Chapter Three: A Barbecue with Friends. And some Basil.
Cast of Characters
Agnak Stonestalker Monekekali: A seven foot Veruca Salt. With an axe.
Solomon Hawkins: A monster hunter whose tongue is as sharp as his wooden stake. Or so he thinks.
Gilphine: The deadly archer and would be big spoon.
Sheen: The bongo wielding dwarven bard...just a seven year old boy at heart. Has just been knighted "Sir Soon to Be Written out of the Plot Because His Player Ditched Us."
Basil Vellurian: The new guy. Just what we need. Another pasty human.
When last we left our heroes, they had inexplicably decided to go down a dark spiral staircase into a most certainly monster filled basement. Agnak insists on leading the way, despite being the only one in the party without the ability to see in the dark. There is much stamping of feet and pouting until the others grudgingly agree to do things Agnak's way. Sheen cowers in the back, whimpering incoherently about monsters. These sudden changes in behavior (OK, we'll admit... it's not that big a change for Sheen) lead Solomon to conclude that yes. They are, in fact, possessed. Agnak and Sheen, of course, deny this obvious fact.
Somewhere, echoing from the darkened tunnels of this damp and foreboding dungeon, the party hears chanting.
The first thing the adventurers discover upon reaching this not at all creepy basement, is the family crypt. An empty crypt with a blank marker lies beside a second empty crypt, this one's slab bearing the name "Walter Durst."
A second pair of crypts marked Elisabeth and Gustav Durst lie across from a third pairing. These bear stone slabs with the names Rosavalda Durst, and Thornbolt Durst. The slabs block the entrances to the crypts, yet the slabs have not been mortared. A chill runs down the spines of Agnak and Sheen. Sheen resumes his whimpering and clings to Agnak's leg.
The part ventures forth into what appears to have been a dining hall. Moldy humanoid bones lie strewn about the floor. The bones have been stripped of all flesh and knife marks nick the surfaces.
"Hoo boy. Canibals," Solomon astutely observes.
As Gilphine pokes about the walls of the dining hall, a grick lunges forward from the alcove that once served as a larder. "Nope!" she exclaims as she rapidly flees the creatures claws and tentacles.
(Editor's Note: The party have in fact seen enough Japanese porn to know how this ends.)
After a fierce battle, the grick lets out its final shriek. Agnak now demands they follow him towards a darkened crossroads of unlit hallways. He lights a torch and attempts to carry it in his mouth until Sheen timidly offers to hold it for him, this giving Sheen a less cowardly excuse to continue clinging to Agnak. Gilphine, however, has other ideas. Arguments ensue, and the temper tantrum of a seven foot Goliath is a thing to behold. And there can be little arguing with the man with the axe, even if the man now appears to be a bratty little girl.
Recognizing that being led by a towering version of Vercua Salt is, perhaps, a bad idea, Solomon wracks his monster hunting brain for any information on how to exorcise a ghost. He recalls two methods. You can try to scare them out, risking angering them, or you can lay their bodies to rest. The group immediately recalls the tiny skeletons, and the crypts.
The skeletons... that are now up three flights of narrow spiral stairs. "OK. I'm going to go up, get them, and roll them up in a rug," plans Solomon. This, Gilphine worries, might upset the tots now squatting in a giant's head. She begins to do backflips, hoping to delight the children with her tumbling. The backflips are fun. The faceplants are more fun. With the tots distracted, Solomon races up the stairs, retrieves the dusty remains, and a little stuffy, still grasped in a tiny skeletal embrace, and brings them back to the crypts. He grunts, and strains, and crowbars his way into Thornbolt's crypt, and lays the body to rest. A rush of cold wind blows through sheen's head and suddenly, standing behind Solomon, is Thorn. "I'm sorry. You were going to leave. I didn't want to be alone anymore."
In an uncharacteristic display of give a fuck, Solomon tries to reassure the lad, who tells him that he may be able to leave the house now. It's time for him to take a nap. Maybe when he wakes up, he'll be somewhere else. He hands Solomon his stuffy. "Here. He'll protect you from the monster." And with that, he disappears. One ghost kid down. One to go. Lather, rinse, repeat, this time with Rose's bones.
