#aubrey von mornheim

[cursewoodrecap]

Session 19: Hunters and Haunts

It’s time for some proper horror movie monsters, y’all.

Before leaving Mornheim, we ask Aubrey about the scroll in her mother’s writing.  She’s baffled. “I mean, plenty of my ancestors dabbled in magic. The castle had plenty of secret rooms. But…my mom? As far as I knew, she was just a very talented gardener. That’s how my parents met! She was the castle gardener, he was the son of the lord, but she looked past that…”

She laughs nervously. “My mom wasn’t a druid. They don’t live in big fancy houses! They live in the woods and make friends with badgers! I mean, why would there even BE a druid in Mornheim?!”

“That’s a good question,” Gral admits. “Maybe to guard the old tomb in the Trollstones? If I understand correctly, it was a place blessed by one of the woods spirits they revere.”

“So you’re tellin’ me that MY MOM, Rosalind von Mornheim, was the secret mystical druidic guardian of a magic tomb that’s been on family property for, well, longer than it’s been our property?!”

“I mean, maybe? Skelbjor told us there always had to be a troll in Mornheim, maybe it’s like that?”

“I guess? Skelbjor’s been the local troll since Dad was a kid. He knew about all this?”

“Oh, nah, he just knew there’s always supposed to be a troll.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right, he’s a big galoot. Just tell me I don’t have to worry about this immortal troll demigod getting up and causing trouble. I have enough problems.”

“Don’t worry, he didn’t even get up for a direct summons from that dybbuk creep.”

Aubrey shudders. “If you ever wanna figure out a way to kill that guy for good, you have my help.”

Clem grimaces. “Believe me, I’d LOVE to.”

“Anyway. You folks cleaned up the water, stopped my people getting so sick, heck, maybe this’ll even slow down the undead situation. I owe you a lot of thanks. As the ruling lady of Mornheim, I can offer you…a bottle of hard cider or somethin’? I don’t have a lot. It takes all the money we have just to keep this place running. I’m sorry I can’t do more to reward you.”

Valeria smiles, the picture of a chivalrous knight. “I’m just glad to know there won’t be so much sickness. Hopefully things will improve for your people.”

“Thank you, I mean it. And, uh, sorry for glassing you in the face, Shoshana.”

The sorceress shrugs. “It’s water under the trollbridge. We all have family members who we would both hug and cry, and glass in the face. It’s chill.”

To everyone’s surprise, Valeria nods in commiseration.

“You’re welcome to stay if you want – I mean, things are crowded, the food sucks, and every night we get undead and penitents waking everybody up, so I understand if you don’t want to stick around. Can I treat you to breakfast?”  

We get breakfast, though the offerings are meager. Mercedes is cooking, and Aubrey scowls at her. “I’m mad at Mercedes because she’s a morning person. Also she lit me on fire yesterday.”

Shoshana nods. “Okay, I understand lighting people on fire, but being a morning person is a capital offense. I know this, because I live with THIS ONE.” She points at Valeria, who shrugs in acknowledgment.

“As ruling lady of house of Mornheim, I hereby banish 8am from my lands,” Aubrey grumbles. “My house is now renamed Midafternoonsheim. Like, 2pmheim. Especially if I spent the last day and a half chasing some regenerating superghoul through the tunnels.”

Mercedes and Aubrey tell us about taking out the superghoul they fought last night, bickering the whole time. “Okay, you don’t speak Goblin, but if I shout words in Goblin it only ever means one thing. I don’t cast buff spells. It means there is about to be fire, get out of the way.”

“If you ever find a cloak of fire resistance, I could use it,” Aubrey deadpans at us. “I might smother her with it.”

Gral chats with Mercedes – apparently she’s a skilled chef as well as a mage! “Yes, it is part of pyromancer training. To learn to respect the gifts of Brother-in-Flame, all students must take up a fire-related trade. Pottery, blacksmithing, cooking. That way if you wash out of pyromancer school, you have a trade! And you have respect for flame and know how to commune with it. Working with non-magical fire gives a natural guidance toward using Brother-in-Flame’s gifts. I will say, cooking contests at pyromancer school can get rather intense. If you burn the food, you have to burn your jacket.”

“Would you say they get…heated?” Shoshana quips, shooting finger-guns. Mercedes ignores her.

Gral considers. “Did you ever meet an orc who went by Firesong?”

“Oh yeah! Orc bard, wore a mask?”

“Uh, all orc bards wear masks.”

“Yeah, she’s why we can’t have the chili cookoffs anymore. She had to leave the Republics under, uh…circumstances.”

“She told me she has fond memories of her time there.”

“Oh, so do I! Passions were already high, and a professional orcish bard providing background music did not lower the emotional intensity. And, well, we’re pyromancers. We thought we were far enough from the swamp gas wells! If it hadn’t been for that damn bird – oh, one second.” She cuts off what was promising to be an excellent story to open the window and hand a sizable plate of eggs outside to Skulbjor.

“The first time I saw him, I jumped out of my skin,” she confides. “Have you ever met a swamp troll? They’re the reason we’re so good at fire.”

“The pyromancer school was originally founded to defend the Republics against trolls. So it was, you know, a liiiiittle bit awkward. Horrible creatures, swamp trolls. YOU’RE GREAT, SKULBJOR,” she calls out the window. “But I did almost light him on fire, until Aubrey stopped me.”

Gral murmurs an aside to Clem. “Is it just Valdian trolls who are weird, then?”

“I dunno, maybe bridges calm them down?”

After breakfast, we prepare to get on the road. Valeria resummons Aethis, and Skulbjor gives our good chomper some quality scritches. Already, the waters flowing into the town appear clearer, less foreboding somehow. Everything else is still, honestly, super Tim Burton-y, but we’ll work on that.

We head out, traveling the now familiar path to Three Oaks Junction. We’re glad to see the bloody chain banners have been taken down. The locals have even made new banners, featuring a shield with a chunk taken out of it, symbolizing they’re under the protection of Duke Shieldeater!

Business has resumed as normal. Some of the outriders are guarding the gate to provide a more visible presence. Not a lot, but they stand out. It’s more of a visual reminder that more orcs are coming and town has agreed to be under protection.

Gral’s pretty psyched his diplomatic master plan is working. Meanwhile, we’ve got trading to do. We manage to sell our old Aquilian coins to Pierre the furrier, who says they’ll be popular in the Demish court. Valeria keeps one of the coins as a collectible.

We’ve got enough stuff to carry and traveling to do that we decide to buy a cart. Clem, familiar with travel from her drow caravan days, heads over to the Used Cart Lot out behind the cart repair, where a guy named Sal shows her around. Looks like these guys do good repair work, with a line of apprentices and masters dating back to Three Oaks himself. Maaaaybe they might get a lot of business from selling carts which will shortly need to be repaired, but Clem uses her know-how and also her impressive guns to intimidate the guy into showing her the good stuff instead of the junkers.

She picks up a nice solid dark oak cart, secondhand, repaired recently. Clem checks it over and it seems pretty sturdy; seems like scavengers found it at an abandoned farmhouse. We also pool funds to buy two draft horses, a shaggy pair that came as a team package. The chestnut one is named Pierogi, and the bay one is named Chestnut. Shoshana attempts to have a Horse Girl Movie moment, but rolls a nat 1 and gets ignored.

Valeria, of course, buys a map to Hoska.

Clem checks her mail – she’s received a form letter thank you from the embassy in Schotzengrad – and sends 200 gold back home to her caravan, along with an update letter. Valeria writes a letter reporting back to Order of the Rose.

Clem gets busy decorating the cart in drow fashion to make it look presentable. She makes a start; a proper drow cart is decorated and redecorated over years and years. She encourages the rest of us to add our own designs, because in drow culture it’s important to have everyone in the caravan participate. We’re not at all familiar with the symbolic language used in drow art, but we’ll give it a try during a few long rests on the road.

Now we have a cart and horses and money and we bought some potions! We roll a mediocre enough survival check to meet the DC, so we head to Hoeska without issue.

Clem’s heard about Hoeska, which stands high in the collective memory of the czar’s military. During the Kevan occupation, it was said that castle was haunted. It was built 400 years ago by Gottfried von Hoesk, a Valdian warlord who wanted to become the first king of a unified Greatwood. He failed, but his descendants have occasionally tried again, and this is their ancestral seat of power. The elves, knowing its significance, took it as one of their first targets and stationed a garrison of 500 elves there. When the Valdian rebellion kicked into high gear, one of the big things that convinced the elves to leave was that the entire garrison vanished without a trace.

Shoshana, well, she’s heard plenty of stories about Hoeska. Every time a Valdian ghost story needs a mad wizard, or a ghost, or a vampire, or generally anything that lives in a big spooky castle, it takes place in Hoeska. Most of those stories are tall tales and urban legends, but on the other hand, there’s been an awfully long history of vampires and ghosts and mad wizards in Valdia, many of whom originated from or occupied the towering, dark castle on its isolated mountain.

Merchants who have been there say it’s a sprawling fortress; every inhabitant since Gottfried von Hoesk, from his descendants to various nobles to the elves, has added something else to castle, so it’s a big mismatch of styles. Some parts are a grim fortress, some are a luxury palace. The castle’s changed hands, but the von Hoesk family is still around and more often than not they ride in and reclaim their ancestral home. A couple of mad wizards were von Hoesks; when something truly evil goes down, usually a bunch of knights ride in and clear it out and some other von Hoesk descendant moves in. Rinse and repeat.

When the Cursebreakers were founded, their first move was to clear out Hoeska and take it over as their headquarters. It’s the Usual Suspect of spooky stuff in Valdia, but if the Cursebreakers found anything relating to the Curse there, they didn’t tell anyone.

Shoshana tells some ghost stories about it. Valeria eats them up. There’s a long Valdian tradition of “having a cousin” who worked at Hoeska as a servant and totally saw something spooky.

With the cart it takes like a day and a half to get from Three Oaks to the edge of Hoeska territory. As we approach, we see a guard house sitting on the road. Gral can see from a distance that the squat stone building appears to be abandoned. That’s not normal. We consider: should we avoid it because it probably has monsters in it, or should we go clear out the monsters and see if there’s loot? We’re gonna go see if there’s loot.

We get out of the wagon and approach, weapons drawn. The small stone building, just big enough for a couple of guards to keep an eye on the road, looks like it was abandoned in a hurry. We case the place quickly; there’s dried blood on the ground in the back storeroom. Maybe someone was killed here, or injured and brought here to get patched up? There’s not a body or anything. Gral’s keen eyes pick up a recent set of footprints; someone came in, after the guards had left, did something here, and then headed out into the woods.

The woods? In the Cursewood? Near the haunted castle? DEFINITELY full of dangerous monsters. But we’re PCs, so we want go investigate the mystery. Aethis stays behind to guard the cart, mildly weirding out the horses.

We follow the tracks into woods. Clem hears something behind her, and as she turns, a furry something whips out of brush and spears her for minor damage. She looks down and sees a scorpion stinger emerging from her torso. She barely has time to register it’s glistening with poison when she’s accosted by massive slavering jaws. This thing looks like it was once a huge wolf, but now has mutated into something far worse, and its teeth are buried deep in Clem’s armor.

Clem goes pale under her ash-dark skin, and must save against the panic and flood of memories brought up by the sudden sight of an attacking wolf.

How in the HELL did that thing get so close without us noticing?! Hell, we were following humanoid tracks – where did this monstrosity come from?!

Valeria immediately smites the hell out of it, and it does enough extra damage we suspect it’s some kind of fiend. Unfortunately, it’s immune to being Frightened, so Gral’s plan to Dissonant Whispers it past two tanks fizzles.

The wolfbeast uses the same tactic on Valeria as it did on Clem – as Valeria’s distracted by deflecting the stinger, it strikes in with its massive jaws, for a huge amount of damage.

Dammit, it’s resistant to Shoshana’s lightning, too. We’re in trouble.

As we’re barely fending this thing off, we can hear snarling and barking coming toward us from another direction. It sounds like wolves or dogs, smaller than this thing tearing through us. And Gral can faintly hear booted humanoid footsteps hurrying alongside them.

Clem misses on her first panicked swing but catches it on the upswing, Great Weapon Master letting her drive the blade deep. Valeria slices it good too, vines tearing through its corrupted flesh. Gral tries to Phantasmal force and fails) It swings its poisonous tail, and Valeria goes down, unconscious. Then it chomps on Clem. Clem is down – except, hold on, not so fast. She uses Last Gasp to use her Second Wind as she falls, in accordance with the Deal she has made with the Pale King.

Panicking, Shosha deals it thunder damage which it does not resist. BIG BOOM THO. That was dumb of me.

Shoshana, panicking, hits the thing with thunder damage. It doesn’t have resistance, but now everything in the forest knows we’re here. As Valeria passes her first Death Save, Gral shouts a Healing Word to keep her alive.

Three large hounds burst from the trees snarling and howling. A voice in Elven shouts “Alexei! Kill! Go for legs!”

Gral can’t understand Elven, so he goes for the neck with his sickle and draws a nasty gash across its throat. The thing glances around, snarling, furious at being deprived its meal, but it recognizes it’s in danger and withdraws, sprinting away into the forest.

A large wood elf wearing a tattered Cursebreaker coat steps out of woods holding a club and a heavy blunderbuss. He whistles sharply, and the hounds abruptly stop their pursuit. “No further!” He gestures, and the hounds spread out and form a perimeter.

“I do not know you,” he says in Valdian, though with a thick elven accent. “You fought the Shusva.”

“…The what?”

“That thing, the Shusva. At least, I found name in book. Seemed similar to this, yes? I am Ser Boris, of Cursebreaker Knights. What brings you here? Is dangerous territory.”

“Kyr Valeria Argent, at your service! We’ve been working with Ser Quentin Morozov.”

A grin breaks across his thickly bearded face. “Ah, Ser Morozov! I know him. The grumpy one! He talks to people, finds what is in hearts and minds. Goes to towns, finds cultists. As he is to the people, I am to the beasts.”

“Yes, we had information for him and needed to make a report. Also we were trying to meet up with another person headed this way?”

He grimaces. “How recently? This Shusva has been stalking roads.”

“Um, recent?” Shoshana interjects. “But he’s accompanied by two fuckhuge goliaths, so…?”

“Oh, yes, him. He is fine. Oh! You injured it!” Ser Boris cries, distracted. He pulls out a small waxed pouch and grabs a chunk of flesh off Clem’s blade. “Good! With this, we can track its scent! Not today, though, you are wounded. Must get you two to castle.”

“These are Alexei, Sasha, and Xander,” he introduces his hounds, which have heeled obediently.

“You are – ah! A drow!” He greets Clem in Elven. “You are very far from home!”

“Ah, home is where you make it,” she replies in kind.

He laughs. “Indeed, indeed. Come, we must share stories back at castle! I move here during war, think it would be peaceful.”

“Yeah, bit of a mistake, huh?”

“I do well enough. I have my dogs, I receive employment. And coat! Employment with coat is better than employment without coat, da?”

We go back to our cart, and Ser Boris is immediately taken with Aethis. “Oh, my! A wonderful beastie. Is it Celestial? May I see teeth?”

Valeria’s happy to make introductions.

“Have you cared for such a creature before? They are adapted for warm streams, not cold woods like these, you know.”

“Do they need any further care than occasional spellwork? That’s all they told us at the academy,” Valeria says, puzzled.

“Is gift from Rack, no? Then double important you take good care! It does not need it, but you must. Caring for exotic mount in inhospitable climate is difficult task. I will give you literature. You would not believe poor beasts Dr. Galvan had, I am giving him dietary instructions, seeing if I can create sweater for them to keep warm…”

He goes back to cooing over Aethis. “Nice luster on scales, though that is expected. Feets---oh, you’ve been running on hard road, you’ll get used to that. Very well. Castle is this way!”

He whistles, and the three hounds form a triangle around group. “Do not wander too far off, they may try to herd you.”

It’s somewhere around here that the pun finally hits the players. Ser Boris. Three dogs. …Cerberus.

The path winds up to the dramatic gates of castle Hoeska.

“Now if you look there, you will see castle.” A lightning bolt cracks dramatically across the sky, casting the castle in ominous silhouette.

“It always does that. It is very stormy around here. I do not know why. Impossible to get good sunlight. I worry for Alexei, he likes to frolic in sun, in fields of flowers. I am not allowed to let him in garden. How will Alexei frolic without field of flowers?”

There’s a Cursebreaker Knight at the gates, some kind of battlemage with a big staff. Next to him is a grim figure in full plate, holding a halberd and looking distinctly displeased to see us.

“Do not mind them, the castle guards do not appreciate us being here,” Ser Boris tells us cheerfully. “It is okay, we have permission. They do not like that we do their job better than them. Hello friend!” He waves. “These are guests, please open gate!”

The guard glares.

“Pretty please, open gate for Ser Boris and friends? And Alexei and Sacha! Oh, have you met Xander yet?”

The guard silently opens the gate, his withering scowl not diminishing a bit.

“I do not know what problem is. Must have woke up on wrong side of bed,” Boris chatters as we enter. “Maybe should not leave lunch where dogs can get it. Guard knows I am here with dogs! Maybe dogs have done nothing wrong ever in their life and guard should apologize for making such a fuss!”

We’re past the castle walls, in a large courtyard before entering the keep proper. As we pass our carts and horses off to some stablehands, we notice a familiar cart and two draft gatorbeasts in the stables, with quilted blankets thrown over them against the chill.

Parked incongruously among the carts is a looming metal construct in a hulking, vaguely humanoid shape, with buzz-saw arms protruding from the front and a machined metal owl mask affixed to what might charitably be called the face area. Peeling paint on the front reads “Valdian Tree Company,” and it’s chained to a heavy wagon proudly bearing the insignia of the Sturmhearst University College of Engineering.

Ser Boris shrugs. “Many visitors are here now. One shows up with that thing. I do not like. Not natural, so much metal moving on own.”

We step into the grand hallway of castle, past another set of guards and a big statue of a fine-featured man in armor, labeled Gottfried von Hoesk. Ah, Ingborg and Bjorn are there, drinking.

We hear someone clear his throat imperiously, and turn to see Ser Quentin, regarding us with annoyance. “You’re late,” he bites out pointedly.

“Uh, did we make an appointment to see you? Because I was certainly not informed,” Shoshana snarks back.

He doesn’t take the bait. “So. The Pale King.”

“…Yup!”

“That letter and those words are why we’ve been stuck here. You’ve been escalated to the higher ups, who would very much like to hear what you have to report in person. Follow me. The dogs can stay here.”

Ser Boris grumbles. “Is fine, they do not bite! Well, they might bite sandvich. I could go for sandvich. I get us all sandviches, yes?”

We head up grand winding stairs, into the more palatial section of castle, and find ourselves passing through long dark galleries full of portraits of von Hoesk ancestors. The eyes follow us as we walk by, natch.

The path we take is DEFINITELY a little bit Scooby Dooby Doors. Ser Quentin Definitely Does Not Get Lost on the way there, what are you talking about? “This place was built by a succession of mad architects in an intergenerational argument with each other, of course it’s a damn maze,” he huffs.

Eventually, we are taken into a small, elegant drawing room. Two figures sit in comfortable armchairs in front of a roaring fire.

“Allow me to present Ser Brigid Konig,” Ser Quentin states formally, gesturing to the old woman calmly knitting in the chair on the left.

The other chair holds a tall man with sharp cheekbones, a fine black and red outfit, and rather similar features to the statue in the foyer. “Our host, Ludwig von Hoesk,” Quentin introduces stiffly.

“Hello,” the old woman, Ser Brigid, greets us warmly. “Our dear Quentin has told me so very little about you. Quentin, did you offer them anything to eat? It would be quite rude to let our guests go hungry.”

“I am told Ser Boris has arranged for sandwiches,”

“Perfect. Sit down, everyone, pull up a chair.”

Gral unnatch 20s a perception. That Ludwig von Hoesk – maybe Gral’s gotten better at picking up on this sort of thing since we’ve spent so much time in in Mornheim, but there’s something odd about that fella. He’s a little too still when he sits still, his motion a little too deliberate. And his skin is awfully pale. The old lady? Her, he can’t get a read on, even with a 20. Daaaaang.

“If you would, please, tell us of your travels. Ser Morozov tells us you first worked together in Ovruch; why don’t you start there?” Ser Brigid asks.

We take turns describing the entities we’ve seen, how we’ve fought them, and how they seem to categorize themselves. We produce the Eyegis as evidence of the Key, and explain what the Astronomer told us regarding the concept of Prisoners.

Ludwig, though very reserved, seems keenly interested in Clem’s tale of Mornheim. Once we’ve told our tale, he asks us to produce the tapestry we took from the cultists in the manor. He examines the partially-woven image carefully, tracing a thin finger over the crowned, skeletal figure.

“Well, Luddy, does it look familiar?” Ser Brigid asks smugly.

The aristocrat is too dignified to roll his eyes, but just barely. “It does. If we’re just going to-“

“Oh, we’d have to clue them in sooner or later. They’ve done more in a few weeks than half my agents have done in years!”

Ser Quentin grumbles audibly. She ignores him.

“Ludwig, is that the symbol you described to me?”

“Yes.”

“And the name?”

“Yes.”

“Do you consider that independent verification of what I told you?”

“Yes.”

“So I think you owe me something, old friend.”

He lets out a huffy, aristocratic sigh. “Yes, fine. You weren’t lying, and I was right not to kill you. I apologize for doubting you.”

“Thank you. Oh, the sandwiches are here!”

He turns his attention back to the tapestry. “Yes, this is the thing that appeared to me and offered me a position at the head of its armies.”

…oh?!?!

He rolls his eyes at our alarm. “I refused, naturally,” he sniffs.

“I should hope so!” Valeria says, and removes her hand from her sword hilt.

“I have no interest in submitting myself to some power-hungry usurper.”

Ser Brigid winks at us. “Perhaps I should re-introduce us properly. My name is Ser Brigid Konig. I was on my way to Valdshart when the city went dark, to formally retire as the Duke’s chief vampire hunter.”

“And this is Ludwig von Hoesk. His son built this castle! For the past couple hundred years, my office has been dedicated solely to hunting and killing him. Greetings!”

She rolls her eyes at her companion, who looks a bit miffed. “Really. They would have figured it out eventually. And you are not subtle about it. With the spooky castle? And the red and black outfit? C’mon, Luddy.”

“A few years ago, shortly after the curse manifested, I had a dream. This in itself is quite unusual; I do not normally experience dreams. In it, a creature resembling the figure on your tapestry appeared to me, offering a position as general of its armies. As its power grew, it would gain control of all undead in Valdia, and it would like myself and my followers to be the first and most honored of its forces. Naturally I refused. There is only one king in Valdia, and it is not some strange skeletal specter.”

“Wait, we have a king?” Shoshana blurts. “…oh. You mean yourself, don’t you.”

“Yes. It was my son’s idea. And what can I say, I spoiled the boy. Now, I was wondering what to do about this vision when who shows up but a bunch of angry knights with crossbows? Not that we’re not used to such incursions.”

“Oh, I’ve been trying to storm this place for years,” Ser Brigid agrees airily. “Every time we try, a mysterious new von Hoesk heir shows up with money and a whole court of followers! People buy it every time. Wishful thinking, I suppose.”

“She accused me of being behind the Curse,” Ludwig explains dryly. “I argued otherwise, and eventually we came to an agreement. Which is why Brigid Konig, my worst nightmare, HAS BEEN LIVING IN MY HOUSE.”

“Yes!” she agrees, with a beatific granny smile. “This way, if you ARE behind it, I can kill you!” She lifts the blanket she’s knitting just enough to give us a peek at the crossbow hidden underneath. Gral sees runes on the crossbow similar to his heartseeker bolts. “The rules are simple! I get to use his house and money, and his people assist as we try to get to bottom of this thing! And in exchange, I don’t kill him!”

Ludwig sighs. “She removes the monsters. I don’t appreciate monsters in my land, and I genuinely will do anything in my not inconsiderable power to drive out these ruinous Prisoners. Even if it means entertaining a woman who’s been a thorn in my side for the last sixty years.”

“Not a thorn, arrows!” she retorts cheerfully. “And a scythe one time. You got better, you big baby!”

“Of course I got better, I’m a vampire.”

Quentin sighs. “Needless to say, all information disclosed in this room is top secret. Frankly, if it were up to me, I wouldn’t have chosen to divulge even this much.”

Ser Brigid turns her level gaze on him. “Please. The orc would have spotted something and said ‘My goodness, Kyr Argent, I suspect something is up with that handsome and brooding fellow,’ and then she would have Detected Undead, and killed several guards, and the castle would be on fire, and we’d be in the dungeons having this conversation, but it would be far more awkward!” She turns to us. “Have I read the situation right?”

“…yup,” admits Valeria.

“See? Now Quentin, dear, eat your sandwich, you’re far too skinny.”

Ludwig is not eating a sandwich. He has a glass of red wine, of course.

They grill us a bit about the Key, specifically, and the Sturmhearst scholars we met who seem rather susceptible to the whole knowledge-seeking lure.

“Hmm, yes. We have several guests here, two of whom are professors. Professor Galvan, whom you’ve met, and a visitor from Sturmhearst. Professor Bjork, from the College of Engineering. I have some suspicions about things going on there. He’s told us a few concerning stories; you might want to pick his brain and get your take on the situation.”

“Such an august institution,” Ludwig agrees. “I gave some of the money to start the place, I’d hate to see it go bad.”

We wonder if he knows Dr. Wendell. But it’s getting late, and while the party discusses their experiences in great detail, we’re going to cut session and pick back up once they’re ready to go meet some other guests of the von Hoesks.

[cursewoodrecap]

Session 18: The Trollstones

It’s time for LORE.

Before we head out to our next adventure, we obviously have to go shopping. Clem buys a bunch of liquors and mixers, to test out the Boozenomicon we found at the artist house. Gral gets himself a “phat outfit makeover.” Shoshana and Clem buy something out of the back of a caravan called Old Badgerbeard’s Fine Valdian Liquor, guaranteed to add +2 to any Taint save by remindin’ ya of the simple joys in life.

Shoshana spends a little time playing translator and introducing people to the couple of orcish outriders who are gonna stick around. (“This is K’evin, he likes long walks on the beach and mah-jongg…”)

Anyway: we’ve just saved a town from people who hate parties, so naturally it is time to roll on the carousing table. Valeria finds a group of people to teach her favorite game, Man-go, and proceeds to lose 25 gold gambling against “complete newbies.” Clem wins a suspiciously similar amount at gambling, and can neither confirm nor deny that the noob hustling Valeria is just her in a fake mustache. Gral and the outriders teach a few orcish games, and Gral handily cleans everyone out by channeling the spirit of an experienced gambler. Bard Poker ain’t for amateurs, y’all.

Shoshana, still getting used to having more money than her entire village combined, buys a couple of drinks for some folks…then gives some cash to some needy travelers…and then the word gets out she’s giving out free money, and she has to use her Shadow Powers to gtfo before she’s swarmed. Whoops!

In the morning, Clem sends a letter back to her caravan, saying hi and updating them on the latest news. It’ll probably arrive alongside the original package, but that’s fine.

We head out and spend an uneventful journey retracing our steps to Mornheim. We notice Old Lady Jolene has moved out; the cottage stands empty and abandoned. Before long, the trees begin to take on that distinct skeletal cast and the skies begin to dim. We get that familiar sensation of the life draining away from the land. The birds stop chirping, except for the harsh caw of carrion birds. Flies cease to buzz. The air takes on the dusty, dry smell of grave dirt as we once again approach the necropolis Mornheim.

The hastily assembled walls of the town rise up before us. A few people are out working the orchards, with sentries posted to keep an eye out for the dead.

(There’s a wooden sign posted: “NO DEAD PEOPLE. This means you, Frank.” This sign won’t stop Frank because Frank can’t read! It’s posted on the end of a shovel, probably for hitting Frank when he comes back around again.)

Kyr Crabber is on duty when we show up, leading some repairs on the walls. “Oh hey, yer back!” He hauls the gates open for us. “Where’d you go? Heard you were going off to get some medicine. Want me to get the doc?”

Valeria shifts awkwardly. “Um…I’ll tell her myself?”

“So you’re not delivering meds, then.”

“Uh, it’s a magic thing. Don’t worry about it. How’s the town?”

He lets us deflect. “We got hit hard last night, and the Penitents didn’t show. Some sort of super-ghoul, I guess? It hit the walls pretty hard. Lady Aubrey took a hunting party out to the catacombs to try to track it down and kill it. They musta only left an hour or two ago.”

Shoshana shouts up that we’re gonna do a magic ritual to purify the water supply so it stops making the people sick. He’s like huh, it’s the water that’s doing that? That’s why I don’t drink it. 😉 Shoshana tells the old drunk an ancient Valdian proverb: HYDRATE OR DIEDRATE.

Anyway, It’s still early in the day and Valeria is buzzing with excitement, so we’re gonna get right to it. She’s gonna get to Be A Hero!

The ritual has a limited range, and the notes on the scroll say to plant the magic item at the river source, so we hike on up to the local landmark known as the Trollstones. Crabber says they looked pretty normal the last time he did a patrol; looks like a “big pile of rocks with water comin’ out.” Well, he’s not wrong.

In Valdia, “trollstones” is a catch-all term for any kind of standing stone, henge, or menhir, the assumption being that they were erected by trolls in ancient times. Many of them are assumed to be old druidic sites. This one, though crude, is huge and impressive. Hundreds of enormous stones are piled into a huge cairn. River water flows out of the gaps – some upper sections in impressive waterfalls, some flowing from underneath directly into the river basin. The water has a murky look to it, and the grass closest to the water is sickly and dying.

Valeria Investigates the area by strapping the Eyegis to the Aethis and sendin’ them swimming in. Our very good gator soon finds an entrance into the Trollstones! Turns out there’s a pretty substantial hollow under the big pile of rocks.

There’s air inside the cave, but we’ll have to swim a bit to get there. Shoshana strips off her big heavy skirt and Valeria hauls her onto the gator. We all dive underwater. CON saves all round! Valeria rolls a six and picks up 2 taint as the necrotic curse in the water seems to sap the life out of her. The cave is dark and dank, so we light up A-Luxor. We can now see a tall, craggy cavern, water dripping in rivulets over the jags of stone. Between the running water, uneven rocks, and slippery moss, it’s definitely difficult terrain. Clem nat 20s a Perception check and shudders as she feels the visceral power of the Pale King pulling at her soul.

The DM debuts a Special Location Rule. Due to the uneven footing, we may either treat the area as difficult terrain or try to move at full speed with a DC10 acrobatics check. If you fail, you slip on the rocks and fall prone partway through your movement.

We spot carvings in these stones, all over the place. Massive letters, deeply chiseled into the cave walls in a script we don’t recognize. However, there’s a smaller carving underneath in Old Valdian, seemingly a translation. Shoshana reads it out to the others: “This is the Tomb of Urdemak, First and Last King of the Trolls. Grandson of the Woods, so [unintelligible] with Life, that Death could not hold him. May we weep for his passing, and dread his return.”

Gral considers. “Perhaps this Urdemak is an agent of the Pale King?”

Shoshana rolls her eyes. “Uh, DUH. He sounds undead, don’t he?”

“No, I mean like the Lurker, or that creepy ringmaster. Something that’s higher in the Curse’s hierarchy than the dybbuk, something that’s controlling the Curse in this town.

Before we can plan a potential Boss Fight, Clem hears movement coming from outside the radius lit up by A-Luxor. It sounds like the rattling of bones. She draws her Warhammer and we all roll for initiative!

Shoshana backs up behind Aethis and readies a Chill Touch while Gral readies his crossbow and Clem draws her sword. Two massive skeletons lumber into view. Judging by their shape and their enormous claws, these are troll skeletons, clattering across the slick terrain with surprising ease.

One charges Clem, bowling into her like a truck even as Gral and Shoshana strike at it. She stands her ground, though, and meets it head on with her hammer for two crushing blows, bloodying it. (Well, if it had blood.)

Behind us, the water roils as two huge shapes rise out of the pool, forming into Water Weirds. Each has a skull floating in it. Valeria uses her shield as an umbrella against a deluge of water and breathes ice at them, but their churning water breaks up the ice crystals that form.

Clem whacks the crumbling troll skeleton again. Shoshana Burning Handses out of panic as the Weirds close in on her, which turns out to be a terrible idea against water monsters.

Gral manages to hook a troll skeleton right on a vertebra – hey, this looks important! – and yanks it right out of the spine, collapsing the skeleton. Meanwhile, the Water Weirds try to engulf Valeria and Shoshana, grappling them.

Valeria casts Command on the one holding her and tells it to Drop It. It obligingly drops her into the shallow waters. Aethis loyally slaps the Weird with its tail, cutting a slice through the water. It blorps itself back into shape, but clearly it’s been disrupted somewhat. Then, unfortunately, it just picks her right back up again. Aethis just keeps on slappin’.

Shoshana, like any cat that has been picked up against its will, claws and bites at the big water hand, dealing a decent amount of damage. In retaliation, the water rushes up over her face, and she takes 1 Taint as she chokes on stank cave water.

Meanwhile, Gral casts Phantasmal Force to momentarily convince a troll skeleton that magic shackles are wrapping around it. Clem sees a skeleton acting like it’s restrained and is like sure, I’d hit that. She crunches it to dust, Second Winding and charging toward where Valeria and Shoshana are getting absolutely soaked.

Gral, out of skeletons to fight, casts Dissonant Whispers on Valeria’s captor. It fails, but he damages it, and he uses his bonus to wooble Valeria out of the water. She takes 3 psychic damage as things get not Water Weird, but Key Weird, and she shlorps out of the water and hits the ground hard. Ow. Meanwhile, Shoshana finally manages to squirm free, dodging an AOO to go hide behind the tanks.

Gral loads up his heart-seeking crossbow bolt, hoping it’ll target a skull just as well, and nails the floating troll head for a chunk o’damage. Unfortunately, that means it’s noticed him, and he gets picked up by the big ol’ water hand. Aethis continues to twerk, thrashing the monster with its slappy tail.

Clem pulls her greatsword and strikes decisively with Great Weapon Master, severing one of the elementals from its water source, and it collapses into harmless water.

Shoshana, finally able to use ranged attacks, shoots the remaining one with a blast of cold, hoping to freeze it. And it does, icing over. Gral makes an athletics check to break out of the crumbling ice sculpture, and manages not to become art.

We stand in the dripping cavern once more. A-Luxor flits around happily, not sentient enough to notice there was a fight.

Valeria burns her new candle, and we take a short rest. The light of the holy wax candle is pleasant and it seems to keep the darkness and dread of this place away. Also, we don’t get a pile of taint, which is nice. Eventually the wick reaches its last, seeming to burn far faster than a candle should, but for a short time it was bright and cheerful in this dark, dank place. The joyful, flickering flame departs and we are once again left with the dark and the wet, the sound of rushing water and old ghosts.

