Dramatis Personae
Alizander Carmelizzia - Human (Varisian) sorcerer
Boecca – Half-orc inquisitor of Erastil
Carlos Santiago - Half-orc (Alkenstarian) wizard
Slavé/Jancen – Tiefling (in guise as a human) rogue
Vaeden Corleone - Human rogue
Toilday, 9 Abadius, 4709 A.R.
The Returners continue their exploration of Delvehaven, fighting their way past two shadow mastiffs before making their way downstairs into the cellar level. Tavo decides to stand guard at the top of the stairway while the rest of the group continues on. Jancen scouts ahead, gliding silently through the darkened hallways of the long-empty but once opulent lower level. As the main group makes its way downstairs, dim light filters through the hall, casting dancing shadows across the dust-choked flagstone. Jancen continues scouting the hallway, peering first into Delvehaven’s insect museum, then a small wine cellar and tavern.
Vaeden, meanwhile, heads in another direction and scouts another room featuring a upraised stage with a gold, green, and magenta mosaic in the form of an intricate glyph of a road vanishing into the horizon.
As Jancen and Vaeden sneak through the cellar, Alizander, Carlos, and Boecca enter the insect museum. The glass display cases lining the walls of the room are generally smashed; their former contents of desiccated and artfully-mounted specimens strewn about the floor. Most impressive are the larger, giant-sized vermin on display. Dog-sized ants, man-sized spiders, and even a horse-sized scorpion are mounted in threatening postures, although in each case, the immense preserved monster is badly damaged and, in some cases, in pieces. As the three walk about the room, they each feel a disquieting presence. Boecca, in particular, gets the sensation of sudden hunger pangs combined with an unmistakable desire to feed on the flesh and drink the blood of his companions. Ashamed by the overwhelming sensation, and worried that he may be falling under the influence of some unholy force, Boecca pulls out a small vial of holy water and a pinch of silver dust and consecrates the area in the name of Erastil. As he releases the fine silver dust into the air, the hundreds of vermin in the room suddenly lurch into violent life as phantasmal legs, wings, and heads reattach in a single sudden storm of hungry ghost bugs. An instant later, the verminous storm collapses on itself in a cannibalistic orgy, the phantasmal creatures tearing themselves apart and feeding on each other. As the storm of ghostly bugs flies and crawls through Boecca, Carlos, and Alizander, they each receive the sickening vision of feasting on human and half-orc blood and flesh. Wounds appear on their arms and legs that look like bit marks left by decidedly human (and half-orc) teeth, and each of the companions feels himself growing fuller, as if their bellies were distended with flesh chewed from the bodies of their friends. The phantasmal storm of insects disappears as quickly as it began, leaving the companions in a temporary state of shock. Boecca is particularly affected, and doubles over in nausea and shame at the implications of what happened.
Vaeden hears the commotion and returns to his friends in the insect museum, but finds them unwilling to discuss what happened. Jancen, meanwhile, continues scouting ahead of the party, and arrives at a reading room containing the ominous skeletal remains of several individuals – one seated in a velvet sofa, the others a mess of bones in the centre of the room. Carefully looking into the room, he notices something scrawled in crude lettering on the wall opposite the seated skeleton: “He who steals from me dies by my hand.” The grisly pile of skeletal remnants heaped in a mound in the centre of the room seems to testify to this threat. Jancen calls the rest of the Returners over at this point.
The party decides to attempt a séance with the spirit of the reclining skeleton. They open the Chelish Crux and retrieve their last remaining grave candle. Khazrae Kuelata, the severed erinyes head residing within the Crux, is surprisingly quiet and lucid at the time, and tells the party that she believes the skeleton to be the remains of the famous Pathfinder, Donatalus Bisby. As the grave candle is lit, the room seems to darken apart from the single flickering flame. A cold halo surrounds the skeleton, but before the group is able to commune with its spirit, the skull levitates into the air, shouting, “Thieves, thieves, thieves in my house! You did not heed my warning. Now you suffer the consequences!”
A pair of incorporeal shadows rises from the mound of skeletal remains in the centre of the room and attacks the Returners. Bisby’s skull joins the fray, using its latent magical power to send a heart-stopping haunt at Alizander – a vision of his dead wife, rotting and decomposed, floating towards him with his death in her eyes. Alizander feels a stabbing pain in his chest at the vision of his lost love, but manages to shake the vision off. He tosses the Khazrae’s severed head at Bisby’s skull before capturing it in a sack. The rest of the party defeats the undead shadows, and the skull seems to cease its frantic and insane babbling. Alizander opens the bag; it is initially dismissive of the party’s attempts to communicate with it, but becomes much more cooperative after Alizander identifies himself as a Pathfinder.
The essence of Bisby’s spirit, through his animated skull, is able to fill in several holes in the story the party has already learned of his trials following the retrieval of the Aohl. He fears his companion, Ilnerik Sivanshin, stole part of the Aohl and fled to Nidal to sell it there. Bisby explains how the Aohl, once its two components were separated, no longer had countering forces to keep them in check. The portion Ilnerik left behind was called the Morrowfall and depicted an eagle’s head, the representation of a long-dead sun cult, the name of whose god has fallen into obscurity. This portion grew unstable over the week that followed Ilnerik’s departure, periodically emitting blinding and searing blasts of sunlight so that the Pathfinders were forced to secure it in a deep vault below, both for its security and to prevent the blasts of light from hurting anyone. Bisby tells the Returners that the entrance to the vault is in the Summoning Chamber nearby, and that to open the way, one must spell out the words “Behold the Amber Arca” on the red door.
