Journal Entry 31.00 Good Riddance to the Dwarves

The Party rids the Dame Imokan's winery estate of the dwarven ghosts and is able to purchase the property at a reduced price.

The situation was dire, Graykar knew his options were limited. He took care of the obvious like focusing his will and activating his vanishing ability, rendering himself invisible. He then activated his masked, allowing him to see if any of the others might also be invisible. His priority was locating Aja and Morvion, once he did that, he could better form a plan of attack, he knew that he might only get one shot to take them out, especially Morvion. Sneaking forward, he saw Aja was preparing her spells. While moving into position to attack Aja, he saw an otherwise Morvion also sneak up near Aja. Attacking both at once would be foolhardy, but Urik solved that problem for him by charging Aja from around the corner and attacking her. She used some of the magic tied to her mirror and teleported away, leaving an illusory double of herself behind. Aja swung his ax, shattering the illusion which had replaced her. She countered by casting a Force cage around Urik, trapping him in place, with the intent that the time it took him to get free would be enough for them to kill Graykar. With Aja now at a distance, Graykar was left alone with Morvion. As Graykar made ready to make a crippling attack on Morvion from behind, something seemed odd. He wondered why he was attacking Morvion, and he wondered why it was now important that both Aja and Morvion needed killing. He couldn’t recall, and into wondering this, he began to view the situation like a dream, the logic present but unavailable when he tried to discern it. And with that final thought, he woke up. He was in a small room with Urik, Morvion, and Aja. All three of them were also waking up from the same dream. The room they were in was the cellar entry to Dame Imokan’s winery. It was through the stairs leading to the outside that most of them had come upon first meeting Dame Imokan that fateful evening when they had been given the artifacts of Perlachio’s students. Also in the room was a single dwarf, fast asleep in a chair leaning back on two legs up against the wall by the door which led deeper into the basement. “Interesting dream,” Aja said softly, so as not to awaken the dwarf. “Well, that was different. At least it’s not dozens of dwarves attacking us. I can handle one sleeping dwarf,” Morvion said, contemplating whether he should try and wake the dwarf or just kill him outright. Thinking the same thing, Graykar said, “I suggest we let the dwarf sleep and just head on in.” Agreeing to that, they moved further into the cellars, the first room is the room where they had first sat with Dame Imokan when she had explained their first mission and sought their employment. The room’s purpose was a place where Dame Imokan could hold private wine tastings and other low key or secret meetings where the public didn’t need to know who was attending. Exploring the room, they found that several bizarre events occurring. The fire in the fireplace was mumbling something incoherent. Aja and Graykar spent several minutes trying to make it out what it was saying, however all they could make out was something about ‘betrayal’ or ‘being betrayed.’ Giving up on the fire, they moved on to explore the rest of the room. On the central table was a candy jar which was vibrating slightly. When Urik looked in it, he saw a severed hand surrounded by tiny pieces of candy slowly burrowing into the flesh of the hand. He spilled the jar on the table and witnessed all the candies shaking slightly, then they started to move toward the hand to resume their meal. Graykar came over and helped Urik place all the candies back into the jar. Urik shuddered, he didn’t like the supernatural when it got bizarre. Still exploring the room, Aja decided to look closer at the violin standing to one side. Picking it up, she ran the bow across the strings. It made the expected sound and Aja started to put it down when she saw Morvion looking at her, his eyes showing either surprise or concern. “What is it?” she asked. “Your glowing,” he responded. Looking down, she saw she was. On a hunch, she picked the violin up again, played another pass of the bow, and glowed even brighter. Seeing this, she continued playing notes, glowing bright and brighter. And then, she burst into flames. Urik began casting cure spells while Morvion began to attempt to put her out, except it was Aja herself which was causing the fire, she was burning from the inside. Rather than trying to help, Graykar picked up the violin and smashed it on the floor. As soon as he did so, Aja stopped glowing. As they watched, the violin began mending itself a small piece at a time, either by a break healing or a small piece floating up to where it belonged. They all watched with interest as one of the strings unrolled, stretched, and then reconnected itself across the bridge to the base on its