It's tiring to be the Heroes of Sandpoint

It is now the 14th of October.  Our Heroes first arrived in Sandpoint on the 21st of September, not even a month ago.  What an interesting and exciting month it has been!  There has been death and suffering and pain, true, but remember the adventure equation:

Fun + Danger = Adventure

And who are Our Heroes if not Adventurers!

Kendra has received an offer to purchase her house - and at full asking price!  The couple will be back in Sandpoint to exchange keys for money, and asks that some minor changes be made.  Kendra puts The Party to work painting and performing light carpentry work.  The days pass quickly - there's something good and satisfying about building and maintaining a house, especially when in contrast with Our Heroes' other work of fighting demons and being Haunted by the malevolent dead.

Two days after Harrowstone Kendra receives a letter from Adivion Adrissant, which states that he has some business and research in Magnimar for the next month or so, and inviting her (and by extension The Party) to the house he has rented there.  He also offers to come to Sandpoint at some point; Kendra shows the party his letter, and appears to be conflicted between wanting to see her Uncle Adi, and worried from her father's warning.  The construction in her house decides her, and she writes back saying that she's coming to Magnimar soon and will see him then.

The next day a messenger comes from Ameiko - a Hellknight has come to town, with a retinue of Barristers and Porters, and she thought The Party might be interested in that.  They certainly are!  Our Heroes head to City Hall, where the Hellknight and her Lawyers have gone in to meet with Kendra; a sneaking spying mission is considered, plans are begun to be formed, and then Nod abrogates the entire issue by entering the Mayor's office.

He's asked to leave, of course, and does so - putting his cup to the door to listen.  When Sherrif Hemlock arrives Nod is hearing a conversation which he thinks is the Hellknight telling Mayor Deverin about her familial duty, which the Mayor rejects.  The Sheriff tells Nod, "I can't condone your actions, of course, but - what are they talking about?"  Nod fills him in, just before he enters the room.

The Hellknight is impressive, both in her armor and her stature - standing over 6 feet tall she dominates the room, in her burnished black armor, decorated with spikes and metal skulls for epaulets.  Her lawyers are just that - nebbish and middle aged, neither thin nor fat, skinny nor tall - even without the Hellknight here they would blend in like water poured into a pond.

The party converses with Hellknight Brey for a moment, and it is not as tense as it could be.  Mayro Develin is apparently an heir or inheritor of some property in Cheliax, and Hellknight Brey is tasked with serving her papers summoning her to Erogan to deal with this issue.  The Mayor does not want to, and is refusing the Hellknight's request.  Or her threat?  It is difficult to tell, given her imposing nature and manner of speaking.  At some point Vig sneaks out of the conversation, catching up with the Hellknight and her retinue and inviting them to dinner and even to stay with him at Kendra's.  She gives her name - as Hellknight Brey - and when asked for his name, Vig deflects, a social convention that seems to make the Hellknight smile to herself.

She accepts.  Dinner is pleasant, and many conversational threads are navigated; Antwon receives some legal advice regarding contracts and contested estates, and it seems that the Hellknight herself isn't evil - just driven to enforce the laws of the land, and the laws of Cheliax.  No penalties will come to the Mayor - it'll just take longer for the probate courts in Erogan to process things for her family there.

She leaves the next morning, bound for Magnimar.  Perhaps Our Heroes will meet her and her retinue there?  It depends on how many bullets are loaded into Chekov's gun, I suppose.  Anything is possible but right now there are so many possibilities, so many leads - there is too much signal and not enough noise.

Is the party chasing Petros' assassin(s)?  The Whispering Way?  Dealing with the Sihedron Rune killer and the Sihedron rune stuff in general?  It is difficult to say, at this point, I would imagine.  Hopefully more illumination will be found in Magnimar!

Another week passes.  It is the 25th of October, an hour before dawn, when the Sheriff bangs on the door to wake the party up.  There has been a murder at the Sawmill, and The Party (specifically Antwon) is implicated, and the Sheriff is going on to brief the mayor, and then alert the temple, and then inform the family, which might buy the party some time to make their own investigations.  No, the Sheriff doesn't believe that anyone from The Party is involved in horrible mutilations and murders.  There was another attack two days ago, with a witness and a similar note, and a 7-pointed start cut into the victims (as appeared on one of the victims at the Sawmill as well).  The note is still at the scene, and one of the guards can fill the party in on the details.

The party treats the Sheriff with the courtesy and decorum that Belor Hemlock has come to expect, and gathers up to head to the Sandpoint Sawmill.  One of the guards looks a little green; the other is a 30-year veteran of the Sandpoint Militia, and has seen some shit, and warns the party that some of the shit he's seen is currently in the Sawmill right now.  When they come out, he says, he'll tell them what he saw at the other attack, but the Sheriff said they might not have much time so they should probably get in there.

