It is miserably appropriate that a light rain should fall as Alexi Alaro approaches her final destination. The single winding route she has been following into Ravounel's hinterlands has been difficult, boggy and rutted as it passes through terrain that looks more like something from the Boneyard than part of a young and vibrant nation recently freed from the shackles of tyranny.
All in all the rain, light but freezing cold and possessed of a strange ability to penetrate even the most carefully waterproofed cloak is simply the crowing jewel in a miserable week. The journey however appears to be at an end as a salt breeze parts the grey clouds above and reveals a small, dilapidated town near the cliffs - the long abandoned settlement of Crooked Cove and, standing on a small buff above it, a large and imposing manor house - the subject of Alexi's current employment, Xarwin Manor.
Another hour's travel should be enough to traverse the remaining distance, giving you a few hours of sun (or at least lighter clouds) before night settles in...
Alexi doffs the hood of her cloak, the dampness from the rain causing her long, blue-black hair to cling to her head and her ash-gray cheeks. The flickering light from her lantern pierces the gloom as she peers at the distant cliffside town. "Lady be praised, we're almost there. And not a moment too soon. I pray that the town is not completely abandoned. I would kill for a warm meal and a hot bath."
She feels a bit of pressure behind her temples, a sign that her sister has something to say. Alexi closes her eyes an concentrates, causing a glowing sigil to appear above her heart. A few moments later, the spectral form of Cathyriel appears beside her, sporting a matching sigil. The slim, dark-haired phantom puts her hands on her hips as she looks at Alexi with irritation.
"I'm sure between the two of us, the one who has an actual living body would enjoy those creature comforts more!" she says with a pout.
"Be grateful that you don't have to contend with sore muscles and chafing," Alexi counters. "And do I not deserve the opportunity to something for myself before I must begin the Lady's work once more?"
"Hmph. Ever the insufferable big brother, no matter what you might look like now," Cathyriel huffs.
"I love you too, sis," Alexi says. She touches the sigil over her heart, and Cathyriel fades away once more.
Adjusting the straps of her backpack and the position of the sword on her belt, Alexi lifts her lantern high as she proceeds...
Sadly Alexi's prayers fall on deaf ears as she finds the village, or what remains, to be completely deserted. The buildings are still of reasonably sturdy construction and seem to have been deliberately abandoned as they lack anything easily portable. There are however a number of beds, tables and even a rough bath to be found although water remains a problem.
It's not exactly comfortable but with a little effort Alexi could find the materials for a less uncomfortable night than she has passed before. In the twilight the lights of Xarwin Manor twinkle with the promise of real warmth...
"Ah, well. It is to be expected, I suppose," Alexi laments. "We'll find no rest for the weary here. To the task at hand, then."
The duskwalker proceeds to the cliffside manor.
The overgrown road comes to an end at a pair of rusty wrought-iron gates flanked by two stone pillars. Beyond, the faint lights illuminate a large clearing of tall, dry grass, at the center of which looms Xarwin Manor. The building’s roofline rises in the middle to a third level surrounded by a walkway, while the closed dome of what appears to be an observatory rises above. Slate shingles cover the steeply-slanted roofs below this central dome with more rusty ironwork adorning its eaves. The paint along the manor’s wooden walls has mostly peeled away, leaving behind a weathered building clad in creeping vines that looks like forgotten by the world. Even at a distance, the building’s facade seems unusually moist, as if it had just weathered torrential downpour despite the dryness of the surrounding grounds.
Alexi approaches the manor, shining her lantern's lights upon its weathered facade...
It is an easy matter for the duskwalker's sharp eyes to pick out the hundreds of small black birds sitting on the manor's roof. With her intimate knowledge of death Alexi immediately recognises them as whippoorwills - associated with psychopomps, death and Pharasma. Their behaviour is thoroughly unnatural and suggests some sort of lingering spirit must be nearby.
As she opens the gates and steps onto the grounds proper Alexi feels a sudden intense burst of hatred, followed by a tearing sensation in her chest as Cathyriel is propelled backwards from her. The tether between the two stretches painfully tight as the phantom screams in what sounds like genuine agony before the tether snaps back again and she hurtles back inside Alexi with a scream.
The duskwalker finds herself on her knees in the grass without any memory of actually moving. Surrounding her are hundreds of black corpses - the whippoorwills, all struck dead.
The lights in the manor's windows continue to twinkle pleasantly.
