"Shall we?" she asks, nodding toward the secret door. "That seems likely to lead to something important."
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Daehalya motions to the secretive entrance and pulls it open. It leads to a hidden guard post of sorts. A door sits in an angled wall to the northeast of this room. The brick wall to the west looks much more recent in construction than the others in this room (other side of the hidden door you found.)
The angled door enters into a lounge area. The floor of this brick-walled room is covered in a thick red carpet. A low table flanked by wooden chairs sits in the middle of the room. To the east, a roll-top desk sits against a wall, while to the west sits a large overstuffed sofa. A fireplace to the north keeps the room pleasantly warm with a small, smokeless fire.
Alvarius detects magic coming from the fireplace. The fireplace is a minor magic item that constantly provides heat and light to the room, but the fire within cannot actually burn objects it touches.
"This is surprisingly nice. More than most of your cisterns that I've seen so far," Daehalya notes. "Was someone living down here? But who, and why? It doesn't make sense for Ritalson to stay here when he has the whole manor above, unless there's some reason we don't understand yet."
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Daehalya, You speak wisdom. Who would set up shop here? This local is close enough to Ritalson's actual bedroom and lounge in the manor. No need to have a lounge... here.
There is a roll top desk. Maybe you can check to see if it's trapped. Once checked, I'll use a keen eye and check out the desk and the sofa. Maybe there's copper or silver coins in between the sofa cushions or folds. I once had a sofa like this. We called it the "Ever-eater" as it was so deep you felt like it was eating you. A guest slept on it one night, and the folds hid the blanket it was so deep. Yup. Ever-eater couch. One of my best possessions ever.
Nicky takes out the magnifying glass. With a look at the room trying to find clues. Under the rug. Check the couch and the desk. If no clues are to be found, he'll recommend moving onto the next room- through the southeastern door.
Daehalya is happy to help Nicky look.
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Inside the roll-top desk are four moderate elixirs of life wrapped in woolen cloth, and a set of telekinetic converters. In addition, dozens of sheets of paper and parchment sit on the desk, each bearing a detailed sketch by Etward, taken from one of his dreams. A few of the sketches are of saumen kar in arctic environments, and one is of six towering spires protruding from a ruined city in the snow (captioned as “Nameless Spires?”), but the rest are all of each of you in various situations all along your journey. There is no way that Etward was present for these but the amount of detail suggests he was somehow.
"Well that's a tad creepy. I'm guessing Etward has some sort of scrying device at his fingertips. Or he knows a ritual that allows him to see us from afar. Either way, that's something I'd like to get my hands on."
He lingers a bit on his own portrait. "Do I really look like that...?"
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Can you say -- VOYEURISM!
Dang! Etward kills his own allies, but not before spying on them with a dash of clairvoyance, and a dash of clairaudience. This guy gets creepier and creepier.
Also, the sketches look good and important. Didn't Sakuachi mention her grandmother and a person named Saumen Kar?
Let's grab these things and stuff them in a backpack. The spire pics could be important.
And Alvarius should grab these Telekinetic Converters. They seem right up his alley. Gloves that can help a skeleton in robes.
Let us move on. We have to check out more.
Nicky moves to the next room.
The catfolk reaches over his shoulder to feel the brand on the back of his neck. "Onye Dinta feels used," he says quietly as he follows Nicholo into the next room. "Onye Dinta agreed to investigate the missing moment for Etward, but Onye Dinta feels this scrying should have been disclosed."
"Don't be hasty," Daehalya admonishes. "We don't know what is happening. It certainly looks like Professor Ritalson is a villain of this piece, but we don't know if he is responsible for killing our fellow Gatewalkers. We certainly don't know if he is scrying -- we have had a number of shared dreams. Perhaps he has as well? Perhaps these drawings are his effort to determine what is happening."
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I am with Onye. I feel used.
We know that Professor Ritalson did a mind whammy on his own Grand Pubah House Servant. He also is a professor, and there was a gnarly surgery table. Two tables in fact - in the main room we entered in. All this other evidence might be circumstantial, but it is adding up.
Lastly, Daehalya talks about the shared dream. That is true, then why aren't these sketches of the dreams? They are the sketches of actual events. OUR events. OUR journey.
Daehalya is right, and has a clear head. We don't want to assume too much, but I'm leaning heavy on Etward having some explaining to do.
None-the-less. There's more to explore, and YES Alvarius, that is a decent likeness of you. Etward captured your boney side.
Nicky moves forward into another room.
