With the plant distracted by its impending meal--the injured Sanduro--Silvia works the bolt action and takes aim. The first shot punches through its woody shell, the second shot taking it in the exact same spot and bursting out the other side! With a wet shudder, the crypt flower collapses.
"YEAH! THAT'S WHAT YOU GET!" Rennet whoops and hollers.
Ketra's just about to rush in, in a desperate attempt to save Sanduro from being thrown into the pitcher plant's maw, when a bullet blasts the plant to verdant tatters. She skids to a stop "Wow."
After a moment to gather herself after the devastation she just witnessed, she heads over to disentangle Sanduro from the plant's vines. As she does, ponders what to do about the two ghosts, if anything. Maybe the state of the square was keeping them anchored to this world.
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When Silvia's final shot blows through the body of the plant, the vines grasping Sanduro relax and he drops to the ground. Entangled and broken, he struggles to free himself and stand up until Ketra arrives to help him.
"Thank you, Ketra. Zsofia, would you please try to find my bow?" he croaks. "I'd hate to lose it when we burn this damn thing to ash to prevent any of the cuttings from taking root in the cracks between the cobblestones."
Leaning heavily on the other duskwalker, the druid staggers a few steps out of the worst of the affected area before collapsing onto the ground next to Rennert and Sten, coughing. The phantom, uncharacteristically silent, quickly locates his dropped bow and trails behind.
Closing his eyes for a moment, Sanduro manages to suppress his coughs and whisper a quick prayer to Pharasma.
"I await my Lady's judgment without fear or regret, but if you do not wish to call me back so soon after my friends and I have left your demesne, please grant me respite from these injuries."
The worst of Sanduro's wounds close; the sound of his ribs popping back into place is startling, but dies out quickly in the dead air under the dome of fog. The druid stands, wincing in pain from his remaining injuries, and surveys the damage taken by Ketra and Zsofia, before turning to Rennet and Sten.
"We have more healing to do yet, sirs, but are you sure there isn't something you left out of your story of what happened after the explosion?"
Garret sighs in relief as the plant horror is defeated, then uses the remaining time on his flaming sphere to well and truly burn the aberrant plant material.
Sten is staring in puzzlement and shock at his own hands, turning them back and forth as though examining fraudulent goods. Rennet pauses his whooping encouragement of Garret's thorough burning to squint at Sanduro.
"Forgot? Hells, son, I've forgotten all sorts of things but you can't forget what you don't know--and we already told you what we do. Why, what're you getting at?"
For his part, Garret burns away a thick nexus of the rootlike vines at the base of the crypt flower and finds bones. Human bones, from at least two adults it looks like, caked in dirt and intermingled with hardly more than than scraps of desiccated skin and hair still clinging to them.
With Sanduro in better shape, Ketra turns her attention to the two ghosts "I'm afraid we all died here. In Roslar's Coffer. That explosion? It sent almost everyone to the Boneyard. Though in a roundabout way the five of us got spared. Sort of." Ketra pauses, once again not entirely sure about how the whole surviving thing worked out. The Passage had mentioned Obols, whatever those were, and souls being knitted together.
When Garret reveals the set of bones, she tries to distract the two ghosts away from them, as least until she's done with her explanation "Well, the details don't matter. The point is that we can't touch you, which tells me you died too. Together though, if its any consolation."
Sanduro watches Sten watching his hands and nods in sad understanding. "Sten? How are you feeling, sir?"
Finishing his gruesome work, Garret turns to the spirits and says sadly, ”I am sorry, gentlemen, that it has come to this. Are you sure there is nothing you remember about the explosion or its aftermath that could help us in our investigation? We are trying to figure out what happened to our home so that we may stop those responsible from ever perpetrating such great evil again.”
Sten closes his eyes and slowly puts his hands down by his sides with a clear act of will. Rennet glances at his husband and takes his hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.
"Sometimes I feel a pull, an urge to head to the graveyard," Sten says slowly. "It's not a strong feeling, but when I think about it it's always there. But something else is there too, and it feels..."
"Predatory," Rennet finishes. "Dangerous. But that doesn't matter, 'cause we're dead. I figure we'll just stay here, since...well, I can't bear to face Her judgement with nothing to show for it! Yes your Goddessness, I was a gardener! Please don't check my work though since it looks like shit, I promise it didn't used to!"
"Renni! You can't swear in front of a goddess!" Sten scolds.
