"Talib? Was that the bailiff?"
Talienda points to the now dead corpse on the ground, her question was more curious than afraid.
"Why would they kill the bailiff and leave him here?"
Sinésiel, breaking the shock of not knowing what to do about the undead creature, nods to Talienda's request. She passes around her waterskin.
"I'm not sure what to do if we run into that thing again," Sinésiel says, visibly shaken. "Shadows like that are usually devoid of emotions. But that one was furious. We need to be ever more vigilant if we want out of here alive."
"Talib? Was that the bailiff?"
Talienda points to the now dead corpse on the ground, her question was more curious than afraid.
"Why would they kill the bailiff and leave him here?"
"He wears the uniform," Talib says with his typical stoicism. "As for his fate... well, many things were left behind when Beldrin's Bluff was abandoned."
Based on the story Rissi told of a group of adventurers entering the courthouse five years ago and looking at the handaxe and the state of the bailiff's clothes, Talib thinks someone else probably encountered this creature in the past but was unable to defeat it and sealed it inside the closet.
Halgrak lies down on one of the sofas, looking somewhat pale. "She looked more angry than guilty to me, miss," he says after a few tired moans.
After all the gore is removed, the weapon turns out to be a masterwork item.
"No," Talienda shakes her head at both Talib and Halgrak, "I think the specter was looking for someone guilty of wronging them, and while I can understand why they left the body, what I don't understand is why kill him at all. What did they gain by silencing him."
Talib wipes off the axe on the bailiff's uniform, nods at the newly revealed gleam of the steel underneath the grime, and then tucks the weapon in his belt. "This man could well have witnessed something, or he might simply have been one of the first victims of the hauntings. Whatever the case, we are not the first people to tangle with him. Someone must have shoved him in the cabinet as a desperate measure, perhaps the adventurers Miss Rissi mentioned earlier. As for the shadow... hm. Mord was accused of killing his family—perhaps they do not rest any easier than he does...."
"But this is all speculation," he concludes, heading for the door. "We need facts. Take what you need, and move out."
"I would love to, but apparently this wonderfully macabre house has taking a liking to me," Talienda deadpans when Talib tells them to move out. She goes to Halgrak and helps him to his feet before following Talib out the door.
"Where are we going to next? There was a set of doors in the first room on this floor that we did not look into," she mentions.
This large area is partitioned into smaller cubicles by thin wooden walls with cracked panes of frosted glass set in them. Old desks litter the area, some overturned and emptied of their contents, others still standing where barristers once toiled under mountains of paperwork. A large window set in the north wall is shattered. Beyond it, the sprawling desolation of Beldrin’s Bluff greets the eye, its tangled weeds and leaning storefronts strewn with bones and rubble. Shadows lazily flit across the frosted glass panes of the partitions as the wind whispers against the blasphemy of existence, its soft rattling stirring a secret hunger for oblivion in everyone's hearts.
Talienda shivers a she sees the room, any temptation at levity blown away by the wind. She lets the other, more armored people lead the way while she follows and looks over the decaying office.
Rissi follows the others, her mind still on the strange shadow. While she knows nothing about the creature she has trouble clearing her mind until they open the next door.
Hearing the whisper of the wind she snaps back to the present and scans the area. She mutters the words to her Detect Magic cantrip quietly to aid in scanning for any magical dangers.
Talib waits for Rissi's analysis of the magical, and then moves to inspect the northern cubicles. He keeps his sword at the ready.
Rissi begins scanning the room, sensing no magical auras of any kind inside. Her attention is drawn towards one particularly damaged desk with all sorts of papers strewn around.
Talienda, meanwhile, trails behind Talib, equal parts curious and afraid. As she does so, she feels a small sticky drop fall on her cheek from the ceiling -- she looks up and shrieks at a segmented worm ballooned to monstrous proportions attached to the ceiling just above Talib.
