#clem haxan

[cursewoodrecap]

Session 16: No Not Like That

Aw, been a while since I wrote one of these! Anyway: we run into some dickheads and try to solve things the not-murder way for once. 

On the road outside Bad Herzfeld, the trolls slowly begin to peel off and go their separate ways. Dr. Kjeller and his new bodyguard Kjell are the last to leave the main road, stopping to say goodbye to the small contingent of humanoids.

“Welp, dis trolls’ moot has certainly been an experience,” Dr. Kjeller sagely intones. “I would not say a success. The two of us are going to tour around and tell all the trolls we can find to stay away. I believe a trolls’ moot is not uncalled for, but we must look for a different place. Ideally one not full of weird fungus people. And, please, if there is anything I can do to help you….well, I guess you’d have to find me first.” He tips his travelin’ hat and departs. Gral tips his mask in return. He’s getting the hang of these Valdian customs!

It seems like the Orcish outriders have already left to report back to Duke Shieldeater, so it’s just us, the Fairgolds, and the beleaguered innkeeper and his daughter. What do we do with the civilians? I mean, we’re headed to Mornheim, and even if we’re gonna fix the water it seems kinda rude to drop someone off in Zombie Town. Flynn offers to introduce Aaron to his innkeeper uncle back in Holzog, to see if he can get a job there.

Flynn and Fiona are gonna stick with us to Mornheim. “Look, you had all the fun up there in Bad Herzfeld; I’m not gonna let the four of you get all the glory. You’re gonna do a big ritual and save the whole town? I gotta see this.”

We spend a couple uneventful days hiking back to Three Oaks Junction, where we’ll split up with Aaron and Rebecca. The DM tries to waylay us with a destroyed bridge over a fast-moving river, but we have a Ring of Jumping and a magical alligator. We’re fine. We roll some bad perception checks on watch and our rations get stolen by Curse Raccoons.

ANYWAY. As we get back onto the major roads, Gral is the first to notice something odd: there’s no carts coming from the direction of Three Oaks. Sure, it’s late evening, but last time we were here there was still a heavy buzz of activity through the busy trade stop. We approach extra-cautiously, making sure the civilians are in the protected center of the group.

The town comes into view, and it’s immediately obvious something has changed. A hasty palisade wall has been constructed around the town, and a banner has been hung over the gate, white with a red insignia of a bloody chain.

Shoshana groans. “AAUUUUGH, are you fuckin’ kidding me?!”

“Um, did the town always look like that?” Rebecca asks hesitantly.

Valeria shakes her head. “Not last week, it didn’t!”

Gral pulls the duo aside and gives them the Cliffs Notes: “We’re about to run into the Penitents. Talk about Rack as much as you can and hide behind Valeria. I hate dealing with these folks, but it looks like they put this place on lockdown, and we gotta make sure y’all are safe.”

Outside the gate, there’s a uniformed Penitent Knight keeping watch over a group of citizens who are digging graves. The gate itself seems to be manned by standard town militiamen, being supervised by another Penitent. Valeria casts a quick eye over the scene with Detect Magic, but finds nothing amiss. As she approaches (we’re wisely letting the paladin lead), a guardsman shouts “Halt!”

She stops at a polite distance. “Kyr Valeria Argent, at your service,” she announces formally. “What’s going on here?”

“By order of the town council, all who seek admittance to the town must submit to examination for heretical artifacts or influences,” the guardsman recites, scriptedly. The Penitent behind him nods in approval.

She meets his eye with an intimidating draconic stare. “We have artifacts we need to bring to the Cursebreaker Knights. Perhaps we can check them at the door and pick them up later?”

“Uhhh,” the guy says, his script clearly not having prepared him for that. “…maybe you should talk to the Inquisitor. He’s gonna want to speak to you about these ‘artifacts.’”

He has us wait a minute, and we take a quick mental inventory. We’ve got an evil skeleton tapestry, spooky lutestrings, the Eyegis, and one (1) entire Shoshana.

A group of six Penitents arrive and escort us stiffly into the town. The place is crowded as all get out; it looks like a lot of travelers have been stuck here way longer than they anticipated. There’s only two properly empty spaces: one’s some sort of enormous construction site, and the other is the area where the circus tent was; it seems nobody’s been brave enough to move into the spot or even clean up the ashy, crumbling remains.

There’s a rather unusual cart sitting among the crowded caravan parking, immediately familiar from the two reptilian beasts of burden hitched next to it. There’s a bit of a staredown happening; two Penitents are remaining remarkably steadfast in the face of two enormous, glowering tattooed figures. We can’t pop over to say hi; our escort is hustling us along and we’re not sure that knowing us would do Lucinius any favors.

Valeria’s about vibrating out of her skin, indignant at all these unfairly-detained innocents, and looks about a second away from drawing her sword and opening up a can o’ Righteousness. But no time for that; we’re being ushered inside the sheriff’s office.

The small-town hoosegow is cramped; there’s been makeshift cages built all along one wall, seemingly as some kind of holding cells, all of them full. Shoshana appraises the prisoners out of the corner of her eye. They all seem to have slight Curse mutations, but so vaguely that it could just be garden-variety weirdness. Sure, that guy could be a werewolf, but he might just be a real hairy dude. That lady looks sallow and corpselike, but not more so than any garden-variety resident of Mornheim.

Shoshana, her clawed hands shoved deep in her pockets, is strung tense as a lutestring. Valeria’s still managing to feign chilly politeness, but both of them are half a breath away from fight or flight.

Gral’s not looking at the prisoners. He’s too busy looking at the guard. There’s two burly Penitents at the door, which is unsurprising, but Gral could swear he’s seen the one on the left before.

He’s pretty sure we killed that guy back at the roadhouse.

The guard doesn’t seem to recognize us at all, but he’s pretty badly scarred, exactly in the way someone might be if they took a hit from a drow soldier’s greatsword.

We’re pulled out of our wary observations by a familiar, unwelcome voice. “Ah. Kyr Argent, wasn’t it?”

“It is,” Valeria allows frostily, as the Inquisitor glides into the room.

“It is good to see you again – in a manner of speaking,” he says, chuckling at his own joke as he gestures to his blindfolded eyes. “Yes, from the descriptions of the heroes who defeated the heretical circus, I suspected I might have the pleasure of working with you once again. What brings you to Three Oaks Junction?”

“Oh, we’re just passing through. Y’know, like travelers do,” she answers, her polite smile showing just a little too much fang.

“Yes, of course. As you can see, this town has become very useful in our war against the Curse.”

“Is it, now.”

“After the incident with the circus, the town council was afraid. Many of them had attended the performance, after all. They were worried that there might be some…aftereffects. Fortunately, my people were nearby, and they summoned me immediately to examine the town for signs of the Curse’s corruption. As we were here, it became clear what an asset this town is – just as the heretics used it to corrupt many at once, we can use it to root out those heretics who hide among us.

“On our first day here, we found one who bore the mark of the curse. I examined him myself. Foul lycanthropy. He was, of course, executed. Now, none pass through this place without our inspection, and we have found many others. You may have seen some of them outside, awaiting a more thorough examination. My work has kept me too busy to give each case the attention it truly deserves.

“The town council has been very accommodating. I have written to my fellows, and we are working on converting and expanding their humble chapel into a true bastion of Rack’s justice, where the divine light of the gods may lay bare the evil that hides among us, that walks the roads of this land spreading its poison.”

Gral mutters, aside, “Don’t think anyone’s walkin’ these roads now…”

The Inquisitor claps his hands briskly. “Now. I understand you are in possession of some artifacts, objects that you are transporting on behalf of the Cursebreaker Knights. I fear for our brothers amongst the Cursebreakers; their mission is noble but they meddle with powers they do not understand. There are things in this wood it is better not to trifle with. Bring the items to me, and I will inspect them. Those I deem acceptable may remain in your protection, but anything too dangerous must be destroyed. Should the Cursebreakers fall to corruption, we would lose some of our greatest assets in this war. Help me protect the Cursebreakers, Kyr Argent. Show me what you are transporting for them.”

Valeria nearly decks him then and there, but a quiet brush of shoulders reminds her of the trembling sorceress behind her. Not here, not now, not when we’re surrounded. If they get an excuse to get aggressive, Shoshana’s sunk.

We busy ourselves with pulling out Weird Yet Harmless artifacts. What kind of random space trinkets did we find, again? Clem shows them the Eldritch Cookbook, and we take a gamble by letting them look at the Pale King’s tapestry, which is a bit large and hard to hide.

“Very well. I will examine these,” the Inquisitor says smoothly, his tone giving no insight into whether he knows we have far more blasphemous things to hide. “Gunter! Find them lodging within the town. Once I have examined these items for corruption, I must confirm that none of you have been corrupted by their presence.”

Valeria smiles tightly. “I’m certain they are corrupted, but not corrupting.”

“With all due respect, Kyr, I have made a study of corruption. Now, because of your…esteemed position,” he says, gesturing toward her rose-emblazoned armor, “you are no doubt on a mission of some considerable importance. I will endeavor to expedite your case as much as I can.”

“Oh, there’s no need to give us special treatment. All the travelers here need to get through,” she responds pointedly.

The Inquisitor’s serene, condescending expression does not change. “You may go,” he dismisses. “I am very busy. As I’m sure you know, the work of good in times of evil is ceaseless.”

Valeria bows to the exact millimeter that politeness requires, and no further. He’s blind, and doesn’t notice.

As we’re ushered back out, Shoshana tries to catch the eye of one of the caged prisoners. They mostly just look scared, not evil, and there’s no sign they recognize she’s also corrupted.

Clem, meanwhile, takes the opportunity to scrutinize the weirdly familiar guy at the door. He looks perfectly healthy, except for all the scars. She elbows Valeria, who confirms with her Divine Sense that this is just a normal dude, not an undead. He’s either one hundred percent living, or whatever nonsense that brought him back from murder is specifically cloaked in a way that would fool a paladin’s senses.

Our escort shows us to a place to set up camp. There are several inns in town, but all of them are fairly occupied at moment. We’re pretty sure that a Knight of the Rose, hero who slew the dread circus, could pre-empt a less fancy guest, but we’re all chill with camping as long as we get to hit up a food truck or something.

We meet back up with our friends. The Fairgolds, who are pretty familiar with Three Oaks, are pretty shaken by the drastic changes. Aaron and Rebecca, meanwhile, are shocked. “Is this what the rest of the woods is like?!” Aaron asks. “I knew things were bad out here, but I assumed once we got out of Bad Herzfeld…”

“Different places have different issues,” Gral explains kindly. “Some are the kind you’re already familiar with. And apparently some places are afflicted with Penitent Knights.”

“Even before that, there was an undead curse which afflicted this place-“

“-Which we DEALT WITH just fine-“ Valeria interjects grumpily.

“-and Holzog’s safe now, but it had its own weird issues we had to deal with too. The Curse is everywhere; you can’t really get around it without clear-cutting the forest,” Shoshana admits.

We get the lay of the land. Commerce has slowed, but not stopped. The Penitents are searching everyone going through here. If they find nothing, they let you go. Most of the crowd is just people waiting for their turn to get checked. We see a few times, though - if something about you pings them as weird, they take you away.

Basically, we are in line at the TSA.

Guess we’ll take a walk.

We skirt warily around a Penitent street preacher who’s shouting something about justice, and casting out evil, and how Rack appreciates your sacrifice in these trying times.

“Sacrifice is a WILLING thing,” grumbles Valeria.

We walk around and do some casual recon. Much of the town is still a perpetual campsite/bazaar, but near the more permanent municipal buildings, several work crews are busy with construction, which the locals tell us is supposed to be some kind of temple. Quite a few rough tents with Penitent insignias are pitched by that area. The town militia is out in force, and it’s much bigger than when we passed through last week. Maybe half of the people running around on patrol are actually trained fighters; most of the new recruits barely even look like weekend warriors. Every patrol, without exception, is being supervised by at least one Penitent.

People are scared, mostly. Nobody around seems happy with the Penitents, but a lot of the people around have reluctantly agreed that Something Had To Be Done about threats like the circus, and there weren’t any other available options. No one’s enthusiastic they’re there, but neither are they vocally critical. Then again, we worry, maybe anyone who’s been speaking out or causing trouble has, uh, disappeared.

We make our way back to our own wagon. If we’re gonna go Get In Trouble, like adventurers do, it’s probably time to part ways with our civilian friends. We pool 40 gold for Aaron and Rebecca (Clem contributing nothing because giving money is WAY too personal; Shoshana giving extra because she’s projecting really hard onto them) and Aaron’s eyes go wide. Oh, right, most people don’t make adventurer amounts of cash? It’ll be enough to get them safely set up in Holzog, with money to spare. They leave to set up their own travel plans, stuttering awkward thanks.

Flynn, meanwhile, grins. “Don’t think you’re getting rid of us that easily. You guys are terrible liars, I know you’re plotting something.”

We admit we don’t actually have a plan, but Valeria is adamant that This Nonsense Cannot Stand.

Let’s go recruit some allies, maybe? Gral wanders within Message range of Lucinius’ wagon, which is very clearly cordoned off and under guard. Bjorn and Ingborg are still there, but there’s no sign of the dragonborn.

“Heyy it’s us, what’s going on? Over.”

“Hello. We cannot leave. The Professor was taken. They wished to search the cart. He explained what he has and what he has found, that he is carrying important research. He would not allow them to confiscate his research, and he went to speak to the one in charge. That was three days ago; we have not seen him since. It is our duty to protect the man, but we have not seen a way to fulfil that duty without getting ourselves killed.”

We promise to keep them posted, and ask them to sit tight so when we make our move, it’ll be coordinated.

Next, Gral and Shoshana go down to the local pub to see if we can find anyone that’s particularly malcontented with the Penitents. We assume religious zealots are not much for hanging around bars. They don’t seem to be much into worldly pleasures, coughzombiecough.

Nobody’s talking too much shit until they get a couple of drinks in them but we do find some people griping, mostly merchants passing through. Pierre the Demish furrier, who we met back at the Holzog roadhouse, has turned up again; apparently the Penitents seized a good deal of his stock. And he’s been reduced to drinking BEER. He has OPINIONS about that. (It does not stop him drinking lots of it; he has to drown his sorrows at being denied worthy alcohol.)

Gral tries to butter him up a bit by letting him ramble about Demish wine. “When you drink a bottle of Demish wine, you taste centuries of tradition in that vineyard! You taste the earth itself, the hands of the farmers. It is sweet and it stings and it is good. What is this? Barley? Hops? HOPS? Hop is a verb, hop is not an object. Hop is for bunnies. The bunnies may eat the hops, and then I will cook the bunnies,” he mumbles into his unsatisfactory beer.

Gral fumbles for sommelier expertise. “I come from a smaller river village; wine tastes different farm to farm. It’s not just about the plants, but the social experience.”

“It is the same for us, yes? A region’s wine is its SPIRIT. You go to the border of the goblin swamps, and the wine there tastes like fire and blood, like the steel of the chevaliers that defend it.”  Go to Petit le Fere, it tastes like long summer nights. Go to Marsène, the wine tastes like – have you ever been in love, Monsieur Orc?”

“Uh, n-no?”

It tastes like the first time you and your lover locked eyes and laughed together. That was my favorite wine. This? This tastes like mud with pretensions of alcohol.”

“It’s not the steel of the chevaliers, but it’s the taste of hardworking people. And if the penitents have their way, there won’t be a town here anymore.”

Gral butters the guy up enough to find out a few basic details: there’s about two dozen proper knights, but they’ve got local militia and volunteers to swell their numbers. A lot of people are very keen to get on good terms with the new bosses, whether it’s because they’re afraid of the Penitents or afraid of the things out in the woods that the Penitents have promised to fight.

“I was here to get a blood-red deer pelt with wolf’s teeth,” the trader complains. “I know a chevalier who would pay dearly to have it worked into his armor. And now it has been taken away!  For my ‘protection,’ apparently. I had to surrender the rest of my stock to avoid being thrown in those cages.”

Everybody in the tavern seems to be on good behavior – sure, there’s folks displeased with the Penitents, but nobody’s gonna do anything about it; if you look like you might be up to something, you’re gonna get dragged off. And Pierre’s been keeping a low profile ever since he saw that blue dragonborn get dragged down into the basement of the sheriff’s office.

Shoshana, meanwhile, slides over to a tough-looking lady at the end of the bar in militia-style leather armor. “Hey, you look like you’d know the system here. We just got in to town; how long before they search our cart and let us go?”

“A couple days; we got a huge backlog,” the woman, who’s introduced herself as Vanessa, tells her. “Depends on how much they suspect you. Some people, they like to leave ‘em here for a while, to watch ‘em for anything suspicious.”

“You say that like you’re not involved? You’re dressed like you’re with the militia.”

“Technically I am. Second-in-command, or I was, before all this. Not sure who is now. Hell, I was the one making noise at Sheriff Wilbur about getting more muscle after that circus thing. If you folks hadn’t shown up, I dunno what would have happened.”

“So you all get bossed around by the Penitents now?”

“Look, half the kids in the militia right now barely know which end of a spear is up. The Penitents agreed to supplement what we had.”

“…yyyyyeah, it kinda feels like they’re calling the shots, though?”

She sighs. “Yeah. Look, I had the idea that we needed to beef up, bring in experienced vets. I was hoping to get mercs or something, and then they showed up and filled the role. They made some kinda deal with the town council, y’know, they’d provide extra security in exchange for being given jurisdiction over anybody found to be corrupt. Sounded fine to us at the time. See, we didn’t make the connection that if they were with the militia, they’d be the ones making the call who all’s corrupt or not.”

“How many people have been deemed, uh, ‘corrupt’?” Shoshana asks.

“More than I’d like, but not enough to get everyone all up in arms. Everybody’s pretty sure that most people will be fine. Hell, most people probably will be. When someone goes to trial, they take ‘em to the sheriff’s office. That Inquisitor guy looks at ya, says a few magic words, and most of ‘em he lets go. A few get taken to the cages for a further exam. I dunno what that means – don’t know anybody who’s been let go after that. A couple of times he just made a motion and bam, those knights beat the poor bastard to death on the spot and burned all their belongings.”

Vanessa doesn’t look too thrilled about that, so Shoshana decides it’s time to confide a little. “Even with the entire town vouching for me that I helped with the Circus, I’m worried I’m a target.”

“Well, I don’t mean to say anything, but I saw y’all leaving the sheriff’s office. You’re gonna get called in; you’re exactly the type. Even before all those stories about burning down circus tent with your magic powers.” She stares into her beer. “They’ve gotta be crazy. There’s plenty of crazy in the forest for them to deal with, why the hell are they in my town?!”

The problem is, the Town Council, which is what passes for a governing body in Three Oaks, have signed off on the whole deal. “The council’s just three people – the sheriff, Burgermeister Menner, and Remick – he’s the guy who keeps the shrine up and running. They all agreed to have the Penitents come in, but we haven’t seen much of any of them except the Sheriff since.”

Shoshana files that info away for later. “You said the sheriff’s still out and about?”

“He’s – look. Wilbur’s never been the most enthusiastic about bein’ sheriff. We served together, way back, in the house guard of the von Kempt family. Even back then he got the job because he’d been a sergeant. The guy was always happiest taking orders, rather than giving them. And hell, most of the sheriff job was just keeping things running today same as yesterday. But he got pretty spooked by the circus thing. That kinda shit’s scarier than your ordinary pack of wolves or bandits. I tried to get him to do something, but he seems comfortable with penitents calling the shots. He trusts they’re the experts and know what’s best here.”

The Burgermeister’s been pretty busy with this whole thing, apparently, and Remick hasn’t really left his little shrine. The Penitents don’t use that one – they’re more into big prayer ceremonies and dramatically flogging themselves in the street, and they’re starting construction on their own grand temple. Something about “showing faith by constructing a worthy house of worship,” and all that.

Vanessa’s grumbling about the heavy restrictions on the gates into town and the perimeter patrols, so Shoshana strategizes. “Have you had problems with people hopping the fence?”

“I mean, normally, no? Town regulations say go through the gates, but we’ve always had teenagers hopping the wall, or people with business outside who don’t feel like walking all the way to gate – never a real problem, until this whole nonsense. I’m not on patrol anymore, but as far as I can tell people are too scared to try in case they get caught. Probably a good way to get declared a potential heretic.”

Apparently the wall isn’t super well maintained; there’s plenty of places a few charming scamps could get in or out if they’re willing to scramble a little. It’s a trade stop, not a fortress.

We don’t get too much more info around town, and decide to investigate the town council in the morning. We take watch overnight, but nothing happens.

In the morning, we split up to cover more ground; Clem and Gral head to the Burgermeister’s, while Valeria and Shoshana try to hit up the local chief cleric.

Clem and Gral arrive at the biggest house in town. There’s a Penitent standing guard outside the door. They skulk around nonchalantly to the back to properly recon. There’s no Penitents watching the back, so Gral slinks up to a window to peer inside. It’s pretty normal; there’s a woman baking bread. Clem points out that we’ll definitely look like the bad guys if we break into an occupied home, so…the polite approach it is.

“The Burgermeister is not feeling well and cannot see visitors,” the knight at the gate intones.

“We’re here on urgent business,” Gral improvises. “We are the adventurers who defeated the circus; we wish to talk to him about the restoration efforts.” He rolls a properly bardic persuasion check, but it’s still like talking to a brick wall.

However, the door opens behind the stoic guard. “Who is it?” An elegant middle-aged woman peers out at us. “Wait, don’t I recognize you?”

“Yes, we assisted in deposing the circus!” Gral replies warmly. “Gral Omokk’du; I serve Duke Shieldeater.”

“Clementine Haxan,” Clem offers laconically.

“Ah, yes. Please do come in. You left town so quickly, my husband and I weren’t able to properly thank you!”

“We had urgent business elsewhere,” Gral admits, the picture of good manners. “I suppose that’s how life is.”

They make pleasantries with the woman, Meredith, who falls easily into the role of gracious host.

“We had concerns to bring up with the Burgermeister, but what’s this I hear about him being unwell?”

“Yes, he’s been bedridden the last week. A bit of the flu; he’s getting to that age. Mostly it’s just the fatigue, really.”

Clem tuts. “I’m a bit of a medic myself. The flu can be very serious when someone is in advanced years. I could potentially give a clearer diagnosis, maybe alleviate some of his pain?”

Meredith visibly brightens. “I was thinking about sending for a doctor anyway; please come on up, I’ll see if he’s ready to take visitors.”

The Burgermeister has CORONAVIRUS and we’re in QUARANTINE.

She leads them upstairs. “Dear? Aldrich? Remember those people who helped with the circus? One’s a doctor!” She listens for a moment. “You’re tired? You’ve been tired for a week. No, that’s not normal. It’s normal to get a doctor!” She turns back to the two visitors. “He’s being silly, come on up.”

“I don’t need a doctor, just rest!” we hear a harrumphing voice complain.

He is lying in bed in his pajamas. Ah, this is the burger kingdom! No, it’s my burger meistdom

“Hello sir, I’m Clementine Haxan. This is my nurse, Gral Omokk’du.”

“An orcish nurse?” the Burgermeister

“I’m not as experienced as Miss Haxan, but I served as a medic during the Ascension War,” Gral seamlessly bullshits.

“Look I’ve just picked up a bit of a bug and I need rest;” he grumps. “It’ll go away after a bit and I’ll resume my duties.”

“That may very well be true, but gods forbid it’s serious,” Clem says in her best Bedside Manner Voice. “It’ll be good to have it looked it.”

“Ugh, poke and prod me, do what you have to,” he reluctantly concedes.

Clem makes a medicine check with Dr. Wendell’s assistance. The man’s not entirely healthy - his cholesterol is a bit high maybe - but he’s hardly an invalid. He genuinely seems to have some kind of cold or flu, but it’s very mild at this point. There’s no way he should still be bedbound. Maybe it’s just Clem’s standards as an army doctor, but if a soldier came up to her with these symptoms asking to be let off duty the prescription would be “stop wasting my time and go dig latrines.”

Gral insights the guy. He’s not lying; he honestly believes he needs rest. But the way he keeps repeating the word “rest” feels a bit weird. The vibe isn’t “this person feels sick and fatigued,” it’s “this person has an insistent conviction that He Needs Rest.”

“Rest” isn’t a Prisoner buzzword, but Gral’s seen bards cast Suggestion before, and that seems to line up a little too well. Unfortunately, he can’t just Dispel Magic the darn thing; it’s too artful and subtle for that.

Gral decides to fish for a bit more info. “Before we leave you to your rest, how long have you had this flu?”

“About a week? The Inquisitor comes by every morning to update me on the town’s situation. Though I must rest and cannot attend to my duties, a town’s Burgermeister still must keep up with the times!”

“When did you first come into contact with him alone?”

“Oh, I insisted on a meeting when he first came into town a week ago.”

Interesting. The Burgermeister falls ill just in time so that the only information he gets about the town comes from the Inquisitor himself.

Wife doesn’t go out much, armed guard outside

Did he update you on the cage and the executions?

Have been capturing some neer do wells that seek to do harm to town, held for further questioning, some eliminated to protect town like common bandits or beasts.

Saw people in cages! How would you describe them, Clem.

Clem: didn’t strike me as especially dangerous folk

“Well, neither did that ringleader! He only seemed as eccentric as any other traveling performer!”

“Sure,” Gral argues, “but that’s when he had time to prepare his lies and his magic. These scared people in cages wouldn’t be able to hide if they tried. Honestly, the worst I saw was an excessive amount of body hair.”

“Fine, fine, I will inspect these prisoners personally as soon as I feel better, which should be any day now!”

“With all due respect, you fell ill right after this Inquisitor started talking to you. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. Miss Haxan says you’re fine-“

“No I’m not! I need rest!” the Burgermeister interjects heatedly.

“We saved the town, and we’ve had trouble with Penitents before. I believe he has a spell on you. Please, let me try to remove it.”

“I’ve no time for your insane ravings, orc. The Inquisitor is a man of faith! Now leave me to my rest. Dr. Haxan, I appreciate your diagnosis, but I tire easily these days. Have my wife show you out.”

Gral knows the effect of Suggestion is only about 8 hours, but it’s subtle mental manipulation; it lasts. If the Inquisitor is coming by every morning, that’s the perfect opportunity to refresh the charm.

The two of them head out, Clem politely prescribing a short calisthenic routine for the man and, oh, he’s on the mend but just in caaaase he’s contagious the Inquisitor probably shouldn’t visit for a few days?

His wife agrees that sounds reasonable, but it probably won’t stop the guy. They say their gracious goodbyes.

Meanwhile, Shoshana and Valeria are headin’ to church. It’s a tiny thing; there are naves for the three gods we expect, but it doesn’t have the traditional empty throne of Oberok and we’d be surprised if it had a proper hidden shrine for the trickster god Guile. There’s a few people around, and luckily no Penitents posted outside.

Valeria, of course, stops at the Rack shrine for a short prayer, still getting used to how odd it is to see him depicted as human instead of dragonborn. We notice a few little notes – the Lethe shrine’s sponsored by the local blacksmith. You too can have a sword or hammer just like these, in our showroom down the lane!

A few folks are doing their daily prayers and making offerings. They’re all locals and travelers; there’s not a single Penitent in sight, which is pretty odd. There’s no services right now, so we head over to the old man who’s cleaning up candle drippings under one of the offerings. Valeria introduces herself, at your service as per usual.

“Ah, Kyr Argent! I remember you, from that blond man’s story about the circus! Keeper Remick, at your service. How may I aid you?”

Valeria asks him how, as a keeper of the faith, he feels about the Penitents.

“Well, in these times, faith is very important. And they certainly have plenty of that. And that’s a good thing, isn’t it? As a paladin, I’m sure you agree.”

“Faith is one thing, but I can’t say I’m pleased with what they’ve misguidedly done here,” Valeria sniffs.

“As I see it, they’re keeping the town safe. The Inquisitor explained it to me. It’s the will of the gods! Desperate times call for desperate measures, and, well, times are pretty desperate when you can’t even trust a circus! With your mind, that is. With your wallet, Guile walks with them, doesn’t he? Anyhow. These Penitent fellows, they seem extreme, but is there any other option?”

“There must be,” Valeria declares. “They’re detaining people at a crossroads, that’s the work of oppression.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far – see, the Inquisitor explained it to me. He is an experienced scholar of the faith, with a keen – not eye, I guess. A keen sense for the corruption that lurks in the hearts of men. I am, to be honest, just a glorified janitor!”

“I’m certain you’re more than that,” Valeria objects.

“Oh, there’s no need for that. It’s a role I’ve found fulfilling, keeping this place and these people.”

“Well, it seems like they’re brushing past this place in search of something new.”

“Yes, heh. I believe the intent is to make this town a bastion of faith. I’m sure that my little spot here will still remain in use, but more glorification to the gods is good, right?”

We botch an insight check and don’t get a real good sense of him. There isn’t the sense that he’s lying about anything – our impression is he believes it’s not his place to stand in the Penitents’ way; they must know better than him. He’s an old man who’s done a noble job, but he doesn’t think he’s cut out for determining who is or isn’t a danger to the town.

We try another tack: “I understand you’re on the town council?”

“I am. Don’t know why, really. We used to have a proper cleric, decades ago. When he died, I was closest thing to a replacement we had! As the keeper of town’s faith, I hold one of the three seats. Burgermeister Menner does most of running the town, but for the big things he calls in myself and the sheriff and we all take a vote.”

“Then you must have been a big part of bringing the Penitents in?”

“Well, Sheriff Wilbur’s the one who brought their offer to us. I did vote in favor, yes. The Inquisitor showed up personally with his people and described the whole arrangement he had in mind. The Penitents would reinforce and train our militia, and those guilty of corruption would be remanded into their custody for justice. It all seemed very reasonable; sheriff Wilbur does his best but clearly he and his deputies aren’t enough on their own, not against this sort of curse. Burgermeister Menner fell ill shortly afterwards, and I’ve been very busy here doing what I can to keep up folks’ faith.”

Shoshana butts in. “Have you actually been out to see the Penitents work?”

“Yes, once. It disturbed me, but I understand it couldn’t be avoided. The Inquisitor suggested it might be best to avoid seeing such things that upset me so.”

“But if it upsets you – wouldn’t you be the one with authority to change things?!” Valeria demands, failing a persuasion check.

“Oh, voting on anything like that has to wait until the Burgermeister feels better.”

“Can’t council members do anything on their own?”

“Like I said, we’d have to convene to vote…”

“Sure, for the big things,” Shoshana argues, “But the sheriff and Burgermeister have their own duties, don’t you have your own authority as well?”

“I - I suppose I could call clerics from other towns to take a look?”

Valeria puts a gauntleted hand on his shoulder and sparkles at him with all her charismatic piety. “You’re not just the keeper of the shrine, you’re the keeper of this town’s faith. I know you can make a difference.”

The dice land in her favor. “Yes!” the old man declares. “I will-I will do something. What is it I should do? I’m new to this. I’ve held this seat for 20 years but, well, doing something is new. Mostly council meetings are that the Burgermeister says I’d like to increase the tolls, I say the gods probably won’t argue, the sheriff says it won’t cause a riot, and then he does it. I am not suited for a crisis.”

“Well, what kinds of things do you normally do?”

“Er, sometimes I have to sit in on a trial and make sure the prisoner has an advocate?”

OH YOU’RE A PRISONER ADVOCATE, HUH. WELL BOY DO WE HAVE SOME PRISONERS FOR YOU.

“Why, don’t the Penitents do that as clerics of Rack?”

We politely do not laugh in his face. No, no they do not.

“Oh, then I must go at once!”

We’re gonna reconvene with the rest of the party, and then will see the gods’ justice done! After lunch!

The four of us, plus the Fairgolds, meet up. Flynn reports that there have been no changes; the Penitents let all carts through but seized some items, mostly books. We swap info about the Burgermeister and Keeper Remick. The town leadership is hardly good in a crisis, but the Penitents have definitely been separating and keeping them down on purpose.

The first step is to bring in Keeper Remick as our prisoner advocate for those folks being held in the basement. The old man puffs himself up with as much importance as he can, aided by all of us backing him up looking tough. “AHEM,” he announces to the nonplussed Penitent guard, “as a member the of town council and keeper of town’s faith, let me speak with your prisoners!”

Silence.

“Can I speak to your manager? I mean leader!”

The Penitent shakes his head.

“Now listen here young man, what seat do you hold on the town council?!”

The Penitent finally speaks. “I have been instructed to-“

“To work WITH the town council,” Remick retorts, showing a surprising amount of backbone. “No matter how much experience you all may have, it is my solemn duty to speak with the town’s prisoners! Allow ,e to do my duty or I will be forced to write a sternly worded letter! APOLOGIZING FOR FORCING OUR WAY PAST YOU!”

The Inquisitor glides up behind his guard, listening to Remick’s speech. “Very well,” he intones in his eerily calm voice, “You may…enter.”

We are brought down to basement. It’s a set of maybe 6 cells, more suited to being a drunk tank than any long-term holding cell. In one cell we spot the distinctive scales of a blue dragonborn, and as our footsteps clank on the stone, an equally distinctive voice begins to shout indignantly.

“You brutes, I demand you return my research materials to me! I was in the middle of some important work when- oh, you aren’t the warden. My goodness! Kyr Argent! I must say, it’s rather good to see a familiar face.” Oh, hi, Lucinius.

The cells are overcrowded – there must be 20 prisoners across 6 cells. Lucinius and everyone else crammed in with him look pretty beaten up. They all look completely normal; the ones with visible mutations have been imprisoned where people can see. These are the prisoners they wouldn’t be able to get away with holding publicly.

Lucinius has clearly got a rant building up. “I explained to them many times that I am a professor from Golden Academy, and they refused to listen! They said my studies are ‘heretical’ and my magics ‘invoke the name of the tyrant god’ – yes, obviously, they were written during the Aquilian empire, they said ‘Oberok’ every other word! It’s not a dirty word! Anyhow. Are you here to let us out?”

“We’re here to be advocates!”

“Oh, we’ve had advocates!” Lucinius huffs. “The Inquisitor is the prosecution, while one of those fanatic knights serves as our ‘advocate.’ It’s quite far from ideal; their position as advocate is that we ought to confess, if we understand the gravity of our crimes. And then they hit us a bit.”

“I’m unfamiliar with the customs of this land,” Gral allows, “but that doesn’t exactly sound like proper advocacy.”

“Well, I certainly don’t know how things are done in this country! I’ve never been accused of a cr- well, I have been accused of many crimes,” Lucinius admits. “I find it’s best never to assume about local customs. That got me into a LOT of trouble with the goblins. Did you know they have a ‘trial by fire?’ I misunderstood it, they just light a big fire to keep the courtroom warm while the trial goes all night. I went to great lengths to cast Protection from Energy! And of course it turns out casting spells as a prisoner is double illegal…”

“Double illegal?”

“Yes, it means they bring in twice as many judges.”

As he rants, the sight of innocent prisoners in miserable conditions seems to be a pretty strong argument. Remick’s fully on board with booting the Penitents out as soon as he can convene the town council.

