Thystas: The Curious Case of The Meyersmith’s Children
So I guess we had a session four, but my notes were eaten by the void I guess, because I have no idea where they are, so here is the summary from our DM:
The adventurers went to the home of the Meyersmith's, whose children have gone mysteriously missing. Mr. Meyersmith, the town's banker, is unattentive, blunt, and dismissive when they arrive at the home. The butler is the one who answers the majority of their questions. Mrs. Meyersmith has declined visitors for the day, and the butler indicates that going against her wishes not to be disturbed is a bad idea.
In the girl's room: orderly, tidy, with a backpack hanging on the bed. Bed made, everything seems to be in its place. A picture of the family (drawing) is on the wall, with 3 smiling faces and one angry one (the dad).
In the boy's room, dolls and doll parts everywhere - various toys, action figures, etc. appear to have been dismembered and attempted to be cobbled together. This room is less orderly, with the bed appearing to have been attempted to be made, but still rumpled. Toys all over the room, with partially assembled dolls on the desk.
Under the bed is found a loose floorboard, which when pried up, reveals a notebook hidden beneath. Inside the notebook is a skeleton key, and portions of the notebook are written in code.
The butler mentions an incident, which he declines to talk about while in the house.
When asked how to get the master of the house to warm up to them, the butler says that helping the master collect some of the debts he's owed by locals would go a long way toward thawing him toward the adventurers.
The adventurers return to the tavern, where they question Mal. Mal indicates that the "official" story is that the mother has some mental health issues, and on her "bad days" secludes herself and declines visitors. The town believes that she attacked the boy when he was 4 or 5 during one of these spells, and that is why she now secludes herself on these days.
We will pick up the next session with the butler entering the tavern to speak to the ladies who are searching for the missing children, without the fear of the master of the house overhearing what is discussed.
We enter the tavern from the day’s adventures and sit down to have dinner. Our food arrives when the Buttler walks through the door. Maelin waves him over and he orders the same as us. The tavern is busy and between clanks for mugs, forks scraping plates, chatter, and a bards song we didn’t feel as though we would be overheard, but we still kept our voices low.
The Butler tells us that the Father has literally barries himself in work in his office, how the Butler is concerned for his sanity. How Mr. Meyersmith hasn’t allowed the servants to clean his office in eight days (his children went missing three days ago).
Next, we ask about the rumors we’ve heard about the Mother (werewolf theory) the Butler laughs, and is rather dismissive of our theory and tells us not to believe everything we hear. Instead, he tells us about how the Mother and her Father (when he was alive) are trying to bottle magic so that even though who didn’t have magical abilities could benefit from it. Publically the Mother denounces her Father’s work as it was highly unethical. To further convince the city folk that she truly denounced her fathers work she married Mr. Meyersmith, whose family has a deep hatred of all things magical.
Mr. Meyersmith hasn’t been to the bank in a week. As a father, he is very uninvolved in his children's lives, which oddly, is a direct contrast to his own upbringing.
We ask if there is anything we can do to get on Mr. Meyersmiths good side so he might open up to us more and allow us to do our jobs and help him. The Buttler suggests collecting on some outstanding accounts for him. He reaches into a pocket and produces a small slip of paper. It reads:
and with that, the Buttler finishes his ale and leaves us. We agree that in the morning we will head out to collect the money that owed.
The next morning after breakfast we set out for the Farmstead the Buttler had described to us. The farmers borrowed money from the bank with the intents of purchasing seed to grow Gloreisis Gravardius in the next growing season. A costly but delicious vegetable that was in high demand in the larger cities.