We must pick a path. For lack of any differentiation, we go left. There’s a pile of skulls and bones piled up on the side of the tunnel. (Valeria grabs a troll vertebra as we pass by. It is quite old. It’s a T11 anteclinal vertebra, in dog anatomy terms. It’s the one that’s best for stabbing, apparently? We don’t have time to unpack this, Dr. Valeria’s Player.)

Shoshana rolls a nat 20. With her excellent darkvision, she sees another carving. Most of them have been in Troll – most of the party didn’t know trolls had written language, but here it is. The rest of this part of the cavern seems to be propped up by a few not-especially-sturdy wooden support pillars. We hear some scrambling coming from our left, and a pair of ghouls with axes rush out of the side tunnel.

Shoshana pokes her head out toward the noise and does a wink-and-finger-guns. One hit, one crit. Both ghouls instantly melt from acid. The DM complains because they were gonna chop down the support pillars and drop the ceiling on us in a fun puzzle fight, but NOPE LOL. You’re gonna need tougher enemies than that! (Shoshana’s player immediately knows she will regret saying that.)

With the ghouls out of the way, we take a closer look at the carving, its lower half reading in Old Valdian:

“His mother was a River-Queen and Daughter of the Wood, and her love suffused him with such life that no spear nor axe could fell him, unique among the Trolls. He feared not the touch of flame or acid, as no wound upon him could cause lasting harm. As he grew, he became the great champion and defender of the woods. For the first time, the [unintelligible] had a King.”

This seems to be a continuation of the first set of troll-runes. We want to show Dr. Kjeller, or perhaps Dr. Galvan.

Shoshana makes a Knowledge!Religion check. The Way of the Woods has a large but loose pantheon of wood spirits. The most powerful are affectionately referred to as Baba and Gramps, the grandmother and grandfather of the woods. They have many children, who are powerful wood spirits in their own right. If Urdemak’s mother was known as the River Queen and Daughter of the Wood, she would be one of the children of Baba and Gramps, which would have made Urdemak a wood troll demigod. That certainly explains the bit about not fearing flame or acid.

We listen ahead. From the rightward path we hear something scratching against stone. On the left we hear the sounds of rushing and dripping water, and wailing. This place seems, unsurprisingly, to be chock full of undead. Gral does a stealth ahead to the left path and doesn’t see much. The wailing is from a lot deeper in; whatever’s making it just has a darn good set of lungs.

Sneaking over to the right path, he sees something very interesting. There’s some sort of man-made structure! There’s carved stone pillars and smooth, rectangular construction. Huh, maybe the undead have construction tools? Also, he sees a large creature. It’s wearing a cloak.

Shame it’s spotted Gral.

He can barely see it, but he can feel the thing’s gaze upon him, sapping the life out of him. “That is NOT A FRIENDLY THING,” he hisses back to us.

The Bodak, as the DM calls it, slithers toward Gral and uses its Withering Gaze, trying to crumble him to dust. Despite a save, he still takes a hefty chunk of damage.

Shoshana aims a Fireball down the tunnel, roasting something that’s crawling out of a shadow and charring the Bodak. More skeletons and ghouls are pouring in, and the ones that avoided the blast squeeze their way out of the side tunnels and begin to funnel down toward us. Gral casts Bane upon the Bodak and two of his minions.

Clem charges ahead, keeping her footing on the slippery rocks, and cleaves a skeleton apart. Valeria throws a trident from a distance, forking another in the ribs. She holds her hand out, and glowing rose vines extend from Kyr Marius’ gauntlet to snap the trident back to her for another throw.

The Bodak steps forward, its eerie breath rattling out of its round mouth, and turns its terrible gaze on Valeria. Valeria’s holy aura defends her, and she only takes half damage.

If we want to make direct attacks against it, we must either avert our gaze (granting disadvantage) or make a Con save vs 3d10 damage. Shoshana sidesteps the decision with a Shatter spell, aided by Gral’s Bane, that destroys the second skeleton and bloodies both the ghoul and the Bodak, luckily just missing one of the support pillars. The ghoul charges Clem and misses, which is a mistake, since Valeria is right there to Sentinel it. She forks it with the trident like she’s picking up trash on the side of the road, and tosses it lifeless (un-lifeless?) into a corner. The Bodak hisses in displeasure. “Uuuuuseless…”

Gral uses Phantasmal Force to convince the thing that he is charging into melee with it, even though he’s staying well clear.

(“The Phantom of the Orc-era is theeeeere, insiiiiiide your mind…” one of the players quips.)

Clem heads on in with a Great Weapon Master attack, able to avoid its gaze as it turns to attack the illusory Gral. With a mighty swing, she takes a huge chunk out of the strange creature, tearing through its rotting robe.  

Valeria risks the CON save against its horrible stare, and passes. She throws her trident twice – a nat 20 and a nat 1, natch. The trident clatters against stone as the thing dodges out of the way, and then she yanks the trident back with her glowing vines, burying it in its back and shredding its rotted flesh. She is mildly a Fire Emblem character now, so she gets to do epic crit poses. Victory!

We cautiously emerge into the chamber that’s now been vacated. Valeria can recognize the style of construction! With A-Luxor’s light, we can now see that the Bodak was scratching at a carved stone door. Wait, this is Aquilian architecture! Valeria would know that style anywhere. There’s brick, and a bit of a frieze of eagle, and the columns are carved with legionnaire motifs. It’s simple, as Aquilian style goes. A heavy stone door is set into the center of the wall. We investigate it and, of course, check it for traps.

Valeria crits her investigation and finds the mechanism to open the door. It looks like the mechanism is broken, but with a bit of fighter-and-paladin muscle we can get the door open, no problem. Valeria doesn’t read much Old High Aquilian, but there’s writing on this. Something maybe like “Place of…” something.

Is it the nuclear waste message? “This is not a place of honor?” Only time, and reckless decisions, will tell.

With a nat 20, Valeria realizes something important. The writing wasn’t part of the original design. She can tell there was some sort of latent spellwork, like a low-level Stone Shape, that was set up to supersede the carving that was originally there. Something happened to trigger the spell, and a bunch of letters engraved themselves over the stone. Valeria’s not sure, but she thinks it says something along the lines of Containment Breach.

Uh-oh.

Shoshana copies down the writing, so we can double check with Lucinius, and then we crack that bad boy open.

There are four huge coffers here, like treasure chests. One is open and empty. (Shoshana’s player gets excited, assuming this is where they got that Warden mummy! But no, the DM said coffers, not coffins.) There is a sunken hollow in the center of the room, which has only a metal grate covering the opening to the water close below. Gral can see heavy chains dangling into the flowing water; something was once chained up there, but the chains have now been broken. Hmm.

Maybe this troll king Urdemak is the Pale King, and this is where he was imprisoned?

We think about it, but we’re doubtful. The Aquilian structure postdates the construction of the rest of this place, pretty substantially. This isn’t part of the troll tomb; this is something the Aquilians placed within the tomb site centuries later.

Our investigation reveals no traps. The coffers seem like some kind of foot locker? At the end of room, there is an altar with a bird on it – an altar to Oberok, flanked by austere stone lecterns. Valeria knocks over the statue of Oberok, because Rack’s sacrifice wasn’t for nothing, dangit! (Archaeologists Hate Her!)

In the carvings on the walls, we recognize a repeated word. It’s the word Lucinius pointed out in the mummy’s tattoos, the one he told us meant “Warden.”

Lucinius would be So Mad at us for ruining an archaeological site, but he’s not our dad. We find 400 old Aquilian gold coins. Valeria can easily tell us that we COULD use them as gold, but they’re more valuable as collector item. We roll a ONE HUNDRED on the loot treasure hoard table and nearly win a Rod Of Beating The Game. Instead, we find in the next locker a set of 4 Aquilian icons, each depicting an Aarakocra version of the four lesser gods, as they were before the Deicide. Rack the Soldier (which is weird to us), Lethe the Smith (without martial accoutrements), Torme as an owl-faced bird holding a tome, and a small, insignificant crow-like figure wrapped in a cloak – surely an old version of Guile.

In the third locker, we find a book. It appears to be written primarily in High Aquilian but with a lot of diagrams. Perhaps a training manual? Most of it has translations into Old Valdian, it seems! Shosh takes a look at the text. It’s titled: Warden’s Training Manual: The Spear and the Spell.

This is a magic item. If we train with it for a week, we gain advantage on saves vs each other’s attacks. Interestingly, it’s been modified to work for non-Aarakocra and translated, which means it was yet another collaboration between the Aquilians and the people they supposedly never invaded.

Meanwhile, Shoshana rolls well and finds a surprisingly well-preserved scroll in the lectern, with high Aquilian calligraphy inscribed on it. It feels magically inert to Shoshana – this is no spell scroll. Valeria rolls poorly on an Int check and doesn’t recognize most of the words. But the bit at the end is a common phrase.

As far as we can translate, which isn’t much, we read:

“First Prisoner, Item #5

Containment Procedure: [Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet] waters blessed by local spirits [consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor] influence of the prisoner.

As per request by [unintelligible], [incididunt un labore et dolore] disruption [magna aliquia].

Description: [Ut enim ad minim veniam] First Prisoner.

Let the Vanquished be forgotten, let the Victorious reign eternal.

Glory to Oberok.”

The scroll is damaged, but it doesn’t look like intentional damage, it’s just Real Old. This is important as hell! It’s clues!

With a nat 20, Valeria realizes something about the door.  Based on the way the rest of the door is weathered, in this wet cave, the Containment Breach message is comparatively very new. Within-the-last-couple-of-years new, compared to the ancient ruins. Maybe around a decade old? A little less?

That’s not too far from when the first stirrings of the Curse arose. This could have easily happened after the Curse began – or perhaps simultaneously.

We wrap up our exploration. The Aquilian structure is at a dead end, so we backtrack and begin to go down the tunnel with the wailing. We come across a third carving, though cracks and erosion have made parts of it illegible:

Man, no wonder the Pale King set up shop here.

“[unintelligible] that the Great Wyrm came. The sky filled with flame and fury; the wood burned with the Wyrm’s wrath. Urdemak led the Woods against the great Wyrm. He [unintelligible] the spear [unintelligible] aloft by a dozen giant eagles and [unintelligible] onto the Dragon’s Back.

Urdemak’s claws tore open the Dragon’s throat as it was filled with terrible flame. The fire, straight from the dragon’s heart, scorched Urdemak’s flesh from his bones. As the dragon’s death-spasms faded, the defenders of the Wood gathered around, awaiting their King’s regeneration.

But so thorough was his destruction by the dragon’s flame, bane to trolls, that he could not call the power of life to restore him, and so instead, the king’s grasping soul found only Death”.

As we move past the third carving, the sounds of rushing water echo through the dripping, dank cave. Gral’s keen ears hear something underneath that, clattering and clanking in the passage off to the left. He Mirror Images and we move ahead. Sure enough, there’s a big ol’ skeleton in plate armor waiting for us.

Valeria charges in, but as she passes by one of the piles of scattered bones, a skeletal hand snakes out and grabs her ankle. Startled, she fails to wrench her claw out, and she topples to the ground. The DM is pleased we are FINALLY next to one of the bone piles during a fight, we’ve avoided them like three times by chance. Valeria pushes to her feet and smacks the pile with a wrench, scattering the skull pile and sending the bones pinging off the rocks, but she’s lost her move on the skeletal knight. Gral throws Faerie Fire at it, but it dodges with practiced ease. No other enemies seem to be illuminated by the spell.

Clem charges the skull knight, smashing down on it with her Warhammer. It parries with its longsword and slashes down on her with a Blinding Smite of dark power.

Squeezing out of the rocks like a roiling dark mist comes a wailing, ghostly figure. The wraith drifts to Shoshana and grips her from behind. Her maximum HP is reduced by 21. That’s a LOT for a sorcerer! She chokes and pales as the life drains out of her.

Valeria decides she does not like this wraith thing that just ate her buddy, and mightily smites it, bloodying the cursed thing. Aethis twerks at a second pile of skulls that is swiping at Clem’s feet and smashes it apart, coming away with a hand clutching its tail. It derisively shakes off the weakened bones.

Gral throws a Dissonant Whispers at Ser Spooks the Skull Knight, and makes it afeared. It tries to flee, which gives Clem a chance to swing at it.

As Gral connects with the mind of the skull knight to frighten it, he gets flashes of this guy’s life the same way he sees into the Allsoul. This was originally a Paladin of the Order of the Hammer who left Valdia. There’s images of fighting pirates? Much of it is first person view of wielding a sword, smoke billowing from it as his Blinding Smite summoned Lethe’s flames. This guy’s maybe decades dead – not centuries, but not yesterday either. And the armor is clearly ceremonial rather than practical – something he might be buried in. Seems whatever’s haunting the Trollstones is recruiting from Mornheim’s catacombs.

As it tries to run past Clem, she catches it with her Warhammer, dealing it a terrible blow. She gives chase, dropping her hammer and drawing her greatsword. This thing’s armor was once a set of glorious full plate, but much of it has fallen away, and he’s not defending himself well – like he’s using a shield that isn’t there anymore. Aethis snaps its jaws shut on the Skull Knight’s leg, grappling it. It tries to drain Clem’s life force, but she shrugs off its magic. With Great Weapon Master, she brings her silvered greatsword down. The shock of the blow crumbles its cracked bones apart.

Shoshana’s claws manage to catch in the wraith’s mists, tearing holes through it. Gral runs toward the wraith with his silver dagger out, shoving Shoshana out of the way and plunging it into the wraith with the help of his Psychic Blades.

He summons the power of Blank Mask, a covert ops orc bard from the Asciension War. As he strikes through the wraith, the ghost of a hooded orc with a blank bard mask appears, grabs Gral’s dagger, and pulls the wraith’s head back to slit its throat like an assassin. The dagger clatters to the floor as both Blank Mask and the wraith fade away.

The way stands open, and there is another inscription on the wall.

“The power of Death filled him as Life had before, but, as Life begets Life, Death must spread itself, and Urdemak, now a thing of rot and decay, proceeded to lay waste to those he once protected. His great strength and will to live magnified by the cold grip of death. Eventually, the children of the Wood, the sons and daughters of the great ones, took to the field against their nephew. Many died, but eventually the thing that had been Urdemak was defeated.

The Trolls constructed a great tomb of many large stones to house the body. His mother was reduced to tears [unintelligable], and with those tears flowed her wish that none would ever suffer as she had suffered, that none would see their children returned as twisted servants of death.”

Well that certainly explains…literally everything about Mornheim.

Valeria reaches out and grants a blessing from Rack upon her friends with Aid, which our HP totals all very much appreciate.

We short rest again in the warden’s outpost, Gral singing a Song of Rest, and all take 4 taint. We return to the passage of the fourth tablet and find our way forward.

As we approach the tomb itself, we can hear a voice ahead, speaking modern Valdian. “They’ll be here any minute! Wake up, you old idiot!”

Gral can sense something up ahead, similar to how he senses the Allsoul. If the Allsoul is a rock concert, this is a kid on a triangle. But for a single soul to even be audible? That’s astounding. If that’s a single voice, that’s a voice of immense power.

“I know you’re in there! You ingrate! What, afraid you’ll make your mother sad? After everything I did for you,” a sodden-looking figure in ratty robes is shouting, waving his arms in frustration.

As we make it into the huge chamber, we can see he is dwarfed by the imposing standing stones. Massive stone sarcophagi tower in a semicircle over a burbling, whirling spring. To the side, an enormous rock landslide partially buries the skeleton of a mighty dragon.

Every inch of this cave wall has been carved with Troll words, depictions of life and deeds of Urdemak. Given that the centerpiece is a pretty epic mural of Urdemak fighting the Great Wyrm, we can guess where the dead dragon came from.

One of the sarcophagi has been broken open, and someone has placed an enormous troll skull, massive even for a troll, on top of it, turning the tomb into a huge stone altar. A small, human-sized silver crown is placed upon its head; we recognize the same style of crown from the Pale King tapestry we looted from the castle.

Somebody’s turned this place into an altar of the Pale King. Possibly that little dude over there.

Valeria would like to object to that, preferably with violence. Gral would like to alter that altar.

The skull must be Urdemak, first and last king of the trolls. The crown, though – perhaps it was the thing that was being held in the Aquilian chamber?

The little man still hasn’t stopped complaining. “Wake. Up!” He throws a rock at the skull and misses. “Useless ingrate!”

As we approach, armor clanking, the figure turns around and groans. “Oh. You again.”

I’m sorry, have we met?

Shoshana sarcastically waves hello. Gral rolls insight. It’s not trying to hide who it is. Gral’s not sure whose skin it’s wearing, but it’s that frickin’ dybbuk again.

“What are you trying to do here?” it complains. “I put a lot of work into this place!”

Shoshana stops waving and flips him off.

The dybbuk raises his voice, in that spooky cadence necromancers use for sounding dramatic. “Urdemak!” it intones. “These interlopers have violated your tomb! If you would, rise up and destroy them!”

The skull does not move.

We roll for initiative anyway.

The dybbuk moves first. “Fine. You won’t kill them yourself? I can still make use of you!” It begins to chant, mumbling quickly with pronunciation that sounds archaic even for Old Valdian. Something about “Guardian of the River Morn, servant of my-“ It switches language, but clearly it’s summoning something. The dybbuk deftly steps back onto the altar and gestures as the waters begins to writhe and roil and spin, rising to engulf the massive skull and claws from atop the altar.

Now if you’ll excuse the DM, he needs to add one more thing to the initiative order. This thing, he calls…the Pale Spring.

As this thing’s health bar grows across the top of the screen, we recognize it looks similar to the Water Weirds on a far larger scale. More human and troll bones rise from the pool into its swirling mass, but Urdemak’s mighty skull and claws form the cornerstones of its shape.

If we’re coming here to put a sword in the water, the DM figured the water should have a chance to object first.

Gral slaps Clem with an inspiration and makes a joke in Orcish along the lines of “who pooped in the pool?” Shosh rolls her eyes, but it fails its save. Let us be clear: you, sir, are stank water.

The Spring raises itself up and the chamber begins to flood. Its claws seem to be wreathed with some kind of horrible necrotic energy. We all manage to keep our feet against the huge wave it throws at us, except for Aethis, who was swimming instead of standing. The gator is dashed against the rocks and bursts into a cloud of sparkles, gone until Valeria can resummon it.

Valeria, outraged, charges forward and hurls a trident, her gauntlet allowing her to whip it back a second time. She also casts Shield of Faith on Shoshana. Shoshana, who is aggressive but no fool, casts Mirror Image on herself and tries to hide behind a rock.

Clem tries to slog through the deep water, rolling good Athletics to avoid it being difficult terrain, and whiffs both her attacks, sword slicing harmlessly through the water – until Gral’s bardic inspiration kicks in. The bones seem to flow into place to form armor to block her swings, but she manages to crack some femurs.

It uses its legendary action to crit Clem. It’s facing the other way, but the troll claw flows through its center as a new watery arm grows out and rockets into the drow.

The dybbuk leans casually against the empty sarcophagus. “Y’know, if you would have shown some gratitude and killed them, this could all have been avoided!” It wiggles its hands and some skeletons crawl out of the cracks in the rocks and form out of the mounds of bones. “You! Throw things at them!” it commands them.

It spares a glance toward the dragon skeleton. “No. Don’t even think about it. We’re not there yet. I know better than to trust YOU.”

The Pale Spring’s claws surge with energy, giving it an extra d10 on attacks. Both Clem and Valeria get slammed as the bones hurtle toward them on powerful jets of water.

Valeria gets up in the Spring’s face and smites it. After all, it’s both undead and an elemental. As Valeria raises her sword She-Ra style, vines grow around it and down into the water. s she strikes into the mass of water, The bones try again to form armor but the glowing rose vines grow through the cracks, wrapping around the bones and crushing them to powder. It roars with anger, and for the first time, the dybbuk looks genuinely concerned.

Gral rolls perception at the DM’s request. That note he heard before, he hears it clearer and louder now. From the skull, from the claws, echoing from the unbroken stone sarcophagi. Gral has talked to powerful ancient spirits before; he gets the unmistakable vibe that Urdemak is deeply enraged. But there’s no animosity toward us; he’s angry at the way this dybbuk has disturbed his rest and dared to use him.

Shoshana squeaks an “I’m sorry, Clem” and casts a fireball toward the melee. The chamber lights up with flames and rattles with a mighty KABOOM. The dybbuk is pretty scorched and any mook skeletons in the way are gone to ash, but Clem manages to dodge the worst of it. Steam rises off the Pale Spring as it turns to retaliate, the frigid water coming to life and sucking Shoshana under. The bony fingers of the Pale King wrap around her and in her terror she falters – and lets the Pale King gift her 10hp in return for 2 taint.

Clem rushes at the Dybbuk, intent on destroying the one who turned the Red Hand into a death cult, but the Spring strikes at her as she runs, knocking her unconscious. She takes 3 taint as she falls toward death, into the Pale King’s domain.

Gral’s nearly out of spells, but he throws a Healing Word at Clem. He channels an Orcish drill sergeant yelling “DID I SAY IT WAS NAPTIME, SOLDIER? GET UP, SOLDIER, YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO BLEEEED.” Then he draws his sickle and goes in! His Psychic Blades barely scratch it, rolling low.

The Pale Spring readies its claws, charging them up again to strike with extra damage. Clem dodges, narrowly avoiding another killing blow, but it manages to slam Valeria hard against the rocks.

The dybbuk orders the remaining skeleton to throw something at us. Its aim is not great. A clavicle just sort of clatters toward us awkwardly.

Shoshana leans back and lets raw electricity course out of both of her hands, blasting her usual twinned Chromatic Orb at a much higher level. The dybbuk is booted completely out of its flesh suit. We see the familiar floating skull in the bell of the jellyfish as the body it was wearing falls apart. The Pale Spring takes a heavy hit too, the electricity surging through it in a brilliant crackle, steam rising. It retaliates, trying to drag Shoshana down into the undertow, but she hangs onto a sturdy rock and keeps her feet under her.

Clem pushes herself to her feet, Second Winds, and buries her sword into the currents. It’s got more bone fragments than bones inside now, and she manages to take a chunk out of one of the huge troll claws. It swipes back, but feebly, for minor damage – which allows Valeria to strike in with a Sentinel.

The dybbuk’s lost its body and the Pale Spring’s nearly down; it’s not gonna stick around. It woobles away down through the cave floor, eluding us once again.

Gral throws the last of his inspirations into a Psychic Blades. A ghostly circle of orc heroes raise their lances and plunge them into the water, all at once. The elemental lashes out, flailing as the circle of orcs presses inwards, its claws passing through the specters even as they crush its bones. It falls, reduced to simple water, back into the spring, and the two troll claws wash back down into the central pit.

The waters recede and we are left standing in the tomb of Urdemak the Troll King. Wait, no, there’s still a skeleton mook there. We give it a sternly worded Go Away.

Valeria runs over to Clem, patting at her for 15hp and healing herself 15hp as well. We managed to turn around fast enough to avoid one of the fight mechanics. If the dybbuk got desperate, it would have awoken the dragon. It hesitated when Clem went down, and then Shosh nuked it.

We all take a deep breath. Clem’s a bit miffed that she didn’t get to beat the crap out of the dybbuk for possessing her old friend, but such is life.

We set to moving the piles of bones out of the water. Shoshana uses her Mage Hand to remove the crown from Urdemak’s skull, since nobody wants to touch that thing. The skull is suffused with necromantic energy. To Valeria’s Detect Magic, the crown is lighting up like a bonfire. Gral’s getting vibes from the skull, though – it’s feeling a lot more chill with the dybbuk driven off.

It takes some elbow grease and ingenuity to place the enormous skull and claws back into the open stone sarcophagi and close them again.

We roll against Taint for exposing ourselves to the necromantic energy of the fight. Everyone succeeds.

Hey, what do we do with this evil crown?

We talk it out. Judging by what we’ve seen down here, it sounds like the River Mother’s blessing on this tomb and these waters was what was stopping all undead from rising in Mornheim. The Aquilian containment zone worked by submerging the evil undeath crown in the blessed waters.

It looks like the dybbuk, or another agent of the Pale King, managed to remove that blessing and turn the tomb into an altar of undeath. Valeria’s ritual will slow down the undead and stop the Curse from poisoning the city through the water, but it won’t restore the blessing of the River Mother. Submerging the crown, at this point, would just start tainting the water again. We decide to put it in a foot locker in the Aquilian structure; at least it’ll be contained.

While we worry about the crown, Valeria begins her ritual. Shoshana has coached her on the pronunciation of the Old Valdian incantation. There is a section that’s invocation of the Power; written to reach out to Grandmother and Grandfather but Valeria switches to Draco-Aquilian to invoke her patron Rack.

She raises the sword we prepared, anointed with the druidic poultice made of the plants we gathered in Bad Herzfeld, the vine of the moon lily wrapped around the sword like a chain of Rack. As she reads the words aloud and drains power from the scroll into the sword, the writing on the scroll melts away.

Standing on the altar where the skull used to be placed, Valeria strikes the sword down, sheathing it into the water. It stays upright as it leaves her hands. The moon lily’s vine grows upwards, blooming into a massive flower above the water, its roots extending deep down into the spring.

The sickly, murky look fades from the waters and they once again run clear. The purified water begins to flow down through in rivulets through the tomb of Urdemak and down into the River Morn.

Valeria has Achieved Her Quest! +1 Inspiration!

 We take some time to admire our work and clear the Pale King’s trappings out of Urdemak’s tomb, but soon it’s time to leave. As we turn to go, Shoshana places her hand on the stone sarcophagus holding Urdemak’s mighty claws, and pauses as she feels a wave of overwhelming power.

It feels like gratitude.

As she blinks stars out of her eyes, Shoshana sees her hand atop the king’s tomb, overlaid by the ghostly shape of a troll’s heavy, sharp claws. She blinks again and the image is gone, along with the strange sensation, but as she flexes her claws she feels like something has changed.

(Shoshana has received a boon: Claws of the Troll King! Grants an extra d4 of damage to the Primal Savagery cantrip, with an additional d6 of damage for each sorcery point spent, up to 3d6. Each additional die also heals the caster that many hit points. Requires attunement.)

We climb our weary way out of the caves. Luckily, it seems we’d already cleared the area of nasties, or they’re avoiding the newly blessed waters, and we’re mostly undisturbed on the way out. We are drained, exhausted, and of course absolutely soaking wet.

As we hike back to town, we see the clear waters flowing through the still blighted land of Mornheim. Maybe it’s our imagination, but the area around the river seems just a little less Tim Burtony. It’s been several hours; the sun is almost down as we hurriedly drag ourselves to the safety of the walls. Near the city, we see a ragged group emerging from one of the catacomb entrances. It’s Lady Aubrey and her crew; they look quite scorched except for Mercedes. We, on the other hand, look quite damp.

Aubrey squints at us. “You’re back? The fuck’ve you been up to?” She hasn’t been home to find out we showed up.

Valeria chirps, “We Purified the Water!” You can almost hear the capital letters. Shoshana just points at Valeria and nods. “What she said.”

Gral, thankfully, is a master storyteller and actually gives Aubrey the deets as we schlep back to town.

“…And you found this scroll in my house?” she asks, once he’s done. We nod and hand over the scroll. The spell incantation has melted away, but the instructions on spell components still remain. Aubrey’s obviously taken aback by what she sees. “…this is my mom’s handwriting. I don’t…you’re gonna have to tell me everything. We should get inside the walls.”

She composes herself, back to business for now. “So did it work?”

Valeria nods. “Yup. We weren’t able to restore the blessing, but the water won’t be making everyone sick anymore.”

“Wait, wait, the water was blessed?”

Shoshana nods. “Yep, uh, the Trollstones is this big troll grave, and there was a blessing from a Child of the Woods to prevent her son from rising as undead, and the Curse seems to have broken it-“

“Why does it feel like you learned more about my home in a day than I’ve known in my entire life?!”

“Uh, we went…real deep. And fought monsters about it.”

“Yeah, I’ve gone real deep! I’ve fought monsters! You know what I found out? I found out there’s SUPERGHOULS.”

When we get to the walls, the old troll gardener, Skulbjor, is guarding the gate. “Oh! It’s dem! Hey, where’s your chomper?” he asks, looking around for poor exploded Aethis.

“…Don’t worry, they’ll be back!”

“Oh good, dat’s a good chomper. How was your hunt, Lady Aubrey?”

“Well the thing is dead. Again.”

As we drag ourselves inside, Gral approaches the old troll. “Skulbjor, how familiar are you with the legends of this place?”

“Well, I grew up here,” he says. “I’m older than most anybody what lives here.”

“Have you ever heard the name Urdemak?”

Skulbjor considers for a minute, his face scrunched up in concentration. “No, I don’t know dat one. Where’s he buried?”

“The Trollstones were his tomb. He was a great troll king, whose power was perverted by the undead in this place. His spirit was angry, but I think we were able to put it at peace.”

The troll considers this quite seriously. Finally, he nods. “Dat’s good to hear. One thing the previous troll told me is dat it is a very old troll tradition that there must always be a troll in Mornheim, and to never ever mess with the Trollstones. Lady Rosalind went there a lot. She went there the day she got sick, even. I found her there, yanno. Brought her back to the castle myself, but she never woke up.”

Man, do we have a story for him later.

While walking, Valeria takes moment and thanks Shoshana for helping with the translation and pronunciation of the spell, and helping save the town. There’s hugs. 😊

The two adventuring parties stumble into the gates of Mornheim as the sun sets, sharing stories. Skulbjor looks out over the hills for a long moment before closing the gate. “Urdemok. Wow, das interesting.”

Valeria and Gral roll CON saves against the Pale King’s taint. Clem and Shoshana, meanwhile, have gained enough taint to receive an Offer.

[cursewoodrecap]

Session 10: What’s Dead Is [Not] Dead

In the city of Mornheim, among skeletons, wraiths, and zombies, Clem confronts a figure from her past.

At the end of the previous session, we had just entered the vast Epitaph Library of the von Mornheim manor. According to Lady Aubrey, it had been taken over by “creepy robe fuckers,” who she’d seen sneaking around the necropolis. They certainly don’t control all the undead of the city, but they’re certainly commanding a fair few of them. The cultists had previously been working out of the catacombs, in the von Menzer family crypt, but now it looks like they’ve moved into the east wing of the manor house, along with their newest recruits - the straggling remains of the elite Kevan squadron known as the Red Hand.

 We stand at the entrance to the Epitaph Library, a huge two-story chamber of books, with a second-story balcony running along three of the four walls. It’s not just a regular rich-people library; it also contains records of all the notable graves in Mornheim and those who were interred there. In the room with us: two skeletons, impassively standing guard; a few cultists in robes who look rather spooked by our appearance; and one of Clem’s old squadmates: Private Sokolov. He’s standing at a table, leaning heavily on his halberd for support, looking pale, gaunt, and sickly.

Clem only has eyes for the ailing, weak elf, but the rest of us do a quick scan. Sokolov is the only Red Hand we can see in the room; the robe guys look Valdian. A decent Perception check of the books pulled from the shelves lets us know that it seems like the cultists are methodically looking through the books, especially those bound in black. Some sections of the library are almost entirely black; we assume those books are the epitaphs. It’s a methodical and comprehensive search.

Clem doesn’t care. Every inch of her impressive figure is tense, like a hunter preparing to strike. She softly steps closer to her former comrade. “Sokolov. Is this where you ran off to?” she spits, voice dripping with disdain.

“I made it back to camp. But the others - Rusalka led us here, after things got – well, you know. He got some of us assigned to a rear guard unit, and kept in touch with the ones he could find during the fight. After the war, we didn’t have anywhere to go. They didn’t make any place for us. You know what it was like.” He laughs humorlessly, which turns into a hacking cough. “Those of us who had no home to go back to came here. There’s money to be made for good swords, in these woods.”

Clem gets even closer, her hand on the hilt of her sword. This close, he looks...well, he looks even more godawful. He’s dying. Clem puts aside her hatred for a moment. “Sokolov...what the hell did you do to yourself?”

He keeps smiling sadly at her. “We came here with an elf knight, one of those Cursebreakers. He took us down to the tunnels. We got hit hard by ghouls. They busted through some of the thinner walls and ambushed us in the middle of a column. All I’m good for is running away, so...I did. I made noise, I led them off, so the others could escape. I wasn’t expecting it, but they came back for me. By the time they found me, the ghouls had gotten me pretty bad, though.”

The armor that hangs off his emaciated frame verifies his story. It’s badly damaged, the leather torn and the metal scarred. 

“Don’t worry about me, I’m fine. It was months ago, I don’t even feel it anymore,” he rasps. 

The cultists are watching us in stone-faced silence. “Clear off, this is private,” Sokolov snaps at them in Valdian. They step away, heading through the doors on the far end of the chamber.

“Don’t worry about them,” he tells us. “They’re helping us.”

“Helping you do what?” Clem asks suspiciously.

“They were working with ghouls. They had this leader. When Rusalka and others came back for me, they chopped through the ghouls and went after the cultists. Grigor watched our back, but he went down. Then Rusalka killed the leader – he died, and we thought the cultists might scatter and break, but they didn’t. One went over to where Grigori was dead, and he got back up and came back to us. He talked to them - made a deal. We-” - he coughs again, loud and wet – “Sarge, we helped them out with some stuff, and they’re gonna bring her back!”

Clem is absolutely stricken. “Bring – bring her back?!” she stammers. “No, that’s impossible. I saw what happened to her, there’s no coming back from that.”

“They said they just need a bit, a piece,” Sokolov insists, a feverish light in his eyes. “A couple days later - Rusalka was asking around - the Order of the Hammer took out a frost giant with a wounded leg. They threw the body in a pit and burned it. Some of us went there. We can find her bones! That’s all that they need! That and one other thing, but Rusalka says that won’t be a problem.”

Clem is frozen in place, barely able to begin processing this. Just - this can’t be. 

“No, this is – you can’t do this, this is an abomination. She died in battle, that’s what she lived for. You can’t just-”

Sokolov interrupts. “She kept us all alive! We would have died without her! We would have frozen in that damn town, arrows in our throats or worse. The least we can do is give her a second chance.”

Clem regains a bit of her composure. “She might have survived that battle if you hadn’t run,” she growls.

“That’s why we have to do this! We lived, while she died! We have to right that. That’s not justice.”

“Sokolov, listen closely,” Clem warns him. “If you have any respect for her, let her stay dead. Let the past stay buried.”

“I knew you’d be this way,” Sokolov grumbles. “Grigori, he’s better at explaining it. He should be here soon. Besides, even if I could, even if I wanted to, we can’t stop. Like I said, it’s too late now, it’s started. They’re gonna get the body, and we’re already paying the price. It’s gonna work. It has to. You’ve seen this wood! You’ve seen the rules don’t apply here!”

Clem’s hand twitches on her sword, every muscle in her body straining with tension as she resists the urge to stab the little rat.

“Sokolov,” she says urgently, putting all of her composure into one last try at reason, “whatever you’re doing, it’s not too late to stop it. There has to be some way you can prevent this abomination from going through.”

“They already went to get the body. Rusalka’s gonna get the heart - the heart of the one who wronged her. Got himself an ambassador position, up in Schotzengrad. That’s all we need.”