Alexi gasps and chokes at the sudden burst of malevolence washes over her. She takes several deep, steadying breaths as she rises unsteadily to her feet, gazing in dread at the dead whippoorwills littering the lawn. "Not this year, not yet," she whispers, a prayer to Pharasma to delay her own untimely death.
The thaumaturge puts her hand to her heart and concentrates as she allows Cathyriel to manifest beside her. The phantom's eyes are wide. "What the hell was that?"
"I am not certain," Alexi says, "but it can't be good. Stay by my side, sister. Let us face what lies ahead together."
The duskwalker draws her sword and holds her lantern higher as she approaches the doors.
The overgrown path leading from the front gate splits into a crossroads. To the north, the path leads to the manor’s front door, while to the east, it curls around the manor’s side. To the west, the path leads toward a collapsed building and an algae-choked pond before winding around the manor as well. The rotting trunk of a fallen oak tree lies across the crossroads, almost as if forming a barrier to those who would approach the manor—or perhaps to keep something within from traveling out...
As her lantern's light falls on the tree Alexi can see that the bark seems to ripple slightly, almost as though it has a pulse of its own.
Alexi frowns as she peers closer at the tree, trying to determine what dangers it may cause.
After a careful examination Alexi is reasonably certain that the log itself is genuinely dead - which means whatever is causing it to move probably lives inside it. That suggests something not supernatural in origin but rather some sort of creature or creatures, perhaps a large insect or a swarm of some sort... Most likely simply giving the tree a wide berth would avoid irritating whatever it may be.
"Mind your step," Alexi cautions Cathyriel. She stays far away from the tree as she continues across the courtyard.
Circling wide of the log reveals another winding trail, once perhaps a neat gravel path but now just a slightly less overgrown swath of dry grass, leads down to a roughly oval-shaped pool. Thick patches of reeds grow on the pool’s shores, and the water looks opaque with sheets of algae and lily pads, yet there’s no sign of insect or amphibian life. Near the pool’s center stands a five-foot-wide, mossy stone platform supporting a rusty iron sphere measuring about three feet across. Rotting wood pilings jut out from the water between this platform and the west shore, suggesting a footbridge might have once allowed access to the platform from land.
As Alexi's lantern light falls on the water a host of writhing tentacles emerge from the water and a horrid cacophony of voices cries of “Tchekuth! Tchekuth!” in eerie chorus. Despite this the monsterous thing makes no move to attack. Yet.
Alexi recognizes the significance of the star pond. She wonders what insights might be gleaned by reenacting the device's show, but before she gets too close, the tentacles emerge from the water! The thaumaturge shines her lantern on the creature as she recognizes it, but not the name it is crying.
Alexi recognises the tentacles as belonging to a gibbering mouther, although the name it's chanting reminds her of a bard in Kintargo - which seems rather strange all things considered.
Fortunately the mouther doesn't seem inclined to attack, although leaving it alone would prevent any investigation of the pool and the possibilities offered by light show.
Though she knows the monster is dangerous, Alexi cannot suffer the abomination to live, especially as it might be guarding valuable information. She sheathes her sword and tightens the straps around the blade before removing it from her belt, intending to use it as a bludgeoning implement.
"Steel your mind, sister. The gibbering may temporarily drive you insane," Alexi says.
"I've never suffered from insanity, brother. In fact, I've always quite enjoyed it," Cahtyriel replies cheekily.
Alexi sighs, then she raises her lantern high as she rushes at the mouther!
The mouther continues to gibber and writhe unconcernedly, leaving Alexi a chance to close the distance!
Alexi leaps at the creature, tracing arcane patterns with her lantern as she brings the sheathed sword down on its quivering bulk!
The pond proves to be shallow and Alexi has no trouble closing in. Her strike lands with a thud and the creature gibbers wildly as mouth form across its body and lash out! Even more alarmingly Alexi feels the ground beneath her begin sucking her down! Fortunately she is able to avoid the biting teeth.
Alexi ignores the sinking feeling as she continues to swing, landing another solid thwack!
Her single blow is a good one and the creature's incessant chanting of "Tchekuth, Tchekuth!" is punctuated by squeals that sound like pain. The noise is maddening!
Gnashing and gnawing the creature latches on not once but twice!
As the monster chomps on Alexi, Cathyriel flashes with ectoplasmic energy and lashes out at it. Unfortunately, she misses with her strike. The phantom is then overwhelmed by the gibbering noises, but Alexi keeps her wits.
"Die, abomination!" she shouts as she attacks again.