As we approach the farmhouse we notice no animals are making any noise, the place seems abandoned. “Hello?” I call out, “Debt Collectors. If you come out now we won’t destroy your property and spare your life.” Maelin and Aura give me a very stern look. “What? How else will they come out? I’m trying to save us some time here.” No one responds. We find that the farmhouse is unlocked and we let ourselves in. We explore all the main level of the farmhouse and find nothing of interest. Upstairs we find a chest that has:
(1) Bottle of Water Breath
(1) Bottle of Animal Friendship
(1) Bottle of Detect Magic
(1) Bottle of False Life
(1) Greater Healing Potion
2,000 Gold
Large bag of seeds
We then enter the basement, on the stairs heading down there is an unusual amount of spider webbing and it only increases the further we head into the basement. We see that a tunnel has been dug out, there is also massively huge egg sacks, we follow the tunnel and come out on into the basement of the other farmhouse. Here we find the bodies a man and a woman, they look as though they have been obliviated. I use my quarterstaff to shift through their remains, on the man I find a coin purse that has 200 gold, and a medallion, I notice the symbols that inscribed upon it, though they have no meaning to us. I show it to the others and they don’t recognize it either. The woman has a coin purse containing 200 gold.
As we leave the second farmhouse we see their fields for the first time. Which are occupied by giant worms, we don’t engage them and they don’t notice us. We decide that they are a bit above our pay grade and we aren’t going to fight them if there isn’t anything in it for us. We head back to Mr. Meyersmiths home to deliver the seeds and gold we had collected.
I’m annoyed to find that after our hard work, Mr. Meyersmith is still a sour puss, even though we return 2,400 gold to him. He is clearly upset and distraught however, his office is in disarray compared to how pristine it was on our initial visit. We ask the Butler if we can speak with Mrs. Meyersmith, before he can answer Mr. Meyersmith informs us she is not home.
We return to the inn and devise a plan to break into Mrs. Meyersmith’s wing of the home. While we wait we enjoy a round of ale and some dinner when Mal brings us our food she lets us know about the notice board, there are a few slips of paper on it. I notice there is a reward for defeating those giant worms we saw earlier and I pocket it for later.
We manage to break into the wing under the cover of nightfall. We enter what looks like a giant bathroom, an adjoining room holds a bath, then we find a secret door I manage to open, this leads to an alchemist's workshop, everything in here is very neat and orderly. Other than that there is nothing interesting to find in the rooms so we head back to the inn and get some rest.
We made it back to the tavern last night well before nightfall. The child that decided to come with us, his name is Calvin, and it looks like he’s going to be hanging around with us until we figure out what to do with this box.
I think we are going to regroup and make some kind of plan for moving forward in the morning. Tonight I am looking forward to a nice long bath and a warm soft bed and a good nights rest.
The next morning at breakfast we decide to head to the mayor home to return the box and get our reward. Calvin insists on coming with us, he really wants to go where ever the box goes. Which is really creeping me out, like the Kid is nice enough but the bond with this thing...its unsettling.
We wander through the city until we find the Mayor's house. The outside looks well kept, we peek through the windows and see that no one has cleaned in a while. Papers are strewn everywhere, a thin layer of dust is on the windows. We then decide to try the door, which was locked. I picked it and got us in. Inside was dustier than it had looked. We explore the first story of the home, finding dusty footprints and miscellaneous decrees that were unsigned.
The group heads up the stairs to the second floor of the manor. In the master bedroom we find a vault of kinds, it holds four artifacts, and there is a place holder for the box we had found. The box keeps “talking” to the kid who won’t shut up about it- “The box says it wants to go home,” We need to figure out a way to contain this thing.
Written on one of the walls of the vault, in what looks like blood, is a message: Don’t go in the basement. We also notice on the ground that it looks like something had pulled something else out of the room as blood stains led from the vault, into the master bedroom, and out into the hallway from which we came.
Maelin and Aura decide to take all of the artifacts, as we are able to surmise that the Mayor more than likely was pulled into the basement by some kind of creature, we look further for clues as to what the creature might be. After some time of investigating, we determine that the creature is a giant spider, that has been mutated somehow.
We all agree that right now we don’t feel as though we have enough information, to adventure into the basement, especially since there was a blood-written warning. Instead, we go into town and do some shopping. We purchase a bag of holding to place the artifacts in as well as the box. Which seems to sever the bond between the kid and the box.