Clem closes the rest of the distance between them and growls softly right into his face. “Sokolov. Where is this happening?”

“I don’t know that part.”

“Is that so. You said Grigori’s gonna return here soon?”

“He did,” says a voice from above. An elf in a Red Hand uniform steps out onto the balcony, holding a longbow. Unlike everyone else we’ve met in this building, he actually looks...completely healthy. “Sergeant.”

Clem recognizes him instantly. “Grigor. Whatever you’re doing, you have to stop this.”

He scoffs. “Why must we? Why must we not right the greatest wrong to ever face us? Our homes were destroyed. We were abandoned. The Czar has no interest in us. We served Khoshev’s purpose, and he would not look out for us. We are outcasts. In Valdia they needed our swords, but again we were abandoned. We have found a new patron, one who will do us a great service and give us a place.”

Desperation creeps into Clem’s tone. “I was...very hurt by her death, you were too, but this isn’t what she would want! She’d want us to move on, and survive! It would be the greatest disrespect to resurrect her!”

Grigor is unmoved, even smiling slightly. “Why not let her make the choice, since we can give the dead tongues?”

Clem closes her eyes briefly, takes a short breath, and makes a decision. “Shit. Well. Gregor, it was a pleasure to have served with you, but-”

Shoshana claps a hand on Clem’s shoulder, correctly sensing Impending Murder. “Grigor, you said?” she calls up to the elf looking down at us.

“Is this your business?” he asks her disdainfully.

She squints at him. “...Let’s say I consider Sergeant Haxan my business. I have a question for you. You came back, but you’re not like the others out there - you’re no shambling corpse. What makes you different?”

“Ah, them. They have not returned, only I. My body, my life, is a sign of the blessing of the bounty the Pale King will bestow upon his servants. Why fear death when you serve its master?”

“Why were you chosen?” the sorceress asks him.

“To prove to the others that the Pale King is a bountiful and generous lord. We lived every day in fear. My return proves that for us, that is not necessary. The dangers of this place – the claws, fangs and poisons – we do not need to fear them. Death...is merely an inconvenience. One way or another, the Red Hand has found a new master. We would like you to join us, Sergeant Haxan. One way or another, you will.”

Clem has officially had enough of this shit, and cleaves Sokolov in half.

Shoshana jumps back, cursing. Clem’s greatsword doesn’t make it all the way through him, but buries itself deep into his torso. “Sarge!” he gasps as he slumps to the ground, bleeding out. Grigor doesn’t seem especially perturbed, but shouts “TAKE THEM. THEY WILL BE MADE TO SERVE.” As two cultists run back in to assist and the skeletons creak to life, we roll initiative.

Sokolov is dead. Clem sprints past his body and shimmies up the ladder to the balcony.

We all burst into motion. Grigor draws his longbow, firing at Clem but missing.

Gral chucks the adamantine wrench towards Valeria, knowing she’s closer to the skeletons and they’re weak to bludgeoning. Gral heads to the ladder on the opposite side of the balcony, casting Mirror Image for defense.

A cultist runs up to Gral, pulling out a heavy bell and ringing it at him, but missing. Valeria snatches the wrench off the ground, which in her hands is a Warhammer, and starts smashing at one of the skeletons. The other skeleton corners Shoshana, preventing her from shooting at the further targets.

As the room explodes into violence, Clem, racing toward Grigor on the opposite end of the balcony, sees Sokolov’s body start to move. The blood now completely drained from his face, he props himself up with his halberd. “Damn, Sarge, what’d you have to go and do that for?” he whines, with the last of the air in his lungs. The gaping, fatal wound is still there, but he’s movin’ around. Uh oh.

Shoshana swipes at her skeleton, and the piece of her mind that belongs to the Hunt hisses, tear open your foe, feast on his organs! Oh wait, it’s a skeleton. Going for his throat doesn’t work if he doesn’t HAVE a throat. You can’t disembowel a guy if he doesn’t HAVE any bowels. This explains why she’s rolling absolutely terrible against a weenie-ass foe.

The DM grins wickedly at us. Time for Grigor’s special ability!

As Clem approaches Grigor, she sees his mouth split into massive grin, a terrible madness in his eyes. He sprints backwards, running away from her. He twists, to turn away and run – but his torso twists around unnaturally, with a horrifying snapping sound, so he is still facing her as he continues firing arrows.

Clem barely succeeds her WIS save against being frightened, but Grigor still sticks her with two arrows as he runs.

The DM lets us know that, by the way, a special thing unlocks in this zone if you are bloodied. Is it Taint? It will, in fact, be Taint.

Gral plays a minor chord and woobles, moving directly through the cultist, up the ladder and directly toward Grigor. Surprise! He’s gonna Phantasmal Force a punk cultist. The cultist is convinced that there’s a still a bunch of Mirror Image Grals attacking him.

Cultist fights the fantasy Grals, doing no actual damage. Valeria bashes her skelly. It’s nearly crunched but not fully, with 1hp left, which is massively annoying. We miss having Kaze, our tiny murderous golem from our previous campaign who’d sometimes tackle a nearly-dead foe. Shoshana, still awful in melee, is bloodied by her weenie-ass skeleton.

Sokolov stands up, very clearly undead at this point. He heads to the ladder to go help Grigor. He stops and looks at the cultist flailing at thin air. “...What are you even fighting?” “THE ORC!” shouts the frustrated mook. Sokolov sighs. “Cultists.”

Clem is gaining on Grigor, who fails to hit her even as he uses his special Archer’s Eye ability. “Really, arms? Stop fighting me on this,” he quips, as he gruesomely cracks his spine back into place.

Gral moves in and hits ‘im while he’s messing with his lumbar support. Gral will do his best to un-support his lumbar! Whatever Grigor is, he doesn’t resist Gral’s psychic damage. (He does seem to have a working mind, unlike a lot of zombies.) The poor cultist is still stuck in the fantasy Grals. Valeria nat 1s at the last skeleton. Why do we roll such garbage against skeletons?!?!?!

Shosha wastes a sorcery point rolling garbage against skeletons. Sokolov climbs the ladder and runs to intercept Gral. Clem finally closes the distance on Grigor and shows him just what a Battlemaster can do. Maneuver! Trip attack! Action surge! He’s bloodied, looking decidedly worse for wear.

Shoshana, in frustration, explodes her fucking skeleton and moves into spellcasting range. Grigor does not like being in the Clem/Gral adventurer sandwich and Withdraws, scootin’ away. He jumps off the balcony and lands on top of one of the freestanding bookshelves in a display of surprising grace.

Gral casts Dissonant Whispers on Sokolov. He fails his save, taking a bit of damage and running away from Gral. As Clem gets her AOO, Sokolov sasses her: “Stop amputating me, doc, I’m fine!”

That cultist just keeps fighting them imaginary orcs. He staggers, shouting “MY LIFE FOR THE PALE-” and falls over dead.

Valeria fiiiiinally shatters that stupid pile of bones to dust, then heads toward Grigor.

Sokolov shakes off the whispers and charges back at Gral, reaches out with withered, pale claw. He pops one of Gral duplicates. “I’m HUNGRY!” he howls in frustration. He has his blade, too, but he misses.

Clem jumps off the balcony next to Grigor, missing him as she plummets onto the top of the same bookshelf, barely managing to keep her balance. Shoshana, finally free to cast, twins a Chromatic Orb and hits both undead elves with a searing stream of acid.

Grigor nimbly hops back up onto the balcony, avoiding Clem’s AOO. He points at Shoshana, his eyes appraising. “You…will be useful.” His arrow crits her. Shosha is down, taking 3 taint. Her Strength of the Grave ability fails to save her.

Grigor looked alive when we first saw him, but the acid from Chromatic Orb is eating away at his face, exposing bone and muscle. Yet he’s still grinning widely, even as he’s inches away from falling apart. He seems to feel no pain. 

Gral slashes at Sokolov, throwing a Healing Word at Shoshana with his bonus action. “Yo, what happened?” she mumbles, coming to. “Are these arrows in me? ...Can I keep ‘em?”

Grigor smirks. “I’m gonna want them back, once you serve the Pale King.” She flips him off.

Valeria whonks Sokolov with the wrench, smiting him, which is extra damage against at undead. 22 damage on a single smite. Screamin’ Rack on a Bicycle! He’s super dead, HDYWTDT? Valeria just caves in his head with a wrench, and there is a burst of light as rose vines wrap around him. “STAY DOWN THIS TIME,” she growls.

“You’re taking the fun out of-“ He dies, exploding as the vines tear through him.

Clem continues chasing Grigor down, vaulting back onto the balcony from the bookshelf and slamming her sword down. As she cuts through him and shatters his bow with her sword, something weird happens. An odd spectral form peels itself out of Grigor’s flesh. It sort of looks like a jellyfish? But there’s a skull floating within its bell. The DM reveals it looks slightly different to each of us. Shoshana thinks the skull looks human; Clem thinks elven. Gral can clearly see orcish tusks, while Valeria sees a distinctive dragonlike skull.

It’s floating there, being a jelly. Shoshana shoots it with lightning. Lightning doesn’t seem to especially affect it – it seems resistant, and somewhat incorporeal.

The skull looks like it’s laughing. “Ah well,” it says, looking at Grigor’s ruined corpse. “Plenty of meat where that came from.” Clem AOOs it for some damage as it goes, but not enough to kill it. It blorbles away smugly, phasing away through the wall faster than we can chase.

Quiet falls over the library. Valeria rolls well on her Knowledge!Religion check and realizes what we just saw was a Dybbuk, a malevolent fiendish spirit that possesses corpses. (They teach you all about this stuff in Paladin school.) It can animate corpses Once it’s got its tendrils into a meat noggin, it knows what they knew in life, so they’re very good at impersonating people. They can alter corpses to look like they’re still alive. They’ll Detect as both undead and fiend under Divine Sense. They’re extremely skilled infiltrators – or they would be if they weren’t complete sadists, and there’s only so long they can keep up the polite façade. They’re known to be fond of twisting their possessed bodies in horrible ways to shock, terrify, and disgust people.

Sokolov mentioned that back in the tomb, Grigor died holding the line. Then, after they killed the cult leader, Grigor came back. Likely, the cult leader was a corpse possessed by the dybbuk, and when that body was killed it slipped out stealthily and immediately possessed Grigor.

They’re incorporeal and can teleport, so they’re extremely hard to lock down. Order of the Rose protocol for dybbuks is to bring in clerics to cast Dimensional Anchor. Or, once you identify the target, to hit it with overwhelming force. Lock it down and surround it with paladins before you kill the host body.

Valeria tells the rest of us us how dybbuks work. “They’re real slippery. We definitely need to kill it, but I’m not sure how to lock it down.”

By this point, we’ve all met up on the balcony where Clem is still standing, catatonically, over Grigor’s body. Shoshana leans into Clem’s shoulder in a catlike headbutt of support.

Gral heard the cultist mention a “Pale King.” “That might be like Key. That’s the Prisoner that’s affecting this place.”

Valeria goes over and examines Sokolov. He was brought back as a wight, an undead made by having its life essence drained away. They’re bog-standard undead, one of the nastier forms. We saw the transformation – he was PRIMED to come back as wight the moment he died. He was basically already a wight sitting in his skin; Clem just evicted him.

We look at the piles of books, where the cultists were sorting through records of the dead. “So, they’re clearly trying to find a SPECIFIC dead guy. Maybe that person they were trying to bring back?”

Clem has idea of their plan, but is just too emotionally shell-shocked to get into it.

Shoshana Investigates well, looking at the books they’ve kept out; there are notes with names and grave locations. The names they’ve pulled out have a bit of a pattern; they’re not looking for specific person so much as specific types of people.

The name of Dr. Reniger Reia, the necromancer we fought in the catacombs, is circled; there’s a bunch of names circled that are buried over in Gallows Hill – not average murderers, more like “this knight went mad and slaughtered an entire village” or “this wizard was found doing illegal experiments.” There’s some names of Sturmhearst engineers. 

“These are all people who are gonna be USEFUL to them,” Shoshana realizes. “This is their recruitment list!"

We snag the lists and notes, because a) useful info; and b) ha ha they’ll have to redo all their research, suck ittttttt. But what do we do next?

Valeria wants to go after the Dybbuk, but it’s only one nasty ghost in a sea of many, and now that it’s lost Grigor’s body, it’s lost its sway with the former Red Hand. It’s totally gone, anyway - it probably retreated to a safe space to regroup, the special snowflake.

We’d go after whoever’s Behind Everything, but it sounds like the Pale King is a Prisoner, and that’s waaaaaay above our weight class, even if we knew where to start.

We remember to be worried that Sokolov mentioned an ambassadorship in Schotzengrad. Nobody but Clem has much of an idea about the details, but it sure sounds like they were planning to assassinate somebody.

Well, this is all very complicated future planning. We’re gonna search rest of house, and then decide. (“Let’s split up, gang!” Gral chirps. “FUCK YOU, FRED, I WILL NOT BE YOUR DAPHNE” hisses Shoshana.)

Valeria pulls an arrow out of Shosha and gives her the Shoulder Pat Pat of Healing. Thanks, bud.

We hop on through the doors of the balcony, further into the east wing. Looks like this area of the house was more working than residential. In this hallway, there’s a bunch of offices and meeting rooms, full of desks and bookshelves for various clerks and officials. Seems like the cultists have set up camp here, too. I guess even zombie cults have bureaucracy to deal with.

We find a big map in one of the rooms and yoink it for later. Clem draws a card for our next encounter: the Heretic. (Natch.)

We hear some chanting coming from a doorway, in a language none of us recognize. Valeria gets to roll to try, but she is Not A Linguist and can’t place it. Anyway, it sounds like there’s a spooky ritual goin’ on in there, and there’s only one thing for a paladin to do about that. 

Valeria kicks down the door.

Oh, now everyone’s looking at us.

Four cultists are standing in a circle, chanting over a pool of blackish dark water, encircled by runes. Three armored skeletons stand guard over them. In the pool of water lies a dessicated corpse. 

(“Ah. They are rehydrating it. Like one of those foam dinosaurs.” “MOISTURIZE ME.” “Seriously, who is playing Bonetrousle right now???”)

Gral Banes the skellies, who retaliate with their loaded crossbows! They all miss. One swings a sword up at Valeria. It whiffs. The skeletons are disappointed, more in themselves than anything.

Clem pulls out her Warhammer (has she had a Warhammer this whole time?!) and smashy smashes a skelly into dust. Another gets an AOO on her, but Valeria gets to Sentinel it back.

The cultists, meanwhile, all pull out heavy bells. Two dongs for Clem! (HEH HEH, DONGS OF TAINT.) She saves against one heavy, thunderous ring, but takes a d12 of Taint for the other dong. Valeria suffers a similar attack.

However, the thing about being in a fun chanting circle is that everyone’s nicely grouped up for an AOE. Shoshana peeks around the corner and casually pops off a burst of energy into the center of the ritual. 4 targets, 4 failed saves. BOOM. Shatter just…shatters ‘em. The chanting ends abruptly as bone shrapnel goes flying and cultists collapse. The pool/basin also shatters, the dark water leaking out over the room. 

There’s one cultist and one skelly left, but between Valeria, Clem, and Gral, they don’t even have a chance to put up a fight.

There’s an old dead body lying in the remains of the basin. Soggy and gross. Valeria uses her Divine Sense to detect what this whole ritual was about, and the water pings her as undead - it’s not itself an undead creature, but a good Knowledge!Religion roll tells her that any bodies left in this zombie soup will animate as undead. Looks like they were specifically marinating that one big mummified body in it.

Gross. We should probably move all these bodies lyin’ in the zombie juice, before they come back to bite us in the ass, literally. Shoshana pokes one with her staff.

Gral volunteers to use his magical woobles from the enchanted lute-strings to help Clem move shit around without taking taint. Clem agrees, but takes a rattling dose of psychic damage when Gral strikes a power chord and Key-woobles the both of them.  It’s odd to watch. They can touch the cultists’ bodies, but the water just falls through them. 

“That’s kinda fucked,” Clem observes. Gral and Clem use their woobliness to drag the old corpse out of the center of the basin. Valeria takes one for the team and drags the rest of the cultists out of the zombie juice, taking a chunk of taint for getting it all over her hands.

Shoshana does a medicine check on the Mysterious Old Body the cultists were trying to raise. This is a pretty old corpse! Honestly, she’s surprised it isn’t completely skeletal. It looks like it was mummified, but she can see a strange design tattooed on one of its arms. It’s warped, since the skin is so dessicated, but it’s clearly written in Old Valdian. It’s hard to make out what it says, but there are a few legible letters and words here and there. Something about ‘guardian,’ or ‘warden?’ Whatever it is, this is old, OLD-school Way of the Woods symbolism. 

The other arm is also covered in tattoos, but these ones are in a language Shoshana doesn’t recognize. It sort of looks familiar, though? Valeria, peering over her shoulder, doesn’t speak that language but has seen it on countless old buildings. This is Old Aquilian. (Where’s Lucinius Galvan when you need him?!)

That’s weird. Those two old cultures weren’t friends??? History tells us that the Aquilians dropped a few fortresses in Valdia and then mostly fucked off, because flying legions of Aarakocra aren’t good at forests, and by all accounts, the locals were Not Happy with the occupation. 

Valeria tries to copy down the symbols on the tattoos, so we can show Lucinius later. She does an excellent job!

Gral is impressed at the excellent mummification job on this fella. Orc bards are VERY familiar with the process of mummification, as it is traditional for particularly important orcs’ bodies to be mummified after their spirits have joined the Allsoul.

(“Our mummies are magical batteries, and it’s great,” Gral’s player brags. “We’ve got one back at base camp and it’s very strong.”)

As for the rest of the room: There’s a weird skull statue thing over the basin. Underneath that there’s a frame, with a big piece of tapestry in it. The tapestry appears incomplete, like someone was working on it but never got the chance to finish. It shows a skeletal figure seated on an elaborate throne, with a shining crown resting on its skull. Only the head and shoulders of the regal figure have been finished. It’s hard to tell with the tapestry only partway woven, but it does vaguely look like something is coming down from above the figure, wrapping around it and binding it to the throne.

Well, we did tell Ser Quentin we’d give him any more tapestries we found. Loot!

Whoever was working on this was working very diligently – this is incredibly detailed. The rare artist zombie? (Discussing with the DM, The Key is the curse that’s about creativity – this painstaking work was about discipline.) So now we have the image of the Pale King. Looking at it is...very memento mori. We wrap it up, so we don’t have to look at it.

There’s also a locked chest. How conveniently loot-like! Valeria uses the ol’ Paladin Lockpick, smashin’ it wide open. It’s full of cultist robes. Who keeps their laundry in a locked chest?!

Underneath that we find the good stuff: cloth of gold vestments, about 100g worth (25g x 4 robes)! Plus, there’s 200g of coins in a purse at the bottom.

We have found the Eldritch Laundry, and the Eldritch Underwear Drawer Money Stash.

Gral investigates the room as a whole and crits. He finds an annotated map of the necropolis. (One more for Valeria’s collection!) It’s more of a series of detail maps. Certain graves are marked, as well as different factions’ areas of influence. The temple and road are marked as under the control of the Penitents; the west wing of house belongs to Lady von Mornheim. Gallows Hill is not under the cult’s control. A bunch of small individual family crypts are, including the von Menzer tomb. A few of the maps are hand drawn and fairly recent, and those show very, very deep catacombs. There’s some Aquilian symbols on one of them, which is shocking, considering the Aquilian occupation was many centuries ago.

Several specific tombs are marked. Cross referenced with the notes we lifted from the library, we confirm the tombs marked are specific individuals they want to recruit to their undead army.

What time of day is it, anyway? Looking out the windows, we realize it’s afternoon; we need to get back to town by nightfall to avoid the undead horde.

Guess it’s back to the catacombs for us, then.

Shoshana draws a card: The Dead. Fancy that, in a place like this!

As we cautiously creep through the tunnels back the way we came, we can hear some slinking and crawling sounds. Things are moving in the dark.

(”What’s your marching order?” 

“Valeria first, Clem in the back, casters in the middle. 

“We are a sandwich, in which the slices of bread are very bad at sneaking.”

“And I, the noble turkey!” -Gral)

Guess what: it’s time to fight Gilly Ghoul and the Graveyard Gang.

Two horrible, loathsome creatures sprint out from the darkness. One of them reaches for Valeria with its grisly claws, which drag harmlessly against her shield. From the back, two more spring out to attack Clem. All of these ghouls have rusted manacles on their arms, dragging broken chains.

(”Chain chain chaaaiiiin, chain of ghouls...”)

Clem can see the distinctive abrasions around the attacking ghoul’s neck that indicate this person was killed by hanging. You can tell by the broken hyoid bone! Must be a body from up on Gallows Hill.

Gral Banes ‘em all. It works great; the undead are not known for their charisma. There is a horrible stench radiating off one of the attackers lunging at Clem and Gral. Clem’s worked in a field hospital, and Gral’s worked with burials, so this is nothing new for them – they both save against the Stank of a Criminal. 

Shoshana leans out from behind Valeria and casts Burning Hands on the two ghouls in front. Clem is very glad she didn’t take the fire giant tragic backstory, as the hallway fills with the smell of burning flesh.

Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice. Valeria follows up the fire with a blast of her icy breath weapon. They’re not looking too hot. (Which, yeah, ‘cause she just froze them.)

A ghoul tries to paralyze Shoshana, but Shadow Sorcerers don’t get paralyzed by paltry ghouls! On the other end of the party, the third ghoul and their leader (who we realize is a whole-ass ghast) attack Gral, looking for the softer, tastier targets. He’s paralyzed. “Ow, my trick knee!”

A few more slashes and spells. Valeria forks a ghoul (back) to death, and the other two are on their last legs. Looking terrified, the one in front loses its nerve and runs for it, its chains clanking as it skitters off into the darkness.

The ghast, seeing her minion flee, hisses “USELESS.” She shoves the last ghoul into Clem’s face and makes a break for it. The ghoul panic-attacks Clem, who takes some damage and resists paralysis, but there’s still a ghoul on her face. With the skill of a surgeon, Gral manages to hook the ghoul off her with his sickle, a process the ghoul does not survive. We can sort of hear the ghast vanishing into the distance, if we want to give chase. We don’t.

One more card! Gral draws The Spirit. 

“Um, excuse me,” says the ghostly voice of Dr. Leonard Wendell, from Gral’s pocket. “Did I gather correctly that you’re intending to venture back out into this space?”

“We might take a short rest, but, yeah.”

“I see. Well, far be it from be to be a freeloader. I believe I’ve worked out a way to lend assistance! You see, I am a ghost. BUT I AM ALSO A MAN OF SCIENCE. Specifically, of medicine. These tunnels are full of spectral foes that may prove resistant to physical weapons. Growing up, I had a joke about always wanting to dissect a ghost – I guess you had to be there, for it to be funny – it was a whole thing, back then. My point: when I was corporeal, I could dissect a corpse! Now, I believe I can dissect a ghost. If the holder of my scalpel would be willing to work with me slightly, I think I could give a few pointers!

Basically, as a bonus action, the holder of the Scalpel of Dr. Wendell can make a medicine check to activate his magic against that foe. On a success, it makes the weapon attack magical, negating ghosts’ resistance to physical damage. Additionally, once a day, the wielder can add poison damage to their attack.

(”HELLO. I AM DR WENDEL. I AM HERE TO PERFORM YOUR VIBE CHECK.”)

Clem adds “knife ghost” to her inventory, as she’s the physical fighter most in need of some magic, and proficient in medicine checks.

Dr. Wendell continues trying to help. “Additionally, I might be able to provide some assistance as party medic. How do you all feel about leeches?”

“...Negatively.”

“Perhaps it would be medically negligent for me to practice on the living, as my techniques are much outdated. I must study the latest techniques if I am to practice! Did we ever figure out how to cure that thing, with the worms?”

(Somewhat understandably, this fella hasn’t exactly kept up with his Continuing Ed requirements. That medical license is waaaay expired.)

The DM asks us to draw juuuust one more card. The deck gives us The Path, and concurs the DM should stop throwing random bullshit at us, because it’s super late and we all wanna go to bed.

We find our way back to Mornheim before the sun goes down. From the looks of things, Lady Aubrey did not go out on any missions today. We find her helping with repairs on the wall. 

“Oh hey, you survived,” she notes, mildly surprised. I mean, we’re pretty beat up.

 We’re pretty beat up.

We talked to them.

“You...talked to them. What, they were just willing to chat?”

“Yeah! And then they shot me,” Shoshana deadpans, showing off her arrow wounds.

“Okay, yeah, that sounds about right.”

Gral pipes up. “We disrupted a ritual, and discovered one of of their leaders is a digi– a dibi- um...” 

Shoshana saves him: “Dybbuk,” she says, saving the rest of the party from having to try to pronounce Yiddish words.

We tell her all about the dybbuk, and the ritual. Also, we got this neat map! They’re collecting corpses specifically to recruit undead with skills they need, and this map has marked which ones, along with detailing exactly which areas of Mornheim the cult controls.

“And we took it, so they don’t have their map or their research anymore. Ha ha, suck itttttt,” Shoshana gloats.

Aubrey grins. “I like this chick,” she tells Mercedes.

She looks over the map. “Yeah, this matches up with what I’ve seen. There’s my mom…” (Aubrey clearly DOES NOT want to talk about her mom, or how we nearly ran into her. Given her propensity to break glasses on people’s faces, we respect that.)

We give her some of the spoils of looting her house. Valeria gives her the bottle of wine from the cellar. “

“Ah, Chateau d’Somethin’,” Aubrey observes with satisfaction. “A good vintage: fermented. My favorite.”

Shoshana gives her 100g of the money we found, which she appreciates more seriously. “Wow, yeah, this is a big deal. Think I’ll schedule a trip out of town – with this, I can get some medicine for the doctor, and some other stuff too if I play my cards right. Thanks. Honestly, I was not expecting you to bring back anything.”

She’s pretty happy to hear that we busted four of the cultists, as well as Sokolov, and especially Grigor. “The archer’s dead? Good. That bastard made it real difficult to operate on the surface. He was the one partially scaring off the Penitents, though, so they might be a bit more active now. Y’know, as much as they talk about suffering, I’ve noticed they’re weirdly protective of their priests.”

“‘Priests’ includes your cousin Leah, right?”

“She calls herself a Redeemer now, but yeah. I’ve seen her sticking in the back, popping off spells, but she always takes a couple of big burly guys with her.”

Have we got anything else for her? Oh yeah, the millenia-old body, in the ritual we blew up. Might as well ask her about that.

“Nobody knows how old the catacombs are, or how deep they go,” Aubrey tells us thoughtfully. “According to legend, Mornheim was a graveyard long before the days of the Aquilian occupation. The first cathedral here was supposedly a stone circle built by ancient druids. I always assumed it was propaganda for the necropolis, you know? Mornheim: give us money and we’ll take your corpse.”

We wonder if there’s something under Mornheim, other than its enormous volume of corpses and apples, that they’re looking for.

She looks at the hand-drawn maps of the deepest tunnels. “It’s all fun and games running around the catacombs as kid when you don’t wanna do your chores, but you stay on the upper levels. Not even Skelbjor has been this deep - not that he’s gone in the catacombs much in the last couple of decades; he’s gotten too big. We used to have a couple of catacomb guides, but I don’t think any of them survived. There was this one real old guide, but the last time I saw her she was….well…running away into darkness as I tried to call out her name. I don’t know if she was undead, I didn’t get a good look at her. She had a hood up - it gets drafty down there. Didn’t look healthy, but none of us do anymore.”

That tracks. The cultists looked sick and weak, and Sokolov was near death even before Clem stuck a sword in him. The DM lets us know that Aubrey basically has a feat that allows her to resist Pale King taint, but even she looks pretty drawn.

Clem speaks up. “One more thing. I don’t know your messaging capabilities, but it is imperative you get a message to Ambassador Khoshev in Schotzengrad – I believe the cultists intend to make an attempt on his life.”

Aubrey doesn’t seem too hopeful. “We don’t have any kind of regular message service - things are pretty isolated here. Okay, that’s not entirely true. There’s definitely one person in Mornheim who can cast Sending.”

“…It’s Leah, isn’t it.”

“Yuuuup. I know, because when she has spare spell slots, she bothers me with it.”

We’re not gonna try our luck with the Penitents. If we need to get a message out, we’re mobile enough to leave Mornheim on our own and find a messenger.

So where do we go from here? We could go check out the von Menzer crypt, but it seems like we have all the info we need on what happened there. We could try going into the super-deep catacombs to investigate what the cultists might be looking for, but we don’t know what kind of mega-undead may wander the deeps. Clem would really like to get that message to the ambassador, since assassination warnings are kinda time-sensitive.

Valeria, meanwhile, is curious about the water purification spell scroll that we found in the wizard lab. The people of Mornheim are only gonna get sicker - this might also be time sensitive, if we’re gonna prevent as many deaths as possible. Valeria’s gonna Save the Town!!! And Be a Hero!!! (She hasn’t thought to, like, tell Aubrey - the whole vision is for her to stride in and Rescue Everyone.)

Shoshana, though, is the practical herbalist, and the one who can actually read the damn thing. There’s a long list of spell components that require a ton of preparation, and they’re all distinctly druidic. Holy water and magic swords, Valeria could get, but this is all rare and potent medicinal herbs. Some of it can be adapted to be more Paladin-like, but most of this is gonna be a serious fetch quest. The herbs required are native to the Greatwood, but we definitely ain’t gonna find enough of them, or of high enough quality, in the sickly Tim Burton hellscape of Mornheim.

Shoshana’s herbalism proficiency tells her that you can’t just walk into any old woods and find this stuff - they all come from different and specific environments. The sorceress is proficient enough to find the stuff in the wild, but only if she was in the right area to begin with.

She goes and asks the Doctor if she has any leads on sources for this stuff.

“The best herbs I get come from the valley, about a day or two’s travel from here. It’s also where we get most of our food. Feivel brings preserved stuff, but produce, wheat, flour? We cart it in Bad Herzfeld. Follow the river north - not the one that flows into town; you can find it on a map. Word is, they’ve got herbs galore up there. Everything grows well in Bad Herzfeld.”

Shoshana squints suspiciously. “Do the plants come alive at night and try to eat you?”

“What. No. I mean, this forest is weird enough, but that’s an oddly specific scenario?”

We decide on a course of action: we will leave Mornheim in the morning, heading toward Bad Herzfeld. Hopefully as we reach a less-isolated town, we’ll find a way to send a message to the Ambassador.

The DM breaks in. “Permission to ignore travel times to make a cool scene?” Yes, absolutely, we are all 100% in for that.

As we’re stopping in to let Aubrey know our plans, there’s a banging at the door. “There you are!” cries an exhausted, familiar voice.

It’s Flynn Fairgold, looking absolutely awful, panting and ragged. “Found you. Finally. ...You need to go to Herzfeld.” With that last wave of effort, consciousness deserts him, and he sags into the burly arms of his sister. Fiona waves hello with a tight-lipped smile.

We all demand to know what happened. Fiona signs at us, as clearly as she can with an armful of swashbuckler. We get the impression that some stuff happened with the trolls, and then they rode as fast as they could to get here, and...no, none of us know sign language, we’re absolutely lost.

We make an educated guess: “Did it have to do with creepy-ass fungus?”

She nods.

“Do you want to come with us to Herzfeld?”

She looks at her brother, clearly conflicted. Valeria heads right on over and Lays On Hands, saving just enough that she’ll be able to Cure a Disease if she needs to.

Flynn blinks up at her, coming back to us. “Kyr Argent! Thank you! I dub you the Healing Knight – no, that’s bad, we’ll - we’ll work on something.”

“Uh, Kyr Argent is fine, but what’s so urgent in Bad Hersfeld?”

“That farmer, the suspicious one. We caught up with his sons on the river, shortly before they made contact with troll family. One of them was human - the other merely looked it. He was some sort of strange mushroom creature – he could pass as human, from a distance, with a hood on, maybe. He hit me with these strange spores.”

Flynn coughs – we can see discoloration on his tongue and down into his throat. Valeria immediately spends the rest of her Lay on Hands to Cure a Disease. It helps; he looks a lot less exhausted, and the discoloration in his mouth reduces. We can tell he’s definitely not cured, though; this is something beyond Valeria’s capabilities.

“We knew you were here,” Flynn explains, regaining his breath. “My sister insisted on riding through the night to get to you. She knew you were the closest people who had any chance of being able to help me.”

“What happened to the fungus guys?”

“We caught up with them and finished them off. We checked in with the troll couple and their son – they’re fine, they were grateful, but it wasn’t the first time they’d heard of Herzfeld. They’d heard something from other trolls headed there. Word had come down about a troll moot being held up at Herzfeld in the valley. If there’s something there that can corrupt trolls…”

As the only Valdian in the party, Shoshana’s heard of troll moots, but they’re more of a legend than anything. A gathering of trolls? That only happens once in many generations.

“I don’t know how many will respond,” Flynn tells us. “A troll moot is not a common thing, but. Even three trolls affected by this fungus would be too many.”

“You’re NOT WRONG there,” Valeria gripes.

Looking at her, Flynn seems to remember something. “Oh! One more thing! The human brother had this, he attacked me with it.”

Out of his travel pouch, he pulls out a dagger. Not just any dagger. This one is very finely crafted and instantly recognizable. The pommel is shaped like a delicate rose, and detailed vine-like chains wrap around handle. We all understand the symbolism, but Valeria knows exactly what this is: the ceremonial sidearm of an officer of the Order of the Rose.

“Where did you get this?!” she demands.

“As I said, one of the sons had it on him. I don’t know where he could have gotten it. But I recognized it from some books – I figured you’d want to know.”

Valeria immediately casts Detect Magic. The knife itself is faintly magic, as she expected - simple paladin-type things, such as being eternally sharp and glowing in the presence of fiends. But there’s a very faint sense of some sort of other magic – something dark and sickly. It’s not the taint that suffuses Mornheim; this is something different.

“It was covered in spores when we recovered it, with all kinds of stuff growing on it. We took the liberty to sterilize it before we traveled with it. That is, my sister made a fire and we chucked it in. If it was what we believed it to be, we knew the blade would remain unharmed.”

“…thank you,” Valeria murmurs quietly, distracted. As she turns it over and over, something catches the firelight. There’s a name inscribed delicately along blade: Marius. The name of her mentor, who we know hasn’t been seen since the disastrous Crusade to Valdshart.

Well, our path looks clear. Next stop: Bad Herzfeld.

Flynn and Fiona are willing to go with us; Flynn’s still looking sickly, so it might be a risk for him. We decide that leaving him in Mornheim is definitely not gonna help him get better, though, so he’s coming with us for at least the first part of the journey.

We all roll against our accumulated taint, and all save.

The DM has us draw four cards to determine our journey. We draw: The Folk, The Curse, The Scales, and The Pale King.

The DM gets real excited, which is dangerous. We haven’t picked a red card before. We’re about to meet something nasty.

