Adventure Log, Session 20, The Game of Shards, Continued
General Summary
It was afternoon, and the group was leaving the mage guild where they had gotten the information about the severed head of the Servitor. They still had little clue as to what exactly it was, what it had been doing besides killing people, where it had come from, and what its purpose was, but then, no one really did. Even the mages, those bastions of arcane lore, didn’t have any really concrete answers, only speculation based off of half remembered tales and outright mythology. Even the Elves, with their long, long history stretching back dozens of millennia, had surprisingly little information on the primal beings and the origin of the gods.
Earlier that day, they had just received a windfall, almost two month’s wages for each of them, but they felt that it still wasn’t enough. After all, they had expenses, and, at least for Taid’s part, he wanted to commission a really fine halberd. They decided to check on the Rural Watch’s bounty board.
They had been there before, a couple of eightdays ago, and had even taken care of a hydra nest. Maybe it was time to see if there were any quick jobs there that didn’t involve conspiracies, cults, or cannibals. They headed southward, out of the Merchant’s Heath district where the Port Karn Agricultural Commission was located, and down through the gate of the old wall that enclosed the central, older part of the city. They continued southward, through the district of New Square, and into the primarily residential Southtown district, where the Rural Watch office was located.
Southtown was a low income area, housing many of the farm hands that worked the fields in the areas adjacent to the city. The houses were built of wood, some without even stone foundations. Many looked as if they wouldn’t survive a stiff breeze, but somehow they did. It wasn’t quite a shantytown, but it was close. Either the residents were too poor to build more permanent, long lasting structures, or they didn’t care.
There were few, if any Elves living here; to an Elf, having to repair or rebuild what felt like every other day would be a strain on their sanity. Dwarves didn’t live here either, since their inherent building aesthetics wouldn’t allow for such shoddy workmanship. Unless they made it their life’s work to rebuild every structure in the area, the assault on their sense of quality would drive them quietly insane. So the population of this area was primarily made up of Orcs, Humans, Goblins, and the occasional Hobbit.
But the four people with the dog didn’t care about any of that. Eykit’s subconscious had filed away this information long ago, and the other three never really registered it at all. And to Mr. Wiggles, there was only “pack” and “not pack”, and to him, species didn’t really enter into it.
The Rural Watch office was located in a small building at the southern end of Southtown. Unlike most of the buildings in the area, it was one of the few that had a proper stone foundation and a tile roof instead of planks. From its windows, the fields stretching out for miles southward were visible, or at least they would have been but for the hedgerows built up between the fields.
The four of them entered the offices. The front room was separated into two parts with a countertop between them. The front half held some seats and the bounty board. The other half had a pair of desks, along with a weapon rack with some polearms in it. Two Rural Watch officers sat at the desks, a male Human and a female Orc, who both looked up when the group walked through the door.
The Orc asked, in her gruff, gravelly voice, “What can we do for you?”
Taid responded, “We are actually here to look at the bounty board. We’re thinking we might take some of them off your hands.”
The officer nodded. “Be my guest. If you need anything, or have any questions, feel free to ask.” She went back to sharpening her dagger on a whetstone, the soft, musical grinding noise making Taid think he should probably sharpen Maggie.
There were several bounties listed on the board: a farmer had a complaint about giant centipedes down by Avondale; there had been manticore sightings south of Meke Larnis; a farmer had been losing livestock to some predator in Avondale; In Donnington, there was a minor dispute between two farmhands and a girl, which has caused a series of fistfights. There was also a flyer tacked to the spot next to the bounty list. It was a plea for help. In Rhades, there was something causing babies to turn blue and die. The locals called it the “Breathstealer”.
They decide to head to Avondale in the morning, to take care of the centipedes and the predator. But there was something that drew them to the Breathstealer. They would have to think about that one; maybe they might head off in that direction. Besides, it was babies. Something was killing someone’s kids. They headed back to the Inn On Drefeg’s Street. It was supper time, and they were hungry. They stopped off at the Pig’s In His Cups tavern for a meal before going to bed.
The Inn on Drefeg’s Street had four rooms on the first floor, along with a common area that had comfortable chairs to lounge in, and five rooms on the second floor. Elitheris shared a room that evening with two other women. They slept in the other bed; Elitheris got her bed to herself. On a hot night, it was a luxury not having a second body in the bed. She did have Mr. Wiggles, however, but he didn’t take up that much room. She felt sorry for Taid, Eykit, and Almë, who were sharing one of the beds in the adjacent room. The other bed in their room held a pair of merchants. One sold fabrics, mainly linen and treesilk, but occasionally had silk or cotton fabrics as well. The other sold spinning wheels and looms. Apparently they were both part of the same caravan.
She fell asleep quickly, despite the snoring coming from one or both of the women in the other bed. At some point in the night, she awoke. It was dark, and dawn was still hours away. She heard someone walking down the hallway, likely to the jakes at the end of the hall. Probably some drunk, based upon the fact that he kept bumping into the walls. Mr. Wiggles’ ears perked up, and he cracked an eye open and looked at Elitheris, trying to determine if it was something he should rouse himself about. He closed his eyes again when Elitheris didn’t get up out of bed.
In the next room over, Eykit also awoke. With difficulty, he managed to pry his eyes open, and he saw what appeared to be a dark shape crouched over their packs, which they had stashed in the corner. A quick glance at the other bed showed him that both merchants were asleep, one snoring softly, the other breathing long, slow breaths in slumber. There was an odd smell in the room, and he was having trouble keeping his eyes open. He slapped Almë, but the Elf slept on, ignoring the blow.
Eykit levered himself up from between Taid and Almë. Both were sound asleep, and the Goblin thief climbed over Almë quietly in order to find out what was going on. He didn’t make it, losing consciousness as he clambered over his friend, toppling to the floor in a heap of splayed limbs with a loud thump.
The thump coming from the adjacent room prevented Elitheris from going back to sleep. She knew her friends, she’d even slept in the same area with them, and new that none of them were prone to clumsiness. That, plus the noises that had, shortly before, alerted her that maybe what her subconscious was picking up on was real. She wore a light linen shirt and pants; living out in the wilderness had disabused her of any thought on wearing a shift to bed, and she tended not to sleep nude in a shared room. She got out of bed, moving quietly to the door, and pressed her pointed ear up against it.
From the hallway outside, about where she figured her friends’ door was, she could hear the rhythmic creaking of the floorboards. It didn’t sound like someone moving; it was more like someone shifting their weight back and forth. The two women in the other bed slept on, untroubled by whatever it was that had alerted the Elf. Mr. Wiggles was awake, but in no hurry to get out of bed, and at the moment hadn’t discerned anything to get out of bed for.
She cracked the door open, peering out into the dark hallway. Her Elven night vision was good, but it still needed some light to work best, and very little light made it to the hallway. The two oil lamps usually lit in the hallway for guests needing to walk to the privy were out. Elitheris was able to see a figure silhouetted by the slightly lighter background. It was wearing a long coat, and a wide brimmed hat. The sub-tropical, summer night was warm, almost uncomfortably so; wearing a coat made no sense. It was standing outside her friends’ door, unmoving, not trying to get in. It just stood there, wavering a bit as if it had balance problems and needed to constantly correct for it. Perhaps he was drunk, and in the darkness mistook that room for his own.
Her hand tightened around her dagger, which she hadn’t actually realized she had grabbed. Long years of living out in the wilderness had trained her reflexes, and muscle memory had grasped the knife without her conscious thought. Well, she thought, that’s convenient.
“Hey, you!” She said to the figure. “What are you doing there?”
The dark figure turned its head and looked at her. He didn’t respond, but the movement had changed its silhouette such that she could determine its apparent gender.
“I said, what are you doing?” Her voice was slightly raised in annoyance. She stepped closer, and although it was dark, she could see that what she saw wasn’t a man. Or, at least, not any longer. It looked emaciated, rotting, and much of its tissues were exposed, as if he had been flayed. As Elitheris approached, it raised its arms, crouching a little in a fighter’s stance.
Whatever he was, it didn’t look like it was going to let her near her friends’ room, or even push past it to the stairway, which was about five meters behind it, at the end of the hall. Pushing it down the stairs was out. She charged, tackling it, trying to knock it off its feet.
Despite looking emaciated, it was very strong, and her Elven body lacked enough mass to cause it to do more than take a couple of steps back. Its arms enveloped her, and she could feel the strength in those misshapen limbs. Panicked, she quickly ducked out of its grasp, before it could get a good hold of her. If it grabbed her, she had the feeling that she would never get loose. She dropped and somersaulted backwards, opening up some distance between the two of them. It’s reaction speed didn’t seem terribly fast, or at least it seemed a little uncoordinated.
It came for her, and she struck it with her rondel dagger, slicing into the base of its neck, the blade sliding through the layers of muscle and cutting apart the oversized deltoid muscle. In the darkness, she didn’t see the dark, semi-clotted ichor that seemed to be its blood. Her brain was getting messages from her subconscious about this thing, mainly that the musculature was unnatural. Overly bulgy in places, and nearly absent in others. But she didn’t have time to think about that. She had a decent idea of how people and animals were put together, and this thing didn’t quite match what she would have expected.
Its left arm was crippled, and while it could still move it to some degree, that arm was more or less out of the fight. And now that she could see it moving, she could tell that it didn’t move quite right, either. It was like it didn’t quite know how to move its limbs, or perhaps like it was some kind of puppet.
The hallway was not narrow, but the thing, for she didn’t think it was truly a man, could make it tricky to get past it. And she needed to get it closer to the stairs. Taking a deep breath, she leapt, tucking into a roll as she passed it on its left, coming up behind it. A few more steps, and she was at the top of the stairs. They led down into the common room, empty now and dark, being the Hour of Final Dancing, by Elven reckoning. The more ephemeral races would call it sometime between just after midnight and some hours yet before dawn.
The creature—whatever it was—moved towards her, its movements janky yet swift nonetheless. The thought that it might be just learning to walk struck her suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere. She waited until it was almost upon her, then leapt past it again, jumping towards the wall at its back, then kicked out with both legs, striking it in the lower back. It tumbled down he stairs in a clatter of flailing limbs.
Hopefully that hurt it some, she thought. At the very least, she gained several precious seconds to see what was happening with her friends. Surely they must have heard the scuffle in the hall, but no one had come out of the room.
Like her, her friends, especially Eykit, locked their door. The locks weren’t very good, being more for courtesy rather than for security. She shouldered into it, her hand on the door latch, and was surprised when the latch turned, the unlocked door giving way easily. She stumbled inside as the door swung into the room, but her Elven sense of balance allowed her to keep her feet.