As the heated battle rages on Alexi seems to be having the better of it, even without her sister's aid. The creature slithers backwards onto the iron platform in the pond and spits a gob of acid right at the duskwalkers face! It burns!
Alexi hisses in pain as the acid stings her eyes. Despite that, she staggers after the monster and continues her assault!
Alexi lands another blow and the monster bleeds strangely colored ichor which steams slightly in the night air. It still has fight left in it though and continues its biting attacks.
Cahtyriel recovers from her madness in time to miss with another strike. Alexi is barely on her feet at this point, but she is determined to bring the fight to an end with two heavy blows!
And end it she does! With a heavy blow the creature ceases writhing and the duskwalker continues to batter the body for some time more until each and every tentacle ceases to writhe and the monster is little more than a pulped mess.
Eventually Alexi pulls herself together and locates a hidden compartment inside the base of the platform. The hidden compartment contains a fine spyglass worth 80 gp and a glass lens wrapped in a purple silk handkerchief.
"Alexi!" Cathyriel cries as she floats over to the wounded duskwalker. After making sure the thaumaturge is still alive, she slaps her face gently. "You nearly died, you idiot!"
"But I didn't, did I?" Alexi says with a wan smile.
"Hmph! I'd think that after the first time you died, you wouldn't be so eager to do it again."
"I'm fine, Cathy. Part of the job."
The duskwalker sits down heavily and pulls out her healer's kit, taking time to bind her wounds and patch herself up.
After nearly an hour, Alexi is feeling much better. She holds the spyglass and the strange lens and examines it.
"Looks fancy. Maybe we'll find something to put it in later."
She pockets the lens and holds forth her lantern as she continues exploring the manor grounds.
By now it is full dark - the last remnants of sunset are gone and the moon is looming over the sea like a huge eye, staring down on the manor house atop the cliff.
Pushing on past the pond Alexi heads around the house to find a ruin which must once have been a large stable, but today, the building has collapsed into a tangle of timbers and shingles, all overgrown with layers of blackberry vines.
As Alexi pokes around the ruins the full impact of the battle with the mouther and the feeling of her life slipping away roars full force into her mind. The chill of the Boneyard suffuses her bones for a moment, followed by a sense of relief as the memory suddenly pops like a soap bubble. Mere moments later Alexi finds herself standing in the middle of the ruined building, wondering what just happened. She can vaguely recall a bad memory of some sort but not what it was.
"I... what?" Alexi blinks and looks around, shining her lantern all about the building.
"Are you okay, brother? You look confused," Cahtyriel says worriedly.
"I don't know. Something is definitely amiss here," the duskwalker replies.
"That is the understatement of the century," the phantom observes.
Shaking her head against the fog of memory, Alexi continues her exploration.
Continuing to circle the building Alexi reaches a fork in the path - one goes towards the house itself but the other, far more overgrown seem to head away from the building and into a thick band of woods at the rear of the property.
Alexi does her best to follow the path, but woodsmanship was never her strong suit, and she quickly gets turned around.
"Bah! We'll come back later," she grumbles. She continues her sweep of the grounds. If there's nothing else to explore, she'll take the path to the rear of the manor house and look for a way in ("They'll be expecting us to come from the front!" she remarks to her sister.)
Approaching the house Alexi finds a line of grimy windows facing four
large portraits on the opposite wall. Each of these paintings presents a life-sized depiction of a different person: a teenaged boy carrying a crossbow in the woods; a teenaged girl building a dollhouse that looks like Xarwin Manor; a red-haired woman standing in a graveyard, carrying a
pair of matching crimson-handled woodcutter’s hatchets hanging from her belt straps, ravens swarming around her; and a stern-looking man holding a silver telescope in his hands as he looks up into the night sky.
The windows do not open but could easily be broken open if she is so inclined.
Alexi peers at the paintings, paying careful attention to the man with the telescope. "Maybe that's the scope in which the purple lens fits," she muses. "Well, not going to find anything more about it standing out here."
She spots a door to the west, so she moves there and tries to open it.
The next window proves to lead into a kitchen and, even better, the window has already been broken. Squeezing through is a bit tricky but Alexi manages it and finds herself in an extremely large and impressive kitchen. It has several counters and tables, along with cabinets and shelving on the walls that afford places to store utensils, pots, and pans. However, someone has taken these tools and arranged them in strange patterns throughout the room—lines of forks and spoons spelling out nonsense words, pans and pots balanced together or stacked in towers, knives jabbed into the wooden floor or the four oak tables, and so on. The fireplace to the north has a large cauldron and grill for cooking. A human skeleton lies sprawled over one of the tables in the middle of the room, a gleaming rapier clutched in one of its hands.
