Mal blanches. "If that's what I missed when I was supposed to study mushrooms or the dead, I'm glad I went to the river instead..."
You are unable to find any other clues in the larder or elsewhere. Dierdali listens appreciatively when you report back to her,asking questions you might not be able to answer confidently, such as the criminal’s motive. Even with imperfect details, she’s pleased to have reassurance that her customers’ misfortune stemmed from foul play rather than from some culinary mistake. Your business concluded, she starts composing plans to tie up her remaining obligations in Highhelm so that she might wander and revel in some new part of the world come the end of the month. Her conversations in the coming days will no doubt highlight your work, praising your investigation and spreading your good name.
In the meantime, she allows you to keep the treasures within the restaurant: the mycoweave shield, composite shortbow, 5 cold iron arrows, a nectar of purification, 23 gp in miscellaneous items, and a tiny fungus frond that functions as a holly bush feather token that sprouts into a cluster of delicious mushrooms rather than creating a holly bush.
As you are recovering from your latest investigation, a new rumor makes its way to you. Somebody has been seeing prowling around Clan Tolorr's cemetery in the King's Crown district. The clan fears it might be a potential grave robber and is offering a reward to anybody who discovers the truth about the prowler.
Burial space is at a premium in Highhelm, especially after millennia of occupation. Most clans maintain private crypts scattered throughout Highhelm and its surrounding territories. Magrim’s faithful—particularly younger acolytes in need of menial labor and lessons in humility—regularly inspect and clean these sites, ensuring the honored dead stay happily inanimate.
Built into the surrounding stone, its honored dead sealed within, Clan Tolorr's crypt has a small, fenced park for casual visits that bears hundreds of inscriptions carved into its flagstones, facade, and numerous small monuments. As you approach, you spot a dwarf coming from another direction. When they spot you entering the park, they almost drop their snack in an effort to flag you down and warn you away. They’re somewhat disheveled; their customary black-and-white Magrimite vestments are scuffed and torn.
"Careful! It's not safe!" the dwarf insists. Once it’s apparent that you are not casual guests and are investigating rumors of grave robbers, the dwarf sheepishly shares their recent troubles.
“I’m Heldin. I'm supposed to be here, see?” They extract and hold out a sacred symbol resembling a rune-carved cave entrance. “Magrim’s faithful help maintain the crypts, and that often falls to priests-in-training, like me. After my recent misbehavior, my superiors assigned me to this crypt. When I first arrived, I thought all the manifestations were illusions—some prank to humble me. Since then, though, it’s become clear it’s an actual haunting! Get within a few steps of the entrance, and it’s like all of Clan Tolorr springs up around you, complaining you never visit or give them great-grandchildren!”
Heldin straightens their vestments as they think a moment. “Well, ah, I don’t know whether this is a test from my superiors or a coincidental haunt. Either way, it’s time I swallow my pride and accept this is more than one acolyte can handle.” They jangle a set of keys. “Perhaps you’re amenable to seeing what’s riled the ancestors and aid in the Taskmaster’s work?”
"Sure! No one should be settin' the ancestors to wrigglin'. I don't even like it when Cricket dances." Mal blanches. "An' ghosty spirits almost couldn't be more mushrooms, right? By the way, your lips are lovely. Is that an honor to the clan thing or just on your own account?"
"And maybe we can meet some of the famous members of Clan Tolorr. It's quite a distinguished group!" Gig seems more eager than is probably healthy for investigating a haunting.
Uhe sneezes.
The sniffling dwarf graps a handkerchief with his left hand, while holding out another handkerchief to Brijetta.
You have a bit of something on your...face.
Uhe graciously accepts the 5 cold iron arrows, smiling and placing them in his quiver.
My gratitude. I shall think of you when confronted by a pack of snarling, visceral covered monstrosities.
Attempting to sketch the suspect, Uhe repeats
Somebody has been seeing prowling around Clan Tolorr's cemetery in the King's Crown district. The clan fears it might be a potential grave robber and is offering a reward to anybody who discovers the truth about the prowler.
The Investigator seems excited.