Inside might be horrifying to people who had not seen some of the sights that Our Heroes have seen - although it is still a bit disturbing.  A mutilated corpse of what was once a man is pinned to the wall with equipment hooks, his face torn off and his jaw removed, bites and scratches all over his skin, and a seven-pointed star carved into his chest.  Over in the log splitter is the corpse of a woman, who was pushed, or fell, into the blades.  There is blood everywhere, and an odor of charnel - of rotten meat.  Besides the boots of the two people the party finds several bare footprints, like a human but with sharp claws - each of which smells strongly of rot (as do the wounds in the male corpse).  The footprints lead from the river, and then back into the river.  There's also a woodchopping axe, with bloody handmarks on the handle and rotten viscera drying on the blade.

Ghouls - or at least, one ghoul.  This was an attack by a ghoul.

There is a bloody envelope on the body, with the word "ANTWON" printed on it.  I'll post an image of the notes; this one says "You will learn to love me, desire me in time as she did.  Give yourself to the pack and it shall all end."

Damn.

The guard outside fills the party in:

• The man was Banny Harker, one of the managers of the Sawmill.
• The woman was Katrine Vinder, daughter of Vin Vinder and older sister to Shayliss.
• Katrine and Banny were lovers, which was something of a not-so-secret in town.  They would meet at night in the sawmill, and run the mill so the noise would hide the sounds of their trysting.
• Ibor Thorne is the other Sawmill manager - he found the bodies, and he's currently at the Sheriff's Office being interviewed.
• Two days ago, on patrol, a man was found wandering, delusional, talking about an attack in a barn.  When they investigated the barn in question they found three mutilated bodies, similar to Banny Harker's corpse.  There was also a note at the scene (reprinted in another post).
• The man found wandering was taken to the Habe Sanitarium.  The party is given directions to both the barn and the Sanitarium.

The party heads back to Kendra's to get their gear and armor, and then checks in at the Sheriff's office.  Ven Vinder is being dragged in, upset and raging at the news of his daughter's death; the party stays long enough to insult the Sheriff and then heads south to the barn.  It's - as described, with no new leads or clues.  An abandoned barn on the verge of collapse, with foundations of a few other buildings close by attesting to the abandoned nature of this property.

In the sanitarium the party meets Erin Habe, who is reticent at first.  The party convinces him of their intentions to question the man brought in two days ago - Erin is nervous, he explains, because people misunderstand his methods.  Instead of magic, he proposes that talking to disturbed patients can help lead them back into the land of the sane.  I suppose, for families that cannot afford the Heal spell or those who are unwilling to turn to the aid of priests, that this might hold some small benefit - if nothing else, the patients are kept away from the decent and the unblemished, to be placed outside the flow of the world, but I would expect long-term care to be both more trouble and more expensive than a simple spell that can be found in the Big Cities.  But, your humble narrator is open to the possibility that Mr. Habe might hold a different, and separate, truth.

Erin Habe leads the party up to Grayst Sevilla, describing his discovery on the road, muttering, wounded, ill, and insane.  He is bound in a strightjacket, muttering and twitching in his cell, and looking both demented and afflicted.  "Ghoul fever," mutters Kendra, "an advanced case of it."

Upon seeing the party, Grayst lights up and presses himself close to the bars, staring at Antwon and speaking in a fevered, half-moan half-growl:

"He said... he said you would visit me!  And here you are, here you are, His Lordship... His Lordship - the one who unmade me - he said so.  He said so!  He has a place for you - I am so jealous - he has no place for me only the message.... the message... I must remember, I must - he made me remember it.  I haven't forgotten.  His Lordship would not let me forget!  I remember... Mmmmm, yes, I remember:  He said.  He said!  He told me to tell you... Antwon!  He said these things.  He said that if you came to his Misgivings, that if you joined his pack, then he would end his harvest in your honor."

At this, the poor man twitches and falls over, and dies.  Dies to undeath - a scant three heartbeats later he stands, eyes rolled back in his head, the beginnings of the ghoul stench beginning to emanate from his putrescence as he stands and bursts free of his restraints!

At this point let us consider Antwon, the shortest member of the party.   Let us consider how - or perhaps why is a better question? - let us consider, anyway, that Antwon speaks in a dialect of groans and hisses and coughs, and the Ghoul who used to be Grayst Sevilla answers.  What they talk about is of no consequence; the ghoul is almost entirely mindless and wishes only to feed on the flesh of the living.  Where and how Antwon learned to communicate with horrors such as this is, I believe, quite a more interesting question - but alas, with all that the party has to go through, one that must wait for the morrow.

Grayst dies quickly and ignominiously.  Erin Habe scribbles furiously - notes on the transformation, it seems to Vig, reading over his shoulder.  Making a cursory examination of the rest of the Sanitarium as they leave, the party, finding nothing (especially and specifically not finding the necromantic lab in the basement), heads south.

South to explore the Woods - very few Clues, or even clues, are discovered, but Torvan gives a wise-woman 2 silver for a 2-card Harrow Reading:

First Card: The Fiend.  This card depicts a fiend consuming innocents:

Second card: the Midwife.  This card depicts a midwife, with her bloody apron, holding a fiendish newborn while a man hides his face in his hands in the background:

Mee Maw interprets this as follows:  "There is great evil ahead, both generally in the world and specifically around you and your friends.  Birth is violent and painful, and this is the process that the world generally, and you and your friends in specific, must undergo."

