24 Kythorn 1491

Session 16, 2/19/2021

The next morning we met in the common room for breakfast and to re-hash the previous day’s developments. The general feeling was that we still wanted to help Ravenna if at all possible, but the group was generally lacking in ideas on how to de-vampire someone or if it was even possible. And, to top it all off, Ravenna had not seemed like she would be very open to any such thing. She seemed pretty pleased with the current circumstances.

In the end, we decided we would need to gather some more info. We still had no idea what exactly was done to Ravenna. Jensen Windmeer would probably be our best bet for gathering more details, but his estate is 6 hours outside of town and today is the day of the carnival of bones and we were concerned that Merron Kharga may make an appearance. It was decided we would spend the day in town, attend the carnival this evening and tomorrow travel out to meet Jensen. While spending the day in town we would make one more attempt to reach out to Lorien Yost.

We went to our rooms to get our stuff before heading out and Evelios came out dressed in a full on owl costume. Apparently he had purchased this monstrosity from Dlens in anticipation of the carnival. He was quite proud of it no one dared mention that maybe he was a bit old for dressing up.

We headed to the church of Tyr, stopping by the Town Hall and warning the constable about our concerns that Kharga would make an appearance tonight. He said the event could not be canceled, but would provide as much extra security as possible.

At the church we met with Yost and once again asked about the details of what happened to Ravenna. He, as always, was evasive and refused to provide any further information. The Professor tried to be kind and explain we only wanted to help, but it was to no avail. I went a different route, and told him we had visited the castle and met Ravenna and that she was very unhappy. And that if he would not tell us what they did to her, then maybe we would take him to castle and let him and Ravenna discuss it in person.

Nothing persuaded him, but the entire time, he seemed very nervous and worried that he would be overheard. At that point, Evelios pointed out that he had heard noises, possibly the fluttering of wings, up high around one of the columns. Sylrel cast farie fire in the direction of the noises, and a small creature was lit up.

It appeared to be a small demon or flying monkey. Yost screamed out to stop, that we would only make things worse, but Evelios and Sylrel both fired at the thing and it disappeared in a flash of flame, leaving a black smudge behind.

We pressed Yost again, saying the beast was gone, now was his chance to come clean. He protested that no it was not, that we were making things worse, we had to stop now and leave. At this point, Jarus came up the stairs from below. We were not surprised, last time she was seen, she had appeared to have an undue sway over Yost.

Jarus inquired after what we were doing, and we told her in frank terms that Yost should be allowed to talk and share what he knows. That he should not be afraid of her or anything else. At this point, I was prepared to attack her, but she said to Yost that he was free to answer any questions, as long as he was willing to deal with the consequences. I assumed that was a front, and we would get nothing else out of Yost, so as soon as he started stammering and dissembling again I let loose with a guiding bolt at Jarus.

Yost screamed once again for us to stop, that we were making things worse and as he did so Jarus transformed from her guise as a young woman to that of a demonic creature. I shot another guided bolt at her and Evelios and Sylrel used their most powerful attacks. We quickly brought her down and she too disappeared in a flash of flames.

The Professor once more pressed Yost, but again he refused to answer and one more final listener made an appearance. This one appeared to be an animated statue or golem of some sort. It was slow moving and the hall of the church was long, so we stood back and destroyed if from afar.

At this point, Yost finally broke. Claiming that we were only making matters worse and that we had idea what we were doing he explained everything.

Back in the distant past, the area surrounding Larondell was home to a cult. The Cult of the Grey Master. The cult had tried to bring forth a powerful evil creature from another plain of existence. The followers of Tyr fought the cult and defeated them. Stopping them before they could summon their master and ending the cult. Or so they thought.

In reality, the evil and power that they had gathered was released into the land surrounding the town. Over time this evil coalesced into a number of powerful evil creatures. The Council of Bones.

On such member of the Council of Bones was the vampire KXXXX? When Yost and his group killed the vampire, they ended up releasing that evil power that had been stored in him. The evil power joined with other left over bits of the summoning power and formed an evil creature they only knew as “The Reaper”. The Reaper was much more powerful than the vampire had been and they had no idea how they could possible defeat it.

