21 Kythorn 1491

Session 11 cont., 12/25/2021

In the morning we sent Kevin to fetch Constable Hawthorne. He arrived with a number of guards with him. Gideon admitted the role he had played, but attempted to omit a few facts, such as his lycanthropy. But we made sure all the details came out. The constable paid us a 300 gold reward for catching the murderer and gave us 48 hours to try and track down Jayla and save her from her curse.

We decided we would fist visit Lorien Yost at the temple and ensure his cooperation in lifting the curse if we could locate Jayla. He agreed to assist us, but would only do so if he could spend as little time away from the temple as possible. He was just not comfortable leaving the temple until the last minute when we had located her.

Next we visited Bly Floren, Jayla’s mother. We requested a small personal item like a hair brush to help us scry and determine her current location. Scrying revealed that she was currently in her hiding spot at the stables. We sent Yost a message to meet us there and headed to Brota’s Stables.

Once everyone was there it was decided The Professor and Sylrel would enter the barn alone. The Professor would try and talk to Jayla to convince her that we were there to help her and if that failed Sylrel would try and restrain her with hold person. Luckily The Professor was able to talk her into accepting our help and Yost entered the barn to remove the curse from her, which he was able to do with little problem.

While waiting outside Evelios and I noticed some strange figures moving through the crowd and so were not surprised when then moved to attack. They were humans with scimitars and appeared to be nothing other than assassins. Evelios and I defended ourselves and the others came rushing from the barn when they heard the battle. The men were easily dealt with, but the most telling detail was that Yost blanched and froze up upon seeing the attackers.

After the battle I questioned Yost about his reaction and he claimed that his adventuring days were behind him and he simply froze up from surprise. It was obvious he was lying, but when I went to press him on the matter The Professor restrained me and suggested it was better to deal with that later once Jayla was no longer in danger, so I dropped the matter and Yost returned to his temple. At this point, while writing this, I wonder who the assassins were after? Him or us?

We escorted Jayla back to her mother’s house and then informed the constable that the girl had been rescued.

Session 12, 01/01/2022

After arriving back at the inn we decided to have lunch and take stock of our next steps. We were feeling good after saving Jayla and wrapping up that mystery and so we thought we would try and continue our streak of good doing and try and free Kevin’s dad from the asylum. We figured that there was a decent chance of things turning violent, so in order to reduce that chance of bystanders being caught up in that we would wait until night fall and try to break in covertly.

We approached the asylum late that night, around 11 pm. There was still one of those automaton guards out front of the place, so we circled the property looking for a way in. On the east side we identified a ground floor window that we thought lead into a break room. It was out of sight of the front door and also appeared empty, so decided that would be our entry point. We also noted that in the room next door we could see a figure working at a desk. We thought this might be the asylum director.

We agreed on some prearranged actions and signals and then I cast silence over the group and we proceeded to climb over the fence. We crossed the yard and looked in the window and the break room still appeared to be empty. After a few minutes of waiting and no one showing up to challenge us, we assumed we were still in the clear. I broke the window and we climbed through it into the room (thank you for the boost getting up into the window Evelios).

The room was indeed the break room we had thought and we searched it silently, but found nothing of note. We decided that we would try and surprise the director and see if we could get any information regarding Kevin’s dad out of him.

The Professor opened the hallway door and peeked out. He say no one, so crept to the end of the hallway to look around the corner. One of the automatons was a bit further down at the next turn in the hallway, but it had not heard anything yet. The Professor signaled us and we moved to join him in the hallway across from the office door. I, being in heavy armor and none too stealthy, managed to cause some of the floor boards to creak, and the automaton heard us. When the automaton reached us, The Professor shrunk him down and he was quickly destroyed.

We then burst into the office to surprise the director. Before he could get a word out, Sylrel cast a hold person spell and restrained him. I then proceeded to tie him to his chair and gag him. We searched the office and Sylrel cast detect magic to assist us. We found no records of interest, but did find a magic cane/club and an amulet. Unsure what to do with the director at that point, we took him back to the break room and stashed him in the toilet. The director seemed to want to tell us something, but in the end we decided it was not worth the dangers or removing his gag to hear what he had to say. This may have been a mistake.

