Disconnect and self destruct one dice roll at a time.
What's your rush now? Everyone will have his day to die.
They were right about you...
Yep, our campaign ADD has forced us to start another campaign. Don't worry, though. Schedules are still more of an issue for our game time on the other than having a second campaign could ever be. :P
The GM for this one(our Runelords GM), has been keen to run this for years, and now that we're more than halfway through RoW, we decided we were ready to start it. It's also our first 10 point buy, first keep track of the weight of things campaign. I'll be honest, I'm a little nervous, despite my ability to eke out cheese, but we'll see what happens.
So let's introduce the PCs.
Characters
Natalya(Inspired Blade Swashbuckler) - My character, which means this is my first campaign without any spell casting. I may go crazy without having dozens of spells to play with, tbh. Former daughter of a noble house, but her tiefling nature put an end to that. After a bit of a trauma conga line, she eventually becomes an adventurer/bounty hunter. It was through this that she encountered Petros Lorrimor.
Santino Clifford(Infernal Primalist Bloodrager) - A sex-crazed, mysterious man in a monocle, he was raised, at least in part, by Petros Lorrimor. The infernal power that courses through his veins may not be the only dark secret his blood holds... <Played by the player of Terry from our RoW campaign>
Heimish Realta(Oracle of the Heavens) - Imagine an Irish street preacher with a fiery red beard, and you'd likely have a close approximation of Heimish. An old drinking buddy of Petros Lorrimor, he worships The Black Butterfly, stalwart foe of the terrible denizens of the Dark Tapestry, but his origins may have more than passing connection to the heavens all his own... <Played by the player of Burin from RoW and Lenn/Geo from RotR>
House Rules and Scenario Customization
Minimal House Rules. Anything Paizo generally acceptable. 3rd party stuff requires GM approval.
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But what if one gives up their choice, the very free will that makes us human, not of their own accord, but due to happenstance? What if a person finds themselves reduced to such a state not by drink or surrender to a willful state of nirvana, but instead by having their freedom to choose their fate stolen from them?
Does that person find the same release from the cares of their soul? Does the great burden on them lessen? Or is the burden merely added to by the chains of their oppression?
And what then, if one day, they should, in this metaphorical sense, become a man once more? Do they merely return to the state they were in before their will was stolen, or does the experience forever change their perspective? Do the pains they had before lessen, knowing that there is always worse out there, or do they grow, knowing that there is no escape, no true respite from the burdens of being a man?
This too, perhaps, is a choice that a man makes for himself. Even if that man is a woman, and even if that woman’s veins flow not only with the blood of mankind, but also with the blood of those of a darker place.
But, of course, that comes later. For the tale of any man, or woman, begins much earlier.
For her first several years, Natalya could easily be described as a happy child. All the women of her mother’s circle expressed their jealousy at the child’s mild demeanor. Rarely did she cry, never did she fuss.
It did not hurt that her family was wealthy beyond imagining, so never did her belly go empty nor did she ever spend a single night shivering. She never lacked for toys to tickle the imagination nor for clothing and adornment of the greatest finery.
That isn’t to say she had no expectations upon her. It is oft true that those who seem blessed suffer hidden tribulations, and Natalya was no different. But one could be forgiven for considering her troubles meaningless in the face of those suffered by others.
When she was five, she began training in her Grandfather’s dance studio. The studio was famous, having produced numerous stars of stage productions much sought after in Magnimar, great Cheliax and Korvosa, the city where it was located. So it was that the world greatly looked forward to seeing how this child, heir to such a legacy, would turn out.
And Natalya struggled, doing her best to live up to the legacy. Many days ended with her unable to even walk, her feet stressed to the point where any further strain could cause them to fail entirely, with either fractured bones or snapped tendons being the result.
But still, she never complained. It was difficult, but she knew she could do it, if only she tried harder. And, to some degree, this was true. She improved in leaps and bounds, and by the age of nine, would have been considered a world class dancer anywhere else.
But her grandfather was from Brevoy, and he held greater standards. The dancing had never been the true goal. No, indeed, it was simply the first step. For he was the master of more than dance. He was a Swordlord, and it was his duty to pass the skills of his forebears on to the next generation. The dance studio was merely a front that allowed him to keep his secret out in the open, where none would investigate.
So, at the age of nine, she began training in more than dance. She added training in tumbling, climbing and even rudimentary work with the blade. Many a night, she would be forced to deal with the ministrations of a healing cleric to mend a dislocated shoulder, or a torn ligament.
While she took to the other training easily, the work with the blade was difficult for her. An Aldori dueling sword is not like the rapiers or other thin blades favored by duelists, being much more unwieldy. And while it’s true that they lend themselves well to the same styles of fighting as more common longswords, this was not the kind of swordplay she was expected to learn.
Even three years later, while she had mastered the techniques, she still found the weapon difficult to wield, much to the frustration of her grandfather. Even her mother, who had lacked the talent for her father’s teachings, harassed her about her lack of progress.
Only her father, who had been a nobleman from Cheliax before marrying her mother and moving to Korvosa, took her side. He was often told to keep out of it by his father-in-law and wife. And Natalya, eager to please, refused to give up.
In the end, the fighting between her parents grew to be too much, and her father was forced to leave. He fought to take her with him, but was denied by authorities that sided with her mother’s much wealthier family.
The stress of it all was compounded when she began blossoming into a woman. Not only because of the tumultuous nature of such a change, but because it brought out something that had been hidden until that point.
One morning, Natalya awoke as normal and headed to breakfast. She met her mother there, and when the woman saw her, she screamed and dropped her fine porcelain tea cup. It shattered into a thousand pieces upon the marble floor, then the woman fainted, crumpling onto the ground beside it.
Natalya rushed to her mother’s side, trying to wake her, and ask what was wrong. The servants fled in terror, bringing her grandfather as quickly as they could.
Her grandfather struck her immediately upon seeing her, sending the scared child flying.
Only then, in the shards of a shattered vase, did Natalya see what had caused the commotion. From her forehead grew a pair of horns. She was a tiefling, her blood tainted by the foul influence of fiends somewhere in her family line.
While her nature was a curse inflicted by a pact made with a devil by someone on her mother’s side of the family many generations past, her mother and grandfather blamed her father for the curse now apparent in the child. For he was from Cheliax, and everyone in Varisia knew that the people of Cheliax consorted with devils.
For two more years, Natalya’s training continued while her family sought a way to hide the mark of her shame, but it had become much more brutal. More was expected of her, and often she was denied the services of a cleric, left to agonize through days of recuperation as her body tried mending itself from the over-exertions demanded of her.
At the age of fourteen, she experienced a growth spurt, and with it came more changes. Her hair darkened, becoming raven black overnight, and her skin also changed, taking on a visible crimson hue.
Her grandfather was furious when she arrived at the studio for training and removed her heavy cloak. He took his sword down from the wall and began ranting. Then he charged. It was obvious he intended to kill her.
But she had learned her lessons well. She dodged his blows, dancing around the room, enraging him all the more. She knew that her only hope was to disarm him and escape. Then she could run home, steal some money, and try to find her father. He would protect her.
She grabbed the nearest weapon, a slender rapier taken from a fallen foe in a duel that was displayed on the wall as a trophy. And she fought for her life.
Had he not been so enraged, her grandfather might have been proud, for she fought with all the skill he had taught her. But he was literally foaming at the mouth in his anger, so it never occurred to him to marvel at what this child, his own flesh and blood, was showing him.
While rage can aid many in combat, for those who practice the fine art of dueling, it is often the one who remains the most clearheaded who wins. And, while terrified, Natalya was certainly the combatant thinking the most clearly.
In fact, her grandfather may not have even had a coherent thought at the moment when Natalya ran him through. He quite possibly may have died with his brain locked in a rabid, unthinking rage.
Natalya took the bloodstained blade and its sheath, then put on her cloak and rushed home. She took what she could carry and tried to flee before her mother found out. But that was not to be. Her own mother drew a dagger on her, intent on doing what her grandfather had failed. And Natalya, at the age of fourteen, was forced to take someone’s life in self-defense for the second time that day.
She fled the city, paying a group of travelers far too much money to bring her with them, and made her way to Cheliax, to the city of Kintargo along the northwestern coast.
That was where her father was from, so she hoped she could find him there. She just knew that he would take her in. Surely he wouldn’t care what she looked like. She was his daughter, and he loved her.
But getting to him was the task. She spent the last of her coin on information, finally discovering that he had a home in The Greens, one of the city’s wealthiest districts.
She believed that with that information in hand, she needed only to walk up to his home. But the city guards didn’t allow tieflings, which were viewed as little more than thieves and thugs, to enter the district except under very strict circumstances. And telling them that her father lived there wasn’t one of those. In fact, it only earned her a thrashing.
So she looked for a way in. Eventually, she found it, though it involved crawling through a storm drain that someone had been pouring chamberpots into.
She stealthily made her way through the streets until at last she found her way to the doorstep of the home where her father was said to live. Taking a deep breath, she knocked.
A servant answered. Upon seeing her, a waif of a tiefling in filth-stained clothing, he immediately slammed the door in her face. She banged on the door again, louder, and was told to leave before the city watch was summoned.
But she persevered, and eventually, the lord of the house answered the door. Upon seeing her father, Natalya began crying and flung her arms around him.
He pushed her away. “Leave this place,” he told her.
“But, Daddy, I have nowhere else to go!” she begged as the last pieces of her heart shattered.
“Who is this girl?” a woman’s voice asked from behind him. She peered around him and saw a young woman holding a small child.
“Daddy,” she begged one last time, knowing that it was probably hopeless.
“She’s no one,” her father said. “Simply a tiefling looking for a handout, or maybe a con-artist, looking to swindle us of our money.”
The woman sighed. “The guards get lazier every year. We should complain to the watch captain.”
“I will do so first thing in the morning. But for now, this girl knows there’s nothing for her here. She’ll leave, if she knows what’s good for her.” Defeated and utterly broken, Natalya nodded morosely and trudged away.
That night, she slept in a gutter, too upset to even bother finding shelter from the light rain.
The next day, she tried to find some way to find something to eat, but no respectable businesses would deal with her, not that she had any remaining coin to use even if she could.
She learned that the city’s leadership paid a bounty of a copper piece for killing mice, doves and ravens, so she tried that, only to learn that she wasn’t allowed to enter the building to claim her reward. In the end, she had only corpses of a couple scrawny mice to show for her efforts.
She traded one of them to another tiefling in the slums for use of her fire. She gagged on the meat at first, but was too hungry to turn away the meal and ended up eating it.
She spoke with the other tiefling for a time, and learned that the only way for a tiefling girl with no other prospects to earn money was to sell her body.
She refused at first, but after almost a year of living on the street in squalor, teetering on the edge of starvation and nearly succumbing to the cold of the winter, she knew she needed to do something to survive and reluctantly accepted her fate.
There were few places in town where the guards would turn a blind eye to such a trade, which was dangerous for someone who had no coin with which to bribe said guards. So she had to find somewhere she thought she wouldn’t be bothered, and found it in one of the city’s older parts.
She was standing on a street in Old Kintargo, near the city’s saltworks, when a carriage stopped and a man invited her inside. She hesitated at first, having heard of the dangers inherent in the profession. But if she wanted to survive, she would have to take the risk. It was either a chance of danger now, or a slow, inevitable death.
Within the carriage she found a man wearing simple clothes of fine make and a long black coat. “My, you look terrible, if you don’t mind me saying. Come, let’s get you something to eat.” He seemed cordial, and his tone of voice and demeanor held a simple respect that she had not heard in ages.
Still she was suspicious, and didn’t answer, giving only a nod. She knew what the meal would cost her and she hoped she would not have to fight for the coin that she earned as well. She wished she had her sword, but she had traded it for a small dagger and blanket to survive the winter.
The only thing of any value she still carried was a music box, given to her by her parents long ago during happier times. When you opened it, a little dancing girl twirled around to a stiff, mechanical tune.
She was sure she would eventually have to sell that as well. It was only a matter of time.
They arrived at a building on the edge of town next to a warehouse and he led her inside after greeting the guards, who seemed very professional to the girl. Inside, they went immediately to an office of some sort.
The room was strange, lit by some kind of magic lights rather than candles. Other than that, though, it was neat and very well kept, and quite comfortable. He had her take a seat on one side of a desk, and he sat on the other, putting his feet up.
He really didn’t say much during that time. She didn’t know why, but in truth he was perplexed as to what to say to her. A minute or two after they arrived, a servant entered the room carrying a tray of food. It smelled amazing, and while she hesitated at first, the girl needed little prompting before digging in.
“Take your time and enjoy your dinner,” the man told her. “I need to go take care of a few things and will be back in maybe fifteen or twenty minutes. Then we can talk some business.”
He left, and for several minutes, she did exactly that, though she did not take time to savor the meal. In the tiefling slums where she lived, you didn’t eat slowly. If you weren’t quick enough, someone was liable to take what meager scraps you’d found from you. So she wolfed down her food, chewing only when strictly necessary to prevent choking.
Then she began looking around the office, snooping through the shelves and cupboards. It didn’t take long before she found something of some value, a bar of pure platinum large enough to be worth thousands of gold coins.
She considered her situation. In a few minutes, he would return and she would be forced to – she didn’t want to think about what she would have to do – in exchange for a meal and a few coins. If she was lucky, there would be a gold piece in it for her, which would cover her basic expenses for at least some weeks, or maybe even a couple months.
Alternatively, she could take this bar and run. With that kind of money, she could find her way to a whole new city, perhaps one where tieflings were treated better. She might even be able to purchase passage to Xin-Shalast. It was rumored among the tiefling community that the ruler there gave even tieflings a fair opportunity to be a valued part of the community.
With her noble’s education, Natalya was certain she could make something of herself there, and never again would she have to even contemplate selling her body.
Her mind was made up. She would take it. Fate had taken everything from her, but now at last had given her a chance to take it all back. She wouldn’t miss this opportunity to seize the life she deserved.
She opened the string on her worn belt pouch stuffed the bar inside. Then, as she was beginning to tie it closed again, she heard that sound of the doorknob.
Panicking, she dashed over and leapt out of the open window. They were on the second floor, but she had her acrobatic training, and such a fall was nothing to her. She landed and tucked into a roll, then quickly scrambled up and over the wall and dashed into the back alleyways.
As she made it over the wall, she heard a voice shout behind her. “Wait!” the man called out. But she didn’t stop. She knew they’d be coming after her, so she continued fleeing.
As expected, pursuit did not take long. Several of the guardsmen were following her on foot, and she thought she saw someone flying above in pursuit.
She dodged from alley to alley until she spotted one that was covered above so the flying pursuer couldn’t see her. She quickly ducked inside, and immediately realized it had been a mistake. The alley was a dead end.
She turned to find another path, but heard the sound of boots just past the entrance. Her only hope was to hide, so she quickly looked around for an option.
There were several piles of refuse and debris that might hide her, and she nearly chose one of those before spotting a gap in eaves of one of the overhanging buildings. After a quick appraisal, she was certain she could squeeze in.
She leapt up and barely made it in before the light of the torches reached her. She watched breathlessly as the wealthy man and two guards began searching the alley.
The guards were checking the piles, but the man was looking higher. She realized in terror that it was only a matter of time before he spotted her hiding place, and then it would all be over. They would probably hang her for thievery. In hindsight, she wished that she had accepted her fate. It had been distasteful, but at least she would have been alive.
Then a miracle happened. Just as his eyes neared her position, she heard a strange bell tone. He looked concerned and immediately retrieved a small object from his pocket.
“Hello dear, is everything okay?” he asked, speaking to the object. “Slow down. They woke up what? I can’t understand what you’re trying to say. Where did they find it? WHAT?! Did you mean to say ‘Huitzilopochtli’? When the hell will people learn not to dig under Aztec temples? Yeah, I’m on my way. I’ll be there in five minutes.” He put away the object.
“Trouble, my lord?” one of the guards asked.
“You could say that. Nothing you have to worry about. But I really need to go deal with it.”
“Shall we keep looking for the girl?”
“No, head back to the office. If you do happen to run into her, take her into custody, but do not harm her. I want to speak with her.”
“Understood, my lord. Good luck.”
“I don’t need luck. I have ammo.” Then he cast a spell and disappeared. The guards looked around for a few minutes more, but soon left as well.
Natalya had done it. They were gone. But she was still worried that it might be a trick, so she remained hidden for a few minutes more, just to be safe.
But she could risk looking at her prize. Carefully she pulled it from her pouch and viewed it, seeing it in black and white in her darkvision. It wasn’t nearly as beautiful without the light reflecting off of it.
When she put the bar back, she noticed something. Her music box was gone! That upset her more than it should have, she felt. She had enough to make it to Xin-Shalast and buy a hundred music boxes with the leftover. And it’s not even as if she still loved the family that she’d left.
But that music box was the last link. And she found that her heart hurt a little to have lost it. She couldn’t help it. She cried for several minutes.
Once she regained control of herself, she climbed down from her hiding place and skulked out of the alleyway. But she wasn’t sure what to do next. She needed a way to sell the bar, and then a way to get out of town.
She had heard things about the city, and knew that there was one group of businessmen who would be willing to trade for stolen goods, and who were rumored to have ways of smuggling people. And better, they always had an agent awake so tieflings thieves could visit while others were sleeping.
So she set out for the offices of the Aspis Consortium.
She was careful moving through the city, as it was nearly time for the nightly curfew, when only a rare few individuals – mostly those who could bribe the guards – were permitted to move through the streets. There wasn’t too much of an issue inside the tiefling ghettos, since guards rarely patrolled, but she’d learned quickly to keep from being seen outside of them, especially at night.
After a few close calls, she finally made it to the offices she sought. She had never visited them before, but she’d heard a lot about the place. She knew she would get the short end of the deal. That was to be expected. But they seemed to put profit above race, so she hoped she’d get enough to fulfill her goals. And trading directly for a service from them would hopefully get her a greater value than trying to trade for money.
She knocked lightly and a few moments later a panel in the door opened. A pair of eyes regarded her from within, then the panel closed. She then heard the sound of locks being undone and the door creaked open. “Hurry inside, and tell me what you have,” the man said.
She went inside and he shut the door behind her. She then pulled out the bar. “I have this,” she said. “I want to use it to buy passage somewhere.”
The man examined the bar. “How did you come to have this?” he asked. “Wait. Never mind, I don’t think I want to know. Especially if you’re so desperate to leave the city. We can get you out. Where do you wish to go?”
“Xin-Shalast,” she answered.
He appraised her for a moment, then nodded. “I should have known. Yes, we can get you there. It will be pricey.”
She looked at the bar. “I can afford it though, right?”
“Yes. This should cover your trip, food and a set of clothing for the mountain passages. There won’t be much, if anything left, considering how many bribes we’ll have to pay.”
She knew she was getting ripped off, but everything would be fine when she made it there. She knew it would be. “Deal.”
“Good. Let’s get going. We can get you on a ship tonight if we hurry.”
“A ship?”
“It’s the easiest way to get you to Magnimar. From there, we’ll put you in a caravan heading up to Xin-Shalast.”
She didn’t know much about the geography, but that sounded right. She did know that Magnimar was fairly close, more or less. “Okay,” she agreed.
The guards paid no attention to her and the Consortium agent as they moved through the city. Only at the docks were they stopped, and a quick exchange of coins solved that.
The agent spoke to the captain, and left after telling Natalya that the captain had been given instructions and would take care of her. She thanked him for his aid and made her way onto the ship.
Less than an hour after leaving the harbor, the sailors slapped manacles on the girl and stowed her down in the hold, along with the other slaves. Tears of rage filled her eyes at the betrayal, and she fought the entire way. She even bit one of the men, leaving a nasty wound that would eventually fester and kill him, though she had no way of knowing it.
Sometime later – she lost track of the days down in the dark hold – she found herself in a city, brought before a slave master. A member of the Aspis Consortium was there to oversee the evaluation. He was a disgusting, morbidly obese man who reeked of stale fish and garlic.
She was half delirious from malnutrition – they had fed her only enough to keep her alive on the ship, as punishment for harming one of the sailors – so she didn’t remember much. But in the end, the disgusting man decided to keep her.
He placed a magical leather collar around her neck. She tried to remove it, but the lock was too strong for her to break, and she had no tools to try picking it with, had she even the skill. Within minutes of being bound, she felt all will drain from her, and she could not resist any commands he gave her.
The less said about what he did to her, the better. But she suffered for years in his “tender” care.
In that time, she was broken utterly. The things that he said to her, calling her worthless, a worm, she began to accept as truths about herself. Eventually, the collar was removed – it was valuable and could be used elsewhere – but its effects were no longer necessary. She simply lacked the self-worth to put up any resistance to her fate.
That finally changed one day, nearly six years later, when armed men and women broke into her owner’s home. Confused and fearful of what would happen to her if the intruders made him angry, she tried to shield him from harm, but the intruders were skilled and easily able to get past her without killing her.
Terrified, she cowered in a corner as they did the work of making absolutely sure that the man was dead. She did not know it at the time, but he had been responsible for a great atrocity and that was why he had been killed.
“By Shelyn,” one of the intruders said as she stood over the cowering young woman.
“That can’t be… do you really think she’s the one we were told to keep an eye out for?”
People were looking for her? Why? She could barely remember much of her life before becoming a slave. Why would someone want her? “Stay back,” she whimpered quietly.
The woman sat down on the ground a few feet from her. “We aren’t here to hurt you. We’ve just been told to deliver something to you, then help you out if you need it. But we can’t stay here for long. I’m sure that the guards are already on their way. Let’s get out of here and we can talk at our safe house.”
It couldn’t be any worse than what she had endured so far, and she was terrified that she would be blamed and punished for her master’s death, so she agreed.
They escaped through the city to a home in a slum. Natalya knew that a little charity would buy a lot of loyalty from the neighborhood, so she understood the reason for its location.
Her female rescuer sat down with her at a crude table and produced a small bundle with a letter tied to it. “He said he was pretty sure you would know how to read, but if not, please let me know and I’ll be happy to read it to you. Take your time. We’ll be laying low here for a couple days, then we’ll head out of the city.”
Natalya nodded and opened the letter. She almost tore it several times, her hands were shaking so badly. It was written on strange paper, unlike anything she’d ever seen, even when she lived in the luxury of her family’s home.
Greetings, dear child,
I hope that this letter finds you well, though in truth I suspect that fate has not been kind to you since last we met. Let me first state that I am in no way upset about your theft of the platinum bar. In truth, I didn’t even know you had taken it until weeks later, when I received the report from my local factor that it was missing and realized that must have been why you ran.
In truth, I was trying to catch you because you had dropped your music box while you were leaping through the window. It was finely crafted, so it intrigued me. Knowing what I know now, and believing what I believe must have happened to you, I consider not catching you that night to be a great failure on my part. Would only that I had, so that I could have spared you what I fear you may have suffered.
I did not seek you out immediately because I wanted to repair your music box before doing so. In some ways, my tardiness in doing so is because I find myself constantly incredibly busy, but that is a mere excuse.
I do not know where they have found you, but my agents should have been looking much sooner. And for that, I can only beg your forgiveness.
The truth is, I picked you up that night because I saw a young woman on the edge of desperation and dreadfully close to starvation, and it broke my heart. I suspect you thought I had other intentions and that is another part of the reason why you fled.
I had indeed picked you up to offer you a job, but not in the kind of service you were offering that day. Our organization is always looking for loyal employees, and I had hoped we could find a suitable position for you, perhaps as a clerk, a maid or perhaps, knowing now what I know about you, as an instructor in the art of swordplay or dance.
Does it surprise you that I know who you are? It shouldn’t. I was curious and did my research. I wasn’t able to get all of the facts, but it was easy enough to piece together once I found your father and got him talking. On an unrelated note, I believe he may have acquired a severe acrophobia – the fear of high places – during our discussion. I cannot entirely be sure why. Perhaps it was my fault.
Needless to say, the job offer is still open. All you need do is ask, and one of my agents will see to it that you are brought to whatever city you wish that contains one of our offices, where work will be found for you. I’d suggest Absalom, where wearing the livery of the Voidstrife Cartel will cause people to ignore your outward appearance for fear of upsetting us.
Or, of course, you are welcome to come to Xin-Shalast. The academy we’re building is nearing completion, and we’d love to have you, either as a teacher or as a student, if you should so desire.
Take your time in deciding, and know that I am glad that you are now free to make such a decision.
Sincerely,
Kyle O’Halloran
Runelord of Generosity, Master of Xin-Shalast
And Junior Partner of the Voidstrife Cartel
PS. If you happen to know who crafted your music box in the first place, please let me know. I want to offer the person a job because of his fine handiwork, and then smack him upside the head for making the inner gears out of noqual, which made it impossible for me to repair with magic.
She read the letter three times before it truly sank in. In the moment that she had leapt from the window, she had chosen to throw away an opportunity to have exactly what she wanted. Her mistrust had cost her dearly. How could she have been so stupid?
Tears began to stream down her face unbidden, causing the other woman to offer a shoulder, which Natalya accepted reluctantly out of a desperate need to be comforted. The fact that the woman didn’t even hesitate to comfort a tiefling told Natalya all she needed to know, not just about the woman, but about the people she served.
When she was through crying, she opened the wrapped bundle and found her perfectly repaired music box, which only caused her to cry again, though this time it was a very different kind of tear.
When they were able, they fled to a compound an hour outside of Almas, the capital of Andoran. It was there that Natalya lived for a year, learning more from those who lived there, as well as from the people of Andoran.
At first, Natalya didn’t go out much, keeping to herself, but trying to be useful by helping with the household chores. In time though, she began opening up to those around her, and found a few dear friends among those who shared the residence.
Soon thereafter, she found her way into Almas and was delighted to learn that not only was slavery illegal in this nation, but that people held great contempt for slavers. Indeed, it was a topic of conversation in many places she went.
She found a second group of companions with the local branch of the adventurer’s guild – yet another institution she later learned was created by her mysterious benefactor – and spent many afternoons just listening to their stories or watching them practice.
One day, perhaps the thirtieth time an instructor had offered her a chance to join their training, she took him up on his offer and began relearning the skills she had forgotten and rebuilding the muscle tone she had lost. But this time, she didn’t go to bed in agony, but instead with a satisfied soreness that she knew was justly earned and heralded another day of growth and progress.
It took a while before she decided to join in the combat training, but when she did, it was a sight to behold. She managed to disarm several veterans in combat, holding a crude wooden training rapier as masterfully as she had the blade she had sold long ago.
When she returned to the compound and told her rescuer about it, the woman had smiled and produced another bundle for her. “What is this?” Natalya asked.
“I was told to give it to you when you were ready.”
Inside the oilcloth was a gorgeous steel rapier. The hilt was perfectly sized for her hand and the mithral handguard depicted a tiefling man and woman standing proud, shoulder to shoulder. It was a finer work of art than anything she had ever seen before.
She swung it through the air a few times, doing a practiced routine she had done a thousand times before in her grandfather’s studio. The blade was perfectly balanced and felt natural in her hand. “It’s amazing,” she said to her friend.
“He said that it’s called ‘The Faith of the Fallen’, but that you may simply call it ‘Faith’, if you want, since it’s easier and saves time.”
“I don’t deserve such a thing,” Natalya protested.
“It is yours, nonetheless. It’s up to you what you wish to do with it.”
Natalya nodded, unsure whether she could speak, then she went to bed to think on it.
That night, she didn’t sleep much. She had a lot on her mind, and knew that whatever she chose might very well shape the course of the rest of her life. This time, she wanted to make a good choice.
She had lived her life afraid, constantly letting fate and circumstance make her choices for her. But she was through with that life, the life of a worm. For once, she would shape her own destiny with her own hands, and with the blade she had been given.
In the morning, still not entirely certain it was a good idea, she officially joined the Adventurer’s Guild and took her first job. Working with others, they managed to bring down a massive boar that had been destroying local crops.
The jobs got harder from there, but she found she loved the thrill of it, and more than that, she felt useful. In a scant two years after joining, the woman who she saw in the mirror bore a proud confidence that made her look nothing like the scared girl she had been before.