In that instant, several things impinged upon her awareness. Taid and Almë were still in bed, presumably asleep, as were the two other men in the other bed. Eykit was lying on the floor in a heap, between the bed and the wall. She recalled the thumping noise; now she knew what had made it. The window was open, letting in a nice sea breeze in the hot subtropical night. But she knew that Eykit wouldn’t let anyone keep the window open at night, knowing that people like him loved such opportunities. And, lastly, to her right, in the corner of the room where her friends set their packs, was a crouching figure in dark clothing, looking through the packs.
She aimed a kick at the intruder’s head.
When the door opened, the thief saw that someone was interrupting his search, and that he was being attacked. He jumped back, getting to his feet, and backpedaled towards the open window, keeping his eyes on his assailant. He also saw the long dagger the Elven woman held. The blade glinted in the darkness, which caused him some worry, as there was little light to be glinting off of anything.
Elitheris ran at him, trying to put her knife into his face. Taken aback by the sudden attack, the man wasn’t quick enough to keep the knife from piercing his cheek, the long triangular blade skidding off of his cheekbone and opening a horizontal slice from his nose to almost his ear. Blood flowed as he screamed in pain. His hand on his face, he stumbled to the window, shouting, “Lerial, take care of her!”
There was something in the air, Elitheris could smell it. Sharp, acrid, and all of a sudden she could barely keep her eyes open. She stepped back, remembering that the air right by the door seemed okay and hadn’t caused this reaction. Two steps were enough to get her out of the area of…whatever it was. But it meant that the man, whom she recognized as the guy who had tried to buy their Shards from them at Bardem’s Crystal Palace, was going to get away. He dropped out the window.
Elitheris could hear the creature coming up the stairs. She didn’t have much time. Holding her breath, she grabbed Eykit and moved him to what she thought of as the “safe area”. Almë was next; again holding her breath, she threw the covers off of Almë and Taid, and throwing him over her shoulder she hurried to get him into the safe area. The creature was at the top of the stairs, coming down the hallway. She grabbed Taid’s feet, dragging him out of bed, his head bouncing on the floorboards. She winced in sympathy, but she didn’t have time for finesse. She apologized to him under her breath as she spun his body around. She managed to get his head out of the cloud of smoke, gas, or whatever magical effect it was.
Having come back up the stairs, the creature came into the room, its one good arm outstretched towards Elitheris, the other twitching ineffectually at its side. It moved past her three friends, its focus solely on her.
“Á muk!” she swore, and, taking a few steps, jumped out the window feet first, rotating her body to enable her to catch the window sill and hang from the narrow ledge it provided. Maybe it won’t see me, she thought. She looked over her shoulder, and she could see the man, standing on the opposite side of the alley way, still holding a hand up to his face, although the flow of blood was much diminished. But that was all she had time to see, as the creature loomed over her, its good arm reaching for her. She dropped to the cobbles below, rolling to absorb the shock of falling from the second story.
She scrambled away as she saw the creature coming out through the window, hiding behind some barrels that were stacked behind the Pig’s In His Cups tavern.
“Come, Lerial, time to go home,” the man said, before turning and running down the alley. Lerial dropped out of the window to the ground, following its master.
Elitheris discreetly followed them, she was better in the wilds when following prey, but she could do well enough in the cluttered streets of the city. They moved southward, towards the outskirts of town.
They moved around the night traffic, stepping aside and moving around it when a wagon or rider came up the road. Port Karn, a city where the majority of inhabitants were nocturnal, never truly slept. It was always busy, and, Elitheris realized, was less crowded during the day than the other cities she had visited. This was likely due to the nocturnal nature of the Orcs and Goblins. The downside was that even at night, when most cities had little traffic, Port Karn still had a significant amount. She was forced to dodge around the wagons and riders, just like her prey. As a result, she occasionally lost sight of the pair, and it after several moments of agitation, would pick them up again.
While the coat and hat disguised the creature’s nature from the passersby, its familiar, janky gait made it stand out to her. It didn’t take long for her to reacquire her targets, even in the dim light of the scarce street lamps. It was times like this that she really missed the phosphorescent flowers that graced Elven villages and not only made them beautiful to look at, but provided enough light to navigate easily by. Here, in Southtown, the oil lamps were few and far between, when they were even lit at all. Lamplighters, apparently, were also few and far between here in what was likely the poorest section of town.
Elitheris lost them for a moment when she got to the border between the rather crudely build shacks and the fields. Then she saw them, cutting across a field of barley. They made a large arc around the group of Orcs harvesting the grain. Behind them were a pair of Goblins, deftly tying the bundles together into sheaves. When they got to the edge of the field, they followed along the hedgerows, staying in the shadows as much as possible. She would have lost them had she not known where they were, but sooner or later, they would duck into some shadow and be gone from sight.
It was a new moon, so the night was lit only by the stars and what little sky glow came from the city’s oil lamps. But Elitheris was a good tracker, and dirt, grass, trees, and fields were more her area of expertise. It wasn’t terribly difficult to follow them; her woodcraft let her stay hidden such that the pair didn’t realize they were being followed. Or, if they knew, they didn’t show it.
They wended their way through a series of fields, mostly staying along the hedgerows. They were headed towards a low hill, crowned with native jungle plants, acting like an island of wilderness surrounded by the more “civilized” fields. Nestled within that little piece of jungle was a manor house, surrounded by a low stone wall. On the wall, barely visible in the darkness, was a sign that read “Vesten Manor”.
Elitheris didn’t actually see them enter the grounds, but all of the signs led to that conclusion. She turned and started back to get her companions. Besides, she realized belatedly, I am woefully unequipped for taking these guys on my own. I don’t have my bow, or even my clothes and armor. I’m in my sleepwear!
Meanwhile, Eykit woke up, his eyes full of grit. He rubbed his eyes, clearing out the eye boogers and allowing him to see properly. He was propped up haphazardly on the packs in the corner of the room, by the doorway, which was open. The last thing he remembered was climbing over Almë to get out of bed, because he thought there was someone in the room that shouldn’t have been there. Whoever it was, they were gone now. Almë lay asleep on the other side of the door, his shoulders and head propped up by the wall. Taid lay on the floor, his head by Eykit’s legs, his body between the bed and the wall. And the window was open. The covers of the bed had been thrown aside.
What. The. Fuck. He thought. How did I get here? And why are we out of bed? He shook his head, both to clear it and express his confusion.
He stood up on shaking legs, still trying to fight off the lingering drowsiness. His eyes still felt gummy, and he rubbed them again, trying to get the stubborn crusty sleep out of them. Almë was starting to wake up, as was Taid. He walked over to the window, but stopped when he smelled an acrid, sharp smell that reminded him of ammonia and peppers. He experienced a wave of drowsiness all of a sudden. He stepped back, and his mind cleared. Okay, he thought, don’t go over there.
So, what did that guy, whoever it was, want? He checked his pack, rifling through his belongings. Nothing seemed stolen, not even the small amount of money he kept in his pack. He checked the pouch he kept around his neck, where he kept the Shards. They were still there, thank the gods, they hadn’t been taken. It surprised him, a bit, that he hadn’t been searched and the pouch stolen. Shards seemed to be in high demand. In any case, he still had them, and that put his mind at rest.
Almë and Taid were rubbing their eyes and looking around. Taid stood, and started towards the open window, but stopped and retreated when the smell of the smoke hit him, as well as a new wave of drowsiness. Looking around, he saw a small, smoking disk on the floor, about the size of his thumbnail. It was an alchemical pastille. He held his breath, grabbed it, and tossed it out the window. Then he walked into the hallway, looking around to see if anyone was still there. He hadn’t expected anyone, but he was trained to check anyway. He noticed blood, or something like blood, on the floor. It seemed congealed or clotted, as if it had been there a while. But he knew that couldn’t be right; he would have seen it before going to bed.
Then he noticed that Elitheris’ door was open. He strode to her room, checking in on her. She wasn’t there, but her pack, bow, arrows, and gambeson lay in the corner where she had put them. He grabbed them, and ran back to Eykit and Almë. “We have a problem! Elitheris is gone. Her stuff is still here!” he said. “She may have been kidnapped.”
The two ladies in the second bed awoke to a bunch of noise coming from the adjacent room. “Hey,” one said, “keep it down!” Then she rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.
Eykit noticed blood on the floor by the window, and some bloody handprints on the window sill. Whomever had gone through the window had been injured. The blood was still rather fresh, less than an hour old by his reckoning.
The two merchants in the other bed snored loudly, undisturbed by whatever had happened, and whatever Eykit, Taid, and Almë were doing. On a whim, Almë went over to them, holding his breath when he realized that gas was there, too. He nudged the closest sleeping man’s shoulder. The man slept, undisturbed. He tried again, but again, nothing happened. They were out. Very out.
Taid had seen some strange fluid in the hallway, and there was some in the room as well, although only a few drips. There was quite a bit of fresh blood by the window, however. Someone (Elitheris?) had been wounded there, and apparently went out or was taken out through the window.
They hurriedly got dressed, buckled on their armor, and set their weapons on their belts. Taid held onto Elitheris’ things, in case they found her. If she was just in the jakes, she was going to be pissed that her stuff was gone, but there wasn’t anything else they could do. Well, actually….
“Almë,” Taid said, “go check the privy. Make sure Elitheris isn’t in there.”
Almë nodded and hurried off down the hall. They kept to the area of room by the door, where they couldn’t smell that alchemical smoke. They didn’t want to fall back asleep again. When they did have to move into that area while they were gathering their gear, they held their breath.
The two men in the other bed never stopped snoring, although the trio wasn’t being all that quiet. That smoke, most likely from an alchemical mixture called Morpheus, kept them asleep. The trio and dog went downstairs, out the front door, then went around to the alleyway under their window. There was some blood on the cobbles, heading off at a diagonal to the far side of the narrow street, where it trailed off. There was a second trail, the ichor, which also went off at a diagonal to the other side of the street.
They followed the trail of ichor; it headed south, and it didn’t take long before they were no longer able to find the trail. There was too much foot traffic, even in the middle of the night. They found themselves at a loss. They were in Southtown, a collection of cheaply made residences, mostly for farmhands. They didn’t know where to go; the trail was gone.
But the area was mostly inhabited by the nocturnal Orcs. Maybe one of them saw something. Glancing around, Eykit saw an old Orcish woman sitting on a rocker on a dilapidated porch, watching the night traffic. He walked over to her, a friendly smile on his face.
“Hello, ma’am. Nice night, not too hot.”
The lady nodded, “It is at that. What do you want?” She was likely in her fifties, but looked much older. Farm life had been hard on her. One of her tusks was missing, perhaps lost in a farming mishap, although it was just as likely that it was from a brawl. Orcs tended to be passionate, and quick to anger.