At the cemetery, the Investigator is seen prowling as if he were a burglar. Hoping behind tombstones. Peeking around beautifully place floral arrangements. Sitting on a park bench...
At the approaching aspirations belly aching and arm waving, Uhe peers at him suspiciously.
You look somewhat disheveled; your customary black-and-white Magrimite vestments are scuffed and torn. And, smells like teen spirits over here!
Uhe takes the keys.
Allow the professionals to work.
He begins his way to the offending structure....
Heldrin falls into step behind you as you move through the monument park outside of the crypt. You begin to hear ghostly grumbling as the haunt Heldrin told you about prepares to manifest!
"Have told you Mal, it was traditional back in my days..." He says, half annoyed, half chuckling.
While the others step forward, Cricket remains besides Heldrin, pulling a small pouch from his pack. "Wild raspberry?" He offers the acolyte.
Gig puts on his most placating voice: "Hey there, spirits! No need to be alarmed. We are merely respectful visitors come to learn from you. Would you like some nice ale? Or perhaps to view an excellent puppet show?"
"Oh slag! Remember how I went off an' did some swimmin' in the river 'stead of learnin' 'bout the Dead?!"
Uhe (literally) rolls up his sleeves before ousting some spirits!
Uhe turns down his sleeves and then the dwarf dramatically rolls them back up!
Frowning, the Investigator puts on his serious face!
Durn hoopla spirit stop yer jumping around!
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Cricket watches his companions, then looks at Heldrin and smiles, his teeth red with raspberry. Still smiling, he steps back five feet and looks at his companions again. He steps another five feet back.
Unfortunately, you make no progress at calming the spirits. Two ancient dwarves appear and harangue Gig and Uhe.
”Puppets? We gave our lives to open up a future of possibilities for you young’uns, and you chose to make puppets?”
”You have forgotten the face of your father! Cry pardon!”
Failure: The creature takes 2 persistent mental damage. Until the persistent damage ends, the creature can perceive ghostly Dwarven inscriptions floating several inches in front of the various inscriptions throughout the park.
Critical Failure: As failure, but the creature takes 4 persistent mental damage and is stupefied 1 until the persistent damage ends.
Brijetta speaks up as only the daughter of someone raised in an orphanage run by priestesses of Folgrit can.
"Magrim wouldn't like you here haranguing people!" she says, more confidence in her voice than usual.
Uhe weeps.
Crying like a Dwarven baby, Uhe points.
Each of the ghostly inscriptions portrays a deceased dwarf in an irreverent way and is carved in an inconsistent font, as if haphazardly scrawled into the bare rock. The ghostly writing displays what was originally written there. By moving within 5 feet of the ghostly writing and reciting the original inscription as part of their check to Disable the haunt, a PC gains a +5 circumstance bonus to their skill check. I can better disable it.
He sniffs.
"What inscriptions Uhe? Ohh! Do you think he's having some kind of fit?
[b]"Oh wait! That was it! "Skofit ufdak na. Gazulan strol-ha!" she chants.
Brijetta and Mal boldly rebuke the spirits, which grow calm and gradually fade from view. Heldin sighs with relief. ”Well done! But I fear the haunt here was only a symptom of the greater cause within the crypt. Let’s rest a moment and clean up here before we go inside.”
Uhe begins slapping the side of his head!
No trespassing!
The Investigator's mind seems to be melting...
"Gah, no appreciation of puppets. An artist's work is never truly appreciated in his time. Or by his ancestors."
"Maybe if it wasn't puppets..?"
Once you are ready, you proceed into the crypt itself. Few visitors travel beyond this vestibule, whose carved walls and small altar commemorate Clan Tolorr and provide a place to leave offerings. Tiny craters of scorched wax are all that remain of dozens of candles that have burned down along the walls. Stone bowls hold a variety of food that ranges from stale to rotten, with a few offerings even having haphazard bites taken out of them.
Heldin sighs. "I haven't been able to get in here to maintain the shrine with that haunt outside. Will you help me clean up a bit? It may help to quell the restless spirits."
"Well, this just won't do at all!" Gig scrounges through his pack for some appropriate items and begins humming an old dwarven tune while he waves his clan dagger around meaningfully.