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As you discuss the many strange occurences Nicky pushes into the basement library. A long and very full bookshelf runs along the east and south walls of this room. To the north is a glass cabinet displaying a white-furred monstrous costume along with a four-horned mask. To the west, a large map of the northern continent—the Crown of the World—hangs on the wall with what appears to be an expedition route tracked to the north pole. A single round table and a comfortable chair sit in the middle of the room.
The map is drawn on durable yeti-hide parchment that can weather cold temperatures.
You realize that they’ve seen this map—or a nearly identical one with a very similar route sketched out—at some point during their missing memories.
The books found here form an impressive collection on the topics of dreaming, Arctic travel and survival, the Erutaki and Ilverani peoples, and the occult mysteries of psychic power.
The costume on display in the cabinet is the same one as the creature you saw following you in your dreams. Always watching from the distance but would disappear as you got closer.
Alvarius shakes in a way suggestive of a shiver, though it's hard to tell with all the robes and bones. "Man, deja vu of the worst kind. But the map shows some location called Icegate. A proposed route though, not an actual one. A bunch of different waypoints, including a particularly interesting one that is a ruined temple to Findeladlara. Whoever wrote this thinks they left a yurt there, but somehow isn't sure. It's... odd. I'm sure I've seen this before. In my missing memories."
The skeleton shakes his head, then moves on to example the books. Once he realizes their worth he starts grabbing a few. "These are some useful reference books! Covers lots of stuff too. Dreaming, arctic travel, wilderness survival, that sort of stuff. Can't help but feel that whoever collected this stuff was in a similar boat to us, and somehow knew that they needed to make an expedition to the Crown of the World."
He doesn't pay the costume much mind in the end, though he does note that there's magic within the cloak and clothing and shares that detail with the others.
Daehalya's eyes linger on the temple to her goddess after Alvarius points it out, as she can't help but try to avoid looking at the mask.
"I know I have said not to rush to judgment, but ... this seems to add to the weight of evidence after Professor Ritalson. Though I still hold out hope he brought us together for good reasons and only began being controlled sometime later."
She finally brings herself to look at it.
"If we journey to the Crown of the World, we should bring that with us. It is remorseless -- as cold as ice -- for those who aren't used to or expecting the environment."
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Hey This costume is pretty cool. It's the depiction of a Saumen Kar.
Now, is there anything in these great reference books about Saumen Kar's, or yurts? I mean can a yurt even hold up against the vicious cold on the Crown?
We need to take all this stuff. It's exactly what we need, as we have to make an expedition to The Crown.
Daehalya will be returning home, and can greatly help us with staying warm.
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The group gathers the items as they head to the northern door. The walls of this room are adorned with tapestries depicting a frozen landscape, while the floor is covered with a thick white carpet. Metal incense burners resembling ibises with raised heads stand in the four corners of the room, while a single bed occupies the room’s center.
"You'd think I couldn't smell a thing, but I can tell you that the lingering incense you're catching is the type of stuff that folks use to encourage dreaming. Or to protect you while you are dreaming."
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Nicky looks at the occult stiff.
DC 25
Alvarius is right. Seems like this was the place he went to for dreaming or to invade our dreams.
I'd like to see how this white fur thing looks. You all mind if I try this on?
Nicky tries on the costume. He's especially looking to see if the costum shows the creature as super huge and giant -- or if the creature is man sized and so him trying it on means that it's a human sized fit.
Nicky also looks at the current room layout, and comments about the next room to move to.
I think south of us is a set of stairs. Or we can loop around to the summoning circle room and head east from there. Those waterways had a path we could follow.
"If only we could find for sure which one," Daehalya says, her frustrating mounting.
She nods as Nicky suggests the path forward, though her feet long to carry her back home to the Crown of the World. She can almost see Findeladlara leading the way as she had so long ago with her elven forebears.
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Nicky motions south just as the incense burners begin to smoke, filling the air with strangely nostalgic scents.
Without flame.
Without spark.
Each stick suddenly sizzles to life, trailing serpentine coils of thick, sweet-smelling smoke into the air. The room grows dense with fog-like vapor, and the frescoes above seem to ripple—faces contorting from sorrow to manic glee.
Those who fail begin to stagger. The smoke wraps around their heads like living tendrils, seeping into nostrils, mouths, eyes. Their vision distorts, the room vanishes...
They see things.
Their worst regrets, their lost loved ones turning against them, endless hallways filled with screaming voices they recognize but cannot name. Weapons feel heavier. Armor tightens like it's sinking into their skin. They’re being hunted—but by what, they can’t remember. Or maybe they can, and that's worse.