Gral’s going to make a show of it. Loudly, he declares, “This is a violation of these citizens’ basic rights! We’ll need a full meeting of the town council before any Penitent activities continue!”

The Inquisitor hmms. “That’s…certainly something the Burgermeister could order. But nobody may leave if they have not been inspected. If we cannot continue our inspections, the town would shut down entirely.”

“The lockdown would only start once the Burgermeister declares it, which hasn’t happened yet,” Valeria interjects testily.

We’re politely and pointedly escorted out.

Lucinius shouts after us, “Don’t be long! Tell my bodyguards these people are not allowed into the cart without a warrant signed by someone of noble rank, or at least with a judicial position! Also, contact the embassy! They can’t do this to me, I have tenure-!”

The session closes as we discuss how the hell we’re going to get a Proper Council Meeting with the sheriff out “receiving instruction” from the Penitents and the Burgermeister convinced he’s indisposed. And we’ve got to get at least two of the three to vote the intruders out. That’s not gonna happen without them feeling like they have some way to protect the town from the Curse.

We fondly reminisce that our previous campaign’s party would definitely have started murdering people by now.

[kickdownthewalls]

Top 20 Non-Metal Albums of 2017

So, while my passion has long been heavy metal, there is so much other great music out there I felt it was worth my time to compile a list of the best of the rest. These twenty albums represent quite a number of genres, but they all share the quality of being awesome…

1. BLACK SEAGULL - Distant Lullabies

After the heart-breaking demise of one of my favorite band of the last two decades, On Trial, I was overjoyed to hear that a couple of ex-members had formed a new band called Black Seagull. While the sound is a bit more mellow and countrified, the songwriting quality is still top-notch and it sounds very much like a logical continuation of the Forever album.

2. ANVIL STRYKEZ - Anvil Strykez

My first impression was this would be a half-assed synthwave late-comer, based on the name, song titles, and album art, but damn if this isn’t one of the most thoroughly engaging albums all around. Vocoded vocals, pure 80s synth and drum machines, well-placed guitars, and a completely memorable and different approach for each tune add up to one hell of a spin.

3. DEPECHE MODE - Spirit

The past few Mode records have been consistently good, if not quite as memorable as Playing the Angel or any of the classics. Spirit is a different beast and my favorite album of theirs since Songs of Faith and Devotion way back in in ’93. The songs “Going Backwards” and “Where’s the Revolution” rank right up there with anything they have penned and the lyrics throughout the album are the perfect reflection of our current state of devolved world affairs.

4. POPPY - poppy.computer

It’s happening again. Some things are weird. Let’s appreciate together. Am I doing this right? Someone sent me this. Can you see it? These are cotton swabs. Poppy loves politics. You are Poppy. I’m Poppy. Everybody wants to be Poppy, Poppy.

5. SNIFF 'N' THE TEARS - Random Elements

One of those groups that, save for one big top-40 hit back in 1979, has flown under the radar but consistently released top-notch albums over the years. Paul Roberts is the singer/songwriter that has helmed the group since the start (and even paints all the album covers) and he still sounds as unique as ever. He writes songs that have a certain melancholy to them that has always struck a chord with me and Random Elements is full of them.

6. DANCE WITH THE DEAD - B-Sides: Volume 1

While synthwave acts like GosT and Carpenter Brut have made a considerable number of fans among metalheads, Dance With the Dead goes the furthest in actually combining the styles. Retro synth lines are still the dominant feature but the chugging, thrashy riffs are nearly as omnipresent and the band add some very well-placed (and well-played) guitar solos on many tracks. This is their latest and they have only gone from strength to strength.

7. THE HAXANS - Party Monsters

This is the kind of thing I would usually roll my eyes at and dismiss straight away but this duo has put together a collection of songs that are so infectious, I can’t stop listening to it. It is the perfect mix of death punk, pop, and Rob Zombie-eque horror metal. Vocalist Ashley Costello is a real gem, too, delivering the campy lyrics with the perfect mix of sensuality and power.

8. KMFDM - Hell Yeah

These die-hard industrial rockers have been releasing slight variations on the same album for the past 25 years or so but, hey, it’s a fucking great album. Hell Yeah isn’t quite up there with WTF?! or WWIII but it’s better than the last couple and their revolutionary calls to action have never been timelier.

9. THE NIGHT FLIGHT ORCHESTRA - Amber Galactic

When it comes to paying tribute to classic AOR from the 70s and 80s, no one does it better and with more enthusiasm than The Night Flight Orchestra. Amber Galactic is not as consistently brilliant as the first two albums but it is still great and the song “Domino” is an instant classic.

10. SIINAI - Sykli

This is Finnish ambient space trance. Repetitive, hypnotic electronics, looping guitars - it’s the perfect soundtrack for some meditation or that long, slow flight into the night. I’m always looking for chill stuff like this that works and, damn, this is executed with utmost perfection.

11. CHEAP TRICK - We're All Alright!

While Cheap Trick made some pretty mediocre records in the 80s and 90s, their 70s albums all stand up as classics and they have done some good work in recent years, too, most notably 2009’s The Latest. We’re All Alright! might be even better and the first half in particular is loaded with some well-crafted and hard rocking tunes.

12. CURSED MOON - Rite of Darkness

This album positively reeks of early-80s death rock in all the best ways. You’ve got driving basslines, reverby guitars, and gloomy synths, with the added bonus of gruff vocals that are more in the vein of early black or death metal. Not a ton of variety from song to song but it’s a highly enjoyable sound that works for a full album.

13. THE MOON AND THE NIGHT SPIRIT - Metanoia

This is a cool Hungarian duo that has been around for a good 15 years now. They make a very enchanting brand of folky darkwave with dreamy melodies and ethereal vocals. This is the first time I have had a chance to hear them since I fell in love with their 2011 album Mohalepte a few years back and I’m pleased to report they haven’t lost any of their charms.

14. LEGEND - Midnight Champion

Duo from Iceland that manages to capture the vibe and quality of classic industrial-rock and infuse it with modern and rather epic touches. The songs don’t just kick in and race to a catchy chorus; you have to be patient. The payoff is always worth it, though, and each songs follows its own dramatic course.

15. ADRENALINE RUSH - Soul Survivor

The debut from these Swedish hard rockers back in 2014 was a captivating collection of tunes that lived up to the band’s name. Soul Survivor is not quite as consistently good but it still has some damn fine tracks. The sound is big, melodic and surprisingly metal at times, with Tave Wanning’s vocals adding a great deal of charm, passion, and distinctiveness to the proceedings.

16. JESUS AND MARY CHAIN - Damage and Joy

I’ll admit I never paid much attention to these Scotts until the Automatic album came out and blew me away. Sadly, they seem to have slowly disintegrated after that, but after a lengthy break, they managed to return with one hell of a comeback record. Damage and Joy has some of the feedback from the early years, some of the electronics of the later years, and all of the sardonic humor and Velvet Underground chord progressions you would hope for.

17. BLONDIE - Pollinator

Blondie has had some good tunes since their reunion in 1999 but this is the first album where nearly every track is a winner. The three most important contributors to the band’s sound - Debbie Harry, guitarist Chris Stein, and drummer Clem Burke - are all still intact and in great form.

18. BLACK MARE - Death Magick Mother

This is the solo project from Sera Timms, the lead vocalist of Ides of Gemini. Here she takes a far more traditional gothic tone with the music, while her vocals take on an even more ethereal feel than in Ides. No individual song really stands out but it all works together beautifully as a complete album.

19. RAINBOWLICKER - I Saw The Light But Turned It Off

My first listen to this Finnish outfit was truly one of those WTF moments. Elements of punk, electro, chiptune, industrial and goth all merge together with some suitably peculiar, snotty vocals to make a fresh sound that is at once annoying and endearing.

20. TARJA - From Spirits and Ghosts (Score for a Dark Christmas)

Christmas albums have a tendency to be either too campy or too cliched for their own good. Tarja instead presents a collection of traditional (and one original) tunes done up in a suitably dramatic and darkly original fashion. While her solo rock albums have left me rather flat, I love her voice and the orchestral pairing is simply gorgeous. No one sounds like Tarja, no matter how hard they try.

Some more bands with great releases in 2017 to check out if you are curious: AGUSA, BARDSPEC, CAMERATA MEDIOLANENS, DAN TERMINUS, FLAMES OF GENESIS, GALLEY BEGGAR, IIVII, KESHA, L.A. WITCH, LIVING COLOUR, PERTURBATOR, ROPE SECT, SOROR DOLOROSA, and UFFE LORENZEN.

[cursewoodrecap]

Session 15: Burn the Temple, Topple the Thorns

We may have stretched the bounds of simple country hospitality too far.

Underground, Valeria and Clem consider a pressing question: are there any doors they can go through where they DON’T have to talk to the smug hobbit man? Good cave walls make good neighbors.

Investigating around can’t hurt, right? Clem picks a door at random - maybe all the cheesecaves are connected, like one big Cheesecave Factory - and peers in with her darkvision.

Not the next one over, but the one after that, since. Maybe they’re connected. Clem peers into the gloom of the cave with her darkvision, and can make out some lumpy outlines. As she creeps in, the ground under her feet feels disturbingly soft.

“Should I get the light?” asks Valeria. Clem nods. Valeria lights up A-Luxor. As the little floating beetle fills the cave with light, they see there is a carpet of fungus on the ground. Up against one wall, half-formed, a large, vaguely humanoid figure is growing out of this patch of fungus.

Valeria is like, “That’s horrifying. I was gonna just leave and shut the door? But we have to do something about that.” Clem agrees. Maybe they should set it on fire. As the half-formed creature stirs in the sudden light, she glimpses a small barrel someone has wedged into a nearby pillar. Oh, huh, there’s a length of fuse coming out of it. What on earth could this be?

We could sit here and wonder why this thing is rigged to explode, but the fungus creature is moving and growing in the light. The misshapen lump where a head would be pulls free and turns toward the two adventurers. With a massive effort, a big clublike arm tears away from the wall and slugs Valeria. 

The other arm and legs don’t look fully formed, and Clem wastes no time hacking at the weak points with her sword. The body is soft and incomplete; there’s something fleshy underneath, but if there was ever a person in there, it’s long gone. It’s almost dead – this thing would have been a real monster if it had finished growing, but as it is it’s weak and unprepared. Valeria chops its bulbous head off, and it slops to the ground with a sickening flop. The thing lurches over and falls. 

As it does so, a red splotch appears in the mottled green blanket of fungus over the walls, spreading rapidly outward. 

Clem doesn’t like the look of that. “…should we run?”

Valeria shrugs. “We probably shouldn’t stay overnight. Maybe we just leave and close the door?”

The spreading red patch reaches a bulbous puffball mushroom bulging out of the corner, which turns a pulsing red and begins to emit an earsplitting, high pitched scream.

Oops.

-

Gral and Shoshana are skedaddling, because the temple worshippers have started gathering up torches and particularly sharp farm implements - you know, good old-fashioned angry mob stuff. Luckily, Gral and Shosha have enough warning to get well away before they come pouring out, making a beeline for the inn, so the spellcasters scoot back to the meeting place without detection. Rebecca’s hiding in the bushes right where she said she’d be.

“I got your friends to the safehouse, they’re fine,” she reassures them, with full dramatic irony.

They head a ways through the valley, but it’s not long before the torches in the distance make a sudden sharp turn and start heading down road we’ve been going down.

“Rebecca, they don’t know where the safehouse is, right?”

“No!”

“Because they’re coming right for us. They couldn’t have seen us, could they?”

The mob hasn’t even gotten to the inn yet; they can’t have already discovered we’re gone.

They hear a rustling from the wheat field. 

They fuckin’ book it.

-

The awful sound echoes through the room. As similar screaming starts to emerge from the adjacent caves as well, the door that Rebecca had originally indicated flies open, and a bunch of figures hurry out, pulling on bags and cloaks.

“What the hell happened?” someone shouts. “Are those the people Rebecca was bringing?!”

“Quickly! Zis place is burned. Set off ze charges.” A Demish voice begins snapping orders. Torches light up as figures of all shapes and sizes start running toward cave doors.

A short silhouette glares up at the tanks. “Oh. I see. Bonjour.”

Clem audibly sighs.

Henri has no time for this. “You have no idea what you’ve done here, do you?” he hisses. “Before you begin with ze noble indignant speech, now is not ze time. Run! Stay out of ze fields!”

They don’t need telling twice. Valeria and Clem charge back down the path to meet up with the spellcasters.

Gral and Shoshana hear screaming, and see their allies abandoning all stealth and clattering towards them. 

Behind them, the hills explode in cascading showers of soil and flame.

Rebecca’s aghast. “They’ve been using them for months now! What happened!”

Clem humphs. “I guess this is what happens when you build a safehouse among FUNGAL ALARMS.”

“But there was a system! They had a thingthat let them turn one off every night! There was a system!”

Clem wisely chooses to omit some details. “…seems like a flawed system.”

Rebecca does not have time to unpack this right now. “What did Henri say to do?”

“Run.”

“Where?”

“THAT WAS NOT INDICATED.”

She swears. “The cultists are coming this way – we don’t have a lot of time. I know some places we could try to hide. My dad, though - he’s back at the inn, I don’t know if he’s safe-”

There are too many of the cultists between us and the inn, though, so she leads us away from the awakening wheat fields to the thicker, less-tamed trees by the river. We find the densest brush we can, Minor Image up some extra shrubbery, and hunker down.

We can clearly see the cultists’ movements by the burning lights of their torches. They reach the destroyed caves and start to fan out, breaking into 2- or 3-person search parties, soon joined by silhouettes that emerge from the wheat fields. For the time being, our hiding place seems to go unnoticed.

What’s our plan now? Hunker and wait out the night? Now that the search parties are more scattered, we could make moves back to town, Trollsburg, or even Sturmhearst, or to cross the river.

Rebecca wants to check on her father, but she’s gonna follow our lead. We’re worried that even her tentative safety has been compromised; after this, the cultists might not bother hiding during the day anymore. 

As we bicker, Shoshana surveys the area. Pretty much the only place the cultists aren’t searching is the temple itself.

...hey.

Temple’s empty.

What if we burned down the temple while everyone was out?

It’s alarming how quickly the group agrees to arson.

(In deference to previous campaigns: If we find any big fancy chairs, we will knock them over, as well.)

Rebecca does not want to be there while we burn down the temple, understandably. We direct her to Trollsburg, which the townsfolk should leave alone – tell Dr. Kjeller we sent her. She slips off into the night, and we shift from defense to offense.

As we roll stealth, Shoshana crits and everyone can see the change come over her. She now has a target, and the part of her that belongs to the Hunt…goes on the hunt. Her posture changes, ever so subtly. The way she peers into the darkness makes her eyes seem even more inhuman, gleaming in the darkness. And the shadows curl around her just a little bit more.

We sneak back to the temple, the predator’s instinct guiding us deftly around our pursuers.

It appears that the temple is not wholly unguarded. There’s three people Gral can see backlit against the windows, and none of them are Zelig. Hans and Franz still have bits of the floorboard peeled up. They’ve revealed more of the fungal carpet underneath, and they’re examining it and discussing what they see in hushed tones. The fungus is a riot of shifting colors; it’s almost like they’re reading it. There’s a third man there, a farmer, and soon enough Hans and Frans tell the third guy something and he immediately runs off.

“All the plants are informants for them,” Gral realizes aloud. “They’re getting info here. They know where everyone in the valley is.”

“Oh, good thing we’re gonna burn it then.”

Valeria goes ahead and casts Aid, because this is likely to get hairy, and Shoshana turns back to the party and grins a fanged grin.

“Firesong taught me this one,” she says, and hucks a Fireball through the window.

Subtle? No. Satisfying? Oh, yes.

Hans and Franz, coughing in the smoke, pick themselves off the ground and dive for weapons. It’s obvious the blast has done some heavy damage to them. (And to their clothes. Scantily clad buff men, hell yeah.)

Hans bursts out of the door, swinging a heavy fencepost with nails pounded through it, clobbering the first Clem he sees. We thought he was buff this morning, but he’s grown impossibly more swole. A button pops off his overalls as his inflated muscles bulge out of them.

The temple begins to fill with smoke as the fire catches. We hear that awful alarm-mushroom screaming again.

Shoshana cackles and Fireballs the place again.

Valeria pulls out her trident with a flourish and forks Hans right in his big unnaturally round pectoral, Rack’s vines curling around him. We’ve leveled up and she gets two attacks now, so she pops him again, and Hans crumples to the ground – we’re not sure he’s DEAD dead, but he’s out of the fight.

Franz levels his big-ass crossbow at the madly cackling witch in the window. HAHAHAHHAAHAHA-oh shit. She gets blown out the window, along with 2/3 of her HP in one shot.

Clem takes a cue from Shoshana and gets WAY too into this, cackling and swinging in with her big ol’ sword. These fellas have ogre stats, but she’s a veteran badass and cleaves Franz right in two. An on-the-spot medicine check from the medic reveals that…those are definitely not fully human insides. Ew. 

She flexes over his corpse in a final show of superiority. She got these muscles WITHOUT juicin’, thank you very much.

The two halves of Franz fall heavily, crashing through the weakening floorboards and revealing a cavernous space underneath the burning temple structure. The fungal carpet is very on fire. (In Shoshana’s opinion it could stand to be MORE on fire, though.)

Alarms are coming from both the temple and the carpet. Gral listens for anything else, but he can’t hear whether the townsfolk are coming over the roar of the growing blaze. Maybe we jump down there and investigate? Or do we dip out?

Screw it. There’s a tempting hole, full of danger.

Clem rips off both her sleeves and uses one as a smoke facemask.

We gotta make sure this thing burns for good. We jump in the curse hole, because of course we do. It’s more of a basement than a cave, really. The flames from the floor above illuminate some crates and shelves and boxes – normal basement stuff. (Shoshana rolls a nat 1 perception, and so is too busy cackling at fire like a terrible arson goblin.)

One side looks like the shrine to Guile, hidden as shrines to Guile always are. There’s also an empty throne for Oberok, per tradition. It falls over.

On the other side, though, there’s storage - tables stacked up for banquets, picnic tables, chairs. One big chair has been dragged out, and an imposing figure sits, staring at us impassively. Rose vines have grown out from the chair, wrapping around his heavily armored limbs. 

His armor gleams with polish, though leaves poke through the seams, and his closed helmet is sculpted to fit the face of a dragonborn. It clangs as he jerkily stands to his full height.

“Marius?” Valeria gasps.

The rose-bound knight draws a trident and turns to us. The vines behind him start to wriggle and writhe as he moves.

His purple cloak of office is missing. Valeria feels it hang heavy about her shoulders.

His mouth moves as if he’s about to speak, and silent rose petals fall softly out.

Shoshana doesn’t trust this. She casts Mirror Image, the flickering fire-shadow playing games with her figure. Marius’ head tilts as he focuses in on her, the thrower of the fireballs, so the squishy sorceress dives behind her bulkier friends for extra cover. Gral follows suit and dashes the other way, spreading out the party. The knight that might be Kyr Marius hefts a mighty trident and hurls it, nailing Clem. Vines burst forth from his gauntlet and snatch the trident as it hits true, snapping it back to his hand.

Marius had a magic gauntlet that did that, but he would do it with Rack’s glowing ethereal rose vines, not these squirming physical ones. Valeria, hesitating, hopes that if he’s using his same fighting style, there might be something left of her beloved mentor inside this growth-encrusted enemy.

Clem second winds, in preparation for Doing Something Stupid, and charges Marius directly. Bracing himself against her blow, Marius reaches out to one side and fires a blast of vines at Gral, who finds himself bound in foliage but manages to resist being dragged into sword range.

As Valeria and Clem rush to engage, the knight’s faceplate opens to reveal a familiar silver face, webbed over by the delicate tendrils of roots and sprouts. He breathes not a cloud of cold, as Valeria would expect, but a barrage of toxic spores and razor-sharp seeds. Rose vines climb through the cellar floor at Valeria’s feet, tangling and impeding her movements, but only seeming to aid the knight’s passage as he glides effortlessly to where Gral is held in place by vines.

Valeria had hoped to be able to cut the vines away to disconnect Marius from the Growth’s control, but as he moves away from his makeshift throne we can see most of the plants under his armor are untethered, growing out of his body. As she moves to tear Gral free with her claws, bits of charred ceiling begin to rain down around us.

Oh, right, the building’s on fire.

Shoshana pew-pews over a few spare pews, but her spells bounce off his armor, and Gral’s fear effects are just as ineffective. 

Kyr Marius draws his sword, long-thorned vines growing from out of his gauntlet to wrap around it, a warped mirror-image of how Valeria’s smites manifest. He moves swiftly, pinning Gral with his trident and plunging in his sword for the killing blow - luckily only destroying Gral’s illusory duplicate, but brutally efficient nonetheless. Whatever this knight is, it’s certainly retained the veteran paladin’s skill.

Valeria bites the bullet and abandons her hesitation, imposing herself like a protective wall between her mentor and her friend. Nose-to-nose with him, his faceplate hanging open, she can see just how much the Growth has infested the once-mighty paladin. Tiny sprouts creep out from under his silver scales, thorns nesting side-by-side with his fangs and a riot of green plant matter all down his snarling throat. His eyes are gone, vibrant roses blooming in the empty sockets.

This...this is not a living dragonborn knight, by any metric. Kyr Marius is gone, and has been for a long time.

Turns out the Growth can’t really corrupt paladins much, but it can certainly make use of them.

Another chunk of the ceiling falls in, narrowly missing Shoshana. She lobs another Chromatic Orb at Marius, but again it breaks harmlessly on his armor.

The vines across the floor continue to expand around the party, blooming into roses with long, deadly thorns.

Marius swings in at Valeria. She catches it on the Eyegis, which blinks back at him. Marius does not blink back at it, his flower eyes entirely impassive.

Gral throws a Faerie Fire. Marius cannot get out of the way, but he crosses his arms in a defensive stance as vines cocoon him, absorbing the Faerie Fire, and he bursts free unmarked. He focuses in on Gral, raining blows down, an implacable, inevitable executioner.

Valeria interposes herself again, forcing Marius to take his attention off the bard. His sickly green vines wrestle with her glowing, translucent ones as her mighty Smite meets his swinging blade.

It’s eerie how little he reacts to Valeria’s sword tearing into him, an unstoppable automaton of plant.

One more Chromatic Orb fails. Shoshana, in frustration and fear at seeing her friends get clobbered, dashes forwards toward the melee.

Marius raises a wall of thorns around himself, finally acting in defense even as his face shows no pain. He looks like he might be preparing to heal himself.

Luckily, Gral’s got a way of dealing with walls. He strikes a minor key and passes through the thorn wall, zipping behind Marius and nocking one of his Heart-Seeking Bolts. The advantage granted allows Gral to bury it into a crack in the silver armor for a whopping 20 damage. Marius retaliates, whirling to hurl his trident, but it barely damages the half-solid orc.

Clementine tires of this fight. She charges through the wall of thorns – damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead – and swings in brutally for three hits, three maneuvers. 43 damage on a SINGLE TURN. Frickin’ Battlemasters!

Just as the vine-encrusted knight is distracted by Gral, Clem drives her greatsword straight into his chest, and SUPLEXES HIM INTO THE GROUND. He crashes to the ground, Clem’s full weight driving the blade in to the hilt.

Marius briefly tries to move. We can see through his damaged armor that it’s more like the vines are moving him than he is moving himself. But there’s just not enough knight left for the vines. He slumps with a spore-heavy gasp, his weapons clattering to the ground.

Kyr Marius of the Order of the Rose is dead. But we suspect he has been for a very, very long time.

We look to Valeria. She kneels by the body, solemnly collecting his weapons and his magic gauntlet, but laying his engraved dagger upon his chest, the one Flynn found in the hands of a fungus creature far down the river.

As Valeria kneels and offers a prayer to Rack, giving Marius what last rites she can, the rest of us take our last chance to case the basement before we flee the blaze. 

We find mushrooms and fire. Whatever symbols and tools the cultists had were either made of ephemeral plants or upstairs and on fire. We kick over the rose-entwined chair, though. Fuck that chair.

Valeria stands, finishing her achingly brief farewell. There’s nothing left for us here, and the fire is threatening to overwhelm the temple.

The plants’ screeching has stopped; the puffball mushroom alarms seem to have burned. The room is full of thick, choking smoke and leaping flames, but it’s a small room and we’re PCs. We charge at top speed out through the collapsing walls, escaping with only moderate burns seconds before the roof falls in and the temple collapses entirely.

As we cough the smoke out of our lungs, we’re immediately on the defense - surely the villagers will have noticed their temple going up in flames, and we’re gonna need to dodge pitchforks.

Or...are we? The torchlights are still speckled across the valley. There are villagers on the road up to the temple, but they’ve collapsed to the ground, their torches flickering where they’ve fallen in the dirt. We cautiously approach and realize they are writhing and moaning in awful pain, as if they’re experiencing the fire firsthand.

“Good,” Valeria whispers viciously. It’s hard to tell whether there’s a trace of Hunt in her voice or simply raw, bitter grief.

Clem does a quick medical once-over of the nearest fallen farmer. Judging by this guy, the cultists aren’t quite fully human - there’s fungal growth under the skin, though not to the bulging extent of Hans and Franz. The feel of the growths isn’t quite like human muscles; they’re lumpy, like clay slapped onto a human figure by clumsy hands, tumors rather than integrated, natural growth.

Other than that there’s nothing physically wrong with them to be causing such pain, though they seem absolutely furious - Clem’s patient spits and tries to claw at Clem’s throat, but is too weak to do much more than twitch.

Valeria’s heard stories about this kind of thing. In her lessons about demonic cults, she’s heard of groups that form a pseudo-hive mind with their dark master. When the paladins would strike down the creature, the followers are struck down with sympathetic psychic pain. In especially entangled cases, usually the cults’ high priests, the mental blow is enough to kill them. Most followers just suffer incredible pain as the link to is severed, but physically will recover fully.

We don’t know if they’ll still be cultists when they wake up. The entity’s control will be severed, but they’ll still be the same people who willingly joined up in the first place.

If they won’t be down for good, we gotta get the hell out of here, stat. We book it to the inn to see what’s become of our guide Rebecca and her dad Aaron. At the inn, a battered-looking Aaron is pulling himself together as Rebecca helps him to his feet. Surrounding them are a few of the cultists, knocked out by the psychic feedback.

As Valeria rushes to Lay on Hands, Rebecca frets. “You’re back - what the hell did you do tonight?!” The, the temple’s on fire, and they were hurting my dad-”

“Oh, I did most of this to myself,” Aaron interrupts. “It was my cover story, I was gonna tell ‘em the four of you had broken out, grabbed Rebecca and run across the river. But they weren’t especially interested in listening.”

Valeria nods as she heals him, but doesn’t trust herself to talk. Gral takes over instead. “They’re disabled for now, no time to talk. Let’s get to Trollsburg.”

“Trollsburg? That thing Zelig was building?”

“Yeah. For now, it should be safe - nobody’s gonna try attacking a whole settlement of trolls. We’ll see how much damage the cult actually took in the morning.”

We hustle down to the river. Behind us, slowly, the lights from the search parties begin to move again, disorganized and scattered. Most head directly for the temple, the fire still blazing starkly against the night sky. 

At the bridge, the massive overgrown troll Kjell is shouting in pain on the bank. “Ugh, what’s...happening...” he moans, clutching at his side. He doesn’t seem to be knocked for as much of a loop as the cultists, but something’s definitely not right.

Valeria approaches cautiously and gives him a Curing Disease worth of Lay on Hands. There’s a flash of anger in his eyes as if he’s about to unthinkingly strike her, but she calms him for long enough to take the cure, and it seems to soothe his pain.

The big troll rubs at his side exhaustedly. “Uh, thank you, shiny lady. That, that was – I dunno, that was somethin’ nasty. It started around the same time as the big fire. Woke me up! Woss goin’ on?”

Shoshana tries to give him a brief rundown. “I don’t want to alarm you, but the fungus we were talking about earlier, I think it might have started to infect you-”

“An infection?! I should wake up the phee-zee-ologist then!” Seems he’s already managed that; trolls do not suffer quietly, and three trolls are coming down the hill to see what all the yelling’s about. In the light of A-Luxor, we can see Dr. Kjeller in the lead, wielding the crude glaive he calls his amputatin’ stick.

“Hey, uh, woss goin’ on out here?! Did you folks have somethin’ to do with that there fire?”

“Uh, yyyyyes?” Gral admits, trying to figure out how to simplify the situation for trolls. “The danger was in the church. Many of the villagers were trying to trick you. Whatever Kjell got, they were trying to infect you all with it.”

Kjell sees the doctor and interrupts. “When the temple started burnin’ it hurt right here – “

“Where?”

He points to a spot on his abdomen, and Dr. Kjeller immediately swings his doctorin’ stick, expertly cutting out the bit pointed to. Man, troll regeneration makes surgery easy.

The Doc pulls out an extra-large jeweler’s loop and crams it into his eye as he pulls apart the hunk of flesh with his claws. “Yeup, that’s a fungus all right. This was growin’ inside you? Does it still hurt?”

“Uh, yes?” Kjell points to the bleeding hole in his stomach.

“That’ll pass, you’re a healthy troll. What happened in dat spot? I need yer medical history. Let me find your chart.” He listens to Kjell’s abdomen. “Arright, chartbeat sounds good.”

Clem, in all her medical knowledge, has no idea what  a “chart” is, but the Doc was damn sure not listening to the heart area. Dr. Kjeller cheerfully neglects to explain.

“Yep, that’ll grow back soon enough. Don’t worry about it,” he tells the larger troll, who seems to be recovering quickly. “What happened there?”

“I remember I got hurt at one point? A beastie from the wood attacked me. Hit me with some kinda acid, an’ it didn’t grow back like normal. But that nice lady  Zelig came by and healed me with magics. A real nice lady, she was.”

“So...Zelig is the one spreading the illness,” we tell the trolls. They’re pretty well convinced, given the hunk o’junkus in Kjell’s gut.

“All the villagers are behind this?”

“Some of them. Maybe most? It’s hard to tell. They can look like normal villagers,” Gral explains. “They’ve been infected a lot more than Kjell was; they can’t think straight. We’ve brought two who are okay.”

Kjell brightens at the sight of the innkeeper’s daughter. “Oh, I know Rebecca! She used ta bring me rabbits! Hiya, Aaron!”

“Hi, Kjell,” the innkeeper smiles tiredly.

“How’s the leg?”

He blinks. “That was 12 years ago?”

“...So, is it better, then? You humans don’t heal.”

“We do, just slower!”

“Dat sounds real inconvenient,” the troll says, his gaping wound already starting to close.

Dr. Kjeller clears his throat. “Well. I tink we are going to have a discussion. You folks are welcome to wait in my house. This is a very important business that must be discussed, but it is troll business.”

That seems reasonable. Shoshana raises a hand. “Can we pass out?”

“If you deem it medically necessary. Would you like me to carry you, so you may pass out earlier?”

“Um, no, that’s okay.”

He says something similar to “gather round” in a guttural language vaguely like Old Valdian, and the trolls gather and begin a heated discussion.

As all 12 trolls hurry over and join the discussion, Rebecca whispers, “Are we gonna be safe here?”

Gral gets Rebecca up to speed on what we know about the trolls, and how except for Kjell they all seem to be unaffected by the Growth. We’re as safe as we’re gonna get in this valley, at least for now.

“Great, I’m gonna fall asleep now,” she tells us. “It’s been a day.”

We start our rest but keep watches. About an hour or two later, Dr Kjeller returns to the house. “We have reached an accord,” he tells us solemnly.  “We intend to leave.

“There are still many villagers, and we can see ‘em massing on the other side of the river. We trolls do not wish war. Now, we are pretty mad - lotsa folks had some thoughts about waging war against these people who tried to trick us. We don’t appreciate dat. But we must consider the eyeballs.

“If a group of trolls is invited to a place, and then attacks dat place and wipes it out, that would be very bad eyeballs. Bad for public troll families. No, not eyeballs, what was the word dat guy used? Optics. Yes, the eyeballs would be very bad.

“In da morning, we intend to depart from this place. Without the town, the moot can’t happen. There’s just not enough food. Well, there is, but now we can’t trust it. I will keep an eye on poor Kjell, he’ll travel with me a bit. He has a good heart, and a good chart. His dart I’m a little worried about, sounds like dat lady might have made it extra big to impress all us other trolls. I wish to keep him under observation; dunno what other conditions may happen if dat lady isn’t boosting him with her evil magics. 

We will travel south in the morning. This area is dangerous...but we are twelve trolls. Once we are a ways from the valley, we will disperse. Kjell will stay with me and serve as my assistant and bodyguard. You see, sometimes I do an autopsy but lotsa creatures want to feed on the body so I need someone to stand there and guard it. Y’know, a body guard.”

The party considers our options. We’re missing one last plant for our spell, but the trolls will probably be willing to stop briefly for some flower-pickin’. It’s not like we’re gonna run into trouble with a frickin’ CR 25 encounter as our escort. Also, we need to stop by Sturmhearst - we should at least let Flynn and Fiona know what’s up. 

We go back to the trolls, and realize Kjell is crying. “I must demolish my bridge,” he explains. “We must stop them from following us.” He built that bridge with his own hands; it’s a sad occasion. As the crew of trolls help him break it down, he gathers a bunch of the stones into a backpack.

“There there, Kjell,” says the doctor. “Remember, a troll’s home is not da bridge they live under. Your home is where your hearts is. Or you can do what I do.” He pulls off his hat and reaches inside, pulling out a toy-sized stone bridge. “A troll may live under a bridge, but a bridge does not need to cross a river.”

It’s probably very touching, if you’re a troll. Anyway, we’re going the heck to bed, and awkwardly trying to be stoic as Valeria cries quietly during her evening prayers.

In the morning, we can see a group of enraged villagers standing guard on the other side of the river, fuming impotently. But they wisely choose not to pick a fight. 

We stay by the bank long enough to find a nice patch of Norbert’s Wort for our spell, and then make tracks to the annex. We enter the Sturmhearst camp around noon; trolls are hardly fast-moving. The trolls are wary of the annex proper; they’re well aware of what those flamethrowers can do. They’re just gonna go have a lovely picnic and we can catch up later.

Professor Ulmus greets us. “Welcome back! What’s that commotion out there, sounds like a pack of trolls stomping through.”

SO, ABOUT THAT.

We give her, Flynn, and Fiona a rundown and let them know the villagers are now incredibly hostile.

Flynn stands, reaching to buckle on his sword. “Sounds like we must set out immediately and defeat this evi!l”

“The...one we burned in the temple basement?”

“Aw, you’ve already defeated the evil? Is there any evil left to defeat? I’ve been off my game.”

Shoshana sighs. “So, I hesitate to tell you this, but I know your sister will pick you up and carry you in the opposite direction if you do anything stupid.” Fiona nods, and Shoshana explains that Zelig the evil ex-druid is still up and about, and she’ll be surrounded by cultists.

“Hmm. Well, I’m up for some heroics, but an entire town of cultists? I’m probably not up for quite that much heroics yet. Are you intending to stick around and hunt her down?”

