Mod Abuse: A Rise of the Runelords Campaign by Eliphal

[Gielnor]

FROM THE JOURNAL OF BARUN BURADUM.
1st of Lamashan, 4707 A.R.

As always, I feel like I need to describe the setting of wherever I write an entry from just to encapsulate what a clusterfuck my life has become. I am now sitting in the middle of a field, surrounded by four farmers only a few hours from becoming hideous undead monsters, and further surrounded by a much larger second ring of re-dead undead monsters. There, that’s as good of a setup as any.

When Talathel and I stepped out of the makeshift mortuary after inspecting the dead conmen (Kane had stepped out long before us, of course), we were greeted outside by a strange man across the street. He waved at us. The man looked oddly familiar, given his pale skin…and dark hood... and glowing red eye.
What.

Talathel, having stepped out of bewilderment before I did, approached the man and asked if we knew him. He nodded. The druid asked if he knew a short little archer fella, about a foot shorter than himself. The man pointed to his chest.

What.

Finally, I walked up to him. “The bloody hell happened to you?” I said.

“I went shopping.”

That was literally all the explanation we received. That being no explanation at all. How had Tyvelian gained about six years in age - and lost an eye - in about three hours? I don’t even know what to believe anymore. Is Kane somehow involved? Did he have a run in with a confused wizard? Is there something in the drinking water? Torag, give me a sign for cripes sake, I beg of you.

We didn’t have much time to think, however, as without warning Kane’s servant appeared from some hidden alleyway. Even with my recent boost in courage I couldn’t help but jump in surprise at the sneaky bastard. Patsy didn’t react, but simply conveyed his master’s message: to meet him at the town’s South Gate within the hour, ready to ride and prepared for combat. Why Kane couldn’t have told us, you know, while he was standing right next to us, I have no idea. I simply nodded in exasperation, and gestured for Talathel to follow me: I needed his help to get into my new armor.

We stopped by the stables to retrieve my new warhorse (I finally named him Zilir, an old Dwarven word that simply means “eternal”. He’s gotten much less skittish and a hell of a lot bulkier since we pulled him out of that shed), and briefly plunged into the woods to summon Talathel’s tree friend, before finally arriving at the town gate. Newly-matured Ty was already waiting for us. At least he’s still reliable when we need him, I guess. After a brief wait, Kane waltzed up to the gate, with Patsy leading two horses in tow for our mount-less friends.

“So, who’s in the mood to visit a Sanatorium?”
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Hospitals are already bleak as hell, and mental hospitals are even worse. Habe’s Sanatorium does absolutely nothing to stave off this impression. The respite is a soulless thing sitting far on the outskirts of Sandpoint, presumably so the screams of the insane don’t frighten the townsfolk at night. The chilly autumn air turned cloudy as we approached and firmly knocked on the door. A wiry man in a thick purple headwrap answered , clearly annoyed. Habe seemed to hate the idea of letting anyone into his hospital, but once Kane showed him the warrant from Hemlock the doctor sighed and shut the door. After a few minutes he returned, and hurriedly fanned us into the hall.

Sat restrained in a chair against the far wall was an empty shell of a man. He gently rocked back and forth in his straightjacket as he muttered softly and stared into the floor, looking at nothing. His clear sanity isn’t what caught my attention, however. I could tell from a glance that this man was outrageously ill – not mentally, but physically. He had, at most, one more day of life in his body. I was about to berate Habe for not giving the man any treatment, but before I could the man’s head suddenly shot up and looked straight into my eyes, unblinking. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped as he began to speak, softly and deliberately.

“He said you would visit me… his Lordship… he has a message for you,” he said, never breaking eye contact. I was becoming unnerved, especially at his mention of “his Lordship”. “I hope I haven’t forgotten… let me see… let…me…see… He said, that if you came to his Misgivings, that if you joined his pack… he would end his harvest in your honor.”

Then there was a terrible screech. The man leaped from his chair, breaking his bonds with a strength a normal human would have trouble mustering, let alone one on the brink of death. His shriek continued as he charged toward me. Kane gave me a shout.

“GRAB HIM!”

I dropped my hammer to my side and grabbed the lunatic by the arms. He gnashed his teeth and shook against my grasp like a rabid animal. Then with a heavy thud he collapsed to the ground as a blunt arrow from Ty struck him in the temple. The doctor immediately began scolding us, telling us that we should never had pulled the patient from his room, but shut up quickly when Kane shot him a look of pure fire. Which is pretty impressive for a man who could barely see over a table. Kane then demanded a secure room to keep the patient for the interim.

Habe shakily pulled a keyring from his robes, and after a few moments of fiddling managed to open a door adjacent to us. As soon as the door was ajar, he instantly made a dart for the open front door. Before I could stop him, Ty pulled another blunt arrow from his quiver and fired it at the poor man for no gods-damned reason. The shots hit and the man stumbled, but he only continued running into the distance. Both Kane and I glared at the archer.

“WHAT THE BLOODY HELL WAS THAT FOR??” I shouted.

“THAT WAS COMPLETELY POINTLESS!” Kane yelled after me. A notable breach in his normally stoic demeanor. Kind of impressive, actually. Tyvelian merely shrugged.

After a generous facepalming, we motioned for our resident medical expert to inspect the patient. Talathel determined that the man was in a deeply advanced state of Ghoul Fever, but noted that insanity was not among its normal symptoms. Nodding, Kane and I led the patient into the adjacent room and barred the door behind us. Kane suggested I restrain the madman. He didn’t seem very pleased to come too with his arms firmly pinned behind his back. The mage attempted to question him, but he merely continued to thrash and grumble.

I tried to intervene. “You heard the elf. Repeat the message.”

The man suddenly stopped thrashing, and looked back at me with big puppy dog eyes. “The dwarf wishes to hear His Lordship’s message again?”

“Yes, yes, give me “Yer Lordship’s” bloody message.”

He dutifully repeated the rambling as Kane quickly took notes. Seemingly satisfied, the elf unbarred the door and allowed the druid into the room. He gestured Talathel to lean over, and whispered into his ear. The druid nodded. He walked toward the madman and set his hands upon his shoulders. With a warm glow the man’s skin gently returned from its grey pallor, and his face lost some of its skeletal gauntness. He didn’t seem at all pleased with the charity, however.

“No… NO! You have taken the master’s gift!” He started thrashing violently against my grip as he attempted to lunge at his healer.

I then quickly shut him up with a quick clock to the side of the head. My bedside manner might need work.
---------------------------------------------------------
As we were stepped out the door of the hospital, I noticed the figure of a man hastily jogging up the road towards the town. His face was wracked with terror, and he was breathing heavily. I quickly walked up to the road and waved him down, asking him what was the matter. He gasped his answer in between panicked breaths.

“Scarecrows… coming to life… killing the farmers… so much blood…”

“… I’m sorry, what?”

After taking a few minutes to calm the farmer down, he told us about a farmer a few miles away who hadn’t been seen in a few days. Some of his neighbors went in to investigate, but they too were unheard from. A second search party had apparently been torn to shreds by “living scarecrows” that looked like walking corpses. I told the man to get into Sandpoint until the danger was clear, then suggested to the party that we investigate the farm.

Kane disagreed, and suggested instead that we cut off the danger at the source.

“Ye know the source?”

“Of course I know the source.”

After some bickering, Kane decided that wherever he was determined to go was farther than the farm, anyway, so we repacked our saddlebags and made our way east.
---------------------------------------------------------
When we reached the farm, it was eerily quiet. The fields should have been lousy with harvesters this time of year, but there was not a soul to be seen. The only thing that greeted us was a lone scarecrow, sitting at the first fork in the road. Its limbs gently wriggled in the wind.

Except there was no wind.

The rest of the party took up firing positions behind me as I slowly reached up to the scarecrow’s burlap sack of a head. I grabbed the sack and quickly yanked it free. I revealed a human head.

The head sputtered slightly and moaned. He was still alive… but only just. I could tell by his gaunt, pale face that he, too had caught the Ghoul Fever, and was even closer to death than the madman. He must have been hanging on that post for days. I quickly untied the poor farmer from the post and attempted to get information about his attackers, but he was far too delirious to say anything coherent. Unfortunately, Talathel had spent his only curing spell at the sanatorium. We decided to continue toward the center of the farm to clear a staging area of sorts for survivors, as there were almost certainly more scarecrows waiting for us. Hopefully we weren’t too late.

Slowly marching between the high cornrows, we soon reached another crossroads within the field, flanked by a trio of scarecrows. Once again the rest of the party took ready positions behind me as I stretched my hand towards its head.

Then the scarecrow screeched and tore itself from the post, revealing a gaunt frame with terrible pointed claws. With a clatter the scarecrow behind us revealed itself as well. It seemed that we were indeed too late to save some of the farmers, and now we had to deal with their remnants: Ghouls.

Ty immediately threw arrows into the forward ghoul as Talathel thrust his spear into its ribs. Undeterred, the pair of undead slashed and bit at me with frightening speed. This new suit of armor, however, works exactly as advertised. They didn’t even scratch the engravings. I tried to respond with a strong hammer swing, but went wide. Kane then seared the forward ghoul with a string of flame. It collapsed to the ground with a shriek as it turned to cinders. With a flurry of arrows from Ty the second undead soon followed suit. That still left a third scarecrow, however. I slowly marched up and ripped its head free.

I sputtered as I was showered with straw. Turns out there were still some actual scarecrows around.

We continued weaving our way around the field, finding another scarecrow. This time it was yet another live farmer, but he was unconscious and even closer to death. We decided we can’t risk leaving these victims uncured for much longer, so we sent Talathel back to town to retrieve a cleric and a small pile of Cure Disease scrolls. Not wanting to leave us entirely short a man, the druid left Maril to defend the mage. I noticed his branches kind of drooped a little when Talathel left. First time I’ve ever felt sorry for a tree, I think.

The rest of the weaving through the farm isn’t worth mentioning in depth. We did manage to find a couple more living victims, fortunately, but we found at least twice as many ghouls waiting for us. One particular encounter comes to mind, however.

As we strolled down the far eastern road, we ran into a stretch flanked by four scarecrows, all grouped together. This time, rather than strolling up and politely asking to be attacked, I had the bright idea to try and sense evil in each of them. And thems four were some darn evil scarecrows, I tell you h’what.

With a short signal from me, Kane and Ty both fired at the scarecrows at-range. One immediately screeched and collapsed into a pile. As the rest hurriedly tore themselves from their poles, I charged into the nearest ghoul and clobbered it upside the head. The enraged zombies attempted to tear into me once again, but only managed to cut my cheek amidst their frenzied clawing. Then the treant had its moment of glory.

With an earthy roar, it stomped into the fray and firmly grabbed one of the ghouls by its sides. Maril lifted the undead high into the air as it fruitlessly struggled, and with a second mighty roar slammed it into the ground, reducing its entire upper half into a maroon paste. One of the remaining ghouls stopped its attacks to stare at the spectacle, and was rewarded for his attention with a blast of fire and an arrow to the side of the head. This re-kills the ghoul. I slammed my hammer into the last remaining undead, but it attempted to sneak around me and get to the mage. Straight into my backswing. And with that another four ghouls were dead.

That’ll do, tree. That’ll do.

The fields are now clear of monsters, but there’s still a silent farmhouse sitting at the center of the farm. We’ve decided not to tackle it until Talathel returns with help, in case whatever is inside is more ornery that what we’ve encountered so far today. And so we’re sitting at the crossroads at the middle of the farm, keeping an eye on the survivors. Hopefully the druid will get back before any of these farmers turn. I really don’t want to have to have someone's neighbor die before their eyes, then make them have to watch me obliterate said neighbor's head. That would ruin my day.

I’ll update again once this day is finally over. I’ve got a few questions for Kane now that we’ve got a bit of free time. This should be enlightening.

-BARUN

[Gielnor]

Rhothomir sat upon a small boulder off of the side of the path, completely engrossed with the growing scribblings within his notebook. Tyvelian had wandered off at some point in the afternoon, and unless one of the survivors passed before Talathel’s return the mage had no distractions. He did not even look up when there was a tap on his shoulder.

“Kane,” The dwarf said.

“Mm?” The sorcerer continued writing.

Barun put his hands on his waist. “Obviously ye know more about what's goin' on than the rest of us. Care to share or are ye keepin’ it locked in yer noggin?”

“Mm.”

Rhothomir stopped writing, then finally closed the book and looked up at the paladin.

“Maybe sit down a bit.”

The dwarf agreed, finding a nearby rock so that he wouldn’t be stuck on the ground in his heavy armor. Rhothomir finally began.

“I was hoping to take care of this today yet, but the hours are rolling thin a bit. I've been working on the significance on the sihedron at our last scene.”

“The ones on the corpses, ye mean?”

“Yeah. Nothing yet on that, as it were. Though there were a number of things I did find. Tell me, who, or what, do you suppose is behind all of this?”

Barun thought for a moment. “Bloody hell if I know,” he finally replied with a shrug. “At least with Nualia's mess she left a trail behind her, where all we’re findin’ here is corpses n’ ghouls.”

Rhothomir nodded. “Well, let’s review what we know.” He retrieved Barun’s blood-spattered note from his robes, unwrapping it from the handkerchief and risking the briefest of whiffs. He still visibly winced at the scent.

“This note smells a bit like the recently rekilled. What we're dealing with is therefore most certainly a ghoul or, perhaps a ghast.”

“That it does. Though even the fresh undead don’t smell as bad as that note. Even the livin ‘uns smell a bit… off. The Fever I reckon. Are ghouls smart enough to make a plot like this, though?”

“Ghasts, perhaps? Hard to say if these notes came from the source or a puppet right now. I'd give it fifty-fifty odds on stronger undead versus someone living pulling the strings on him.”

“From what the nut back at the Asylum was sayin', it sounds like there's some sorta cult or somethin' behind it.”

“What part of his message makes you think he meant cult?”

“Not his message, really. More that he seemed... less than pleased with being cured. Cults tend to be pretty good at gettin' folks to think the bad is good.”

“Mm… right.” Rhothomir quickly produced a second, smaller notebook. He jotted something into it before secreting it away once again.

“Ignoring that, let's consider the message. This is the third time his "Lordship" was referenced. So,” Rhothomir leaned forward and looked Barun straight in the eye. “Who is it?”

The paladin sheepishly grinned as he shifted on the rock. “Er… I don’t know?”

Rhothomir smirked as he leaned back into his seat. “Well, he seems to know you.”

“That much I can tell. And he seems pretty bloody keen on meetin' me in person.”

“I’m pretty sure that has already happened.”

Barun scratched his chin, trying to recall his encounters over the last month. “Ye sure? I don't remember meeting any zombies in the last few weeks... barring these ones, o'course.”

Rhothomir looked vaguely annoyed. “Yes. Humor me a bit.”

“Fine. Go on.”

“So, I had considered that this "lordship" was simply an egomaniac, but let’s pretend for a moment he’s not. Therefore, I had three criteria to fill for a suspect.” He lifted three fingers into the air, dropping one for each following sentence. “The first: people with a claim of some sort. The second: a motive to any of these. And the third: a reason to know you. I came up with three possibilities, none of which actually fit all three, of course. The first is Ameiko.”

Barun was clearly taken aback. “Ameiko?!”

“Bear with me. A begrudging heiress to a lordship she doesn't want, knows you by name, and maybe would be upset with all of us on the ultimate fate of her half-brother.” He paused for a moment. “You'll be happy to know however, that I don't actually suspect her.”

“I should bloody well hope not.”

“She does, after all, have the perfect alibi. That being that dozens of people know where she is at all times.”

“I was about to say, I don't think I've seen her leave the Dragon in the last week, at least.”

“Yes. I can see now why her assistant was so bothered by her not being there.”

The dwarf nodded. “Right then, who’s lucky suspect number two?”

“Yes, suspect number two. Let's discuss him and the third at the same time. The other two are Foxglove and Scarnetti. I don't have to remind you about Foxglove, I'm sure. Scarnetti though, you might need a refresher on.”

Barun moaned. “Ugh, Foxglove. How could I forget the clingy bastard? As for Scarnetti… I remember the Thorn lad mentioned him. One of the noble family heads, aye? Bit of a sour reputation?”

“Bit of a fiendish one, even. Killing someone for that sort of thing isn't all that out of the realm of possibility.” Rhothomir stopped and pulled a delicate teacup from his pouch, along with a flask. Despite having been in his pouch for several hours, the deep brown liquid within it was still steaming hot as it entered the cup.

Barun had been thinking as the mage was preparing his tea. “Even if he does have a bad reputation though... what would murdering what counts up to about a dozen blokes earn Scarnetti?”

“A message,” Rhothomir replied simply, punctuating it with a sip of tea.

“But,” Barun rebutted, “Scarnetti’s still quite in the public eye.”

The elf nodded. “Yes, that's the part that absolves him at the same time. This is something I could see a Scarnetti doing, but Scarnetti is subtle. And this was as subtle as a rock in the face.”

The dwarf considered the other suspect. “Foxglove, on the other hand... he's the exact opposite. One of the cheeriest blokes I've met in ages... but I haven't seen him in ages, either.”

“Ah yes, Foxglove. He's based out of Magnimar, so it wasn't all that easy finding information on him.”

“What does he even do, anyway?”

“What, indeed.” Rhothomir took a longer pull of tea before committing to words. “Typically he's not around anyway, so it's not like I can ask the locals. They're as much in the dark as you. However, I did some research before on him.”

He returned the smaller notebook to his hands, flipping backwards while searching for a particular page, muttering under his breath all the while. Barun managed to catch the muttering: “anyone that knows about my family almost certainly has a skeleton in the closet”. He recalled that Foxglove seemed to recite quite a bit about the House of Kane when they first met at the Rusty Dragon. The elf finally found the proper spot after a few moments.

“Here we are. Like most lords, Foxglove inherited his title. In this case, some ancestor was a merchant prince. Makes sense for him to be in Sandpoint, however seldom the occasion. Here's where it gets weird, though. He has a manor halfway to Magnimar. Family estate. There are rumours of a haunting, as well. I'd be fairly certain that any rumor of such a thing is due to the fact that the manor is regularly unoccupied, though. Abandoned structures give that sort of vibe.”

Barun listened patiently. “So what’s the weird part?”

“Turns out, the locals call the place “The Misgivings”.” He took another long sip from his cup.

Barun whistled. “That’s… that’s pretty damning. Any reason why they would call it that?”

“Just the rumors. Things seen that shouldn't be there, sounds from the place. Also a death or two,” he added nonchalantly.

“So I take it when ye mentioned earlier to take this out at the source, ye were thinkin' of Foxglove's place?”

“I had my suspicion already of course, which is why I sent for you to gear up. Once I heard the maniac say "Misgivings", I was certain. Of course, I had to be sure I heard him right.”

Barun shook his head in disbelief. “I don't understand though... why would Foxglove of all people go on a murder spree? He seemed like he hadn't a care in the world after we saved his arse.”

“Why was the maniac a maniac?”

“Because he saw something he shouldn’t have?” Barun paused for a while as he grasped the implication.

Rhothomir nodded. “I suspect in him a secondary infection, not of Ghoul Fever. I would similarly suspect that Foxglove could have been... similarly infected. I still can't see why he'd target you, though.” The elf mumbled again, but this time the dwarf didn’t manage to catch it. “In any respect, this sort of demands we pay the manor, if not the man himself, a visit.”

“Assumin' he's er... in the mood fer guests. Damn, but if he has been turned... what a damn shame. Another poor bastard gettin' a fate they don't deserve.”

“I'm not thoroughly convinced of that. But that's not important, either. So two questions remain - The first: is Foxglove himself undead? The second: If so, was it him doing the murdering, or an underling?”

Over the course of the conversation, Barun had slowly gathered that even with this admittedly circumstantial evidence, Rhothomir was on the warpath for a suspect - any suspect - above and beyond what the evidence called for. In fact, he had taken an unusual personal interest in a murder that he had no connection to. And now that he was directly accusing a man of being responsible, the issue had come to a head.

“Hold on a moment.” Barun raised his hand. “If yer not even sure he's undead, or even responsible at all, why were ye havin’ us march toward his home in full battle gear?”

“Barun.” The elf lifted the bloodstained note. “He gave you his calling card.” Another direct accusation. Barun shook his head.

“Right, right, trust issues, et cetera, et cetera... but dammit Kane, you make it bloody hard.”

“Have I been wrong yet?”

Barun sighed. “No.”

“I’ll tell you what. If I'm wrong, I'll humble myself next time I have a strong conviction, and we'll leave it to you. Sound fair?” Another sip. There was the barest touch of condescension in his voice.

Barun was silent for a while. He shuffled through his pack and pulled out a small, wooden icon in the shape of a hammer: a holy symbol of Torag. He traced the edges with his finger for a few moments before mustering a response.

“Look, Kane. I'm sorry if I'm an obstacle sometimes, but ye know by now I'm a dwarf o’ principle. Both by law and by personal code. If I second-guess ye, it's because I'm concerned about the greater order of things, which ye seem to... overlook at times.” He finally turned his head up from the symbol and looked at the elf. “Tsuto's little incident, fer instance.”

“Mm.” Rhothomir wordlessly returned the teacup and flask to his pouch, then leaned toward Barun once again.

“Then let's be on the same page on my intentions on this one. If Foxglove is undead, he dies. Again. If he's alive and puts up a fight, we do our best to take him alive. If he doesn't put up a fight... Well, I hope he has a good alibi.”

