The Foxglove Manor

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Episode no.	Episode 27
Date	2009
Game Master	Abbe
Characters	Dorothea Honeypot Nathaniel Nell Velicia
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Early in the morning I was woken by Velicia. She was unbearably spirited. I was still very tired and hadn't slept that good, even though I slept in a bed. I had had nightmares about ghouls appearing out of a dense fog attacking me with gleaming red eyes. But after a quick breakfast I felt better and we left the sanatorium heading towards the bridge over Cougar's Creek. The sun had risen, but it was still quite dark below the heavy clouds. Fog still came rolling in from the west, giving the light a slightly sickly yellowish tone. We rounded the Ashen Rise and turned south.

After crossing Soggy River I was on edge. I had too vivid memories of the ghouls from yesterday, worsened by my nightmares. We reached the last bridge before the manor, crossing Foxglove River, and left the horses guarded by Orik. He's proved to be trustworthy. And practical. Anyway, we didn't want any ghouls sneaking up on the horses while we were inside the manor.

We continued on foot, turning west, following a smaller road, hardly more than a path. It was slightly up hill as the road wind through the landscape along the river that run in a ravine, getting deeper as we went on. The weather kept the same or worse and even though it didn't rain we still got wet from the fog. As we got closer to the coast we noted that on a small rise there was a manor standing near the edge of the sea. As we approached it got colder. Before we reached the manor we stopped to prepare ourselves. Honeypot cast some rituals including message and after some discussion, protection from necromancy on Nathaniel. Honeypot also quickened our step.

In front of the manor, there were ruins of a burnt down outhouse. It's stone foundation and a well was nearly all that was left. Velicia, Dorothea and Honeypot took a closer look at the well. I and Nathaniel stayed on the road. Dorothea dropped a stone in the well. If they saw anything it wasn't worth mentioning to us. There were ravens sitting on the ruins. After staring at them Dorotea said that they were undead ghoulish birds. Dorothea cast her magic at one, but missed. She didn't miss the second time. The other ravens took off. The sound of the sea came distorted through the fog. I felt vulnerable out there so I walked up to Nathaniel and suggested that we should continue on to the main house. He agreed and told the others to hurry up.

The manor itself was a three story high wooden house, looking to be in a bad state of decay. We saw no light through any of the windows. It looked abandoned. We went up to the main doors and Nathaniel knocked on the door. I was surprised. I thought that we would sneak up on Aldern and just kill him. Then announcing our arrival in this way would be strange. There was no answer but as we waited and listened nervously, someone said they heard sobbing from higher up in the house. Nathaniel tried the door, but it was locked. I tried the key we found earlier and it unlocked the door. We opened it and took a peek inside. I called out when the dim light penetrating the heavy clouds fell on the monster standing in the hall. It was a lion with a scorpions tail and a human head. Then I saw it was stuffed and in a bad state, leaking sawdust. Velicia said it was called a manticore.

The air inside was stale. Further in I could see trophies of animals hanging on the wall. There were fireplaces on both sides and an arch which was carved with gargoyles and skeletons. I don't like that motif. As we thought the sobbing came from upstairs we took the stairs to the immediate right in the hall room.

Upstairs

In the hallway beyond the stairs there were several doors. The first we opened were double doors past several other doors. Dorothea and Velicia entered, while I stood in the hallway by the door. There were a lot of paintings all covered with cobweb and dust. Velicia used her magic to clean them off and suddenly it got very cold in the room. So cold that there were ice crystals forming on the walls and the paintings started to change. There were three on the right wall and five on the left. On the right there were paintings of two women and a man in the middle. Small name plates read Lorei, Vorel and Cassandra. In the paintings their faces rotted away. Vorel burst out into the whole room. On the left the names were Cyralee, Traver and three children, Zeeva, Aldern and Sandeli. When those changed Traver's throat was cut and blood poured from the picture. Cyralee, a beautiful woman with red hair, looked like she got burnt and broke. Aldern turned into monster, but the girls didn't change. I suggested that perhaps that's what have happened to the people in the paintings.