“My companions and I are looking for some friends of ours. They came through here not too long ago. We were wondering if you had seen anything. They are a little odd, and they might have stood out.”
“Maybe, kid. How much is it worth to you?” The old woman squinted at the young Goblin.
“Look, lady, we don’t want any trouble, and we aren’t here doing any kind of shakedown. Our friends may be hurt, and we are just trying to find them. There was a lot of blood where they were last seen.” He turned on the sympathy and the charm, the not-quite-a-lie rolling easily off his silver tongue. “We really need your help.” He looked imploringly at her.
She stared at him for a moment, then said, “Fine. Urdu’s Breath!” She thought for a moment, then said, “I did see some folks that were rather unexpected. Two people, one who looked injured and limped or something. They went that way.” She pointed out towards a barley field with a wizened but strong arm. “Why they went off into that field, while it was being harvested, I’ll never know. Tramplin’ the crops. Rude. But I hope you find your friends, youngster.”
Eykit bowed in thanks. He met her eyes with a smile, saying, “And a good evening to you, ma’am.” He ran back to Almë, Taid, and Mr. Wiggles, and told them what he had found out. They followed the directions, not having anything more solid to go on. They started walking out into the fields.
From the other side of the field, Elitheris saw some figures walking across the barley stubble: a Dwarf, a Goblin, and an Elf, along with a very familiar dog. She saw them long before they saw her, a combination of Elven vision and her woodcraft. Almë likely saw her as well, but probably couldn’t recognize her in the dark. But Elitheris knew her friends and how they moved, even in a moonless night.
They were glad that she seemed unharmed, and that the blood hadn’t been hers. She quickly told them what they had slept through, and to where she had followed the pair. Taid handed her the bow, quiver, and pack that she hadn’t had time to grab before following the intruder. Who, she related, seemed to be the guy that wanted to buy their Shards at Bardem’s Crystal Palace. Apparently, he didn’t like taking “no” for an answer.
Dressing and buckling on her gambeson, she said, “I think we should go back to that manor house and see what’s going on.” The rest nodded, and, following Elitheris, they soon found themselves outside the manor house, after maybe two kilometers of walking. The sky was lightening with dawn; the sun would be up in an hour or so.
It was a stone edifice, two stories, and of roughly rectangular outline. Its tile roof was mossy, and a profusion of vines climbed the walls in several places. A low stone wall, with an inset gate, surrounded the property. Being only five feet tall, it obviously wasn’t for security purposes. The front courtyard was laid with pavers, many of which stuck up at odd angles. Running across it might prove dangerous, with so many of the pavers acting as trip hazards. A couple of the windows were cracked, and the garden beds inside the walls looked like they hadn’t been tended or weeded in seasons.
“I’m going to case the place,” Eykit said. “Wait here until I get back. I don’t want any more nasty surprises.” He moved off, staying low and using cover. He was out of sight in moments. Even Elitheris couldn’t see him as he made his way around the property.
He made a circuit around the house, noting the features of the walls (crumbling in places, with the mortar needing repointing, and vegetation overgrowing it), the grounds (more tilted and cracked pavers, unweeded garden beds, a fountain with stagnant water), and the house (peeling paint, broken plaster, some more cracked windows). His appraiser’s eye determined that the house was suffering from some deferred maintenance. It had seen better days.
He saw a cat, but only for a moment before it jumped down off of the wall and disappeared into the brush. He could hear it running away, and while he didn’t get a good look at it, something about it didn’t seem quite right. It was emaciated, its body was shaped more like a greyhound’s than a cat, and he would have sworn he saw some exposed ribs. But maybe that was just a trick of the dawn light, what little light there was in the shadow of the jungle behind the house. Maybe it was some jungle creature, and not a cat at all. Still, it had acted like a cat….
Eykit rejoined his companions. “There don’t seem to be any issues to worry about around the house. At least, nothing obvious, and nothing that I was able to see. We should be careful, of course, but I didn’t see any traps or ambushes. Did see a weird cat, though.”
“How so?” Elitheris asked.
“I didn’t get a good look at it,” Eykit responded, shaking his head. “Just a glimpse, before it disappeared into the shrubbery. But there was something about it that didn’t seem right. Its body shape was off, maybe, or the way it moved. Like I said, I barely got a glimpse of it.”
“The zombie thing was kind of weird, too. It wasn’t shaped properly either. Moved oddly as well.”
“So we might have a zombie cat?” Taid asked.
“Maybe it catches all the zombie mice,” Almë added.
“Yeah, maybe,” Eykit replied. “In any case, I don’t know where it went, so keep an eye out for it.”
Taid asked, “How do we want to handle getting in? I’m for going in the front door.”
Eykit looked a bit shocked. “There are some French doors on the rear side and I can pick the locks. We can get in quietly.”
“I like the idea of going in the front,” Elitheris said.
“Okay,” Taid said. “Eykit, you and Almë go in through the back, Elitheris and I will go in the front.”
Eykit scowled, thinking it was lacking in finesse, but shrugged and grabbed Almë. “Let’s go.” They moved off, heading behind the house. Taid and Elitheris waited for them to get into position before walking up to the front door.
“Ready?” he asked his Elven companion.
“I suppose so,” she replied.
“Good.” Then he charged the door, slamming into it, the doorframe splintering at the latch.
Eykit crouched at the French door, his lock picks in his hands, when he heard a muffled crash. “Aw crap. Well,” he said to Almë, “they know we’re here.” He bent to his task of unlocking the door. “Amateurs,” he muttered.
Taid found himself in a foyer, two stories high, with a pair of sweeping staircases leading up to a landing for the second floor. Beneath the staircases, centered in the wall, was a pair of double doors. To either side of the foyer was a hallway.
They heard a noise, the sound of boots tapping on the flagstones that made up the flooring. They tried to find hiding spots, but the foyer was only sparsely furnished with only a couple of side tables. There was nowhere to hide.
A figure, wearing an old, stained suit walked down the corridor from the right, carrying a tray with a teapot and a cup on it. He was swathed in bandages, with no skin showing. He went upstairs, ignoring the busted, open door and the three intruders. He didn’t even seem to notice when Mr. Wiggles growled softly.
Taid and Elitheris exchanged glances, shrugged, and followed the butler—or whatever it was—up the stairs to the second floor. Once up there, they noticed that it overlooked a large banquet hall, entered from the double doors under the stairways. They could see a pair of figures outside the French doors; one was crouched at the door, trying to pick the lock.
The butler, once at the top, turned left and walked towards where the hallway turned left. There was a side table set outside a door at the end, and he put the tray down upon it. Then he continued down the hall, turning the corner, and disappearing out of sight. Taid and Elitheris followed, looking around the corner. The butler stood at the end of the hall.
Eykit, meanwhile, had some trouble with the lock. He was actually rather displeased with himself, as he could tell it wasn’t a very complicated locking mechanism. He was just having a bad day, and in front of a witness. He swore softly in Mekiitagi. Through the windows, they could see a figure walking across the catwalk-like hallway that overlooked the banquet hall, followed by Taid, Elitheris, and the dog. Another couple of tries, and finally the lock disengaged.
The pair went into the banquet hall. By now, the figures on the overlooking hallway had disappeared, so Almë and Eykit went through the double doors, thinking there might be a way up there from there. They were right, and were in the foyer. They hurriedly went up the stairs to find their companions.
Taid and Elitheris started down the hallway, towards the butler. As they drew closer, it raised its arms like a brawler, but didn’t move towards them.
They came to a stop, and the butler’s arms dropped a little. “I don’t think it’s a threat, really,” Elitheris said. “I bet if we left it alone, it would leave us alone.”
“Possible,” Taid said. “Think it’s undead?”
Elitheris shrugged. “It doesn’t smell rotting. Smells like herbs and astringent, mostly lavender.”
Taid looked at her. “A mummy wearing cologne?” He grinned. The mummy in question just stood there, unmoving.
Elitheris noticed that it didn’t waver or shift it’s weight from foot to foot, like the “Lerial” thing did. The butler also moved like a normal person, not one being puppeted. “This one seems different than the one I tangled with back at the inn. That one seemed...off somehow. This one seems normal in comparison.”
They backed away from the bandaged butler. He didn’t come after them, bearing out Elitheris’ initial assessment. Of course, that could change in the future, or if attacked. It at least seemed willing to defend itself, if not to initiate an attack.
They came downstairs, and went through the doors to the banquet hall that Almë and Eykit had left open. As they were looking at the large banquet table and around the room, a door opened off to the side, and a maid walked in. She was wearing a maid’s dress, and carrying a broom, and was, like the butler, swathed in bandages. She saw the intruders, and raised her broom, as if she was going to defend the house.
The four people just looked at her. Mr. Wiggles gave a short, inquiring whine, not certain how to react to this being. He wasn’t sure if it was a threat or not, and was looking to his biped handlers for direction. And they didn’t seem to be agitated, so he bided his time.
The maid turned back into the room she had come from, closing the door behind her. Shortly after that, they could hear a bell ringing, sounding like a servant’s bell. It rang, paused, rang, paused, and rang a third time.
Eykit pointed out that throughout all of the places in the house that they had been, there seemed to be a distinct lack of furniture, artwork, and decorations. Manor houses were owned by the wealthy, and to keep their status and standing, they had to look the part, and that included expensive things. There weren’t a lot of them in the house. There were areas visible on the walls that used to have paintings or tapestries, but they were no longer there.
“I think whoever lives here has fallen on hard times,” he said. The others had gotten the same impression.
They followed the maid, finding that the room she had come out of was a trophy room, filled with examples of taxidermy. Heads on the walls, of predators and prey animals, posed animals on tables, or plinths. Most were mundane animals, but some were of the more exotic variety, such as the stun lizard head, the stuffed jungle hydra, or the dead potted whipweed. The most impressive specimen was of a terror bird, posed as if running. Many of its feathers were tattered, and one of the glass eyes had fallen out. The stuffed animals were ratty, and missing fur in places. Most looked fairly old, and neglected. Not in the sense of being dusty; the servants at least kept things fairly clean. They were just ignored, and treated like any other furniture. There were also several empty glass cases that appeared to have held smaller items, and an empty sword rest.
“We don’t want these things coming back as zombies, right?” When the negative responses came from the others, he laid about with his staff, destroying all of the full-body taxidermied animals. The terror bird took a little while, and he was panting when he was done.
The others just stood by, watching him go to town. Sawdust and old cotton batting lay strewn across the room, and the air was filled with dust that caught the light in the dawn sunbeams. Almë looked around at his work. “If any of these things gets raised from the dead, they should have trouble doing anything to us!”
