In Kyasha’s Notch, one of the few passes through the Grey Mountains of eastern Castalia, lies the village of Kyasha’s Vale. A sacred spring with healing waters once flowed high in the mountains above the village, drawing pilgrims from all over the kingdom—but it dried up about a century ago, and the pilgrims stopped coming. The village turned to logging to support itself, supplemented by travelers passing through the notch. But with the new railway through the mountains fifty miles to the north, the number of travelers has dwindled to a mere trickle.

Four travelers find themselves in Kyasha’s Vale on a late autumn night, snowed in by a heavy blizzard at The Healing Hand—the only inn in town. Few travelers brave the mountain passes at this time of year, but they each have their own reasons for being here. They are:

• Aurelia Goldensong, a high elf cleric of Soleil, Goddess of Light and Passion. She is on her way to the main temple of Soleil in The Shining Citadel, capital of Castalia.
• Vahadryl “Valya” Haedel, a dark elf fighter, obviously not from Castalia. She doesn’t talk much about where she’s going or where she came from.
• Fergus O’Toole, a human bard who has been in Kyasha’s Vale for a few days, getting to know the local loggers and listening to their tales of shadows seen in the woods of late.
• Qhask Bronzeback, a kobold ranger. His master, the bronze dragon Caranthiax, was recently murdered by demons. He doesn’t know if any other kobolds survived the assault on the dragon’s lair.

Tuesday, November 20, 652 AU

The guests of The Healing Hand are woken at two in the morning by a scream from outside. Everyone rushes downstairs to the common room just in time to see a woman in an expensive nightgown stumble in from the raging snowstorm. The lower half of her gown is soaked, and her hands have blood on them.

“A body! In the snow, so awful… blood everywhere—” she frantically explains. One of the guests, an imposing half-orc, rushes over to the woman to make sure she is alright, then glares suspiciously at the others present.

Qhask rushes outside for a few moments, then returns. “Yup! There’s a body out there. Lots of blood, too.”

Everyone begins shouting at once, accusations are thrown about, and it soon becomes clear that only one guest is missing from the common room—Alec Foy, a teenage boy. His father, rushes outside, then stumbles back in, pale and nauseated. He too begins shouting accusations.

The innkeeper, a stern woman in her fifties named Avilia Valeth, shouts for everyone to remain calm and not to leave the common room. Although everyone present has already met Avilia, they have not yet met each other, so quick introductions are made. Aside from the party, there are:

• Saphielle Varo, a human in her mid-thirties, discovered the body while heading to the outhouse and screamed in shock. She is a merchant transporting wine from Eth’alorei to Crystalport.
• Trurdig, a half-orc in his mid thirties, serves as Saphielle’s bodyguard. He doesn’t talk much, but looks very menacing, and says he was woken by the scream.
• Harmony Grove, a human in her late twenties. She passed the others on the way to the common room by running on the walls, knife in hand—probably a formidible fighter. She’s heading to Crystalport to look for work.
• Rex Hawdon, a human in his early thirties and a naturalist who came to collect bugs and investigate rumors about the spring.
• William Foy, a human in his forties, who came to the spring with his son Alec and daughter Lydia to look for a cure for Lydia’s condition.
• Lydia Foy, an eleven-year-old human with an incurable wasting disease. She’s very pale, silent, and stoic.

Qhask and Valya go outside to investigate the body more carefully. They determine that it is indeed the body of Alec, William’s son, and that he died of multiple slashes across his stomach—possibly from a knife, or perhaps claws? They also find some bestial footprints that go all the way around the inn, and claw marks on the back door to the outhouse. Valya brings Alec’s body inside, but soon passes out, presumably from shock. Aurelia shakes Valya awake, and Valya mumbles “Lucan…” before fully coming to her senses.

They debate whether there’s a murderer on the loose, or if this is the work of a wild animal. Avilia and Fergus suggest it could be the work of the monster that lives near the old spring. Several of those present have not heard of the monster, so Fergus fills them in. Apparently, around the time that the spring dried up, a monster took up residence in the area. No one has seen it in a long time, since they know to keep away, but they say it’s “like a snake” and that it never leaves the spring.

