The reference to Imperia’s brutal murder of the rusalka long ago gives the fey pause. ”Syriella...” They eye you warily as they cross the room to the balcony. ”You may pass. But beware near the river, or I shall dance you to your death!” The fey plunges into the water and disappears.
"You could try." Maximus mutters, but despite his words he doesn't really care about the fey one way or another and simply marches on to the next door.
You pass through the door into a chamber paneled in green-painted wood and furnished like a conservatory. It has large windows of thick, green glass and several potted plants.
Three Gray Gardeners have taken Otvald here for interrogation. They’ve yanked one of the potted shrubs free and stuffed the magistrate into the potting soil headfirst. His hands are tied behind his back. As he chokes and coughs on the moist dirt, the interrogators pull him out to ask questions about his past cases and his allies before shoving him back into the dirt. The magistrate is now red-faced and weak, his fine clothes ruined with dirt and spittle.
When they see you, the Gray Gardeners drop Otvald unceremoniously on the ground, draw their weapons, and attack!
Before entering the room Max takes a moment to infuse his aunt with Heroism. Once in he growls and sends a plant pot flying towards the nearest gardener.
Jordanna focuses the ire from her hag mother into potent magic and curses one of the Gray Gardeners, warping her mind and confusing the woman!
The other two Gardeners take a moment to mark Jordanna for death, slathering poison on their kukris. The confused woman slashes at one of her allies, landing one hit.
Max throws more flower pots!
Jordanna flanks with the confused Gray Gardener, raking one of the other foes' eyes and tearing at his neck with her teeth! You bash the same foe with a hurled flower pot, knocking him out!
The other Gardener makes a few choice gestures to distract Jordanna before moving in to strike. He lands a good hit.
The confused woman attacks that Gardener, scoring two critical hits!
Max nods in approval at their temporary pawn and then removes the High Magistrate from danger by throwing his flowerpot at the remaining gardener.
Striking them down with plant pots appeals to a poetic part of his soul...
Jordanna growls as she bites the Gardener repeatedly, then another flying pot smashes into his head to take him out. The final, confused foe cannot do much to fend off your attacks, and soon she is down as well.
You move over to Otvald and clear the dirt from his throat before he suffocates. He coughs and splutters, thanking you for your help. "I would have died if not for you. I am in your debt. While I was being tortured, one of the Gray Gardeners' director generals came in to speak to my tormentors. I overheard her asking whether anyone had been seen on the stairs nearest Silent Lenore. When the assassins said they’d seen no one there, she reiterated that they should keep a discreet eye on it when they return, as no one is to access that stairwell or else things might not go as planned during the Midnight Unmasking."
The Crown Prince smirks to himself but avoids saying anything on the subject. "Well I recommend you make yourself scarce High Magistrate, since you seem to be no longer welcome here. I trust you will remember this evening and be suitably grateful when the time comes."
Otvald nods and scurries off. Jordanna patches up her minor wounds and you return to the masque.
Nothing more happens until 11 P.M. Director General Yasmeena Pont clears the dance floor near the musicians. She directs servants to set up posts with red streamers that mark out a large area of the ballroom floor. She then holds up her hand for quiet before beginning a strange performance.
Once the last waist-high pole has been placed to mark out an empty area on the ballroom floor, the gaunt, redheaded host signals for quiet. She’s now wearing a mask with a simple frown, rather than a smile. “The Gray Gardeners have been part of Galt’s history from the beginning, and shall be there to cultivate its end. Let us entertain you with the Pageant of Galtan History.”
The woman makes a grand motion, and dozens of featureless clay automatons march onto the stage. The woman recites, “Lo, ’tis a gala night, in the lonesome latter years!” and the automatons mimic the motions of farmers, tailors, soldiers, prisoners, and more. The automatons mimic everyday tasks the people of Galt might engage in before running in circles, one at a time, and then together.
"An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.
"Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly—
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Wo!
The automatons mimic moving around something large and heavy...
"That motley drama—oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.
The automatons whirl and dance closely, as though moving through each other, like some sort of spirit or spectral being...
"But see, amid the mimic rout,
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.
The automatons writhe about as if being eaten alive!
"Out—out are the lights—out all!
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
In unison, the automatons mimic fainting, falling, and lying still.
"While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, 'Man,'
And its hero, the Conqueror Worm."
It’s clear that the partygoers are confused by the pageant and its poem, but they give polite applause at energetic parts and gasp when the automatons fall down. After the pageant, the automatons march out of the ballroom, taking the streamer-bedecked poles with them, and the masque resumes.