But for now, we rest uneasily behind the fortified walls in the city of the dead.

[cursewoodrecap]

Session 9: City of the Dead

We investigate Mornheim, the city of apples and graves.

We begin where we left off, meeting with Aubrey von Mornheim inside the walls of a city where the dead have risen.

We try to figure out the relative ages of Aubrey and our friend Ser Balderich, with whom she shares a last name. She’s in her early-to-mid-20′s, so he’s the right age to be a dad or uncle.

The citizens of Mornheim have retreated from its farmlands, withdrawing inside a hastily built wall around the city center. Inside the wall it’s pretty crowded, as the townsfolk have had to make room for the farm people to stay. Clem has seen towns like this in warzones before; it’s fairly standard Hunkering Down procedure. Seems like they demolished some of the houses on the outer edge of town and used the materials to build up the wall. Some of wall is actually made of broken gravestones and slabs from mausoleum walls. 

It’s not a total disaster; it’s a fairly functional town. We can see that during the daytime, braver citizens are still venturing outside the wall to tend and harvest what crops they can, though the plant life is withering. The biggest building in the walled city by far is the cider mill - Mornheim is known for its apple orchards and cider production, and it looks like the mill is still operating. 

In the distance, outside the walls, we can make out the old von Mornheim manor house and a large stone temple. Inside, there are small cannons and ballistas sent up on makeshift watchtowers, which are mostly bunkers set up on the rooftops of taller buildings.

Aubrey escorts us in, handing Feivel some rings and jewelry as payment. “You know where everything goes,” she tells him. “Food to the inn, building supplies to the shed, medicine to the doctor. Find Crabber. If he’s drunk, sober him up. If he’s sober, tell the innkeeper not to serve him until he looks at those ballistas. Meanwhile, I’m gonna sort through our loot.”

She opens a sack she’s hauled out of the mausoleum, and immediately pulls out a bottle of wine. “Spoils of hitting the wine cellar,” she tells us. 

Mercedes, the pyromancer goblin, nudges her. Aubrey looks back at us. “Oh, right. Come with me.” She leads us into the cider mill.

Parts of the mill are operating, but it’s clearly not at full capacity. Much of it seems to have been turned into an impromptu war headquarters – we can see an armory of weapons and maps pinned up on the walls. Aubrey plops down in a wooden chair and hands her sack of grave treasure off to a clerk. “So, what can I do for you?” she asks us.

Valeria is always ready to get down to business. “Ser Quentin sent us to find out what happened with the Red Hand. You said some of them are still here - do you know what happened?”

“I know they went to the von Menzer family crypt,” she tells us. “I told Q I’d heard weird chanting around there. He showed up with the elves in tow. They went in. He returned alone. Said they’d gotten cut off from one guy and had refused to leave man behind. Idiots. They returned the following morning, looking worse but alive. Then they just quit his service. Some headed out, a couple stayed around.”

“I spotted them lurking around, and I’ve heard from my cousin Leah, who told me they’ve taken up residence along with some others in the manor house, up where we keep the epitaph records. Y’know, the listings of all the people buried here.”

We need to get the basic lay of the land. She points to a map on the wall, passing us a similar-looking copy. (Valeria’s player adds one map to her Map Collection, which is now a thing.)

“There’s no central location they come from. The worst come from Gallows Hill, obviously.” Gallows Hill? “Undead couldn’t rise in Mornheim, right? So rich people would get buried here, sure. But you know, there are certain types of people who have a habit of coming back as nasty undead. And people like that might die in way that would make ‘em come back angry, yeah? So you’d bury ‘em in Mornheim. And now they’re all coming back.”

The von Menzer family crypt is circled in red. “We first heard about the cultists there. Since shortly after Q went, we’ve seen more happening in the east wing of the house. Stay out of the west wing, though.” She pulls a glass from under the table and pours herself a generous slug of wine. “You might be fine there, but. Well.” She takes a long drink.

Shoshana has to get clarification: “Um, is this a Spooky Ghosts kind of thing, or an ‘it’s my house, don’t wreck it’ thing?” 

“Ghosts, mostly,” she tells us, and conspicuously fails to elaborate. 

Maybe a topic change would be wise. Looks like there’s Penitents labeled on the map? “Cousin Leah was an acolyte working at the temple, a low-level cleric. After things got really bad, she took up with the Penitents. Got a whole crew of them in the temple there, now. Every so often they come by. Stand outside our gates, say we’re living a horrible debauched life without the gods. Apparently, I personally need to go to the temple to do some kind of penance that will purify Mornheim of its sins and stop the undead tide.”

Um, #doubt.

“Yeah, you might notice how I’m not at the temple getting purified. At least they distract plenty of shamblers.”

We’re pretty wary of the Penitents, but she seems mostly just aggravated about them. “I’m not worried they’ll attack us or anything, but I’m kinda worried Leah’s given her goons standing orders to drag me back to her.

Are they something we need to take care of while we’re here? She shakes her head. “Look, if they wanna be ghoul food, that’s on them. So far all they’ve done is hand out pamphlets and stand outside yelling at us. They’re welcome to keep to it. If you’re stuck out there and night’s falling, best to make for temple. It’s not a GOOD bet, but I’d rather deal with them than try my luck being out after dark.”

So: what can our paltry crew of protagonists do to help, besides just assisting in holding them off? Is there some big plan or strike we could help with?

She laughs bitterly. “Against WHO?”

“Well, this all started with those cultists, right?” Valeria asks uncertainly.

“It started YEARS ago! It began real slow, which was already pretty shocking, given our history. It was just a handful at first, but they just kept rising.” 

“Is there any kind of pattern or organization to the undead attacks?”

“Not really, no. Most just wander, or attack the nearest thing they see. Some die trying to get into the temple; others attack the town and we take ‘em out. Some slip into woods but don’t get very far, what with all the other shit lurking in there. Not our problem, once they’ve gone that far. Some fight each other. Some seem to be working together? The cultists definitely have some under their control, but not all or even most of them. It’s a big spooky graveyard full of undead, welcome to my home. Sure, a big military strike, we could kill every rotter we see. Doesn’t matter! They keep GETTING UP!” She takes a long chug from her wine glass.

“So it’s more important to get info than to kill shit,” we observe.

There’s not a whole lot else to discuss, other than to go over the map and pick our next move, so Shoshana picks this moment to ask the question that’s been hanging over all our heads.

“So, uh, I don’t want to pry. But we’ve been traveling, and we met this guy. And he’s, uh, definitely in the business of Fighting Evil Things, and he has kind of a familiar last name, so I gotta ask: ...why isn’t Ser Balderich here?”

Aubrey glasses her in the fucking face. As Shoshana shakes wine and glass shards out of her hair and tallies her Actual Hit Point Damage, Aubrey stabs her knife into the table with an ominous thunk. “DON’T. MENTION. THAT. FUCKING. COWARD.”

“So, uh, I definitely have ques-”

“GET OUT.”

We take the hint and skedaddle, as Aubrey starts drinking straight from the bottle. The door slams behind us.

Mercedes intercepts us as we tumble haphazardly out the door. “So that is two people you have upset tonight?”

“Who else-”

“The Doctor.”

“...yeah, that’s fair.”

“What did you do?”

Shoshana sheepishly admits, “I...said a name I shouldn’t have?”

“Ah, her father.” Mercedes nods. “That is a very sad family tale. If you want to hear it, it is not my place to share someone else’s family drama. You’d have to ask family.”

Shoshana stares at her. “Uh, seems like I should NOT ask, actually,” she deadpans, picking a shard of glass out of her chin.

“Ask the old groundskeeper, he’s basically family.”

Valeria starts helping Shoshana pick the last of glass out of her hair, adding a Lay On Hands to erase her cuts. “No no no stop putshkying stooooppppp” Shoshana whines, gratuitously Yiddishing as she bats Valeria’s hands away like a proper embarrassed teenager. Valeria, both in and out of character, Does Not Know What That Word Means. 

Mercedes ignores the slapstick. “Yes, Lady Aubrey has issues, but the last couple of years have been rather stressful. She blames her father. I do not. He is very nice. I originally came here as a favor to him; I was planning to stay about a month.”

 “...why didn’t Ser Balderich ever come back to help?”

“Different types of fear take different forms,” she says cryptically. “I’m gonna go keep an eye on her. You can find the groundskeeper out behind the mill, if you really want to know the story. Also, if you see a man with a burning hammer on his shoulder - If he is drunk, send him to me. If he is sober then send him to the front. I think he’s hiding from me.”

She turns to leave, muttering to herself in Goblin, and then turns back for one last aside.

“Oh, and if you see a person in a bird mask, run.”

We’ve met Sturmhearst guys, so that seems ominous???

“The doctor is not evil, she just want to kill you right now. I know the rumors you have heard about Sturmhearst. She is Sturmhearst trained, but hasn’t been there in years. One of the old school, before things got so strange.”

She heads in to where Aubrey is no doubt drinking at a highly unsafe rate. Meanwhile, we parley a moment to figure out our next move.

So the Red Hand has apparently joined up with this necromancy cult? What the hell?

Gral notes that the Prisoners recruit cultists by enticing them with what they need, the way the Key drew in the artists with promises of knowledge. “Clem, you know the Red Hand. The Astronomer said something about overcoming death, or reversing it. Would that have been tempting to them?”

Clem looks uneasy. “As much as any soldier, I guess? We’ve all lost loved ones. The Red Hand was basically family to me, and we lost plenty in the war. Who wouldn’t want to see their loved ones again?”

“Maybe it would be best to talk to the Red Hand at the manor house first?” Valeria asks. “And then maybe we’ll have a better idea what we’ll be up against?”

Clem nods. “I agree. We’re making a lot of assumptions about them. I admit the whole situation looks damning to my former comrades, but we don’t have the full picture. There’s nothing stopping us from going up and just talking to them.”

Gral shrugs. “IF they’re friendly.”

Shoshana is pretty distrustful, as a rule. “Yeah, that’s a big if. They’re hanging with necromancy guys. What if they send skeletons at us?”

“Well, that’ll happen everywhere in Mornheim,” Gral interjects reasonably.

Clem’s quite insistent. “They could have a good reason! We don’t know they’re totally evil.”

Valeria sees what Clem’s driving towards. “There could be some kind of magical influence or something, something that we could fight!”

Gral’s amenable to this. “We approach with caution, looking out for ambushes. Clem does the talking, we stay back and provide support. I would like Lady Aubrey not to be angry with us; we’ll inform her of the plan beforehand.”

Shoshana looks uncomfortable, like she’s going to talk, but thinks better of it. Some things are better kept private.

It’s getting on afternoon, though, and we’re all well aware that the necropolis is a much more dangerous place after sundown. We resolve to set out in the morning.

Clem sighs. “I’ve waited a long time to see members of the Red Hand again. I can wait another couple hours.”

In the meantime, Valeria wants to go apologize to the doctor about losing the medicine, and we’re all absolutely dying of curiosity to go get the groundskeeper’s story. We head into town and perception check around, and Shoshana’s player drops a die on the floor and rolls a natural floor twenty. Blaze it!

The town is gloomy, even though the sun hangs unobscured in the sky. The shadows are long and twisted. Yet one is sort of misshapen - wait, that’s a dude on the ground. 

We wander over to find a fella passed out against the back wall of the cider mill, a dribbling bottle clutched limply in his hand. He’s wearing the kind of clothing that would usually be layered under full plate armor, with a burning hammer insignia pressed into the corner. He’s got a warhammer on his hip as well. It’s familiar to the soldiers in our party - that’s a symbol of Lethe, the Forge Goddess, and specifically it is the crest of the paladin Order of the Hammer. 

Valeria, who knows paladins, and Clem, the experienced soldier, immediately notice something is wrong, if this guy is really a paladin of Lethe: his equipment looks battered and heavily worn. Clem has SEEN the Order of the Hammer fight. Until the Orcish berserkers joined the fight, these guys were the ultimate shock troopers. Flaming weapons, celestial steeds with sparking hooves, heavy EVERYTHING. And most importantly, the Paladins of the Forge Goddess always had pristine equipment, as if it had been freshly smithed. This man’s armor? It’s decidedly NOT.

Valeria wonders if Lay On Hands can sober people up. Alcohol IS technically a poison, right? Might as well try it.

Valeria cures one (1) poison or disease and gives the poor man an insta-hangover. “Are you all right?” she asks pleasantly, and probably too loudly for him. “I’m Kyr Valeria Argent, at your service.”

“A Kyr? ….Rose?” he mumbles. She’s very shiny, and that’s definitely making his hangover worse. “...Didn’t think any of you survived.”

Valeria’s attention is instantly captured. “D’you know anything about what happened to the others?” she asks.

He squints up at her toothy face. “I was detached. Got left behind to rebuild a town, while everyone else went forward. More of a builder than a fighter, y’know? Heard what happened to the rest of ‘em after…”

He picks up his bottle and tries to take a slug, looking vastly disappointed when he finds it empty. 

We notice he did NOT introduce himself as Kyr, the title of an active paladin. “Horatio Crabber,” he mumbles, by way of introduction. He has a Galwan accent. “What’re you doin’ here?”

“Ser Morozov hired us to figure out what happened in his previous expedition,” Valeria tells him helpfully. 

“Uh, I think Mercedes was looking for you,” adds Shoshana from somewhere in the back. 

“Shit, the ballistas,” he sighs, pushing himself heavily to his feet. “I’ll go take care of that. I know what she wants.” As he fruitlessly tries to straighten himself up, he looks back at Valeria with haggard eyes.

“Take it from me, Rose. Do what you came here to do, and get out. You look like a good knight. Armor still shiny. Just…don’t let this….you gotta get out of this wood. There aren’t many of your kind left, and this place will chew you up.” He slumps away.

Valeria chirps at his receding back, “I don’t think it will. 😊” 

We have completed Side Quest: Rouse the Fallen Paladin.

Valeria would know what likely happened to this man: Usually, in order to Fall, a paladin would have to commit evil deeds. But paladins of Lethe can Fall due to despair alone. If they give up and lose faith, their powers desert them. As Falling goes, it’s relatively more easy to come back from – they don’t need to redeem themselves from evil, but they truly Gotta Believe. Lethe does not tolerate quitters. (We assume her legions are made up entirely of hot blooded shonen protagonists.)

(Also, is everyone in Mornheim an alcoholic? They live in the zombie apocalypse and the only major business still running is the cider distillery. Of course everyone’s an alcoholic.)

Time to find the groundskeeper. We follow the river up to where it flows through a grate in the city wall. It looks like there was a house up against wall that was partially deconstructed and gutted. Next to it, there’s a massive, hulking figure sitting there, its feet in water. Holy shit, my dudes, that’s a big old Troll! One arm is oddly shriveled, like it didn’t regenerate properly. Trolls can usually grow limbs back like it ain’t an issue, so that’s not a good sign. It’s unusually well-dressed for a troll, wearing a stitched-together brightly colored leather vest and pants and a big straw hat.

Valeria’s claws immediately go to her sword. She knows the amphibian sea trolls who hit fishing villages, and what a terrifying menace they are. A troll attack from within, on a city this weakened, would be disastrous. Gral knows that the more mountain-living orc tribes have had to fortify heavily against mountain troll raids. Clem’s heard horror stories of the frost trolls of the northern steppes. 

Shoshana takes one look at all of them gearing up for a fight and complains, “Really? Who raised you?! Can you be polite for, like, three fucking seconds?!” 

Valeria is baffled and defensive. “Trolls attack people! It’s what they do!”

Shosana rolls her eyes and tells everyone to wait here for a fuckin’ sec. She ambles up toward the troll, telegraphing her movements like someone apologizing for intruding. She gently knocks on a piece of wood from the gutted house, starting to...sing? She does a couple lines of a dumb little nursery rhyme about a fumbly bumbly-bee.

The troll stirs, and speaks in a deep calm dopey voice. “This isn’t my bridge, you didn’t have to sing, but I appreciate it. Hi. What can I do for you?”

“We were looking for the groundskeeper?”

Gral whispers an aside: “I think we found him.”

“The one in the mask is right,” the troll says placidly. “I am Skelbor, groundskeeper here for past 83 years.” 

Shoshana can see he’s an old troll, but not especially healthy. There’s an odd greyish discoloration to his skin, and his left arm is withered & especially pale. He tips his hat with the withered arm.

Gral is confused, and tips his mask in return. “Hello! We are not from here, but-”

“Yup, I could tell. I woulda seen her before,” he agrees, pointing to the Large and Shiny Valeria.

“We’re friends of Ser Balderich,” Shoshana volunteers.

“Oh huh! How’s he doing? Haven’t seen him in a while.”

“He’s doing well! ...I mean, he’s wounded, but he’s healing up. He’s...actually staying in my house right now?”

“Mmm. Is it a nice house?”

Shoshana shrugs awkwardly. “Sure? It’s small, but it’s not bad. It’s full of weird cats?”

“That’s good, that’s good. He liked dogs better, when he was a boy.”

We awkwardly manage to stammer out that Mercedes sent us to ask what happened to Ser Balderich, why he’s not here to help the defense.

“Oh yah. Now that is a sad story. Come in, sit down.” He gestures to the hollowed out house; we realize it’s not been destroyed, just hastily renovated to fit a troll. It’s still pretty cramped for him, though.

“My apologies,” he intones in his deep slow voice, leading us inside. “Lady Aubrey convinced me to leave my very nice lair. I can’t stay there no more, it’s too far outside the walls.”

“Your new house is...very nice?”

“It’s a dump, but it’s mine. It is what it is.” He shrugs, and begins his story.

“So. I knew Ser Balderich a long time, since he was just a boy. I knew Rosalind, too. She was a gardener here, or she was, as a young girl. Even up ‘till the end she was always workin’ with the plants. Kept the flowers and things nice for the graves.”

“Did you work with any of that?”

“Oh ya, I helped with all that stuff. Fixin’ up the graves and mausoleums and such. Good stonework ‘round here. I’d help out with the liftin’ and carryin’.

“Soon enough, Rosalind and Baldy caught each other’s eye! Bit of a scandal, the noble heir marryin’ a commoner, but we’re not so uptight as to make a big fuss ‘round here, not like other towns. And then I don’t gotta explain to you where li’l Aubrey came from.

“And then one day all the dead people stopped bein’ so obedient! One tried to chew m’leg off. Had to give it a good smack. I told Baldy, he told me to keep an eye out. Kept getting worse. Soon myself and Ser Balderich and some of the guards had to patrol every night to keep ‘em down. Back then that was workin’ quite fine. 

“Until Lady Rosalind got sick. Went up the river to the old trollstones, one of her favorite spots. I found her collapsed in the water, an’ she was mighty cold. I brought her back to house and she got real sick. Didn’t last much longer, after that. It happens, sorry to say. Buried her in the family tomb. And then the tragic bit was, she came back. And, well. Ser Balderich couldn’t take that.

“First night she came back, well, uh, I took care of the corpse, as it were. And he went and was sad, but the next night, the ghost appeared. And that was too much for him. I can’t take care of that with these,” he says ruefully, holding up his meaty fists. “Ser Balderich’s the one with the magic sword.”

“Rosalind was seen out in the hills, shoutin’ his and Aubrey’s names. He went on out to confront her, and...he couldn’t. Heart as big as a mountain, that man, but some things ain’t about courage. He couldn’t do it. That was when he left Mornheim. Left his brother in charge, left Aubrey, and took the oath of a Beggar Knight.

“His brother was good man, but he didn’t last too long. Same with the cousin, Aubrey’s aunt Josephina. Been tryin’ their best, but dead folks have been gettin’ mighty rambunctious out there. ‘Fore long it was just Aubrey. Well, and Cousin Leah, but she went off tryin’ ta get some help from the Archcleric. Came back claimin’ she had a solution, but I don’t like it. Somethin’s wrong about her these days.

“Aubrey had to abandon the homestead, the ol’ manor. When I went back out there latest, I thought I heard Lady Rosalind out there, in the western wing. That was their old livin’ quarters.”

“Aubrey’s mighty upset at her father for leavin’. We don’t talk about Ser Balderich, but it’s good to hear he’s doin’ well. Knew him since he was a boy, an’ he always treated me right. Bein’ a Beggar Knight’s not the easiest life, but none are these days. We are tested by the times we live in,” he finishes sagely. 

We quietly contemplate Ser Balderich’s personal tragedy, and thank Skelbjor for telling us. In an effort to make everyone feel a little better, Shoshana tells Skelbjor all the news she has of what Ser Balderich’s been up to lately.

He nods. “I’ll tell those what knew him, except for Aubrey. Hope he makes it. Good to hear he’s upholdin’ the oath, good to hear he’s still walkin’. Still breathin’, anyway. Lotsa things here walk but don’t breathe.”

We ask him if he’s heard of the von Mentzer tomb, the one where Ser Quentin got separated from the Red Hand.

“The von Mentzer tomb? Musta been years ago I was out there - it was ‘bout a year ago that Lady Aubrey got me outta my den under the bridge. Now that tomb, it was a good tomb. Worked on it myself. Beautiful sculpture. It even had scrolls! Hard to do scrolls, but it was a family of scholars, so it seemed appropriate. Imported marble, very pricey, worth it for something like that. Well, the outside was marble - the inside was honest Valdian granite. Most of the family was in there, ‘specially accomplished ones.” 

No clues there. Maybe, as the groundskeeper, he was familiar with the manor house?

"Well, I didn’t go in there that often, for ceiling and floor-based reasons, but yeah, as familiar as I could be. When I first showed up, I could usually squeeze through the doors, but I’ve gotten bigger in my age, and you can only break so many frames before people start askin’ ya to keep outside. They were real nice about it, we had an understandin’.  Had all the staff parties on the ground floor outside, so I could join.”

Skelbjor is lovely company, and we’d love to make our DM do a dopey troll voice forever, but it’s probably about time for us to get going. 

“Well, I wish ya the best, good luck out there. Headin’ out in the mornin’, I’d guess?”

He hands each of us a pouch of something white and powdery, before we go. We don’t know what it is. 

“You’ll need somma dat in case you encounter specters. Don’t worry, I pulverized it myself, it’ll flow nicely. You sprinkle it over ‘em. Or throw it at ‘em, the pouch will burst. Then they’ll be vulnerable to smashin’ and slashin’ and such things. Lady Aubrey heard that trick from the Cursebreakers, and we got plenty of wizard bone here. You can go and make some more in the field, though I don’t recommend it. Works best with a li’l holy water and silver dust, but you do what you can do. Saved my life more’n once. Lady Aubrey made sure I had plenty. I can’t do much against a specter without it.”

“Fortunately for the town, they seem less inclined than most to come through the walls. We mostly get rotters and shamblers, the bony types. But if you’re goin’ into the necropolis, bring yer powdered wizard bone.”

We add our Bags of Powdered Wizard Bone (1 use, negates ghosts’ resistance to physical damage) to our inventories.

“I’m mostly here, unless there’s a wall breach they need me to hold, or need me to fix somethin’. Now I’m gonna go rest up, they might need me at the walls tonight. You’ll know if there’s an attack, we’ll sound the bells. Maybe my arm will come back!”

We hadn’t been tactless enough to ask about the shriveled arm, but he brought it up himself, so we do. “Yeah, a couple ghouls gnawed on it, an’ then a ghost got to it. So I chopped it off, as ya do, had a real nice meal. And then it didn’t come back right. That was ‘bout a year ago. It was what convinced me to give up my den. A troll with two arms can take care of himself, but one-armed not so much.”

As we wave goodbye and head back towards town, Valeria whispers aside to Shoshana, “I didn’t know land trolls were so civilized! Sea trolls are The Worst.” Gral and Clem nod in agreement, still honestly a bit unnerved by the whole scene.

Back in town, Valeria still feels pretty guilty about losing the medicine, so she stops in at the makeshift hospital to see if there’s anything she can do to help. The doctor is pretty mad at her! In our defense, we didn’t know there was a disease. Also we tried to defend the Stuff, but our plan didn’t work. (Well, our characters thought it would work, the players are self-aware of our own idiocy). Gral turns out to have been guiltily skulking behind. Wait, no, all of us want to be in the scene now.

Valeria offers to help by Laying On Hands; Clem has been a battlefield medic, Gral has assisted in war zones, and Shoshana has some knowledge of herbal medicine. Between all of our various expertises, the DM tells us: these people aren’t taking HP damage, they’re Sick. 

Valeria can heal 2 people using her Lay On Hands to “cure a disease.” She does so; she has suppressed the symptoms, but there is no way to know if the cure is permanent. Using her Detect Magic, she can tell there is something faintly magic about the sickness here. It’s necromancy-ish, natch. 

Clem’s training tells her that what we’re seeing is a pretty usual mix of diseases you get when lots of people live in close proximity eating bad food. Y’know, war zone stuff. On top of all of that, though, there’s some kind of extra x-factor. Everyone is more drained? Some fatigue is expected, but this is hard to put a finger on. Everyone has this consistent level of drained-ness. A lack of life? And it’s consistent no matter the severity of the patient’s disease. Clem would not have noticed if Valeria hadn’t pointed out the magic. Places like this do not need help getting people sick.

Clem: “These people have trench foot for the soul. Trench soul.”

Gral raises the sick folks’ morale with a lovely Performance check, and Shoshana rolls a Useless on helping out.

Valeria and Clem don’t point out the magical malaise to the doctor. What would she be able to do? Better not to put another impossible burden on her.

We find a place to sleep. Our overall impression of town isn’t totally post-apocalyptic. If you stay away from the manor and the necropolis, the undead really only come out at night. People are still working the farms and orchards somewhat, they’re just sleeping in the walled town because of the nightly undead hordes.

Gral is awoken in the night, hearing something outside the walls. There’s a commotion out by gate. (We hope it’s free cheese.) Gral untangles himself from the snoozing adventurer heap and heads over to the gate. Guards are looking out; we see the fallen paladin and the troll there as well. Skelbjor is standing at his full height, holding a ballista with his one functional arm. “Looks like that’s the last of them for tonight,” the fallen paladin sighs. “Oh, here come the helpers. You want me to take the shot?” 

“No, we’ll hear their piece and let ‘em leave,” Aubrey yells back.

A magically enhanced voice booms over the gate. “Citizens of Mornheim! This night the Penitents have delivered you from your attackers, but you will not be truly free until you have unburdened yourselves of your crimes in the eyes of the gods! Any who wish may be escorted to temple and absolved of their sins, so they may be granted the divine protection of Rack. Carry our words: the Lady Aubrey von Mornheim can end this horror if she submits to her penance! We shall wait one hour for her to surrender herself.”

Predictably, nobody opens the gates. Skelbjor takes a look. “They’re just standing there. HIIIII, PENITENTS.”

Crabber looks at Gral, significantly less hungover than the first time they met. “Hey. …are you an orc?”

“Yes, Gral Omokk’duu, pleasure to meet you.”

“Horatio Crabber. They do this most nights. We usually stay behind the walls, but they’ll send a squad out to deal with the nasties. We’re not ungrateful, but then they do this bit afterwards and wake everybody up. More of a nuisance than a threat.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

“Honestly, we’re probably done for the night, except waiting for these idiots to leave. You can head on back to bed.” Gral takes his advice.

We wake up in the gloomy morning. This place is, unsurprisingly, still oozing goth.

Shoshana makes a point to get Clem alone while we’re all still getting ready.

“Hey, I just want to warn you,” the young sorceress starts awkwardly. “I know that you want to talk to the Red Hand and get their side of the story, but...look. I know it’s hard, but you’ve got to accept the possibility that they’re gonna be, y’know. Too far gone to talk to.”

“Shoshana, I know you believe you have to immediately ‘put down’ anyone affected by the curse, but I need to hear them out.”

“That’s not - Clem, I just....don’t want you to get your hopes up. They might attack us as soon as they see us.”

“I was told a man named Sokolov would be there. I don’t want to fight my former unit, but I need to have words with Sokolov.”

Shoshana can definitely grok needing to talk to someone just to get closure, even if you have no hope for them. “I mean, I get that, I really do. I’m just worried.”

“Thank you for trying to help. I know you have the best intentions. But I’d say that my time with the Red Hand robbed me of any optimism I had,” the actual war veteran diplomatically reminds the 19-year-old who’s barely ever left her village. “I’m just being even-handed. I know there’s a good chance we’ll have to ‘put them down,’ as you would say, but I want to go in as even and level headed as possible. I’ve learned that it’s better not to fight when you don’t have to. I want to hear them out. If I see Sokolov, though, things will be different.”

“Please understand: these people were basically my family. So going in there swords blazing is not an option.”

“That’s not really what I-”

“I’ve spent a few years looking for these people, since seeing my actual family is a far-off possibility. It’s very bittersweet that this is how we meet again.”

Gral pipes up: “I’ve gotten my own bittersweet closure. I understand.”

Shoshana: oh my god other people are here

We scoot in opposite directions, Clem trying to appreciate support even if it’s misguided, and Shoshana convinced that the buff lady is about to get her heart broken.

AAAANYWAY. How are we going to get to the manor, where the Red Hand and their cultist friends are occupying the eastern wing? According to the map, we could go either over land or through the catacombs. 

We find Aubrey, who is drinking water and looking wan. Her advice is to go through the catacombs. It’s how she and Mercedes usually go, though the two of them are stealthy enough not to draw attention, and our party has a couple of clanky tanks. “The undead can only come at you from two directions, in a tunnel. The biggest threat with the crews of shamblers and rotters is getting mobbed. In the catacombs, they can’t really surround you. Break through one side, and you’re free.”

Aubrey makes us a rough map of the catacombs. They’re used regularly enough by the resistance for transportation, so there’s signage up. The bigger routes are easier to find, although it’s easy to get lost trying to get to the smaller passages. She points us to a route that will take us up through the manor’s wine cellar. 

We ask if she wants us to bring her back anything from the wine cellar. She requests her favorite vintage: purple and made of grapes.

(A side conversation ensues, regarding what kind of wines we’re all familiar with. Shoshana, being from a small and very Yiddish village, is clearly only familiar with Manischevitz, or homemade moonshine. Moonischevitz? MAN-SHINE.)

Aubrey gives us a few tips on navigating the tombs. “Look out for specific symbols on the tombs: a tree means a Knight of the Greatwood, this rune here means they were a spellcaster, a bird mask means a Sturmhearst graduate, and this symbol means they were executed. You see a bunch of THOSE, you’ve hit Gallows Hill. You end up there, get OUT. Nobody is buried with anything good, and they’re pretty angry.”

As we head into the catacombs, the DM has us draw a couple cards from his deck. Shoshana draws The Faith. Clem draws The Tome.

Valeria navigates first, rolling a 16. We do not end up in Gallows Hill.

Deep inside the tunnels, we find a small chapel to Rack. (Thanks, The Faith!) There’s no real guardian of the dead in the Oberian pantheon, but Rack is the most commonly used for funerary rites, since he’s in the Pit and the afterlife tends to have us all thinking about suffering vs. mercy. The Curse is quiet/lessened here in the tiny chapel, and Valeria can feel the presence of Rack. It’s a free short rest area, basically. For Gral and Clem, the statue of Rack upside-down in chains upside down is kinda creepy. The chapel also serves as the tomb of a couple clerics of Rack. They are seemingly undisturbed by undeath.

We travel on. Once we’re out of range of the chapel, Shoshana, with a good Perception roll, feels the air grow a bit cold as something spectral shifts out from behind a corner.

(Clem’s player’s Roll20 name is blocking the map, since he has put Clem’s entire very long name as his handle. “Dude, can you shorten your name for me? It makes it hard to scroll.” -DM

“I’d rather die.”

He immediately makes his name in chat EVEN LONGER.)

We can hear voices from the direction of that cold ghostly wind. No, it’s just echoey - this is more like a singular rather cultured voice. “Now. Calm yourself and let’s be as reasonable as we can.”

“Grahh,” something replies.

“Now there’s no need for that! I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for this, including your current behavior, which is VERY rude.”

“grrAH,” the something says aggressively.

“Um. Oh dear. Help?!”

Clem turns the corner and can see four shapes in the darkness, accompanied by the sound of rattling bones. A-Luxor, our floating light-beetle, floats around and light spills on four skeletons and some sort of skeletal specter looming over them. The skeletons look hastily assembled - the bones aren’t matching; one has a leg much shorter than the other, one has 2 right femurs. Clem can tell, she went to enough med school to know what bones should look like.

“UM, HELP, THEY’RE BEING QUITE UNREASONABLE,” the voice yelps.

It’s time to fight Bones Malone and the Spooky Boys. The distant trousle of bones begins to play on somebody’s laptop speakers.

As Gral hits the bony boys with Faerie Fire and Valeria unleashes her frigid breath weapon, the eyes on the Eyegis begin to roll in every direction. It’s as cool as it is creepy.

A terrible voice hisses, “Slaaay them, they will serrrrrve.”

The first voice, which seems to be coming from the wall, shouts, “Is somebody out there? Help!”

Valeria calls back, “We’re trying!”

“Thank youuuuu!”

Shoshana crits one skeleton with thunder damage and EXPLODES it. Her other beam nat 1s and thunder damages the wall, everyone taking a small amount of rubble damage as rock splinters from the wall and ceiling. Clem stands up too fast and bonks her head on the wall. Clem swings, but the skelly trousles away. Gral smashes one with his sickle. Valeria stabs and twists with her trident, getting a bony boy between the ribs and just stirring.

The ghost poofs over and begins to drain Shoshana’s life essence away. The sorceress rolls good enough CON to avoid losing any of her spell slots, though she temporarily gets her max HP cut. It hisses, “powerrr…mine….give it….I need it…” Shoshana’s retaliatory swipe goes right through it. You can see bony bits floating in the ectoplasm. 

Valeria hustles on over to the talking tomb and investigates, but badly. It’s the tomb of someone named Dr. Leonard Wendell. There’s bird masks carved on tomb, and the inscription says “Healer, Leader, Teacher, Founder”

Valeria is like, cool, and pulls the lid off the stone casket. There’s a body in there, as well as a ghost crouching in there, looking like a transparent person in fancy robes and a much older style of bird mask. “Oh, dearest me!” he cries.

The evil ghost points at Clem and hisses. She feels her bones trying to lock in place, but it doesn’t work. Clem tries to hit the ghost but just KEEPS WHIFFING, what is the DEAL with her dice, seriously.

“Goodness me! Is Doctor Rial still out there?” asks the Sturmhearst ghost.

“There were a bunch of skeletons and a ghost, I didn’t catch any of their names?” Valeria admits.

“My colleague, Rutiger Rial, he was acting quite beside himself and irrational. He wanted me to come with him and see something, and I didn’t think that was a good idea! And he got very upset at me!” the ghost huffs. 

Valeria blinks. “…you certainly seem more civilized than other ghosts I’ve seen.”

“Well, Rutiger was as educated as I, although in a different field. I always said the study of the arcane would lead to irrationality! To a point. I admit it can be very useful in certain contexts.”

“Uh, I’m Kyr Valeria Argent….at your service?”

“A pleasure to meet you!”

“You were calling for help?”

“Ah, yes. Rutiger and his skeletons were threatening to drag me off! And I called for help, and you graciously assisted. I say, are your friends okay back there?”

