fear of the wolves too great for even the most steadfast staff members and certainly not the guests.
Following the old trail Count Caromarc indicated you trudge for days through the Shudderwood until you eventually break back out onto roads in the loosest sense of the word. These tracks eventually grow wider and in a better state of repair as you make your way towards civilisation and eventually the city limits of Lepistad itself.
The air is growing cold now, a thick frost riming everything in morning and your breath steaming in the night before you camp. Winter is coming and winter in Ustalav can be hard.
The cobbled streets of Lepistadt provide some welcome relief for your travel weary legs and it occurs to you that entering through the north eastern gate as you are, you will pass directly by Judge Darramid's house.
The house is something of a surprise though. Bllinds are drawn across the windows and it looks as though it were uninhabited.
You knockt but there is no answer. Zed sees a sign posted outside the property. It reads:
Representative of the Justice of Lepistadt, Judge Darramid, has taken a leave of absence.
Will readings shall be presided over by the Family Court in her absence.
Return cases are put on hold indefinitely, at the discretion of the Chief Justice.
At any point, the court reserves the right to recall her on to your case.
Noon hearings will take place as usual.
Each case will be heard in good order according to the schedule produced by the Court.
Day services at the court remain unchanged
The sign is unusual. It doesn't read like a list of instructions and you get the feeling there is some hidden meaning to it.
Well this is strange.
You can't remember going swimming. And yet here you are, floating along a river that seems to be rushing along at an impossible speed and yet you feel as though eternity is passing by.
The river seems to be flowing through a vast city, it's building cold and white and each perfect and precise in their architecture. It is grand and beautiful though stark and sterile.
Eventually, you river meanders along side an incredibly large spire and you are gently deposited on the bank beside it. A thousand, thousand stars wheel above in the cloudless night sky. Some of the constellations you recognise, others are entirely alien and though you feel like that should alarm you, for some reason it appears the most natural thing in the universe.
You haul yourself up from the river bank and distantly note that your clothes are not wet and you feel neither warm nor cold. In fact, you feel nothing at all save for a strange detachment from what is happening. Beside the river is a line of people that seem to be queueing and run into the base of the spire. The line seems endless, and somewhere inside you know that is the literal truth and yet without fear or hesitation you take your place at the end of it and suddenly you realise where you are. This is the fabled City of Axis in the Outer Planes and atop this spire is Pharasma's Boneyard. You are lining up to await your judgement.
Looking up at the spire you begin to remember something.... another tower, somewhere and when else. And one other thing... the sneering, hissing voice of Auren Vrood!
Eventually, after days of waiting, you are eager to know if the spirit has learned any of Vrood's dark secrets.
You enter the haunted inn and find the ghost exactly where you left it; it's smoke-like fingers delving into the broken skull of the necromancer.
"You're back. Vrood and I have been getting to know eachother..." the spirit says cryptically. "Let me show you."
The spirit places it’s hands on the ruined face of Auren Vrood, feeling every misshapen and bloodied inch. The hands pass over and through the flesh and the ghost concentrates, mumbling;
"You can’t hide your secrets from me…"
Suddenly, it plunges it’s hands into the skull and makes a motion as if it were physically ripping something out. You can see some kind of glow emanating through it’s fingertips as it does so and with each handful of light, it hurls the ball of spiritual energy at the wall where it coalesces into a vision of a memory.
The visions open with a furiously darting ink quill that dashes out of a stream of words reading, “My Master, I shall stay in Feldgrau and build an army of corpses for our risen lord...”
The sentence fades, and after a brief flash, hands place the letter in an envelope and strike it with a wax seal of the Whispering Way.
Another flash comes and the scene changes.
You see cultists scurrying around in the town square of Feldgrau, exhuming bodies and raising an army from the corpses of Feldgrau’s dead. After another flash, Vrood’s hands place three strange items into a chest — an iron-and-glass vial containing a swirling gray mist, a bloody piece of heart inside a glass bottle, and a fragile skull composed of hundreds of bone fragments. Into a second chest he places a strange statuette of murky green stone depicting a grotesque, tentacled creature.
Another flash.
The chests are given to two riders in dark cloaks on pale horses. “Ride to Thrushmoor,” you hear Vrood’s voice say. “Our agent will exchange the Effigy for the relic we need.” After a final flash, the visions fade.
.
.
..
..
...
....