Eykit glanced over the mess. “You missed one,” he said, pointing at a squirrel perched on a small table, poised chewing on a nut.
Almë swung, and the squirrel was launched across the room, where it bounced off the wall near the corner. The blow had split it open, and sawdust trailed its path like a comet’s tail. It lay on the floor in the corner, its head askew, its body rent, and its tail nowhere to be seen.
Eykit glanced at Almë. “Yeah, that should do it.” He grinned.
There was another door, likely the one the maid departed from, as she was no longer in the room. The door opened upon a hallway, the architectural design of which indicated that it was likely the servants’ side of the house. They saw her disappear around the corner at the far end of the hall, walking towards the foyer. Again, they follow after her, keeping their distance, but not letting her get too far ahead, either.
She kept going, past the foyer, down the other hall, which seemed to be the residents’ quarters, around the corner, and into a door at the end of the hallway.
They stopped. Taid said, “Let’s explore this place. Starting at the top floor.” There were no objections, so they all went upstairs. Most of the rooms were unused, both the bedrooms and the more common living spaces. One room, a master bedroom, was still in use. The study, down the hallway from the master bedroom, was missing most of its books. There were a few still sitting on the shelves, a few cheap knickknacks, and a small, dead, potted fern. There were six bedrooms on the upper floor, and five were not in use. It seemed that the house had once had a large family living in it, but now it seemed that only one person—and the bandaged servants—lived there now.
Many of the rooms were empty, but some still had some remaining furniture in them. But it looked, to Eykit’s appraising eye, that just about anything of value had been sold off.
There was a pull-down ladder that led to the attic. They pulled it open, and Taid popped his head up there. It wasn’t large, the sloping roof beams making it difficult for people to walk upright in. There were a few pieces of furniture, mostly broken; a few paintings, most with scratches or torn canvas; and boxes of dusty junk accumulated over decades.
They went downstairs. It wasn’t much different from what they saw upstairs. Maybe a bit less dust. Perhaps the maid spent more time on the rooms downstairs, rather than all of the unused rooms upstairs. They checked the door under the stairs in the foyer. It was locked, and despite its rather cheap lock, Eykit had some trouble getting it open. It took him three tries before it snicked open. He shook his head in annoyance.
It led down into a root and wine cellar. The space, mortared with flagstones on the floor and walls, was maybe five meters on a side. One wall was taken up by the wooden stairway. Two were set with shelving, holding bins of vegetables, dry goods, and jars of pickled and canned foodstuffs. In the center of the room were some crates, some with various bags of foodstuffs, others with various other household goods. One crate held what appeared to be scraps of fabric.
Almë grabbed a jar of pickles off of the shelf, cracked it open, and started in on breakfast. The wall opposite the stairs was a full length wine rack, with only four bottles of wine sitting in it, all dusty. Taid pulled one of the bottles of wine, brushed the dust off the label, pulled out the cork, and took a sip.
He spit it out. The wine was bad; the cork had failed, and the result was a nasty taste in his mouth. Almë offered him a pickle. Taid grunted his thanks as he chewed. At least the pickle tasted good, and the brined vegetable drove the sour taste of the spoiled wine away.
The servants’ quarters were noticeably plainer in decorative features, and the rooms, while occupied, seemed unused except for the beds. And even those look like they were made, and then laid upon, rather than under the covers. The wear patterns on the throw rugs also only had a single traffic path: from the door to the bed and back. Whomever slept there also didn’t move much when they slept. The living room had only a few pieces of furniture in it, although there were places on the floor that indicated that it used to have quite a bit of furniture in it at some time in the past. But whatever it was, it was gone, stolen or sold or stored away.
Eykit shook his head. This place, in its heyday, was likely topped up with rich tapestries, gold and silver knickknacks, sculptures made by masters of their craft, and paintings by desirable, popular artists. Yet now, all of that was gone, and the building wasn’t in that great of shape, either. Whomever owned this place has come upon hard times indeed. He thought it was a shame, really. A place like this one could be really great. Besides, he was itching to snitch something, but nothing here was worth the effort. He was very disappointed.
Near the end of their explorations, they came to the door at the end of the hall, where they had seen the maid enter. Opening that door, they saw the kitchen. At one end was a wood stove, and oven. Around the edges of the room were cabinets, and in the center was an island with a ceramic tile countertop. Three figures, all wrapped in bandages that smelled like antiseptic and herbs, stood in the room. One, wearing a chef’s hat and white apron, stood at the stove, cooking eggs and bacon. The butler stood nearby, holding a tray. The maid stood on the far side of the kitchen island.
The three figures turned to look at who had just opened the door, but the cook soon went back to tending his food, and the other two remained in place, staring at the people in the doorway. Almë put the opened jar of pickles onto the kitchen island countertop.
The pickles had activated his appetite, and the smell of the eggs and bacon—likely mostly the bacon—was almost unbearable. He wanted that food, so he strode over to the cook. Except the butler was in the way, and wouldn’t let him pass. Almë looked at the butler’s bandaged face. He couldn’t see the eyes; they, like everything else, was covered in the bandages. He pushed, or more accurately, tried to push, the butler out of the way, trying to get past. Again, the butler resisted, and the cook turned around, holding a kitchen knife, ready to defend the breakfast from Almë’s advances.
“Almë, cut it out. Leave it,” Eykit said. Elitheris grabbed his arm, yanking him back and away from the butler and the knife-wielding cook.
“We don’t need to borrow trouble,” Elitheris stated quietly.
Taid said, “We should let the butler deliver the food, and follow him to be there when whoever it’s for decides to grab it.”
Nodding acquiescence, Almë moved out of the room. Sure enough, the cook plated the two eggs, sunny side up, and the two strips of bacon, placing it on the tray held by the butler. Then the butler moved through the door into the banquet room.
The group followed. The butler then went through the double doors to the foyer, and placed the tray on a side table. He then left through the hallway back towards the kitchen.
Walking over to the tray, Almë ate both strips of bacon. Mr. Wiggles whined; he had been hoping for a bite. At that moment, the cellar door opened, and a creature came out. It was human shaped, wearing a long coat. It couldn’t have been alive; its flesh looked flayed, and it’s face looked emaciated, with the exception of the bulging jaw muscles. Its eyes were glowing in the dim light of the predawn. Its fingers were crooked into claws, the knuckles bulky with muscle tissue, looking almost like balls and sticks.
“That’s the thing I fought in the hallway!” Elitheris said.
It didn’t seem happy that there were intruders, and attacked.
Taid thrust his halberd, shoving the top spike into the thing’s skull, pushing its head to the side. It didn’t seem to stop it, although it did reel back a bit.
Eykit attacked it, stabbing his rondel into its vitals, but it must have dodged, or it didn’t have any vital organs at all. While Eykit managed to punch a hole into it, it didn’t seem to faze the creature very much. Much like Taid’s spike to the head, it didn’t seem much affected by it. There weren’t a lot of vitals where there should have been some. Its emaciated midsection looked as if most of the guts had been removed or had rotted away faster than the rest of it. The thing definitely didn’t look quite right. It looked like it wasn’t a person, per se, but might have been constructed with parts of one. Maybe with some other things as well.
Taid yelled, “Eykit, get out of the way!” as he pulled Maggie, his halberd, into a ready position. If punching holes into it didn’t do much, maybe a blade on the end of a long lever arm swung with great force could hamper it.
Eykit knew what that meant, and he was not staying nearby to prove it out, so he moved hurriedly behind Almë toward the banquet hall.
He watched with morbid fascination as Taid swung his halberd into its leg, and it pushed the creature off-balance but didn’t seem to disable it or cut it with any real effect. Its attempt to dodge out of the way was only partially successful, resulting in what would be a mere minor cut with such a normally more effective blade.
It attacked Almë, but he used his staff to parry the grasping hand. While it kept the fingers from gouging out his eyes, it didn’t keep the creature from grabbing his staff. Ineffectually tugging on his staff trying to free it, Almë realized that this thing was much, much stronger than he was.
“Oh, fuck,” Eykit said. He spied the staircase, looming over the creature. He ran to it, taking the stairs two at a time, thinking he could do a “death from above” move if Maggie failed to land again.
Elitheris hadn’t been idle. She drew back the nocked arrow and loosed, the meter long shaft of hard poplar thunking into its head, toppling it. It collapsed to the ground, its limbs outspread.
Interestingly, it was only mostly dead, not all dead. While its body wasn’t moving, the flesh on it was, ropy bits of it sliding over each other like seeking worms.
“Ugh,” Almë said, as he raised his staff over his head for a coup de grace to the thing’s skull. The thing’s head cracked with a sickening, squelching, crunching noise, breaking like old pottery.
“What is that thing?” Taid asked. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” He squinted at it, as if looking at it with more intensity would make it give up its secrets.
“I have no idea,” Almë said. “I’ve never heard of such a thing before either.”
Eykit said, “Anyone else creeped out by how its flesh still moves? It’s all squirmy. Makes my skin crawl.” Now that’s an unfortunate idiom, he thought, a shiver passing down his spine.
They pulled the coat off of it. The body was odd. The flesh seemed flayed, but none of them thought that was actually the case, not after they saw the muscles move about on their own. And the position of those muscles was definitely not natural. Elitheris pointed out the bulky, built up joints, and the unnatural attachment points between the muscles and the bones. The lack of internal organs. Upon closer inspection, the organs were likely still there, just changed into tissues more useful to the creature. It didn’t need organs. They were dead weight. Using the flesh to move more quickly, or with more strength, was far more useful, and judging from the rather…organic…textures of what was now being used as muscle, it had been…repurposed. It was less like a zombie, and more like a skeleton with the musculature and flesh rearranged upon it, focusing on the joints and points of leverage.
Eykit thought of the cat-thing.
Mr. Wiggles took one sniff, and didn’t want anything else to do with it. He moved to the far side of the room.
“Well,” Elitheris said, “that explains the odd proportions, and the increased strength. Not having to worry about the processes needed for life, it was able to get much better leverage on those limbs. Also explains why it moved the way it did. Not badly, just…unnaturally.” The tissues still moved unnaturally, if slowly, giving Elitheris the impression of a sped up slime mold growing on the forest floor.
Eykit noticed something on its back, between the upper parts of the shoulder blades. “What’s that?” He crouched. “Turn it over,” he said.
The other three looked at each other. No one wanted to touch it, and each hoped the others would volunteer first. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Taid stepped up. “Fine,” he muttered, and, with a grimace, grabbed the wet, quivering flesh of the shoulder and heaved it onto its stomach. He could feel the moving, rootlike tendrils under his hand.