That is when the Cult of the Grey Master made an appearance. They approached Yost and his group and told him what had happened, and how they had made matters worse. And that The Reaper would continue to gather power, possibly from the other members of the Council of Bones until it became unstoppable.

But the cult had a proposition. They said they knew a way to siphon off the evil power from The Reaper and create a new member of the Council. They would only need Yost and his friends to help frame the acolyte Ravenna and then, once it was done, to keep their silence.

Yost and his group knew they could not defeat The Reaper and could find no other solution so they agreed to this devil’s bargain to sacrifice one in order to try and save many. Yost falsified the documents that damned Ravenna and sent them to the main church.

The shame was so great that Mira Gorman killed herself and Jensen Windmeer became a recluse. Yost himself was made to stay in the church of Tyr where the cult could keep an eye on him with his watchers to torment him.

After sharing all of this Yost seemed spent. He was still adamant that we could nothing to better the situation and we were better off leaving things as they were. We told him we would take all what he had shared into account, but it was better to have hope than to give up.

We then helped him clean up the church and the burial area in the basement. Although it would probably not be longer before he was assigned another watcher who would disfigure everything as way to torment him. Yost was grateful for the small kindness and rewarded the group with a Necklace of Prayer Beads to hopefully assist us in our work.

After leaving Yost at the temple we headed over to the carnival.

The carnival was a fairly standard affair, but with a decidedly odd theme. They had a shooting range/game, a man guessing you height and weight, a water dunk game and tent of horrors (man eating chicken!!!). They also had full range of street and festival food. At one end of the fairgrounds was a raised stage area with another smaller raised stage area off to the side.

Evelios tried his luck at the shooting range, The Professor gravitated to the dunking booth and I had to see this man eating a chicken just to find out why people would pay to see such a thing.

Later in the evening the carnival was officially opened. A master of ceremonies “appeared” on the main stage dressed in some sort of demonic costume. He announced, “let us bring in the Council of Bones” and four hooded figured marched into the fair grounds and took seats at the other raised stage off to the side. Once they were seated, the master of ceremonies announced the carnival officially opened and “disappeared” in a puff of smoke. One barely saw the trap door in the stage he used. Very practiced.

Although it seemed very unlikely that the Council of Bones would attend the festival themselves, we could not leave the 4 poor souls dressed in hooded robes alone. It took a few attempts, but The Professor used mage hand to yank down the hood of one of the 4 only to reveal a normal villager underneath. The reaction from the crowd, including some people recognizing the poor man and feeling sorry for him being selected this time for being on the council, convinced us they were just part of the show.

Shortly after that, the White Ladies of Larondell made an appearance. This time, these appeared to be the actual spirits/manifestations themselves. The sang a sad song of longing and loss that brought the crowd to silence and perhaps moved a few to tears.

After the Ladies in White finished their song and faded away a band took the stage and began to play the music you would expect at such a carnival and the party began in earnest. Our group split up a bit and moved through the crowd on the lookout for Merron Kaharga. After a bit, we heard a disturbance and moved to investigate. At first it was reported that someone was sick and in need of help, but when I went to help, it was quickly apparent that the man had been stabbed. I helped stabilize the victim and we began to search in earnest.

Ultimately we could not come up with a good way to find and identify him, so we simply spread out again and hoped to be nearby if there was another incident. It was not long before he struck again, this time The Professor was close enough to see and identify him before he could slip into the crowd.

Sylrel tried to restrain him with a hold person spell, but failed and Merron charged at Evelios. Merron attacked Evelios multiple times, but luckily he missed each time.

At this point, remembering from our discussions with the constable that they had previously restrained him by a stroke of luck when he dropped his knife while being overwhelmed by a pile of officers trying to take him down, I cast heat metal on his knife causing it to grow white hot and forcing him to drop it. Being disarmed did not stop him from trying to attack Evelios, but he was unable to teleport away or pull any other fancy tricks.

With Merron reduced to being just your normal everyday psycho, the fight progressed quickly. No one pulled any punches and Merron was quickly killed.

There was some confusion directly after the fight with the officers/security, but that was quickly cleared up and the festival continued well into the night. We returned to the Roc’s Nest afterwards to catch some sleep before traveling to see Jensen the next day.

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