Agnak feels the same cold wind, and now Rosavalda is standing beside him. "I told you I didn't want you to leave us. Mommy and Daddy left us. Look what happened." Agnak is overcome with guilt and apologizes for leaving them. "Here." A dusty but incredibly ornate water skin appears in her hands. "We won't need this anymore. They left us water. Should have left us food too." She crosses her arms, angry at the memory. "Parents suck." And with that, she vanishes. The crypts are empty.
(Editor's Note: Again we see a brief glimpse of Agnak's absolutely not to be mercilessly exploited weakness for kids. This is the part where I mention that Agnak's real world human form cosplays Captain America for children's hospitals. That level of goodness makes for good character torture. Muahahahaha. However, he also makes a damn fine macaron. So the torture will be limited. For now.)
Agnak no longer wishes to lead, needing a moment to process the fact he was possessed by a little girl Sheen is equally shaken. "I had a little boy in me. That's fucked up. You can go to jail for that."
The group follows Gilphine's lead and passes a hallway, from which the chanting appears to get louder. Seemingly recovered from his sudden obsession with Taylor Swift, Agnak once again takes the lead... and falls into a spike pit. After pulling him out of the ten foot trap, Gilphine suggests that the hallways seem to connect and, were they to follow the crossroads Agnak-Rose wanted to take, they would likely arrive on the other side of the pit.
They do so, and, upon reaching the center of the crossroads, they are set upon by ghouls. A hard fought battle ensues. Spells are thrown, arrows shot, axes wielded, ghouls insulted until their heads hurt, but eventually the party prevails, albeit weakened considerably. Still they persist.
They find an empty room of moldering straw mattresses, where people once slept. A well sits in a center common room, from which single occupant sleeping quarters branch off. They remind Agnak of a soldier's barracks, but they have long been abandoned. Each room boasts a wooden bed and a plain wooden footlocker. Making quick use of his lockpicking kit, Solomon opens the chests revealing a handful of valuables, and an odd looking pouch which Gilphine recognizes as human skin. No one wants to touch it, until Sheen shakes it and the jingle of coins can be heard. It's opened in about five seconds, grossness notwithstanding.
Down a shadowy staircase the group continues, the chanting growing louder until they hear words. "He is the Ancient. He is the Land."
"Dafuq does that mean" says... pretty much everyone.
Still, because self preservation instincts are overrated, the group continues down the stairs which lead into a reliquary. The room has thirteen tiny alcoves, each holding a gruesome token: the mummified yellow hand of a goblin on a loop of frayed rope; a knife carved from human bone; a dagger with a rat's skull set into the pommel; a varnished orb made from a nothic's eye; an aspergillum carved from bone; a cloak made of ghoul skin; a desiccated frog lashed to a polished stick which Solomon believes to be a wand of polymorph; a bag of bat guano; the severed finger of a hag; a wooden figurine of a mummy, arms folded over its chest; an iron pendant adorned with a fiend's face; the shriveled shrunken head of a halfling; a wooden coffer with the tongue of a direwolf. A hallway beckons them and again they walk down shadowed stairs which empty into two foot murky water. They are confronted with a portcullis. Through its rusty bars, they see a stone alter, surrounded by water. A stone path surrounds this man made pool. In the far end, an alcove lies, filled with detritus and leafy waste. Agnak tries his luck at lifting the portcullis. He has no luck.
Gilphine finds a secondary passageway, leading to a row of prison cells. The prisoners are long gone, but their bones litter the floor. It is in this hallway that she finds a secret door. The door slides easily, and the group enters the empty chamber. Suddenly the chanting is silent and only the echoing of their footsteps remain.
"Can't we find a bug or something? Cockroach? Come on. This place has bugs."
The group looks for bugs in the walls to no avail. They look in the water for fish... to no avail. They contemplate going fishing. They have rope. And string. And no hooks. Finally, Solomon spots a mouse crawling about the sleeping mass of branches and leaves in the corner. Carefully using his mage hand, he catches the rodent, carries it to the alter and stabs it, noticing for the first time that his ghostly manifestation of mage hand has taken on a skeletal form. With a pitiful squeak, the mouse dies and a tiny cascade of mouse blood waters the altar. The cultists fade into the ether. But their chants, "He is the Ancient. He is the Land," continue to echo in the darkness.
The group decides this is an excellent time to gtfo, making sure the portcullis is locked firmly behind them.
As the intrepid warriors walk slowly out of the house, the eerie misty fog surrounding the dilapidated edifice begins to dissipate. The group breathes a sigh of relief. They feel a suffocating wind as if a presence has left the world forever.
