Angela casts her expert eye over the hidden chest, and finds nothing amiss. Not bothering with the sturdy lock, Jeskit smashes his way into the chest within a couple of minutes.
Meanwhile Golthwur detects a faint magic aura from the dresser.
Within the chest is an assortment of coins - more than the 500gp debt that Ravenmoor owes to Magnimar. There is also an old leather-bound journal and a small leather pouch. You find that the pouch contains 3 potions of Cure Light Wounds and a silver signet ring.
|
Gronkh eyes the great wealth greedily. "So we can have some profit left after we settle our task here! Well, finally, the first reason I've heard yet why this mission is worth doing! Now that we've got the gold for the taxes and more, I reckon we might as well leave. I can't say that I'm finding much about Ravenmoor that makes me want to stick around."
He spies the journal. "Hmm, what's this? Might make for some entertaining reading while we head back to Magnimar..." He flips through the pages.
The journal is quite old, but is intact. The first page bears the title: "The Kriegler Journal". The rest of the book has been written by multiple persons, in different hands, all of them cramped and obtuse. It's going to take about a week of work by someone skilled in linguistics to decode the ciphers and other codes used throughout the text, but it's evident enough that what Gronkh holds in his hands will tell the true story of Ravenmoor and its founding.
|
Angela rolls her eyes over the two guys puzzling over the magic aura in the dresser. She picks up her longspear and the Wayfinder tied onto it midway and uses the little compass to cast detect magic. She focuses in on the aura...
She tells the two wizards, "Seems like whatever is giving off the aura has a healing aura. Now go find what ever it is, you two."
She then looks over the books and other things in the box and sighs at the sight of the signet ring. "Looks like we will be bringing back more than just money and a warning. This ring is a tax collector's ring, from Magnimar... Probably our wayward brother-in-law's."
Byron and Golthwur thoroughly search the dresser, and find a cunningly concealed secret panel, behind which there is a wand - the source of the magical healing aura.
Between the journal and the ring, and your own eyewitness accounts, you realise that you have enough evidence to inform Magnimar that a dangerous cult of Ghlaunder has taken hold in Ravenmoor. You can also bring the gold from the hidden chest, and pay the village's debt with some to spare for yourselves. However, You haven't yet found definitive evidence of Elias Kyle's fate, and you would be leaving the 'Ghlaunder problem' unresolved. Resolution must lie within or beyond the Chennowitz farm...
|
|
Angela gives a smile as the two wizards finally find their elusive 'toy.' Her face brightens even more at the revelation that it's a wand of lesser restoration! "That is EXACTLY what we needed. Byron, seems you've had a mishap there. Let me take a whack..."
She tries it once on Byron and then once on herself and finally again on Byron
She then gathers her things and herds everyone to the farmhouse, muttering things about making sure we find absolute confirmation about Elias and hopefully a way to shut down or severely limit the cult's ability to harm random travelers other than word of mouth.
With a few further preparations completed, you return to the farm. As you walk down the lane to the dilapidated farmhouse, there's an obvious glow from behind the house. There's a faint smell of woodsmoke drifting through the early morning air. There's no more than an hour left till dawn....
|
|
Angela hoists her newly finished bottles and comments, "Alright before we go back and finish our investigation into the atrocities of this village, I should inform you these three vials, the light blue ones with the words 'Cure Light Wounds' written on them, are for anyone to use, but only when we don't have time for using a wand."
|
|
Angela hoists her newly finished bottles and comments, "Alright before we go back and finish our investigation into the atrocities of this village, I should inform you these three vials, the light blue ones with the words 'Cure Light Wounds' written on them, are for anyone to use, but only when we don't have time for using a wand."
"And before you resume your investigation, I, Golthwur Strath, Locator of the Lost and Paragon of Pathfinders, should inform you that our mission is to collect a collector, to retrieve a revenue man-- to uncover unpleasantness or assess atrocities." replies the old wizard, clearly uncomfortable with the present situation and looking for any cowardly opportunity to extricate himself.
You make your way back to the run-down farmhouse, and push through the front door. The bodies of the fallen cultists have gone.
You make ready to face the oozing carpet of fungus that lies beyond the northern door. Then, Jeskit kicks the door open!
The ooze slowly responds to your presence, but you have time to organise your attack.
Pet
Pet
Surprise round + round 1
Gronkh
Byron
Golthwur
Jeskit 1 CON damage
Angela 3 CON damage, -6hp (max18)
slime mould
The bold may act!
Jeskit whacks the slow-moving slime with his staff, sending chunks of mushroom-covered goo flying.
Angela stabs the quivering mass with her spear, opening another tear.
Byron's magic missile slams in for good measure.
Surprise round + round 1
Gronkh
Byron
Golthwur
Jeskit 1 CON damage
Angela 3 CON damage, -6hp (max18)
slime mould, -21hp
The bold may act!
Gronkh’s mighty blade cuts the mould in twain, and it ceases moving.
combat over !
|
|
Golthwur straightens his pointed hat, then rolls up the sleeves of his robe, before pausing to straighten his hat again.
