Finish exploring the Misgivings; Iesha Foxglove's soul is freed to pass on to the Boneyard of Pharasma in the Great Beyond. Returning that evening the group encounter a Varisian family who warn them Bob Teshki's farm has been attacked, Vanessa taken - by Nualia. Group catches the miscreants at the bridge over Cougar Creek. A burly cultist escapes with Vanessa, but the group wipes out Nualia (who briefly kills Neril) and 11 of her Lamashtu cult fanatics, killing 3 yeth hounds while 1 fades away on Nualia's demise. They take her head.
Quillax's Account
Journal
We chose to the take the less travelled looking stairs, through upon reaching to top of the winding staircase, we could see the other staircase met the floor beside this one. Neril announced he could hear a woman crying somewhere above us, but he could not tell if it was a haunt or a real being.
We opened the first door to the right. It was a bedroom, one that obviously belonged to someone of wealth but also of small stature by the size of the furniture – most probably a child. Neril murmured about hearing faint sobbing, high pitched, but he couldn't tell if it was the same crying as before.
He stepped inside and froze, before he turned to Sepheria and spoke in a childish-lilt, “Mummy, Daddy, stop fighting”. Moments later he shook his head and spoke in his normal voice of the haunt that had briefly possessed him. It was a child-form of Aldan Foxglove, who saw grutesque forms of his parents (Cyralie and Travor) trying to kill each other.
Looking around the child's room, the name “Sendeli” was written on the toybox.
Side Note: From what we know, we can assume that Travor caught Vorral's phage. We also are aware of two other daughters, who may yet still be alive, although of this we have no proof.
We moved on to the next room, which had an alcove containing five stained-glass windows. It was determined that these windows represented classic necromantic spell components.
From the left to the right: Scorpion (poison), a gaunt man with bats hanging from his arms (vampire breath), a moth will a skull like pattern on its wings (), plants with bell like flowers (belladonna), and a woman sitting astride a well while a spider descends from above her (heart of maiden slain by poison).
Protected against Evil by Sepheria, Neril breaks the window of the man, then the woman, then the scorpion. Neril stiffens for a moment as he and the protection spells battle the house's attack then he breathes out calmly and continues to break the moth and the plant windows. The house seemed to sigh and settle – as if it was upset.
We moved on to the next room which was covered by thick molds of black and green and blue. Neril and I were in the front and refused to step into it and quickly closed the doors, but from behind us Sepheria starts to make soft, distressed noises – when we turned to her it was in time to see her pour the water from her waterskin all over her face and head. She shook off the water and informed us relatively calmly that she had just been possessed again by Cassandra.
To her, it felt like the return of the phage that Jarrick had wiped from her and Neril earlier (contracted briefly from the diseased rats). She heard a child ask her “What's on your face?”
From the possession, she knew that Cassandra had caught Vorral's phage when she broke the phylactery. She had grabbed her daughter (Laurie) to run but accidentally spread the phage to the child and to the servants who had come to her aid. They all died quickly, consumed by the disease.
The next room was only a washroom with a dangerously unstable floor, which we chose to avoid. Moncey was sent in to investigate but found nothing.
We started to move on to the next room when Neril heard the sobbing once more. It seemed to be coming from above us – possibly the North-East corner of the building.
The next room was some sort of odd square chamber, which it was explained to me was designed to channel necromantic energy and store it. It was what allowed Vorral, who was not strong enough, to actually try to complete a spell several levels above his talents. The contents of the room was completely destroyed with the exception of a single painting which was turned so the face was against the wall. Sepheria used mage hand to turn it around and it revealed Aisha Foxglove (Aldan's wife). It gave me a strong sense of sadness.
Elwin uncharacteristically started to huff and growl under his breath. When we turned to him, he was already calming and he indicated he was fine. He explained he had briefly been touched by a haunt of Vorral before he had been able to push it aside. He had felt angry, enraged at his wife and had the strongest urge to strangle Cassandra.
We decided to bypass the stairs to check out the last room on this floor. It was a huge room – with 8 portraits covered in spiderwebs hanging from the walls. Three on the wall to our right and five on the wall to the left as we entered. There was another set of doors at the end of the room. All of us wait outside the room except Neril.
Neril sweeps the nameplates free of cobwebs and can see that the portraits are:
On the right, closest to the door we entered through to furthest away: Laurie, Cassandra, Vorral
On the left, closest to the door we entered through to furthest away: Ziva, Sendeli, Aldan, Cyralie, Travor.
Neril wrecks Vorral's painting, ripping it with daggers in an attempt to disable any trap. Then he pulls back the cobwebs from the portraits, calling out their names to us as he does so: Laurie, Ziva (young girl), Aldan (as a small boy of about 6), Cassandra, Sendeli (who appears about 8), Cyralie (painted before she was a mother), Travor.