The creature falls to the ground and is about to crush the inquisitor when Talienda, once again feeling energy rushing through her veins, generates a gust of wind that pushes Talib to the side at the last moment. Even if its giant, circular maw is lined with feathres and bird bones, it is clear the dog-sized leech's appetite is not yet sated.
This seems to be a giant leech. Though slow and easy targets who are vulnerable to salt, once they land a bite these creatures are extremely hard to remove from a victim and can drink an average human completely dry in less than a minute.
Shaking off the initial shock of the grotesque beast nearly doing Talib in, Sinésiel steps forward, draws her scimitar and slices at the creature determinedly. "You alright in there Talib?" she yells after the inquisitor.
Talib moves in concert with Sinésiel, stepping to the side and slashing at the leech from the opposite direction.
"Adequate," he grumbles.
Talienda manages to avoid tripping over her own feet as she stumbles back into a desk. The sight of the horrid mound of flesh unnerved her but she wasn't about to let that stop her from helping. A crack echoes through the room as a bolt of lightning bursts from the rune she quickly traces in midair.
"W-what is that thing?!"
Talib and Sinésiel, quickly getting used to working as a team, make a successful concerted attack at the creature. Dark green humours begin dripping on the ground around it.
The leech has barely processed its new wounds when Talienda's bolt causes it to convulse and squirm. Halgrak, meanwhile and outside the room, jumps behind the sofa, seeking cover from the monstrosity.
The blows it received did not diminish its hunger, however, and its maw burrows deep into Talib's torso. The inquisitor's eyes flutter for a second as he feels the leech avidly drinking his blood.
"Keep the bolts coming, Talienda! We can't let this thing drain Talib!" With great effort made to not accidentally hit Talib, Sinésiel swings her scimitar at the leech. She misses by an embarrassingly wide margin, too concerned about harming the inquisitor to have proper aim. After missing she takes a step to the side so that her body doesn't block Talienda's magic.
Talienda, not trusting her voice, nods vigorously before drawing another run in the air. Threading the shot is difficult, but this spell doesn't need to be aimed.
Unable to properly wield his weapon, Talib attempts to extricate himself from the leech's mouthparts. Unfortunately, his wriggling and wrenching does little to ease his predicament, impeded as he is by the cramped quarters of the cubicle-partitioned office.
As Sinésiel misses her attack and Talienda's missiles pummel the giant leech, Talib unsuccessfully attempts to remove the creature's painful maw from his torso. His companions watch as his face grows paler due to the loss of blood.
Unafraid of reprisal from the leech thanks to its pre-occupation with Talib, Siné will pull out the broken wand and shoot a ray of fire at the beast, hoping she'll have better luck this way.
"Get off of him you pit-cursed beast!"
Talib continues to struggle with the leech, determined to free himself before he loses too much blood to offer effective resistance. He hammers the creature on the head with the pommel of his falchion, while bracing one foot against its body to push it away once it flinches.
Talienda almost dances as she moves fluidly into drawing another rune, but she pauses, and examines the situation.
"Sine! Talib! Get away from it," she calls out.
The leech begins to thrash around in pain and despair as Sinésiel's ray sets it aflame, its teeth still firmly attached to Talib.
Skurly, till now frozen in fear, takes aim and releases a bolt against the creature, hoping not so much to kill it as to help the inquisitor escape the monster's grasp. His shot pierces its body with violence and the vermiform body goes limp, releasing Talib and hitting the ground. The room begins to fill with the metallic smell of the leech's corpse slowly burning away.
"Or that works too," she says as the light from the still incomplete runes fade. "W-what was that?"
Rissi moves forward cautiously, curious as to what the strange creature was. Leeches were usually small and fairly harmless unless they carried disease. That thing....
She looks at the wounds on Talib, assessing for possibility of disease or other types of damage. and uses her last cure spell to assist.
As the fight ends, Rissi finds herself still holding the few sheets of paper that had caught her attention before the leech dropped from the ceiling.
