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The Professor fastens his bathrobe which had somehow blown open during his fiery antics. You all do recognize that seems to be all that he's wearing.
He rubs his hands together.
"Well then. That settles that."
The Professor squints into the room, addressing Phantomblade who is already within.
"Anything interesting? Any way out? Down?"
The only other way appears to be the stairwell from the room full of sarcophagi and hardening slime. This long stairwell descends several hundred feet, passing through multiple architectural styles as it winds deeper into Carrion Hill’s past. By the time it reaches the bottom , the style is of carved stone and natural cave.
Swaths of dried and foul-smelling black slime cake the entire length of the stairs. Water drips down along the walls here and there as well, leaving narrow trickles along the stairs.
Ancient stone pillars support a stone ceiling here. Thick sheets of pale fungus and mold cake most surfaces. To the south, the hall has collapsed in rubble, but to the north it opens into a vast cavern in which eerie glowing light flickers. A thick, dry smear of black slime and strange circular prints in the mold runs from a flight of stairs in the west wall north into this cavern.
An immense cavern sprawls here, its floor an uneven jumble of loose stone and fungus, its ceiling rising like a church cathedral to a height of nearly a hundred feet above. Glowing fungus grows thick on the walls, bathing the cavern in ugly hues of purple and pale blue. Toppled pillars and mounds of rubble dot the western half of the cave, while to the east a mound of fungus, bones, and rubble rises. At the mound’s apex squats a flat-topped altar stone, with towering barren trees rising on three sides, their leafless branches twisted and groping toward the ceiling above as if in search for a sun’s warmth they shall never feel. A trickle of what appears to be sludge runs thickly and slowly from a hollow under the altar stone to gather to the northwest of the hill in a swampy pool. Four cave passages branch off from the cavern, but only the one to the southeast has not been blocked by a series of relatively new-looking iron bars. A swath of black slime and round footprints winds from the wide passageway to the southwest up to the southern bank of the pool of sludge.
What you see
Atop the altar stone a ghoul crouches, eating freely from an arm, stripped of most of its flesh already. It is studying a large tome in front of it, perched precariously on a skull. Your lights have given it ample time to notice you, and it looks up from its reading, swallowing and stating, "You're not undead. Are you from the surface?" It hisses with each breath it takes, but does not seem violent...for the moment.
Kyra shudders, unable to abide this creature of foul darkness. She awaits the opportunity to shine the light of the Dawn upon it.
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Eyes narrowing in the darkness, Ronin's soul seeing eyes flar slightly as he reads the aura of the talkative abomination. It was odd for the creatures to simply talk, though the ritualistic natures of the tome before it was intriguing. Keeping one acaled hand on the hilt of his blade, the ex-samirai waits for his allies to be done with the creature, or for it to attack and be slain.
The ghoul sits back on its haunches, idly scratching its distended belly and taking another bite of the arm in its hand. "I only just came to this place where I found this lovely book. I have been quite absorbed reading it while I feast." He shrugs and swallows, "My undeath doesn't require the eating of rotten limbs, but meat is meat. I am Yarresh, master among my kind. And you are?"
"And what book is it?" asks Kyra through clenched teeth.
Yarresh clicks his claws on the skull in front of him rather testily, "I was brought here by the sumptuous smell of ready to eat meat. This book is interesting, something I found here. It talks about summonings, portals, teleportation." His brows lower in interest, "What is it that brings you to these caves?"
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"Master among your kind? Hogwash!"
The Professor waves a hand dismissively.
"Surely we'd be cowering in fear in whatever unnatural aura surrounds this monstrosity."
He stands on his toes a moment as a book of unsanctioned knowledge regarding summoning and portals is mentioned.
"Ooooo... did you say something about portals? Why, it may be that very book has brought us here! Now, be a nice cantankerous creature and hand it over..."
The Professor holds out a hand from the relative safety of the party's rear.
Displeasure flashes across Yarresh's face with the pointed words. It quickly morphs to something more cunning as he responds to the professor. "I'll give you the book...for some magic items, or some more recently deceased meat over the next few days."