“No, we were thinking we’d head for Mornheim and get our ritual done.”

“Yes, I’d rather this cult did not besiege my campus to get at you; it would be disruptive to our experiments,” Professor Ulmus snarks dryly. As we explain the trolls’ plans, though, a change comes over her and she interrupts us excitedly.

“Wait, Dr. Kjeller is here? I’ve been a fan of his work for quite some time. He wrote a paper – well, a sheepskin – on troll regenerative physiology – one of the best resources we have. His notes are succinct and, well, rudimentary, but there’s more insight there than anyone at Sturmhearst has ever provided! This could be key to my work!”

Uh, sure? We lead her over to trolls and she instantly begins an enthusiastic if baffling conversation with Dr Kjeller. As thet’re excitedly talking, Shoshana feels something tugging at her skirt. It is a squirrel, exhibiting troubling un-squirrel-like behavior. It chitters, tugs again pointedly, and runs into bushes. 

Sure, what the hell. She gives a quick heads up to the team and hustles into the woods after the squirrel. Predictably, it takes her right to our grumpy druid friend, perched on a tree stump. “What the hell did you kids get up to last night All my sources are going crazy! I’ve got reports from every bird in the valley, chittering my ear off saying explosions, the temple burned down - hell, half the sources I have are saying other half are compromised! Ya kicked up a hornets nest! And then burned it down!!”

Shoshana gives him the summary, and tells him she might have figured out where the Mother Tree’s last guardian went. He nods at her description of Zelig. “Yup, that’s her. Explains why she abandoned her post, I guess. That’s another one fallen. At least it was the shroomheads this time.”

“As opposed to?”

“I’ve heard some stories. The more sociable ones, the shroom heads get em. My kind are pretty susceptible to that, you can imagine. It’s a pretty lonely life, doin’ what we do, and that whole sense of bein’ part of something greater – that’s not too far from what we do normally. And we like helpin’ things grow. Doin’ our thing and getting to be with people, that’s a hard offer to resist. But ya don’t have to worry ‘bout me, I don’t like people.

“Other types go in with the wolf guys. They go all dark and weird. They get like - y’know, I’ve seen a wolf bring down a deer midstride, yada yada the circle of life, that’s how nature be. So it can be hard to tell how many are just acceptin’ that cycle, and how many are, uh, takin’ a more active role in it, if ya get my drift.

“Still. Knowing she was behind it – I wasn’t gonna speak ill of another druid till I had proof, but it’s somethin’ else to hear it for real.” He shakes his head. “Anyway, you burned the central colony right after they all re-upped their connection; that’s gonna hurt a lot. They deserved it, probably. Anyway, Zelig’s operation in this area’s blown to shit. Dunno if she’ll stick around, maybe she’ll decide it’s time to seek more fertile pastures, as it were. I gotta stick around and guard the Mother Tree, so I’ll keep an eye out.

Not gonna lie, this was a mess. But it was more their mess than my mess, so I do owe ya one. My name’s Zalman. You can reach out to me with a message spell or somethin’, and I won’t just tell you to go fuck yourself, I’ll see what I can do. I got a lot of work to do here – you’ve given me a chance to reclaim the place.”

Shoshana shrugs uncomfortably. “Eh, my talents seem to be more for destroying than for fixing.”

“Then destroy the right thing! It goes against everything us druids stand for, but maybe we need a little fire.”

“Well, after a forest fire things regrow, right?”

“No, WE do that! It’s like a druid convention! Anyway. If you see the old bastard or his wife, treat ‘em as respectfully as you can, but tell ‘em I’d like a word. Where have they been in all this?!” He walks away grumbling, turning into a badger mid-grumble. He’s still kind of grumbling in badger.

She gets back to the annex just as Drs. Ulmus and Kjeller are saying their goodbyes.

“Thank you, Doctor! I look forward to corresponding!”

“I, too, look forward to the core of our spondence.”

As Ulmus fruitlessly tries to find out a nomadic troll’s address, Shoshana sidles up to Valeria. “You okay? I dunno if you want us to leave it alone, or to say something...”

Valeria twists her claws into her cloak, fiddling with the fabric and not meeting the sorcerer’s eyes. “...Thanks.”

The paladin is retreating into Stoic Hero Is Not Allowed To Have Feelings mode, so she’s not gonna talk about it, but she will allow a shoulder bonk of solidarity, and maybe even a light side hug.

We roll against taint as we trek out of the Growth’s domain. We all scrape by, Valeria turning down a deal from the Growth as she does.

[cursewoodrecap]

Session 13: Trouble on Your Mind

We deal with good memories and bad plants. Also, we meet another all-star NPC. For this session we drew the Woods, the Madness, the Triumph, and the Curse.

Sergeant Clem Haxan stares out into the frozen wood, atop the barricades and trenches stretching out across the carefully built killing field, scanning the treeline for any sign of partisans. 

It’s night; that’s not surprising, given how short the days are in winter this far north. The wind, at least, is down to a mere roar. It’s yet another day in the village of Podtybok. The partisans had fortified it somewhat before the Czar’s forces took it; it was a supply depot, and they were counting on it to get them through the winter. Now the troops stationed here are counting on those same supplies while they’re snowed in, cut off from the rest of the Czar’s army. The partisans tried to burn some supplies before they were driven out, so there’s only the barest rations to go around, and Clem is hungry tonight.

She hears someone approach her from behind. She turns around. It’s Privates Sokolov and Vodyanakov. “Sarge!” exclaims Vodyanakov, excited.

“Privates,” she greets them.

Vodyanakov is huddling in his bulky coat, his red gloves reinforced with thick strips of wool, wrapped around like bandages. But he still seems cheerful. “You’ll never guess what happened!”

“Tell me and be quick about it,” Clem grumbles.

“A herd of deer wandered into the killing field near Grigori’s position!”

“And?”

“He got 3 of them before they managed to split!”

“Oh, fantastic news!” Clem finally grins. “Do you need help dragging them back?”

“Naw, Rusalka led a squad out. They’ve already skinned ‘em for stew.”

“Aw hell yeah, good work!”

“Yeah, we figured we’d tell you. C’mon, everyone’s meeting in the barracks.”

Clem happily goes with her current comrades. As they wander through the frozen town of Podtybok, she can see the Red Hand and the town’s remaining citizens going about business as usual. It’s night, it’s cold, but there’s a real sense of community here.

Clem considers for a moment, and asks the DM: “How long have I been here, roughly?”

She is allowed to roll a wisdom check to time it out. She’s not sure how long she’s been here. It’s pretty deep in winter, though, and they didn’t get rescued until spring.

Wait, that doesn’t make sense. It’s still winter here. Clem knows it’s probable that the elite forces won’t show up until spring, but how would she remember when-

The DM tells her to roll a d4, and doesn’t explain why.

Sokolov took over her watch point for her. Winter seems to have gone on forever, is how long she’s been here. And she’s clearly been on watch for a while? Her feet are tired, but it occurs to her that she doesn’t feel all that cold? Odd, in a winter like this.

Vodyanakov is leading her toward the barracks, and Clem is hungry for deer stew.

Who’s next?

Gral is leaning against a tree, opening his eyes when he hears a young voice calling out. “Joybringer, where are you?”

“I’m up here!”

Gral opens his eyes and he is standing on a cliff overlooking his clan’s territory. Below, he can see the river Duu stretching out, carving its way through the mountains. The fields are blooming, the towns on the mountain slopes above are bustling, and the river is beautiful & green in this light. He turns and the voice is a local child Gral knows, Chak Greka’duu.

“Joybringer!”

“Ah, young Chak!  What brings you here?”

The young orc pouts at him. “Did you take a nap again? We can’t get started without our bard!”

“Huh? What time is it?”

“Late! C’mon!”

Chak leads Gral down the ladder from his small watchpost, then across a rope bridge, making their way through the mountain city hanging onto the steep edge of the cliff.

As they head toward the communal Song Hall, Gral can see many other orcs of the tribe heading the same direction.

Who’s next?

“Shoshana, are you in there?” calls her father’s familiar voice. She’s sitting in her room in her father’s house. On the table, her herbalism kit is spread out, for sorting and unpacking from a trip to woods.

“Yes, Aba?” she calls back.

“Are you ready in there?

“Y-yes, of course,” she says, hurriedly brushing herb clippings off her skirt. She pulls open the door.

Her father is there, mildly dressed up. “Well? Get ready. We should have been at the Spear three minutes ago!”

As she dusts off, fixes her hair quickly, and puts her shoes back on, her dad smiles at her. “It’s okay. I was late too.”

As they’re leaving, her father pulls a dish off the stove. “It’s not much, but I figure the least I could do is make some potatoes. It’s nothing compared to Hershel’s cooking, of course.” He shrugs ruefully.

“I was going to bring a gift, too, but...the pickings have been slimmer lately.” Shoshana gestures ruefully to her slim haul from the day’s harvest.

“Just bring yourself! You know you’re always welcome there. Come on!”

He leads Shoshana out into the cheerful village of Ovruch. It’s a pleasant afternoon, edging into early evening, and there’s the gentle, sleepy hum of the day’s work winding down all across the town. They make their way toward the familiar Silver Spear Inn.

Walking inside, Shoshana can see the old inn, just the same as it’s always been for most of her life, well-kept and cozy. It seems like a happy occasion; in the big dining room, a few tables have been pulled together, giving the place the feel of a rustic banquet hall. The innkeeper, Herschel, and his family all turn to greet the guests. “Yakov, Shoshale!” he calls, poking his head out of the kitchen. “We’ve been waiting for you!”

The oldest son, Lev, is there, moving chairs into place. The innkeeper’s wife Mindel and the young twins, Asher and Bluma, are scurrying around setting the table with plates and cups. 

Shoshana, by reflex, immediately looks for one specific other person. She rolls excellent Perception. The DM has her roll a d6 and doesn’t tell her why, but her eyes immediately latch onto the teenager in question, coming down the stairs.

Something’s weird about her - no, wait - no, there’s Rifka, the same constant she’s always been for nearly all of Shoshana’s life. She skips lightly down the stairs and pulls a seat out at the table, beckoning Shosha over. 

Who’s next?

The familiar weight of Valeria’s sword moves with a practiced ease. She swings and breaks neatly through roughly-carved wood, and the training dummy falls to the ground in pieces as she practices in the familiar training yard of the Citadel of the Rose. Feeling amped with adrenaline, she whirls through her daily training, but pauses when she hears heavy footsteps from behind, laden with the clank of full plate armor.

She looks back and there, resplendent in gleaming armor, is Kyr Marius. He’s a silver dragonborn like her and a respected senior member of the Order. He’s been a mentor to her for a long time - not assigned by protocol, but as another silver dragonborn, he took an interest in making sure she was fitting in. It’s a surprise to see him right now - he’s not one of her teachers, and he looks dressed for a formal event, wearing his heavy ceremonial cape, rich purple and pinned with a brooch bearing the Order’s crest.

Valeria sheathes her sword, trying to gauge whether Kyr Marius is impressed by her combat skills. She rolls well at Perception, and the DM asks her to roll a d4. Meanwhile, it certainly seems like he’s impressed!

“Your diligence is commendable, Kyr Valeria,” he greets her warmly, “But you’re going to be late! Your trials have been passed; this is a time for celebration, not more toil. Come! The entire Order must be together for this. Goodness, you’re not even dressed properly yet.”

He approaches and pins his ceremonial cloak onto her with the Rose brooch. Valeria blanks for a moment - has she ever worn a cloak like this before? She rolls badly, and - no, clearly not. Just a vague sense of deja vu.

To wear Kyr Marius’ own cloak? She - well, reptiles don’t blush, but she’s certainly feeling the equivalent of it at this great honor, and tries to stand a little taller. 

“Come down to the banquet hall!” he beckons. “Tomorrow we set out, but tonight we celebrate!” He leads her down the carved marble stairs and through the blooming gardens of the Citadel of the Rose. The trellised archways and stone pillars are ornately decorated with statues and symbols of Rack, and the many rose bushes are in lush bloom. (Honestly, it’s kind of excessive - which, to a dragonborn sense of aesthetics, is perfect.)

Where were we?

The players are muttering amongst themselves with theories and questions, but Clem isn’t paying attention to those nerds. She has stew to get to, and she’s powerwalking toward the barracks in the barricaded northern town of Podtybok. (”Partybrook?” “....yeah, sure, Partybrook.”)

She hurries past the small civilian houses and the inn as she marches straight toward the mess hall that was set up in an old building. It was originally one of the winter storehouses. When the Czar’s forces took the town, the partisans took what they could and tried to burn the rest of the supplies, but the snows were already falling, and the buildings held up well. The largest of them now forms a mess hall and a sort of central meeting place. She can already see a line of hungry soldiers queueing at a huge cauldron of stew and finding their places at a huge pushed-together table.

Clem ladles herself two hearty bowls and looks for the captain. She rolls well on Perception, and again the DM asks her to roll a d4 without explaining why. Looking around only takes a moment; the captain is at the head of the table, exactly where Clem would expect, laughing at a fellow soldier’s story. Clem immediately goes to her, sitting in the open spot next to her and listening to Rusalka describe himself and Sokolov retrieving the deer from the killing field.

“-and the kid almost jumped out of his skin! Oh, hey, doc! Sit down, have a bowl!” 

Clem offers her second bowl to the captain. “I have plenty,” the captain says, gesturing to her own stew. “You eat, you must be hungry.” 

Clem’s like aw hell yeah, two bowls. “Thanks, Captain Anya. Hey, is Khoslev still drinking in the inn?”

“Of course he is,” laughs the captain. “Where else would he be? He’s not welcome here and he knows it.”

Clem laughs along. “Any movement beyond the line?”

“No, all quiet for now. We can relax for a while.”

Clem happily chows down on stew without a care in the world.

Where were we?

Orcs are streaming in towards the song-hall. The sound of laughter and conversation drifts out, and Gral happily makes his way inside. As he enters, he sees the familiar, unmistakably marked face of Vek “Thrice-Burned” Garna’duu. The massive fire-scarred warrior is lounging at the end of one of the huge tables laughing about something. He catches sight of Gral and waves. “Joybringer!”

“Thrice-Burned! Hello! What were y’all talking about? I seem to have missed a joke.”

“Tarok here is telling me a funny story. Come, sit, we’ll need your talents later.”

“Don’t mind if I do!” Gral chirps, settling himself in at the table.

There’s a huge buffet lined up on one side of the hall, a table overflowing with grilled fish and fragrantly spiced vegetables.

“Yes, the harvest has been very good this year!” Thrice-Burned comments, seeing Gral’s gaze. “You’ve got to try some, the cooks outdid themselves.”

Gral ignores the food for now. “Don’t stop on my account, I want to hear this story!”

“No, no, please eat, you look famished!”

“I guess I can’t refuse such hospitality!” the bard allows, hopping back up to take a look at the buffet.

He, too, rolls a rather excellent Perception to examine the spread. Roll a d6, the DM tells him, and again gives no explanation. The food looks delicious; it’s all of his favorites and plenty of exciting things besides. Roast rabbit, fish, potatoes, grilled vegetables, a sauteed mushroom medley. With a roll that good, he sees there’s...actually kind of a lot of mushrooms? Huh.

Gral’s getting a weird feeling, but can’t quite place it. He helps himself to a plate of fish, avoiding the mushrooms, and brings it back to the table. He’ll take a little nibble, but he’s not chowing down yet, more interested in Tarok’s story.

Where were we?

Shoshana makes sure to ask Mindel, the mom, if there’s anything she can do to help set up. “No, dear, you’re a guest! Sit!” Mindel says, playfully swatting Shoshana’s hands away from the pile of plates to set out.

What kind of occasion is this, anyway? With a mediocre Int check, Shosha’s not sure what occasion exactly. Just a dinner party, maybe?

She takes her seat next to Rifka’s, like always, and pulls the chair out for her. The other girl sits and passes her a bowl. “Did your dad make potatoes again?”

Shosha groans. “Ugh, yes. I keep telling him he doesn’t have to, but he keeps not getting the hint.”

“It’s okay, my dad made gravy, we’ll survive.”

Asher and Bluma, the little kids, are being adorable, so Shoshana turns to greet them too. “Well hello, you two. What’s this I hear about sticky fingers over at the baker’s?” The twins immediately point to each other, denying all culpability.

“Well clearly neither of you two have been up to any mischief lately. I hope you’re helping your mom out with cleaning up?”

“Mmm-hmm!” The little girl nods emphatically. “Everybody helps!”

The oldest brother has sat down, so Shosha turns to him with a sly smirk. “Heyyyy Lev. So how’d it go with her?”

“D-don’t worry about it,” says Lev quickly, taking a spoonful of mushroom stew.

“Oh, huh, is this a new recipe?” Shosha asks, momentarily distracted.

“No, dad makes this all the time?”

Anyway, there’s more important topics to get back to. “Did he choke trying to ask her out?” she asks her friend, whose brother is turning red.

“It was hilarious. So he waited at the well for her-”

“Okay, cliché but doable-”

“But here’s the thing, she was actually in a huge hurry, and when he keeps getting in her way-”

“Ugh, the poor schlemiel-”

“And the next thing you know the Rav happens to walk by-”

They proceed to make fun of Lev and share all the small-town gossip. Mindel is ladling more onto everyone’s plates. “Please, eat! I made too much anyway, don’t let it go to waste-”

Shoshana’s player is a suspicious bastard, so before partaking in mushroom stew she’s going to engage Mindel in fifty layers of small-town small talk first. And for that, she’s to make a Charisma save. 26! Hey, roll another d4.

Where were we?

Valeria steps into the grand dining hall. The Knights of the Rose are lined up at long tables, all clad in gleaming armor, wearing their formal cloaks, and they all turn to look at Valeria as she enters. Kyr Marius directs her to a table full of paladins she recognizes. Kyr Boucher, a halfling man, and Kyr Saroyan, native to the Ventallan countryside where the Citadel of the Rose is located.

Kyr Saroyan reaches out to shake Valeria’s hand as she takes her seat. “Congratulations!”

“I can’t believe it’s finally come,” Valeria admits.

“You’re one of us now! Sit. Enjoy the feast, we’ve got a lot of work tomorrow.”

A rich banquet of food is served. At the end of the table somebody laughs. The hall is full of the clink of gauntleted hands clutching goblets.

Marius stands up, gesturing that he would like to make a toast! Valeria is told to make an Int or Wis check, and immediately fails it badly. Everything Is Perfectly Fine.

“Tonight we welcome the newest knights into the noble Order of the Rose!” Kyr Marius declares, his clear, booming voice ringing through the hall. He begins to name each of the newest knights of the order, applause and cheers from the gathered crowd following every one.

Finally, he calls with great aplomb, “Kyr! Valeria! Argent!” The hall roars with applause. “A toast to you and to all our new knights! Congratulations on joining our glorious community! Please, let the feast begin!”

A hearty haunch with a mushroom glaze over a bed of lettuce is placed in front of Valeria. She settles in to enjoy the feast and the company of her fellow knights.

Where were we?

Clem’s sitting with Rusalka and the Captain, well into her second bowl of deer stew. Someone’s scrounged up some mushrooms and edible lichens to throw in there, plus other vegetables from the winter stores, and it makes the food richer. The friendly banter among her most trusted comrades is like being enveloped in a warm hug. Everyone’s almost glowing with warmth and camaraderie.

Clem’s proficient in cooking; she focuses for a moment on the flavors of the food. She makes another perception check.

The stew is… She takes another bite. The stew tastes delicious, except - wait. Those spices aren’t the ones they would have here in Podtybok – these are drow spices, they didn’t have anything like that here –

When she thinks about that, everything flickers for a moment.

The stew tastes mushy - warm and filling, but kind of flavorless? It doesn’t taste like deer stew at all. 

Hey, Clem, make a charisma save. She looks up around the old barn, moss and lichen hanging from the ceiling, strange unknown figures around her – no, everything is fine, she’s still at the mess hall with her friends. The DM has her roll another d4.

Where were we?

Gral is just getting finished telling an excellent joke. Everybody is laughing.

“…and then they found him, feet dangling up from the river, and Krotok says, ‘now that’s a weaver for you!’” (Sadly, the pun only works in Orcish.)

Thrice-burned is there, along with Tarok Shala’duu, one of the best chefs Gral knows, and young Chak. And they are just losing it over that joke. “A WEAVER,” Tarok chokes out through his guffaws. “I’m surprised you didn’t say BOAT HAT!” (Again, we assume it makes sense in Orcish.)

“Tarok! There are children here, this is a G-rated joke,” Gral admonishes playfully.

Hey Gral? Make an insight check. Yeah, no, the joke was pretty good, but it wasn’t THAT funny, for as long as they’ve been laughing. We’ve heard of a captive audience, but…it’s weird, somehow.

Their laughter does finally slow down, but they’re all weirdly in sync about it. Every orc at the table has the same cadence to how they stop laughing.

“Oh, Gral, you have to try the shellfish. Chak, get Gral some shellfish,” Tarok insists.

Gral remembers some business. “Thrice-Burned. Last we spoke, you were checking on the mountain tribes, about some land dispute. How’d that go?”

“Oh, very well, of course. Some of them agreed to come and join us! Others, well…they are not welcome here.”

Gral has a moment of strange vertigo when he tries to think about the tribal dispute, and tries to place what day it is, what year. And the harder he tries, the more he realizes something is wrong. He rolls a Charisma save, and begins to remember more.

This orc here answered to Thrice-Burned, but...he was only Twice-Burned at this point, wasn’t he? Yes, Gral sang this orc’s death song, he’s sung the story of each of Vek Garna’duu’s names - he became Thrice-Burned during the Ascension War, when Raspult lit up the mountains and rivers. Raspult is a name Gral can’t possibly know; there hasn’t been such a thing as the Ascension War yet. But that’s definitely Thrice-Burned sitting there, with the scars from wounds that couldn’t have happened yet.

Gral thinks it’s time to stir up a little conflict.

“These shellfish are amazing. Hey, uh, I’ll be back in a few – I realized I left something – Chak, on that mountain where I was, um, meditating, I left an important scroll that might blow away. It’s pretty valuable, so I just need to run out and-”

Chak interrupts. “No! I’ll get it. We can’t have a feast without our bard!”

“I won’t be more than ten minutes-”

“No, your part is next!”

“My part?”

“Yes! For the new ones-” Thrice-Burned gestures to a group of orcs Gral’s never met. “From the mountain tribes. We need to welcome them into the community properly!”

Gral reflexively insight-checks, and gets to roll another d6. This isn’t a thing. Like, there’s no such thing as a ‘welcome to the town’ ceremony. Orcs don’t switch tribes. This is all wrong.

“Ah, yes, I know exactly what you’re talking about and, what a coincidence! My scroll is for the welcome ritual!” Gral spitballs.

“Okay, you stay there and I’LL go get it,” Thrice-Burned insists.

“No, really, it’ll take so much longer-” Gral gets up to start walking, and a massive burn-scarred hand shoves him back into his chair. “I’ll go,” Thrice-Burned says, his tone brooking no argument. He turns and leaves the hall.

Where were we?

Valeria makes another perception check, and rolls her d6. She does well enough on her roll to notice Kyr Marius slipping out of the hall. Valeria breaks away from the conversation, rising from her seat, intent on following him.

“Whoa, where are you going?” asks Kyr Boucher. “The meal is not done!”

“I still have his cloak-”

“I’m sure he just has to run and get something,” Kyr Saroyan says soothingly. “Probably his spare cloak. He forgot his tonight. That’s so unlike him!”

“Really, I’d better go return it-”

“No, please, we insist. You have a big day tomorrow! It’s your first ride with the knights as a fully fledged Knight of the Rose. You need to eat well. Ser Marius can take care of himself.”

All the players notice the “Ser.” Does Valeria? She’s asked to make one more Charisma save, and makes it quite well. The DM does a little math, and nods.

Valeria stands up to follow Kyr Marius, and her eyes open. She looks, really seeing for the first time today, and sees the strange, swollen, overgrown faces of the unfamiliar human and halfling sitting next to her. The table is no longer the glorious mahogany of the Order of the Rose dining hall; now it’s a plain wooden table, half-rotted. The meal before her is no longer a delicious roast haunch, but a lumpy fungal growth. Retching, she spits out anything left of it in her mouth.

Valeria feels a tug on her arm and looks down. Vines and creepers have twined around it, a thin coating of lichen beginning to spread under them. The two strangers’ bodies are overgrown as well, though if they’re still alive they make no move to shake them off. The halfling’s mouth soundlessly moves, as if it’s talking, the way Kyr Boucher was just a moment before. He turns his head in the other direction to look at - oh, that’s Gral, further down the table, wrapped in vines. Clem and Shoshana are similarly bound. All three seem dazed and sluggish, their eyes closed.

She hears the door to the barn close as heavy footsteps recede into the distance.

This can’t go on. Valeria strains against the vines, and her hard-won warrior’s strength serves her well. The vines holding her tear apart as she stands. 

Where were we?

Shoshana has finally lost the battle of small talk. Never go in against a Jewish mom when there’s food on the line; she’s been served a hearty portion of soup and bread and informed she’s too skinny, eat! And the innkeeper does bake an excellent sourdough.

Valeria, meanwhile, sees Shoshana about to take a bite out of what might once have been bread, but is now overgrown with mold and lichen.

Valeria knocks it out of her hand.

Nonsensically, the sheriff of Ovruch is there in the inn, and he’s just slapped the bread out of - Shoshana makes a perception check - her clawed, shadow-stained hand. In shock and confusion, she looks back at Rifka - and makes a Charisma save.

The girl next to her is someone she’s never seen before, and looks gruesome. The head and body are weirdly misshapen, and there’s a flower growing out of her eye socket. Scabby lichen creeps across her face, and bulging mushrooms protrude out the far side of her head. Behind her, a moldy chunk of once-bread skitters across the table.

She blinks, and the disconcerting vision is replaced with her best friend’s face. “You okay?” Rifka asks, concerned. “You nearly fainted!” She lowers her voice to a stage whisper. “Did you eat your dad’s potatoes?”

Shoshana barely hears, because she’s looking at her hands. They’re pink and fleshy and knobbly like they’ve been all her life. They’re long-clawed and soot-dark. Claws to hands, hands to claws. She blinks rapidly, trying to make sense of it. Her hands look normal and human. After all, if they weren’t, it wouldn’t be possible for her friend to be sitting here with her.

Rifka is looking at her with guileless concern. How to do this without looking crazy?

“Um, can I ask you a weird question?”

“Sure, anything.”

“Do my hands…feel cold to you?” Shoshana asks, warily, looking to see if her friend has any reaction to touching shadowy talons.

Rifka puts her hand over Shoshana’s, softly, and smiles warmly. “They feel wonderful.”

Where were we?

Clem blinks. For a moment she’d seen some other place, weird and different, and didn’t recognize anyone - and then it went back to normal. Before she can say anything to her friends, one of villagers steps forward and slaps food out of Grigori’s hand.

Clem scoots her chair back, looking around, still weirded out and unnerved. She fails a Charisma save and rolls Perception. It’s sort of weird that this wood elf villager is so big. Like, Clem-size big. And- is he wearing armor? 

Rusalka turns to her, gesturing to the villager, and says, “Well, Sarge? Are you just going to let him do that to one of us?”

“W-what are you talking about?” Clem demands. “Who is this?”

“One of the partisans, probably!” the captain exclaims. “Quickly, help us!” The Red Hand gathered around the table begin to stand.

Clem also stands. “Wait, this isn’t like us.” Private Vodanyakov is next to her, drawing his sword, but - she can remember how he died. He got eaten by winter wolves, but he’s right there. That hasn’t even happened yet. It hadn’t happened until years after they got out of Podtybok, but-

“Sergeant Haxan,” the captain orders evenly. “Draw your blade. Attack that enemy. They are not one of us.”

Clem tries to meet her eyes. “You haven’t called me Sergeant Haxan in ages. You always called me Clem.”

“Clem,” Captain Anya says, tone not changing. “That one is not one of us. You are.”

Clem grits her teeth, not drawing her sword. “Who the FUCK are you?”

Her Charisma save fails; she’s still there in the snowy village.

Where were we? 

One of the unfamiliar mountain tribe orcs has stood up and slapped something out of another orc’s hand. Gral is confused, but he’s always been a peacemaker. He’s gonna try to head over and talk to them.

Where were we? Oh yes, the overgrown barn.

The mushroom-encrusted bodies are standing up, threateningly turning their sightless eyes to stare at Valeria.

Gral and Shosha remain seated, their eyes closed, covered in mounds of creeping green matter. Clem, though, has stood up, and is looking in Valeria’s direction. The biggest mushroom person is standing next to her, pointing. She turns on her Divine Sense, but it’s a bust - these creatures maybe have a spark of fey or fiend to them, but it’s not enough to turn them.

They’re occasionally making strange noises, but not really vocalizing. Valeria casts Detect Magic to try to figure out what’s going on here. The entire barn lights up as magic, though not as clean-cut and tidy as humanoid magic. One of the smaller mushroom people sees her casting a spell and takes this as cue for it to attack. It swings a wild punch at her, and on impact, noxious spores puff out of its fist.

Where were we?

A fight has broken out between the mountain orcs and the clan Duu orcs. None of this makes sense, and Gral is pretty sure it isn’t real. He makes his Charisma save with flying bardic colors, and his eyes snap open. He’s in a rotted-out barn. There are weird gross mushroom people, and one of them is punching Valeria.

Whoa. Guess that explains it. He defensively casts Mirror Image, planning his next move.

Where were- oh, it’s all blending together.

Lev, across the table from Shoshana, is strumming a lute, and also there’s now four of him. Shosha doesn’t feel well. Something’s wrong.

“Something’s gone wrong with Sheriff Haskel, Shoshana!” he cries. “You are one of us, right?”

Shoshana suddenly remembers that no. For the last eight months, no, she hasn’t been one of them. Not after what happened. Not after they abandoned her for a witch.

She rolls her Charisma save, and her eyes snap open in a musty rotting barn.

Where are we?

There’s a fight breaking out between the Red Hand and the villagers, and Clem’s been ordered to assist her unit. Clem’s still dazed, conflicting memories jarring horribly with the present. A ton of these people next to her are long dead? She looks to her captain, baffled.

Captain Anya’s given Clem her orders, and is now rushing into the fight, not drawing her weapon but clearly ready for combat. Clem rolls her Charisma save - and it’s a natural one.

She draws her greatsword. These traitors are attacking her family.

Shoshana, meanwhile, wakes up restrained under a blanket of greenish-brown growth. In a knee-jerk panic reaction upon waking up, she casts Burning Hands on the crowd of mushroom creatures.

Clem, one of the partisans just threw a bomb or something!

The gout of flame hits most of the mushroom people, though it also scorches Gral. The biggest of the fungal zombies takes the brunt of the blast.

Clem, the Captain got hit by that bomb!

How dare this partisan bastard touch her Captain. Clem shouts “Anya!”, draws her greatsword, and turns on the wood elven woman who threw the Molotov with murder in her eyes.

Shoshana, still hampered by the carpet of mushrooms, barely manages to dodge Clem’s swinging blade, and as she struggles to get free she makes an easy target for the next slash. 

Gral sees Clem bury her sword in Shoshana’s side. The drow’s eyes are still closed, and her snarling face has a thin film of lichen over it. He’s immediately distracted, though, by the large mushroom leader clocking him in the face. Shit. He’s gotta get out of here - he’s just been hit hard, and also set on fire. The big shroom guy manages to pop one of his Mirror Image duplicates as he runs.

Clem, the captain just dropped one of the partisans, but apparently he had three identical brothers!

By taking the attack of opportunity, though, Gral manages to make it to Clem’s side, and casts Dispel Magic on her.

Clem’s eyes snap open to see Shoshana bleeding on the other end of her blade.

The big drow’s voice comes out tiny, fearful and bewildered. “…Shoshana?”

Shoshana squeaks, “Oh god your sword is so big.” 

The mushroom corpses, realizing we’re all out of the illusion, rush in. They’re clumsy, shambling things - the six smaller ones, likely unlucky travelers who wandered in here the way we did, miss most of their swings at us. But Valeria, who’s been fending them off the longest, is starting to feel the damage. Shoshana turns and sprays another cone of fire at the rotting things.

Clem pulls her sword free and begins babbling apologies. “OHMYGODSHOSHANA, IAMSOSORRY, IDIDNTMEANTOAREYOUOKAY”

Shoshana grits her teeth. She’s been stabbed before, it’s fine. “MUSHROOMS NOW, APOLOGIES LATER.”

“Right!”

Clem and Valeria slash at the fungus monsters. Spores spurt from the back of their huge leader, but Clem manages to save against the toxin.

Gral Phantasmal Forces the big shroomer, who fails hard. The thing has advantage, though – it succeeds as one of other mushroom people gestures. The DM lets on that they are, in fact, a hive mind. If Gral had managed to succeed, the Phantasmal Force would have gotten ALL of them.

Valeria opens her jaws and lets loose a blast of ice. Three of the Overgrown crumble as the fungal growth on them withers and dies of the cold.

The rest of the Overgrown swarm to attack her, but their uncomfortably squishy punches squelch against her armor. Shoshana shreds one with her claws.

Clem faces off against their huge leader, furious. This thing impersonated her commander, made her attack her friends, and made her eat super gross mushrooms. Her attack is ferocious, but the monster retaliates with a crushing blow. As it hits, spores puff out of the fist - underneath is clearly hard wood or bone, but the surrounding fist is one of those bulbous shrooms that explodes into spores when touched. Super gross.

Gral tries to cast Dissonant Whispers on the big guy. The hive mind protects it again, and the damage is evenly distributed between the linked members, so they all take like 2 damage. He grumbles.

Valeria puts her smites to use as Shoshana and Clem both get punched. Shoshana turns on the one that hit her, her claws tearing through flesh both human and fungal. “Gross, that’s under my nails now, I hate it.”

With a mighty swing Clem cleaves the massive, swollen, overgrown body of the leader in half. As it falls down leaking spores, we can see the remains of what might once have been the farmer that owned this barn. ICKY.

Gral decides that spells weren’t working great, so he just slices the last one apart with his sickle. 

A weird stillness falls over the dark, dank barn.

Shoshana is the first to speak. “Let me be the first to say: what. the. FUohhhhmygawd there’s still fungus on me.” She scrubs frantically at her arms and clothes, trying to brush away the clinging lichen and spores.

We all make Intelligence checks to try to remember what the hell happened.

Clem remembers: we had just found the Purple Cave Creeper at the mouth of a cellar to a house in an overgrown village, when suddenly the floorboards above our head shook and we ran outside to avoid the cave-in. These mushroom people were there, converging in on us. We prepared for battle, ready to charge in, but the choking cloud of spores overtook us all. Valeria managed to get an attack in before she succumbed - though in her head she believed it to be the training dummy.

Clem and Valeria, who ate the fungal food without reservation, both picked up 4 taint. Gral and Shoshana, who resisted eating, only picked up 1, because the DM rolled garbage.

What was with all those extra dice we rolled? Turns out the illusion had HP, and we were rolling damage against it with our d4s and d6s as it exerted itself to keep us under. The charisma save to break out was double its HP, so it became easier to break out the more we wore it down.

