Session 6

The day is hot and clear, with the party recovering after a fight with Shrieking wolves and a patrol of the Brackish Baron, Harold Helvast. Rhea Aves sets about recovering her arrows as the party rests for a few hours. They begin to make their way down a well trodden road, discussing their options with dealing with Helvast, whilst on their way to Waddlestork.

While traveling they come upon a a muscle bound man driving a carriage in the opposite direction towards the party. The carriage stops when seeing the party, and on closer inspection it appears that the man driving the carriage is wounded. He has a thick arrow sticking out of his back. Thomas Aberrich volunteers Marallis "Lissie" Ophiuc to look at the man's wound. She protests and after examining the arrow, she recommends that he find a surgeon. She cleans the wound to hopefully prevent infection. Meanwhile, the man tells the party that the Baron is responsible for the wound and the he has gone quite mad. He has been shooting at the commonfolk from the parapet of his manor with his longbow for fun. Needless to say, the people of Waddlestork are not sympathetic to the Baron. Rumors have it that the Baron met with a wizard, but no one saw the "wizard" leave the manor. The party sees the man and his family on their way.

Caelestus Nishant suggests the party travels off road for the rest of their journey to Waddlestork. As the party approaches the town, Rhea and Cael set off in the woods to find the entrance to the manor as described by Gregor Helvast, with a sending stone in tow. Piper Aves, Lissie, and Thomas head into town as the sun is setting. Farmhouses dot the side of a single narrow street that winds up a hill to a brutish moldy castle. Despite the ascent, the area is wet and muddy, boggy wetlands mixed with farmer's fields. A large swampy bog lies at the foot of the castle. While most of the houses have signs of life, almost a quarter of them look charred and burnt. Piper, Lissie, and Thomas watch as three uniformed men set another building alight, with two more watching on. They decide to wait for the men to leave before approaching closer to the castle. They creep around a farmhouse and nearly trip over a days old corpse with an arrow sticking out of its chest. Thomas tries to listen in to the conversation inside of the house, but a chronic ear infection is plaguing his sense of hearing.

Cael and Rhea locate the red oak half way up a cliff face in the wooded area behind the town. Near the oak is a berry bush which they find leads to small crawl space sized cave. The space is large enough for each of them to squeeze in individually, by lying on their stomachs and shimmying in. The cave appears to follow an underground stream, and it climbs upward in darkness. The cave becomes wider and taller, to where they can finally stand. As they continue to ascend they see cobblestone on the wall of the cave, and find a sconce that proves to be a lever. Cael silences the lever and pulls on it. Dim light enters the cave as a hatch opens. The tunnel past the hatch leads into an oubliette with a grate in the ceiling. Cael and Rhea retreat back outside of the cave to wait for contact from the rest of the party.

Piper, Lissie, and Thomas decide they are going to make a distraction by starting a fire in the swampy waters, all they need is some oil to dump into the bog next to the castle. They make an elaborate plan as to how they are going to find the oil, what to tell people they meet about who they are and what they are doing and what they will tell the uniformed men if questioned. As they are about to start their search, Piper speaks up and states he has found the oil, he has been leaning on an oil barrel the whole time. Piper, Lissie, and Thomas try to communicate with Rhea and Cael as to what they are planning via the sending stone. The message gets convoluted by Piper, and the return message only sounds like Rhea and Cael arguing.

Piper, Lissie, and Thomas sneak to the swampy bog next to the castle manor and dump the oil into water. They hear a chilling scream come from the parapet of the castle and a plume of red smoke extend to the moonlit sky. The guards on the landing thirty feet above them stop their conversation, but resume in normal tones several moments later. They light the oil with a spark from a tinderbox thanks to Piper. The spark catches and makes a loud whoosh as it spreads with a blue shimmer across the entire surface of the swamp, growing larger by the second. Lissie gets caught in the edge of the raging swamp inferno and gets singed, with the three running out of the plumes of smoke and continuing to the edge of town. The party reunites and Cael and Rhea lead them to the cave entrance and to the tunnel hatch leading to the oubliette. The grate in the oubliette is too tall to reach. The party hears prayers of people praying to The Ayornas, and then shrieks of fear and wailing. Cael hears the beginnings of a conversation and is pushed up closer to the grate so he can hear. Cael sees the room around the grate is lined with small prison cells. He can see a handsome, well-dressed woman with pale skin showing her disdain for an unimpressive and ragged man that Cael recognizes as Rhys. Rhys tells the woman that once the wizard gets what he wants out of her, that Rhys will get what he wants out of her.