“Suppose I can't ask fer anythin' else. Deal.” Barun returned the holy symbol to his pouch.

“Honestly,” Rhothomir said, “I hope it turns out he’s undead.”

This struck Barun as an incredibly rude thing to wish on someone. He shot an accusatory look at the elf. “Why?”

“Because if he's not, gods help us, then something else is spreading ghoul fever, and I start without any leads in figuring that one out.”

“Ah. Right. Damned if he is, damned if he isn't. Hmph.”

“Lucky us.”

“Guh... If this lead is dead, we might be stuck in Sandpoint for the rest of our lives at this rate.” Barun grumpily rested his elbows upon his knees and sat his face into his palms. “Not the worst fate I suppose, though.”

“Well, If this lead is dead, then that's the least of our problems. The murderer has no problem leaving us evidence, but that comes at the cost of someone else's life.”

“Exactly.” The dwarf paused as he scanned the surrounding landscape, which he knew was now littered with the corpses of the undead despite the endless tall rows of grain blocking his view. “And from what I'm seeing here, It's only gonna get worse.”

“I know going to the manor with such circumstantial evidence doesn't appeal to your sensibilities. But if I'm wrong and someone else dies anyway, at least you can say with certainty that you tried to prevent it with everything you could.”

“And I thank ye for that.” He nodded and smiled kindly, then slowly got back onto his feet. “Right, unless ye have anything else to add…”

“Just one thing. Unless you need to rest, I want to go to the manor now. When Talathel gets back, I mean.”

“Assuming there isn't anythin' in that house over there that will beat the tar out of us, sure. The sooner we can flush this out, the better.”

“Once the cleric Talathel brings back is done here, I'll send a note for Patsy with him back to bring my camping gear. Do you have anything he should also pack?”

Barun shook his head and grinned, patting the small barrel of ale attached to his side. “I got everythin' I need in me kit. Give a dwarf a bedroll and a pint of ale and he can bear with anythin'”

“Good. Hope you don't mind exploring a spooky haunted mansion in the dark.” The elf grinned at the last remark. Barun knew that Kane must have felt his aura of courage by now, and couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought.

“Hah! I'll try not ta jump too much.” Barun gathered his belongings together, and pulled a thick ear of corn from a nearby stalk. Rhothomir had already retrieved his first book and was writing in it once again. “Well, now that I can expect a long trail ahead, I’m gonna go check on Zilir.” He paused for a moment, developing a slight frown. “…and make sure Ty isn't terrorizing more locals in the meantime.”

Rhothomir paused and closed the book again. “Oh, right… can I count on you to smooth things over with Habe? I'm not done with his patient.”

Barun groaned. “Ugh, I'll do my best. Bloody hell. Kid needs a lesson in manners. Or basic social interaction, fer that matter.”

“Indeed. Not exactly easy to provoke me to make an outburst like that.” Barun recalled again how remarkable it was for the mage to actually express emotion at someone, let alone shout at them.

The dwarf sighed, and muttered under his breath in dwarven. "." He quickly straightened up and hoisted his hammer over his shoulder. “Right, I’ll leave you be. I’ll holler when I see Talathel come back. Cheers.” Rhothomir nodded and returned to his writing as the dwarf wandered away through the cornfields.

[Gielnor]

FROM THE JOURNAL OF BARUN BURADUM

1st of Lamashtan, late evening; 4707 A.R.

Talathel’s head finally broke over the horizon in the late afternoon, with a small handful of Sandpoint clerics in tow. I am happy to report that all of the few survivors we released have been completely cured. Unfortunately most of them were still passed out from exhaustion and dehydration, but I trust that with a few days recovery under the clerics’ care they’ll be good as new… physically, at least. Gods know if they’ll ever be right in the head again after that sick torture, bless them.

With our druid back and the farmers saved, we finally pushed forward toward the farmhouse. The house was clean, but eerily silent, the curtains drawn closed. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the Glassworks looking similar a few weeks ago, and we all know how that turned out. As we approached the front door of the farmhouse, I could already notice that familiar evil stench that had become all too familiar. The reek was terrible even through the closed door. With a quick cough, I grabbed the doorknob and gently cracked the door.

In a flash, the door was thrown ajar and a particularly wretched and towering ghoul was before us, emitting a slobbering screech. If the smell before was bad, it was now overwhelming. Both Kane and Ty had to cover their face to keep from gagging. Luckily, Kane still had the presence of mind to quickly cast a spell. As he waved his hands, I felt my hammer lighten in my grasp and my muscles surge with power. Before I could see how well Kane’s spell worked, however, Tyvelian tested for me. As soon as the spell was complete, half a dozen arrows flew into the door frame and peppered the undead. Before the ghoul could even finish its cry, a final arrow pierced it square between the eyes, passing straight through the other side as it collapsed to the floor. Ty had a slight smug grin on his face as he holstered his bow.

Kane spot-checked the body as quickly as he could, keeping his handkerchief held over his face the entire time. The ghoul was dressed in plain farmer’s attire, as would be expected, which made the discovery of an ornate golden key in his pocket all the more surprising. Kane looked at me as he held up the key, displaying a distinct flourishing “F” at the center of its insignia. I couldn’t see his mouth through the hankey, but I’m certain he was smirking.

We had all had enough of the awful smell by this point, so Talathel had his tree haul the undead corpse far into the woods as we entered the house proper. A thick smear of blood led down the hallway and into an adjacent room. Sure enough, following the trail led to the delightful scene of an eviscerated corpse laid out on the dining room table. Once again he was defiled beyond recognition, and the seven-pointed star was carved into what was left of his torso. What I took immediate notice of, however, was the envelope neatly propped up against the corpse, facing the door. Addressed to me. Oh cripes.



Foxglove or not, this bastard is really starting to get on my nerves.

Kane, of course, insists on sifting through the rest of the house for items of interest. The rest of us, not wanting to aid and abet his kleptomania, waited in the entry hall until he finally return carrying a small, locked box. Producing a small (and suspiciously bloody) key, he cracked the lid to reveal a small but valuable pile of coins. He promised me that he would look for any surviving next-of-kin before claiming the coin, but I’ll have to remember to check up on that in a week or so, just in case.

That only left the barn across from the house. Making sure the treant had returned from his ghoul disposal, I quickly marched over to the barn and slammed open the doors. A dozen shining ghouls’ eyes leered from the darkness. I simply smirked and lifted Fury, pointing it straight at the nearest undead.

“Come at me, ya bastards!”

I charged into the room and swung my hammer at the nearest ghoul. I didn’t notice one vital detail before charging into the barn, however.

My hammer was backwards.

The ghoul looked merely annoyed as the lantern smacked into its face. I’m pretty sure I heard Kane chuckle behind me. Luckily Marin made up for my incompetence by stomping in and smashing one of the monsters to a fine paste. Talathel then stomped on the ground with a mighty rumble, but the remaining monsters only staggered slightly. Then, of course, Kane and Ty decided to show off. The mage raised both of his hands and from each sprang a line of fire. One ghoul was seriously charred, while the other simply disintegrated into a pile of ash. Ty then cleanly popped two ghouls right in the head. So despite my (admittedly unforgivable) blunder, four of six ghouls were dead in the span of about six seconds. Go, team!

The remaining two beasts, not having the wits to run, tried to maul me but once again failed to get far past my armor plates. By this time I had finally flipped my hammer around the proper way, and whacked them both in the head with a single swing. They didn’t even have time to recover from the stars before Talathel gutted one with his spear while his tree clobbered the other into the dirt.

Undead menace, done and done!

Almost as soon as the last body hit the floor, Kane was prepping to set off for his original intended destination. The sorcerer was silent as to his intentions, so when Talathel and Ty started wondering, you know, where the fuck we were going, it fell to me to try and explain. Talathel seemed confused at first, but once I showed him the insignia on the ornate key we picked up earlier, he wised up quickly. Ty merely shrugged and continued onwards.

The sun set as we came to a clearing about half a mile from the manor. I was expecting to have to spend an hour or two pitching camp, but as we walked into the clearing I found Patsy standing at attention, as always, next to a large, lavish tent and a cheerfully roaring fire. I knew that Kane had handed a message for the butler to the clerics on their way back to Sandpoint, but apparently Patsy does not screw around when duty calls.

Kane suggested we rest up before continuing, but also recommended we set off for the manor immediately after rest, meaning it will be just after midnight when we get there. I’m not worried, but Ty seems unusually jittery about the ordeal. Hopefully this won’t be too spooky for me. Ha!

Cheers, Torag.

-BA

[An inch-long gash cuts through the page right along the bottom, slicing straight through the signature. The hole is surrounded by a dark, messy red stain.]

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THE LOST COAST, VARISIA, GOLARION

Just past Midnight, 2nd Lamashtan, 4707 A.R.

The only noise that peeked over the crash of the waves were the calls of the ravens. A dozen or more they numbered, perched on the sickly, dying trees that surrounded the crumbling remains of a small house. A dwarf was in the center of these ruins, leaning into the stone circle of an old well. After a moment, he raised his bearded head and called behind him.

“Nope, nothin’ here! Pit’s filled with rubble. Any luck with those trees, Talathel?”

The druid stepped back from the gnarled grey tree he had been carefully grazing, shaking his head in disappointment. “Naw, man. They won’t tell me nothin’.”

Barun nodded. “Right. No use delaying any longer then.” He waved toward the sorcerer, still poking about in the rocks. Rhothomir looked up briefly, then returned his notebook to his robes before striding toward the grand old house at the end of the path, the dwarf leading the way with a young man and a druid following shortly behind.

The house had once been a gem of the coast, clearly: its scale alone attested to that. Three stories of thick, square masonry perched in triumph above the surging sea below. It was no longer a clean and polished gem, however. The roof was sagged and chipped, the once exquisite detailing was beaten by decades of storm and sea, and few of the hundreds of glass panes were unshattered. The few survivors were grimy with dust and ocean salts. A pair of glowing red eyes peered through one of these panes, the aasimar inspecting the house’s innards as Rhothomir and Barun bounced their architectural knowledge off of each other in their hunt for clues.

“See this stonework?” the mage said, pointing at the mossy wall before him. “They don’t quarry this stone nearby any longer. I would say this house is no less than a century old.”

“’See this stonework’… do ye realize who yer talkin’ to?” Barun replied, banging his armored fist on the stone. “And yer right o’course – I saw the grain lines meself – but there’s something more. Look at the molding on the handrails here. This ornament was in style about 40 years ago, even as far south as Cheliax, but I’m sure ye know by ’73 ye couldn’t be caught dead with that on yer house. So the house may be a hundred years old, but by the detailing I can tell it was last renovated about 30 years ago.”

Tyvelian poked his head around the corner of the house. “Is your history discussion complete? The inside is empty.” The ranger wasn’t quite as interested in the intricacies of Chelaxian-derived ornamental stylings of the mid-to-late 47th century, it seemed.

Rhothomir smirked. “30 years? Guess how old Aldern is.” He pulled an ornate golden key from his pocket and handed it to the dwarf. Barun sighed, but took the key immediately – he was used to being the party’s meat shield by now. Not wanting to barge in just in case Aldern Foxglove was, in fact, home and following social norms, Barun politely knocked on the door. The old oak panel banged and shook as the old iron hinges groaned, as if a great weight had slammed against it. Talathel quickly ran around the corner and peeked through the window into the anteroom.

“Um, guys?... there’s nothing in there.”

Barun cautiously knocked on the door again. This time there was nothing. Barun simply shrugged, called the druid back over, and turned the key into the lock. The doors groaned open with a squeak, and a giant roaring face greeted them at the doorway.

Luckily, the face was very much immobile. The room was adorned with a huge assortment of stuffed and mounted hunting trophies, and perched at the center of the room was the crouching form of a giant . Barun chuckled at the sight as he stepped into the house, but his smile quickly fell as he crossed the threshold. The house was fully and strongly saturated with evil, such that the paladin could feel it completely surrounding him. He shuddered as he turned around to tell his compatriots, but found them all facing the other direction.

Marin, the treant, had stopped squarely ten feet in front of the house, and refused to approach any closer. But that was not the focus of the party. They were all staring back at the ruins along the approach. The rubble was still encircled by ravens, thin and wiry. But where there had before been about a dozen, there were now over a hundred, turning the boughs of the trees into a black throbbing mass. Where there should have been a cacophony of bird calls, there was only dreadful silence except for the crash of the sea. Despite his supernatural courage, Barun couldn’t help but shudder slightly as he quietly signaled the party into the house.

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FOXGLOVE MANOR, GROUND FLOOR

The house was coated in a thick layer of dust, punctuated only by the occasional patch of dark, creeping mold. The walls were lined with all sorts of bizarre curios. A severed monkey’s head with a dinner bell chain hanging from its mouth caught Rhothomir’s attention in particular. He quickly plucked it from the wall and snuck it into Barun’s bag as they reached the end of the hall.

The apse room would have had a commanding view of the entire Lost Coasts, had the owners not elected to completely obscure the sights with garish stained glass. As it stood, their choice in subject matter on the glass was quite bizarre. The four panels each displayed a different strange monster, from bull men to snake women, each emerging from a seven-sided prism. The dwarf couldn’t help but notice the prism as Rhothomir pushed forward and carefully inspected the glass. As the elf studied the artwork, Barun felt a nudge on his shoulder.

“I smell burning flesh,” the archer whispered into his ear.

Barun looked at Tyvelian over his shoulder, a look of concern spreading over his face. “Burning flesh? Can you tell from where?”

“No. It was brief.”

“Right. Hm. I’ll keep it in mind.” The dwarf turned back around just in time to see Rhothomir grunt in frustration. Apparently he hadn’t discovered anything enlightening in the stained glass, as he wandered toward the adjacent door in a huff, though he still waited for Barun to walk through the door first.

Barun opened the door into a once lavish library, but someone had taken a conscious effort to defile its grandeur. Where there was once a statue along the far wall there was now only an empty pedestal. The statue itself was tossed haphazardly into the fireplace, its head broken off and its pale, blank eyes staring into the hall. The only other item of note looked remarkably out of place: a single, delicate scarf, pristine and undamaged despite laying amidst a pile of dust and cobwebs. Rhothomir wandered toward it and carefully grasped it in both hands. He stretched it out between his arms, inspecting the fine embroidery along its edge as the druid entered the room.

As soon as Talathel crossed the threshold, the scarf shot out of the mage’s hands and bound itself around Talathel’s throat like a jungle python. The druid gagged and clutched at his throat, tearing fruitlessly at the fabric as he stumbled backwards into the bookcase, scattering books across the floor.

“TALATHEL!” Barun shouted, bounding across the room and snatching at the constrictor. The instant his hand made contact, the scarf fell limp. Talathel gasped and collapsed to the floor. Barun quickly grabbed the scarf and tossed it to the floor, propping the druid up with his free arm. He failed to notice as Rhothomir gathered the scarf back into his pouch.

“Lad! Lad! Are ye alright? What just happened?” the paladin asked.

The druid struggled to form words as he continued to gasp for breath. “Ugh… huff… there was… I saw a man… *gasp* and he was choking me!” Talathel’s normally smiling eyes were wide with terror. The dwarf’s face darkened as he helped Talathel back onto his feet. Any natural explanation for a haunting was now far out the window: the house was now clearly and actively trying to kill them. Thus, Barun didn’t mind when Tyvelian asked him to carefully knock on the next door. There was no answer, but the archer still visibly recoiled as the door opened. Barun found this peculiar, as this was easily the least creepy room so far. There was only a simple chair, a blank easel, and a set of moldy drapes against the window. Rhothomir, Talathel and Kane all made their way out of the room, but Tyvelian made a point to stick behind and hastily push the drapes as far into the corner as he possibly could.

The rest of the party found themselves back in the trophy hall. As Tyvelian finally made his way towards them, Barun noticed the room was becoming significantly warmer. The manticore at the center of the room suddenly burst into flame. The flame bent and writhed in an unnatural way, curving like sinew until it was a fiery ghost of the manticore itself. With a single roar the spectre swung its scorpion tail at the approaching monk. Tyvelian managed to roll beneath its swing just in time, nearly singing off his eyebrows. Just as suddenly as it had appeared the fire snuffed itself away, leaving the stuffed monster underneath perfectly unharmed.

Barun simply gawked at the spectacle.

“THE BLOODY FUCK WAS THAT?”

Little did he know that this was probably the least bizarre trick that the house had up its sleeve. As he was about to find out.

The party quickly agreed to keep away from the trophy hall as much as they could possibly help, and quickly dispersed into the adjacent corridor, moving into the next room when it was agreed upon that the hallway was, in fact, quite boring. The small parlor was yet another example of a once exquisite space eaten by the maw of time. All that was left was a single grand piano at the corner of the room. Its top had long since vanished, revealing its guts of broken strings and bent hammers. The ivory keys bent and cracked under the strain of age. Talathel twisted his face in concentration as the group entered the parlor.

“Do you guys hear… music?” he said, twisting his head in vain while trying to find the source of the noise.

“Nope, sure don’t,” the dwarf said absentmindedly. He had wandered into the center of the room and was admiring what was left of the fine paneling on the ceiling. Kane, meanwhile, began inspecting the dilapidated piano. He did not notice Tyvelian frantically waving behind him as he mistakenly set his weight on one of the keys, striking one of the few intact strings with a faint, sorrowful ping.

Barun suddenly shot straight up and froze in place at the center of the room. His mind blanked as the room suddenly erupted with soft, cheerful candlelight. The faded wood blushed with new color, and the finest tapestries floated gently onto the walls. But his attention was on the beautiful Varisian woman with dark hair and a flowing gown looking lovingly into his eyes, a wide smile adorning her face.

“Dance with me, darling,” she cooed, extending a single delicate hand.

The rest of the party looked on in awe as Barun began waltzing across the decaying parlor with the grace of the finest dancer, despite being a dwarf, being decked in full plate armor, and being a dwarf. Tyvelian cursed the mage before diving towards the dwarf in a full-body tackle. Barun simply danced into the clear as if the archer wasn’t even there, his face stuck in a dopey, empty-eyed grin. Reaching the climax of his performance, the dwarf made a daring leap across the room.

As soon as his feet left the ground, Barun suddenly blinked back into consciousness. His eyes widened when he discovered himself flying through the air, a concept foreign to most dwarves. He cursed and shouted as he cluttered to the ground in a heap. The dwarf wheezed in exhaustion as he looked up toward the party.

“The… bloody hell just happened?”

“You just started dancing around the room, man.” Talathel said, shrugging.

“… Was I any good, at least?”

Kane smirked as he turned toward the next room. “For a dwarf, I suppose.”

Barun paused for a moment before propping himself back onto his feet. “Eh, I’ll take that.”

The paladin walked into the adjacent room to find Kane staring towards a bathtub in disgust. Not because of its contents, per say, but because he was too short to see into it. Without a word, he suddenly clambered up onto the dwarf’s shoulders.

I guess this is my life now, Barun thought as he considered new vocational options.

Kane now had a good view of what Barun had already seen: a vile, squirming rat flailing about inside the tub. Its skin was covered with pale, throbbing tumors. It screeched as it furiously attempted to skitter up the slick tub walls, always getting frustratingly close to the edge before sliding back into the bottom.

“Barun” Rhothomir said, pointing toward the diseased creature. “Do you mind?”

“Nope!” he replied with a swing of his hammer, crushing the vermin into a fine pulp.

Finally, the party ventured into the final room. A simple den, the only remnants being a cold hearth and a single, fungus-ridden couch. Tyvelian grimaced as he stepped back toward the door and gestured toward the dwarf, covering his mouth with his hood.

“Can you… move that?”

Barun sighed and made his way toward the decrepit couch. As he approached, he paused with a start as he heard a faint whisper in his ear.

“Lorey… Lorey…”

“Did ye hear that?” Barun said to the other three. They all shook their heads.

“Welp, no use stickin’ around here then, eh?” he said as he quickly marched out of the room, shoving Tyvelian out of the way as he shuffled toward the stairwell

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FOXGLOVE MANOR, SECOND FLOOR

The stairway popped and moaned as the quartet climbed. Each step echoed a few moments later, from far behind them, as if something was following them up the stairs. Barun knew better: the treads were dry and warped from age, and the ghostly “steps” were simply the planks popping back into place after being stepped on. He decided to spare the rest of the party the wordy explanation, however, as a single explicable event didn’t exactly quell the fears of strangling scarves and living fire. Reaching the top of the stairwell, the party entered the first obvious door, directly across the hall.

The room was a child’s bedroom, though the only evidence was a small bed in one corner and a few fragments of old toys scattered across the floor. Barun frowned as he recalled the last time he had been in a young boy’s bedroom. There was much less blood on the floor this time, thankfully. The dwarf bent over and picked up the upper half of a broken toy soldier from the ground. He blinked.

He wasn’t a dwarf paladin anymore. He was a frightened child. He shouted in terror as he darted into the empty fireplace, just large enough to hide in. He had to hide. If he didn’t hide, mommy or daddy might find him! Why did mommy and daddy stop loving each other? Daddy was so scary now. The big lumps all over him… he looked like the monsters daddy told him didn’t exist! And mommy, she didn’t have the lumps, but she was scary too. She waved the torch around and yelled at daddy. He had to hide, because if mommy didn’t hit him with the torch, daddy would hit him with the knife…

Barun suddenly awoke, sobbing in the dingy fireplace. He looked out into the room to see Rhothomir glaring at him, shaking his head in disappointment. The dwarf sheepishly freed himself from the hearth as they proceeded into the next room.