Zed frowns, examining the sign. "That...is unusual. There's something else here, some hidden meaning." He ponders aloud. Zed stares at the sign a moment longer, then spends a minute trying to peer in the windows, and finally tries to open the door.
You cannot see through the blinds and the door is locked
Vermundr watches in stoic silence as the spirit of the innkeeper does his dark reading.
"Do we know anything about those trinkets in the vision", he asks Vala once the spectral mist has faded. "If Vrood thought them important enough to be sent ahead, we should intercept them. They can only have a dark purpose and they're bound to bring us closer to Lady Lorrimor."
[dice=Perception]1d20+17
Zed frowns, examining the sign. "That...is unusual. There's something else here, some hidden meaning." He ponders aloud. Zed stares at the sign a moment longer, then spends a minute trying to peer in the windows, and finally tries to open the door.
Deciding that the cryptic message is too strange to ignore, the morning passes slowly.
Eventually, you hear footsteps on the path.
Emerging from your waiting spot in the garden, you see a clean, well-dressed man fiddling with a key in the lock of the front door. A neat moustache compliments his handsome face and his blue suit fits his frame perfectly.
Good gracious me! he exclaims upon seeing you. Who are you and how did what are you doing lurking in the garden?
There is something very familiar about this man. He bears something of a resemblance to Zbraslav Hora, the toolmaker who identified the surgery kit that eventually led you to Vorkstag and Grine's Chymic Factory during the Trial of the Beast, though he is a much younger man
Zed stands, trying his best not to look brooding or ominous. "I apologize for startling you. We were coming to purchase the services of a cleric when we noticed the Judge's house was abandoned and locked up. Although the sign seems to indicate somebody would return at noon, and here you are." He cocks his head slightly. "Are you Zbraslav Hora's son?" Although Zed could introduce them and tell of how they know Zbraslav Hora, he wasn't sure of this person's opinions on the trial yet and didn't want to sour his perception of the people who suddenly approached him.
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Constantin thinks, repeating the events of the ghostly insights inside his own mind.
"Hmm. I would suspect that squamous green statue is tied to some other cult, and Vrood's Whispering Way has a trade with them. A heart, a skull, a swirling vial of mist? His connections were... making something? That would explain their interest in Count Caromarc and his success in creating life. Brains, hearts, courage."
A flash of insight strikes him.
"And our lost little lady, Kendra, taken away to a strange land. All that's missing is a little dog."
He hefts a sheaf of papers. "More riddles. Maybe there's something hidden in all of these crazed notes."
Constantin sits down to concentrate, making notes and references about the paperwork as he checks for hidden clues and meanings. He takes in a deep breath, lets it out, and his pupils narrow to pinpoints - an odd quality in the dim light. He starts moving papers around in a swirling morass, as if circling some unseen center and slowly pushing them into an orbit that determines their order, sometimes making a tic mark here, or even stabbing a needle into a page with a thread attached and linking it to another page.
"Hello? Is that a thing that I said? To you? Ago?"
Constantin examines the coded messages with the benefit of his psychic manifestation. For a while they mean nothing but he is able to put the pages back in order and suddenly the messages make sense.
Reading through the notes Cnostantin is able to determine that they concern some sort of instructions to Auren Vrood from an unnamed superior. The orders instruct Vrood to steal the heart of the Shudderwood’s packlord, as well as construct a skull from the bones of corpses buried in Feldgrau. They also direct him to send the Seasage Effigy to the town of Thrushmoor as part of a trade for a second object whose nature remains undisclosed. Finally, Vrood is commanded to raise an undead army in the Furrows for later use.
[dice=Perception]1d20+17
Zed stands, trying his best not to look brooding or ominous. "I apologize for startling you. We were coming to purchase the services of a cleric when we noticed the Judge's house was abandoned and locked up. Although the sign seems to indicate somebody would return at noon, and here you are." He cocks his head slightly. "Are you Zbraslav Hora's son?" Although Zed could introduce them and tell of how they know Zbraslav Hora, he wasn't sure of this person's opinions on the trial yet and didn't want to sour his perception of the people who suddenly approached him.
[dice=Diplomacy]1d20+5
Ah you are the ones she mentioned. We've been waiting for you, hoping you would return these past two weeks. the young man says. Come in, come in.
He opens the door and shows you inside the Judge's house. Upon entry, you can see the house is clean and tidy but shows no sign of recent inhabitation.
My name is Dr Crassus Hora and in answer to your question, yes, Zbraslav is my father. I'm sorry for the cryptic message but we had no means to get in touch with you and we just hoped you would return here at some point. She was to travel with the body of our dear Professor Derlith to Caliphas but never made it. We can only assume she was intercepted en route.