Cael creates a minor illusion of the sound of wood snapping in a far prison cell. The sound draws Rhys's attention and he walks across the grate, not seeing the party members. A man in the cell, says it wasn't him and Rhys grows suspicious. Thomas moves the grate with the help of Piper, and gets a leg up to climb out of the oubliette. Thomas tells Rhys that its over and he should give up. Rhys laughs and mocks Thomas, feeling fully confident he can pummel the younger, smaller man. Cael is the next person to climb into the dungeon to Rhys's surprise. As Rhys begins to mock Cael, Cael dashes towards a wide eye Rhys, not believing how fast Cael can move. Rhys tries to run, but Cael catches Rhys with an elbow, staggering Rhys. Lissie command Stewie to zip over to Rhys where the animated cauldron spews a vile fluorescent green goop onto Rhys. Rhea fires and arrows and nearly takes Rhys in the head. Rhys tries to escape, jumping off a barrel and making for the stair landing that has been blocked off. Rhys slips on Stewie's goop and doesn't get good footing for his jump, crashing into the side of the landing and falling to the ground. Thomas jumps on top of Rhys, pinning him to the ground and bringing a dagger to his throat.

Rhys is placed into a prison cell and knocked unconscious by Lissie's Stewie, before locking him in. The other prisoners are released. The party questions the woman whom Rhys was speaking with, and they learn this person is Catherine Lynn. She tells the party that the prisoners here have been leaving one by one, and never return. She heard there is a pit of bodies and something of a dark magic atop the castle. The party informs her that they are Seekers, and they were on their way to the Observatory to gather the information that she had. Catherine states that she has witnessed a comet, called Yeenoghu, is closer to Eudora than any other recorded time in history. This celestial body is radiating dark magic, and the closer it gets, the more affected Eudora will be. She believes that Styrmir has given the Baron something. The party decides they will continue with seeing the Baron deposed and will meet with Catherine outside of Waddlestork when they finish.

The party hears several guards approaching calling for Rhys. To the party's dismay, Thomas responds back to the other guards in perfect impersonation of Rhys. He tells them he's finishing up with the prisoners and he'll be right up. The party looks shocked, Thomas asks Lissie if she prefers this voice, and she is so taken aback that she gets all choked up, not knowing how to respond. Most of the party takes this as a yes, and jests about Lissie' new boyfriend.

The party travels up to a barracks where they see a hyena laying on a bed. Rhea successfully feeds and calms the beast and it gives the party no trouble. They hear merriment from one of the rooms off of the barracks. Thomas locks the door and disables the lock, so the people inside cannot get out. Piper and Cael stacks beds in front of the door in case they try to break through.

The party enters another door that leads into the great hall of the castle. Two guards are posted as well as a son of Harold Helvast, Mortimer Helvast. Thomas tells the three that its all over, Gracia Morafi has sent guards to clear the Helvasts from her rightful land. The guards looks demoralized, but Mortimer enters a mad craze. A fight ensues. Close contact with Mortimer reveals his teeth have become like thin needle pricks and along his spine there is a spiked ridge, like that of a shrieking wolf. The guards attempt to flee but are felled on their way out. Piper takes a cut from Mortimer and Thomas receives a large gash, but the party disposes of Mortimer quickly. He takes on a pale ashen grey as he falls and goes down swinging, his arms still slowing swinging as the rest of his body lay lifeless.