We emerge from the gross barn into the late afternoon light amidst and overgrown patch of houses. The woods outside seem very thick.

Clem has resumed apologizing frantically to Shoshana, who is awkwardly accepting. Aethis is out here, looking very put out about being restrained by a thick mass of vines. As Valeria goes to draw her sword to cut the gator free, she has to push aside her cloak to do it.

She wasn’t wearing a cloak when we went into the house, so this is a bit distracting. It’s very familiar. Sturdy, finely woven, and purple, lightly enchanted to resist tearing and weathering. She has a very similar one at home for ceremonial purposes, except hers isn’t enchanted. This one is spotless even after a bloody fight in the muck; only senior officers of the Order of the Rose are given the enchanted ones that can be worn into the field. And this one is specifically sized for dragonborn proportions.

Somehow, she came out of the dream still wearing Kyr Marius’ cloak.

The group discusses, haltingly, what we saw in the hallucinations. They took us back to times we were happier - times we were with family and friends, times when we were part of a group. We note how much the visions focused on the importance of being “one of us,” with outsiders as a threat. Seems like we might be getting an idea of how this Prisoner recruits.

The most important thing we figure out, though, is that it’s late afternoon, and we have no idea where in the hell we are.

Clem blanches. “Shit, I have a dinner appointment tonight.”

Valeria and Clem team up using Lay on Hands and medic abilities to get us back in fightin’ shape. But how are we going to make it back to safety before dark?

We do have a map of the woods from the Sturmhearst annex - it doesn’t look like the abandoned village is marked on it, though. We’re near where we found the Purple Cave Creeper, but that was the easiest plant to find - it’s kind of everywhere. 

Valeria uses her Ring of Jumping to launch herself 18ft straight up into a big sturdy tree. From there, she clambers up to get a better vantage point. She can see the river! We’re a bit west of it, which gives us a basic direction to go. Beyond the river, where it’s not overgrown, there are lights from the village of Bad Herzfeld. We can’t see Sturmhearst at all. Mostly it’s just trees - wait.

There’s a plume of smoke not far to the north.

“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire; and where there’s fire, there’s people with flamethrowers.” -Clem Haxan

We decide to head towards the smoke and see who’s been making camp. 

Shoshana rolls a godawful Survival. Clem grabs the map and turns it right side up. This grants advantage and then we do fine. As we pass through, we get an increasing sense that until recently, this side of river looked just like the other side, with fields and farms instead of this thick jungle-like forest. All the overgrown structures are kind of weirding us out, like in those pictures you see where buildings have been completely eaten by kudzu. It’s eerie.

Then we find ourselves in an area with signs of woodcutting. A lot of trees have been cleared. That’s good, right? Somebody has been clearing trees! Up ahead we see fire smoke.

Wow. It’s weird that we got so close to those big log cabins without hearing anybody. No, wait….we’re not that close; perspective is just playing tricks on us because these cabins are REAL FUCKIN’ BIG.

Shoshana excitedly points at the map. This must be Trollsburg!

Oh, hey, there’s a big grey-green figure who is waving at us. Shoshana awkwardly waves back. Gral is incredibly happy to see a non-fungal individual. Yep, this is a burg with trolls.

“Hello!!!” Shoshana calls.

“HULLO!” says the troll.

Shoshana starts headin’ over.

(We ask, but the DM tells us there aren’t any of the fancy plants we need near Trollsburg. Also, it’s getting pretty late.)

“Hullo,” repeats the troll as we get closer. “You okay? You just came outta da woods. You don’t look so good. I mean, your hit point totals look fine…”

“Yeah, uh, the plants tried to eat us.”

“Ooh yah, you gotta watch for dat. But we’re safe here. We been clearin’ the trees away, like the orcs do.”

For lack of anything else to say, Valeria introduces herself. “Kyr Valeria Argent, at your service!”

“Oh! Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Doctor Kjeller. Doctor is a joke, see. I am real smart though.”

Gral ponders. “Might I say, you’re very different from most of the doctors I’ve met.”

Dr. Kjeller nods. “I is a troll doctor, not one of your people doctors. It’s quite easy, we do regenerate most injuries. Really, da word for doctor in troll translates more to ‘chef’. But I was given some credentials,” he tells us proudly.

He shows us a Sturmhearst bird mask he has hanging around his neck like a pendant. “See? I’s a doctor.”

“They accept trolls at Sturmhearst?” Clem asks.

“Oh no, some peoples gave me this. I met a person doctor once, an’ they were wearin’ one of dese. Said I was a doctor for trolls. So how was trolls gonna know they could trust me as a doctor?" He puffs his chest out, showing off the mask, which looks toy-sized by comparison.

“Are you here for the troll moot? Is that what this village is for?”

“Oh, da troll moot, no, yah, that’s what I came here for. Yah, I heard it from Mjonn. I lost my bridge a while back, see. This pack of really mean bandits moved in, chased me out, y’know. I got better, but it hurt real bad when they chewed my arm off. I think they mighta been werewolves. Trolls don’t get dat, but I ate some wolfsbane anyway. So I was kinda down on my luck, but Ionn told me that Coronn told him dat Emmek told her dat there was a trolls moot in dis here valley, so I decided to come check it out.”

“Who’s organizing the moot?”

“Oh, K’jell is the local troll! He lives under the bridge over the river. ‘S a nice bridge! Not gonna lie, I’m a bit jealous.”

“Why are you calling the moot?” There’s an obvious answer - something to do with the Curse - but we want specifics.

“Us trolls gotta be safe! It’s dangerous these days! There’s wolf people and fungus monsters and worse out there! Oh, but da local farmers here had a real bumper harvest, and dey were like, we should do a favor for our friends, the trolls! And they gave us this place. They been feedin’ us with plenty of food, and a place to live, and they been comin’ over and helpin’ us build dese big houses.” 

“Troll moots are pretty rare, aren’t they?”

“Yah, the last one was when the elves come in. The Czar heard about us and it got pretty ugly.” He nods sagely, failing to elaborate.

We shuffle awkwardly. “So, uh,” Shoshana starts. “Can we ask you a favor? We need a favor.”

“I cannot promise since I do not know what you are going to ask. But I promise to help. Dat is da doctorin’ way.”

“Um, can we sleep here tonight?”

“Oh, sure. There’s room in my house. They made the place big enough for two trolls, provided they get cozy. But I’m one of da first arrivals. And as a skilled troll I get some privileges! Like a bigger house, with multiple rooms in it. C’mon in!” 

He gestures towards the oversized house. “Now, it ain’t much.” He opens up the troll-sized door, and shows us the cavernous inside. There’s not much there; trolls aren’t known for lots of material possessions or for needing much furniture. There are two rooms, with no door in between. There’s some herbs hanging on the wall and a crude shelf with a few trinkets, and a big animal skin as a rug. 

“Now, as guests, you can have the skin. I haven’t given it those homely touches yet, I only just moved in. It’s way too dry, but whatcha gonna do? It’s not a bridge,” he apologizes politely.

“It’s lovely,” Valeria responds courteously. “Thank you for sharing your home with us.”

As Dr. Kjeller putters around, Gral pulls the gang aside. Quietly, he mutters, “I think there is something really bad here. What’s planned hasn’t happened yet, since he’s one of the first trolls to arrive – but this town is a trap.”

We consider. “I don’t think the trap will spring tonight,” says Valeria. 

“Yeah, they’re gonna wait until all the trolls are here,” agrees Shoshana.

There’s a little bit of time before the sun goes down, so we have time to look around. There’s at least 20 giant houses here, which adds up to an insane amount of trolls in one place. We want to go look at their food storage; the plants tried to trick us into eating their cursed fungus, and that’s the easiest and subtlest way to infect a horde of hungry trolls with fungal-zombie spores. But Valeria wants to make sure to cast Detect Magic, and we are fresh outta spell slots.

Gral wants to talk to the moot’s organizer tonight – is the local troll ignorant of any nefarious plans, or is he part of it? We gotta find out.

There’s probably enough time to make it to the bridge and have a quick conversation with him. It might give us an idea of whether it’s actually safe to sleep here, or whether it’s worth the risk to travel after dark to get back to the Sturmhearst camp.

(We do agree on one thing. “I’ve known this doctor for like five minutes and I would take an arrow for him,” comments one player. 

“And you might!” replies the devious DM.

We’re very thrilled to have created an entire race of CR 5 cinnamon rolls.)

We head over to the bridge. There’s a little sign indicating a troll is in residence, plus a wooden mailbox that says “K’jelk.”

It’s Shosha’s job, as the local, to talk to trolls. As is apparently customary in Valdian society, Shoshana announces herself by knocking gently on the bridge and singing her silly bumblebee kiddie song.

There’s an earthshaking THUD THUD as something under the bridge shifts. A wooden door opens on the riverbank and an absolutely enormous troll pokes his craggy head out.

“Yeaahhhhh?” he inquires in a deep basso. “I haven’t heard da bumblebee song in a while.”

“Hi,” Gral ventures. “Are you K’jelk?”

“Yyyup!” he rumbles. Dat’s what it says on the sign!”

He points to his necklace, which does in fact include a road sign that says “K’jelk.”

“Are you the one who’s organizing the troll moot?”

“Yes I am. I called it, I told Mjonn, who has a bit of the wanderin’ foot, and he told Dr. Kjeller and Emmek and Hans, and Hans is gonna tell the one down the river, and they’re gonna tell-” he continues to ramble about the troll gossip network, and Valeria has to gently interrupt.

“We actually had a concern with the troll couple on the bridge down the river!”

“Oh, zat so? They okay?”

“Yes, they’re fine, but they got attacked.”

“Oh, we don’t have dat problem here. It’s real safe here.”

“Well, they didn’t exactly get in a fight, though-”

“’Course not. Dere’s two of em! You’d have ta be real dumb to attack two whole trolls. Unless you’re three trolls. We got about ten here, so we’re safe.”

Valeria tries again. “We’re not worried about a fight, though. We’re worried that there might be sort of a….hmm.” How do you phrase “mycological contagion” to a troll?

“K’jelk, have you ever seen fungal zombies?”

“Yah. They smoosh real weird?”

“Yes, the attackers tried to turn that couple into fungus monsters. Did you hear about Trolskiv?”

He nods his huge head. “Dat sort of things is why I called da moot! Trolls can’t be on our own anymore, it’s too dangerous. I expect ghosts got him, probably.”

“No, it was mushrooms,” Gral explains. “In a nearby farmhouse, we found a huge fungus colony that was spreading. We had to burn it down to destroy them. It’s very similar to the stuff growing here.”

“If the fungus is what’s making trolls go berserk, having a lot of trolls in one place might mean...a lot of trolls all go berserk together?” Shoshana tries to clarify.

“Naw, I wouldn’t worry. One of da first ones I got here was Dr. Kjeller. He’s a expert in troll fee-zee-ology. He knows all about troll feezies.”

“He certainly is very…intelligent?” Valeria grants, “but we’ve seen plants around here giving off the same kind of poison spores. The local farmers have an usually large crop - which is why you can hold this moot - and we’re worried there might be fungus growing in it. Can we look at the food stores and make sure there’s nothing bad going on? We’ve seen the fungus infections before, and I’ve got magic that can help.”

He glowers down at her, brow twisted, not really saying anything. Gral jumps in to give her advantage on the Persuasion roll: “The farmer who created the mushroom colony that hurt Trolskiv said he came from Bad Herzfeld. If villagers from there provided that food, it would be wise to look carefully.”

The huge troll relents. “Arright, you can look at da food. I will introduce you to Zelig. She’s the one what’s providin’ all this an’ collectin’ food from the farmers. Pretty sure she was organizin’ a service at the farmers’ temple tonight.”

Valeria’s interest is piqued. “Oh, a service? I’m a Paladin of Rack myself; what sort of service is she holding?”

“Ummmm...da religious kind. No offense to da big chainy rattley man, but trolls don’t really go in for dat. Dat’s one of them little people gods, they don’t bother us much. We got our own. Grandmother and Grandfather are friends of the trolls, and they’ve done us pretty good.

We agree to come by in the morning to take a look at the storehouses; it’s too late tonight. “Yah, just come on by and I’ll get da key out. It’s all in them big barns over dat way.”

We walk on back to Dr. Kjeller’s as the sun sets. We’re entirely sure the trap won’t be sprung tonight, but we agree to keep a watch just in case.

We get over there, and we see Dr. Kjeller leaning against the wall of his cabin with a big pipe in his mouth. He has a flint and tinder in one hand and is smoking like a literal chimney. Whatever he’s smoking smells acrid and foul and sets us coughing.

Eh, he’s a troll, he’ll be fine.

“Hullo!” he calls. “How was K’jelk? Guy’s pretty big, huh!”

“Super big.”

“Yup. Everything’s in order up here, I was about to turn in after a smoke. It’s good for yer health! Want a puff?”

Clem is tempted. Okay, twist her arm, she’s gonna try it. She takes one pull on the pipe and barely makes it a second before making a con save. With an excellent roll, Clem manages to not die. This stuff is foul. She takes 10 damage as the smoke sears her windpipe.

“Yup, as soon as da inside of your lungs grow back, you’ll feel great!” Dr. Kjeller tells her, smiling. Clem gives a thumbs up and nods, trying not to cough her lung membranes out.

The doc pours a barrel of water into the end of the pipe, putting the unsmoked bit that’s left on his shelf. He puts on a comically large nightcap as he gets ready to turn in.

“Water barrel’s right dere, if’n you want something to drink in the night, an’ there’s a bit o’ jerky hanging off the rack in dere if’n you want a midnight snack.”

Valeria, ever the polite guest, replies, “We appreciate your hospitality. Thanks so much!”

He goes in other room and kind of clonks over, out like a light in under a minute.

Valeria takes first watch, and the rest of us must make saves to get to sleep – it turns out trolls snore somethin’ fierce.

Clem barfs and passes out due to the trollpipe. Warning: NOT FOR DROW CONSUMPTION.

Shoshana brews a knockout tea with her herbalism kit and doses herself. Gral uses his cursed lutestrings to wooble a pillow around his ears. “I shouldn’t be getting used to this power, but I’ve had a long day. Fuck it.”

We all take 1 taint for resting in a mildly cursed zone. Trollsburg’s not as bad as the rest of the forest, but we are - so to speak - not out of the woods yet.

When we get up in the morning, Dr. Kjeller is already awake and cheerily heading down to the river. We follow, since we need to talk to K’jelk about investigating the foodstuffs, and come across the two trolls attempting a morning exercise routine in the river. K’jelk is trying hard but is poorly following along at Dr. Kjeller’s awkward-looking, clunky troll yoga. Dr. Kjeller says: Morning calisthenics is very important for a healthy troll body!

“Oh hey guys,” Shoshana mumbles groggily as she wanders up to the bank, blinking the last of her sleepy-tea hangover out of her eyes. “What’sOOOOOHHHHH GOD I can see everything that troll owns!”

“Hey, at least we don’t have to save against that kind of taint!”

We go out and investigate the food stores. Everything looks all-clear; there’s no sign of weird fungus growths at all. We are Skeptical.

Valeria casts Detect Magic on the grain stores, and finds absolutely nothing except a lot of beets. She grumbles about wasting a spell slot for no reason. 

While Gral and Valeria are still sorting through bushels of food, Clem and Shoshana see a group of humans leading an ox-cart up the way. Clem flags ‘em down.

There’s an old woman riding in the cart, sitting among a heaping pile of provisions, clearly more supplies for the storehouse. She’s accompanied by two buff farmhands. “Ahh,” she says, “you must be the visitors K’jelk mentioned.”

“We are,” Clem admits. “And you?”

“I am Zelig. These two are Hans and Franz.” The two very beefy humans look at Clem and offer an end-of-Predator-freezeframe-handshake. Clem makes a Strength check, and somehow Hans (possibly Franz, we can’t tell which is which) wins, therefore claiming the Schwarzenegger role. Clem concedes - it’s okay, the adventuring life’s got her pushing too many pencils.

Zelig smiles. “We were just here to deliver some grain for the warehouse!”

Clem nods. “Well, at the moment, we’re inspecting the food on hand for potential fungal infection, and-”

Shoshana elbows her super hard, but the cat’s out of the bag.

“Oh yes, we must be on our way soon, but it’s no issue if you want to take a look,” the old woman says, her smile unwavering. “We have nothing to hide! I must wonder why - ahhh, a Knight of the Rose! Of course!” she crows as Valeria emerges from the barn.

While Clem inspects the grain on the cart, Valeria strikes up a conversation. “I sure am! Kyr Valeria Argent, at your service. Are you Zelig? I heard you were leading some sort of service last night. Are you a follower of Rack as well?”

“Oh, I’m nothing so grand,” Zelig defers. “The local cleric of Lethe ran the farmers’ temple, but he passed away recently under mysterious circumstances. He was trying to rescue some people from western side of the valley and never returned.” Her voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper. “I think some of those Sturmhearst people were involved.”

“Oh, have they been causing trouble?”

“Nothing overt, but, well. You know.”

Franz, or possibly Hans, adds, “They’re from the big city, they don’t understand us.”

Valeria soldiers on. “So you’ve had to take over the temple of Lethe?”

“Oh, it’s a full temple, all the gods are represented! But yes, it was a cleric of Lethe that did run it. Bjorn was his name, he’s gone now. I’ve taken over as best I can. We’ve got a good community here, and they needed…well, I keep the place clean and the lights on and say a few words when everybody gathers…”

Valeria squints at her, and Nat 20′s her Insight check! Zelig is lying about something. The words are true, but this hunched old woman is sizing Valeria up as a threat. (”Understandable, I am,” quips her player.)

(Clem, meanwhile, finds nothing in the grain, although she thinks Hans and Franz might be juicing. You do not get that much definition just from farming.)

Val twitches her official cloak out a little bit. “You recognized me as Order of the Rose. Have any of them come through recently?”

“Oh, everybody knows of them, but I did see one once. I believe he might still be in this area. I could ask around, if you’d like to speak to him. He never did say his name...”

That pings us all as weird, because Valeria can’t go ten seconds into meeting someone without introducing herself by name and title.

Valeria keeps her calm. “If he’s still around, I’d love to talk to him. It’s been so long since I’ve seen one of the Order.”

Clem, Hans, and Franz get busy in the background unloading the cart. There is definitely gratuitous and competitive flexing as they heft the heavy bags.

Shoshana decides to put her Charisma score to use and lays on the small-town charm thick. “We heard about the tragedy downriver with Trolskiv. I’m so glad to see you’re taking care of the trolls here; we’ve been so worried and it’s really wonderful to see you being so kind and giving them a place to keep safe.”

“We don’t have great armies or knights, but we do have a lot of food,” Zelig replies, equally friendly. “I thought, wouldn’t it be lovely if we could all come together in this place?”

She offers to send a few people out to find the Knight of the Rose. “Last I heard, he’s been wandering around helping folks.”

“Yeah, we do that.”

Zelig, all solicitous charm, asks if we have a place to stay for the night. We can’t exactly say we do, and she offers to reserve us a room at the local inn.

Shoshana maintains her friendly facade. “That’s very kind of you, thank you for such a hospitable offer.”

“Oh, we’ll charge you 3 silver for it. We’re kind and simple, not stupid.”

Eh, that’s fair.

Zelig does a quick walk-through of Trollsburg, seemingly to make sure everything is going well, and as Hans and Franz finish stacking the last of the food. She’s calm and unflappable, seeming to have no worry whatsoever that we’ll find anything here. Valeria tries to project an image of being tall, sparkly, and intimidating, but is somewhat overshadowed by the two hunks of grade-A organic farm beefcake.

Valeria casts Detect Magic as the three villagers tour around. Valeria taps the pink bead on her ear chain and doesn’t say anything, but we can all tell she’s kinda bitter.

Valeria taps her pink bead and doesn’t say anything, but is bitter about that.

Shortly, they’re done with their business. “Take an old woman back to town, if you would,” she requests, and Hans and Franz lift her back onto the cart, making eye contact with Clem the whole time. We watch as the cart trundles away, back towards the village.

Clem thinks they’re juicing on fungus. Gral agrees; yyyyeah, these are a couple of simple farm boys who are stronger than war vets. That ain’t natural.

Anyway.

We have the rest of the day to ourselves, and we have two more rare plants to find for spell components. We consult our map, and make a plan: we’ll go out and try to find the red mandrake root, then hit up the Sturmhearst camp to say hi to Flynn and Fiona, and then we’ll slide into town in the late afternoon to check the place out and cautiously take them up on their offer of hospitality.

We head into the woods. Clem rolls a decent survival check, and we find the plant surprisingly easily, coming across the distinctive red flower fairly quickly. Valeria happily reaches down and confidently yanks one out of the ground.

Shoshana, rolling a poor nature check, is a moment too late to remember why that’s a terrible idea. 

Everybody gets to roll a wisdom save!

The root, pulled free from the ground, is bright red and forms a vaguely humanoid shape. And as anyone who’s heard the legend of the mandrake will expect, it opens its mouth and screams.

Clem and Valeria, failing their saves, take damage and are briefly stunned as the piercing wail echoes throughout the valley. We all clutch at our ears in pain as the thing wriggles and shrieks. 

We can’t hear anything over the awful noise, but the trees shudder as the forest begins to wake.

-to be continued-

[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 5: Askew

This episode: We meet some very strange people, and go to a very strange place.

Contractor Darius firmly escorts Valeria and Gral out of the Baroness’s hall, but he’s chill about it. Nothing personal, we’re just trying to keep the talk about this madman on the down low. We’ve had some suspicious activity around here lately, see. We Cursebreakers got our hands on some important books recently, and Witness Beatrice was just getting started on translating some of the more suspect tomes. Two days later, the library mysteriously burned to the ground. Now I’m not sayin’ it was the Penitents. We don’t have proof. But...well, you see why we’re being careful with news of anyone touched by the Curse.

Gral and Valeria are quite understanding, but they’d also like to take Darius up on his offer to meet this “madman.” Why not go right now?

Meanwhile, Clem goes armor shopping and meets some nice lesbian weaponsmiths at Hammerstein and Sons - Ms. Hammerstein, and her business partner Ms. Sons. Sadly, she finds out that armor and silvered weapons are ‘spensive. Shoshana is wandering the city, noticing that while people give her funny looks, nobody really gives her any crap about her mildly cursed appearance. Clearly, this is an opportunity to hang out in bookstores and impulse-buy unhealthy food. Nobody invites them to come interrogate the madman. Ahem. Anyway.

Darius brings the two adventurers into a narrow hallway in the repurposed mining office that the Cursebreakers took over after the library burned down. Several offices have been converted into sturdy jail cells. Only one of them is occupied. There’s a bed, and there’s easels everywhere, holding half-finished paintings, ink drawings, and charcoal sketches. Pots of paint and other art supplies are scattered around haphazardly.

“He’s weird but we’re pretty sure he’s harmless,” Darius tells them. “Bea comes in to cast Detect Magic once a day to see if he’s up to something, but she’s never found anything.”

Valeria inspects the various half-finished paintings. They’re mostly landscapes. She sees:

-a frozen ocean crashing up against bright purple cliffs, under a sky with five moons

-an owl that turns into a lizard partway through, casting a human shadow. The ground beneath it is breaking apart, opening a pit to darkness.

-a cavernous landscape filled with bones, a grim city looming in the darkness above

-the biggest canvas is full of nothing but very finely-detailed abstract shapes in a psychedelic swirl of colors. Only a small patch of the huge canvas is filled. There is no overarching pattern, just random but elaborate shapes and lines.

Sitting at the big canvas, there is a gaunt elf in ragged clothes. Fresh clothing is folded nearby within his reach, but he hasn’t touched it. Gral notices that there’s something weird about him - the elf’s proportions are juuuust slightly off, pushing him slightly into the uncanny valley. He turns to face them. His eyes are very, very wide, and they are all-black and full of stars.

He notices the group and politely inquires: “Hello. Is the key here?”

“The key?”

“Yes, I think I could be ready to leave soon.”

The adventurers ask if he knows why he’s in here.

“The very nice knights gave me this room to work on my paintings. They’re things I saw when I was elsewhere. I like to refresh my memory.” He points at the grim city. “I’m missing something here….”

Gral politely introduces himself and Valeria.

“Hello, I am the painter. Well, a painter. I’m the only painter here so I might as well be The. Unless one of you paints? No? Very well, the Painter I am!”

Gral inquires of Darius how long ago this odd gentleman was found. Darius says it’s been maybe two or three months? Not long after the mists started happening. The Condotierri found him wandering in a farmer’s field.

Gral turns to the Painter: “Do you know about the lake nearby?"

“Oh yes!  I’m very familiar with it!”

“Have you seen the mists?”

“No. Although it makes sense that there would be mists, that’s where mists should happen.”

Valeria brings us back on topic. “How did you get to ‘elsewhere?’”

“Oh, the Key brought me.”

Gral: “...What, or who, is the Key?”

“That is a very complicated question. I’ve asked the Astronomer that many times, and he was always frustratingly vague.”

“The Astronomer?”

“Yes, the Astronomer, he’s the one who told me about the Key. I’m working on a portrait of it!” He gestures to the huge abstract canvas. “I can only remember it sometimes.”

“Where did you meet this Astronomer?”

“In his house by the lake, that’s an awfully silly question.”

Valeria: “...Tell me more about your paintings. This one is super nice, tell me about it!” She points to the ocean landscape.

“Oh yes! That was beautiful, one of the first places I went from the Astronomer’s house. I don’t know if the others made it through in time. I lost my sketchbook somewhere. Unfortunately I didn’t have my paints with me.”

“...you went to these other places with others?

“Oh, well, that was the idea, but I ended up alone. The Astronomer, The Musicians, The Alchemist, the Sculptor, the other Painter – frankly he’s hideous and the world is better that he was left behind, or stuck between – I didn’t look back, there was too much to see in front of me.”

Valeria elbows Gral. “You’re a musician.”

“So I am! Did these musicians happen to be orcs?”

The painter doesn’t know what “orc” means, so Gral takes off his mask and asks if the musicians looked like him. Nope. Glancing between the orc Gral, the dragonborn Valeria, and the human Darius, he decides the musicians looked like - well, nobody here, but Darius more than anybody.

Moving on to the next painting, Valeria points at the owl-lizard creature. “What kind of creature is this?”

The Painter looks angry. “That’s the Destroyer. We had worked so hard for so long, and at the last moment, the triumph of success, it interrupted us.”

“What did it do?”

“I was on the other side, so I was only able to see, but not warn the others. It destroyed our art, our collaboration. What was to be a bridge is now trapped between the two, between here and there. Sometimes there’s a bit of a connection, but… that’s when I’m able to work on the portrait. I remember the Key.”

Valeria: "...Is the Key a physical object?”

“Are you?”

“…Generally speaking, yes?”

“Not entirely, no, but less than you are.”

“Is the key alive?”

“Partially. Partially. It was killed, but it’s alive. Maybe. It should be more. These are some very odd questions!”

Valeria is pretty frustrated by all the riddles. “It doesn’t sound like your key is entirely anything!”

“Well, it might have been one day. If there’s any of it left. That’s why we tried so hard to reach it. The Astronomer especially. He was the first to see it. He organized the collaboration. I was the only one to make it through. 

It hasn’t been so bad since I’ve been back. The small one comes to play chess with me, but she’s really bad at it. Doesn’t know any of the rules.”

“What happened to the Astronomer?”

"He is where the house is. I don’t know which side of the house he’s on, this one or the other side.”

Next painting. What’s up with this city of bones?

“The Key wasn’t WITH me, but it helped me. It sent me places. And yes, it was a rather gloomy place, I did not care for it. Impressive visual, but poor lighting.”

“Was anything there alive and moving?”

“Alive no, moving yes. I’ve left those bits out, it’s more of a landscape. What’s the opposite of still life? Moving dead? I’m sure the OTHER painter would have loved it. But I capture sublime beauty, thank you very much. Is that all? Thanks for the appreciation, but I must get back to work on the portrait. I remembered some of it last night, and those memories don’t stay.”

Gral: “Where are the other collaborators now?”

“Some of them might be in the house, some might be wandering. I barely know why I’m here! I doubt the Astronomer left the house, he loves it. It was his place.”

Valeria asks whether the Astronomer would mind if we paid the house a visit.

“Oh, he loves guests!” An insight check reveals the painter is entirely sincere, and madder than a box of rabbits

He turns away from our heroes and gets back to work, almost trance-like in his movements.

Darius is pretty impressed. “You caught him on a good day. Usually he’s worse, you can’t get him away from painting at all. The paints keep him calm. Me or Quentin will try to talk to him, but this is the most we’ve gotten in a while. He’s usually better after the mists come, which is NOT a comforting thought.”

Gral is fixated on the idea of other worlds. When the terrible creature came upon his expedition, Gral saw a kind of warping in space. “The painter’s madness resembles some of the whisperings upon the air when that creature growled. I think there is truth to what he’s saying, just not our truth. And we know there’s something at the lake. Have you found the Astronomer?” 

They haven’t. In fact, this is the first time he’s ever been mentioned. The guy hasn’t really given us anything about what he saw in the mists. You might want to talk to Bea about the astronomer? She used to be local record-keeper. She has a shrine to Torme in the basement - all the books she could recover from the library fire. Don’t spook her, please.  Also, Quentin’s gonna want an answer about the Mornheim expedition sooner rather than later. 

It’s roughly around here that Clem and Shoshana’s players insist on Showing Back Up. Shoshana is eating some sort of absurd ice cream wrapped in fried dough, because no one was there to stop her.

Gral recounts the audience with the Baroness and the meeting with the Painter, and tells Shoshana and Clem the harrowing story of the Curse’s Champion. “I know the Champion’s in the painter’s story somewhere – not sure if it’s the Key, or the Destroyer. But I don’t like any of it. He has probably seen the Champion.”

We ruminate on the idea of this Key taking things Elsewhere. “When the Champion attacked, it ripped the space around it. Maybe it took the encampment’s tents somewhere else instead of destroying them?”

Maybe this Key is a connection to other dimensions. If that’s the case, Gral contends, the connection is sentient. And sometimes mean. Perhaps, if he had followed the beckoning whispers that accompanied the fearsome beast, maybe he would have ended up in the fantastical places in the paintings.

Our problem: CAN we do anything? We’re low-level, dimensional portals are probably not weak to “being hit with sword,” and we have to face the possibility that, like in a Fantasy HP Lovecraft novel (he’s very racist toward orcs), we will be exposed to Weird Shit Man Was Not Meant To Know and end up as nutty as the painter. Also, like, the dead rising in Mornheim might be a priority?

Gral holds firm. “I can’t overstate how important this is. Sooner or later – I don’t know the agenda of this champion, but everyone in this town will die at its hands.”

He bows his head. “I’ve been living for a long time to just see this thing dead, but when I heard its growl last night I just wanted to run and hide. Still. I’ve heard it speak, so I believe it has a body. And if we can find out what that body is - if we know what it is, and where it is, we can figure out what its weakness is.”

Undecided if or when to investigate the Astronomer’s lake house in regards to this mystery, we decide to first take Darius’s suggestion and speak to Witness Beatrice, the cleric of Torme who rescued books from the library fire.

As we go down towards the basement, Clem pulls Gral aside. “Gral, I’m so sorry – I didn’t know that any of that happened to you. I kind of understand where you’re coming from, back with your unit. So if you ever feel like you need to talk, please know that I’m here for you.”

Gral shrugs. “It’s not something I like to remember. Part of me’s scared, part is mad, part is excited I can finally kill this thing. But I have to know what it is first if I’m going to have any hope of killing it..”

Clem nods grimly. “Believe me, I would LOVE to help you kill this thing.”

We head down to the basement. It’s cluttered with bookshelves - some carry old mining records, but most are groaning under a haphazard collection of singed books. There is a small shrine to Torme, the god of knowledge and law, in the corner. It takes a moment amidst the clutter, but Gral spots a small halfling woman muttering to herself and organizing one of the shelves. Gral takes his mask off, knowing that most non-orcs find it unsettling, and calls out a cheery, “Hello!”

She looks up at us from behind big ol coke-bottle glasses. We are all super visually intimidating and armed, because adventurers. She eeps! and hides behind a shelf. “DARIUS!”

Darius scolds us for frightening her after he specifically told us not to, and tells her it’s okay, these guys came and brought Morozov a dead body and an animal skin - wow, okay, that doesn’t actually help make them less scary. Anyhow they’re allies.

She insists he leave his bird, Daikon, down here with her if we’re gonna be large and scary and stuff.

Turns out that when the library burned, she had just begun a research project on several rare texts that might have clues to the Curse: “The Song of Druids,” “The Temptation of Fiends,” and a gruesome collection of essays on undead compiled by a mad necromancer.

Gral asks if any of the texts mentioned keys or gateways.

Bea: “Portals to the Abyss, maybe? I didn’t get very far before the fire.” She shows us a glass case. There are several fragile books inside, badly burned. 

She also tells us the Painter’s name is Johann. “I don’t think he knows how the rules of chess work? He picked up a pawn and started painting on it and said that it was a fish. Then he put it in my water glass. Which makes sense, in a way? But I was drinking that.”

When we mention an Astronomer with a lake house, though, something rings a bell. She hunts through the shelves for an old book of maps, left over from when this was a mining office. One of us tall folks kindly gets it off the top shelf.

There! On one of the islands in the lake. There’s supposed to be a home here – right over the cave system they were mapping. A manor house, belonging to one Artyom Vlemisk. A land grant from the old baron to his friend. Bea thinks back: “Yeah, astronomer Artyom! I remember when he came to town, just when I was starting out – he had a bit of an artists’ colony out in his observatory. I mean, we assumed the artists’ colony died a long time ago. Daikon did a sweep, over the entire lake, and we didn’t see the house anymore. When mists first came, we assumed they all got Got. A lot of the people close to the lake have died in the mists, especially down in the fishing village.”

Bea uses a neat magic trick to instantly transcribe us a copy of the map. She was up by the lake not long ago -  she stopped by when Darius was surveying the lake bed (using Daikon, who was an octopus at the time) & Quentin was off with Ser Balderich. There’s some guys from Sturmhearst College who set up on edge of lake. They say they’re here to “study the anomalies,” and they’ve set up shop in an abandoned church, calling it a “staging ground.” It might be easier to get them to take us across to the island - the fishermen probably won’t want to risk their boats. They’re led by a Professor Quercus, who specializes in “aberrant biology.” Bea marks the church on the map for us.

With business out of the way, Valeria can’t help but feel a Powerful Need to do something nice for Bea, and produces her book of tales of the Peacock Knight to help Bea rebuild her library. Bea has a copy of the same tales, but it’s a singed and battered old one, and Valeria happily swaps it for her pristine illustrated copy so the library can have something nice. 

We decide to go down to the lake to check it out. We still have five days before we have to give Ser Quentin an answer about Mornheim, and since the mists just came last night, we are maybe less likely to get caught in them again if we go soon. Also, we’re just gonna take a casual look around for an afternoon; we don’t have to get into anything too crazy. Right? 

