Session 2-5: They Remember
Activity Log: Vengeance for a long standing crime brings a horror back to the city
General Summary
Life has been mundane for the six days since we completed the job from the Night Manager of the MacMurdaugh to assist the Midnight Circus, courtesy of Horick. We have largely avoided their setup in the city since returning, though for myself, I have kept an eye on their general activities as a precaution. Nothing greatly out of the ordinary yet, not even a sign of Imme’ or the other performers we encountered imprisoned by the Lockland raiders. We are speaking to the medical student Rellahne after our night shift. Dawn was still a couple hours away. Horick had disappeared soon after work, his coming and goings being more erratic of late. Rellahne notes this, and wonders if it has something to do with our adventuring work. She expresses some fascination with our activities, but I try to wave it off as more of a necessary evil and nuisance. The horrors of the undead plague have not been forgotten by her, but neither has that fully dissuaded her from the idea that direct action wasn’t sometimes preferable to the doldrums of her studies. To that end, she had been working with aid groups in the city to distribute food and medicine in the areas affected by the fire. She invited us to join her if we had the spare time, and I strongly considered it. The harm inflicted on the city from the The Faceless Court would leave long lasting scars. The three of us decide to return to Crokoyle and check into Dayne’s office. As it turns out, there is only one new letter, addressed directly to Cojitron. Reading it aloud, we find an invitation from our Throat Wolf friend Jammy inviting Cojitron to dinner with her family. Some good news for a change, to find someone doing well in these troubled times. Going through our backlog of requests, we decide to check in on one of the aging ones from about two weeks ago, sent by a retired guard named Gruther Brache at the Shady Willows home. I sent a letter via courier to Lt. Freeleaf to inform him that we will look into his case as soon as possible, wanting to remain on the good side of the constabulary. Gruther’s request details his belief that someone at the home is attempting to kill him, as others have passed under, according to him, mysterious circumstances, including his pet dog recently. Thinking this to hopefully be a false alarm of some kind, but wanting to verify in any case, we make our way to Shady Willows. The retirement home is not too far from us; unlike most of the surrounding buildings in the neighborhood, it is rather well kept and clean. Symbols of the goddess Tatayne were carved into the building’s walls and pillars, denoting the traditions the home followed in spite of the lack of the true faithful in these times. An elven guard stands outside the sturdy gate, and are surprised to see visitors at this hour. We persuaded him to let us through as we had business with one of the residents. Though initially perplexed, he buys our story and unlocks the gate, telling us to check in with Dr. Ludil Pifanaesh, the lead medical professional at Shady Willows. It is not yet dawn, so the home is still silent, though a few workers are up and preparing the day's activities. One of them points us in the direction of Dr. Pifanaesh’s office. We head to the office and knock on the door, slightly surprised that she is there to receive us. Dr. Pifanaesh is a well dressed elven woman, the type that seems very well educated. Her office is filled with well organized books and files. She asks about our business at Shady Willows, and we very honestly reveal that we are here to visit Gruther on his request to our office. She asks to see the letter he sent, which we hand over, and after reading it, puts it away. We decided not to ask for it back, but we could tell that there was some nervousness while she went over its contents, though she attempted to hide it. She tells us that Gruther had passed several days ago of illness and, like the other former soldiers at the home, was rather frail and elderly. His dog Butters had in fact died accidentally through ingesting rat poison left out for vermin, but, she claimed, his paranoia was unfounded and matter of factly stated that he and his now deceased friends were dealing with old traumas from their time in service in addition to the challenges of their advanced age. They were proud of the work they did here in caring for them. We told her we wished to investigate just the same, to ensure that we could properly close out this case, to which she reluctantly agreed. Ludil then offered us breakfast at the home’s dining hall after we had finished our rounds, but cautioned that there was likely little to find. We thanked her and left, quietly agreeing between ourselves that something was slightly amiss. What we had learned, on a quick walk around the building, was that the home was founded by elves with funding provided by the city’s government; service for these veterans was somewhat lacking and they seemed more than willing to provide the money needed as long as someone was willing to put in the work in caring for the retired soldiers. Ludil