Looking closer at them, several are debtor vouchers stating that a certain Halgrak Five-Toes owed a few thousand gold pieces to "A.W. & D.B." Another document, crumpled amongst these, is a buyer's receipt for 12 fire opals. When Rissi looks at the last two sheets, her heart skips a beat: the first is an invoice for "services in ancient scholarship" from one Rikki Than bound together with the second, a receipt for "Deep Chants of the Beldam".
Curious, Talienda first looks over Rissi's shoulders before her eye catches a remarkably clean patch of red cloth in the pile of rubble in which Rissi had found the documents the ratfolk is studying now. After a brief investigation, she unearths five beautiful red scarves of what she immediately identifies as Varisian silk -- indeed, the same material part of her clothing is made of.
Skurly sighs with exhaustion- mental, physical, but above all emotional- as they leech quivers and expires. But seeing the reams of documentation all around them, a newborn spark of hope and determination lights up in his emerald eyes.
"There has to be a clue in here somewhere. This is the brain of this awful, rotted old beast, or at least it's memory, which is the better part of the brain, as some would say, and if it remembers why all this happened, then we can think our way out of it." Licking his lips and setting his chin resolutely, he begins to pore over the stacks of filings, summons, affidavits, and writs, looking for anything that might shed light on their plight- but particularly, anything that mentioned Mord himself, whether as a servant of the court, or as a subject of its judgment. The pieces were here, somewhere, it was just a matter of seeing their shapes...
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Talienda gathers up the scarves after her heart's pace has slowed to something approaching normal. Her fingers tingle at the touch of the silk like they did everytime she picked up some of the fine cloth much like they had when they'd picked up the blouse to she is wearing. She wonders at the shimmering patterns woven into the silk for a moment before she glances over Rissi's shoulder and sees the parchment that detailed Halgrak's debt. She doesn't have a clue who A.W. is, but she has a sinking feeling as she sees the initials D.B.
"Halgrak," she calls back to where the half-orc had gone, "can you tell us who A.W. and D.B. are?"
Talib nods to Rissi as colour returns to his cheeks. He leans against the wall for a moment as the others begin the investigation. Finally, having caught his breath to a sufficient degree, he joins the search. As clues pile up, he meticulously notes each piece of potential evidence in his journal.
"Have you seen any of the jurors wearing fire opals?" he asks the rest of the group. "Perhaps in the form of cufflinks or jewellery? Gems are often employed in bribery, as they are much harder to track than currency or bullion."
Rissi studies the documents, upset at seeing her Grandfather's name. Not surprised though as she had been expecting something. All of the party seemed tied to this place and the event. Maybe Rikki hadn't been corrupt? They hadn't found his corpse... yet.
She studies the page, wracking her memory for anything about 'Deep Chants of the Beldam'.
As the others are searching through the documents, Sinésiel tries to think on Talib's question. "A.W." and "D.B." mean pretty much nothing to her, so she instead focuses on whether or not she has seen any fire opals...
As she is thinking on it, she goes back into the last room \with Talienda, not wanting the young woman to be completely away from the rest of the party considering what they've all seen thus far.
As soon as Talib asks the question out loud, the answer comes to him. During the short time they were in the same room with Patrissa, the woman often played with a necklace of bright orange gems which match his rough idea of how opals should look like. His gaze meets Sinésiel's, who gives him a knowing nod to show she is thinking the same thing.
Rissi, meanwhile, is distracted by the tome connected to her grandfather. She does not recall ever hearing about this book, though its name…there is something off about it. She cannot quite put her finger on it; perhaps it's just the usage of that prejudiced archaic word in Taldane, beldam?
Skurly sits by the ratfolk's side, a little hurricane of flying paper sheets being picked up, read and thrown away around him. Unfortunately, he fails to uncover anything new. Most of the documents here are of no consequence to the matter at hand: bureaucratic paperwork, internal communiques, court orders, notes on then-current cases, etc. Mord's name does appear on some of these, but always as the executioner of the courthouse, never as a potential criminal. Skurly also spots one of the pair of initials, A.W., in a few more notes, but never the full name.
