We took a cookbook from the Astronomer’s house, and found that it was, in our DM’s words, “An eldritch descent into madness, in the form of a recipe blog.”
Here are a few excerpts from the personal annotated cookbook of Adelaide Klimt, the hired cook for the Astronomer’s artist colony.
Twenty-Clove Chicken
When Doctor Alicia first joined us, I was excited to try to combine my cooking with her Alchemy. However, her rude and uncouth behavior soon put such thoughts out of my mind. Since working for Mister Vlemisk, I have grown accustomed to feeding an eccentric crowd, but Alicia’s lack of respect for any work beyond her own (and, seemingly, Mister Vlemisk’s) is positively Shocking. She fills the house with the horrible smell of her lab, and then has the nerve to complain that others are being too loud. The other day, she commandeered my kitchen all afternoon, leaving the place a horrible mess. When I confronted her in her lab, she offered only the most basic of apologies, and then told me to “Use Garlic sparingly, as it upsets my stomach”.
Anyway, dearest Doctor Alicia, I dedicate this recipe to you.
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Kevan-Style Minced Venison Pelmini
With the Curse upon us, Mister Vlemisk has grown increasingly withdrawn, spending more and more time in his observatory, gazing at the stars all night, sleeping and scribbling notes all day. We bring him food, but he eats little of it. He has grown very thin and pale, and I worry about his health. We all worry about him. The Sculptor, Karl Schossman, thought that perhaps a hint of nostalgia would entice Artyom out of his malaise. Artyom grew up in Keva, and had once mentioned eating Pelmini as a child, so, I went to the town and interviewed merchants until I was able to assemble what I believe to be an authentic Gourmet Pelmini that can be re-created with ingredients available here in Valdia.
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Nightmare Eggs
The house has grown restless. Every night I toss and turn, plagued by strange dreams. I dream of the Stars, of horrible beasts rending space like flesh. Last night, I dreamt that I wandered through a city, towers of impossible heights and scale emerging from a waveless ocean of strange water. I woke up to the birdsong outside, dripping with sweat. What’s worse, I am not the only one. The whole house complains of strange dreams. Perhaps the curse is upon us. As I stumbled down to the kitchen, I was half-asleep, like part of me was still wandering through that horrible city, before I noticed what i was cooking. I had intended to make an ordinary breakfast, hearty porridge, toast, and eggs. However, I barely noticed what I was doing, and by the time I had mixed the smoked fish in with the eggs, it was too late. Still, It turned out delicious, and so I’ve spent the better part of the day trying to re-create the recipe. As far as I can tell, this is it:
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Twice-Blessed Soup
Master Vlemisk emerged yesterday, and told us that he has received Inspiration from his observations in the Stars. He has a proposal for a Grand Collaboration, an “Earth-Shattering” work of Art. While I may have been hired rather than invited, I consider myself as much an Artist as anybody in this house, and so, I have decided to support their endeavor. Master Vlemisk said that the artists would need their strength, so I have devised a recipe that will give them the energy to complete their part of the task. As this Collaboration, whatever it is, will certainly require both the inspiration of Guile and the skill of Lethe, I have named this the Twice-Blessed Soup, it is, appropriately enough, based on a fusion of two recipes. One I learned from a Carpenter who came to fix the house some years ago, the other I learned from a man who claimed to be part of a traveling circus. Whether he was or not, he tricked me into trading a half-pound of high-quality pepper for a “Rare and Exotic Spice” that turned out to be simple dried parsley dyed with crushed blueberry, so I consider Guile’s hand is well in this recipe.
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Star-Signed Cake
Master Vlemisk brought the Artists up to his observatory the other day to show them his “Vision”, and to outline the Collaboration. I don’t know what he said, but it must have been inspiring. Since then, they have all been working tirelessly. I’ll admit, I don’t understand much of what they’re talking about, and the designs seem largely abstract, which surprises me, as Mister Vlemisk has always seemed to prefer more traditional styles. Regardless, I have created the following to serve at the celebratory meal after the Collaboration is complete.