Embedded in its back was a Shard, about the size of someone’s pinky finger. Buried in the flesh, with flesh grown around it. It was almost completely covered and grown over by the ropy tendrils of the creature’s tissues.
Eykit’s eyes gleamed, his inherent greed coming to the fore. He knelt, and began cutting around it with his knife until he could grab it. There was resistance, but he persevered, pulling it slowly out of its fleshy socket. And then he saw why it was so difficult to pull it out: there were tendrils of pale flesh, like connective tissue, attached to the bottom of it, holding it in its tissue cradle. He sawed at them with his knife, and they reluctantly parted. When they did, the portions attached to the crystal fell off, twitched a bit, then lay still. The stringy tendrils had seemed to encompass the spinal cord, so it seemed that in some way, the Shard was controlling the creature.
Eykit held up the chunk of crystal, and was about to put it with the others out of reflex when he came to his senses. He really didn’t want anyone else to hold onto it, but he knew that he didn’t want to have to deal with any Shard interactions right now. It wasn’t the time. They could test it later. They had twenty four chances of an interaction…it could be glorious! But he held it out to Taid, who took it. Eykit eyed the Shard wistfully as Taid tucked it away.
Once the Shard was removed, the thing seemed to finally die for real, and the tissues didn’t squirm like hungry worms or questing roots.
It had come out of the cellar, and, indeed, the cellar door stood open.
“I knew we should have looked more carefully down there,” Eykit remarked. “I bet that there is a hidden door or something down there.”
“I am not taking that bet,” Taid said.
“Nor I,” Almë added.
Then crept down the staircase, into the root cellar. They checked the shelves, but none of them seemed to be articulated in a way that would imply a door. They pulled the wine rack away from the wall, but there were apparently no secrets there, either.
Under the stairs, however, they found a seam in the mortar, a tiny crack where the mortar didn’t quite touch the flagstones that made up the walls and floor. That tiny crack went around an area about a meter and half high by one meter wide, following the edges of the stones. They tried pushing on it, pulling on it, and tried to find a hidden button on the wall. No stone depressed, or tilted, or acted like a button or latch in any way.
Eykit, on a whim, checked the stairway itself, and found a splintered section on the inside stringer of the stairs. Mentally shrugging, he pulled on it, and it moved a little. His keen Goblin ears heard a soft click. Glancing at the area they thought was a door, he could see it at a slightly different angle than the rest of the wall. He grinned. “Found it!”
Earlier that day, they had just received a windfall, almost two month’s wages for each of them, but they felt that it still wasn’t enough. After all, they had expenses, and, at least for Taid’s part, he wanted to commission a really fine halberd. They decided to check on the Rural Watch’s bounty board.
They had been there before, a couple of eightdays ago, and had even taken care of a hydra nest. Maybe it was time to see if there were any quick jobs there that didn’t involve conspiracies, cults, or cannibals. They headed southward, out of the Merchant’s Heath district where the Port Karn Agricultural Commission was located, and down through the gate of the old wall that enclosed the central, older part of the city. They continued southward, through the district of New Square, and into the primarily residential Southtown district, where the Rural Watch office was located.
Southtown was a low income area, housing many of the farm hands that worked the fields in the areas adjacent to the city. The houses were built of wood, some without even stone foundations. Many looked as if they wouldn’t survive a stiff breeze, but somehow they did. It wasn’t quite a shantytown, but it was close. Either the residents were too poor to build more permanent, long lasting structures, or they didn’t care.
But the four people with the dog didn’t care about any of that. Eykit’s subconscious had filed away this information long ago, and the other three never really registered it at all. And to Mr. Wiggles, there was only “pack” and “not pack”, and to him, species didn’t really enter into it.
The Rural Watch office was located in a small building at the southern end of Southtown. Unlike most of the buildings in the area, it was one of the few that had a proper stone foundation and a tile roof instead of planks. From its windows, the fields stretching out for miles southward were visible, or at least they would have been but for the hedgerows built up between the fields.
The four of them entered the offices. The front room was separated into two parts with a countertop between them. The front half held some seats and the bounty board. The other half had a pair of desks, along with a weapon rack with some polearms in it. Two Rural Watch officers sat at the desks, a male Human and a female Orc, who both looked up when the group walked through the door.
Taid responded, “We are actually here to look at the bounty board. We’re thinking we might take some of them off your hands.”
The officer nodded. “Be my guest. If you need anything, or have any questions, feel free to ask.” She went back to sharpening her dagger on a whetstone, the soft, musical grinding noise making Taid think he should probably sharpen Maggie.
There were several bounties listed on the board: a farmer had a complaint about giant centipedes down by Avondale; there had been manticore sightings south of Meke Larnis; a farmer had been losing livestock to some predator in Avondale; In Donnington, there was a minor dispute between two farmhands and a girl, which has caused a series of fistfights. There was also a flyer tacked to the spot next to the bounty list. It was a plea for help. In Rhades, there was something causing babies to turn blue and die. The locals called it the “Breathstealer”.
They decide to head to Avondale in the morning, to take care of the centipedes and the predator. But there was something that drew them to the Breathstealer. They would have to think about that one; maybe they might head off in that direction. Besides, it was babies. Something was killing someone’s kids. They headed back to the Inn On Drefeg’s Street. It was supper time, and they were hungry. They stopped off at the Pig’s In His Cups tavern for a meal before going to bed.
The Inn on Drefeg’s Street had four rooms on the first floor, along with a common area that had comfortable chairs to lounge in, and five rooms on the second floor. Elitheris shared a room that evening with two other women. They slept in the other bed; Elitheris got her bed to herself. On a hot night, it was a luxury not having a second body in the bed. She did have Mr. Wiggles, however, but he didn’t take up that much room. She felt sorry for Taid, Eykit, and Almë, who were sharing one of the beds in the adjacent room. The other bed in their room held a pair of merchants. One sold fabrics, mainly linen and treesilk, but occasionally had silk or cotton fabrics as well. The other sold spinning wheels and looms. Apparently they were both part of the same caravan.
She fell asleep quickly, despite the snoring coming from one or both of the women in the other bed. At some point in the night, she awoke. It was dark, and dawn was still hours away. She heard someone walking down the hallway, likely to the jakes at the end of the hall. Probably some drunk, based upon the fact that he kept bumping into the walls. Mr. Wiggles’ ears perked up, and he cracked an eye open and looked at Elitheris, trying to determine if it was something he should rouse himself about. He closed his eyes again when Elitheris didn’t get up out of bed.
In the next room over, Eykit also awoke. With difficulty, he managed to pry his eyes open, and he saw what appeared to be a dark shape crouched over their packs, which they had stashed in the corner. A quick glance at the other bed showed him that both merchants were asleep, one snoring softly, the other breathing long, slow breaths in slumber. There was an odd smell in the room, and he was having trouble keeping his eyes open. He slapped Almë, but the Elf slept on, ignoring the blow.
Eykit levered himself up from between Taid and Almë. Both were sound asleep, and the Goblin thief climbed over Almë quietly in order to find out what was going on. He didn’t make it, losing consciousness as he clambered over his friend, toppling to the floor in a heap of splayed limbs with a loud thump.
The thump coming from the adjacent room prevented Elitheris from going back to sleep. She knew her friends, she’d even slept in the same area with them, and new that none of them were prone to clumsiness. That, plus the noises that had, shortly before, alerted her that maybe what her subconscious was picking up on was real. She wore a light linen shirt and pants; living out in the wilderness had disabused her of any thought on wearing a shift to bed, and she tended not to sleep nude in a shared room. She got out of bed, moving quietly to the door, and pressed her pointed ear up against it.
From the hallway outside, about where she figured her friends’ door was, she could hear the rhythmic creaking of the floorboards. It didn’t sound like someone moving; it was more like someone shifting their weight back and forth. The two women in the other bed slept on, untroubled by whatever it was that had alerted the Elf. Mr. Wiggles was awake, but in no hurry to get out of bed, and at the moment hadn’t discerned anything to get out of bed for.
Her hand tightened around her dagger, which she hadn’t actually realized she had grabbed. Long years of living out in the wilderness had trained her reflexes, and muscle memory had grasped the knife without her conscious thought. Well, she thought, that’s convenient.
“Hey, you!” She said to the figure. “What are you doing there?”
The dark figure turned its head and looked at her. He didn’t respond, but the movement had changed its silhouette such that she could determine its apparent gender.
“I said, what are you doing?” Her voice was slightly raised in annoyance. She stepped closer, and although it was dark, she could see that what she saw wasn’t a man. Or, at least, not any longer. It looked emaciated, rotting, and much of its tissues were exposed, as if he had been flayed. As Elitheris approached, it raised its arms, crouching a little in a fighter’s stance.
Whatever he was, it didn’t look like it was going to let her near her friends’ room, or even push past it to the stairway, which was about five meters behind it, at the end of the hall. Pushing it down the stairs was out. She charged, tackling it, trying to knock it off its feet.
Despite looking emaciated, it was very strong, and her Elven body lacked enough mass to cause it to do more than take a couple of steps back. Its arms enveloped her, and she could feel the strength in those misshapen limbs. Panicked, she quickly ducked out of its grasp, before it could get a good hold of her. If it grabbed her, she had the feeling that she would never get loose. She dropped and somersaulted backwards, opening up some distance between the two of them. It’s reaction speed didn’t seem terribly fast, or at least it seemed a little uncoordinated.
It came for her, and she struck it with her rondel dagger, slicing into the base of its neck, the blade sliding through the layers of muscle and cutting apart the oversized deltoid muscle. In the darkness, she didn’t see the dark, semi-clotted ichor that seemed to be its blood. Her brain was getting messages from her subconscious about this thing, mainly that the musculature was unnatural. Overly bulgy in places, and nearly absent in others. But she didn’t have time to think about that. She had a decent idea of how people and animals were put together, and this thing didn’t quite match what she would have expected.
Its left arm was crippled, and while it could still move it to some degree, that arm was more or less out of the fight. And now that she could see it moving, she could tell that it didn’t move quite right, either. It was like it didn’t quite know how to move its limbs, or perhaps like it was some kind of puppet.
The hallway was not narrow, but the thing, for she didn’t think it was truly a man, could make it tricky to get past it. And she needed to get it closer to the stairs. Taking a deep breath, she leapt, tucking into a roll as she passed it on its left, coming up behind it. A few more steps, and she was at the top of the stairs. They led down into the common room, empty now and dark, being the Hour of Final Dancing, by Elven reckoning. The more ephemeral races would call it sometime between just after midnight and some hours yet before dawn.
The creature—whatever it was—moved towards her, its movements janky yet swift nonetheless. The thought that it might be just learning to walk struck her suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere. She waited until it was almost upon her, then leapt past it again, jumping towards the wall at its back, then kicked out with both legs, striking it in the lower back. It tumbled down he stairs in a clatter of flailing limbs.