"Can so. What's she gonna do, kill me?"
"She's a goddess! She judges souls and, and--weaves fate and the like! She could do anything she wanted to you!"
"Ain't no fate no more. Bet she's happy to have some of her time back."
"Renni!"
The ghosts of Sten and Rennet fall back into familiar bickering patter, a bittersweet remnant of the home that you've lost.
”Hmmm,” says Garret, thinking. ”Perhaps the portal to the dead roads lies in the cemetery, but something malevolent waits there to waylay the wandering souls. If we could defeat whatever is blocking them, then perhaps the spirits will have a clear path to their eternal reward,” he muses aloud.
Ketra whispers to the others "I think it's more that their hard work caring for the square was undone. It's causing them enough torment that they're bound to this spot. I wonder if we cleared it up we could help them?" She looks around the destroyed square "Though that seems like quite the job. Maybe after we check everything else out first."
"The cemetery does does sound like it might hold some clues, but the Sagely is on the way, so lets stop there first." She heads over to reassure Sten and Rennet that the group will be back to help, and that they shouldn't worry too much. That things will be set right.
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”Fair enough, Ketra, let’s check out the inn first, then plan to head to the cemetery,” replies Garret, preparing to move on.
"Could we wait just a moment longer?" Sanduro limps over to the bones left where the corpse flower had sprouted, near the well. He crouches down and says a brief prayer to Pharasma over the remains before giving them a closer look.
Ketra hovers over Sanduro's shoulder, trying to learn what he's seeing in the bones. After all, if this happened to the two keepers of the square, it could have happened to other townspeople.
Sanduro finds the bones are brittle and crumbly, falling to dust and powder at all but the gentlest movements. The desiccation reminds him distinctly of death by negative energy damage--a lot of it, more than Sanduro has ever seen used--enough to effective flash-mummify a body and still erode as though it had been around for centuries. There is at least the consolation that death from such a massive surge of negative energy would have killed instantly and painlessly.
Interestingly (or perhaps disturbingly), the remnants of the crypt flower show signs of the the opposite--the tissue is lumpy in many places, reminiscent of the tumors riddling the mutated cattle at the Fallows farmstead. This is getting into purely theoretical magic, but healing texts and certain traditions associated with planar magic caution that too much positive energy can also be dangerous to mortal bodies, frequently causing unhealthy growth of flesh and organs or even spontaneous mutations. Worse still, even mutations that would otherwise be fatal may fail to kill the unfortunate victims, as lingering positive energy sustains their new existence for weeks or months after the fact. Sanduro has definitely never seen that before!
"Ketra, I think I know why we haven't found any bodies until now." He taps on a small bone fragment with a stick, causing it to disintegrate. "That explosion must have released an enormous amount of negative energy to do this kind of damage. But look at the tumors on the plant." He points again. "Just like the cattle. I'd almost think that what we experienced as one massive explosion was really two equally massive bursts, one of negative energy that affected people, the other of positive healing energy that overwhelmed plants and beasts. But that can't be right, either, because of the zombelk."
He stands up again, dusting bonedust from his hands. "We should bury them when we come back to clean up the square, but I know you want to get moving and I'm anxious to see more of the town. We should check the graveyard, too. But the inn first."
Ketra crouches down, wincing as Sanduro's touch is enough to turn the bones to dust. "Did that happen to us too?" She touches her own arm "We were in the same explosion." She shakes her head.
"Right, lets go, before I have to think too much about the metaphysics."
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Ketra crouches down, wincing as Sanduro's touch is enough to turn the bones to dust. "Did that happen to us too?" She touches her own arm "We were in the same explosion." She shakes her head.
"Right, lets go, before I have to think too much about the metaphysics."
Sanduro shrugs. "Something happened to us. We were standing right in front of the center of the explosion, so maybe we got a double dose - the negative energy and the positive energy, too. As long as we don't disintegrate or turn into mutants, I guess we came out ahead."
Sten and Rennet mumble their goodbyes but their attention seems to fade rapidly as you move away and they soon return to lamenting the state of the courtyard.
You leave the distraught spirits behind as you pick your way down the block towards the Sagely Goat, but it quickly becomes apparent that something strange is going on--the inn is as damaged and ramshackle as every other building you've seen, shingles and siding warped, window shutter and sign blown clean off--but a bright blue-white light shines out of every window and crack, and the boisterous sounds of merriment can be heard from within. Familiar voices laughing, cheering, and toasting, and even flickers of movement rendering vague and indistince by the bright light suffusing the interior.