After a couple of minutes searching and poking around a voice speaks from one of the dark corners.
"What are you doing in my kitchen?"
"Oh, my apologies! I didn't know it belonged to you!" Alexi says. She sweeps her lantern's light towards the voice, trying to locate its source.
Despite a valiant effort to track down the source of the voice the best Alexi can do is focus on one corner of the room where the voice must be.
"That's alright. I've been dead a long time so maybe it isn't my kitchen really." The voice says reasonably, and then adds in a more aggressive tone, "But I live here, so the whole house is mine really isn't it? My home!"
There's a pause and then the polite version of the spirit seemingly returns. "What are you doing here? It's been a long time since I had visitors."
"I am here investigating the story of your wonderful home," Alexi says pleasantly. "I would love to learn anything you could tell me about yourself or this place."
The spirit remains quiet for a moment.
"Well... I don't remember much. I've lived here forever. But some time ago that man came and tried to steal things! I fought him off and then he fell and hit his head. Hey..." The other tone creeps into its voice. "How do I know you're not a thief like him? What are you really doing here?"
”I can promise you that I am not a thief,” Alexi says. ”I have come on a sacred quest to put right the wrongs of the past. If there is trauma here, then I will heal it, and restore the balance. You can trust me to do what is right.”
The spirit seems to chew that over for a short while before a small bird with a leather hood suddenly appears in the corner - a nosoi psychopomp!
"I'd be ever so grateful if you can drive the nasty spirits out my house!" It chirps, "They're such terrible neighbours. There are some bad birds upstairs and nasty dogs underneath the kitchen somewhere, you should make sure you get rid of them both! There's lots of bad energy around here - like there."
The bird jerks towards an unremarkable wall next to the fire and it takes Alexi a minute or two of searching before she finds what the nosoi must have known already, a secret door!
Alexi smiles widely when the nosoi reveals themself. She makes the spiral of Pharasma over her heart. "Of course, honored one. I am always happy to help a psychopomp in need!"
Behind her, Cahtyriel rolls her eyes. "You've got a bit of brown on your nose there, brother," she remarks.
Alexi gives the phantom a look before turning back to the secret door. "Let's see what's through here first, then." She moves to open the door.
As Alexi steps over the body on the floor she notices that the man's weapon, a rapier with a familiar rune inscribed on it, seems to be in perfectly good (if somewhat dusty) condition.
The secret door opens to some strategic pushing to reveal another dust-caked room full of musty and dry air. The northeast corner has a chair and small writing table with a hooded lantern resting atop a small stack of papers. A second chair to the south is placed near small a hole in the wall that narrows down to a peephole for undetected observation of the other side.
Slumped in the southern chair is a skeleton with a gaping hole in its skull as well as, more disturbingly, a hand drill grasped in one bony fist that appears to be the cause of the amateur trepanning.
"Yikes. Talk about a head case," Cathyriel says wryly.
"Ha, ha," Alexi replies mirthlessly. She shines the lantern light on the skeleton as she cautiously approaches to search it.
The skeleton doesn't move as Alexi bathes it in light but the moment she reaches for the drill it leaps from its seat screaming "I seen what ye did!”
The skeleton stabs at Alexi with its drill, driving the implement deep into her flesh!
Success: The target becomes disturbed at what Nils might have seen and becomes frightened 1.
Failure: As success, but the target is frightened 2.
Critical Failure: The target falls into a phantasmagoric nightmare state where time seems to slow down as they can think of nothing but running away, yet as fast as they try to flee, Nils can catch up with ease. The target is slowed 2 at the start of its next turn and fleeing until the end of its next turn.
"Ah! Wh-what? What did I do?" Alexi stammers, taken aback by the wild allegation. She winces as the drill pierces her arm.
The duskwalker stops to think, remembering just what to use to harm such a skeletal creature. Unfortunately, her strikes against it fail to hit, as does Cathyriel's retributive strike.
Alexi recognises the creature as some sort of unqiue skeletal champion with all the accompanying resistances and immunities. She might be able to use that information but the skeletal figure continues to scream, reminding Alexi that he knows of her trangressions as it stabs repeatedly with the hand-drill.
"Ow! Ow!" Alexi cries, swinging her sword at the skeleton! She manages one hit.
The skeleton lands only a single blow, but its supernaturally empowered drill bites deep into the duskwalker...