The ghoul perks up with the professor's mumblings, but answers Valyssa's question, "Well I don't think-" before he dashes off to the corridor behind him, dropping the book in his haste.
Yarresh continues scrambling through the tunnels and vanishes into the darkness. Turning, everyone sees another cavern in the southern portion of the wall. This cavern contains what looks to have been a campsite for five, judging by the number of empty bedrolls along the walls. A few shelves with scattered books on them, a fire pit, and even a crude wooden table provide the furnishings for the site.
A quick investigation of all of the books reveals them to be written in Aklo and are about ancient or defunct religions.
The Pnakotic Manuscripts, dropped by the ghoul, are much more interesting to look through. The inside cover of the book bears the following inscription:
May we, the Keepers of the Oldest, prevail over the scourge of simplistic thought and lesser men. Following the inscription are five names:
Glem Baskerwhel
Waldur Crove
Arlend Hyve
Sulm Marshan
Rupman Myre
One section of the book is marked by a red silk bookmark—indicating the beginning of a relatively lengthy discussion of how to use special rituals to open portals in key locations. This section has been heavily annotated in the same spidery script on the inside cover.
A section near the end cautions those who would attempt this ritual, warning that forcing open such portals draws forth the spiritual essence of the casters, and that any entity contacted by the portal can make “hideous use of this essence by consuming it, growing more powerful in the bargain, such that only the end of such essence can challenge the intruder’s rights upon your world.”
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The Professor takes a passing glance at the Manuscript, waving his hand dismissively after a few moments.
"Ah, those will take some time to read through! Probably best in the comfort of an inn that serves honeywine and crumpets."
He squints down the passage by which the ghoul fled.
"Are we to let the ghoul run free then? Perhaps drain the souls of a few dozen villagefolk while raising an army?"
He allows his gaze to linger on Kyra for the briefest moment, curious why the Sarenrite didn't swiftly advance to smite such an undead monstrosity.
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"Hey guys i dont know anything about this stuff but i do know that they are the same handwriting as Waldur Crove"
-Posted with Wayfinder
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The Professor, unaware the book has spells, promptly closes it and holding it up, allows it to disappear into the confines of his magic haversack.
He then squints as he looks about the area.
"Well then, since it seems we're letting that monstrous creature escape .."
He then mumbles under his breath.
".. and raise a small ghoul army.."
He then clears this throat.
"Are there any other areas we have yet to fully investigate down here? Or should we spend some time by the fire plying the secrets from this summoning tome to see if, in fact, this is the source of our monster destroying the town and severing the limbs from its citizenry?"
Kyra looks up, too late, as the ghoul disappears.
"Maybe we can catch up to him if we check through the tunnels before returning to the surface? Then let's go investigate these so-called Keepers of the Oldest, starting with Waldur Crove."
Poking around the area Yarresh was hanging out more thoroughly you discover two corpses. One is facedown in the pool of sludge, the other leaning against the altar stone and missing its arm. Both are twisted like rags and bloodless, covered with deep incisions and circular bites or cuts.
Following the ghoul's path it quickly becomes clear that one could easily get lost in the various caverns and catacombs deep under Carrion Hill.
Kyra checks the corpses for anything more clues or valuables before the group returns to the surface.
One corpse has a large hunch on its back, the other has eyes sticking out a bit more than is average, and were they open could be described as 'goggle-eyed'.
You trek back up the long stairs and through the ruins of the house in slipper market. The rain continues, now making small rivers running down the cobblestone streets, and the situation seems to have deteriorated. Where before the streets were unnaturally quiet they are now teeming with people, many of them muttering about leaving town. The Crows have their hands full trying to keep order and prevent the more criminally minded from looting. You pass by a stable on the way back to Mayor Heggry where a knot of people are demanding transport.
Back at the manor only two Crows remain with the mayor who turns eagerly to you for a report. "What did you find? Do you know how to kill the beast?"
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"Ah yes.."
The Professor recalls the tome from his haversack with a magical pop.