Moving closer to the door, Sinésiel sees Halgrak shaking his head, muttering "No, no that's not ringing any bells, miss Talienda, I'm sorry, I don't know anyone with those initials."
"Oh, okay. I just thought you might know. It was on a note about money you owed them," she says before asking, "do you still owe others money?"
Clearly ashamed, Halgrak looks away. "I didn't do much good before my kids, miss. Lot of booze and dice. I paid all I could, but there's only so much gold a blacksmith in the puddles can get his hands on."
Skurly looks up from amidst his endless reams of memoranda, his face drained and forlorn.
"There's nothing here about Mord's case, nothing at all-". He stops, suddenly thoughtful. "Don't know why I'm surprised. Whoever was behind all this mess was willing to have a judge killed- I don't suppose they'd let a paper trail stand in their way."
He lifts himself to his feet, thumbing pensively at some of the documents bearing the initials of "A.W."
"Whoever this lousy rascal is, or was, he was someone important enough to be known by his initials alone, and didn't need to hide himself from scrutiny, either. Unless it's a false name? And no one was brave enough to ask too many questions about it? What if that was Mord's mistake, trying to find the man behind those letters?" He paused again, grimacing in frustration. "We need to find the rest of the jurors, before they all wind up like poor Tablark. One of them must know something about A.W."
Rissi packs away the papers mentioning her Gran. She isn't sure what it has to do with Rikki being here, but he had worked as a scholar, diplomat and trader for longer that Rissi had been alive. It might mean something. "Deep Chants of the Beldam.... ?? Something about an old lady or witch I think? Probably not important? Maybe not..."
"Nothing else here?"
"Oh," Talienda says before looking back towards the room where Skurly was busy looking over papers. Her cheeks burn dully as she realizes how hard it must be for Halgrak to tell her about his past.
"I'm sorry, Halgrak. I should have known I was picking at old wounds."
She gives the blacksmith a look of embarrassment and sincere compassion before rejoining the others as Skurly says they have to find the others.
"The only way to go is up. I guess we take the stairs over there," she says before pointing over to the spiraling stairs at the back of the room where she and Halgrak had been talking.
"The stairs would make the most sense, I agree," Sinésiel says, lost in thought about the fire opals. "I'm going to go check on Talib."
She makes her way back into the room, and oblivious to whatever the man is doing lightly grabs his sleeve and whispers to him. "What should we do about Patrissa? At any other time I'd wave her jewelry off as less than even circumstantial, but this is different. There's no way she isn't hiding something."
"Whoever this lousy rascal is, or was, he was someone important enough to be known by his initials alone, and didn't need to hide himself from scrutiny, either. Unless it's a false name? And no one was brave enough to ask too many questions about it? What if that was Mord's mistake, trying to find the man behind those letters?" He paused again, grimacing in frustration. "We need to find the rest of the jurors, before they all wind up like poor Tablark. One of them must know something about A.W."
Talib strokes his beard thoughtfully. "Whoever they are, they certainly appear to be closely connected to the case—perhaps the even the mastermind behind the whole conspiracy. One more line of questioning to pursue, once we relocate our suspects."
She makes her way back into the room, and oblivious to whatever the man is doing lightly grabs his sleeve and whispers to him. "What should we do about Patrissa? At any other time I'd wave her jewelry off as less than even circumstantial, but this is different. There's no way she isn't hiding something."
Talib nods at Sinésiel. He slips the bill for the fire opals in between the pages of his journal.
"We shall question her once we find her," he says. "That is, assuming she is still a state to be questioned."
A deathly silence that begins in the stairway seeps into this tiny room: it feels almost hallowed, as if the smallest noise would be akin to heresy. This cold space had probably been a warm and cozy apartment; now, it is a mess of blood stains, a bed hacked to splinters, a cradle broken in half, toy figurines lying on the ground together with old yarn and a wooden table turned upside down.