Pifanaesh and the many of the other staff, particularly the ones in technical positions managing the medication and operating the home, were elven, though a smattering of orderlies, janitorial and kitchen staff were otherwise. A young orderly we speak to takes us to Gruther’s old room and opens it for us, saying they had cleared most everything out already. We ask if the old soldier had any personal belongings, to which he replies yes, though not much. He agreed to give them to us as he never had any kin visit and we were welcome to try and find them ourselves. He also told us Gruther had little to begin with and that whatever he promised us for payment to help him, he almost certainly wouldn’t have that amount. When he left, we began searching the clean room. It was spacious enough, with a comfortable looking bed, and there was almost nothing to find after ten minutes. Almost nothing, however, was not nothing; Gruther hid his secrets well, and within a small slit under his old mattress, I found a tucked away parchment. I pulled it out and discovered that it was a crudely drawn, but detailed map of the Shady Willow home and grounds. There was a spot marked in the garden outside. I hid the map after looking it over quickly, letting Cojitron and TK know of its contents. Along with the map, I found some markings carved into the bed frame while I was searching the mattress. They were too deliberate to be random scratchings, so I asked my two companions to see if they meant anything. TK was able to translate some of it, an ancient elven script to a spell of withering, now inactive. Cojitron used their wand of magic detection to confirm lingering traces of necromancy. They both surmised that at full effect, it could steadily bring harm to any nearby people over time, say, someone that was largely bedridden in this room. It was clear now that Gruther was not so paranoid after all. Would that we had arrived sooner. The orderly returns with a small box that is filled with some old clothes, a couple personal trinkets and a handful of Aurins. We chat with him briefly, and discover that despite Gruther’s generally curmudgeonly behavior, he got along well with him, sneaking him in an extra helping at dessert time. He especially liked his dog Butters, and was rather upset at his sudden death a while back. He told us about Gruther’s soldier life, saying that he would tell him stories about his time in a military unit that was tasked with busting potential threats to Ghal Pelor outside the city, including dangerous cults and other possible criminal type groups. He seemed to have spent most of his career outside the city on such campaigns, and that his friends in the same unit were also housed here, and had also mostly passed. We asked if anyone from his old unit still survived, and the orderly mentioned that there was in fact just one left, a man named Teddy Armdell. He lived several doors away and was even grumpier than Gruther. We ask the orderly if we could visit him, and though it is still rather early, agrees to after some convincing. The orderly lets us into Teddy’s room, finding him awake and leaves us to it after introducing us. Teddy suspiciously eyes us and we immediately notice that he is sickly and in a deteriorated state. Despite that, he has enough energy to chastise us and takes issue at our racial origin, rather noisily proclaiming his distrust of Tengu and Elves. I was almost impressed by his awareness of his surroundings. I usually take care to hide my heritage; I find that it gives me an advantage the less people know about you. I try with some small success to calm him down, telling him that we were hired by Gruther to investigate the goings on in Shady Willow, as he feared for his life. I showed Teddy Gruther’s map and this seemed to galvanize the old soldier, who confirmed that, at least according to him, the elven staff and Dr. Pifanaesh were trying to murder them and that Gruther was attempting to do something about it in secret. Tea Kettle, in spite of the offense from Teddy’s outburst, wanted to check his bed for the same withering spell found in Gruther’s room, and with no small amount of coaxing, finally convinced him to allow us to flip his bed. TK finds the same runes, though now active, and he and Cojitron go through the lengthy process of removing the runes to disrupt the spell. Lacking a way to dispel it directly, this ends up taking some time, though their work is thorough and the spell is rendered inert eventually. All through this Teddy complains, but once this is done and he can rest again on his bed, we notice some of his energy returning and though still somewhat sick, is starting to regain his color. Some rest would see him back to normal, we believe, though not if the issue isn’t dealt with at its source. The perpetrators could just redo the spell. We ask about Teddy and Gruther’s suspicions, and he launches into a lengthy story about his old unit, which counted four others besides the two of them. They had a case many years ago involving a dangerous cult of some kind within an elven village in the farmlands west of here, and in the process ended up clearing out the whole of that