Continuing on through the room and another set of double doors in the other end there was the master bedroom. When entering I noted a shaving kit with a very beautiful silver shaving knife, that I thought moved. I felt a massive feeling of loss, like I had just lost someone very close to me. I couldn't quite explain it as I've never had anyone to loose. I reached for the knife but Nathaniel had already taken it and was looking at it. I still wanted to hold it. Velicia got to look closely at it but not me.

Velicia somehow didn't like my curiosity and took me back out to the room with the paintings. As I didn't like that room I continued out into the corridor. Next we looked into the last room with double doors. In the room there was a couch facing the sea with several large windows, but they were painted with scary pictures, blocking the view. There were also some instruments. I didn't like the windows so I left for the corridor. I walked left, from where we came, and stood outside a door. There was no one there and I hesitated and returned to the doorway to the music room. I didn't want to be alone. The others were finishing up fooling around with the instruments. Dorothea said I should check some other rooms so I returned to where I came from.

I went back towards it and suddenly it felt like I had been there before. It felt very familiar. Nathaniel followed out into the corridor and kept an eye on me. As I opened the door I could hear a child crying. I entered and Nathaniel joined me. I realized that it was me crying and I knew that outside the room, further down the hallway, my parents were fighting. They weren't just screaming at each other but physically fighting each other trying to kill each other. I knew that whoever would win would come into the room and kill me too. I hid under the bed. Then my father walked up to the bed and leaned down to look under it. He held a knife in one hand and reached in under the bed with the other trying to grab me. Suddenly I realized that it was Nathaniel holding his sword and grabbing my leg pulling me out from under the bed. I could have sworn that it was my father, and I hardly remember what my father looked like. I was breathing heavily and had tears in my eyes. Nathaniel said I looked like I had seen a ghost. I stuttered some vague answer that I thought I heard people fighting in the corridor and got scared.

Dorothea joined us and looked at me stranger than normal. Then she told me to follow her and dragged me into that room with the paintings that I didn't like. She stood me against the left wall next to the paintings of the girls, and backed away. Velicia joined us, and Dorothea asked me
"What did you do when you were three years old?"
"I don't remember that. Do you remember what you did when you were three?"
I answered. The others seemed to think that I might look a little like an older version of Sandeli, but I protested by telling them
"But I'm from Magnimar."

Velicia said that something was part shadowfell. I have no Idea what she meant by that.

The next room was a guest room filled with mold. Dorothea put a handkerchief over her nose and mouth and entered. She said that the mold attacked but she knew it was an illusion. Velicia said that I still looked pale and very shook up and consoled me.

The next room we looked into was a bathroom. In the middle there was a heavy looking iron bathtub. Someone wondered
"How strange to have a bathtub on the upper floor."
Velicia entered the room to look in the bathtub, but before leaving the doorway she heard some creaking and grabbed hold of the door post as the floor gave way. When the dust settled we peeked down. It looked as if there was a bathroom below too and the tub landed on another tub. There were strange scratching sounds coming from below. We figured it was a rat trapped in the other tub, and sure enough soon a rat found it's way out and sat up sniffing upwards toward us. It was horribly disfigured, missing half it's face and obviously ghoulish. Velicia quickly filled both rooms with her magical fire burning everything in there, instantly killing the rat.

Then we continued along the hallway which ended in two doors. Dorothea tried the left one but it was locked. Nathaniel, Velicia and Honeypot tried the other and found a room where all the furniture was smashed to pieces. Most of the room was broken as if hit by someone with a sword in rage, but a painting looked to have beem spared, but hung the wrong way, facing the wall. Dorothea unlocked the door and told us there were stairs leading further up behind it. Velicia used her magical hand to turn the painting on the wall from a distance. It was a painting of a woman that looked different from most of the others of the Foxglove family. She had raven black hair and a definite rhenne look.

