Youwere you.
Phaed moves in, Inspires courage, and Guidances Tuco. No one can see whether she's crying under her mask.
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The translucent disc momentarily becomes opaque as the attic whisperer lunges toward Pavo with its open beak and then shatters. "Urgathoa's rusty scythe!" Pavo gasps as the creature draws out his strength with its bite. Fortunately, he manages to fend off its claws and whatever curse they bear.
He strikes back at the vulture-headed child and then prepares to step away once Tuco has struck. "Keep it moving around."
+
Tuco enters his stance, stands up and drops the hammer.
---
Tuco focuses and tries to slow his bleeding.
before raising his shield and striking twice more.
Shade sees that things are going less than perfectly, but has a perfect idea. "Desna, cleanse this place, and send this poor soul to her resting place."
The creature once again sobs and overwhelms Phaed's attempt to inspire her friends, countering her effect!
Pavo just manages to hit with his rapier!
Tuco flurries and hits with his last strike.
Shade harms the creature with the healing power of positive energy.
??? -39 hp
Shade
Pavo
Phaed
Tuco
Abella
Abella stays back, happy to not dive into the creature’s aura until absolutely necessary. ”My dear head shall take the lead for me for now.”
The head snaps at the other undead, then tries to rip and tear if its teeth connect.
Abella conjures a shield and flattens her profile against the wall so she makes a harder target.
Unfortunately, the head can't seem to connect on any of its attacks.
The sobbing creature steps and continues its attack on Pavo.
"The banquet... I'm so sorry..."
??? -46 hp
Shade
Pavo
Phaed
Tuco
Abella
You are very naughty to scare everyone with this made-up banquet!
Phaed scolds the creature and glares at it.
She then blasts it with 2 magic missiles.
Tuco tries to speak " "
and then narrows his eyes as raises his shield, steps up and attacks.
Pavo jumps onto the bed and strikes the creature with his rapier. Phaed blasts it with magic missiles, and Tuco lands a punch in the face, taking the creature down!
With a final sob, it collapses into a pile of bones and moldy clothes.
Searching through the room you find writing and poetry by a young Anitoli Nostraema, who might have blossomed into a remarkable voice had he survived to adulthood.
The items on the floor lie in the approximate position of the strange spiral poem on the ceiling of area below.
"And, again, we see the influence of the Lady of Graves." Shade points out the spirals, as he takes the time to try and read the poem on the ceiling. "How would the child have written this on his ceiling, at least in life?"
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Tuco adds " "
and then scowls.
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from underneath my bed?
Will I keep on dreaming
even after I’m dead?
Every time I waken
the nightmare fades away.
But now my mother’s taken;
she left me here to stay.
I thought you were a monster,
turns out you’re so much worse.
You called in an imposter
From beyond the universe.
Now Tchekuth is impending,
was that always your plan?
Did you begin this ending
to sate the Ashen Man?
So now no one is sleeping,
I wait under my bed.
And I’m no longer dreaming,
because I’m finally dead.
You open the two remaining doors in this end of the east wing, as the rooms were quiet when Pavo listened.
The first door opens to an unremarkable spare bedroom, layered with dust.
The second door also opens onto a bedroom, but this room is in a state of disarray, with books torn from shelves and furniture ripped apart. A writing desk has its drawers pulled out and upended.
On the floor is a torn drawing of a child and his mother.
Phaed holds the child's drawing. So sad. She is already writing the tragic play in her head.
Phaed will shut herself in the room, light a dim candle, and piece together the notes and journals all alone
She feels so comfortable and safe wherever she goes.
That night, she confronts Iosef in her dreams…
The mess bothers Shade for some reason, and he spends the next few hours straightening things up... after making sure everyone is healed up, of course!
After an hour Tuco's voice returns "Bleh, lets finish tidying up up and then think about some research before we encounter whatever next horrible thing is in here."
Several of you work together to straighten and organize Fulvia's room, allowing you to use her journals and writing for research.
Pavo, exhausted, settles into the secret study to read about the dominion of the Black and learns that their interest in Golarion isn’t new, but recently, the Dominion has become more active.
Unfortunately, he's not able to find anything about the Ashen Man.
Pavo sleeps and focuses his mind on Tchekuth. He dreams of the observatory at the top of the manor where many insect like arms are reaching through a smooth, star-filled surface. But the arms are not reaching out for Pavo, they are reaching for Ioseff, who is calling forth the creature with a strange ritual. There is a fight for control, and Ioseff fends the creature off, but staggers back, suffering from some powerful spell. He stumbles, fleeing, weak and bleeding, down a dark flight of stairs.
Pavo wakes with the feeling that some thing in the observatory prevented Ioseff from succeeding at whatever he was intending to do.
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Phaed retires to her master bedroom where she reads until her candle goes out, and then she sleeps and dreams, while an ectoplasmic orb silently rises beside the bed and watches.
Phaed dreams of the crack of a gavel. Of Ioseff smiling as he acquires even more obscure books at auction. Of Asethanna shouting, waving invoices and bills, as more tomes arrive, and strange occult objects. And star charts. And bill collectors seek an audience. And a beautiful half-elven woman smiles as Ioseff shows her a telescope. The lust in her eyes as Ioseff, so happy, gestures for her to go ahead and take a look through the eye-piece. And the paint chips on the walls, and servants leave, and the children are hungry, and still more books and bills arrive.
Abella pours over Fulvia's work and finds a scholarly essay written by Fulvia titled [/i]Nihilism’s Sacred Garrote[/i], but unfortunately Abella isn't able to fully understand it.