Smash cut to Gral getting smacked by a ghost.

Shoshana channels her Primal Savagery and claws at the specter, tearing through the ectoplasm, getting a good grip on its remaining cervical vertebrae, and RIPPING them right out. It shrieks horribly, and falls to the ground. Its ectoplasm evaporates, and the bones fall to the floor, bounce bounce bounce clatter.

“…They seem to have it under control,” Valeria says.

“Yes, well, we woke up some time ago,” the transparent Dr. Wendell tells her, as the rest of us brush bone fragments off our clothes and come over to talk. “Rutiger was considerably less coherent than he was in life; he went off, saying he heard something calling. I, however, am a man of science, who knows better than to go exploring strange tombs, even if they’re my own!”

“If it’s your own, isn’t it not a strange tomb?”

“Well, I’ve never seen it! The last thing I remember is treating plague victims!”

Shosha takes a biiiiiiiig step back.

(“He died of Serious Stank,” Gral’s player quips.

“Yes, overcome by miasma is what we called it in my day,” the DM responds in-character.)

The ghost looks sheepish, as much as one can while wearing a big ol’ plague doctor mask. “To be perfectly honest, I don’t know how much longer I would last here, before I degraded like Rutiger there. Might I leave with you? I can’t really offer anything except my experience, and companionship, I suppose.”

“I’m not really sure how to- well, Rutiger there WAS a specialist in necromancy, and we shared rooms often. I was no caster in life, but I think I can get away with it by – ah, yes, that should do nicely,” he mutters. “What year is it?”

We haven’t actually come up with a calendar for this campaign, so Clem’s player guesses. “...1965?” Suddenly we all have Mad Men haircuts, and the Orc homeland is Vietnam.

“Last I remember, it was 1843. If I recall my instructions upon burial, there should be a scalpel in there!” 

Valeria indeed spots a scalpel, on a small shelf above his body. “Ah,” Dr. Wendell sighs, “we saved many lives together.”

The inert skeleton in the tomb is in in pieces, separated neatly in little alcoves. “Ah, perfect! Just as I asked for in my will. I was fully dissected upon death, of course! I’d be something of a hypocrite, with all the trouble I went to acquire cadavers.”

“Anyway. There appears to be an influence in this place I’m not fond of. I can reside in this scalpel, until perhaps I can be ensconced elsewhere. I’m safer in the scalpel than out there.”

We have acquired the haunted scalpel of Dr. Leonard Wendell, Founder of the Sturmhearst College of Medicine. 

We short rest in the chapel. We take no taint, due to the holy ground. 

During the short rest, Gral reflects on how orcs don’t really have a problem with ghosts or hauntings. Because once you’ve sent a spirit to the Allsoul, it kind of stays part of the Allsoul. He kinda finds it irresponsible of these foreigners to just leave ghosts lying around like that, instead of consolidating them into a giant ghost-powered memory blob.

(Orc ghost stories are a bit different than human ones – generally some warrior gets lost, and you defeat them by singing the death song and sending them to the Allsoul. The ghost’s appearance is what lets the heroes know that “Oh, they’re dead, not missing.” We want to know about Orcish murder mysteries that start with a ghost attack, but the DM gets us back on track.)

“So, as a scalpel of science, did you see anything that would have caused such a change in your colleague?” Clem asks Dr. Wendell.

“Apparently, we had all been chosen to serve in some sort of army? I’ll have you know I was in life a strict pacifist. Until the day I died I swore I would Do No Harm. That doesn’t really apply anymore, but. It’s the principle of the thing.”

We explain to him that there’s, like, a curse going on. It’s looking like “Serve” and “Chosen” are its buzzwords in Mornheim.

“Well, I conscientiously object!” he huffs.

(We do not tell him about the Key, just in case. Do the Prisoners get along well enough to share custody? I guess we’ll have to see.)

Time to keep traveling. We head back out into the catacombs, and the DM has Gral draw one more card: the Madness.

Clem must immediately make a WIS save. She does bad.

As we walk through the chill of the catacombs, something about the tunnel – Clem could swear she hears whispers. Looking at the names on the alcoves, they’re not Valdian…they start looking Elven. Which is weird, ‘cause she’s in Valdia. She looks, and she starts to hear voices of her fallen comrades. Those that died in the original charge, those that died in the winter that followed, those that died in the years of war. Help us…help us return….you can help…find them…..

As the group passes a statue, and she looks up, it’s a figure holding an axe. ...It’s Her.

Clem, the DM asks, how do you react to you-know-who?

Clem stops dead in front of the statue, confronted by a terribly familiar face. Her sword slips from her grasp as helpless tears begin to drip from her eyes, and she collapses to the ground.

We all hear the enormous greatsword clang to the ground. Clem’s looking at a statue of “Ser Marina Ivanovna.” It’s an elf woman wearing a cloak - an old Kevan soldier’s uniform. There’s a story inscribed on the pedestal. Looks like the person interred here was part of the elven forces during the Kevan occupation, but she was considered a hero in Valdia after she fought some dragon that took over a huge section of the wood. Clem is staring up at the stone figure, the usually stoic drow sobbing openly.

Shoshana snaps fingers in front of Clem’s eyes and shoves at her shoulder. Clem’s enormous form doesn’t move.

Valeria assumes the statue is doing some kind of mind effect on Clem and gets her weapons out. The statue stands there, foot on a dragon skull, looking vaguely heroic at us. Valeria pokes it with her trident. It is stone.

Eventually Clem comes to, a bit. She looks at the statue again, now that A-Luxor has floated over and cast a better light on the figure. It’s not Her. 

Yes, it’s an Elven Greencloak, holding an axe, but the face is different. Clem can see the name now, with its granted Valdian title. Clearly a different woman. The axe is different, the uniform is different. Clem suddenly becomes aware of the situation, and is WAY EMBARRASSED. She pushes herself to her feet, scrambling to get herself together. “I’m – sorry, I’m fine, I, uh, thought it was someone else-”

Shoshana rolls Insight. Clem is clearly upset by what just happened, and is trying to pretend everything is okay. It has to do with the statue? Clem’s doing double takes at the statue and mumbling “I-I could have sworn it was her...” 

In Clem’s distracted mumbling, Shoshana manages to pick up a name that the others don’t seem to hear. Private Messaging, the digital equivalent of passing notes.

We all agree that there must be mind magic going on, and hurriedly press forward.

We follow the signs that the resistance has put up, and eventually emerge into a basement. Clearly this was once a lavish, well appointed building, but it’s now dusty and dead. This is a pretty nice wine cellar – there’s much imported Demish wine and a setup clearly suited for hosting fancy parties. 

Valeria’s noble enough to pick out a good vintage. Valeria wants to take one that seems like there’s a lot of, or might be significant to the house of Mornheim. She finds a “Chateau dePas” and stashes a bottle for Aubrey. Clem grabs a bottle at random and takes a slug to deal with the ordeal she just went through. She’s not drinking enough to get drunk, and is also huge enough that it would take a whole lot for her to get there.

We find some stairs up and find ourselves in a crumbling, once-opulent and imperious house, in the Grand Foyer. Animal heads adorn the walls, covered in webs and dust. Appropriate for all cliches, there’s a big painting on one wall over a fireplace. It’s of three people: clearly a younger Ser Balderich, a woman standing next to him, and in proper cheesy pic style, they’ve both got their hands on the shoulders of young girl. They’re smiling, standing in front of the hills north of house in a little garden area. We can see the ancient trollstones framing them. (Trollstones are ancient standing stones - perhaps not as elaborate as Stonehenge, but the general idea is similar.) There’s lots of other art of dusty ancestors, portraits, and maps. It looks like there’s been fighting here - there’s  battle damage and a few arrows stuck in the rafters.

The peasant among us gapes at all the artwork. Do rich people just paint picture of everyone they know???

“Not everyone, usually just family. And they hire someone,” Valeria tells Shoshana.

(We decide that in traditional Dragonborn portraits, they are surrounded by their Unusual Hoard – their prestigious collection of their favorite thing. Thanks for the inspiration, iguanamouth! Valeria doesn’t have a hoard yet. If she’s got a painting, it might be her with her parents’ hoards. Family ones tend to be their industry, or thing they’re king of, etc. Maybe Valeria’s can be her collection of souvenirs and gifts for NPCs? Her player’s already started a tally of how many maps we get...)

We’re in a big foyer. We don’t see anything immediately; it’s kind of a big mess of a room. Time for Investigate checks! Shosha investigates in case the cult left shit lying around. She finds, in a closet, hanging up, a cloak. It’s well made, with the Mornheim crest on it. The cloaks next to it are damaged, but this one isn’t at all - definitely a sign of a possible magical object.

“Guys, is it poor taste to loot the house of a person you know?” she calls back to the others.

“I mean, Aubrey’s technically a graverobber,” Clem tells her.

Shoshana feels weird as a kind-of-guest taking Aubrey’s shit, but she takes it nonetheless. Loot!

She puts it on and it’s a Cloak of Protection! +1 to AC and all saving throws!

The DM decides to roll on a table of item quirks and we get lucky: “This item whispers warnings to its bearer. You receive +2 to Initiative.”

However he also gives it “While you wear it, it’s constantly muttering.”

Apparently the cloak was enchanted to warn the wearer of danger, but it’s in the friggin’ Cursewood, which is absurdly full of danger, and it’s been trying to warn for soooo long, that it is Constantly Muttering. Like running through like five years of voicemails you can’t skip, except they’re about potential doom. DM, you gave a perfectly good cloak anxiety.

It’s embroidered nicely, though, with Mornheim’s iconic apple trees. The DM’s rolls tell us it was given as gift to a Mornheim noble who went on a quest of some sort

Clem, meanwhile, finds a purse of gold + jewels – 100g worth of jewelry. Score!

Valeria crits her Investigation. She finds a Secret Door, which looks very old. Valeria grew up in noble households and manors, she spent her entire childhood looking for fun secret doors. She pulls on a candlestick, just for old times’ sake, and it goes click! 

There’s a secret passageway that goes west, into a small room. It’s set up as some sort of wizard’s lab. She finds a spell scroll! There’s many notes with it, written in a fine hand. This....doesn’t look like a standard spell scroll. For one thing, it’s written in Old Valdian. Holding it, Valeria’s sense of the arcane tells her it feels like a highly advanced and modified version of spell Purify Food & Drink. The notes in Old Valdian, too. This must be a custom spell somebody had developed.

Looking around the wizard lab, it’s full of magical plants and herbs, but they’re all long wilted.

Shoshana, in a mirror, sees something moving, coming from the direction of the ghost’s wing. There it is - the ghost itself, phasing through the door. The eerie spectral form glides into the room, weeping.

SAD GHOST ALERT. 

With a natural 20 roll and her natural attunement to the Curse, Shoshana can feel power RADIATING from the ghost’s sobs. This is a seriously powerful spirit.

We all scoot into the secret room, popping our heads out in order of height, Scooby Doo style. We instantly recognize it from the portrait: indeed, this is the spirit of Rosalind von Mornheim. Her ghost is weeping thick black tears that hit the ground and poof into dark smoke. She floats into the foyer and slowly gazes up at the portrait of herself and her family. The sound of her weeping washes over us like a tangible wave; those of us who fail our saves instantly take Taint, as watching this spirit in utter despair makes the fear of death curl an icy hand around our hearts. Eventually she makes her slow, mournful way back towards the living quarters of the manor, phasing away through the wall.

Once she’s gone, Valeria hands Shoshana the spell scroll, since the sorceress is the only one who speaks Old Valdian. She skims it quickly. It seems to be a ritual of divine magic, druidic in nature but could be cast by any cleric, druid, or paladin. It’s some kind of supercharged version of Purify Food and Drink, but with a much wider radius. It wouldn’t fix poison, but the effect would be much longer-lasting and wider-range.

The spell components are decidedly druidic-type ingredients, rather than holy ones. It’s low on silver, holy water, or the rattling chains of Rack – more rare flowers, the horns of a mountain ram, crushed spider legs, (a bit of cilantro, black pepper to taste?) 

It seems like the intended use of the spell is for purifying a water supply. Looks like it culminates in some kind of stone or blessed object, which is placed into the water supply.

We should put that in the water near the trollstone!!! Where Lady Rosalind got sick! That’s the same river as the water supply into the town; it might be carrying something that’s causing the necromantic illness in the townsfolk.

Shoshana skims the accompanying notes, too: the writer thinks something has happened to the local water and intends to inspect source; she is worried about Skelbjor under the bridge. (We are unable to find a name, but we can tell it’s a female author.)

Valeria finds a map detailing Mornheim’s irrigation systems, dated about 10 years ago, and takes that as well. She’s excited. If this is a spell paladins can cast, she could fix the water supply, and Save The Town, and Be A Hero!!!!

But we’ve got a cult to fight first. 

We open the door and head to wing the cultists have taken over. From Audrey’s description, we know the main feature of this side of the house is its library, the Epitaph Library. In addition to being a regular fancy library, this was also where the epitaphs and records of the notable dead were kept. If you want to find a particular tomb or learn the history of those who were buried in Mornheim, this is your ticket.

In the library, many of the books have been pulled from the shelves and scattered around, but in organized piles, like someone has been doing research. There are candles lit in various places around the room. (Yes, they have glass covers, for fire safety. The players insisted, because we’re book nerds and we’re sad for Witness Bea.) 

Gral and Clem, in the gloom, can see a couple of sickly, thin figures – cultists. On either side, there are skeletons standing guard. As we open the door they turn to look directly at us. The cultists turn, too, and we realize – they, too, are suffering a late stage form of the sickness from town. They’re gaunt, pale, and weak. One’s in robe, but the others are in regular clothes.

A thin, reedy voice shouts, “WAIT!” and then devolves into hoarse coughing. The source limps out from behind shelf, leaning heavily on a halberd like it’s a walking stick. “THEY’RE EXPECTED! Grigor said they were coming!”

And Clem sees: his skin is pale and gaunt; he’s limping, barely holding himself upright with the halberd. He wears elven armor, like the suit Clem used to wear, and his withered hands wear worn red gloves. He’s coughing heavily; this elf is clearly deeply unwell.

Private Sokolov smiles sheepishly and says in Elven, “Hey, Sarge. Glad you could join us.”

[cursewoodrecap]

Session 8:  Difficult Neighbors

You’d think the time in between fighting monsters would be chill, but no. We finish up in Holzog, gear up for Mornheim, and deal with the one thing worse than monsters: locals.

We get down to brass tacks with appraisin’ items and stocking up. Gral and Valeria find out what their violin strings and Eyegis do, though the rest of  us will have to find out later. Valeria makes some holy water and Shoshana brews up a couple of healing potions during our downtime.

We briefly debate whether to tell Quentin everything. We decide we’re for it; he’s working with the Cursebreakers, and they’re the organization that can best use the info we’ve found to connect the dots on how the Curse works and how to fight it.

“It’s still a hot take that the Curse had agenda, and now we know it has 4 agendas and 4 bodies, all under some powerful ward? They’ve got to know that.”

We go to the mining guild office where the Cursebreakers are. We are all visually searched. Witness Beatrice searches the ladies, which is a fairly chill affair since she can be pretty easily told to back off. Clem is fine; this is not her first strip-search or invasive interrogation, she tells us. What?

Gral has no such luck, and is being searched by Ser Quentin. “Well, sir Orc? Lose ‘em.” His hands are exceptionally cold. (Gral does want a professional to take a look, but. A little bedside manner, Q?)

While the girls are downstairs in Bea’s library, Valeria remembers: “Oh! We have thing for you!” We give her the Char Mender, and Bea totally forgets about strip searching us. Her eyes light up and she takes it to the cabinet of charred books.

We discover we have enough Char Mender to repair one book.  (We should have evolved it, maybe.)

Bea focuses on 3 rare tomes that she believes were the target of the arson. “And it was arson, unless fires start on one end of the library, and then when I go to put that one out, another fire starts on the other end.

The books we must choose between:

The Study of Fiends, a demonology study commissioned by the Church of Torme. Unfortunately, the results ended up being a little too much of a how-to for summoning demons, so they never completed the full publication run, and it’s an extremely rare book. It regards demons and how they operate, different individual demons and what offers they are likely to make, the types of deals they make with people, etc.

Songs of the Druids, a study of the druids of the Greatwood, regarding their methods and secrets. There’s a lot of legend and poetry rather than purely academic research, but it’s the closest thing anyone’s ever really made to a comprehensive collection of information about them.

The Grimscale Essays, a collection of essays on necromancy and the undead, recovered from a Draco-Aquilian necromancer’s tower. It is banned to use the knowledge in these essays, but it is a valuable collectors’ item and may offer insights on how the undead function.

Though our upcoming trek to Mornheim tempts us toward the necromancy book, we select Team Druid, to know about our potential allies. Bea sighs wistfully. “That book had some beautiful illustrations. I hope those get restored too”

“Also, If Morozov asks - he was less interested in that one, but I’m gonna say you made me do it OKAY BYEEEE”

After we’ve all got our pants on again, Ser Quentin has us tell him everything. We do, withholding nothing except our spaceship adventure. Unfortunately, he’s an Inquisitive Rogue, and nobody lies to him. We fail our deception checks hard, so Shoshana awkwardly tries to explain their adventure on a space ship without having any idea of what a space ship is. It’s pretty disjointed, but she musters the defense that talking about the Confusing Forbidden Knowledge could have been a good way to get More Cursed. Fair enough. He can tell that we’ve got nothing else to hide, anyway.

“If what you say is true, you slew these musicians, who were responsible for the mist in the valley. If so, I guess we’ll have to see what happens. In the meantime it is now vitally important that I take these notes on your travels, make my way to Hoska Castle, and report to the other Cursebreakers. There are records there I will need to consult. The ‘Key’ you mention – my order is one of seekers of knowledge. So you can understand why I’m a little concerned that this is the very instinct targeted by one of our adversaries.”

We look at the tapestry again, to see if we can figure out any clues about the Prisoners. The foreground one has its antler helmet and wolf skin cloak - clearly the entity we know as The Hunt. The other figures are indistinct; the artist didn’t bother to differentiate them in this crude medium. All we can tell is that they are bound in roots.

We show Quentin the Eyegis. “In my professional expertise, this shield...is creepy. You should go ask an expert in magical items.”

Darius is called over to look at the Mysterious Pamphlet from the glove box. “Don’t some members of your order have the ability to read all tongues?” Sure, but he didn’t take Eyes of the Rune Keeper as one of his invocations though. Ooooops. 

Daikon receives scritches! He finds a seed in Shosha’s hair from the woods, and eats it.

Valeria tells Quentin about us choosing the Druid Book for Bea, Luckily, she successfully Persuades. He sighs. “Considering what we have learned, it does make the most sense. You got this repair substance from Sturmhearst? We’ll see if we can get any more.”

Oh yeah, those guys. We warn him that being so close to the mists of the Key, what with them being seekers of knowledge, is probably Less Than Optimal.

Ser Quentin looks down his nose at us. “We have explicit instructions not to antagonize Sturmhearst, as they are a valuable ally and formidable foe. You understand that Ser Brigid has done this with the explicit intention of making us keep a close eye on them, yes?”

Oh, he has one more important question re: Sturmhearst. “You told them you were going to investigate the house? In that case, Darius, please send a request to the Baroness and her Condotierri.”

“In three days, a supply caravan will leave for Mornheim. Be there that morning and I will brief you. In the meantime the Fairgolds have interceded to have some rooms prepared at the Greencloak Inn, and I recommend you take up those rooms. Our offices are less than comfortable. If we need to reach out to you, I expect we’ll send Daikon."

After we leave the office, Clem goes back to Hammerstein and Sons to get that sword silvered. “It’ll be 150g to coat your greatsword in silver, but it’ll be hard to get it done in three days; an extra 50g will get you to the front of my queue,” says Bluma Hammerstein. 

Clara Sons, her partner (business partner? life partner? We Just Dont’ Know), interjects “Bluma does have an apprentice she’s training; perhaps she could-“

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to teach her the process. If you’re willing to let the kid work on your baby there, I can bypass the 50g.” 

“Is the kid proficient enough? I don’t wanna lose my ‘baby,’ as you call it.”

Bluma shrugs. “Ehhhhhhhhh? She’s very talented…yeah, sure, she’s a helluva hand with a whetstone, pretty good with a hammer, but this is a pretty complex process. Not gonna lie to ya: I think the kid can do it. And I’ll be there to supervise.”

Clem hands them her remaining bottle of High Elven vodka. If I give you this, will you be Extra Careful? They shake on it.

Clem also asks after a suit of splint mail. They have a Ventallan style one in the shop they could resize for her. Clara was refitting it for a Condotierri, but then he skipped out on paying, so they kept it. “It’ll cost 200g total. It’s quite a nice piece! I can get the black rook sigil off the shoulder for you.”

Clem’s about 40g short, and is thoroughly disappointed. Shoshana has come with, though, and has done all the shopping she needs to for her healing potions. And, because of the reward from Sturmhearst and Ser Quentin’s advance payment for the Mornheim expedition, still has more money in her pocket than she ever had as a poor villager.

“Here’s 50g,” she tells Clem. “Use it to not die; you can repay me by making sure I don’t die.”

Clem is ABSOLUTELY FLOORED. Why are you just giving me money??? It’s a pretty big thing for Clem. No one has ever given her money without expecting something in return???? What could Shoshana possibly mean by this huge gesture?????

Shoshana is like, no, we’re going to Mornheim, if we all die none of us can spend this cash.

“Oh, you’re going to MORNHEIM?!” Clara exclaims. “Here, why don’t I just inscribe a holy symbol of Lethe on that, free of charge.” She points to an absolutely destroyed chestpiece she has on her workbench. “That’s what’s coming back from Mornheim.”

Because Clem is an absurdly big lady, she needs a few parts taken from other pieces of armor around the shop to make it all fit. She has a Pretty Woman montage of coming out in different suits of armor for the armorsmiths and Shoshana. She ends up with kind of a hodgepodge of random armor. 

“What are your thoughts on asymmetrical shoulder pads? I’ve got one from an old elven regiment, but I’ve only got the left one.” It has a bit of filigree on it, but nothing as distinctive as a regimental insignia. Clem smiles nostalgically and says she’ll take it. 

Clara is momentarily distracted by Clem’s buff physique: “Nice shoulders.”

“Thanks, I made them myself?”

Anyway, we all agree that a clothing montage but with buff ladies in armor is The Future That Lesbians Want.

The Fairgolds want to party with us. Clem is like “are they paying?” No, so Clem’s out. 

Gral has his responsibility to perform the Death Song for his squadmates. We attend and listen to him sing their death songs to pay our respects. The DM is disappointed he doesn’t get to roll on the carousing table, but the mood is decidedly not carousing.

The next day, we wake and stretch. Clem is a little disturbed by the décor of the inn – it features elven helmets over the mantle, and the owner claims the original curtains were made of the green cloaks of elven officers. Clem was excited at first to hear about the Greencloak Inn, but less so now. The story is that rebels scared some elves out of their camp by imitating howls of wolves and owlbears, and then stole all their stuff. It’s just sort of awkward, even though Keva and Valdia are no longer enemies.

Shortly after the town gates open in the morning, a familiar cart pulls up, pulled by two large lizards. “Bjorn! Get us some rooms! Ingborg! See to the mounts! I require breakfast!”

Professor Lucinius Galvan enters the inn, looking a bit more tired and scarred than last time. “Bjorn, Ingborg, stay in the cart, you’ll scare the locals! Innkeep, I would like two rooms, one with the largest beds you have! Where might I find a library, or a local guide! Oh, perfect – wait, what do you mean there WAS a library?! OH HEY, KYR ARGENT! Bjorn, Ingborg, bring the luggage in!”

We greet Professor Galvan with open arms, mildly surprised he hasn’t been eaten. “Any luck on your expedition?”

“I found truly fascinating results! Also ghosts. I saw some skeletons, but only after Bjorn and Ingborg were done with them, so...fragments of skeletons.” 

“You’re certainly in capable hands with them,” Valeria accedes politely.

“I was able to dispatch the spectre who assaulted me. It was no match for good old Aquilian magic. The old spells still work! The good old ‘Scorpus Arcana,’ or ‘Magic Missile.’ They claim the new way’s more elegant, but is it really?”

Ooh, we ask him to tell us about the ghost.

“It was an Aquilian ghost! I attempted to ask it several questions, but it attempted to rip my face off. And truth be told, you don’t get a Ph.D. in archaeology without knowing when to abandon a line of inquiry!”

“I found the old Aquilian watchtower I was looking for! But the sigil for legion stationed here wasn’t for a standard flying legion. I’ve been trying to decipher exactly what their symbol means. I did find some records – inscriptions and pottery shards, describing how the Aquilians were working with locals. Very surprising! Especially with the Valdians’ reputation as - forgive me - rather backwards and uncooperative.”

The tower he’d found was clearly designed for both Aquilian (Aarakocra) AND terrestrial (human) soldiers and inhabitants! Elsewhere it wasn’t unheard of that they’d recruit locals, but the common narrative says that the locals were highly resistant to occupation. He’s been looking up stories about the original occupation from the perspective of the Valdians.

We tell him to go hit up Witness Beatrice if he’s looking for stories and knowledge. Also, Valeria takes the chance to talk to a proper magic practitioner. She says, “I found something interesting and, I wanted to ask you about it! Ser Quentin isn’t much for arcane artifacts, but you might be able to tell me what it does! And whether it’s going to multiply my eyes.”

“That’s a weird concern, but okay.” He examines the Eyegis. It behaves like a wizard’s familiar. One who is attuned to the shield can see through it so long as it is within a 120 foot range of the wielder. Valeria’s player LOVES it; Valeria accepts it warily.

Gral has already attached the strange violin strings to his lute and attuned (heh. TUNED), so he doesn’t need to Identify them. (He made a Deal with the Curse, the players find out, though he is not consciously aware of it.)

Valeria goes and introduces Lucinius to Bea, to make sure he doesn’t scare Bea. Bea is like “cool, a Professor!” Then she eeps and hides behind Valeria’s legs, because Valeria forgot to warn re: goliaths. Darius gives Valeria the stink eye for scaring Bea again.

Valeria makes sure to make her Holy Water out of water from the lake. Encouragingly, the Mist does not rise again during our time in Holzog.

We hang out with the Fairgolds. Flynn is a bit pompous, but likable once you get to know him. He and Fiona train every morning in the square. At night he’s busy telling stories and she’s busy drinking. There’s a portrait of them at their uncle’s inn of when they were younger. Flynn looks similar, but Fiona looks way different. Her hair is longer, and she’s not as muscled or scarred – she looks much more similar to her brother, and a lot happier. In the picture, she’s clutching a book. Shoshana, always interested in languages, learns a couple of Fiona’s hand signs over the next few days.

On Friday, we arrive at the Cursebreakers’ office early in the morning for a mission briefing. We approach to Morozov’s office. He hands us information packets, and begins his monologue:

“On my last expedition, as you may know, I was accompanied by squad of Elven veterans from an elite unit known as the Red Hand.” Clem nods intently. “They had worked with me on several other expeditions of a similar nature. Lady Aubrey von Mornheim, leader of the survivors of Mornheim, informed us of indications of some flavor of cult activity. We suspected perhaps a necromancer of some sort, but something odd happened as we neared the von Menzer family crypt, the resting place of noted mage Johann von Menzer, of Sturmhearst. Due to the patterns of undead activity, we believed this crypt was our goal.”

“We were attacked by an unusually large number of undead, working in concert. We were separated from one of their number, Sokolov.” Clem’s eyes widen as she seems to recognize the name, but she does not speak up. Quentin continues. “We were badly injured and I insisted we return to town. My companions refused to leave their comrade behind. I split with them and returned back to Mornheim to be in safety before the sun went down. They returned to Mornheim the next morning with Sokolov in tow, and immediately told me they’d no longer be in my service, effective immediately. I had to abandon the expedition.”

“Sokolov did not look especially well – not unusual for somebody trapped in that place. The strange thing is, and I mean no offense to your compatriots, Sgt. Haxan – I did use my contacts to have the Red Hand followed after they left service. I thought there was something off about them. Some left the wood, heading towards the Crownlands and old battlefields of the Ascension War. Some traveled as mercenaries, fighting for hire, never staying one place too long.”

He pulls out a map with pins stuck in it, red and black. “The red pins mark places that members of the Red Hand have stayed more than a single night. Black pins mark fresh instances of undead attacks.”

There is an obvious, recognizable correlation. “It’s not at every stop, but it always occurs about a week after they left. It’s not provable by any means; there’s no shortage of death in the Cursewood.”

Clem stands, her bulk becoming a menacing loom. “I’m sorry, are you implying that these men may have been behind these undead attacks?”

Ser Quentin is unmoved by her imposing presence. “I do not imply. I conclude, and I accuse. I am doing neither at this time. However, this obviously merits further investigation.”

“We learn nothing by sitting on our hands. Your mission is to enter the von Mentzer family crypt and find out what you can. If this is another one of these “prisoners,” I want to know everything you can find. A supply caravan leaves for mornheim tomorrow. I’ve hired the Fairgolds to help escort it – they will get the merchants there and back. You will not leave with the caravan. Stay in Mornheim and investigate as long as you feel able. You can reach out to me through any Cursebreaker outpost. Page 5 of your packet has names and addresses of those who can reach me. I will accompany you for the first leg of the journey, but part ways to go to Holska.”

“One more thing, Kyr Argent.” He hands her a sealed letter. “This is for the Lady Aubrey, please secure it among your belongings as you pack. It is a letter of introduction stating your mission and asking her to assist you.”

“Oh, and one more thing.” We hear armored boots click-clacking down the hallway. The door opens, we turn around, and the Baroness, somewhat disguised by a cloak, enters the room.

Valeria salutes.

“The Baroness would like to speak with you in private,” Quentin tells us. “Well, I’ll be here.”

The Baroness Francesca von Holzog appraises us with a calculating eye. “I take threats to Holzog very seriously.” Two knights enter behind her – one is a standard human Condotierri, while the other a is green skinned tiefling with solid red eyes and curling horns, wearing a black cape and fine armor with the Condotierri’s black rook sigil. “Now, allow me to introduce Captain Stefano Mozzeti, my cousin.”

He bows and says hello. The Baroness tells us, “He is the Captain of the Black Rook Condotierri, abd he would like to hear what you have to say as well. Ser Quentin has communicated a detailed report, and I have dispatched some of Mozzeti’s men to deal with Sturmhearst. They are an enemy I don’t enjoy making. Tell me what happened.”

Gral explains, rolling persuasion with Valeria helping. He reassures her that the musicians who were opening the portals are dead, and the mists should be gone for good.

“If a month passes and mists do not fill the valley, though they usually come once a week, we will see what we can do. The Condotierri are to search this house and burn any sheet music they find. Sturmhearst had already gone to the house, scattering like like pigeons when we kicked them out. I believe it would be unwise for them to have access to this music. If you truly have rid my barony of this threat, come to me in a month’s time and we will see if there is a reward for you.”

Captain Stefano looks Gral in the eye, as well as he can through Gral’s mask. “Orc, if those mists come back and my men die, you better be confident. If they die, and they were guarding that damned house in that damned hole, do not return to Holzog.”

“Yes, I would consider it a failure on my part,” Gral agrees.

“No, we would have….how you say, beef.”

Gral responds in his most diplomatic tone. “The Key works by getting agents. We want to stop it getting more agents in Sturmhearst, and you are doing that work to keep us safe.”

Still giving their best intimidating vibes, the Baroness and her cousin swoosh outtie. The Crown, everybody!

Clem rolls a few dice, as we return to Hammerstein and Sons later that day. 17! We find Bluma and Clara and a teenage girl. Clara has the armor, painted and dyed mainly a dark muted red-orange, with black trim, to make the cobbled-together set of armor a little more cohesive. She has drawn a little clementine tree on the pauldron. 

Bluma says “All right, Reyna, c’mon, give the drow lady her sword back.” 

The teen, hands shaking a little, gives Clem the greatsword, wrapped in cloth. “I silver-plated it for you, ma’am, Miss Bluma was watching me and I think I did a pretty good job.”

Bluma smiles. “The kid did fine. I got a dummy set up out back if you wanna test out the edge.” It’s kept its edge! Good rolls mean the trainee didn’t screw it up. At first glance, it still looks like dark elven steel. (This was NOT standard issue for the Red Hand, Clem stole it off some cultist during the war, probably.) She has to look very closely to see waves of silver worked in. There are no imperfections or nicks, and the edge is sharper since it’s freshly whetted. 

“We’ve got a patented technique here in Holzog, leads to that nice wavy pattern. Recommend us to your friends, here’s a card,” Bluma tells her.

Clem approaches the apprentice, Reyna, and tells her, “It looks perfect. You are a credit to your family and your community. I thank you.” Reyna immediately tears up. “Sorry, we shoulda warned ya,” Bluma whispers. “She’s from out in the woods. Don’t think her family made it. We haven’t been pressing. We’ve kinda taken her in.” We bid a fond goodbye to the nice lesbians, and head on out.

In the morning, we meet in town square. We’re traveling with a merchant named Feivel, his drivers and three carts. One is loaded with food, one with medicine and building supplies, and the third has smaller locked chests and has room for passengers. We get on the road! It should be 4 days of travel to Mornheim.

1st day: no incident. We stop in a small village and camp in the town square, since there’s no inn big enough. Flynn entertains some children, telling a story about fighting a “moss ogre,” and then they play moss ogre and he lets several children take him down with sticks. Fionna watches and laughs. Her laugh is a weird wheeze, like she can’t quite form the sounds.

The second day is less peaceful. Along the road, Valeria nat 20’s a perception check and hears a person running through the woods – panting breath, tearing frantically through the trees, stumbling over brush – some medium-sized humanoid running desperately. Behind her, there are sounds of heavy footsteps and ferocious growls as she bursts onto path. 

It’s a terrified-looking red-haired human teenager. “MONSTERS! HELP!” 

Valeria is ON IT, positioning her formidable self between the woods and the carts.

“They’re right behind me!” the girl says, gasping for breath as she reaches the wagons. “At least three of them! Big, with sharp teeth and long- long claws! I think there’s others with them. Bandits, maybe?”

Shoshana insight checks her, and she genuinely seems terrified. “Feivel, we got incoming!” the sorceress calls. The Fairgolds step up next to Valeria to defend the carts.

The sounds of monsters get closer, but Something Is Wrong. The sounds aren’t getting close as fast as we would have expected? And then we hear something behind us – something on the other side of the carts.

The ‘terrified’ girl has a gun to Feivel’s head, and a line of bandits step out from among the trees.

A sly-looking halfling speaks for the group: “Bonjour, madams et monsieurs, my name is Henri deCannes, and these are the Free Thieves of Valdia. It is my unfortunate duty to inform you that we are robbing you today. I will not be so crass as to deny you your weapons, but you would please hand over all your valuables, if you will not mind. We will place all your weapons in this sack, and we shall put it in that tree. Then you can go get it, once we are gone.”