The den atop the apse was much the same as the room below: another breathtaking view completely spoiled by garish and monstrous stained glass. The paintings were perhaps even more bizarre: rather than depicting tranquil landscapes or devotional scenes, the canvases were splashed with terrifying beasts. Barun grimaced at one particular picture of a giant spider chasing a young woman until he heard Rhothomir stomping into the hall behind him. Apparently his inspection of the glass had once again come up empty. He certainly didn’t complain; the last couple of experiences left him wanting to clear this gods-damned house as soon as possible.

The room across the hall seemed to be a portrait gallery of sorts, though the thick curtain of cobwebs made it impossible to find the subjects’ faces. Talathel and Barun gently entered the room, while Rhothomir and Tyvelian simply watched from the door frame. The druid carefully brushed the cobwebs with his speartip, slowly revealing an entire family of dour nobles. An older man; two women sat together; a single young boy.

As the druid parted the cobwebs from the boy’s painting, the room chilled in an instant. Barun could see his breath forming in front of his face as Talathel quickly jumped away. The portraits slowly coated in frost as they began to transform before his eyes. The delicate faces twisted into vile mockeries of life, gradually becoming images of death itself. The still life family began to rot in their frames. The two women turned into charred, empty husks, their empty eye sockets staring into oblivion as their jaws fell from their faces. The imposing man in the center of the room festered with boils, his skin growing pale and loose. And the young boy turned thin and wiry, becoming nothing more than a skeleton with skin, with pale, wild eyes peering out over a toothy, maniacal grin.

Then with a sickening crash, the large portrait of the betumoured man shattered under its growing sheet of ice, spraying a thick mist of wet, snotty mold across the room, even reaching into the hallway where Rhothomir and Tyvelian had remained. The aasimar immediately threw himself prone in a panic, while the mage only looked mildly disgusted at the scene.

Suddenly the walls were clean and the portraits unharmed, their gentle grins etched in oil as if nothing had happened.

Barun and Talathel took a moment to inspect the other two before heading on: Tyvelian was particularly adamant that Rhothomir be looked over thoroughly after the fungus spray. The druid gave Kane a clean bill of health, much to Tyvelian’s chagrin, before following Barun into the master bedroom that lied just beyond the portrait gallery. Once again the room showed signs of former grandeur, but like the rest of the house all that was left was decay. The druid briefly checked the desk before looking at the dwarf, who was busy fumbling in the fireplace.

“Bah… thought I saw a glint in the hearth over here,” the dwarf said, carefully sifting through the ashes. “Mind checking that desk over there while I double check?”

“I already checked the desk, but…uh…” Talathel paused as a silvery glint caught his eye. He turned his eye back to the desk to find a small silver dagger perched on its edge. He silently picked it up, turning it in his hands. The moonlight through the broken pane beyond sparkled off the edge as it spun. Barun finally stood up and brushed his hands as the druid inspected the blade.

“Just an old shard of glass it turns out. What ye got there, lad?”

Talathel carefully held out the knife. “Some sorta dagger. I found it sitting on the desk. You didn’t… see it when you came in, did you?” he added uncomfortably.

The dwarf frowned. “No. I didn’t. Bring it to Kane, maybe he can smell the magicks innit.”

The two walked back into the corridor to find Kane leaning against the wall, scrawling hurriedly in his small notebook. Tyvelian was simply staring at the mage intently from across the hall. Talathel carefully presented the dagger with both palms as he approached. “We found this is the bedroom,” he said, handing off the knife. “Can you tell if anything is up with it?

Rhothomir reluctantly put away his notebook, taking the dagger in his hand, slowly turning and flipping it as was usual when he inspected magical items. After a moment he took the weight from the wall and began to slowly wander back toward the master bedroom. Tyvelian’s eyes suddenly widened as he saw the mage leave the hallway. “GRAB HIM!” he shouted, pointing to the dwarf who had been following in slight concern. Barun gently but firmly grabbed the elf by the wrist. ‘Hey, hold on, where ye goin’, Kane?”

Rhothomir suddenly turned about to face the dwarf, his face locked into a cold, intense stare. With a single motion he gripped the knife and, with supernatural precision, guided the knife cleanly between two armor joints and straight into the dwarf’s ribs, pulling it free again in a fountain of blood.

“AUGH, FUCK!” Barun shouted, losing his grip on the mage as he staggered backward and clasped his hand to his side, blood rapidly leaking out onto the moldy floor. The mage said nothing, turning and place and slowly striding toward the old desk as the dwarf collapsed onto his knees. Talathel and Tyvelian quickly rushed up the hall behind him. There was a large, splintered notch in the edge of the table, of identical shape and size to the now bloodied knife. Rhothomir dropped the dagger into the notch, and in but a moment it morphed itself into a wooden splinter, merging into the desk as if it hadn’t existed. He blinked rapidly as the knife faded into nothing, finally turning and glaring at the druid who was now crouched over Barun.

“Augh, shit… stop this fuckin’ bleedin’ if ye please, Talathel,” the dwarf said as he saw the elf reenter the room. The elf was starring daggers at the druid. “Yer lucky yer sword arm is so bloody pitiful, Kane. Another inch would have gutted me like a cavefish.” The dwarf winced as he reached under his armor and loosened the upper plate. With a thud a thin, leather bound book fell from his side. A small notch, surrounded with blood, had appeared on the edge. Barun groaned as he picked it up. “Gah, and ye nicked me journal, too!”

Barun stopped as he saw a bright blue marble soar past his face. Talathel bounded against the wall to avoid the projectile. They both turned to see Tyvelian with a stern look on his face, his hand reaching into a small pouch.

“STOP PICKING UP THINGS!” the ranger shouted at Talathel.

The druid shrugged sheepishly at the aasimar. “Hey, it was an interesting knife, man.” He patted the floor for a moment to playfully toss the marble back at his assailant, but glanced down to find the marble was nowhere to be seen. In fact, he had never heard the marble hit the floor. Tyvelian looked concerned as he reached into his pouch and found the sole bright blue marble sitting right on top.

Barun sighed as he carefully edged himself back onto his feet with a grunt, letting Talathel retighten his fit. “Neat, magical teleportin’ marbles. So fuckin’ spooky. Now unless ye’d like to see the house perform another magic trick let’s get through the other rooms and get the hell out of this damned place as soon as possible, aye?”

The party slowly worked its way down the corridor, passing a small moldy study on their way. Tyvelian was insistent on avoiding it, and Barun wasn’t in any mood to argue considering the circumstances. They finally worked their way into the final bedroom on the floor. While the other rooms were obviously decrepit, this room had been actively and violently destroyed. The furniture was slashed and gouged with deep hack marks; the bed lay shattered in the center of the room. The only undamaged piece was a suspicious canvas on the wall, completely intact but flipped so its painted side faced the wall. Rhothomir walked over to the painting and peeked underneath it without turning it over. He studied it for just a moment before gesturing toward the rest of the group.

“Turn around for a moment.”

Barun and Talathel happily complied; they both had enough experience with murderous artifacts to not take any risks. Tyvelian was especially cautious and simply left the room all together. Satisfied, Rhothomir turned the painting fully around.

“Talathel, turn around. Do you recognize this?”

“…No, man.”

“Right. Now you, Barun.”

Barun turned around to see a beautiful Varisian woman with dark hair and a long, flowing gown. His eyes widened as he slowly pointed toward the painting. “That woman… I’ve seen ‘er,” he said quietly.

Rhothomir raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”

“Back in the parlor, with the piano… I saw ‘er. I was dancin’ with ‘er.”

“Mm.” The mage suddenly turned his gaze toward Talathel. Barun turned his head toward the druid to find him slowly steaming as he stared at the portait, the veins in his neck beginning to protrude. The dwarf gently shook him by the shoulder. “Oy, lad. Ye okay there?”

Talathel quickly shook his head and seemed to return to normal. “Uh… ye… yeah. Can you… leave that thing in here, though?”

Rhothomir said nothing, but instead lifted the painting from the wall and tied it to the outside of Barun’s pack. One does not simply tell Rhothomir Kane not to carry something off. Talathel leaned in towards the dwarf as the sorcerer secured the portrait. He reluctantly gestured toward the portrait. “So, man, the woman you saw… did you get her name?”

Barun thought for a moment. “Nay, I didn’t. But I did hear something whispered to me downstairs, quiet-like. I think it said… Lorey.” Talathel nodded slightly.

“Lorey, huh? I think… I think I was her earlier, man. When that scarf was chokin’ me. I could see a man, her husband, strangling me…”

“Issat so? Was he covered in unsightly lumps, by chance?”

“No?”

“Hmm…” the dwarf pondered, reflecting on the evil that continued to drown his supernatural senses. “This house is trying ta tell us somethin’, that’s fer sure. Let’s get upstairs and find out fer ourselves before it kills us trying.”

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FOXGLOVE MANOR, ATTIC

Rhothomir insisted on heading straight to the apse room on the top level as soon as they breached the stairwell. Once again the view of the sea was blocked by more strange stained glass, and once again, Rhothomir began pouring over the imagery as soon as they entered the room. This room contained only two panels: one was a finely dressed woman staring sternly into the room. The other was shattered from the waist down, but the surviving half depicted a regal noble in fine flowing robes, topped with a bejeweled golden crown. Barun simply leaned against the doorframe and waited for the mage to come up empty once again as Talathel wandered aimlessly through the room. Third time’s a charm, though, as rather than muttering in frustration the sorcerer was nodding and furiously taking more notes.

As Rhothomir studied, Barun glanced toward Talathel to find him staring at the image of the woman, fidgeting slightly. Suddenly the druid began patting at his robes violently, shouting in horror and pain. “FIRE! I’M ON FIRE!” he shouted, and began sprinting toward the window. In a heartbeat, Barun dropped his hammer and shield and tackled Talathel firmly around the waist from behind. They both toppled to the floor as Talathel came to his senses. Rhothomir walked over to the commotion as the dwarf lifted himself from the floor.

“Do you have holy water prepared?” he asked the paladin.

Barun stared at the mage for a few moments before responding. He eventually decided that the complete situational ignorance on Rhothomir’s part was par for the course, and rather than rebutting him the dwarf simply rummaged through his pouch, extracting a vial of clear, faintly shimmering water.

“Good.” Without another word, the mage began walking toward the end of the hall. Once again par for the course, as Barun had to quickly get the wheezing Talathel back to his feet before scrambling to follow.

By the time they made it to the storage room at the end of the hall, Rhothomir was already admiring a large, unframed painting leaning against the wall. He took a moment to write a small line in yet another notebook before wordlessly grabbing the canvas and strapping it atop the previous work. “Hey, wait a minute!” Talathel exclaimed. He trotted to the wall where the painting had been laying and poked at a brick, beaming as it loosened. He carefully pulled it free of the wall. “Aw yiss! Jackpo- oh. It’s expired. Damn, man.” Rhothomir roughly shoved the druid out of the way (to the best of his ability), extracting a key, a money pouch, and a handful of some aged and miscolored drug.

The spoils gathered, Kane gestured for the rest of the group to follow. He led the to one particular door, one they had passed on the way to the storage room, and in every way uninteresting. Rhothomir nodded to the dwarf. Reaching forward, Barun grasped the knob and slowly opened the door.

The room inside was shallow and cramped. The slope of the roof above quickly descended away from the door, leaving a tiny window sitting just beside the fireplace. A cracking, warped armoire sat in one corner and immediately across from it was a magnificent full-length mirror, clad in gold and shining through the layers of dust.

None of the party ventured into the room. For it was not empty.

Sitting at the mirror was a thin, dark-haired form, clad in a long, flowing gown, grasping her shoulders and rocking gently; back and forth... back and forth. Its skin was dark, but clung to the bones like dry paper. The empty eye sockets bounced from the mirror like two black voids as it stroked its wiry hair with long, emaciated fingers.

Rhothomir called quietly into the room, still not daring to step across the threshold. “Hello?” The figure remained silent, rocking back and forth. Back and forth.

The elf raised his hand across the doorway. He looked back towards his compatriots, staring in shock at the figure. Barun seemed particularly disturbed, shaking slightly despite his firm grip on his hammer.

“Go back to the last room,” Rhothomir said quietly, “and lock yourselves in. All of you,” he finished, staring directly at the dwarf.

Barun shook his head and gripped his hammer tighter. “No. We can’t. Why do you want to go in alo-”

“Barun.” The elf turned fully to him at this last statement. “I need you to trust me on this. It might not be more important than now.”

Barun did not drop his stance. Maybe it was just the “trust issues” Rhothomir harped on about about, but the paladin was suspicious of the request. Not the request itself, perhaps. The way he asked it. Was it a display of fear? Barun wasn’t sure. At the very least, he didn’t appear to be aiming to shank himself again.

Barun sighed. “Do what ye have ta do.” He gestured the others the follow him into the room and shut the door tightly behind them. That same nagging doubt continued to press on his heart. He pressed his ear to the door for any tell-tale signs of danger. The muffled voice of Rhothomir resonated through the old oak plank. The dwarf shifted his position and closed his eyes to focus, trying to glean meaning from the noise.

“... but you might be our best chance of surviving. And I am very, very sorry for this.” There was a deafening silence, but for a moment. To Barun it seemed an eternity. Then a single phrase, short but clear.

“Bring me to him.”

A shatter of glass pattered to the floor, and a shrill, terrible scream echoed through the night.

[Gielnor]

FOXGLOVE MANOR, THE ATTIC
The unearthly scream shook the floorboards, forcing the trio in the closet to block their ears as they winced in pain. Over the high-pitched ringing rode a raspy, vaguely feminine voice laced with rage.

“ALDERN, I CAN SMELL YOUR FEAR! YOU WILL BE IN MY ARMS SOON!”

The sound of footsteps emerged from the opposite room, then bounded down the hall. In a matter of seconds the thuds could be heard on the floor below. As quickly as he could manage, Barun heaved the bar from the door and cast it aside, slamming the door into the wall. Kane was simply standing at the opposite door. His only punctuation to the last few moments was an open-handed gesture down the corridor.

“After you,” the elf said.

Barun merely shook his head before dashing (a relative term for a dwarf in heavy plate armor) down the hallway and into the stairwell, the unencumbered trio quickly following in tow.

They reached the bottom of the stairwell just in time to see the twisted undead revenant begin to tear at the moldy patch of floor at the base of the landing, shearing massive chunks of wood with each pass of her long, spindly talons. Barun stopped at the door and wrapped his hands around his hammer, but the mage behind him tapped on his shoulder and pointed toward the basement door across the hallway. I’m not one to like leavin’ an undead monster running about unchecked, the paladin thought to himself, but I suppose as long as she’s got other matters on ‘er mind we can leave her be for now. He nodded and quickly knocked open the door to the basement, leading the party down into the murky gloom below.

They emerged into the remains of an underground kitchen. All remains of edible food long rotten away, and the large oak table laid buckled in the center of the room. Even the walls themselves showed their age, bulging and inlaid with deep cracks from decades of shifting earth and water. Talathel suddenly spoke up.

“Guys, do you hear… skittering?”

Indeed, a sound like a thousand pattering feet began to seep from one of the deep cracks in the basement wall. Then, in an instant, dozens of rats poured from the walls like water from a spring, coating every inch of floor with damp, matted fur. The great mass of vermin slowly inched its way toward the adventurers, eager for a meal of fresh meat.

Rhothomir briefly considered the rising tide, raised his hands, and within seconds reduced the entire horde of rats into a lifeless heap of ash and meat.

Barun quickly lead the group around the basement, desperately tracking toward the constant noise of scratching still leaking from above. Eventually they emerged into the remnant of some sort of arcane laboratory. The room was filled with rusty bird cages, some containing the long decayed skeletons of rats. An old, moldy bookcase lined one wall, while the other was capped with yet another ghastly stained glass apse. One pane depicted a man taking a draught from a mysterious liquid, while the second showed the same man transforming into a gaunt, skeletonoid monster, his lower half dispersing into cloud and spiraling into a seven-sided box. Barun simply grimaced at the spectacle as Rhothomir approached and began to carefully study the “art,” again enthusiastically scribing notes into his journal. The dwarf turned his attention to the other half of the room just in time to see Talathel place his hand on one of the mildewed books.

The druid suddenly shouted and doubled to the floor in pain. Barun’s quickly darted over and grabbed the elf under the shoulder, gently helping him to his feet as he moaned. “Bloody hell! Are ye alright, son?” the dwarf said, his face wracked with worry.

Before Talathel could answer, another piercing screech echoed through the house as the sound of wood shattering echoed just beyond the next door. Rhothomir closed his notebook, looked toward the pair crouched in the corner, and impatiently pointed toward the direction of the sound, saying but a single word.

“DOOR.”

Barun briefly glared at the mage before helping the druid fully onto his feet, pulling the old oak door ajar and emerging into a hewn stone staircase as the manic pattering of footsteps disappeared into the depths below. The dwarf waved the rest of the party inside and took a single step onto the treads.

The staircase was gone. In its place was a monolithic wall of stone, with but a single rough tunnel scratching its surface. Within the solitary nook a lone man, bedraggled and sweating, tirelessly struck at the wall. Even in the gloom Barun could recognize the face of Aldern Foxglove, though he had never seen it in such torment. The tortured noble endlessly muttered the same two words as he toiled, over and over.

“For you… for you…”

There was a blast of cool air as the pick suddenly punctured straight through the stone, revealing a cavern as dark as coal. Aldern dropped the axe and slowly approached the vaguely man-sized opening, grasping the edges on both sides and peering into the depths. Suddenly a grey, mottled pair of hands grasped the back of his shirt and dragged him into the black in a single motion. Barun willed his legs to move, but his entire body was frozen in place. He could only watch as a pair of emaciated ghouls emerged from the gloom. Their pale eyes shined with hunger as they lept from the darkness and dug their claws deep into the paladin’s soft flesh.

Barun gasped and stumbled backward into the assembled party as the stairs flashed back into existence before his eyes. He collapsed onto the floor and briefly rubbed his neck before bringing his hand before his face. His logic told him the entire vision was imaginary, but the copious amount of blood on his fingers told a different story. As Barun held his hand before his eyes in slight shock, he found a small wand placed upon it. He turned his head to give thanks, but found Rhothomir impatiently making a “hurry up” motion with his hands, his face lacking any semblance of concern. Barun simply sighed and applied the wand to his wounds.
-------------------------
Barun lit his lantern as the group emerged at the base of the staircase into the inky depths of the cavern. The faint raging of the violent undead still echoed through the cave, but with such distance that none of the party could get a bearing on its location. Lacking direction, they simply stepped into the passageway on the far left. Barun had to walk sideways to even fit into the cramped corridor, but that wasn’t the most uncomfortable part of the crawl. That would be the lingering stench of rotting meat that was beginning to waft from the far end of the passage. Barun stopped suddenly as the stone walls abruptly widened, allowing the taller druid to peer over his shoulder.

The natural room was lined with dozens of corpses, all rotting and all in various stages of violent dismemberment. Some of the carcasses were merely skeletons, while others looked to have only recently been gnawed on. Among the livestock and wild animals were scattered the occasional humanoid body, recognizable only by the remains of their clothing, or the weapons that sat useless by their sides. As Barun surveyed the gore, he felt a shaky tap on his shoulder as the druid behind him pointed toward the center of the room. As his eyes adjusted to the light, the shape of a massive bat congealed from the ceiling, its head just barely hanging above the bloody floor. It was staring directly at them, unblinking. Barun quietly turned around.

“Well I don’t think we need to be wasting this feller’s time. C’mon, let’s go find our new undead frie-“

“Hold on, man,” Talathel interrupted as he squinted into the darkness of the cavern. “I think… yeah, I recognize one of the bodies in there. Really bad bandit, man. People in town call him Redshiv.”

“Yes, and?”

“He’s got like, a 500 gold bounty on his head.” Barun groaned as he saw Rhothomir’s face light up in the back of the stack. There was no way they were going to leave this room without that man’s head.

“Ugh. Fine. Care to start us off, Ty?” He was answered by an arrow whizzing over his shoulder, followed by a bestial screech from behind. “Right then, steady on lads!” the dwarf said as he lifted his hammer and trodded into the room.
-------------------------
“I’ll admit, that wasn’t as bad as it could have been.” The dwarf said as he slid the gleaming adamantine sword onto his back. “Though it would have been nice if I had actually gotten a hit. Bloke was awful kind to let us use this sword o’his. You nearly done, lad?” he finished as he looked back towards the bandit’s carcass. There was a slightly wet tearing noise as Rhothomir cut the criminal’s nose from his face and carefully wrapped it in a hankerchief.

“Yes,” the mage replied shortly as he returned the bounty proof to his pouch. “Lead on. We haven’t much time.”

As the dwarf walked toward the passage, he felt a something settle into his free hand. He glanced over to see the aasimar placing his bag of marbles into his palm.

“Just in case you need to trip something,” he said quietly. The dwarf nodded and strapped the pouch to his waist.

The remaining passages of the cavern were no more hospitable than the first. Once again Barun lead the way through the claustrophobic corridors, and again stopped as the cave slightly expanded and a thin, bony hand emerged from the darkness on the floor. But it made no sign of movement. Lifting the lantern high, the room was illuminated and revealed a small group of ghouls, all recently torn to shreds.

“Well, seems Miss Foxglove has already cleared the way for us,” the dwarf quipped. “How kind of her.”