Here, Neril suddenly feels a temperature drop and as he sees the portraits suddenly change to reflect the people's method of dying, such as Travor's throat being slit, he teleports out of the room into the hall. A moment later, a massive explosion of rot and fungal decay explodes out of Vorral's portrait, covering the room and leaving us to dodge it as best we could in the hall.
Some lands on Elwin, but Jarrick quickly lays on hands and cures him. As Jarrick is immune, he steps into the room and cuts the unchanged portraits of Ziva and Sendeli from their frames as we may need to know their faces in the future if we need to find them. Then he goes and opens the doors at the far end of the room for Neril to teleport into the room to investigate.
The room is apparently a bedroom. We see Neril rip a bit of wood and stand in an odd position for a moment, but then he shakes his head and discards the wood. When he returns, Neril informs us that it contained a haunt of Travor, who had killed himself in that room with a silver handled dagger. Neril was able to ignore the suicidal tendencies of the haunt, and so we continued back to the stairs.
This floor was obviously an attic and was mostly comprised of empty rooms or stacks of linen. We were investigating a bedroom we assumed belonged to a servant when we all heard a shriek from behind us. It was followed by sobbing. We tried to move stealthily down the hall but the floorboards were too old to quietly support Elwin's armour. The sobbing stopped at the noise, then a woman began to beg for help, to be freed, released.
We followed the sound to a locked door and after trying the multitude of keys in our possession, we found the correct one to open the door. We recognized the woman as Aisha Foxglove, and she told us that the mirror was binding her here and she couldn't go to her rest until it was destroyed. We spoke to her – she was pleased we had destroyed the scarf that had killed her - and then Neril broke the mirror.
As her ghostly form rotted away in front of us, she spoke of the Brotherhood of the Seven. She also told us that they owned a house in Magnimar and that Aldan had left something there – something important. She dissolved to bone then disappeared before she could tell us more. I admit to being contented that we were able to put her to rest.
The room opposite was a study of some sort. Sepheria spotted the books and raced in before we could stop her. She stilled suddenly and we knew she had been possessed but within a few heartbeats, she turned to us and announced she was fine now – Travor's haunt had been lamenting how his travels had stopped after his marriage. She picked up a book and proceeded to forget about us for a while. There was an important painting of a bullfight, which we left Jarrick to collect.
Neril insisted we check out the final room and we found it contained two stained-glass windows. On the left was a dark-haired woman with a jagged iron staff. We identified her as Arazni, an undead enthrallment. On the right, a half-broken window of a man wearing a crown of ivory and jade; we knew him as Socorro, the butcher of carrion hill. The broken half of his window was covered by canvas. There was a trap door in the roof obviously for the telescope knocked over on the floor.
Neril smashed the window of Arazni and suddenly darted towards the window much like Jarrick had but he pulled up short. When questioned, he says he thought he was on fire and had the strongest urge to jump into the sea below but had managed to shake it off.
We returned to Sepheria, who had found some scrolls. Jarrick pointed out the brick he had spotted earlier and pulling it free he revealed some money, a copper key, and glass vials of black gloop, which we identified as pesh (an addictive drug, but this one had gone off). I kept the vials to study as practice with poisons.
We decide to head back to Scarnetti manor where it would be safe to sleep and make our next plans.
We were nearly run over by a Varisian Gypsy wagon but we managed to stop them. The first thing the driver stuttered was “Nualia is on the loose!”
Note: Nualia, as you may remember, is a high priestess to Lemashtu, known to have a demonic arm, and is called the “baby-eater from Sandpoint”. The Lemashtu were the group that had kidnapped and ransomed Lady Scarnetti and her daughter, both of whom we cured from a curse.
The driver, Karvellen, was panicked. He had been delivering supplies to the Sanitorium, saw flames from Tetchkey farm and then Nualia with cultist minions and Yeth Hounds. He had seen her about 10 minutes back then fled with his family in the wagon. He also mentioned that Nualia had Vanessa Tetchkey (wife of Orrick, and woman who was going to sacrifice her own child to the swamp hag for him).
We headed immediately in the direction indicated and caught up with the cultists at the bridge over the Cougar Creek. There were about a dozen cultists, four yeth hounds, and Nualia. Having come against Yeth Hounds before, we knew to make use of the special wax that can block auditory-based attacks.
In order to reach, Nualia quickly, we had to move fast, that meant carrying poor Clank.
Neril and Sepheria were able to keep to the darker shadows as we approached, but Elwin in bright, shiny armour stood out and Jarrick does prefer to meet enemies head on, so he simply charged towards them. As a bear carrying a metal Clank on my back, I was equally as visible, but the cultists preferred to go after Jarrick and Elwin to start.
