CC: Awakenings

Discovery, Exploration

The Fractured Pack come to realize the ramifications of what they have dug their way into.  Threats are greater in magnitude and number than they ever thought.  In desperation, they turn to a darkness for aid.

With the revelations made of who the party was exactly up against, the Fractured Pack determined to learn more of their quarry. Having seen Lady Prescott return to Mr. Dryden's offices after the speech, the companions would move off to her estate to investigate while she was away. The route through the jungle would be circuitous but safer. Picking their way through the rough, rocky jungle in 45 minutes, the companions approached the cleared estate from the Southern side, perpendicular to the road in.
  Keeping an eye out for a bit to track the guards, there only seemed to be five circling the estate and slow at that. While they did serve minor function, the low number for the general size showed that they served more a presentational role out here in the jungle than any true protective value. Timing their approach, the companions climbed the fence, crossed the open grounds, and took cover in a row of manicured trees. The manor itself had rows of out-buildings (garages, barns, and the like) to either side to form its front courtyard. It's rear had a walled garden area. The party decided to split with Buck heading to the front corner of the out-buildings to act as lookout for the entire estate while the others entered in to aid Hali in her inquiries.
  Hopping the garden wall, the companions learned that instead of a front door and backdoor in the small manor, a central outdoor tunnel passed entirely through the building to separate the bottom floor into a north and south half while the upstairs connected the two. Sneaking forward, a cook was seen through a window on the southern side of the manor. Moving to the north, the companions looked into a coat room and an unused parlor. Sigismund managed open up the paned glass windows on their hinges and slowly worm his way inside to finish clearing the northern first floor before letting his companions in the “front” door in the tunnel. Finding a central set of stairs up to the second floor, the true investigations began.
  The top of the stairs let out into three different doors. To the front of the house, the companions found a used and lived in servants quarter for some kind of attendant of the house. Toward the center, over the tunnel, was a sitting room similarly adorned to the parlor downstairs though this one used. Despite have five seats between a couch and an armchair to either side, the only cushion that showed wear-and-tare was the central seat cushion in the center of the room. Two more doors exited the sitting room but while Sigismund explored inward, Anna explored out.
The third of the doors was locked. Taking time to peer through the key hole, a glimpse of a gallery was seen. Pick the lock, Anna looked into a lush, red carpeted gallery with velvet wallpaper. Landscapes of medieval towns in rugged countrysides and a manorhouse on a island of dead trees adorned the walls. A single portrait was among the landscapes showing three people: at the center was a stern man with a long face and darkened eyes wearing furs. To one side he had an elderly butler with long grey hair. To the other was a young girl with a dark bob haircut wearing a formal coat.
A second locked room broke off from the gallery to the front of the house. As Anna went to help Sigismund, Hali stayed and peered through the lock into a darkened room. Conjuring her magic hand on the other side, she fumbled around the cobweb filled room finding what clues she could. A trunk was unlocked but contained nothing that she could find in your blind claw-game of searching. On the mostly empty bookshelf, Hali managed to grabe a stack of papers to slide under the door and a thin hardback book on dragons. The stack of papers were all copies of the same document: an official decree of succession with Baron Soren Harewell signing over succession of the Barony of Craven, Ingulum, Riscor-Calshen over to Lady Louisa Prescott.
  Back out in the sitting room, Sigismund heard a small male voice from behind the far door asking if the Lady required anything else before making his way away from Sigismund. The expatriot moved to the side ready to pounce if anything else went wrong in this moment. Buck had not informed the group of her return on Hali's check-ins. She must have arrived while they were still in the jungle.
  Anna found the next front room out of the Sitting room locked as well and picked that for further study. The Master Bedroom, in this case a darkened room of gothic furniture, curtained off windows like the previous locked room, and an aura of dread in the room. The mottled carpets and ribboned dark wallparpers gave the feeling of inkblots and tentacles without ever actually depicting them. The Curious study of this room would be cut off as Sigismund contined south down the length of the house from the sitting room into a Music room.
Flutes, Viols, and dulcimers hung from the walls but the damning sound that would work against the part would be the footsteps themselves being heard by the servants below. The butlers voice could be heard echoing from rooms beyond saying that he thought the lady was to remain inspidosed but if she was up and moving if anything could be provided. Anna turned invisible and moved to the corner of the room. As both Sigismund and the halfling butler opened opposite doors of a spacing chamber between two rooms, Sigismund made his play.