main body. Deciding it was time to leave this room, Graykar went to the opposite door and saw it was locked. Pulling out his lockpicks, he started by inserting the longest pick. As he did so, the lock changed shape and the keyhole elongated, lunging out to grab at his fingers. He jumped back, fast enough to save his fingers but not the lock pick. The keyhole of the lock then began chewing on the lockpick as it disappeared. Once the lockpick was gone, the lock let out a small word, “Tasty,” and once again assumed the appearance of a normal lock. Graykar stood up and looked at the lock. A talking lock? He’d seen stranger, “Listen, I need to you open,” he said quietly to the door. “No,” said the lock. Graykar tried persuading it to open when Urik grunted and pulled out his ax. “Stand aside, I’ll fix this,” Urik said. As he walked forward, the lock changed its tone to a high pitched, somewhat worried tone, saying “What are you planning.” Urik growled. Even Aja stepped back away from Urik because of the growl. “What are you planning with that,” the lock pleaded. When Urik just continued to rear back for a swing, that’s when the party heard the lock make a clicking sound. Reaching out, Graykar turned the doorknob, and the door swung open now unlocked. Graykar looked and Urik and smiled. “It worked, good job.” Urik smiled back, quite pleased with himself. They began searching the basement, going room to room and found that most rooms had similar strangeness. Some rooms had floors that were hot enough to melt metal when stepped upon but otherwise radiated no heat, other rooms had containers that called out for help when one of the party members got close. One room started with chilled air but once the halfway point was crossed, it would burst into flames, fire spreading fast. As the party backed out, the fires diminished, leaving charred remains. As the minutes went by, the charred remains started to disappear, the damage to the room from the fire slowly reversing itself. In the basement kitchen, Graykar started to enter when what felt like hundreds of spectral hands grab at him, dragging him toward the open stove. As he got pulled nearer to the stove, he saw flames ignite in its belly, the top plates starting to glow a cherry red. Knives on the nearby table also started quivering. Fighting the hands, he managed to escape their hold and crawl his way out of the kitchen. Telling everyone of the threat, no one else tried to enter the kitchen. As they explored, only one room stood out as being different, the one room they couldn’t get into. A large steel door blocked it, making the room look like some kind of vault. “I’ve been everywhere in this house, I don’t ever remember seeing this door or hallway,” Aja said. From inside the room, they could hear a masculine voice of someone in despair. He kept saying things like, “It’s all my fault”, “I was too arrogant”, and “I failed my people.” The party tried to reason with the owner of the voice, tried to convince him to open the door, however he wouldn’t. He might engage with them for a sentence or two of conversation before he started in again with the self-pity and blaming himself, all progress lost. The party went upstairs next and continued searching the estate. When they came to the central chamber of the first floor they found several dwarves singing a chant about how General Rockspit had dishonored the dwarves. The dwarf leading the chant was Captain Kedeleekis. As the dwarves finished up the chant, the scene would reset the dwarves would start the chant again. Aja remembered the story of Captain Kedeleekis and how he was one of the trusted advisors of General Rockspit. From the chant’s wording and the circumstances, Aja deduced that Captain Kedeleekis had betrayed the General and led a revolt against him. Continuing their search of the house, they found many more strange occurrences room by room. In one room Graykar stepped across a wolf skin rug, and as soon as he stepped off if it, the rug slid up his legs and back, turning him into a giant wolf-like creature that attacked the party. In another, Aja was transformed into a ghost herself, intangible to everyone, after she trying some brandy from one of the decanters. Probably the most annoying room was the one which caused several of the characters, Aja included, to start growing a beard just like a dwarf. Sometimes it took something happening in another room to reverse the curse, sometimes it was merely a matter of Aja casting remove curse. In one room, Aja entered and kept feeling a hot moist breath breathing on her neck. She quickly left. Moving on up to the top floor, they found a second dwarf which turned out to be another one of Rockspit’s officers, Captain Agvar. He was sitting in a tub of red water, the water flowing over the edges. They could see he had slit his wrists. From him, they were able to gather that General Rockspit was the reason all the dwarves were trapped in their cursed state. Agvar, by his own admission, had