April in the East

## In the past

### Summer 921

An outbreak of pox ravaged some of the villages west of Scituate. The outbreak was at its worst in Kay's Haven.

## Adventure 1

Also known as "Gee Whiz, I'd Sure Give an Arm and a Leg to Know Where All These Body Parts Are Coming From!"

### 1 February, 926

The party is hired by Rhea Ezic, a burn-scarred woman, to deliver a few packages. Their first delivery is a secret letter to her brother Reiner in the nearby village of Kay's Haven. Reiner, like Rhea and her wax seal, has a tattoo of three poppies on his arm, which the party will be able to use to identify him.

### 2 February, 926

The party sets out on the road to Kay's Haven. This road, now known as Junction Red Death after a plague of pox ravaged Kay's Haven, was once known as Kay's Junction. Perhaps owing to its name change, the road is largely abandoned and unused, and the bridge over the Ottosex River has been allowed to be destroyed in a winter storm.

While fording the river, Thotham is grappled by a disembodied hand. The party is then set upon by zombies and stray humanoid limbs, which by Pyre's reckoning seem to have washed two days' downriver. They dispatch the undead, except for their own undead member Rodokk, and proceed west.

That night, Rodokk keeps watch in the snowfall while a family of wolves eats Thotham's rations. The incident reminds Rodokk that in life, he once had a family.

### 3 February, 926

Since Rodokk didn't need rations anyways, he gives Thotham his rations. Cain is buried in two feet of snow and has no idea how to escape, but luckily Rodokk rescues him.

In Kay's Haven, the party meets a private eye named Mr. Juniper, whose interest is piqued by the story of undead in the Ottosex River. According to Mr. Juniper, several murders have recently occured in Kay's Haven, concurrent to strange rituals conducted by the village elders to prevent further bloodshed. Mr. Juniper proposes to use Pyre's clerical expertise to persuade the elders that their superstitions about the "curse" are just superstitions. Mr. Juniper also says that Reiner will be in town the following day.

While chopping down magnolia trees, Thotham hears a bloodcurdling scream from Oaxaca Manor. After breaking into the manor, Pyre finds a young boy -- Nathaniel Oaxaca -- stabbed nearly to death by his friend, Sandra Silva, who in self-defense he bludgeoned to death with a pestle. Pyre manages to save Nathaniel from death, but leaves him in stasis between life and undeath. Sandra, unfortunately, is long dead and turning to undead. According to Nathaniel, Sandra suddenly assaulted him. A bystander, Sandra's friend Mia Zariski, says that nobody can be trusted -- least of all Mr. Juniper and chief village elder D. Zariski -- and that Sandra had become violent after observing Da. Rosamaria's murder of her sister.

The party resolves to get to the bottom of the recent murders. From Mia and Mr. Juniper they learn that after a murder, the elders carry out some sort of ritual on the murderer and victim in the basement of the church, so they set a trap: after Monterrey Jack hides Nathaniel and Thotham hides Mia, Mr. Juniper reports the murder to D. Zariski, so that the elders can carry out their ritual on the corpse of Sandra.

The party meets with Reiner, who hires them to move 25 pounds of gunpowder to Monodromy. Though they are suspicious of his intentions, they agree to the job, and then rendezvous with Mr. Juniper. After breaking into the church, they confront a priest of Talona, D. Luis Potosi, who sacrifices Sandra to Talona, destroying her body with acidic holy water, to prevent her return as undead. Luis Potosi confirms that the City Council of Scituate has pressured the elders of Kay's Haven to cover up the curse so that it does not impact their trade with other port cities.

Mr. Juniper then suggests that the party visit D. Porfirio's laboratory, drawing the party's suspicion. They follow him in, in hopes of eliminating the curse. They discover that Mr. Juniper is D. Porfirio, and is responsible for spreading the curse in service to Talona, who he feels Kay's Haven and D. Luis Potosi have defied by curing the pox that plagued the village five years prior. The party kills D. Porfirio and destroys his laboratory.

### 4 February, 926

The party recruits Mia and then sets out for Monodromy.

### 6 February, 926

Early in the morning, the party is awoken by the arrival of an escaped prisoner, Vauna, and her deceased sister Vivian. Vauna was the only successful survivor of a prison break in Monodromy, after the debtor's prison was overrun with undead caused by Kay's Curse.

The party arrives in Monodromy to find it abandoned, as everyone who lived there fled in the wake of the zombie apocalypse. The party's contact, Renai Ezic, succumbed to the curse and was killed. Pyre burns Renai's grain silo, in which a giant undead spider -- a source of the curse -- lurked. The fire destroys the fire, the curse, and the corpse of Renai.

The party then deduces that Renai had intended to liberate the prisoners, and in his stead, they storm the debtor's prison, tricking and then slaughtering the imp guards and breaking out the prisoners. Vauna and Mia destroy the prison with some of the gunpowder while Rodokk holds off the imps and the party kills the warden, an impish antimage.

### 8 February, 926

Having settled the escaped prisoners in the abandoned village, the party departs to meet with Reiner.

### 12 February, 926

The party arrives in Scituate and reports to Reiner and Rhea. Though they regret Renai's death, they are pleased that the party carried out his mission for him and pay well. They also suggest that the party flee the area while the Scituate military seeks out who was responsible for the prison break, and in particular that they take a commission by the lord of Doom's Glen.