Avilia suggests calling the town guard, but Harmony and Saphielle immediately respond “No!” in unison. Harmony explains that the town guard is useless and that they can solve this themselves, and Saphielle explains that she’s on a schedule to deliver her wine and that she doesn’t want to get caught up in an investigation. Plus, it’s probably not a murderer or a monster—the simplest explanation is just a bear, right?

This immediately puts Saphielle at the top of everyone’s suspect list. Valya returns outside to investigate the footprints more closely. Although the continual snow has partially buried them, she is able to determine that the footprints go up the trail to the shrine for only a short way, and then turn around… as if someone wanted it to look like they came from the shrine, but actually came from the inn. Plus, they’re bipedal. She tells everyone, and they agree that a murderer is more likely.

They decide to investigate everyone’s rooms. There’s nothing suspicious in Avilia’s room. Saphielle and Trurdig are similarly clean, aside from the giant battleaxe leaning against Trurdig’s wall. Fergus spots a notebook on Harmony’s desk with a strange symbol on the cover—a scorpion with a leaf for a stinger. Where has he seen that before?

Rex has an insect collection in a box on his desk. Fergus asks him why he’s collecting insects in winter, and Rex replies that there are many cold-adapted insects around, if you know to look for them. Curiously, Fergus is pretty sure none of the insects in the box are native, and he notes that there’s a name on the box—Mortimer Falx. He casually asks Rex where he got the box—he says from a friend, but Rex calls the friend David, not Mortimer. Curious indeed…

Aurelia, while checking Rex’s bed, finds a gun under the pillow. Rex claims he needs it for self-defense. She also sees claw marks on the ledge outside his window, but doesn’t mention it until Rex is out of earshot. Was Rex a target? Valya surreptitiously checks outside and finds claw marks on the side of the building leading up to Rex’s window.

Inside Rex’s backpack they find glass vials, which Aurelia determines are magically enchanted. Rex pretends they’re just glass vials, but Aurelia demands to know why they’re magic. Rex claims he had no idea they were.

Fergus also confronts Rex—he has a gun, he doesn’t know much about bugs, and Fergus is pretty sure the box with his bug collection was stolen. Rex admits that he’s a spy pretending to be an entomologist, sent by an organization he refuses to reveal, in order to investigate the Pool of Tears and collect some of the water for testing if he is able. His real name is Finch.

There’s nothing of interest in the Foys’ room, but Aurelia, while comforting Lydia, learns that Lydia saw a man outside, with no face, who motioned at her to keep quiet when he saw her watching from the window.

They all spend what’s left of the night in the common room together, so that if one of them is a murderer, no one is alone.

⁂

In the morning, they are visited by Len Valeth, Avilia’s son. He tells them that they are snowed in—an avalanche has blocked the road to the west. Fergus and and a reluctant Harmony visit the guardhouse on the other side of town to inform them of the murder. However, the captain of the guard, a goliath named Klabrog, is dismissive and insists it had to have been a bear. When Fergus presses him further, Klabrog says starting a murder investigation would be to the town’s detrimentl since even fewer people would visit.

On their way back to the inn, Harmony and Fergus commiserate about the uselessness of the guard. Harmony obliquely asks Fergus how he feels about political assassinations—or, at least, that’s what she makes it sound like. She reveals to Fergus that she’s heading to Crystalport to join the Wood Scorpions, a group of freedom-fighters of which her brother is a member, and that if Fergus is ever in Crystalport he should talk to them. He tells her where to go in Crystalport and what to do to get their attention.

Once they’re back at the inn, the party decides to investigate the forest. Len says the loggers have been seeing strange shadows recently, especially at dusk, so maybe they disturbed something they shouldn’t have. However, a quick trip through the woods to the site of the most recent logging does not turn up anything unusual.

Since it’s still early in the day, so they consider visiting the shrine up in the mountains. It’s only a few hours up the trail, taking into consideration the snow, but Avilia gravely warns them of the monster. Still, with no other leads, they decide to investigate.

A few hours of hiking brings them to an open clearing with a depression at the center, perhaps fifteen feet across. The depression is filled with blackened, dead leaves and dried gunk, and there is no snow within twenty feet of it. A small puddle, no more than a few feet across, fills the deepest part of the depression, but the water appears black and viscous—obviously not safe to drink. An acrid smell pervades the clearing.