also turned on General Rockspit. Whereas Captain Kedeleekis had betrayed his general for personal gain in a coup, Agvar had done it because he had been convinced that General Rockspit had gotten too powerful and needed to be replaced for the betterment of the clan. He was now trapped in this cyclist nightmare forever waiting for death after allowing his guilt to lead him to suicide. One important detail the did get from Captain Agvar was that there was a third captain, one who hadn’t betrayed the general. One that had not been present during the coup, but away on some task. The party reasoned that maybe the third captain might be able to convince the General to open the door in the basement. Now looking for the third captain, they found him kneeling in prayer to Radok in one of the guest bedrooms of the top floor. As soon as they entered, he pleaded with them, “I am Captain Yedinnis, trusted advisor to the General. We are cursed, please, please, take me to the General. He must be convinced to forgive himself.” Having already worked out what was needed, they led Yedinnis to the basement where the was able to convince the General to open the door. As soon as the door was opened, Yedinnis entered and without even a word being spoken the curse started to lift. Captain Yedinnis began pleading with the general about his need to forgive himself when everything shifted for the party. Like a dream, they suddenly weren’t in the chamber anymore. They awoke in the original entry room to the cellars where they had first entered the estate. Graykar was first to ask, “Think we are actually awake this time?” “If the curse really was broken, then yes,” Aja answered. “If not, I guess we need to go back in and see what happens. If we don’t find any dwarves, that should be a great sign.” “I agree. I also want to see what’s in that room,” Morvion added. They all knew what room he was referring to. Over their time staying at Dame Imokan’s estate, they had explored most of the house. However, not once had any seen the room where General Rockspit had been holed up in. It had always been a hallway closet with no door at the back. Going back to where the door should have been, they found that the back of the closet held a secret door. Opening it, they found the was a large research chamber with an unknown summoning sigil in the middle of the floor. After a brief examination, they determined that while the chamber was not regularly used, it had seen some use in the previous years. Aja never remembered Dame Imokan mentioning the chamber during their discussions. Whatever it had been used for, the floor itself was far older than the rest of the house. It likely was from a previous structure. “The main focus of this room appears to be for summoning, but it’s quite advanced, more advanced than anything I have seen,” Aja said. Morvion suggested maybe the should seek Falgrieg out. “Possibly, but I don’t think this is his kind of summoning. Much of what I am seeing isn’t relevant, it is like it’s set up for a system of magic which just won’t work. It reminds me somewhat of Perlachio’s studies,” Aja said. As she said it, the worry crept into her voice. Morvion noticed this and said, “We must not forget, Imokan’s sister was investigating planar travel and why it wasn’t allowed, and that is how they initially came across the existence of the Sarlok city and Perlachio. A reasonable and logical correlation can be made without implicating the sisters in Perlachio’s scheme.” * * * * The next morning, Aja purchased the estate at the reduced price of 100,000 gp before anyone else found out that it was no longer haunted. As the day was a semi-holiday, it was only because Aja had arranged beforehand for the appropriate officials to be working in the morning that made the purchase possible. Of note: When Dame Imokan left, she put the Estate up for sale, with the proceeds to go to her servants and her trust fund should she return. Due to its location, she couldn't just deed the property to someone else once she left, as the Coterie had laws in place that any residence within the first five tiers must have a permanent resident and caretaker. Additionally, various protocols needed to be followed, hence the minimum pricing of 300,000 gp to start. Because of the haunting, the price dropped well below the assessed value. Once Aja bought the estate, it could be argued that the loss in proceeds was in effect screwing over Zurrelevants and the rest of Dame Imokan's servants. However, Zurrelevants was able to assure Aja that this lined up well with Dame Imokan's final wishes of Aja taking over the estate. While he didn't know why, he said there was something on the estate that Dame Imokan didn't trust just anyone to be caretaker of. Additionally, if the Coteries were not on board with the transaction, they wouldn't have allowed it to go forward. (And of course, it was one of the Coteries which had actually instructed her on how to make the estate haunted in the first place.)