  Rushing forward, he spoke out heavily of the slaves rioting and escaping, how he had been told to come get help from the house. In a panic, Sigismund almost hauled the halfling the length of the upstairs toward the known set of stairs. The butler tried to excuse himself from not being the right person to solve the problem. Sigismund wouldn't take that for an answer and the butler did not have the will to oppose. Fumbling down the steps, he mumble something about having to find the gardener if he couldn't find a guard.   The attempt to continue the investigations of the house was cut off by the clicking of a key in a lock and the front door of the Music room opening up to barely show a private study. Barely showing it because the elegant Lady Prescott, a woman a few decades older than the girl in the portrait, stood in the doorway. Calling out to see who was thumping about her house, Sigismund returned to the chamber to attempt to sell his lie further. Unfortunately, the protocol he was supposedly following was far from how things were done, especially when everyone had just been informed to take all problems to Dryden or Captain Moore. Sigismund then felt an overpowering influence ingratiate itself in his mind and take control.
  Lady Prescott question Sigismund about making any new friends, outsiders, people seeking to do harm to the Cove. She spoke kindly of this not being the mans fault, about them having tricked him. He bade Sigismund to return to these people and invite them to dinner at the estate so she could meet them. From there, he was told he was allowed to return to his peers in the society to continue serving Craven Cove. It seemed that while Sigismund getting caught was bad, the Lady did not immediate expect him but rather expected that he was a puppet to her enemies as she had so easily made him herself. Despite this, the fortune wouldn't last as Sigimund immediately went to the door to find Hali and invite her to dinner right in front of Lady Prescott herself.
  What followed was an impetuous dialogue between the women draped in a veneer of ettiquette. Hali teased of how much you could learn of someone by reading journals. Prescott requested them back but the request was ignored. Connections to greater forces was discussed but both parties refused to state why they served the elder evils that they did though a dichotomy was established. There were those that gathered knowledge while having knowledge hidden from them and there were those who knew more than should ever be known and had those terrors dampened for them.
  Conversations of Craven Cove's purpose were answered in fallacy filled ideas of creating a new feudal society that bread the strong and creating striated societies for the weak to succumb and the strong to climb like a ladder to rule. The slaves were an unfortunate first step to create the society and an economy as well as serve as an example to their children. The second generation would be winnowed, the weak being indentured to the land while the strong having motivation to rise from their lower standing to take the power they could. The Lady questioned Hali's purpose here and the genasi downplayed and threatened. She was here to learn of her enemy but also to deal with things she did not agree with. In the end, Hali put herself quite opposed to Lady Prescott in both servitude and in idealogy. Their greater Patrons opposed as well as the mundane idea of slavery. While Lady Prescott wished to deal with this in a civilized manner, Hali had already been the aggressor at the shipwreck and the Shrine of the Slumbering Nightmare with no warning at all. Hali sprang first but combat was inevitable.
  As Hali sprang out of sight into the spacer chamber between the music room and the larger reading room, Lady Prescott retreated back into her room to incant an abjurative ward. Hali conjured her Called forth the influence locked away in her tome for the first time as she shattered the control Prescott had on Sigismund. The man tried to batter down the door but found a magical field of energy hardening the door to forced entry. Within the safety of her study, the Lady then conjured a massive illusion to cover the immediate house to prevent outsiders from witnessing the trouble. She liked to keep this private.
  In the reading room taking cover, Hali had the worst luck of the day as the wall she had taken cover behind begand to simmer. The barely perceptible lines of a false door began to grow as an ooze poured through. Taking form in the room with here was an inky, tentacled, amorphous entity. A head and claw formed to have something just recognizable enough to be more austere. The Tertalak. As it took form, the images of death it brought with mixed with the slops and the shrieks. To drive fear through all of the companions. A massacre began.
Hali summoned her greater Byakhee for it to be torn from existance and Hali driven to the ground. The tertalak continued on to Sigismund and trade blows with tornado of dagger strikes. Unabvle to will herself closer, Anna flew out the balcony to get a view in a window of Hali for a healing word. The tertalak would pingpong between Hali and Sigismund as they attempted to fight and flee under Anna's encouragement to get out of there. Hali would manage to get to the reading room balcony to see Lady Prescott on the adjacent Balcony. In spite, Hali threw a fireball to explode acorss the woman's roof as well as her.
As Anna continued to expend all her energy trying to keep her companions up, Prescott tried to summon a rift of tentacles to banish the winged woman from existence until the tertalak could finish everything else. Anna resisted the pull which simply brought the tertalak onto the roof after her. It sent a deluge of acidic tentacles at her that her drakehide armor helped her withstand. They needed to get out. This was not a fight they could win. Hali crawled up on the balcony to drop onto the nearby roofs of the garages. Sigismund fumbled his way out a second story window. The companions ran as Anna dropped from the sky following lady;s Prescott's psionic warth of the deep and the tertalaks grasp a second time. But as the companions dropped over the garden walls, Hali conjured a disk rapidly from her book and hauled the woman beyond the illusory barrier. Out to where the tertalak would be seen by the public if it followed.