That night Abella focuses her thoughts on Fulvia, trying to understand Fulvia's theories. She dreams of the Sinkomakti School in Ustalav, and a young half-elvan woman peering through telescopes and taking notes, writing letters and giving lectures, moving through intellectual circles, trying to attract the attention of the great thinkers of her day, until finally, she shakes hands with the Paracount, Ioseff Xarwin, a curious gleam in his eye.
Shade again dreams of the scope that is his obsession.
Unfortunately Shade isn't quite able to focus his mind enough after the days events to dream about the Starless Scope.
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"There might be something in the observatory that is a clue to the what Ioseff was trying to accomplish. I just can't tell if he started trying to pull things through from the Dark Tapestry before or after he opened that crypt in the woods," Pavo hypothesizes at breakfast with the others. Listening to the other's dreams and revelations, he makes a connection, "So this half-elven woman, Fulvia, has some interest in the stars--or the space between the stars, more likely--seduces or is seduced by Ioseff, the two become obsessed with their occult studies, and the whole family falls apart, the adults becoming increasingly selfish and self-centered, culminating in part with Ioseff's wife chopping off his hand. I wonder if the first meeting with Fulvia happened before or after Ioseff encountered the evil in the crypt."
Ezramalkun listens with interest and chats eagerly about the manor.
"So much drama and deceit in this house. I knew there must be a reason these spirits have been unable to move on. I'm so glad I chose this assignment. You've done good work as well."
She looks toward the kitchen windows and sure enough, more psychopomps have returned to sit on the iron fence outside.
"But still, powerful manifestations linger in this place, and I hear the cries of the bad birds up above, and those monster dogs below."
She glances toward Phaed and Tuco, as if she can sense the malevolence upon them.
"How are the two of you feeling?"
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I have never felt better in my whole life. Ever since the incident at Chelaxian finishing school, people have shunned me. I've longed to put down roots and find a place to truly call home. I'll never leave now that I've found it. She strokes the kitchen wall fondly. Never…
Tuco shakes his head "Not well, the pressure in my head feels more every day than the one before it."
Ezramalkun nods in understanding.
"The presence has a strange pull. I too don't want to ever leave, yet it is my mission to end this malevolence. Take care as you continue, I fear the worst is yet to come."
The nosois sing on the iron fence and from the second floor the brain clock chimes eight.
Phaed makes her way to the unexplored door.
Pavo listens, but doesn't hear anything, so he opens the door.
This long room contains a few high-backed chairs, which allows one to sit in comfort while gazing out through the wall of dusty, grime-encrusted windows to the north.
”we should go to the observatory. I am sure the Scope is up there. Would only make sense, right?”
Abella cleans the spot with her prestidigitation cantrip, not wanting to bother with touching it. She looks out over the forest. ”Observatories tend to draw the Dark Tapestry. All that looking at the space between stars never ends well. Best keep an eye out for anything with more tentacles than faces. I am thankfully up on my Aklo.”
"But it is the logical place for the rest of the Starless Scope to be." says Shade. "However, I wonder, what are the places between the stars?
"You should not worry so, Pavo. You know that Desna loves you, and will keep you healthy."
Abella cleans away some of the grime and peers out of the window.
From this vantage point she can see into the clearing in the forest where the cosmic crypt sits.
Ioseff stands before the central pillar of the crypt and does something to manipulate the front of the structure. A moment later, the pillar’s front opens like a door. He steps into the darkness within and then the door closes, but not before he glances up at the window, as if he notices Abella watching him!
”Ah he does a thing with the central crypt pillar and it opens like a door. I wish all thanergetic ego manifestations were so useful!”
Puzzling over Ioseff's appearance outside of the cosmic crypt, you make your way up the stairs to the manor's third floor.
Dozens of crushed bird skeletons and drifts of feathers lay strewn over the floor of this upper hall. Glass display cases featuring feathers, preserved insects, and framed documents (various certificates of accomplishment for the twins) adorn the walls.
To the south, two semicircular tables, each set against the walls, feature an exquisitely crafted miniature building, while benches along the opposite walls are covered with more feathers and bird bones.
There are doors to the east and west, and double doors to the north.
Outside, a wooden walkway surrounds the central portion of the manor and looks out over the building’s rooftops to the east and west, and to the manor grounds beyond.
Tuco nods to Shade "That does seem like the place. but what is going on here? Why is everything so horrible."
Tuco sits in one of the high backed chairs and works to regain his composure.
Phaed looks at the table. Some kind of fantastical dollhouse.
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"Some of these birth feathers look like they come from Garund," Pavo mentions. "Several other feathers and the insects are local. The dollhouses are replicas. This one is Thrune Manor in Egorian, which I recognize, and the other looks like a drawing of Bhaltvrest Hall--the observatory is very unique--at the Sinkomakti School where Fulvia, Ioseff's lover, studied and lectured."
”Oh so it’s some Chelaxian thing. Who would have guessed.” She walks over to check out the walkway.
”The feathers are from local birds, and the bugs are also local. Definitely not from Garund, Pavo.
“You are right about the buildings. ”
The countless bones and feathers on the floor churn into the air in a clattering swarm of partially reconstructed skeletal birds, whose mournful song fills the area as surely as do their slashing beaks and talons!
The overwhelming cries of what sounds like thousands of whippoorwills fills the area.
Success: As critical success, but the locate effect only lasts 10 minutes. The creature takes 2d8 mental damage from overwhelming feelings of sadness and despair.
Failure: The creature takes 4d8 mental damage from overwhelming feelings of sadness and despair.
Critical Failure: The creature takes 6d8 mental damage from overwhelming feelings of sadness and despair, and as long as the haunt remains active and they remain in the area, the character is slowed 1 as they’re forced to do nothing but sob for one action every round.
The churning vortex of beaks and bones takes action, clawing and pecking at every creature in the area!
Carrion Vortex
Pavo
Shade
Phaed
Tuco
Abella