"They really are trying to build up anticipation aren't they?" Maximus says quietly to Jordanna. "No doubt the sakhils will enjoy the fear it generates. Still we have little time until the climactic event, let us investigate the surrounding rooms and see if there are any waiting forces that we might distract or delay."
You skulk about the surrounding rooms unnoticed by any guards. Unfortunately, there not very much for you to find. The rest of the monastery seems deserted other than a few busy servants and intimidating-looking guards. There are several offices, monastic cells, kitchens, meeting halls, training rooms, and so forth, but none hold anything incriminating. The offices do hold lengthy lists of Litran's citizens and suspiciously comprehensive summations of the citizens' daily activities, though...
As midnight approaches, you return to the ballroom. Anticipation is heightening for the big Unmasking. If there's anything you'd like to do to prepare for it, now is the time...
Maximus takes his time to read the lists, checking the names against those whose activities he can personally verify. He is curious as to whether the information is magically compiled or simply the result of a lot of informants.
With only a couple of minutes to midnight he renews the heroism spell on Jordanna and wards himself with Mage Armor, just in case things go badly. Which they most assuredly will.
When the great clock approaches midnight, the excited partygoers begin to count down the seconds. Everyone reaches up to take hold of their masks in the final seconds, ready to unmask and look around the room.
A cheer erupts from the crowd as the great black clock strikes midnight. Nearly everyone in the crowd yanks off their masks at once, throwing them to the floor or into the air and looking around the room with naked curiosity. Several people—perhaps a dozen—lower their hands without removing their masks. The two hosts cry out in unison, “Now you see who among us are the Gray Gardeners—and who are the dead!”
The final blade Silent Lenor shudders, and a cluster of spectral forms rush from it, shrieking in a soul-curdling rage and coalescing into a massive ghostly form! The spectral mass begins attacking nearby partygoers with its flailing touch, sapping their life away!
Maximus, since he isn't a fool, doesn't remove his mask which proves to be a wise decision. With a few gestures and funnelling all the anger he feels at this entire charade he reaches out with telekinesis and begins ripping the Gardeners apart from the inside out.
The redheaded host gasps as your spell starts to crush her, but she resists some of its effects. Jordanna grabs some vials to whip up several ghost charges, hurling them towards the gray death's central mass. Unfortunately, she only manages to splash it a few times.
Still, it's enough to get the thing's attention. It reaches out across the room, flailing at both you and your aunt.
The Gray Gardeners do not join in the fight, instead focusing on blocking the main exits and killing anyone who gets close so that the panicked partygoers have nowhere to escape. Several of them are beginning to stumble and fall as the gray death's aura saps their life force.
Maximus resists the chill of death pulling at his core before unleashing a burst of spiritual energy to blast through the creature.
Jordanna resists the soul sucking touch as well. She hurls more bombs, scoring two solid hits and enfeebling the spirit!
The gray death resists some of your spirit blast, but as you focus your concentration on the other host, the stocky man screams in agony as his body is crushed inside of itself. He dies instantly, bones shattering and organs exploding as he is crushed into a gruesome, compact ball! Several members of the crowd flee through the door he was guarding.
The spirit continues to grab at you with its draining touch.
Feeling his muscles stiffen Maximus unleashes the power of his mind and lets his mental powers hurl him backwards, away from the monster.
Jordanna continues to rely on her ghost charges, her best offense against the spectral creature. Two more of her bombs strike, one a critical hit!
As more and more of the partygoers have their souls bleed out of them, the remaining Gray Gardeners flee the scene, leaving you alone with the gray death. It focuses its ire on Jordanna, attacking the changeling repeatedly and scoring two hits!
With imminent death less of a concern Maximus ponders a moment, letting his implosion spell lapse, before firing off a rapid barrage of tiny force missiles.
Your magic missiles tear into the gray death, and with a final pained shriek, the horrid mass of spirits dissipates. Several partygoers lie dead around the room, but many more were able to escape since you defeated the undead in a relatively short amount of time.
The great black clock gives a single deep chime, though it’s far too early for the next hour. The face of the clock creaks and explodes outward. Behind it, a titanic, pinkish worm uncoils and spills onto the blood-soaked floor with a squelch. As it raises its head, a psychic pressure—like a mental knot of paranoia and tension—washes across the room. In a deep, telepathic voice, it bellows, “Let all of Galt know the same death.”
The worm focuses its psychic might upon Silent Lenore, and you realize it is attempting to use the guillotine's connection to the other final blades throughout Galt and release the gray deaths within them all at once. Instead, thanks you sabotage efforts, Silent Lenore buckles under the weight of the psychic efforts, shattering instantly into wooden splinters and metal shards!