It was on one such job that the course of her life changed once more, and where the greatest challenge she would ever face came to the fore, though she didn’t realize it at the time.
“You really should have known better,” she was saying to the half-conscious man she was tying up. “You know slavery is illegal in Andoran, yet you still tried to raid that village to try to steal away a few kids anyway. That really pissed off the local magistrate.”
“It’s not my fault!” the half-elf whined. “My employer said that the local garrison was paid off!”
“They were,” Natalya said to him before giving him a swift kick. “But your employer forgot to tell you that they had been exposed and replaced. Probably figured you had a bit of a window before the new guys were really ready to deal with the likes of you. Instead, every other member of your crew got nabbed or killed. They ratted you out immediately, of course.”
“Traitors,” he lamented before she kicked him again.
“Luckily for you, or perhaps unluckily, they were mad enough to pay extra for me to bring you in alive. I’m glad I’m not you right now.” She pulled him to his feet, the chains on his ankles clinking.
“Come on, you have to let me go. I’ll do anything you want.”
“Can you go back in time and not try to raid that village?”
“Well, no, I can’t do that?” It wasn’t exactly a question, but he questioned her sanity.
“Then back to the authorities you go. Don’t make me hack off one of your limbs to make you more compliant.” She heard someone clear their throat behind her. She turned, Faith in hand.
“You’re a hard woman to find,” the man, who had the appearance of a butler, said.
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Wonderful start, Poldaran.
Wonderful start, Poldaran.
Thanks. I just got approval on chapter one from the last player, so I'll probably post it in the morning after work.
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Chapter 1: The Preacher and the Devil’s Own
“Stop kicking me!” the prisoner whined.
“Would you have stopped if the kids you were trying to steal had asked?” She punched him in the face, knocking him out. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”
“Anyway,” the ignored butler said. “I’ve come to deliver this to you, and then deliver you to the funeral of my master.” He handed her a sealed letter.
She read the letter. “I see. So Petros is dead?” Petros Lorrimor was an eccentric scholar whose life she’d save long ago. She wasn’t sure how he’d managed to anger those guards – in fact, she’d never learned – but she knew that she saw a lone older man of obvious wealth being attacked by several men in poorly maintained light armor.
So she’d intervened. Two men were dead before they had realized she was there. The third fell in single combat. His axe had obviously been powerful, but she was too fast for him to hit.
“Yes,” the butler answered. “Please, we must hurry. Time is of the essence, and we have two others we must collect.” He gestured to the nearby carriage.
“That’s fine,” she said. “As long as we can stop at the nearest Adventurer’s Guild office on the way. I need to drop this idiot off.” Secretly, she was relieved, as it would be much easier to strap him down in a carriage than to try to march him all the way to town, several miles away.
“We have little time to spare, but if that is the condition, it will have to do.” He was obviously annoyed.
“Good. I trust you already know where to find the others?” she asked as the carriage man unceremoniously tossed her prisoner into the cabin.
“One will be easy. The other might prove more difficult to find.”
“If you give me his name, I can ask while I’m dropping off my prisoner. Someone at the guild may have heard of him. That could save us time, since it seems so important to you to make haste.”
“That could be of help. I have his description, if you could ask.”
The drop at the guild went as smoothly as normal, and Natalya took her purse of several dozen gold coins. She then asked about the man that the butler, Stein, was looking for. As expected, while they didn’t know where he was precisely, someone had seen a man matching that description in the previous day or so and was happy to point her in his direction. It was the first rule of the Adventurer's Guild. Talking was a free action.
She dropped a couple silver coins in the informant’s hand and returned to the carriage. “That’s all you could find?” Stein asked. “A district of the city?”
Natalya shrugged. “You aren’t paying me to bring him in, and I’m not exactly willing to spend much of my money to find him, so that’s what you get.”
Stein glowered. “It will have to be enough, then. Let’s get the other one first. He’s staying at an inn on the way.”
They arrived at the inn to find a commotion outside. There was a man with a bushy red beard wearing a thick black coat and bowler hat standing on the street corner, preaching to any who would listen. Which was pretty much no one. Didn’t stop him from preaching, though.
“And thus, you shall know the embrace of solacing darkness as the Black Butterfly protects you from the evil things that lurk in the depths of the great void. For it is she who stands between us and certain terror!”
Natalya noticed Stein’s eyes narrow. “What?” she asked.
“I think that’s him.”
“Great,” Natalya answered. “Have fun with that.”
Stein sighed, then stepped out of the carriage. “Excuse me, but might you be Heimish Realta?” he asked the strange preacher.
The man appraised him for a moment, then stepped down carefully from the box he was standing on. “Oh, I am Heimish, good sir. And who might you be? Do you seek knowledge of The Silence Between?”
“Please, save your sermons. I’m here on business.” Stein produced another sealed letter. “I work for Professor Petros Lorrimor, who, I am sorry to say, has left us.”
The man took the envelope. “Left? Where did he go?”
“That is up to him and the gods, I suspect.”
“That’s strange. Petros always seemed the sort to let you know where he was going.”
“I do not believe he planned this journey,” Stein said, a pained look on his face.
“I see. Well, I’d best see about this letter.” Heimish opened the seal and began reading. “OH! WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME HE WAS DEAD?!” he shouted.
Stein face palmed. “If that’s all settled, I am supposed to bring you to his funeral. Please, let us make haste.”
Heimish gave a quick nod. “Of course. Let me just get my things.” He then turned and limped inside while Stein slowly walked back to the carriage. Natalya noticed that he had a limp as well, though he was doing his best to hide it. Likely out of pride.
“He sounds like fun,” Natalya said dryly.
“Spare me. And he’s likely not to be the weirdest, if the mistress is to be believed.”
“I see.”
Heimish returned. As he limped past a beggar, he tried to stealthily hand the man a coin, only to slip on a flagstone and accidentally hit the beggar in the face with the coin. Stein just shook his head at the sight.
After Heimish was settled in, he took a seat across from Natalya. “Good morning, miss. I’m Heimish.” He held out his hand.
“Natalya,” the woman answered, not returning the gesture and looking out the window. She did notice his strange brooch that looked like a butterfly made of onyx.
Heimish let his hand fall. “So, where to now?” he asked Stein.
“One more to pick up. You’re sure on where he should be?” he asked Natalya.
“My contact said he’d been seen around there. He also mentioned something about a strange sign the man was carrying. He said you’d know you had the right one when you saw it.”
They searched for a short time before Stein tapped the carriage wall to get the driver to stop. “I think that’s him,” Stein said, pointing down the alley to a man in a dapper suit sitting on a chair next to a box.
Nailed to the box was a sign that read, “Free Babies”.
“That certainly qualifies as a strange sign,” Heimish said.
“I’ll be back momentarily,” Stein said as he stepped from the carriage. Stein approached the man, who seemed to be reading something. “Excuse me, but I believe you might be Santino Clifford?” he asked the man.
“And if I was, what would it be to you?” the man asked, not bothering to look up from what he was reading.
“I have come to deliver this,” Stein answered, handing the man a letter.
The man took one look at the seal and let the letter fall into the box next to him. Stein was more than a little surprised to see several children of differing races crawling around in the box. “So, I guess that means that Petros finally died?”
“Yes. I’ve come to bring you to his funeral.”
“And why would that interest me?” Santino asked.
“You’ve been written into his will.”
“And you think there could possibly be anything he’d want to give me that would make me want to bother?”
“That I cannot say. Please, just read the letter. It explains everything, including the nature of your inheritance.”
Santino rolled his eyes and set down what he was reading. He then leaned over and snatched the letter away from one of the children, who was chewing on its corner. “Filthy, disgusting little things,” he said under his breath as he broke the seal. He read for several moments. “I see. Fine. Let’s go. The sooner we get there, the sooner I can be done with this.” He stood and began making his way towards the carriage.
“Don’t you want to do something about those?” Stein asked, indicating the box.
“If they get hungry enough, they’ll eat the littlest one. They’ll be fine.”
Before Stein could answer, Heimish shouted from the carriage. “Hey, did you get lost in that alley? I thought we were in a hurry.” Stein just shook his head and got into the carriage.
“Hi!” Heimish said to the new arrival. “What’s your name?”
“Santino Clifford,” the man answered. “You?”
“I’m Heimish,” the bearded man answered.
“What brings you here?” Santino asked.
“I’m an old friend of Petros, so it’s only right that I go to see him off.”
“Ah.” Santino reached in his pocket and pulled out some candy. “Would you like some?” Heimish took a piece and ate it straight away. Natalya declined.
Stein put his piece in a small vial and mixed it with some strange substances. It turned a bright green color. “No, I think I’ll pass as well,” he said.
The trip to Ravengro would take a few days, so they spent their time in various ways. Santino pried as he could into Heimish’s story, while Heimish deflected him by talking about the Empyreal Lord he worshipped. Natalya learned far more than she ever wanted about the being.
Natalya did her best to stay out of conversation. Being trapped in a box with strange men put her on edge. Even sleeping was difficult. From time to time, she would go ride up top with the driver. He wasn’t very talkative, which suited her just fine.
The morning of the third day, while they ate breakfast in the carriage, Stein brought something up. “I’m glad I was able to find you all. You see, there are some complications with the estate. If you hadn’t all been here, we wouldn’t have been able to open the will.”
“But what if one of us had been dead?” Heimish asked.
“As long as I could account for that, it would have been fine,” Stein answered.
Santino’s brow creased in thought. “So, hypothetically, if, say, my new friend here died on the way, and I remind you this is completely hypothetical, could I still get what I’m due?”
Stein ignored him.
Unfazed, Santino tried a new track to get under the butler’s skin. “So, which god do you follow?”
“Must I really follow a god?”
“So, you’re saying you don’t?”
Heimish interjected. “If you’re having trouble finding one, I could tell you all about the Black Butterfly!”
Stein looked out the window. “We’re almost there, thankfully.” He tapped the carriage and shouted, “Make haste! We’re behind schedule!”
The carriage driver made a grunt of acknowledgment. Natalya knew how he felt, but it would be good to finally be done with the trip. One more hour having to listen to the others prattle on might have driven her mad.
They arrived at a cemetery, the Restlands, where the town’s well to do were buried. Those without the money to buy such a plot were usually cremated. Fittingly, the sky was grey and a light drizzle blanketed everything in moisture.
A rather annoyed young woman in a black dress and veil approached the carriage as it reached its destination. She was Kendra, daughter of the late Petros. Natalya had never met her before, but he’d mentioned her often enough. “You’re late, Stein,” she called out.
Rather than letting Stein respond, Santino bounded out of the carriage before it had even stopped. He knelt before the woman. “Master, you’ve grown.”
“Cliffy?” she asked. “You’ve gotten much bigger.”
He stood and offered his arm, which she took. With his other hand, he held up an umbrella for both of them. “I must know… is Stein trustworthy?” he asked quietly.
“Father trusted him,” she answered.
“I didn’t ask if your father trusted him. Do you?”
She shrugged. “He’s never done me harm.”
“Naïve child. The white to Petros’ black.”
“If you’re talking about the Tian concept of duality, I believe that you’re mistaken, unless you mean to cast me as the evil. It is the black that represents good.”
Heimish, upon hearing the word “black”, perked up. “Hey! Are you talking about the Black Butterfly? I’d be happy to tell you all about her!”
“Hush, you,” Santino snapped. “So, do you still have his lab?” he asked the girl. She nodded. “Mind if I sniff around.”
“We can worry about that later. We have a funeral to attend to.”
“Of course. After, then. I am curious, but I didn’t want to trespass, since it belongs to you now. After all, YOU have never done me any harm.” His emphasis on the word left little doubt to any who heard what he meant.
Natalya didn’t care. Their past was no concern of hers. She only wished that if they were going to talk privately, they’d do it quietly enough to not bother anyone else.
Kendra led the group to where the casket awaited them. Several local nobles stood, waiting. In total, the crowd waiting numbered fewer than ten, even including the acolytes of Pharasma prepared to lead the procession. Their faces were a mixture of annoyance at the delay and relief that their wait was over.
“Do you think we have nothing better to do?” one of the acolytes asked. “Father Grimburrow has been waiting at the burial site for two hours. We must make haste.”
“Then let us get moving,” Santino said.
“We’ll need volunteers to help carry the casket.”
“I’ll take the right side. Someone else get the left.”
Several onlookers exchanged dubious glances, but were silenced when Kendra nodded that it would be alright. In the end, Heimish and one of the local nobles, Gherin Muricar, took the other side. Kendra and other nobles went with the acolytes to the front, while Natalya stood alone at the party’s rear.
As the procession crested a hill, a mob of men brandishing farm implements and torches awaited them. One of the men, a local by the name of Gibs Hephenus, stepped forward to confront Kendra. “We’ve been talking. And we don’t want Lorrimor buried here.”
“But we’ve already made arrangements with Father Grimburrow! He’s waiting for us up ahead,” Kendra protested.
“We don’t want no necromancer buried with our kin!” Gibs shouted, with several of the other men voicing their agreement.
“That’s fair,” Santino said quietly, motioning for the others to set the coffin down.
“Necromancy?!” Kendra shrieked. “Are you truly that ignorant?!”
The mob began to charge, but Heimish had already made his way forward. “Please, good folk. I understand that you’re upset, but now is truly not the day for violence.”
The mob hesitated, but Gibs tried to goad them on. “Come on! This is the only way!”
“Gibs, do we really have to do this?” one of the others asked.
Santino stepped forward. “Listen, no one knows what a bastard my father was as well as I do. But Kendra has done you no harm. Why, then, would you feel justified in harming her?”
“Yeah, this just ain’t right,” one of the other members of the mob said. They lowered their weapons and began to walk away.
“Come back! You know what must be done!”
Santino walked up to Gibs and placed his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Gibs, tell me, do you believe in God?”
“Are you really asking me that?” the angry man growled.
“It’s just that it seems like whether you believe or not, God doesn’t believe in you. He doesn’t care.” Santino leaned in. “I care, because I care what sound you make while bleeding out,” he whispered.
White as a sheet, Gibs turned and fled. Natalya, who had been preparing for combat to break out, took her hand off of Faith.
The procession continued on, at last reaching Father Grimburrow, an old man who could easily have come first place in a Nosferatu Look Alike contest. “Grimburrow!” Santino said cordially as he waved with his free hand. “How’ve you been?”
“What was the commotion?” Grimburrow asked as the procession set the casket down on the harness above the grave.
“Some of the local townsfolk seemed to think Petros was a necromancer,” Heimish answered. “They wanted to stop us from bringing him here.”
“Ignorant fools. Have they no respect for the dead?” Grimburrow sighed. “Now, if we can hurry along, I’ve been waiting here a long time and I’m not as young as I used to be.”
“I can tell,” Santino said.
“Hush, you,” Grimburrow answered.
Everyone gathered for the required sermon. Natalya was glad she had slept that morning on the road, for she just knew that this was going to be one of those long, boring sermons that were the reason she rarely bothered visiting houses of worship.
But Grimburrow surprised her. “People are born. They live for a while. Then they die. That is the proper way of things. Today we bury Petros Lorrimor. I now stand aside to allow those of you who knew him to say a few words.”
Never hesitant to jump into the spotlight, Santino immediately bounded forward. “The day this man took me in was one of the worst days in the history of everything ever. But I cannot say I didn’t learn much from him. Humans are fragile, so very fragile, like glass. I’ve spent a lot of time around children recently.” Natalya noticed Stein’s face blanch at that statement. “Which has made me well aware just how fragile they really are. Human lives are precious, and I thank my father for showing me this. Even now, he’s showing us that even those who prepare can be taken from us. Live well, all of you, so one day I can tell your grieving children what I learned from you.”
A young woman, perhaps Natalya’s age, whistled lustily at the man as he finished speaking. From her clothing, she was likely the daughter of a local noble, but Natalya couldn’t tell.
“Thank you for that… most interesting speech,” Grimburrow said. “Who is next?”
Heimish stepped up, his lame leg obviously troubling him in the cool, wet weather. “I’m saddened for the loss of my friend,” he said. “I haven’t much to say, but I have one promise to fulfill.” He walked up to the casket, and touched the brooch on his chest. A starknife made entirely of ice appeared in his hand. He opened the casket and gently placed the blade inside before closing the lid once more. “Goodbye, old friend.”
Once Heimish rejoined the crowd, Natalya was suddenly aware that several people were looking at her expectantly. She sighed and walked up to the front. “Petros was a fool who never learned to pay attention to his surroundings. But he was a good man.” At this, both Stein and Santino chuckled. “He’ll be missed.” Courtesy satisfied, Natalya returned back to the rear of the crowd.
Stein walked forward. Just as with Heimish, the weather seemed to be bothering his leg. “For better or worse, Petros Lorrimor made me who I am today. I’ve gained an appreciation for things beyond what I normally would be able to see. And for that, I’m grateful. Rest well, Petros.”
As no one else stepped forward, Kendra took the final speech. “I’d like to thank everyone for being here, even if some of you were a bit late. My father would have appreciated that. He worked for the betterment of others, even if they didn’t always understand him. He sought to understand evil, that he might fight it, but that caused many to mistrust and fear him. So, thank you, all of you, for being here, and for being his friends. Please, everyone, extend a warm welcome to his guests for their time here in Ravengro. Thank you.” And then she began sobbing.
Stein and Santino both walked up to assist her, and brought her back to the crowd. Grimburrow nodded and the acolytes of Pharasma began lowering the casket into the ground.
It took several minutes, but by the time the acolytes began shoveling on the dirt, Kendra had regained her composure. She called over Natalya, Heimish and Santino. “Please, all of you, I would like to offer you food and lodging for the duration of your stay in Ravengro. It will be nice to have someone else around the house for a bit.”
“We’d be happy to stay, so long as we’re here,” Heimish answered. Santino had obviously assumed that would be the case, so he didn’t correct him, and Natalya was glad not to have to find a reputable inn out in the rain, so she readily agreed.
They took the carriage back to the manor. Stein showed them to their rooms, then told them that supper would be served in a few hours, likely after Councilman Vashian Hearthmount arrived to deal with the reading of the will.
Which left some time for Natalya to change into her spare clothes and hang her others to dry. She was annoyed to find that one of her socks had a hole in it, and would likely need to be replaced.
Meanwhile, down in the parlor, Heimish and Stein were having a drink. Up on the landing above, they spotted Santino and Kendra walk by, talking. “Those two seem to have a history,” Stein said.
“Appears so,” Heimish agreed, taking a sip of his whiskey. “Can’t say I ever met the lass before today.”
About an hour later, Vashian Hearthmount finally arrived. “Pardon the delay,” he said. “Political business.”
“Oh, I know all about politicians,” Santino said. Natalya thought she saw him wink.
“To business,” the councilman said, placing a large scroll case on the table. “As per Petros’ instructions, the seal is intact, as stipulations were that it could not be opened until everyone in this room was present. As we’re all here, I will break the seal now.”
A key fell out of the case as it was opened, and Heimish caught it before it tumbled to the floor. The councilman opened the scroll and read it.
““I, Petros Lorrimor, being of sound mind, do hereby commit to this parchment my last will and testament. Let it be known that, with the exception of the specific details below, I leave my home and personal belongings entire to my daughter Kendra. Use them or sell them as you see fit, my child.
“Yet beyond the bequeathing of my personal effects, this document must serve other needs. I have arranged for the reading of this document to be delayed until all principals can be in attendance, for I have more than mere inheritance to apportion. I have two final favors to ask.
“To my old friends, I hate to impose upon you all, but there are few others who are capable of appreciating the true significance of what it is I have to ask. As some of you know, I have devoted many of my studies to all manner of evil, that I might know the enemy and inform those better positioned to stand against it. For knowledge of one’s enemy is the surest path to victory over its plans.
“And so, over the course of my lifetime, I have seen fit to acquire a significant collection of valuable but dangerous tomes, any one of which in the wrong circumstances could have led to an awkward legal situation. While the majority of these tomes remain safe under lock and key at the Lepidstadt University, I fear that a few I have borrowed remain in a trunk in my Ravengro home. While invaluable for my work in life, in death, I would prefer not to burden my daughter with the darker side of my profession, or worse still, the danger of possessing these tomes herself. As such, I am entrusting my chest of tomes to you, posthumously. I ask that you please deliver the collection to my colleagues at the University of Lepidstadt, who will put them to good use for the betterment of the cause.
“Yet before you leave for Lepidstadt, there is the matter of another favor—please delay your journey one month and spend that period of time here in Ravengro to ensure that my daughter is safe and sound. She has no one to count on now that I am gone, and if you would aid her in setting things in order for whatever she desires over the course of this month, you would have my eternal gratitude. From my savings, I have also willed to each of you a sum of one hundred platinum coins. For safekeeping, I have left these funds with Embreth Daramid, one of my most trusted friends in Lepidstadt—she has been instructed to issue this payment upon the safe delivery of the borrowed tomes no sooner than one month after the date of the reading of this will.” ”
Finished reading, the councilman took his leave, citing further business. Kendra fetched the chest the will spoke of and set it on the table. “Open it if you will,” she asked Heimish.
He yanked on the lid, but it wouldn’t open. “It’s stuck,” he said. Then he winked at the exasperated expressions on the others’ faces. “Just pulling your leg.” He inserted the key and opened it properly.
Inside were five books. On the top was what appeared to be a journal, with a note that read, “READ ME IMMEDIATELY!” Santino snatched it and began taking a look.
Beneath that was a purple clad book sealed with a bronze scarab. There was a place for some kind of triangular key. No one was sure how to open it, but it did have a note tucked into it with instructions to deliver it discreetly to Embreth Daramid, a judge at the Leipstadt courthouse. Natalya noted that she was the one who had their money, so keeping this tome safe was likely paramount.
The other three were books dealing with terrors in the world. The first was called “On Verified Madness”, and it was a collection of information about terrifying creatures with ties to the dark void between the stars. The second was a book sacred to worshippers of Urgathoa, goddess of undeath, called “Serving Your Hunger”. Likewise, the third was a translation of the unholy book of Zon-Kuthon, god of torture, called “The Umbral Leaves”.
Natalya had no need to read through any of those. She had far too many nightmares as it was. And while the purple-clad book piqued her curiosity, she hadn’t the skills required to try opening it. For all she knew, it was booby trapped.
But there was one book that she was both interested in, and could open. “So, what does it say?” she asked Santino.
The man shrugged, his monocle shifting slightly. “He appeared to be looking into some cult or other. They were after something in Harrowstone, the old prison. At least, that was his conclusion.”
“Perhaps we should look into it?” Heimish asked. “We are stuck here for a month, after all.”
“Eh, maybe, if I get bored,” Santino answered.
It wasn’t likely there would be much of value lying around the old prison, so unless it posed a danger to her charge, Natalya tended to agree. The cult was more worrisome, of course, as they were likely more mobile than an old building. Perhaps she would find out their name tomorrow and see if the professor’s library held any clues.
But for the night, it was time for bed. Stein and Heimish had another drink, Santino and Kendra chatted more, but Natalya went straight to bed. Comforted by the soft tones of her music box, she went to sleep.
In the morning, there was some commotion in the town. Natalya dressed quickly and joined the others as they went to investigate.
There was a statue, a monument of some kind. It had been spattered with blood. Whoever had done it had also marked a large “V” at the base of the monument, also in blood. Nearby, there was a dead rat, likely the source of the blood used.
Natalya was troubled. Who had done it? Was it the cult? Or someone else? She wasn’t sure. But if she was supposed to keep Kendra safe, then she was going to have to find out.
From the look in his eyes, Heimish had come to the same conclusion. Natalya couldn’t tell what Santino was thinking. And Stein just frowned.
One thing was clear. It wasn’t going to be a nice quiet month of babysitting. They were going to earn their pay on this one. Which was just fine by Natalya. Better than sitting around getting fat.
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Allright, more campaign journals! But while I can agree with wanting to track encumbrance, **10 point buy** on a **party of 3**? Ouch.
Allright, more campaign journals! But while I can agree with wanting to track encumbrance, **10 point buy** on a **party of 3**? Ouch.
If you think that's scary, you should know that the GM has a tendency to spice up encounters because they seem too easy. :P
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If you think that's scary, you should know that the GM has a tendency to spice up encounters because they seem too easy. :PAllright, more campaign journals! But while I can agree with wanting to track encumbrance, **10 point buy** on a **party of 3**? Ouch.
To paraphrase a line in Hunt for Red October regarding the "Boss" of Chapter 1 ... "Personally, I give you one chance in three," to survive it and have a journal going to Chapter 2. :P
To paraphrase a line in Hunt for Red October regarding the "Boss" of Chapter 1 ... "Personally, I give you one chance in three," to survive it and have a journal going to Chapter 2. :PIf you think that's scary, you should know that the GM has a tendency to spice up encounters because they seem too easy. :PAllright, more campaign journals! But while I can agree with wanting to track encumbrance, **10 point buy** on a **party of 3**? Ouch.
Well, that instills confidence by the buttload. :P
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Also,
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Also,
** spoiler omitted **
And yeah, definitely not Good. That doesn't rule out Neutral, of course, but definitely not Good. Same for Stein. To be fair, Natalya's Good/Evil alignment is at Neutral(Chaotic Neutral, following a code of getting the job done, but otherwise looking out for herself above most other concerns), but she's not a fan of people harming innocents for the most part.
As for what happened to the babies? You'd have to ask the GM. I like to think someone found them and they're living on a nice farm right now.
I'm sure it'll make everyone at the table's day to know someone asked about it, though. :P
Oh, and one thing I just noticed. I forgot to put that Heimish will be prestiging into Evangelist in the intro post. Not that it matters a lot. And yeah, we worked some SLA cheese to let him get into it at level 4. Having to wait til level 5 to get his second level spells is gonna be the real painful part.
But having Purblind at level 13 should be nice.
Wow, talk about playing on hard mode. 10 Point buy plus encumbrance plus only 3 PCs and a GM that has a tendency to spice things up because he feels encounters are too easy? Carrion Crown has a reputation for killing PCs in book 1, from what I've heard. You may need to be very lucky to survive the first book.
Is Stein at least a GM NPC who can assist you?
Yes, theoretically. Alchemist, I think. He's probably not going to be around after book 1, as I understand it.
Also, my mood right now.
Also,
** spoiler omitted **
Spoiler:Natalya and Heimish never learned about it. Or at least, haven't yet. Otherwise, Santino would probably be dead now. I can almost guarantee Natalya would have killed him.And yeah, definitely not Good. That doesn't rule out Neutral, of course, but definitely not Good. Same for Stein. To be fair, Natalya's Good/Evil alignment is at Neutral(Chaotic Neutral, following a code of getting the job done, but otherwise looking out for herself above most other concerns), but she's not a fan of people harming innocents for the most part.
As for what happened to the babies? You'd have to ask the GM. I like to think someone found them and they're living on a nice farm right now.
I'm sure it'll make everyone at the table's day to know someone asked about it, though. :P
Whether living on a farm is nice for the babies depends substantially upon which part of the farm they are living on . . . .
Also,
** spoiler omitted **
** spoiler omitted **
I'm sure it'll make everyone at the table's day to know someone asked about it, though. :P** spoiler omitted **
Slavery is the one place where she's truly rigid. Kind of a personal sore spot. If the GM ever gives us an opportunity to kill slavers at great personal cost, with the intention that we hold back, well, it'll be a very interesting day.
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Chapter 2: The Investigation Begins
The town sheriff, Benjan Caellar, was trying to get people to clear out of the scene of the crime, but wasn’t having much success. Naturally, for a small town such as Ravengro, even vandalism of this sort was enough to inflame curiosities and even send chills of fear through the spines of the towns more nervous residents.
“Do you know the significance of the letter V being painted like that?” Heimish asked Kendra.
“I’m not entirely certain, though it feels important,” she answered. “You might try checking the records at the town hall. I’m sure there’ll be something there.”
“I’ll do that later, then,” Heimish said.
“What about the statue?” Natalya asked the others. “What’s its significance?”