To the conscious observers—if any remain—the afflicted stand rigid, eyes wide, mouths open in silent screams, hands twitching as if warding off unseen foes.
Every minute spent within the room forces a new nightmare. The incense never burns away. The bowl cannot be touched. The door cannot be opened until the haunt is addressed—until the source of the torment is found.
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
Haunt
➤ Nicholo
➤ Onye
➤ Daehalya
➤ Alvarius
Falling unconscious, Daehalya slumps to the floor, insensate to the world around her.
To the amurrun who calls himself Onye Dinta's eyes alone, a female amurrun and three amurrun cubs emerge through tears in reality. They berate him for failing them, for not being there when the beast came hunting.
His training as a prowler at world's end prepared him for eldritch tricks such as these. His consciousness begins to note the incongruities.
With no flesh to prevent ingress, Alvarius immediately succumbs to the invasive smoke. He stands rigid, and he dreams.
A woman with mousy brown hair. A child, not more than seven years old. Their faces like mirrors, the resemblance uncanny. And they're both screaming...
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DC 32. Yes anotherr Crit Failure. Dicebot wants our whole team in delusions.
DC 26. Note, What does Expert next to the DC mean> I need to be an expert to even try the save?
Nicky sees a woman with hair of fire. He sees her screaming at him for being a lying bastard cheater. Her hand raises into the air and a small puff of flame gets hurled toward him. Striking him squarely in the chest. Tiefling flesh burning.
Nicky's mouth moves, with words to try and placate/supplicate.
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One by one you each slump to the floor in a very heavy dream-like state.
Your eyes snap open—but there is no light, only pale, shifting shadows. Wind howls like a chorus of grieving souls, rattling through your bones. You're waist-deep in snow, the cold slicing through your clothing like daggers, numbness already creeping into your fingers.
You try to stand—try—but the blizzard tears at you with clawed hands, pulling you sideways into drifts that seem bottomless. There is no up, no down, only white. A vast, merciless expanse of it.
Then—thud.
Footsteps. Not yours.
Something massive moves just beyond your vision, silhouettes blotting out the storm for a heartbeat at a time. Huge furred shapes with elongated limbs and glowing blue eyes peer through the veil of snow. Saumen Karr.
One of them charges.
You scream, you run—you fall. Snow fills your mouth. You scramble upright again only to find your own footprints have vanished. The wind has erased your passage like a cruel editor.
They come again. From behind this time. Another lunge. You feel the heavy thud of something striking you in the back. You hit the ground—but wake up again in the snow. It’s the same spot. The same howl. The same freezing air.
Every escape only leads to the start. Every kill does nothing—they reform in the storm, relentless and patient.
Your only compass is panic.
Eventually, you realize: the storm isn't outside you. It's inside. And the saumen kar? They know your name now. They're whispering it in the snow, over and over, until even you forget who you were before the frost took you.
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
Haunt
➤ Nicholo
➤ Onye
➤ Daehalya
➤ Alvarius
HP 81/83
AC 25 (+1 vs. traps), deny advantage, cold resistance 3
Fort +11, Ref +17, Will +12 (+1 vs. traps)
Hero Points: 1
Deviant backlash DC: 5
Effects:
Fear grips Daehalya for a moment -- she knows as well as anyone how deadly the cold can be and the dangers that lurk in the Crown of the World -- but only for a moment. For in truth, she is as much a native of that realm as the saumen kar. Findeladlara guided her people there, and she commended them to make it a home, and Findeladlara's people obeyed.
She is not foolhardy when it comes to the frozen north, but also she is not afraid. It's stark barrenness defines beauty for her, and the chil braces her against the threats that come from the too-hot south. The north sheltered the Ilverani, but it also inured them to the threats that are there.
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The juxtaposition is not lost on Nicky. One second, he is dealing with a blistering blast of fire to his chest by an angry girlfriend (Fia). A woman that is part fire race- an Ifrit. A passionate woman and a fiery being in multiple ways.
THEN the cold.
He is bewildered. The situation turns bad, and this is now life or death.
DC 28
DC 32
Nicky takes the brutal punishment. As if a part of him thinks he deserves it. He deserves to feel harsh, cold, and bitter pain for what betraying Fia's trust.
But part of Nicky's mind screams out that the truth of the matter. Nicky never cheated. He never did anything. The argument with Fia didn't go that way. Fia laughed at his flirtations with another woman.
Nicky doesn't know what is real and what isn't. He just hears his name spoken by the saumen kar. They say:
Nicholo
Nicky
Mr. Reiland
Circus Freak
Hornhead
demonbastard.