At the edge of the clearing is a small marble temple which has clearly seen better days. The columns still hold up the roof, but the carvings on the pediments have been defaced. The temple contains a stone altar and some rubble.

After a few minutes they hear crashing footsteps approaching from the forest. Fearing it’s the monster, and they hide behind the shrine. They watch in horror as a large multi-headed creature lumbers out from the trees and makes its way to the pool, where it stops to drink. Valya and Aurelia recognize the creature from books—it’s a hydra. It’s clear that poisonous saliva is dripping from the hydra’s mouth back into the pool, and that the hydra may be what’s poisoning it.

After a few minutes, the hydra returns to the forest. Once they’re sure it’s far enough away, they rush back across the clearing and return to the Inn.

⁂

They convene in the common room to discuss. It appears that there is a monster, but it’s certainly not the one that killed Alec. Are the hydra and the murder completely unrelated, or is there some link? They ask Avilia about the pool, and she tells them that the priesthood of Kyasha once ran a temple in town. They abruptly left soon after the well dried up, and the temple was abandoned. The town uses it for storage now.

They decide to investigate the temple. After picking the lock and getting inside, they find a bunch of furniture and equipment gathering dust. There isn’t anything of immediate use except two vials of holy water in one of the back rooms. Fergus also notices that the furniture in the temple is of very high quality—it’s elaborately carved solid mahogany. Very out-of-place in Kyasha’s Vale, except that he’s seen furniture like this before—the reeve has a desk in his office that must be from the same set.

Fergus begins to rant about the reeve, Edward de Lane, and his habit of extracting extra taxes from the town in the name of the absentee baron, Lord Bryn Redgate, using the money to live like a lord himself.

Returning to the inn, they investigate Saphielle’s wagon, since it’s unattended. Quask determines that whatever is in the barrels, it’s not wine—it smells more like turpentine, but not quite.

Back in the common room, they hatch a plan which they share with Harmony and Rex. Assuming the monster/murderer is after Rex for some reason, they’ll station Aurelia and Qhask in his room, using Rex as bait. Valya will also stand outside as a target, while Harmony and Qhask hide in the common room to give support to Valya. With the plan set, they wait in the Inn for the rest of the day.

A few hours later, Fergus witnesses Saphielle come down from her room and casually plant something in the snow, right where Valya was supposed to stand. They retrieve the object, and find it is a vial of some sort of glowing liquid. Very suspicious! They all head upstairs to confront Saphielle, but she insists she has been sleeping (since she didn’t get a wink of sleep all night), and Trurdig defends her, saying she hasn’t left her room. Everyone is more suspicious of Saphielle.

That night, they get into position for the plan. Nothing happens for an hour, but then Rex casually looks over at Aurelia and says “This is extremely boring and I have places to be. You’re a cleric, right? Then you should be able to survive this.” He then shoots Aurelia with his gun, but misses.

Chaos ensues. Rex makes for the window, but is stopped by Aurelia and Qhask. Aurelia moves to the hallway to avoid another shot, but Rex uses the opportunity to shapeshift into Qhask, pretending to be him so everyone else is too confused to attack. He uses this as an opportunity to jump out the window and throw a smoke grenade, making for the woods. But Valya and Fergus are able to take him down before he gets there.

Everyone watches as Rex’s body morphs into his true form—a doppelganger! With the mystery solved (except why… maybe Alec witnessed Rex’s true form?), everyone returns to bed.

Wednesday, November 21, 652 AU

The next morning, while in the common room, they receive a visit from Klabrog, the head of the town guard, and Edward de Lane, the reeve of Kyasha’s Vale. The reeve is an unpleasant person, and he demands to know why the party has spread rumors of a murderer on the loose, tarnishing the good name of their peaceful village. The party protests and shows them the body of the doppelganger, and Klabrog confirms that he’s asked the guests what happened and it seems like there was, in fact, a murder.