They carried on the passage on the left, but revealed only a small room of rubble and mining tools. The room was coated with a thick layer of mold. Tyvelian stayed far clear of the chamber as the remainder quickly inspected it. Rhothomir made sure to collect a particularly precious pickaxe from the ground. As he piled it onto Barun’s growing stack of loot a steady scratching noise began to echo just beyond the room.

The party followed the noise and soon emerged into a massive circular chamber, far flung from the cramped spaces they had been exploring. The space was hollow but for a steep, muddy slope that spiraled along its edge, leaving no more than two man’s width before dropping in a sheer cliff to the depths below. Barun peered over the edge of the slope to see the faint glint of churning seawater shakily reflecting the lantern light. There was no sign of the bottom.

Suddenly there was a smash in the distance. The party looked across the cavern just in time to see the revenant of Miss Foxglove facing a stone door across the cavern and about halfway down, completely destroying the door with her bare hands. With a final shriek she dashed into the room, and the sounds of battle soon emerged from the dimly lit chamber. Barun cautiously eyed the slick slope that lead down to the door, testing it with his armored foot before quickly retracting it.

“Hm. I don’t think I can make it down this slope without making an ass of myself… and possibly drowning,” the dwarf concluded. “Anyone have any bright ideas?”

“I do,” Tyvelian nodded. The Barun looked at the monk with surprise, but allowed him to continue. Tyvelian briefly rummaged through his belongings and pulled out a small leather pouch.

“Tanglefoot bag. I run down the ramp,” he demonstrated by quickly running five feet down the mud and back with ease, “and dump it in front of the door. Then Fat Hammer can be relatively useful once he’s stopped.”

Barun smiled. “That’s not a bad idea, Ty! This might actually…” He stopped suddenly, looking at the monk quizzically. “I’m sorry, Fat what?”

Tyvelian ignored the dwarf, returning the pouch to his belt and making his way down the slope, trotting down the mud as if it were a staircase. All was going smoothly until he passed the first of several large crevasses in the wall. With a cackle a particularly wiry goblin with mottled skin leaped from the crack and quickly bit at the monk’s arm. Tyvelian moved to retaliate, but as he lifted his arm his muscles suddenly gave way. His body collapsed and he began to tumble limply down the ramp. Barun watched from the summit and cursed loudly.

“Cripes, it’s a bloody ghast! The lad’s paralyzed!” He quickly wracked his brain for options. Time was of the essence as the monk helplessly spiraled toward the water, where he would certainly drown. Suddenly an idea came to Barun’s mind.

“Okay, this is really damned stupid, but we don’t exactly have many options at the moment. Kane! Get on my shoulders!”

Kane nodded, barely containing his glee as the dwarf kneeled down and heaved the undersized elf onto his back. With the mage secure, Barun sighed as he straightened up.

“Alright, Kane, hang on!” He took a running start toward the slope and leaped onto the mud into a sitting stance, quickly drifting down the slide with his hammer outstretched. As the pair accelerated downward, Barun heard a mutter just above his head. A familiar flaming ray emerged before him and shot down the slope ahead of them. It missed the goblin entirely, however, instead veering toward a set of crevasses just beyond. Barun guffawed as, with a blast and a series of yelps, three identical goblins tumbled burning from the cracks and toppled into the waters below.

“Well done, lad!” the dwarf shouted. “Now let’s show this last one how we deal with goblins face-to-face!” The sliding dwarf shifted his weight banked directly toward the remaining goblin. With a resonant thud the goblin tripped and toppled over, and began slipping down the slope along side them. Barun laughed and shook his fist at the monster. “Haha! That’ll show ya! Ya damned-“ He paused as he realized his fist was empty, and notably hammerless. His face dropped as he heard a heavy splash in the pool below. Barun turned toward the goblin to find it has righted itself onto its rear and was gnashing its teeth quite angrily at him.

“Oh for FUCK’S SAKE.”

Talathel, who had wisely decided to remain at the top of the slope, made what was probably the only wise decision and remained where he was. Instead, he waved his arms in the air before him, looking down towards where the monk was slowly sliding down. With a faint green glow a mass of tanged vines began to emerge from the mud. The vines failed to stop the tumbling aasimar, but he was slowed down as he bumped against the roots.

Meanwhile, the goblin had begun to gnash at the recently unarmed dwarf, though the thick metal plating held firm against the sharp teeth. Barun quickly reached behind him and retrieved the gleaming adamantine sword from its scabbard. With an angry shout he brought it down upon the goblin. He was rewarded not with the sound of severed flesh, but of tumbling rock. The sword missed the goblin and carved into the neighboring rockwall, reducing it to gravel as it tumbled downward.

“AGH! SHIT!” Barun shouted in pain as a single unlikely pebble bounced directly into his ear canal.

Rhothomir sighed in disdain at the dwarf’s chain of ineptitude. He muttered a single short word and with a small spark the goblin perished, continuing his uncontrolled slide down the ramp.

As the corpse slid down, Tyvelian suddenly recovered from his torpor. Wasting no time, he walked into his forward momentum and leaped into the air, landing almost exactly where he had started before he was disabled, just as the druid began his own controlled slide behind him.

Despite his massive headache, Barun could see the cavern door quickly rushing up to meet them. He needed a way to stop, and fast. He quickly leaned toward the doorway and held the adamantine blade out before him with both hands, aiming for the rocky wall next to where the door once was. The mystical metal dived effortlessly into the rock, stopping abruptly at the hilt as the dwarf and his rider jolted to an uncomfortable halt. Rhothomir wordlessly jumped off, shaking his head at the dwarf in shame as the monk and the druid came down the slope behind him. Barun winced at Talathel as he approached the doorway.

“Ye don’t happen ta know how ta clear ear blockages, do ya?”

---------------------

Barun shook his head as the druid pulled the small pebble clear. He took a moment to look down into the pool at the cavern’s bottom. He sighed sorrowfully before pulling the sword free from the wall and leading the party slowly into the final chamber. He was slow, for he noticed that the sounds of battle had stopped. The weak glitter of lanternlight bounced along the roughhewn walls of the room as the party turned around the corner. Barun stopped in his tracks when he saw what stood within.

The figure before him had surely once been Aldern Foxglove. He was dressed in the very same fine coat that he was wearing when the group had rescued him from the goblin invasion just four weeks prior. The man with it, however, was hardly recognizable. His body was stretched and pointed to grotesque proportions, and coated with a taught, sickly green skin. The long, bony fingers were coated in blood and gore. One wielded a barber’s razor stretched to barbaric proportions, while the other nervously flexed and writhed. His head was completely devoid of hair, his ears stretched to bizarre length, and his wide, snarling mouth was filled with sharp teeth. At his feet was the huddled mass of the revenant.

Foxglove finally looked up, snarling, but abruptly stopped as he locked his eyes upon the dwarf. He twitched briefly, then stretched his mouth into a terrifying toothy grin. He began to speak in a quiet, raspy voice.

“Barun Buradum, my dear friend. You live! Very good, very good! Now I will have to pleasure to taste your heart while it is still warm!”

Another twitch, and with a sudden leap the hobbling corpse of Aldern Foxglove leaped toward the paladin.

As the monster approached, Talathel quickly chanted a spell. With a familiar skittering noise a swarm of spiders formed in his hand, arranging themselves into a long, spindly whip. Aldern crashed into the shield of the waiting dwarf, flailing his bloody razor violently but finding no purchase against the paladin’s solid armor. Barun returned the favor with a rapid set of swings toward the undead, but the wiry beast proved too quick and deftly dodged the blows. Aldern leaned in close to the dwarf in taunt, extending his long, quivering tongue. The dwarf sputtered and coughed at both the sight and the terrible and all-too-familiar stench that accompanied it.

As Barun took the brunt of Aldern’s attention, Rhothomir began an extended chant, forming a shimmering aura of energy at the center of the chamber. As the mage chanted, Tyvelian drew his bow, but suddenly paused and stared at the center of the room.

A seven sided box sat at the far western wall of the room, against a wall coated in a thick layer of slimy, damp mold. As the monk stared, the box began to rattle, almost imperceptibly. He kept his bow drawn, but slowly began to wander toward the wall, distractedly loosing a volley of arrows into Aldern as he passed.

Barun looked quizzically at the monk as he wandered past. Then he looked worriedly at the rattling box and the dark patch of mold. Then he looked with alarm again at the monk as he approached the mold. The one who had made a point of avoiding any and all mold the entire night. This was not good. Thinking quickly, Barun remembered the bag of marbles Tyvelian had handed him earlier. He pulled them from his belt and tossed them towards the aasimar’s feet. Barun cursed as the monk simply glided over them effortlessly. He was distracted as another savage yell came from Aldern, and looked up to see the monster once again raising his war razor.

Suddenly, Foxglove stopped. His manic face dropped into sorrow and fear. Aldern looked towards the dwarf, then his weapon, and finally toward the undead corpse laid out on the floor behind him. He dropped the bloody blade with a clatter and collapsed to his knees as he began to sob. He looked up toward the confused dwarf. Barun could see that somewhere behind that twisted face, the Foxglove he had met back in Sandpoint was looking back at him. He slowly lowered the sword as the noble began to speak between tearful gasps. His voice was still raspy, but some of his old deep timbre had returned.

“Please… Barun… you have to help me! I-I can’t stand to be like… like this…” He looked down at his deformed, bony hands. “I can’t let the… the hurter out again! Please, Barun… save me!”

The paladin kept the sword in his hand, but set its tip upon the ground as he kneeled toward the howling remains of a man.

“Tell me, Aldern,” he said quietly. “How? How can I help you?”

“I… I don’t know! The brothers… the brothers of the Seven. They brought me down here! They made me eat that… that wretched fungus!” Barun looked in alarm towards the monk, who was still slowly edging toward the moldy wall. “They turned me… turned me… into this! Please Barun…. You have to… to…”

The emotion suddenly drained from his face. Aldern was gone. Barun frowned, returning to his feet and lifting the sword before him. The shambling corpse calmly rose to his feet as well, retrieving his razor from the floor. He looked at it briefly, then stared Barun directly in the eyes as he smiled widely and licked the blood from the blade with his worm-like tongue.

“My apologies for the interruption, friends. It occurs to me I failed to introduce myself. How rude of me. You may call me…the Skinsaw Man.” He paused to take a deep, theatrical bow, and grinned as he considered the assembled warriors. He opened the inside of his coat and shuffled around the inside for a moment before pulling out what appeared to be a loose pile of skin. The corpse's grin stretched to bizarre proportions as he pulled the mass of flesh over his head and revealed its true nature: a horrifying mask made of the intact skin of a human face.

“I wonder… how your deaths shall affect your friends. What things might you have done that will go unfinished? What will those broken promises spawn? How will your murders shape the world?”

The monster began to cackle maniacally. Barun, however, had other matters to attend to, as Tyvelian was still creeping toward the corrupted fungus. The dwarf took advantage of the Skinsaw Man’s self-imposed distraction and dove toward the monk, toppling him to the ground. Tyvelian looked dazed for a moment, but he quickly regained his senses as he saw the mold he was now less than a foot away from. He shouted in surprise and backed as far into the opposite wall as he could. Barun sighed in relief.

“Good, yer back ta normal then. Now, where were we?”

The dwarf was interrupted as a sharp crack echoed through the center of the room. A shimmering violet portal emerged from the floor, and a small, vaguely humanoid pile of rocks emerged. The formerly ignored Skinsaw Man was then suddenly assaulted from all sides at once. Talathel set forth his swarm of spiders upon the monster as Rhothomir scorched him in fire and the earth elemental pelted him with rocks. Tyvelian punctuated the engagement by driving several arrows into his side. The Skinsaw Man responded with rage, twisting toward the archer and slashing his chest with the bloody razor, cackling as the aasimar winced. Barun attempted to strike once again in retaliation, but again the blow swung wide.

As Barun reset his stance, he glanced toward the mage and couldn’t help but give him a confused look. For Rhothomir was not preparing yet another spell, as was his custom and indeed his most valuable asset (usually). Instead, he was carefully loading a bolt into the crossbow that had not seen action in weeks. The elf carefully lined up his sights as a maniacal grin spread across his face that put the Skinsaw Man’s to shame. Barun suddenly felt a strong intuition that he should step back; he noticed Tyvelian do the same. Rhothomir’s grip on the crossbow tightened. As he depressed the trigger, he muttered a single word, almost imperceptibly.

In one instant the Skinsaw man was cackling right before Barun’s face. In the next he was gone. Barun stumbled slightly in surprise, then looked about the room, expecting to find the monster stumbling against the wall. His mouth fell open in shock when he rounded the corner and found the lifeless form of Aldern Foxglove firmly pinned to the cavern wall. A ballista bolt the size of a large spear sprouted from the middle of his chest. Barun looked back toward the mage, his mouth still agape.

As the remains of Aldern finished twitching, the corpse of the murdered Foxglove maiden in the center of the room silently collapsed into dust. Rhothomir lowered his crossbow and grinned, pleased with his handiwork. The mage withdrew his notebook, striding towards the impaled undead, but paused at the ashes piled upon the floor. He turned his head to the remains, muttered something just out of earshot, then continued with his routine.
-------------------------
“One fine silk overcoat, Magnimar style, royal blue with gold trim… damaged,” Rhothomir added with a scoff as he charted the corpse’s belongings into his inventory. “One barber’s razor, extra-large, slightly used…”

Barun ignored the elf’s accounting, choosing instead to investigate the creeping mold along the wall. He frowned as he concentrated upon it. One thing was clear: the source of the house’s evil aura all emerged from this single source of fungus. It pulsed with a savage and malignant hate that fruitlessly clawed at his soul. The paladin uncorked a vial of holy water and dribbled a small amount along the wall. The mold fizzled and retreated slightly, but as soon as the water evaporated it regrew to its former place. It would take at least ten vials of holy water to completely clear the taint, assuming they could pour it on fast enough. Barun shook his head and turned toward the center of the room just in time to see Talathel presenting a wet, seaweed-coated hammer to him. The dwarf beamed as he grabbed the weapon.

“Fantastic, lad! How did ye manage it?”

The druid merely shrugged. “Dolphins are good swimmers, man. You find anything in here?”

“Nothing we don’t already know. Unless Kane has dug up someth-“ He stopped as he turned toward the mage. He was holding a stained note in his hand and peering over it carefully.

“What do ye have there, Kane?”

The elf quickly folded the letter and secreted it up his sleeve, continuing his inventory as if nothing had happened. Barun frowned and turned back to the druid.

“So, man, I wanted to talk to you… about what happened upstairs,” the druid said, a hint of unease in his voice.

“Really. Did you see something?”

“Yeah, man. That man in the big painting upstairs? The same one on those big glass windows drinking the potion? I like, saw him in a vision when I touched that book. I think he was trying to turn himself into a lich or something. Messed up though, man.”

Barun nodded and looked toward the seven-sided box on the floor. “That would explain the box then. He must have tried ta use it as a phylactery… which reminds me. Oy! Ty!” He yelled toward the corner of the room, where the aasimar was seated patiently painting onto his arm. He paused to look up.

“How did ye know the mold was the source of the evil? Even when we were upstairs?”

“I didn’t,” the monk replied flatly. “I don’t like mold.” He returned to his marking.

“Um… okay, right,” Barun said. “At any rate, I’d like to stop this source right here n’ now. But I’m afraid we don’t have the means at tha moment.”

“Then what do we do, eh?”

“We do what we can. And try to keep somethin’ like this from ever happenin’ again.” He frowned and looked thoughtfully at the corpse pinned to the wall.

“We owe Aldern that.”
------------------------
The trees alongside the road now read as simply a mass of throbbing black feathers as the party finally emerged from the front door of the cursed house. The only living specimen among them remained untouched for now, but the druid’s treant constantly shifted and jumped as if he expected to be swarmed by the ravens at any moment. Talathel went forth to comfort Marin as the party finally set off to return to Sandpoint. Barun, however, hesitated for a moment at the doorstep.

“Hold on a second,” he said. He pulled out the now bloodied journal from his armor, flipping until he arrived at a relatively clean page. He tore if free from the book, scribbled on it briefly, and pinned it to the wall with one of many loose nails.

‘TO WHOMEVER FINDS THEMSELVES WISHING TO TRESPASS UPON THIS HOUSE,

A PALADIN OF THE HOLY ORDER OF TORAG, FORGE OF HIGHHELM, HAS DEEMED THIS HOUSE A DEADLY RISK TO ALL LIVING SOULS WHO DARE TO ENTER. THE ENTITIES WITHIN CAN AND HAVE DEMONSTRATED BOTH THE INTENT AND THE ABILITY TO HARM, MAIM, OR KILL. DO NOT ENTER THIS HOUSE UNTIL THE SOURCE OF ITS EVIL HAS BEEN DESTROYED. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

-BARUNTHIC BURADUM, ORDER OF THE HAMMER’

Barun briefly reread the note, then nodded in satisfaction before finally retreating from the doorstep. “There, hopefully that’ll stop at least a few hot-headed youngsters from gettin’ themselves killed,” he said to the mage. He glanced up at the writhing trees along the path as they walked. “So… should we deal with these fellers?”

Rhothomir paused in his tracks for a moment. He turned toward the dwarf after a thought.

“If you say so.”

He raised his hands. In an instant the entire grove was aflame, ravens dropping from the sky as they tried desperately to alight but quickly succumbed to the blaze. Barun stared for a long while. He finally patted his hand on the mage’s shoulder, never averting his gaze.

“That’ll do, elf. That’ll do.”

--------------------------------------

[Gielnor]

[Gielnor]

FROM THE JOURNAL OF BARUN BURADUM
6th Lamashtan, 4707 AR

It feels nice to be back in a proper city again. Don’t get me wrong, the wide open skies of the wilderness and the quaint little villages like Sandpoint have their own charm, I suppose. But I was born and raised a city dwarf, and the dense tangle of city streets and hole-in-the-wall bars is my habitat of choice.

But I get ahead of myself. We only stayed in Sandpoint for a day after our “adventure” in the late Foxglove’s country estate. After a brief rest I took counsel with Kane, and we quickly determined that if we’re to get to the true bottom of these horrors, all roads lead to Magnimar. An hour later I gathered Ty and Talathel and we set off for the city. The journey took three days, following the battered Coast Road that skirts along the jagged sea cliffs. I tried to keep us entertained at first by reciting an old Dwarven ballad, but a few sparks from Kane’s fingers informed me that this wasn’t appreciated. We spent the rest of the trip in relative silence.

Our mounts reached the summit of the foothills just beyond the city at the break of dawn this morning. Magnimar is not the largest city I’ve seen, but by the gods is it one of the most impressive. The sight of that great ruined bridge jutting towards the sea is truly magnificent.

By the time we reached the city walls, however, it was clear that I was alone in my enthusiasm. Talathel seemed distraught at the complete lack of any vegetation, while Ty impatiently wormed his way around the throngs of people. Kane was indifferent, as ever, barring of course when we came upon the first of several shop districts, which he darted into at every opportunity to offload our more unusual wares. Surprisingly his appearance didn’t seem to cause much alarm among the shopkeepers. I suppose with his already unusually-hued skin he passes for a strangely-proportioned gnome.

Once Kane had collected a rather hefty bag of gold for each of us, we set upon our original task in coming to the city: finding Foxglove’s townhouse. Being the seasoned citydweller, I took the initiative, asking one of the shopkeepers about the house.

“Foxglove’s place? Yeah, it’s up in the Naos district, by Starsilver Plaza,” the merchant said. “It might be a waste of time going by there, though.”

“A waste of time? Why?” I asked.

“No one’s seen Foxglove for weeks, first of all (Not entirely accurate in our case, but that’s beside the point), but that’s not all. A bunch of carpenters came by there last week and boarded the place up. Don’t think there’s an opening on that house left uncovered.” Slightly puzzled, I thanked the merchant and we set off for the house.

The neighborhood in question was filled with houses decked head-to-heel in trashy ornamental garbage, making it obvious we were in the high-class district. Luckily Foxglove’s abode was easy enough to find. Just as the merchant has said, every window of the three-story townhouse was neatly and solidly boarded shut. Tyvelian even jumped over the garden wall to check the back windows, but the workers had been extremely thorough. Yet despite the massive effort of sealing the place, they had left the front door untouched.

Kane fished out one of the keys he had retrieved from Foxglove’s other home and handed it to me. I pointed the key toward the lock, but just before I opened the door I decided to be a right funny git and knock on it.

Imagine my surprise when I heard a cheery female voice yell “Come in!” from the other side. I stopped in my tracks, looking at Kane with confusion before finally opening the door.

The outside of the house looked like a pile of neatly arranged firewood, but the inside was spotless and lit up like a child’s storybook. The smell of some delicious roast wafted into the hallway as we slowly shuffled into the foyer. The sound of footsteps emerged from the door to the left. I could feel my jaw drop as a familiar face peeked into the hall.

“Welcome!” said Iesha Foxglove, notably neither a creepy fucking corpse nor a pile of ash. “Aldern told me you would be coming. He’s told me so much about you; I’m so glad to finally meet you all! I’ll let him know you’ve arrived.” She leaned towards the stairs and shouted, “Aldern! Barun and his friends are here!” before smiling at us and returning to the kitchen.

What.

Sure enough, in just a few moments the intact and completely not monstrous form of Aldern Foxglove descended the stairs, pulling on his signature blue coat as he saw us upon the doorstep.

“Barun! So good of you to come all the way down from Sandpoint! I’ll go grab you a couple of chairs.”