Ketra pinches the bridge of her nose and closes her eyes as she sees and hears the inn. She's quiet for a few long moments, remembering the way things used to be. Then her eyes snap open and she says "Time to find out what exactly is haunting the Sagely, huh?"
She circles the building and looks in the windows to see if she can spot anything other than indistinct light, or hear anything other than phantom sounds.
After staring worriedly at the glow coming from the inn, Sanduro nods in sympathy. "Zsofia can check it out first in her incorporeal form, if you'd like."
"If we can't work anything out from the outside, that might be the right move... though I'm not sure if its safe for Zsofia in all that light. It could be hiding anything..." Ketra wrinkles her nose.
Garret follows along quietly, still thinking about the diary he has found, but resisting reading it while they were in a dangerous situation.
Circling the tavern, Ketra's heart aches to see that despite the bright light blurring the details the building is in as bad of shape as any she's seen so far. The back near the kitchens has collapsed entirely, the roof and remaining walls there sagging ominously, though it doesn't seem in danger of immediate collapse to her untrained eye. As she completes the circuit the voices within take up a bawdy drinking song and more-or-less rhythmic stomping begins to mark time.
Steeling yourselves as best you can, you push open the doors to behold the mostly lively party the Sagely Goat has even played host too. Sourceless, omnipresent blue-white light blurs the room's furniture into vague outlines, but the outlines of somewhere between a dozen and a score of humanoid figures are clear. Several are crowded by the bar, swinging ghostly tankards and stomping their feet drunkenly to the bead. Others have leapt onto the tables, spinning arm in arm while still more pound fists on tables.
There once was a robin who lived in the West
He discovered a very strange egg in his nest
He turned to his wife with an angry remark
She said, "Don't get ruffled, I did it just for a lark.
Toorala, tooralay!
A rolling stone gathers no moss, so they say
Sing along, learn the words
It's a wonderful song but it's all for the birds.
A figure sweeps out of the ruined kitchen, translucent bluish form carrying a ghostly tray laden with equally insubstantial tankards and platters, which the figure passes out with a harrier air. As it draws near, the figure resolves into Darcy Driscoll, looking frazzled and chewing her lip the way she always does when she's focusing. She almost bumps into Ketra but notices her in time to stop short, expresses at first puzzled then then elated and irritated in equal proportion.
"For feck's sake, Ketra, finally! Grab a tray and give me a hand if you're not too busy dancing, I've never seen a Remembrance Day so, haha, lively!" She barks out a high, sharp laugh and moves off towards the next cluster of spirits.
Ketra hugs her arms together, both elated by the joy in the Sagely Goat and nauseated by her knowledge that it's all an insubstantial mockery of the lives of the people that are now dead. The appearance of Darcy in front of her almost seems like a continuation of the same twisted illusion, until Ketra remembers that Darcy was missing among the people at the mirrored Roslar's Coffer in the Boneyard. She reaches out for her sister, hoping desperately that her hand reaches a solid shoulder.
"Darcy?"
Sanduro and Zsofia walk in behind Ketra. The druid is saddened by the haunting reminder of the lively place and welcoming family that ran it, but still wary.
I've never seen a happy haunting before. What's really going on here?
Darcy steps back from Ketra's reaching hand, making an exasperated sound. "Ketra, I promise we can deal with whatever's bothering you, but look around! Half the town is here, and--and faerie nobles!" She gestures vaguely towards where the ceiling would be, but its not visible through the omnipresent light. "Da and Ailsa are--" Darcy cuts off, shaking her head. "Anyway, help or don't I guess."
These seem like unquiet spirits--ghosts, but weak ones. The raucous behavior isn't common in the stories of haunts and lingering spirits, but it's actually not at all uncommon for such entities to mimic the habits and behaviors they had in life--sometimes doggedly so, as a way of hiding from the awful truth of their own demise.
Not wanting to upset Darcy, but also unwilling to give up on the idea that Darcy might still be alive and trapped within this phantasm, Ketra fishes out a copper piece and lightly flicks it to hit Darcy's back... or pass through it.
"What's going on with Da and Alisa?"
Silvia stays close to Ketra, offering a watchful eye and a (hopefully) reassuring presence without overtly interfering.