Hopefully that hurt it some, she thought. At the very least, she gained several precious seconds to see what was happening with her friends. Surely they must have heard the scuffle in the hall, but no one had come out of the room.
Like her, her friends, especially Eykit, locked their door. The locks weren’t very good, being more for courtesy rather than for security. She shouldered into it, her hand on the door latch, and was surprised when the latch turned, the unlocked door giving way easily. She stumbled inside as the door swung into the room, but her Elven sense of balance allowed her to keep her feet.
In that instant, several things impinged upon her awareness. Taid and Almë were still in bed, presumably asleep, as were the two other men in the other bed. Eykit was lying on the floor in a heap, between the bed and the wall. She recalled the thumping noise; now she knew what had made it. The window was open, letting in a nice sea breeze in the hot subtropical night. But she knew that Eykit wouldn’t let anyone keep the window open at night, knowing that people like him loved such opportunities. And, lastly, to her right, in the corner of the room where her friends set their packs, was a crouching figure in dark clothing, looking through the packs.
She aimed a kick at the intruder’s head.
When the door opened, the thief saw that someone was interrupting his search, and that he was being attacked. He jumped back, getting to his feet, and backpedaled towards the open window, keeping his eyes on his assailant. He also saw the long dagger the Elven woman held. The blade glinted in the darkness, which caused him some worry, as there was little light to be glinting off of anything.
There was something in the air, Elitheris could smell it. Sharp, acrid, and all of a sudden she could barely keep her eyes open. She stepped back, remembering that the air right by the door seemed okay and hadn’t caused this reaction. Two steps were enough to get her out of the area of…whatever it was. But it meant that the man, whom she recognized as the guy who had tried to buy their Shards from them at Bardem’s Crystal Palace, was going to get away. He dropped out the window.
Elitheris could hear the creature coming up the stairs. She didn’t have much time. Holding her breath, she grabbed Eykit and moved him to what she thought of as the “safe area”. Almë was next; again holding her breath, she threw the covers off of Almë and Taid, and throwing him over her shoulder she hurried to get him into the safe area. The creature was at the top of the stairs, coming down the hallway. She grabbed Taid’s feet, dragging him out of bed, his head bouncing on the floorboards. She winced in sympathy, but she didn’t have time for finesse. She apologized to him under her breath as she spun his body around. She managed to get his head out of the cloud of smoke, gas, or whatever magical effect it was.
Having come back up the stairs, the creature came into the room, its one good arm outstretched towards Elitheris, the other twitching ineffectually at its side. It moved past her three friends, its focus solely on her.
“Á muk!” she swore, and, taking a few steps, jumped out the window feet first, rotating her body to enable her to catch the window sill and hang from the narrow ledge it provided. Maybe it won’t see me, she thought. She looked over her shoulder, and she could see the man, standing on the opposite side of the alley way, still holding a hand up to his face, although the flow of blood was much diminished. But that was all she had time to see, as the creature loomed over her, its good arm reaching for her. She dropped to the cobbles below, rolling to absorb the shock of falling from the second story.
She scrambled away as she saw the creature coming out through the window, hiding behind some barrels that were stacked behind the Pig’s In His Cups tavern.
“Come, Lerial, time to go home,” the man said, before turning and running down the alley. Lerial dropped out of the window to the ground, following its master.
Elitheris discreetly followed them, she was better in the wilds when following prey, but she could do well enough in the cluttered streets of the city. They moved southward, towards the outskirts of town.
They moved around the night traffic, stepping aside and moving around it when a wagon or rider came up the road. Port Karn, a city where the majority of inhabitants were nocturnal, never truly slept. It was always busy, and, Elitheris realized, was less crowded during the day than the other cities she had visited. This was likely due to the nocturnal nature of the Orcs and Goblins. The downside was that even at night, when most cities had little traffic, Port Karn still had a significant amount. She was forced to dodge around the wagons and riders, just like her prey. As a result, she occasionally lost sight of the pair, and it after several moments of agitation, would pick them up again.
While the coat and hat disguised the creature’s nature from the passersby, its familiar, janky gait made it stand out to her. It didn’t take long for her to reacquire her targets, even in the dim light of the scarce street lamps. It was times like this that she really missed the phosphorescent flowers that graced Elven villages and not only made them beautiful to look at, but provided enough light to navigate easily by. Here, in Southtown, the oil lamps were few and far between, when they were even lit at all. Lamplighters, apparently, were also few and far between here in what was likely the poorest section of town.
It was a new moon, so the night was lit only by the stars and what little sky glow came from the city’s oil lamps. But Elitheris was a good tracker, and dirt, grass, trees, and fields were more her area of expertise. It wasn’t terribly difficult to follow them; her woodcraft let her stay hidden such that the pair didn’t realize they were being followed. Or, if they knew, they didn’t show it.
They wended their way through a series of fields, mostly staying along the hedgerows. They were headed towards a low hill, crowned with native jungle plants, acting like an island of wilderness surrounded by the more “civilized” fields. Nestled within that little piece of jungle was a manor house, surrounded by a low stone wall. On the wall, barely visible in the darkness, was a sign that read “Vesten Manor”.
Elitheris didn’t actually see them enter the grounds, but all of the signs led to that conclusion. She turned and started back to get her companions. Besides, she realized belatedly, I am woefully unequipped for taking these guys on my own. I don’t have my bow, or even my clothes and armor. I’m in my sleepwear!
Meanwhile, Eykit woke up, his eyes full of grit. He rubbed his eyes, clearing out the eye boogers and allowing him to see properly. He was propped up haphazardly on the packs in the corner of the room, by the doorway, which was open. The last thing he remembered was climbing over Almë to get out of bed, because he thought there was someone in the room that shouldn’t have been there. Whoever it was, they were gone now. Almë lay asleep on the other side of the door, his shoulders and head propped up by the wall. Taid lay on the floor, his head by Eykit’s legs, his body between the bed and the wall. And the window was open. The covers of the bed had been thrown aside.
What. The. Fuck. He thought. How did I get here? And why are we out of bed? He shook his head, both to clear it and express his confusion.
He stood up on shaking legs, still trying to fight off the lingering drowsiness. His eyes still felt gummy, and he rubbed them again, trying to get the stubborn crusty sleep out of them. Almë was starting to wake up, as was Taid. He walked over to the window, but stopped when he smelled an acrid, sharp smell that reminded him of ammonia and peppers. He experienced a wave of drowsiness all of a sudden. He stepped back, and his mind cleared. Okay, he thought, don’t go over there.
So, what did that guy, whoever it was, want? He checked his pack, rifling through his belongings. Nothing seemed stolen, not even the small amount of money he kept in his pack. He checked the pouch he kept around his neck, where he kept the Shards. They were still there, thank the gods, they hadn’t been taken. It surprised him, a bit, that he hadn’t been searched and the pouch stolen. Shards seemed to be in high demand. In any case, he still had them, and that put his mind at rest.
Almë and Taid were rubbing their eyes and looking around. Taid stood, and started towards the open window, but stopped and retreated when the smell of the smoke hit him, as well as a new wave of drowsiness. Looking around, he saw a small, smoking disk on the floor, about the size of his thumbnail. It was an alchemical pastille. He held his breath, grabbed it, and tossed it out the window. Then he walked into the hallway, looking around to see if anyone was still there. He hadn’t expected anyone, but he was trained to check anyway. He noticed blood, or something like blood, on the floor. It seemed congealed or clotted, as if it had been there a while. But he knew that couldn’t be right; he would have seen it before going to bed.
Then he noticed that Elitheris’ door was open. He strode to her room, checking in on her. She wasn’t there, but her pack, bow, arrows, and gambeson lay in the corner where she had put them. He grabbed them, and ran back to Eykit and Almë. “We have a problem! Elitheris is gone. Her stuff is still here!” he said. “She may have been kidnapped.”
The two ladies in the second bed awoke to a bunch of noise coming from the adjacent room. “Hey,” one said, “keep it down!” Then she rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.
Eykit noticed blood on the floor by the window, and some bloody handprints on the window sill. Whomever had gone through the window had been injured. The blood was still rather fresh, less than an hour old by his reckoning.
The two merchants in the other bed snored loudly, undisturbed by whatever had happened, and whatever Eykit, Taid, and Almë were doing. On a whim, Almë went over to them, holding his breath when he realized that gas was there, too. He nudged the closest sleeping man’s shoulder. The man slept, undisturbed. He tried again, but again, nothing happened. They were out. Very out.
Taid had seen some strange fluid in the hallway, and there was some in the room as well, although only a few drips. There was quite a bit of fresh blood by the window, however. Someone (Elitheris?) had been wounded there, and apparently went out or was taken out through the window.
They hurriedly got dressed, buckled on their armor, and set their weapons on their belts. Taid held onto Elitheris’ things, in case they found her. If she was just in the jakes, she was going to be pissed that her stuff was gone, but there wasn’t anything else they could do. Well, actually….
“Almë,” Taid said, “go check the privy. Make sure Elitheris isn’t in there.”
Almë nodded and hurried off down the hall. They kept to the area of room by the door, where they couldn’t smell that alchemical smoke. They didn’t want to fall back asleep again. When they did have to move into that area while they were gathering their gear, they held their breath.
The two men in the other bed never stopped snoring, although the trio wasn’t being all that quiet. That smoke, most likely from an alchemical mixture called Morpheus, kept them asleep. The trio and dog went downstairs, out the front door, then went around to the alleyway under their window. There was some blood on the cobbles, heading off at a diagonal to the far side of the narrow street, where it trailed off. There was a second trail, the ichor, which also went off at a diagonal to the other side of the street.
They followed the trail of ichor; it headed south, and it didn’t take long before they were no longer able to find the trail. There was too much foot traffic, even in the middle of the night. They found themselves at a loss. They were in Southtown, a collection of cheaply made residences, mostly for farmhands. They didn’t know where to go; the trail was gone.
“Hello, ma’am. Nice night, not too hot.”
The lady nodded, “It is at that. What do you want?” She was likely in her fifties, but looked much older. Farm life had been hard on her. One of her tusks was missing, perhaps lost in a farming mishap, although it was just as likely that it was from a brawl. Orcs tended to be passionate, and quick to anger.
“My companions and I are looking for some friends of ours. They came through here not too long ago. We were wondering if you had seen anything. They are a little odd, and they might have stood out.”
“Maybe, kid. How much is it worth to you?” The old woman squinted at the young Goblin.