“Er… Hello, Aldern…” I eventually replied. My gut was telling me to beat whatever this was in the face, but I maintained decorum just in case we had stepped into some weird time bullshit. “How… How’ve ye been?”

“Oh, quite alright, chap. But I’m sure you’ve got much more exciting stories to tell, Barun. And Mister Kane! How have you been?”

Of course, unlike me, Kane has no sense of social etiquette or timestream preservation. Without saying a word, he lifted his hand and shot four giant bolts of shimmering magic from his fingers, two of which struck Aldern directly in the chest while the other two swerved into the kitchen. Aldern silently looked down at his punctured chest for a moment, then opened his mouth and screamed in a way that man should never be able to scream.

With crazy chameleon shenanigans confirmed, I wasted no time in withdrawing my hammer and whacking …whatever was wearing Aldern’s skin… directly in the face. The floor rumbled beneath me as Talathel attempted to trip the monster with a thunder stomp, but the thing stood firm. Suddenly its flesh began to boil as the cheery lights within the house began to fade away. Within seconds Aldern was replaced with a vaguely human-shaped being, but its face was… well, its faced was messed up to say the least. Instead of anything you could call eyes or a mouth it just had a random mash of swirls and holes. Chalk up another entry in the OHGODSKILLIT category.

Kane, pleased with his earlier judgement, shot a gout of flame at the revealed monster. The monster shrieked and collapsed into a pile of ash. As the smoke wafted away, another monster that had presumably taken the form of Iesha leaped from the kitchen and lunged at Kane with a found kitchen knife. The knife plunged deep into Kane’s shoulder, but he somehow remained standing and managed to duck under the monster’s shoulder charge. Tyvelian and I immediately sprinted in to defend, but the monster ducked and weaved around our foes.

Suddenly the monster twitched and spasmed with electrical energy before falling limply to the floor. Kane emerged smirking from behind the corpse, holding his wound with one hand and the kitchen knife by the blade in the other. His palm still sparked slightly.

Once Talathel patched Kane up, we took our time exploring the now appropriately dilapidated house for clues. Much to Kane’s chagrin, pretty much everything of note had been taken, either stolen by burglars or moved by Foxglove to his country estate. However, he took pause when we reached the top floor and noticed a pair of bronze lion heads over the central mantel. Talathel was already inspecting it, and by the time Kane approached the druid had found a small keyhole in the back of the lion’s throat. Upon hearing this, Kane pulled a bronze key with a lion-shaped head from his pocket (must have slipped it from the manor), and despite the obvious risks of sticking your hand into the back of a lion’s mouth, did so.

Luckily it turns out the head was completely mundane, and with a small click the bust swung aside to reveal a small cavity in the wall. Kane reached inside and pulled out a yellowed, worn letter. As per usual, he didn’t show it to the rest of us, but after a quick skim he called to Tyvelian and told him to find a place called “The Seven’s Sawmill” and stake it out for a few hours. He then told us to meet him at one of the taverns we had passed on the way in about three hours, and left without another word.

I took advantage of the brief reprieve to go and explore the city. I must commend the builders for their commitment to high Chelaxian architectural styles without descending to their more, well, devilish tendencies, let’s say. The bridge in particular – the Irespan, I think the locals call it? – is just as beautiful up close as from a distance, though it’s mired slightly by the massive slum that’s sitting under what’s left of the roadbed. Shame even a city like this can’t escape the chains of poverty. After studying the bridge I made my way to the bar Kane mentioned and – oh, hold on.

Right, Kane and Ty both just made their way in. Kane brought yet another giant pile of gold (where the hell am I going to keep all of this?), while Ty brought news from the sawmill. Apparently the building has no windows and only a single door, which seems a very odd design choice. Furthermore, there aren’t any sounds of sawing coming from the building, but there are quite a few merchants milling about the place.

Also the place is called the Seven’s Sawmill and the cult Aldern mentioned before he died is called the Brotherhood of the Seven. Excellent cover-up, gentlemen. Looks like we’ll be paying you folks a visit soon. Hope you’re willing to help, Torag.

-BARUN

[Gielnor]

FROM THE JOURNAL OF BARUN BURADUM
7th Lamashtan, 4707 A.R.

I could tell we were on the road to an eventful day when I first saw the Sawmill. Kane suggested we wait until morning to investigate the place, since finding clues in the dead of night can be a touch difficult. Thus the low rays of dawn were striking the side of the building as we approached. Just as Tyvelian had described, the building was a monolithic masonry cube, sitting like an ancient tomb along the riverbank. This immediately struck me as incredibly impractical: lumber mills are usually open on both ends to feed logs through and keep sawdust from piling up inside. Clearly this building wasn’t designed with practicality in mind.

There were only two openings visible in the entire thing. The first was blocked from our approach, but the steady trickle of merchants and wagons rounding the balcony suggested a door on the opposite wall. The other was a small basement door squeezed behind a small cliff on the riverbank, with a small flight of stairs leading from the bluff. We elected to try the basement door first, but it was locked fast. The main door on the balcony proved just as tight. I nearly wore my hands to stumps trying to knock on the door, but it seems we were drowned out by the cranking machinery inside.

Then I heard a voice come from behind us.

“You’ll find the door on the lower level should be open now, sir,” Patsy said.

“OH TORAG WHEN’D YOU GET HERE??” I shouted. Nearly clocked the sneaky bugger’s head right off with the about-face I pulled. I thought we were about the get bloody ambushed. I didn’t even know he had been following us. He had been following us, right?

We headed back down the stairs and a quick twist of the knob revealed the door was indeed wide open. I pushed it open to reveal a whirring cacophony of pulleys and gears. Three rough looking men in grease-stained coveralls were mingling beneath the mess, and by the surprised and annoyed looks on their faces they weren’t at all happy to see us.

‘HEY! What do you think you’re doing here? This area’s off limits!” said the burliest looking one, presumably the foreman. He had to shout at the top of his lungs to be heard over the grinding mechanics. Even my bellowing dwarven voice had trouble breaking through the din as I responded.

“Er, yeah, sorry about that! We just need to ask ye a few questions if ye have a moment!”

“Bugger off, dwarf!” Polite fellows.

“Look, obviously your busy,” I said, edging into the room with a nudge from Kane, “but I just need to talk to yer boss!”

The workers immediately tensed up as I entered the basement, all turning around to face me.

“Sir, we need to ask you to leave.”

That’s when Kane squirmed his way through the doorway and around my armor, raising his hand as he stepped into the corner of the room.

“Hey, no,” he said as flames shot from his hands. GREAT INTRODUCTION KANE, YOU BLOODY GIT.

Before I could get a chance to tell everyone to calm the fuck down, Talathel summoned his creepy bloody spider whip (seriously, why is that a thing he can do?). Ty, meanwhile, demonstrated his normal lack of social etiquette by firing a volley of blunted arrows into the room, immediately knocking a guy out cold.

As expected, the remaining two laborers were none too thrilled with being cooked alive and being knocked the fuck out. What was unexpected was the spells they started throwing around. It was about then that I thought it wise to sense evil from them because hey, maybe Kane was on to something… again. Sure enough, both the workers stunk of evil. I responded to this news by whacking one of them in the gut as he lunged for me. Timely! Kane nodded smugly at me as he knocked a second worker out with a spell.

It’s at about this time that shit really starts to go south. Talathel stepped into the room, creepy spider whip in hand. He raised his hand toward the ceiling and… well, remember when I said the room was full of jumbled machinery? Talathel wasn’t paying attention to that. His sleeve caught onto a rapidly spinning flywheel and, before I knew what was happening, he was yanked upwards into the mechanics. Cue a lot of cursing from pretty much everyone in the room.

The last worker took advantage of the commotion by pulling out a crossbow and firing at Tyvelian, but the aasimar responded by knocking him out with another blunt arrow. With the distraction clear, I quickly ran toward the giant paddle wheel in the center of the room, where the machinery was painstakingly dragging the cursing druid. The gear work looked dense, but it seemed that breaking it properly would lock up the lot. Wasting no time, I pulled out the adamantine sword and started hacking at the cogs. The machine began to chip and fracture… but then I swung a little too deep. The blade stuck into a fast-moving cog and flung me upwards into the machine before I could release my grip.

I am truly a credit to this team.

Luckily my armor and natural hardiness let me weather the clobbering better than Talathel, who I could see struggling to set off a healing spell not far behind me. I had also landed in a tangle of pulleys that moved only occasionally, so I had a great view to yell at the floor below.

“YEAH, ER, IF YE COULD FIGURE OUT HOW TO *oof* GET US OUT OF HERE BEFORE WE’RE TURNED TO PASTE *ack, shit* I’D APPRECIATE IT.”

After a few moments of worryingly inspecting the tangle, Ty finally danced around the machinery and approached one of the two rusty brake levers next to the wheel. These things were nearly as tall as he was, so he grabbed the top and leaned into the pull… falling onto his back as the lever’s head snapped off in his hands.

BLOODY GREAT.

Patsy finally entered the room, looking up towards our bodies tangled in the ceiling before turning to Kane, who was calmly surveying the chaos from a safe distance like the bloody git that he is.

“May I be of assistance, sir?” the butler said.

“Just the usual, Patsy.”

Patsy reached into his coat and pulled out what looked to be a box of fine cigars, but as he opened the lid an assortment of strangely-shaped instruments was revealed. Pulling out a particularly ornate magnifying glass, he approached the cogs I had been hacking at and began inspecting them, occasionally prodding them with an unidentifiable tool with a look of frustration.

There was another painful buffeting of machinery, but this time it was accompanied by a loud splash. I looked down toward the waterwheel to see Talathel poke his head above the water, the machine having finally spit him out. He was bruised, but alive. I only saw him for a moment however, as the swift current of the river below quickly dragged him away.

I looked back at Patsy just in time to see him put away his strange kit. He picked up a piece of scrap lumber from the floor, aimed carefully at the machine, and quickly jammed it in between two inconspicuous cogs. The whole building sounded like a dying monster as with a final jolt the entire mill ground to a halt. I wasted no time in pulling my sword from the gears and climbing out onto the floor. Before I could give thanks, Ty drew his finger to his mouth and pointed his free hand towards the ceiling. Muffled footsteps were coming from the floorboards above. It seems whoever was upstairs were alerted by their entire factory shutting down without warning.

Sheathing the blade, I quickly lead the way out the door, making a point to look downriver. Talathel was still very much alive, thank Torag, but he had been pulled quite a ways away and was dragging himself ashore about sixty yards down. I waved to him before slowly heading up the stairs, the archer drawing his bow and following closely behind as Kane and his servant hung at the base of the stairs. I cast a quick blessing on my hammer as we approached the top.

Suddenly I felt like something was pulling the life straight from my heart, first once, then twice. A strained look on Tyvelian’s face revealed he was feeling something similar. As the feeling faded, I rounded the corner and found a knife plowing straight toward my gut.

It bounced right off the armor, of course. The look on that cultist’s face as he looked down at the knife was priceless. Oh there were cultists, but the way. All wearing human face masks exactly like the one Aldern had been wearing. That’s an important detail.

I responded to this friendly greeting with my own, whacking the git in the chest to much greater visible effect. Tyvelian, who was still on the stair when the cultist attacked, leaped into the air and landed cleanly on the bluff behind the building. As the archer cleared the stairwell, there was a low rumbling noise. A familiar orb of flame careened up the stairs and barreled around the corner, slamming into the cultists on the boardwalk like ninepins. Hey look, more sports references!

Two of the cultists then tumbled right under my arc, and before I could turn around I grunted in pain as one of the fuckers drove a knife into a weak spot on the back of my arm. Clearly the time for fun and games was over. I wasted no time in knocking the cultist in front of me out like a light before whipping around and whacking the blighter who stabbed me for good measure. There was another rumble as yet another fireball tumbled up the stairs. The boardwalk suddenly turned into a giant deadly game of billiards as the cultists frantically dodged the pair of spheres.

Chalk up another sports reference. And I could probably throw in a reference to male genetalia as well if I really wanted to, but I am a paladin of tact if not refinement.

Talathel finally ran onto the scene as the two orbs dances across the boardwalk, but he didn’t get to make much of an impact as Ty released a flurry of arrows and murdered the two cultists standing before me. The last two survivors paused, looked at each other, and sprinted back into the building.

I couldn’t help but shout at them as Kane made his way up the stairs. “Ah, git back here and fight like men, ye sorry bastards!”

Kane was already frisking the bodies as I turned back around, because of course he was. I, meanwhile, kept my hands off but inspected the symbols and patterns on their robes and bizarrely pointed hoods. Unsurprisingly, these blokes were followers of the evil god Norgorbur. Mind you, not all followers of Norgorber are evil per-se: a lot of them are just down-and-out miscreants that find solace in his realms of theft and trickery. However, based on the blood red robes and their masks made out of human faces seriously what the fuck, it was safe to assume these blighters worshipped the dark god’s most evil aspect: murder.

After Kane finished up gathering various tidbits from the corpses, we approached the front door once again, this time finding it shut but rather graciously unlocked. The others entered battle stance as I kicked the door ajar, but the inside was empty and silent. It was some sort of shipping area: the floor was cluttered with massive log-hauling wagons, and equipment closets lined the far wall. I quietly edged toward the corner, for one of the walls was clearly an interior partition. As I rounded the furthest wagon, yet another knife leapt from the darkness and three more cultists revealed themselves from the sawdust behind the partition wall.

“WELL, NICE TA MAKE YER ACQUAINTANCE!” I shouted to alert the rest of the party, glaring at the now shaking cultist who had tried to shank me.

There was a rumble of thunder as the druid ran into the room and threw a rolling thundercloud along the floor. It rounded the corner and zapped one of the cultists hiding with the sawdust as Tyvelian bounded into the room and fired an arrow at the cultist behind the wagon who had stabbed at me. The three cultists in the sawdust room left from their hiding spot and dashed towards the monk. The one in the lead had the displeasure of disemboweling himself on Talathel’s outstretched spear. The survivors managed to tumble around the corpse, slashing at Ty as he deftly dodged their blows.

Suddenly a hurried pattering emerged from the far stairwell. In an instant, cultists began spewing into the room, flooding in like the rats we had encountered back at the Manor. And just like the rats, they hadn’t anticipated Rhothomir Kane standing at the door.

They had barely entered the room when the two cultists at the lead fell over dead, their bodies filled with flames and magic bolts. A third toppled to the ground when Patsy retrieved a crossbow from… somewhere under that massive coat, I guess?... and drove a bolt through his skull. So now I know that Kane’s butler can and has killed a man. That’s slightly disturbing, yet somehow unsurprising. Despite the losses, the cultists kept coming in.

I attempted to clear the two buggers bothering Ty, but they both somehow managed to dodge under my hammer swing from behind. Sodding tricky bastards. The archer revealed he didn’t need the help by placing an arrow cleanly into each of their skulls.

His smug grin was quickly replaced by a wince as a bolt suddenly pierced his shoulder. I turned around, expecting the bugger behind the wagon to be holding the crossbow. Instead there was an elf in a hulking set of armor, a small but clearly effective hand crossbow in his grip. As I focused on him, I winced slightly. The aura of this man was absolutely wretched. I could feel it pulsing and writhing against my own. Before I could react to his presence, I felt another pulse. It didn’t come from the new visitor however. It came from Kane. My eyes widened as I looked toward the mage.

Because the last time I had felt it was when we were in the depths of Thistletop.

A flame shot from the elf’s hand towards the throng of cultists, but the fire twisted away from them at the last moment. It doubled back and wrapped itself around the mage as the cultists looked on in shock and confusion. I myself was sure I was watching Kane get baked alive. And yet he didn’t fall. Indeed, he seemed rather unworried for being coated in fire. Suddenly the fire flew away with a burst, and even from a distance I could sense a… power glowing from within Kane. He briefly looked down at his hands, a wide grin spreading over his face as he stepped back and allowed Patsy to take another shot at the cultists.

Everything went better than expected, then. I guess. Still, what.

The cultists were still struck dumb from the spectacle, having never witnessed a Surge before. I took advantage of their dumbfoundedness by approaching the cultist who had stabbed me and bashing his head between the wagon and my hammer. Seems getting used to this crazy horseshit has its advantages.

The rest of the party continued to tear into the rank and file cultists, who had finally stopped trickling in from above. At one point Patsy pulled out a giant curved elven blade (WHERE IN TORAG’S NAME DID HE KEEP A GIANT CURVED ELVEN BLADE? WHAT.) and beat a cultist over the head with it instead of stabbing him with it, presumably not wanting to make a mess. That was pretty hardcore.

The very evil cleric (he must be a cleric – it’s the only way he could have an aura that strong without murdering an entire country) proved to be a much tougher nut to crack. He dodged or deflected nearly every single blow that came from Talathel or Ty. Clearly they needed help. I asked Torag for his blessing, and he granted it.

I hope he’s happy with how hard that hammer slammed into that bastard’s torso. Gods know I sure was.

The cleric staggered and gripped his side in pain, scowling at me. His scowl quickly shifted to alarm as he looked over my shoulder. I turned around and noticed two distinct sources for his worry.

The first was the fact that all of his followers were now dead.

The second was the massive fire bomb spell hurtling in our direction. OUR direction.

“KANE YA BLOODY TWA-“

I was nearly knocked off my feet as the spell struck the wall and exploded, spraying fire and wood shrapnel across the room. I had the wit to keep my beard behind my shield, but if I had any hair it would have burned like a brushfire. Bloody blessed that my face didn’t melt clean off. As the heat cleared I pulled the shield away in time to see the cleric stagger to his feet. He looked toward me, clearly disappointed that I had survived the blast, then dashed toward the sawdust room. He vanished into thin air as he tumbled behind the wagon.

I quickly waved to Kane and pointed toward the room, deciding to save scolding him until after the threat was dispatched. The elf ran toward me with alarming speed, then waved his hands and cast a spell towards the pile of sawdust. With a shout of pain a glittering outline of the cleric appeared, clutching at his eyes with his free hand.

“TAKE HIM ALIVE!” Kane shouted as I strode into the room and whacked the bloke in the chest. Would have aimed for the head if Kane hadn’t said that. Ty, on the other hand, did aim for the head. As the cleric staggered once again a blunt arrow struck him clear in the temple and he collapsed to the ground. The invisibility spell faded along with his senses.

I thanked Torag before holstering Fury and propping the cleric’s limp body against the wall. Kane approached from behind and lifted the man’s hand, studying an ornate ring upon in.

“Hm. Interesting,” he said after a moment.

“How so?” I replied.

He set the hand down, standing up and looking toward me. “This man is a juctice,” he said before heading towards the stairs.

Oh cripes.

----------

A patrol of the building revealed no hidden cultists, barring a few promotional pamplets in one of the studies that were filled with absolute bollocks. Apparently our crude breaking of their machinery had let everyone know we had arrived, and the two cultists that had escaped the first assault allowed the rest to set up their ambush. The wise course of action would have been to surrender immediately, of course, but most people aren’t used to dealing with insane mages and sharpshooter aasimar on a daily basis.

Kane uncovered a few knick-knacks to try and sell in the upper offices. Emphasis on try. Most of them are dark at best and outright diabolical at worst, though nothing cursed or destructive as far as I can tell. Nothing particularly informative either, unfortunately, besides a few hundred randomly assorted books which Kane snatched rabidly from the library at first sight.

Thus, our best source of information will be our new friend the “justice”. Justice Ironbriar, as his name turns out to be. That being said, we’ll need to be incredibly cautious about this. We don’t have the same good reputation here that we’ve grown in Sandpoint, and even if we did, this is a well-known public official we’re dealing with. Our only option is to interrogate him here and now. I don’t even know what we’re to do once we’re done. Just in case, I’ll end this entry with the following legal disclaimer:

I, BARUNTHIC BURADUM, Son of TURANTHIC, Son of GORANTHIC, of the HOLY ORDER OF THE HAMMER in HIGHHELM, do swear by the blessing of TORAG, HONORABLE AND MIGHTY, that the details inscribed above are TRUE and ACCURATE to the best of my ability. I maintain that my actions against IRONBRIAR on this day, the SEVENTH of LAMASHTAN 4707, were both RIGHT and JUST, and present this journal as evidence of such.

There, hope that’s sufficient. Been a while since my last legal deposition of a public servant, honestly. May have to run it by Kane. At any rate, you’ve got my back, right Torag? What am I talking about, you put as much force into that swing as I did.

Cheers,
-BARUN

[Gielnor]

FROM THE JOURNAL OF BARUN BURADUM
9th Lamashtan, 4707 A.R.

“And when the sword has broken, and can do no more, cast it into the crucible. Give gratitude for the life of the old, for its death will give life to the new.”

-Hammer and Tongs, 3:17

And so we gathered in the eerie silence of the sawmill, at a loss as to what to do with the limp public official tied up in the corner. Patsy had the first bright idea by unjamming the machinery in the basement: a completely quiet sawmill was a wee bit suspicious. Just as Patsy returned from the basement, something we hadn’t prepared for followed him in: the night shift.

We quickly, erm, dispatched of them (they all had creepy skin masks on their persons, so I don’t exactly have a heavy conscience about it) and stowed their bodies in the upstairs office. This I wasn’t so keen on, but circumstances were a bit restrictive to say the least. Finally, with the sun setting, Kane hatched a plan.