Darcy rolls her eyes and swats at the copper as it flips through the air, passing cleanly through Darcy's hand to clatter to the floor at her feet. Darcy stops and stares at it for a beat, then turns and meets Ketra's eyes with a weak grin. "Missed," she whispers, then clears her throat. "Da and Ailsa must be at the graveyard, we're all going to picnic, remember? You...y-you, you brought me the basket..." The spectral Driscoll girl blinks rapidly, and her voice picks up in pitch and speed. "Aaannd then we came back here, because you forgot it! And it turns out the Goat was packed with all these people so we're going to take care of them!" She snatches up her tray and whirls back into the crowd as they take a collective deep breath and launch into another verse.
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"Right, I forgot it. It sure is crazy how the Sagely filled up so quickly, isn't it? I'll go get Da and Alisa so we can all tackle this together." Ketra smiles as bravely as she can at Darcy, then turns for the door.
All part of the illusion. The haunting. That meant... Darcy was dead after all. Wasn't it?
The last little bit of hope rolls about in Ketra's chest, throwing a tantrum, unwilling to die out in face of this damning evidence.
Ketra emerges from the inn and speaks up to the party, her voice at first catching in her throat before she continues "W-we need to settle the haunting here too. I won't be able to rest easy knowing that what's left of Darcy's trapped like this. Not to mention the rest of the patrons. Sandruo, do you have any idea what might help here? Something like what we're planning to do for Rennet and Sten?"
”I am still concerned that malignant presence in the graveyard may be blocking these poor souls from moving on,” says Garret, ”But there may also be a different way to put them to rest.”
”Shall we head to the epicenter of the explosion to see what clues we might find there?” he asks.
Sanduro hesitates. "Maybe? Gods, I hope so. Let's watch a little longer, maybe we can figure out what they need."
The druid stands in the shadows by the door and watches the spirits play out the roles they had in life. He doesn't know exactly what he's watching for, so he focuses on anything that seems to stand out - spirits who repeat themselves in words or movements, spirits who other spirits won't interact with, spirits who refuse to interact with others or who seem to know what's really going on, areas in the tavern where the spirits cluster, or areas that the spirits avoid.
Come on, Cofferites, or whatever you called yourselves. Show us what you need.
Sanduro walks among the heartily singing spirits, listening to scattered snippets of conversation as the first song ends but before the next has been started up. Even for bargoers their voices are too loud, their attention sliding right off of Sanduro as they determinedly look each other instead of the shattered pub around them.
In time, it comes to Sanduro that the Festival of Remembrance had also begun with a more lighthearted and celebratory tone--but as the evening wore on, the townfolk had intended to gather in somber reminiscence. There is a certain logic to the notion that the circle must be closed. The spirits of Roslar's Coffer celebrate to forget, but need to be guided to complete their own rituals of remembrance for those who've gone before...and now, themselves as well.
Ketra settles her heart as Sanduro watches the haunting inside the inn. When he comes out and explains her theory, she says "Finishing the Festival of Remembrance for them? We might be able to do that. But just like fixing the square, it won't be easy or quick." And trying to guide Darcy through something like that would be... tough. "Lets see the graveyard first, like Garret suggested."
"I agree." Sanduro turns reluctantly away from the tavern. "I hate to leave them like that, but if there's something in the cemetery disturbing the spirits of these people, we need to deal with it."
The graveyard looks no better than the rest of the town: overgrown and tumbledown, the fence ringing the small hill is a mess and the wrought iron gate thickly caked in rust as though it had been here a hundred years. Unlike the rest of the town though, the graveyard glows. A nimbus of white light suffuses the fence and everything within, steady and bright along the outer edge and dimming as it moves towards the crest of the hill, until it flickers and gutters like a candle in the wind just a few strides from Roslar's Tomb.
As you approach the gate, you feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand upright as a mote of light detaches from the nimbus limning the gate and slowly drifts towards you.
Turn back, living ones. An echoing, ethereal voice drifts towards you, neither masculine nor feminine--though filled with sadness. This is an ill-omened place now. A great crime was committed here, and now wickedness lurks within. Turn back.
The being before you is a Lar. Sometimes referred to as “watchsouls,” lares are subtle, benevolent spirits that prefer to spend their existence minding and protecting a specific location, be it a home, shrine, waterfall, or haunted tomb. Kind but aloof, lares watch over their wards, using their magic to protect those living there or to suppress buried evils. Yet where their homes are intruded upon or their charges imperiled, they prove frighteningly effective guardians, capable of dangerous magics or turning everything in their tiny dominions into living weapons.