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Herb-Roasted Chicken
I learned this recipe from my mother, and cooking it always makes me calm. I’m in need of calm these days. The Collaboration has begun in earnest. They are carving and painting. I once thought their designs merely Abstract, but, looking at them makes my eyes water., Anna and Josephine have seemingly been playing their music for three days straight. Perhaps it is the lack of sleep, but I could swear they are physically changing as well.
I asked Artyom if this was all necessary, and he assured me it was. He said he would explain everything tomorrow.
So, while I try to get to sleep over the sound of that music, here’s my latest take on Herb-Roasted Chicken.
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Boar’s Flank Stew
The Astronomer explained everything, it’s more wondrous and horrifying than I could ever imagine. I don’t fully understand everything, but I know enough to see the importance of this work. Some of the other servants refused to accept it, and had to be let go. They intend to leave in the morning. I was worried, but The Astronomer assured me that they wouldn’t be a problem. “The Hounds always Hunger,” he said.
Anyway, that got me thinking about what I like when I’m hungry. Stew! Anyway, here’s a recipe.
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Green Sky Curry
The Astronomer rewarded me the other day. I ventured through the portal and saw the place between worlds, and from that place, I saw the weaving infinite, the places touched by the Key before it’s cruel mutilation by the Tyrant’s Hound. My mind was opened. I saw the most beautiful sights I had ever seen. I added my tears to the waters of the Drowned City, of what that great nexus had become without the Key’s guidance. From there, the paths took me to a field under an emerald green sky. I wandered that field for hours, collecting and sampling the plants. From those plants, I have extracted a spice that serves as the central flavor in this curry.
We go to even weirder places, and meet even weirder people.
Music plays around us, eerily emanating from all directions, as the two musicians play in the broken mirror’s reflection.. The cracks in the mirror glow and hum, and we begin to feel an intense sense of vertigo. Mist leaks out of the cracks, bringing with it a sharp scent of ozone.
From below, the sound is coming from several places throughout the house. The ozone smell seems to be coming from downstairs, down the hall. Gral stiffens in fear as he hears a terrible, familiar sound: a growling, snarling howl. It seems to be coming from multiple places. Gral casts Silence, hoping to stop the music, but the pattern on the walls is still glowing, the mist still flowing around us. (Gral takes inspiration for clever spell use, though.) Glancing out to the hallway, Shoshana sees a shimmering rend appear in midair. Some flickering horrible thing half-phases, half-pulls itself out, like a rat squeezing through a crack in the wall. But it is much, much bigger than a rat.
Gral recognizes the growling howl of the hounds’ commander, but to him, it sounds like a distortion has been removed where there had previously been one. Like some kind of interference or static is gone. The cry is piping, almost musical. But now he, too, hears the sounds of one of the creatures that attacked Bullbreaker’s Expedition pulling itself out of the portal in the hallway.
Gral remembers that when his expedition was attacked, the horrible flesh-hounds were appearing out of totally nowhere and vanishing the same way. Nobody knew how they were able to catch up to the orcs. And now it’s like, oh, they use Portals in Reality. Cheaters.
Shosha, ironically, casts Mirror Image in defence. The gross, fleshy creature crits a WIS save against Gral’s faltering insult, his sharp wit failing him as he looks on one of the monsters that tore apart his unit. It flails tentacles at us, taking out one of Shoshana’s duplicates and smacking Gral somethin’ good. It seems to be wavering in space, making hitting it difficult and disorienting. Valeria smacks it, which stops its displacer-like defenses. We trade blows, with Valeria and Clem both scoring vital crits, while Gral hightails it to the other side of the room and Shoshana continues to fail to hit.
It spins, flailing with tentacles. Valeria catches one on her shield, and knocks it off balance with trident. She drives forward and pins it down with her weight, allowing Clem to bring down her greatsword, executioner-style, into its neck.
Gral hurriedly warns us: “There are going to be more. We should move. The music was silenced, but not its effect.” Downstairs, we can hear more flesh-hounds. We’ve got to move.