Santino, eager to show off his knowledge, answered. “The town itself was founded long ago as a place for the guards of Harrowstone and their families to live, so everyone had a lot of respect for the guards. The statue was built to commemorate a number of guards, including the warden and his wife, who lost their lives along with all of the prisoners during the fire that destroyed much of the prison.”
Exactly the kind of thing angry kids would vandalize. At least, that was Natalya’s thought on the matter. But adventurers couldn’t afford to assume that even the smallest detail was insignificant. That was how you found yourself with a goblin’s knife buried in your guts. Until the culprit was caught, she knew that she had to assume that whatever had done this was a threat to the person she was protecting, and that meant at least trying to figure out who did it.
Meanwhile Heimish, seeing the sheriff’s growing frustration, cleared his throat and put his practice as a bellowing street preacher to work. “Good folks, perhaps we should move along so that the good sheriff can complete his investigation. I’m sure we’re all concerned with this matter, but for now, we’re only underfoot. Certainly, if there is something to be worried about, the town’s sheriff will let us know as soon as he does.”
The crowd considered his words, and a few began murmuring their assent. Slowly, the people began to disperse.
Once everyone else was gone, Sheriff Caellar walked over to Heimish. “I thank you for your assistance. Now please, I ask that you all move along as well so we can get this cleaned up.”
“Of course,” Heimish said. “I was merely waiting for the crowd to disperse so I wouldn’t get knocked down in the rush, what with my bum leg.”
“Understandable,” the sheriff said, then turned to Santino, who had his hand outstretched.
“Yo,” Santino said. “Long time, no see.”
“You,” Benjan said, his eyes narrowing. “We don’t have any time for your shenanigans right now.”
“But I haven’t done anything yet!” Santino protested.
“It’s the ‘yet’ that concerns me.”
Heimish interrupted Santino’s rebuttal by putting his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Come now, the sheriff has work to do, so we’d best be getting out of his way.”
“Fine,” Santino said, rolling his eyes.
As the party began walking away, the sheriff called out. “Hey, Santino. Look, when we’re done with our investigation, maybe I’ll have time for us to grab a drink and reminisce. Just stay out of trouble until then.”
“No promises,” Santino called back.
Kendra laughed. “Some things don’t change. Anyway, I need to go run errands.”
“Do you need accompaniment?” Natalya asked. After all, protecting her was Natalya’s job.
“No, I should be fine, especially during the daytime.”
Natalya nodded. “Understood,” she said, still concerned.
Stein spoke up. “I’ll go with you as far as the town square,” he said. “I need to pay a visit to the apothecary.” That made Natalya feel better. At least Stein would be nearby if Kendra needed help.
“So, with that settled, I’m off to go search the graveyard for something,” Santino said.
“Perhaps, if it’s something in the cemetery you’re after, you should talk to Grimburrow first?” Heimish suggested.
“Well, whatever you do,” Kendra said, “don’t go digging up any graves.”
Santino gave her a flat look. “I’ve grown up. I don’t dig up the yard anymore.” He then turned to Stein. “Hey, while you’re at the apothecary’s place, you should pick up some hemlock to help you sleep. You snore something terrible.”
Stein pulled a vial from his coat. “If my snoring is keeping you awake, I’ve got something right here that will help you sleep through it,” he said sinisterly.
“Well, give it here,” Santino said holding out his hand.
“No, I think not. You have to prepare it properly, or it’s no good. I’ll mix you up some later. Now, we’d best be off,” he told Kendra.
“Let’s have a drink later,” Heimish told the butler.
“Of course, assuming my other duties permit.”
Once they were gone, Heimish turned to Natalya. “Would you like to accompany us to speak with Father Grimburrow?”
“I don’t really need you to come with me,” Santino protested.
“It’s fine. Besides, I would like to talk with the good father myself. Call it something of a professional courtesy between the servants of the gods. So, are you coming, Natalya?”
She considered it. “As old as he is, it’s not impossible that he would know something about that letter V, or maybe something else of interest regarding whatever it was Petros was researching. Since Kendra doesn’t need us, it seems like a good enough place to start our search.”
Santino seemed annoyed. “Okay, fine, you can come with me. But first, I need to stop by the blacksmith.”
As the trio made their way over to the smithy, Heimish decided to make conversation. “So, Natalya, what’s your story?” he asked.
“I’m a bounty hunter and an adventurer. I met Petros when I ran across him in the process of getting cooked and eaten by a pack of goblins.” She then looked back at the road ahead.
“Alright, then,” Heimish said, taking the hint that she didn’t have much to say on the matter.
As they approached the smithy, a dwarven woman of around middle age stood out front, talking to a group of children. “Now remember, kids,” she said. “The food at the Laughing Demon isn’t all fun and games. Ain’t no coincidence that Zokar serves more corpse chowder when an unpopular merchant leaves town. If he invites you into the back room, you should definitely think twice. Now off with you, and mind your mothers.”
Santino waved. “Hey, Jorfa,” he said.
“Well, steel my knickers, if it isn’t Santino Clifford! Heard you were in town!” Her grin was open and friendly. “So, are you here for business or the old ‘Sunday Special’?” She said the last with a wink.
“Sunday special?” Heimish asked. “But it’s Thursday.”
Santino ignored him. “Guys, I’m gonna need about six minutes and fifty seconds. Can you wait that long?”
Jorfa laughed. “What, you saying you last three minutes longer than you did back when I last saw you?”
“I’ll be right back,” Santino told the others as he followed the dwarf into her shop.
Natalya was annoyed. “I get the feeling this will be a waste of a day,” she told Heimish.
“No day is wasted as long as you enjoy yourself,” Heimish said with a smile.
A few minutes later, they heard howling from within the shop. A couple minutes after that, Santino walked out with a swagger, a couple bags in hand. As he walked out the door, Jorfa slapped him on the behind.
“Like I said, I get the feeling this will be a waste of a day,” Natalya said to Heimish.
They continued on to the temple. Along the way, Santino revealed that the bags were filled with caltrops. “Jorfa makes the best caltrops,” Santino told the other two.
“Useful,” Natalya commented. “But why do you need them?”
“I’m going to make an offering,” Santino answered. Natalya decided that she didn’t need to know what he meant by that.
Outside of the temple, a trio of acolytes was tending to the grounds. “Excuse me,” Heimish said. “But is Father Grimburrow in at the moment?”
The nearest acolyte stood from his weeding and walked over. “Sorry,” he said. “But he left five minutes ago.”
“Five minutes ago,” Natalya mouthed to Heimish, looking even more annoyed than before.
“Then we’re gonna go visit my father’s grave,” Santino declared, turning to start walking out into the cemetery.
“Wait,” the acolyte said. “I’ll have someone go with you. Father Grimburrow warned us about your shenanigans.”
Santino looked offended. “But… I’m very private about my mourning!” he whined. “I don’t want someone seeing me cry.” He even faked a tear.
“There, there,” the acolyte said. “Need a hug?”
“Yes, please,” Santino said. As the man embraced him, he took a big sniff of the man’s hair.
“It’s lavender,” the acolyte whispered.
“Can you accompany us?” Santino asked.
“Sure.”
Natalya grunted. “I came here so we could talk to Father Grimburrow. If he’s not here, I’m leaving.”
“It does seem we missed our chance for the day,” Heimish said. “Will you be okay, Santino?”
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “I’ve got… um…”
“Alvin,” the acolyte said.
“Right, I’ve got Alvin with me.”
“We’ll take Wilhelm with us,” Alvin promised. “Just in case more of those rowdy townsfolk show up.” He turned to another acolyte. “No, not you, Willem. You’re bugger all help if it comes to combat. Stay here and keep weeding.”
As the three left, Heimish turned to Natalya. “So, where next?”
“I think Kendra suggested looking at the records in the town hall for information on that ‘V’. I was thinking of going there next.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Heimish said.
It took over an hour to walk back and reach the hall, which was at least in part due to Heimish’s slow speed. That part didn’t really bother Natalya. She’d worked with dwarves before, and he was no slower than them.
Inside the town hall sat a receptionist, who looked up from the book she was scribing. “Yes, can I help you?” she asked.
“Well, I believe so,” Heimish answered. “Have you heard about what happened at the monument? A bit of bad business, that.”
“Yes. It was dreadful to hear,” the young woman answered.
“Right. Well, you see, we were told we might be able to find information here about the meaning of the letter ‘V’ that was written on the monument.”
“We’ve been tasked by Petros Lorrimor’s will with protecting his daughter, so it’s more than just a passing fancy,” Natalya added. “We want to make sure it’s not a sign of a larger problem.”
“Ah,” the woman answered. “Unfortunately, we can’t just let anyone look through the town’s records.”
Natalya had played this game before. “Of course. Is there someone who has permission we could pay to do the research for us?”
“Unfortunately, no. We’re all pretty busy. But if it’s important, you could ask Sheriff Caellar. He could give you permission.”
“We’ll do that,” Heimish said with a smile. “Thanks, miss…”
“Loxie,” the young woman supplied.
“Ah, yes. Thank you, Miss Loxie. You’ve been a great help.” He turned to Natalya. “Shall we go find the good sheriff?”
Natalya nodded. “Seems to be our logical next step.”
Meanwhile, Santino and the acolytes were nearing the grave. “Tell me,” Santino said, “Willem and Wilhelm, are they related?”
“No,” Alvin said. “But they do get asked that a lot.”
“So, what has Grimburrow told you about me?”
“Very little. Mostly he wanted us to keep an eye on you.”
Santino considered a moment. “Has he told you much about my father?”
“Who is your father?” the acolyte asked, perplexed.
“Petros.”
“Oh, no, he doesn’t talk much to us about him, but you could tell they were close friends.”
“Do you believe what the townsfolk said about him?”
“That he was a necromancer? Pharasma, no! Father Grimburrow never would have associated with a necromancer.”
Satisfied with the answer, Santino changed the subject. “So, as I understand it, Pharasmites believe in predestination. If that’s true, how can someone be responsible for their actions? They didn’t choose to do wrong, so how can they be punished?”
“Prophecy is vague. You may do what you’re destined to do, but how you do it, and why, they both matter.”
“So if I throw a rock at a bird, and was destined to do so, it matters why? So it’s fine if I was doing it because, say, I was hungry, but not if I did it because I just don’t like the look of the bird’s face?”
“Fine and not fine plays no role. But your reason will help determine the fate of your soul when Pharasma judges you. There is no wrong answer – aside from perhaps necromancy – but the path to your afterlife is paved with your intentions.”
“I see. So, do you get a lot of grave robbers?”
“What?! Pharasma, no! We keep an eye out.”
“But what if they weren’t necromancers after the body? What if they simply wanted their inheritance?”
Alvin gave him a questioning look. “Are they inheriting a coffin? Because it would be disrespectful to the dead to pull them out of their resting place, take the coffin and dump them back in. And it would be just plain weird to be buried in the same coffin with the previously deceased. No, we have a one corpse per casket rule around here.”
Wilhelm grunted as the trio reached the grave. Santino walked over and knelt before the gravestone, looking for any signs of secret messages or compartments that could hold the prize he sought. After a few minutes, he was satisfied that there was nothing, so he stood once more.
“You didn’t cry,” grunted Wilhelm.
“There were too many people here,” Santino answered casually scanning the graveyard for anything out of place that might lead to his prize. “I’ll cry later. Shall we head back?”
“Sure,” Alvin said. “So, did you hear how Petros died?” he asked Santino.
“No, I hadn’t heard the details. What happened?”
“Something fell and crushed his head, the way I hear it.”
“Ghastly,” Santino said, trying to sound upset.
When they reached the temple again, Father Grimburrow had returned and already gone to bed. To pass the time, Santino tried to talk his way into Alvin’s bed, but managed to fail. So instead, he decided to wait in the temple until Grimburrow awoke, eventually passing out on a hard bench.
Back at the mansion, Natalya and Heimish returned, having been unable to find the sheriff. “Where’s Clifford?” Kendra asked when she opened the door for them.
“We left him at the church,” Natalya answered. “Father Grimburrow wasn’t around, so he decided to visit Petros’ grave. So we left him with some acolytes and headed to the town hall in search of answers.”
“Ah, well, he’s always been one to disappear at the weirdest times. He’ll show up when he’s hungry. Any luck at the town hall?”
“Sadly, no,” Heimish answered. “It seems we need permission from the good sheriff to look through the records, and we were unable to find him before it started getting dark.”
“Well, good luck,” Kendra said. “If nothing else, it’ll be a good way to pass the time.”
Natalya went and changed clothes, then headed the home’s library to continue researching. Heimish, meanwhile, went and grabbed a chair in the sitting room to rest his weary leg.
A few minutes later, Stein returned, holding a small sack. “It has been a good day!” he told Heimish, brandishing the sack.
“Oh, why’s that?” the preacher asked.
Stein drew a bundle of herbs from the bag. They looked fresh cut and had been tied with twine. “Wolfsbane. You should get yourself some if you can.”
“I’ll keep an eye out,” Heimish said. “Shall we have a drink?”
“After dinner, which I must attend to now.”
“Of course. I won’t keep you.”
In the library some time later, Kendra found Natalya poring through a book. There were three others stacked next to it. She looked at the one on the top. “Oh, you’re researching the Whispering Way?”
“Yes,” Natalya answered. “They were mentioned in your father’s notebook.”
“They’re a fascinating bunch. Did you know that they have philosophies that they’re only allowed to pass on via whispers?”
“I hadn’t heard that.” Natalya did think that it made sense, considering the group’s name.
“I thought that the undead only moaned,” Heimish said from the doorway.
“Well, if it’s undead you’re interested in,” Kendra said as she walked over to a shelf, “I have an interesting book on the subject here.”
“I shall enjoy reading it. Stein says that dinner will be ready within an hour, so I thought I’d pass the time helping with the research.”
“Of course. I’ll leave you to it.” With that, Kendra left to go check on Stein. He always put far too much pepper in the soup for her liking.
“Anything interesting?” Heimish asked Natalya.
“Nothing useful,” she answered. “But I’ll keep looking.”
“I’ll help,” Heimish answered.
Dinner was a simple stew of chicken and vegetables. But despite being simple, it was hearty and quite filling. Natalya found herself quite ready for bed after eating. Kendra also retired for the evening.
Stein and Heimish went to the sitting room, where Heimish produced a bottle. “So, tell me more about wolfsbane,” he said to his companion.
“It’s helpful against all forms of lycanthropes.”
“You mean folks who are cursed to transform under the full of the moon? I haven’t ever paid much attention to the moon, my eyes more focused on the dark places between the stars.”
“Precisely. Bestial and dangerous. You have to be wary of them. Take every precaution you can.”
“Right. That seems like a good idea.”
“Forewarned is forearmed, my friend. So always be prepared.” The two drank for another hour, talking little, but simply enjoying the company of another soul and the warming drink before a crackling fireplace.
In the wee hours of the morning, Santino was awoken by the sharp rap of a cane to his back. “What are you doing, sleeping in Pharasma’s temple?” an annoyed Grimburrow asked him.
“What?” Santino looked around. “Oh, right. I was here to talk to you about my father. Read this,” he said, handing the letter he’d been given by Stein several days ago. Grimburrow pulled a small set of spectacles from his pocket and began reading.
After a few minutes of reading, Grimburrow finished and handed the note back to Santino. “So, what do you expect me to do about it?”
“I just need permission to search.”
“Search?” the priest asked, not liking where this was going.
“The graveyard.”
“Absolutely not! No one is allowed to disturb the graves.” Then, deciding he may have been too harsh, he added, “Look, I’ll have my acolytes search in a way that won’t bother the dead. I will let you know if they find anything.”
Santino sighed. “Fine. I can live with that. Here, take this for your trouble.” He handed Grimburrow a heavy sack.
“What’s this?” the priest asked, eyeing the contents with confusion.
“Caltrops. You can lay them in the cemetery to keep away grave robbers.”
Grimburrow whacked Santino with his cane. “Be off with you!” he said, annoyed.
“Fine! Fine! I’m going!”
With nothing to do, Santino headed towards the blacksmith, hoping that Jorfa would be up and bored. Unfortunately, he found the building locked, and knew better than to wake her up at this hour. So he decided to wander around a bit.
As he was walking down the road, Santino spotted some old footprints that seemed to head off towards the river, making a straight line towards the monument. He tried to trace their origin, but was unable to find anything. In the end, the only thing he could really tell from them that they were made by someone wearing large boots.
Not that they probably mattered. They were just in a weird place, was all.
Once the sun had risen, Heimish and Natalya had a quick breakfast and went to find the sheriff at Heimish’s suggestion. They bid Kendra a good day and hurried off as fast as Heimish’s leg would let him.
They found Sheriff Caellar as he was opening up the town jail to let out the local drunk. “Good morning, sheriff!” Heimish called out.
The sheriff turned and eyed them in the early morning sunlight. “Oh, it’s you,” Benjan said. “What can I do for you this fine morning?”
Heimish closed the distance and shook the man’s hand. “Well, you see, Sheriff, we were wanting to look into the meaning of that ‘V’ on the monument, to see if it held any danger to Miss Kendra. But Miss Loxie at the town hall said we needed your permission to look at the records.”
The sheriff laughed. “You know what? I like you. Okay, I’ll set you up with a pass. But only you.” He eyed the tiefling warily. Natalya didn’t care. She’d seen that look hundreds of times. “And it’ll only be good for one day. If you need more time, you’ll have to pay a fee to the town hall to renew it, to help pay for the time of anyone who has to put things back in order when you’re done.”
“I will be careful not to get anything out of order, but I am perfectly happy to pay a reasonable fee if necessary.”
“Good man. Just let me finish up here and we’ll go get you set up.” Benjan opened the door to the jail and then went in and unlocked the cell used to hold drunks. “Okay Westley. It’s time to get up.”
“Morning already?” a voice asked with a groan.
“Yep, morning already. Now get up and get on out. I’m not feeding you.”
“Okay, sheriff,” the drunk said, stumbling out of the jail. “See you tonight.”
“Yeah,” Benjan said with a sigh. “See you tonight.”
While the sheriff was inside, Santino arrived. “What’s going on here?” he asked Heimish and Natalya.
“I’m going to get a pass from the sheriff to do some research at the town hall. Anything interesting happen for you?”
“I found some weird footprints, but aside from that, not really. What should we do now?”
“Well,” Heimish said, “I’m probably going to go do my research. You two could go try to find other information.”
“Maybe one of the townsfolk saw what happened at the monument?” Natalya asked.
“It’s possible,” Santino said. “We could always ask around. But where to start?” He thought for a moment. “The tavern?”
Natalya shrugged. “As good a place as any.” She turned to Heimish. “Will you be okay on your own?”
The preacher shrugged. “As long as no books fall on me, I should be fine.”
“The tavern it is,” Natalya said. “I’m assuming you know the way?” she asked Santino.
“Of course!” the odd man answered with a grin.
At the town hall, Heimish soon realized he was out of his depths. To call the organization of the records haphazard would have been incorrect, but the truth was that whatever system was being used was an invention of a strange and unique mind.
“Having trouble?” Loxie asked him after several fruitless hours.
“A little,” Heimish admitted.
“It takes some getting used to. Let me help a bit. What are you looking for?”
“Any information on the prison that might give us a clue as to what that ‘V’ referred to. I suspect it might have something to do with the event that prompted the building of the monument.”
“Ah, yes. The fire. Terrible, that.” She went two shelves down and grabbed a small tome. “This talks a bit about it. Apparently there was a riot, and somehow a fire got started. The warden, Lyvar Hawkran, sacrificed himself and twenty three of his guards to keep the prisoners from escaping. His wife also died in the fire, though I’m not sure why he couldn’t get her out.”
“Were the prisoners really that bad?”
“Heavens, yes. As I understand it, they were all terrible men who had committed severe crimes. Would have been better if they had been given summary execution rather than being locked up until someone could get around to dealing with them later.”
“I see. Thanks, Miss Loxie. I’ll read through this and see if I can find any other records near where it was that might be relevant.”
“Oh, you won’t find what you need near there. Most of those are bills of sale for crops over the years.”
“A most confusing system indeed,” Heimish said to no one in particular.
At the tavern, Natalya and Santino were getting nowhere. “This is a waste of our time,” Natalya complained. “No one seems to know anything.”
“Give it a while,” Santino said. “They’ll start remembering when they get a few more drinks in them.”
“Right,” she answered.
Almost on cue, a loud drunkard, his arm around his friend, declared at a near bellow, “You know that prison up there? They say the executioner’s ghost patrols the halls of the western side of the prison, and that on some nights, his scythe can be seen patrolling the balcony on its own, as if carried by an invisible spirit.”
“That’s hogwash, and you know it,” the tavern keeper retorted.
“No it’s not! It’s true, my buddy Westley swears he seen it once!”
“Ah, so we’re taking the word of the town drunk,” Natalya said to herself. “Okay, I’m done,” she said to Santino. “I’m going back to Kendra’s library. At least I might find something useful there.” Then she stood up.
No sooner had she stood than she heard a man at a nearby table shout in triumph. “Ah-ha! I win!” he said as he slammed his cards on the table.
And then the cards burst into flame.
The bright flash of light blinded both Natalya and Santino. Natalya, disoriented, tried to center herself. She put her hand on the hilt of Faith, then tried to listen for the sounds of anyone coming at her.
Santino, meanwhile, heard something else. It sounded like screams coming from the cellar below. Carefully, still being blinded, he lowered himself to the ground and listened below.
It was just as he thought. He heard screaming!
When her sight returned, Natalya scanned the room. Everyone else looked just as disoriented. Strangely, though, she noticed that the cards that had been at the center of the whole thing appeared to be perfectly fine.
She’d known multiple adventurers who used various flash powders, and they all had a strange odor to them. “May I inspect your cards?” she asked the patron.
“What?” he asked. “Oh, yeah, go ahead.”
She took the card that was on top, The Uprising, which depicted a bunch of men with torches and pitchforks, and gave it a good sniff. “Nothing. No one put any kind of flash powder on this.”
“I’m no magician,” the patron protested. “That was some kind of strange omen.”
“Right,” she said. Perhaps she’d want to look into the meaning of the card later, just in case it really was an omen.
She glanced over and watched as Santino was trying to casually make his way into the door to the taverns cellar. “Excuse me,” the tavern keeper, Zokar Elkarid, said as he stepped between Santino and the door. “What are you doing?”
“I heard screaming coming from below the floorboards. I’m going down there to expose whatever torture dungeon you’re running,” Santino accused.
“I’m not letting anyone down there.”
“We’ll see what the sheriff has to say about that,” Santino said.
“You do what you’ve gotta do.”
“I’m gonna go get the sheriff,” Santino told Natalya. “Keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn’t try to go destroy the evidence.”
Natalya sighed. “Yeah, alright,” she said, sitting back down in her seat.
Santino jogged over to the sheriff’s office, only to find that Benjan Caellar wasn’t in. Instead, it was one of his deputies, a dour-looking man by the name of Vrodish who waited within.
“Can I help you?” Vrodish asked Santino.
“There was a fire at the Laughing Demon, and screaming beneath the floor. Come quick! I think that Zokar is keeping prisoners in the cellar!” Santino declared.
Vrodish sighed and looked out the window. “I don’t see any smoke.”
“It was a small fire, and it went out quickly. Please, we have to hurry before he hides the evidence.”
“Sir, how much have you had to drink tonight?”
“What? I’m not drunk! Please, you have to hurry!”
Vrodish sighed and rolled his eyes as he put on his hat. “Fine, let’s go.”
As Natalya watched, business at the tavern continued as normal, aside from a bit of buzz about what had just happened. Zokar didn’t seem to be doing anything suspicious, but she declined his offer of another drink all the same.
A few minutes later, Santino returned with Vrodish in tow. “Excuse me, Zokar,” Vrodish said. “This man claims there was a fire?”
“That’s right!” the patron with the cards said. “I put my cards on the table and suddenly they burst into flames! Everyone here saw it.”
Vrodish gave Santino a look. “So, you weren’t lying after all. Okay, and then there was what else?”
“Screaming, coming from the cellar,” Santino said.
“Right. Mind if I take a look, Zokar?” Vrodish asked.
“Not at all, Vrodish,” Zokar said.
As the deputy headed down into the cellar, Santino’s face was smug. A few minutes later, that look disappeared when the deputy shook his head. “Nothing out of the ordinary down there. You must have been hearing things when you were spooked by the fire.”
“I know I heard it,” Santino growled. Then he sighed. “Okay, if you say it wasn’t there, it wasn’t there.”
“Good,” Vrodish said. “Now don’t drink too much tonight. I don’t want to have to deal with you again.”
Santino dug around in his pocket. “Want some candy?” he asked, holding out a wrapped treat to the deputy.
“No, I’m fine,” Vrodish said before turning to leave.
“Your loss,” Santino said as he popped the treat into his mouth. It would only be hours later that he’d remember that the piece of chocolate had been laced with a laxative.
Once Vrodish was gone, Santino laid his head on the floor again. “What are you doing?” Zokar asked.
“I thought I saw a coin on the floor, but I can’t find it,” Santino lied.
“Ah, well, look, now that this mess is behind us, no hard feelings?” Zokar asked, extending his hand.
Santino took it and shook. “Yeah, I guess we’re okay. Hey, while you’re here, do you know anything about the old prison?”
“Can’t rightly say I know more than anyone else,” Zokar said. “But what I do know, is that you look like a man who needs some wolf balls. They’re one of my most popular offerings.”
Santino shrugged. “Sounds good. Give me two orders to go.” He took his seat across from Natalya. “So, do you have any ideas?”
“What do you know about Harrow cards?” Natalya asked him.
“Only that they’re used for fortune telling. The Pharasmites are big on fate and stuff. Maybe Grimburrow would know? It’s still early enough if you want to go see him.”
Natalya nodded. “It’s worth a shot.”
Zokar returned with a couple skewers with meatballs on them. “Here you go, two orders of wolf balls. Anything else I can do for you?” he asked.
“Do you have any idea who defaced the monument?” Natalya asked.
“Nothing for sure, but I bet it was some dumb kids.”
“I hope you’re right,” Natalya said.
At the temple, Grimburrow frowned at the return of Santino. “I told you I’d send someone for you if we found anything.”
“I’m not here for that,” Santino said. “My companion here wanted to ask you a question.”
Natalya explained what had happened at the tavern while Santino handed one of the skewers of meat to Father Grimburrow. “…And so I was hoping you might be able to tell us more about the Harrow, specifically the card called ‘The Uprising’.”
“Sorry,” Grimburrow said. “But I don’t know much about that. What you need is a proper diviner. Unfortunately, I don’t think there are any in town.”
“Right,” Natalya said. She turned to Santino. “Do you think we could get Kendra to send for one from a nearby city?”
“What?” he asked, mouth full of wolf ball. “Oh, yeah, I bet she’d be willing to do that.”
Natalya nodded. “Then that’s the plan.”
Santino turned back to Grimburrow. “Don’t forget to send someone as soon as you find something.”
Annoyed, Grimburrow waved dismissively at him with the back of his hand. “Shoo! Go home. Pharasma says it’s your destiny to leave.”
“Fine, I’m going!”
The next morning, there was more commotion. This time, someone had killed a cat. Again, a letter had been written on the monument. This time, it was the letter ‘E’.
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Chapter 3: The Continuing Investigation
“Yeah!” another man shouted.
“People, we’re doing what we can,” Sheriff Benjan responded. “Please, now I just need everyone to move along so we can continue our investigation. I promise you that we’re doing everything we can, and we’ll find the culprit.”
Were they, though? At least, that was the question that ran through Natalya’s mind. She considered it, and thought that maybe there was something she could do. But it would have to wait for nightfall.
“Good people,” Heimish said. “We must remain vigilant. It is up to all of us to keep an eye out for the culprit. But for now, we’re in the good sheriff’s way and should let him get back to work. Disrupting his work further does nothing to help capture the person who has done this.”
The crowd considered what he’d said, but only a few began to clear out. People were far too concerned to be swayed by mere words.