Alvarius thrashes about in pain, his skeletal form quickly becoming glacial as a rime of frost coats his remains. The cold makes his bones brittle, and the glowing pinprick lights in his eye sockets dim.
The amurrun thrashes as frost creeps across his mask and boots.
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At first, it's just silence—oppressive, unnatural. The thick incense smoke curls low and heavy, coating the shrine in an amber fog. Then one by one, the adventurers begin to thrash.
Their bodies remain rooted, but their minds are adrift in frozen terror.
Daehalya stumbles backward into the stone wall, arms flailing as if pushing through unseen drifts.
Nicholo curls into a ball, whimpering and clutching their chest, teeth chattering not from cold—but from remembered cold. Their lips move silently, muttering half-frozen prayers or screaming for warmth, for help, for a way home.
Onye swings his claws blindly at the air, eyes wide open and unfocused—locked in combat with a towering shadow that isn’t there.
The temperature in the room drops.
Frost creeps along the edges of their armor and packs. The very stone beneath their feet slickens with ice. Their breath becomes visible, puffing out in panicked bursts—each exhale tinged with the sound of distant howling wind, though the shrine walls remain sealed.
Then the whispers start.
Low. Animalistic. Saumen kar... saumen kar... saumen kar...
A chorus of inhuman voices circles the group—though no mouths speak. The words echo inside their minds.
They thrash harder.
Fingers clench into claws. Alvarius begins tearing at his own clothing, desperate to escape an imaginary frostbite. Onye collapses onto his knees, crawling forward with bloodied hands as if dragging themselves through a blizzard no one else can see.
You are not sleeping.
Your are surviving—in a nightmare that feels far more real than the incense-choked room around them.
And unless the haunt is broken soon… you may not wake up at all.
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
Haunt
➤ Nicholo
➤ Onye
➤ Daehalya
➤ Alvarius
HP 58/83
AC 25 (+1 vs. traps), deny advantage, cold resistance 3
Fort +11, Ref +17, Will +12 (+1 vs. traps)
Hero Points: 1
Deviant backlash DC: 5
Effects:
Daehalya thrashes in the throes of the nightmare, sure death comes with the saumen kar.
Fortitude:
Will:
The amurrun thrashes in place as his lips and fingers crack as the flesh freezes.
Alvarius is physically and mentally ravaged by the nightmare of Saumen Kar.
The chill of winter fills him, making him its own. The screams of the woman and child, his wife and daughter, is suddenly cut short.
It's stops because they are dead. He looks down to see their bodies covered in hoarfrost, mouths open and faces locked in a rictus of fear.
I cannot believe this. It cannot be true. It...
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Nico is on the ground. Curled up and alone. He remembers friends. But he had to have driven them away with his practical jokes, and sarcasm, and general Nicky-ness.
He is alone.
He remembers loving a woman. But Cheliax drove a wedge between them.
He is alone.
Cold, Alone, Afraid. That is Nicky's state of being and it is overwhelming and oh-so- painful.
DC 28
This is Nicky's version of hell. To not discover the secrets to the universe and to be alone.
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The last of the whispers shred into nothing, ripped away as if by an unseen wind. The incense smoke thins in jagged swirls, sucked into the brass bowl until it gutters out with a faint hiss.
For a heartbeat, there is silence.
Then the temperature rushes back in—warmth blooming through the stone like water through parched soil. The frost that had crept over walls and gear melts in rivulets. The breathy howls fade into a memory.
But the group’s relief is short-lived.
Alvarius lies on the ground, sprawled on his back in a loose, unnatural angle. Steam rises faintly from his body, curling from the gaps in his armor as if something had been burned out of him.
His eyesockets are staring somewhere past the ceiling into nothing. For a moment, you think he’s gone entirely—until his jaw twitches, working to form words without the breath to speak them.
The air smells faintly of charred incense and… blood.
When you touch him, his body is cold—colder than before, the chill not of death, but of something far more final. He tries to lift a hand toward you, the gesture weak, trembling. A faint rasp leaves his mouth, barely audible.
"Still… so much snow…"
His arm falls limp.
Whether he can be saved… or whether the haunt has taken the last of whatever bound him to this world… you have only moments to decide.
➤ Nicholo
➤ Onye
➤ Daehalya
➤ Alvarius
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In a raspy voice, Nicky croaks out
We live? I didn't think it would be possible.
He rolls over onto his knees and takes a bewildered look around.
His brain wants to remain in a fog. His body wants to not move, as it knows that motion will cause pain to an already ravaged body.
But his mind, trained in the art of seeing and noticing all- Especially the stuff out of place - Sees the death rattle come for Alvarius.