The music and strange monster sounds seemed to come from several sources; maybe looking around will work. Out in the hallway, the pattern on the walls is glowing and vibrating. Picking a door at random, Gral sneaks into the Study. (We wonder whether we are playing Clue. Possibly Betrayal.) Inside, there’s books and papers and notes, covered in frantic scribbles. There are windows, but where we should have been able to see out into the sinkhole, all we can see is eerie mist.
Valeria looks through the papers on desk and notices some of shapes in pattern. The disturbing thing: while some are just sketches, some of these look like rubbings. Looking closer, she sees they are labeled things like “Rubbings from the Drowned City,” or “The Derelict Temple.” Some of the notes are titled “Observations on the Space Between”.
There is a carved chessboard etched with the pattern, a weirdly spiral shape to it. Shoshana fails her int check hard, which turns out to be a good thing - she avoids taking taint from trying to comprehend whatever is on the chessboard. Clem crits her investigation (for a total 19, because apparently fighters have no book learnin’) and finds a heavy, tattered notebook labeled with the name “Josephine Veluma.” It’s some kind of cross between a dream journal and a musician’s workbook. There’s some writing about “harmonics,” sketches of the pattern, and music notes. We also find an old book titled “Observations of the Planets” by Archiume Vlemisk. Hey, that’s the guy who owns house! Aw, it’s just a regular book about planets. Published by Sturmhearst University Press, of course.
Shoshana heads out of the room and down the hall. She rolls a good perception check but also a good Wis save, and manages not to be completely stunned by what she notices.
“...Guys? This hallway goes to SPACE.”
Further down the hallway, the walls of the house are peeling away and cracking, revealing some kind of vast void beyond.
Valeria, meanwhile, finds an artist’s studio. This for SURE belonged to the Madman we met in the jail cell. Looks like he did lots of landscapes of the fishing village and the lake. (Oh! There’s one of the old church!) We find some sketchbooks, and one canvas featuring a city with vast towers sticking out of a discolored ocean. The towers are in ruins. They are all made of wildly different materials and architectural styles, positioned at weird angles, like a child throwing toys into the bath. Also, there’s a clearer view from the windows of...a piece of this house? It seems to be floating out in the void, connected by a winding staircase. Looks like the top of a tower, with a big telescope. Ah, yes. Astronomer.
There are definitely flesh-hounds sniffing around, getting closer. Gral urgently warns us that we’ve got to move, and tries to buy us some time by using Minor Illusion to make the door between us and them look like a wall. Meanwhile, Shoshana is still distracted.
“...GUYS, this hallway goes to SPACE???? I’m a peasant, I barely know what space IS, holy fuck, it’s SPACE?!?!?!?”
It is at this point the DM reveals the first part of his truly excellent Roll20 map. Indeed, holy fuck, it’s Space. There’s like, planets. And a long stairway out into the abyss. And a weird bulbous orb of eyeballs, blinkin’ at us. Holy shit, spaaace.
We can’t stay in the house. There’s too many fleshhounds. They’ve made it past Gral’s illusion and they’re sniffing around the stairs. Maybe we’ll go crazy if we stare especially deep into the void, but right now we don’t have much choice except to take the magical stairway to heaven.
So we go on the space stairs! As we step outside the walls of the house, we can house is flickering and shifting and shimmering – it’s in both places at once, the real world and the void. We can see the wooden floor of the conservatory, fractured and shattered, floating in space, strange crystals growing out of the floor and resonating with the music. We can see the two musicians and some other vaguely humanoid figures writhing in a weird rhythmic dance. But no time to stick around, the hounds are coming.
At a peak in the stairs, the strange stone of the pathway suddenly becomes metal? More worryingly, a shimmering vortex of energy and mist is swirling directly to the side of it. Down below, the hounds are following.
