19 Kythorn 1491

Session 7, 11/20/2021
Lormin, you must have simply been exhausted by yesterday’s ventures into the tower, because after breakfast this morning, you managed to leave your journal behind, right on the table. Why, a person could learn all kinds of secrets! Someone with thinner skin than I might even be insulted to be described as a thief and a murderer. Fortunately for you, I’m made of sterner stuff — I’ve been called worse, and some of it was even false. In any case, you and Sylrel enjoy your day off. I’ll do you a favor and keep a running log of any little misadventures I run into with the boys.

First thing — it’s time for some investment planning. That statue we nabbed from the tower was worth a nice, round 5000 gp. The very lovely chief banker at the Larondel Vault, Quilith, was quite happy to convert the statue into its cash value for us. Evelios Liriel and Jerry Beard took their shares in cash immediately. I took some spending coin and left the rest in the bank. Your shares - both Lormin and Sylrel - are in accounts under your names at the bank. I hope you don’t mind that I used the personal identifying information in this journal to secure your account.

In case you’re worried about security at the bank, I made a detailed sketch of the security arrangements below, for whatever use that might be in the future.

Evelios and Jerry then decided we should return to Dlens for their custom costume orders. Boys that age love to dress up, don’t they? And, I must admit, a little panache is always a fun thing; I admit to getting suckered into buying a billowing black cape for the festival. (They train their people well in the art of the upsell at Dlens.)

Evelios then insisted upon purchasing healing potions from that obvious fraud “Professer” Miracle (yes, I know he misspells “Miracle” on his cart, yet somehow I get accused of illiteracy). He did ask after your wellbeing - for a laugh, I told him you were dead. A fun joke that Jerry immediately ruined. If you’re interested, the “good professor” has some oil of slipperiness for sale and a potion of resistance from fire, neither of which we felt inclined to purchase. My days of needing lube that expensive are far behind me.

Now, at this point, I must admit that in my fervent desire to see evil defeated at Neera’s Tower, I may have obtained something of… a curse. Which unfortunately, the only person in town with the ability to cure is Lorien Yost. What kind of curse? That’s no business of yours, young man.

I was fully prepared to bribe him with a pull from the deck of many things or, failing that, using my powers of suggestion to compel removal of the curse. Neither proved necessary, as Yost proved as weak-willed as he is ineffective at managing his church. He only asked for “peace between us,” which I agreed to on the condition that any peace between us would not survive if I learned he had any hand in the harm which befell Ravenna. I will, of course, keep my word to the letter. He then started up some grand speech and I left.

Now properly equipped with cash and costumes, Evelios Liriel and Jerry Beard moved on to their fourth and lowest priority of the day, investigating the murder of poor Lukas Wynter. We first went to the Wynter home. While Jerry Beard fiddled with the locked door, I went around back, entered a broken window, and opened the door for the boys. How they ever functioned without me I’ll never know.

In any case, the place had been ransacked thoroughly. Fortunately, every single room was a wreck, which meant that the person searching likely failed in their quest to find whatever it was they were looking for.

We found some papers, which, in order from least interesting to most:
1) Mopey, whining, whiskey-stained letters begging Jayla Floren to take him back. I’m certain those would have worked and wouldn’t have seemed pathetic at all.
2) The deed to the house, which means we are now legally entitled to flip it for profit.
3) Some genealogical records relating to Jayla’s mother, which I committed to memory.

Our next stop was the Morse house, which was again locked. Taking a page from my book, Evelios and Jerry circled to the back of the house and proceeded to utterly fail at breaking a window. A little magic blast, a little magic illusion, and I completed the “breaking” part so that the boys could finishing the “entering.” The Morse house was empty of anything of value — just sappy love letters and some pulpy comic books which I immediately tossed away. Ugh.

Our next stop was to visit Jayla’s mother - her name is “Bly,” by the way, I see you didn’t find that important enough to write down earlier - to see if she knew anything about the genealogical records. Apparently, she was entirely ignorant of her family’s history and her only concern was to continue blubbering about the loss of her husband.

(Look, I do understand, it took me a century or three before I finally wrote off men as useless, but seriously, she could be doing so much better if she just stopped worrying about it.)

We never did find out what the mysterious key was used for, until I had the sudden insight that we were right next door to the Larondell Vault, which had indeed offered us the use of a safety deposit box. We rushed across the street and indeed, my insight was central to breaking open the investigation. The key fit a lockbox, and inside the lockbox was a locket containing a wedding picture. The woman was clearly a direct Floren ancestor. The man was named - and I swear, if he were alive I’d kill him for it - Jordus Ghorvindangijenson.

A quick visit to city hall confirmed that the shady solicitor that’s been using the Roc’s Nest as a base of operations for his investigation into some estate is investigating the estate of that very same Mr. Ghorvindangijenson.