  The trio returned to the jungle treeline with Buck flanking. They fled with Lady Prescott's taunts in her head. Run. Run so her hound could have it's hunt. As the afternoon heat settled into the day, the companion knew the ghost stories. They knew the superstitions. And now they knew the truth. Prescott did not want anyone else to know the true power she had. The Tertalak would not hunt until the night. They had 5 hours to make their plans. And be ready for what may come.
  After escaping from Shadeshore Manor, our companions regrouped in the jungles beyond. Wounds were tended to and thoughts regathered. The idea of having to face the tertalak again this evening was not a pleasant one. The Fractured Pack was weakened and running low on energy in comparison to what would be a more fearsome beast no longer handicapped by the environment. With a handful of hours left before sunset, they attempted to regather themselves.
  A Short Rest to bandage wounds and center minds happened first. Next, The companions split up. Buck lent his botanical notes to Anna to search for useful herbs while he and Sigismund prepared to head back into town. Stalking through unseen, the two performed a raid on the local pharmacist. Healing potions were a protected substance in town to make sure they only went to those who needed them. With that, though, Sigismund could provide quite the stink in the front of the house to allow Buck to break into the back and make off with what magical potions he could find.
  Regrouping to check in, a few more hours yet remained. Anna searched for more supplies for Buck as Buck himself utilized an acidic bulb he had harvested on the Sunken Ceshau to produce a minor coating to help ward away the acidic touch of the Tertalak. Time dawdled on as they made their plans.
  The Fractured Pack could not stay out in the jungle. While Craven Cove was not friendly to them, they likely wouldn't be friendly to the Tertalak either. If they could set up an ambush to fight the Tertalak in the streets, they could possibly rally the people against it. In the last hours of twilight, the companions snuck their way back into the town to set up at a street bend. Hali and Buck took to the roofs while Sigismund and Anna took to the streets. Sigismund posted up in an alleyway beneath Buck. Anna drapped in a cloak to try to hide all of her features, stood at the inside corner of the bend. Position so, they waited.
  While they waited, they made note of many things. First of all, the town was riddled with guard patrols. Some form of news from Shadeshore Manor had come down the line and the town was on high alert to antagonistic forces. Moreso, the barest descriptions of Sigismund could be heard being shared among the populace. The mans quite generic looks were not an immediate threat. The town probably housed 30 or 40 men that matched the description. But making a stink with one of the most important occupational men in this illicit jungle town had synergized with the other hooplah to be recognized as a significant event. It didn't help that there were further rumors that the culprit had recently escaped prison and that Captain Moore wanted to tear him apart if found.
  As the night fully settled in, an unexpected incident occurred before the Tertalak could show up. A larger patrol of six men came up the hill towards the junction. Among them was the the bulky, brawny, and slightly monstrous form of Captain Godwin Moore. Breastplate and armored coat enhancing his size, his face framed by a thick set up mutton chops and underchin beard that highlight the prounounced jaw and fangs of his partial bugbear lineage. He and his men were scouring the streets for signs of intruders. Captain Moore, the ex-piratehunter turned leader of the naval forces of Craven Cove, was on the hunt for them.
  Worried, Anna looked back to Sigismund's alleyway to not see him. A slight amount of history was known between the two. Supposedly Moore had been the one to imprison him and the bugbear had something of Sigismund's that he wanted back. But now, Sigismund was retreating. From up top, Buck could hear the shuffle and topple of a knocked over crate. All day, Sigismund had felt the pressure of the gallows noose and the fear had gotten to him in seeing the captain and hearing his voice.
  Anna retreated from the corner. She tried to quickly unfurl her wings to get to the top of the building she was by to hide but was heard and then seen atop in the process. Moore knew what to be on the look out for and his senses were keen. The Captain made callouts of the enemies being above before hearing the raucous in the alleyway. His eyes went up to see Sigismund stumbling past an Alleyway trying too loop around and away. The captain and two men separated to go after Sigismund as the rest stayed for Anna and whoever else was here. More soldiers would join in time.