Ignoring your presence, the massive worm slithers beneath the hole in the ceiling and looks up to identify why the occult network has failed. The worm is more than 80 feet long, so it can raise its head nearly to the ceiling...
"Some psychopomps would be very useful right now!" Maximus yells, unsure if Nebillet is still anywhere near by, but maybe the gods are listening? Thankfully the psychic network is broken, and should now be inoperable thanks to destruction of Silent Lenore.
"Can we actually kill that thing?" He asks Jordanna, who has taken much more of a beating than him. "I might be able to drop the castle on it, but..."
The issues with such a plan are obvious.
”If it bleeds, we can kill it,” Jordanna declares, wiping some blood from her mouth.
Fortunately, the massive worm doesn’t seem interested in sticking around. After examining the deactivated runes, the creature teleports away. You are alone in the ballroom, surrounded by corpses and the shattered remnants of the guillotine.
After a moment, the greater nosoi charm that Nellibet gave you twitters and then speaks with the zealot’s voice. He says that he has been exploring the monastery and found two entrances to the crypts about an hour ago. He took the southern entrance and encountered a powerful psychic pressure, but pressed on. He was accosted by a sahkil he hadn’t seen before, a compressed mass of flailing limbs that passed through a wall. Nellibet snatched away a piece of it and fled to undertake some study. But now, in the aftermath of the gray death attack, the people of Litran need his aid. He got what he’d come to the monastery for, anyway, so he doesn’t plan to return.
Nellibet describes the route to the crypts through the monastery, suggests that perhaps the north stairs might be safer than the south stairs, and wishes you luck. His last piece of advice is that you rest before venturing forth; the crypts are dangerous, and it’s best to go prepared for anything.
"Frankly it seems to me that the crypts can wait!" Max says. "The Gardeners have mostly fled and I have no fear of the rest, besides after this the mob will tear them to shreds! Let us retreat, rest as best we can and then return tomorrow."
As they leave he prepares and casts another sending, to Camilla Drannoch.
Gardeners revealed. Foiled their plan. Will finish them in the morning. Make your move by the afternoon. Silent Blades no longer linked.
Camilla replies: Well done. We shall put our plans into motion. Make sure the Gardeners are stopped for good!
The town of Litran is in disarray as you make it back to the inn. Chaos and confusion reigns as the survivors of the Gray Masque spread the story of what occurred. No Gray Gardeners arrive to silence them, though. Indeed, the Gardeners appear to be completely absent from the town.
You are able to rest without incident. Now is the time to take care of anything you might need to do before entering the crypts beneath the monastery...
The next morning Maximus fires off another Sending spell, to his mother this time. Trying to contact the Empress directly is risky, but he knows that his other mother spends her morning out of court so she is a much more reliable task.
"Mother, Gardeners falling. Drannoch will owe us. Request immediate status as ambassador from Mother. Move quickly and Galt is ours."
------------------------------------
Confident that his mothers will see the potential in the situation Maximus makes his preparations, ensures that Jordanna is better and then makes his way back to the monastery.
”Excellent work, Maximus. I will advise Her Infernal Majestrix. Put the final nail in the Gardeners’ coffin. Your mothers are proud.”
***
Jordanna is back at full health after mixing several potent restorative elixirs. She hands you another batch of the same alchemical items she gave you yesterday, the she consumes her mutagens to bulk up and assume her bestial countenance in preparation for battle.
You return to the Gray Monastery, meeting no resistance. You descend the stairs Nellibet mentioned leading to the crypts. Despite this staircase’s wideness, the air feels close with a distinctly ominous pressure. Grooves in the steps hint at the innumerable feet that have stepped upon them over many centuries. Old metal doors stand closed at the bottom of the stairs.
Maximus, glowing a little inside at his mother's affirmation, leads the way. He does however take time to scan his surroundings for signs of magic, although Jordanna gets the honor of dealing with doors (if he can't open them telekinetically first).
The door opens easily at a telekinetic touch. Weapons of every description hang on racks in alcoves along the north wall. A suit of black leather armor hangs on one of the racks, shadows pooling unnaturally around it.
Two Gray Gardener enforcers are at work here, ensuring the weapons appear in good order. When they see you, one of the enforcers intones, “You shouldn’t be here...” and the other finishes “...but you’ll never leave.” They heft their spiked chains and attack!
Maximus gestures sharply and assaults one of the men with the weapons on the wall.
"Surrender and I will let you live!"