Shoshana, curious, casts Message out into the vortex. Just a simple “HELLO, ANYONE IN THERE?” Worryingly, it responds to her magic, swirling faster. A crackling whip of lightning-like energy snaps out and tries to pull her in. The gangly sorceress’s Str save is baaaad, and she is yanked towards the portal. Clem grabs her, but also beefs her roll and slips, too. Clem and Shoshana tumble into the vortex. Valeria and Gral follow, because they’re way too loyal for their own good.
There is a disconcerting tumble through a dizzying nothing, and then slam! Gral feels cold metal floor bang into his buckling knees as he lands. Blinking the spots out of our eyes, we realize we’re surrounded by unfamiliar sounds. Something to our immediate left is chittering wildly. There’s a crackling of lightning and strange, staticky noises, bleepbeepcrckl. We look up, down a corridor echoing with strange slithering, and clawed feet on metal, and oh fuck, are we in an alien spaceship?!
Well, the players realize that. The characters are FAR more disoriented.
There’s some kind of big machine on the end of room, with a similar vortex of lightning to the one we fell into - looks like we just got spit out of this end. There’s three little guys in matching uniforms, not any species we recognize, in various states of frantic action. One is freaking out at Gral, one is pushing levers on some kind of...weird table? It’s all very complicated-looking, to our medieval-ass eyes. One of the little fellas is staring down hallway at the back of some Large Thing. It kinda looks like a hippo in epaulettes, with a sword on his hip and holding some kind of fancy pistol.
This array of mysterious creatures has assembled some sort of barricade in the hallway. There are noises of swarming creatures on the other side of the barricade. Not the sound of the flesh hounds - these are distinctly insectoid. The big hippo guy turns says something commanding-sounding in an unintelligible language, and turns toward us.
We can’t understand a damn thing anyone is saying, so we’ve got to rely on instinct. An insight check reveals the engineers are Freaking The Fuck Out. Apparently their day has already been quite bad, and now We’re happening to them. They are very scared of us, because we just leaped out of their warp drive, and things are probably not supposed to jump out of warp drives? We don’t know what a warp drive is, but we do know that these guys are ready to panic and shoot us.
Hmm. How to communicate? Shoshana creates a Minor Illusion picturing herself and an engineer-creature shaking hands. Hopefully hand-shaking is a custom they have? She rolls 18 on Persuasion, so nobody attacks...but they’re still pointing weapons at us. Hippo man, who the DM accidentally reveals is the Security Chief, is definitely nervous. Gral holds up his hands nonthreateningly in what we hope is the universal Look I’m Unarmed pose. One of the little bug-person engineers cautiously pokes him with a metal thing, and then the security chief and bug-engineers chitter at each other.
Valeria rolls well on perception, and notices that as the security chief is talking, a weird purple wormy creature has slithered its way over the barricade and is lurking up behind the chief menacingly.
Valeria hurls a trident, directly towards the chief, who immediately reacts to the aggression, pulling his pistol. And then he turns, to see the trident PINNING THE WORM TO THE WALL. That’s a classic movie moment, folks.
There’s more noises on other side of barricade, though, and it doesn’t sound like it’ll hold for long. We can see past, a little, and there’s more mauve worms and some Big Freakin’ Space Spiders over there. There are also two weird devices just beyond the barricade, one to either side, slightly damaged and sparking. The security chief fires his gun twice – holy shit, a gun that fires more than once? We’re used to the most basic of muskets, that shit is IMPRESSIVE! Blam blam! Two of the worms just get blown apart.
The engineers are motioning and shouting, so we roll another insight to see what they’re trying to communicate. One of them points at the devices beyond the barrier, then reaches into its pocket and pulls out what looks like a stick, or a pencil. It points at the machines, snaps the stick, points the halves at the machines, then mimes putting the halves back together. We don’t roll great insight checks and are left a little puzzled. We gotta make those two devices touch each other?
Well, as Will Smith would say, we a little confused but we got the spirit. Valeria and Clem hop over the barrier and into the fray, getting close to the devices while doing what they do best and chopping some worms in half.