We bop on down to the lake. Sure enough, there’s a damaged old stone churchy building, patched with leather tarps. Lights are flashing behind the windows. Someone has put a wooden sign up out front, reading “Sturmhearst College of the Natural Sciences, Holzog Annex. est. [last Tuesday]” 

A pair of hulking dudes all in black leather, with big hats and owl masks stand impassively at the gate, armed with big ol’ clubs. They eerily turn in weird unison to look at us as we walk down the path towards them. Clem waves. Valeria waves. Shoshana finger guns. One of them awkwardly tries to finger gun back.

There’s a bell on a pole near the front gate, labeled “please ring for entrance.” Shosha theatrically pulls the ding dong. A figure in a long-beaked bird mask peeks out of the door. “Um, yes, we’re not buying any, go away.”

“Hey, can we use one of your boats?”

“Uh. You’d have to talk to the professor, I guess. I’m just a researcher”

“Oh, is the professor the one in the bird mask?”

“Is this a joke? ...No, really, is that a joke? I’m studying humor. Well, the humors. I’ve been theorizing that maybe comedy affects the balance.”

Behind him, through the door, there is a cacophony of noise. Growl, clatter, crash, explosion! The researcher goes to check, we wait a moment, and then the door opens. “The professor is now available.”

The researcher, who we dub Frederick, leads us into a decently sized church. Folks in bird masks are hurriedly dragging something into basement. It’s under  a tarp. It’s vaguely dog shaped, but big. It also looks like a buncha stuff just got crashed over. There’s another owl guard standing there, holding a weird contraption. It’s vaguely smoking, crossbowlike, and smells of ozone? Whatever it is, I want one the next time we go in the woods.

We are approached by a fellow in a white leather coat, wearing a fancier bird mask than the others. He walks up to Valeria. “Ah! Hello there! Mister…mis…are you a boy or a girl?”

“Um, Kyr Valeria Argent, she/her pronouns?”

“Ah, good. My usual method of determining gender of reptilian organisms would be quite rude!”

IT SURE WOULD, I BET.

“Anyway, why do you want a boat?”

“For science?” we try. Before he can call us on the cliche, he distractedly dives under a table and grabs at a rolling object. 

“Sorry, sorry, I didn’t want to lose the orb! It got knocked down during a…football game. That we were having. Yes. I don’t want it to accidentally take root, it would be an awful waste!”

We inform him that we are investigating what used to be a manor built on the lake. An artist colony, disturbed by the mist. Perhaps even movement between dimensions! Have you ever heard of anything like that?”

“Oh, how fascinating! Have I heard of such a…transference? WHAT NO OF COURSE I HAVEN’T. BUT IT WOULD BE QUITE SOMETHING.”

Insight check: he’s lying through his beak. He IS super fascinated by a transference on that scale, but yes, there is super shady shit happening here. We don’t push further, but he bustles over to a table of various strange objects.

“A quest as worthy as this must be done post haste! And I should give you some assistance! That is what one does when asking a group of valiant heroes to quest for knowledge, yes? Take one of these things, they’re magic. Student inventions, you see.” He offers us three options:

1: A rectangular wooden box with a weird putty inside. The putty apparently works similarly to the Mending cantrip, but is especially intended to repair things that have been burned.

2: A ceramic tile with a hole in the middle and a tortoiseshell on the back. It’s a method of acquiring fresh water – it absorbs water from air, or uses a form of the Create Water spell. He’s not really sure! Boop the shell button and you get a stream of fresh water.

3: A weird misshapen orb of plant matter they found in woods. If you throw it to the ground, it makes vines happen. Frederick got stuck in it! You could use it to make rope, or climb a wall. It grows quite quickly if planted or thrown! 

We choose the burn repair gel, hoping it might help Witness Beatrice.

He also insists on giving us a red journal in which to record our notes. We all acknowledge he is definitely using us as unpaid research assistants.

“Oh, by the way. Standard procedure for sending out expeditions: do you know what a homunculus is?” (Valeria does. It’s like a familiar, but crafted out of alchemy. They’re not necessarily evil? Super weird, tho.) 

“I have one named Gray. Though he’s really rather more of a blue color. He’s got quite a keen sense of smell, so in case you do not return, please let him sniff you so we can track you and recover your research notes. What’s that, Frederick? Oh. Oh dear! To shreds, you say?” 

Frederick nods.

“Well! Please leave an article of clothing, perhaps a sock? He will have to smell you later, when he’s a bit more put together.” Gral gives him a bit of sleeve. He tells us to stick together, so they can find all of us if they track Gral. Splitting the party is not university policy!

As we’re merrily heading out, the DM admits he’s surprised he kept a straight face for the whole scene. And then slyly tells us to google the meaning of the name “Quercus.”

The Professor’s name. Is Oak. 

...the laughing DM narrowly avoids being pummeled, by virtue of being several hundred miles away. Valeria’s player is revealed to have been a willing accomplice in the whole gag. 

For the record, the three items he offered us? A Char Mender, a Squirt Tile, and a Bulbous Orb.

Revenge will be had, DM. When you least expect it.

Aaaaaanyway.

They let us borrow a dinghy, which we all pile into - nobody has boat proficiency, but we do fine on the basis of nobody wants to spend an hour doing a “did anyone fall overboard and get wet” sidequest. A fish looks at us. It has three eyes. It is not a chess pawn.

We can see houses with docks on the edge of lake. They’re badly damaged and falling apart. There were never many people on the lake islands, but when the mists first rose, everyone on islands got real dead, real quick.

The middle of largest island is where the astronomer’s house was. This is not a particularly deep tangle of wood. The whole place seems pretty tame. The trees aren’t too thick, and there’s a paved road right to a large clearing.

According to the map, there should be a large house here. There is not. Instead, there is a giant hole in ground. We peer into it and see the splintered but surprisingly intact remains of the manor house – like a sinkhole opened up directly under it. Valeria throws a rock in the hole, as an experiment. We observe normal rock in hole behavior, and write it down, for science. It’s about a 50ft deep hole. Seems like there was a cave down there? The house is awkwardly sitting in it, looking weirdly intact for a house that fell in a sinkhole.

We rappel down into the pit. It’s weirdly quiet. Closer up, we can see the house has been painted all over with weird geometric patterns and lines. There are bits of carved stone nailed to house in a big massive design of shifting colors and shapes. The designs are broken up a good deal by the collapse of house. Seems like even the house itself was a giant weird abstract art project? We wonder if it’s the same pattern as the Painter’s “portrait,” but we don’t roll well enough to figure out if it is.

Heading in, we find ourselves in a crumpled hallway. The weird patterns continue along the walls. There are 4 doors; 2 on each side. The end of hallway is rubble.

We open the closest door on left: it’s a painter’s studio. There are easels and spilled paint, and there’s a human skull on floor. There’s sketches. Looks like this painter was painting the skull. Shosha takes a sketch, for souvenir reasons. The art is all really macabre, lots of battle scenes There’s a rack of weapons and a mirror, clearly for art references. One wall has a crazy mural of impossible battle scene. Knights are fighting weird monsters. There’s fire and shooty glowing lights. The characters don’t have the cultural context to describe wtf it is, but the players are told it’s very King Arthur vs. Flash Gordon. There’s also a nice, if cliché, Rack in Chains painting.

Next up is the sculptor’s studio. Lots of big marble blocks. The pattern on the walls has continued through both rooms. In the middle of the room there’s an unfinished sculpture of...something weird? It’s clearly unfinished, but there’s, like, an arm and torso stickin’ out. Wtf is that supposed to be? Also, there’s a bunch of symbols and shapes carved into the wall and into blocks of marble, as if the sculptor was practicing them. They get more regular. Some are carved on statue. Shoshana tries to copy them into our Pokedex journal, but starts getting headache staring at them for so long. Roll initiative. Wait, what?

Wait. That shape wasn’t there before...is it moving? A carved fold in sculpture opens up to reveal a maw of stony teeth. A blue-purple tendril emerges from the mouth and the whole thing kind of inverts itself into a big teeth-and-eyes-everywhere guy. WELP. SCP jokes are made.

It proceeds to smack Shoshana with a pseudopod. Hissss! She instinctually swats back, Primal Savagery giving her unnatural claws. But it’s immune to acid damage, which her claws do for some weird mechanics reason. RUDE. Gral fails to insult it. Then, a clatter of metal - the swords from previous room flying through the air! There is a crackling as lightning comes out of the pattern along the walls. The lightning grabs the swords and pulls them through the air along the lines of the pattern, like a Mag-lev train, and attack Valeria and Gral. Clem smacks a mimic with a sword, which is very helpful, since it has just reduced Shoshana to 0 hp. Gral Healing Words her up, though. Shosha MAX DMGs Burning Hands, killing the mimic. A dozen mouths open as if to scream, and what comes out is a weird discordant song. It burns and starts to shrivel up in front of us. Valeria snaps one of the swords, Shoshana flames another, and the final one rolls a natural -3 and self-destructs in shame.

We decide we no longer want to be in the sculptor’s studio.

The door across the hall opens into a large lounge. There’s a bar, bookshelves, and tables. We flip through the books. Most are about art history. They’re super moldy, though. We also find a book of cocktails, written in Kevan, and immediately start making puns. The Boozenomicon. The Negroni-nomicon? By the Mixologist of Minsk. Miska-TONICS? Mixa-tonics? Obviously by Sturmhearst University press. Clem also finds 2 bottles of fancy high-elven vodka, worth 25gp each. Valeria finds scattered sheet music for 2 songs: one is called “Requiem for the Prisoner;” the other is “The Opening of the Ways.” Naturally, she gives the music to the bard.

Next up is the kitchen. The scattered mess and wall patterns continue through it. Chained to the wall, we find a heavily annotated cookbook. Clem takes it and decides to flip through. It’s written like an eldritch recipe blog, and we definitely gotta have it. Loot!

An awful, acrid chemical scent is coming from the next room. It appears to be the alchemist’s lab, which is definitely not a thing you put next to a kitchen, home designers. We all roll Con saves versus being sickened by the fumes. In the middle of the room lies a decaying body - the alchemist herself. A medicine check reveals a head injury - she was likely concussed or knocked out when the house fell, preventing her from escaping the toxic chemical fumes of her shattered laboratory. 

Gral finds a notebook labeled “Property of Dr. Alicia Keene”. It describes certain paints that she was inspired to create – formulas for various pigments and art materials. “While I do not have a direct role in the collaboration, I was inspired to create the wondrous pigments Johann and Musalt will need for their parts, though some of the ingredients for the pigments must be acquired from Beyond. Artyoum has assured me that the Lurker and his Hounds will not bother me as I gather them.”

We also gather three potions, labeled A, B, and Q. The DM has not decided what they are yet, but he’ll stat them at some point, if we ever remember we looted them. Shosha also finds a sealed tin labeled “Paint: Reserved for Collaboration.”

Clem, as we loot evidence, notices a weird puddle. Drip. Drip. She looks up and a slimy mass is clinging to the ceiling. It drops onto us and tries to eat us, but we skedaddle outside the room, far outpacing its slow oozing speed.

As we climb upstairs, we start to hear faint music. It echoes down a long hallway filled with doors. Like dumb teens in a horror movie, we go directly toward it.

Inside the conservatory, the painted patterns swirl in complex detail across the floor, centering on a single music stand. The walls are lined with mirrors, but we notice with unease that we don’t reflect in them. The reflection seems to show the room we’re in, but instead of us there are two women, distorted and lanky with unnaturally long fingers, surrounded by floating musical instruments. One is playing a violin, the other a flute. Gral, having read the sheet music, recognizes they are playing “Requiem for the Prisoner.” 

As we enter the room, they look at us and stop playing. They spare a glance at each other, raise their instruments once more, and continue playing. But this time, it’s a different song. We hear the opening bars of “The Opening of the Ways,” and the patterns across the floor begin to glow faintly. Cracks in the mirrors begin to emit the same soft glow, and the odd colorful light begins to extend past the edges of the mirror. Mist begins to pour from the cracks.

A sensible adventuring party would have fled, escaping the house before things could go very, very sideways. The DM explicitly gave us the option. But since when has “sensible” ever described an adventuring party? We wanna see what’s gonna happen. 

We are declared certified Dumbasses by the DM, and we are about to go on a very strange journey through the looking-glass.

All PCs are now level 4.

[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 17: Devotion and Diplomacy

LAST TIME ON THE CURSEWOOD: The Spanish Inquisition TSA have been seizing people. We did not expect it.

We need to get the three members of the town council to kick these dirtbags out, and we’ve got Keeper Remick on our side already. We bring him along and head toward the next council member. Last anybody heard, the sheriff was at the northern town gate with his Penitent buds.

Our benevolent DM made us a map of the town! Valeria’s player happily hoards it in the Map Collection.

Most travelers have been flowing through the east and west gates; the northern gate’s being guarded by a few militiamen and Lieutenant Vanessa, who we had a beer with last night. “Uh uh, gate’s closed- oh, hey, I recognize you!” she shouts. “You’re one of the, uh-” She waves awkwardly at the burnt remains of the circus.

“That’s us. We’re looking for the sheriff?”

“He – oh hi, Remick – he just left with a couple of guys, didn’t say what he was up to. They went north. They didn’t bring any supplies with them or anything, so it probably won’t be long?”

“Who was he with?”

“Guardsman Stebbin and two of those Penitents.”

What are they up to? Murderin’? Brainwashin’? We are suspicious.

Valeria puts on her Important Official Voice. “We were escorting Keeper Remick to convene with the Sheriff. Mind if we go catch up with him?”

“Uh, I’ve been given orders to keep the gate shut until they get back.”

“Remick is invoking his right to call an emergency town council; we need the sheriff,” Gral declares. Remick is literally standing right there, so we get advantage on the Persuasion check. It also helps that Vanessa doesn’t actually like the Penitents, so we do okay.

“Alright,” she says reluctantly. “Open the gate!”

The trail of a party of four in armor ain’t exactly hard for Clem to pick up. They’re a ways from the path, but not far. What’s our approach?

Valeria turns her extra eyes on. Gral decides to sneak up and see what’s up. The conversation is too quiet for him to overhear, but he gets a good visual of the proceedings. The sheriff and a guardsman, clearly this “Stebbin” fellow, are there. Stebbin’s hands might be bound? There’s a Penitent looming behind Stebbin, and another one whispering into the sheriff’s ear.

No, we do not like this. Valeria is 100% ready to throw hands. She strides in atop her shining gator, looking incredibly knightly, though the Penitents are definitely looking askance at her eyeballs shield. The rest of us hurry in her wake.

The sheriff opens his mouth to greet her and the Penitent speaks right over him. “Sheriff Wilbur is attending to some business. He will be with you momentarily.”

Yeah, Valeria’s not taking any of that. “Is that man a prisoner?”

“…of sorts. Yes.”

“Oh. Well, then – uh, he needs his advocate! Good thing we’ve got Remick right here!” she retorts.

“Keeper Remick need not concern himself with this affair,” the Penitent insists calmly.

The Keeper has hustled up behind us, looking rather confused at the scene. “Yes, what is this man’s crime?”

“This man was found guilty, by his own confession, of taking heretical artifacts that had been seized. He is guilty of theft. He is no doubt a victim of corruption,” the Penitent intones.

Gral interjects. “Artifacts? What kind?”

“…An amulet.”

Gral continues brightly. “Stebbin, would you like to testify?” It’s right around then we notice Stebbin is gagged, his hands bound.

The Penitent glowers at us. “His guilt has already been determined. He has already confessed.”

“Without an advocate? In breach of this village’s custom?” Gral fires back immediately.

The Sheriff tries to interrupt. “Now hold on-“

“Do not let doubt cloud your mind, Sheriff,” the Penitent speaks over him. “You know what needs to be done.”

“Yes, well, but surely with Remick here-“ the sheriff blusters.

“You AGREED this was a serious offense,” the Penitent says, his deep voice echoing. “You agreed that when one of your men slips from the path, you must perform your duty. His penance must be paid. Your penance is to deliver his punishment, or face the wrath of the gods. As for you, Kyr Argent, you come here bearing a sign of the corruption-”

Valeria goes to bash him in the face with her shield. Initiative, y’all.

We all roll BOLLOCKS.

As Valeria takes a fighting stance, the Penitents anticipate her move with almost eerie precision. They swing their spiked chains, knocking Shoshana down and Valeria off her gator.

The Sheriff is paralyzed with indecision at the sudden burst of violence. Who shot first?! Shoshana and Clem don’t have the same reservations and rush in to attack. Valeria runs over to poor Stebbin and removes his gag while Aethis tries to chew on the nearest Penitent. Gral tries to push fear into the mind of one of the knights, but…it’s not working? Usually fear of death and pain is a safe go-to, but it’s not doing much to this guy. What ARE they afraid of? Emotional intimacy? Commitment?

The Penitents swing at us, their chains whipping around them. As the spiked chains tear into the knights’ flesh, it seems to empower their strikes. (Darkest Dungeon strikes again. Have you heard of the Flagellant?)

Sheriff yells “Hey, don’t-“ and jumps in to grab Valeria. She’s a lot bigger and buffer and shrugs him off easily. Clem, Shoshana, and Gral efficiently take apart the first of the Penitents. Valeria gives Stebbin a once-over, using Detect Magic – there’s no amulet on him and nothing on the Sheriff, though there seems to be some sort of magic upon the Knights. So the guardsman seems innocent and the Sheriff’s at least not being magically compelled?

The second Penitent, seeing his companion fall, crashes his spiked chains into Valeria. “BETRAYER,” he growls. “FALLEN TO CORRUPTION. ANOTHER CHAMPION TAKEN BY THE WOOD. STRIKE HER DOWN, LEST SHE DEFILE RACK’S GLORY!” he calls to the sheriff.

“You mean, like you do?” she asks. She doesn’t get a chance to duel him dramatically because Clem takes his dang head off.

Well, now things are just awkward. The sheriff looks SUPER freaked out. “Remick, what the hell have you done?” he demands.

“What were YOU about to do?” Valeria counters.

“He was about to KILL ME!” Guardsman Stebbin wails, hopping out of sword range.

Gral kindly helps him untie his bonds. “You don’t want to incriminate yourself further. We will judge you more fairly than the Penitents, so just sit and wait.”

The sheriff sputters at us. “I- they said - A firm hand is what we need in these times! They, they explained it to me – we gotta get the favor of the gods back. Gotta prove that we’re willin’ to listen. It’s not easy, but we gotta prove we’re worthy.”

Gral glares at him. “With a complete lack of due process–”

“You come here, with that freaky shield-”

“To protect him in case the Penitents did something. You’re working with psychopaths, Sheriff.”

Remick butts in, recovering from the gory scene. “Wilbur, stand down. Let them take care of this. This whole situation has gone too far.”

“YEAH, I’LL SAY!” Stebbin shouts from the background.

Remick pulls Sheriff Wilbur to the side, and they begin arguing in hushed tones.

Valeria fills us in on her Detect Magic insights. “Nothing on the sheriff or the guard. If you need assistance to know what’s true, I’ll step in. Otherwise I’ll wait.”

Stebbin babbles his thanks. “Never thought he’d go through with it, but the things they were saying, you didn’t hear it-”

“What happened?”

“I was just reportin’ for duty as normal! They came and grabbed me, said the sheriff wanted to speak with me. Said we were gonna go on patrol, that bandits were spotted in north area. Then the Sheriff asked for my weapon, the other one got my hands. They asked if I took the thing, an’ I said yeah, I did, I’ll give it back – but they were gonna burn it! And that’s bad, you don’t burn those things-”

“What did they take?”

“A – a wooden amulet, one of them with the face on each side. Baba and Gramps, y’know. My mom was real into the Way of the Woods when we were growin’ up. I know it aint’ exactly – I know we’re all tryin’ to please the gods, keep eye out for signs of evil and corruption-”

Valeria shakes her head. “That’s no corruption.”

“You don’t burn Baba and Gramps’ things, you don’t show that kind of disrespect. It brings bad things down on everyone. So I pocketed it. I guess they spotted it. I – I promise I’ll give it back! It’s back in my house, I swear I didn’t mean no harm-”

“I’m sure the sheriff will know what to do once he’s out from under the influence of those…people,” she assures him.

“Yeah, they been spending all this time with him. The Penitents never let him out of sight, always whispering things to him, yknow?”

Yeah, that tracks.

Shoshana pokes one of the corpses. Seems pretty normal. Not a zombie, as far as she can tell.

Gral asks Stebbin if he’s seen anything odd from the Penitents.

“Uh, besides from taking over the town, stopping people at the gates, and throwing people in cages? Uh, sometimes they take these big carts out of town at night?”

Well, that’s shady as hell.

As Remick and the Sheriff confer in hushed tones, Shoshana looks up and notices something flying overhead, circling down towards us. It’s a white bird in a small, stylish green leather coat. She yells, “EY YO, DAIKON!”

Daikon lands in the middle of the clearing.

“Uh, do you know that bird?” a very confused Remick asks.

“Yeah! See, he’s got his li’l jacket!”

“Yeah, I know ‘em!” Contractor Darius’ voice says, from Daikon’s mouth. “…Did you kill those guys?”

Gral nods sheepishly. “Yeah. They were kinda killing people…I think the word in Valdian is ‘willy nilly’?”

“Huh. I’d heard something had gone down at Three Oaks, so I’ve been sending Daikon here over to check it out, with me in the backseat. Thanks to Torme for this little trick – I get to see the world without leaving my chair. Hadn’t heard about any Penitents, though. There was something about a circus?”

“Yeah, it was full of undead. We killed it with fire.”

“…Huh.”

“Oh! We did make it to Mornheim! We sent a message, I don’t know if-“

“Yeah, we got it. Bossman’s elsewhere, though. Oh – BEA! HEY, BEA! YOU’LL NEVER GUESS WHO I RAN INTO – oh, right, you can’t see ‘em. Hang on, lemme see if I can-“

Daikon stands there with his beak open as Witness Bea’s voice starts coming through. “Um, hello? Only Darius can see you, but he said you fought some Penitents? I don’t like them…”

Remick is, understandably, baffled by the Bird-o-phone, but we introduce Witness Bea of the Cursebreaker Knights and he’s actually quite pleased to meet a real Witness.

With the Cursebreakers on speakerphone, we begin to plan out our next move. The Penitents are going to treat us as hostile; killing two of their own is more than enough for them to declare us Evil and Corrupted. And if they’re resorting to tricks like keeping the Burgermeister under a Suggestion spell, we’re going to have to be clever about this.

Who do we have as nearby allies? Flynn, Fiona, and the goliath bodyguards are all willing to help. We consider trying to recruit the nearby squad of CR5 cinnamon rolls, but the trolls have expressed pretty strongly they don’t want to make any human enemies. Wait, isn’t the orcish troll-hunting force still in the area? Hmm.

Valeria points out the fundamental issue: the town’s only supporting the Penitents because they’re scared of the Curse. If we can’t offer them actual protection, the townsfolk are gonna default back to supporting the Penitents for lack of better options.

Actually, wait, let’s talk about those orcish outriders. They’re an actual military force, armed and ready for big ol’ threats like they expected the trolls to be. Would they be willing to ally with the town? Would the villagers be willing to trust foreigners?

Gral loves the idea, and enthusiastically vouches for the outriders to Remick and the Sheriff. He’s pretty excited – getting the outriders to protect the town would be a helluva PR measure for the orcish refugees. “It would be nice to walk through this place and not have people fear me,” he tells us.

Shoshana sighs. “Honey. All your spells are literally fear effects.”

Clem pipes up: “Also the mask is kinda creepy. Just sayin’.”

As Gral sputters about our cultural insensitivity, we describe llamas to Bea. She thinks they sound scary. We reassure her they’re not as big as Aethis or anything.

“What’s an Aethis?”

“Oh, Bea, you can’t see this thing, it’s crazy-“ interjects Darius.

While Darius attempts to explain the concept of a technicolor alligator, the party turns back to the local leadership, who have been quietly discussing, heads bowed together. The Sheriff looks utterly beaten down, shamefaced at his actions.

He quietly takes off his badge. “I don’t think I can face the town again like this. Stebbin, I’m…stepping down.”

“And you’re just telling ME?” the rank-and-file rando demands.

“I’m appointing Vanessa – she’d be acting sheriff anyway until the Burgermeister appointed a new one, and if he picked anyone else he’d be an idiot.” He shrugs. “I’ll inform her. I’d prefer not to – well – I don’t know how the Penitents will react. They made everything seem so simple…”

Valeria kindly pats him on the shoulder. “You were scared and you made a bad decision. It’s understandable. You’re doing better for the town now.”

“Do you intend to return to town today?” he asks her. “They’ll be on guard once I return without those two.”

(Shoshana’s player jokingly suggests we Weekend at Bernie’s the dead Penitents. This gives Gral an idea, but sadly he hasn’t leveled up to that class feature yet.)

We decide not to return yet, sending Remick back to town and holing up in an old elven hunting lodge nearby.

Daikon carries our message to the outrider company, and half a day later we hear hoofbeats and see the garishly colored llama-riders approach.

“Joybringer!” thunders Captain Trollsfear when we go out to meet them. “This better be important!”

“It is, I promise you. Have you dealt with the Penitent Knights in the past?”

“We’ve heard of them, but not directly dealt with them. Are they like the, uh, the Broke Knights? What are they called, the Penniless Knights?”

Gral grimaces. “Nope, these ones are VERY different. They want to ‘cleanse the wood of impurities.’ Like we’re doing with the clear-cutting, but with, uh, people.” He tries to make a long story short. “They took over the town with magic. We can’t do it ourselves, but if we free this town from their influence, they would count it as a great service. If we put out a show of force as part of liberating them from oppression, these Valdians will think of us as civilized, good people. It’s the best chance to do diplomacy I’ve always wanted to do!”

“Besides, you came here to protect civilians on the Duke’s behalf,” Shoshana points out. “So what if it’s not trolls? This still supports your mission.”

“We did come out to save a town from monsters,” Trollsfear allows. “I will say, if I have to come back to Shieldeater and explain we invaded a town… Please understand: we’ll back you up in a fight, but I prefer not to carry the news back that we killed a bunch of civilians.”

“Oh, we’re hoping to make them back down without violence,” Gral promises.

“If you can talk the town leader into swearing fealty to Shieldeater, it would be a major coup,” Firesong admits. “Especially a major crossroads like this.”

Gral promises to write up a report on all flavors of Curse so the outriders are prepared, and the outriders agree that if all goes well, they’ll leave a partial force behind in Three Oaks while the rest report to Shieldeater – they’ve still got to tell him about Bullbreaker, after all – and then bring back a proper force to guard the town.

So we have our muscle. What’s next?

After much discussion, we come up with a plan: Valeria and Gral will sneak back into the town before dawn. Once the sun’s up, they’ll go to the Burgermeister’s house, insist on using Lay On Hands to heal and/or placebo him, and hustle him out to the town square with Remick and the Sheriff to have big official town council meeting. Meanwhile, Shoshana and Clem will be in charge of getting the gates open for the outriders’ heroic entrance.

(Meanwhile, Gral’s gotten sidetracked attempting to explain the differences between all these sects of Rack-worshippers to the rest of the orcs. “Yes, it’s the same god, they just connect with him differently. They can’t just talk directly to the god.”

“How do you figure out how to worship if you can’t just ask?” an outrider asks.

“Eh, I dunno, it might be good if every time you consult the Allsoul you didn’t have to deal with your passive-aggressive grandma asking if you’ve given her grandbabies yet…”)

We spend the night planning, negotiating, and convincing the understandably wary orcs.

Just after dawn, the gates are closed and the patrols are out. However, we manage to stealth well enough to climb over the wall like rulebreaking teenagers. We split into two teams as the sun rises. Gral and Valeria peel off to the Burgermeister’s house, managing to evade the notice of the Inquisitor, who’s out in the town square, preaching about what a tragedy it is that the heroes who saved the town have fallen to corruption.

Shoshana and Clem, meanwhile, track down Lieutenant Vanessa, who’s out on an early patrol. We explain what’s happened: Two Penitents are dead, Sheriff Wilbur is stepping down, we caught them all about to execute an innocent man without trial for a minor offense.

She nods stonily, going into crisis mode. “We can’t do anything without the Burgermeister, though.”

“Don’t worry, we’ve thought of that.”

Gral and Valeria roll on up to the Burgermeister’s manor. Gral pops off a quick message spell to the Burgermeister’s wife: “Hello, I’m the orc from before. I have brought a paladin to cure your husband!”

Two Penitents are guarding the door, glowering, but Mrs. Burgermeister bursts out of the door and waves them away. “No, no, they’re welcome, they’re welcome!”

As we’re waved inside, one of the Penitents takes off running, making a beeline to the sheriff’s office.

“What is the meaning of this?!” the Burgermeister blusters as two armed adventurers crash on up the stairs to his room.

Valeria’s got this. “Your town is in danger! Your people need you!” she cries, rolling well on her charisma check to absolutely sell that she’s Healing Him With Her Divine Light and spurring him on to heroism.

He springs forth from his bed, his ailment clearly Magically Cured, and begins to dress in a hurry. “Dear, fetch my hat. And my ring!”

Once he has his big fur coat and symbol of office, he’s ready to roll. As they step out of house, they can see the Inquisitor approaching the center of town with large group of Penitents at his back. Valeria and Gral position themselves behind the Burgermeister, lending some muscle while they let him lead the show.

Meanwhile, Clem and Shoshana are hurriedly explaining the plan to Lieutenant Vanessa. She’s real leery of the orcs, but she likes the Penitents even less.

“When is this going down?” she asks, reluctantly acquiescing.

“Uhhh…right the hell now. We gotta get to the gate.”

As they head there at top speed, Shoshana fires off Message spells to Remick, the Fairgolds, and the goliaths: “IT’S GOING DOWN. IN THE CENTER OF TOWN.”

As they hustle into town, Gral and Valeria are busily filling the Burgermeister in on the events of the past couple of weeks. He’s appalled. “I had no idea they’d gone so far! We will convene town council and vote immediately!”

The Inquisitor has beat them to the town square. He’s standing on the plinth of the statue of Three Oaks, his voice booming thaumaturgically over a gathering crowd. He’s surrounded by a solid wall of beefy knights. Remick and the (former) Sheriff are already there, protesting their case but overshadowed by the Penitent show of force.

Despite his blindness, the Inquisitor turns to sneer at Gral and Valeria with unerring accuracy. “Burgermeister Menner,” he booms, “Do not listen to the lies of this pretender to Rack’s glory. Do not be dissuaded from the true path we have begun!”

The Burgermeister rumbles, “Stand down, Inquisitor! I must examine the situation myself!”

The Inquisitor’s unpleasantly serene demeanor seems almost ruffled. “We have held up our end of the agreement and kept your town safe from the ravages of the Curse. To abandon our mission now is to doom these innocent people.”

Valeria interjects. “You’re also protecting this town from COMMERCE.”

Gral joins the heckling. “Ooh, you should check out their underground prison! They keep the ones that would be hard to justify down there.”

The Burgermeister is going red in the face as the evidence builds. “INQUISITOR, TAKE YOUR PEOPLE AND LEAVE THIS TOWN,” he booms.

The Inquisitor hisses, “And then what? You abandon your people? The next group of cultists will slit your throats in the night as sacrifices for their heathen gods.”

Meanwhile, Shoshana, Clem, and Vanessa have made it to the gate.

“Open the gate!” Vanessa commands the guardsmen.

One of the Penitents reaches out a hand to stop her. “The gate shall remain shut,” he intones. “The Inquisitor has commanded it so.”

“Listen to me, open the gate!” she shouts at her men, ignoring the knight.

“Uh, Lieutenant?” one of them calls. “There’s something coming in on the other side?!”

“Yep, that’s the plan!” she shouts, Shoshana and Clem taking advantage of the distraction to maul the Penitent.

Back in the center of town, a cry goes up from the Penitents. One shouts to the Inquisitor, “They assault the gods at the gate!”

Burgermeister Menner is again baffled. “What’s going on?!”

Valeria smiles. “We didn’t plan on leaving your town without protection, of course! Help is coming, but the Inquisitor here is trying to keep them out.”

“Er, what sort of help?”

“Some compatriots of mine,” Gral replies, maybe a touch smugly. “I can vouch for them being much saner than your current protectors.”

Someone’s just come running from the sheriff’s office. Apparently, a pair of burly goliaths have rushed the prison?

“I wouldn’t worry,” Gral assures the Burgermeister. “Those two have just been very concerned for the welfare of their employer.”

“What? Who?”

“A respected scholar from the University of Aurentium. Apparently, knowledge is heresy these days.”

The Burgermeister is not pleased to learn ANY of this.

Valeria and the Inquisitor radiate holy rage at each other, contesting Persuasion checks. Valeria wins, and the Burgermeister and the townsfolk are on her side.

Back at gate, damaged knight enough that Vanessa could open gate, and line of outriders, trollsfear at head w/ barbed spear, firesong beating drumscool entrance music

I introduce captain and sheriff

The Inquisitor loses another round of skill checks, Intimidation this time.

“I can see we are no longer wanted,” he intones, his oily calm almost hiding his fury. “Brothers, we leave this town to its fate!”

As the Penitents prepare to leave, several of their lackeys enter the sheriff’s office and begin to load up chests of seized goods. Valeria clears her throat. “Excuse me! Do you think you’re taking the trade goods of this town as well?”

“These are dangerous items!” the Inquisitor hisses, his composure briefly wavering. “They have already been remanded into our custody. Just because the agreement has been cancelled doesn’t mean it was never in effect.”

“From what I’ve heard, they aren’t all as dangerous as you say,” she retorts.

“And I don’t think looting the town was illuminated in the agreement,” Gral argues smoothly.

A good persuasion roll does the trick, and the Burgermeister orders the city militia to seize the chests.

The Inquisitor glances around, sizing up the situation. “Very well,” he intones, “The doom is on you.” His men drop the chests, and the Penitents start to leave town.

The Burgermeister coughs awkwardly, looking around to the admittedly intimidating orcish delegation. “Yes! Very well! Erm. Captain Trollsfear, was it? I understand we will have to, er, negotiate somewhat…”

Shoshana steps in to make introductions, though eventually she leaves the translating to Firesong and goes to help release the prisoners in the sheriff’s office.

Valeria wants to Detect Magic on the chests of items to see whether they’re really cursed. Just as the DM is warning that might not always work, a haggard Lucinius Galvan stumbles out of the sheriff’s office. He can cast Identify if we need. He’s going to hug his returned notes and cry for a bit, though.

With Lucinius’ help, Valeria begins distributing the seized items to any original owners that might still be in town, and Clem starts providing medical aid to the prisoners who have been roughed up by the Penitents.

Gral plays diplomat with the Burgermeister and the orc outriders – nothing permanent can be decided without the actual orc government, so a few outriders are going to stay and help the militia while the rest go to Shieldeater, make their report, and get a formal embassy sent who can actually negotiate guards and trade and stuff. Y’know, ACTUAL diplomats.

Once things have settled down a bit, we hunt down Lucinius and pull out the sketches Valeria made of the Mornheim mummy’s tattoos. His eyes instantly light up.