There are very few perks of being old and one of them is refraining from doing certain tasks. Cleaning rotting fruits from a tomb was one of them. Instead, Cricket tours the place, pointing to Heldin where it was nastier. "There, Heldin... is that a dead rat?"
Uhe begins gathering supplies to create a new wicker basket to place new offerings inside.
Brijetta is used to repairing fine works and sets to helping -- but without a forge, she finds she's a bit out of sorts. There's too much to do, and she's getting distracted by bigger tasks than are really needed.
"Ohhh! You're right, Cricket, I'll get up there an' get it!"
Working together, you quickly clean the entry shrine as Heldin performs a short reconsecration ritual. Once that's done, you proceed deeper into the crypt. A short passage descends gently from the entry shrine to the upper crypt, its walls covered in relief carvings of dwarven explorers climbing upward toward the entrance to commemorate the Quest for Sky. More carvings decorate the steeper stairs leading to the lower crypt, with the dwarves depicted in increasingly antiquated armor the deeper the crypt goes.
The upper crypt contains a collection of urns and whole-body burials, with some placed in the central column’s niches and most sealed beneath the floor (some flagstones rock slightly, indicating the space below). Most of the interred remains rest in partially recessed ossuaries, gently decaying for decades before being reburied outside Highhelm.
Three spiritual dwarves float in the center of the room. The first is a venerable woman with an eye patch whose hair is braided in a series of irregular knots that record old stories. The second is a middle-aged man bedecked in numerous layers of religious robes. The third is a young, scarred warrior wearing plate armor that doesn't cover her right arm, and she carries a greataxe marked with the god Angradd’s symbol in her left hand.
When they see you, the spirits quickly move to speak to you. "High King! There you are!" the first woman says. "It is I, your historian, Alkepsur. This place is a travesty! You must fix it at once! How could you let our descendants bury the true deeds of the past!"
"Taargick!" the second man says. "See what they have done to me!" He gestures to his beard, festooned with glory ribbons that should commemorate his great deeds. However, many of the ribbons' designs now suggest he accomplished clownish trivialities, and some even take a lewd shape. "By Torag's beard! They will remember me, Ferghaz the Pious, as a joke! You remember the truth, don't you Taargick? The real stories of everything that we accomplished together? From Felgunn all the way to the surface!"
"High King!" the third woman says, saluting with her left hand. Her right arm dangles at her side. "It is good to see you safe. If I am awake, then enemies must be near. Orcs, goblins, or other foul things. What are your orders, Your Majesty? Ulki stands ready to serve once more."
"I'm afraid you're mistaken, honored elders! We're not the ancient High King, only historians, priests, and warriors. We're here to help you sleep more soundly."
Gig has heard stories of Alkepsur. She served as King Taargick’s personal historian and biographer through much of the Quest for Sky, dying shortly after reaching the surface.
"No, High King! Don't you see?" the historian says, gesturing to the inscriptions in the tombs around her. "Your legacy is being misremembered! They praise your deeds but they forget the sacrifices you made to achieve them. The blood spilled. The bodies left behind. The trail of tears and regrets that paved the way. Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Doomed! DooOOOoomed!"
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I'm beginning to appreciate living audiences.
"You are the High King's trusted historian. Tell us all about the sacrifices! I'll make sure that they are commemorated..." Gig pauses. "In a most excellent puppet show!"
"Oh those knots're so hard! Mine're just always collapsin' into tangles. But err, his ribbons are wrong; she reckons our inscriptions're wrong; is there some kinda memory we're getting wrong about your Ms. er Ulki?"
Brijetta shifts her weight anxiously as Gig talked to the historian. Didn't they hear Ulki? It sounds like their may be some sort of enemies nearby -- though she's not sure why the warrior thinks all goblins and orcs are foul.
I guess we dwarves have just come a long way since then, in more than one way, she thinks.
Alkepsur frowns. ”It’s hard to recall. I know there were many sacrifices we made... Many atrocities deemed acceptable in pursuit of our goals... But the specifics elude me.”