We return to Toosk in the inn, we let him know what we found up at the Mayor's house. He doesn't really look too concerned about it, almost like he already knew what has happened. This guy really creeps me out for some reason, I can sense something that I can’t quite put my finger on. Toosk tells us that the box gives an extraordinary gift, but drives it’s master crazy. We also find out that Toosk doesn’t work for the mayor, and his patron remains a mystery.
From the Journal of Cormac: The Mad Apprentice (One-Shot)
Sometimes you just want a drink, and where do you go to get a drink? Why a tavern of course! I was traveling through a small village miles and miles away from anything remotely interesting, so I stopped in, as I was parched from the Summer’s heat. For being in the middle of nowhere this tavern was filled to the brim with travelers and adventurers.
“Around on me for the whole tavern!” Someone shouts the whole tavern erupts in cheers. Excellent timing I think as a barmaid walks by with an overflowing tray of ales, I grab one and find a seat up at the end of the bar. A bard starts up a tune some other patrons join in the song, it's one that it seems lots of people know because before long the whole tavern was singing along. Or at least some form of singing, to be honest, some of the people needed to maybe take a nap, but everyone was enjoying themselves.
A loud though echos through the tavern as the door is thrown open, we all turn to see what the big commotion is about when we just stare at what looks like a sheep. The sheep trots up to our section of the tavern. A druid leans over to pet it and realizes it has a scroll in its mouth. The noise from the tavern seems to die down as those around the sheep and druid are intrigued. The druid recites the scroll... it sounds like its suppose to be a spell, and that is confirmed when nothing happens. A very tipsy mage from the table behind me stands and wobbly walks over to examine the scroll. She squints her eyes as though trying to make the words stay still on the page, then recites them aloud just as the druid had done, but with a few more hiccups.
The sheep starts to talk which shocks all of us. The mage just shrugs “It must have been an animal speech spell” and wonders back to their ale.
“Indeed,” the sheep replies. “I am in dire need of some adventurers assistances! My apprentice has stolen my wand, taken over my tower, and turned me into this sheep! Please help me!”
“Where is your tower?” A ranger asks, setting down their ale.
“Just up the road, about three miles outside of the village, you can’t miss it.” The sheep says. And with that, we about 8 tipsy and/or drunken adventurers set down their ales and picked up with arms and set off down the road, vaguely in the direction the sheep had pointed us in.
The group is in good spirits the bard decided to come with us as well and we singing and playing their lute as we walked. By the looks of everyone, we have two druids, a rogue, a sorcerer, the bard, of course, a cleric, a paladin, and of course me, a barbarian.
We make it outside the village and see an orc coming up the road towards us. He spots us and calls “Have you seen a sheep come this way?” One of the druids moves awkwardly trying the shield the sheep from view. “Nooooooo,” We all drunkly reply. Needless to say, the Orc did not believe us and spotted the sheep, then attacked us. He also had some buddies behind him so we ended up taking on a group of Orcs and wolves. Everyone seems to sober up while in the battle, we manage to defeat each one, when we are on the final Orc we decide to take him prisoner and take him with us. During the fight the bard was very quick on their feet and lulled the wolves to sleep so we didn't actually have to fight them, we just tied them to trees so they couldn’t follow us if they woke up.
We continue down the road until we see the top of the wizard's tower. It’s here that we decide to break off from the main road, in case there are more Orcs, we didn’t want to fight if we didn’t have to. So we cut away from the main road and into the forest area surrounding the tower. As we make our way through the woods we encounter a couple of apes who appear to be playing dice. I cautiously walk up to them and ask if they know which way the front of the tower was, they are happy enough to give us directions. It was all very odd.
We make our way up to the tower without any other oddities or problems. We find the door to the tower unlocked and make our way inside. We explore all the rooms and eventually find the Wizards bedroom. It would appear his apprentice turned the bed into a dragon, though it looks as though the transformation didn’t go as well as expected, as the dragon was extremely sleepy and sluggish. It was a bed after all. We find the Apprentice yelling and screaming at the dragon, urging it to attack us. The dragon just goes back to sleep, the apprentice then turns to us wand at the ready, he starts screaming at us about how we're all spies.