It’s right around here that we realize Ser Quentin is nowhere to be seen. Also his stuff is gone. Fuckin’ rogues with high Insight, amirite?

Shoshana raises her hand, like a kid in school. “Uh, we have like four knights with us?”

“Yes, that is why we are attempting to resolve this peacefully. Disarm, please.”

Shoshana places her staff primly across her knees, waiting to see what everyone else is going to do.

Flynn and Fiona are watching us, but like hell Fiona’s gonna disarm. It’s clear she’ll bust some heads first. No one else moves to give this guy their swords.

“My, so ferocious! And is that an orc with you! I must hear this story someday.” 

Gral snarks, “You don’t make a good first impression.”

“Oh? If I am befriending you, I am not robbing you. If I befriend and then rob you, I am betraying a friend, and that would be a sin.”

Clem and Val go for the Intimidate. Valeria, the minor corruption of the Hunt glistening on her fangs, hisses, “Go find someone else to rob, this one is Ours.”

Clem says, “Excuse me, Mr. ...?” 

“Henri deCannes, you may have seen my face on a wanted poster?”

“Henri, if I may offer some advice. I once tried to fight something much bigger than me, much as I am much bigger than you. Do you know what happened?” She leans in. “It nearly CRUSHED me under its foot. So I would much rather make friends.” She ends with the sort of smile that implies much, much danger.

He’s intimidated. Henri doesn’t want to fight her. But he’s not giving up, and tries to pull a few heartstrings.

“This Curse especially targets those who reside in the woods. We are especially prone to corruption. My people, the Free Thieves of Valdia - I have been called here to help them. We do not wish to be monsters, or savages taken by the curse.”

“You’d just be a different kind of savage, wouldn’t you?" growls Valeria.

“You wound me. My men, they would go to the towns, but they are not welcome there. They would leave Valdia, but that takes money. And time is running short.”

“Running short until what?”

“Until we lose our minds, madame! I want to get as many of my men out as I can.”

He asks where we’re headed. Shoshana cheekily tells him “Nunya.”

Gral speaks commandingly: “There is always another way. Forge new papers and live an honest life. You are not leading your men to safety, you are leading your men to pain. I would get out of our way now.”

Henri persists. “I will take those medicines, and nothing more. We have sick and injured. We will leave you your food and other supplies. We seek the price for a Galwan ship, or to pay for the false documents you suggest we get.”

Gral does some internal math. We have about 100g worth of medicine, but we’ve seen posters in town with this man’s face on them. His bounty is set at 400g. 

The bard proposes a solution: “I see you care very much for your men. This medicine will be yours if you come with us and turn yourself in. Surely, if you are so concerned for their welfare, you would be nobly self sacrificial enough to trade yourself for their well-being.”

Henri nods. His bandits make protestations, but he shouts “Non! The orc is correct. If I must sacrifice myself for the Free Thieves to prosper, so be it.” 

“Please hand your medicine to Anya here,” he tells the merchants. Valeria insight checks and rolls a 3, seeing that he is clearly honest about taking the bargain. 

“Dmitri, Dmitri! Those shackles of yours, please! Dmitri, a bandit, hands Val some halfling-sized shackles. Clem’s kinda disappointed that the wanted poster specified “alive,” but ah, well. 

Anya, the red-headed girl who tricked us, takes the crate of medicine and sprints back to bandits. 

“Non! Do not wait for me! Be free, free thieves of Valdia!” Henri cries, dramatically. Valeria moves to cuff him, and the shackles go straight through his arms. 

“Oh, and I am quite sorry, but...Ceci n’est pas Henri deCannes.” He vanishes, and the bandits sprint into the woods with the medicine. Trickster clerics, babyyyyy! 

Valeria is FRUSTRATED at having been tricked so easily. Gral commiserates: “I see I am a bit too trusting in my aim for diplomacy.”

WELL. That’s a story that will seem funny to us later. At least we have halfling-sized shackles now, signed on one cuff by one Henri DeCannes. Gral adds, using Minor Illusion, “is a buttface.” On the other side is a holy symbol of Guile.

So having been hustled, we hustle along. Morozov rejoins us. “You lost the medicine?”

“Yeah, we’re idiots.”

Morozov has no regrets about his vanishing act. “I couldn’t run the risk of losing the evidence from my investigations. Couldn’t let it be damaged by a stray pistol ball.”

We arrive at next town and see Wanted posters of Henri, Anya, and several bandits. The camp mood for that night is decidedly subdued.

In the morning, Ser Quentin heads off in a different direction. “Alas, this is where I must turn aside. Best of luck to you.”

“And you as well,” we tell him politely.

“I don’t need luck, but I’m not so foolish as to refuse it. Good luck in Mornheim.”

As we head out, we commiserate about how much of a dick Henri is. Flynn concurs. “No offense, but I think I’ll leave this one out of the next story. If you do go after him, though, invite me. I’ll have a few pointed comments to make,” he gripes, playing with the hilt of his sword.

On the third day of travel, we make good time towards the spot we’ll have to ford a river. Fiona scouts ahead, feeling restless. Flynn is unconcerned. “If she finds anything, just listen for- well, you’ll hear her, trust me.”

She comes back a couple of minutes later, seeming kind of put out. She shakes her head and signs rapidly to Flynn. “She says the bridge is out,” he tells us glumly.

Sure enough, the bridge is quite smashed up. What happened here?

One of the players make a joke - what, was there a troll under the bridge? And we all suddenly feel the chaotic energy in the air of on-the-spot worldbuilding.

“Well, there WAS a troll!” We turn, and there’s a friendly local yokel passin’ by, a cheerful dad-looking farmer. 

“Aw, sorry, didn’t mean to scare ya there, folks. Yee-ep, we had a troll! Fella named Trolskiv. A good one too, kept the bridge safe for us. Reasonable tolls, took payment in potataters. Real nice fella. But something got in his head, a while back. I think the ol’ Curse finally got to him, poor guy. 

“Anyhow, couple weeks ago, the Hedgehog Knight came through with his crew and put an end to all that. Had to be done. Poor Trolskiv didn’t stand a chance. Just a real shame, all round. Even more a shame that he threw the Hedgehog Knight at the bridge and broke it! 

Now, if you folks come by in the mornin’, we got a ferry comes across the river, that’ll get you across no problem. That’s what we’re doin’ these days ‘till we get the bridge fixed up. If yer gonna stay overnight, I’m sure you’re lookin’ for a place to stay. There’s an old farmhouse up the road, the family up and left a while back, tryin’ ta avoid the Curse. I’m sure no one would mind if you holed up there for the night!”

Shoshana rolls Insight: Nat 20. The guy hasn’t lied to us so far; everything he’s said has been 100% true. Yet... there’s something wrong. He’s got an agenda, somehow. Something is unsavory about this man.

We take a look at the bridge.There is in fact a sign on the bridge saying Troll, and a series of potential payment options. 5 potatoes per cart or for 3 people to cross. Nearby, the locals have constructed a modest grave for Trolskiv.

“Yep, it’s a shame,” the farmer continues, rambling like a proper small-town old boy. “One ‘a my sons went down south, there’s a troll couple work the bridge down the river. They got a youngling, ‘bout the age he’d be lookin’ to move out on his own. Once we get the bridge fixed up, we’re aimin’ on inviting him up here! It’s a good solid bridge with a nice den underneath, already all set up. We always said, it’s not a proper bridge without a troll under it. Important part of the local economy.”

Before this conversation, bridge trolls didn’t exist yet, but now the DM informs us that Shoshana knows all about bridge trolls. There’s plenty of stories about them in Valdia. Sometimes they’re bad guys, but mainly they’re responsible for guarding against bandits, maintaining the bridges, and collecting tolls from travelers passing through to help fund the town.

Valeria is so confused, because she’s used to Regular Trolls. They don’t take potatoes, they take your head off! Gral knows that the more mountain-dwelling orc clans have had skirmishes with the huge, vicious mountain trolls. Clem knows there are horrible ice trolls on the northern steppes of Keva.  They’re right there with Valeria.

(We decide that there’s definitely a Beggar Knight who’s a troll. Lost their bridge in a battle, wanders the woods as a knight errant. We name her Ser Unkig. She’s great.)

Valeria decides to get some more info from this nice fella. “We’ve been out on the road quite a bit. Usually there’s generally some sort of danger, being outside of a big town. What’s the local lay of the land?”

“Well, it was Trolskiv until about a week ago. We mostly hid in our houses when he was out and about, but he kept the other nasties away. Ended up bein’ pretty safe, unless he tore down your door. He got real big and mean at the end there.”

He leads us up a dirt path through some farmland, and points us to a small house in fairly good repair.  

“There’s the intact one. The folks livin’ there headed on out. Didn’t feel too comfortable with Trolskiv rampagin’ about, y’ understand, so they kind of up and left! Left their field, loaded up a wagon, took what they could and got out of here.”

Shoshana, her nat-20 insight still rattling around in her brain, is Very Nervous, and is nudging people and whispering that something is WRONG, she doesn’t TRUST this guy. Everyone else cannot figure out why she’s so squirrelly about some ordinary-ass dude who has been nothing but kind and pleasant.  

Valeria,to placate her, Detects Evil and detects nothing. Nothing around the farmhouse, either. There’s a barn, and enough floor room for all our people. Just walls and a roof, and what sparse wooden furniture the previous residents couldn’t carry. 

Weirdly, we’ve seen no villagers but him. We ask him about that.

“Aw, well, it’s really just me an’ my boys! Most folks live on the other side of the river, and my boys went down the river to get that troll.”

There ARE a few other houses; we could canvas around and corroborate his story. Valeria wants to trust him. Shoshana insists we knock on a couple of doors. The couple of neighbors we ask are very confused, agree with everything the farmer said, and give us literally no reason to be suspicious of anything. Everyone agrees Shoshana is probably paranoid. Shoshana is like “True, but we live in the Cursewood?!”

Still, the argument goes, “We can sleep in the farmhouse, or we can sleep outside. Outside is probably...not safer.” We settle in to the farmhouse. Shoshana insists on at least setting up a watch. She and Gral sit out on the porch, probably in cliche’d and picturesque rocking chairs, and wait.

In the moonlit darkness, the wind gently ruffles the long stalks of wheat. Especially in that one area, right over there.

Wait.

Shoshana rolls an excellent perception with her Curse-enhanced Darkvision, and picks up on a figure moving quietly through the wheat field - stalking, even, the DM would admit. The thing - no, now it’s things, plural, three of them - slip out from between the stalks and advance on the house.

Gral hits them with Faerie Fire, and Shoshana immediately blows her Horn of Silent Alarm to alert Clem. The rest of the house is woken by Clem surging out of her bedroll, screaming “AUUGH, FUCK.” Roll initiative!

(The DM lets us know that these creatures are called Blights. We disagree; they are clearly Wheat and Wheat Byproducts.)

As soon as the Faerie Fire hits, the Wheats abandon stealth and  break into dead run, charging up to hit Gral and Shoshana. One of them pushes itself down, seeming to merge into the floor, and vines burst out of the porch to make it difficult terrain. Shoshana’s claw-like fingers and Gral’s sickle make a decent harvest, but the wheat strikes back, twining long strands around them and restraining them. This gluten is intolerant! Shoshana retaliates with Burning Hands, catching them all in the flames but also wounding Gral.

Gral is informed he may Do The Thing, so long as he has his lute on his person. He manages to play some freaking weird melodies, and his body gets woobly, and he phases out of the grapple like a mirage. His strange woobliness allows him to avoid AOOs, so he slashes at them and then gets some distance.

Clem runs out on the porch but can’t quite reach the Wheats due to the viney ground. Clem has slept in armor, but Valeria naively has not. She casts shield of faith on herself as she runs, grabbing a trident, and busts out glowing onto the porch.

One of the scarecrows in the field turns and drops off its post. It looks up, its eyes glowing a terrifying red as it sprints forward on all fours. That same viney wheat has formed arms for it, with rusted metal shears as claws. It attacks Valeria, but misses.

Fiona awakens and busts on out, furious and holding both her hammers, unarmored. She crits the scarecrow, though she isn’t raging, and does 25 fucking damage, because barbarians. Flynn, right behind her, snaps his fingers and a pistol appears in his hands. He fires, and misses.

The Wheat holding Shoshana slams her brutally into the ground and begins to drag her away, back toward the wheat field. Shoshana NOPES hard, rolls good and squeezes out of its grasp.

Gral pops Shoshana’s kidnapper with a crossbow bolt and Psychic Blades for a nice chunk of damage, blowing through the thing’s chest. It crumbles to the ground, a mere pile of grain.

Clem whiffs, the wheat wafting aside in the breeze. Valeria tries to pitchfork a scarecrow with her trident, but also misses. The scarecrow turns to Fiona, and its eyes glow a demonic red. Fiona fails her save – her face freezes in fear, her muscles lock up, and she is paralyzed. Flynn is not happy about it. “FEAR NOT!” he shouts, stabbing the one fighting Clem and wreathing it in the vibrating energy of Booming Blade. “If it moves, it’ll suffer. Bring it down, Clementine!”

“I will!” she shouts. “On my turn!”

The Wheat grabs her, restraining her with amber waves of pain.

Shoshana twins her Chromatic Orb again and misses one, but the one on Gral dies in a blaze.

Gral throws a Dissonant Whispers at the last Blight. It saves, but takes some damage. Clem busts out of its wheaty clutches, its glutinous grasp. Fiona, paralyzed, gets hit twice by the scarecrow but regains her ability to act, slamming her hammers into its soft, wheaty body. Flynn takes down the last Blight with his blade. “Are there any more of them?”

Fiona makes a sound. AH YES RIGHT.

Shoshana barely hits, but it IS vulnerable to fire so it takes damage-and-a-half. Gral pins his Psychic Blades to another crossbow bolt – it’s resisting non-magic damage but psychic is another story. It dies.

“Okay, NOW I think that’s the last of them,” Flynn concedes.

Shoshana feels vindicated, but also pissy. “I feel like the farmer guy could have MENTIONED that shit!”

Valeria, meanwhile, thinks this all sounds very familiar. In Ser Balderich’s story about the Summer Palace, the rose garden sprang to life and attacked. 

Shoshana is ready to get up in the the old farmer’s grill, but his house is across that field. We don’t wanna go in the field at night. 

Flynn takes watch. “If anything moves…” he says ominously, flourishing his pistol, “…you’ll wake up.”

We get what rest we can, though no one sleeps well after that. 

In the morning, Shoshana marches over and bangs on the farmer’s door. “Hey. HEY. OPEN UP, YOU DICK, I HAVE A BONE TO PICK.” Nobody answers. She gets nosy and peeks through the windows. Empty. It looks lived-in, not abandoned, but there’s nobody there. The door is unlocked, so she goes on in to check it out. 

She rolls a good investigate check. Searching the house, she finds a couple things. Yes, it’s lived in, but relatively recently someone packed and left in a hurry. 

Second, and more importantly, she finds the floorboards all dug up in one of the interior closets. Coming out of the dirt there, and spreading out into the walls of the closet, there is a thick, sprawling growth of mushrooms and fungus. 

Shoshana immediately puts her scarf over her face and gets right the hell out of there. NOPE NOPE NOPE. MAYBE WE SHOULD BURN IT. 

Gral, outside the house, agrees. In the early days of the curse, before he went on the expedition, he saw creatures the orcs called “fungal zombies.” Fungus took took over what was near them, animated the bodies or other organic matter, and made them attack. Gral also knows that fire has historically been an excellent way to deal with THAT bullshit.”

Shoshana clears it with everybody that the plan is to burn this man’s house down. Then we burn the man’s house down. Other villagers come by to see what on earth is happening but it’s too late. They’re pretty upset and confused. But they look at how well armed we are, and decide not to question it. 

Shoshana does protest that we didn’t burn it down with the guy INSIDE, he LEFT, stop looking at us like that. And he was an EVIL MUSHROOM MAN.

One of the frightened villagers volunteers some information. “Come to think of it, the fellas who lived there, Lieb and his sons, they showed up just a bit before Trolskiv started goin’ bad. You don’t think he was involved in that?”

We don’t know. So he’s not from around here? 

“No, he’s a recent transplant from Bad Hersfeld. When Trolskiv went bad, everybody stayed in their houses and didn’t talk much. Didn’t know him all that well, but he seemed like a nice enough fella.”

We remember that the farmer, Lieb, sent his sons down the river to recruit a young bridge troll. Gral, knowing the destruction a violent troll can wreak, does not want this troll kid to be mushroomized. The Fairgolds are willing to check that out, if we finish escorting the carts to Mornheim. They’ll meet up with us there in a couple of days. 

“Fire is very effective,” Gral advises them. 

“Usually is,” says Flynn.

As they head off down the river, we can still hear them chatting. “Fiona, have you considered my idea of lighting your hammers on fire?” The hand sign she returns is one we all recognize. “Maybe I could figure out an ice thing with my blade. We could find a cool theme! You could dye your hair red-” Oh, she’s punched him. Another day in the life of the Knights Fairgold.

We take the ferry over the river without incident. It takes most of the rest of the day to reach Mornheim.

As we get close, the lush greenery of the forest along the road becomes thinner and more wiry, the trees less full of life. Animals look starved and diseased. The sound of carrion birds replaces twitter of songbirds. Everything has gone real fuckin’ Tim Burton. 

We see a sign that says Mornheim. “C’mon, the town isn’t far,” says Feivel. “We can still make it by nightfall.” We trudge ahead along the winding path. Eventually we come across rows of trees, still bearing a few apples but sickly and thin. The hills have clusters of graves on them. 

We crest a hill and see the town, a small cluster of buildings surrounded by a tall wall. In distance, we can make out several larger structures: a grand house on a high hill, and what looks like a cathedral. Heading downhill, there’s a sudden commotion inside a mausoleum to the left. 

Once it had been pleasantly situated in copse of trees; now they are cracked and broken, and we can hear shouts of battle. The door to the mausoleum is roughly wrenched open as we approach. A rotting zombie stumbles back outwards, and falls. A woman in a blue coat and tall leather hat, wielding a sharpened shovel, plants her shovel in its neck and stomps, decapitating it. “THE EXIT’S CLEAR, LET’S GO!”

There’s an answering whoosh of flame from somewhere inside the tomb. “THANKS!” the woman calls. Then she notices us: “Oh hey, Feivel. Just in time. Let’s get into town, I got your payment right here!”

A goblin in a brightly embroidered bolero jacket steps out of the mausoleum, wiping dust and soot off her slightly smoking hands. “You’re not the usual guards,” she comments.

“Nope!” Valeria agrees. “Oh, would you be lady Aubrey? Ser Quentin sent us, he said to give you this.” She hands the human woman Ser Quentin’s letter.

The woman slits it open with a thin knife. She is, in every aspect, the Graverobber from Darkest Dungeon. She carries a sturdy pick, a sharpened shovel, and a whole bunch of daggers. She reads Ser Quentin’s letter as we walk through the graveyard, casually, as if she hasn’t just run out of a tomb of exploding zombies.

“So!” she says to us. “Letter says you’re idiots. Well, it says you’re here to investigate and get to the bottom of stuff, so…idiots.”

“Honestly, knowing Ser Quentin, we’re just surprised and gratified he didn’t say it explicitly,” Shoshana quips. 

“Aw, Q’s a big softie once you get to know him,” Aubrey tells us, smiling. We’ve reached the town walls, and she shouts up to a couple of guards. “Open up!” The gate grinds open slowly, and Feivel hurriedly rushes his carts inside.

Now that we’re in safe territory, Lady Aubrey turns to inspect us properly. “Can I get your names?”

The DM confirms that Clem is no longer using her uniform, with its Red Hand insignia, as armor, so Aubrey doesn’t recognize it. “Sergeant Clementine Haxan,” she introduces herself.

“Sergeant, eh? Part of the Czar’s forces?”

“Indeed. I was stationed with the Red Hand.”

Aubrey squints at her. “I don’t know anything about the Red Hand, but last group Q brought… these folks wouldn’t wear red gloves, would they?”

“They sure do?”

Aubrey’s tone grows more hostile as she eyes Clem suspiciously. “You here to bring more trouble to my town, then? We’ve had enough of elven soldiers here.”

“Just the opposite. We’re here to help.”

“Yeah, that’s what the first ones said. The ones still here have been no end of trouble to me and mine.”

Clem is shocked. We’d thought all of the Red Hand had left Mornheim! “What do you mean, the ones still here?!”

Aubrey points outside the wall, where the undead roam. “Livin’ out there. The undead sure seem to listen to them. We’ve had to cut our expeditions short, which means I can’t pay for Mercedes and the other mercs to protect the town, or for Feivel to get supplies.

“You’re gonna go out there, fine. But if you die, do me the favor and have the courtesy to stay that way. Anyway, Aubrey von Mornheim, pleasure to make your acquaintance. Welcome to town! Hope you survive it.”

[cursewoodrecap]

Session 11: Cirque Macabre

On the road from Mornheim to Bad Herzfeld, we can’t even have a day off in peace.

Good Morning Baaaaaaaltimornheim~

We wake up in Mornheim along with the Fairgolds, having crammed all six of us into one room at the overcrowded inn. We see behind the scenes into Flynn’s hair care routine. What, you think he looks this dashing naturally? He has product for his beard and moustache. 

Flynn is sicker than he was after Valeria gave him the Pat Pat of health yesterday, but better than he was when he came in. He had advantage to his roll today, for Reasons the DM won’t disclose. He’s putting up a brave front, and is definitely putting some extra effort into looking dashing and healthy. Somebody get him his fancy hat!

Meanwhile, having spent the whole night in close quarters with Valeria, Clem, and Fiona, Shoshana wonders: why is every woman she meets improbably jacked? What even is her life.

The plan, just to recap: We’re heading to a place called Bad Herzfeld, because we’ve heard it’s overflowing with the rare herbs and plants we need as spell components for the ritual we found in the manor house, which should purify the water supply of Mornheim. (Somebody’s been sticking their Taint in the water. HURR HURR)

We take a moment to question why, if it was a mage working in the von Mornheim manor, are the ingredients of the spell so druidic, and the spell written in archaic Old Valdian like a druid might speak? Druids live in the woods making friends with badgers; this was a bona fide wizardy laboratory. Shoshana rolls to see if she can figure it out and nat 1′s. What do you mean this isn’t what all wizard shit looks like? 

Valeria also rolls to figure it out and rolls...not much better. Maybe there was a druid squatting in an old wizard lab? Who knows. Magics is magics.

We have a thin, unfulfilling soup for breakfast, and then split up to prepare for travel.

Valeria immediately heads off over by the city gates. She tells the DM that her activity will need ten minutes, and that “you know what I’m doing.” The rest of us  have to wait in suspense.

Shoshana stops in to double-check on the doctor; she’s realized that it’s pretty likely that any corpses will get up just like Sokolov did, and she’s pretty sure the locals have figured that out but needs to double check. Turns out that yes, the Doctor has been burning the bodies. Cremation isn’t common in Valdia; if you live in a forest, funeral pyres tend to set the trees on fire. But you do what you gotta in a zombie apocalypse.

Clem organizes her kit and sharpens her sword, then takes a little while to read through the Sturmhearst journals she picked up from the book merchant. There’s an article about research into “replacing lost limbs with synthetic troll blood made of fungus.” Given what we’ve just found out about fungus people... thaaaaat could be bad.

Gral interrupts her reading to awkwardly ask Clem about when he used his magic lutestrings to wooble her. “How did it feel? I’d like to make sure I don’t kill someone by accident.

Clem thinks about the experience, which did come with a chunk of psychic damage. “It wasn’t painful, or necessarily unpleasant?” she says, thoughtfully. “But it was unpleasant in its unexpected nature. Like when the surface of a pond starts rippling – but you’re made of air instead of water – I dunno if I’m describing it right? But it was like that.”

Gral sits down next to her. “After acquiring the strings, my best test subject was self. You get used to it quickly. Maybe it’s not good to get used to it?”

Clem nods. “Yeah, it’s probably bad to get used to it.” She shows the journals to Gral to get his opinion, since the orcs have had skirmishes with fungal zombies before. The paper details the formula derived from a strange new fungus, but doesn’t really give any details about the fungus itself, so Gral doesn’t have much to go on.

As they flip through the journals, they also find a paper about fungal infection and potential treatments, by a Professor Alma Ulmus. Useful for Flynn, perhaps?

Clem med checks well and grasps the concepts pretty well. The paper details several techniques for dealing with fungal infection. There are some theories about ways to selectively target the infection with necrotic damage and certain medicines/poisons. Unfortunately, the techniques tend to come with hefty risks to the wellness of the patient, since you’re basically injecting a toxin that is mildly more deadly to the fungus than to the patient. It’s chemo, basically.

(We go down a conversational rabbit hole re: magic cancer and magical chemotherapy techniques, and have to get wrangled back on track.)

None of the treatments are outlined in enough detail for us to use. Mostly it’s an update about ongoing research initiatives, in case anyone wants to give the good Professor some grant funding.

(”The results aren’t peer reviewed yet - Who am I kidding, Sturmhearst doesn’t peer review.” “They used to, back in the good old days!” says our ghost scalpel.)

Valeria has, meanwhile, found a decent spot to perform her holy ritual, and lets the other players know that “we” are coming to meet up with the group. The first player to realize what’s going on squeals a little.

Valeria, in fact, has cast Seek Steed. (Yes, the PHB calls it Find Steed, but alliteration is important!) 

Something is walking alongside Valeria, pressing its large reptilian head to her chest affectionately. It’s similar to the creatures we’ve seen pulling Lucinius’ cart but it’s thinner, taller, more fine-boned. It is a faintly glowing lilac color, with silver reaching up to almost its knee on one foreleg and its ankle on the opposite hind leg, with a silvery crescent on forehead. 

“Oh my god, it’s a crocodile,” Shoshana’s player gasps.

“It’s an ALLIGATOR,” Valeria’s player returns indignantly.

Valeria pets the cool dinosaur behind its skull and tells it its name is Aethis. (It’s named for the aether from which it arose, being a celestial mount.) Rack, in his divine kindness, also had Aethis show up with a very fancy saddle. It has a rose embossed on it, and as Valeria names the creature, “Aethis” appears embossed on the saddle in Draco-Aquilian. The reptilian mount is faintly glowing purple. 

Its pronouns are they/them, because it is a celestial being of divine energy that has taken mortal form for Valeria’s convenience; what even is a gender.

The rest of us stare. “...Where did you get that.” 

“Rack gave them to me!” 

“Just, like, now? While I was in the bathroom?” 

“There’s a ritual. It’s a paladin thing.”

Shoshana awkwardly waves at the lizard. Gral obligingly holds out his hand for sniffs. Aethis sniffs him. Heartened, Shoshana cautiously moves forward for awkward pats on the head, which Aethis accepts.Shosha awkwardly pats. Aethis accepts the pats. Gral(‘s player) is like I PLAY WITH THE PUPPY even though it’s an Alligator Horse.

(The locals are like, what the fuck is that thing??? Like it’s obviously a paladin’s celestial steed, but……it’s THAT THING. Former-Kyr Crabber is not around to miss his long-gone mount.)

We don’t see Aubrey around – she was on watch last night, so she’s probably sleeping. Skulbjor the troll is watching the gate. 

“Hi, folks. Oh, lookit dat. You didn’t come in with that,” he says, appreciating Aethis. And hey! More folks came in last night - the one that doesn’t talk and the one that talks too much. So where ya headed? Back into the necropolis for another mission?”

We tell him all about our mission for spell components and fungus problems.

“Alright, well, don’t got time to process all that right now,” he says slowly as his troll-brain tries to catch up. “Let’s say good luck and I’ll tell Lady Aubrey you went to get some medicines. All right, best of luck to ya. Stay away from that grove what’s north of the road, the watchman heard some things movin’ around in there. I like your new chomper.”

Skulborg proceeds to scritch our new chomper with one big troll finger. “Aww, ’s a good chomper.” Aethis accepts the scritches.

We leave the dreary town of Mornheim. And as we leave its twisted trees and grim orchards and rows of graves, we feel the sun on your face, and it feels a little like we’ve been holding our breath in all this time. The sun feels warmer and we all feel a bit more alive, having left that place.

According to our best map, some of the roads go through Dead Towns, which people generally go around. Traveling in the Cursewood is a lot of back roads these days. You take the main road where you can, but some places are just impassable now – disrepair, or spooky monsters, or sometimes a town just vanishes and people wisely decide not to go where it used to be.

The result of this is that all of us have maps, and none of them match. Being a cartographer is a very stressful job right now, okay? Luckily, a good Survival check keeps us on the trail. We’re going for a town called Three Oaks Junction, which is more of a permanent camp than a proper town. We can get a better map there. It’s basically a three-way crossroads of some major roads; a travel stop that has a large enough occupancy of tents and carts that it can function as a safe stopover and makeshift town. We’re about two days out from there.

How long do we have until the troll moot? Fiona starts signing, and Flynn translates. Trolls don’t exactly subscribe to the mail, so they’re very slow to get the word out and get together. It’s less of meeting and more like a short-term living situation for times of crisis. They rarely last very long – trolls are solitary because they eat a lot of food. A large population of trolls in one place needs a LOT of food, and a big gathering is only done in extreme situations where there’s access to large food stockpile. There hasn’t been one in at least 200 years; mostly they’re just talked about in old songs. So we have plenty of time, but we want to shut it down long before any momentum starts up. If we can stop trolls from hearing about the moot in the first place, that might be the best for everyone.

(As we travel, we have our usual silly arguments, this time about Aethis: Celestial war mounts do not need to eat, although war gators are obligate carnivores. So Aethis can eat meat if they want to, right? In that case, what happens to that food?

“HOW IT POOP, DM? WRITE THE LORE!”

“It’s not a real gator, it doesn’t poop!”

“It waits until it’s unsummoned, and then it poops ALL AT ONCE in the celestial plane.”

“Dude? Dude? Curse you.”

“Was that a....lore dump?”

“CUUUUUURSES.”

I am told to please excise this from the record. I absolutely do not follow instructions.)

We’re boppin along and making decent time. As we travel, Valeria rolls good insight and sees through Flynn’s stiff upper lip, and insists on pushing another Lay On Hands of curing disease into him. Again, it clears his symptoms but doesn’t end the disease.

It’s late afternoon when we see a decently sized cottage by the side of road. It looks pleasant! There’s flower boxes in the windows, blooming picturesquely. There’s a cart next to it, loaded up with furniture and stuff, and a sign nailed to a tree nearby that says “MOVING SALE! CURIOS, ODDS AND ENDS. COOKIES PROVIDED WITH PURCHASE.”

Valeria is intrigued by cookies. Clem always likes a curio.

There’s a young girl running about and an old lady in a rocking chair, out in front of the house. The young girl is carrying things from the house to the cart. There’s a little table next to the old woman’s chair with a tray of cookies, as well as a surprisingly sturdy looking box. The old lady waves. “Oh, hello!”

We come say hi. “Yes, I’m moving in with my daughter and my granddaughter here! Say hi, honey.” The little girl waves hello and continues to help pack the cart. “My daughter and her family say it’s not safe out here alone for old woman. I resisted as long as I could. I can handle myself, but just last week as Rosie here was coming to visit, a werewolf almost attacked me! So I figured it was finally time to pack up and go.”

(Yes, we picked up on the Little Red Riding Hood joke.)

Clem immediately insight checks the little old lady, and nat 20′s. She is being perfectly trustworthy. Actually, she’s playing up the helpless little old lady act a little too hard. Clem thinks that she might have killed that werewolf herself. She’s got no intent to harm us, except maybe rip us off a little.

Clem shrugs. We ARE a group of 6 well armed strangers and a war gator. She’s got every right to be a bit on guard and play up the friendliness. She’s legit.

“Most of the things I’m not bringing with me are inside. Go take a look around! I traveled quite a lot in my youth, and I still have a few souvenirs!”

Valeria ties Aethis outside – in sight but not right up on the old lady, who is not spooked by Aethis at all. (Valeria is slightly offended that everyone is a little spooked by them. They’re just a gator! Gators are everywhere, it’s not like they’re a big deal!)

We enter the charming cottage and, well...that’s not what we expected. It’s absolutely stuffed, and it’s stuffed with COOL-ASS STUFF. There’s paintings and trophies lining the walls. That’s definitely a giant’s axe hanging there, carved with ancient runes. There’s a sultry oil painting taking up most of one wall, a picture of a young woman halfway out a window, turning to face the camera, smiling wickedly and clutching a gem as she prepares to rappel out the window. There’s big ol’ treasure-chest-lookin’ chests and boxes everywhere. There’s an old Aquilian war banner, hanging as a decorative tapestry. Gral spots some Orcish artifacts.

Who IS this woman?! Maybe she’s the protagonist of our spinoff prequel.

The first thing Valeria does, of course, is cast Detect Magic to see what glows. A beat, and then she just starts pointin’ everywhere. EVERY-DANG-THING is magic.

Gral ponders sagely. “I’m starting to think she may have overplayed the helpless old lady thing.”

Let’s investigate for stuff we wanna buy! Gral would like a projectile weapon, or perhaps some armor? Or a nice brooch. He finds a pack of 5 crossbow bolts inscribed with some sort of rune.

The old lady sticks her head in to see how we’re doing.  “Ah yes, can I help you find anything? I know it’s a bit of a mess, I’m in the middle of moving.” She spots Gral holding the bolts. “Oh, those are Bolts of Heart Seeking! They’re quite nice, I think. They’ll run you at least a hundred. I was asked to get rid of most of the deadlier souvenirs…” Gral buys them. 5 bolts, each granting advantage on the attack and an expanded crit range.

Shoshana looks for something protective, given her terrible caster AC. 

“I’m sorry, dearie, I sold my old armor set a while back,” the old lady tells her, but she rustles in a drawer and pulls out a little bag. “This was big help back in the old days whenever I got cornered by some-” 

“Grandma-” interjects the granddaughter, warningly.

“Well! Anyway, this will make anything that breathes sneeze and cough! 100 gold, and don’t say where you got it if you use it for anything illegal.” It’s 3 doses of Dust of Sneezing and Choking. Shoshana considers, but passes.

Clem doesn’t have much money after splurging on her new armor. She’s gonna save it.

Valeria looks for - well, she wants books, also anything that matches the Order of the Rose aesthetic, since she just found Kyr Marius’ old dagger. She doesn’t find anything recent - maybe some stuff decorated with floral designs, but nothing that would have been lost in the Crusade at the Summer Palace. She does find a shrine to the trickster god Guile in one corner of the room, and more importantly, a collection of rare books! None are magical, sadly. 

Valeria picks up a book about an expedition to an ancient Aquilian flying city. “Ah yes, that one was a comp copy! It all happened maybe 40 years ago?” the elderly lady chirps.

“Oh, did you write this?” Valeria inquires politely.

“Oh, goodness, no, I didn’t write it – I’m in it!” Sure enough, the cover has a lovely picture of a dashing lady-adventurer who looks suspiciously similar to the one in the painting.