Natalya, seeing the situation, considered the matter. It wasn’t really her concern what the people did, but at the same time, she’d seen how Benjan had been willing to help those who had ingratiated themselves to him. And, as a bounty hunter and adventurer, she knew that it was always a good idea to have the law on your side.
So she decided to help out. “Surely there is something better we could be doing with our time. Come, let us head over to the Laughing Demon. I’ll buy everyone a round of ale.” She still had plenty of money from the bounty she’d just collected, and had a thousand gold payday in less than a month. The few gold it would cost to get people out of the sheriff’s hair could potentially pay vast dividends, and it couldn’t hurt for people to think of her as “the person who bought everyone drinks” rather than “the armed tiefling outsider”.
Santino, for his part, was less than concerned with what the citizens were doing than he was with Benjan’s deputy, a woman by the name of Trestleblade. She had spurned his advances when he had been in town last, and he viewed her as a prize he should win.
Thus, while the others were worried about the crime and the reaction to it, Santino was too busy making suggestive motions with his tongue at the annoyed deputy. And when the crowd began leaving for the tavern, he made no move to join them.
“Make sure to take your, ahem, friend with you,” Trestleblade called out to Natalya.
“Don’t be bashful. You know you love me, Truffles.” He’d never liked her name, so he had long ago chosen to ignore reality and replace her name with one of his own devising.
“We don’t need your shenanigans today,” she answered flatly.
Heimish, noticing the situation, hobbled over to Santino. “Come now, we best be getting out of their way. I’m sure you can pursue your courtship later,” he told the other man as he pulled him along. “Besides, maybe if we help the sheriff solve this mystery, it might put you in her good graces.”
Santino considered it. “It’s worth a shot, I guess.” Of course, he completely forgot about it by the time they reached the tavern, and immediately considered something else. “Heimish, now that we’re here, do you hear any screaming?”
“Screaming? No, I can’t say I do. I hear laughter.” He looked around. “No, nothing seems amiss. So I’m going to the town hall again. That letter ‘E’ concerns me. I’m going to see if I can find anything by looking up the names of the prisoners.”
“Yeah, alright,” Santino said. “I guess I’m just going crazy, since no one else heard it,” he muttered under his breath.
Natalya, meanwhile, had to work out the price her promise would cost her. “Twenty gold?!” she balked. “I’m not looking to buy the tables. I just want enough ale for these people here.”
“These aren’t the only ones who will arrive,” Zokar said. “Word’s already spread around town. Everyone will be coming for their free drink.”
Natalya’s face blanched. “That complicates things,” she said. She couldn’t afford for people to be disappointed. Opinion would turn against her and she couldn’t afford that so early in her time in town.
“At least you’ll be popular,” Zokar said.
“Yeah, there’s that,” she said with a sigh. Then she had a thought. “Do you ever sell ale by the barrel?”
Zokar’s eyebrow raised. “I have before,” he said.
“Then sell me enough barrels to cover drinks for everyone in town.”
“And where will you serve these drinks? It’s not worth it to me to have to clean so many mugs.”
But Natalya had done a lot of work guarding merchants. She’d pick up a few things. “Those drinks, maybe no. But with everyone coming in here, do you really think all of them will stop at a single drink? Surely many of them will buy a second drink. And what’s a drink without food?”
Natalya didn’t know it, but she’d stumbled upon a marketing concept known as a “loss leader”, a trick used by many merchants. By offering something at a small loss, you can often make up the difference in extra sales that come from customers who have been drawn to the store by the discount.
Zokar considered it. “I can see your point. I might just do more business today than any day before. It’s a deal. I’ll sell you your barrels.” He did the math. “Five gold should cover it.”
That was a price Natalya could live with. “Done,” she said, shaking his hand and depositing the money on the counter. “Enjoy your drinks!” she said to the gathered crowd before marching out the door to cheers.
Santino jumped as someone slapped his backside. He turned and saw Jorfa standing there, a grin on her face. “What brings you here?” he asked. “Shouldn’t you be working?”
Jorfa shrugged. “I heard there was free booze.”
“Fair enough,” Santino said. “Hey, what was that thing you were telling the kids about this place?”
“What?” she asked, draining her tankard. “Oh, yeah. The food here isn’t all fun and games. There’s always more corpse chowder after unpopular merchants supposedly leave town. And you don’t want to go in the back with Zokar, lest you end up in the stew.”
Santino stroked his chin. “Now I really need to know what’s back there. Help me out?”
“Oh?”
“Just follow me and giggle a bit.”
“I’m sure I’m going to love this.”
“Hey, Zokar,” Santino called out as he went over.
“Oh, it’s you. Looking for more wolf balls?” the tavern keeper asked.
“Maybe in a bit,” Santino answered. “Hey, my friend’s had a bit too much to drink today, and I need to take her somewhere away from the crowd. You know, somewhere with some privacy, if you know what I mean? Mind if we use your back room?” Jorfa giggled girlishly at his words.
Zokar shook his head. “Boy, we can’t be having people rutting in the back where we store the food. If you need privacy, take her home.”
Santino sighed. “Fine, okay, maybe after we eat. Get me a couple sets of wolf balls.”
Zokar smiled. “To go? Or are you eating here today?”
“More booze!” Jorfa cheered.
“Here, apparently,” Santino said.
“Coming right up!” Zokar laughed. “Grab a seat before they’re all taken!”
Santino and Jorfa had a seat at a table in the corner. “Well, that didn’t work,” Santino complained.
“Worked fine for me,” Jorfa said. “I’m definitely ready for some breakfast.”
“Right,” Santino said, taking a drink from the mug that Zokar placed before him. “Hey, guess who I ran into today.”
“Who?”
“Truffles.”
“Who is that?” Jorfa asked.
“Oh, right. Trestleblade. When did she become a cop?”
Jorfa gulped down her drink. “Long time ago. Right after you left, I think.”
“Think I should try to hit that? She got away last time.”
Jorfa shook her head. “She’s a cold fish. Not worth the effort.”
“Right,” Santino said as he took a drink, clearly not convinced.
Meanwhile, Natalya sat outside of the town’s general store, waiting for the shopkeeper to return from getting his free drink. Word really had spread. “This is going to be a long day,” she said to herself.
At the town hall, Heimish and Loxie spent hours researching names. None of the prisoners matched. “I think we have something,” Loxie said suddenly.
“What is it?” Heimish asked.
“Look,” she said, holding out the tome she’d been reading.
He read through it. “There’s a name that matches!” he said. “Violet Evergreen. Sister to one of the guards who died. It’s more than we had before.”
“I saw another possibility,” Loxie said. “If we’re willing to consider that it’s not initials but part of a name.”
“Oh?”
“Right here,” the woman said. “Vesorianna Hawkran.”
“Hawkran…” Heimish said. “Where do I know that name from?”
“She’s the warden’s wife.”
“Wait, that’s right! Didn’t she die that night as well?”
Loxie nodded. “Yes. She died alongside her husband and all those guards.”
“That sounds quite a bit more relevant,” Heimish said.
“It does,” Loxie agreed.
“I’d best head to the sheriff’s office and let him know what we’ve found.”
Loxie looked at the time. “Oh! And I should get back to my duties.”
At the sheriff’s office, a lone deputy sat, leaning back on a stool, when Heimish arrived. “Yes?” she asked. “Can I help you with something?”
“Ah, yes, Miss… Truffles, was it?”
“Don’t call me that,” Trestleblade answered.
“My apologies. It was the only name I knew for you.”
“My name is Trestleblade.”
“I see. Is that your given or family name?” Heimish asked.
“Yes.”
Heimish didn’t bother asking for further clarification. “I came to speak with the sheriff. Is he in?”
“Not currently.”
“Oh. Do you have something I can write a note on? I think I may have found a lead into the vandalism.”
She thought for a moment. “Right. Let me get something.” She went into the back and returned with a parchment and quill. She motioned to the inkwell on the sheriff’s desk.
“Thanks,” Heimish said, quickly jotting down a note to let the sheriff know what he’d found.
“No problem,” Trestleblade said. “Look, if you really want to talk to the sheriff, try visiting Jominda’s Apothecary. He spends a lot of time around there.”
“Thank you. I’ll do that. Can you point me in the direction of Jominda’s?”
Sometime later, as he entered the doors to the shop, Heimish heard the voice of a woman. “Do you really have to come in here? I’ve told you a thousand times that I don’t make poisons or deal in illegal drugs!”
“Sorry, Miss Jominda,” Sheriff Benjan’s voice answered. “I just have to be sure.”
Heimish cleared his throat. “Hey, Sheriff,” he said.
“Oh,” Benjan said, recognition on his face. “It’s you. What brings you to the apothecary?”
“Don’t harass my customers,” Jominda sniped.
“Sorry, I came here for two sets of business. The first is with you, Sheriff,” Heimish said. He then relayed what he found as the sheriff listened carefully.
“I see,” Benjan finally answered. “It’s a slim lead, but it’s a lead nonetheless. We’ll look into it.”
“Yes,” Jominda said. “Now get out of my shop and do your job.”
“Right,” the sheriff answered. “Thanks again, Heimish.”
“Of course. And now to my other business. You see, I heard about this place from my friend Stein,” he began.
“Yes, I know Stein,” Jominda said. “One of my best customers.”
Heimish nodded. “Well, you see, he and I share a certain affliction, and I was hoping you could help me out a bit?” he said, motioning towards his bum leg.
“Ah, yes. I have just the thing for the pain,” Jominda answered. “Give me a few minutes and I’ll set you up with a nice poultice.”
“Thank you kindly,” Heimish answered.
Meanwhile, Natalya was negotiating the price for the goods she was buying. “I never thought a net would cost so much.”
“If you’re really tracking a nuisance boar and mean to catch him, you don’t want something cheap that he’ll easily get out of,” the shopkeeper answered. “Those tusks will tear your gut right open.”
“Fair point,” Natalya answered.
“Look, here’s what I’ll do. Since you’re buying so much, I’ll throw in some chalk. Grind it up and it’s excellent for use in mapping tracks.”
“Deal,” she agreed. “Now all I need is some glowing ink. Where might I find some of that?”
“Apothecary would be your best bet. I’m sure Jominda might be able to mix something up.”
“Thanks,” Natalya said.
Santino, having run into Natalya and agreeing to help her on her project later, found himself just staring at the town monument, since he had nothing to do for the moment. He wasn’t sure what he should be doing. He was at a loss on his search, since the graveyard had turned up nothing. And he wasn’t sure how important the business at the monument even was. But it was something for people to do, he guessed.
He decided it was time to go check the inn. He was starting to get hungry, after all, and one could only eat so many wolf balls in a day. So he took the first step in the direction of the inn.
He immediately stopped when he spotted a deputy staring at him. “Afternoon,” he called out in greeting.
“And what might you be doing over here, exactly?” the deputy, a sour faced man by the name of Leromar, asked him.
“Nothing, really. Just thinking.”
“Right. And do you really need to do your thinking at the monument?”
Santino shrugged. “Not really, I guess. I’m just wondering about that strange business. You haven’t seen anything, have you?”
“There’s a strange person suspiciously staring at the monument,” Leromar said.
“Where?” Santino asked, looking around. But he didn’t spot anyone. Instead, he noticed a strange sight on the road. Tracks appeared out of nowhere, and faded just as quickly. He was pretty sure they were wagon and horse tracks.
“What are you staring at now?” Leromar asked.
“You didn’t see that, did you?” Santino asked, already knowing the answer.
“See what?”
“Of course you didn’t.” Santino sighed. “I’m getting really tired of being the only one to see these things. I hope I’m not going crazy,” he mumbled.
“Well, you should get out of here. And stay away from the monument.”
“Will do. And if anything happens, you’ll know it wasn’t me because I can’t be near it after you’ve told me not to.”
Leromar’s head was beginning to hurt. “What?”
“Want some candy?” Santino asked.
“I don’t take candy from strange people.”
“Your loss,” Santino said, tossing a piece of candy in his mouth. He then smirked and walked away, swaying his hips suggestively at the exasperated deputy.
The inn was fairly quiet when he arrived. A few patrons were enjoying themselves in a game of cards, but other than them, the place was fairly empty. Santino liked that just fine, and approached the innkeeper.
“Excuse me,” the man said. “What kind of food do you serve here, Miss…?”
“Sarianna,” the innkeeper answered.
“Right,” Santino answered. “I’ve been away for far too long and have forgotten far too many names.”
“Quite alright,” Sarianna said. “Now, about that food, I haven’t much, but there’s a stew pot on the fire. I could get you some of that, if you’d like.”
“That sounds lovely,” Santino said, taking a seat.
Sarianna returned a few moments later, with a trencher of steaming lamb stew in hand. “Here you are,” she said, placing it before Santino.
He took a sniff. “Mmm, lamb. One of my very favorites.” He took a taste. “Yes, most delicious. All it needs is some musical accompaniment.”
“Sadly,” Sarianna said, “while many musicians frequent this place, none are in house at the moment. If you’re interested, there are some fairly good ones planning to stop here in the next few days, or so their valet tells me.”
“I look forward to it,” Santino answered. “But as I recall, you’ve quite the reputation for your beautiful voice. Perhaps you could share even just a single song with me, that I might enjoy your wonderful stew even more?”
Sarianna giggled girlishly at the comment, an act she was ten years too old for, but still came naturally. “I couldn’t,” she said in refusal. “I have far much to do to waste my time in such frivolity, save for special occasions.”
“A pity,” Santino said. “It might have lightened my spirits after the death of my father. Oh well. Tell me, have you heard anything about new people in town?”
“Aside from the normal merchants, the only new people I’ve heard of are an eloquent man with a gimp leg and a strange red-skinned tiefling woman who made a bit of a splash by buying everyone in town a drink.”
“I see,” Santino said, slurping down the last of his stew. He was never sure if he should eat the trencher or not. So he gobbled it down. It wasn’t like they could reuse the stale bread after it had soaked up so much broth. “A pity, I had hoped that a beautiful woman as yourself might know of someone who might be responsible for the town’s troubles.”
“Your reputation for flattery is well earned, I see,” Sarianna answered. “But it seems without ill intent.”
“I am the soul of congeniality,” Santino answered, fishing a coin from his purse and placing it in her hand.
“I’m sorry, but I haven’t enough small coin to make change for a gold piece,” Sarianna said. “Do you have something smaller?”
“I do, but receiving change is not the intent. Keep what is left, in exchange for the information and your lovely company. And please keep me abreast of the arrival of your musicians.”
“I shall,” Sarianna answered.
When Santino returned to the manor, he found Alvin speaking with Stein. “Hi!” he called out to Alvin excitedly. “Do you have news for me?”
“Oh, it’s just who I was looking for,” Alvin said.
“Heh,” Stein snorted derisively.
Santino ignored the butler. “So, did you find anything?” he asked Alvin.
“Nothing of note, no,” Alvin answered.
“Did you search thoroughly?”
“Yep. Pretty thoroughly.”
Overcoming his disappointment, Santino decided on his next course of action. “You should stay for dinner. Or at least a drink.”
“Sorry,” Alvin said. “But I really ought to be getting back to my duties.”
“Right,” Santino said, a bit crestfallen. Stein chuckled at his rejection. “Do you mind?” Santino snapped at him.
“Not at all. Don’t let me stop you.”
Santino ignored him and hugged Alvin, once more sniffing his hair. “At least tell me you’re interested in hearing the musicians Sarianna has coming in with me.”
“I might be able to make time,” Alvin conceded.
Santino stared longingly at Alvin as he left, looking akin to a puppy watching its master leave. Even Stein took pity on him. “Come inside. I was about to make some tea.”
Santino perked right up. “Ooh! Tea!” He followed Stein inside, and decided to make conversation. “So, how has life been since the death of my father?”
“Coming to a bunch of dead ends,” Stein grunted.
“So, what brought you into his employ, anyway?”
“I have a particular set of skills he required.”
“I see…” That wasn’t getting anywhere. Santino considered trying another tack. “So, it seems you’re an alchemist. What got you into alchemy?”
“This and that,” Stein answered.
“Okay, so do you know anything about the prison?”
“It’s mostly ancient history. Nothing for us to worry about.” Stein was obviously not really interested in conversation. “Now give me a moment to get that tea ready.” He punctuated the sentence with a sinister grin.
Santino’s reply was interrupted by the arrival of Heimish. “Find anything?” he asked the preacher.
“It all seems to be pointing towards Harrowstone,” Heimish responded.
“Oh. I saw some weird tracks leading off in that direction. I think you might be right.”
“I’ll have to have you tell me about them,” Heimish said. “But first,” he continued, pulling out a small satchel and handing it to Stein. “For my brother-in-arms, or perhaps more aptly, brother-in-legs.”
Stein opened the package. “Oh my. She finally got these in? I must investigate these herbs immediately.” With that, he ran off to his laboratory.
“But… my tea…” Santino whined.
“Come now, I’ll make us both some tea,” Heimish offered. “While I work, I’ll tell you about what I found, and how I suspect this might have ties to the old warden’s wife, who died alongside her husband and all of those guards.”
Drawn by the smell of tea, Kendra came downstairs and joined them several minutes later. “There you are, Cliffy,” she said. “Natalya asked me to let you know that she would be awake a few hours after dusk.”
“Oh, right, I’d almost forgotten about that.”
“You two have plans?” Heimish asked.
“We’re going to keep watch to see if we can catch the person vandalizing the monument red handed,” Santino explained.
“Ah. Well, good luck to both of you, but I’m afraid I’m too tired to offer my assistance tonight.”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” Santino said. It wasn’t like Heimish would be much use in a chase, after all.
Later, Heimish was in his room getting ready for bed when he noticed something strange. “What’s that?” he asked no one in particular as he approached the window. “What the hell is going on?” He reached out and touched it. “Since when were there bars on my window?”
He turned back to the room and noticed other strange things. His comfortable bed was gone, replaced by a pile of straw. The rest of his furniture was also gone. All that remained was a hole in the corner which looked strangely like a privy.
He heard laughter. “Hello there! Where am I?”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement. He turned and looked at the wall, where a dark liquid was dripping. Slowly it moved, eventually forming first an ‘H’, then an ‘E’, and so forth, as the laughter continued to get louder.
Heimish sat bolt upright in bed, his hair soaked with sweat. “Oh. It was a dream!” he said, breathing a sigh of relief. He dabbed his brow with a discarded shirt from the floor nearby. As he did so, he felt something warm drip on the back of his hand.
With trepidation, he looked up at the ceiling, and a single drop of dark liquid dripped directly on his forehead. And he saw his name, all save the final letter, written on the ceiling above his bed.
Heimish jumped up from the bed, flung the door to his room open, and called for help. “Something really strange is going on here!” he called out.
It took several moments, but soon everyone was gathered. Heimish showed them the writing on the ceiling. “Very strange,” Stein said. “Let me get my kit.”
Once he returned, Stein took a sample of the liquid and mixed it with several reagents. “What is it?” Heimish asked.
“Not sure. But there’s no lingering magic.”
Heimish explained his dream. “That’s very strange,” Kendra said. “I’ve never heard of anyone having dreams like that. Definitely not in this house.”
Heimish nodded. “Well, I guess there’s not much we can do here. Do we have anything to get this cleaned with?”
“I’ll take care of it,” Stein said.
Natalya cleared her throat. “Santino, it’s time for us to get going.”
“Good luck,” Heimish said. Natalya just nodded in return.
“Wait,” Santino said. He handed her a bag of caltrops. Rather than try to explain that they were trying to catch the perpetrator, not hobble him, she just thanked him and set them in her room. Then she and Santino set out.
After setting several tripwires with bells on paths that would be obscured from her view as well as carefully hidden piles of chalk near those, Natalya took up a position at the edge of a nearby alley.
Santino, meanwhile, climbed up a nearby tree.
Nothing happened all night, save for one point when a dog sniffed at the tree Santino was in, then growled. Natalya heard him telling the dog to leave, eventually imitating the dog’s growl to scare it away.
As the first light of dawn began to appear on the horizon, Natalya decided that the vandal wouldn’t be showing this night, and began clearing her traps. She was in a bush when she heard Santino talking to someone.
“Hey there, Vrodish,” he called out.
“Leromar told me you’d been hanging around the statue. What are you doing out here this early?”
“Just wanted to make sure the statue was okay,” Santino said. He then continued to ramble on for several minutes about things of no consequence.
“Look,” Vrodish finally said, interrupting him. “If you don’t want to be considered a suspect, you should really stop hanging around here.”
“Okay, I get you. Hey, what do you know about the prison? Have you ever been there?”
Vrodish sighed. “Look, there’s nothing there except for some vermin and dust. There are no ghosts, and nothing of interest. You’d do well not to try going there.”
“Thanks,” Santino said.
“Now, I’m going to continue my patrol. Keep your nose clean.”
“My nose is always clean.”
“Right.”
Several moments later, Santino spoke again. “He’s gone.”
“Thanks,” Natalya said, crawling out of the bush. “I’ve got a bit more to clean up. You go on ahead to the estate.”
“Meet you there.”
When she finally made it back, Natalya found Heimish and Santino talking about going to investigate the prison. “If we’re going to go, we have to get permission. I’m sure that the sheriff will let us, if we ask.”
“Maybe you,” Santino said. “I don’t think anyone at the sheriff’s office likes me much.”
“We could always use my adventurer’s guild card,” Natalya said.
“How’s that,” Heimish asked.
“As a registered adventurer, there’s a treaty that allows me to explore old dangerous ruins even when local law enforcement wants to keep people away. Unless they have a valid reason to decline us beyond it being for our own safety, they’ll risk sanctions from the guild and other organizations if they refuse.”
“Then that’s what we’ll say when we talk to him,” Heimish said.
“We don’t technically even have to ask,” Natalya tried protesting.
“I would feel better if we did anyway.”
She shrugged. “We can do it your way, then.”
“Question,” Santino said.
“Yes?” Natalya answered.
“That card applies to you, but what about us?”
“It covers me and my hirelings,” she said. “I’ll just have to hire you.”
“An equal share of anything valuable we happen to find will suffice for me,” Heimish said.
“I want a little more,” Santino said. “My equal share of the loot… and a smile from you.” Natalya gave him a flat look. “Come on now. Just a little smile.”
“I am smiling,” Natalya said, her expression unchanging.
Santino raised an eyebrow. “Fair enough. Let’s get going.”
They arrived at the sheriff’s office just in time to say hello to Wesley as he was leaving. “Hey, Sheriff,” Heimish said.
“Oh, it’s you,” Benjan answered. “What’s up?”
“My friend here has something she wants to discuss with you.”
After several minutes of explanation by Natalya, Benjan sighed. “There’s nothing there, but if it’ll make you feel better to check, I don’t mind letting you go. Not that I can really stop you.”
“Thanks, Sheriff,” Heimish said as they left. “Before we go, I want to stop off at the town hall. There’s this one thing I want to look up.”
“That’s fine,” Natalya said. “I wanted to run by the temple to get some holy water, on the off chance that there are some ghosts. Let’s meet on the edge of town towards the prison in about an hour and a half?”
“I’m going to go do something too, if anyone cares,” Santino said.
“Just be there on time,” Natalya answered.
Heimish left the others and started making his way to the town hall. But he didn’t make it half way before he came upon a group of kids playing some kind of skipping game. As they played, they sang a strange, morbid song.
“Put her body on the bed.
Take a knife and lop her head.
Watch the blood come out the pipe.
Feeds the stirge, so nice and ripe.
Drops of red so sparkly bright.
Splatters spell her name just right.
With a hammer killed his wife.
Now he wants to claim your life.
Tricksy father tells a lie.
Listen close or you will die.”
The words struck Heimish as strange. “Hello there, children. That’s a strange little tune you have there.” The kids eyed him warily. “What’s wrong?”
“We’re not supposed to talk to strangers,” one child answered.
“Wise counsel from your parents,” Heimish said. “And right you are to heed it. But my name is Heimish, and I mean no harm. So, knowing my name, I am no stranger, though you might consider me strange nonetheless.”
One of the kids laughed. “You’re funny, Mister Heimish.”
“That is true,” Heimish said with a sly grin. “But, as they say, looks aren’t everything.” Several other children laughed at his self-deprecation. “So, now that we’re friends, is there anything you can tell me about that song of yours? What does it mean?”
The first kid who’d laughed shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just something our parents taught us. I think our grandparents taught it to them. We’ve all known it forever.”
“Ah, that’s fine then. Perhaps a bit morbid, by my estimation. Perhaps I could teach you a new rhyme? One of my own devising?” Always eager for something new, the kids agreed immediately. “Well, then, perhaps you’ll like this one. I made it up to teach to a goblin.”
He had hoped that the goblin would become less dangerous if it were taught the ways of the Black Butterfly’s mercy, but it had been a failure in the end. The goblin chewed off its arm to escape its restraints and had killed the farmer’s horse during its escape. But still, if the children enjoyed the rhyme, then maybe the effort wasn’t in vain after all.
“Scary monsters in the night
Watch the skies, their hearts affright.
Betwixt the stars’ twinkling light:
Butterfly’s silent flight.”
The children considered it for a moment. “It’s rather short, isn’t it, Mister Heimish?”
“True enough,” Heimish admitted. “But goblins, you see, have very short memories. If I’d tried to make it longer, the poor devil never would have been able to remember it.”
“Maybe we can make it longer!” one of the boys suggested.
“Yeah!” another agreed.
“Thanks, Mister Heimish!” one of the kids called out as they ran off to go find something to write on.
Heimish chuckled and continued on to the town hall. Once there, Loxie revealed that she’d found something he might be interested in. Apparently there were five notorious inmates who had arrived shortly before events at the prison.
He looked through the books she’d gathered for him, and learned the identities of these men. They were “Father Charlatan”, a blasphemer and con artist by the name of Sefick Corvin; “The Lopper”, a murderer by the name of Vance Saetressle; “The Splatterman” or Hean Feramin, whose crimes weren’t listed, but it was known that he had been a professor of something called Anthroponomastics at Quarterfaux Archives in Caliphas; and finally, the Mosswater Marauder and the Piper of Illmarsh, neither of which Heimish could find further info on.
“What’s anthroponomastics?” Heimish asked Loxie.
“You know, I was confused about that too,” she answered. “But apparently, it’s the study of names.”
“Interesting. Do you have any other books that might have more on these men?”
“They might be mentioned in a few others,” Loxie said. “Here, let me show you.”
Mid-afternoon, on the road just outside of town, Natalya and Santino sat waiting. “Where is he?” Natalya asked impatiently.
Santino, who was lying in the shade under a tree, shrugged. “No idea.”
“Waste of a day!” Natalya grumbled under her breath, kicking the ground. If Heimish didn’t arrive soon, there was no point in going to the prison today. There certainly wouldn’t be time enough to get some sleep so she could continue her stakeout, even if their survey was quick and found nothing.
Santino sat up. “Shall we head back, then?”
Natalya snorted. “Yeah, no point in waiting any longer.”
Back at the manor, Kendra greeted them. “You look upset,” she said to the tiefling.
“Just frustrated,” Natalya answered. “Have you seen Heimish?”
“No, he hasn’t been back all day.”
“Figures. He’s probably still at the town hall. I’m gonna grab some bread and cheese, then I’m gonna go get in some practice with my blade. I worry that I’m getting rusty sitting around like this.”
“Of course,” Kendra said. “The courtyard is perfect for such activities.”
Once Natalya was gone, Santino sat beside Kendra. “So, has anyone been giving you any trouble lately?”
“Not really, why?”
“Well, I’m gonna be going to jail soon, and I was worried something might happen to you while I’m away.”
Bemused, Kendra looked at him. “Why are you going to jail, Cliffy?”
“There are just some things a man’s gotta do. You see, life was simpler before father…” he continued on, going pretty much nowhere with his rambling for a good ten minutes. “And with that,” he said, “I think I’m gonna go see a dwarf about a mule.”
Kendra just laughed. “Well, try not to stay out too late.”
“No promises,” Santino said.
After visiting Jorfa, who was busy with work, but not too busy to chat a bit, Santino then returned to the inn. Sarianna informed him that the musicians had sent word, and would be arriving the next day.