“Look, lady, we don’t want any trouble, and we aren’t here doing any kind of shakedown. Our friends may be hurt, and we are just trying to find them. There was a lot of blood where they were last seen.” He turned on the sympathy and the charm, the not-quite-a-lie rolling easily off his silver tongue. “We really need your help.” He looked imploringly at her.
Eykit bowed in thanks. He met her eyes with a smile, saying, “And a good evening to you, ma’am.” He ran back to Almë, Taid, and Mr. Wiggles, and told them what he had found out. They followed the directions, not having anything more solid to go on. They started walking out into the fields.
From the other side of the field, Elitheris saw some figures walking across the barley stubble: a Dwarf, a Goblin, and an Elf, along with a very familiar dog. She saw them long before they saw her, a combination of Elven vision and her woodcraft. Almë likely saw her as well, but probably couldn’t recognize her in the dark. But Elitheris knew her friends and how they moved, even in a moonless night.
They were glad that she seemed unharmed, and that the blood hadn’t been hers. She quickly told them what they had slept through, and to where she had followed the pair. Taid handed her the bow, quiver, and pack that she hadn’t had time to grab before following the intruder. Who, she related, seemed to be the guy that wanted to buy their Shards at Bardem’s Crystal Palace. Apparently, he didn’t like taking “no” for an answer.
Dressing and buckling on her gambeson, she said, “I think we should go back to that manor house and see what’s going on.” The rest nodded, and, following Elitheris, they soon found themselves outside the manor house, after maybe two kilometers of walking. The sky was lightening with dawn; the sun would be up in an hour or so.
“I’m going to case the place,” Eykit said. “Wait here until I get back. I don’t want any more nasty surprises.” He moved off, staying low and using cover. He was out of sight in moments. Even Elitheris couldn’t see him as he made his way around the property.
He made a circuit around the house, noting the features of the walls (crumbling in places, with the mortar needing repointing, and vegetation overgrowing it), the grounds (more tilted and cracked pavers, unweeded garden beds, a fountain with stagnant water), and the house (peeling paint, broken plaster, some more cracked windows). His appraiser’s eye determined that the house was suffering from some deferred maintenance. It had seen better days.
He saw a cat, but only for a moment before it jumped down off of the wall and disappeared into the brush. He could hear it running away, and while he didn’t get a good look at it, something about it didn’t seem quite right. It was emaciated, its body was shaped more like a greyhound’s than a cat, and he would have sworn he saw some exposed ribs. But maybe that was just a trick of the dawn light, what little light there was in the shadow of the jungle behind the house. Maybe it was some jungle creature, and not a cat at all. Still, it had acted like a cat….
“How so?” Elitheris asked.
“I didn’t get a good look at it,” Eykit responded, shaking his head. “Just a glimpse, before it disappeared into the shrubbery. But there was something about it that didn’t seem right. Its body shape was off, maybe, or the way it moved. Like I said, I barely got a glimpse of it.”
“The zombie thing was kind of weird, too. It wasn’t shaped properly either. Moved oddly as well.”
“So we might have a zombie cat?” Taid asked.
“Maybe it catches all the zombie mice,” Almë added.
“Yeah, maybe,” Eykit replied. “In any case, I don’t know where it went, so keep an eye out for it.”
Taid asked, “How do we want to handle getting in? I’m for going in the front door.”
Eykit looked a bit shocked. “There are some French doors on the rear side and I can pick the locks. We can get in quietly.”
“I like the idea of going in the front,” Elitheris said.
“Okay,” Taid said. “Eykit, you and Almë go in through the back, Elitheris and I will go in the front.”
Eykit scowled, thinking it was lacking in finesse, but shrugged and grabbed Almë. “Let’s go.” They moved off, heading behind the house. Taid and Elitheris waited for them to get into position before walking up to the front door.
“Ready?” he asked his Elven companion.
“I suppose so,” she replied.
“Good.” Then he charged the door, slamming into it, the doorframe splintering at the latch.
Eykit crouched at the French door, his lock picks in his hands, when he heard a muffled crash. “Aw crap. Well,” he said to Almë, “they know we’re here.” He bent to his task of unlocking the door. “Amateurs,” he muttered.
Taid found himself in a foyer, two stories high, with a pair of sweeping staircases leading up to a landing for the second floor. Beneath the staircases, centered in the wall, was a pair of double doors. To either side of the foyer was a hallway.
They heard a noise, the sound of boots tapping on the flagstones that made up the flooring. They tried to find hiding spots, but the foyer was only sparsely furnished with only a couple of side tables. There was nowhere to hide.
Taid and Elitheris exchanged glances, shrugged, and followed the butler—or whatever it was—up the stairs to the second floor. Once up there, they noticed that it overlooked a large banquet hall, entered from the double doors under the stairways. They could see a pair of figures outside the French doors; one was crouched at the door, trying to pick the lock.
The butler, once at the top, turned left and walked towards where the hallway turned left. There was a side table set outside a door at the end, and he put the tray down upon it. Then he continued down the hall, turning the corner, and disappearing out of sight. Taid and Elitheris followed, looking around the corner. The butler stood at the end of the hall.
Eykit, meanwhile, had some trouble with the lock. He was actually rather displeased with himself, as he could tell it wasn’t a very complicated locking mechanism. He was just having a bad day, and in front of a witness. He swore softly in Mekiitagi. Through the windows, they could see a figure walking across the catwalk-like hallway that overlooked the banquet hall, followed by Taid, Elitheris, and the dog. Another couple of tries, and finally the lock disengaged.
The pair went into the banquet hall. By now, the figures on the overlooking hallway had disappeared, so Almë and Eykit went through the double doors, thinking there might be a way up there from there. They were right, and were in the foyer. They hurriedly went up the stairs to find their companions.
Taid and Elitheris started down the hallway, towards the butler. As they drew closer, it raised its arms like a brawler, but didn’t move towards them.
They came to a stop, and the butler’s arms dropped a little. “I don’t think it’s a threat, really,” Elitheris said. “I bet if we left it alone, it would leave us alone.”
“Possible,” Taid said. “Think it’s undead?”
Elitheris shrugged. “It doesn’t smell rotting. Smells like herbs and astringent, mostly lavender.”
Taid looked at her. “A mummy wearing cologne?” He grinned. The mummy in question just stood there, unmoving.
Elitheris noticed that it didn’t waver or shift it’s weight from foot to foot, like the “Lerial” thing did. The butler also moved like a normal person, not one being puppeted. “This one seems different than the one I tangled with back at the inn. That one seemed...off somehow. This one seems normal in comparison.”
They backed away from the bandaged butler. He didn’t come after them, bearing out Elitheris’ initial assessment. Of course, that could change in the future, or if attacked. It at least seemed willing to defend itself, if not to initiate an attack.
They came downstairs, and went through the doors to the banquet hall that Almë and Eykit had left open. As they were looking at the large banquet table and around the room, a door opened off to the side, and a maid walked in. She was wearing a maid’s dress, and carrying a broom, and was, like the butler, swathed in bandages. She saw the intruders, and raised her broom, as if she was going to defend the house.
The maid turned back into the room she had come from, closing the door behind her. Shortly after that, they could hear a bell ringing, sounding like a servant’s bell. It rang, paused, rang, paused, and rang a third time.
Eykit pointed out that throughout all of the places in the house that they had been, there seemed to be a distinct lack of furniture, artwork, and decorations. Manor houses were owned by the wealthy, and to keep their status and standing, they had to look the part, and that included expensive things. There weren’t a lot of them in the house. There were areas visible on the walls that used to have paintings or tapestries, but they were no longer there.
“I think whoever lives here has fallen on hard times,” he said. The others had gotten the same impression.
They followed the maid, finding that the room she had come out of was a trophy room, filled with examples of taxidermy. Heads on the walls, of predators and prey animals, posed animals on tables, or plinths. Most were mundane animals, but some were of the more exotic variety, such as the stun lizard head, the stuffed jungle hydra, or the dead potted whipweed. The most impressive specimen was of a terror bird, posed as if running. Many of its feathers were tattered, and one of the glass eyes had fallen out. The stuffed animals were ratty, and missing fur in places. Most looked fairly old, and neglected. Not in the sense of being dusty; the servants at least kept things fairly clean. They were just ignored, and treated like any other furniture. There were also several empty glass cases that appeared to have held smaller items, and an empty sword rest.
“We don’t want these things coming back as zombies, right?” When the negative responses came from the others, he laid about with his staff, destroying all of the full-body taxidermied animals. The terror bird took a little while, and he was panting when he was done.
The others just stood by, watching him go to town. Sawdust and old cotton batting lay strewn across the room, and the air was filled with dust that caught the light in the dawn sunbeams. Almë looked around at his work. “If any of these things gets raised from the dead, they should have trouble doing anything to us!”
Eykit glanced over the mess. “You missed one,” he said, pointing at a squirrel perched on a small table, poised chewing on a nut.
Almë swung, and the squirrel was launched across the room, where it bounced off the wall near the corner. The blow had split it open, and sawdust trailed its path like a comet’s tail. It lay on the floor in the corner, its head askew, its body rent, and its tail nowhere to be seen.
Eykit glanced at Almë. “Yeah, that should do it.” He grinned.
There was another door, likely the one the maid departed from, as she was no longer in the room. The door opened upon a hallway, the architectural design of which indicated that it was likely the servants’ side of the house. They saw her disappear around the corner at the far end of the hall, walking towards the foyer. Again, they follow after her, keeping their distance, but not letting her get too far ahead, either.
She kept going, past the foyer, down the other hall, which seemed to be the residents’ quarters, around the corner, and into a door at the end of the hallway.
Many of the rooms were empty, but some still had some remaining furniture in them. But it looked, to Eykit’s appraising eye, that just about anything of value had been sold off.
There was a pull-down ladder that led to the attic. They pulled it open, and Taid popped his head up there. It wasn’t large, the sloping roof beams making it difficult for people to walk upright in. There were a few pieces of furniture, mostly broken; a few paintings, most with scratches or torn canvas; and boxes of dusty junk accumulated over decades.
They went downstairs. It wasn’t much different from what they saw upstairs. Maybe a bit less dust. Perhaps the maid spent more time on the rooms downstairs, rather than all of the unused rooms upstairs. They checked the door under the stairs in the foyer. It was locked, and despite its rather cheap lock, Eykit had some trouble getting it open. It took him three tries before it snicked open. He shook his head in annoyance.
It led down into a root and wine cellar. The space, mortared with flagstones on the floor and walls, was maybe five meters on a side. One wall was taken up by the wooden stairway. Two were set with shelving, holding bins of vegetables, dry goods, and jars of pickled and canned foodstuffs. In the center of the room were some crates, some with various bags of foodstuffs, others with various other household goods. One crate held what appeared to be scraps of fabric.