The bard and one of the druids manage to talk down the apprentice and convince him not to use the wand on us. Through a bit of a struggle, we manage to disarm him and take control of the wand. The rouge takes hold of the wand and points it at the sheep with a look on her face of really just hoping for the best. A puff of blue smoke engulfs the sheep and left standing in front of us is a high elf wizard. The wizard is so grateful that he rewards us each with 500 gold pieces each.
The Wizard’s Apprentice apparently had a mental break, deeming that his master was not appreciative of his research and work. He was researching animal transfiguration and manipulation. He convinced the Orcs that worked for the Wizard to turn against him to be rewarded with gold, and thus the mutiny took place.
Having put in a good days work, we did as all good adventurers do, and headed back to the tavern to tell our tale of the days strange events. I cut back through the forest and find the apes, still playing dice, and invite them to come with us to the tavern. We play dice and drink ale and feast late into the night.
*This is Cormac for reference: Barbarian, Shield (Hill) Dwarf*
This is one of many Bemmi’s of adventures. He finds himself being called to Waterdeep, for their mid-winter gala.
Arriving in the city he is greeted by happy children running about, and as he takes in the city before notices all the festive decor and the generally festive atmosphere. He can hear laughter and drunken song coming from a tavern as he passes, and think a pint might be nice, but just as he is about to walk in spots some of his fellow adventures and goes to join the group.
As he walks up the group one of them offers him a cookie and he happily accepts it. If ale is not to be had at least a sweat treat will tie him over. As he munches on it he can’t help but think there isn’t a better sugar cookie he had ever had the pleasure of eating.
The group makes their way up the Villa that would be hosting the main event they had all come to see. Crumbs were now occupying his beard and he licks his fingers as if to savor every last sugar crystal he could.
Their hosts are usually very private and this is one of the few times they have opened their home to the city. The group gets a prime spot to watch the performance, while others crowded into the ballroom. A wooden stage had been freshly built for the performance, Bemmi also notices guards at every entry, they gently guide guests to stay in the main ballroom and not to wonder the rest of the villa.
A bard takes the stage and starts to perform. Her voice is amazing! Everyone is enchanted, and it’s as though the rest of the world melts away. Suddenly a bright red imp appears and attacks the bard!
The guards are able to take care of it and ask the crowd for volunteers to help investigate this incident. Of course, our merry band of adventures steps forward. We find a torn piece of paper with a story on it, the story is a little strange. Especially since the girl's name in the story is the same as the daughter of their hosts. Bemmi notes this and finds it suspicious, he’s not sure what it means but it can’t be anything good.
The group moves on to trying to figure out how the Imp got in. One of the groups magic users points out that it would have been summoned. They mention this after they all checked out the stage and rest of the room and questioned the hosts.
The group goes into some of the other rooms they are granted access to, and eventually, find the twins room. Here the group finds a circle on the ground with marbles. When the group investigates the toy chest they find some other items and something clicks for Bemmi.
These items are the same that were in the story and it’s actually a summoning ritual. To close the connection they must follow through and finish the sigil. So they set it back up and then go to the secondary location mentioned in the story, City of the Dead, which is part of Waterdeep. (Think cemetery meets amusement part). When they complete the next part of the sigil, a demon appears and after a short conversation the demon attacks. Bemmi takes the brunt of the damage as he is standing closest. He however also delivers some devastating blows to the demon. On the final and killing blow, the demon disappears in a cloud of black smoke.
The group makes their way back to the villa and runs into the captain of the guard who is very happy with our success. When the group reaches the villa and reports their findings to the Woman Host she offers them each a bag of 1,000 gold in exchange for not saying anything about their adventure. The group questions her a bit and something just isn’t sitting right.
Today is the day we set out for Mrs. Meyersmith's mansion. We grabbed a quick breakfast and set out on the road out of town. The trip there was rather uneventful, though I am glad we are traveling during the day. I’m not in any hurry to find out what goes bump in the night in these woods.
When we reached the mansion it seemed to be abandoned. The grounds looked like they hadn’t had any proper care for quite some time. Maelin knocked on the door to find it was unlocked and it swung open. (That’s always a good start to a day’s adventure).
