Friday, January 12, 653 AU, continued

• They decide to pretend that they told Ilyana their secret, and leave the castle to try bartering with Abigail instead. However, the door they came through is locked. They hear noise from behind a red curtain at the north end of the west wall—Ilyana says that’s the kitchen. She passed it often on her way to the arcane laboratory in the north tower.
• Not wanting to be caught picking locks in Lord Desmond’s castle, they head to the kitchens. There are a human, a gnome, and a drow, all busily cooking. The human, flustered, asks if the food is to their liking, and tells them not to worry—more food will be brought to them in the dining hall, if they’d all just return there.
• Valya asks if there is an alternate exit, and the cook looks nervous; surely they wouldn’t want to leave before enjoying all the hospitality Lord Desmond has to offer? She suggests they return to the dining room immediately. Aurelia deflects, saying Valya needs to freshen up. The cook suggests the guest room upstairs. Aurelia also smiles apologetically and says her order forbids meat and a long list of herbs—could they cook something she could eat? The cook’s eyes go wide (“No meat? At all?”) and she rushes over to a door that leads to a small courtyard with a vegetable garden. That should keep the cooks occupied for a while.
• They head upstairs. Ilyana mentions that she’s heard of secret passages in the castle, but the only one she knows is the one that leads to the arcane tower, which is in the kitchen.
• Upstairs, they find a long hall lined with suits of armor. There are several doors, some of which have flickering firelight visible through the gaps. As they enter the hall, the suits of armor cross their pikes and to block their path, and attack. No one in the party is wearing armor—they’re wearing the fancy clothes Valya bought for them for the meeting with Lord Desmond—but they manage to defeat the suits of armor without much difficulty. Valya throws some pieces of armor into Torba to try on later.
• Opening the door at the far end of the hall, they find a balcony overlooking the city. The street is fifty feet below them. They discuss teleporting down to the street below, but they don’t have enough spells between them to bring everyone. They teleport Ilyana down before they realize this, however. They decide they’ll meet Ilyana at the Phase Spider later, and she dashes away.
• They try another door, and find a lavish bedroom. There’s a window, through which they can see the garden courtyard below. It also looks like they might be able to access the parapet from this window. Valya opens the window and sticks her head out, but hears the grinding of stone from above. She sees a gargoyle looking down at her. She pulls her head back in and closes the window.
• They open a door connected to the bedroom, and find a very nice bathroom with a clawfoot tub. This must be the guest bathroom the cook recommended, then. They guess that, being a creepy vampire lord, Desmond must want to spy on his guests, so they search the walls for secret passages. They find one. There’s a short hallway terminating in the hidden side of another secret door. In the side of the hallway is a spiral staircase, heading up.
• They carefully push the secret door open, and discover Lord Desmond’s study. There’s a desk with many papers and a goblet of congealed blood on it, a bookcase topped with humanoid skulls, and the embers of a fire in the fireplace. Searching the desk, they find several notes of interest.

The first note

Lord Desmond,

Interrogating the citizens confirmed that newcomers arrived via the portal near Sanctuary. They headed east down the river with a trader named Salress. I tracked Salress down in the market—he says they left his boat to follow the kidnapped kid east, probably to the Monastery of Kixist. Suspicious, considering your hypothesis about the place.

Faithfully, Aglox

The second note

Desmond,

Investigation of archive item #19436 implies that #637545 and #204596 are related in the following sense: [tiny, abstruse magical diagrams take up the rest of this page and half of the next] I am willing to offer any 5 of mine (see appendix), in addition to any 7 of yours for the standard sacrifice.

Abigail

[On a separate sheet of parchment is a list of 23 names, many of which are gnomish and drow]

The third note

Dearest D,

The work here goes smoothly, my love. Tharruk was always a delusional narcissist; turning one city would merely have provoked the wrath of Oriel and brought the Hammer down upon himself. It’s well that he was ended prematurely by some upstarts. Oriel remains blind to our threat, stabbing instead at shadows and smoke.