Almë grabbed a jar of pickles off of the shelf, cracked it open, and started in on breakfast. The wall opposite the stairs was a full length wine rack, with only four bottles of wine sitting in it, all dusty. Taid pulled one of the bottles of wine, brushed the dust off the label, pulled out the cork, and took a sip.
He spit it out. The wine was bad; the cork had failed, and the result was a nasty taste in his mouth. Almë offered him a pickle. Taid grunted his thanks as he chewed. At least the pickle tasted good, and the brined vegetable drove the sour taste of the spoiled wine away.
The servants’ quarters were noticeably plainer in decorative features, and the rooms, while occupied, seemed unused except for the beds. And even those look like they were made, and then laid upon, rather than under the covers. The wear patterns on the throw rugs also only had a single traffic path: from the door to the bed and back. Whomever slept there also didn’t move much when they slept. The living room had only a few pieces of furniture in it, although there were places on the floor that indicated that it used to have quite a bit of furniture in it at some time in the past. But whatever it was, it was gone, stolen or sold or stored away.
Eykit shook his head. This place, in its heyday, was likely topped up with rich tapestries, gold and silver knickknacks, sculptures made by masters of their craft, and paintings by desirable, popular artists. Yet now, all of that was gone, and the building wasn’t in that great of shape, either. Whomever owned this place has come upon hard times indeed. He thought it was a shame, really. A place like this one could be really great. Besides, he was itching to snitch something, but nothing here was worth the effort. He was very disappointed.
Near the end of their explorations, they came to the door at the end of the hall, where they had seen the maid enter. Opening that door, they saw the kitchen. At one end was a wood stove, and oven. Around the edges of the room were cabinets, and in the center was an island with a ceramic tile countertop. Three figures, all wrapped in bandages that smelled like antiseptic and herbs, stood in the room. One, wearing a chef’s hat and white apron, stood at the stove, cooking eggs and bacon. The butler stood nearby, holding a tray. The maid stood on the far side of the kitchen island.
The three figures turned to look at who had just opened the door, but the cook soon went back to tending his food, and the other two remained in place, staring at the people in the doorway. Almë put the opened jar of pickles onto the kitchen island countertop.
The pickles had activated his appetite, and the smell of the eggs and bacon—likely mostly the bacon—was almost unbearable. He wanted that food, so he strode over to the cook. Except the butler was in the way, and wouldn’t let him pass. Almë looked at the butler’s bandaged face. He couldn’t see the eyes; they, like everything else, was covered in the bandages. He pushed, or more accurately, tried to push, the butler out of the way, trying to get past. Again, the butler resisted, and the cook turned around, holding a kitchen knife, ready to defend the breakfast from Almë’s advances.
“Almë, cut it out. Leave it,” Eykit said. Elitheris grabbed his arm, yanking him back and away from the butler and the knife-wielding cook.
“We don’t need to borrow trouble,” Elitheris stated quietly.
Taid said, “We should let the butler deliver the food, and follow him to be there when whoever it’s for decides to grab it.”
Nodding acquiescence, Almë moved out of the room. Sure enough, the cook plated the two eggs, sunny side up, and the two strips of bacon, placing it on the tray held by the butler. Then the butler moved through the door into the banquet room.
The group followed. The butler then went through the double doors to the foyer, and placed the tray on a side table. He then left through the hallway back towards the kitchen.
Walking over to the tray, Almë ate both strips of bacon. Mr. Wiggles whined; he had been hoping for a bite. At that moment, the cellar door opened, and a creature came out. It was human shaped, wearing a long coat. It couldn’t have been alive; its flesh looked flayed, and it’s face looked emaciated, with the exception of the bulging jaw muscles. Its eyes were glowing in the dim light of the predawn. Its fingers were crooked into claws, the knuckles bulky with muscle tissue, looking almost like balls and sticks.
“That’s the thing I fought in the hallway!” Elitheris said.
It didn’t seem happy that there were intruders, and attacked.
Taid thrust his halberd, shoving the top spike into the thing’s skull, pushing its head to the side. It didn’t seem to stop it, although it did reel back a bit.
Eykit attacked it, stabbing his rondel into its vitals, but it must have dodged, or it didn’t have any vital organs at all. While Eykit managed to punch a hole into it, it didn’t seem to faze the creature very much. Much like Taid’s spike to the head, it didn’t seem much affected by it. There weren’t a lot of vitals where there should have been some. Its emaciated midsection looked as if most of the guts had been removed or had rotted away faster than the rest of it. The thing definitely didn’t look quite right. It looked like it wasn’t a person, per se, but might have been constructed with parts of one. Maybe with some other things as well.
Taid yelled, “Eykit, get out of the way!” as he pulled Maggie, his halberd, into a ready position. If punching holes into it didn’t do much, maybe a blade on the end of a long lever arm swung with great force could hamper it.
Eykit knew what that meant, and he was not staying nearby to prove it out, so he moved hurriedly behind Almë toward the banquet hall.
He watched with morbid fascination as Taid swung his halberd into its leg, and it pushed the creature off-balance but didn’t seem to disable it or cut it with any real effect. Its attempt to dodge out of the way was only partially successful, resulting in what would be a mere minor cut with such a normally more effective blade.
It attacked Almë, but he used his staff to parry the grasping hand. While it kept the fingers from gouging out his eyes, it didn’t keep the creature from grabbing his staff. Ineffectually tugging on his staff trying to free it, Almë realized that this thing was much, much stronger than he was.
“Oh, fuck,” Eykit said. He spied the staircase, looming over the creature. He ran to it, taking the stairs two at a time, thinking he could do a “death from above” move if Maggie failed to land again.
Elitheris hadn’t been idle. She drew back the nocked arrow and loosed, the meter long shaft of hard poplar thunking into its head, toppling it. It collapsed to the ground, its limbs outspread.
Interestingly, it was only mostly dead, not all dead. While its body wasn’t moving, the flesh on it was, ropy bits of it sliding over each other like seeking worms.
“What is that thing?” Taid asked. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” He squinted at it, as if looking at it with more intensity would make it give up its secrets.
“I have no idea,” Almë said. “I’ve never heard of such a thing before either.”
Eykit said, “Anyone else creeped out by how its flesh still moves? It’s all squirmy. Makes my skin crawl.” Now that’s an unfortunate idiom, he thought, a shiver passing down his spine.
They pulled the coat off of it. The body was odd. The flesh seemed flayed, but none of them thought that was actually the case, not after they saw the muscles move about on their own. And the position of those muscles was definitely not natural. Elitheris pointed out the bulky, built up joints, and the unnatural attachment points between the muscles and the bones. The lack of internal organs. Upon closer inspection, the organs were likely still there, just changed into tissues more useful to the creature. It didn’t need organs. They were dead weight. Using the flesh to move more quickly, or with more strength, was far more useful, and judging from the rather…organic…textures of what was now being used as muscle, it had been…repurposed. It was less like a zombie, and more like a skeleton with the musculature and flesh rearranged upon it, focusing on the joints and points of leverage.
Eykit thought of the cat-thing.
Mr. Wiggles took one sniff, and didn’t want anything else to do with it. He moved to the far side of the room.
“Well,” Elitheris said, “that explains the odd proportions, and the increased strength. Not having to worry about the processes needed for life, it was able to get much better leverage on those limbs. Also explains why it moved the way it did. Not badly, just…unnaturally.” The tissues still moved unnaturally, if slowly, giving Elitheris the impression of a sped up slime mold growing on the forest floor.
Eykit noticed something on its back, between the upper parts of the shoulder blades. “What’s that?” He crouched. “Turn it over,” he said.
The other three looked at each other. No one wanted to touch it, and each hoped the others would volunteer first. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Taid stepped up. “Fine,” he muttered, and, with a grimace, grabbed the wet, quivering flesh of the shoulder and heaved it onto its stomach. He could feel the moving, rootlike tendrils under his hand.
Embedded in its back was a Shard, about the size of someone’s pinky finger. Buried in the flesh, with flesh grown around it. It was almost completely covered and grown over by the ropy tendrils of the creature’s tissues.
Eykit’s eyes gleamed, his inherent greed coming to the fore. He knelt, and began cutting around it with his knife until he could grab it. There was resistance, but he persevered, pulling it slowly out of its fleshy socket. And then he saw why it was so difficult to pull it out: there were tendrils of pale flesh, like connective tissue, attached to the bottom of it, holding it in its tissue cradle. He sawed at them with his knife, and they reluctantly parted. When they did, the portions attached to the crystal fell off, twitched a bit, then lay still. The stringy tendrils had seemed to encompass the spinal cord, so it seemed that in some way, the Shard was controlling the creature.
Eykit held up the chunk of crystal, and was about to put it with the others out of reflex when he came to his senses. He really didn’t want anyone else to hold onto it, but he knew that he didn’t want to have to deal with any Shard interactions right now. It wasn’t the time. They could test it later. They had twenty four chances of an interaction…it could be glorious! But he held it out to Taid, who took it. Eykit eyed the Shard wistfully as Taid tucked it away.
Once the Shard was removed, the thing seemed to finally die for real, and the tissues didn’t squirm like hungry worms or questing roots.
It had come out of the cellar, and, indeed, the cellar door stood open.
“I knew we should have looked more carefully down there,” Eykit remarked. “I bet that there is a hidden door or something down there.”
“I am not taking that bet,” Taid said.
“Nor I,” Almë added.
Then crept down the staircase, into the root cellar. They checked the shelves, but none of them seemed to be articulated in a way that would imply a door. They pulled the wine rack away from the wall, but there were apparently no secrets there, either.
Under the stairs, however, they found a seam in the mortar, a tiny crack where the mortar didn’t quite touch the flagstones that made up the walls and floor. That tiny crack went around an area about a meter and half high by one meter wide, following the edges of the stones. They tried pushing on it, pulling on it, and tried to find a hidden button on the wall. No stone depressed, or tilted, or acted like a button or latch in any way.
Eykit, on a whim, checked the stairway itself, and found a splintered section on the inside stringer of the stairs. Mentally shrugging, he pulled on it, and it moved a little. His keen Goblin ears heard a soft click. Glancing at the area they thought was a door, he could see it at a slightly different angle than the rest of the wall. He grinned. “Found it!”
Rewards Granted
None.
Character(s) interacted with
Bandaged Butler
Bandaged Maid
Bandaged Cook
A thief using Vesten Manor
An undead thing. Most likely undead? In any case, animated flesh.
Bandaged Maid
Bandaged Cook
A thief using Vesten Manor
An undead thing. Most likely undead? In any case, animated flesh.
Report Date
18 Dec 2022
Primary Location
Secondary Location
Related Characters
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