“These markings are largely symbolic language rather than literal words. Much like arcane runes! But I can tell you now – this is fascinating! A collaboration between the Aquilians and the Valdians would explain a lot of the strange things I’ve seen in my research so far! There’s a central word repeated throughout these tattoos – some sort of organizational marking, similar to the rose crest in your armor, but tattooed on the skin. This root word, which appears in both the Old Valdian and the Old High Aquilian, translates to…the closest equivalent would be ‘Warden.’”

Huh. Someone dedicated to guarding the Prisoners, perhaps?

“The word has a variety of meanings, of course. It could refer to guarding prisoners, guarding or caretaking a particular location – but definitely some sort of Warden. This individual seems to have belonged to some sort of organization that is both druidic and Aquilian, and would define itself as wardens! I’ll need to study this further – can I keep this?”

He’s told us what we need, so we’re happy to let him take it.

“Still, I wouldn’t dare formally present my findings yet,” he rambles. “‘Wardens’ could just be Valdian mercenaries in the Aquilian army, and it would unbecoming of a professional of my stature to overstate and romanticize – maybe they’re just a group of enthusiastic auxiliary watchmen, or some sort of game warden-”

Gral pipes up. “Eh, from the situation we found the body in, I kinda doubt it.”

“Oh, what situation?”

“Some cultists were gonna bring it back as a mega-zombie. Big fancy ritual and everything.”

“Hmm. How was the individual buried, do you know?”

“Mummified.”

“Oh!” Lucinius exclaims. “Well, that certainly lends credence to the idea of a person of significant importance!”

He’s quite cheered up, with a new puzzle to research. “I’ll look into this at my next destination - I’m on my way to Hoeska castle! Your delightful friend Witness Beatrice told me there was quite an impressive library of Valdian folklore there! I wanted to see if they’d let me borrow a few volumes.”

Hoeska is Cursebreaker HQ, so we tell him to say hi to Ser Quentin for us, though we warn him he’s a bit abrasive.

“PLEASE, I’ve sat next to Professor Desmond of the Antiquities Department at no less than three dinners, I can HANDLE abrasive.”

Eventually the sun begins to go down. We make camp and plan our next move. Flynn is sulking super hard – Fiona manages to convey he’s rather miffed we went off and saved the day without him, AGAIN. They’re going to go escort our civilian friends Aaron and Rebecca to Holzog and have their OWN adventures. Hmph!

It’s time to bring our water purifier spell to Mornheim. We decide to drop our holy sword in the old trollstones north of the city – supposedly, that’s the underground source of the River Morn, so dropping the cure there should ensure clean water for the town.

With a clear goal in mind, we cut session and let the party get some sleep.

[cursewoodrecap]

Session 14: Nice Sociable Folk

Everyone is very nice to us, except one grumpy guy.

This one fought me, folks. And Quarantine Depression didn’t really help. So it’s a bit less pared-down than it could be. But speaking of people who should probably be quarantined, have some virulent fungus.

We return to the scene: Valeria has just unceremoniously yanked a mandrake root out of the ground, and it’s doing what mandrakes do, screaming at the top of its lungs (...do plants have lungs???) and raising hell. Which is not GREAT if you’re in the middle of the Spooky Woods Where Monsters Live.

We’re reckless idiots, but that’s on brand.

Shoshana rolls a Nature check to know it’ll stop screaming on its own eventually, and that getting it into our Haversack will stop or dull the noise. Otherwise, the recommended mandrake-harvesting technique is that extreme heat or cold will stun its screaming. Usually people harvest them with daggers heated over a flame.

Problem: Shoshana is only one who knows this, Clem and Val are stunned, and it’s LOUD, so it’s hard to talk. So it’s up to the sorcerer to handle it. She doesn’t want to burn the dang thing to a crisp and make it useless as a spell component, so blasting it with magic is right out. She snatches a torch out of Clem’s backpack and lights it, heating up her small dagger.

Clem fails to shake off the stun, but Valeria recovers. Gral throws an inspiration at Clem, who’s still stuck, and frantically glances around the area to see if the BIG LOUD NOISE has alerted any enemies. In fact, it very much has. A variety of heavy shapes are uprooting themselves out of the dirt, turning blank mossy faces towards us. 

Shosha tries to hurry up on silencing the mandrake, but her haste causes her to fumble it. At least she doesn’t damage the plant.

Gral, still watching, sees the grassy, lumpy creatures pick up rocks and start hurling them. Shoshana gets bonked. A rock bounces off Valeria’s armor. Gral’s looking at those ones, when another one hefts out of the ground behind him and conks him with a big ol’ stone.

“Ah,” Valeria observes. “Yeetroots.”

Clem, even with inspiration, still fails to unstun herself, clutching her hands to her sensitive elven ears.

Gral swings his sickle into a yeetroot’s rooty, tuberous body, a thick sap dripping from the gaping wound. Meanwhile, Shoshana takes a second stab with her hot dagger and manages to silence the awful screaming.

The one Gral bloodied picks him up entirely and yeets him at Clem. Gral bounces off the drow’s armor comically. Clem remains completely undamaged while Gral pouts at being unwillingly Fastball Specialed. Valeria and Shoshana scatter, dodging another volley of heavy rocks.

Taking an entire orc to the face, though, finally breaks Clem out of the stun. She’s ready to lumberjack down some trees - oh, wait, Gral’s lying there moaning. The battle medic gives him a good slather of Space Mayo, and he’s fine, though he probably smells like a sandwich.

Gral and Shoshana pop off a couple of spells for minor effect, the tuberous creatures shrugging off most of the effects. They’re bothered enough to retaliate, though; the one Valeria’s facing off against hefts her into the air for another round of PC Bowling, flattening Shoshana. The hail of rocks from the rest of the Yeetroots doesn’t let up, but their aim is only mediocre.

Aethis snacks on a root-person Valeria nicely carves up for them, and as Clem gets to slicing and dicing it looks like the fight’s falling in our favor.

Suddenly, a short human guy in rough clothing charges ungracefully out of the woods, crossing through the undergrowth strangely quickly for someone so unathletic-looking. He clonks a Yeetroot over the head with a long wooden staff, whacking it a few times for good measure so it stays down, and then looks up at us with a frustrated expression. “What the hell are you kids doing? Get out of here!” he shouts irritably, like we’re trespassing on his lawn. 

He’s got a bit of an accent. It’s much heavier than Shoshana’s; even by her small-town standards it’s the rural accent of someone who speaks Old Valdian regularly.

Gral Dissonant Whispers a Yeetroot, causing it to run past Clem and the Old Dude. It runs straight into Clem’s sword and dies. Shoshana, Valeria, and Aethis efficiently dismantle the last one standing.

Clem’s ears, still sore from the mandrake’s cry, pick up additional movement through the woods. Sounds like the Yeetroots weren’t the only ones interested in loud, clumsy prey.

The old man seems to know it too, and he starts to scold us. “Pulling a mandrake while the woods are like this? Dummkopfen! Now get outta here! Scram!”

“I’m sorry, we didn’t have a choice-“

“What are you doin’ yakkin’? MOVE!” he shouts, turning and dashing into the underbrush. Shoshana barely catches him muttering “those IDIOTS” in Old Valdian as he scrams.

Well, we’re definitely not gonna stick around either. Old Dude went northeast. The Sturmhearst camp is to the south. We’re all thinking this weird crotchety old man is a druid, so he’s gonna know the best way to go and also we could totally ask him a few burning questions. With a concise nod to each other, we dash after the druid, Valeria swinging herself up onto Aethis’ back.

The wooooooooods are aliiiiiiiive, with the sound of monsterrrrrs, but following the druid’s trail we manage to dodge down an old gully and manage to shake any of them who came to investigate the commotion. Unfortunately, we’ve just put all those monsters in between us and the Sturmhearst camp. We pause, crouched in creek bed, as the last walking tree’s footfalls fade into the distance.

Gral breaks the silence: “…wait, was that a druid?”

Shoshana grumps. “How are we gonna FIND him? He could be a SQUIRREL by now! And I’m surprised he even speaks city-folk Valdian.”

We got the sense of how he moved – he hasn’t left a footprint, but we’ve picked up his pattern a bit. We could keep following him, and Valeria suggests the quest will give time for the monsters attracted by our noise to disperse. Gral doesn’t want to pass up the opportunity to find out what the Druids know about the Prisoners, and Valeria’s hopeful he might have seen the other Order of the Rose knight about.

Shoshana beefs her Survival check. We’ve been doing well following his pattern of not disturbing plant or animal tracks, trying to think like a druid wood. But we hit a dead end.

And then Clem casually points out some tracks none of the rest of us can even make out.

Please. Clem Haxan has tracked wood elf partisans. One aging human is nothing.

We follow Clem’s lead for about an hour. As midday approaches, we notice the sense of vibrant, chaotic, suffocating life is fading a little, and the sickening-sweet scent of flowers and spores has lessened. We come upon a grove of trees, standing tall, centered around one utterly massive tree in the middle whose canopy is just barely open enough to allow beams of light to spear through. In every beam, a sapling has begun to grow. Others, a little more seasoned, have grown tall and thin to push up through the great tree’s canopy.

Deeper in the grove, Shoshana can hear a voice in Old Valdian, and it’s mostly swearing.

“Dumb fuckin’ kids, I swear, first it was those meshuggenah bird mask idiots, now we got - what the hell were those morons doing, stirring everything up? Hard enough when the woods are just tryin’ to kill ME without having to keep an eye our for-”

It seems to be a one-sided conversation. Rambling, but pausing for responses that we can’t hear. Shoshana cautiously steps closer.

She wants to be respectful, but the closest thing Old Valdian has to deferential is a greeting without commentary. “...Hello?”

The voice pauses, and then speaks to its silent companion. “Do ya hear something? Go check it out.”

We all roll real bad Perception. Gral is starin’ real hard, and he only sees a squirrel loop the big tree. We don’t hear the druid say anything else.

She tries a Message cantrip: “We wish to respect your solitude, but we need to speak with you.” Hopefully a decent Persuasion roll will do.

“Wait. Hold up,” the voice grumbles in Old Valdian, heaving a massive sigh. “They’re idiots, they’re not gonna-” 

Something big makes a “GRAAHK” noise. 

“No, they’re not gonna go away unless I talk to them. Look, they followed me here. I knew it was unavoidable.” He calls out to us in common Valdian. “All right, come on in, no funny business.”

Being seasoned D&D players, we’re hesitant to cross the giant patch of fallen leaves, but it turns out it’s not a booby trap; it’s just what happens when you’re under a big ol’ tree. They are pleasingly crunchy and probably serve as an excellent intruder warning.

The druid isn’t pleased with our caution. “Either leave or come over here! Let’s get this over with.”

We circle the tree to find a small hut in a sunbeam, with a little garden. The old guy, looking like a hippie Danny DeVito, is sitting outside on a fallen log, prodding a small campfire with a stick as he heats a kettle over it. More notably, there is an owlbear curled up next to the fire.

“I wouldn’t get too close, he likes eatin’ fingers,” the druid grumps. “That’s why he’s called Fingers.”

“Oh! This is Aethis, and I’m Kyr Va-”

“Yeah, yeah, get to the point.”

“Are you a druid?”

“Ah, right to the point.”

We manage to stumble over a quick introduction, and that we want to ask him about the Druids’ actions against the artist’s colony in Holzog.

“So all druids know each other, huh?” He starts peeling a potato, unimpressed.

"I don’t know how druids work! There was an organized attack against cultists of the Key, at an artist's colony at Holzog Valley. Do you know of this, and are the Druids in an organized resistance against the Prisoners?"

 “Are druids an organized anything?” Shoshana snarks.

Druid DeVito rolls his eyes. “Look, mask guy. I go where I’m needed. I don’t know anything about what’s going on in Holzog. I barely know what’s going on here, I just got here!”

“You... just got here?”

“Yeah, like a month or two ago. Hard to get lay of the land when EVERYTHING’S TRYIN TA KILL YOU, not to mention it’s hard to get a handle on things when idiot adventurers are runnin’ around STIRRIN’ THINGS UP!”

Gral soldiers on. “Well, what do you know of the curse corrupting this area? We were here gathering supplies for a ritual, but it seems like there is also trouble here, what with the villagers and the trolls."

Gral is very polite, so the druid grudgingly answers. “Look, here’s how it goes. This” – he taps the tree – “is Mother Tree. It’s important, for reasons. There’s always supposed to be a druid warden here. But something happened. She’s gone now. So I heard it through the grapevine, and I got called in.”

“Was it a literal grapevine?” 

“The old bag and the windy bastard have ways of getting in touch with us, if we’re needed. They told me I gotta go here and – well, so I came. I’m tryin’ to figure out what happened to old warden, figure out what I can do to keep the place safe. It’s a lotta work! But right now I’m trying to make lunch. Because lemme tell you, this owlbear is a lot calmer than most of his type, but he WILL eat me if he gets too hungry.”

“As far as what I know about it? Half the valley got taken. Everything west of the river got overgrown. Haven’t spent much time on the other side; I don’t wanna get spotted. You see what happens when somebody gets a look at me.” He gestures dismissively to all of us. “No good deed, and all that.”

“So half the valley got overgrown. My sources tell me the other half is honestly not doin’ much better, even though it looks better on the outside. Like I said, I’m still tryin’ to get my networks up and running, which is difficult when most of my sources are working for the enemy.”

“Yeah, the villagers have fungus brain,” Shoshana tells him. “Someone who came from this village seemed to be corrupted by fungus, and was working to encourage its spread. Also, they’re bringing in a Fuckton of Trolls to Bad Herzfeld. Which, if they get fungused, is...bad.”

Valeria, meanwhile, is attempting to feed the owlbear some granola. After a moment, she elects to just toss the bag in its direction. Handfeeding an owlbear is Not Wise.

“I’ll add that to my list of problems,” the old man grumbles. “Bunch of sporebrained trolls, sporebrained villagers, plants tryna kill me…all right. How many they got so far?”

“One troll was definitely fungused, but he’s dead. There’s about 8 at the troll moot now. Their food stores look spore-free so far, but we’re going to be looking into the village more.”

“Yeah, they wouldn’t want to be corruptin’ ‘em yet, it’d tip their hand too early. Trolls are usually solitary types. With how the sporebrains work, any new arrivals would be majorly creeped out. They’d want to get a critical mass before they try to get ‘em brainwashed.”

We agree that’s probably the plan. We explain the situation in Holzog, and ask what he knows about the druids’ actions there and whether the druids are the Prisoners’ jailers.

He shrugs. “Me and mine, we don’t talk to each other much. We each got our beats to cover. It’s not like they give us a manual – we’re not super fond of writing things down. Rumor is there’s old sources – real old – that have some knowledge, but otherwise you gotta get lucky and get a visit from the bosses themselves. But they’ve never been the most reliable.”

“The...bosses? Like Baba and Gramps?” Shoshana asks, referring to the old grandmother and grandfather gods of the woods.

“Yeah, they don’t exactly come when you ring a bell. Now I don’t know what old rattlechains, or the angry lady, or the quiet guy, or the sneaky bastard are like, but the chiefs aren’t communicative at the best of times. And since this fakakta Curse thing started they’ve been harder to get a hold of. We get our orders, they keep us busy, but there ain’t much in the way of answers. I’m told to guard this place, and do my thing. The ‘Prisoners,’ or whatever? That’s new to me.

“Look, stay away from the villagers, anyone especially friendly, anyone who talks about love, togetherness, caring, all that crap. Don’t go anyplace overgrown, anyplace with too many mushrooms. Spores will get in your brain.”

“I just do what I’m told. Or infer, really, I’m not told enough to do what I’m told.

If you wanna be helpful – something’s spreading this. The Curse spreads enough on its own, but something’s deliberately spreading it around. Go hunt for whatever’s doing that. Also, I can’t find previous warden – y’know, the person whose beat this is supposed to be.

He’s mostly losing interest in us, but can’t resist one last jab. “What do you need that mandrake for anyway? Half the things you think they can do, they can’t.”

Valeria jumps at the chance to talk about her Quest. “Over in Mornheim they’re dealing with the undead sort of curse. There’s a disease in the water affecting the whole population, and we found a ritual to purify the river! It’s not the sort of magic I usually work with, but I think I can make it function with the plants that I need. I’ve got almost all of them!”

“Hmm. Whatcha missin’?”

We check our notes. “Norbert’s Wort?”

Those Sturmhearst guys might have some, if you wanna try to get it off ‘em. Or there’s a bunch of it growin’ not far from the riverbank. Lemme see this ritual of yours, I wanna make sure you’re not wastin’ your time.”

He gives it the once-over with a surprisingly appreciative eye. “Oh, huh. Rosalind’s work.” He rolls up the scroll, slaps it back into Valeria’s claws, and turns to walk out into the wood. “Get outta here. I got things to do. If you stick around, Fingers will eat ya.”

Wait.

There’s a beat, and then Shoshana starts yelling. “WAIT, ROSALIND? BECAUSE WE FOUND THIS IN THE HOUSE OF A LADY NAMED ROSALIND. AND I DIDN’T THINK YOU GUYS WERE INTO HOUSES? WAIT COME BACK SHE’S A GHOST NOWWWWWW-”

He’s gone. Dammit.

We wave goodbye to Fingers.

As we cautiously make our way out of the grove, Gral is asked to make a Charisma check. A leaf, still stuck to a small bent twig, falls from the great tree and gently helicopters down. He reaches up a hand and catches it out of the air, easily, as if it was intended to find his hand. With an excellent perception check, he glances up and sees the silhouette of a motherly face in the branches. It’s hard to spot among the rustling green canopy, but it’s looking down at us from the branches - he can almost see a wooden torso in one branch – and then the shape pulls back into the branch, moving through it like sand.

Gral experiences an internal hell yes.

Gral has received: one twig with some leaves! It has vibes. This thing is definitely special, and a gift – not from the druid, but from the Mother Tree.

It clearly has Properties, but we do not know what they are.

So, what next? Trying to get the last plant for the spell has a nonzero chance of getting us lost overnight. We could stop by the Sturmhearst annex, or check in on the trolls....wait. Dang it. This morning we told that old lady we’d stay in town overnight. And we’ve already stood up one dinner invitation this arc.

As Clem capably leads us around dangers and toward Sturmhearst, Gral stares at his twig. He can see the leaves seem to move without wind, and he slowly realizes he’s able to predict which ways Clem is gonna lead us based on which way the leaf radar blows. It seems the gift can help find safe passage in the wood!

With a good survival check, we manage to skirt all dangers and the riled-up zone. Once again we smell acrid smoke from Sturmhearst camp and pass by the impassive looking giant owl guards with their flamethrowers. We see Rita the robot chicken hop by with something in her mouth, and follow her into camp. She ignores us and bops right up into the house that contains Prof. Ulmus’ lab.

Hey, we should go check on Flynn! A student directs us to where they’ve set up their clinic in an old barn, and soon we are confronted with a steely-eyed Fiona, arms crossed, glaring at us. “Hi, we, uh-”

She is silent, as usual, but Valeria rolls a nat 20 insight and can read her face like a book. She’s mad that we didn’t come back when we said we would – we made them worry, and also left them alone in this den of academic madness.

Valeria stumbles over a sincere apology until she is interrupted by a solid barbarian hug.

The paladin takes this as her opening to gossip about our day. “We got plants! And got real lost! We slept over a troll’s place!” Fiona makes a surprised gesture. “Yeah, there’s like eight. They have HOUSES. It’s surreal?!?!?! One of them thinks he’s a doctor!”

She’s interrupted when Dr. Ulmus sticks her hand through a curtain and hands off a vial of blood. Valeria now has blood. “Take this to my lab, please.”

Valeria blinks. “O...kay?” She dutifully leaves to take the blood to the lab.

Shoshana can’t keep her mouth shut. “Uh, ma’am? ….did you not notice that wasn’t a grad student?”

“Hm?”

“You gave this to the paladin.”

“…Good. She’ll follow orders. WAIT, YOU’RE BACK!” The doctor bursts through the curtain, beak-first.

“We come bearing fungus!” Clem gives her a vial of fungus. Clem is then ordered to take this to Prof Ulmus’s lab. She does. 

So now we have two tanks in a lab. They try to flag down a grad student and make them do it . No, too bad, they’re busy. Clem is like, what if I’m enormous and intimidating? But the grad student is not impressed. “Please. Do you know what kind of horrors I’m studying? You can’t terrify me.”

Valeria is like FFFF CAN YOU PLEASE JUST TELL ME WHERE THE BLOOD GOES. But the grad student leaves.

Oh hey, that rack has vials of red stuff. She puts the blood in the blood rack.

Clem shrugs, sets the fungus on a random table, and leaves.

Back at the clinic, a pale and haggard Flynn stumbles out and leans on Fiona. “My sister was very worried,” he tells us, making a flimsy effort at his usual grandiosity. “I, of course, had total confidence in you!”

Fiona, deadpan, signs: [He cried.]

Professor Ulmus finally emerges in full. “Well, Mr. Fairgold, I’d say you’re well on your way to recovery! Practice those breathing exercises I showed you and take it easy for next few days.”

Valeria and Clem hustle back, spouting apologizes for missing dinner, because Valeria is polite and Clem is genuinely upset at missing the opportunity to pick the doctor’s brain about medicine.

“Hmm, yes, you’re back! Well, you’re all alive…” Professor Ulmus starts inspecting us, her beaked mask tilting this way and that. “…oh dear.” She prods Clem a bit. “Yes, hmm.” She briskly hands Clem some sort of compressed herb poultice. “You’ll want to eat this.” Clem immediately makes a med check. It’s some kind of medicine, I guess. Clem swallows it. It tastes super gross.

“So!” she chirps. “I look forward to hearing what you’ve learned. How was your expedition, did you find what you were looking for?”

“Most of it,” Valeria admits. “We’re still looking for Norbert’s Wort.”

“I have a bit, but it’s spoken for, I’m afraid. Anyhow, I believe a dinner was planned! It’s a good thing you didn’t show up last night, I forgot all about it. I had to do quite a lot of work on Mr. Fairgold. The fungal infestation in his lungs should be cleared up, although the treatment did leave some aftereffects. Nausea, some trouble breathing for a few days. Nothing major.”

Valeria just sort of awkwardly lifts her hand, offering Lay Ons. He waves her off, bluffing his way past her insight. Sure, he’s fiiiiiiiine.

“He was fortunate. Not the worst I’ve seen – something worse would have required a substantially more radical treatment. More invasive, too. Were any of you exposed?”

“Uhh, not to that, but to other things?” We tell her about the Snorlax bear over a plate of sandwiches.

“Yes, I’ve seen similar phenomena – a fungal colony hijacking a living creature. Unfortunately that’s where my expertise ends – I might have to discuss with my, ugh, colleague in the aberrant biology department.”

Valeria tells her about the dream mushroom feast. “So you tripped on mushrooms and hallucinated and fought some mushroom men. We’ve all been there.” The professor waves it off with disinterest. “Yes, spooky curse magic messing with your mind, I’m sure it was harrowing. And/or enlightening. But I don’t have time for spooky magics; I’m a woman of SCIENCE! Speaking of, Clementine, where did you put that fungus?”

“On a table with similar looking specimens?” 

“Pardon me a moment.” She immediately stands and runs. We see a huge guard stomp toward the lab. Then flamethrower noises. There’s a bit of screaming. 

She emerges slightly scorched, fixing her coat. “That…was the wrong table. It’s cross contaminated! Well, I suppose that’s the cost of science. Sometimes, in order to make great discoveries, you must burn a table of samples before they kill you.”

“I’m sorry, I asked a grad student and he said put it anywhere, really!” Clem bluffs.

“Which one?” 

“....um, a short guy wearing a bird mask?

“Ah, Jean-Pierre, I know him. We will have words later. Never trust an entomologist, they’ve all got a head full of beetles or something. So! What’s next for you? I can’t say we have a ton of room here, but I’m sure we can try to find somewhere for you to stay...”

Valeria idly taps the clear bead on her earring chain. “Well, we DID promise to stay at the inn in town tonight...”

Ulmus hums discontentedly. “I trust the villagers precisely as far as my guards can throw them.”

Shoshana butts in. “Right? Okay, because the last time we stayed in a fungus person’s house I was RIGHT and it SUCKED.”

We go back and forth, deciding we’ll keep our promise but stay in the annex for dinner. A feast in Mushroom Town sounds...ominous.

Clem, determined, asks the professor if she can have a flamethrower. Sadly, it doesn’t matter how much Clem pleads her strength and skill, those had to be SPECIALLY REQUISITIONED from the ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT. She had to call in favors! Now if you’ll excuse her, she has work to do.

We have an early dinner, and then head to other side of river for the first time. The difference could not be more marked. If this wasn’t German old-growth forest, the other side would be a jungle (a fungus jungle? A fungle.); these are lush, rolling, well-tamed agricultural fields dotted with quaint farmhouses; rural but civilized. 

The “town” is a bare handful of buildings clustered around a small mill. A general store, the mill, the inn, a sheriff’s office, and that’s really it. Blacksmith. Handful of tradespeople. Pretty standard – these are people who live to support the surrounding farmers.

Not far from there we can see the Farmers’ Temple we heard about, a plain round wooden structure with large carved symbols for Rack, Torme, and Lethe. By Valeria’s standards, it’s the absolute bare minimum of what counts as a temple. “They’re trying, I appreciate that.”

As we travel into town, Valeria can see that the people on this side of river seem to fall firmly into 1 of 2 camps: some are incredibly healthy, almost overly large and well-fed, and very happy. The other half seems sickly. Not as bad as Mornheim, but we can easily sort people into Kinda Sickly or Big Healthy. There’s a lot of coughing. Perhaps the Medusoid Mycelium?!

It’s nearly sunset; we head down to the inn. There’s a couple of people sitting around the inn, farmers getting a drink after making deliveries to the mill. A friendly innkeeper named Aaron greets us. “Ah, you must be the people I’ve heard about!”

“Yes, Zelig told you about us?”

“Yeah, I’ve got some rooms prepped for ya. What brings you to town? We don’t get many of your type around – knights, or whatever you are.”

“Oh, we heard there’d been another Knight of the Rose around,” Shoshana probes.

“That’s what Zelig says, haven’t seen him.”

“Well, uh, thank you for your hospitality?”

We head upstairs, breaking into our usual pairs of roommates - Clem with Gral, Valeria with Shoshana, Aethis in the stables weirding out the horses.

Clem, the wary soldier, checks around to ensure the room is secure. She finds something! A note has been tucked into the mattress. “YOU ARE IN DANGER. COME DOWNSTAIRS AFTER THE SERVICES START AT THE TEMPLE.”

Huh.

She tells the rest of us. Everyone is like, “...yeah, we already knew that?” But it’s excellent news that not every villager is in on it.

There’s a knock on Clem’s door. A nervous young woman is standing there, holding a tray full of pastries. “Hey, uh. My dad wanted me to give you these. They’re leftover, they’d just go stale anyway.” 

“Oh, uh, thank you! Much obliged. Um, will that be all?”

“Try ‘em, at least take a look at them. They’re pretty good,” the girl tells her insistently, and scurries off.

Clem and Gral immediately inspect the pastries suspiciously. Pulling one apart - sure enough, there’s a note stuffed in a pastry! It says “CHECK UNDER THE BED.”

Under the bed, where Clem found the first note.

Gral pops down to the tavern area to get a few more deets from Aaron the innkeeper. Turns out temple services start after sundown. “You’ll know it, you’ll see people headin’ towards it. Why, you thinkin of attending?”

“We have a paladin with us, she’s always interested in the local religious customs.”

“It’s nothing you’d be interested in. More of a town hall meeting than anything.”

“I understand. Thank you for the pastries, they were absolutely delicious!”

“Oh, thanks kindly! Sleep well.”

Sure enough, as the sun sets we see lights in the dark as people start streaming in from across the valley to the Farmers’ Temple.

Once it looks like the last stragglers have made it into the service, Clem knocks on wall separating our rooms, as a signal, and we head downstairs. We try to be quiet about it. Aaron and his daughter are there, cloaked and ready for travel. His daughter has a hooded lantern in her hand.

“I don’t know what you people came here for, but you’re not gonna find it here,” whispers the innkeeper urgently. “You have to leave.”

“What kind of danger?”

“I keep my ears open. Zelig came back this morning, told some people about some outsiders, guests – told us to have rooms ready for them, and then stay out of their way when they came for you tonight. I don’t know how long we have – they always go to temple first, but the clock’s running. I don’t know you much, but you seem-“

“This has happened before?” Valeria breaks in, concerned.

“Not in so many words, but, yeah. People have gone missing. Last time we couldn’t do anything about it. We weren’t warned; they just showed up in the night. This time they were worried – there’s more of you, and better armed. Last time was just traveling merchants.”

Gral nods. "We came here looking to find what 'they' were planning at the troll moot. We don't just want to run away, but if you're in danger for housing us, that can wait. What's next?"

“The troll moot? Yeah that’s fishy, but I don’t know how to warn ‘em away. You folks seem connected, can you get word out about this place? But be discreet. I’ve heard stories about the Penitents, and I don’t want no part of that either. There’s still good people here. A lot of people in that temple there, though – I would have sworn they were good people too, until this all started. I’m not sure what it’s all about. We haven’t been going to services, and so far they haven’t forced us to. But they had folks posted in the inn, makin’ sure you showed up tonight. 

“You gotta get moving. Rebecca can get you to someplace safe. Slip out now, and finish leaving the valley tomorrow night.”

Clem insights ‘em, and then seem genuinely honest and concerned for us.

“Whatever this is, something about you guys has them spooked, so I wanna make sure you survive. There’s strange things afoot in Herzfeld these days.”

“Would they let you leave?” Valeria asks.

“I don’t wanna know what would happen if we tried. So far they’ve been content to let us keep running the inn, serving ‘em drinks.”

“How have you evaded their influence?” Clem asks suspiciously. “What makes you the exception?”

“Not everybody’s one of ‘em. The woman, Zelig, she came out of the woods a couple months ago after the other side of river fell. She started talkin’ to people, sayin’ she knew way to protect us. People were scared, ‘specially since the old cleric went over to the other side of the river and never came back. A bunch of people went down to the temple to hear her say her piece. 

“Those that went – not all of them came back. Afterwards, she started holding services regularly. Meetings, gatherings, whatever. Those that go, their crops flourish, they get strong and healthy. Those that don’t start to get sick. Their crops die. And once people start getting sick, everyone tells ‘em to go to temple and pray about it.”

I don’t know why Rebecca and I have managed to avoid the brunt of it so far.”

Rebecca pipes up. “I’ve snuck into the temple during day, it’s open to everyone. It seems fine mostly, bit run down – everything seems to be in place. But whatever’s going on there, it’s weird. The point is, I can take you to a safe place.”

Her dad nods. “I dunno where it is. Safer that way.”

Rebecca continues, her face too grim for her young age. “I’ve been smuggling people out of the valley. Mostly, people who oppose Zelig just vanish. Dad keeps the inn running and keeps his ears open. Anyone we suspect might be in danger, we get them out.”

Valeria considers. “We’re not going until we figure out what’s going on, but staying safe for tonight is not a bad idea.”

“I don’t know how long the service will go. It can be ten minutes, it can be an hour. We have to get moving, now.”

We hurriedly discuss: we want to know what happens at the mysterious services, but Valeria and Clem aren’t exactly built for stealth. Rebecca says that during the service itself, the town’s pretty deserted - everyone either goes in or stays well away.

We decide to split the party: Rebecca will take Team Clank to meet her friends at the safe house; Gral and Shoshana will sneak up to the temple.

 “I can’t tell you where safe house is; if you get captured, you’ll spill. Meet me at the top of hill there. I’ll be hiding in the bushes right by the old fence.”

The shadowy huntress and the subtle bard manage to get close without giving themselves away. Gral gets right up next to a window, and listens in, staying out of the window’s line of sight.

Zelig’s voice booms out, rich and strong: “Brothers, Sisters, we come to our next business. You have heard of the outsiders. They come, they question us. They question our ways, our motives. They endanger our sacred project with our brethren amongst the trolls. Do not fear, for we have a solution: I sense in them a great capacity for love and understanding. Tonight we shall find them, and give them a chance to join in our love. Should they not, should they hold hatred in their hearts, then those hearts may be hollowed and made ready for our love. Come brothers, come sisters, come family.”

Gral minor illusions the hue of the night sky onto his face, hoping it’s enough cover to peek in the window unnoticed.

“It is time. First, let us renew our bonds,” the old woman intones. Zelig stands in the center of the circular room. All the people around her are tall, strong, and glowing with health, crowded together, holding hands. Zelig taps a floorboard, and Hans and Frans solemnly move to pry up the board. 

Underneath is a lush green carpet of plant life. Fungus and vines creep out of the floorboard, growing at an impossible rate. Everyone stands as a wave of vegetable and fungal matter extends through temple, climbing up the worshippers’ legs and enveloping their bodies entirely. As Hans and Frans pull back the boards, a frame rises up; vines work their way into frame, forming a picture. Blooming flowers and different shades of leaves and lichen form the image of a female figure, motherly looking, bound in roots. Yet another tapestry?

The worshippers speak in eerie unison. “Though bound, she will be free. She is the growth. She is our love. She is protection. She will grow free of her bonds. We will grow as she does.” The chanting does not falter as the wave of plant matter entirely consumes the chamber. Gral ducks back under the window as the air chamber starts to fill with dense, cloudy spores.

He’s been relaying everything he sees to Shoshana with Message, and they both agree: We’ve seen what we can see, it’s time to get the hell out of here.

Meanwhile, Rebecca leads Valeria and Clem out of the town proper to a set of  rolling hills near an abandoned granary. There’s a cleverly hidden trapdoor set almost invisibly into the sod, leading down into a small network of caves.

“They used to use these caves to make cheese! Hmm...it should be this one tonight.” She bypasses several doors set into the earthy tunnels, stopping at one seemingly at random and knocking softly.

A voice on the other side whispers, “Who are you?”

 “One who seeks freedom,” Rebecca whispers back.

“And who are we?”

“The last Free Thieves!”

...What.

The door opens a crack, and Rebecca hurriedly herds the tanks through. “The guy in charge is the little guy. His name’s Henri Decannes. Him or one of his people will help you get out. I have to get your friends.” She runs back into night, vanishing into the darkness.

Valeria groans. She understands that stabbing Henri is not an appropriate action at this time, but dang would she enjoy it. And now she’s gonna have a DEBT to him? Maaaaaaaan.

As Gral begins to sneak back over to Shoshana, behind them, they hear the congregants start to move.

[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 7: Wait, Now We Have to Get Home Somehow

We have gone to fantastical places and seen improbable things! But we kind of want to play the setting we’ve planned for like a year, so I guess we gotta find our way back.

We’re not all assembled at the start of session, so before Officially Jumping Into A Portal, we take a few moments to mess around in the abandoned campground in the Drowned City.

Shoshana investigates one of the rusting metal vehicles that sit abandoned in the giant grey structure. She finds a cache of strange documents, written in a mysterious unknown language, in the glove compartment. She knows it’s the glove compartment because she also finds gloves. 