We ask her name. “Jolene. Or Josephine. Johanna, sometimes. I think I’m Jolene in the book. Yes, those were good old days…”

She holds out a rod with a grappling hook on both ends. “This old girl’s seen a lot of the world with me. I picked it up from that nice artificer in Galway. It produces ropes! You push this button to launch the grapple, see-” she says, demonstrating, “-and this one to wind it in.”

“It’s a clever bit of machinery,” Valeria admits. 

“Oh, he mostly cheated with magic.” We pass on the Rod of Ropes, but it’s caught Flynn’s eye. After a short bickering session of increasingly rapid hand-signs, he buys it.

Gral asks about all orc stuff. “That was all a gift from orc leader some years back.”

“Oh? Who was it?”

“Ven’shek was the last name. His people mostly called him One-Ear?”

Gral’s jaw drops, like an indie band kid who found out their grandma knew Les Paul personally. “YOU KNEW ONE-EAR?!”

Gral’s history roll gives him some context: One-Ear was a bard, and he was a pretty big deal. He had two ears; he was just deaf in one after rocking out too hard at one point. He’d fought an evil necromancer who was trying to animate mummies of the honored dead, leading a group of bards to put a stop to that nonsense. He unleashed a sonic blast so powerful it buried the necromancer in an avalanche, but also blew out his left eardrum.

The old lady seems unfazed. “Yeah. He had two ears! He kept wanting us to ask why, but I wasn’t gonna fall for that.” Hanging on the wall is a bona-fide autographed copy of One-Ear’s bard mask, similar to the one Gral wears. 

Gral is still Absolutely Gobsmacked. “He was before my time but I’ve always really admired his work!”

“Yes, good times. He wanted my help with retrieving a thing from a-” Her voice drops to a mumble, “-dragon’s hoard.”

We check out a few more items. There’s a perpetually bloodstained sword sitting in the corner, with teeth carved in the hilt, quietly whispering, “feeeeeeeeed” to itself, which we leave well alone. There’s Gloves of Thievery and a Handy Haversack for sale, as well as a small silver raven ornament that Ms. Jolene claims will deliver messages. “Oh, I got that little thing in the flying city! It’s an Aquilian device originally meant to carry messages between their cities. It’ll deliver a spoken message or a letter. If it can’t get there in 24 hours, it’ll come right back to you. I was sort of hoping to use it to correspond with old friends...”

Awww. We won’t take it away from her, then. We WILL pool some cash for that Haversack, though. “We had good times together. I’m a bit sad to see it go,” the old lady admits, patting it fondly. Sure enough, the small black-and-grey bag is there in her painting, on the hip of the sexy thief.

That’s about all the cash we want to spend, but the sun’s starting to go down and this seems about as safe a place to camp as any. Old Woman Jolene doesn’t mind.

Flynn takes the opportunity to play with his new Rod of Ropes. “Fiona, hold my hat! I’m gonna try it out!”

Fiona signs to Shoshana, which with a bit of insight she figures out means, “Can you cast Feather Fall?”

“Nope.”

Fiona signs something to Flynn.

“Thank you, Shoshana! I’ll be sure to shout if I need your help!”

He does some acrobatics off the roof of the house, but he hasn’t had the practice with this thing yet. “Shoshana, now would be a good time to-” He falls flat on his face.

Fiona does her weird cough-laugh at him as he dusts off with an overdramatic scowl.

That’s our adventure at Jolene’s Lifetime-of-Adventuring Surplus. Jolene’s Stolen Goods Boutique: She takes them just because she caaaaaaan.

Given what we know about Ms. Jolene, we all keep an eye on our purses that night. Luckily, it seems like she’s trying to downsize.

In the morning, Flynn is not doin’ great, coughing hard and looking pale. Valeria Lays on Hands again, negating his symptoms. But we’re gonna need a permanent solution eventually.

Shoshana rolls a mediocre medicine check. The illness is from the inhaled spores from the farmer’s son, and it’s mostly respiratory. Maybe Shosha could brew a tea that could help with some of the symptoms, but she doesn’t have a supply of the right herbs, and Valeria’s got the symptoms covered for now. Ah well, it was worth a try.

We get on the road and roll into Three Oaks Junction later that day. There are indeed oaks there, significantly more than thee. Like we expected, it’s more of a big camp than a normal town – there are a few permanent structures, like a sheriff’s depot, but most folks here are living out of tents. There’s a big marketplace where many traveling merchants and local farmers come to trade, sort of a perpetual bazaar.

Valeria & Clem work together to write up a letter to Ambassador Khoshev with the warning about the Red Hand’s assassination plans. They give Clem’s name and rank for veracity and slap Valeria’s noble seal on it to give it priority. Asking around, they’re told there’s actually a courier service with a permanent shop over by the founder’s statue. Bonus, not only can they get a message to the Ambassador, they can also get a message over to Holzog, where Clem knows there are messengers who could get a message back to her “caravan,” which she hasn’t mentioned to the other three before.

Clem and Val head over to Red Raven Couriers to send their letter. Clem also sends parcel of gems to her caravan, the ones that we found in the Mornheim manor, about 100g total. The halfling clerk asks if the packages have any valuables we’d like to insure. Clem insights him, he seems like a trustworthy professional instead of someone who’ll go through her mail for loot. “The package for Holzog is valuable, I’d rather delay it if it will get extra security. The message is the opposite - it’s urgent, and there is no material value.”

The package of gems will go on the next well-guarded stagecoach, and the message will go immediately on a relay of fast horses. Valeria makes sure to tip extra well. Red Raven Couriers: Leave at sunup, there by nightfall.™ (Disclaimer: this is not a guarantee of one night service. We do not travel by night. What, do you think we’re crazy?)

Their job done, they take a look at the statue of Three Oaks Junction’s founder. It’s a drow! There’s two captions, a rather short one in Valdian and a much longer one in the Drow language.

Valeria reads off the Valdian: THREE OAKS // TOWN FOUNDER.

Clem can see the Drow caption has the elf’s full name: “Born to Clan Shenkel on a Rainy Night Under the Shelter of Three Oak Trees.” Ah, that’s where the town name comes from!

Clem’s pretty chuffed! “I’m very pleased to see people who aren’t averse to drow in this area! There’s even a statue, and not a burning heap where the statue used to be!”

The folks at the courier are happy to share the founding story. Three Oaks was a skilled wagon repair-person, and set up a wagon repair station at a good high-traffic spot. It became a local fixture, she eventually settled down and built a real shop, and that was the start of the town!

Clem knows: If drow know anything, it’s how to fix wagons. And care for horses. Good for this Three Oaks for making an opportunity of it!

Towering over the town, a distance from the main thoroughfares, is a large black and white striped tent. There’s a circus, scheduled for tonight! Valeria gets excited about the possibility of Night Circus.  

Clem has never seen a circus. Gral has never seen a Valdian circus. Valeria has seen many traveling shows. Shoshana’s seen a couple significantly less fancy traveling shows. Flynn and Fiona are excited to go to the circus. Everybody’s like, yeah, let’s have a night off, let’s have fun!

We worry that Gral, as a performer, might be That Guy: “Their technique was horrible, frankly, I’ve seen better-”

We’re hype! Let’s get CIRCUS SNACKS. There’s spiced nuts and funnel cakes. Clem gets a funnel cake. Shoshana is deeply disappointed to learn that cotton candy has not been invented yet.

Valeria goes over to get some spiced nuts. The nuts stand is run by a red dragonborn, obviously named Bophades. (He tells us he has brothers, Joe and Ligma.)

Valeria doesn’t know how much to pay the guy, and we meme about it. How Much Could Nuts Cost, Clementine? One Gold? Ah, nobles.

A few performers are starting to walk around to work the crowd. Everything in the circus is black and white, like a fun theme. All the performers have pristine white facepaint.

We realize we should probably not bring Large Greatswords into a theater, so we stash Clem’s sword, Valeria’s tridents, and the Eyegis with Aethis. Hey, Aethis has the Eyegis, Valeria basically has a large lizard camera drone to look through! Cool. Valeria buys Aethis a live chicken as a snack, even though celestial steeds don’t need to eat. “We’ll come back soon, I love you~!”

Shoshana’s anxiety cloak is freaking out, but, like, it freaked out around the cool old lady too. Does this thing have a snooze button?

We all find our seats, passing around snacks and jostling with the crowd. Outside the sky is darkening, and Dancing Lights come up all around the tent, swirling and casting shadows. A ringmaster in a black-and-white jester’s motley comes out. The lights all focus around him, 

“Hello, everyone,” he calls to the crows, in the practiced cadence of a seasoned performer. “We live in troubled times. This wood is not a very fine place. So tonight, in this tent, open your minds and your hearts and join me as I take you to a kingdom far away - yet as close as you allow it to be! First, walk with me as we approach the land of my king. We must approach the borders, guarded as they are!”

Braziers burst into flame all around the perimeter of the tent with a big oooh from the crowd! Jugglers begin tossing batons between them, forming a high arch, which the ringmaster walks under. “Cross the border with me!” he calls. “These woods are dangerous place, but my lord’s marksmen are expert.” Each baton is shot out of the air at the apex of their arch by an arrow! The jugglers catch them expertly, and demonstrate that each arrow has struck the dead center of a target painted on each baton!

Gral murmurs an aside: “I have the memories of every orc performer who ever lived, I’ve seen better, there was this one guy-”

Shoshana dope slaps him. Shut up and enjoy the show, doofus.

After a pause for the audience to applaud the archers, the jester continues. “And now, our master, my king, is building a bridge! A vast river lies before us!” Performers come out, shaking a long blue cloth between them. “But fear not, we will cross it!” A pair of strongmen start heaving around big ol’ beams of wood, while acrobats start making their way across the tops of the whirling beams in an impressive display of balance and coordination. The beams are moved into place, and one strongman lifts ringmaster with one hand up to them. The ringmaster mounts the ‘bridge’ and walks across. “Ladies and gentlemen, the bridge builders!” 

There’s another round of applause. Clem and Valeria are enthusiastic. Even Gral is starting to get into it.

“But before we can approach the castle and visit my master’s court –” the jester warns us. We her galloping hooves (or possibly coconut shell) noises. “Ah, yes! Do you hear who’s come to greet us! The knights of the Black and White!” Everyone claps, the ringmaster throws something in the braziers, and the arena fills with smoke. As horses carrying stunt riders circle the big top, we must all make wisdom saves. Valeria is informed she may do so with proficiency. We’re  all lucky enough to save, except Flynn.

As the smoke hits Valeria, she realizes – there’s something wrong here. Once tent has filled with smoke from the smoke bombs – it was to set up dramatic entrance, but…the ringmaster’s describing this glorious kingdom where nobody has to fear any death or dismemberment,  where the power of his king is absolute. There’s something weird about the smoke. Something weird about the performers and their flickering shadows. She can’t quite place it...

The show has moved along. There’s a knife thrower, a fire breather, and a sword swallower performing now as the “village blacksmith” as the procession “approaches the court”. It’s a whole routine.

Something Is Wrong.

The ringmaster’s patter about this king has become increasingly creepy. Fiona is giving us the side eye. Meanwhile, Flynn and most of audience are slack jawed and enraptured. I mean, it’s a pretty impressive show, but the imagery is getting macabre.

The crowd is no longer applauding after each performance. Everyone is just sitting there, completely entranced. Clem murmurs, “Does this...usually happen at circuses?”

Valeria glances through the Eyegis. The camp outside is perfectly normal, no fires or thieves or anything this might be a distraction from. She cuts back to the here and now.

Right now there’s two guys with halberds, with acrobats dancing on tips, performing as the “castle guards.” Shoshana pokes Flynn, who doesn’t react at all as he stares unblinking at the black-and-white figures. Fiona scoffs - just a poke? Please - and slugs her brother in the stomach. He snaps out of his trance as he gasps for breath, sputtering “WHAT WHY WOULD Y-mmph!” as she slaps a hand over his mouth and shushes him.

Gral hisses, “If we make a scene, they’ll know. Pretend like you’re watching the performance!”

We all perception check. Gral figures it out: the entire time, those dancing lights and braziers have been casting wild, flickering shadows of the rapidly moving acrobats and the people in costume armor But he gets clear look under the acrobats for just one second, and realizes: they’re casting the shadows of skeletons. 

These are undead. The king the ringmaster wants us to visit is none other than the Pale King himself.

Clem is very glad she kept her warhammer on her.

There’s maybe 80-100 people in audience. If we act, the civilians might be collateral damage.

The bad guys wouldn’t know us by look. Maybe we pretend to be enraptured like the rest of audience and wait for them to reveal their big plan. That, or we could just rush the guy leading circus.

The ringmaster is narrating entering the castle gates. The smoke started the process, but clearly the performance has something to do with keeping it going. Shoshana’s all for casting Shatter into the center of the ring - maybe a loud enough noise will wake up the audience. Valeria’s not sure.

Gral and Valeria want to wait and see; Clem and Shoshana want to disrupt the performance before they finish enthralling the audience. Valeria’s player flips us a coin. Our answer? Disrupt.

We refocus in on the plot of the show. The audience has been invited into the great hall, and a feast has been laid out for us – there’s a huge table, with acrobats and jugglers doing a routine where they’re tossing around plates and chairs. We have to roll deception, and we do good enough that they don’t notice we’re snapped out of it, but the ringmaster is definitely scanning the crowd for anyone who’s not under yet. 

At this point, the macabre stuff has become overt. The “castle servants” are setting plates with skulls and crawling hand bones. It’s Obvious Curse at this point. We agree that this is a really cool, goth circus theme, but we would prefer it to maybe...not end with the whole crowd becoming zombies?

Gral decides to Dispel Magic the smoke. To hell with subtlety, we’re going for disruption. He stands up and strikes an echoing POWER CHORD!!! Rolling well, he dispels the effect of the smoke, shouting, “The show is over!” 

As he strikes his lute, a tangible soundwave goes out through the audience. A ripple goes through the smoke, and it starts to fade. The Dancing Lights flicker and come back up. With the spell gone, we can see clearly: the performers are still dressed up, but the acrobats, strongmen, etc. are all visibly rotting or skeletal.

The crowd, suddenly jerked out of the mass charm effect, predictably panics.

The ringmaster turns and looks directly at Gral. In his ringing showman’s voice, he bellows, “GET THEM. THE KING COMMANDS IT.”

Shoshana centers a Shatter on the table full of dancing acrobats, trying to get as many low level undead as she can. Bone shards fly everywhere as all but one of the skeletons explode into bits, with a deafening BOOM that drowns out the circus music. A shame, since this is a dope-ass circus.

(The DM comments: If we’d let it get to end, it would have definitely gotten a bit King in Yellow. We drew a red card at the end of last session, so we get to meet an Avatar of the Curse. This here is the Ringmaster, also known as The Fool.)

Clem, Valeria, and the Fairgolds dash toward the Ringmaster. Valeria has her adamantine wrench. Clem has her warhammer. Fiona has hers, too. Just three super buff ladies with hammers…and Flynn. 

“I’ve got an aesthetic, it’s called Swashbuckler? We don’t use hammers!”

“If he used a hammer, he’d be a Squashbuckler.”

“Or a Smashbuckler?”

“That’s alright,” he quips, summoning his pistol, “I’ve got another kind of hammer I can use…”

(”Is it his penis?” asks everyone who has ever seen Dr. Horrible.

“It’s the HAMMER OF THE GUN, it’s not his penis!” sighs the DM.)

Shoshana aims another Shatter on the remaining zombie strongmen and their table, but they have better CON than a bunch of bones, so it doesn’t have quite the dramatic effect. Flynn shoots the Ringmaster with his pistol. As the shot hits home, he drops the pistol and snaps his fingers, a second pistol materializing in his hand. This time the shot goes wild.

The Fool howls, “GET THEM!” and the two strongmen rush at our tanks, picking up chunks of table to wallop our melee fighters with, mumbling “In the name of the king!” in their garbled zombie voices. The Fool begins to rise into the air, which is never a good sign. He points at Shoshana and in an echoing voice demands she KNEEL. She flips him off. She ain’t kneeling for no floaty-ass pale-faced clown!

Gral Banes the strongmen and the acrobat. The zombies are zom-baned. Clem sees them waiting to clobber her with chunks of table and is like “I can take ‘em,” and rushes in, carving a chunk out of the nearest one. The zombies don’t seem to be trying to defend themselves - they’re just balls of rotting meat in between us and the real threat.  I mean, they’re swinging broken table legs at us, but they’re whiffing hard. Valeria casts Shield of Faith on herself and Cone of Colds them. One save, one fail. Thanks, Bane! (”I love Bane!” “I love you too, citizens of Gotham!”) The one who failed its save and got Clemmed is bloodied. Fiona, raging, does 35 damage in a single turn and bloodies the other strongman. Her mouth is open like a battle-frenzy scream, but it’s just coming out as a hiss.

Shoshana takes a thrown knife from the last skeleton acrobat, and brushes it off. Then she realizes that unlike the others who charged in, she and Gral are still in the middle of the crowd. A crowd that is freaking the fuck out.

Shoshana promptly takes more damage from getting Crowd Trampled than she has from the actual enemies. (Gral gets buffeted around, too, but at least he stayed standing.)

Hey, did you know that The Fool gets lair actions? Arrows, like the ones that shot down the jugglers’ batons, fly in, targeting Gral, Clem, and Fiona. They even seem to change direction in midair to target him. These are ghost arrows! (Which does make the whole baton trick less impressive in hindsight. Cheaters.) 

Shoshana staggers to her feet and throws a Chromatic Orb of acid at the Fool. Flynn’s sword burns with green flames as he brings it down on a strongman zombie. The flame spreads between them and burns at their rotted flesh. One of ‘em nearly smacks Clem, but Gral’s Bane comes to the rescue, and Valeria gets to Sentinel him! She brings the adamantium wrench down on him with two hands. CRONCH. 

Strong Boi #2 punches Flynn in the face – or tries. “Ha! My sister punches better than that!”

The zombie is like, “We’re fighting your sister! That’s a compliment!” Or it would, if this was The Road to El Dorado. Mostly it just grunts.

The Fool gestures grandly, and we all must make Charisma saves. Shoshana and Fiona fail and are Baned. (Hey, no fair using our own tactics on us!) Also, he’s calling reinforcements. We hear the hoofbeats of the stunt horsemen as they charge back into the arena. Without the obscuring magic of the smoke, we can clearly see these are skeletal steeds, ridden by terrible, ethereal spectres waving big ol’ cavalry sabers. They are not headless horsemen; they have heads. We vow to change that.

(These are Sword Wraiths, for anyone who’s keeping track. Also, shout out to Skeleton Horse from our last campaign, forever in our hearts.)

Gral Phantasmal Forces one of the strongmen. The zombie hears a terrible crunchin’ noise. In his mind, the nearly destroyed table has come to life! The shards of wood invert inward, and now there’s a big mouth chompin’ at him! He turns around and starts fighting a table. The Ringmaster facepalms.

Clem channels the scalpel ghost and makes an excellent medicine check. Professor Wendell hmms, and points out a weak spot on the one Gral has just targeted. Clem pops the darn thing’s skull like a weird melon. He died, knowing he was getting eaten by a table. RIP.

Valeria tries to charge past the other strongman, but takes a solid hit of opportunity and gets knocked to the ground. She gets back up and returns the favor. The acrobat skeleton - oh, we forgot about that guy - throws more knives! Have a Knife Day, Valeria. (It doinks off her armor harmlessly.) Fiona smacks at the last big fella.

The spectral riders form a second barrier between the tanks and the Fool as the strongmen fall. They throw some spears at Clem and Flynn. 

The crowd knocks Shoshana over again. This is how she ends: stepped on by frightened civilians in a puddle of popcorn. You’re all gosh darn lucky she hasn’t gone evil yet.

The DM makes a Secret Roll. It’s a success! Valeria’s the first to hear the result, a thudding of claws on hard-packed dirt, and then we see the crowd parting as Aethis the war gator charges toward us, bringing our weapons. They wanted to help! They did a good job!!! We’d give them scritches but we’re, like, in a fight.

We get hit by more ghost arrows, and then Shoshana drags herself to her feet and twins another Chromatic Orb, shooting lightning at both of the spectral riders, who up close look like elven nobles. She then hides behind a chair, in the vague hope that no one else will stomp on her. Flynn stabs one of the riders with his green-flamed rapier, and the flame flickers between both of them.

The remaining strongboi hits Valeria for a big slam, but no one’s looking at them anymore. The Ringmaster, hovering above, begins to distort his body horribly. He distends his limbs, extending his body to spidery and unnatural proportions, and leers at us all with a manic, wild grin. The melee fighters all make WIS saves. Valeria and Flynn are now Frightened of him. As his lips stretch into an even wider rictus, his head rotates on its neck in a deeply unnatural way and his fingerbones stretch out into slender, vicious claws.

Gral inspires Clem, and Dissonant Whispers the strongman. It instantly drops dead. (”You scared a zombie to death. Metal AF.”) The spectral riders close ranks with their shields, forming a barrier between the melee fighters and the Fool, but Clem and Dr. Wendel are READY TO OPERATE! Clem misses one, but maneuvers on attack 2 to try to trip a skeleton horse. Action Surge! She crits the ghost to death, exploding it into mist, its horse falling apart into an inert pile of bones. Her final attack goes to the other horseman with a Distracting Strike. I mean, she did just pulverize his buddy, that’s pretty distracting.

Valeria is afeared of the Creepy Jester (which is taxonomically distinct from a creepy clown, we are told to note.) She takes the opportunity to Lay On Hands herself. The DM is kinda surprised that paladins don’t have resistance to fear in 5e. OH HI AETHIS!!!! They’ve run up to Valeria with her sword and shield. What a good gator!!!! Valeria grabs the Eyegis, and her AC goes back up.

The lone skeleton acrobat is like why r u guise ignoring me??? and throws a knife at Clem. We continue to ignore it. Fiona charges the ringmaster, Clem continues to duel the remaining rider, and the unforgiving crowd continues to trample Gral and Shoshana.

Clem, Fiona, and Flynn all take hits from the ghost arrows. Fiona shrugs it off, but Flynn’s not looking too hot. Shoshana chugs a healing potion (because of freakin’ CROWD DAMAGE!) and dives behind a tent pillar.

The Fool cackles eerily, and everybody under 10 health must make CON save. He was trying to give us all taint, but everybody affected manages to save. He swipes at Fiona with his Horrible Claws, but she blocks with her hammer.

Gral Dissonant Whispers the remaining rider, who nat-1s. It’s scared bad, and Clem does the honors, catching it with her hammer as it passes by. “AH-AH, YOU ARE NOT DISCHARGED!” cries Dr. Wendell. As it flees, the ghost dissipates, and horse tumbles into a mess of bones, carried forward by its own momentum.

Now it’s Clem’s proper turn, and she’s gonna hit the Fool!!!! But first, Second Wind. Miss one, hit one, MANEUVER! Trip Attack! She knocks him prone!

Valeria rides Aethis to the Fool, then dismounts, and Aethis dashes to get to the acrobat. Valeria brings her wrench down on the Fool. She Smites him good. (He is undead, so smite does a Lot.) He makes a goofy OOF! Sound and begins to wriggle up from the ground, and then she just SLAMS him back down. Flattened. After a hit like that, I almost PITY the Fool.

Look, SOMEONE was gonna make that joke.

The acrobat throws knives at Valeria! It crits, but like, it’s a knife. Valeria doesn’t care. Fiona drops one warhammer and just pins the Fool on the ground, grappling him. Raging, she gets advantage. Pinning him down with one arm, she swings her hammer down with the other. He contorts oddly, moving out of the way of one blow, but gets hit by her second slam.

The ghost arrows are back! They all target Fiona. As the arrows slam into her back, she just grits her teeth and takes it. Barbarians, man. Shoshana’s shot goes wide on the Fool as she snipes from afar. Flynn saves against his Frightened condition and starts escorting the last few crowd members out of the tent.

The Fool tries to contort out of Fiona’s grapple, but she keeps an iron grip on his wriggling limbs. Gral decides to join the melee party and stab with his Psychic Blades, finishing off the avatar of the Pale King. The circle of phantom orc warriors again rushes in as one. As he slices into the Fool with his sickle, the jester’s costume tears like a cloth bag, and a bunch of choking black mist bubbles out and away. Inside, there are only the barest, faintest hints of a skeletal form. His weird painted skull rolls away, a head in a jester’s cap locked in a rictus grin jingling absurdly across the big top.

Aethis swats the skeleton acrobat with its tail. It’s dead now.

The circus is silent. The last vestiges of the strange mist are blowing away. The tent is eerie, dark and cold.

Valeria makes a knowledge!Religion check. With the context that this was a weird Pale King thing, she realizes what was bothering her at the start of performance: she’s never been to a circus or play that didn’t open with an invocation to Guile, the god of trickery, illusion, and the arts.

Shoshana lies on the ground grumpily. Aethis comes over and offers a friendly shoulder to help her up. Shosha is like O__O because she’s looking into a massive faceful of teeth, but gingerly accepts the help up after being nudged and sniffed a bit.

Those ghost arrows were flying in from backstage. Let’s check out backstage! We find some quivers sitting there, but the arrows seem to be inert now that the Fool is dead. There are a few musical instruments in the hands of some deactivated skellies and zoms, collapsed awkwardly to the floor. There’s lots of props, costumes, makeup - all the regular circus stuff, including a tour map of places they’ve been. One more for Valeria’s collection!

We find some high-quality stage makeup, which seems a little magic. It might channel illusion magic particularly well? Gral takes a crack at understanding it. It’s not itself a magic item, but it’s designed as a good conduit for illusion spells. Gral takes it. It has 5 charges of enhancing illusion spells. Valeria takes one of the charges. We find some finely ground crystal, which seems to be what was thrown into the braziers. Valeria takes it.

We also have the creepy elongated skull of the Fool. Clem only wants it because her player used to be our party warlock. Fiona wants to smash it. We COULD bring it to the Cursebreakers, like responsible adults, but we’re all like SMASH IT SMASH IT WOOOOOO

We also find a throne on a litter, under a sheet. Is there something on the throne?

Valeria Detects Magic. There’s a lingering magic clinging to it, but fading rapidly. (The makeup and throne have a lot of Illusion and Enchantment; there’s a lot of necromancy generally everywhere.) Shoshana lifts the sheet with her stick. There’s a skeleton sitting in the throne. Not even an animated one. It’s wearing a very nice costume robe and has a crown on its head. Clearly, it’s meant to represent the Pale King, and the culmination of the circus act’s plot, but whatever power it once held was probably coming from the Fool. It’s inert now. We smack it with sticks. It engages in normal skeleton behavior. We want it to be on the floor in pieces, which it finds perfectly doable.

We snag some posters labeled “Feste’s Circus Presents: Journey to the Great Court” and start to head out.

We roll against Taint, but we’re fine. The initial Wis save against the smoke was the big taint risk - getting drawn into story could have been a disaster.

Gral theorizes on what exactly the Fool’s gambit was. There was spell worked into the performance. Its effects weren’t physical, like the disease in Mornheim. This was more like an elaborate, highly modified Mass Suggestion, bringing the people into a susceptible state and then implanting the idea of the glory and power of the Pale King. This wasn’t an attempt to make more undead; this was an attempt to indoctrinate more cultists.

As we exit the tent we remember - oh, right, there’s a big crowd panicking.

Luckily, we have a charismatic and noticeable person with us. A Large Shiny Paladin Riding a Fancy Magic-gator shouting “There is no more threat here, everything has been taken care of, let us talk to the sheriff,” definitely helps - people don’t necessarily believe her, but they’ll obey and let themselves get corralled. Flynn, very experienced in the public relations aspect of monster-fightin’, helps wrangle and pacify the crowd.

The sheriff of Three Oaks Junction has been summoned, and pushes through the nervous crowd to Valeria. “Kyr, thank you, I hear you’ve save us all – what do we do about this???”

Valeria puts on her best commanding voice. “The villainous troop itself has been dealt with; we have no idea if there is any other magical danger in the tent. Is it safe to burn it down?”

The Sheriff nods. “Oh, ya, local fire ordinances meant we had enough clearance around it; nothing else’ll catch.” 

We get the townsfolk well clear of the area, and then Shoshana, whose player is appeased that she won’t start a godawful circus tent fire like in that documentary she saw once, Fireballs it. The tent burns merrily.

Flynn nods to his sister; it’s time for him to do what he does best. He rolls a decent performance check and steps into his role as Radiant Knight, dramatically recounting the battle for the shaken crowd. He focuses on making all of us look good, which is really nice! He lights up his sword with Green-Flame Blade as he gestures around with it, which is an excellent visual effect. He’s framed in front of the burning fire of the tent, and Gral performs an exciting score of back-up musical accompaniment. 

“And then Kyr Argent strode forward, her sword flashing...”

(whispers) “I wasn’t using my sword”

“Ssshhh, it fits better, he’s embellishing.”

As camera pans up, following the smoke into the starry skies over the Cursewood, we end session.

[cursewoodrecap]

Session 20: Super Exciting Library Adventure

We fight so many monsters in this one you guys.

Last time on the Cursewood: We ended up in the headquarters of the Cursebreaker Knights, which also turned out to be a vampire’s house. We were also given literature on how to care for large reptiles in cold climates. Ser Boris was concerned.

In the reading room at Castle Hoeska, Valeria shows Ser Brigid some of the arcane components we found while looting the spooky circus. “We have people who can examine it. Ludwig’s lovely descendant Isadora might be able to do an arcane analysis. She keeps to the library wing; she’s a mage and researcher of considerable knowledge and skill. We’ll have someone take you there.”

“Do not traverse the castle without a guide,” Ludwig warns. “This place is…tricky sometimes.”

“Does it also have outer space in it?” Shoshana asks, well aware of the Key’s nonsense.

“To be honest, my descendants have layered a lot of enchantments on it. It’s constructed on an arcane nexus, so the enchantments can intersect in odd ways. It respects me; it’s mine. But you are outsiders. I must confess that while I am the master of this place, I have perhaps not fully mastered it.”

The DM lets on that this is a Taint Free Zone, ironically. Already occupied! By hipster ghosts, they were undead before it got all popular.

Ser Quentin is waiting for us out in the hallway. “I must ask: how fares Mornheim and Lady Aubrey?”

“…I understand they’ve been better,” Clem allows.

“Please, as much detail as you would give me,” he says, uncharacteristically sincere. “I made a promise to carry a burden that her father could not. In my own way, I consider myself responsible for her. Therefore, I must ask how is she faring. She has been forced into a situation she was never prepared for, though she seems to be handling it admirably.”

“I mean, she did glass me in the face, and is kind of maybe drinking heavily? But considering the circumstances, that’s pretty good.”

We give him an update on Mornheim, and explain Lady Rosalind’s druidic ritual.

“We have yet to make friendly contact with druids,” he muses. “Ser Boris has tried, but they are a reclusive bunch. I knew Lady Rosalind for many years before this Curse began. To think she was hiding such a secret from us all…”

“A cynical man might say reclusiveness is a lie that druids find convenient,” Gral observes.

“Perhaps. I must confess that until today I assumed I had never met a druid in my life. If they do in fact operate in more populated areas in secret, there are likely far more than we anticipated, with much more complex motives…”

Maybe that’s not a bad thing, since they seem to be fighting the Curse. We describe how the artist’s Key ritual was disrupted by a druid, and what we know about the druid we met in Bad Herzfeld. Unfortunately, we know druids are just as susceptible to corruption as the rest of us, since the cult leader Zelig in Bad Herzfeld had once been a druid as well.

“Fear of corruption within their own ranks? Certainly an issue I couldn’t possibly be familiar with,” snarks Quentin tiredly. “Speaking of which! Sgt Haxan! I have some bad news for you.”

“Uh. Okay?”

“As you know, I have been following the members of the Red Hand who are active in Valdia. My agents in Schotzengrad spotted your former comrade Sergeant Rusalka leading a mixed group of Red Hand veterans and others into the city. A few days later, there was an attempted break-in at the Kevan embassy. The ambassador was unharmed; he had received a warning ahead of time, and had taken precautions. The Ambassador was secured, though half a dozen guards were killed.”

“Were any of the intruders apprehended or killed?”

“No. Three intruders were discovered by the additional patrols and arcane wards, but they fled when the Greencloaks arrived on scene, accompanied by a dozen additional soldiers.”

“All things considered, that’s a bit of a relief,” Clem admits.

“The same night, our agents lost track of Rusalka and her group, and have been unable to pick up the trail again.”

“That’s…less of a relief.”

“Any insights you’d like to share into their tactics?”

Clem sighs. “If you’ve already lost track of her, you’re not gonna find her. She’s an experienced rogue; I’m surprised that even with forewarning she was unable to slip past the guards. Aside from keeping up the increased vigilance, there’s nothing else I can really tell you.”

“Very well. I will redouble my efforts on that front. I’m considering going to Schotzengrad personally to follow up.”

“I’d be astounded if there was no follow up attack.”

“My thoughts exactly. I assume their assassins left largely because they were not properly prepared for the increased security. They were caught by elven veterans of the Ascension War, a particular group focused on special ops deep within cultist territory. They have some techniques that Rusalka might not have been aware of, including their methods of securing an area. But now that Rusalka’s aware of that, the next attempt may be more successful. As always, I would appreciate assistance, but I understand if you have other priorities.”

We have reached a central room hung with tapestries and stuffed hunting trophies, where Ser Boris’s dogs are lounging in front of the central fire. Bjorn and Ingborn are sitting there as well, playing a game with a bunch of rocks carved with runes. Valeria initially thinks it’s her favorite game, Man-go, but the board’s the wrong shape and everything is in Jotunn. Valeria immediately wants to learn how to play.

Ser Boris, to the dismay of several servants, has spread out a mess equipment and is performing some sort of science. He’s squeezing foul smelling juices into various containers and generally making a stench.

“Ah hello! Yes come in!” he greets us. “How is commander?”

“She’s pretty cool.”

“Yes. Kyr Argent, over here please.” He hands her a pamphlet. “I write quick instructions. My Valdian is not great but I do not believe you speak Elven. Read this for your beastie. And if you would, smell?” He lifts a bottle, and Valeria dutifully sniffs.

“Ugh! Gross! What is that?!”

“Ah! Bits of Shusva!”

“E-excuse me?”

“The fiend! I have distilled scent!”

“You…certainly have,” she agrees ruefully.

“I am surprised you did not recognize, after it bit you so much. But tomorrow, I will track it back to lair and end it once and for all. Wounded it much today, yes? Tomorrow I will assemble hunting party. We will be able to reopen road!”

Gral asks Boris about what the Shusva’s weaknesses might be. He’s not sure. Ser Brigid told Boris it was probably a Shusva, and that there were books available in the library for further research. But Lady Isadora won’t let dogs in the library. “She say no to Xander face! He do the big eyes! She is clearly monster.”

We’re gonna head over to the library, then. Ingborg tells us that’s where we’ll find Lucinius, too. “It’s nice to see him not throwing himself face first into ghost filled tombs, for once. He is not an easy client for a bodyguard. Still, if you’re in there, make sure he eats? He forgets.”

