Secrets of Dourstone Hall, Part I

General Summary

Flamerule 13th - Year of Rogue Dragons

Having snuck back up the main corridor, the party entered the Thane's hall. They attempted to pass themselves off as cultists, but Crale Dourstone immediately recognized them as intruders. After a brief, but vicious fight with Crale, his battlerager bodyguards and some clan guards, the party was victorious. Heading down the stairs to the open door, they found a prison with three cells and a large cage. Two clanless dwarves shared one of the cells, while a human merchant was locked in another. The merchant said that it was only a few days ago when the inhabitant of the last cell was taken through a door on the west wall. His screams still haunted the prisoners. Heading through that door, they found a summoning circle imprisoning a huge creature which looked like a black blot surrounded by equally black tentacles, reminding them of the dark between the stars. The longer they stared at the thing the more they understood. It was from the Void and it was called a voidling. As they were leaving, they saw a female dwarf enter from a side door and approach the creature with a look of awe and fascination. Moving back to the Thane's chamber, the party finally decides that they need to secure the room with the voidling so no one can free it. However, when the entered the chamber, the dwarven woman ran out of the side door and even though she was knocked to the ground by Reed, got up and charged through the summoning circle, freeing the voidling. The voidling thanked her by wrapping four of its tentacles around her body and ripping her apart, bashing the remains against the chamber's walls. The battle was joined, with the creature changing the very gravity of the room. Pagu was filled with righteous might confronted by this things from the Void and landed two perfect strikes while Reed blasted the things with his holy energies. In a short but climactic battle, the thing was returned to the Void from which it came. Exploring more of the complex, the found the Thane's chambers and study. The chambers were destroyed, the bed being the only thing upright and writing covered every square inch of the four walls. Most were ramblings and insanity-laced scribblings, but after searching for a time, Halorin began finding clues among the scribblings. Things like:

"What came first? Isn't that a funny question. Did the derro come first and bring the King in Yellow, or did the King in Yellow come first and bring the derro?"

"The babe in the cage. It sometimes feels like I am in the cage instead of it? It looks like a child not yet born."

Note: There are many scribblings about derro, many of which indicate that a small group of derro is somewhere in Dourstone Hall.

"The thing speaks of the Void with longing. How much time can we keep it caged?"

"Merdissa spends too much time gazing on the thing from the Void. My wife, I worry of your loyalties."

"Ragnolin found a buyer for the heads, an insane human wizard living in Hagegraf."

"The derro will transport the heads for us, we just need to get them under the mines."

"How did the Citadel know to contact us? Yes of course we can make the heads disappear, for the right price."

"Enoch is crazy, Ragnolin says he speaks of himself as if he were two people. Crazy necromancer want's heads - we'll give him heads."

While Halorin was busy in the Thane's quarters, Tai spent his time studying the journals and ledgers in the office. Far from crazy, there was an entire journal detailing the "special shipments" received in Ironspur, shipped to the Dourstone Mines in Virdin, where they seemed to be taken by a local tribe of derro to the duergar city of Hagegraf. There they are delivered to a wizard named Enoch. After some time exploring and researching, that party gathers together in the Thane's Hall to plan their next move.