We read through the notes we took from the Astronomer’s study. A lot of it is technical and out of our grasp, but apparently the pattern etched into the walls functions to “weaken the barrier between realms” and “creates an artificial soft spot.” Luckily, we did not roll well enough to gain a Burning Curiosity To Learn More.

We write out a nice description of the Drowned City in our Pokedex notebook. Like in the paintings, the city is wide mix of buildings – some familiar, some alien. Districts seem to be differentiated by architectural style. However, scattered across the city in all districts, there’s this one style of weird dark buildings. They’re taller than most things and almost hurt our eyes to look at, made of glittering black stone and extending above the city. A bit in disrepair, and twisted in ways that physics would say are structurally unsound. Some have fallen over. 

I give it two stars on TripAdvisor for interesting architecture and readily available beachfront proximity, but the local wildlife is unfriendly and there isn’t much of a nightlife. 

Gral gets a “hey buddy, you okay?” after everything we found out about Bullbreaker and his comrades. The rundown: Gral is touched by Shoshana’s note, excited that Bullbreaker is alive, sad because he has his acquaintances’ remains, even though he’s done a lot of funeral services in his time. His determination is Bolstered! He’s going to protect the town of Holzog from the fate that befell his squad!

Oh hey, everybody’s here. Let’s pick up where we left off: hopping through an interdimensional portal.

We step out onto the path of stairs that we left, but it looks different than last time? First of all, the section of path we came here on is straight up gone. Everything seems to have rearranged itself entirely, because consistent geography is definitely not a thing here.

We can see what looks like an enormous telescope protruding out of a piece of building - the Astronomer’s tower! Between it and us is, instead of a path, a field of rocks floating gently in the void, like a tiny local asteroid belt. (Also a weird snail thing, but it’s minding its own business.) To get to the tower... we could jump between the rocks, maybe?

A voice shouts out in Valdian: “MURDERERS!”

Crouching on this weirdly spherical stone in the center of the asteroid field, there is a hulking figure, wearing what was once decent clothes. He has greyish, pale skin and no eyes, just sunken flesh pits where they once had been. He is swollen and grossly, misshapenly muscular, and five chisel-tipped tentacles stretch out of his back, like a meaty Doc Ock. More writhing tentacles come out of his sleeve instead of a hand; just a spaghetti of weird meat-limbs. (The DM informs us that we were enjoying the Key too much, so he had to drop in the word “meat-limbs.” Suffer.)

Shoshana is immediately offended because her avatar on the Roll20 map is Doc Ock from Into the Spider-Verse, and THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE.

Anyway he’s screaming at us about murder, so we should probably pay attention. “You killed it! It was the first of its kind! Just a child! Do you have any idea what it took to bring it into the world? It nearly found its way out! And you killed it!”

Someone picks up on his chisels for hands extremities and figures out that this must be the Sculptor, Karl Schossman. (Though now he’s more of a Schoss...thing.) And we definitely did kill his mimic statue.

“It attacked us. We were forced to act in self-defense,” Gral tells him diplomatically.

“It was a child! Frightened and hungry!”

“...to be fair, I was also frightened and hungry,” notes Clem.

“You don’t even know what you destroyed! The greatest work of sculpture ever created! My masterpiece!”

He’s on a roll now, so he has to monologue. “What makes the ultimate sculpture? Every sculpture that could ever exist, all in one. That is what I created! That is what the Key showed me how to make!” His tendrils start chipping at the stone under his feet, agitated. “And you just KILLED it!”

We’re surprised he knows about its death at all. He can get back to the House from here?

“Of course you can get back, when the gates are open. That’s how GATES work. Clearly you’re not only a philistine, but a fool. And a MURDERER!”

Turns out he can’t stay in the real world, once the gate closes – he’s only able to visit the house when it’s in-between both realms. “That’s why creating it took so long! That’s why what you have DONE-“

Gral, aside: “He’s more upset that we killed HIS thing than that we killed a living being. How selfish.”

Clem tries for an optimistic tone. “Hey, maybe now it’s just a new kind of art?”

“NO! You made it be one thing. It was every thing!”

Clem admits that maybe she just doesn’t get art.

“Well, now the ART will get YOU! Study in Stone #23, AVENGE!”

A carved piece of rock by his side groans, moves, and gets to its feet. A gargoyle!

“Shoshana got run over by a gargoyle, comin’ home from our house Christmas Eve...”

Valeria has the Ring of Jumping, so she’s MOON BOUNCIN’ all around the asteroids to get to the one the Sculptor’s on. We all immediately have to look up how jump mechanics work, and whether they allow for slam-dunk hang time physics. She hops to an asteroid near the gargoyle and SMITES. It would resist the physical damage, but as she smites, her rose vines tear into the gargoyle’s cracks and crevices, like ivy on an old building in fast-forward.

The DM is a little disappointed, because the gargoyle WAS gonna fly around and push people off the edge of the path out into the void, but Valeria has Sentinel, so it ain’t goin’ NOWHERE.

As Gral throws Faerie Fire at the sculptor, his weird stone-grey skin bursts into vibrant color. As the faerie dust goes toward the gargoyle, it is all sucked into the sculptor, negating its effect. He has the statblock of a flail snail! Antimagic shell! He weirdly tentacle-walks across the gaps without much trouble, but he’s not very fast. He streeeetches his tentacles to flail at Gral, but whiffs. Shoshana shoots the gargoyle with thunder, giving it some serious chips and cracks. Clem leaps asteroids and grabs the adamantine wrench we found, brandishing a weapon that might be hard enough to crack stone.

And then the DM grins, and the asteroids on our Roll20 map hit their initiative and start to move and shift through the void. Better hold on!

Valeria breathes ice at them, and Gral pops off a crossbow shot. The bolt spins off into the void and then falls back at Gral’s feet, like a boomerang. It’s kind of warped now though? Weird. Better pocket it.

“BEHOLD!” the Sculptor shouts. “YOU CAN SEE THE BRILLIANCE OF MY VISION!” His skin emits a dazzling blend of colors. Everyone within 30 ft makes a WIS save. Shoshana, hanging out in I’m A Spellcaster range, doesn’t have to. Clem, Valeria, and Gral. They are stunned by the brilliance of his vision for 1 round. Clem gasps. “I...I understand art now!”

Clem may now add “gets art” to her character sheet.

The gargoyle is crumbling away to dust as we hack and slash and shoot at it, but the Sculptor is a greater threat. His lashing chisel-tipped tentacles tear into the stunned Valeria, reducing her to 0hp. Luckily, since this part of the Curse does not work off desire for power or fear of death, she does not take Taint from it. Gral Healing Words her up.

The gargoyle has taken advantage of the stun to finally escape Valeria and hassle the spellcaster, but Shoshana handles her face fulla goyle decently, and her enhanced claws break apart the disintegrating stone for good. The Sculptor is not pleased. “Noooo! Number 23! Do none of you appreciate what I – I have suffered, and made others suffer – and I am a moral person, so making them suffer made ME suffer – for this art! And you just-! How dare you.”

Clem and Valeria fuckin stab him.

Gral tells him his art is tacky, which he is 1d4 of offended by. The Sculptor and the tanks trade heavy blows as Shoshana, hiding back on the path, misses all of her shots and feels bad about it. Another crossbow bolt boomerangs back to Gral. This one has an eye now!

He tells us our aesthetic is weak. Gral notes this is rude, but kind of accurate.

Finally, we do enough damage to start ripping off tentacles. Valeria catches one in her trident and twirls it like spaghetti, popping it right off.

Clem scores the final blow. She looks him in the eye and growls, “I understand your art. And I find it wanting.”

Then she cleaves him in half and boots him off the asteroid. His two halves float out into space, shouting “EVERYONE’S A CRITIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIC”

Fight over. Everyone finishes hopping asteroids onto the next solid section of path. Except for our poor spindly sorceress, who rolled a 2 and has a Strength score of Bad. Valeria has to moon-bounce back over and bridal-carry her across, with her Ring of Boing and her Arms of Beef. Shoshana, pressed up close against the chest of a muscular, buff dragon-woman, is feelin’ some kind of way. 😳

We pass by a big shiny disc platform covered in strange symbols. Valeria feels, in her mind, that the Answers Are There if you just…let them in��� 

She makes her save and is like Oh Yeah, That’s The Key, Better Not Do That. But she takes a loooong look at it before she turns away, reluctantly. We mosey on up the stairs. 

A weird thing happens as we get closer to the tower: the spiral of the stairs gets tighter, the stairs become wood, and the void fades away as the walls of the Astronomer’s house reassert themselves. The pattern on the walls is denser here than anywhere else. Coming through the doorway, we see a figure, twisted. He was clearly once an elf, but he has been twisted and reshaped like putty. One of his eyes is withered almost to nothing, while the other is massive and bulbous, deforming his entire head. Despite his corrupted appearance, he sits calmly in a well-appointed study, wearing fine robes. A tentacle-like finger is holding a cup of tea, which he sips delicately.

“Ah,” he greets us politely, looking entirely unsurprised to see us. “Would you like some tea? It’s so rare that I get guests.”

Valeria introduces herself on reflex. “Kyr Valeria Argent, at your service, it’s nice to meet you, Mr....?”

“I’m Artyoum Vlemisk, though these days I prefer simply The Astronomer. Today ‘Artyoum’ seems so far away. A simple man, afraid to leave his house.”

Gral looks around. “Seems like you took the house with you.”

“Yes, so I did. What a simple solution, in the end. All those years, staring at the stars, not knowing what I was looking for...”

He puts his massive eye to the eyepiece of the telescope, where it fits perfectly,  and gazes out into the strange cosmos. “From here I can see everything. I can show you things, too! Please, come sit. I believe Adelaide made these.” He gestures to a perfectly normal-looking tray of cookies. “She comes by sometimes to visit. She’s such a worrywart, making sure I eat. I don’t even need to eat anymore.”

Gral, understandably wary of lookin’ at things here in mental distortion land, asks, “Can you just tell us what you know, instead of showing us?”

“Oh, certainly! Although there are things I would need to show you, for you to truly understand.”

That’s slightly ominous. But Gral’s got a mission. “Mists come out of the lake, and have been getting dangerously close to Holzog. They are harmful to its residents. What prompts their spread?”

The Astronomer puts on a mildly contrite face. “I’m sorry to hear that the people of Holzog are suffering. Had our plan succeeded, they would be here with us! The whole valley would have come when we moved the house. It’s a terrible shame the Destroyer stopped us.”

Shoshana jumps on that, remembering the Madman’s strange painting of a lizard-owl-creature. “Who was the Destroyer? What happened?”

“He must have had some idea of what we were doing. I was lookout duty at end, but I did not see him. Only later, the Key showed me what had happened. He took the form of an owl. He must have felt our working somehow, but that’s not a question that particularly interests me. He was very clever about his sabotage! Fire or an assault, we could have easily repelled. The Lurker’s hounds would have aided us. We could have rebuilt, and tried again. But he approached by stealth. The wings of an owl to cross the lake, then a lizard to scurry into the caves underneath my house. Then used magics of his kind-”

“His kind?”

“The druids of the wood, of course. Who else turns into owls and lizards, and reshapes the earth? Only such a backwards, backwoods bunch of superstitious yokels would oppose our work with such fervency. We were trying to do something new! All they care about is tradition.”

He continues ranting. “The druid opened a sinkhole, and dropped us in at the moment our work would have reached completion. Poor Ana and Josephine. My part is done, and I can watch a thousand worlds through my telescope. Anything I wish, I can see. Their part is not complete. They play their music on and on, then gather their strength and play again. When they play, the gaps thin, the mists pour through and the hounds wander the valley. Eventually they will not merely push, but break. Then our contract will be complete.”

“What contract? With whom?”

“Our contract with the Key! We create the hole for it, and it shows us what we need. Then we are free to travel the realms as we wish.”

“What happens when they break through? Will Holzog’s valley come here?”

“Maybe not the whole valley. Our initial calculations were done before the pattern was disrupted. But yes, that was our goal. Once our collaboration is complete, everyone from the Baroness to the poor fishmonger’s son will be Free. And the Key will certainly have tasks for them in exchange for their freedom, the Truest freedom. You see, the Key is not like the other prisoners, it does not work by fear, or-”

“Hold on, hold on. Other prisoners?”

“You are very familiar with one of them,” he replies, leveling a meaningful look at Shoshana’s sharp claws and predator’s eyes.

Gral laser-focuses in. The Key is a prisoner. “That which cannot be killed cannot be bound....” he murmurs. If the Key can be imprisoned, it can be destroyed.

The rest of the party is looking at each other, wondering why the image of prisoners is so familiar. Wait - the tapestry! 

“The tapestry?” The Astronomer takes a glance through his telescope. “Ah, you were speaking literally.” His arm reaches out, further than physically possible, to snag a cookie off the tray. “Yes, a crude illustration of the prisoners, reaching out to those who would free them. The others appeal to base fears – death, pain, abandonment. The Key reaches out to those who seek truth and beauty. Inspiration! Enlightenment! Far more worthy goals.”

We are stunned. This is the biggest insight into how the Curse works that we’ve ever heard of, and this guy is handing out revelations over tea and cookies. 

“Who imprisoned them?”

“That is a very deep question. Would you like to know? That is one of the things I would like to show you. If you would gaze through, all answers are yours to see.” He gestures generously toward his telescope.

We can’t say we’re not tempted, but Shoshana speaks up. “Ooookay, we’re gonna TABLE THAT for now. What happens if they get free?! Like, especially the wolf one.”

“Oh! The Hunt! Yes, it struggles for pure power, to seize control of the prison from the wardens, to break itself out.”

Not an answer to our question, but interesting. “Who are the wardens? Are they druids?”

"Ah, that’s another answer you must be shown. They’re not quite druids, that term would be deeply inaccurate, and yet it’s not entirely wrong in its own intriguing way...”

“Are they...humanoid??”

“No, but yes.”

We try to insight check him. We don’t roll good, and we get the insight of “Holy shit, that guy’s eyeball is HUGE.” Kinda hard to read facial expressions, tbh.

He sits back in his chair. “My role for the time being is to give answers to those who have the courage to seek them out.”

Okay, okay, enough of this big-picture stuff, Valeria wants to get back to our basic needs. “The villagers are very concerned about the mist. I don’t think this whole...thing is something they want.”

“Perhaps they will not want it. I cannot say,” the Astronomer says wistfully. “But as it is now, don’t they deserve the freedom to choose? Their humdrum life, or this sublime beauty?”

“You’re not offering them freedom, you’re offering fear!” she fires back.

“And you’re not offering much of a choice,” Gral adds in.

“They will learn eventually. And then, they may not thank me, but. Ah, well.” It’s blatantly obvious that he’s completely unconcerned about the townsfolk, at best. 

Sensing a lull in the conversation, Shoshana pipes up hesitantly. “Uh...you can see a lot of things, right? Um, there’s a person-

“Oh! I thought you might ask about her,” he interjects brightly. “I can show you where she is, where she will be in a week’s time, what she’s up to. Come take a look!”

Shoshana takes a wary look at the enormous telescope, and decides to limit herself to a simple question: “…is she alive?”

“Oh yes, she lives.”

Shoshana looks around awkwardly, her eyes landing on Gral. “Oh! There’s another guy, um, an orc? He’s called Bullbreaker. Is he alive?”

“For now. These are two people who lead very dangerous lives. If only someone could find them, and help them,” he says, unsubtly, turning the eyepiece of the telescope towards us.

Valeria doggedly tries to get us back on track about the village in danger. “So how would we stop the mists? Would we have to kill the musicians? Would that work? I know they’re your friends, but we have innocent people to save.”

“Yes, if you stop Ana and Josephine from playing, the mists will no longer rise. I will admit, I’d be sad to see them go. But I am content. I have earned my part, and I can see all the worlds I wish from here.”

We’re surprised he would not oppose us, but we’re not gonna push in case he changes his mind. Better question: how do we get back to the house and the musicians?

"That’s not a hard route. Go that way,” he says, pointing out the window to a branch of the winding path, “go past the beacon, take some of the doors, and you’ll find your way to the conservatory, on this side.

The beacon, it turns out, is the light in the middle of the shield-like disc, the one that had nearly entranced Valeria.

“What is beacon for?” she has to ask. “I almost figured it out, but...”

“What is a beacon ever for? It guides the way.”

“To where?”

“Home. That’s an interesting question.”

“For whom?” Gral adds.

“That is an even BETTER question, my good orc.”

“Was it for you and your collaborators?”

“No, something else.”

“For the Key?”

Like he has for all the really juicy questions, he gestures to his telescope.”

We realize we could....come back? Mr. Astronomer, would you mind if we visited you again, when we have more we want to know?

The Astronomer nods. “I never left my house. I will be here, until you know what you are seeking.”

He offers us a few cookies for the road. There’s eldritch runes in the frosting. We take a few, figuring the Sturmhearst guys will get a kick out of them. “Do you want a baggie, or a little tin?” This enormous weird hulking worm-man digs around for a tin, finds one, dumps sewing supplies out of it, and pops the cookies in. “Take a thermos with tea, in case you get tired later. You wouldn’t really want to sleep here.”

As we awkwardly file out of the Astronomer’s tower, Gral murmurs to Shoshana, “There are many things I wish to know too, but the cost from that one is too great.”

Shoshana nods. “…as long as I know she’s alive, that’s fine. I can find her myself.”

Valeria, meanwhile, is frustrated. “I’m so curious as to the nature of the curse! But I don’t yet have the right questions to ask.” Valeria’s player is basically vibrating out of her seat, her immense desire to Find Out Answers stifled only by her commitment to staying in character.

Clem focuses on the practical parts. “So, there’s some primal force in woods combating the Curse? He says there are four different prisoners. What’s imprisoning them?”

 The answer, of course, is just a few steps behind us. But Shoshana shakes her head decisively, trying to banish the thought. “You saw what a couple days in a spooky cave did to me. If I look into that thing, I’ll be a nutty painter.”

“Yes. Once you know how to fix it, you might not want to fix it,” Gral reminds the group.

“It’s better to acquire the knowledge naturally,” Clem agrees. “Anyway, what’s up with these druids? I’ve heard stories, but I don’t know much about them.

Valeria rolls her Knowledge: Religion. Here’s what the DM gives us: 

The Druids are – well, the closest equivalent is clergy, but it’s not an organization – of the local Valdian religion, the Way of the Woods. It’s an old system of belief that predates the Aquilian conquest and the shift to worshiping the Aquilian pantheon. Their power set is transforming into/summoning/commanding animals and nature. (You’re all D&D players, you know how druids work.) They’re very secretive. Although the religion has faded, they never really went away? But they’re very distrustful of outsiders, so much so that even people who live in rural towns rarely, if ever, meet the druids. They’re about the deepest woodsfolk as you can go, but not in a cursed way. They will interact with society but rarely, and they go incognito when they do. Their extreme xenophobia extends to anyone who is not a confirmed follower of the Way of the Woods, so it’s really hard to make or maintain contact.

Shoshana alludes to a woman from her village who left to become druid. Supposedly, she just walked off into woods one day, never to be seen again. From a local’s perspective, druids are generally considered benevolent. If you see a weirdly intelligent animal in woods, one should help it or accept its help, because it’s a druid. Most of the Way of the Woods that Shoshana is familiar with has faded into folktales, superstition, and secular tradition rather than a full religion. Often tales of druids get mixed up with Way of the Woods tales of Baba and Gramps, the benevolent forest spirits. Shoshana knows a bit, but not much. It’s hard to tell what’s fairytale and what’s not.

Gral considers the new information. “They could be a powerful ally. After all, the enemy of our enemy is our friend.”

Valeria’s less optimistic. “Yeah, they’re our friend. But can we convince them that we’re their friend?” Valeria is especially doubtful about her chances - a local peasant could be passed off as a Way of the Woods follower, but a paladin of Rack is going to put them off from the start.

Oh hey, we’ve come upon a door! Like the ones in the house! Sadly, it probably has big scary hounds behind it. Valeria Lay On Handses herself, and then pat pats Shoshana for a couple hit points for good measure.

Gral listens at the door, and he can faintly hear the music of the two women drifting from far away. They are still jammin’, as they are wont to do!

Clem bravely barges on in and finds an ordinary-looking room, which has several more doors leading away. We listen, and follow the music. Clem opens door 2 and find...another tiny room of doors. Valeria decides we go left next. Something is weird about the music? But it’s louder. Gral is told to roll Perception and does good, and hears howling pipes. The Lurker has caught our scent.

“It’s Here.”

The scrambling behind us, of the hounds.

“They’re here.”

Roll initiative, everybody!

Shosha mage armors up and zags through a door at random. Bad choice, there’s nothing but a swirling vortex through there! And something’s reaching out to grab ya! She Dex saves poorly and is grappled by a woogle of tentacles. Clem grabs her by the scruff, yanks her out of the woogle and tries a different door. Clem pops through the door into…the first room we were in. She retraces our steps through the open door and rejoins us. Guys, this house is WEIRD.

Valeria tries door 3. Success, another room! A flesh hound pops through the portal door and latches onto Clem, critting. She lives tho. Gral finds a new door to a real room. Shoshana books it through, dashing straight past him into a new door to an even further room where the music is loud! Clem drops a FUCKIN GRENADE on the flesh-hound as she runs, and slams the door shut behind her. It goes BOOM. There’s a weird sound like a crackling, too. Valeria catches up with Shoshana at the front of the line. There’s mist coming under a gate in this new room. Seems we’ve found where we’re going.

Gral minor illusions a fake Gral and closes the door behind him, catching up to the party and hoping the flesh-hounds will be fooled. The doggo figures out it’s an illusion, though, and charges through a different portal door directly to Clem. Seems like they know the layout here.

The DM is mildly disappointed, because we guessed too good on his puzzle to do a proper Scooby Dooby Doors comedy routine. Shoshana pops an orb of fire back through her door to help Clem and then reluctantly scoots through the misty door into the conservatory. This is the space we saw through the mirror. I’M ALONE WITH LADIES YOU GUYS. HELP. They haven’t noticed her yet, though.

Clem disengages with the hound and charges through to meet up with Shosha. We can see the musicians! They have three vaguely humanoid servants dancing to the impossible music, writhing in bizarre ways. This is the weirdest club any of us have ever been in. 

(It is decided that in the cyberpunk AU, the Astronomer’s house is just a really sick dance club. It’s where you go to See The Stars.)

(A bad Stefon impression is performed. This club has EVERYTHING: eyeball men, crab disasters, the tragic fate of your long-lost comrades...)

We all prep attacks for when the hound comes through the door.

The dimensional shiftiness that makes it hard to hit isn’t happening right now? We don’t roll good enough to know why. No, the DM can’t resist telling us. Something in that bomb did it. There’s sparks coming off the hound, and it’s coated in some kind of dust from the Broad Spectrum grenade. One of the substances in it must interfere with their powers and presence.

Clem smacks it and Shoshana crits a Primal Savagery. It crits Shoshana back, and rolls nearly max. She’s down. Healing Word from Gral, as she forgets about her Strength of the Grave ability again. Clem and Valeria start smacking it with weapons, and Gral Psychic Blades it super dead.

Using her medic abilities, Clem heals Shosha to full, because witches get stitches.

My internet failed at this point, so I don’t have a great Roll20 visual for this next fight, but phone data does miracles and I was able to get back on the call. 

The situation: there are 3 dancers and 2 musicians. All have the weird spaghetti-stretched look we’ve come to associate with corrupted followers of the Key. Each dancer has a colorful aura for a 20 ft radius. They draw your eye as they spin and sparkle, and within that radius we have disadvantage to attack anything that is not a dancer. (They are statted as starspawn grues, for anyone keeping track.) Clusters of glittering crystals dot the room, resonating in time with the music.

A dancer dances up to us and warps reality at Valeria. Walk into the club like whattup, make a Will Save. But it nat 1s at whatever it was doing. 

Shoshana manages to get out of the dancer’s radius, and aims at the two musicians with her signature Twinned Spell Chromatic Orb. She fires off a deafening round of thunder damage, hoping to disrupt the music! Two of the dancers stumble and lose the beat for a moment. The misty gate back to the real world, fluctuating in and out of reality in the back of the room, looks more like an intact wall now – it stutters as the music is disrupted.

By the way: Are they human? No, they are dancer.

Clem cuts down a dancer and advances on the next one. The flutist, Ana, strikes three high notes that form in the air as shimmering shapes and blast toward us. Two shots miss, one hits Clem.

Gral casts Silence.

The song stops.

The door fades away.

Josephine, the violinist, steps out of the silence circle and strikes her violin strings with her bow, sending a wave of sonic energy towards Gral, Clem and Shoshana. We all take a bunch of damage and Gral loses concentration on Silence.

The dancers, able to restart the beat since the violinist got the music going again, swing at Valeria and Shoshana. Their strikes distort Shoshana’s sense of space, giving her disadvantage on attack rolls. Luckily, this next spell ain’t one of those.

Shoshana casts Shatter with a deafening BOOM. The dancer and musician save and take less damage, but a couple of those crystals also get hit. They shatter, like, well, crystal. They are resonating crystals, and they vibrate with a high pitched noise for a moment before they burst apart with a glassy CRASSSHHH. Shoshana drops to 0, but as she falls, her eyes go black and she lunges to her feet with a primal snarl, using Strength of the Grave to spookily jump up to 1hp again.

(The DM was absolutely gonna have the Musicians do cool things with those crystals, like shooting spells through them! But no, we made them explode. There’s glass all OVER the floor. Everybody’s gotta wear shoes until we sweep up. Somewhere, Walter White looms.)

Josephine the violinist deflects Clem’s swing with her violin bow – not so much blocking as making the blade warp through space around it. She returns to playing.

Ana the flautist fires 3 more high pitched notes from her flute. Clem’s down. Gral Healing Words her and swings his sickle in at the dancer with a dashing slash that cuts her down. It is extremely anime. He is suddenly in silhouette with the dancer behind, and a blood splatter in silhouette. 

The violinist uses a burst of sound to propel herself backwards, the resulting soundwave hitting Clem and Valeria. Ana and Josephine reunite and start playing their music more furiously than ever.

Good, they’re grouped together for AoEs. Shoshana casts Shatter again on poor Lindsey Stirling and her friend. They are both bloodied, and a couple more crystals near them vibrate – one resonates but does not shatter; the other explodes, sending needle-like shards into the musicians. We feel the crystal shards at our feet hum and thrum with the sound.

With a mighty slash, Clem shoves Josephine into the remaining crystal, though she tries to deflect with her bow. Her violin slips from her hands as she falls unconsicous. Ana screams, but Clem is still swinging with her Action Surge. As the flautist turns with rage, her eyes burning, the universe quivering as she is about to unleash some horrible song-storm – Clem, bloody and nearly broken, slams back into her and throws her into the other crystal, silencing the music and the scream. 

There is a moment, just a moment, when the music still reverberates in the crystals and the portal remains open – but we know Gral can open the way, and there might be stuff to loot, and we don’t run through.

Valeria gathers crystal bits as the song fades. Gral scotch tapes a flesh hound dangly bit into the Pokedex. Gral also takes the instruments and the remaining sheet music of Opening of the Ways and The Prisoner’s Lament. The violin itself starts to warp into nothingness once Josephine dies, but the strings are shimmering and incandescent and vibrating at strange frequencies. The flute also appears warped but intact. Gral is like, “I could restring my lute with these wacky strings, but this is not an ideal place to do instrument repairs.” He pockets them for later.

Once we’re done looting investigating, we all looook to Gral, very sheepishly. Opening the ways feels weird, but it must be done. He must make a Performance check, though he can expend a spell slot to gain +d6 per spell level. He’s a bard, though, so he rolls a frickin’ 32. We pour through the portal and see the mists are fading rapidly.

As the whole place collapses, we see the corpses of the musicians on the ground. There is a growling sound as a hound comes around the bend, but the mists rapidly fade and its flickering intensifies until it flickers away.

The soft spots are probably not spreading towards the town anymore! Gral takes 6 taint, though, for playing the Spooky Song and directly tapping into the Key’s power.

We find ourselves standing in the ruins of the astronomer’s house. Looking out the windows, it’s night time now. We’re not really sure how long we’ve been gone. (Fifty yeeeaaars! A hovercar flies by! No.)

Valeria gives Shosha four hit points because she is tiiiired, and a few to Clem too.

Now that we’ve left the house and are getting ready to climb back up our rope, those with Darkvision make a perception check. Something small is flying towards us awkwardly, with big ungainly flaps. It’s roughly the size of a wombat. Is it Daikon? No. We put the rune beetle up (We have named it Luxon, a corruption of Alexa). Some weird misshapen bluish creature in a plague doctor mask flaps toward us. It’s Gray the Homunculus! 

It flaps up to Gral and croaks, “ALIIIIIVE.” It pulls something out of a pouch with a weird little raccoon hand, taking weirdly precise notes in a small notebook. “RETUUUURNING,” it caws, and leaves.

We’re a little nervous at being out at night, when cursed things come out, but apparently the valley of Holzog is pretty safe when it’s not misty death. We make our way back to the boat, where Gray is waiting for us, and back across the lake. Looks like the people are all holed up in fortresses right now, like they do when there’s mist. 

Gray guides us back to the church. The two hulking owl-masked guards are waiting, and lead us to the door of the Sturmhearst University Holzog Annex. The door opens and Prof Quercus is there. “Ahh! Good news, everyone! They’ve returned!” (Thanks, Farnsworth.)

“Please, come inside, come inside! We’ve never seen the mists rise this soon after a previous incursion, or retreat so rapidly. Look at these charts!” They have, indeed, been drawing charts tracking when the mist comes.

“There’s a good chance the mists won’t be coming back for a while,” we tell him. (Insight check: he is disappointed.) “But have we got some stuff to tell you!”

“Oh?” His face would perk up, except he’s wearing a bird mask.

We give him the Pokedex notebook. We have written some of the things we’ve seen, but omitted a LOT.

What we give him, in the notebook:

-The concept of portals to other worlds

-A rubbing of the pattern

-Drawings of the symbols on statue mimic

-A flesh hound tentacle

-The eldritch cookies + thermos of tea

-A description of the guy with too many eyes

-A pamphlet from the glove box

-Basic descriptions of the void

-The twisted crossbow bolt

-The Funko pop from space

-Some of the crystal shards

We do NOT give them any knowledge of the sheet music, the eldritch cookbook, or ANY information on how to open the portals.

Professor Quercus identifies the potions we picked up from the house. They are a Potion of Kill You Quite Quickly (fast-acting poison), a Potion of Heroism, and a mystery potion he doesn’t know what it’ll do. It’s too chaotic. (The DM informs us it makes us roll on the Wild Magic Surge table.)

Time to tally our taint! Clem, Valeria, and Shoshana all save. Gral is clandestinely offered a Deal by the DM, the effects of which are as yet unknown.

We stay at Sturmhearst overnight because it’s, like, Dark out in the Cursewood. None of the folks in bird masks sleep. (*shrugs* Grad students.) They are making a lot of coffee in a fancy coffee machine. The big owl guards are like a foot taller than any of the humans, but never speak and barely move. The grad students ask us questions all night.

Valeria asks them about Druids. Quercus: “We’ve had some interaction, some of our field expeditions have reported wild animal attacks consistent with druidic magic. It can be hard to tell what’s druid magic and what’s just the Curse! Have any actually talked to us? Certainly not, though Professor Williams described how something had written the words Go Away in the dirt and smashed up all his equipment.” (Insight: He is not lying about this, as far as he is aware.)

In the morning, as we step out of the repurposed church, we see a white bird flying toward us. He has a little coat on! He opens his mouth and Darius’ voice comes out. “Hey! We got worried when you were out and the mists came up.” (We were gone 14 hours.)

“Boy, do we have a story for you!”

“Sweet, I’ll make some popcorn. I love popcorn. Oh, that was Daikon talking. Hey Bea! Is it safe to feed Daikon popcorn? Wait, I’m still talking through the bird-”

We walk back to the center of Holzog with Daikon relaying Darius’ questions. Darius himself is letting the Condotierri know to let us through.

“Is there any chance you were exposed to the corrupting influence of the curse?”

Everyone’s like “Um, well, UHHH,” and Shoshana just sighs. “That ship has SAILED for me, my dude.”

“All right, Bea might give you three ladies a once over, the Q-man will look at Gral. We gotta search you for eyeballs, demon runes, you know the drill.” We are promised there will be only mild nudity. Clem and Shoshana are not particularly thrilled with the idea of nudity.

We plan to go on the Mornheim expedition, so the DM has us draw cards from his Dangerous Roads deck for the journey. We draw The Folk, The Harvest, The Outlaws, and The Outlaws again.

We’ll go into more detail about the end of our time in Holzog at the beginning of our next session, but we do check in with Ser Quentin to let him know we’re alive, and that we’re game to go on the Mornheim expedition with him.

He tells us, “Very well. In a couple of days a supply caravan will be leaving for Mornheim. Unfortunately, I will not be able to go to Mornheim with you. I will leave Holzog with you, but Ser Brigid has asked me to report to Holska and explain why one of our best leads on the origin of the Curse is now a corpse.”

We roll Knowledge: History. Ser Brigid König probably refers to the old woman who is the founder and leader of the Cursebreaker Knights. Holska Castle is Cursebreaker HQ. It’s a derelict castle that has had rumors of infestation by vampires/cultists/local legends (mostly vampires) for centuries. There are tons of spooky stories. When the Curse first presented, the first Cursebreakers led by Ser Brigid stormed Holska and turned it into their HQ. No reports of vampires; general assumption is they found the vamps and killed them all, and then had a free castle they could set up in.

We don’t roll well enough to know who she was before the Curse. A knight of the Greatwood, but we’re not sure from where or what origin. High ranked enough that when she sent out the word, a bunch of people answered the call.

We’ll learn more next session.

[cursewoodrecap]

Session 4: Heresy

Our cards for this session: The Hunter, The Knight, The Madness, The Heretic.

This week: I took EXCELLENT notes, probably because I was physically incapable of speaking and had to conduct all roleplay via telegram.

Back at Shoshana’s house, we crash for a long rest. Ser Balderich is convinced to take the only bed, because he’s spent the last forty-eight hours in a curse hole. Shoshana is surprised - and a little saddened, in a way - to see that his time in the supernatural darkness has not affected Ser Balderich seemingly at all, unlike her. Beggar Knights are granted strong protection from Rack, the god of suffering and mercy, and likely this is what helped him resist corruption.

Didn’t help him resist breaking his bones, though. He’s gonna stick around in Ovruch to heal and to protect the town. Shoshana warns him that her cats are probably going to stay here and be assholes, and he laughs it off. He’s fought the most terrible monsters known to man - cat-wrangling can be his next adventure! She laughs with him, but warns him that they are affected by the Curse - he may have to put them down, when they get too aggressive to save.

Ser Balderich takes the chance to lay down some wisdom on the young witch: “I’ve seen a lot since I started fighting the Curse. It can turn a man’s hands to claws, it can break his mind, but it cannot make you a monster unless you allow it. I have seen people barely recognizable as humanoid who have the noblest hearts. And I’ve seen men you wouldn’t blink at in the market with the most monstrous hearts of all. Don’t let anyone turn you into something you’re not.”