The minion carrying Vanessa turned and ran, dragging her along with him.
Jarrick tucked himself behind his shield and avoided most of the blows, while Elwin, who was further back, managed to avoid the ranged attacks aimed at him. Neril didn't bother to dodge, but simply plucked the arrows from the air in an impressive fashion.
Tucked further back, Sepheria dropped a fireball on Nualia and the cultists and Yeth hounds still around her. Neril moved into combat, but his opponent, despite being badly bloodied still stood raving with religious fury. Elwin summoned Spirit Guardians and the ghostly angels moved around him defensively. I moved to put down the enemy Neril had engaged so he could go take on another and that put my Clank in range of another cultist, who grabbed hold of the cultist's ear. Nualia took advantage of our distraction and healed herself and order her minions to aim for the spell casters.
I could see the Yeth Hounds had moved towards Sepheria and Neril, who had stayed near her, but the hounds were able to do very little damage, so I left them to that. With Jarrick defending so well, the cultists surrounding him turned their attentions to Elwin, but his angels stuck out at them. A few other cultists turned towards Sepheria and Neril but also did little damage.
The cultist that Clank had pinched turned and struck my companion, severing some wires that caused him to go limp and slide from my back. He sparked and remained unmoving. I was not best pleased to say the least.
Sepheria threw caution to the wind while dodging Yeth Hounds and dropped a fireball on the largest group of Cultists; unfortunately the fire also engulfed many of our group as well as knocking out many of the enemy. Elwin fell to the ground and lay still. I moved to stand over him and protect him from a final blow. Neril took down 2 cultists and I another 2, thinning the numbers further. A Hound caught me off guard and landed a solid bite before Jarrick struck it down.
Nualia and one of her cultists turned and ran. Neril ran after her. Seeing as we were splitting the group, I took my human form and gave chase as I summoned two fey beasts, who took the form of Hippogryphs. I sent them after Nualia and her cultist minion.
Nualia struck Neril down and he did not move. Jarrick healed Elwin and then came to assist, leaving Sepheria to dodge the last Yeth Hound as she had been. The last cultist turned towards Jarrick but was quickly struck down by a Hippogryph and Jarrick himself. In response to seeing Neril collapse, Sepheria used her guisarm and struck out with lightning. The Hippogryphs circled around Nualia as they attacked and I used a flaming sphere to try to prevent her from running as Jarrick struck out at her. Sepheria sent a scorching ray and then the Hippogryphs finished our enemy. The last Yeth Hound was also struck down somewhere in the chaos.
Elwin quickly revivified Neril and we spent some time looking around and healing them. Unfortunately, we lost the trail of the cultist with Vanessa, and due to the injuries we had sustained and our exhaustion, we decided to regroup and reconsider. We paused to take Nualia's head and tie to the fallen Clank beside the thief's head.
We returned to Scarnetti Manor, where Scarnetti expressed a desire to hire hands and go take back Sandpoint. We volunteered to take the message back to the city as we needed to return to request the works of Golem Works for clank as I did not trust myself to try to fix the vital component. He reluctantly agreed to allow us to take the message.
:: Addendum, not to be published in the journals as it contains nothing of interest to the pathfinders but does contain descriptions of things personal and private to the Lady Scarnetti ::
It was in the middle of the night when a maid shook me awake, murmuring that the Lady Scarnetti was in labour. I shook off sleep and went to assist. Taking a look inside the room, I ordered the maids to boil water, prepare clean cloths, and to keep the husband out until I said otherwise. He would be of no use. The daughter, if she could keep her calm, could be allowed in if she came. I motioned one maid to hold the Lady's hand, offer her water, and be of comfort as I stripped the bed of unnecessary blankets and built up the fire for light and warmth. I called out into the hall for more candles as I stripped off my own leathers, which I had forgotten to remove before I had slept, and donned a clean shift one of the maids offered.
I considered who else to wake. Sepheria would probably not be of much use, nor Neril, especially as he was recovering from his brush with death. Elwin would be handy in case of emergencies though I would not wake him until necessary as he also had been close to death and needed rest. I considered waking Jarrick as he shared the same religion as her - if something was to go very wrong, such as a breach or a badly placed umbilical cord, she would need that comfort. But for now, neither of the men were needed and they would be left to stand in the hall should I wake them - men, especially those who are not the husband, are not allowed in a birthing room, not unless it has become an emergency.
For now, as I write to pass the time until I am needed, everything seemed to be working as it should. The baby felt correctly positioned, the Lady was as calm as possible, and the maids were preparing the necessary items.
(2710xp for session)
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