And yet I can’t help but sense method in Oriel’s madness. There is something brewing, something we haven’t taken into account. I will continue to investigate. An opportunity will soon present itself; you remember my dear protégé? He’s returning to the citadel and will soon be wed into the royal family. My experiments on Maria prove I can bring spawn back under my control, even in my new form. I think this time I can do it with a minimum of damage, too.

Patience is the key, as you and I both know and Tharruk never did. With him out of the picture, we can refocus our efforts on the original plan. The eclipse will come, slowly and then all at once. We will have our empire, my love.

Yours Forever, P

P.S. Thank you for the latest shipment. They truly are astounding specimens.

• Aurelia tries to interpret the diagrams in the second note, and is able to determine they have something to do with “the liquidation of souls”. Whatever that means, it can’t be good.
• The third note provokes horror from the party; Pamona the Eternal, the insane vampire who turned Leander, is still alive and active, involved with both Tharruk and Lord Desmond, and part of Neesha’s Cult of the Eclipse.
• The ghostly blue head of an old drow pokes through the door to the office and tells them to keep it down. Aurelia says “sorry”, and the ghost retreats.
• They look through the desk drawers and find two secret compartments, one containing an ornate spellbook and the other containing a deck of cards. They take both.
• They also look at the books on the bookshelf—they appear to be memoirs of ancient vampires. Aurelia notices The Collected Writings of Mortas, Vol. 2, written by a terrible vampire who terrorized Amyanthalas long before Castalia was unified. It’s full of stuffy, pompous observations.
• They retrace their steps back to the main hall with the suits of armor. Aurelia puts her ear to one of the doors they haven’t opened—if their reckoning is right, it’s the door the ghost was in. She hears muttering; complaints about the rudeness of the new guests.
• They pick the lock, and find a lavish library lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases. The ghost is there, dusting a table, but he appears to be having a hard time of it—his ghostly feather duster doesn’t actually move any dust.
• The ghost tells the party to be quiet, but asks if they can help him dust. They do, and the ghost confides that he’s a prisoner bound to this room for the past three hundred and forty-five years. You vote against Desmond one too many times in the city council and this is your fate, he mutters. His name is Thilleas the Meek.
• In the center of the room, on a mahogany table, is a wrought iron dragon claw holding a crystal orb. Aurelia asks what it is, and Thilleas complains that it’s an annoying orb that talks and talks and talks, and it’s only quiet right now because the Thilleas threatened to throw it in the fire. Apparently, it loves talking about tea and some place called “Castalia”, so the party offer to take it off his hands. If Lord Desmond asks, he can feel free to blame the party for stealing it.
• They touch the orb, and it says “Oh! A new friend!” in a loud, chipper voice. It introduces itself as Professor Niku and launches into a spiel about Castalian tea, so Aurelia stuffs it in Torba to deal with later.
• Valya asks Thilleas how to get out of the castle, but Thilleas hasn’t left this room in centuries. He only knows about the main entrance, and the crypts which he’s heard connect to the sewers. There might be a secret entrance to the crypts in the northern tower. He also warns the party that Lord Desmond hints that his coffin is down there, but it’s a trap—he’s not that stupid. What is down there, though, is a shadow crossing.
• Valya wants to rescue everyone and Sanctuary, but Aurelia says they need to head through the shadow crossing as soon as they can. Thilleas says he heard that a few people came through the shadow crossing a few weeks ago, and are prisoners in the east tower.