The man has INCREDIBLE Dad Energy. It’s so potent he almost immediately falls asleep in an armchair in front of the football game.

Meanwhile, Gral rolls a 19 and, in his own words, “wakes up in the morning feelin’ like P. Diddy.” 

Shoshana leaves a letter for Herschel the innkeeper, letting him know “I think she’s alive - I’m going to find her,” and then we get on the road to the town of Holzog, Ser Quentin Morozov’s base of operations.

The party is hustling along the road, being Super Quiet and Awkward because we’re all stoic assholes with secrets (not you, Valeria, you’re an angel and we’re glad you’re here). Then, rapid hoofbeats! Coming along a fork in the road, a company of lightly armored riders bearing the crest of a rook upon their shields thunders past us. Despite our absolutely terrible history rolls, the DM can’t resist telling us that these are Condotierri - mercenaries from Ventallus, known for being highly professional, highly skilled, and deeply cautious about any venture too dangerous to be worth their hire price. They seem to be headed to Holzog as well, just much faster.

Holzog is set in a valley, surrounded by huge craggy hills that the Curse has made dark and foreboding. We know it’s a much bigger town than Ovruch, sustained mostly by fishing on the large lake that butts up against it. There’s a strange smell on the breeze - it’s familiar to Gral, but he can’t quite place it, not with a perception check that low.

Awkward road conversation is made (”SO UH I SEE YOU’RE A LARGE LIZARD PERSON. HOW’S THAT GOING FOR YOU. WHERE YA FROM.”) but Valeria’s explanation of how she’s from Aurentium, the Golden City, the shining example of the post-Aquilian Empire!!! is interrupted by the sight of a big ol’ keep on the horizon, flying a flag with the crest of Holzog. Looks like a watchtower that’s been recently expanded. Soldiers are stopping a caravan of merchants and ushering them inside. We head on over.

A halfling woman in fancier armor than the rest of the soldiers introduces herself as Captain Claudia. “Road’s closed ‘till morning,” she tells us. “The mists are out.”

From the tower’s windows we can see a strange, shimmering purple mist has indeed descended on the town, purple and rippling. The hell is that?!

Captin Claudia says hell if she knows, but baroness’s orders are not to fuck with it, and the valley’s shut down until it’s gone. Usually takes 12 hours or so. Comes out of the lake.” The baroness of Holzog has established this roadhouse for travelers who are stuck. Claudia’s in charge, and she’s not above using her musket or kicking us out into the woods in order to keep the peace. She confirms the Condotierri we saw were hired by the baroness as extra muscle to guard the forts around the town - but they only answer to their captain, and they keep avoiding the rough jobs.

So we’re stuck here for the night. We go chat with the merchants - a Demish furrier shows us the weird cursed furs that are all the rage in fashion right now (this one’s purple! with spines!) and Valeria manages to buy some Fortified Demish Healing Wine off him - for discount price, because you’d hardly sell GOOD wine to these beer-swilling Valdian yokels, and Valeria, being a noble AND a dragonborn, rolls pretty darn well on her snob check. 

There’s a bookseller, too. Clem makes the practical decision of purchasing some journals published by Sturmhearst University about the latest research into the Curse. Valeria gets a beautifully illustrated heroic tale of the Peacock Knight, founder of the Knights Radiant. Shoshana, who has more money in her pocket than she’s had in maybe ever, giddily buys a dramatic Gallish pirate adventure. 

The door slams open, dramatically. “Why, Captain Claudia! I had heard the mists were up in the valley, and I did so hope you would be the one to host us this night!” Two humans stride in. First comes a lean man with a goatee and a big hat with a feather in it, his white leather cape falling over a gleaming sword. Behind him comes a muscular, angry-looking woman, with similar hair and features, lugging a huge lumpy sack and two nasty-looking warhammers. Both prominently wear the symbol of a sword and hammer crossed over a sun - the symbol of the Knights Radiant.

“Ah! Do not fear, huddled citizens of Valdia! You will not need to pass this night in fear of the things that lurk beyond the walls, for the Knights Radiant are here!”

Captain Claudia tells him to can it and go help his sister carry stuff. The gentleman in the majestic hat mourns that sadly, duty keeps us apart, and yet - oh hey, I have an audience.

“Who here would like to hear how my sister and I slew the werewolf of Vanderburg?!” he declares with a flourish to the gawking merchants, and us. “My sister Fiona and were in Vanderburg when we heard the distinctive howl, the locals were terrified of the beast, who had been taking cattle and stalking them for weeks. We laid our trap! Knowing the wolf preferred beautiful long haired women, we obtained a fancy dress! My sister hid in the bushes while I played bait. Then, I drew my silver blade!” It’s all very dramatic. His blade glows as he waves it around dramatically. The descriptions get flowery. The story is very heroic. “So you need not fear anything tonight – oh. There’s already knight-looking people here. Well, you still don’t need to fear anything because I am HERE!”

Thanks, All Might. We continue to awkwardly look like a blatantly obvious adventuring party, which has clearly thrown Mr. Hero off his game a little.

His large, intimidating sister taps him on the shoulder and rapidly motions to him in sign language. “OK fiiiine, I won’t tell the story of how we cleansed the cemetery of ghouls – Fiona, don’t speak for them, I’m working here. Remember, sister, our mission does not end when the beast is slain, but when spirits are lifted!”

The aforementioned Fiona looks at us, pulls out a wineskin, takes a slug of alcohol, and offers it up. Clem identifies it immediately as primo, grade-A trench hooch. Cooked in a dented greathelm, made of spit and armor polish. Clem happily accepts a swig of what most folks would identify as industrial solvent. 

Fiona’s theatrical brother notices Valeria’s new Peacock Knight book and decides to come bother miss – uh, Kyr? Kyr Dragonborn, please allow me to introduce myself, I’m SER FLYNN FAIRGOLD OF THE KNIGHTS RADIANT, DEFENDER OF THE PEOPLE, PROTECTOR OF VALDIA. My lovely sister is SER FIONA FAIRGOLD. She has neglected to take any additional titles. THE HUMBLE. I gave her that one.

”What’s he in town for? “My sister and I are here upon a dangerous quest! A noble seeker of truth tasked us to investigate and retrieve a-” He notices Fiona making a cut-throat gesture. “Yes, we are delivering things to a knight of much renown!”

Us: “Is it Ser Quentin Morozov? Because he’s the guy we’re gonna go bother.”

Flynn: “...Why yes! Ser Morozov is a frequent employer of ours! He dispatches us, his most trusted agents, as far as possible! He knows that the further we travel from him, the more evil we defeat and hopes we raise. Honestly, I usually check in on our uncle while our sister talks to him. While you’re in Holzogh, check out the Greencloak Inn, my uncle runs it-”

Shoshana begins to make conversation about knowing guys who run inns named after wars with elves. (Greencloak being a term for Kevan soldiers.) Gral tries to ask Fiona about her travels, but she just points to her throat, which is covered in thick burn scars. We’re all settling in for a night’s conversation when there’s a banging at the doors, and Captain Claudia shouting “nO DON’T OPEN THE...gates, dammit.”

A group of men pour in, uniformed in rough white clothes bound with chains. They bear a banner with the image of bloody chains, and their leader wears a thin blindfold over scarred eyes and carries a wicked-looking thorned whip.

He intones, “REJOICE, CITIZENS. THE GODS HAVE SPOKEN TO ME. WITHIN THIS FORTRESS LIES ONE DEEPLY TOUCHED BY EVIL. A BEING WHO HAS BOUND THEMSELVES TO THE DARKEST POWERS. THEY LURK AMONG YOU! BUT REJOICE, FOR WE HAVE COME, TO MAKE THEM FACE THE JUSTICE OF THE GODS.”

Shoshana immediately rolls for stealth and dives behind the largest available Clem.

These, we know, are the Penitent Knights: militant devotees of Rack that fanatically slay anyone deemed to be sinful, in order to excise the Curse from among the people. They are...not known for remembering the “mercy” part of their god’s whole shtick. 

“LET THE EVILDOER OR ANY WHO KNOW OF THEM STEP FORTH, THAT WE MAY BE ABOUT OUR HOLY BUSINESS.”

Valeria immediately uses her Divine Sense to detect whether there are, actually, any Fiends among us. Nobody pings the radar, though our wrapped tapestry is a little suspect, but there’s a slight whiff of...something?...from the Fairgolds, who are beginning to look just a little nervous. Especially emanating from Fiona’s back and shoulder?

We all simultaneously remember that Fiona was carrying a huge mysterious sack earlier, like a buff warrior Santa. HMM. The bag’s nowhere to be seen, though - she put it somewhere in the keep while Flynn was telling stories.

Meanwhile, Valeria is not about to put up with these creeps going all Spanish Inquisition on a bunch of innocent merchants, and stands up to reveal her impressive presence. “None here are any sort of fiend!”

“DO YOU SPEAK TRUE, OR ARE YOU A DECEIVER?”

“I’ve taken my oaths, I am no deceiver!” Valeria rolls an excellent persuasion check and looks Very Knightly and Trustworthy. Everyone in the room is on her side. Well, except the captain of the creeps:

“AND YET I KNOW THAT WITHIN THIS FORTRESS A VILE HERETIC RESIDES. MEN! SEARCH THE PLACE FOR SIGNS OF HERESY.“

Valeria: “There’s no need for any of that.”

“I WILL NOT SEE JUSTICE UNDONE.”

“Whatever you’re looking for isn’t here!”

“AND YET I KNOW THAT IT IS. UPON MY AUTHORITY AS AN AGENT OF THE ARCHCLERIC OF RACK, I DEMAND TO SEARCH THIS FACILITY AND DISPENSE THE JUSTICE OF RACK.”

Valeria, also being an agent of Rack’s justice, thinks this guy is full of crap and tells him in no uncertain terms to get lost. Gral, Clem, and both Fairgolds decide to assist by Looming Intimidatingly. They’re very good at it.

“VERY WELL. GOOD PEOPLE, THIS KNIGHT OF THE ROSE HAS DECLARED RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR SAFETY THIS NIGHT. LET ANY EVIL THAT BEFALLS THIS PLACE BE UPON HER HEAD.” With that ominous proclamation, the Knights Penitent shuffle back outside the gates. Captain Claudia wastes absolutely zero time making sure everything is locked and barred.

“Yeah, sorry you had to see that. They creep me right the heck out,” she tells us. Out of sight of the merchants, she motions to us surreptitiously. “But there’s something you should see.”

Flynn: “UM, my dearest Claudia-”

Claudia: “Shut it, Flynn, I think the Knight of the Rose has the right to know.”

As she leads us back towards the dungeon-y part of the keep, she berates Flynn further: “Dammit, Fairgold, I’ve got people here who are my responsibility. If you knew they were following you-”

She takes us back to the keep’s single jail cell. Inside is a battered, emaciated elf, thoroughly bound and gagged, and unconscious to boot. He’s covered in tattoos, and even the idiots among us can tell the symbols are fiendish in nature. Clem recognizes what he is on sight. Back during the Ascension war, there were members of Raspult’s cult - who he gave free reign to do all evil, on the reasoning that once he was king of the gods, he would forgive them for everything and anything done in his name - called the Marked. They would tattoo themselves with sacrificial blood and demonic symbols, mad-eyed cultists able to summon demons by making themselves bleed. The worst part of battling them: wounding them could just as easily summon the demons as if the cultist had done it themself. 

Clem is not best pleased. “Who brought him here?!”

Flynn: “Welllllll...that would be us. See, Ser Morozov sent us to investigate reports of a demon summoner. We found him, slew some of his imps, and my sister Fiona choked him out. We’ve been tasked to bring him back for interrogation; Ser Morozov believes that followers of Raspult may have information on how the Curse came to be.”

Clem, who has seen combat with these bastards, is incensed. “So you brought him here, to a keep full of innocent people? He has an ARSENAL tattooed onto his skin!” Gral, who has not personally fought a Marked, claims he can access memories of those who fought them through the Orcish Allsoul, and that yes, they are absolutely that bad.

“He’s drugged unconscious, it’s one night-”

“If - WHEN - he gets lucky, just once, everyone here could die!”

“Well, we couldn’t let the Penitents get him! If they found him, they’d drag him out in public and whip him until he bleeds to death with their chains!”

We all pause a moment, to contemplate just how Super Absolutely Not Good that scenario would be.

Clem’s still not having it. “So you brought him INSIDE a stronghold filled with civilians? When he gets free, their blood will be on your hands,” she hisses, filled with contempt.

We all agree that even though it’s one night, someone will stand guard. We can’t all fit into the small jail room, so we’ll take shifts. Whoever is on guard will take our magical horn, so they can sound the alarm the second anything happens.

Flynn and Valeria take first watch, and roll just absolutely terrible on all their perception checks. They hear a noise in the other room, and Flynn goes to investigate. Valeria promptly gets clubbed over the head with a blackjack.

Two Penitents have snuck inside and are making a beeline for the now-awake elf in the jail cell. Roll for initiative, everyone, it’s ON.

Clem is woken up by the magic horn and Nat 20′s on initiative out of sheer rage, and everyone else is woken up by Clem’s vehement cussing. The Penitents get some damn good hits in on Flynn and Valeria, but with Clem and Fiona crashing in as extra tanks and Gral and Shoshana sniping spells from behind, neither one makes it into the cell. The bound elf is struggling and making noise, but hasn’t managed to get free or summon anything.

Clem immediately turns on the Fairgolds, punching Flynn in the face and spitting that this is exactly why the Marked should never have been left alive! I told you, and it’s been what, an hour?! Now Clean. Up. Your. MESS.

Fiona signs to her brother that the rest of the Penitent Knights have been sighted outside, waiting for the prisoner. We all know that we can’t let them have him, they’ll release the demons on his skin. Clem argues that we should do now what we should have done two hours ago: kill him immediately.

Clem Valeria, a hint of the Hunt’s corruption in her expression, concurs.

Gral stalks up to the cell, growling at the Marked for his crimes. “Defiler of our ruined lands, we have killed your god and we will kill you too. If you struggle we will kill you faster.” His Words of Terror ability chillingly cows the tattooed elf into submission.

Shoshana quietly asks if this means we’re interrogating the elf, or if we can get on with it already - because, after all, a sorcerer can kill without ever making their target bleed.

Seeing no objection, she uses the rest of her spell slots to repeatedly Chromatic Orb him to death with cold damage. Clem must roll a will save when seeing a humanoid die - albeit super-rapidly - from the elements, but succeeds with a stony glare of contempt toward the cultist.

Once she’s done, she coldly looks back at the rest of the gathered warriors. “See? This,” she says, gesturing to the dead elf, “is why you should just put things like me DOWN, when you have the chance.” She stalks off into the keep.

Clem stares down the Fairgolds and then similarly storms off in a rage, leaving Gral and Valeria to figure out what to do with the bodies. 

Though the tattoos have become inert now that the cultist is dead, the Fairgolds still want to bring the body to Ser Quentin - Speak With Dead can grant the Cursebreakers a limited amount of interrogation, at least. But the Penitents outside aren’t going to leave without proof their quarry is dead. 

Gral sends their leader a Message cantrip: “Inquisitor, you have breached our trust and peace by sending your agents here, but we do not want further conflict. We have the corpse of the fiend you seek.”

They meet the Penitents at the gate and show them the body.  “I apologize for my men, they were…overeager,” says the Inquisitor. Upon seeing the frozen body: “The god’s justice has been done this night. Justice…can be cold. Thank you for seeing it my way. Do you have my men?”

Well, uh, technically, yes? Gral and the fort’s soldiers give them the bodies. The Inquisitor doesn’t even look particularly bothered by his men’s deaths. 

Just as Gral is going back inside the gates, though, he hears something, carried on the mists. A terrible, familiar sound. He immediately dashes inside, calling to Close The Fucking Gates (the guards were already on it, they are barricaded as HECK).

Meanwhile, Valeria tracks down Shoshana, who is curled in a ball in a corner somewhere. She sits down next to her - not quite crowding, but close enough to touch. “That...thing was nothing like you. You know that, right? He chose that, over and over again.”

Shoshana’s not comforted. “Yeah, well, I knew people who wouldn’t have chosen what they did, until the Curse changed ‘em.”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“You think those were the first cats I ever adopted?” Shoshana asks. “I’ve had to put them down, when they got so fucked up and aggressive that they were just little monsters. Eventually the Curse wins, every time.”

She leans on Valeria’s shoulder. “It’s gonna happen to me eventually. Just...minimize the damage, you know?”

“It doesn’t have to happen. You can choose differently. You’ve been choosing differently.”“

“If I’m lucky. If I keep getting lucky. And...I just want you to know. When the time comes and you have to do it, I’m not mad or anything.”

Clem finds her way to the courtyard and drinks alone all night. 

On those depressing notes, the morning comes! A troop of Condotierri ride by and declare that the mists have cleared. Captain Claudia shooes everyone out of the roadhouse, thanks for coming, safe travels, BUH-BYE. 

We walk with the Fairgolds and make it to Holzog by mid-morning. The Condotierri at the gates give us the hairy eyeball but don’t stop us, probably because we’re with Flynn and Fiona. We head to the old mining office that the Cursebreakers have taken as their headquarters, while Flynn bounces off to arrange rooms at his uncle’s inn and avoid talking to Ser Quentin.

A sly-looking fellow in a long coat, holding a book with an eye on the front, greets us at the door. This is Contractor Darius, a Cursebreaker Knight using the title of a Celestial Warlock of Torme. He has a white bird familiar who we immediately, in reference to a previous campaign, dub Daikon. Darius leads us inside.

Ser Quentin Morozov is a gaunt elf with silver spectacles and a bandolier of knives across his chest, examining a wall of maps covered in pins and strings. “Ah, Fiona,” he says. “Did your brother learn to cast Hold Person?”

She shakes her head.

“Then you have brought me a corpse instead of a prisoner.” His disdain is palpable, but we explain what happened. It takes him a moment to remember who the hell Shoshana is, despite meeting her only a few days ago - he finds the correct journal entry: mild corruption, unlikely to be a threat. Anyway: he’s happy to hear we’ve rescued Ser Balderich (and entirely unsurprised at the other knight’s foolhardiness, and rather intrigued with the gory tapestry we’ve brought him. He’ll certainly have to interview all of us about the Hunt.

Gral inquires about the Mist, implying that he might know something about it. Here’s what the Cursebreakers have: Darius has studied it. It rises out of the lake and seems to spread, wandering irrespective of wind. Living things caught in it get corrupted, maybe with lingering effects. Monsters and beasts seem to roam within it. It originates within the lake, and the fish in the lake have shown signs of corruption. All travel is forbidden when the mist is out, by order of the Baroness - a wise policy, in Ser Quentin’s opinion.

This is unsatisfying to Gral, who anxiously insists he has to have an audience with the Baroness about the Mist.

Meanwhile, Clem inquires with Ser Quentin whether he is familiar with a group of Kevan soldiers known as the Red Hand - she’s a former member. Indeed, he’s worked with them before. One of the more excellent entourages he’s hired. He assures her that he last saw them unharmed, but with a strange twist. 

He had taken them on an expedition to Mornheim, the territory ruled by Ser Balderich’s family, known for its apple orchards and its extensive necropolis. Before the Curse, Mornheim had been famous in that its lands spawned no undead, so many wealthy and noble families would send their dead to be buried there, unbothered by magic. And then the Curse hit, and that streak broke, and now there’s a LOT of undead there due to the extensive burial grounds. 

When Ser Quentin had taken the Red Hand on an expedition to fight the undead in Mornheim and investigate the catacombs, a member of the party had been separated from the group during an ambush. Ser Quentin would have left the young man for dead, but his comrades insisted on going back for him.

“They returned with their companion the next day, but there was something strange about him. He was very secretive around me. Hid things from me – and you must be very good to be able to hide things from me. Shortly afterward, they announced their intention to leave my service. I did have some of them followed. Some of them left Valdia and headed south to the Crownlands or Keva. Others went different directions throughout the Greatwood. I do not have evidence to say yet, but part of my expedition to Mornheim is to figure out what happened. Rather uncharacteristically unprofessional that they didn’t tell me.”

Ser Quentin gives us a monetary reward for saving Ser Balderich and bringing him the tapestry, and asks us to sign on for his expedition to Mornheim to investigate what caused the undead to rise, and what happened to the Red Hand. Clem is, obviously, interested, but Gral is far more interested in the mists.

Ser Quentin pulls some strings and gets Gral his audience with the Baroness. Gral and Valeria go in - Clem’s not interested, and Shoshana is pretty sure they don’t just let peasants in there. Darius escorts them in, to a small audience room in which the Baroness is working. There are guards and clerks and scribes there, doing their work. The Baroness is a beautiful tiefling woman with royal blue skin, pitch-black eyes, and four horns, one set curling forwards and the others pointing back. She wears a royal purple gown and a simple silver circlet as a symbol of office. 

The Baroness Francesca von Holzogh addresses Gral with a posh Ventallan accent. “Is this another entreaty from your Duke to join his forces?”

It is not. Gral instead brings up the mist, and asks her if she is aware of the theory that the Curse has its own agenda. She affirms that Ser Quentin has shared the theory with her. 

“The Curse has not only its own agenda but its own Champions,” says Gral. “I heard the cry of its Champion last night in the mist. We need to talk.”

-fade to black-

[cursewoodrecap]

Session 3: Darkness in Your Past

Hello everyone I’m still like. WAY sick. And I will be performing our next session entirely through texting and enthusiastic mime. But I can probably type, even if I’m hacking and wheezing?

In this session: oh no, backstory!

The party finishes their long rest at the bandit camp, universally antsy to get going and prickly with each other after certain ethical disagreements.

As the bandits warned us, the road turns out to be full of traps, and 3/4 of us roll terrible, awful perception checks. Clem, comically, immediately falls into a hole. It’s less comic when we realize there’s sharp spikes at the bottom of that there pit trap, but Valeria Channels Divinity and summons the Chains of Rack, catching Clem before she can tumble into the stabbity stabs. WHOOPSIE.

Traveling onward, we find a huge tree has crashed down across the path. We are all experienced players and thus suspicious bastards, and Shoshana rolls a good enough Nature check to suddenly have a childhood memory. There was once a local woodsman that she and her best friend used to hang around, a lumberjacky fellow and hunter named Mordecai. A good-natured fellow, he would let the local children tag along and show them lots of tips and tricks about the woods. Using the remnants of that remembered knowledge, Shoshana picks up on a few wood shavings and out-of-place bits. This thing has been tampered with.

“Everybody stand back,” she says, “I’m gonna poke it.”

“Wait, I have a crossb-” Gral begins, but Shoshana slaps it with a Mage Hand, which is only a 30 foot range. Two crossbow bolts shoot out of where the log has been hollowed out and the bark has been thinned to a sheet, and one sticks right into somebody’s boob. Good job, folks.

Going forward seems to be all well and good until, suddenly, someone notices we can’t hear Valeria, who’s guarding the back. We turn around and surpriiiise, a wild beast-man is hanging out of a tree and has her by a garrotte! There is a brief debate about whether attempting to free her by swinging an enormous greatsword is really the best?? idea??????? but Valeria puts an end to the discussion by stabbing the guy herself.

We complain at the DM about all the traps, and then get distracted, because OOH, A RAVINE.

Shoshana goes quiet at the familiar sight, but there’s something worrying here. There’s a beast-man of the Hunt and his wolf on watch, but there are dead people and wolves scattered over the blood-stained ground. A clutch Silence spell from Gral allows us to overcome the sentries with no alarm raised; Clem bisects the wolf with Extreme (and mildly panicked) Prejudice. 

Inspecting the scattered corpses, they seem to have been pierced by something long and thin - like arrow wounds, except there are no arrows to be seen.

We cautiously move forward, Gral sneakily scouting ahead and messaging back to the clanky folks what’s up. Shoshana tries to sneak, but is too distracted looking at the Hunt-people corpses for - someone recognizable, maybe? - and trips over a dead wolf. CLANG CRASH WHAM, roll for initiative, folks!

We slash our way through a couple of toughs and their wolves, Lookin’ Cool and Kickin’ Butt, but...this is like, two guys. What happened to the terrifying force that had the bandit crew cowering in fear? Why are most of them gone, or dead on the ground with the same arrowless arrow wounds?

Maybe the answer is through that door.

What Shoshana remembers as a bit of a hollow in the wall of the ravine - enough shelter to get a quick snatch of rest, maybe - has been covered over with a crude ceiling and a curtained hide door. No sounds are coming from inside, so we cautiously make our way in. 

It’s not much. Some rough skins and blankets to sleep on, a bag hanging on the wall, and a metal chest that we determine is booby-trapped. And loose scraps of paper, scattered across the floor. Shoshana bends down to pick one up, and reads it.

The gasp is audible. She stares at it, struck, as her player reads the text sent to her by the DM. The others begin to investigate the room as she stands there, absolutely floored - and then snatches for the next piece of paper, like lightning. And then the next, and the next, on her knees scrabbling for them, reading each one with mounting frenzy. She’s muttering to herself - “Why would she-? No, how-? The whole time?! And she NEVER??? How could she-”

Valeria cautiously picks up one of the cast-aside notes, reads it, and then caaarefully places it back on the floor, because Hoo Boy This Is Some Personal Stuff, Let’s Give Her Some Space. They seem to be unsent, half-finished letters, addressed to Shoshana. 

While spooky lady has a breakdown, Clem ably does a bit of medicine for Gral and Valeria to get everyone in fighting shape for whatever comes next. 

Shoshana collects all the letters, and somberly takes the pressed flowers Valeria found on the rudimentary table. Elsewhere in the room we find a key to the big chest, but still stand to the side when we release it - good, because an unsteady Mage Hand isn’t enough to hold the trap wire properly taut. Clem insisted we open the chest last thing before we leave, for fear that the roof would cave in, but a big scythe just swings out of the wall and slices the air where we all Decided Not To Be Standing. We find a bit of money, a Ring of Jumping, Ser Balderich’s sword, and a magic horn that is only heard by the person you choose to hear it.

The horn is apportioned to Shoshana, being the squishiest and the most likely to get targeted by these creeps. Shoshana, emotionally a bit frazzled, accepts it bemusedly. “Why?” she inquires dully. “I mean, it’s not like you’re exactly invested in my survival, past the next hour or two.”

Gral immediately protests. “I gave my word I would protect you, as part of my promise to bring you to Duke Shieldeater’s service. I would not betray that.” 

Valeria nods enthusiastically. Shoshana blinks and then gives the universal “get a load of this guy” gesture to Clem. 

Gral continues. “If truth must be known, I...am not entirely here on the Duke’s orders. I serve him, but it was my own decision to come find you. I strongly believe we Orcs need better relations with the local civilians. And I have my own aims, as well.” Cryptic behind his mask, he does not elaborate and continues back out into the ravine. 

Up ahead is the part that Shoshana knows is waiting for her. A thick blanket of branches and hanging foliage cast a section of the ravine into deep darkness - a canopy impenetrable to light but not, as she remembers, to the falling, flailing body of a young woman.

It’s distantly terrifying that seeing it again feels so much like coming home. A voice curls out of the ravine, welcoming her back at last. It’s impossible for her to tell whether the others can hear it.

“Ser Balderich is in there. The bandits said they were keeping him in the dark place, and...that’s where...”

Valeria firmly places her hand on Shoshana’s shoulder, reaching out in empathy to steady a comrade in a time of clear emotional distress. Shoshana feels a gauntleted hand land on her shoulder, the executioner’s cue to go face her death with dignity. They go forth, into the darkness.

...

So, it’s DARK in there. Valeria lights up the Rune Beetle. It’s still dark, supernaturally so, heavy and sick-tasting in the air. Even those in the party with Darkvision are limited, and they move ahead slowly and carefully. Luckily, Ser Balderich hears them coming, and starts shouting at the FIENDS! who are BACK FOR MORE, ARE YOU? and the party is able to find the pit he has been thrown into, heavy wooden bars embedded over the top.

Seeing the glint of Valeria’s silver scales in the dim light of the beetle, Ser Balderich’s shouting stops short. “...Marius?” he asks, disbelieving. “You survived? D-did any of the others-?”

Valeria recognizes the name of Kyr Marius, a mentor of hers at the monastery where she trained. Another silver dragonborn of the order, with years of combat experience. “I’m not Marius,” she lets him down, “But we’re here to get you out!” 

Ser Balderich, beaten and bruised and with at least one broken arm, is still with-it enough to notice that a young female voice does not sound like his presumably middle aged male friend. But he makes a quick recovery: “Oh! Uh, well, Kyr, it is an honor! But beware, the fiends are not far-”

Yeah, they’ve definitely noticed we’re here. A couple of worgs prowl out of the darkness as Valeria and Clem try to pry the bars off the top of the pit and haul Ser Balderich out. With Faerie Fire, Gral manages to illuminate one of the worgs and a mysterious cloaked figure, who simply gestures and we all take 3 Taint. What the what? It’s on.

We have a narrow battle - fleeing seems like the only option at one point, as several of us are boxed into a Hunger of Hadar spell by flanking wargs, but we persevere. In a moment of crisis, Shoshana pulls strength from the darkness and takes Taint in exchange for temporary HP. Finally, Clem and the wounded Ser Balderich break through to the cloaked figure.  As Clem’s greatsword pierces the flowing cloak, it collapses to the floor, empty. The figure’s taunting voice drifts out to us one last time, looking forward to the next time we meet. You can try to escape the Hunt, just like your little friend, but this is where you belong in the end...

Limping forward, we investigate the cavern behind where his empty cloak fell. Well, not the part that spirals off forever into the darkness. We’re not that stupid. But there’s a little room, off to the side, and we stop short seeing it. There’s a bloody altar, decorated with animal skulls, facing a hanging painting on an animal skin.

The crude tapestry depicts a figure wearing an antlered helm, tearing his way out of where he is bound by tree roots jutting from the ground. Three less-detailed figures behind him seem to be similarly bound. The edges of the canvas are decorated with grotesque, gory scenes of animals and hunters slaying their prey.

Oh, right. The DM notes he forgot to add the horror part of the scene. We look to the other side of the room and see a human corpse, nailed up on the wall. The word “PREY” has been carved deeply into his chest.

It’s Mordecai.

Shoshana is already so emotionally drained, barely able to register her dull rage at these grotesque atrocities here in HER darkness. She raises her hands, but Ser Balderich speaks up, saying Ser Quentin Morozov, his friend the Cursebreaker Knight, may have use of the tapestry. It might help him in his studies. Meanwhile, Valeria is gently pulling the body off the wall, looking for any sign of the man’s religion and finding not a symbol of the Obereon pantheon but a small pendant with two faces - Baba and Gramps, kindly spirits still respected by some of the more rural woodsfolk. Valeria’s big enough to carry the body, covering the carved words with her cloak and promising him a proper burial.

Shoshana lets them, dully watching. She can feel something magic within the altar, but the only thought she has left about today is the general concept of NO. She raises her hands and a wave of fire overtakes the altar. As it burns, the oppressive feeling of the darkness lessens. It doesn’t disappear, but something vital to this place has been destroyed.

A bit dazed, the party staggers out into the light, Valeria carrying the hunter’s body and Clem supporting a weakened but determined Ser Balderich. Wanting to avoid whatever hunting party was sent out after the escaping huntress, they make it back to the abandoned bandit camp before collapsing to regroup.

Valeria and Ser Balderich get to talking, Valeria asking how Ser Balderich knows her old mentor Kyr Marius. Did Ser Balderich ever speak to anyone who knows what happened at the Crusade?

Knows what happened? Pssh, Ser Balderich was THERE. Though it’s clearly a painful memory, Ser Balderich explains what happened to the members of Valeria’s order:

The Crusade was closing in, about a day’s hard travel from Valdsheart, the Duke’s capital city - the center of the Curse. The Order of the Rose has made it to the old summer palace - the roses were in bloom, the gardens were beautiful, still immaculately maintained by automated Unseen Servants that had continued working even as the city had been abandoned.

The commanders of the various knightly orders gathered together at the Rebel’s Temple. (A History check lets us know that this was the temple that Karena, the leader of the rebellion against Keva and the first Duchess of Valdia, had established to ask the blessing of the gods over the new nation.

If anyone ever had doubts the Curse was intelligent, they were ended by the way it waited until the knights were separated from their commanders. When the attack started, the gardens sprang to life. We were attacked by thorns and deadly spores. Ser Balderich took his horse and rode for the temple, while the knights held the line against the tide. The temple was holy ground - it should have been well-warded. Arriving there, he saw the windows stained with blood - the place was overrun. There were two groups of survivors still fighting: Archcleric Rudolf Klemsk and his knights of Rack fled one way, while the Peacock Knight (founder of the Knights Radiant) held the line alone. There were waves and waves of creatures, all sorts.

(Gral: Ser Balderich, please describe these creatures. DM: Absolutely not, it’s like midnight.)

Ser Balderich, unable to help, fled back to the palace to help the forces there. It was totally overrun. He hopes some got out, but was unable to get close enough to see. The aftermath? Well. Archcleric Klemsk got out, but Something happened there - afterward, he and his followers became the frightening Knights Penitent who violently hunt down all corruption and impiety. He assumes the Peacock Knight was overwhelmed, but he has been sighted since.

...I’m sorry.

Ser Balderich tells us: If anyone is going to solve this, it won’t be a marching army. It will be someone like my friend Quentin, and his Cursebreakers, or the madmen at Sturmhearst. We Beggar Knights will stand watch, and ensure as many people possible live to see the day the Curse ends, if that day ever comes.

We all mull that story, and then begin to get up to go. A quick discussion of options comes to this: we’ll go back to Ovruch and drop Ser Balderich off there, so he can recover and protect the town. In the morning, we’ll travel to the town of Holzog to bring the tapestry to Ser Quentin - perhaps he will be interested in our stories, as well. Gral certainly wants to discuss something with the Cursebreaker.

As everybody’s putting on their backpacks and stuff, Shoshana interjects, confused. Um...aren’t you guys...forgetting something?

Ser Balderich considers. “...yes.” He comes over to her, and she closes her eyes, readying for it.

“...I did not thank you, for rescuing me. You have my gratitude.”

N-no, you guys, don’t you need to...? Y’know? Take care of me, now that the Hunt and the bandits are dealt with?

...Oh.

Ser Balderich scoffs, compassionately. “Shoshana, I saw you reject the power that altar could have given you.” (Player: wait what? DM: yeah, there was a magic item in there”) “You were given your abilities, and what did you do with them? You took care of cats. You are not the monster you believe yourself to be.”

Valeria is nodding. Gral is nodding. Even Clem is nodding. Shoshana’s brain just about fails to compute; you can see the blue screen behind her eyes. We pack up, find a quiet spot in the woods to bury poor Mordecai the woodsman, and make our way back to Shoshana’s place to crash.

---

We roll against the Taint we acquired in the Hunt’s territory. Gral and Clem fully save. Valeria takes a minor corruption. Shoshana is offered a deal by the DM and takes it, gaining a minor corruption as well.

We each draw a card for the next session: The Hunter, The Knight, The Madness, and The Heretic.