Just in case I need to connect the dots here, the lawyer is trying to screw the widow out of her rightful family fortune.

Now, I may be a centuries-old witch with devastating arcane power and with a moral compass that is, at most, vestigial. But I know when it’s time to call in the big guns and hire a lawyer. This is that time.

We scurried over to Constable Hawthorne, who offered one of the village’s solicitors to help tie up the probate in administrative red tape until we could see to the rightful restoration of Bly’s fortunes. In the meantime, however, it seems that the judge overseeing the Lukas murder case was assaulted in his chambers by a monster with a “lupine” appearance yet which walked upright like a man!

In case you haven’t been around as long as I have, that’d be a “werewolf,” honey, and a werewolf can be anybody.

So now we have a problem. A werewolf - who could be Yost or Quilith or Kevin or the card-shark lady as far as any of us know - is trying to interfere with the murder investigation. (But it’s probably the shady solicitor)

One idle, disturbing thought that occurred to me is that we ought to confirm that Lukas is actually, in fact, dead, and not our werewolf. I returned to the Church of Tyr to inquire with Yost as to whether he’d actually seen the corpse, but Lukas was not buried on the church grounds, but in the cemetery just out of town to the north of the Roc’s Nest.

And so, we are headed there now, and will stop on the way to pick you up. I’ll return this journal to you then. Please excuse the blood on this page, we ran into some simply fascinating conglomerations of detached, undead limbs which attacked us on the way back. We’re fine, and I saved parts for research later.

Session 8, 12/4/2021
Although this journal did not come into my possession until slightly later, I feel that it is my solemn duty to record the remainder of that fateful day as it was later related to me. I have attempted to string together the events of that night from the disjointed tales of the various people present, but it is all third hand information, so it is possible that details have been missed or the order of events garbled.

When the 3 returned to the inn they were feeling a bit rough, so decided the would rest for the remainder of the afternoon and early evening and then head out to the cemetery with Lormin and Sylrel in tow. On their way out, the barmaid Khira warned them of the dangers of the roads at night, much less the cemetery. Of course, they were confident that they could handle anything they would run across and paid her warnings no heed.

The trip to the cemetery was short and uneventful, it being just down the road from the Roc’s Nest. When they arrived, it was after dark, so everything was covered in shadows and visibility was low. The cemetery was fairly standard, with graves and mausoleums surrounding a central clearing. In the central clearing stood a large statue.

Those with better vision at night reported that there was a strange figure standing under the statue as if in contemplation. It appeared to be a woman, but her visage was of one long past dead. Ysildea used her powers to communicate with the creature that the group would not interfere with it’s business if it did not interfere with the group. The creature appeared amiable to the suggestion and the group spread out to search for the grave of Lukas Wynter.

The grave was quickly discovered and the group gathered around to investigate, but all seemed as it should. Ysildea was concerned that the body may not be in the grave, and insisted that the grave be dug up. Everyone agreed, but no one had a shovel, so everyone spread out again to try and find one.

It was at this point that it appears that things began to go wrong.

Apparently Lormin approached one of the crypts to search it for shovel or pickaxe, but when he touched the door to he vanished without a sound or trace. From what was related, there was some immediate concern about his disapearance, with some attempts to prod the door open with a staff. And then Sylrel suggested Ysildea use her magical ability “Mage Hand” to open the door.

But, instead, Ysildea ignored the request to try and open the door and stayed focused on the digging up of the grave. She then rallied the other members of the group from trying to locate/save the lost hero and redirected them to helping her. The closest the group could come to a digging implement was a wooden shield, so they then spent 3 hours digging up the grave. 3 hours without searching for their lost companion who had clearly disappeared in a magical fashion.

(I must interject into the narrative here. I find this retelling hard to believe. How could a group who had fought true creatures of evil together treat the disappearance of one of their own in such a cavalier manner? Perhaps that creature Ysildea had communicated with was exerting some kind of undue influence at that point? I hope they do not simply hold life in such low regards. Or perhaps Ysildea‘s own entry in this journal was a precursor as to what was to come? She claimed to take no offense to the things written about her, but she then joked to Professor Jervis Mirrakle that Lormin was already dead and then mere hours he was in fact truly dead.)

After exhuming the body of Lukas Wynter and verifying that he (or at least someone) was truly buried in the grave, the group once again began to search the graveyard. Sylrel again suggested to use the “Mage Hand” to open the door and this time Ysildea agreed and made the attempt, promptly opening the door.

At the ground level of the crypt were two stone sarcophagi. The lids were very heavy and Evelios Liriel and Jerry Beard were unable to open them. They instead followed the stairs down lower into the crypt. In the basement level there was another sarcophagus, but before they could investigate it, they were attacked by 4 horrors.