”We were witnesses to this evil event, saved somehow to return from the dead roads and set this place aright. Describe what manner of wickedness lies within that we might destroy it and clear the way for the unfortunate souls to proceed to the Boneyard,” responds Garret.
Sanduro draws his bow, uncertain where to aim it, and prepares to activate his ghost hunter ability. He keeps quiet and nods to Zsofia.
"And what's your job?" Zsofia pipes up. "I mean, are you containing the wickedness?"
Ketra draws her weapons as well, not certain what to make of the first entity that doesn't just seem to be mutated, a haunt, or fleeing from the party. "We're quite familiar with the effects that great crime had. We had to claw our way back to this world thanks to it. Why do you want us to turn back? Because if its to protect us, we'll be the judge of that."
The mote bobs in response to the group's questions, speaking as its light brightens and dims slightly like a calm, steady heartbeat.
A strange claim, but this world has seen many strange things. Perhaps you speak truly. Yes, our light protects the fallen of this place from the monster within. An eater of souls and wearer of flesh who would feast upon all, body and spirit, if it could. It entered our demesne, and our power is sufficient to contain it here...though only just. We can sense the presence of beings nearby, living and unliving. Should this abomination break free of our grasp, they would all be in immortal peril.
”Thank you for the explanation. We were exposed to a powerful explosion of necrotic and radiant energy that wrought this devastation and cast us into the Boneyard, yet somehow we still live. What can you tell us about this explosion? How did it happen? Who is behind it? We saw the appearance of the one who triggered the bomb, though it was likely a disguise…We seek to clear the path for the souls here, send them to their eternal rest, then make VERY sure whomever did this is destroyed before they can repeat this devastation on anyone else’s hometown. Anything you can tell us about the combat capabilities of this foe you hold in check would be helpful also,” continues Garret, hopeful to get some more information before they go do battle with this mysterious foe.
A contemplative silence follows Garret's answer and additional questions. We have few answers for you, and even fewer you will find satisfactory. We know not those responsible, though there have been living things, moving furtively, coming and going. At first they gathered the unliving and took them away, but no longer. The...explosion...was magic on a scale we've not seen in millenia. Those were dark times. The mote falls silent again.
You seek to battle the abomination? We confess, our instinct is to forbid you--should you fail, it will consume you and perhaps gain the strength to escape us. But...we wish not to spend eternity locked in a battle of wills. This was a peaceful place not long ago, and we would see it so again. The mote has no visible features, but somehow you get the impression that it is studying you all.
Very well. The horror within is a crawling, ravenous chorus of hateful chewing things. It has dug up the consecrated dead and though denied their spirits it feasts upon flesh and bone, fashioning a body for itself. Though dreadful, it is but a shell--you must silence the chorus to end its evil. Sacred blessings and armaments of fire, frost, and storm will be necessary if you are to triumph.
"Thank you again. I can summon fire, thunder, and sacred energy, though I have not the ability to bless my companions' weapons with such power. Can you or those helping you bless my companions' weapons before we enter so they can be more potent against this evil creature?" asks Garret.
Our might is absorbed in contain the abomination, we can spare precious little--sufficient to give succor to only one amongst you. Who shall receive our blessing?
Sanduro nods. "I can bring plenty of lightning to bear as well, and a bit of fire. Like Garret, I prefer to work from a bit of distance. I think Ketra or Silvia would make better use of your boon than I would."
Zsofia opens her mouth as if to speak, but Sanduro claps a hand over it. Please don't argue. If you get hit hard enough, you go away for a day. If either of them get hit hard enough, they join you on the other side.
Zsofia pries Sanduro's hand from her ectoplasmic face.
"First, eww, when was the last time you washed that hand, boyo? Second, I was just going to ask our little glowing friend whether the eldritch abomination in the cemetery of the village of the dead might have any valuables on its person that would be up for grabs once it is beaten to an abominable eldritch pulp?"
"What in the world...?" Ketra absorbs the description with no argument, but plenty of questions that she expects this mote won't be able to answer. Still, she gives it a try "Is it some kind of undead monstrosity, or something else entirely? You said its feasting upon bodies to make itself a body." She also adds "And you mentioned we would need to silence the chorus. What does that mean exactly? Is it some kind of haunting? We've seen so many of those already."