• They decide to head to the east tower. On the way, they find a torture chamber, with a dead drow strapped to a table. It’s been there at least a few months, as far as they can tell. They pick the lock to the east tower and find two cells on either side of the circular room, with a trapdoor in the middle. One cell contains an emaciated drow, the other contains a young elf. Both have bite marks in their necks.
• The drow, noticing the party, demands to be rescued at once. His name is Rhenzemi Poshre, and he is a noble from Hatheg, imprisoned because Hatheg refused to aid Ilek-Vaad in some expedition across the Sea of Sorrows. The young elf is Camus Luzana, from Tel’Arisse, the city south of Eth’Alorei in Amyanthalas. He says he came through the shadow crossing with his friend Tasar Anerion, who Lord Desmond has already turned into a vampire spawn. Apparently, Lord Desmond sent Tasar back through the shadow crossing to prey on his and Camus’s families.
• They try freeing Rhenzemi and Camus, but the cell door squeaks as it opens, and they hear someone through the trapdoor. Camus says it’s the jailer, and the jailer comes up through the trapdoor, firing magic bolts at the party. They manage to defeat the jailer, and investigate the jailer’s office below. He appeared to be reading a newspaper from Ilek-Vaad, but tucked away in the desk is a small statue of a raven, which they take.
• They take Rhenzemi and Camus back to the library—their best bet, they think, is to go out the window and walk along the parapet to the north tower. Valya confirms there is another gargoyle above this window, too. They decide to risk it. Valya exits the window and draws the attention of the gargoyles, luring them into a fight. They defeat the gargoyles, and enter the north tower.
• They take the stairs down to the first level, where they find an arcane study. All manner of spell components are piled on tables, faded parchments displaying basic magical sigils are pasted to the walls, and there is an elaborate magic circle in the center of the room, drawn in what is probably blood.
• They look around for a secret passage, and find one under the stairs. They head down the narrow steps into the darkness, and find themselves in a dusty basement. After searching around, they find a stone door marked with a strange sigil. Valya, suspecting that the sigil might be in the book they found in Lord Desmond’s study, opens the book. It seems to have a mesmerizing effect on her, and Valya begins muttering nonsense about the astral plane.
• They send William to touch the door, and a burst of acid explodes out of the door. William is injured, but the trap has been disarmed.
• Beyond is a large crypt filled with sarcophagi on stone biers and in niches in the walls. On the far side of the room is another door. They sneak through, looking for the shadow crossing with the help of Aurelia’s portal compass, but it’s spinning wildly. They surmise the shadow crossing is close.
• They hear the scrape of stone as the lid of a sarcophagus opens. A gaunt vampire-like creature crawls out and attacks the party. It darts in and out from small tunnels behind the sarcophagi in the walls, darting out to attack and then hiding in the shadows, but they eventually defeat with a burst of radiance from Aurelia. They really, really hope the shadow crossing is in the next room and not this one.
• They head to the next room, where Camus thinks he remembers the shadow crossing was. Rhenzemi, being a native of the Shadowfell, wants to know how the party plan on escorting him back to Hatheg. They say they can come with him to the material plane and then show him the portal in the Irodel Valley, but they’re leaving now. Valya promises him that once they enter the astral plane he can go anywhere he wants—the rest of the party become suspicious that Valya has been cursed by that book.
• They check inside the sarcophagus and find three necklaces, two bracelets, and four earrings that seem valuable.
• In the next room, they notice a patch of darker shadows behind one of the sarcophagi. They crawl through, and find that instead of hitting a wall, they continue on for dozens of feet. They emerge from the palpable darkness… somewhere else.