After once more failing to convince Sarianna to sing for him, Santino went to the town hall to see what had happened to Heimish. Heimish wasn’t there, but Santino forgot all about him upon seeing Loxie.
“My, I believe I owe you an apology,” Santino told Loxie.
“Why is that?” she asked.
“I failed to notice how lovely you were when I was here last. Please forgive me, and I shall attempt to rectify my oversight by commemorating your beauty in song and poem.”
“That won’t be necessary, sir,” Loxie said. “If you have no business here, I really must get back to my duties.”
Santino sighed. He would have to formulate a new plan to bed this one. “Fair enough. I’m looking for Heimish. Is he around?”
“No, he left about an hour ago. I think he was going to the apothecary’s shop.”
“Ah, well, then I shall go see if I can find him. But do not think I will simply forget your radiant beauty once you are no longer within my line of sight.”
Loxie just rolled her eyes at him as soon as he was out of sight.
Back at the manor, Natalya cleaned up her sweat and took a look at the sky. It was getting late. She wouldn’t even have time to ask Heimish why he hadn’t shown up before she had to go on her stakeout.
Annoyed, she headed up to bed.
Whining:
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@Whining: Be careful what you wish for . . . Especially when you have only 3 of you made with 10 points each . . . .
@Whining: Be careful what you wish for . . . Especially when you have only 3 of you made with 10 points each . . . .
I made this character a masterpiece of cheese. I just want things to get gouda.
Not Muenster?
Decent chance they'll instead get Swiss'd.
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The highlight of the night was when that old dog returned, growling down an alley. As carefully as she could, Natalya crept over to see what the dog was looking at, and spotted only a drunk lying on the ground, muttering – or perhaps snoring – to himself.
As the sun began to rise, Natalya once more disarmed her noise traps and carefully made her way back to the manor. As she entered, she spotted Santino leaving Kendra’s room.
“No accounting for some women’s taste,” she said to herself. But it wasn’t her business, so she put it from her mind.
“Any luck?” Santino asked.
“Nothing. But he’ll show up eventually. Or won’t. It doesn’t really matter. I’ll keep trying for a while. At least I can go for the whole month, if he doesn’t show.” She tried to remain nonchalant, but in truth, the tedium and anticipation were grating on her. She would be grateful for something to happen sooner rather than later.
Heimish walked out of his room, and Natalya turned, heading up to her quarters to put away her trap supplies. “I guess she’s still mad,” the preacher said to Santino.
Santino shrugged. “She’ll be fine. I’m gonna go make breakfast.”
“Doesn’t Stein usually do that?” Heimish asked.
“I don’t smell anything, so he’s either asleep or isn’t back. Hence, I’m making breakfast.”
“Fair enough. What are you making?”
“Not sure. I’ll have to see what’s available in the kitchen. Hopefully, there’s cheese and eggs, because I’m craving omelets.”
“Sounds good. I’ll start setting the table.”
The smell of food eventually pulled Natalya from her quarters, and she joined the others at the table. Before they began eating, Heimish turned to the tiefling. “Miss Natalya, please allow me to apologize for my forgetfulness yesterday. I got absorbed in my research and completely lost track of time. It was rude of me, and I’m sorry.”
Natalya sighed. “Fine. Just don’t do it again and we won’t have a problem.”
They began eating their omelets, and noticed something strange. “So, what do you think?” Santino asked Kendra.
“It’s very… crunchy,” Kendra answered.
“Did you leave in the shells?” Natalya asked, picking up one such fragment with her fork.
“I heard somewhere that they’re good for your bones,” Santino said, looking proud of himself.
“They’re mighty fine,” Heimish said. “But in truth, they need a bit of something. Perhaps tomato, or some spinach.”
“Mushrooms,” Natalya said, thinking that a decent meaty mushroom would distract from the weird texture of the shells.
“I think Stein sometimes grinds things like this with a mortar and pestle,” Kendra said. “At least, I’d do that if you were making a soufflé.”
“Ooh! Soufflé!” Santino said, his mouth full of egg. “I love that stuff, but I’m not sure I know how to make it.”
“Perhaps Stein will know,” Heimish said.
“Right, Stein! Hey, Kendra, do you know where he is?” Santino asked.
“I’m not sure,” the woman answered. “But he sometimes goes out collecting herbs overnight, so it’s not too much of a worry. He’ll probably return this afternoon.”
Needing more distraction from her crunchy if moderately tasty breakfast, Natalya turned to Heimish. “So, what did you find out, anyway?”
“Oh, yes. I learned much about these five infamous prisoners who were held in Harrowstone.” They spent the rest of breakfast listening to Heimish as he filled them in on what he’d learned.
Once they were done and the dishes were put away, Santino piped up. “So, our next course of action is obvious. It’s time for us to go to jail.”
“As long as there are no unnecessary stops on the way,” Natalya said.
“Just try to come back today,” Kendra said. “The diviner sent word that he’d be arriving sometime tomorrow.”
“We can do that,” Natalya answered. “I’m going to want to get some rest before my stakeout tonight.”
“Can we swing by the temple on the way out?” Santino asked.
Natalya eyed him suspiciously. “Why?”
“I want to get some holy water. You might be right on it being useful for a potentially haunted ruin.”
“Especially if that cult that Lorrimor was looking into is still afoot,” Heimish agreed.
Natalya nodded curtly. “That’s fine. As long as we make it quick.”
Santino turned to Kendra. “You should come with us as far as the temple. You need to get out of the house. Moping around here isn’t good for you. You could use some sun.”
Kendra considered it. “You might be right. Fine, Cliffy, I’ll come along.”
As they made their way through town, they passed the inn. Outside, a carriage was stopped, and several men were unloading it, carrying inside various instruments.
One of the men caught Natalya’s eye. It was subtle at first, and she had to look again to be sure, but she caught him doing a very careful scan of his surroundings. And though his face was wearing a smile, it was fake. His eyes told the true story.
His eyes were cold and focused like a hawk. The eyes of a killer, but not a murderer who killed for pleasure or a soldier who killed for duty or country. No. This man was an assassin who killed for money.
She would have to be wary of him. It was unlikely anyone would have sent him to kill her charge, but she would have wagered everything but her sword that there was far more than a guitar in the case slung over his shoulder.
She didn’t think he’d noticed her noticing him as she’d only glanced for a moment, but she couldn’t be too careful and continued along with the others before he certainly noticed.
The group reached the Temple of Pharasma, where they found several acolytes tending the grounds. Alvin, spotting the group, stood up from his work. “Oh, it’s you folk, again. What brings you out here?”
“We need some water,” Santino said.
“Well, the rivers off that way, somewhere,” Alvin said, waving his hand in the direction of the river that runs through the center of Ravengro.
Santino raised an eyebrow in annoyance. “No, Alvin. We need holy water. In case of ghosts.”
“OH!” Alvin exclaimed. “Why didn’t you say so? Come, follow me.”
As they walked to the temple proper, Santino made conversation. “So, Alvin, you know my sister, don’t you?”
“Your what now?”
“Kendra,” Santino said.
“Hello, Alvin,” Kendra said. “I know him,” she told Santino. “We went to school together.”
“He’s your brother?” Alvin asked Kendra.
“Yes, in a manner of speaking.”
“Her father adopted me,” Santino clarified.
Alvin looked like he was about to say words of consolation to Kendra for being stuck with Santino, but he apparently thought better of it. “Well, we’re in the temple. Wait here a moment while I go get what you need. How many vials can I get you today?”
“I want one,” Santino answered.
“One for me as well,” Heimish added.
Alvin went into a back room and returned with two vials. He handed one to Heimish and the other to Santino, taking their payments. “Hey, what’s this?” Santino asked, indicated a dead worm in the bottom of the vial.
“For later,” Alvin said.
“Ah, cool. Hey, you know, those musicians finally arrived. Since you know Kendra, maybe you two should go together?” Santino suggested.
“That sounds lovely,” Kendra answered.
Alvin nodded. “I can do that.”
Getting impatient, Natalya spoke up. “We should get going, if we’re going to be back in time for the performance,” she said. If Kendra was going to be near the strange musician she had spotted, she couldn’t afford to get a full afternoon’s sleep. So it was imperative that they get going so they could return in time for Natalya to get at least a few hours in.
“Indeed. Lots of work to do,” Heimish agreed.
“It’s probably too dangerous for you to come all the way with us,” Santino said to Kendra. “Will you be fine here?”
“I’ll be fine. Maybe Alvin and I can chat over some tea.”
“We have a fine blend, just purchased from a merchant last week,” Alvin said.
Santino looked like he wanted to stay for tea, but Heimish pushed him along behind Natalya as they left the temple and headed towards the old prison. “They’ll be fine,” Heimish said. “We have work to do.”
To call the prison dilapidated would have been an understatement. It looked like it was near to collapse in many places. In others, the collapse had already occurred. One side of the wall, for instance, had completely crumbled, and was overtaken by a lake. And one side of the large iron main gate appeared to be hanging on only by a single hinge.
Wary about the precarious gate, Heimish, who had been feeling a strange sense of déjà vu as they approached the prison, carefully walked over and smacked it with his cane. Suddenly, he let out a yelp of surprise as pain raced through his body.
“What’s wrong?” Natalya asked, drawing her rapier.
“It’s like I was on fire for a moment there!” Heimish said, gritting his teeth in memory of the pain.
Santino drew something from his pocket. “Here. Have a piece of candy. Focus on the taste until the pain subsides.”
Heimish took the candy and popped it into his mouth. “Thanks. I’ll be fine.”
Santino eyed the gate warily as Natalya sheathed her weapon. “Yeah, I’m not going near that thing,” he said, bounding over and climbing up the vine covered wall. “Wow. This place is a dump,” he called back to the others. “There’s even a rat up here.”
“Shall we go over the wall?” Natalya asked Heimish.
“The gate should be fine. Maybe just don’t hit it.” Heimish was still shaking a bit as he spoke, but he pushed forward and opened the other half of the gate. Natalya followed behind him.
Inside the courtyard were two buildings. The larger stone structure of the prison loomed straight ahead, but off to the left was a smaller building, perhaps an old guardhouse or something of the sort.
“Uh, guys?” Santino called down to the others.
“What is it?” Natalya asked.
“Remember when I said I saw a rat?”
“What of it?”
“I think there’s more than one.”
“How many?” Heimish asked.
Santino didn’t answer, he just jumped down from the wall and rushed to the others. Behind him came a roiling tide of rats spilling off of the wall. “That’s a lot of rats,” Natalya said, hurling a stone at the swarm before drawing her blade.
“Yeah,” Santino agreed, pulling out his umbrella.
“I think we’re going to have to fight,” Heimish said, brandishing his cane. “There’s nowhere to run right now.”
“Fight it is,” Natalya said, stabbing into the swarm with her sword and skewering a half dozen rats in a single stroke before dodging back away from the swarm.
“I can get more than that!” Santino said. As he swung his umbrella into the rats, it suddenly caught fire, giving off a faint odor of sulfur. Unfortunately, for his boasting, he managed to miss hitting anything as the rats dispersed from the blow. Heimish fared little better, swinging his cane wildly at the rats and doing little but scatter a few of the rats.
Natalya thrust again, impaling more rats, and Heimish followed up with another attack. Realizing that their prey was more dangerous than they appeared, the rats dispersed, fleeing back to their holes.
Santino put away his umbrella and brushed several rats off of his coat. “No need to thank me,” he said as he stuffed an unconscious rat into his pocket. “Now, let’s check out that house there.”
“It doesn’t look very safe,” Heimish said. “Probably not a good idea to go in there.”
“It’ll be fine,” Santino disagreed.
“The roof looks like a stiff breeze will collapse it,” Natalya said dubiously.
“You two worry too much,” Santino said as he walked over and gave the door a kick. It collapsed inward and the building’s roof creaked ominously. “I’m going in.”
Heimish and Natalya exchanged worried glances. “I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Heimish said. The roof creaked again. “Maybe.”
Several moments later, Santino rushed out. “You know, maybe we shouldn’t bother. It’s already been looted. But it’s still perfectly safe.” Behind him, the building collapsed inward. “Nice try, but I’m not that easy to kill!” he muttered, looking ominously towards the sky.
“Perfectly safe?” Natalya asked, not having quite heard what he’d said.
“Okay, maybe not perfectly. But mostly safe?”
“Right.”
Near the entrance of the prison proper, the group found that the unkempt grasses had been trimmed away next to the building’s foundation. In the area, they found several etchings and smeared blood. “That’s pretty suspicious,” Heimish said.
“Agreed,” Natalya replied.
Santino pulled out some paper and began drawing what he saw. “They’re necromancy of some kind. Maybe the manor has a book that will tell us what precisely these are,” he said.
“If it’s necromancy, then perhaps we should have Father Grimburrow come out and take a look, maybe even consecrate this place,” Heimish suggested. “What with the way Pharasma’s people dislike the undead and all.”
“Sounds good,” Santino said. “You know, I haven’t seen a single patrol. Was it even necessary to go tell Benjan about your adventurer credentials?”
Natalya shrugged. “I was just mentioning them so you’d know we had them in reserve if someone from the law bothered us. It was Heimish who wanted to go tell Sheriff Caellar before we came.”
“It was the right thing to do,” Heimish said. “The Sheriff is a good man, and we should avoid making trouble for him unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
Inside the building, the beams in the foyer sagged visibly under the weight of the stones. It would not take more than a few decades before this section of the building collapsed on its own. The group could understand why the law was so keen to keep people away. The building was a death trap.
And there were just so many different ways to go, with doors in pretty much every direction. “We should split up,” Santino said.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Heimish disagreed. “There is safety in numbers, should we run across any undead or even other vermin.”
“That’s what they’d expect us to think. If we split up, we’ll be doing something they don’t expect, and thus outsmart them.” Santino tapped his head for emphasis.
“We stick together,” Natalya said, her tone brooking no chance of argument.
“Fine,” Santino replied. “But when they get us all, you can’t blame me.”
They made their way deeper into the building. Their first obstacle was when they entered a room and tried to make their way through the door to the left. As they opened the door, there was a ghostly image of many screaming faces, and the door slammed itself shut.
Annoyed, Santino opened the door again, harder this time. And again, the image appeared and the door slammed itself shut. “You won’t beat me!” he shouted, yanking the door again with similar results.
“Holy water?” Heimish asked Natalya.
“Holy water,” Natalya agreed.
Heimish pulled out his vial and unstoppered it. Then, when Santino ripped the door open again, Heimish splashed the contents on the ghostly image.
No sooner had the holy water struck the haunt, then it evaporated in a burst of ashes. Ashes burst out from the rooms remaining doors as well.
“We may want to pick up more of that stuff,” Heimish said.
“That was cool!” Santino shouted. “I want to blow up the next ghost!”
Natalya shrugged. “It’s all yours then.”
The party continued on. They found papers scattered all over a room. “I’d like to look through these,” Heimish said.
“It would take hours to sift through these and find anything useful,” Santino whined.
“Considerably less time to just take them,” Natalya said. “If they’re important, we can sort through them later. Gather what you can carry in your pack of supplies and we’ll worry about it later.”
After gathering what they could, they continued searching, coming to a room with a safe imbedded in the wall. They searched the office for the safe’s key, but found nothing. “I’ll try to open it,” Santino said. He brandished his umbrella and gave the safe a good hard whack. Then another, and another. “It’s not working!” he whimpered.
“You’re trying to break thick iron with a piece of wood,” Natalya said. “Of course it isn’t working. I had a little practice picking locks when I was younger, though I admit I wasn’t very good at it. But maybe we can get some thieves tools and I can try to open it.”
“Maybe the apothecary or Mister Stein will have an alchemical solution?” Heimish suggested.
“Sounds good. So we’ll note this for later.”
“But I want it now!” Santino howled.
“Nothing we can do about it now,” Heimish said. “Maybe we’ll find something nice further on. Come on.”
The trio made their way upstairs and found themselves in a large mess hall. One of the walls had completely collapsed away into the abutting lake. “Think they still have anything in the pantry?” Santino asked.
“More rats, probably,” Natalya answered.
“Oh, yeah!” Santino looked in his coat pocket. The rat he’d stuck in there was still unconscious. “Good. He’s still napping.”
“Do you hear that?” Heimish asked.
“Hear what?” Santino asked. “OH! I think I do. It’s a buzzing of some kind, right?”
“I don’t like this,” Natalya said, drawing her rapier.
“What’s that?” Santino asked, pointing at a shadow rising outside the building.
It was a massive bug, a mosquito at least as large as a rat. “Stirge!” Heimish said, readying his cane.
“Eww!” Santino said, throwing the first thing he could think of at the giant insect. The unconscious rat went sailing harmlessly past the dodging stirge, landing in the lake below with a splash as two more stirges rose from below.
“What was the point of that?” Natalya asked, dumbfounded.
“I panicked,” Santino said. “Don’t worry, I’ll get him!” He rushed forward to the stirge closest to Natalya and tried to bite it. It was probably for the best that he missed.
Natalya decided not to comment on it. The stirge dove at her, so she deflected it with her blade and countered with a piercing thrust that separated the insect from its wings as it crashed to the floor with a wet crunch.
The other two stirges latched onto Santino’s back. “GETTHEMOFFME!” Santino shrieked. He then had a brilliant idea. At least, brilliant in his mind. With the creatures stuck to his back, they wouldn’t be able to dodge the floor.
So he dropped to the ground and began rolling, desperately trying to squish the creatures. Somehow, this wasn’t as effective as he’d hoped, and they began biting him with their massive proboscises.
Heimish and Natalya did what they could, but it was difficult with the creatures moving constantly as Santino flailed around. Eventually though, the man managed to squish the creatures, sending his blood – which had begun filling the creatures’ abdomens – splattering all over the ground.
“Ow…” Santino groaned as he got up.
“We’d better get those out,” Heimish said, eyeing the snapped proboscises sticking out of Santino’s back. He carefully plucked them out and administered some healing magic to mend the damage to Santino’s flesh, though not to his clothing nor to his pride.
“So, what room next?” Santino asked. He tried stepping forward but found himself a bit woozy from blood loss. Heimish caught him before he fell, giving Natalya a worried look.
“I think we’re done for the day,” Natalya said.
“Don’t be silly,” Santino insisted. “I can do this all day!”
“She’s right,” Heimish said. “Besides, we need to get back early so you can go see your musicians.”
“Oh yeah!” Santino said. “Back we go, then!”
Outside, much to their surprise, the trio ran into Stein, who was pouring something near the strange runes they’d found.
“YOU!” Santino shouted. “You still owe me tea!”
Stein looked over, then chuckled darkly. “I was wondering who was making all that noise up in the building. Thought I was hearing things. That happens sometimes out here.”
“What are you doing out here?” Heimish asked.
“Had some questions that needed answering. So I was doing research. What happened to him?”
“We had a run in with some stirges. He squished them with his back after they bit him.”
“Ah, yes. Well, let us hope he doesn’t pick up filth fever from the bites.”
“Oh, heavens,” Heimish said. “Santino, have a seat on this stone here. I’m going to do something to help with the sickness.”
Santino sat down and Heimish stood over him. The preacher then pulled out a small knife, and drew it across his hand. Tears welled up in his eyes and he let them fall on Santino’s face.
Santino licked up the tears. “Mmm. Salty.”
“Your tears cure disease?” Natalya asked.
“Gift of birth,” Heimish answered. “Healing is in my blood.” Natalya found herself a bit jealous. Her blood had given her nothing but hardship.
“So, what will you do now?” Stein asked.
“Heading back to town for the day. We’ll be coming back tomorrow, maybe the day after at latest,” Heimish answered. “Would you like to come with us?”
“Sounds good. There are dangers here which could impede my investigation.”
“I want a waffle. No. Make that TWO waffles,” Santino said as the party began heading back towards town.
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Great, keep them coming!
But suddenly I have this vision of The Three Stooges doing Carrion Crown . . . .
But suddenly I have this vision of The Three Stooges doing Carrion Crown . . . .
Stabby, Preacher and Waffles?
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Waffles' Santini's voice after the waffles thing is now matched to Donkey from Shrek.
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So, I have a new chapter all typed up, just waiting for the others to read it and approve. Hopefully will happen this weekend, but someone's schedule got changed after someone quit at work, so having a session might be a bit iffy.
So, until then, I'm gonna share this.
We leveled up after the last session, so that meant it was time for me to update everyone's daily resources sheets, and well, Heimish's player doodled a portrait of Heimish on his, so I scanned it to share.
At some point, I'll probably upload doodles of the others if anyone does them. I know Santino's player has done a few, but I haven't snagged them from him yet. The GM's a pretty good artist as well, so maybe I can get him to do one for Stein.
Honestly, I'm the worst artist at the table. I'm thinking of asking an artist I follow on Twitter how much to commission a chibi version of Natalya(maybe her and Lyriana hanging out or something).
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Outside of the inn, they spotted Alvin. Natalya was hoping to get in a nap before the event, but it looked like it was time to get to work. “Is Kendra here?” she asked the acolyte.
“Yes,” he replied. “She’s already inside.”
Natalya nodded. “Thanks. I’m going to go keep an eye on her,” she told the others.
After she went inside, Alvin noticed Santino’s condition. “You look very pale. You should get some rest,” the acolyte said, reaching out to touch the injured man’s face.
“You’re lucky you’re cute,” Santino said.
Inside, Natalya quickly found Kendra, then scanned the room to find the assassin she’d spotted earlier. She spotted him near the stage that had been set up for the musicians, whisper-arguing with one of the others, a sallow faced man who looked a bit like a weasel. “Toad,” he was saying, “you need to shut up about that. I told you. I didn’t have a choice. You know I can’t just tell her to stay home and expect her to listen!”
“Terry, you need to get that bird in line. We can’t have you distracted worrying about her when you should be focusing. And if that isn’t enough, she had to bring your little ragamuffin.”
“Toad, just shut the hell up and tune your ukulele. I won’t let Persephone’s presence get in the way.”
The other man gave him a cold look. “See that you don’t, or I’ll be forced to tell Typhon you can’t be trusted to do the work.”
There was a palpable flash of fear on the assassin’s face. “You won’t have to.”
“See that I don’t.”
With that, they focused silently on preparing their instruments alongside the other two. In just a few minutes, they were ready to go and took the stage. “Thanks for your patience, everyone,” a third man said. “Now how about we kick this party off right?!”
The crowd cheered and the four musicians began playing. Natalya had never seen an ensemble like this one. In addition to the assassin on the guitar and the sallow-faced man on the ukulele, there was also a young man – he couldn’t have been older than seventeen – playing a violin, and a halfling on a lute.
Outside the door, Santino, still supported by Heimish, was chatting with Alvin when he suddenly began hearing something strange. It was an odd buzzing, in rhythm with the music. Then suddenly he recognized it. “The bugs!” he shouted, drawing his umbrella and swinging wildly, almost hitting a woman in a tan leather duster with a collar made of lion’s mane, but she dodged carefully, keeping her body between the toddler she was carrying and Santino’s flailing.
Stein chuckled and tugged Santino away from the entrance. “We should get you away from people,” he said, helping Heimish move the man away.
“Back to the manor with you,” Heimish agreed.
As they walked about a hundred feet or so down the road, they passed a well. Stein stopped. “Do you hear what I do?” he asked Heimish.
“I hear it,” Heimish agreed, turning to look at the source of the buzzing, a nearby well. It was definitely reminiscent of the stirges.
“I can lower you by your ankles to take a look,” Santino said to Stein.
“Give me that,” Heimish said, snatching Santino’s umbrella from his hand and making his way to the well.
The well was mostly covered to prevent accidents, but there was a small hole for someone to lower a bucket to draw water. Heimish opened the umbrella and used it to cover the hole. He could feel the vibrations of the buzzing through his hands. They were getting stronger and definitely synchronizing with the music.
“Someone get the sheriff!” Heimish called out, but no one answered. In fact, the only one who took notice was a middle aged man staring out of his upper floor window at the bizarre spectacle. “Do you have any bug repellant?” he asked Stein, who shook his head.
Santino walked over and snatched his umbrella back. “I need this to defend myself!” he said, annoyed.
“Wait!” Heimish said, but it was too late as several stirges emerged from the well, swaying rhythmically with the music.
“Bombs?” Stein asked Heimish.
“Try not to kill them over the well. We don’t want to risk their disease getting into the water.”
“We can use Santino to lure them away,” Stein said with a dark chuckle.
In response, Santino tore off his bloody coat and flung it in Stein’s face. “There, now you’ll smell delicious too.”
Heimish quickly took off his own coat and covered the well. “Now! While the well’s protected!”
Stein pulled out a small glass vial and added a few drops of another liquid to it, then flung it at one of the stirges. It exploded on impact.
“Not bad,” Santino said, trying to leap and smack the closest stirge from the air, but missing and impacting the side of the well with his stomach then doubling over face first into Heimish’s coat.
“They’re easier to hit when they’ve attached onto someone,” Stein quipped.
“You’d think that, but they’re really not,” Santino groaned. Heimish helped Santino up. “Thanks. Remind me to make you more omelets.”
Stein flung another vial at the stirges, which were ignoring the trio and slowly making their way towards the inn. It went slightly too low and continued arcing through the air, exploding as it hit the ground. An old stray dog went running from the sound.
“Coward!” Santino yelled at the dog, then, out of his mind with anger, he charged and leapt at the nearest stirge, trying to bite it out of the air.
The music inside stopped and the stirges suddenly no longer seemed entranced. So they went straight for the closest target.
Santino yelped as they latched onto him. “GETTHEMOFFME!” he shrieked.
“Finally,” Stein said. “Stay very still. This might burn a bit,” he chuckled as he flung another vial.
The explosion killed the target on Santino’s right shoulder and singed the one on his chest, but it was still alive. Strangely, the flames didn’t seem to harm Santino at all.
“Very interesting,” Stein said, making a mental note.
Not even noticing the explosion, Santino tried to bite the stirge on his chest, but missed as he flinched to avoid Heimish’s swinging cane just inches from his face.
Luckily, Heimish didn’t miss, splattering the remaining stirge – now partially engorged on Santino’s blood – all over Santino’s chest.
“What the hell is going on?” Deputy Trestleblade asked from the entrance to the inn, where a crowd was gathering.
“Oh,” Santino said. “Hey, Truffles. You look good.”
“What he’s trying to say, deputy, is that we were attacked by some stirges that came out of the well,” Heimish added.
“I see,” she replied. “And you had to blow them up?”
“I wouldn’t say we had to,” Stein said. “It was just the easiest way.”
“Right.”
“They bit me!” Santino whined. “So they had to die.”
Next to Natalya, the woman in the lion skin coat leaned over to the assassin. “That’s the guy who almost hit Emily earlier.”
“Which one?” the assassin asked.
“The one who still has wisps of smoke coming off of him.”
“Seems like a real weirdo,” the assassin said back. “I hate small towns.”
“Do you need help?” Trestleblade asked. “You don’t look so good.”
“I’m hungry,” Santino said, doing his best to look pitiful.
“Would you like some soup?” Serianna asked from the doorway.
“Do you have a waffle iron?” Santino asked in return.
“We’ll get you some soup first,” the innkeeper answered. “Come inside.”
“Sorry for ruining your party,” Santino said.
“Don’t worry about it. Besides, the party’s not over.” This last brought cheers from the already inebriated patrons. Natalya shook her head and followed Kendra back inside.
Stein walked over to Santino and handed him his coat back. “Told you they were easier to hit when they’d attached to someone,” he said, as he took the injured man’s arm and helped him into the inn.
As they passed the woman in the coat, Santino pulled a candy from his vest pocket and held it out to her. “For the baby.”
The assassin snatched it from his hand. “She’ll spoil her appetite if she eats it now. We’ll save it for later.” He then stealthily handed it to his associate, the Toad, who popped it into his mouth.
As the musicians took the stage, the woman in the lion coat sat down at the empty seat at the table where Natalya, Kendra and Alvin were seated. “Enjoying the performance?” she asked Natalya, who was too busy watching the room to join in Kendra and Alvin’s conversation.