"Perhaps you have started this process already?  You smell like a person who has seen the heartblood of another pour out around your knife."

"There are many forces gathering and flowing in the world, and you have begun to attract their attention.  I do not have the power to see further for you.  My mother could, but I never had the Sight that she had.  You would do well to seek out one who can advise you on your journey further."

"I will do you one more card - this one is for free, for my own sake..."

Here is the one-more-card - The Twin:

"Oh dear.  That is the... well.  An unfortunate last card - it calls into question the rest of the reading.  Perhaps your work to fight evil will ultimately bring it about?  That is always the danger, with heroes, you know.  Perhaps it just means indecision, or too many opinions."

"I am tired now and will return to my room.  Good luck, Heroes.  When you fight demons remember that your loyalty and trust of each other is stronger than anything demonic."

"Fiend, Midwife, Twin - remember those cards, my lovelies," she cackles as she totters out of the room.

The party has much to mull over, and it is nearing evening, so they head back to town.  They're met by a guard who tells them the Sheriff's at the Scarnetti Manor - Titus Scarnetti has been killed.  His body lies in his bed, a Sihedron rune carved into his chest and bite/scratch marks all over him - the sheets are soaked in blood.  The Sheriff interviews the maid - she heard a noise, came into the room, and saw a man in tattered finery kneeling over Scarnetti, eating his face - when she came in the "man" - really a ghoul, as you probably already suspected, being the perspicacious and germane sort that is drawn to Adventure Tales such as this.

A ghoul attacked Titus Scarnetti, is my point.  That last sentence kind of got away from us, hey?

The next day Shayliss - formerly Shayliss Vinder but now rejecting her family name - comes to Kendra's house, asking to go with Our Party to Magnimar and start looking for the person / people / things that killed her sister.  There's some stuff about her family life, too, which our party neglects to care about, because they hear "Fuck this town - I want to GO" and that sentiment resonates pretty closely with Our Heroes.

Kendra's house is sold!  The Party begins gathering their stuff - a cart, pulled by four horses, for Kendra, Shayliss, and Vig, a riding horse for Torvan, sturdy Nelson for Antwon, and Nod's fine with a nice walkabout.  They're met on their way out of town by a local farmer in trouble, because of course they are, they're The Heroes. Trouble and Heroes go together like Backwash and Shared Beverages.  This time the herald of Troubles is Maester Grump, a farmer from the southern farmlands talking about walking scarecrows and attacks on people in the night; the troubles seem to stem from,

"The old Hambley place - things just ain't been right there for a few days now.  Everyone knows that's where the problems started - we went there to check, earlier today, and done got attacked by corpses that wanted to eat us.  They got Davey and Little Jim - and they even ate the dogs!  The dogs!"

Maester Grump is a broken shell of a man now - but let us have pity for a man who loved dogs as much as he, as we follow Our Heroes south to the Old Hambley Place.

The first sign that things might not be right at the farm is when the party sees a scarecrow up on a pole, twitching and shuddering.  A ghoul!  The party has little trouble with a crucified ghoul, either singly or in small groups.  Some of the scarecrows are traditional scarecrows - clothes filled with straw - and some are less traditional scarecrows - corpses in the process of becoming ghouls.

It's pretty squicky and no one is having a good time with any of it.  Especially when the corpses of three children are discovered, all animated as ghouls.

Two scarecrows are determined to be still alive (although infected with ghoul fever and close to death/undeath).  They are Horram and Lettie Guffmin, who were dragged from their farm last night, bitten and infected, and left up to 'ripen'.  The life cycle of the ghoul is not a pretty one.

The Guffmins are untied and brought to the cart, where Kendra ministers to their wounds and tries to ease their suffering, as Our Heroes head towards the farm buildings.  The barn is L-shaped, with a giant 12-foot high stone head in the crook of the L.  It stinks here.  It stinks of the grave, of carrion, of the abattoir - it stinks of rot and undead.  Ghouls.

And ghouls there are!  Six ghouls jump out as The Party enters the barn - and combat is joined!  Soon after another group of ghouls - this one led by a ghast - moves to the cart to attack the Guffmins; Kendra and Nod, backed by Torvan and Shayliss (who seems to be a sorcerer, as she blasts the Ghast with magical missiles) defend the cart, while Vig and Antwon and Nelson finish off the barn ghouls.

And yet another shroud of ghouls appears!  The two farmers, alas, are slain, as is the riding Gecko that Ripnugget used to own - but otherwise, The Party is victorious.  A hard-fought battle!

The barn is empty of anything that the Modern Adventurer might consider to be treasure.  Is a set of old pitchforks and rusty tools good treasure?  For some people - collectors of such things - I might argue that it is, but not for Our Heroes.

The farmhouse is also devoid of anything like treasure.  There is, however, a dead homeowner, with a sihedron rune carved into his chest, and a note, adressed to Antwon:

"Take the fever into you, my love - it shall be but the first of my many gifts to you.  -Your Lordship"

And that, gentle reader, is where we must draw the curtain for the nonce.