The reeve relents and (grudgingly, after much protest) offers a reward; twenty gold pieces (“Each?” “Total.”). He invites them to his manor. At the manor, they see the desk that matches the furniture from the church, and investigate it while the reeve is in another room collecting their reward. They find a secret drawer, pick the lock, and find a letter inside. However, it’s not from the reeve… it’s much older. Apparently, the reeve had no idea the secret drawer existed. It reads:

Your Royal Highness, King Darius Fentris,

It saddens me to report that Lady Beatrice’s condition continues to deteriorate. I mentioned in my last letter that the potency of Kyasha’s Tears has declined. Since then, the decline has worsened. Not a single pilgrim has been healed in three weeks—not even a young boy with a mild skin condition, which I was able to heal through prayer. I dearly wish prayer would work for Lady Beatrice, but her curse is too grievous. When we exhaust our stock of bottled Tears, she will perish.

But I fear for more than the life of your champion. Four days ago, pilgrims who drank from the pool began to complain of nausea and stomach pain. Though this troubled us, we did not turn anyone away, out of hope that some could still be cured. But this morning, a woman with dragonpox drank from the pool, began to cough up blood, and soon died. May Kyasha forgive us for the harm we have caused… The pool began to recede soon after. As I write this, it is no more than a small puddle. Perhaps that is for the best—now no one can drink from it and suffer the same fate.

We fear that the Source itself may be compromised, and have sent for a cleric of Soleil to investigate the caverns below the temple. If some creature or demon is fouling the water, then there is hope, for such a creature can be killed. I pray that the underlying cause is not that Kyasha has withdrawn Her holy blessing. Lady Beatrice offered to explore the waterworks herself, but with the curse it would be too dangerous, despite her protestations that her amulet and faith would protect her. I will write you again after the investigation.

Your faithful servant,

Toross Holaric, High Priest of Kyasha

April 10, 563 AU

Interesting… there are caverns below the spring? The letter has no seal, and was likely never sent. Perhaps they should investigate. The reeve reluctantly hands over the money, and orders them out of his manor.

⁂

Back at the spring, there is no sign of the hydra. They search around the temple, and find that the altar slides back, revealing a narrow passage with an old, iron ladder. The ladder is fragile and rusted away, so they rappel down the hole with a rope instead. At the bottom, they find an ornate room decorated with blue stone and murals of Kyasha. A stone double door blocks their path, with the phrase “Enter with the hands of the healer” inscribed above it.

After some puzzlement, Aurelia touches the door and casts healing magic on it, causing the door to flash brightly and creak open. On the other side, they see something strange. There is a large room, with more blue stone and murals. Water flows from a passageway to the left and into the center of this room, where it enters a circle of glowing magic runes. Inside the circle, the water drips up, defying gravity, into a hole in the ceiling. If their geometry is right, this is directly below the spring. So the spring isn’t natural, but fed by some sort of magic mechanism? And what is arcane magic doing in a divine temple?

Unfortunately, before they have too much time to ponder, they hear moaning. Zombies begin crawling toward them from the other side of the room, and another bursts out of a cistern behind them. A fierce battle ensues—the zombies are slow, but relentless, and they seem to take in stride attacks that would kill a mortal.

Aurelia channels divine power to turn most of them, and Valya rushes to the other side of the room to attack a zombie that resisted. Valya finds herself blocked by something invisible. It turns out to be a gelatinous cube! The cube wreaks havoc, backing Aurelia and Qhask into a corner and then engulfing them. Qhask escapes, but Aurelia begins to dissolve…

On the verge of death, Aurelia has a vision. Standing in the room with them is a tiefling wearing white robes and a golden amulet in the shape of the sun. “Your light will be needed before the end, child… It is not your fate to die in a place such as this. You must find my amulet.” Aurelia’s eyes open and glow with sunlight. Valya, Fergus, and Qhask pummel the cube with everything they have until it explodes and drops Aurelia, gasping, to the ground.

Shaken, they press on. In the next room, they find a large waterworks with pipes everywhere, presumably for rerouting and bottling the sacred water. They also find what appears to be a hospital room. It looks like all the patients died violently.

They find a journal in a drawer in one of the bedside tables, written by a patient who was transported here to be healed. It looks like this secret location was where politically important or sensitive patients were brought for long-term healing, rather than the pilgrims who came to the pool on the surface. ❦