Then another mist comes. This one rolls down the street, lapping at cobblestones as it snakes its way towards the group. It flows into a darkened alley, and from the shadows, Gilphine swears she sees a pair of red eyes. A slow, condescending clap is heard from the shadows, and a tall, dark haired, strikingly handsome man with cold grey-blue eyes steps into the street. "My, my, my.... well done. I've seen so many go into that house but... they never seem to make it back out. I feel a strange emotion. It's unfamiliar. Oh. I know... I'm almost impressed."
The man goes on to explain that he had seen the house claim many a traveler, but this was the first time anyone had managed to make it back out...alive. A shame the village is now bereft of of entertainment. Then the man pauses, his eyes light up for a moment. Oh yes. There's still the parade.
Agnak ask the man his name, but the man coldly replies it's a bit early for introductions. This answer does not satisfy Agnak. Recalling the letter he found in the house he asks the man if he is Gustav. The man laughs, and appears almost offended. "That sycophant? No. Power hungry grasper. He deserved... everything he got." Agnak tries again, thinking back to the letter he received in Daggerford, what now feels like a lifetime ago.
"Are you the Burgomaster?"
Again the man laughs. "That title is a little beneath me."
Solomon rolls his eyes. "We get it. Ooooooh. Look at me. I'm a broody brooding guy. Scarrrrry."
The man looks at Solomon and regards him carefully for a moment. A moment too long. "You think you're clever, don't you?"
Solomon replies with a pithy, yet apparently forgettable remark.
"You think your powerful, too."
Again with the snappy comebacks.
"Would you like to see what real power looks like?" The man politely asks Solomon to take a step to his left. Solomon instead continues his strategy of belligerence and defiance. The group, wisely, decides to take their own step to the right. In the blink of an eye, the man conjures a fireball and hurls it...at Agnak, Gilphine, and Sheen, dropping them to the ground in a singed pile of unconsciousness. Solomon stammers for a moment, not realizing the intent behind this show of force, still assuming himself as the intended target.
The man smiles coldly and tosses two scrolls at Solomons feet. "They might still be alive, but I'd move quickly if I were you." With that, he resumes his mist form and disappears.
Solomon reads the magic scrolls quickly, restoring Agnak and Gilphine to weak, but conscious states. The group does what they can to stabilize Sheen, but the dwarf appears to be in a deep coma.
Agnak and Gilphine turn on Solomon, furious that his flippancy almost cost them their lives. Gilphine announces that she needs a drink and begins to stalk off down the road towards the brighter lights of the town. The group follows in silence.
IN ANOTHER PLACE, worlds away, beyond the mists, ENTER PLAYER FIVE.
Basil Vallurian, a waif of a man with a slender build, graceful movements and a charming demeanor is on this way home to the Thunder Peaks to spend some time with his family. Born of modest means to a military family he served for the local city guard as a scout outside Arabel after schooling. During that time he lost many comrades to drow raids and tried to move on, but their losses continued to haunt him.
As he made camp for the night, he herd the clamor of swords, and the screams of innocents not trained in battle. He ran to help but arrived too late to do more than stay with the few folks left behind dying as he held their hand reminding them they were not alone. When the last one passed away he gathered his things and set out to return to his camp. It was well after dark, requiring him to make camp for the night, especially now knowing their were drow afoot.
When he awoke, a strange fog had rolled in. He heard the sounds of wagons and merry conversation. Lost in the fog, his usually perfect sense of direction oddly disoriented, he waited for the wagons to draw nearer. The travelers, dressed in bright clothing, seemed friendly enough and offered to let him travel with them to... the village of Barovia.
Basil, being well and truly lost, agreed. Although he had never heard of this village, they might be able to set him back on his path to the Thunder Peaks.
The caravan introduced themselves as Vistani and their leader, Stanimir, shared with Basil some stories of their destination. They dropped him off at the outskirts of the village after his polite refusal to accompany them to their camp and have Madam Eva read his fortune. Repeating the offer one last time, the Vistani departed, leaving Basil to lurk about the shadows, trying to learn all he can about this strange place where the sun seemed perpetually hidden behind thick clouds, and the people seemed trapped in a paralyzing and joyless state of fear. He found his way to the tavern, where he now waits quietly, watching and listening.
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