area to root them out. It sounded like a terrible tragedy based on the implication of their actions, but this seemed to be the source of his distrust of elves. This was why he was suspicious of the doctor and the others here ever since they were sent to Shady Willows to be cared for. He says that he and the other five were targeted from the moment they arrived, with one of their number, Reeka, having first suspected the elves here of wishing them harm. She was the first to pass, and now with Gruther gone, he was the last. Seeing the symbols of the spell on his bed triggered his memory of that time, as he says he saw something similar throughout the village during their purge of this cult. We ask if he remembers any other symbols from that time, and to his credit, Teddy from pure memory draws a bloody hand for us. He must have been deeply affected by this incident. It didn’t look familiar to me, but TK, ever the repository of curious, bygone knowledge, says he has seen this symbol perusing history books while studying Tairos before his journeyman days. It belonged to the god of vengeance, Seriel The Returned, a dark demi-god no one openly worshipped even when deities still had sway in our land, but was petitioned to by those seeking retribution on others. Teddy claims that he, Gruther and their unit wiped the cult out, along with the villagers as an “unfortunate” consequence of their battle. Realizing that he would be in danger, we thought to take him from his room and potentially spirit him away, but his promise to remain quiet when we attempted this proved fruitless. He began yelling accusations the moment we wheeled him outside. That plan dashed, we left him to his room and promised to root out the source of the magic plaguing him. Teddy was eager to kill Ludil and the other elves working here, though we could hardly entertain murder even with proper proof. Teddy said that Gruther was always the craftiest of them and that before his recent passing, confided with him that he had managed to get ahold of something that would help them deal with their enemies here. We continued our investigation of the grounds, following Gruther’s crude map, which was to our surprise rather detailed. The sun was starting to rise, so we decided to avoid suspicion by returning to the dining hall to have breakfast. We bumped into Dr. Pifanaesh along the way, and lied about having mostly satisfied our curiosity. She looked relieved, having bought our story that we would soon depart after our meal. The residents began to filter into the dining hall and TK and Cojitron mixed in with the crowd. In the bustle, I snuck outside to continue the search using the map. In the garden area, I eventually found the marker, taking care not to be observed while I dug at the spot Gruther had drawn. It did not take long to find Gruther’s stash. Within is a parcel of gold, though not quite the amount he promised us as a reward in his letter, and an odd, silver hilt. I worked it for several moments and discovered a catch that extended a similarly silvered scimitar blade from the guard. It was an incredibly well-crafted weapon, and even without the means to tell its true nature I knew it was magical. Somehow Gruther obtained this weapon secretly and planned on using it on Ludil. Unfortunately for him, it was too late to put it to use. Back in the dining hall, TK and Cojitron were waved over and were seated with two pleasant women named Paloma and Gail. They had heard of our visit to Gruther’s room and to Teddy, word having traveled rather quickly, and said that they were once dispatchers for the Ghal Pelor armed unit that they belonged to, and as such were privy to some of the activities they were engaged in in their youths. Despite the deaths of their old compatriots, they were in relatively high spirits, eager to answer any questions the two of them had. They elaborated some on the cult of Seriel case that Teddy alluded to, and though they did not know the specific details of the tragedy, they knew that the cult was vanquished and that the unit’s reports were highly classified upon their return. Unlike Teddy, they did not bear any negative feelings towards the elves, although their slight prejudices were not entirely enlightened all the same. They mentioned that the elves, after taking ownership of Shady Willows some time ago, switched from manufactured medication to medicine that was much more herbal and natural in content. They were skeptical at the effectiveness of this new standard but otherwise took it same as usual. I would imagine Teddy was likely quite uncooperative during medication time. Breakfast was beginning to wrap up, and I returned before any suspicion could be raised in my absence. TK and Cojitron bid their farewell to Paloma and Gail and rejoined me. I told them what I had found and after hearing the information they had learned, resolved to sneak into Ludil’s office to search it for evidence. As the crowd of elderly and the orderlies began moving through the hallways, we managed to make use of the bustle and sneak our way to the doctor’s office. Finding it unlocked and vacant at the moment, we crept inside. The area was also adjacent