Gral manages a decent investigate check. Seems like one of the spider-bugs’ spines is wedged in the left device. There’s sparks coming out of it, which is...probably bad? Much pointing and shouting directs Valeria to get up close and personal with the machine. Luckily for her non-Int-based stat spread, Valeria crits her Int check to figure out what’s wrong.
She yanks the spike out, first of all. Simple enough. She looks inside. She doesn’t really get the point of all this weird junk in here, but there’s all these weird metal strings, some of which are severed. Looks like they should be connected to each other, probably? Better connect ‘em, then. Luckily they’re color coded! The red one twists on with the red one, blue goes with blue...
Behind the barricade, one of the little bug engineers chitters excitedly! He points at a display on wall panel. Shoshana tries to make sense of what he’s miming. He points at this moving picture. It looks like a vertical bar, and it seems like he wants it to go up. He then points at device.
Hmm. On that moving picture thing, there’s a symbol labeling the bar that’s not far enough up. It looks kinda like lightning bolt.
Now Shoshana might not be no fancy city scientist, but lightning, she can do.
Chromatic Orb sends a bolt of lightning straight into the device!! Luckily, a good enough roll means it does not explode. With a hum, a barrier of crackling energy hums to life between the two devices.
Valeria makes it back to the safe zone before the barrier snaps into place, but Clem has to dive through, and takes some damage. The security chief notices and grunts at one of his bug-engineers. It skitters off and quickly brings back a few metal canisters.
The big guy hands Valeria his gun, and points at one of the large spider-things lurking beyond the energy wall. He cracks open one of the metal canisters, pouring out this weird goop on his hands like sunscreen. He reaches down for Clem and rubs it onto her wounds. It is immediately dubbed “healing mayo,” to my personal utter dismay.
Clem is healed! The goop’s healing process feels REALLY weird. Like ants crawling over you, tingling and itching, and then - oh. The pain numbs, and her charred burns are looking significantly better.
There’s clearly some kind of action going on behind the barrier. Some big metal thing crashes into the hallway, shooting fire. The spiders tackle it and try to push it back. Reinforcements, maybe? We’re not gonna find out, because the bug people suddenly get very excited. One pushes past us and talks to the big hippo security chief, who turns and nods at us meaningfully.
The bug-engineers count down and pull multiple switches simultaneously, then grab onto stuff and hang on for dear life. The swirling vortex of the warp drive reverses direction (perhaps reversing the polarity of the neutron flow?) and we feel its sucking force take hold of us as everything interdimensional gets sucked back to whence it came. As we go careening back, the security chief salutes us. We will always remember you, brave hippo man!
We get spat out back onto the platform in the void, along with some random space junk that got dragged along for the ride. We receive:
-the chief’s space pistol, which he gave to Valeria, which has 5 charges
-one of goop canisters, containing 4 uses of Space Mayo, which Clem calls dibs on
-some sort of weird club-tool-thing made of otherworldly alloy. We assume it’s an adamantine mace. Really, it’s a big ol’ space-wrench.
-”2 generic otherword artifacts,” which we cannot identify. Due to us being dorks, one of them is explicitly declared a Zune. The other is possibly an alien Funko pop.
- the friendship of the space people, the greatest treasure of all.
Hey, we’re back on the path! It’s now made of weirdly spongy green stone. Gross. We can’t hear the hounds anymore. Seems like maybe they lost our scent.
We head up more stairs, until we see something in front of another portal thing. There’s someone there! This person was clearly once a human, but he has the same pale skin and weird elongated fingers as the painter in the cell. Most disconcertingly, his forehead is just COVERED in like twelve eyes. He has paints spread out around him, and he’s just casually sittin’ there, painting something. He looks up and speaks in familiar Valdian.
“Oh hello!” He puts on a pair of glasses, which match up with precisely none of the eyes on his face. "Hey, you’re not from here! How did you get here?”
We glance at each other, and then all check our notes to remember the madman’s actual name. “Um, Johann told us how to get here.”
“Oh, Johann! I hope he’s well! We were such good friends! He got stuck on the side we came from, you know,” he tells us blithely, blinking a lot.
