Droviz marches towards the huecuva currently sandwiched between Warden, Fang and Ragnar. His stride is unhurried and steady, but his arms are in motion as he goes. By the time he comes to a halt -- the hammer comes down with all the force he can muster.
Continuing his frenzied attack, Havelock keeps hacking away at the undead corpse in front of him.
As stoic as ever, Warden barely seems to notice the splintered bark. When Droviz brought down the Huecuva, Warden instead pointed towards the one assailing Havelock, wordlessly telling Fang to go for him, while Warden itself made it's way over to block the one approaching Krystae.
Of course, with the weapon not magical, Warden had little hope of actually inflicting meaningful damage on the creature...but that was not the purpose of it's actions.
Fang moves into a flank with Havelock, as indicated by Warden, and snaps at the Huecuvas throat
Droviz's hammer caves in the head and neck of the huecuva assaulting Fang and Warden just as Krystae's arrow pins the other huecuva's head to the temple wall. The last huecuva remains motionless as the others have fallen.
Hidden underneath a loose stone near the alter is a small stone coffer containing an engraved scroll case with two scrolls, a ring, a belt, two fire opals, 220 gp, 27 pp and a faded jounral.
The scroll case is worth 100 gp. The fire opals are worth 250 gp each.
A scroll of hold person and resist energy (cold)
Casting consecrate on the churchyard will allow the spirits of the children to rest.
It takes several hours to piece together the fragmented journal entries but they tell the story the first week of the Winter War. 1400 hundred years ago, a mass exodus of Ulfen flooded south before the might of Baba Yaga's army of giants and trolls. As the invading army approached, the village sent the adults to find a suitable place to hide but they never returned. A handful of priests remained behind with the children but as the days turned into months, the priests lost their faith. When the army of Baba Yaga arrived, they bargained the lives of the children away for their own protection. None were spared.
Not losing much time after the last Huecuva falls, Warden takes a closer look at the locale.
"Over there, at the Altar. Something seems off."
Opening a small stone coffer, Warden continues:
"A ring that makes falling less dangerous by letting you glide to the ground as a feather would."
"A belt with some magical property - not quite sure what it does, though."
"Some useless gemstones...
"...some magical scrolls..."
"...and a journal. I think I could decipher what it says, I know some of those words. But it will take time to work out the meaning...a few hours, at least. I shall do so when we rest. Do any of you want to try and take a closer look at any of this?"
Havelock stands still for a moment, trying to calm down, literally vibrating with rage.
Eventually he lets out a large gusty breath, as if trying to expel all his rage from his body that way.
Then he begins to examine his cuts.
"Filthy claws, covered in grave dust and whatnot, I hope I have not been infected with some nasty malady."
|
After Warden is unable to identify the magical properties of the belt, Krystae gives it a try. "Ah, fascinating. One can change this belt into certain types of weapons and then back into a belt. You can even magically enhance it like you could a weapon. Perhaps Havelock or Droviz would be interested?"
"I would be very interested in what the journal has to say and I cannot abide to leave this temple desecrated in this manner. I will work to carry out these undead and clean what I can."
Krystae seethes with visible anger at the cowardice of the priests. "No wonder their remains raised as undead. Desna likely intervened and asked Pharasma to curse them with undeath! Cowards, they desired such an awful fate as that."
Surprisingly, it is Droviz who volunteers to do the bulk of the translating. "Got to earn my keep," he jokes before bowing his head over the book. "And yeah, I'd like that belt -- after I'm done here. Give me a while..."
When the translation is finished, the Drow makes a face behind his mask. "Eergh. As caretakers, they failed. They should've legged it with those kids, 'stead of staying here. Bargaining little kiddies' lives away ... yeah, that ain't right. So. What do we do about Slim, there?"
Droviz points at the last huecuva.
Ragnar stood before the creature under his control.
"Tell me your duty. Speak true."
"Once, we guarded the souls of this village. Until the armies came down from the north. Most left, fled, seeking sanctuary. We stayed, to provide for those that remained. We...failed. We gave away the lives of those we sheltered in an effort to be spared. The great Witch Queen betrayed us, as we betrayed our flock. Cursed, we have walked these stones for more than a millennium. Cursed, to spend eternity with those we failed. Cursed, to hear their cries forever."
There is no sadness in it's voice, no empathy, no remorse. It speaks plain, the truth, with no more bias than words on a sheet of paper.
When Havelock mentions his concern about the creatures claws, Warden comes close:"Allow me to take a look."
"The Claw reached deep, and penetrated a vein - we should clean the wound and place herbal poultices on it that will prevent a further infection - that way your body can focus on anything the Huecava might have infected you with."
Ragnar nodded slowly. "I too know what it is to endure such a curse." he said. "I seek it's end. You aid yourself by aiding me."
"So now what? We need a rest, but I'm not keen on sleeping while those phantom kiddies are about. Can we send 'em on to the Bone Queen somehow, so's they can get back together with their families?"
"You sleep with phantom children near every night." Ragnas said, a bit confused how this place was any different than usual.
"Yes. But these seem scared of their fate. It would also seem they are bound to the place, so they may be afraid of being left alone again. Is there something you can do to make them feel better?" , Warden asks Ragnar.