Ulki gestures to her limp right arm. ”Yes, that is wrong! I got my arm chopped off in glorious battle against the green menace! To have it suddenly reattached... It is an insult!”
Atrocities?! Oh, my!
"What could have caused your story to be misremembered? And what awakened you from your rest?" Gig pauses. "And who is this green menace?"
”That’s what we’re hoping you can help us with, King Taargick!” Ferghaz says, tugging at his beard in frustration.
”The green menace! Orcs and gobbos!” Ulki exclaims. ”Pig-nosed brutes and sneaky thieves! They’re likely to chop us up and put us in their cook pots if we let our guard down!”
While the others talk, Cricket investigates the place, trying to figure out how to help the spirits. His usual cheerful nature a bit numbed.
Uhe just stares blankly at the appearance of the apparitions.
So.....
"Erm...I don't think that kind of thing happens very much any more. Even if there were orcs or goblins around, we're safe in Highhelm, the most glorious of the Sky Citadels," Gig sputters. "If that's what you are worried about, you can rest peacefully. It was taken care of long ago."
"Okay, okay. Let's calm down a spell or I, uh, King Tagrick will be real cross. The arm and the ribbons are ghost goo, so I don't know how to right 'em, but maybe th' inscriptions are somethin' we can actually fix? Can you tell us which ones don't match your braids?"
"You remember the real stories of my accomplishments, High King!" Ferghaz says. "I held Torag over all, and did exactly as the Forge Father commanded! Together, we beat back everybody in the Darklands who dared to stand in the way of the Quest for the Sky! Yes, there were those who would quibble, but we couldn't let indecision or moral reservations lead to disgrace in the Father's eyes, could we?"
Alkepsur lets out a wail. "Enough talking! You must fix us!"
"Fix us!" Ferghaz shouts.
"Fix us!" Ulki screams.
The three spirits' confusion and desperation turn to fury as they prepare to attack!
HP 36/36
AC 18
Fort +10, Ref +8, Will +5
Hero points: 1
Infused regents: 2
Effects:
"Oh no," Brijetta breathes as the spirits attack.
She uses her own connection to the dwarven zeitgeist, summoning the power of the forge to her, as she lashes out with a blast of fire toward Ulki. Retreating, she sends another blast a moment later.
Brijetta's blasts miss her target. As she falls back, Alkepsur references a forgotten anecdote, threatening to confuse Gig as she moves to attack with her clan dagger!
Ferghaz rebukes Brijetta, holding her to an impossible standard, his words carrying the weight of a hundred generations' judgment!
Ulki simply wades into melee, swinging her burning axe at Mal!
Failure: The target is stunned 1 as they try to decipher the reference.
Critical Failure: The anecdote makes the target confused and stupefied 2 for 1 round.
"Oh, no! Magrim, hear my prayer!" Heldin cries. They gesture towards Mal, gasping at the sudden rush of power.
"urrkaaak" Mal gurgles around rapidly recovering flesh. Very much Not wanting that to happen again, she throws her carapace shield in between her and Ulki before rising and tryin to help Heldin and Magrim's efforts.
Gig is distracted by the story. "What's the point of that? Oh, it's so convoluted!"
He regains his faculties and shares a story of his own, while the whirling metal shards seem to bleed out from him.
"Gods help me and don't let me return as a ghost!" Cricket yelps as he fumbles with his crossbow and studies the spirit of Ulki. He aims at her arm while moving away from her flaming axe.
Uhe's bearded jaw drops at the moment all ghost and poltergeist erupts around them! The dwarf's blue eyes follow each of his company retreating away from his current position!
Mmmmm....guys?
The Investigator decides to think upon his options...
Not exactly excited with his prognosis, the dwarf decides to Stride twice as far away!
HP 15/36
AC 18
Fort +10, Ref +8, Will +5
Hero points: 1
Infused regents: 2
Effects:
"Ow!" Brijetta cries out. "Stop it! I'm trying to do what everyone wants!"
She lashes out with her power again, again targeting Ulki.
Uhe glances at both Gig and Brjetta. The dwarf--wisely--refrains from responding.