“Yeah, he told us you were stuck here”
“Stuck? Heavens, no! We wanted to come here!” he argues. He does rather seem to be enjoying himself. We inquire if the Astronomer is here too, and yup, he’s apparently right up the path!
The fella seems friendly enough. Gral asks him if the hounds have been hostile to him. “No, they know my scent. Why would they be after me? I have permission to be here!”
“Uh, you have permission?”
“Well, I helped build the gate, I certainly hope I can go through it! Artyoum got us permission, really. The Lurker and the Hounds certainly haven’t bothered me.”
Oh, the Lurker? Who’s that? We discover that the Hounds obey the Lurker, and the Lurker protects the gates. It makes sure only those loyal to the Key can go through. Sure sounds like the awful monster that Gral’s squadron had the misfortune to meet.
Valeria and Shoshana take a gander at his art. He’s painting some sort of crab monster? It’s a horrifying thing, this enormous crab monster with weird tendrils emerging out of water in front of a crumbling wall. Wait, there’s an orcish character written on the wall. Just one letter - if there’s more text, it’s off the edge of the canvas. The whole thing definitely looks similar to the madman’s painting of the “drowned city” – a different art style, but clearly same place.
“See, I found a wonderful model!” this new painter tells us. “He tried to eat me, but I calmed him down. I got a good look.” He winks several eyes at us. “That’s the wonderful thing about being here, there’s so much to see! So much to capture! I tried for so long to capture it on this thing” - he knocks his fist on the metal object he’s sitting on - “and then I finally opened my eyes, and just kept opening them! I can see so much now! You should try it!”
We decide we are not going to try it.
“So, uh, do you go to all sorts of different places?”
“Oh, sure! I found this model in the city! I call it the Very Wet City. It’s just up the path that way. There’s some sort of camp just on the other side there. Some poor travelers who’ve gotten lost. Must have gotten past the hounds, somehow.”
Lost travelers? A camp? Gral is immediately on that shit like a halfling on second breakfast. “Were they orcs?”
“I didn’t see them, just what they left behind. A bunch of writing. They left a bunch of stuff there. I didn’t touch it, it all seemed rather important.”
He gives us directions along the twisting and splintering path. His finger warps into a tentacle as he points , turning in the directions he describes.
We try to get his name. “Oh, please, call me the Painter! They used to call me Devon. You met Johann, our other painter! He would always criticize my work. He’d tell me I was a terrible artist and that I should leave, but I always knew he was kidding.”
He laughs heartily, and pulls out the metal object he was sitting on. It’s a shield! He’s painted a lot of really realistic eyes on it. “I’ve been practicing eyes! They seem to be a new theme of mine.” All his eyes blink simultaneously. We could swear that more eyes open up than he had when he closed them.
Another weird bulbous eye orb floats by. We avoid its gaze, but Devon tells us that the proper way to deal with them is to confidently stare them down. We try to say something, but he shushes us - the eye orb is talking! (It’s entirely silent, but he seems to be beginning some kind of spirited debate.)
Oh yeah, you guys should take the shield. Always nice to have someone appreciate your art!
We have received…The Eyegis.
(The pun takes a second to hit, and then there is CACKLING.)
Devon seems to be talking about pigments with the eye orb. “Out of mummies? Really! What a thought.” He’s absolutely absorbed, now, and waves distractedly goodbye as we scram.
We hang a right at the next crossroads, as Devon the painter told us to do. Gral is nervous, yet heartened at what might remain of his expedition.
“The ones who are alive are probably warped beyond recognition, but I never found Bullbreaker’s body. Warped or not, I can sing it a death song.” The prospect of giving his comrades a fitting funeral seems almost more comforting than the thought of finding them alive.
Gral forges ahead, not stopping as he dives straight into the next portal. We emerge in a weird, ruined, twisted city. There’s a weird mismatch of styles in the architecture, though it’s harder to tell since so many buildings are crumbling apart. We’re not far from the edge of a body of water that stretches far into the distance, swallowing the bases of the buildings. This is the Drowned City.