A primal cry of rage erupts from a corner where shadows coalesce in the shape of the same incorporeal woman wrapped in veils from before. As she moves closer, with movements similar to that of a Varisian folk dance, her head slowly splits in a slanted fracture from temple to jawbone. With another scream of pain, her fingers become pointed claws and each person who gazes into her jet-black eyes can feel their own sanity giving way to pure, angry agony. There is little time to commiserate: the shadow lunges.
Sinésiel does not see much of this happening, as once again visions cloud her perception.
A cloaked figure enters a small attic. A woman with dark features and a beautoful red scarf sits in a rocking chair, swaying as she hums and knits a sweater for a small child. She looks up, an expression of disgust on her face. The figure closes in, its back to you as it advances toward her; the woman's expression slowly changes to defiance and then horror.
The terrifying laugh rings in your ears as the cloaked figure raises a fist to strike the woman, still seated in her rocking chair. Before he can strike, however, she stands defiantly and lashes out with her knitting needle. The cloaked figure raises a gloved hand to its cheek. The glove comes away bloody, and then the figure reaches for a wood axe hung above the hearth as the woman recoils in horror.
The shadow, perhaps attracted to Halgrak's hulking shape, digs her hands deep into the half-orc's body who seems somehow thinner and frailer than a few moments ago. Halgrak seems petrified with fear and dumbly stares at the creature.
Talib feels someone push past him and over the splinters of the bed. The air crackles as if a bolt of lightning were about to strike nearby.
Talienda's words ring out clearly as she punctuates each word with a rapid stroke of her hand. The rune in the air glows for a moment as a circle of more runes form around it and glow brightly before a bolt of lightning lances out with a sharp crack of thunder.
Talienda's eyes glow after the strike, fueled by the strength she hadn't realized she possessed until this night. She glares at the figure, her hands already moving to draw another rune.
"If you ever loved your children and your husband, leave us be. We want to bring those responsible to justice as much as you. This doesn't have to end with us tearing each other apart," she tells the spirit, her tone hard, but hopeful.
"But I will fight you if I must," she adds after a pause, her tone now grim.
Rissi backs away from the nightmare. "Whatever anyone can do that thing needs to fall quick!" Then she quickly chants out a battle hymn to inspire the team.
As Rissi begins her chant, Talienda's bolt strikes the shadow, momentarily disturbing the energies that hold it together.
Talib elbows his way past Halgrak, shoving him back towards the stairway. "Retreat, civilian. Now!"
Lifting his falchion, the inquisitor attempts to time his strike with the lighting of the magical incense they group found earlier.
Sinésiel pulls out the incense from earlier and lights it, hoping that it takes effect much sooner than later. "I don't think it's going to be retreating from us this time around!"
Still dazed from her visions, Sinésiel fumbles with her backpack, searching for the censer with Talib by her side, cursing the half-elfs sudden stupor.
Skurly, unsure of what to do, fires a bolt but misses his target.
The shadow ignores Talienda's pleas and wraps the Halgrak's body with its incorporeal body. The half-orc grows significantly paler and thinner, as if life was being drained away from him. Spurred out of his terrified stupor by Talib's words, Halgrak runs away; the creature tries to grasp at him in anger, but this time the attack fails to connect.
Noting that Sinésiel is reeling, Talib holds back, stepping back into the fray once the half-elf has recovered her wits. "Focus! This is a deadly foe!"
Skurly's shaking hands let the crossbow fall to the floor. I can't let them down again, says the better part of his mind, while the decidedly more prominent portion screams at him to RUN. He numbly grasps the hilt of his child-sized rapier and steps to confront the spectre, doing what he can to interpose himself between it and Talib.
Feeling absolute panic Rissi draws her weapon and closes on the shadow. "The incense. Somebody burn it!"