Foxglove's Secrets

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Episode no.	Episode 34
Date	2009
Game Master	Abbe
Characters	Nathaniel Nell Velicia
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We continued up the stairs to the arcane laboratory. It was filled with soggy books about necromancy. Velicia said that they were in a bad state and would probably not survive being transported out of there. The paintings on the windows pictured someone we could recognize as Vorel turning into dust and getting sucked into a seven sided box. He looked up and raised his arms in triumph. Also there were a lot of broken glass containers and three cages with dead rats in them. Nathaniel noted an inscription on the cages. "Pugs contraptions Magnimar". There also was a picture of a small pig holding a key next to the keyhole. I know of it. It is a shop own by Pug. He was kind of an opponent to us street kids. At least back then he made cages, locks and traps. We cleaned one up and brought it.

We moved on to the kitchen. There were still many rats alive but now most of them was eating other rats. We sneaked past them and checked the rooms behind two doors that were in this very repelling kitchen. One was a store room with nothing useful in it, but the other turned out to be a wine cellar where we found some wine bottles still intact. A total of eight of them. They were from the Great Kingdoms and would probably catch a good price if sold. Next to the stair there was a room that had been a bedroom and was in quite a good shape, but the furniture had been turned over and looked to have been used to escape rats. Returning out into the kitchen Nathaniel looked around with a puzzled look on his face until he stopped across from the door to the laboratory and cellar. There he took out the pick and suddenly attacked the wall. Hacking away at it he revealed a secret room with no entrance. It only contained some garbage from when the house was originally built.

Returning up the stairs and into the entrance room I felt a little better. No more awful stench of rotten flesh and no more diseased rats. There were just the manticore, the animal trophies on the wall and the strange monkey head. A rope hung down from it's mouth. We pulled the rope and the monkey screamed. Nathaniel pulled it again and again and it screamed every time. After all the awful things we seen in the house so far we thought it was quite funny and had several ideas on what to do with it. We then took a closer look at the manticore. I thought it started smoking. I took a few steps over to get the drapes from the window to smother the flames but it didn't catch fire, Velicia did. Nathaniel ran over to her, but the fire seamed to have just been one of those strange things that happen in this house.

We went straight through the entrance hall into a dining room. It had a large table and several painted windows. The windows depicted an ent, a roc, a sfinx and a kraken. The creatures were dran into a seven sided box. We recognized the box from the picture on the windows in the laboratory.

We continued to a room that was a library. There were two armchairs in front of the fireplace. Between them there were a book on floor and a book end of angel with butterfly wings with dark smudge on. A scarf in red and gold was draped over the back of one of the chairs. I picked up the scarf and noticed it moved. A little frightened I gave it to Nathaniel who got strangled by it. I tried to help him get it off but before anything really happened it stopped. We looked around and found all the books to be ordinary books.

On the other side of the dining room there were a lounge with a sofa facing a fireplace. It had birds carved into it. We noticed dust that was moving as if someone walked through the room. I even saw footprints appearing. We agreed that it was Lorelei who wondered the room.

There were a corridor with two doors along the right wall. The first room was the bathroom we had seen from above when the tub fell through the floor.

The last door to the right in the corridor led to a dance room where a crystal chandelier lies smashed in the middle of the room and a grand piano stood in a corner. I went up to it and pushed the keys. It started playing. I shouted out and retreated out into the hallway, but Aldern appeared and pulled me back into the room. He looked as when we met him in Sandpoint. He took hold of me and started dancing. While we were dancing his tung grew out of his mouth, his hair fell off and his skin turned greenish gray. He turned into a ghoul in my arms. I broke out of his grip and ran out through double doors opened by Velicia who had avoided the dancing. Nathaniel on the other hand was still dancing around in the room with some invisible partner. He later told us that it had been Iesha who was strangled while dancing. When he also broke the trance I looked around and could vaguely see ravens further out in the fog. When we came there had been a few. Now there were more than thirty all watching me. I quickly retreated into the dance room and closed the door behind me.

We left the dance room and went upstairs. We used the other stairs behind a door. We guessed they were for the servants. I could hear steps following us, but nothing happened.

When we got to the second floor I went straight to my old room. It was strange to stand there knowing that I used to live there. I used to have a family. I can hardly remember anything from that time. In there I looked around to see if I could recognize something. I searched thoroughly but it was hard. I had been so small when I left. I found a teddycat that I remembered was mine, but most toys were wooden swords and shields and had been Aldern's. I remembered hiding in the big fire place, when I was afraid. Searching it I realized I spent a lot of time there, but didn't find anything. At least I have an idea of why I got so good at hiding.

Next we went to the music room. It too had painted windows. Velicia realized that all the windows had a common topic. It was about how to become a lich, and the components needed.