We’ve emerged in a crumbling structure of flat grey stone, many-floored but open to the elements. It’s a slightly destroyed modern parking structure. It all seems...rather post-apocalyptic.
More importantly, there’s remains of a camp here, among the clinging mist. There is Orcish writing on one of the most intact walls.
Gral reads it out: “The Hounds can’t come here. The Whispers are quiet here. And if you can read this, look underneath this crate.”
We look, of course. The crate at the base of the wall has a false bottom, which we dislodge. Gral finds two weird metal jars and a note, written in a delicate Orcish hand. He reads it quietly, and though it’s hard to gauge emotion behind his painted mask, there is clearly some great significance to what we have found.
Meanwhile, Shoshana rolls a rather high perception. What might “The Whispers are quiet here” mean? She’s somewhat attuned to the feeling of the Curse’s corruption, and the sense of taint does appear significantly lessened here, similar to the spaceship. This place is eerie and creepy as hell, but this is a lower-taint area than the rest of the dungeon mind-bending void. Because, after all, the Key isn’t on this world; it just links to it.
Gral, quiet and still as we had begun to search the campsite, finally speaks. “My comrades’ bodies, as many as could be preserved, are in these urns.”
He is quiet for a moment, listening, sensing. Gral can only very, very, faintly feel his connection to the the Allsoul, so far from home. “We need to take them out of this place,” he decides.
“This note is written by Bullbreaker. He tells of his time here – they spent a lot of time in this void. His remains are not here, but he saved the remains of those he wishes to name postmortem.”
Shoshana has to ask. “He wishes to...name them?”
Gral takes the time to explain: “Yes. Orcs have three names: their first name; their family name, tied in with their nation; and their earned name, for deeds over their lifetime. Earned names are granted by bards and cannot be given by other means, which is why Bullbreaker could not name them himself.
It is not common but sometimes those who gave their lives saving others, or are especially pure of heart, are given names post-mortem. Earned names are sung in the death-song, to ensure they take a proper place of high regard in the Allsoul.”
“Do you have an earned name?”
“Uh, yes. I don’t believe it applies to me now, but I was called Joybringer.” He sighs. “I prefer to use my given name. There is no joy in this place.”
We’re quiet a moment. The stillness of the strange, abandoned place washes over us.
Clem uncorks one of the fancy bottles of elvish vodka, hands it to Gral, and says “I am very sorry you lost your companions.” Gral drinks deeply. Orcs, it turns out, do not have a pour one out custom. (Elves do.)
We look around, subdued. There are signs of life here, but this camp was cleaned up and abandoned some time ago. There are remains of a large pyre – this must have been the funeral pyre for Thrice-Burned, Gral tells us, reading from Bullbreaker’s note. Gral knew him even before the expedition. He was a war hero from Clan Duu, famous for getting lit on fire a lot during the war. “He has the names Fireborn, Twice-Burned, and Thrice-Burned. He had to get a new name every time he got burned, you see.”
We learn that once a name is given, it is not changed or taken away, but the orc is usually referred to by the most recent or most famous to avoid confusion. For example, Duke Shieldeater has like twelve earned names; everyone just calls him the most relevant one. An earned name is used as a term of respect.
Shoshana reflects on this as they make camp. “I didn’t know all that, Gral. That’s quite beautiful.”
Gral doesn’t openly say anything, but he’s actually rather touched that a Valdian called his culture beautiful.
THEN A MASSIVE CRAB MONSTER LUNGES OUT OF THE WATER NEXT TO US. YOU THOUGHT WE WERE HAVING A SENTIMENTAL MOMENT, SUCKERS? ROLL FOR INITIATIVE!
Shoshana shrieks and does lightning damage to it, on the reasoning that it is wet, and wet things don’t like electricity. It responds by scuttling up right next to her at top speed and snatchin’ her up with a pincer. It’s very Fay Wray, except with more swearing. Valeria and Clem take stabs at it, but for a Giant Enemy Crab it’s very agile. Clem tries to trip it, but taking one leg out doesn’t do a lot if it’s got like seven more.