Valeria channels her sister’s party planning instincts and talks to one of the servants about getting some nice spicy food like how you get in Draconia. They sniff about “decadent” foods with too many herbs, but it’ll be a nice taste of home for her and Lucinius.

Lady Isadora apparently has VERY strong feelings about food or dogs in the library, so we’ll have soup sent up to Lucinius’ room and try to drag him away from his research.

With a von Hoesk servant as a guide, we go down some stairs and then up some stairs and then down stairs that look identical to the first ones. Did we go through a basement at one point? But that was when we were like three levels up? This place does not make any kind of geographic sense. Eventually, though, we arrive at a grand doorway labeled Library.

When the door opens, we find ourselves in a tower, with ringlike floors leading upwards and downwards from the entrance. Each floor has shelves of neatly organized books and a small reading area.

A sharp woman in a dark dress levitates up to the floor we’re on, scowling. “I told you, Boris- oh. Are you here for the Professor?!”

We assume this is Isadora the arcanist. “We wanted to talk with you first-“

“I might have to talk to YOU. He’s taking books between the FLOORS, I have a SYSTEM. And who are you anyway? You’re not dressed like those damnable knights. You’re dressed like a completely different sort of damnable knights. I have no idea what you’re supposed to be.”

“Clem Haxan, a damnable knight, apparently.”

“Kyr Valeria Argent, a damnable Knight of the Rose, at your service!”

“I am Gral Omokk’du, a bard in service of Duke Shieldeater.”

“Uh, I’m Shoshana, I just hang out with these guys?”

“I am Isadora von Hoesk. This is my library – my family’s, currently mine, despite a certain LIZARD who is MESSING UP MY SYSTEM.”

“I mean, you could hire librarians?”

“No, they’d get it wrong. I have a system. I have magic to help keep it organized, but it ASSUMES people FOLLOW THE RULES. I’m informed he is a guest of the castle, so I won’t destroy him where he stands. You, though-“

Valeria interrupts gently. “First of all, I hear you’re an expert in arcane analysis, and I’d be grateful to get your opinion on something.” She hands over the crystal dust from the circus and gives a brief rundown of its origins. “I thought knowing its properties might be of interest to the Cursebreakers?”

“Well since you asked so nicely, I can take a look,” she snaps. “Like I don’t have anything better to do than be a walking Identify spell for Cursebreakers, I’ll be upstairs in my lab, at the top of the tower.”

Gral politely stalls her. “Before you go, can I have directions for proper library procedure? We are helping Ser Boris hunt a Shusva, and we’d like to do some research for him. He can’t, because dogs.”

“Floor 6, demonology. Leave the books you use on the table on that floor. Do not take the books to a different floor. Floors are organized by subject matter, which is a perfectly reasonable system that anyone should be able to understand. It has never occurred to us that somebody would wish to CROSS CONTAMINATE the FLOORS.”

“We’ll, uh, see if we can have a word with Professor Galvan.”

“Please do.” She snaps her fingers. A trapdoor opens at the top of the tower, and she floats up and through.

A helpful guard points us to the library’s Index, which consists of several large tomes.

The index lists an enormous amount of books in an impressive number of languages, categorized by subject matter. There are many books on fiends, outsiders, demonic influences, and the like. Kind of a troubling amount about those subjects, to be honest? No, we don’t want how-to guides!!! But given that we don’t know much about the creature we’re researching, it’s hard to tell which books will specifically have information on the Shusva.

Shoshana goes with Gral to help translate Elvish and Old Valdian. The tanks, meanwhile, will go fetch Lucinius and attempt to cajole him out of the library.

“Can’t you guys just, like. Pick him up? Throw him over your shoulder?” Shoshana asks.

Valeria shakes her head. “We’re not gonna do that.”

“But it would amuse me!”

Looking down through the rings, we see Professor Galvan down on the third floor. In the quiet of the library, we can kinda hear him mumbling to himself down below.

There are staircases and ladders between floors, but it’s a hike down all those stairs. We can see why Isadora levitates around! Valeria has a ring of moon bounce, so she tells Clem she’ll meet her there and hurdles over the railing, landing several floors down with an enormous CLASH BANG CLATTER of armor.

“GOODNESS ME WHAT WHOA OH DEAR ME what’s that?! Hello? Is everyone okay up there?” we hear Lucinius shout.

Shoshana leans over the balcony and does an extremely sarcastic SSSSHHHHH.

We assume Valeria would be blushing, if scales could blush. “I’m fine, I’ll be there in a moment!” she calls, and walks the rest of the way normally.

Lucinius is barely visible behind teetering stacks of literature. “Ah, princess!” he greets Valeria in their native tongue. “Please, sit down!”

“Actually, we had some things we wanted to show you. First, I’d be remiss if failed to let you know that Lady Isadora-“

“Ah, the librarian! So kind, isn’t this place wonderful?”

“She would really rather-“

“She had a copy of the Treatises! The TREATISES! All six volumes! I didn’t think I’d see a copy of this outside Aurentium, and in such good condition! Annotated, even!”

“Isadora would really prefer if you kept the books on same floors they’re shelved on.”

“Oh, dear me. I don’t see why that should be a problem? My work really calls on multiple disciplines…”

“Uh, maybe put them back when you’re done with them?”

He looks around at the stacks and stacks of books spread across the table. “…that might be a difficulty. They should have put a sign up.”

The rules of the library are clearly posted on every floor, in large print, in multiple languages.

“Oh, well, I didn’t have time to read THOSE, this place is far too miraculous!”

We found some very interesting things we’d like to show you. And I managed to get cook to make something Draconian - not as good as what you’d get in Aurentium, I’m sure, but with the same ingredients! C’mon, come back to your chamber to look at some artifacts and eat soup!”

It turns out soup gives advantage on Persuasion. “I suppose I will reach a stopping point shortly,” he admits. “To be honest, I was worried I wouldn’t find any source like this about the history of Valdia. It appears my research before coming to the Greatwood was quite lacking in the intricacies of local culture. Luckily this library is a veritable trove of knowledge! There are some tomes here my colleagues back home would be very jealous of. I don’t know what this von Hoesk family DOES for a living, but they’ve amassed a collection of very fine books! Now, I believe there was soup!” He gathers up some books for the road. “A bit of light reading for my quarters.”

We decide not to tell Isadora, because we’d probably die.

Meanwhile, Gral makes a research investigation with the advantage of Shoshana’s translation help. They find a book that contains information on the Shusva!

There’s a sketch similar to what we saw in the forest. Apparently, they’re formed when a wolf or similar predator becomes engorged with demonic energies and becomes a fiend. Some are purely extraplanar, but most are regular planar creatures that have been corrupted. They’re immune to charm, fright, and poison effects, unfortunately. The book describes an “unwavering hunter and predator that knows no fear and cannot be beguiled or charmed away from its target.”

The book then goes on to describe the proper care and feeding of a Shusva. Due to the charm resistance, they are “remarkably difficult to bind to one’s service.”

Shoshana nods. “Huh, that’s a good tip – wait.”

(Maybe it would be neat to have a cool-ass animal, she thinks…)

On a whim, we also look up dybbuks – if anyone’s gonna know about spooky undead nonsense, it’ll be the von Hoesks. We find “Dybbuks: As Troublesome as they are Terrific” by [bloodstain].

There are plenty of descriptions, but we’re looking for weaknesses. Unfortunately, it looks like there aren’t many. In their true form they have resistance to acid, cold, fire, lightning, thunder, and nonmagical attacks, but their biggest strength is their ability to flee, willingly abandoning their host bodies and disappearing in their ghostly form. Several techniques are described for potentially trapping one within a host body, to prevent it from running when it feels trapped. Unfortunately, we’d probably need a squad of clerics and paladins.

Clem, meanwhile, wandered off when she came across a medical textbook section, and tells us she’ll catch up with us later. Somewhat ominous looking doorway to basement of some sort next to that. Door is stained in some ways you find mildly disturbing. Her scalpel shudders as the ghost of Dr. Wendell emerges.

“I recognize some of these books!” he exclaims with interest. “That one, on the third shelf, the large one. Is that…hah! Check the inside cover, could this be-?”

Clem flips open the book. It’s Lessons from the Plague, by Dr. Leonard Wendell, Sturmhearst University Press. And it’s signed! “To my friend Ludwig. Thank you for your contributions!”

“You knew Ludwig? The vampire?”

“I knew a Ludwig! He helped us acquire Sturmhearst Castle for the school. It was originally intended to be a hospital during the plague, but he was very on board with it becoming a university after the sickness died down! He provided a lot of money and quite a few books, though I only met him a handful of times. Wait. Did you say he was a VAMPIRE?!”

“Dunno if he was when you met him, but he seems like one now.”

“I mean, that would explain a few things,” the ghost admits. “He did seem remarkably unconcerned about catching the plague.”

(“Some people are just LIKE THAT,” yell several Essential Worker players.)

“Baron von Sturm was resistant, then Ludwig met with him and he was totally amenable. I assumed it was just regular old powers of persuasion and a hefty bribe. I didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Clem pages through the medical books, looking through a volume titled “Plant and Animal Toxins of the Greatwood” to see if there’s any way she can use her med kit to craft an antitoxin for the Shusva’s venom. Valeria, meanwhile, looks for Order of the Rose books because they have guides to fighting fiends, but doesn’t find anything she hasn’t read before.

Isadora meets us outside her lab. “Find anything interesting?” Valeria asks.

“Where did you find that powder?” Isadora demands, skipping the pleasantries.

“A cursed circus of the Pale King.”

“Well, it had powdered bone as its central component, interwoven with illusion and enchantment magic. Definitely a ritual component.”

“That tracks with how we saw it used.”

“As far as its magical origin; this is quite old. It hasn’t been crafted with a Valdian arcane technique, but I can’t quite put my finger on its origin. I’d be curious to see the process of how it was created.”

Nothing we didn’t already guess. Valeria still graciously thanks her for taking a look at it.

“Oh, you’re making him leave,” Isadora observes frankly, seeing Lucinius trailing us.

“Ah, Lady Isadora!” he exclaims. “Thank you for your assistance!”

“I literally told you to go away.”

“Yes, but you curated this wonderful place! Please don’t touch anything I left on the table on the third floor, my research is still in progress-”

Isadora stares daggers as we drag him off. At least he didn’t try to bring dogs in here.

We head to Galvan’s room. There’s soup! The soup is EXCELLENT.

“My, it feels like forever since I’ve eaten! I suppose I’ve gotten lost in research again. The history of this region is far more complex than I’d been led to believe from outside accounts, or even interviews with locals. I’m quite sure my hypothesis is correct: the story of the Untameable Greatwood does not quite line up with the historical record! Now, I hear you have a few artifacts you wish to show me?”

Valeria pulls out the Aquilian religious icons we found in the Trollstones.

“Yes, these are very well made. Late imperial period, from the looks of things, but pretty standard. I know plenty of collectors back in Aurentium who’d love them. I have a similar set myself. They’re crafted with a nonstandard technique – I say! These are made of Valdian granite, aren’t they? Most Aquilian icons of the time would be made from marble. Fascinating! Where did you find them?”

“Well, we found them in some ruins. Which were inside even older ruins.”

He nearly knocks over his soup bowl. “What? Where?! What type of ruins, from what century? What was their purpose? Tell. Me. EVERYTHING.”

Valeria, whose mom is apparently way into architecture, knows enough technical terms to describe the site’s features fairly well. Lucinius is baffled. An underground structure? For Aarakocra? We recap the purpose of the Trollstones as well, including Urdemak’s story and the blessing against the undead. He paces around the room, firing off questions.

“The ruins were north of Mornheim, you say? Underground? Within an important local site? Such a thing could not have been done without – hmm. I have some suspicions. How accessible was it for birdfolk? Was the site visible from the sky?”

“Well, no, I assume that by necessity-“

“No, you don’t understand the implications. And within the tomb of a king! A troll king, to be sure, but a king nonetheless. A subterranean important local site had evidence of Aquilian development. This proves what I’ve been suspecting for some time!”

He digs in his satchel excitedly, coming up with a handful of notebooks. He flips roughly through them until he’s pointing emphatically to a specific page, which is covered in incomprehensible doctor handwriting in a language ¾ of us don’t speak.

“The classic story is the Untameable Greatwood. The Aquilians attempted to occupy it and were thrown out by the beasts and wild men and trolls that live here, or did not see the land as valuable enough to wage war for. Similar to what happened to the elves, much more recently! But from what I can tell in my studies, that simply does not add up. The Flying Legions did not leave places unconquered – either they took it or completely destroyed it. As proud as Valdians are of their resistance, there’s no archeological evidence of a large scale Valdian resistance to an Aquilian incursion. Such resistances are often hard to locate – on principle, Oberok would obliterate them; Let the Defeated be Forgotten, so they say. But to do that would require them to subjugate the Greatwood, which they did not! And the Valdian records of the period mention no organized resistance or throwing back Flying Legions. So any Aquilian construction would have required some level of cooperation between the Valdians on the ground and Aquilians in the sky!

“And now you tell me of a full installation constructed within a significant cultural site undiscoverable from the air. Now, we saw this before with the tattooed mummy you described to me. He could have been dismissed as an outlier. There are always those who choose to collaborate with their invaders; his tattoos could have been a symbol of local cooperation with his Aquilian superiors. Although once again, I found no mention of such individuals in the histories, which is in itself very odd. If the Empire was good at anything, it was very good at rewarding those who showed the proper deference. The fact that he is tattooed in Old Valdian is another puzzle. The Aquilians considered themselves superior to all others; a linguistic fusion like this would dilute the perfection of Oberok.”

“If they built this place inside a sacred site, it must have been more than a single local assisting them; somebody showed them this place and allowed them entry. What was the structure used for?”

We explain the significance of Urdemak’s tomb, and the blessing of a demigoddess so no dead would rise. Something had been contained in there, and sometime in the last 15 years, there was a “containment breach” from the Aquilian structure.

We show him the scroll we found in the tomb. He translates it for us:

“First Prisoner, Item #5

Containment Procedure: Keep submerged within waters blessed by local spirits with protection against undeath. This should suppress the influence of the Prisoner.

As per request by [unintelligible], we are required to keep disruption of the site to a minimum.

Description: A silver crown, a powerful ritual object of The First Prisoner.

Let the Vanquished be forgotten, let the Victorious reign eternal.

Glory to Oberok”

“Is this ‘Prisoner’ a thing you know of?” Valeria asks, hoping maybe our Curse has answers in ancient Aquilian lore.

He shakes his head. “Well, there’s plenty of mention of prisoners of war, criminals – Oberok, as the god of law, was very into prisons, but not in this context. This document is written with the assumption the reader knows what is meant by ‘First Prisoner.’”

A “powerful ritual object,” huh. Fuck, did we leave that shit in a foot locker? We could probably keep the crown better contained by submerging it in holy water, Valeria thinks, but we’d need a lot. She’s pretty sure she could get a crew of clerics together, but it’d take time. Maybe all those clerics could help with our dybbuk problem.

There’s some other stuff on the scroll Lucinius can work on, seeing if he can cross reference other Aquilian and Old Valdian texts to look for more containment areas. “I suppose I could put a pause on some of my research to look into this; the Cursebreakers have graciously allowed me use of their library, so it stands to reason I should contribute knowledge to their cause!”

Lucinius grills us about everything we saw in the ruins, but eventually it gets late and he’s clearly just come off of at least a fifteen hour research binge. We let him get some rest and head back to the common area for guests, where another goliath has joined Ingborg and Bjorn at their board game, chatting to them in Jotun. He’s far scrawnier than the two berserker bodyguards, though by human standards he’s still enormous. He’s also wearing a familiar bird-beaked mask, which means he’s almost certainly the Sturmhearst professor that Brigid told us about. Assuming that whoever has the most stones in their cup has the most points, the professor is winning handily against Ingborg. Meanwhile, Ser Boris is asleep by the fire in a pile of dogs.

As the game ends and the goliaths exchange a friendly punch to the shoulder, Bjorn notices us. “How is Professor Galvan?”

“He enjoyed the soup!”

“Good. I worry. Although I will admit it is much easier to guard him if he stays here. Tell me you did not tell him about a fascinating monster-filled pit to jump into?”

Valeria grimaces. “Oh we, uh, definitely did that.”

“Is he going to seek it out tonight?”

“Probably not? We asked him to do more reading.”

“Then I am going for a drink,” Bjorn declares decisively. He and Ingborg head off together, presumably to wherever they keep the liquor around here.

“Hallo!” the professor greets us, in our DM’s most half-assed Swedish Chef accent.

“Hi! Kyr Valeria Argent, at your service!”

“Professor Hjalmar Bjork, of the Sturmhearst College of Engineering!”

Bjork has a supersized Handy Haversack, which looks like it’s been mostly unpacked. He has several heavy pieces of metal equipment inscribed with the logo of the Valdian Tree Company and the Sturmhearst University crest. Notably, some sort of short-barreled musket with TC etched on the side and scorch marks around the barrel, with a bulbous metal tank at the other end. There’s a boiled leather helmet inscribed with faintly glowing Jotunn runes, as well as all manner of bombs and some kind of weird gauntlet thing.

He sees us checking out the goods. “Yes, I wanted to stop by and offer the latest inventions of Sturmhearst to the Cursebreakers! I am here to demonstrate our newest innovations, to see if they might purchase or fund future development. I wanted to bring a few with me into the library today, but the woman there-”

“The librarian has opinions about that, yes.”

Clem squints at the gadgets. “By any chance, did you build flamethrowers for a Professor Ulmus?”

“Ah yes, the TC Mark 2’s, with the big packs! This is a Mark 3. They’re named after my Ventallan colleague, Don Toretto Chikal. How is Professor Ulmus, by the by?”

“Oh, she’s doing great.”

“Good to hear! I have designed many weapons. Weapons are not my passion, but they are good business and there is much need. And what good is engineering if not to fill a need? Unfortunately, the Cursebreakers were not very interested in the invention I was most excited about.”

He pulls out the leather helmet, the one with runes on it.

“You’re familiar with the Curse, how it appears to corrupt the mind and exploits extreme emotionality? Are you familiar with the Calm Emotions spell? We put that into the device, to make the wearer resistant to fear and charm effects, so they can resist the corruption. I call it the Mood Cap! Our first test subject was subjected to many terrifying and exciting stimuli with no reaction! I feel the idea has a lot of promise. It just requires a bit of funding for further development, you know, it’s theoretically perfectly safe once we figure out how to tone down the effect!”

That sounds concerning.

“Usually Calm Emotions is cast on multiple people; the runes we originally used turned out to be too strong for one individual for an extended period of exposure.”

“You just sit around doing nothing forever, huh?” Gral asks.

“Oh, the test subject is fine, he mostly recovered after 48 hours. He still occasionally spaces out sometimes. The Dean of Medicine has taken him under observation and expects a full recovery. It will be perfectly safe, once the kinks are worked out! Sadly, Lord Ludwig disagreed, and he’s the one with the money.”

(We don’t like the Mood Cap, but we do liek it.)

“Did you have any trouble traveling here?” Valeria asks politely.

“Yes, but I have a large construct as bodyguard. I built it myself! I prefer things I constructed with my own two hands. And the hands of several assistants and grad students, admittedly. Travel is not especially difficult with those things. To be honest, it’s good to get away from Sturmhearst for a while.”

That piques our interest. “Oh? How are things at Sturmhearst?”

“They’re….fine…” he equivocates.

Everything is definitely not fine.

“Nothing strange is going on.”

Valeria hmms. “That sounds unusual for Sturmhearst, to be honest. Ser Brigid told us to ask you about some strange findings?”

“Oh, she told you. I have to be careful; the walls have ears.”

“Like, literally?” Shoshana asks. “Because I’ve seen stranger.”

“Well. Hmm. The last few times I have been at the university, a package arrived for me. What do you know about Sturmhearst?”

“You have bird masks!”

“Yes, we do wear those.”

“We have a scalpel that helped found it!”

There’s a long pause, while we watch formulas and the volume of a cone float in front of his bird mask. “….okay.”

He presses on. “I received a package on my desk. It contained several equations, a strange device, and some metallic samples, with a note asking for my opinions. The device was incomprehensible, but the equations and samples have been invaluable in my work. The note was signed by Headmaster Trevor Twombly, who has been on sabbatical the last two years. I have only been working for them for the past five years or so, when I was invited as an expert in artificing – a runesmith, as we say in my homeland.

“A few years after I began my tenure, the headmaster went on this unplanned sabbatical completely out of the blue. I have not seen him since. Since then, his second, the Dean of Medicine, Elana Damrosch, has run things. I asked where he had gone, as I wished to discuss funding, and I was deflected, told he was simply traveling. I asked for an opportunity to send a Sending, and was informed that it would be difficult, but they would try. No response. Now, there are any number of explanations for that, especially with the Curse mucking things up.

“So you can understand my surprise when several of my colleagues and I received these odd packages. They’re all distinct, but similar enough that they seem to come from the same source. Since then, I have received three packages of things useful in my work! This,” he gestures to the TC Mark 3 flamethrower, “contains an autonomous refueling mechanism based off one of the samples I was given. The Mood Cap, too – I am applying my own rune lore, but using techniques I’d never seen before I received these formulas.

“As well as making my sales pitch, I came here to use the library for research; Sturmhearst is not a college of magic, though we do make use of it. This library has a much deeper knowledge of the arcane. I’m trying to figure out where Twombly got these techniques. Lady Isadora has seen nothing like them.”

“Do you mind if I take a look at one of those samples?” Valeria asks.

He pulls out a few bits and bobs. One is a metal plate in an odd shape. “The purpose of this one is obvious,” he says, which it is not. Shoshana notices the odd way the metal shimmers in the candlelight, though – just the same as the huge wrench we pulled out of the spaceship in the Key zone.

“And there is this!” he says, pulls out another object, a rectangle with several buttons on it. “This is a fascinating device. My analysis indicates the use of electricity!” (One player guesses a tv remote. It is, indeed, a graphing calculator.) “It can do math – some sort of calculating engine. Very useful in my work. I have had to translate symbols into actual numbers; the characters aren’t an alphabet any of our researchers have seen before. But I have spent long time with device and have been able to determine its function!” Valeria immediately detects magic and uses her divine sense on it. It does not ping them, because it is a calculator.

“If Headmaster Twombly is away, traveling, then where are these coming from? Dean Damrosch says he must be shipping them in – I enquired in the mail room, but nothing from the headmaster has come in. What’s more, I was experimenting with an arcane surveillance system, which indicated that a single individual, who was not fully humanoid, did enter my office and drop off a package. I told Dean Damrosch this, and she told me not to worry, that perhaps my device was malfunctioning. My device did not malfunction! I had tested it thoroughly!”

Valeria pulls out our adamantine wrench to show him the strange metal. He pecks it with the beak of his mask, which is tipped in metal. “This is the same material as one of the samples! Where did you find this?”

“Uhhhh. A very cursed house.”

“Here in Valdia?”

“Yes…and also no. It’s complicated.”

“I am very intelligent. I have a degree and a mask,” he points out.

Valeria grimaces. “Well, I’m not sure if I’m intelligent enough to explain. How familiar are you with the different ways the Curse manifests?”

“Not at all. I am an engineer.”

Shoshana awkwardly tries to explain the in-between spaces created by the Key, and how they link to other worlds with other logic. The space between, Gral tells him, is enlightening but toxic to the mind.

“Perhaps the Headmaster is using these portals you describe, then? That’s actually a bit of a relief. To be honest, I suspected that the Dean had killed the Headmaster and was doing some sort of elaborate cover-up.”

Something worrying has occurred to Gral, given that Sturmhearst is apparently having Key shenanigans. “Since you wear masks all the time, would you immediately notice if someone had more eyeballs than normal?”

“…No? I suppose that would be an odd thing not to notice. This habit of masks – I’m surprised how much Sturmhearst has adhered to it; I understand it is a tradition from the school’s origin as plague hospital. I suppose it’s become a symbol of our profession!”

“Okay, but like. Could you TELL if someone had too many eyeballs. Especially in places where eyeballs don’t usually go.”

“Well!” he says, clearly a little unsettled by the question, and noticeably not answering. “Perhaps I might try to stay at this castle for a bit. I may want to stay away from Sturmhearst for a while.”

“I mean, has other weird stuff been appearing at Sturmhearst besides the packages?”

“Well, there have been stories of things in the catacombs. Experiments that have escaped, that sort of thing. And as long as I have studied there, the hallways have been a bit illogical to navigate – rather like this castle, in fact.”

“…Is that normal for Sturmhearst, or what?”

“My understanding of the school – I am a recent arrival, after all – is that until recently, it was substantially less odd. Their work was more practical, less experimental. I admit my own work has advanced by leaps and bounds with the insights from these packages; I’m doing far more experimental work of my own than I ever have before. But monsters in the basement? That’s relatively new. If it had to happen anywhere, though, Sturmhearst is certainly much better armed than any other university I’ve visited…”

“Speaking of weapons, is there perhaps any chance you might be willing to part with a flamethrower for a few brave adventurers fighting the Curse?” Clem inquires hopefully

“Well, I did come here with intent to sell. The Cursebreakers were not interested, so I suppose I could part with a mark 3. You would like a demonstration, yes?”

He provides us a rather exciting demonstration of the flamethrower out in the courtyard, unfortunately for several training dummies, spouting off facts and stats about its refueling capabilities and its range and how reasonably the fuel is priced. Clem’s counting her gold.

(Bonus: Did you find Professor Bjork’s – or should I say, Birch’s – starters? Toretto Chikal = Torchic; Tree Co. = Treecko; Mood Cap = Mudkip.)

It’s late, so we head up to bed. We are waited upon by a few of the von Hoesk servants. Clem, Gral, and Shoshana are absolutely unused to this level of luxury, and amazed that there are people who actually live like this. Valeria is like finally, some civilization.

The next morning, Ser Boris kicks down our door at the crack of dawn, blowing a hunting horn. As we all groan and retreat under the covers, we cut session for now.

[cursewoodrecap]

The Hunt for the Teal Deer

Due to some changes in our player lineup, I figured our party’s newest member might want a tl;dr of the Campaign So Far without having to read the enormous bricks I put out on a highly irregular basis. HENCEFORTH, A SUMMARY. (Contains spoilers for stuff I haven’t properly recapped yet. I mean...I’m pretty sure this blog is mostly read by the players? But fair warning nonetheless.)

It’s still kind of a brick but here have a couple thousand words instead of fifty billion.

ARC 1: THE WITCH OF OVRUCH

Near the tiny Valdian trading village of Ovruch, four adventurers meet:

1. Kyr Valeria Argent, a paladin of the Order of the Rose, who is here to investigate a Beggar Knight going missing. Silver dragonborn Paladin, Oath of the Crown.

2. Sgt. Clementine Haxan, a former soldier of the Kevan empire turned soldier-of-fortune who is investigating a Beggar Knight going missing. Drow Fighter, Battlemaster.

3. Gral “Joybringer” Omokk’duu, an orc bard who serves Duke Shieldeater, here because he’s trying to recruit translators to help Orc/Valdia relations. Orc Bard, College of Whispers.

4. Shoshana bat Chaya, a local who’s been outcast from her village since a close run-in with the curse that left her with dark powers and a mildly inhuman appearance. Half-elf Sorcerer, Shadow Magic.

The three foreigners interrogate the young witch, who was interrogated yesterday by the Beggar Knight. They realize the Beggar Knight, Ser Balderich, went to investigate the place where Shoshana had her Curse accident. 

They are interrupted by the village being attacked by a group of bandits and wolves, led by a werewolf, who seem to want to capture Shoshana as some kind of Chosen One. They defeat the bandits and head into the woods to find Evil Wolf Guys HQ.

In the spooky dark ravine of Wolf Guys HQ, they find a) the imprisoned Ser Balderich, who they free; b) a shadowy nasty guy who has direwolves, who they beat up; and c) a trail of corpses and some diary fragments from a mysterious huntress who had been one of the evil-wolfguy leaders before she rebelled against them. The letters clearly indicate she had some kind of close relationship to Shoshana before Shit Went Down.

Shoshana is like, “alas, they shall believe I am forever tainted by evil magic and it’s only a matter of time until I turn evil, they’re probably going to execute me” and the rest of the party is like “wtf no we’re not gonna do that. Stop being emo.”

ARC 2: THE MISTS OF HOLZOG

The party heads to the town of Holzog to meet up with Ser Quentin Morozov, a Cursebreaker Knight who’s a friend of Ser Balderich’s. On the way, they meet Flynn and Fiona Fairgold, a dramatic, theatrical knight and his practical, mute sister. They also find out that in Holzog, strange mists come out of the lake every couple of weeks, filled with strange noises and creatures.

Gral recognizes that shit and tells his backstory: Duke Shieldeater’s son, Bullbreaker, led an expedition into the heart of the wood to try to defeat the Curse. Gral was part of Bullbreaker’s party. Strange, warped creatures seemed to appear out of nowhere and attack, and most of the orc battalion vanished into the mists, no bodies ever found. The takeaway: Gral believes that the Curse isn’t random; it’s coordinated and it has leaders and commanders.

Our investigations lead us to a former artists’ colony on an island in the lake. Turns out the artists had been tempted by some strange power to open a portal to a weird space between dimensions. The portal keeps closing and opening, causing the mists. Like idiots, we hurl ourselves into the portal, and find Weird Shit inside. Doors to other dimensions that are different story genres! Weird eyeballs everywhere!

We find out Gral’s old commander Bullbreaker has been lost in one of these other dimensions, and is trying to Samurai Jack his way home.

Most importantly we get some info: The Curse is caused by four entities, who are Prisoners. We’re unsure what imprisons them. We’ve figured out two so far: The Hunt, which is the werewolves and bandits and murder and stuff; and the Key, which is the pursuit of knowledge and the bending of reality. 

Anyway we escape and close the portal. Also we met some mad scientists from Sturmhearst University, which was fun.

ARC 3: THE DEAD OF MORNHEIM

Our Cursebreaker friend hires us to investigate why a squad of elven war veterans seemed to turn to the dark side while fighting the curse in Mornheim, a city which is experiencing a zombie apocalypse. Turns out the squad is Clem’s old unit! Drama!

Mornheim is really Tim Burtony. It used to be a place where undead could not rise, so everybody buried their dead there. And then the Curse happened, and now ALL the dead are rising. Welp, fuck.

We meet up with Lady Aubrey von Mornheim, Ser Balderich’s daughter (there’s family drama there), who gives us the inside scoop on the local lore.

We fight through the catacombs and investigate the old manor house. We find three important things: 1) Lady Aubrey’s mom, who’s haunting the shit out of the place; 2) a SECRET WIZARD LAB with a MYSTERIOUS SPELL SCROLL; and 3) some cultists.

The mysterious spell scroll, which is weirdly druid-y, seems to be a ritual for purifying a water source. The local lore implied that the undead curse began/stems from the source of the local river. HMM.

Meanwhile, there’s cultists, led by...A MEMBER OF CLEM’S OLD UNIT. One who she hates; she accuses him of getting their beloved Captain killed. He’s like “it’s cool we’re gonna bring her back from the dead!!! The Pale King says we will get eternal life if we serve him!!!” and Clem is like “okay that sounds terrible” and stabs him. We kick his wight ass and the ass of another of their squad, who “came back from the dead” but was actually possessed by a dybbuk, a malevolent spirit that takes over corpses and impersonates them.

Seems like this “Pale King” is Prisoner #3, in charge of Undead Shit.

We fight some other cultists and find an aaaancient corpse that indicates some kind of ancient collaboration between the old Aquilian Empire and the Valdians, which is a Fun Lore Mystery.

Clem’s old squad also has an assassination plot going against their former commander, who they hate.

Valeria the paladin really wants to do the spell scroll ritual to protect the town, but we need several rare plants as spell components. We decide to go to Bad Herzfeld, where we hear there’s lots of plants.

ARC 4: THE ROOTS OF BAD HERZFELD

Our concerns going into Bad Herzfeld:

1. We need spell component plants.

2. We know about this evil fungus that infects people and makes them into Evil Fungus Monsters.

3. We hear there’s about to be a huge gathering of trolls. Valdian trolls are generally peaceful, but, like. A fuckton of trolls + evil brain fungus that makes you evil = BAD.

We fight an evil circus, but that’s more of a side quest.

We get to Bad Herzfeld and it’s a jungle out there, folks. We manage to get all our spell components even though we have to fight various angry plantmonsters and hallucinogenic fungi. We also meet a very nice troll who is a Doctor for Trolls, he is one of our favorite NPCs.

We have a brief encounter with one of the reclusive druids who resides in the forest. The druids seem to be fighting the Curse as well, with sporadic guidance from the old gods of the Greatwood, but it turns out they don’t have many more answers than we do.

A former druid, however, has become the spiritual leader of the local farming community. Which is a problem because she has turned it into a cult that infects people with the Evil Fungus Spores. It’s a very “Insiders Good, Outsiders Evil” mindset. They are planning to wait until more trolls show up for the big troll gathering, then infect them all with fungus. This is Prisoner #4, The Growth.

We burn down their temple with extreme prejudice. Unfortunately, guarding the temple is a plantmonster that was once Valeria’s beloved mentor, Kyr Marius. We destroy him but it’s tragic.

The trolls are like, “oh evil fungus? Aight we’re out.” Also we met more of those mad science doctors, but botanist ones this time.

ARC 5: PENITENTS SUCK

On the way back to Mornheim we go through the crossroads trade stop of Three Oaks Junction, which has been taken over by Penitent Knights, who are very into inquisition, and self flagellation, and persecuting the hell out of anything that even blinks the wrong way. Sinners must be purged from among the faithful!!! Anyway they’re violent jerks and we free the town. Penitents suck.

ARC 6: THE TROLLSTONES

Back in Mornheim, we go to the source of the River Morn to do our fancy ritual. Turns out there’s an ancient troll-king buried there, who rose as an undead. His demigoddess mother blessed the waters there so that no undead would ever rise. That blessing is gone now, of course. Problem is, there’s ancient Aquilian ruins that indicate the blessing was later used as a Containment Zone for something super evil, and whatever evil thing was there has now escaped. Hella lore, though.

We do our fancy ritual, which doesn’t restore the No Undead blessing but does provide some protection for the citizens. Yaaay!

ARC 6: HOESKA

We jet off to Hoeska Castle, HQ of the Cursebreaker Knights, because we have hella knowledge about how the Curse works now and we should probably, like...let the experts know? Turns out Hoeska Castle is owned by an ancient vampire, who has teamed up with his longtime nemesis - the vampire hunter Ser Brigid Koenig, who is now trying to solve the dang curse and has founded the Cursebreakers. We share our information and also fight a big nasty wolfmonster who’s been eating the knights. There’s a professor from Sturmhearst the Mad Science University, who confides in us that the Dean keeps vanishing and leaving strange otherworldly gifts. Sounds like Key nonsense; we’d better go check it out!

Clem’s player decides to leave the campaign at this point; in-story, Clem has gone to prevent her former unit’s assassination plot while we confront threats closer to home.

~AND THAT’S WHAT YOU MISSED ON THE CURSEWOOD~