to the dispensary, which we had noticed earlier was being worked in by several elves. The pills had already been organized for the day and were waiting to be distributed. We search and find the medication that was slated to go to Teddy, Paloma and Gail, and, after some testing from TK, discover that theirs specifically had been tampered with. It seemed that there was a trace amount of poison added that, while non-lethal, would inhibit their immune systems and constitution, making them more susceptible to outside negative effects, possibly disease but certainly to the magic inscribed on the beds that we found. We would only conclude that the two dispatchers were their next targets after Teddy’s demise. This was enough for us and we do a thorough search of the office, and discovered that the patient files for the six people in Gruther’s unit, plus the two dispatchers, were missing. Fortunately, we managed to find a hidden door behind the doctor’s bookcase and, along with that, a key hidden in her desk that fit the lock. My careful search however also found a very deadly magical trap that would prove deadly if triggered. I watched the door, listening for any coming workers or Dr. Pifanaesh, though they believed us to have left fortunately. TK and Cojitron managed to disable the trap with great difficulty, although only for a minute before it would reset upon closing the door. Confident he could do it again, TK left his bird construct in the office just in case as we closed the door behind us and descended the dark, gloomy staircase into the basement. What we discovered was an old structure that predates the building itself, going back before The Queen's Rebuke. It was likely part of an old fortress or the like in the Belmoran heyday. At the bottom we discover a chamber with an altar of bone, which was covered by a stack of papers and a broken sword symbolizing Seriel’s wrath. Behind that was a large statue of a frightening creature, a steady, booming heartbeat audible within it, as if alive. I use my ring of X-Ray vision and discover to my surprise that indeed a large, black heart resided within this bone statue, beating unnervingly. TK studied the runes in the room and the altar, realizing that coming any closer without a proper sacrifice to the altar could be extremely dangerous. TK recalled the history of Seriel, that she and her sister Tatayne battled because she had loved a mortal and granted him immortality in violation of the gods. Since her demise, she had somehow returned and became a goddess of vengeance. Their cult built no temples and only altars like this where one would sacrifice to bring her wrath on those that sought revenge. Or so the story goes. It would seem that somehow, this statue, TK guessed, housed a demon in service to Seriel and that Dr. Pifanaesh and the other elves managed to trap it here to serve their need for revenge against Gruther and his team. While they held it here, they could power their dark spells which they had used to slowly sentence them to their deaths. Having learned what we have of their actions and the bystanders that perished because of their battle with the cult, vengeance was an understandable reaction, and elves have long memories and lives. Still, we needed this to be stopped; the tampering of such dark forces was too dangerous. TK instructed that blood or flesh was the usual appropriate sacrifice. After having had a near-death experience with the pound of flesh I surrendered on the Black Road several weeks earlier, I had no desire to offer such again. After some discussion, we decided to offer some manacite in the hopes that it would be enough. It was not. Seriel’s servant craved only blood, and announcing that we had broken the sanctity of this altar, came to life and attacked us. Darkness enveloped it and what little light was snuffed out as it brought forth three shadows to assist in battle. The battle was long and difficult. My arrows did little to the demon, protected from such mundane weapons as it was, so magic was to be our sword. The shadows were formidable, but nothing compared to the demon’s clouds of confusion and nightmare fogs, which caused us to lash out unpredictably or stun us in place with terror as it flooded us with our greatest fears. TK dared to use the cube once again and though it was effective in annihilating the shadows, I dreaded to think of what using it marched us towards. The demon took advantage of our wretched conditions and attacked mercilessly. Only our practiced teamwork saw us counterattack effectively with blades and magic, Cojitron letting loose powerful bolts of lightning that scorched the demon and allowing me to flank and drive Scarlet’s scissors into its side many times. In desperation, it summoned another trio of shadows, though I had discovered the shadow snipping properties of the scissors were particularly deadly to them. Cojitron, unfortunately, bore too many wounds from these shadows and they became inert, their strength drained from their touch. The two of us fought through the fear and confusion and eventually we landed a final blow that shattered the bone statue and spilled the dark heart to the stone floor, which