"Yeah, they oughta be with their families," Droviz repeats. "They been waiting too long already."
"Well, the tools to send them on to their final rest would no doubt be of religious nature, something that I personally have little knowledge of."
"I do not know. Spirits are often confused. They may not understand, or they may not remember enough of themselves to speak. Their feelings may be all that is left. I will try."
Ragnar approached the spirit children and asked "Can you hear me?"
Ragnar's giant shadow flickers menacingly in the dancing light of a few candles. As his voluminous voice booms throughout the cathedral, the ghostly children wince and cower even more. Their cries wimper like a wounded animal as they attempt to shuffle even further away from the looming giant in the cramped confines of the building.
Ragnar's giant-like stature seems to too closely resemble the giant soldiers from Baba Yaga's army.
"Greth, they think yer one of the Old Hag's giant troopers!" Droviz exclaims. "Get back a bit."
Provided Ragnar does, Droviz calls out: "Oy, little kiddies. s'Alright, we mean ye no harm. It's time ta leave here an' go to yer kin."
"I think if it was that easy, they would have left by now. I assume something traps them here. I would suggest trying to bury their remains for a start, but I have not seen any remains of dead children.", Warden ponders, then adding, just to clarify: "Recently."
Ragnar backed up near the entrance, standing against the wall. "I am not them." he said, hoping they understood.
He looked to the fallen cleric. "What are you called?"
|
|
"Maybe they would respond better to me? I am the only human in the group after all." She suddenly stops and smiles at that declaration as if the thought had not occurred to her before. She ushers the others away and heads in the direction of the invisible whimpering. "Come now, little ones. I promise you, no harm will come to you. The big one looks like a giant, but he is not. He is very gentle, I promise." She will kneel down to appear less threatening and speaks the same phrases in Skald in the event the children do not know Taldan.
"Sloat was my name once, but names are for the living" the undead answers, it's voice like an echo through a crypt. It does not flinch. Is not saddened by the truth. It simply relays what it knows to be fact.
Why the incorporeal children don't move any closer to Ragnar, they don't recoil from Krystae. Her soothing tone and reassuring voice do well to calm the children and keep them distracted. They can't help but glance over her shoulder at the towering man man behind her.
The children slowly back away from even Krystae, their eyes never truly leaving Ragnar. The closer she gets, the further away they move until a few start to get pushed through the way and out into the looming weather outside. They scream and cry and shake though their words are not understood.
One by one, the children all begin to nod. Despite their best efforts, whatever words they speak fall away into incomprehensible jargon. It's near impossible for them to communicate back through verbal language, but at least they aren't cowering anymore.
The children smile and start to spread out a little more, still holding hands but moving to look past Krystae, as if more curious about the man out of time than scared of him. Even one little ghostly child hazards a wave at the giant-like behemoth.
"Death takes nearly all things from the living, but not our names. Tombstones. Tales. Memories of those who knew us. All are carried first by our names. You are still Sloat" Ragnar motion for the fallen priest to follow him and went outside so as not to upset the children further.
"It does seem that they take more readily to that which they know or remember fondly. Maybe if I do this..."
Warden moves up into the middle of the room, then, within seconds seems to take root, it's limbs and hair transforming...before the children even have a chance to be scared, a picturesque apple tree stands in the middle of the temple, full with ripe apples.
Fang curls up at the base of the tree, looking like a shrub.
"Well, there's something you don't see every day," Droviz says after a moment of contemplation.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The children, still apprehensive, slowly approach the tree. One by one at first, but soon the rest follow. Mostly ignoring the apples themselves, they set about climbing and jumping all over the tree. A sensation Warden had not experienced before spreads throughout it's branches. While the children tickled almost like squirrels and chipmunks as they played, the sound of laughter was something new to Warden, ghostly as it was.
The longer the children played, the more excited and comfortable they got. Running around the tree, playing tag, even jumping out of the tree and into the bush named Fang resting at the base...
Without even a nod, Sloat simply turned and followed Ragnar outside. For the briefest of moments, the smallest of smiles may have even crept onto the decrepit priest's face but even if it was there, it was gone in an instant.
"Children playing, being happy...that is the way it SHOULD be."
Havelock makes a strange snorting sound, likely trying to underscore the fact that he considers what he just said such an obvious, inviolable truth that anyone who would protest is a compete idiot.
"Yeah, but now how do we get 'em out of here and into the Bone Lady's court?" Droviz asks.
Outside, Ragnar could faintly hear Drovitz. The big man's brows knitted. The Bone Lady was not a god Ragnar revered. Her ways and tenants seemed heartless to the very spirits who needed the most help.
Still, Ragnar's war had enough lost children already. If there was a way to send these spirits to Pharasma it would certainly be better for them than becoming another ghost in Ragnar's curse. He wondered for a moment if it wouldn't be better to send his own children to Pharasma's Boneyard. Probably, he decided, but he did not know how such a thing could be accomplished. It might be too late for these new children, just because they'd had the bad luck of having come in contact with Ragnar. They might be trapped with him now just like the others.