Jordanna snarls as she moves in to attack the enforcer that Maximus slashed open. She rakes at his eyes and gut, her claws proving particularly effective at eviscerating him. But the rotten flesh and putrid fluids that splatter her indicate that these enforcers aren't fully human--they are mortics, half-dead and half-alive!
The enforcers move to flank Jordanna, attacking with spiked chains! The first one lashes her back twice, while the other one wraps the chain around her neck and begins to strangle the changeling!
Maximus in turn applies telekinetic missiles of all sorts to the strangling mortic, hoping to force him to loosen his grip!
The first enforcer actually misses due to the blood in his eyes, sparing Jordanna some pain. But even while being strangled, the changeling is not afraid to dish it out. Her demonic familiar bursts forth from the belly tattoo to harry her foe as she slashes with her claws. She spills the mortic's guts on the floor, and it keels over and collapses.
The remaining enforcer lashes Jordanna again, choking her with his chain.
Seeing that Jordanna has the matter relatively well in hand Max keeps pelting the remaining mortic with weaponry.
The weapon you hurl scores a critical hit, tearing through the mortic. Jordanna only lands one hit, though, and the enforcer responds with two more strikes. The changeling is seriously wounded but wont be falling anytime soon!
While the situation is becoming frustrating Max is too cool to waste any more powerful magic. He does unleash his mind though, flinging the next weapon with even greater force!
While your projectile comes up a bit short, Jordanna finishes ripping apart the mortic enforcer with her claws!
Each enforcer has a +2 greater striking spiked chain. The armor hanging here is gloomkeeper’s leather, a suit of +3 greater resilient greater invisibility greater shadow leather armor that conceals the wearer’s face in deep shadow at all times. The dozens of weapons hanging on the racks are all magical, but few have more than a +1 weapon potency rune or a striking rune; in total, they’re worth 2,000 gp. Two weapons are better: a greater flame tongue and a set of +3 major striking handwraps.
Jordanna downs a trio of healing elixirs, restoring her nearly to full health. She dons the new handwraps, quickly transferring her speed rune to them. "Nice," she says, flexing her claws.
Maximus 'confiscates the traitors weaponry on behalf of the empire', by stuffing it all into a large bag and hiding it in the corner, after offering Jordanna anything she might find useful. The downside of being a powerful psychic is of course that such treasures are utterly worthless to you.
With that done he looks around for a route onwards once his aunt has fixed herself up.
Doors to the north lead into a crypt. This wide space has a sinuous shape carved into the floor, like a serpent or a worm. Four metal doors along both the north and south walls each bear flat panels for nameplates, but rusty holes indicate that the nameplates have been removed. Some of the doors are open, revealing a small room that holds a large metal sarcophagus within each one.
There is a metal door to the east, but also a curious feature on the wall near it. Hundreds of carefully stacked bricks separated by thin sheets of mortar make up this wall. Written upon the brick wall in chalk are the words: “Bound in Spirit. Do Not Remove Until Torment is Complete.” Beneath the words is a complicated symbol made of chalk, powdered silver, and dried blood.
Max examines the symbol but cannot make much of it. "Hmm, it might be an enemy of the Gardeners," He muses out-loud. "But that does not make it a friend of ours. Best to leave it until we are done here and then perhaps release it as we leave."
Jordanna shrugs and gestures to the nearby doors to the south. The central walls between these burial vaults have been knocked down and the sarcophagi moved aside to create a living space. The middle of the room has a firepit, and a makeshift kitchen sits atop one of the sarcophagi. Bedrolls and blankets indicate that people live here among the dead.
Three Gray Gardeners are here, two lesser assassins and a tall woman with short curly hair and a commanding presence who wears a featureless clay mask. The Gray Gardeners sit in a circle around the firepit, which glows with a strange, blue flame. They aren’t doing much other than meditating and occasionally throwing more ritual salts into the fire, but you can't help but feel that the flame burns with some sinister purpose.
The trio doesn't immediately notice your quiet arrival...
Maximus retreats to cast a basic spell of magical detection and then returns quietly to the door to check the fire before doing anything... drastic.
You notice subtle magical signs around the fire. It seems whatever the Gray Gardeners are doing here supports some other, greater ritual nearby. There are also other groups providing ritual support as well. The main ritual seems to be designed to perform what was supposed to happen during the Midnight Unmasking--unleash all of the gray deaths within the final blades across Galt at once to ensure widespread chaos and slaughter!
There are 3 days remaining until the ritual is complete, but taking out each of the groups supporting the main ritual will slow things down. You'll have to find the source of the main ritual and put a stop to it too, though, or it will eventually succeed!