Nathaniel, Honeypot and Velicia went up to the painting to get a closer look. Suddenly Velicia backed away and Nathaniel struck out at Honeypot, missing her wildly. Then he snapped out of it. There was a name on the painting, Iesha Foxglove. It seemed to be no older than a few years. Velicia turned it facing the wall again.

We continued up the stairs. The first room we looked into had a broken roof. There had been some repairs done, but there were much still needed. Then there were several storerooms, followed by a bedroom for servants. Those had not been used for a long time. The next room was some kind of study. There were a desk and chair. Two windows were facing the sea and as before were painted. There were a knocked over telescope and a trapdoor in the roof that had been tied down with several wraps of rope. The room had probably been used as an observatory earlier.

The next room was yet another bedroom for servants. The sobbing was coming from this room. There was a mirror leaning against the wall. In front of it was a woman sitting staring at herself in the mirror, sobbing. Dorothea who had been first, entered muttering something about taking care of our own. She tried talking to the woman but she seemed unresponsive. I asked if she was a ghost but Velicia or Dorothea answered that she wasn't insubstantial, whatever that is, and that she probably was some other sort of undead being. Nathaniel moved the mirror and turned it facing the wall. The woman screamed in anger and swore a curse at Aldern. I readied my dagger and got prepared to defend myself in the doorway where I stood. Iesha, as we had guessed that the woman was stood up and walked out of the room with firm steps. When she approached me, I opened the door behind me and backed into the room taking cover behind the door post. She walked right past me and the others followed her closely. Velicia stopped in front of me and stared into the room I was in. I looked behind me discovering that it was a library with magical things and quickly left, dragging Velicia with me.

She led us downstairs, through the entrance hall, where I noted a strange monkey head with something in it's mouth and a big mold spot on the floor. Avoiding stepping in it we continued down into the cellar. As Iesha stopped slightly opening a door we were attacked by hoards of rats. They came from everywhere flooding the room. I didn't stay to check but I guessed they were as disease ridden as the one we saw earlier so I threw my dagger killing one, making the rats next to it hesitate a little, and then retreated back up the stairs. There were some fighting downstairs and I saw Nathaniel move into view below the stairs. He was sweeping wide with his burning sword killing several of rats with each sweep. Velicia also did something similar with her elven longsword and soon lots of rats lay dead all over the floor. I returned down the stairs and threw a dagger into another moving rat as I moved on following Iesha. But before I could catch up Honeypot ran past me. Soon I was back to second to last.

We followed her through a room with more painted windows. There were a lot of broken glass and cages with dead rats in them. As we went down another corridor I noticed an increase in stench of rotten flesh. I felt a chill and called out a warning, but I don't think anything happened up front. The corridor led to a structure that was older than the rest of the house. A new set of stairs spiraled down.

Downstairs

The stairs ended in a cave. Iesha continued on and we gathered closer around her. I had a bad feeling about those caves and sure enough there were ghouls hiding along the walls trying to ambush us. I threw my dagger into one making his black blood pour out. I then moved to the other side of our group next to Nathaniel. The ghouls gave out a cry and charged us. One attacked me, his strike pinning me in place with fear, but my new cape made sure I disappeared and appeared a few yards away. It completely fooled it making it vulnerable to my attacks. I used it's confusion to throw my dagger into it's back causing a deep wound spilling some awful goo. Nathaniel easily killed the heavily wounded monster. Honeypot played a melody that made every one of us dance. Even I stumbled a few steps on my limp legs.

We were killing off the ghouls and winning the battle, but Iesha never stopped or cared about the battle and we were loosing contact with her. I threw my dagger again but lacking any good opportunities I missed. I looked around but couldn't see any more enemies. That gave me my strength back. But soon there were more ghouls coming from the way Iesha went. Honeypot ran past me into the middle of the new ones and exploded in light. Nearly all of the four new ghouls were dazed by the effect. I threw my dagger into one of the affected ones wounding it severely and used the confusion to sneak into a corner of the rock walls and hid. The ghoul I wounded charged passed me. Velicia joined our fight charging past me as well and into the middle of the remaining ghouls attacking the one that avoided Honeypot's effect. Velicia was bleeding and looked very worn down so I moved quickly around a ghoul to get to her, once again thanking Honeypot for the lightness of my feet, pouring the last of the healing potions I got from the group in her. While throwing my magical dagger into one of the ghouls I saw Honeypot disappearing into the tunnel following Iesha. Nathaniel joined in and struck down one of the ghouls and I stabbed the last one felling it. I quickly and quietly followed Iesha and Honeypot into the darkness.