“It’s fine,” Natalya answered.
“Not your cup of tea, eh?” the woman answered. “I can’t blame you. I didn’t like it at first, but they’ve grown on me.”
“If you didn’t like it, why keep listening?” Natalya asked.
“For him,” the woman answered, pointing at the assassin. “The one who looks like he needs to poop.”
“I see…” Natalya replied.
Near the entrance, Heimish was giving Trestleblade a report about the day’s activities, in case the sheriff needed to know. “And that’s why it’s so strange,” he was saying. “These weren’t even the first stirges we encountered today. And you should have seen the way they were swaying with the music; it was like they were drawn to it.”
“I see,” Trestleblade said noncommittally. “Well, I’m sure nothing will come of it.”
“I hope you’re right,” Heimish said, obviously concerned.
As the musicians finished their song, several patrons stood up. “Serianna! Sing for us!”
The innkeeper blushed. “Not today, I’m afraid.”
Many patrons expressed their disappointment, but the man with the violin spoke up, “If it’s singing you want, we have a great new song we just learned. We hear it’s all the rage in Magnimar right now.”
“And as a right bonus, it’s banned in Cheliax!” the Toad added, and the ban began to play. “All you, Terry,” Toad whispered.
The assassin rolled his eyes, and then began to sing. “The Devil went down to Isger. He was looking for a soul to steal…”
After escorting Kendra back to the manor, Natalya headed off to get some rest before her stakeout. When she awoke, she found Heimish waiting downstairs for her. “Santino’s in no condition to join you, so I thought I’d help,” Heimish offered.
She considered it. “I’ll take the help,” she agreed.
Most of the night was uneventful, but eventually the same old dog began growling at the alley. Heimish went to investigate it before Natalya could stop him.
He found an individual walking through the dark alleyway, but the darkness was no impediment to his Aasimar eyes. The man within looked to have suffered some terrible injury, his ankle was turned at a horribly wrong angle. “Sir, please let me help you,” Heimish said, approaching the man.
The zombie let out a groan and struck Heimish as he got close. Hearing the sound and Heimish’s cry of surprise, Natalya rushed to the alley, sword drawn. Her eyes too had no problem seeing in the darkness. “Get out of the narrow alley!” she called. “We can fight it out here!”
Heimish moved as quickly as he could, which was still much more quickly than a zombie with a broken ankle, and got past Natalya. “Thanks,” he said as he passed.
“Go get some help!” she said. “I’ll hold him here.” The zombie reached within range of her blade, so Natalya struck… and her blade pierced through the zombie’s rotting flesh harmlessly, doing little more than superficial damage. The zombie struck her in return, so she pulled her blade free.
And the blow hurt more than she expected. It nearly knocked the wind out of her. Collapsing in the face of a zombie would be a death sentence. Heimish, seeing what had happened, turned and cast a healing spell. His touch immediately healed the cracked rib Natalya had suffered.
“We’ll do this together!” Heimish said.
“Got you,” Natalya answered. “We need to use its speed to our advantage. Fall back and we’ll keep it moving and hit it as we move.” She stabbed again, ineffectively.
Heimish imbued her weapon with magic and fell back. “Got it.” Natalya hit the zombie again and fell back.
If she just had an axe or something like that, maybe she could hack off its good leg and keep it from moving at all. But she didn’t. What she did have, however, was holy water.
Sheathing her blade, she drew the vial and threw it.
The zombie roared in anger as the water exploded all over it. Its unloving flesh sizzled at the water’s touch. “You used yours in the prison, didn’t you?” she asked Heimish.
“Sorry,” he said, touching his broach and throwing the resulting starknife at the foe, striking a glancing blow that was at least moderately effective. He then threw his physical starknife as Natalya drew her bow and began firing as she moved. The arrows weren’t really all that effective on their own, but they would eventually get the job done. It was just a matter of finishing it off before running out of arrows.
Out of other options, Heimish threw a rock he found on the ground. The blow unbalanced the zombie long enough that Natalya was able to score a hit on the creature’s head. The arrow did enough damage to the brain that the zombie fell.
Natalya used the arrow in the zombie’s skull to further scramble its brain before removing it and the other half dozen arrows sticking out of the newly re-deceased corpse.
The pair exchanged a look. “Sheriff’s office?” Heimish asked.
“Yeah,” Natalya agreed. “And we shouldn’t leave this thing lying here. We’ll drag it with us. But let’s clean up my traps first.”
Back at the manor, Santino was dreaming of a lullaby. But every time he started to relax, he would hear the sound of buzzing, which would cause him to wake with a start. “I never got waffles,” he grumbled, during one such awakening, before laying down to try to fall asleep once more.
It took an hour for the deputy on the night watch – Riff, a twitchy, mousey sort of man – to gather Sheriff Benjan and the other remaining deputies.
“Shouldn’t we tell everyone about this?” Riff asked the sheriff. “Don’t people have a right to know?”
“It could be an isolated incident,” Benjan countered. “We don’t want to frighten people unnecessarily. Zombies wander out of the countryside from time to time and everyone’s already on edge. No, it’s best we keep this to ourselves.”
“I’m warning Kendra,” Natalya said, her face serious.
Sensing there was no arguing with the woman, Benjan relented. “That’s fine. Just tell her I’d appreciate it if she didn’t spread the news about, is all. For now, we need to increase our patrols, especially at night.”
“On it, Sheriff,” Riff said, his hand jittering as he drank a long sip of his coffee.
“We’ve been keeping watch on the monument nightly, hoping to catch the vandal in the act,” Natalya said. “I’ll keep an eye out for more undead.”
“Appreciate it,” Riff said.
“Aren’t we ignoring the obvious?” Trestleblade said.
“What’s that?” Heimish asked.
“Obviously this has something to do with Lorrimor,” she said. “Everyone’s been saying that he was a necromancer.”
“Well, everyone is wrong,” Benjan answered. “I knew Lorrimor. He was my friend. And I swear that he was no necromancer, though he did get up to a few weird experiments here and there. Now, you have your assignments. Dismissed.”
When Heimish and Natalya returned, slightly after sunrise, they found Stein in the sitting room. “You look exhausted,” he said cheerfully.
“Rough night,” Natalya said. “We’ll explain when everyone’s gathered. Don’t want to have to repeat ourselves.”
“Fair enough. Why don’t we sit down for breakfast and you can tell us about it.”
“Right, but first, if you’re going into town, I’m hoping you can pick up a few things for me.”
“I was planning to head into town. What do you need?”
Natalya handed him some coins. “More holy water, and as much lantern oil as you can get with what’s left, small, breakable bottles.” If they encountered another zombie, maybe fire would do what her sword couldn’t.
“Now you’ve got me very curious as to what happened. Come, let’s head to the dining room.”
When they arrived in the dining room, they found Santino, having changed his bloodied suit for a dapper vest and slacks, preparing plates of sandwiches using leftover meat from a day or so past. “Those smell weird,” Natalya said.
“The tomatoes appear to be burnt,” Heimish added.
Stein walked into the kitchen. “The stove is cold,” he noted.
“Then how…?” Natalya asked, eyeing the tomatoes warily.
Stein grabbed the plates and dumped them in the waste bin, much to the relief of the other two onlookers. “Hey!” Santino protested.
“Just sit down. Making breakfast is my job,” Stein said.
Santino, still under the weather, sat down as he was told. A few minutes later, Kendra arrived. A few minutes after that, Stein began placing plates of waffles down in front of everyone, except Santino, who he served soup.
“But… waffles…” Santino whined.
“Sick people get soup. It has an excellent blend of herbs to help you feel better,” Stein said.
Santino looked to Kendra for support, but her expression told him it was for his own good, so he began eating his soup like he was told, though he did it with a frown. This was difficult, because the soup was actually quite good. But it wasn’t waffles, covered in butter, jam and whipped fresh cream.
After breakfast and explaining what had happened that night, Natalya and Heimish retired to their respective quarters to get some rest, while Stein went out for errands, Santino trailing behind him.
“So, you said you were investigating my father’s death?” Santino asked, just making conversation.
“Right. It was very strange that his head was crushed.”
“I don’t know,” Santino said. “I’m sure it happens all the time.”
“But not that perfectly,” Stein said, stopping and making sure no one else was around. “It got the whole head, but nothing else. Not even a bruised shoulder. That doesn’t happen if a man is standing when the gargoyle falls.”
“So, what, whoever killed him went inside and dropped a gargoyle on him? Do you think it could be more of those bugs? Should we go look for them?” He twitched at the thought.
Stein chuckled. “We may have more pressing issues.”
“Like what?” Santino asked.
Stein looked around again for eavesdroppers. “Zombie.”
“Oh, right.”
They continued on for a bit, then Stein suddenly stopped. “Looks like the sheriff’s making the rounds again,” he said with another chuckle.
Santino looked and saw the sheriff entering the apothecary. “Oh, that reminds me. How did that poultice Heimish got you work out?”
“It’s working well enough as could be expected. It’s an interesting bunch of herbs, I’ll say that.”
“How did you get your injury, by the way?”
“Let’s just say that working for the Lorrimors has its dangers,” Stein answered cryptically.
“Ah, I guess that’s true,” Santino agreed, and they continued on their errands without much further conversation.
Some hours later, after the two had returned, Kendra summoned Santino. “Please wake Heimish and Natalya. Our diviner has arrived.”
Santino remembered the grumpy look on Natalya’s face when she went to bed and his face blanched at the thought of having to wake her. “I’ll wake up Heimish first,” he said, hoping the preacher could be convinced to wake the tiefling for him.
Heimish arose fairly quickly, and Santino heard him cast a spell to heal wounds. He then appeared at the door, still in the clothes he’d worn the night before. “I should go tend to the lass’s wounds,” he said, causing Santino to breathe a sigh of relief. “Don’t go too far, we’ll need to tend to your illness as well.”
“Okay,” Santino said, hoping that meant the end to soup for a bit.
After Heimish woke and healed Natalya, he returned and used his tears once more to cure Santino, then the two headed downstairs to find the diviner.
He was a Sczarni man in perhaps his late twenties or early thirties. He sat in a seat in the parlor, playing with a deck of Harrow cards, shuffling them back and forth through the air with a mere flick of his wrist.
“The name’s Martje,” he said, in greeting. “I understand you need my interpretation of an omen involving the Harrow?”
“There’s one more person involved,” Kendra said. “You did wake her, right Cliffy?”
Santino nodded. “Yeah, she’ll be down soon, I think.” He leaned over to Heimish. “Right?” he whispered.
“She said she needed to change to a fresh set of clothes and would be down shortly,” Heimish answered.
“See?” Santino said. When Natalya arrived, she explained to Martje the events at the inn. “See?” Santino repeated. “She saw it catch fire too. So I’m not crazy. Though I’m still not sure about the voices.” This last he muttered.
“The Uprising, you say? A very interesting card, to say the least. It represents overwhelming strength that crushes those that come in contact with it. If it has something to do with you, you might be caught up in something momentous. It will be interesting to see if you survive it.”
“But what does it mean?” Natalya asked.
“One cannot say, necessarily. Only that you should prepare yourselves, for there is danger ahead.”
“Great,” Natalya said.
Martje clapped his hands together. “With that out of the way, now it’s time for the reading.”
“Reading?” Heimish asked.
“Well, I’m here already, so might as well take advantage of my services.”
Back in the tiefling ghettos, Natalya had seen many a tiefling using Harrow cards to fleece people out of their money, so if this man tried such a scam, she was resolved to run him through. But it couldn’t hurt to try a reading, keeping that in mind.
Natalya spoke first. “Tell us about whoever was behind Petrus’s death. Tell us why he was killed. Tell us what the killer wants.” They were three separate requests, but intricately linked. Answering one might answer the other two.
“So we shall. But first, let us determine what roles each of you plays in this. Take a card, each of you.” Each person did so. “Now, starting from my left.” He pointed at Kendra, who revealed her card. “The Trumpet! A declaration of power. You may have a greater role to play in this than you expect, before the end.”
Next came Santino. He turned over his card. “What does it mean?” he asked.
“The Rakshasa is the card of dominance, usually mental control or enslavement to an idea.”
“But what does that mean?”
“It is for you to decide, for only you can know. Now you,” Martje said, pointing at Stein. “Ah, the Owl! The unfeeling natural order, as the wolves cull the weak deer, it is tragic for the deer but good for the herd, which is stronger for it.”
“Okay,” Stein said. “Next.”
Heimish revealed his card. “What’s ‘The Empty Throne’?”
“A sense of palpable loss, but those that are gone will always be with us. Seek answers in the past, for knowledge may come from an ancient source.” Martje then turned to Natalya. “And yours?”
“It’s a bug,” Natalya said, revealing her card.
“The Queen Mother! Yes, a card most appropriate for a tiefling, for the queen mother favors the downtrodden and powerless.”
“Okay, and that means?”
“You seek to become part of society, in a way that even you may not fathom, for formians are the most social of creatures, save perhaps for the thriae.” Martje seemed pleased with his analysis.
“The what and the what?” Natalya asked, his point going completely over her head.
“Oh, never mind. Now give me back your cards and let’s do the reading proper.” He shuffled the cards and held them out. “Would anyone care to shuffle them once more?” he asked. “It is your reading, after all.”
“I volunteer Kendra to do it,” Santino said. Everyone turned to look at him. “What? It’s her house.”
“Fair enough,” Kendra said, taking the deck.
Martje took the deck back when she was done, and laid out the array. He flipped the first column, the cards representing the past, revealing “The Brass Dwarf”, “The Inquisitor” and “The Midwife”.
“Very interesting,” he said. “The one who killed Petrus seeks invulnerability or protection from a current danger and will accept no truth but their immutable convictions. But a new arrival, perhaps this Petrus, threatens to disrupt their plans.”
“So Petrus had to be killed to keep him from interfering?” Natalya asked.
“It is possible. Let us continue.”
Martje flipped the cards from the central column, the cards representing the present, revealing “The Keep”, “The Tangled Briar” and “The Unicorn”, though this last was turned upside down, an omen all its own.
“They’re seeking a symbol of quiet strength, acting on ancient knowledge – perhaps the same as the knowledge Heimish must seek – but something works against them, likely someone from within.”
“I’d best continue researching, then,” Heimish said.
“It could be important,” Martje agreed.
He then flipped over the final column, representing the future, revealing “The Owl”, “The Peacock” and “The Locksmith”.
“Very interesting,” Martje said, looking at Stein. “They seek to cull the weak and change society, but the key to their destiny may fall outside of their grasp, and it is possible you have a greater role to play here.”
“We’ll have to see,” Stein said noncommittally.
Martje then flicked his wrist, scooping up the cards. “Well, if that’s all, I should be off.”
“Wait!” Santino said.
“Yes?”
“You seem to be good at doing tricks with those cards. Can you make a pyramid?”
“A pyramid, you say?” Martje laid the cards on the table, then waved his hand over them, causing them to stand up and interlock into a massive, intricate pyramid.
“Can we keep him?” Santino asked Kendra, who just laughed and shook her head.
“Be careful what you ask for,” Martje said, flinging the only remaining card in his hand to Santino, who caught it. “There’s always a hidden truth.”
Santino looked at the card in his hand, “The Hidden Truth”. “What,” he said.
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Even with the oil and other supplies Stein had procured for her, Natalya was glad to have the help. She was still a bit unnerved at the way her rapier had slid harmlessly into the foe’s rotten flesh.
That night, well after dark, the trio grabbed a quick breakfast of cheese and dried meat, then headed out. They weren’t too far from the manor when Santino stopped.
“What is it?” Natalya whispered.
“I think I found a clue. Something’s killing a dog. I’m going to go check it out.”
“I’m continuing on to the monument,” Natalya said. “Observe, don’t engage.”
Santino scoffed. “Like I’d ever stop someone from killing a dog.” He turned to Heimish. “Want to come along?”
Heimish shook his head. “I’d only slow you down. I’m better off where I can wait and watch.”
“Fair enough. Meet you guys there in a bit.” Santino moved quickly in the direction the sound had originated from, and arrived within minutes. But he found nothing. “I hope it’s not just my mind playing tricks on me,” he said, cursing as he suddenly heard the sound of a mosquito in his ear.
He waved his hand around his ear and looked around to make sure it wasn’t another giant stirge. But it was just a tiny mosquito after all. As he looked, he noticed something.
There weren’t any sounds. The night was deathly silent, without even the sound of an owl or the chirp of a cricket to break the unnatural stillness. “Well,” Santino said to himself. “That isn’t creepy at all.”
At the monument, Natalya and Heimish had just finished setting up their snares and noisemakers and were heading towards their hiding places when Heimish stopped. “Hey, we haven’t seen any guards yet,” he whispered. “I thought they were going to be stepping up patrols.”
Natalya considered it, then shrugged before crawling into a bush to hide.
“I’m not crazy,” Santino said to himself as he continued scouring for clues in the dark. Not that skulking around an alleyway, talking to himself in the early morning hours was helping his case. Then he spotted it. “Aha!” he whispered in triumph, carefully dabbing up the spot of blood with his handkerchief.
If nothing else, he could show it to the others to prove he hadn’t wasted his time. And maybe Stein had some way to prove that it was a dog that had been killed. He had a lab, after all.
His prize safely folded and in his pocket, Santino looked up just in time to see a figure walk by the far end of the alleyway. “Well, hello there,” he whispered, his interest piqued. He remembered Natalya’s words, and began carefully tailing the figure. Eventually he would lead to the dead dog, and he’d have his culprit.
The figure walked down the road and over the bridge leading to the temple. Then he suddenly stopped. In a panic, Santino dove behind a nearby building. When he peeked back out, he saw the man – that much was clear in the moonlight – putting a flask back into the pouch on his belt.
“What’s in the flask?” Santino whispered to himself. “Dog’s blood? Demon’s blood? The blood of a demonic dog?” He had to know who this person was. He had to get closer.
Over the course of the next fifteen minutes, Santino inched closer and closer, trying to make out the man’s face. He was less than sixty feet away when he finally got a look at the man in profile. His face was familiar, but Santino couldn’t quite place it.
But he could get a better look at the flask the man carried. It was rather large. “Must have been a big dog,” Santino thought. “Way more blood in there than you’d get from those little dogs noble ladies keep.”
They were getting further from buildings, so Santino backed off a bit, but kept following. When they reached the temple, the figure stopped again, looked around, then pulled out his flask and took a swig.
“That’s disgusting,” Santino whispered to himself, shaking his head at the thought of drinking dog’s blood. He’d done disgusting things before, but even he drew the line somewhere.
Back at the monument, Heimish was getting a bit of a cramp in his leg from having been crouched for well over an hour. Carefully, he moved and stretched his calf, which startled a bird that was also hiding in the bush. It chirped, which in turn, startled Heimish, causing him nearly to fall over.
Natalya, who had witnessed the whole thing, just shook her head. Moments later, she spotted something out of the corner of her eye. It was Santino, walking past the alley parallel to the one where Heimish and his bush were located. He looked right where she was hiding and made some hand motions that she took to indicate that he was following someone and would call for help if necessary.
He was at an angle where Heimish wouldn’t see him, so Natalya waited until he passed and motioned for Heimish to be ready.
Santino rounded the corner carefully, and spotted the figure leaning against a wall, flask in hand. His coat was open, and Santino spotted a glint on the man’s chest.
Santino sighed. “Nice night for a walk,” he said aloud.
Deputy Riff jumped at the sudden sound, dropping his thankfully still closed flask. “Pharasma!” he near-shouted. “You scared the heck out of me.” He bent down to pick up his flask.
“Sorry, Deputy,” came a voice from a nearby bush. Riff dropped his flask again, twitching even more as Heimish stood and a bird flew out, right past the deputy.
Riff finally managed to pick up the flask and took a big swig. Santino could smell the coffee from where he was standing.
Disgusted at all the noise they were making, Natalya carefully crawled out from underneath the bush she was hiding in and walked over. “Sorry,” Santino said. “I thought I had a suspect, but it turns out I was trailing a deputy all night.” He got a serious look on his face. “Though, that still doesn’t explain what else I found.” He pulled out his handkerchief. “Deputy, have you bled at all tonight?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Riff responded. The deputy pulled out a tindertwig, lit it and inspected the handkerchief. “This definitely looks like blood. Where did you find it?”
“It’s not too far from here. I can show you.”
“Give me a moment,” Natalya said. “Stakeout is a bust. I’ll clean up my snares and come with you.” She took only a couple minutes to do so then returned to the alley.
“And, so, if we find the mosquito, maybe it can lead us to the dog,” Santino was saying.
“Dare I ask?” Natalya whispered to Heimish.
“Don’t get him started again,” Heimish replied.
“Come on, let’s go!” Santino said, grabbing Riff by the hand and leading the beleaguered deputy towards the location where he had found the blood.
“You know what, you go ahead,” Natalya said. “There’s one more trap I just remembered. Gonna take me a bit and you look eager to get going.”
“Need some help?” Heimish asked.
“Sure.”
When they arrived, the deputy took back his hand and lit a torch. In the light, the blood was obvious, and it led in a distinctive trail. “Wow, how did I miss all of that?” Santino asked.
“Because it was dark?” Riff asked in reply.
“Maybe,” Santino agreed.
“The blood leads this way,” Riff said, following the trail.
The trail started heading towards the monument, but then suddenly veered off and headed in the opposite direction.
The trail continued on, eventually reaching a large home. “Sheriff’s not gonna like this,” Riff said. “We’ve got another clean up.”
There, on the wall of the home of Vashian Hearthmount was a giant ‘S’ written in the blood of a dog. The dog’s entrails were scattered all about. “Well, that’s not gonna be fun to clean,” Santino said. “Want me to run and get the other two?”
“Go ahead.”
“Alright, I’ll be right back. If you’re not here when I get back, I’m going to assume you’re the killer!” Santino called out as he hurried away.
“What?” Riff asked, but Santino was already out of earshot.
On the way back, Santino showed the others the trail of blood. From where it changed course, Natalya could get a good look at both her and Heimish’s positions, though the bushes still should have hidden them from view, unless they made a mistake in hiding that was only visible from here.
If they were spotted, it meant the stakeout wasn’t going to work. If this trail didn’t lead to the culprit, they would have to start making patrols instead. With her tiefling eyes, walking through town in the dark wouldn’t be a problem for Natalya, but she worried about how it would affect Santino and Heimish.
Riff was waiting when they returned. “It’s a definite mess, but I can’t tell where the vandal went after leaving here.”
Natalya scanned the area. “Deputy, did you walk over there while you were searching?”
“What?” Riff asked, looking where she pointed. “No, why?”
“There’s a bit of shine on the grass right there, about the size of a boot. I think someone stepped on the grass there.”
“I see it!” the deputy gasped. “Good eye.”
“There’s another just beyond it,” Santino noted.
“And several more beyond that,” Heimish said.
They followed the trail of footprints – and several drops of blood - until eventually coming to a shed behind someone’s home. The door was locked, but there was a small pool of blood on the floor next to it.
“Who lives here?” Natalya asked, happy to finally have a solid lead.
“This place belongs to Old Gibbs,” Riff answered.
That name sounded familiar, but Natalya couldn’t place it. Santino, on the other hand, recognized it. “Clever!” he said. “You never expect the a#*%&*% to be the killer!”
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” Riff said, taking a swig from his flask. “We’ll go knocking on his door, but let me do the talking.”
It took several minutes of loud banging before the door finally creaked open. An annoyed looking man in his bedclothes glared at the group. “What is it?” he asked.
“Sorry to wake you Gibbs,” Riff said. “But I need to ask you some questions about your shed.”
“My shed? What about my shed?”
“Does anyone else have a key to your shed?”
“What? No.” Natalya was watching him, trying to assess his responses for truthfulness. As far as she could tell, he was telling the truth, just confused and angry about being awoken. She asked the others about it later, and they agreed that was what they seemed to get from him as well.
“Okay, then we’re going to need you to open the shed for us.”
“What for?”
“Gibbs, just open the shed, please,” Riff said.
“Fine,” Gibbs grumbled. “Just let me put on some pants first.”
After he returned inside, Santino turned to Riff. “Maybe you should give him some of your coffee?”
Gibbs returned a few minutes later, dressed and key in hand. “I’d really like to know what you’re looking for,” he said as he pulled off the lock.
“I’m hoping it’s nothing,” Riff said. “But we have to be thorough.”
They didn’t have to look long. Immediately after the door was open, there, right before them, lay a blood covered straight razor of the type used by barbers. Santino inspected it. “The blood’s still moist,” he said.
“What the hell?” Gibbs asked. “Who put that there?” His eyes grew wide as he finally put two and two together. “It wasn’t me! It was these people! You’re going to take the word of these outsiders over mine?!”
“That’s for the sheriff to determine,” Riff said. “For now, I need to take you in.”
“You can’t! This is an outrage!”
Gibbs began to resist, but Heimish put a hand on his shoulder. “Friend, I understand you’re upset. But this isn’t the way. If you’re innocent, I have faith that the sheriff will see it. Fighting with the deputy only serves to make you look guilty.”
The fight went out of Gibbs and his shoulders slumped. “Fine, let’s get this over with.”
“Good man,” Riff said. “Will the three of you keep an eye on the crime scene until I can get the sheriff out there? I wouldn’t want anyone tampering with it.”
The trio returned to the scene of the crime and kept watch until Benjan Caellar finally arrived just after dawn. They were telling him about what had happened from their points of view when they heard the door to the home open. Turning, they saw a confused looking Vashian Hearthmount.
“What are you people doing out in front of my house this early in the morning?” he asked.
Benjan walked over to him. “Vashian, don’t be alarmed, but, well… there’s been another vandalism.”
“They struck the monument again?”
“Not exactly.”
“What do you mean by – oh my god.” Vashian stepped out from the doorway and looked at his home, the blood and gore quite visible in early morning light. “This is an outrage!” he shouted. “Benjan, you’d better have some leads, or so help me…”
Santino walked over and extended his hand. “Hi! I’m Santino, in case you’ve forgotten, and we’ve been helping the Sheriff look into this. I’m happy to say that we found-” He stopped suddenly when Benjan put his hand over Santino’s mouth.
“What he means to say is, yes, we’re looking into something,” Benjan interrupted. “But it’s far too early to say anything about it, for fear of damaging the investigation.”
“I can understand that,” Vashian said. “But make all haste with your investigation. People are getting restless and need answers.”
“For restless people, they seemed to be awful quiet last night,” Heimish noted. Natalya rolled her eyes at his joke.
“You three, give me a minute to speak with Councilor Hearthmount,” Benjan told the others, who went ahead and walked over to get a better look at the bloody graffiti in the day’s light.
“This is a really amateur job,” Santino critiqued.
“He probably couldn’t see,” Heimish responded.
“Fair enough.”
A few minutes later, Benjan came over to them. “I want to thank you for your help last night. We’ll take it from here, but we’ll keep you apprised of developments.”
“Actually, we may know a guy who can confirm that the blood on the razor is the same as the blood from the scene,” Santino offered.
Benjan sighed. “Fine, send him by my office and I’ll talk to him.”
The trio headed back to the manor for some well-earned rest. There, they found Kendra and Stein sitting in the living room. “Ah, there they are,” Stein said. “How’d it go?”
“Someone’s killing dogs now,” Santino answered. “Oh, and you’re joining the cops. Take your blood testing equipment, if you have any.”
“What?” Natalya interceded and explained the situation to him. “I see,” Stein said. “I’ll go in a little bit. But first, I’ll tend to breakfast.”
Santino’s ears perked up. “What’s for breakfast?”
“Waffles,” Stein answered. “And sausage. But you get soup.”
“What? Why?”
“It’s good for you.”
Santino rolled his eyes. “Fine. What kind of soup?”
“The good kind.”
“That’s not a flavor,” Santino whined. As soon as Stein was gone, he turned to Kendra and gave her puppy dog eyes. “Can I please have some waffles?” he begged.
“Sorry,” she said. “It’s probably for your own good.”
“Fine,” Santino pouted. “I’m gonna go get changed.”