The creatures were vaguely humanoid, but appeared and moved as if they contained no bones or skeletons. The battle was intense but short and the disgusting creatures defeated.

At this point, Ysildea, who had remained upstairs during the fight, decided to touch the door of the crypt. She instantly disappeared and was transported to Lormin’s location. That just happened to be inside an air tight sarcophagus. She realized there was no air left inside the sarcophagus and she needed to quickly escape. She was not strong enough to move the lid, but blasted the lid with her magical abilities managing to move the lid ajar, letting in air and alerting the others to her presence.

Jerry and Evelios Liriel were able to move the lid the remainder of the way allowing Ysildea to escape. But sadly, they were too late for Lormin. Several hours too late. Perhaps if they had immediately searched for him they may have found him in time, but I will not dwell on that here any longer.

In the end, they did retrieve Lormin’s journal and searched the rest of the sarcophagus. They discovered that Lormin had kicked loose a hidden panel by his feet. Inside the panel was hidden a small wooden box containing 10 vials of blood.

After searching Lormin to take anything valuable and leaving his body behind without a proper funeral(I don’t think leaving him in someone else’s coffin counts), the group exited the crypt. Unsure what to do at that point, the group approached the undead creature at the center of the cemetery to see if they could get any clues as to what was going on.

The creature’s name was Tamara Narim. She refused to be directly helpful, but did indicate to the group that the town had a history that was responsible for the evil going ons in the area and that there were secrets hidden within the cemetery that would help reveal the truth. After some back and forth and prodding, she seemed to indicate that if the group did a good job investigating what they could in the cemetery, that she might then share some of her own knowledge. After that revelation, she disappeared in puff of magic.

After speaking with Tamara Narim, the group decided to investigate the crypts and see if they could learn more of the town’s secrets. But, after Lormin’s untimely demise and the warning received from Tamara, they decided to proceed at a much slower and careful pace.

The first crypt they approached had an inscription above the door. It read “Zaris Narim, The Fool”. They noticed the matching last name with the undead creature and were immediately hopeful that the crypt may reveal some secrets. But alas, the crypt and the sarcophagus within revealed no secrets.

Next the approached the largest crypt in the cemetery. The first level of the crypt contained again contained a number of closed sarcophagi that revealed nothing of import upon inspection. Moving to the lower level of the crypt, there were again a number of closed sarcophagi, but there was this time one that was already opened. Inside the open sarcophagus could be seen numerous coins and jewels, an large urn in pristine condition and another small wooden box similar to the one found in the other crypt.

Continuing to be cautious at this point, the group had Ysildea usee her Mage Hand power to lift the urn and the wooden box from within the sarcophagus without coming into contact with it or even particularly close to it.

First they took a closer look at the wooden box. This one contained 6 vials of a dull colored liquids. Ysildea, threw caution to the wind at this point and tasted a drop of one to try and identify it. She was fairly certain that the liquid was a poison known as Assassin’s Blood. Evelios Liriel quickly moved to coat some of his arrows in the foul liquid.

This left the urn. Jerry Beard picked it up to investigate it and the world quickly went silent. It sounds like (ha!) there was quite the confusion at this point, with the group exiting the crypt and spreading out to try and determine what had happened. Only to realize the silence was centered around Jerry and going 30 feet out or so.

There was quite the discussion on what to do and how to get the curse removed, when Sylrel thought to ask the question of if he were truly cursed or was it just a magical effect. She cast a spell and determined that it was only a magical effect. After some thought, and not sure how long the effect would last, they decided to stash Jerry overnight in Lukas Wynter‘s abandoned house and to come back to the cemetery another night to finish their investigations.

The group spread out around Jerry to avoid being caught in his bubble of silence and headed towards the safe house.

The group spread out around Jerry to avoid being caught in his bubble of silence and headed towards the safe house. Lucky that they had the foresight not to all be caught in Jerry’s bubble as they heard the approaching horse hoofs and were not taken by surprise when the creature known locally as the Dead Rider appeared charging down the road towards them.

There was a pitched battle, with Jerry Beard trying to stay close enough to the rider to engage him, but Sylrel and Ysildea keeping distance as to not be affected by Jerry’s silence. Ultimately the party prevailed in fighting off the attacks of the Dead Rider and he appeared to take a great deal of damage. At the last minute he turned and fled into the night. Evelios Liriel and Ysildea fired into the dark after him, and the group heard what they thought was a crashing noise. But when Evelios Liriel went to investigate, there was no sign of either the rider or his mount. The group remains uncertain as to whether he was truly defeated or not.

After the fight, the group hurried on to the safe house where they left Jerry for the remainder of the night and then returned to the Roc’s Nest to sleep, and (one would think) mourn the loss of their companion.