She told us that the Way were moving, that you had learned something of their intentions. Is this true?
Zed frowns. Troubling. More bodies going missing as well. It makes me wish to burn every corpse I run across to prevent having to destroy them later. "Dr. Hora, this is a serious matter that we will likely address for you. We cannot abide the justice of this town going missing, or the bodies of the fallen being misused. But first we must visit Father Grimburrow."
"We have learned more of the Way...but it was at great cost. We are a huge step closer to the end of this nightmare, and I suspect my companions have discovered even more after we left. But two of us were felled in the fighting and we seek the Father to return them."
"That was... impressive", Vermundr offers as Constantin's frantic efforts yield revealing results.
He fumbles in his pocket for something and withdraws a ring. It depicts the same sigil as was on the cover of the Manual of the Palatine Eye.
My Order vehemently opposed the Way. In truth that has meant very little in recent years where their activities were virtually nill. And now with the deaths of Professors Lorrimor and Derlith we find ourselves without a great deal of real world expertise as it were.
Very few of the Order are known to all of the other members. We operate in acellular structure so that were any of us captured we could not tell all of the secrets our Order protects. I only found out of your membership status from my father, a man you sought help from during the Trial.
Obviously the threat the Way pose is very real but you have proven to be the best defence against them from what Darramid told me of you. What support we can pledge you shall have. I know there are powerful members of the clergy who could.... help. I do not know this Grimburrow fellow though.
"Thanks, Vermundr," says Constantin to the big man as the psychic finishes his analysis. His movement of the papers slows and finally stops. "This is interesting. Vrood is either working for someone else, or supporting his own agenda in conjunction with help from an outside party. We need to find out who this other hidden person is!"
Vala nods at Zed's words, echoing for Dr. Hora, "Oh, I've fair idea what those devils are up to, though I'm sure by now Constantin has gleaned more details and can fill in some gaps. But I don't think Darramid explained our party to you quite correctly if you think us your best defense at this point, Doctor Hora. Those blackguards still have the body of my niece and I mean to be nothing but offensive from this point forward. We've stamped one snake into the dirt, but I won't rest until the whole nest is dust and ash."
Vala stamps her foot at this, her emotions strung high once more after returning to the town she'd called home for so long. The loss of her reputation and place at the university still stings, but she avoids it by drawing on her ever growing hatred and vehemence for Vrood and his ghastly ilk.
She then waves the sentiment away and returns to Dr. Hora's point, "Grimburrow is an old curmudgeon and acquaintance of Petros', it matters little if you know him or not. What matters is the clergy that do you know, doctor. Who are they and how far might they be? Our friends fell some days ago and time is not kind to the departed."
There is little to do but wait for Vala and Zed to return. Constantin's masterful interpretation of the papers in Vrood's possession has given them hints of the Way's plans but nothing definitive. And now there is this spectre of another, a superior, who was previously unknown.
The ghostly innkeeper continues his macabre business. From time to time Verm and Constantin check on him and though rigor has set in and the skin on Vrood's destroyed face is beginning to thin and recede, the spirit continues to reach inside his skull with the perseverance of the ageless.
There is something more here.... it grumbles. .... something I think even he forgot. Or was forced to forget... I will find it. I have all the time since those monsters took my friends and family. What else am I to do but unlock these secrets?
If it can be done, it will be, Ms Cross. Please, give me some time, there are people I need to speak to. The situation must be explained and a decision made.
Please be patient.
-------
A further two days pass whilst you are waiting for Hora to return, in that time you sit in the Judge's house, impatiently wasting the hours, unsure whether you are being watched and with further uncertainty about the success Hora will have in persuading the Order to help you.
Finally, Dr Hora returns, this time with his father, the man from the surgeons' shop. You can tell by his face that the news isn't good.
We can help. the father says. These scrolls are some of the oldest and most precious in our Order, they are from the time of the Whispering Tyrant himself and one of our last defences. The... Order doesn't know I have them. You are not fully ordained members and the politics and beaurocracy in this organisation would astound you. Or perhaps it wouldn't. How are you dear? he says to Vala. From what my son tells me you have a real chance of ending their plot once and for all and if this helps.... then the Order be damned!
Zed is a creature of long view and abundant patience...but two days with no word can be trying, even for him. He is glad Vala is the one on this journey with him, for she is the only member of the group with patience that rivals his own. Although he has noted that recently her spirit seems to have grown younger, if such a thing was possible.