⁂

• They are in the Heirel family mausoleum, which Aurelia recognizes as a prominent noble family in Tel’Arisse. She feels a heavy weight lift from her shoulders.
• They leave the mausoleum and see the sun for the first time in days—Aurelia falls to her knees and sheds tears of gratitude. Rhenzemi is less enthused about the sun.
• Camus, worried about his family, and says he’ll meet the party at the Golden Leaf when they return to Tel’Arisse, after he asks around about any disappearances.
• Aurelia casts sending, telling Utaz to meet them in Tel’Arisse tomorrow.
• They head to the temple of Soleil in the city to stay for the night and are allowed in by the head priest Hashek, though Valya gets some strange looks from the priests.
• During the night, Valya has a dream. It’s a jumbled mess of images, but she dreams she’s in a ship, and there are stars everywhere, and she sees the comet, and something is chasing her through the shimmering void. She thinks it was a vision of the astral plane.

Saturday, January 13, 653 AU

• Valya excitedly tells the party about her dream about the astral plane, so Aurelia casts remove curse, but it has no effect.
• Slelbe arrives at the temple in Utaz’s stead—apparently Utaz is very weak. Aurelia goes to buy diamond dust in the market while the rest of the party inform Slelbe what happened on their quest. Valya argues with Slelbe, claiming that the astral plane can cure any disease or curse. Slelbe is very suspicious of Valya’s book, calling it a Planecaller’s Codex and saying that it’s certainly cursed. Valya continues to rant, almost mentioning the comet to Slelbe, but is stopped by Bill covering Valya’s mouth.
• While they wait for Aurelia, they inspect the deck of cards they found in Lord Desmond’s study; it turns out to be a Deck of Oracles. They also talk to Professor Niku. Slelbe identifies the orb as a professor orb, exclaiming that they’re very rare and very useful. They contain the soul of a dead professor—best not to mention that in front of Professor Niku, lest he get agitated.
• Professor Niku has four areas of special interest; the planes, Castalian tea, Gemran porcelain, and Ghelroth’Far. This last one piques the party’s interest, but the first exasperates them because he begins talking about the astral plane with Valya.
• Meanwhile, Aurelia buys 400 gp worth of diamond dust, one 500 gp diamond, 200 gp worth of ivory (she throws in one of the necklaces they found, since the merchant was hoping to carve the ivory), and 250 gp in incense.
• When Aurelia returns, she casts greater restoration on Valya, breaking the curse from the book. Valya is still adamant that the dream she had was unrelated to the curse, and important in some way.
• Rhenzemi, fed up with this delay, says he is going to speak to the nobles of this city for help.
• Slelbe teleports them to Utaz’s tower, where they quickly brew the potion of nothic eyes. They all drink the potion, and Utaz believes it works—they’ve bought another month. They need a more permanent solution, though. Utaz has been researching this kind of curse, but it’s rare, and the very few texts that even mention it do so purely hypothetically.
• They fill in Utaz on what they’ve learned. Utaz is horrified to learn that Pamona the Eternal is still extant. He says they need to contact Prince Calvin to warn him about Leander.
• Professor Niku mentions that Pamona the Eternal was her previous owner. They ask for details, but Professor Niku is not very perceptive: “Well, I think she might have been undead!” However, he mentions that Pamona would ask him very detailed questions about Ghelroth’Far, and that she was very interested in their knowledge of flesh-manipulation magic. The Ghelrothians were adept at creating flesh golems. “Her questions were very detailed and insightful—if I didn’t know any better, I’d think she had read the Book of Dark Waves!” chuckles Professor Niku. “But that was lost in the destruction of the city.”
• The party look at each other awkwardly and explain that the book still exists and, as far as they know, is being kept in the vaults of the temple of Soleil in the Shining Citadel. Professor Niku is shocked, claiming that the Book of Dark Waves has been implicated in the destruction of Ghelroth’Far.
• On a hunch, Aurelia describes the woman she saw in her visions way back at the beginning of the campaign, waking up on a slab with milky white eyes. “Oh, you’ve met her too!” exclaims Professor Niku. “Oh dear,” says Aurelia.
• Apparently, Pamona sent Profesor Niku to Lord Desmond just a few weeks ago as a gift, saying she no longer required the orb’s services. They speculate on what that means—maybe Pamona raided Ghelroth’Far herself.

⁂

• They return to their bastions to check in on their hirelings. Valya’s garden has been trampled by some unruly kids. One of Bill’s hirelings destroyed a priceless artifact at an auction to raise money for Bellaroth, and is led away by the city guard.
• Valya bring the last dose of the nothic eye potion to Valspira. She’s bought furniture for her room, her imp welcomes the party into “Lady Valspira’s estate”, and Valspira says “It’s really our house, isn’t it? And besides, I’m here more than you are, these days…”
• Valspira has made contact with some old friends, and asks Valya to kill a devil and steal a certain item from him to improve Valspira’s bargaining position as she reestablishes her former position. Valya asks Valspira about her patron, and how frustrating it is not knowing anything about her. Valspira offers to talk to a friend of hers who specializes in summoning and communicating with extraplanar entities, and to help Valya find out what happened that night, in exchange. They sign a contract. ❦