At breakfast, Santino was certain he saw Stein smirking at him from behind his plate of waffles. So Santino did the only rational thing he could think of. He wolfed down his soup, drinking down even the large solid chunks without chewing, and went to the kitchen to make his own waffles.
He returned a few minutes later with a plate of the soggiest, saddest looking waffles anyone at the table had ever seen. Parts of them didn’t even look like they’d been cooked at all, other parts had scorch marks.
“You’re going to clean up whatever mess you made in the kitchen, right?” Kendra asked Santino, who was happily munching on what could only charitably be called a waffle.
“Are you telling me to?” Santino asked, his mouth full.
“…Yes.”
“Okay then,” he answered, going back to eating noisily.
As Santino ate and cleaned, Heimish fell asleep. He dreamed of blood and letters. He saw his name, or at least bits and pieces of it, in several places. Eventually, he awoke, sitting bolt upright and covered in sweat.
Santino, finally done cleaning the kitchen, joined Kendra for a bit before his nap. “So, how are things with Alvin?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“You know, dating?”
“Dating? I don’t really have time for that. Alvin’s just a friend.”
“Well, you should make time,” he said. “You, of all people, deserve to be happy.”
“I’ll consider it. Do I need to double check your work in the kitchen?”
“No, I did good,” Santino said, feigning outrage.
“Okay, then go get some sleep. You look pretty tired.” Santino bid her good night and obediently scurried off to bed, where his dreams were plagued with mosquitoes and terrible flute melodies.
Natalya tossed and turned for a bit before finally falling asleep. Her dreams were strange as well. She saw bars and chains, but a number of holy symbols. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the selection of the symbols, though she did recognize most major religions and one that matched the one Heimish seemed to favor.
A desk appeared, and on it was a journal. Curious, she walked over to investigate it. Upon opening the book, she suddenly felt a shiver down her spine as the warmth left the room.
The journal had been penned by a man named Sefick Corvin, who had been a con artist. His own words detailed his many cons. Most were run of the mill, involving things like selling fake holy water and miracle cures – she’d seen plenty of that kind of thing in the tiefling ghettos – but several were much more complex.
One even involved using holy symbols for The Black Butterfly and the Archdevil Belial to play a pair of nobles against each other, with the latter being a man who had wanted to ensnare and bed a young woman, and the former wanting to save the woman from her strict familial obligations. Sefick had made quite a bit of money doing so, and had great fun at the sport of it all.
Natalya wasn’t surprised to learn in one of the entries that Sefick Corvin had been a Sczarni. She’d never encountered one who hadn’t been trouble.
She woke up, still feeling terribly cold, but the surprise of that paled in comparison to the fact that sitting plain as day on the foot of her bed was the journal from her dream. “What in hell is this doing here?” she asked no one in particular.
It was early afternoon, just about time to wake up anyway, so she got up, dressed and took the book to show the others. “That’s a bit concerning,” Heimish said after hearing her tale.
“Yeah, definitely a little weird,” Santino agreed. “Should we go check in on the sheriff?” After all, her dreams were definitely a lot less horrifying than his, and he was coping just fine aside from the occasional twitch.
“Yeah, sure,” Natalya said with a shrug.
At the sheriff’s office, Gibbs glowered at them as they passed his cell on the way to meet with Benjan. “How goes the investigation, good sheriff?” Heimish asked in greeting.
“Not great,” the sheriff answered. “I’ve questioned Gibbs, and I think I believe him. Either he’s telling the truth and genuinely knows nothing, or he’s an incredible liar. I’ve known Gibbs for years, and trust me, he’s a terrible liar, so that leaves only the one possibility.”
Before anyone could respond, the door to the office opened. “It’s a match!” Stein said, holding up the now clean razor.
“I was hoping it wouldn’t be,” Benjan said with a sigh. “He won’t say anything about whether he owns the razor or not.”
“Did you follow up with the wife?” Santino asked.
“Yes. She didn’t say much. But I’m warning you to stay away from her, for your own good,” Benjan answered. “She’s much scarier than Gibbs could ever be.”
“Aww, you do care!” Santino exclaimed, holding his arms open and expecting a hug.
Benjan ignored him. “So that puts us back at square one.”
“Not necessarily,” Natalya said, looking at the razor. “That’s a pretty fine tool there.” It didn’t remotely compare to Faith, but not much could. Still, it was a well-made razor.
“I suppose so,” Benjan answered, not sure where she was going with this.
“I’d bet the smith who made it would remember such a thing, and quite possibly, who it was sold to.”
“Oh! That’s right!” Santino said, grabbing the razor. “That’s Jorfa’s mark right there. I bet she could tell us who it belongs to.”
Benjan nodded. “Fine. Look into it. But be discreet. We don’t need everyone knowing that we’ve arrested someone as part of the investigation.”
Stein cleared his throat. “If that’s all I’m needed for, I should probably get back. I have to check on the kitchen.”
Santino rolled his eyes. “Kitchen’s clean.” Then he got a devilish grin. “Privy, much less so.”
Stein shook his head, and noticed the other two’s faces. “You three look like hell. Did you not sleep?”
“Not well,” Natalya said, explaining her dream and showing everyone the journal.
“That’s very strange,” Stein agreed. “Not much I can do about that, but I do have some herbs that will help you three sleep. I’ll mix up a batch before you next go to bed.”
“Thanks,” Heimish said.
Jorfa was in the middle of smithing some barrel rings when they arrived, and refused to be interrupted. After about half an hour, she finally reached a stopping point and checked in on them. “So, what can I help you folks with today?”
Natalya pulled out the razor. “We found this on the street, and Santino says this is your mark. We were hoping you could tell us who it belongs to so we can return it and maybe see about getting a reward for doing so.”
Jorfa looked at the razor. “Yeah, I remember this. Let me check my ledger.”
She left the room and Santino turned to the others. “A reward? I’d rather just keep the razor. It’s a nice razor.”
“Returning it is the right thing to do,” Heimish said.
“Fine,” Santino said, pouting. “I’ll just get Jorfa to make me one of my very own.”
Jorfa returned and gave them what they needed, confirming that it was indeed Gibbs’ razor. They thanked her, and they set off again, after Santino had placed his own order, of course.
As they were on the road, Santino stopped. “It’s fitting together nicely. Too nicely, if you ask me.”
“What do you mean?” Heimish asked.
“Well, it’s just too easy. Like killing cats. You know, when you get your hands around their necks and squeeze. Just goes pop pop pop, and then they’re dead.”
Natalya and Heimish exchanged a worried look at his choice of metaphor, but they couldn’t disagree that things did seem a bit too tidy for their liking.
Also, the roll to discover the tracks to the shed was pretty epic. The other two did rolls, but failed. GM asked if I wanted to try. I said, and I quote, "Well, my survival skill is kinda poor, but maybe I'll roll a twenty." Sure enough, I rolled a twenty. GM said it surprised him and it was going to change the course of the next session for sure. Hence the title, which I'm very proud of(tacking is to change direction in a nautical sense).
** spoiler omitted **
I guarantee that being fed a cat wouldn't even faze her at this point. I can't speak for Heimish on that, though. :P
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“Maybe he was sleepwalking?” Santino asked.
“That’s one hell of a case of sleepwalking,” Benjan said. He sighed. “We’ll keep the night watch alert just in case something more is going on. Just to be safe.”
“Need any help?” Santino asked.
“I won’t turn it down if you’re volunteering.”
“So, does this mean you forgive me for the rats?”
Benjan pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off a headache. “Just… please, don’t get up to your shenanigans.”
“So, can I keep the knife?”
“No. It’s evidence.” Benjan left to go put the blade away. Out of sight, out of mind, after all.
“Damn.” He turned to the others. “So, what now?”
“I’d like to talk to Father Grimburrow about the dreams, and this book,” Natalya said, holding up the mysterious tome that had appeared while she was sleeping. “Unless you can think of someone who might be better equipped to talk about something like that.”
“No, I believe that the good father would be just the right man to talk to,” Heimish said.
With that, the trio headed off. It was late afternoon and the sun was well into its descent as the party reached the Temple of Pharasma. Outside, Acolyte William was toiling in the gardens. When asked, he told them that Father Grimburrow would be inside the temple proper, so they headed inside.
They found the priest at the altar, saying his afternoon prayers. After a few minutes he rose carefully from his knees. “So, what can I do for you today?” he asked.
“We had a few questions, possibly of a spiritual nature, that we were hoping you might be able to help with,” Heimish said. “Natalya?”
Natalya explained her dreams, then each of the others added in theirs in turn. After listening, Father Grimburrow considered it. “These have been troubling days lately. Are you sure that you simply aren’t having dreams based on stress?”
Natalya showed him the book. “When I awoke from my dream, I found this. It hadn’t been there when I went to sleep.”
Grimburrow read through the book for a few minutes. “My, there may be more to this than I thought.”
“He pretended to be one of your clergymen,” Santino said.
“More than just one of mine,” Grimburrow said. He returned the book to Natalya. “I’ll see what I can -”
He was interrupted as the door to the temple flew open and Alvin rushed in. “Father! There’s trouble in the cemetery!”
“What’s going on?” Heimish asked.
“Someone’s desecrating a crypt!”
Santino’s eyes lit up. “A crypt, you say?” His lips curled back into something between a grin and a snarl. “Show me where. I’ll give those hooligans a taste of Hell, so they aren’t surprised when they get to the other side.”
It could potentially have something to do with everything else going on, so Natalya had no reason to say no, so she followed along as Alvin, leaning on Santino while he caught his breath, led the way to the crypt.
As they walked, Santino grilled Alvin for information. “Were you able to tell who it was?”
“I,” Alvin gasped, “didn’t get close enough.”
“Why not?”
“There,” Alvin wheezed, “were two of them and one of me.”
“Are you alright, lad?” Heimish asked.
“I don’t,” Alvin panted, “run much.”
As they got closer, they began using the headstones to hide their approach. Eventually, they heard the sounds of someone striking a crypt door. Heimish put his finger to his lips and motioned for the others to wait for a moment. He then carefully crept forward.
To his horror, Heimish found three zombies attacking the crypt. One was missing an arm, another was mostly intact, but the third was something else entirely. It was missing its head, but it was crawling on the ground, also striking at the crypt.
And Heimish was pretty sure that body looked familiar.
“Sod,” he breathed before he crept back to the others. “It’s not people. The dead have risen and are attacking the crypt for some reason. And I think one of the corpses belonged to Petrus.”
“Petrus?!” Natalya gasped. “If it’s more zombies, my blade won’t be very effective. Let’s try these,” she whispered, pulling out a couple small bottles of oil and some fabric to use as fuses. She handed one to Heimish and they quickly rigged up improvised incendiary devices.
Natalya led the way, sneaking up and hurling a lit flask at the zombie on the right. As luck would have it, it didn’t catch, but it did douse the monster in oil. Santino rushed past her, thrusting with the point of his umbrella and somehow managing to ignite the oil-soaked zombie.
The zombie retaliated, with Santino’s burning target wheeling around and striking him with a heavy blow. Meanwhile, the other two zombies ignored the party, continuing to attack the crypt.
Heimish flung his flask of oil at the zombie on the left. Luck, or possibly the will of the Black Butterfly, was on his side, and the one-armed zombie burst into flame. The zombie turned around and attacked the nearest target, once again Santino.
“I’m not gonna lie,” Santino whimpered. “That hurt a lot.”
The first zombie fell to another blow from Santino as Petrus’ corpse managed to break open the door, which creaked inwards on its hinges. Natalya leapt forward and thrust at the prone corpse. Her blade pierced through the soft flesh, doing little damage.
Heimish quickly healed some of Santino’s wounds, and then Alvin stepped forward. “Perish, foul abominations!” he choked out, channeling energy against the foes, which didn’t even seem to notice.
The one armed zombie, still smoldering, struck Santino again. “Oh, that’s it,” he said. He cracked his neck, and his jaw popped as he clenched it. Then he leapt forward, biting at the zombie.
Heimish continued to try healing his wounds, made more difficult by the angry man’s movements and Alvin trying to hold himself up on the preacher’s coat to avoid collapsing. Meanwhile, Petrus’ corpse flailed at Natalya, who tried parrying but was unable to get clean deflection to unbalance the creature due to its wild, unpredictable movements. But at least it didn’t hit her, since it couldn’t see her.
Natalya dodged around past the flailing corpse and into the doorway of the crypt, where she could flank the smoldering zombie with Santino, taking a blow from the zombie’s wild flailing as she moved. She then struck, once more dealing minimal damage, but it was enough to distract the zombie. Taking his cue, Santino leapt in and bit with all of his might, tearing the zombie’s head clean off.
In Santino’s mouth was a large chunk of flesh, which he shook side to side like an animal trying to shred its prey. Heimish healed him once more, and then Alvin shouted, “BE HEALED!” as he channeled energy once more, trying to heal Natalya and Santino’s injuries, but accomplishing little before collapsing to the ground behind Heimish.
Natalya then finished off the prone corpse of Petrus with a well-aimed blow at the zombie’s heart before gaping at Santino, who was pulling rotten flesh from his teeth.
“Did I miss any?” he asked, pulling a last chunk of gore from his mouth. But before she could answer, Santino felt something strange from the crypt, whose door had creaked entirely open. He didn’t wait for a response, and headed inside, where he immediately spotted an old set of footprints leading deeper inside.
“Should we follow him?” Natalya asked Heimish. Heimish answered with a shrug as he hit her with more healing magic.
Alvin looked up. “Wait. Did he go inside?” he asked. “My face was down in the mud.”
“Yes,” Natalya said, finally deciding. “We should go after him. We need to find out what the zombies were after.”
Inside, Santino began hearing a pulsing sound within his head. “Okay, I’m not crazy, but I did get hit pretty hard.” Nonetheless, he continued onward, following the footprints.
The footprints ended at a sarcophagus, and as Santino approached, the thrumming in his head got louder. He didn’t even think about it, and began pushing open the heavy lid.
Hearing the sound of the stone scraping, Heimish grew worried. “What’s he doing?”
“I don’t know,” Natalya said. “We should hurry.”
The duo arrived just in time to watch a giant centipede crawl out of a crack in the wall and bite Santino. Heimish spotted another in the darkness behind them. “Watch out!” he said to Natalya, pointing as he cast a spell to bless their attacks while being bitten by the centipede.
Natalya drew her rapier and skewered the centipede that had bitten Heimish, while Santino reacted in anger at the centipede that had bitten him, biting it back and once more shaking it in his mouth until it stopped moving.
Natalya was pretty sure Santino was some kind of crazy person.
Santino tossed aside the limp centipede and immediately began opening the sarcophagus the rest of the way. From behind them, Heimish and Natalya heard footsteps.
“I really don’t know how the three of you can see in here without a torch,” Alvin called out. He had managed to cobble together a makeshift light source from a stick and some fabric taken from one of the zombies, and was currently trying to light it.
Santino got the sarcophagus open, and the crypt was bathed in a sinister red light. Santino’s lips curled in a wolfish grin as he reached into what had likely been Petrus’ cache of undead hunting supplies – there was certainly no body contained within - and took hold of the prize, a ruby the size and shape of a human heart that was the source of the evil glow.
As he lifted it to his breast, the light drained from the ruby and began flowing into him. Veins of deep carmine pulsed just beneath his skin as Santino began laughing deliriously.
“We should probably tell the town council about the zombies,” Alvin said as he was walking into the room. The acolyte’s torch dimmed as he entered the room, as if the sinister glow was absorbing the fire’s light. “Oh my,” he said, seeing Santino. “You should probably get that looked at.”
The glow faded and the veins of light disappeared. In Santino’s hands, the ruby had transformed into nothing more than a heart-shaped piece of red glass – beautiful, but no longer a valuable gem. “Are you okay?” Natalya asked, her rapier still in hand.
“Never better,” Santino replied, his lips pulled back into a wolfish smile.
** spoiler omitted **
Can't say anything else without spoiling things, but I have faith that he has a plan to make it work.
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Santino turned to him. “I’m fine. At last, I’m complete.”
“Just what in the hells was that, lad?” Heimish asked.
“How much did you know of my father?” Santino asked in return.
“We were drinking buddies.”
“Then this will take a bit of explaining. I was born into this world with a power I could not control, hellish in origin. My body was constantly coming apart the seams trying to contain it. I was a danger to all who came near me. My father locked me down in his lab after I nearly killed Kendra. For years he studied the source of my power, how to contain it, make it useful. He did things to me… things I swore never speak aloud. I became a guinea pig to him.
“When it proved too much to properly weaponized, he resorted to stripping the majority of the power away and for a time I felt relief, even gratitude, to the bastard.” He gestured to Natalya. “As I’m sure you’d find comfort if you were relieved of your tiefling condition for a time, Natalya. To be able to walk down the street, normal, with no one giving you a second look. Yet your mutation is a big, defining part of you. Eventually you’d start to feel hollow without it. And for me growing up, this empty hole spread across my being. I tried to fill it by playing the hero. Helping our sheriff against his will, returning pet rats, pushing old ladies across the street.
“I was so desperate to not be the monster my father thought of me, that I overcompensated and earned the ire of all those I sought validation from.” Santino gripped the side of crypt. Red light ran across the veins of his hands. “Yet I’m complete now and I see how narrow-minded I’d become. I am neither a hero nor a monster. I’m what I want to be, with no soul’s opinion mattering but my own… and Kendra’s.”
The others exchanged glances, unsure what to think of that. “And what of Petrus’ task?” Natalya asked. She had a job to do, and she needed to know if he would be reliable.
He stood up and brushed bits of corpse and centipede intestines off his shoulders before turning to face Natalya and Heimish fully. “I will remain in town to the contract’s completion. More to see to Kendra’s safety than for the reward. Her kindness was the only beacon of hope I had throughout Petrus’ dominion of my mind, body, and soul. If after our assignment is complete, she chooses to follow me out of this husk of a town? Good. If not, well humans have free will for a reason. Yet for the time being it seems we’re dealing with a particularly nasty haunting. I’ve yet to truly test out this power, yet until I master it I see no point in going it alone. So for Kendra’s sake and the very few souls in this town worth saving, will you two walk with me awhile longer?”
Natalya shrugged. “I’m here to complete a job. If you’re in, then we have no problem.”
“I think I can agree to that,” Heimish said. “Something bad is happening, and we may be in a position to help. As long as our goals align, then I don’t see why we can’t continue to work together.”
Alvin looked bewildered. “I still have no real idea what’s going on. But we’ve all had a bit of a day.” He patted Santino’s shoulder. “Come on, we should go rest.”
“Not before we put my father back in his hole,” Santino said.
“The others as well,” Heimish said.
“If we can figure out where those particular bodies came from,” Natalya added.
It took some time, but they found the other two disturbed graves and, using a wheelbarrow procured by Alvin, managed to put all of the corpses back in their graves. While doing so, they inspected the sites and determined that the corpses had clawed their own way out, and hadn’t been aided by outside forces.
After they were done, they went and spoke first with Father Grimburrow, who was obviously concerned about the zombies. It was to the point that he agreed to send for assistance from other clerics he knew, but it would take at least a week before any help could arrive. “And by that time, we don’t know how bad things will have gotten,” Heimish said, finishing the thought.
“Exactly.”
“It has something to do with the prison,” Heimish said. “We should return and see what we can find out.”
“First thing in the morning,” Natalya agreed. “And we should convince Stein to come with us.”
“I guess we also have to tell Benjan about the zombies,” Santino said.
“We’ll go there next,” Natalya agreed.
“I hope you find something,” Grimburrow said. “We cannot allow the dead to continue to rise. People will panic, and that’s before we consider the blasphemy of such a thing.”
“We can buy some time if no one who knows of it spreads the word,” Natalya said. “Can you keep Alvin from spreading the word?”
“I’ll speak with him. Now, off with you. You have a lot of work ahead of you.”
They bid their farewells and headed to the sheriff’s office. Benjan listened intently as they told him about the zombies. “There will be talk in the streets,” he said.
“We’re trying to buy a little time there,” Natalya said. “But it won’t take long before it gets out.”
“I’m going to call for a meeting of the town’s council. I need you all to testify before them and let them know what you know.”
“We’ll be there,” Heimish said. “Just let us know when they need us there.”
“We’re going to the prison tomorrow,” Natalya added. “There seems to be a link. But is there a way we can keep the council meeting private? We should keep from spreading the word as best we can.”
“The town has open council meetings that anyone can attend.”
“Then we’ll tell them in private, and they can decide what they want to share.”
“I’m not sure I can get them to agree to it.”
Natalya shrugged. “You’re the one who will have to deal with the panic. Do what you will.”
They returned to the manor and found Stein making dinner. “It’ll be about another half hour. Oh, what’s that you’ve got there?” the butler asked, looking at one of the strange green vials Heimish was holding up, a prize from Petrus’ hidden cache.
“We were hoping you could tell us,” Heimish said.
“Let me take a look.” He inspected it. “Well, I’ll be. That’s a haunt siphon. They can be used to draw in the necromantic energy keeping haunts or ghosts going. Just be careful with them after they’ve been used. If the glass breaks, the energy is released and harms living creatures.”
“Just the thing for rats,” Santino noted.
“Indeed. Clear out the ghosts, then use the leftover energy to destroy a swarm of rats.”
For dinner, they had a pot roast with varied root vegetables. Everyone was well focused on their day, and only Kendra seemed to notice that Santino no longer seemed to care about the food itself. While watching him, she also noticed a strange pulse of red through the veins in his face. It startled her so much she almost dropped her fork. The others noticed that, but she played it off as biting into a peppercorn.
After dinner, Natalya sought out Kendra to ask for clarification on some of the things Santino had said in the crypt. She didn’t remember nearly dying, but admitted that she was very young when she met him, so it was possible she simply didn’t recall. Natalya left with perhaps more questions than she’d had before, but she corroborated what she could and was satisfied enough to continue working with him.
After meeting with Natalya, Kendra sought out Santino. She knocked lightly on his door and entered. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, with only the light of a single dim candle holding the room’s darkness at bay. In the dim light, Kendra could see the faint, pulsing glow in Santino’s chest where his heart was.
“So,” Kendra said, trying to break the ice, “I understand you’re going through some changes right now. It’s a natural part of life. Soon you’ll start growing hair in strange places.”
Santino snorted a laugh. “No one else wanted to tell you, but one of the zombies we fought was father.”
“Oh.”
“It was for the best. His zombie led us straight to my missing piece.”
“So, you’ve gotten what you came for. What now?”
“I’m staying until the contract is complete so I can make sure you’re safe. After that? I don’t know. I’m definitely leaving, but not sure where I’m going after that. You should come with me. You deserve more than being trapped in this place.”
“It’s a nice sentiment. I’ll consider it, truly. But you should get some sleep. It has been a long day.”
“That it has, and I’m sure the night will be just as long.”
“Good night,” Kendra said, shutting the door behind her as she left.
“Good night,” Santino replied softly, his eyes glowing in the darkness as a dark smile spread across his lips.
Santino tossed and turned all night, as did Heimish. But Natalya used the herbs she’d gotten and managed to sleep pretty well. So she was the only one of the three who looked rested when the group prepared to set out just after sunrise, Stein in tow.
They opened the door to find a surprised Deputy Vrodish standing at the door, hand raised in mid-knock. “Oh. You’re awake. Sheriff sent me to tell you that the council will be meeting tomorrow evening, and your attendance is expected.”
“We’ll be there,” Heimish said.
“Good.” Then Vrodish left before giving Santino a chance to annoy him, allowing the party to set out for the prison.
The first place the group went was back to the locked safe. With a little work, Stein and Natalya managed to get the safe open and the party was happy to find a number of usable magic potions, as well as a pile of coins marked as being for payroll.
They then continued searching, breaking into a locked office. While inside, Natalya spotted a hidden door, which led to a vault that seemed to be an evidence room. Within, they took numerous objects, many of which seemed to be tied to the often mentioned five notorious criminals.
Natalya snatched up the chain of holy symbols that seemed to belong to Father Charlatan and stuck it in her bag along with his journal. Santino grabbed the bloodstained hand axe that had belonged to the Lopper as well as the hammer that had belonged to the Mosswater Marauder, tucking them both into his belt.
Stein picked up a moldy book and gasped when he opened it. Inside, his own name was written in blood along a margin. “That probably belonged to the Splatterman,” Heimish said after being shown the book. “And this must have belonged to the Piper of Illmarsh,” he added, holding up a flute. “I wonder if the wee thing still works.”
As Heimish put the flute to his lips, a glazed look came over his eyes and he began playing a haunting though beautiful tune. Santino recognized the tune immediately and slapped the flute out of his hands. “Don’t play that song!” Santino snapped.
“Sorry, lad. I don’t know what came over me. It was like I wasn’t in control of my own body there,” Heimish said, blood dripping from one of his eyes. “I don’t think I’ll be doing that again.”
Natalya wasn’t sure whether the blood had come from Santino striking him while knocking away the flute or from the effects of the flute itself. But it wasn’t the time to take chances. “You should put that in your bag and leave it there,” she said.
Heimish wiped the blood from his eye. “You’re probably right. I’ll do just that.”
The party moved forward with their search, finding themselves next in an auditorium of some sort. As they searched the room, Santino suddenly felt an extreme and sudden chill and quickly grabbed out a flask of holy water, splashing the contents on the haunt that was attacking him.
In doing so, he spilled a bit on himself, and there was a slight sizzle as the liquid burned him like acid. Natalya and Heimish missed that part, but Stein raised an eyebrow at seeing it. His curiosity got the better of him, and he flung another flask at the still active haunt, carefully getting a bit more on Santino.
The man winced in pain as the holy water singed his skin. “Very interesting,” Stein said under his breath. But the haunt was gone and Heimish easily mended the wound that remained after Santino gulped down a healing potion.
“Being whole again has its downsides, it seems,” Santino noted wryly.
“Maybe you should drink a bottle,” Heimish suggested. “It might purge the hell out of you.”
“Pick your poison,” Stein said with a dark laugh.
“No, I’m okay. I don’t think the diarrhea would be worth it,” Santino replied.
The group then made their way into a training room of sorts. Several moldy training dummies sat next to a hole in the ground. Santino started eyeing one. “What is it?” Natalya asked.
“I want to try out this axe, check its balance.”
“Now’s as good a time as any, I guess.” It was important to know one’s weapon, in Natalya’s estimation, so she approved of the slight diversion.
Santino took a good swing with the axe, and it bit through the dummy easily, as if it had been magically sharpened. It certainly seemed better than what it appeared. As it struck, Santino yelped in pain.
“What’s wrong?” Natalya asked.
“My neck hurts…” Santino muttered. He then proceeded to try to put the axe back into his belt, but suddenly realized he couldn’t let it go. “Huh.” He put the end on the ground and tried stepping on it to pull it free.
“What’s that?” Heimish asked, pointing at the strange orange light coming from the hole in the floor.
Santino gave up on pulling the axe from his hand, figuring he might need it at the moment. And he was right, as several skulls wreathed in flame floated up from the hole.
Everyone but Santino quickly reacted by pulling out and tossing vials of holy water, but hitting the gyrating skulls was harder than it seemed, and they barely managed to incidentally splash the foes, though at least no one hit Santino this time. Santino, for his part, swung instinctively, trying to cut the non-existent neck of one of the skulls.
Realizing that holy water wasn’t working, Natalya, Heimish and Stein drew out their weapons and struck down several of the skulls, then Santino swung again, this time in a downward angle. He struck true, knocking the skull in half. Its momentum caused a large chunk to keep flying at Santino’s head, so he opened his mouth and bit it out of the air.
After chewing on it for a moment, Santino spit the piece of skull onto the floor. “So, I can’t put down the axe,” he said. “It might be cursed.”
“What if we pour holy water on it?” Natalya said.
Santino shivered at thinking about his recent burns. “I’d rather not unless we know it’ll work for sure.”
“Why don’t we test it on the flute, then?” the adventurer suggested. “It took over Heimish, right? So it’s probably cursed too. So if we can break the curse on that, then it means we can break the curse on the axe, right?”