When Dr. Hora and his father present the scrolls Zed raises his brows in genuine shock. Such precious and rare items. Zed does not take the scrolls yet, looking at their faces. "This seems like it would be good news for us, yet you look like you've failed. What are the repercussions of taking these scrolls from the Order?" He says. He inquisitor reaches at his backpack. "We can compensate you for the scrolls, if money is the issue."
"Oh there'll be no repercussions for you, more than likely some kind of tedious lecture from us, the business might suffer for a while - they have a habit of blackballing you if you go against the rules. Honestly, when you're my age none of that matters much, especially after Embreth gave us an idea of just how serious the situation is."
"Petros and jon were dear friends to us all, and among the most knowledgeable and capable of our Order."
"Take the time you need", Vermundr offers the innkeeper. "Whatever dark pit in the Abyss is waiting for him can wait a little longer."
You don't feel like you have been waiting long, the sun has crossed the sky only ten thousand times or so. But even so, the line appears to be moving steadily with just as many joining as pass through the gates of the spire.
You feel a melancholy settle on you as you think about the friends you left behind and the things you left undone. You note your friends are yet to join you in Axis and somewhere, there is that nagging feeling that despite everything, all is not lost.
Hazel watches as a tiny purple butterfly, so small that it's wings are like minute pieces of gossamer, dance and bob on a breeze that isn't there. It is beautiful. Captivating.
It floats toward her and lands, so gently, on her shoulder for the briefest moment, before fluttering away again.
I get the feeling you are the main threat to the Way and their plans, not the Order. Crassus reiterates. There was a time when we could stand against them directly but as their activities have slowed our lethargy has increased. Dr Hora sighs. Here in Lepistadt membership in certain circles is now seen as something salacious to gossip about with chums in drawing rooms whilst smoking cigars and drinking expensive brandy. I don't think many of the nobility here truly understand what the Palatine Eye once stood for. I can only hope it is not the same across all of Ustalav.
Use these, and use them well. he reaffirms, pressing the scrolls into Zed's pale hand.
"Bureaucracy. Sometimes as dangerous as the wicked themselves." Zed pauses, then finally takes the scrolls. "This is a ransom's gift. I assure you on my vows they will be used well. If you need something of us, only ask." Zed turns to Vala. "I see no cause to delay their resurrection. Should we proceed?"
With the help of the Horas Zed and Vala bring the bodies of their dear friends into the sitting room of Judge Darramid's home.
Laid out and uncovered, the bodies look paler than Zed and at peace. It crosses your mind that perhaps they may not even wish to return to the land of the living and if that were the case you can bare them no ill will at all. They gave everything for justice and friendship.
Vala unfurls the scrolls and with solemnity kneels besides the bodies of Hazel and Kazamir.
She speaks with a voice deep and rich as she intones the ancient divine words, a small glow begining to form in the palms of both hands, like a candle that could sputter out at any moment or take spark into a raging inferno.
Rising to a crescendo, her eyes are wet with tears once again as she wills life back into the bodies. She thrusts her hands down onto the foreheads of both and there is a crackle like electricity - all of you present feel it and then with great shuddering gasps, Hazel and Kazamir take their first breaths of life anew.
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As the scrolls disintegrate and blow away in the wake of Kazamir’s and Hazel’s respective gasps, Vala collapses back on her knees and deflates. The emotions she’s feeling run rampant across her face: relief, loss, pride, anger, pity. But then a shadow of guilt darkens her countenance as the realization that she has lost her means of bringing Petros back spoils what should be a joyous reunion for her. He would have wanted it this way, she knows without a doubt, but the guilt still gnaws at her despite the results and the old woman simply bursts into tears.
Zed gives a concerned glance at Vala before returning his attention to their nearly revived companions. She is going through something, but he doubts he will be able to help immediately, and being ripped back from the land of the dead was an ordeal. He looms over them, hand resting on their shoulders. "Peace, you have returned to the land of the living. The battle was won."
Pyth flits up to Hazel’s shoulder and nuzzles her cheek with the crown of his head, fluttering happily. He hops down to her knee then, and turns to look up at her, the white rings around his eyes still giving the remarkable impression of Petros himself in his glasses.
Behind them, Vala sniffles and begins to gather herself once more. ”Oh, forgive an old woman her foolish tears, dear. Welcome back, both of you.”