We chucked Ironbriar’s unconscious body into the back of one of the logging wagons, and piled the tons of loot that Kane had scavenged atop of him before finally leaving the sawmill. The few scattered guards and beggars on the streets paid us no mind – we looked like normal merchants, after all – and we arrived unharrassed at the one place in town we could safely hold out: Foxglove’s townhouse. Kane requested a night’s rest to “prepare” (oh gods), and so Ironbriar was unceremoniously hauled into the sitting room, where Tyvelian kept watch on him overnight. I went to check on him a couple of times to see if he needed a reprieve, but every time I walked downstairs he was wide awake, sitting cross-legged in the corner and staring straight at our prisoner.

Ironbriar finally woke up at around dawn the next day. Needless to say, he was a little peeved.

“Xanesha…” he growled angrily before finally looking up to us. I assumed it was some obscure elf curse word. “Who are you?”

Kane said nothing, as is standard protocol, but instead pulled out one of the books he had scrounged from the sawmill. The cover was unmarked, but the inside was crammed with letters and symbols I couldn’t make heads or tails of. He flipped through the book for a moment, trying to get a reaction from the justice, but the elf merely snickered.

“Even if you can read the languages in that book, it would take you ages to break the cypher.” The elf’s smirk dropped as he briefly tested his restraints, quickly stopping as he found them holding fast. “I will admit, elf,” the justice said, “you and your comrades have clearly bested me and my brethren. Although… they were led astray long before you showed up.”

Kane snapped the book shut and locked eyes with the prisoner. “Talk.”

Ironbriar smirked and leaned against the wall as he began his story.

“I’m sure that you can appreciate that someone of my… proclivities would like to keep a low profile on the ceremonies necessary to appease Norgorbur, especially considering my rather public profile within this city. Thus, I’ve always made it certain that the activities of the Brotherhood are as discreet as possible: leave no trace, and take no one anyone would miss.” I frowned in disgust, which Ironbriar responded to with an evil grin. His smirk quickly turned into an angry scowl as he continued.

“Of course, that all changed when that bitch Xanesha came into the picture. She’s a lamia, and a powerful one at that. She used her magic to enslave our entire Brotherhood, myself included – so I suppose I can thank you for freeing me from that particular bond. At any rate, our façade was completely blown when our murders became so obvious. Which is no doubt what drew you to me in the first place.

“With that said, I’ll make you an offer. Xanesha is still very much at large, and a much larger risk than me, I assure you. Free me from these bonds for twelve hours, and I will grant you both the location of Xanesha’s chosen lair and the solution to that cypher. Quite a fair deal, I think you’ll find.”

I leaned in close, eyes narrowed. “An’ what, pray tell, d’ye intend to do with these twelve hours, eh?”

“I’ll be frank with you, Paladin: I intend to gather what I can of my property and leave the city. Xanesha will no doubt be after my head when she discovers my failure in defending the sawmill. I would rather abandon my life here and start elsewhere than attempt to face her wrath.”

“And let a murderer out inta the streets unpunished?” I replied.

The justice merely smirked. “Of course, you’re welcome to try and break that cypher yourself. But that might take days. Who knows what havoc that lamia could wreak in the meantime?”

I stepped forward, hammer slightly raised, but Kane barred me with his hand. He reached out and grasped the prisoner by the shoulder.

“Ironbriar,” the sorcerer said, “you and I both know you want revenge against Xanesha. The sooner you give us the information we need, the sooner she’ll be dead.”

The justice stared at Kane for a moment, then gave a single, grim chuckle.

“You’re right, of course. Fine. She’s roosting at the top of the Shadow Clock. It’s an old bell tower tangled in the wretched slums under the Irespan. As for the cypher… you’ll have to earn that. My offer still stands.” It seemed awfully odd that he would release half of his information for free. Perhaps there was more to Kane’s grip than a simple gesture of dominance.

Kane released the elf’s shoulder, but kept his eyes locked. “I’ll have to sleep on it.”

“Very well, very well. I’ll be here, of course, should you find that book too daunting.” Ironbriar’s mouth curled into a wicked grin. “You know, mage… we’re not so different, you and I. We have the favor of the same god.” Kane, who had been walking away toward his makeshift study, stopped suddenly and glared at the justice. I merely looked on, though Ironbriar’s implication disturbed me.

“How observant of you,” Kane said. “I killed probably a dozen of your men just yesterday.”

“Ah, but you are different, aren’t you?” Ironbriar chuckled grimly again. “Some kill in the heat of battle. Some do not. I believe you are familiar with both.”

---------------

It’s astounding that the Shadow Clock is still standing. We approached it in the dim light of dawn, minus Patsy – he had been left behind to keep Ironbriar “in check” so to speak. The low rays streaked through the dozens of holes and cracks in the teetering stone walls. A stone statue of an angel marked the towers peak, scoured and mangled by time and the salty sea. Despite its impressive height, the clock was absolutely dwarfed by the awesome mass of the Irespan hanging above.

We opened the wide, rotting wooden door to reveal a decrepit row of makeshift offices, dwarfed by the towering staircase that creeped along the inner edge of the wall as it climbed toward the tarnished bells far above the floor. Not wanting to be jumped by anything as we climbed up the stairs, Kane insisted that we check each of the offices before proceeding upwards. The search was uneventful until Talathel peeked behind one of the carts in the center of the hall. Suddenly his face twisted in fear and he backpedaled as fast as his legs could carry him, shouting “BEHIND THE CART!”

With a guttural shout the cart was shoved aside, revealing a towering mass of flesh stitched together into what some could call a humanoid form, gripping a gigantic scythe. I’m still trying to figure out the geometry of how it fit behind a single cart without a single one of us noticing. Kane managed to suggest forgoing my hammer just as the golem of flesh lumbered straight up to him.

“Hello there…” the monster growled.

Kane responded in his usual polite manner by turning the golem’s scythe into a red-hot rod. The monster merely grinned and gripped onto the burning scythe tighter. It smelled like the worst barbecue ever.

The construct bore the brunt of yet another spell from the mage, but roared in pain as both Talathel’s spear and Tyvelian’s arrows jammed into it. So it wasn’t invulnerable. Fantastic. I celebrated this news by drawing my sword and charging into the beast as I filled the blade with holy light. The golem roared and swung his giant scythe, but the blade bounced neatly off my armor as I surged forward and buried the blade deep into his side. It roared in agony as I withdrew, but he continued to wail on me with his misused farming tool.

Kane pulled a scroll from his robes and attempted to sneak away under my distraction, but the golem simply wheeled his scythe back around and slammed the blunt end into him, sending him flying away. The mage groaned as he hit the ground, but quickly regained his footing and read from the curled piece of parchment still in his hand.

The ground at the golem’s feet turned an oily black, and within moments a swarm of inky tentacles emerged writhing from the puddle. They shot around the golems legs and locked him in place despite his enraged tugging. Once the monster was bound, Kane looked toward me and pantomimed a stabbing motion.

Hm… for some reason I’m reminded of an old Tian Xia woodprint I saw in a curio shop a while back. Now why would… oh. Oh gods I remember now. Oh gods no. OH GODS NO TORAG MAKE THE IMAGES STOP.

Ahem… anyway, I proceeded to thoroughly disappoint Kane by somehow completely missing the golem. I blame the disturbing mental images. Guh. Luckily the monster was in no position to properly attack back, and Talathel took advantage of the window by magically healing some of my bruises. Just as the tentacles began to dissipate and the golem wrenched free from its bonds, Kane and Tyvelian bombarded it from a distance. It staggered backwards under the onslaught, looking up just in time to see my sword cleaving its head off.

After a quick check of the rest of the offices, we proceeded to the stairs and began the long climb towards the precipice. The stone steps began to shake and rumble as we crossed over them, so we made the probably wise decision of spreading ourselves out lest the entire tower collapse on top of us. Believe it or not, the climb wasn’t too tiring even with my plate armor – you get used to stairs pretty quickly when you grow up in an underground city.

What was difficult was the giant stairless gap over nothing.

While there was a small ledge along what was left of the wall, I have the acrobatics skill of a top-heavy rock. Thus I had to deal with Kane impatiently tapping his foot as I not once but twice lost my footing and tumbled clumsily onto the flight below. Not a particularly hard fall, mind, but the less I embarrass myself in front of that elf, the better.

When I finally made it across the gap, I leaned over and grabbed my knees for a moment to catch my breath. I looked up to find Talathel replaced by what could only be described as a tiny root man.

“OH GODS WHAT THE HELL IS THAT??”

“Calm down man,” the cluster of roots said in a tiny, raspy voice. “It’s just a Mandragora. Less weight on the stairs, ya know?” After briefly wondering where the hell the extra weight goes, I gathered myself up and continued the steady climb.

Suddenly my head exploded in pain as the tower echoed with a deafening chime. I looked up as I clasped my ears to see one of the bells swinging wildly atop the belfry. Once, twice, three times the bell chimed out. Then, as it reached the bottom of its fourth swing, the frail wooden beam holding it in place snapped like a twig. I pulled my hands from my head just in time to have a five-hundred-pound bell slammed into my gut. What an excellent day.

I stumbled back into the upward landing just in time to watch the bell careen into the stair and crunch straight through the fragile steps, leaving Ty and Kane stranded on the opposite side. But wait… where did Talathel go?

There was a faint grunting noise from below. I scurried over to the edge of the stair to find Talathel gripping tightly on the edge of the flight below, sap leaking from his cut roots… ew, it’s gross just to write that down. Despite his obvious injury, he managed to scramble back onto the stair just as the bell finally slammed into the ground with a final mighty clang.

After some further stair-navigating logistics and liberal use of Kane’s healing wand on our broken ribs, we finally made it to the top of the stair. Of course, we weren’t about to be rewarded for our efforts. Instead of a nice smooth landing at the top, there was a scattered mess of wooden scaffolding that lead through a rough hewn hole in the wall and wrapped around the outside of the building to the floor above. I sighed and did my best not to look down as we carefully edged our way into the uppermost chamber.

We reentered the building to find a small room, just barely large enough for us to fit into. It was entirely unremarkable, save one thing: a small cage in the corner, within which was a live raven. It made no noise as we approached, only cocking its head curiously. With a flash of green light Talathel returned to his humanoid form, and after a short mutter he began to speak to the bird in a strange, chirpy language that quite frankly freaked me out a tiny bit.

The druid managed to translate that the raven was a messenger for the “Snake Lady,” carrying messages to The Man in the Red coat. He also told us said Snake lady spent most of her time alone upon the roof of the tower. Occasionally a “thing” flies around the top of the tower, but it never talks to the ravens. Satisfied with the interview, Kane withdrew a single silver coin from his pouch and held it out toward the raven. It cooed and jumped up and down excitedly, grabbing the coin in its beak and tucking it among the various knickknacks along the inside of its nest.

“He says ‘Thank you’.” Talathel told the mage as we turned toward the inner door.

The door was boarded shut. It was also quite fragile, as it turns out. A couple solid whacks from Fury and we emerged into the dusty remains of the clockwork hall. The interlocking gearwork was fascinating, but unfortunately my engineering experience is in architecture rather than clockwork, so I couldn’t get the time to truly appreciate the intricacies. Talathel, on the other hand, eyed the machinery with extreme caution as we walked our way to another makeshift scaffolding. Weapons in hand for the task ahead, we cautiously climbed onto the roof.

As I peered over the crest of the walkway, I expected to be whipped in the face by a giant snake tail. Instead, we were greeted with silence. The rooftop looked completely abandoned. Something was up. I gripped my hammer tightly as I began to work my way around the ruined statue. The chips and crannies that had built up over the years had transformed the once angelic statue into something nearly demonic. Kane and Talathel soon followed behind me, leaving only Ty on the scaffolding.

Then I heard the slithering.

I whipped around to see a long serpentine form crawling onto the catwalk. The damn monster had been clinging to the outer wall of the tower! The lamia lifted itself onto the catwalk, cutting Ty off from the rest of us. The aasimar lifted his bow as Xanesha turned to face him.

Poor lad. It was the last thing he ever did.

The monster locked eyes with the boy. His bow was locked forever drawn as in an instant he was turned to stone. Wordlessly, the lamia lifted her giant spear and jammed the butt into Tyvelian’s torso. He toppled over the edge.

I nearly dropped my hammer as I sprinted towards the edge of the roof. I peered over the cornice just in time to watch the petrified form of Tyvelian crash into the street below.

I must have been numb from shock, because in that moment I didn’t feel anything. All I felt was an intense need for Xanesha to die. Fury began to glow.

Without warning the lamia lunged off the catwalk, slithering straight towards Talathel. He attempted to dive out of the way, but Xanesha was quick and cut deep into the druid with her spear. The druid gripped his bleeding wound with a look of utter despair on his face, understandably shuffling backwards behind me.

Suddenly I felt invigorated with energy as Kane cast a spell. I quickly looked backwards to make sure Talathel was safe, then gripped Fury tightly and called out as I charged.

“FACE THE MIGHT O’ TORAG, YE BLOODY WENCH!”

Xanesha dived under my first blow, and the second, but recoiled in pain as the third swing connected into her ribs. Well, the important ribs, I guess. Lamias are almost entirely ribs. At any rate, I was thanked for my efforts by a spray of flame and an angry hiss. Ungrateful wench, if you ask me. The sorcerer waved his hands and once again the monster’s weapon glowed with intense heat, and again the monster held firm, but with considerably less stoicism this time.

Talathel wisely held back as he patched his wounds, but he generously cast a spell on me as I stepped in for another attack. Again the first round missed, as did the second. But the third round, oh boy did the third round hit. She wheeled up from her second duck just in time for the hammer to connect squarely to her masked head. With an ugly screech and a spray of blue-green blood she staggered backwards, hissing in rage as she grasped her head and began sending magic into the wound.

And then Rhothomir Kane cast a spell.

I could feel the fabric of reality wrinkle around me. For he had oversurged.

I say a spell. I am not entirely sure what spell he had attempted to cast. I suppose it doesn’t really matter in retrospect. For whatever spell he had tried to conjure, he had done so successfully.

He had also conjured the rest of his spells.



In an uncharacteristic feat of acrobatics, I somersaulted backwards as a blinding ray of magic spewed forth from the sorcerer’s outstretched hands, accompanied by a torrent of rolling fire balls. I landed right next to Talathel and we watched the spectacle unfold.

A hailstorm of magic missiles and searing, glittering magic slammed into the lamia as she screamed in agony. For the briefest instant it appeared as if her lithe muscles were wasting away, but in the next instant she was reduced to a standing pile of ash. The beam of pure energy shot out over the rooftop and soared over the Underbridge, illuminating the entire slum like a great torch as it soared toward the ocean. Then, in an instant, it ceased. The ashy form of Xanesha the lamia stood frozen in place for a moment. Then, silently and gracefully, the ashes lifted above the ground and hovered over the rooftop, drifting over the street before the magic finally gave way and let the ashes fall like fine snow.

I silently reached my hand out toward the druid, and he placed a lit roll of paper in my hand.

---------------

As one would expect, the assorted treasures of the lamia’s horde was nothing short of a small fortune. Kane of course was eager to sort out the dividends, but as he opened his trusty ledger book a small crumpled note rolled out from within. He looked at it with confusion, as if he had not expected it to be there. Though in retrospect, I may have imagined that part. I am not used to whatever that stuff is Talathel’s been hitting.

We finally got the loot downstairs… wait, how did we even do that? FUCK I was high. But anyway… We finally walked out onto the street to see bits of stone an ash scattered all across the ground. I sobered up quickly. Solemnly I pulled a free pouch from my pack and picked up whatever chunks of stone I could from the street.

It occurred to me as I collected the stone corpse that I never got anything from Tyvelian besides his name. No home, no family, no story. I could give him a proper burial, but would anyone ever know he was gone?

I looked up and glanced at the druid, sitting tiredly against the stone wall of the clock tower. Would I have to say the same about Talathel should fate catch up to him? And Kane too; would he leave a legacy upon the world?

I looked towards him to find him standing atop the largest pile of ashes. He was facing away from me, but I could see a stream of yellow liquid emerging from somewhere within his robes, landing square on the ashes.

Scratch that last thought about Kane. I think it’s impossible for him not to leave a mark.

--------------

We’re back at the townhouse now. Despite our costly victory, we are not safe yet. The treacherous justice is still in our custody. However, time is on our side: Patsy’s control method of “knocking Ironbriar the fuck out every time he wakes up” is crude, but effective. Meanwhile, Kane has been cracking down on that cyphered book, notably without the cleric’s help. Thus, his bargain for escape is no longer valid.

I’ll see to it that justice will be served, Torag. Cheers. And to whatever god or gods are now in custody of Ty… you’ve got a fine warrior in your realm now, I promise you that.

Just don’t let him get too close to strangers with that bow. He’s trigger happy.

-BARUN

[Gielnor]

FROM THE JOURNAL OF BARUN BURADUM
20th Lamashtan, 4707 A.R.

So the good news is that former Justice Ironbriar is taken care of. The bad news is that before I could even catch my breath we shoved ourselves onto a boat toward the arse-end of nowhere, and now I’m holed up in what this backwater fishing village ventures to call an “inn”. They don’t even have any rum! What I would give for a drop of Highhelm A



AND NOW KANE’S LET HIS DAMN CAT LOOSE. Torag, please let me retire to a peaceful smithy in the mountains when this is all over. Far away from any elves.

Let me wind back to about… gods, a week and a half ago now. It seems longer. After we returned from the clock tower, Kane holed himself up in the townhouse and spend the better part of three days poking at Ironbriar’s encoded book. Not being one to dally around, I tried to make use of the time by trying once again to forge a new weapon. Emphasis on tried, unfortunately. This time around the components managed to break apart into useless chunks. I’m beginning to doubt the quality of the vendor I got these from.

I was woken up around dawn on the third day by two sets of footsteps plodding down the staircase. I hastily donned my daywear and hurried down the stairs just in time to watch Patsy walk into the den and lift our prisoner up briskly by the collar. Before I could ask what the hell was happening, the butler opened the front door and walked right into the bustling morning street with a near-naked well-known public official in his grasp. The well-to-do merchants walking about gasped and balked as the butler began to shout for the guards.

I grabbed Kane by the shoulder and whipped him around.

“WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DO YE THINK YER DOIN’??”

The mage merely shrugged as the city guard pushed through the gathering throng and looked from the justice to the butler in confusion. As one would expect, their lieutenant began angrily asking Patsy questions along the lines of “What is the meaning of this,” “What are you doing here,” etc, etc. The servant, as always, made no emotional reaction, instead merely handing over a simple leather-bound notebook.

“I believe you’ll find this to explain everything succinctly, sir.”

The lieutenant tore the book from the elf’s grasp and began leafing through it. His expression shifted from seething anger through a troubled frown, finally landing somewhere between shock and disbelief. Finally, the guard shut the book and returned his gaze to our menagerie.

“You. All of you. Come with me.”

And that’s how I found myself in a jail cell for the second time in my life.

-------------------------

Ironbriar sneered at us through the bars. The guards hadn’t yet undone the ropes we’d put on him, but his privileged position in town allowed him the luxury of merely sitting at a table under the eyes of a guard while we were kept in a holding cell, just underneath the city barracks. The elves (as I’ll call the rest of the party from now on, seeing as our only non-elf friend has left this mortal coil) seemed awfully nonchalant about the whole ordeal. I take it they’ve all been in a jail cell at one point or another for unrelated reasons. After what seemed like an eternity, the sound of armored footsteps echoed down the stone hall. The face of the lieutenant emerged from the gloom, the same notebook in his grasp.

Ironbriar stood up to greet the guard with the clearly practice grin of a politician. His smile dropped like a rock when the officer responded with a stone-faced frown.

“Get this traitor into a cell and out of my sight,” the lieutenant ordered the attending guard. The justice sputtered as he was lead out of my sight for the last time. Finally turning to face us again, he produced a large iron key from his pockets and slid the iron bars of the cell aside.

“I suppose I owe you an apology, elf,” the guard said, handing the notebook back to the butler, who promptly relayed it to Kane. The lieutenant did his best to hide the double-take as he refocused his gaze toward the sorcerer.

“The information you gave us matches up perfectly with multiple unsolved murders over the past several weeks. I can promise you the Court will send that putrid excuse of a justice to rot for the rest of his days, if they don’t haul him straight to the gallows. Although, that being said, I would have preferred you informed us with less… theatrics.”

Kane merely smirked as I turned toward the lieutenant. “So I take it that means we’re free ta go?”

“Of course. You are free men, and Magnimar thanks you for your service. However, I request you stay in the city for a while longer. The Lord-Mayor himself has requested an audience with you over luncheon at his estate. He has matters of a sensitive nature to discuss, if you will permit.”

I quickly set myself onto my feet and hurried toward the door.

“Ye had me at lunch, lad!”

------------------------------------

I appreciate the Lord-Mayor’s taste in fine dining. Too bad I can’t say the same for the man himself. Haldmeer Grobaras looks like a walrus in a noble’s clothing. He’s got the tongue of a politician, that’s for sure, and I couldn’t help but notice at around the third course that there was an awful lot of food about the room that the people under the bridge would have appreciated. I kept my opinions on social justice to myself, though. I’m not in a position to question positions of authority.

At least, not yet.

The rotund mayor flipped through Kane’s notebook between bites, occasionally shaking his head in disgust. Unfortunately I can’t transcript his entire conversation from memory, as he’s a verbose fellow, as nobles tend to be. However, he was smart enough to gather Xanesha’s position as the kingpin of the cult’s operations without any input from us. Clearly there’s more than a silver tongue and jowls in that head. He also offered us quite a sum of cash for our “services”. As if that wasn’t enough, he also granted Kane the deed to Foxglove’s townhouse: Kane accepted, citing the need for a “base of operations” in the city. I have a suspicion the mayor was just showing off his obscene wealth and influence, but I digress.