"We did discover a tome of summoning strange creatures. No doubt whatever plagues you came from these very pages."
He pats the book.
"We'll need some time to study it. Now.. were there any.. uh, wizards angry at the town recently? Perhaps a conjurer denied a zoning permit for a new tower overlooking the Slipper Market?"
The pop startles the mayor who flinches backward as the book is produced. He looks at it curiously while shaking his head, "No, no one has shown their displeasure with the town, at least not outside of the normal grumblings of townsfolk. Anything to help save the town is worth the time in my book. Is there anything in there about who summoned the beast or how it got here?"
The Professor quickly sees the inscription on the inside cover of the book and turns it towards Mayor Heggry. The Mayor takes a pair of reading glasses from a case in his front pocket and puts them on, examining the list. "Let's see here: Glem Baskerwhel is a hunch-backed hermit who lives in the Wrythe about a day’s travel east of Carrion Hill. The swamp druid is nonetheless well known in Carrion Hill as a potion-maker, and he visits the city often, always staying with his friend Arlend Hyve at the Elm Way Church on these visits." You remember the mostly intact corpse from the area below had hunched back, much like Mayor Heggry is describing now. Chances are that corpse was Baskerwhel.
The mayor's face pales when he reads the next name, "Waldur Crove is well known as the warden of Crove’s Asylum, a building located in the Crown that the Crows have long used to dispose of lunatics and the insane too dangerous to keep in regular prisons. I can't believe that old man is part of the reason for this..." The mayor seems ready to sit back and reflect on this, but a hastily cleared throat brings him back to the task at hand.
"Oh, right. Let's see...Arlend Hyve is an authority on regional history and lore, a sage who dwells in an abandoned church of Aroden on Elm Way on the southern slope of the Tangles. There are whispers that he dabbles in the black market poison and drug trade.
"Ah, here's a name that should be familiar to you: Sulm Marshan is a goggle-eyed man said to have moved to Carrion Hill recently from the coastal town of Illmarsh; he owned and lived in the house in Slipper Market that was destroyed this morning."
"Lastly, Rupman Myre is a middenstone baron. He owns a large vathouse down in the Filth along the river banks, and is rumored to be involved with illegal necromancy, but to date the Crows have not been able to find enough evidence to arrest him."
Heggry looks up and into all of your faces, "I do hope this will help bring the creature down. Here are some directions to the locations these men reside or work in." He quickly scribbles directions on a sheet of parchment and hands it to you. "Oh, yes, I also managed to gather some magical aid for you. It's not much, but anything to get that dreadful beast out of town and away from my citizens."
He brings forward a small case, filled with vials, scrolls, and a small bag.
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Valyssa tells her companions after listening to all the dialogue.
They way I figure it if these "Keepers" are trying to keep a low profile they're likely to be pretending they didn't just unleash some unnatural horror on the town. Considering we didn't see a man ranting and raving about how his house is now destroyed we can guess the other corpse from below was Marshan himself.... Maybe..."
After looking over the gifts/loot she says "Wow that is a lot of loot... or that is a lot of trouble ahead..."
"We shall seek out the remaining survivors from this list and bring them to justice. Hopefully we will find the monster in the process."
You head south through the town and then east, avoiding a large crowd of soon to be looters and rioters. The Crows have their hands full keeping the citizens in order and barely acknowledge you as you pass by. Your journey ends just north of the eastern gate. Finally you find yourselves before an imposing building made of stone with doors of iron. Etched into a board above the entrance is the declarative statement: Crove's Asylum: Bring your mentally ill and restless here.
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As the group arrives at Crove's Asylum, the Professor smooths his robe and squints up at the structure.
"Anyone hear the cries of any raving lunatics? Shall we simply knock and request to speak with Waldur?"
The Professor appears about to take a few steps forward and knock on the door with all his muster...
The Professor's tiny fist raps against the metal door with a much louder sound than anyone anticipates. There is no response from the other side though the door appears to be unlocked. A quick run around the building reveals there are no windows and only a few other doors leading inside.