Session 48

* Old Town Cathedral
* The Stranger's Tower

**Previously....**

## And Now...

### Lost in the Fog.

As the night draws on, and the mists swirl thicker around the streets of Strangehaven's Old Town District, the group is separated one-by-one...

* While attempting to find Nyahduke, Gar believes he hears his voice calling out. He runs after it, quickly becoming separated from Goldie in the roiling fog. Soon, the voice starts seeming to come from other directions as well before fading out altogether.
* While Dandy and Solly are catching their breath after their fight, Boggin breaks free and rushes off through the Old Town Gates into the mists. Solly immediately plunges in after him.
* Dandy rushes over to the gates, pauses, calls out for both of them several times... and then decides she'd rather brave Old Town with her friends than stay out on the night-time streets of Strangehaven by herself.

It's not long before Solly begins to feel the strange sensation of the fog attempting to twist its tendrils into her mind. Shaking it off briefly, she pushes the fog back with a ring of magical flame. Beyond the flickering flames, strange shadows move in the fog and odd cries can be heard, but her mind is immune to the tricks of this place, at least, for now.

Finding themself alone, Goldie attempts a location spell to try and find Gar, but the chilly fingers of the mist seem to leech the magic away even as Goldie summons it. In desperation, Goldie produces a piece of chalk and begins to mark the cobblestones so that they can hopefully use them to find their way back home.

Gar realizes he is completely lost. Strange shadows move and in the fog. Noises echo around him. As he prowls about, desperately seeking anything even remotely familiar, he begins to find odd chalk marks on the cobblestones. Piecing them together in his mind, he's pretty certain that they're all fragmented pieces of a larger, almost certainly Ynfernal, rune.

Meanwhile, Duke follows the stranger into the top floor of the tower where some small, humble furnishings are arranged. The stranger explains he’s hungry, which makes it hard to think, but he agrees to answer Duke's questions if Duke will allow him some of his blood. Duke agrees and pours some blood into a chalice. The vampire snatches it greedily, gradually recovering a measure of composure.

Goldie manages to make their way to the Cathedral, finding the massive doors slightly ajar *(They were opened by Nyahduke in the previous session)*. Entering to see if any one of the group had taken refuge inside, they decide to make a small offering of Silver at the altars reasoning that it couldn't hurt...

The eerie atmosphere had Gar on the ragged edge of panic when when he hears someone approach. Gradually, the shadowy figure resolves itself into Dandy, but her appearance is somehow... different... pale and hollow-cheeked and dark around her eyes. He swings a murderous blow at the figure, believing it to be some sort of cursed trickery. *(Besides, didn't Dandy and Solly stay outside!)* The attack sails over Dandy's head as she ducks beneath it with a frightened squeak before giving Gar an earful for being so rude and is that any way to say hello. It's the real Dandy.

Solly's spiritual sense seem to detect some sort of ‘call’ and follows it to the doors of the Cathedral. Once entering, she also decides to offer some silver at the altars. One of them, she notices, is a statue of the Three Banquet Gods, but seems to have been smashed some years before - all that remains are the feet, however, there's been a fresh plaque added of much more recent vintage. Solly is so intent on examining the plaque that she doesn't notice a figure moving around the cathedral, and she and Goldie manage to startle one another.

Once they've got over their fright, Goldie and Solly contemplate the 17th Alter, which depicts an unfamiliar god dressed in heavy robes covering their face. Between the two of them, they theorize that it's a lesser-known deity called ‘Umbra: The Forgotten God’. Goldie explains that she'd pretty much explored the entire ground level of the Cathedral, which leaves the Bell-tower. They notice that the bell itself is actually on the ground floor, having fallen some time earlier. The rest of the tower, however, seems intact. From up so high, they are above most of the fog and can see other towers and the tops of taller buildings emerging like ancient, partly-sunken ruins.

Having regained a degree of his composure, the Vampire answers Nyarduke's questions as he'd promised, though doing so appears to be a considerable strain. He explains that he was a magus living in Old Town, in a Tower protected by wards. His group investigated, among other things, the mysteries of the city. At some point, he said, a stranger had moved in and made himself the master of the place. He could not identify precisely how or when this had happened. It just felt as though he knew it had happened, but every time he tried to think about it, everything just seemed to evade him. The vamp also seemed unable to name or even describe this man in any detail, and only referred to him as ‘The Master’.

Lost in thought, Duke wandered over to the window and spotted Goldie and Solly in the Bell tower. They seemed to be trying to warn him about something... he turned as the Vampire lunged towards him, his face a mask of feral savagery. Feinting left, he's able to dodge right and hurry down the stairs and out a lower story window. Hitting the cobbles running, he collides with Gar and Dandy. “We have to run," he offers by way of explanation, "He’s trying to eat me!”

### Reunion at the Cathedral.

Duke, Dandy and Gar run into the Cathedral and Duke moves the statue of Pollux over the door to block it. Everyone meets at the top of the Bell tower. An examination of the bell and the bell’s support reveal that both are covered in runes (some unknown). They determine that the bell has had some sort of enchantment worked on it, to maintain the cathedral as a kind of safe haven from the curse, but determine that, due to its age and erratic maintenance, its effects will fade before dawn. They discover the support frame had rotted away from age, which was why the bell had collapsed. Presumably, those who had been maintaining the Cathedral had lacked the resources or skill to restore it to its original condition.

They move the Pollux statue back to its rightful spot, With the enchantment active, they won't need it to stop whatever's outside from getting in, and once the enchantment fades, the statue won't do anything to keep what's outside from getting in. Goldie sacrifices a claw to Pollux as an offering for the indignity. Duke preys at the Umbra alter, also offering a claw. Suddenly, his mind is overwhelmed by strange visions. He sees a time when this place was a (much humbler) building dedicated solely to the worship of Umbra. He sense that this was many many years ago. Images of the runes flash through his mind and he realizes that they are part of her worship - Enigma, The Veil, Memory. These symbols are on the bell, and none of the party can recall having seen them in use elsewhere in Terrinoth. Duke emerges from this fugue state having decided to dedicate himself to Umbra.

Still slightly fuzzy, Duke suggests that The Statue of Kellos (the largest and most central inside the church) needs to be moved, an attempt is made but it topples under it’s own weight and breaks. Underneath the statue's resting place was an ancient trap-door. As the others gather around to examine the trap door, Solly catches a glimpse of a tall, hooded figure out of the corner of her eye. Boggin, picking up on her feeling, starts to bark at where the figure had been, but when looked at directly, there's no sign of the figure. Unnerved and frustrated, Solly summons up a zone of bright sunlight. It does not manage to fully illuminate the entire cathedral but it is bright and strong.

The trapdoor is opened and an obsidian ladder descends into down into an inky darkness which not even Solly's sunlight can pierce. Duke eagerly volunteers to go down first and Dandy goes with him, clinging to his back. Goldie goes down next, having secured a rope which goes limp as soon as they are out of sight. Solly once again catches a glimpse of the dark figure, closer this time. But it is gone before Gar can see it. She heads for the trap door. After a brief, one-sided discussion at the Butcher Altar, Gar goes in last.

Once everyone has gone, the Cathedral remains still and empty... until the bell rings out once and fades back into silence.