He then offered us an opportunity for further reward.

Grobaras told us of an isolated outpost on the eastern frontier of Magnimar’s sphere of influence called Fort Rannick. Being on the edge of civilization, the fort is manned by an somewhat unprofessional militia, so reports from the fort are sporadic at best. However, the outpost has gone completely silent over the last few weeks. The recent events in Magnimar have kept the guard occupied, and so the mayor charged us with taking the week-long journey upriver to investigate.

To my surprise, Kane took up the offer almost immediately. Normally he’s at least a touch reluctant to take up any task that not within his imminent plans. Something tells me he knows something we don’t. I took up the offer as well, of course, as being helpful is kind of my thing.

“Most excellent!” Grobaras responded, forking a large bite of broiled trout into his gullet. “I’ll have your guide informed of your arrival. I trust you will want to make way with haste.”

“I could use some time to prepare, actually,” Kane piped up. “A week, perhaps?”

The mayor nearly choked on his fish. “A week? I should hope not! It’s a week’s journey up the river by ferry as it is! No, good sir, I cannot allow such a delay. Who knows what could threaten our borders? Besides, our guide is already impatient with the delayed response as it is.”

“Guide, eh?” I queried as Kane sulked. “I hope he’s properly battle-hardened and survival-fit, considering our luck.”

“She is quite qualified for the task, I assure you, Mr. Buradum,” the mayor replied. “I’d venture to say Ms. Andosana is the finest ranger this side of Korvosa.”

I blinked.

“Andosana… Shalelu Andosana?”

“Why, yes. Are you familiar with her?”

I did my best to stifle a snicker. “We’ve been, eh… acquainted, aye.”

“Very good. I’ll let her know to be waiting for you on the morrow. Now if you excuse me, I have some business to attend to. Damn Council is getting uppity again. Farewell for now.” The bloated mayor struggled slightly to lift himself from the chair, shoving a giant pastry into his mouth for good measure.

As Grobaras left the room, Kane shoved himself from his chair and quickly gathered his belongings. I figured he was ready to go on another esoteric study trip alone, so I was surprised when he approached me.

“Come with me. I’ve got some errands I must run before we set off, and if possible I’d like to grab materials to enchant some of your gear. I assume you won’t protest?”

Shoot. I was planning to finally get a bit more free time to explore the city’s art in peace for an afternoon. He made a tempting offer though, so I reminded Talathel to meet us at the dock in the morning before following Kane out into the city.

------------------------

“I’m tellin’ ye, Kane, it’s not worth getting’ all these materials for a hammer that isn’t even forged yet,” I said in frustration, carrying the elf’s bag of obscure materials. We had been running up and down odd-smelling shops in questionable areas of town all afternoon. I pulled out a small pouch of strange black dust and held it to my face. “What even is this stuff?”

“Bat guano,” he said distractedly as he scanned through a long, illegible list in his hand, scratching items out along the way. I grimaced and gently replaced the pouch, taking great care not to spill it.

He suddenly stopped, scratching off the last item on his list. “Here we are. Last stop.”

The stoop he stopped before hardly distinguished itself from the others along the street, and it certainly did not look like a public store. If anything, it slowly disintegrating façade made it difficult to believe that anyone lived there at all. Kane seem undeterred by the building’s ramshackle appearance. He strode up to the front stoop and firmly rapped upon the peeling oak door. After a long while, the latch finally squeaked open and a shadowed face peeked from the darkness. Then, with a gleeful gasp, the door swung wide open, revealing a beaming young gnome woman, her shocking pink hair tied back into a ponytail and dressed in a heavily stained smock.

“Rhothy! My, look how much you’ve changed since I saw you last! How good of you to stop by and see little ol’ me! Though, I guess it’s Lord Rhothomir Kane now, isn’t it?”

“Not to you, Cadence,” Kane said. A rare genuine grin had formed on his face. I couldn’t help but share it.

“Oh Rhothy, you’re such a sweetheart!” Cadence said. I’m sorry, what? “Your father was so worried about you once he discovered you had the gift, but just look at you now! And you’ve even brought a friend along!”

I stepped forward and bowed deep. Her bubbly enthusiasm was getting contagious. “Barun Buradum, at yer service, Miss Cadence.”

“Oh, how rude of me, leaving you two outside in the chill like this. I’m sure Barun is so eager to see the collection! Come in, come in!”

The Collection?

I followed Kane and the cheerful gnome inside, and lost my breath as the walls exploded with color.

Every square inch of wall was coated in thin sheets of cardstock, about two inches wide and half a foot long. Each single slip was adorned with illumination that put even the greatest works of scripture to shame. No two seemed alike: a delicate swan upon a lake here, a nearly lifelike drawing of two dancing maidens there, a perfectly accurate chart of the stars over there. The entire hall fluttered like a swelling sea as I shut the door behind me.

“Oh Rhothy, I absolutely must show you what I’ve been working on!” Cadence squeaked excitedly as we entered. “Forgive me, I’ll be just a moment!” Without another word, she rounded a corner into some hidden chamber.

“This is incredible, Kane!” I said as soon as the gnome left the room. “How’d ye come to meet this lady?” I turned around to find that Kane’s kind smile had disappeared, replaced by a worried frown. He plucked an image of a whale swimming upon the sea wrapped in fine filigree from the wall, turning it in his hands.

“I’m not here just to admire art, Barun,” he said.

“Primalists aren’t common in the Kane line. Most of my family are wizards, or otherwise sorcerers of the more stable variety. It’s not uncommon for several generations to pass without the Primal strain emerging. But when it does emerge… it tends to leave a lasting impression. Cadence is a direct result of that.

“She was the target of a spell cast by one of my ancestors, a primalist, four generations ago. What she may or may not have done to deserve such a spell is lost to history. All that’s remembered is that the spell failed catastrophically. The gnome in the next room is completely insane, driven mad by the spell. Her only goal in life now is to create these bookmarks, to the point that it’s all she can ever do until the end of her days. Even her true name is lost to her. Cadence is merely the family’s nickname for her.” Kane pulled out his notebook and slid the thin sheet of paper into the spine.

My original awe was replaced with vague horror as Kane’s story unfolded. “Four generations?” I finally said after a long, thoughtful pause. “But fer an elf… that must be near four hundred years!”

“Six hundred, actually,” Kane corrected, without any of his usual condescension. “Kanes tend to take a while to settle down. But therein lies the second effect of that primal failure. It became obvious, before long, that Cadence had lost the ability to age naturally. She is effectively immortal.

“When the Family learned of this tragedy, we did the only thing we could: we took her in. Ever since that day, the Family has been doing everything for her that she can no longer do for herself. She’s our responsibility. We may not be in control of our chaotic magicks, but it is the Family’s pejorative to bear the burden of their consequences.”

I was completely speechless. Silently, Kane reached into his pocket and retrieved a small, chipped stone. I could see the distinct pattern of smooth human skin upon its unchipped face.

“Gods save me from more burdens such as these,” he muttered.

“A fool is he who believes a stone once split may ever be whole again.”

Kane and I both jumped. Neither of us had noticed Cadence return from the other chamber, a particularly fine bookmark in her grasp. She looked curiously at the stone for a moment, but quickly returned to her wide-eyed beam. I found it difficult to meet her gaze again.

“Here you are, Rhothy! I spent nearly three months working on this one. Sometimes the scrollwork can be so frustrating!”

“It’s perfect, Cadence.” Kane tried his best to return his previous kind smile. He fished a pouch of gold coins from his robes and nonchalantly set it on the table beside him. “I’m sure you must want to return to your work, so Barun and I should probably be going.”

“So soon? Oh, you Kanes can never stick around in one place for too long! I’ll see you to the door.”
Kane carefully placed his new masterpiece of a bookmark back into his bag as the furtive gnome led us toward the door.

“Do stop by any time, Rhothy! It’s so nice to have guests,” Cadance said behind us as we walked out the door. “Oh! And Mr. Buradum!”

I looked back toward the gnome in surprise, not expecting to be acknowledged. Her cheery grin had fallen from her face.

“Madness upon that most divine, madness to believe a soul may be measured, weighed, sifted, or sorted.”

She stood deathly still for a moment, then in an instant her cheery smile returned. She waved kindly and gently shut the door. I stood stunned for a moment, finally looking to Kane for some explanation. His look of concern was not reassuring.

I did not spend time in the tavern that night, but went straight to bed. I had far too much to think about.

-------------------------

Shalelu was leaned against a piling as we approached, carefully teasing the fletching of her arrows. When we finally got into earshot, she replaced the arrow into the quiver and instinctively turned and outstretched her arm in greeting. Her jaw dropped when she found who she was greeting.

“Well, then. I’ll be damned!” she finally exclaimed. I laughed and gladly took her hand. “You are the last people I expected to see today.”

“You and me both, lass.” I replied. “Come on, let’s hop on this bloated raft and set sail. I’ll catch ye up on what we’ve been up to during the trip.”

Shalelu nodded. “Yes, of course. But…” she paused and counted heads with her finger. “Aren’t you missing someone? The archer boy?”

My friendly grin dropped from my face. “Aye. Tyvelian. He…”

Before I could continue, Talathel suddenly spouted the first full sentence he’d spoken since we’d been arrested.

“He got a little bit too stoned.”

Shalelu looked at the druid with confusion as I turned toward him, eyes wide and mouth agape.

“What the fuck, lad?”

Talathel merely shrugged. I buried my face into my palm before turning back toward the ranger, who was still just as confused.

“I’ll… explain on the boat. Come on.”

I gestured Shalelu toward the waiting ferry, passing the aged ferryman as he eyed each of the party boarding the boat: a dwarf, a ranger, a druid dressed in dog furs, a blue-skinned elf three feet tall followed by a more proportional elf in a fine tailcoat, two horses, and a walking tree.

“Fucking adventurers,” I heard him grumble as he pushed off from the pier.

-----------------------

“He fell.”

“Damn shame,” Shalelu finally said, with the sad but restrained tone of someone who had lost a comrade before. “He seemed a capable fighter in his own right.”

“Aye, that n’ more. WIsh I could give him more n’a simple headstone out in the fields. Though I suppose he’d want something as low-key.” I finally shook the frown from my face. “Enough about us, I think. What’s brought you up the river?”

“I can’t compare to your adventures, I’m afraid. You definitely shut the goblins up for the time being, that’s for sure. So, for the most part I’ve been scouting the woods and keeping watch on any further threats. Not as exciting as your last few weeks, but…” she paused and glanced toward the mage, who as usual had his nose buried into some obscure edition. “Considering his antics, I’m not sure if that’s such a bad thing.”

“Lords, yeh’ve got that right,” I replied, taking a sip from a travel keg. “You should have seen the fireworks show he cooked up at the clock tower. I bet they saw that flash all the way in Sandpoint!”

The ranger laughed. “I wouldn’t be surprised, considering what I’ve seen of him. As for what’s bringing me to Fort Rannick…” her smile faded away, a familiar steely frown replacing it. “I have a personal connection with it. My stepfather is stationed there. I won’t go into details, but just know my relationship with Jakardros is strained, at best. That said, I don’t want the man dead. I want to head up and see what, if anything, has happened to him.”

I nodded. “Fair enough, I suppose.” This girl clearly has a lot of deep seated issues she needs to work out.

------------------------------

The journey upriver took seven days, lazily rowing against the current of the river. I spent most of the time chatting with Shalelu and crafting various knickknacks, while Kane predictably stayed buried in his books the entire week. Talathel was oddly silent for most of the voyage, when he wasn’t tending to Marin. I worry his exposure to so much death and destruction is starting to bear on him.

Finally, we reached our port of call, so to speak: a small speck of a fishing village called Turtleback Ferry. While Patsy oversaw the transport of our luggage to the local tavern, I decided to give Talathel some much needed social interaction by carrying him along to ask the locals about any news from the fort.

Rumors were anemic, at best. No one had any news from the fort, but from the looks of it no one really seemed to care. We were on the verge of giving up when something much more interesting emerged.

While talking with a grizzled middle-aged fisherman, I noticed that he was fidgeting uncomfortably from time to time. It looked as though he was trying to keep something covered on a small portion of his back. I noticed Talathel widen his eyes slightly as the fisherman finally had enough of us and walked away. The druid whispered into my ear.

“Dude, did you see the tattoo on his back?”

Before long, we both started seeing small but distinct tattoos on nearly every other person in town, despite their paranoid attempts to keep them covered at all times. The design was simple, but chillingly familiar: a seven-pointed star. I don’t know what is up in this town, but given our history with that Sihedron, I do not like it one bit.

Then, as Kane finally approached us down the dusty street to report our settlement, we all noticed the crazy man talking to himself.

He clearly wasn’t a local. Everyone in town was dressed simply for the rough work of either fishing or logging. This man, on the other hand, was clad in a tattered travelling cloak, with a stained red scarf covering his face. The sharply pointed ears also gave him away, though their lack of length suggested human blood. What was most bizarre, however, was the pristine sword scabbard along his hip. And the fact that he seemed to be muttering to himself in a strange, two-toned conversation with himself.

I wondered if Habe would still be taking patients after our encounter with him.

Clearly sensing a kindred spirit, Kane calmly approached the man. The half-elf looked at him with crazed eyes.

“What’s your story?” Kane asked.

“My fuckin’ business, mate.” the half-elf grumbled in reply. His accent was low and gravelly, and certainly not of Varisian stock. He turned away and looked about to stride down the street.

“Well, that was rather rude.” The voice came from the half-elf, yet it was distinctly higher-pitched and touched with that noble flair not unlike that of the late Foxglove. At this point, unlike Kane, I was fairly creeped out by this whole affair and wanted nothing to do with yet another insane person.

“Aye, er… I think we should go.” I said.

The half-elf stopped in his tracks and turned toward me. “Yeah, go back to yer fucken’ home, mate.” The gravelly voice once more.

“Excuse me?” I replied, slightly peeved at his gall.

“Well, sorry for trying to be sociable.” The higher voice again.

Suddenly, Talathel grabbed my shoulder and pointed toward the elaborate scabbard on the man’s waist. Before I could figure out what the druid was signaling, Kane assembled the puzzle for me.

“Swords are not known for being particularly sociable,” he said, walking toward the man and extending his hand.

“Now see, there are some intelligent people to talk to around here. Just give them a chance!” said the refined voice. This time the man was close enough that I could see that his mouth did not move as the voice spoke.

“Yer talkin’ to the wrong fuckin’ person.” the half-elf grumbled.

“Oh, don’t mind him. He’s a bit rough around the edges, if you catch my meaning. You can call me Dawnbreaker. Sorry about the pretentious name, my creator had a bit of a flamboyant streak, so to speak.”

“Charmed. I’d shake your hand but… you know.” Kane replied.

“Gods damn it,” I groaned as I pulled out the travel keg and took a deep swig.
------------------

Dawnbreaker and his… bearer, I guess is the correct term? - had little to tell us about Fort Rannick, but they did reveal something the townsfolk had failed to mention. Apparently there was a rather popular floating casino that sat just upriver that had burned down and sunken (“Unfortunately sunken” the man noted) recently. Despite its popularity, the locals were rather tight-lipped about it.

I finally decided that talking swords weren’t the most insane thing I’d seen yet (which is really something, now that I think about it. Lords, what have I gotten myself into?) and tried to be cordial. I gripped Fury, as is proper warrior etiquette, and prepared to step into a bow.

“Barun Buradum, at yer servi-”

“Want to compare lengths then, eh?” the half-elf said as he eyed my hammer.

I didn’t even know how to respond.

Dawnbreaker, on his part, responded with a tinny, slightly disturbing laugh. Kane turned toward me and gave me a signature condescending smirk, which happened to turn his left hand towards the scabbard. Suddenly the sword’s laughter stopped abruptly.

“Unsheath me.” he said, the refined charm turned cold and bitter. The half-elf complied without hesitation, drawing the sword from its sheathe with both hands and facing the hilt outward toward Kane in a single, smooth motion. It was now clear how massive the sword was: a gleaming steel bastard sword at least my own height in length. I hurriedly took up a ready stance, prepared to strike if it turned out the sword was also bipolar.

“Where did you get that ring?” the sword said, slowly and deliberately, its voice laced with anger.

“What ring?” Kane replied, utterly nonplussed by the magic sword the size of his own body.

“The ring of one of my hated enemies. Where. Did you. Get it?”

Kane raised his hand, prodding one of the rings he had pulled from the charred corpse of the Barghest back in Thistletop.“Probably from one of your hated enemies. In this case, I chased him around with a fireball until he died,” he said with a tad too much relish.

The sword was silent for a long moment. Finally, it replied.

“A trophy, then?”

The sword apparently sent some unheard message to its bearer, as the half-elf relaxed his grip slightly.

“I suppose that means we are after the same target.”

“Indeed,” replied Kane. “And we probably have a better lead on it that you do. Would you care to accompany us to the fort then?”

“Are there people to kill?” the half-elf said.

Oh cripes. Kane, what the hell have you dragged me into now?

--------------------

We’ve decided to hold of on heading toward the fort until the morning, as traversing the frontier at night is foolhardy at best. Thus, I’ve been left to rest in this ramshackle room and try to figure out where Torag is taking me in all this. Is this even a part of his plan, or is he saving his designs for whatever final confrontation is surely in my future? Is it possible none of the past few weeks is even worthy of note compared to what is to come? I shudder to think what that could mean. But whatever comes, I must stay strong, for



GODS DAMN IT. FINE, FORGET THE MONOLOGUE. I’M GOING TO GO TELL KANE TO KEEP HIS CAT IN HIS BLOODY ROOM.

Torag, please shield my sanity from these elves.

-BARUN

[Gielnor]

FROM THE JOURNAL OF BARUN BURADUM
21st Lamashtan, 4707 A.R.

Guh. I’m not even in the mood to try and add a witty opening to this journal entry. Kane just dropped a bomb tonight that I’m still trying to come to terms with. I’ll just start writing and hopefully the churning will help me arrange my thoughts.

After a rough night’s sleep at the inn (despite my scolding, Kane failed to keep his damn cat in check. It jumped onto my bed at least 3 times last night) we gathered ourselves and readied to head out toward the inn. Despite a whole night to sleep on it, Kane still decided to bring the lewd man and his magical talking sword. I’ll admit, after seeing him today, the man can fight, but I still have my reservations about his intentions. Intelligent swords aren’t renowned for their honesty. But I digress.

As it happens, our journey was detoured barely after we left from Turtleback Ferry. As we crossed the old rickety bridge across the river just outside the town, Talathel suddenly stopped in his tracks. He perked his pointed ears and looked curiously towards the woods just across the water.

“Did you guys hear a cat?” he said, pointing towards the dark forest.

We stood dead silent and looked towards the woods, and sure enough the calls of some wildcat began to echo through the trees. But it wasn’t long before it was accompanied by the baying of hounds, and not long after… a song. Of sorts.

“KITTY, KITTY, WHERE YOU GO?
YOU SO FAST N’ ME SO SLOW
BUT SOON DA DOG WILL CATCH YOU UP,
AND THEN ME GONNA EAT YOU UP!”

Whoever it was stomping through those woods, it sure wasn’t a bard. It also sounded neither human nor friendly. Despite our appointed mission, we decided to dive into the woods and investigate.

The forest was a tangled mess of gnarled trees and thorny bushes, but thanks to the changing of the seasons our path was mostly unblocked. Within just a few minutes Talathel and Shalelu guided us to the source of the increasingly panicked wildcat cries. Shalelu gasped when we emerged into the clearing to find a midnight blue cougar, streaked with bolts of blazing orange.

“Kibb!” she shouted, sprinting toward the cat. The wildcat looked about to leap at her in joy, but jolted and roared in pain as it pulled its leg.

“Kibb?” I asked, wondering if elves are on a first-name basis with all wild animals.
“This is my stepfather’s firepelt!” Shalelu said with a look of worry on her face, stepping toward the trap. “But they’re nearly inseparable… which means he must be nearby! C’mon Kibb, let’s get you out of-”

The ranger was interrupted as, with a giant roar and a crumbling of branches, an absolute mess of an ogre stomped into the clearing, accompanied by five mangy, tick-covered hounds. Calling it “ugly” would be a compliment. His body seemed to be a clay model built by a blind man who had been raised by wolves, then left in the sun for about a month.

“GIT YER STINKY HANDS OFF MAH DINNER!” the mass of flesh roared as he charged forward, clearly unable to understand the concept of irony. I raised my hammer, ready to strike him as he approached, but he had barely made a step when he suddenly stumbled and slumped down onto the ground, snoring before he even hit the dirt. I looked to my side to find our new tagalong smirking as he dropped his hand.

“Oh, I always hate it when you do that,” Dawnbreaker said with a disappointed tone. “It’s no fun stabbing a foe that can’t even fight back! Though… Granted, I’m not sure I want to be stabbing that… thing.”

The dogs looked at their master confusedly for a moment, giving Kane just enough time to thoroughly cook two of them in a ray of fire. Shalelu whipped around from her prodding at the trap and immediately loosed two arrows in quick succession, driving them deep into one of the dog’s shoulders. Amazingly, this only managed to make the dog angrier. It barked rabidly and started dashing toward the elf. Thinking quickly, Talathel hucked his spear at the attacking mutt and impaled it clear though the chest, this time stopping it dead in its tracks. Literally, I suppose.