From there we decided to proceed upstairs as that is where we thought the patient rooms were at. We went up and the first room was empty. Listening to the only door in the room heard to voices. The Professor thought he would try and distract them and cast a minor illusion causing the voice of the director to be heard calling for an all hands meeting down in the entry room of the asylum.
Fortunately this appeared to work and fool them as they decided to head down to the meeting. Unfortunately the only way downstairs was apparently through the room we were in, and the door opened and the two nurses entered the room to head to the stair way. We were able to knock them out, but again, unsure what to do with them, we tied them up, dragged them downstairs and locked them in the bathroom with the director.

Returning to the upstairs we went through that room and entered what appeared to be a nurses station. There were numerous records and it opened up over a counter into a large community style room. Searching the records we found mention of Torson Drayer. He had been marked as moved to the “lower treatment center”. Since finding Torson was our primary goal, we quit searching the upper floor and headed back downstairs.

While passing through the break room we may have pounded on the bathroom door and made various of color comments just to rile up the director a bit. Probably not one of our finest moments.
Heading down the stairs, we entered a smaller room with only one door. The door opened up into an empty corridor with a left turn that lead further down to a T intersection. From where we were at we could see a number of doors. Since we were still trying to be stealthy and minimize the chance of casualties, we decided we would listen to the doors and start with exploring on doors that had no noise coming from them.

We heard some quiet noises coming from the first door we tried, so we moved on. The second door was quiet, so we opened it. Standing still in the middle of the room, and making no noise, was one of those automatons. Upon seeing us, it moved directly towards us and attacked. While the creature looked quite intimidating we quickly realized it was not much of a threat and defeated it. Sylrel and Evelios noticed a second creature approaching from down the hallway at the same time and we also quickly dealt with that one.

Upon examination, the creatures were actually some sort of mechanical construct. Very fascinating and I would have loved to have a chance to examine the remains in more detail, but time was of the essence, so we quickly moved on and searched the room we had opened. Inside we found a ledger with another entry for Torson Drayer. He was being held in Cell F, southern wing.

Continuing our search, the next door we opened held a morgue. There were 3 bodies displayed on tables in various states of dissection. The corpse on the middle table appeared to be the most recent. Above it hovered a translucent shade whose features vaguely matched those of the body on the table. The phantom let out a terrible cry, which seemed to have no affect on us, and then moved to attack the group. The spirit, like the strange automatons, was quickly banished.

To be honest, at this point I believe everyone was feeling pretty confident that none of the challenges we would face in the asylum would be too difficult to overcome and that we would have no problem freeing Torson once we found him. As so often happens, we were wrong. Very, very wrong.

The last and final door we opened was the holding area. There was a small administrative area with a desk and a nurse sitting behind it and a corridor filled with cells/cages. I gave the nurse a little love tap with the hammer to put her to sleep and then we looked through the cells.

About halfway down the hallway we found the cell marked “F” and containing a cowering man scared out of his mind. Looking in the other cells, they all appeared to be holding “patients” in a similar condition. All except the last cell. It contained a human or half elf man who was standing directly in front of his cell door. He stared me directly in the eyes when I approached, but said nothing. He, more than any other of the patients, gave the impression that maybe he needed to be here for treatment.

The professor and I entered Torson’s cell and quieted him down. It took some time, but we convinced him we were sent by his son to rescue him and that we would not hurt him. Once he has feeling better, we led him out of his cell an prepared to leave the building. We discussed releasing the other patients briefly, but based on the looks of the last guy, we decided against it.

Sylrel and Evelios led the way, with myself and The Professor escorting Torson. Just as we were leaving the holding area, Evelios let our a scream that we were under attack. Rushing out to the hallway I was totally surprised to see the patient from the last cell.

We did out best to battle the lunatic, but he was extremely resilient and fast. He first took The Professor out of commission and then myself. We were able to bring people back using healing magic, but we knew we were in for a tough fight.

Then, for reasons as of yet unknown to us, he quickly fled the scene. Evelios and Sylrel followed him, while The Professor and myself stayed with Torson to protect him. By the time we reached Evelios and Sylrel on the ground floor, there was nothing to be seen of the guy.

Worried about our ability to handle the crazed patient and unsure what else to do, we decided we would take Torson back to the Inn with us. We would let him stay in one our rooms for the night and reunite him with Kevin in the morning. We also hoped by that by then he might be a bit more lucid and able to provide us more information.