He leaps to his feet, the brain doing a good job of blocking all pain receptors by flooding the synapses with endorphins and modulating the central nervous system.
One second, a heaping wreck. The next second, a first responder rushing full speed towards the disaster.
Nicky slides next to Alvarius.
Nicky's hands do deftyly to the beltpouch at Alvarius's side. Right to the pocket with the Oil of Unlife.
He unstoppers the bottle and smears the thin black liquid on Alvarius's skull. Then puts a big glob on the unarmored parts of his chest. Using his off hand to spread the oil on as many contact points.
Making sure to use every ounce, he turns it upside down and smacks the butt like a katchup bottle.
Looking for the others, Nicky says - More. We need more!
Nicholo unstoppers the vial, whose label reads 'For Emergencies Only', and smears the black paste onto the skeleton's rime-encrusted skull. The tiefling can feel the sting of the elixir as it feeds void energy tries to seep through his hand.
But the magic of the oil does what it needs to. Alvarius' soul, trapped within the weakened bony form, stays bound to its vessel. To this realm, unable to reach Pharasma's Boneyard for judgement.
The skeletal wizard's eye sockets once more glow with a dim light. Voice no more than a rasp, Alvarius speaks. "That... sucked."
Daehalya nods in agreement, climbing to her feet. She glances once at the rime-cracked bones of her friend, then shifts her gave to the corners of the room, eager to make sure nothing else -- certainly no Saumen Kar! -- comes in to take advantage of their weakened condition.
Largely inured to the cold, she flexes her fingers a couple of times as she reclaims her staff -- her symbol of Findeladlara -- and takes up a guard stance, knowing there's nothing she can actually do to help Alvarius.
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Nicky gives a few light slaps to Alvarius's unskinned face.
Hey. Hey. Alvarius.
More slaps to the skull.
Hey, you with us? How do we give you more zest? If your answer includes two puncture holes in my neck, that is a non-starter.
Just warning you.
So, before you answer. Think about our general reaction to your answer before speaking. This is where a really solid verbal filter comes in.
Alvarius draws upon the dark power that, in part, sustains his skeletal form. His hand glows with void energy, which he directs at himself.
He spends nearly thirty seconds as he does this, bones strengthening as cracks disappear. Outside a chip on his skull, he looks like a freshly exhumed skeleton.
"Honestly, not much you can do. I usually take care of myself. I keep a bag of spare bones, sinew, and twine that I can use with a plaster paste which usually does the job. But it'll take me a while and I don't know how badly you all want to stay here. So I'll use what magic I have for a quicker fix. I don't like using this, as it feels like a shortcut, but so it goes."
Daehalya looks concerned. "I don't know that we can wait, but we should be careful going on. That was nearly the death of all of us."
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Daehalya opens the secret passage as it leads into an abandoned workshop. The dry sewer tunnel dead-ends at an equally dry pool with ledges to either side. The western ledge is empty, but the eastern ledge is cluttered with carpentry and bricklaying supplies, along with a workbench. The brick wall to the south looks newer than the surrounding walls.
Looking through the notes here to confirm that Etward has been bribing officials and using contractors to help build his secret laboratory, walling over tunnels to ensure privacy and installing numerous secret doors.
Finally, a few asides in the form of notes or glosses in margins reveal one of Etward’s deeper secrets—a casual mention of “now that my little fire did the job on the river, I’ve finally got total control of the family finances.” This admission of guilt behind the tragic riverboat fire that resulted in the deaths of so many would be of great interest to Lepidstadt’s authorities.
Daehalya's heart falls as she reads the notes. She'd held on to hope that Ritalson wasn't truly behind everything -- or was perhaps being used by Osoyo -- but clearly that wasn't true. She wonders how much she and her companions have been used by Ritalson.
Alvarius pulls a sheet of paper that lies almost hidden against the wall by a table leg. He studies it for several moments. "Some sort of diagram of a three door locking mechanism. Daehalya or Nicky, can you two take a look?"
Daehalya takes the slip of paper with a nod of thanks to Alvarius. "Interesting," she muses as she works out what it means.
"We need to keep moving. To find Ritalson, or more clues as to exactly what he's doing," she says, her voice as cold as the icy north she calls home.
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Good! We can open up the lock. We need that bit of information. I thought it might be a clue in each room - but hall-i-lou.
I agree with Daehalya in where we are going. I also agree that Ritalson is a shmuck. And if you don't know the meaning of the word - suffice to say that it's not kind, and it's not meant for the ears of a fine lady.
Nicky moves forward and joins with D's token.