Inside we found that it was really rather unkept and dirty, we could see footprints leading deeper into the mansion, as though someone had been through recently. We carefully made our way further inside to find spiders. Why is it always spiders? *sigh* These were no ordinary spiders, however, oh no, that would be easy. These were spiders were hard to keep in view, it was like they were touching two different planes of reality. Personally, I love hitting things, but these spiders looked, well not completely all there- if you’ll excuse the pun. So we managed to sneak by them into another room where we found a really old medallion of some kind, I put it in my tunic and went on our way.
The plan was to sneak back by the spiders but someone -MAELIN- isn’t as trained in the ways of sneaking like the rest of us. So we end up dealing with the spiders, they were surprisingly weaker than I thought they would be. Also, the newest member of our party, a ranger, is pretty talented and can hold their own.
After we defeated the spiders we eventually find a man in another room, whose very strange to say the least. His robes were covered in some of the same formulas as I found in a book earlier. Admittedly I would have very much liked to knock him out, but Maelin was very insistent on interrogating him.
(There was also a really freaky mirror that I was not having any part of, first I get sent to a different dimension, next thing you know I’ll be stuck in a mirror. NO THANKS!)
He barely had a grip on reality and was really confused about everything. Notably, he had no idea his mistress had children, he thinks he is her child. The more Maelin talked with him the more out of it he seemed. When she had finished with him it was as though we were never there to him. With what he shared with us, made the whole thing seem very cult-like.
(ended session midway because I had to take off early, To Be Continued...)
The next morning, over a delicious breakfast at the tavern, Maelin tells us what she found out at the library, I guess she wasn’t doing something with animals, whoops. Apparently, the glyphs belong to a new cult called “Cult of the Rift” and they worship/have something to do with the tears in dimensions that I experienced yesterday.
After breakfast, we set off again into the forest. I am feeling more comfortable around my two companions, though I am not sure of their abilities, as yesterday was not a good start.
We head into the South East bit of the forest as that was the part we didn’t get to yesterday. We come upon a camp with a dead body that still has all its belongings. As adventurers, it is, of course, our duty to investigate and pursue all of the belongings we could find. We didn’t find much of use, but the iron key could be useful, as well as the rations. We notice there are tracks around the camp that look like they could match the celestial dog we encountered yesterday.
We hear voices approach and look for hiding spots. I hop into a fortress of a bush. Maelin falls out of her hiding place (I thought Druids were supposed to be one with nature...I guess not..) Aura casts a spell followed by Maelin. I remain in the bush waiting for the opportune time to reveal myself, one that would provide us with an advantage.
There is a child with the two men, the child runs for cover when the spells start flying. It finds it’s way into my bush where I motion for it to remain quite and offer it some of my rations. It looked hungry and underfed. Kinda reminded me of my sister.
When I’ve heard enough from the two men (who were HORRIBLE, just the worst!) I emerged from my hiding spot, and together we scare off the two men, the boy, however, remains with us. He has the box we were sent to retrieve so we decide to head back to town with him in our company. There is something....off...with him. He seems to have developed some kind of bond with the object within the box.
Have I mentioned I really hate that damn Wizard? He is so stinking rude.
We managed to get back to the tavern before nightfall. The condescending wizard was still here...lucky us... he didn’t really offer anything useful...no surprise there...
BUT APPARENTLY, I COULD HAVE DIED? Or rather, there could have been lasting effects from being transported to a different dimension. Literally didn’t cross my mind. I wasn’t really worried before, now a little bit.
We did learn that the library might have some information on the glyphs that we found.
By the time we are done its dusk, so we decide to split up for the night. I think Aura wanted to go visit the library and learn more. I’m not sure what Maelin is doing, probably something with animals.
I wondered out into the city, a quiet hum of the night settling in for the evening. I wandered aimlessly until I found a small park and sat down to meditate. I stayed there for a few hours, then feeling less worried, and more centered I head back to the tavern to get a room for the night and head to bed. That night I had vivid dreams of the day's events and the dark place I was in, I woke the next morning in a cold sweat.