"Stand back!" he warns, "Dare approach it at your own risk. You were warned previously of the threat that this deadly creature poses. Clearly, it can be addressed only by one skilled in magic."
Rolling his sleeves up again, the wizard begins a series of intricate gestures and raising his voice.
Gronkh’s mighty blade cuts the mould in twain, and it ceases moving.
The wizard pauses for a moment, then says with rapidity "See? When faced with the might of magic, it has lost the will to live!"
With the sluggish ooze swiftly disposed of you are free to explore the kitchen area.
The old kitchen seems to have been repurposed into some sort of indoor garden. A workbench cluttered with pottery stills and glass alembics stands below small alcoves filled with vials and beakers. Dozens of clay vessels rest haphazardly on wooden boxes, each sprouting neatly-pruned shrubs or large, exotic mushrooms. They appear surprisingly well-tended, given the state of the rest of the building, though the roots of several have burst through their pots.
Amongst the clutter you find several pots of blue mould.
You also find four strange puffball-like spore cases, grey and the size of a man’s fist.
Angela notes that the kitchen contains everything needed for a masterwork alchemist's lab.
Between you, with a few minutes searching (whilst Gronkh wonders if he could possibly get Horace through here), you find several useful items:
8 doses blue whinnis poison
5 vials alchemist's fire
5 potions
There is a door to the west, and you also find a secret door in the northern wall that must lead outside.
|
|
Golthwur scans the mould, then focuses on the apparent spore cases.
"Harken unto me!" cries Golthwur. "For you need be instructed that that which you undoubtedly thought were mere fungi are nothing but the sort! For the trained eye of I, Goltwhur Strath, Beyonder of Botany and Top Dog of Taxonomy, has discerned that these are immature cythnigot qlippoth."
"Yet, woe unto you all! For whilst four such miniscule menaces remain contained before you and capable of ready disposal, there is clear evidence that a fifth developing deviant fails to lie dormant and cannot presently be accounted for!" warns the wizard.
Then, casting detect magic, he gives the loot a look.
|
|
Angela moves into the room but soon gets distracted as she starts picking up bottles and small things at random building up speed as she goes. "I'm loathe to admit it but this is one of the best stocked alchemist's labs I have ever seen! They even have distilled Varnax root! Do you know how hard that can be to make?"
At Gotlhwur's mention of the qlippoth spores Angela makes sure there is nothing else in the room that might prove dangerous.
She pints to the mold. " Here's the source of all of that poison that has been branded about. These are blue winnis spores. Fine to ingest in this form but concentrated down and it starts becoming a little more toxic."
Angela finds nothing else dangerous.
Jeskit beats down the last internal door...
...This windowless room is lit by a single brass lantern hanging from a rusty nail on the western wall. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of moths crawl throughout the ceiling’s rotting rafters and on the mouldering curtains of boarded windows, the disturbance of their movements causing eerie shadows to wiggle on every surface. Old floorboards have been ripped up in the room’s corner, allowing a flight of earthen steps to lead down into the ground.
The stairs down are thick with webs. There's no way Horace could get down there. You cut and push your way through...
The walls of this low-ceilinged basement are decorated by curtains made out of a mix of thick sheets of webs adorned with countless dead insects. Most of these are flies and mosquitoes, some of which are quite large. At the far end of the room sits a low wooden table on which a hideous shape crouches—a human-sized statue of an insectile monster made from corn husks, dry branches, rags, and bones. The floor of the room is an uneven layer of moist soil and earth, and three shovels, their blades caked with earth, lean against the side of the stairs.
Under table you find a dozen cult robes and mosquito masks.
Pet
Pet
There's a faint stink of rot and decay coming up from the floor.
|
|
Angela gives a small sigh at the sight of all the moths. This is going to be disgusting isn't it? I swear if one of those gets in my hair... She descends the stairs, grateful she is half the height of the others and that they can catch all the spider webs and dead things.
When they finally reach the bottom, she takes a good look around the room and picks up the shovels handing one to Gronkh, another to Jeskit and taking the last for herself. "They buried something here. Might be our tax collector or someone else. We should check just in case." Sure smells like something died down here...
|
|
When the other speak of the assault on their noses, Golthwur remains back and casts prestidigitation to create a pleasant, lilac fragrance around the base of his nostrils to mask the smell.
As the half-orc digs, the wizard casts mage hand to set aside the discarded floor boards and some of the sizable rocks. However, he makes no move towards the open hole.
Your digging quickly reveals several corpses in the ground. Most of them are nothing more than skeletons now, but a few are much fresher. The freshest still bears a full head of red hair and wears a suit of ruined nobleman’s clothes.
|
|
Angela peers at the bodies but as he does so the memories of anatomy class back at the Grand Lodge wells up in her mind causing a commiserate welling in her stomach. She forces down the resulting urge with some very deep breathes but ultimately has to retreat to the second floor with Horace. "Sorry, dead things are... Difficult... for me."