Gral casts Dissonant Whispers, hoping to send it running away through the meat grinder of the tanks’ attacks of opportunity. Unfortunately, it carries Shoshana with it, heading right into the sea. WHOOPS. Clem manages to slash at it and bloody it along the way. Valeria follows it and uses her Chains of Rack. It nat 1′s its save.
Valeria can feel Rack’s presence so, so faintly in this place, but with an effort of faith and will she grabs onto it, fixating on it like a candle in the dark, and yanks his holy power through her. The chains rip out and wrap around the crab, woven with vines that burst into full rose blooms. The thing has a bit of a flower crown now. It looks…very pretty.
Shoshana Burning Handses it in the face instead of trying to escape, which is probably a terrible instinct to have. It whiffs at Valeria a couple times and tries to poison Shoshana, but Shosha saves. It shakes off the Chains, ditching its flower crown. A thousand tumblr moodboards cry out in agony, and fall silent.
Gral uses Phantasmal Force to make a lightning cage, preventing it from fleeing down into the ocean. The DM asks if it can take 1 less damage than the cage does, which, okay? Now it has exactly 69 health. NICE.
Valeria Smites that. Shosha crits her check to escape and thus does not get any gross crab water in her mouth. It tries to escape the lightning cage and fails, and then Gral hits it with his Psychic Blades to finish it off. Gral’s sickle comes through the underside of the imaginary lightning cage and twists savagely into the stomach. From the crab’s perspective, a cadre of orcish heroes encircle it, and take a stab at it all at once.
Orcs are a river culture. Y’all know how to kill a crawfish.
We drag ourselves away from the shoreline and set up camp in the crevice of some crumbling walls, as far as we can comfortable get from the crab-infested waters. The portal we came through swirls placidly beside us.
We’re hurt and out of spells, and if there’s anywhere to rest on this weird journey, it might as well be here where the taint is faint. We settle in for a long rest, and to entertain ourselves, we read through the cookbook we snagged. It is straight-up an eldritch recipe blog, you guys.
We have some low-stakes arguments on how many cloves of garlic is the appropriate amount of garlic. (Turns out dragonborns like a LOT of seasoning on their food. Shoshana, being functionally Ashkenazi, is on team All The Garlic. Clem thinks we’re crazy people.)
As we take turns on Crab Watch, Shoshana writes out a note to leave in the false bottom of the crate where Bullbreaker had hidden his comrades’ precious remains. Gral notices, and to quote his player, “likes, subscribes, retweets, and Twitch Primes.”
We wake in the morning and dick around a bit investigating the campsite, but as we’re packing up the last of our belongings and preparing to head back into the terrifying void of the Key, the portal beside us begins to shrink and vanish. Run for it!
Valeria and Gral are about to dive through, when they notice that Clem has fallen behind and Shoshana has rolled a nat 1 and straight up fallen flat on her face. They’re nice people and don’t want to split the party, so they stay. The portal whirls shut and vanishes, leaving behind nothing but a wall of bluish-black stone with a familiar pattern carved into it.
Well, fuck.
We don’t panic yet, though, because we come up with an idea: the portal from the Astronomer’s house opened when the mirror musicians played The Opening of the Ways. And we have the sheet music, and also a musician. Time to jam, Gral.
It takes some skill to adapt the piece for lute on the fly, but he manages. And sure enough, the stone vibrates, glowing cracks appear and begin to leak mist, and the portal swirls back to life.
Gral gets ready to take a pile o’ taint, but then the DM rolls bad and he only has to take 1. We dash through, once more into the breach, to find our fortune and possibly lose our minds in the distorted between-space.
--
Also, we decide that Bullbreaker, stuck wandering in a futuristic post-apocalypse world and looking for a portal home, is functionally Samurai Jack. And is thus almost certainly shirtless at this very moment.
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.
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.”