Was that his fate? To be an anchor for every lost soul he came across? A spiritual broom, sweeping up the afterlife's unwanted refuse?
"Do you know how the children can be released, Sloat?" he rumbled.
Perhaps if there was a way for these children, there might be a way for his own.
Inside, more and more children slowly became visible, coming in from outside to join the cavorting ghosts on the tree. Many of them. Two... no three-dozen more, slowly joining the fun.
The necromantic potency of this place brought them into view, starting with the faintly glowing eyes that the party had become used to seeing nearly every night. They varied in age from perhaps three years to nearly adolescent. The party had seen them faintly before, but never with such clarity. Here, in this place, they seemed nearly tangible.
They were playing with the others. Meeting other kids like them for the first time in millennia.
Nearby, watching the children were the faint outlines of three other ghosts. Adults. The other adventuring party Ragnar was a part of. Damir the smiling Half-Orc. Hyporia, the shy and quiet Seer. Khor, the vengeful Witch. Next to them stood the fallen servant of the Witch Queen who had attacked them in the forest, his corpse reanimated by Ragnar's deathly power, the ghost of the ranger Ragnok superimposed over the body.
The four of them watched the playful children with bittersweet expressions on their faces. Hyporia gave Drovitz and small wave. The spoke quietly among themselves, whatever they were saying lost in the barrier between worlds.
|
|
Krystae watches with a sad smile as the ghostly child play among Warden's branches. "These poor souls. They deserved so much more than this." She then spots the outlines of the previous adventuring party they had come across and the young girl Hyporia. Krystae nods to the spirit of the local girl and pats the handle of the oracle's dagger.
"We must end the reign of these Witches."
"Consider that a long-term goal. But if you want to succeed, you need to divide it down into easier to reach stages.
A long-term plan requires careful consideration of your resources as well as the enemy's."
Sloat simply shook his head in response to Ragnar's inquiry. If there was a way to release the children from their fate, it was lost to Sloat.
For the next few hours, ghostly children played with other ghostly children, like a ghostly school yard at recess. Though not at rest, these spirits were finally at peace. None could remember when they smiled last, but tomorrow, they would know that they had smiled and laughed this day. It was a strange sensation for them all, yet joyous and unforgettable.
Eventually the journey had to continue onward. The ghostly children, with no other place to go, joined the spectral entourage and quietly followed behind. They kept mostly out of sight but the echo of faint laughter could be heard occasionally.
The spirits continued to play pranks on Ragnar with growing frequency. It started slowly at first, his spear leaning against a different tree or his bed roll filled with rocks. It almost seemed to be some sort of incorporeal initiation.
It was two more days of the same. Walking through the snow, fighting against the wind, eating half-frozen rations, and all while dozens of eyes silently took it all in. Not long before dark on the second day, trees gives way to two large, wooden structures. On the ground in the snow between the two buildings lies a body.
Despite his aspiration to higher education and style, Havelock still wansn't completely free of some of the baser instincts of the bird he resembled.
So his first reaction upon seeing the body on the ground, and thinking it might be a corpse, is to find himself salivating.
And the natural reaction to that was to be sick and nearly loose his lunch.
"Guh...nnngh."
Ragnar stoically endured the ghostly pranks. It was still a treat to sleep rather than just die and regain consciousness again for another night of horror. Interrupted sleep was a gift. The children being able to play pranks at all was a gift.
He was conflicted. More children. More spirits trapped in his curse. On the other hand, they deserved justice and deserved to help it it's enactment. They also did not deserve to wander in Pharasma's Boneyard for her faulty judgement. The fallen adventurers had been telling him much of the Lady of Bones. Her treatment of Athiests were most concerning of all. What of children too young for worship? Too young for choice? Did they deserve oblivion? No.
The children were far better off with him than with Her.
He spoke with Sloat as they traveled, learning what he could from the dead priest, trying to get through the emotional abyss of undeath and appeal to the drives of his curse and basic reason. He tried to get his allies to help. Time was running out. Soon it would require the choice of voluntary service or destruction.
When the group stopped their march, Ragnar nearly bumped into Havelock, who looked sick. "Watcher, are you ill?"
"Well, someone's been having a party here already," Droviz says, pointing at the dead body. "Looks like we might be in for another fight, so weapons out, everyone."
The masked warrior puts action to word...
|
|
Krystae immediately puts an arrow to her bowstring and begins scanning the area as she takes cover behind the nearby tree. "I'll stay back and cover you all."
A sudden thought occurs to her. "Professor, come here a moment." She places one hand upon her necklace of talismans and whispers a prayer to Desna to keep her companion safe from harm. Suddenly a ghostly starknife suddenly appears around the tengu and it twirls around him protectively, as if seeking a threat.
"I would assume if someone means to ambush us, they would not give us a warning.", Warden responded, and kept moving forward, Fang at it's side.
"We will take a look at the buildings - maybe we can deduce what happened here...or, if there is trouble, resolve things before nightfall.", the amber eyes focused forward again, trying to spot any watchers or movement inside the buildings.
Wiping his beak, Havelock steels himself and tries to assume a more dignified poise.
"Something did take place here, and odds are it was nothing good."