  Captain Moore loped down the Alleyway with extraordinary speed. Hali managed to silently upwell the ground to slow the others but Moore was too swift. He rounded the corner to get Sigismund in his sights but both shots veered sidelong shattering into crates. Anna Attempted to hide behind a chimney uptop away from the searching soldiers but the clouds parted in the bright night to allow moonlight dazzle off of her glammered wings. And then the howl was heard in the night. Now, Sigismund's fear made sense. Now Moore's speed, his features, his bloodthirsty role as a hunter and attuned sense made . And Sigismund fled through the town in fear away from the new companions that had aided him before.
  Back up in the roadway, a quick battle commenced because the Fractured Pack didn't have time for more. Anna flew from roof top to roof top trying to keep distance as soldiers clamored forward some entering into buildings while other helped others up. Buck took precise shots, rolling around atop, off of, and skirting behind buildings to outmaneuver the pirates. Hali sent for the spirit of her tome yet again to act as the center for her spells so as to maintain her safety hidden on the roof. Muskets were shot and grenades thrown. The small troop was dealt with but more were coming to the noises in the night. A hundred or more would easily be on their way. The trio regathered themselves to head south after Sigismund hoping to get to him in time.
  The alleyway was covered in blood and dead bodies. Captain Moore's condition was clearly one of the other secrets of the cove as hollers and terrified calls could be heard as the citizens gathered in response to his tirade. Moore must truly hate Sigismund to have let the beast out. Treking southward, the trail of death bent out of town back out towards the jungle. Sigismund could not outpace and outlast the creature in the town. He had to take to the nimble jungle to have any hope of outpacing the hulk. And so, we return to our story with out heroes following the not so subtle trail of blood back out into the jungle.
  Following the path of Carnage out into the dark jungle, the trio passed another handful of eviscerated corpses. Following behind another pirate of the cove, that citizen eventually met up with another pair baring weaponry and torches having come to a stand still in the jungle. One shouted out for the beast to be gone while another hushed them not wanting to draw attention back for no reason. The trio of the Fractured pack navigated around them in the shadows. Buck attempted to find further evidence of Sigismund but his trail ran cold. The path of the Lycan remained clear though. The head of a pirate marked the start of a bloody path that loped from claw marked tree to claw marked tree. It had diverted sharply from it's initial path and taken a meal to go.
  Hali messaged Sigismund but received no reply, the terror of his mindscape not able to process the incoming information, there was only the panic. The trio attempted to follow after the werewolf as their only lead but something more nefarious layed waiting for them in the dark. As they took their time stalkin circuitously through the jungle, the Tertalak stalked them. From the oily ground and under the cover of fronds, the horrific deluge of acidic tentacles poured forth. The party separated out as fear overtook them once again as the Tertalak showed it's true size out in the jungles. In a matter of moments Hali was dropped and claimed by the horror. Gathering her up, it began to swing through the jungle on tentacles far faster than any of the party though possisble. All looked as if doom was certain until the beast suddenly stopped, dropped Hali's body into a tree, and diverted it's path as if all of it's objectives had been altered in but a moment.
  Buck ran to the tree to get Hali down and began treating her as Anna went in pursuit of the Tertalak trying to figure out what was going on. She lost track of the beast in the jungles between Craven Cove and Shadeshore Manor. Anna Could see the cove though and it was ablaze with light. After the rampage through the town, everyone was awake in response to the sudden horror. Opposite this, the manor was still darkened. Anna's return to Hali and Buck came with a truth. Whatever the party wanted to do, they could not withstand another fight this night. They had to find someplace to rest.
  Locating a rocky flatbed, Hali established her resilient dome. In the dark of the night, despair overrode any other emotion. Seeking a solution to the horror that was the Tertalak's might, Hali once more pressured to invoke the powers of the King in Yellow. Hali requested assistance against the Tertalak. Attempting to offer up the service of both Buck and Anna, Hali privately received a disdainful reply: “You try to sell the same product twice. You will not have another blessing until I have her heart.” When questioned what state Anna would be in, the King in Yellow stated that , “She will be eternal when the ritual is complete.” Despite Anna's mistrust in the powers since having a minor revelation in Lushbrume, despite the disdain for such unnatural power when it came to reviving Broxon, the despair of the situation now broke her. If there was anything she could do to try to save her friends, she had to. Buck, on the other hand, completely removed himself from this process wanting nothing to do with it.
  Hali's tome flipped to new pages showing her the ritual, the Yellow Sign to be scrawled across her torso with the central circle over the heart... and the heart to be removed and given into the tomb. The ritual took until dawn. Despite that, all the companions felt rested through the night in a magnified version of Hali's lack of need to truly sleep. When the process was complete, Anna had been changed with her fur and feathers matching the mustard of Hali's cloak and iris that brightly pierced.