The tunnel soon opened up into a big cavern with a strange glowing pool deep down in the middle. Honeypot had whispered that there were goblins in it below the surface, but I didn't see any. There was a way leading up from it spiraling around the whole cavern and a door half way around. That was where Iesha and Honeypot was heading. I quickly sneaked along the wall catching up with Honeypot. Nathaniel stormed into the cavern lighting it some with his burning sword. Iesha had reached a the door and tried to open it but it was locked, so she beat it down with surprising ease. Honeypot followed Iesha in but I threw a dagger in the back of one of the goblins when they exited the pool rushing toward Nathaniel, before I followed her.

When inside the door I hid and continued down the tunnel toward a candlelit cavern where I heard fighting. When I peeked around the rough stone wall next to Honeypot I saw Iesha furiously attacking a strange looking monster that vaguely reminded me of Aldern. He had no hair, big pointy ears, greenish skin and a very long tung. He had obviously turned into a ghoul, but still wore fine clothes. From next to him he grabbed a painting and held it up to Iesha. It was very much like the one we had seen hanging facing the wall. Iesha screamed and lost most of her spirit when faced with the picture of herself alive. I thought of throwing my dagger into him, when Honeypot stepped right out into the room. Aldern said
"You came to me! Let us consummate our hunger."
"What are you doing with that wench?"
she answered him, approaching him. Hopefully she had some kind of plan. I was still hesitating when I heard something behind me. Quickly I stepped out into the tunnel throwing my dagger into a surprised goblin ghoul killing it. Nathaniel joined us in the room but stepped straight into it and didn't hide.

Iesha seemed to cower from the painting and lost some initiative in the fight she had been winning, but still managed to tear at him with awful looking claws. Aldern on his part didn't loose spirit as he called his minions to come to him and assailed his dead wife with blows and tung. Honeypot used that moment to trick the painting from him saying
"Would you prefer her to me?" holding it up next to her and then turned and ran behind Nathaniel who advanced to attack.

The goblin ghoul I just killed raised up, but I was too much in the fight to get scared then. I ignored it, taking a few steps forwards, while it flailed wildly missing me. Instead I concentrated on my dagger, activating it's magic. I threw it hard, hitting Aldern in his belly. As it returned I immediately threw it again this time hitting him square in the chest. He fell to the ground gurgling.

"Argh... Save me... The Hunter is coming for me... He's riding me... Help me..."
He reached a hand toward Honeypot who couldn't resist but ran up to him taking his hand. Noting that the fight was over Nathaniel left the room, telling me
"Make sure he's dead."
as he passed. I ignored the goblin ghoul who tried to attack me and joined Honeypot at his side.
"Where are your sisters?"
"The Skinsaw cult own me... They manipulated me..."
"Your sisters? Tell me!"
"One married and moved to the Greater Kingdoms... The other was taken by Ironbriar..."

Then he was interrupted by Iesha attacking him, killing him and as he died she turned to dust. Honeypot ran out to the others. I followed with a heavy heart and killed the goblin ghoul on the way out. I was filled with questions.Was I the little sister of Aldern?
Was there any truth to Dorothea's joke?
Have I just killed my own brother?
What about my parents in Magnimar?
Was my memory from the nursery my real memory and not one of the strange spooky things this house did to us all?
I was taken by Ironbriar, but I escaped.
It might just be true.

In the large cavern Velicia and Dorothea had had a hard fight against the other goblin ghouls and all the ghouls we had killed before that had been raised by Aldern earlier, but they had been victorious.