In the dining room we notice it had been lit by a magical continuous light item, but it had broke over time and now it was dark and gloomy. I gathered the eight paintings of my family and put them next to the door. I want to keep those. It's almost the only connection I have to my family.

We continued on into the master bedroom. We looked at the dark stain on the desk, but couldn't decidedly say if it was blood. We took the two kits, one for a male with shaving utensils and the other for a female with brushes and beauty utensils.

In the room where everything was broken and the painting of Iesha I found a dress with embroideries of peacock feathers that was not only undamaged, but very nice and in my size.

We went on upstairs to the observatory. We looked around when I thought I smelled burning flesh. Velicia screamed and ran towards the complete window but stopped before throwing herself through it. As the other window was broken in a way that could indicate that someones fate had been to be set on fire and then threw herself out of the window, landing on the cliffs below. That also fit with what we had seen happen to Cyralee on the paining. Composing ourself we searched the room and the only thing we noted was that the lenses of the telescope were undamaged.

The last room that we just glanced into on our first tour of the house could best be described as a gentleman's room. There were armchairs and bookshelves and several strange items like skulls. When we entered we heard a noise like pages rustling as if someone was browsing through a book. Nathaniel looked absent in a strange way and then he told us that he had felt anger over all the adventures that he had missed because of his wife. We looked through the books and there were mostly history and adventures, but we also found books published by the seekers and a painting of a bullfight It was named The throwdown in swynetown signed by the artist Andaluso

Foxgloves leaving the manor

We thought about everything we had learned. Vorel had tried to become a lich and failed. The mold in cellar was probably what was left of him. We decided that we would try to exorcise him.

To be able to exorcise him we had to know more so Velicia stayed in the arcane laboratory to study as much as she could from the books falling apart there. I and Nathaniel returned down to the cellar to tell the others. When we got there I nearly threw up. I still couldn't get used to the stench. I and Nathaniel decided to start burying the remains and brought what we could carry upstairs.

As we exited the house we saw almost a hundred ravens gathering in the fog outside. We walked towards the ruins when some took off and looked to prepare for an attack. We retreated back and choose to bury the corpses under a tree close to the house. I started digging, while Nathaniel went down to bring up the rest of the bones and corpses I took out the last of the food I brought. It had been a long time since last I ate, but I still wasn't very hungry. It didn't help being closely watched by the undead ravens. I ate it anyway and started digging again just in time to see Nathaniel bringing the next load of bones. He said that was all and took over the pick and started digging. He was a lot better than me at digging so I carved a sign to put on the grave. I was quite pleased with the outcome and Nathaniel was impressed.

Late afternoon, not long before sunset Velicia completed her studies. She said that she didn't know if it would work, but there were no more to be learned from the soggy books and we returned down.

Velicia drew strange things on the walls around the cave with a chalk and then stood in the middle. She nodded to me and I started talking to the dark mold. I felt a little stupid, but in the stench of rotten flesh it was easy to keep a straight face and when I realized that the mold understood and reacted to my persuasions it was frightening rather than stupid to talk to my grandfather in this way. Velicia lifted her sword and pointed at her drawings. The magic started and was fought by spores pouring out of the humanoid shape on the wall. Nathaniel tried to burn the spores with his sword, but I got a deep breath of them and coughed violently. I tried to talk to Vorel again. This time I told him not to fight the ritual. I told him it was trying was to correct and complete his transformation to lich. The spores eased up on me but the damage was already done. I saw the same dots on my skin that Dorothea and Velicia had talked about earlier. I could vaguely see Velicia trying to burn mold and then returning to her magic, but she was distracted by the spores. Nathaniel used the pick again and hacked down the wall where the shape was and then burned the last remains of moss and mold he could find, ending it. We succeeded!

We returned upstairs and started gathering all the valuables, but realized that we could not bring it all. We only took what we could carry and left the rest for now. The ravens had left when we exited the house. We left on foot, carrying heavy burdens of loot.

It was getting dark when we arrived at the bridge where Orik waited with the horses. As we saddled up for leaving I hesitated. I really didn't want to infect Creampuff too. I took my bedroll from the pack and covered him before mounting up.

When we arrived the sanatorium it was already night and the guards hailed us. We told them who we were and were let through. Nathaniel told dr. Habe that I, Velicia and Dorothea wasn't infected by ghoulrot but something called Vorels phage and that it was caused by spores from some dark moldy moss. I went to bed hugging my old teddycat. That was when it all hit me.
My grandfather tried to become a lich. My grandmother was killed by him. My father killed my mother and probably himself too. My brother killed his wife and murdered several other people. Now we had killed him. I mourned the family I never knew. I couldn't stop crying but drifted off to sleep still sobbing.