He also warns the party that it seems likely that the other half of the Aohl, the Totemrix, had a similar building of power. Bisby knows that this portion of the Aohl is the counterpart of the golden eagle – the long-dead demon lord of shadows Vyriavaxus – and he fears that the Totemrix, with its power uncontested by the Morrowfall, may have worked a most unholy transformation on his old friend Ilnerik. He confides as well that “dark spirits” have recently passed through these halls, and that even now he can feel their intrusions in the vault below, beyond his reach. Worse, these “dark spirits” have in them a hideous familiarity – Bisby worries that his friend Ilnerik is behind their appearance, and that they seek to destroy the Morrowfall, which even now works to oppose the Totemrix. With the Morrowfall’s destruction, who knows what shadowy growth and vile magic the keeper of the Totemrix might unleash?
Soon, Bisby feels his lucidity fading. His final act is to thank the Returners for the few minutes of sanity they have given him, after which his skull fades back into silence.
The Returners take several moments to search the room before leaving and loot several items from Bisby’s skeleton (deciding the old Pathfinder would not be overly upset, especially if the items help them reunite the two halves of the Aohl). Jancen is the first to head back down the hall. As he rounds the corner to the hall leading to the Summoning Chamber, a figure springs from the darkness in front of him – a lithe, white-haired elf woman wielding what appears to be two wooden stakes. As she charges toward him, Jancen catches a glimpse of her brilliant red eyes and sharp, gleaming canines before raising his sword in defense. Jancen avoids her initial attack and retreats down the hallway. The elven vampire follows and calls a vampire thrall to her aid.
The elven vampire and her thrall are eventually defeated. As the elven vampire falls, she looks into the face of Boecca. For a moment her large, almond-shaped eyes lose their red glow, and Boecca imagines he can see something other than hate and malice in them. “Please”, she says in a cold, flinty voice, “deliver me from this shame….” The vampire’s physical body dissipates into a blood-tinged mist at that point, and floats down the hallway, through the double doors leading to the Summoning Chamber. One of her wooden stakes lies on the floor in front of Boecca, as if enticing him to follow and finish the deed.
The party follows the retreating mist and enters the Summoning Chamber. Using the password provided by Bisby, they open the secret portal leading downstairs to the vault. There, they face a massive dark hall, once barred by three separate layers of huge vault doors of stone, each now forced apart and hanging askew. Just past the doors are large piles of rubble on which numerous mirrors have been affixed, their reflective surfaces aiming towards the end of the hall. A bright light radiates from the far end of the hall, its energy building and pulsing every few moments. Believing this to be the Morrowfall, Jancen begins advancing down the hallway. The rest of the party heads down another hallway to the west, towards another set of double doors – perhaps the final retreat of the mist-form of the defeated vampire.
As Jancen passes the last broken vault door, the bright light becomes even brighter, and a searing blast fires down the corridor just to the right, narrowly missing him. He runs toward the light as it starts to build again, this time releasing an explosion of blinding light. Jancen closes his eyes just in time, but the intense light still leaves his skin red and blistering. He reaches the end of the hall as the nimbus of light begins to pulsate yet again. As he puts his hand on the source of light, it instantly diminishes, leaving the area shrouded in utter darkness. Jancen is momentarily blinded as the light disappears, but can feel the rough shape of an avian head in his hand – the Morrowfall.
Vaeden, Alizander, Carlos, and Boecca open the double doors to a chamber lined with shelves filled with scorched and burned books and scrolls. In the centre of the room is a coffin. Standing over the coffin is a dark, cloaked figure holding a wooden stake in its hand. The figure plunges the stake into the body of the elven vampire lying in repose within the coffin, slowly turns around, and rises to face the Returners.
Treasure:
· From the Hall of Armour
o +1 full plate +1 (worth 1325 gp)
o +1 light fortification breastplate (worth 2175 gp)
o Masterwork chain shirt (Tian Xia style) with facemask (worth 300 gp)
· From Bisby’s Final Resting Place
o 6 vials of strange dye
o Manticore spike chopsticks (worth 15 gp)
o Bloodstones (6) (worth 300 gp total / 50 gp each)
o Masterwork bolas (worth 152 gp)
o Silver signet whistle (worth 60 gp)
o Golden bell carved with Thassilonian runes (worth 450 gp)
o Ring of swimming (worth 1250 gp)
o Cowardly crouching cloak (worth 900 gp)
o Lens of detection (worth 1750 gp)
o +1 leather armour (worth 580 gp)
o Ring of protection +2 (worth 4000 gp)
o Animal-bane light crossbow +1 (worth 4170 gp)
o Efficient quiver (worth 900 gp)
o Mithral-headed crossbow bolts (60, in quiver) (worth 1500 gp / 25 gp per bolt)
o Javelins of lightning (2, in quiver) (worth 1500 gp / 750 gp each)
o Wayfinder (worth 250 gp)
o Dusty rose prism ioun stone (worth 2500 gp)
· From Vahnwynne Malkistra (elven vampire)
o Wooden stake +1 (worth 1150 gp)
Experience Awards
· Shadow mastiffs (2) – 3200 xp
· Haunt – verminous cannibal storm – 2400 xp
· Shadows (2) – 1600 xp
· Bisby’s skull – 2400 xp
· Hellcat door trap (bypassed) – 3200 xp
· Vahnwynne Malkistra – 3200 xp
· Weakened vampire spawn – 1200 xp
· Story Award (speaking with Bisby’s spirit) – 6000 xp
· Total – 23,200 xp
· Per PC (5) – 4640 xp each
Current XP Total per PC
· Alizander, Carlos, Slavé, Vaeden – 27,295 xp each
· Boecca – 24,540 xp
· Tavo – 21,960 xp
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