Before the remaining two dogs could make their own attacks, I headed them off and charged into them, cleanly swinging my hammer into both of them in a single swing. Yet again, their endurance seemed supernatural, as they responded only by growling and making ready to leap at my face. Suddenly, there was a deep roaring noise behind me. I spun about, expecting to deal with a grumpy ogre, but instead found Marin charging toward me with frightening speed, emitting a deep, resonant roar. I rolled out of his way just as he slammed into the two hounds with such force that they were tossed into the large tree nearly twenty feet behind, crumbling limply into a motionless bloody heap.

The ogre remained asleep, and so I approached it with hammer raised ready to dispatch it before it became a threat.

‘STOP!” Kane shouted. I complied, looking toward him. “Keep him alive, for now. I want to see what he knows.” I highly doubted the ogre having much profound insight, but I reluctantly agreed and retrieved the sorcerer’s valuable rope from my pouch. There was a faint clicking noise as Shalelu finally pried the rusty bear trap wide.

In an instant, the firepelt leaped from its trap, bounded towards the prone ogre, and ripped its throat out with a single bite and a torrential spray of blood.

Kane said.

-----------------

“Kibb here says the ogre came from a farmhouse to the north, not far from here,” Talathel said, interrupting his purr-like speech with the cougar. It was admittedly much less creepy than his bird language. “Jakardros and two other dudes are being held there… Black Arrows, he calls them?”

“That’s what Rannick’s garrison calls themselves.” Shalelu said with a frown. “They must have been captured by the ogres.”

“Yeah, sounds about right. Kibb says there’s about ten of ‘em out there. Maybe a couple of other… hm? prrr grrwwl prr… things too, he says. Not sure what that means, man.”

“I’m guessin’ that means these freaks are keepin’ even freakier company.” I responded, wiping the last of the ogre’s throat blood from my armor. “We best get there quickly. Somethin’ tells me this detour may be more important than the Fort itself right now. Shalelu, Talathel, ye both scout ahead through the woods, an’ give us eyes on that farm. I want ta make sure we’re strikin’ first.” The two elves nodded, bounding into the woods with the cat following close behind. I pointed myself roughly north and led the rest of us deeper into the brush.

The trees soon began to divide into a makeshift footpath. We slowed our pace, taking care to keep our armor and footsteps as quiet as possible. Well, me and the mysterious stranger did. Kane more or less just walked along without making a noise. I think he may have been showing off again. The thick trees suddenly parted to reveal what even goblins would have trouble calling a building. I drew the party to a halt just before the trees rounded the “property line,” so to speak. Squinting into the dense overgrowth, I finally spotted Shalelu’s shining eyes poking through the branches. She had evidently seen me long before I saw her. The ranger pointed toward the farm, then raised a single finger. One ogre, just around the corner. I nodded and drew my finger across my neck.

I broke into a hard run as soon as I heard the ogre roar in pain, the two elves behind me easily keeping pace. We rounded the break in the treeline just in time to see Kibb bring the ten-foot mass of flesh tumbling to the ground with a pounce. Kane waved and chanted as we ran toward the ogre, chucking fire downrange with excessive zeal. The ogre finally got back onto his feet and wreaked vengeance on the cat with a punch hard enough to send it flying, but this only managed to piss him off. He bounded back toward the ogre and bit hard into his leg. The ogre roared in pain and turned toward the cat, just in time for Kane’s second spell to come in from behind and knock his lights out.

With the only visible threat taken care of, Shalelu and Talathel emerged from the forest, and we made our way towards what I assume the ogres think is a barn. We gathered before the hobbled-together pine doors. Kane requested that Shalelu and Patsy keep watch out by the farm house and make sure no one jumped us from behind, then let me wail on the door.

The wooden planks tumbled to the ground with a thump, leaving three particularly hideous ogres blinking in the sudden sunlight. One had a lumpy potato for a head and a dangling useless third arm sprouting from its back, the second had gigantic milky eyeballs the size of teacups, and the third constantly twitched and jumped on its two massively undersized legs. Before they could properly respond to our arrival, Dawnbreaker’s bearer raised his hand. A familiar sense of energy coursed through me. The stranger then shouted something I couldn’t understand, making Kane snicker even as he sprayed fire into the barn. Kane told me later he had shouted “Come at me, you children of incest!” in giant. He assured me that some of the subtleties of the language are lost in translation. Somehow I doubt it.

I heard a familiar stomping noise come from behind, and darted out of the way to let the rampaging treant into the building. He grabbed the extra-armed ogre with a gnarled fist and used him as a makeshift throwing weapon, hurling him with such force at the skittish bloke as to kill the projectile outright. Talathel meekly followed him inside, encouraging him with noted restraint.

The struck ogre lept to his stubby feet. He seemed upset about having his brother thrown at him, and along with his fish-eyed kin began to beat on the tree. This was as hilariously ineffective as you might imagine. Since they were so distracted by wailing on a giant piece of wood, I was easily able to waltz in and clock the jumpy fella to the ground.

The stranger decided at this point that he had enough of standing back and chucking spells like some pansy mage. I saw him dart from behind the tree, his sword coated in a sheen of unnatural ice crystals. Once again, he shouted something in giant. Kane didn’t give me a translation for this one, but by his groan and subsequent facepalm I can only assume the worst. Luckily his physical strikes are better than his combat ones, as with a single thrust the final ogre was rendered into a bleeding heap upon the floor.

I stepped up to the stranger and lightly applauded. “Haha! Well done!” I said. “It’s nice to see someone who can actually swing a proper weapon around here.” I looked toward the doorway and smirked as Kane made vaguely threatening gestures in my direction, before entering the barn and climbing one of the rickety stairs to the overhanging balcony above. A large wooden partition split the building roughly in half, pierced only by a large door just behind the mangled corpses of the ogres, and by a much smaller door upon the balcony. Kane gently opened the balcony door and peered inside.

Meanwhile, I asked Talathel to get Marin to grab the large door by the hinges and chuck it into the room towards whatever baddies might be waiting inside, because he has proving himself very adept at throwing shit into other shit.
“Yeah, don’t do that.” Kane said as he pulled his head out of the door. “There’s prisoners chained against the wall in here. I’d rather you not kill them.” A fine point, Mr. Mage.

I opened the door with much less fanfare. The room inside was full of bloody cages and makeshift stockades. Just as Kane described, three men were slumped against the wall in the far corner of the room, covered in ugly bruises and cuts and clad only in rags. The most glaring feature of the space, however, was the massive funnel-shaped hole in the middle of the floor, coated suspiciously in spider webs. I quietly signaled the rest of the group into the room.

I heard Kane cast a spell from the balcony. A strange chattering noise suddenly emerged from the great hole in the ground, like the clacking of dozens of wood plates against each other. We stood in silence, staring intently at the inky darkness. Then from the hole emerged a thin, plated leg the size of a tree trunk, followed by another, and another, and another. A monstrous bulk finally pulled itself from the depths, and for a moment I could only stare in shocked awe. Before us was a spider the size of an elephant, its dripping face disturbingly alike to a human skull. It seemed to consider us a moment with its dark, beady eyes before emitting a terrible screech.

“Oh, great. THANKS FOR WAKING IT UP, KANE!” I shouted toward the balcony. The sorcerer responded only with an annoyed frown and a gout of fire into the spider’s abdomen. The spider shrieked again and swung a massive leg across the top of the railing. The sorcerer dived to the ground just as the limb passed overhead. The stranger attempted to mutter yet another spell, but the spiders only reaction was to swipe another leg in his direction, which the half-elf neatly darted away from.

Then the spider set his beady eyes on Talathel. It darted forward with alarming speed and sunk its dripping fangs deep into the druid’s shoulder. He shouted in pain, and I could see the color was already beginning to drain from his face. Somehow, though, Talathel gripped his recently acquired scythe and slashed his retreater across the face as it pulled away, eliciting another shriek as the druid stumbled out of the room. As the spider shuffled backward, I darted forward and with two clean swiped dented in one of its legs like a signpost.

The stranger once again tried to show his wherewithal in close combat by once again sheathing his sword in ice and charging forth, but this time the nimble spider managed to dart its bulk out of his way.

Then I felt a terrifyingly familiar warble in the fabric of reality. I looked up towards the mage expectantly, but… nothing seemed to happen.

This terrifies me.

Before I could conjure end-of-the-world scenarios for whatever Kane had just done, a deafening bass roar shook the rickety walls of the barn. Apparently Marin was none too happy to see his best friend and caretaker being poisoned to death. In a berserker rage he charged into the room and punched the spider with blow after blow, knocking bits of chitin and green blood into the walls with each strike. Finally he raised his hand and brought it straight down upon the center of the spider’s body. The oversized pest was knocked down just low enough for me to step forward and bring the hammer down straight upon its head in a spray of bug juice.

As the twitching body slumped to the ground, Patsy and Shalelu finally dashed into the barn, obviously alerted by the massive slamming noises coming from inside.

“OY! Kane!” I shouted toward the balcony after looking toward both the unconscious prisoners in one room and a heavily bleeding druid in the other. “Toss me that healing wand!”

“Just keep track of the charges.” he replied as he tossed the wand to the floor. “Patsy! Undo the manacles on those gentlemen in the corner, won’t you?”

----------------

The whispers followed us as we gently carried the unconscious men through into the town and towards the inn. Clearly the limp bodies we were hauling through the streets were no strangers to the locals. Thankfully they had all survived the ordeal, but they were in no shape to talk to us until late in the afternoon the next day.

“Yep, they all seem fine, man.” Talathel said as he finally stepped from the makeshift hospital, nursing a weak restoration potion for his own benefit. “The head honcho in particular seems eager to talk to ya, Kane.”

“Actually,” Shalelu interrupted, “I’d like to have a chance to talk to Jakardros myself. Alone.” She glared slightly in my direction. She certainly looked slightly peeved, but more in a generally grumpy way then a “I’m going to murder this man while you all are not looking” manner.

“Yeah, go on in,” I replied. “Just don’t rough him up. He’s in a bad enough shape as he is.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not here to hurt him. I just want to… catch up.” With that she stepped inside, firmly shutting the door behind her.

I could make out the tone of a slightly heated “discussion” building up on the other side, but as for content I could gather nothing. It’s not in my moral build to eavesdrop on other people’s private conversations anyway. Instead, I pulled out my whittling kit and make a bit more progress on the devotional totem I started on the ferry. I must have gotten very involved with it, as I completely lost track of time until an angry shout suddenly reported from outside. I looked up in surprise to fine Kane had disappeared.

Hoh boy.

I quickly hurried downstairs and out the front door to find a feeble old man shouting angrily at a pile of ash by his feet, surrounded by a small but growing crowd of confused locals.

“‘Scuse me, beg yer pardon,” I said, elbowing toward the crowd toward the elderly man. “Um, sir? What’s going on?”

“If I knew what the hell just happened, I’d tell you, son!” the old man barked back. “I was just coming back from the market with vittles for my dear Nammy, when alluva sudden it all turned to dust in my hands! Poof, no warnin’, just like that! What am I supposed to tell Nammy now? That we’re goin’ hungry tonight owin’ to spontaneous combustion??”

I patted the man’s shoulder, pulling a pair of silver coins from my pocket and trying to hide the growing feeling of frustration from reaching my face. Fucking Kane.

“Here, take these. Get yerself somethin’ nice for the missus,” I said, resting the coins in his hand. “I’ll get ta the bottom of this.”

I searched up and down this ramshackle town for all of an hour, but alas the mage was nowhere to be seen. I wasn’t even in search of retribution: i just wanted to know what the hell happened. THough I assume he would know himself, which given his magic repertoire so far may be unlikely. I finally threw my hands up and returned to the inn, only to find Kane waiting at the top of the corridor as if nothing had happened.

“Kane? Did ye have anythin’ ta do with an unwarranted destruction of groceries earlier today?” I asked.

“Mm?”

Before I could elaborate, the bedroom door swung open. A weather-worn man with close-shorn hair and a thin beard (by dwarven standards, at least) emerged through the opening, Shalelu peering over his shoulder a few feet beyond. He leaned his weight on the frame and scanned the corridor, finally resting his eyes on Kane.

“You the guys I have to thank for getting us out of that slop trough? Good. We need to talk.”

---------------

“It was an ambush, that’s all I know for sure.” Jakardros paused to take a swig from the dirty tavern mug. Normally the common room of an inn wouldn’t be a very good place to discuss state security, but in such a small town the room was completely abandoned by midnight. Even the barman had retired to his room once we had ordered our last drinks.

“As for why, or how they managed to pull it off, I can’t say. We were on patrol when it happened. Kaven, Vale, myself, and a dozen others besides. By the time we returned to the fort, the ogrekin had already laid waste to it. Left no one alive. We tried to take it back when we saw the smoke billowing out of the tower. Us three are the only ones who made it out alive.”

“Why didn’t the ogres take you out with ‘em?” I asked.

“Who knows? You saw the inbred little bastards. Probably just demented fucks who wanted to have fun torturing us before flaying us into tapestries.” He took another swig. “We have to take back that fort. This town’s in danger as long as the ogres hold it, and gods know what kind of bedlam this will stir up if word reaches Magnimar that their first line of defense has been captured. Luckily, I have a plan.” He firmly planted his mug on the table and looked about the room.

“Now, no insult to the memories of my men, gods rest their souls, but they were all a bit wet behind the ears. You fine folk, on the other hand, clearly know sword and spell front to back. If we concentrate that power just right, we can blow those backwoods idiots out of the water before they even know what hit ‘em. I even know of a secret back route into the fortress.”

“You want to take them from behind, then?” the cloaked half-elf growled. The table collectively groaned before Jakardros continued.

“There is one slight hangup, however.” He smirked and lifted up his hands, showing his complete lack of arms and armor. “I’m a bit underserved at the moment.”

“Yeah, we didn’t exactly have time to grab your belongings,” Kane replied. “We were more focused on getting you out of there alive rather than trying to get your stuff.”

“And I thank you for that. We might not be speaking now if you had arrived much later. That being said, I’m useless without my blade and, quite frankly, I don’t want those filthy bastards to lay their hands on my gear for another minute. The sooner me and my men are back in fighting shape, the sooner we can retake my fort.”

“Ah. That brings me neatly to this.” Kane said. He opened his notebook and pulled a crumpled sheet of paper, doing his best to roll it out flat onto the table. The message upon it was written in neat, flowing script, but its was far more sinister.



“How did you get this?!” Jakardros fumed as the mage finished reading the note aloud. “My men might still be alive if we knew about this!”

“I pulled it from the corpse of the addressee,” A bit of an oversimplification, I think, but more believable than the actual circumstance I suppose. “As you can see, the assault on Fort Rannick was not an isolated incident. Rather, it is but one cog in the plan to “harvest” this town. I spent most of the day trying to determine the other pieces. The results are troubling.

“You’ve no doubt heard of the fire at the floating casino upriver. You may have also seen the marks upon the backs of some of the villagers. From what I can gather, they were told it’s a ‘VIP’ pass of sorts, giving them access to private tables, more favorable dealers, ‘private amenities,’ et cetera. However, based on both my personal research and our rather grisly collective experience last week, it’s certain their true purpose is to cultivate sin, specifically greed. These villagers are cattle, and if Foxglove’s murders were any indication, the only way to harvest them is by wholesale slaughter. The burning of the casino was just the first.”

The table was deathly silent for a long while. Jakardros finally broke the silence after what seemed like an eternity.

“These marks… I know them. They were placed by the woman who ran the casino. When we were trying to liberate the fort… I’m not sure of this, there was a lot of fighting going on… but I think I heard her name called out by one of the ogres. She must be the sender of this note, and the leader behind the taking of the fort. It would make a damn solid base of operations for a strike on the town.”

“Precisely,” Kane replied. “If the ogres were to regroup and charge full force into the town, the bloodshed would be colossal. And yet, it would not be total. A full frontal assault is loud and obvious, no matter how you do it. Some would manage to escape, wasting their efforts. Ideally, they will want to kill all of their targets at once, without warning. This brings me to the second result of my research, and by far the most troubling one.”

Kane withdrew a second, much larger sheet of parchment and rolled it out upon the table, revealing a map of Turtleback Ferry and the surrounding wilderness. He took a piece of charcoal in his hand and circled a thick black line east of the town that cut across the river. Behind it was drawn a massive lake.

“This is Skull’s Crossing, a dam that been holding back the lake of Storval Deep since the Thassilonian days. Local hearsay says that, right around the same time Fort Rannick was captured, a contingent of trolls took the dam for themselves and set up defensive positions there. I have no solid proof of this, but if my hunch is correct, this is the sudden strike they were looking for. They want to break the dam.”

I felt my gut drop as I looked over the map. “But… that lake is absolutely gigantic! A break in that dam would wash this town straight to the sea!”

“Exactly. At the absolute least, everything along the riverbank would be completely destroyed. Most of the marks would be killed instantly, or otherwise drowned shortly thereafter. The energy released from such a harvest would be… well, I can’t even say.”

I slammed my fist onto the table in anger. “We CAN’T allow this ta happen! Dozens of innocent people will die! We have ta stop this!”

Kane sighed. “Unfortunately, Barun, I have no good news to give you. My first plan was to convince the mayor that the town is in imminent danger. I tried to persuade him to hold a festival, or a market day, or something that will evacuate the riverbank long enough to get rid of the threat without sending the town into a panic. That would alert any spies to our plans and get them to trigger the assault early. But the mayor would have absolutely none of it. Seemed convinced I was just another looney adventurer with delusions of grandeur.

“My second plan was to try and magically remove the marks and thus remove the reason for slaughter in the first place. However, a quick look around town made something obvious. Despite everyone in town believing the casino’s VIP program was highly exclusive, in reality it was anything but. By my estimate, over a third of the town has the mark. It would take weeks to remove it from everyone in town, more than enough time for the ogres to make their move.

“So that leaves us only two options. Assault the fort and eliminate the full frontal assault, or try and take the dam and prevent the flood. In practice, however, attacking the fort is the only viable option. Amassing a full-fledged infantry unit will take time, and if we strike early enough we can end that threat before it begins. For the dam, though… there’s not much we can do. Again, this is all conjecture, but it’s my informed opinion that they’ve already rigged it to send that ruin crumbling at a moment’s notice. Any sign at all that we’re trying to take it back, and they’ll blow it wide open. Even if they haven’t rigged the dam, they could signal the fort to start their attack on the town. No one would be there to save them.”

“So yer saying… no matter what we do, there’s a chance innocents will die?” I nearly whispered, hardly wanting to believe my own words.

“I’ve exhausted all other options. The hand has been dealt, and we have to choose what to hold,” Kane replied.

The room was utterly silent, eight minds churning in torment at the sheer weight of Kane’s revelations. I cupped my head in my hands and leaned onto the table.

The half-elf, who had been silent the entire night save for his dirty joke, finally raised his hand.

“Yeah, I have a question.”

“Yes?” Kane looked toward the stranger.

“What the fuck is this shit?”

Kane looked annoyed by the question, “I think I just explained-”

“No, not just that. All of this bullshit. “Sihedrons”, rituals, murders, cultists, and a fuckin’ gnome-sized elf! Who the fuck are you people and what the fuck have you dragged me into?”

Kane sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Ugh. Fine. Let’s start from the top,I suppose.”

------------------------

“And that’s how we got here,” Kane said after two hours of exposition. The telling was mostly complete, though I had to interject a time or two when he downplayed the intensity of his “improvisations” as he put it. Jakardros and his cadre looked slightly overwhelmed by it all, but the stranger simply snickered a bit and leaned back into his chair.

“I don’t believe a word of it, elf,” he scowled.

“Heh. Frankly, I don’t blame ye,” I replied. “Wouldn’t believe half of it meself if I hadn’t seen it with me own eyes. Anythin’ of it ye do believe, per chance?”

The cloaked half-elf slowly stood up and leaned his hands on the table. He slowly shifted his eyes around the table, remaining silent just long enough for me to become uncomfortable before finally opening his mouth.

“I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret money-grubbing cults. I believe that one day The Great Dragon is going to come back and kick everyone's ass.

“I believe that all government consists of unprincipled thieves and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that this land is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while others dissolve into madness and snapping sea creatures and toxic waste.

“I believe that jade is dried dragon ejaculate , and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Chelaxian Shaman War-chief.

“I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with his group of friends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck.

“I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too.

“I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies.
“I believe that life is a game, life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.”

...what

He glanced around once again at our dumbfounded faces (with the notable exception of Kane, who merely looked slightly amused) before silently returning to his seat.

“RIGHT. OKAY. I’m clearly fated ta deal with a bunch o’nutjobs for the rest of me days,” I finally said, raising my hands in resignation before jolting from my seat. “I’m going the hell ta bed. Jakardros, we’ll get yer stuff fer ye tomorrow mornin’. And as fer the rest we’ll… we’ll deal with that when we come ta it.” Without waiting for a response, I stumbled out of the room and up the stairs to the bedchambers.

I didn’t go to bed, obviously. Can’t get the idea out of my head. A hundred people doomed to die, and not a thing I can do about it. Gods almighty. I- ack, hold on. Kane’s cat’s gotten into the room again.
-
-
-
Hm. For once she didn’t leap about my room like a bloody windstorm. She just kind of jumped up onto my lap and fell asleep. You know, Talathel insists animals can sense bad… “vibes,” I think he called them? I’m not sure if I buy it, and I’ve never been much of a cat dwarf. But maybe there’s a mote of truth to it. I’d like to think so, anyway.

The world right now is too dark to handle alone.

-BARUN