Heimish considered it. “The logic is sound. I’m willing to try if you all are.”
They agreed to try, and a few moments later, they were forced to yank the flute from Heimish again. “Well, that’s a bust,” Santino said. “I’ll just carry the axe until we get back to town and can get a pry bar from Jorfa.”
They continued on, facing a haunted furnace next. It fell to the power of a haunt siphon deployed by Stein and a vial of holy water tossed into its snapping mouth by Heimish. After that, they encountered a poltergeist in the prison’s infirmary.
Natalya and Santino found themselves filled with a powerful supernatural fear from the ghost. “WE’RE GONNA GO GET MORE HOLY WATER!” Santino screeched as the pair fled from the room.
Stein and Heimish exchanged a glance, then hit the phantom with a haunt siphon and a blast of healing magic, destroying it quickly before the ghost could use the multiple objects it had floating through the room to injure anyone.
While they waited for the others to return, Stein and Heimish looted what they could, mostly old bandages and herbs, but at least some seemed to still be salvageable.
A few moments later, Natalya and Santino returned, looking sheepish. “Sorry,” Natalya mumbled in apology.
“It happens,” Heimish said, and they spoke of it no more.
As they continued searching, they heard the sound of crying coming from a room. Santino motioned for quiet and listened at the door for a moment. “It’s a woman,” he said.
“It could be a trap,” Natalya said.
“True. Keep more holy water ready.”
Santino opened the door and entered first. Within the room, he saw the ghostly and very blue figure of a beautiful woman. “Miss, what troubles you?” he asked.
The ghost turned, spotting the group standing in the doorway. “At last! New guards have come to replace those cowards. And it looks like you’re already prepared to face the five.”
“Face what now?”
“The ghosts of the five famous criminals?” Heimish asked.
“Yes!” the woman said. “The tools of the five can be used against them. I’m so glad you’ve come. I can’t hold them back much longer.”
“Holding them back?” Natalya asked dubiously. She hadn’t intended it as a question, and was surprised when the ghost answered.
“Yes, my husband and I have been holding them back, but then men in black cloaks came a couple weeks back and now he’s gone. Now, every two to four days, I can feel my power waning sharply. It will be no more than a month before my power is gone entirely and those evil spirits are free to escape.”
“Milady,” Santino said. “Are you Vesorianna Hawkren?”
“Yes! It has been so long since anyone has spoken to me, much less said my name. Please, you have to help me, or there’s no telling what those fiends will do when they get free.”
As they were talking, the other three talked amongst themselves. “You don’t think that the men in black cloaks were here when Petrus died, do you?” Heimish asked.
“It’s possible,” Stein said. “And what do you think about the timing on her power weakening? Think it has something to do with vandals spelling out her name?”
“Speaking of which,” Natalya said. “What if it wasn’t Gibbs doing it? Or, I mean, maybe he was, but maybe he wasn’t himself, if you know what I mean?”
“He was possessed?” Heimish said. “That would explain why the sheriff was so sure he couldn’t have done it!”
They turned back to find Santino kneeling, kissing the ghostly image of Vesorianna’s hand. “Don’t worry, fair lady. We will slay these haunts. Is there any of them we should fear above all others? Perhaps we can make him our priority.”
“Fear the Splatterman. He seems to be the most powerful spirit. Now, we’ll go right now and-”
“Get more holy water,” Natalya interrupted.
“What?”
“We don’t have nearly enough holy water to deal with that many ghosts, and that’s assuming there are only the five. We need more. Going in now would be suicide.”
Santino looked to Heimish and Stein, who nodded. “Right, that’s exactly what I was going to say,” Santino said. “Dear lady, can you hold them for one day more? We need to make proper preparations so we can succeed.”
Vesorianna frowned. “I believe I can hold them that long. But please do not tarry, for I fear I do not know how much longer beyond that I can keep them back.”
“We will hurry back, first thing in the morning, armed to the teeth for destroying evil spirits.”
“Thank you,” Vesorianna said, tears welling in her eyes.
The group made their way out quickly. “I may have another idea beyond holy water that can help,” Stein said. “When we return, I will head straight to the manner to look into it.”
“Right,” Natalya said. “I’ll head to the Sheriff’s office and tell him what we’ve learned. Maybe I can convince him to loan us a deputy. If nothing else, that’ll be another arm to throw holy water.”
“I’ll go to the temple and get as much holy water as I can,” Heimish said. “And maybe Father Grimburrow can offer us the aid of an acolyte. They should be trained to channel holy energy against undead, being Pharasmites.”
“I’ll go see if Jorfa can help me pry this axe out of my hand,” Santino said. “And I’ll sell off some of this other stuff we’ve picked up.”
“Now don’t go trying to give her that hammer,” Stein said.
“Why not? It’s a fine smithing hammer.”
“We might need it. And if it gets stuck to her hand, that means we’ll have to drag her into danger with us.”
“Good point. Thanks, Stein.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Good. Now we know what we have to do,” Natalya said, spotting the town in the distance. “Here’s hoping tomorrow goes well.”
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After preparations were made, they went to bed early. But none slept well, even with the sleeping herbs Stein had offered. They knew that they would be facing potentially terrifying foes in the morning.
So it wasn’t surprising that each and every member of the party awoke early, each to go about his or her own preparations. Stein prepared an elaborate and involved morning meal.
Santino visited Jorfa once again, enlisting her participation in a strange and twisted ritual. It is better, perhaps, not to dwell upon the details of such. Suffice it to say that no spirits of Good would look upon it with favor.
Heimish enacted his own religious observance. Sneaking out in the dark of morning to find a soul in need of charity, he eventually found such a man, sleeping in the gutter. Quietly, he hobbled over to the sleeping man, and unseen by anyone, he slid a pouch of coins into the man’s tattered coat. Satisfied that the man would be able to buy a hot meal and warmer clothes, the preacher made his way back to the manor.
Natalya, meanwhile, was involved in her own ritual. Not one to dwell too much on the teachings of deities, she instead focused her efforts on inspecting and maintaining all of her gear. She also trained for an hour, moving gracefully through practiced forms until she was satisfied. Then she used a wet cloth to clean the sweat from her skin.
That isn’t to say that she didn’t have any ritual of religious significance. There was one such, common to all members of the Adventurer’s Guild. Using a piece of chalk, she drew the symbol of Pharasma upon the wall gazed upon it respectfully, then she whispered two words, taught to all members of the Guild. “Not today.” Then she used a second cloth to wipe the symbol away.
The group met for breakfast as the sun had just risen. No one really talked. They knew the danger they faced, so they ate with grim determination. Even Santino said little, to Kendra’s surprise.
After breakfast, they gathered their gear and set out. Their first stop was the Sheriff’s office, where they found a deputy waiting for them. On his belt was a short sword and a crossbow was slung in a harness on his back.
“Vrodish?” Santino whined. “I was hoping for Trestleblade. Maybe it’s not too late to ask the Sheriff for someone else.”
“Come now, lad,” Heimish said. “Sheriff Benjan has his own staffing considerations to take into account. Vrodish is here, and we should be glad of the help.”
“Fine, I guess.”
The next stop was the Temple to collect the holy water they’d purchased. To their surprise, they found Alvin waiting for them. He was dressed in ill-fitting scale mail armor marked with spots of rust. Even his helmet didn’t fit right, and as he greeted them, it slipped down over his eyes twice. On his back was a pair of short spears and there was a large wooden shield strapped to his arm.
“What’s with the armor?” Santino asked.
“Father Grimburrow wants me to go with you,” he said.
Vrodish argued against taking him, but Heimish argued for the acolyte. Natalya wanted to side with Vrodish, seeing the state of the man’s gear. But she knew that even a completely green acolyte of Pharasma would be invaluable in the fight against the dead.
So she said nothing. Instead, she simply helped him fix the strap on his helmet. It would still slip, but it would be an improvement. She was no blacksmith, and they didn’t really have time to go get a proper alteration made. So it would have to do.
It was still early morning when the six set out for the prison, and late morning when they arrived at the prison. Upon arrival, the first thing they did was go to Vesorianna to ask her for any advice she could give.
Santino knelt before the form of the ghost. “Milady, your guard has arrived. How much time do you have before you lose control of them?”
The ghost looked relieved. “There is time still, but please hurry.”
“Is there a way downstairs?” Heimish asked.
“I’m not sure. I am bound to this room and thus have little information about the rest of the prison.”
“The stairs were covered in rubble,” Santino pointed out.
“We could climb down that hole in the room where we fought the skulls,” Natalya suggested.
“I’m not a very good climber,” Alvin said.
“We can help you,” Heimish said. “It would take days to clear out the stairs.”
That settled, they bid Vesorianna farewell and made their way to the room where they’d faced the flying skulls. Once they arrived, Natalya took her rope and began tying knots every couple feet. “What’s that for?” Heimish asked.
“You can use the knots like footholds while climbing,” Natalya said. “It was one of the tricks they taught me when I joined the guild.”
“Useful trick.”
After tying off the rope, they decided what order to go down the rope. Santino would go first, then Vrodish, Stein, Heimish, Alvin and Natalya would bring up the rear, because leaving Alvin by himself was just asking for disaster.
As Santino reached the bottom, the sounds of wailing ghosts filled the room in a deafening cacophony. He looked around, and didn’t see anything immediate aside from water pooled in the center of the room, likely draining in from the lake. Even as Vrodish reached the bottom, there seemed to be nothing.
“Is everything alright?” Heimish asked after giving their vanguard time to regain their hearing.
“Seems fine. Noisy. Not sure what’s going on,” Santino answered.
But that changed a few moments later. Stein had just reached the bottom when suddenly ectoplasmic ooze began seeping from the walls, forming into humanoid creatures. The one nearest to Santino attacked him immediately, striking a glancing blow.
Heimish continued his descent and Vrodish leapt forward, slashing at the foe attacking Santino. “Thanks, bro,” Santino said as he joined the attack.
Natalya motioned for Alvin to begin climbing, but he shook his head. “My helmet’s giving me trouble. We should wait to go down until the fighting is over.” Natalya gave him an unamused look. “Sorry,” he apologized. “I might be a little afraid of heights.”
Natalya rolled her eyes and looked down the hole, a flask of holy water in hand. But try as she might, she couldn’t get a good angle to throw the flask, so she put it away.
Then Stein hurled a bomb, destroying one of the ectoplasmic creatures. The sound startled Alvin, who was looking down the hole, so much that his helmet fell off and down the hole. It landed in the water with a splash.
Santino slashed the remaining monster, then bit it, a move he instantly regretted, as the taste was something between dry snot and overcooked cabbage. Vrodish slashed again, finishing the monster as Alvin channeled healing energies to mend Santino’s mild injuries from a safe distance.
The danger passed, Santino reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a lollipop, which he immediately stuck into his mouth in a vain attempt to get rid of the foul taste. But even cinnamon wasn’t strong enough to overpower the rotten flavors, though it did help a little.
“Time to climb,” Natalya told Alvin. He looked like he was about to protest, but her scowl shut him up before he could speak. After he was down, Natalya swiftly climbed down behind him using quick, practiced motions.
From there, they continued on to a room with multiple exits, with the rubble laden stairs in the center. On each of the exits was a charred brass nameplate, denoting the sections of the prison they led to, from “The Oubliette” and the “Reaper’s Hold” to “The Nevermore” and finally “Hell’s Basement”, which was the room the party had come from.
All around the ground lay charred bones. Heimish, an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, pulled out one of the scrolls he was carrying and cast the spell it contained. “Um, guys? Beware the skeletons!” he gasped.
The others moved quickly into a defensive formation as the skeletons began pulling themselves together and standing, eight in all. “That’s not good!” Alvin shrieked.
“Use the rubble as a barrier,” Natalya said. “Don’t let them flank us!”
“They don’t scare me,” Santino said, licking his lips as he swung his axe, chipping one of the skeletons.
Stein swung his cane, clubbing another skeleton. “Alvin!” Heimish said. “Get to the middle of us and channel some of your goddess’ power! Send these things back to the sleep of death.”
“Right!” Alvin said, happy to have a task that would keep him off of the front lines. After taking a second to look through the door where they had come – there was always the risk another of those ghosts could be behind them – he brandished his holy symbol and unleashed a wave of healing energy.
The skeletons sizzled and recoiled, but continued fighting. “Good job!” Natalya said, lunging and stabbing one of the skeletons. “Do it again!” But she didn’t finish the last sentence. Because, as she turned her head for a split second, one of the skeletons struck her. It was a minor, glancing blow, but the hit caused her to fold and crumple upon the floor, completely lifeless.
Unable to see what was happening, Santino drew out a vial of holy water and threw it at one of his foes, but it went wide and struck the rubble, not hitting anything of value.
** * **
Natalya awoke in a lavishly appointed temple. Confused, she began to sit up, and her head rushed, her vision fading for a moment. As her vision returned, she took stock of her surroundings. First, and strangest of all, she realized that she was in a coffin on the altar of the temple.
There was a priest in exquisite robes seated nearby in vigil. “Oh, good, you’ve finally revived. You had us worried there.”
“Where am I?” she asked.
“I’m sure you have many questions. And I promise I’ll answer them all in due time. For now, please suffice it to say that it has been months since the events of Harrowstone. It took tremendous effort to bring you back, and in that time, your companions have all moved on. The ones who survived, anyway.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” she said reaching out for the hand the priest was offering to help her up, and felt pain wrack her body.
** * **
“What’s that?!” Stein asked, not lowering his guard as he continued fighting.
“I don’t know!” Heimish said, staring at the ghostly chains that had wrapped themselves around Natalya’s lifeless body.
Alvin retrieved a vial of holy water from his pocket. “Here! This will help!” he said, dumping it over Natalya. The chains sizzled and hissed where the water touched them and Natalya’s body convulsed.
“She’s still alive!” Heimish said.
On the other end of the rubble, Vrodish swung his short sword at the nearest skeleton, and missed horribly. “They let you become an officer, but rejected me?! Life really isn’t fair.” Santino whined. The skeletons burst into flame. “Well, now this is getting interesting!”
Heimish drew another scroll from his pack and cast a spell, warding Natalya against evil.
** * **
The priest cried out in pain and Natalya looked around for her sword. It was nowhere to be seen. That, more than anything, upset her. She had to know where it was. Things didn’t seem right.
“Come with me,” the priest said, regaining his composure.
Natalya blinked, then decided. “No. I’m not going anywhere until I have my sword back.”
The priest roared with rage at her declaration.
** * **
“She’s fighting it!” Heimish said.
“I have an idea,” Stein answered. “Hold the undead back.”
“I will! Alvin, help me!”
Before Alvin could reply, there was the sound of an explosion on the other side of the rubble. “Brodish down!” Santino cried out.
Alvin immediately moved to aid the fallen man, leaving Heimish and Stein alone with Natalya and the remaining skeleton. “I’ll buy you as much time as I can,” Heimish said, drawing his starknife.
“I only need a second,” Stein answered, drawing out a vial from his pouch and mixing it with a healing elixir. “Done!” He tossed the bomb, and holy energy burst forth from where it exploded.
The remaining skeleton succumbed to the holy energy and exploded in a burst of flame as the chains holding Natalya disappeared. Natalya’s eyes opened, and from her position on the ground, she saw Santino push a skeleton back. Not sure what else to do, she pulled a vial of holy water from threw it.
But, she was lying on the ground, so the vial missed, shattering on the floor behind the skeleton. Luckily, the skeleton was already damaged enough from Alvin’s earlier efforts that the light spatter of holy water it got from being near the exploding vial was enough, and it exploded in a gout of flame, which did little more than singe Santino’s clothes.
“Well, that was weird,” Santino said. “What happened to you?” he asked Natalya.
Natalya leapt to her feet and picked up her sword, happy to have its comfortable presence in her hand once more. “I was in a strange place. The priest said that I had died and it had been months since we’d come here. It seemed so real. But I guess it was those holy symbols we found in the vault doing it.”
“You shouldn’t have believed him. None of us could possibly have afforded to resurrect you,” Santino joked.
Natalya laughed wryly. She then looked over to where Alvin was helping up Vrodish. “What happened there?”
“We got the poor guardsman into trouble, it seems,” Heimish said. “I’m certain his wife will be most cross with us when he returns with no eyebrows.” He laughed. “Are you alright, lad?”
“I’m fine,” Vrodish answered.
“We wouldn’t blame you if you want to turn back. This isn’t your fight.”
“The town’s in danger, and I’m a guard. I’ll be fine.”
“Attaboy, Brodish,” Santino said. Then he considered it. “You should have this hammer. Much better for skeletons than your sword.” In truth, he was afraid that something like what happened to Natalya would happen to him, so he wanted to get rid of the item he could get rid of as quickly as possible.
The group surveyed the area. Down the labeled halls were portcullises blocking the way. It would take some time to open them and investigate. Heimish rifled through his bag for a moment, drawing out another scroll.
“You know, if there are more undead in here, maybe we should try sneaking up on them,” the preacher suggested.
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Ok, these tales makes me want to play this AP.
Plus, much respect for dong a 10 PB!
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Ok, these tales makes me want to play this AP.
Plus, much respect for dong a 10 PB!
Glad you're enjoying it. We'll be playing this every weekend until we finish book 1(1-2 more sessions, I suspect), then we'll be beginning Giantslayer.
But don't fret if you want more Reign of Winter. I have a write up already ready to go(albeit a short one) awaiting a read by the others before I post it.
We didn't have a session this weekend because I had to work, so hopefully we'll be back on track next weekend.
Any preview of what your group intends to do with GiantSlayer? I have been following a couple of PbPs of this (well, was a couple -- one of them went inactive), and it has proven surprisingly engaging (at least compared to what I would have expected from the topic).
Once I get my lazy arse in gear and finish some write-ups for our own RoW game, I will post a link for all to enjoy. All I have managed is the PC blurbs thus far, and we have been playing for like 5 months now.
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Any preview of what your group intends to do with GiantSlayer? I have been following a couple of PbPs of this (well, was a couple -- one of them went inactive), and it has proven surprisingly engaging (at least compared to what I would have expected from the topic).
I've finished the character blurbs and backstory/character introduction. Just waiting for the others to review their blurbs and offer corrections and feedback. As far as classes: Spellslinger>EK, Skald, Arcanist>Dragon Disciple, Muppet Synthesist, Barbarian, Cleric.
Once I get my lazy arse in gear and finish some write-ups for our own RoW game, I will post a link for all to enjoy. All I have managed is the PC blurbs thus far, and we have been playing for like 5 months now.
Nice. Looking forward to it.
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Okay, Muppet Synthesist I've got to see . . . .
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Yeah...I kinda feel like I NEED to know how that PC will play out...cause Muppets.... :)
I knew you'd like that one. He goes by the name "Kermit T. Guyver". That should tell you a lot of what you need to know about him. :P
Let me guess -- Grippli?
Let me guess -- Grippli?
Yep.
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He yanked hard, but nothing happened. “I’ll help,” Vrodish said. “Come on, Alvin. Let’s do this.”
“I’ll try,” Alvin said. “But it looks heavy.”
“You’ll be fine, lad,” Heimish said. “I’ll help too.”
Natalya watched as the men struggled. It was clear they couldn’t do it alone, but she knew her own strength wouldn’t be enough to make much of a difference. “Let’s see if we can figure out how it’s supposed to be opened,” she said to Stein.
“I was enjoying watching them struggle,” the alchemist said. “But fine, we aren’t getting any younger here.”
The pair looked at the chain that was supposed to raise the portcullis and followed it into the next room. “The mechanism’s broken,” Natalya said.
“Looks like they broke it on purpose,” Stein agreed. “But we might be able to get it partially fixed.”
After several minutes, the pair managed to get the mechanism working well enough that they could at least help the others in their attempt to open the way. After several moments of struggling, the portcullis creaked and rose until it was high enough for them to crouch under.
As the gate creaked to a stop, Heimish looked around, alarmed. “Did anyone else hear that?”
“Hear what?” Natalya called from the other room, where she and Stein were jamming the chain in place so the portcullis wouldn’t close behind them.
“I thought I heard somebody laughing,” Heimish said. “We might be walking into something.” He tapped the flute he was carrying. “Maybe the Piper of Illmarsh.”
After all, Natalya had been carrying Father Charlatan’s holy symbols and had been attacked, so it would make sense that the bearer of the Piper’s flute would be the target of the phantom’s wrath. At the very least, caution was warranted.
Santino looked around quickly. “Keep an eye out for stirges,” he told Alvin, his voice nervous.
“What do I do if I see one?” the acolyte asked.
“Scream or something.”
“Can do.”
“Who goes first?” Vrodish asked.
“I vote we send in Alvin,” Santino said. “He can just magic everything to death like with the skeletons.”
“I’ll go first,” Heimish said. “Watch my back.”
“Right behind you,” Vrodish said.
Iron bars lined the walls of the partially ruined cellblock and several doors hung askew on their hinges. Partially burnt support timbers held up part of the ceiling to the north end of the room, but others had collapsed to the south, allowing water to slowly spill into the room through cracks in the wall and ceiling. The water drained down to the lowest point of the room, the barred opening of an oubliette at the center of the chamber.
As Heimish entered the room, he noticed a letter H appear on the bars of the oubliette. He felt strange, like something was missing. “Hey, that’s mine!” he said as he walked over and began scratching at the letter, trying to peel it off so he could take it back.
“What’s wrong?” Vrodish asked, but immediately upon entering the room, he noticed a letter V appear on the wall on the far end of the room. “They took it,” he muttered, and immediately drew his sword to try to take it back by scratching it off with the blade.
Back in the other room, Natalya turned to Stein. “Do you hear that?”
“Yes. It sounds like they’re dealing with some kind of fight. Go help them. I can finish this.”
Natalya nodded and drew a holy water as she went to investigate, walking by Alvin, who stood in the hallway. As she arrived, she saw Heimish with one of his icy starknives in hand, scratching at both the letters H and E. “It’s some kind of haunt,” she called back to Stein, before throwing her vial of holy water at the letters Heimish was attacking. She knew better than to enter the room, so she tossed the vial just past Santino, who stood in the doorway. As the water struck, the letters sizzled and disappeared.
“Alvin!” Santino called from his place in the hall. “We need some protection against ghosts.
Alvin arrived and cast a spell, touching Santino’s shoulders. “Be blessed by the protection of the goddess,” he said.
“I’m going in,” Santino said to Natalya.
“Good luck,” the fencer said dubiously.
As Santino went into the room, Stein arrived, a haunt siphon in hand. “What’s going on here? I don’t get it.”
“Letters are appearing and they seem compelled to attack them,” Natalya said.
“That can’t be hap-” Stein said, stopping when a letter S appeared on the wall.
“YES. I KNOW MY NAME STARTS WITH AN S!” Santino said, swinging with his axe at the wall.
Natalya raised her eyebrow at Stein before throwing a vial of holy water at the S. “Santino! You have holy water!”
“I do!” Santino said, still swinging at the wall.
“I stand corrected,” Stein said. “But now I have nothing to target.”
Natalya considered it. “Oh. Right. I’ll leave you the next one.”
Stein nodded and walked into the room. Paranoid, Santino swung at him, narrowly missing. “Really?” Stein asked, annoyed, walking past Santino to where the letter A had appeared. Meanwhile, Vrodish managed to scrape away the V and seemed pleased with himself.
“I think there’s a ghost in there,” Natalya said to Alvin. “Can you protect yourself with magic and cast the ghost out?”
“I’ll try,” Alvin said, casting his spell.
Stein activated the haunt siphon, drawing in the power of the haunt and causing the siphon to begin glowing. But Santino and Heimish didn’t notice. Instead, they spotted a face in the water in the oubliette.
“In the pit! In the pit!” Santino chanted, swinging at the bars. Vrodish didn’t even notice it, too busy trying to attack the R that had appeared on the wall.
In a moment of clarity, Heimish pulled out a wand they’d acquired and poked Santino with it. Santino found his mind beginning to clear, but just a little. He continued chanting as he poured a vial of holy water into the pit.
Heimish poked Vrodish with the wand next, clearing his temporary insanity. Alvin walked into the room, unleashing a wave of positive energy into the room. “Oh! He’s mad in the pit!” Santino yowled, laughing at the grimace on the face in the water. “He’s mad in the pit! He’s mad in the pit!”
Suddenly a number of giant rats appeared and attacked. And in the corner, a ghost appeared. “There you are!” Natalya said, tumbling past the rats and throwing holy water at the ghost, but only hitting it with a glancing blow due to the acrobatic maneuvering.
Alvin tried to get the wand from Heimish, who resisted and used it on the acolyte to no effect while Stein used the filled haunt siphon on a rat. Santino swung at the ghost, but missed the visceral feeling of cleaving flesh and got bored, going after a nearby rat instead, which Vrodish was already trying to skewer with his sword.
The ghost sneered and disappeared into the wall, reappearing on the far side of the room and launching a volley of magic missiles at Natalya. Stein threw a healing bomb at the ghost, causing it pain.
Natalya pour magic oil on her weapon and waited for the ghost to move again. “Brodish!” Santino said as he stuffed rat guts into the oubliette. “Hit the ghost with the hammer!”
Vrodish swung, and the hammer went right through the ghost. “It’s not working!”
“You’re holding it wrong!” Santino complained. Meanwhile, in another moment of clarity, Heimish used the wand on himself and could feel the fog on his mind begin to clear.
The ghost moved through the wall again, and Natalya dove after him, connecting with her rapier just after he unleashed another volley of magic missiles. The ghost winced in pain.
The scene continued for several moments. The ghost would move and Natalya would chase, Santino would kill a rat and try to dump its organs into the oubliette, Heimish continued trying to mend himself while Vrodish and Alvin tried to help where they could. Until at last, the ghost, deciding that he was not faring the best of the exchanges, moved into the waters of the oubliette, where none could follow, and began casting a spell.
Stein had an epiphany. He quickly drew out the spell book that had belonged to the Splatter Man. “Vesorianna said we could use this against them!” he said, holding up the open book towards Santino.
“So what?” Santino asked. “Do I read him a bedtime story?”
“No! Slash it, stupid!”
“OH! I like this plan!” Santino said, cleaving the book with his axe. From in the water, the Splatter Man unleashed a howl of agony and faded away, beaten and destroyed.
Heimish moved over and used the wand to heal Santino’s mind from the damage done by the ghost. “Feeling better, lad?” Heimish asked.
“I think so. Not sure why I kept wanting to go into the pit.”
“Maybe you saw something in there worth getting?” the preacher suggested.
“Nah. That can’t be it.” Santino squinted. “Can it?” He moved over to the grate over the oubliette. Peering within, he spotted something. “You’re right! There’s stuff down there! Brodish, help me open this grate!”
Santino had the others help him pry the axe from his hand and tuck it into his belt, then dove down into the water. A few moments later, he swam up, several items in hand.
“Anything good?” Natalya asked.
“This sword glows a little!” Santino said, holding up a longsword. “Now I can hit ghosts with two weapons.”
Natalya frowned. “Santino. You should give that to Vrodish so he can hit ghosts too.” In truth, she wanted it, but it looked too heavy for her.
“But he has the hammer…” Santino whined.
“Which doesn’t hit ghosts.”
“Because he’s holding it wrong.”
“Santino…” Natalya said, glaring at him.
“But it’s mine…” Santino whined again. Natalya answered him with a withering look. “FINE,” Santino said, handing the sword to Vrodish. “But it’s mine, so you have to give it back after we finish clearing out the ghosts. Okay?” He was looking at Natalya as he said this last.
“I don’t care what happens after,” she answered. “I just want to survive this.”
“Yeah, that’s fine,” Vrodish agreed. The remaining items found were given out without any drama, including a magic dagger and a magic ring.
“I’ve used most of my magic,” Alvin said. “We should rest before continuing on.”
“Vesorianna’s room should be safe,” Santino said immediately.
“Maybe a short rest,” Heimish agreed. “We can let Vesorianna know that we’ve made progress, at least.”
“And then the final three,” Natalya said. “I’m ready to be done with this place.”
“Agreed,” answered several of the others.