allowed us to destroy the last shadow that had brought low our friend. We quickly destroyed the heart, confident that the magic it powered would be no more. Catching our breath from this near fatal encounter, we picked up the broken sword, discovering it to be a still usable magic weapon, and the papers on the altar. These were the missing files of the eight people Dr. Ludil Pifanaesh and her staff were plotting against. While TK tended to Cojitron, I read through the papers. Though partially redacted, they largely related the same story relevant to the case here. Forty years ago, a town called Clamenta near the elven lands contained a cult dedicated to Seriel. Gruther, Teddy and the four others in their unit were dispatched to cleanse this cult, but in the process caused the deaths of many of Clamenta’s villagers. This incident was covered up as best as possible to avoid confrontation with nearby settlements. I decided on adding a couple of the reports to a letter I would send to Lt. Freeleaf, urging him to investigate this incident, its cover-up as well as the actions of the Shady Willow staff. This job unearthed much more horror than I could have imagined. It was becoming a rather annoying habit. TK had some bad news; Cojitron’s core had been damaged by the shadows and would eventually cause them to turn into a shadow similar to how a flesh and blood creature would eventually turn as well under the same circumstances (though due to Cojitron’s mechanical nature, not as quickly). He estimated we had but a day’s time after he used his magic to safeguard the core to find a way to fix it, which would likely involve replacing the power core with a new one. Ascending the stairs, we hear activity beyond the door, and realize that the office was crowded with workers and possibly the doctor herself. As we had the key, they could not enter the room, but we were trapped with Cojitron inert. TK sends a command to his bird to cause a commotion, and it springs to life, leading them away from the office as it crashed through the windows on the other end of the building. We took this chance to deactivate the trap, and, making sure the office is empty, stealthily make our way out of Shady Willows in the commotion, using one of the carts in the dispensary and disguising myself as an orderly (with TK doing the same with his magic) to avoid detection. Safely away, we make our way to Arcane Bindings to see if Isolde could help with Cojitron. Unfortunately, this was beyond our area of expertise though she is able to identify the silver scimitar I found from Gruther’s stash. She claimed it to be a Githyanki Vorpal Sword, an immensely powerful artifact and sacred to these astral plane dwelling warriors. She immediately marked it as dangerous to possess, as these beings were merciless hunters and would kill anyone possessing one of their weapons. How Gruther managed to get ahold of such a thing was something we would never find out, but for now Isolde would keep it safely locked in her store, the wards and protections built into it keeping it safe from detection by its owners. Running out of options, we decide to go to Klume’s Repair shop and make a deal for his assistance. He is none too happy to see us, which I cannot completely blame him for given our last encounter, though I continually remind him that he was the one to set his basement lab on fire in an attempt to get rid of us. We are barely able to convince him to help us despite his hostility, and he demands compensation for his damaged lab of 1,000 Aurins, in addition to a fire elemental to power a new something he was working on. I barter him down to 500, again pointing out that while we had fought with him, he was the one that sicced his fire powered clanker on us. The real problem now, however, was where to find a fire elemental before the short amount of time we had ran out. Klume was able to extend the time further, but it was still a matter of hours before Cojitron would turn completely. We would hardly let our friend face such a fate. The end for now, ~Bayour
Rewards Granted
- Less than the offered reward amount of Aurins from Gruther's hidden stash
- A Githyanki Silver Scimitar, its blade retractable. Obtained somehow by Gruther to slay the Shady Willow elves
- A magical broken long sword, symbol of Seriel
Missions/Quests Completed
- The servant of Seriel that had been used to magically slay Gruther and the others has been defeated
- Records on the destruction of Clamenta obtained, and sent to the constabulry
Character(s) interacted with
- Dr. Ludil Pifanaesh, an elven physician that heads the medical staff at Shady Willows. Presumed head of those seeking revenge on Gruther et al
- Teddy Armdell, aged resident and former comrade to Gruther
- Paloma and Gail, two retired dispatchers for the special unit Gruther worked in
- Isolde Tremaris, proprietor of the Arcane Bindings shop
- Klume, gnome engineer and owner of Klume's Repair Shop
Related Reports
Notes
A deceptively simple case turned confrontation with a forgotten nightmare. The unseen depths of Ghal Pelor run disturbingly deep. This could cost us Cojitron's spark if we do not find a way to fulfil Klume's demands.
