The Mute Bard

The battle in the throne room was continuing. Only one surviving dire corby was still fighting, while another slept, and the fighters were trying to surround Kikonu, self-proclaimed “King of Brinewall”, who had somehow stolen Sandoval’s voice. The odd little man didn’t seem very concerned, however, and continued to taunt them, spouting nonsense rhymes in Sandoval’s voice: “I’ll steal your eyes with sorrowful sighs,” or “You’d best take heed – you’re going to bleed.”

Sandoval had had just about enough. He took out his net, a recent purchase with which he’d been practicing at every opportunity. Whirling it around his head, he tossed it deftly over Kikonu, entangling him in its strands. The “king’s” demeanor changed in a flash. “You hairy apes,” he hissed, now using his own voice, “you’ve ruined my play! You’ve ruined everything! I hate you!” And with that, he disappeared. Sandoval’s net settled to the ground, empty.

Marie was still battling the remaining dire corby, which refused to go down. Unable to sing as he normally would, Sandoval decided to inspire his comrades through the power of interpretative dance. As the mute bard pranced and high-kicked around the room, Sawyer stared in open-mouthed astonishment, realizing for the first time just how little the bard’s tights left to the imagination. Didn’t the man even own a proper pair of under-drawers? The bard’s dancing certainly inspired the big fighter, who began slashing at the dire corby with fury, hoping the sight of bloody feathers would allow him to un-see the images that were now burned into his eyes.

The last of the bird-men fell, and the group quickly scanned the throne room for any sign of Kikonu, but there were none. A flight of stairs led up (the ones that Bella had begun exploring when she offended Kikonu), and several closed doors led out of the room to parts unknown, including an iron door behind the throne. Sawyer checked it, and found it locked. “Hey, maybe we should try this key we found in the lighthouse,” Marie piped up. Bella’s mouth dropped open. “Why didn’t you mention that when I was trying to pick those locks up on the parapet?” she asked with frustration. Marie looked sheepish. “Oh … I guess I forgot.” She inserted the key into the lock and it clicked over after some forcing. The door squealed slowly open on rusty hinges.

Old tapestries depicting a seaside castle hung askew on the walls of this circular room and a thick layer of dust caked the floor. The air was musty and weirdly cold. Old bloodstains splattered the walls, along with numerous brutal gashes and slashes to the stone itself. Two doors hung askew on hinges in a passageway to the south, while to the north, a third door lay in fragments on the floor, opening onto a flight of stairs leading down into darkness. A second staircase curved upward around the north wall. Her argument with Marie forgotten, Bella made a beeline for the stairs heading up, and the rest of the party began to crowd into the room after her.

Disturbed by their presence, a skeletal figure emerged from one of the rooms to the south. He wore an ornate dragon helm and the bloodstained remnants of a destroyed suit of armor; an impressive sword hung at his belt, but he made no move to draw it, advancing instead with bony claws outstretched, moaning softly.

Nicki immediately cast Disrupt Undead, and Marie followed with Channel Positive Energy, but the thing kept coming. Sawyer stepped into the narrow hallway to block its way, slashing with his sword. The wight dodged his attack, and lashed out with his claws; as they tore at the fighter’s flesh, he felt some of his life-force drain away. Sawyer found himself down one level, and fighting a foe who looked stronger than he had a moment before. Sawyer knew he couldn’t afford to take any more hits like that, and he redoubled his efforts against the creature, sinking his sword deep into its bloodless flesh. Marie called upon the power of Desna once again, and the wight sank slowly to the floor.

Sawyer turned hopefully to Marie, but she shook her head; she knew that restoring his lost level would require magic that was well beyond her capabilities. They could only hope that it would return on its own, in time. Sawyer claimed the thing’s sword, which was determined to be a +1 Longsword. He also placed its helm firmly on his own head; it didn’t offer much additional protection, but it looked really cool. Meanwhile, Marie quickly examined the two rooms. They appeared to have once been the quarters of the captain of the castle’s guard: one his office and the other his bedroom, although both were now in shambles. Examining what was left, she came across a name: Andril Kortun. That name rang a bell, and as she searched her memory, she recalled a line from the letter to Ameiko’s father that they had found back in Brinestump: “I have returned it to Kortun’s care, and it shall remain hidden in the secret third vault under Brinewall Castle.” She shuddered, and said a quiet prayer for the man who had died defending Ameiko’s family’s secrets.

The captain’s office also contained a stairway leading up. Faced with two choices up, the party elected to take the stairs in the office. These led up a narrow passage and into a room that might once have been an armory, long since looted. This in turn led out into another circular guardroom like the one below. Judging from the dried blood and deep gouges marring the walls, a terrible battle once took place here. As the party looked around, the old, dried blood on the walls became fresh and began dripping down the walls. Suddenly dozens of faces appeared in the walls; some were of guards wearing armored caps, while others appeared to be servants, but all were emitting blood-curdling shrieks of terror.

Sawyer, Sandoval, and Shinjiro were so unnerved by the sight that they immediately fled in terror, dashing pell mell back down the stairs the way they had come. The rest of the party realized that the tormented spirits posed no threat to them, and continued exploring. Marie followed a short corridor to a pair of double doors. She pulled them open, and found a surprised dire corby standing right in front of her. Three more rushed forward, as Marie did her best to block the passage and prevent them from reaching the rest of the party. Once again, the party’s healer was the front line of battle, and this time, the fighters weren’t even on the same floor of the building.

Downstairs, the trio of frightened fighters had managed to regain their composure and were embarrassedly climbing back up the stairs when they heard the sounds of fighting above. They rushed back into the room, but couldn’t get into position to engage the dire corbies in the narrow hall. Marie wanted to back away, but didn’t want to open herself up to any opportunity attacks.

Once again, Zhustin had just the right trick up his sleeve. He cast a Web into the room, filling most of it with thick, sticky strands. Marie finally dropped the dire corby in front of her, and dashed forward through the webbed room, relying on the blessings of Desna to grant her freedom of movement. The remaining dire corbies were too entangled in the webbing to react. Nicki got another one of his evil grins as he lit the fuse to one of his jars of oil. He tossed it into the webbed doorway, and it ignited the webbing with a whoosh. The fire began burning its way through the room, a mixed blessing for the two corbies standing on either side of the doorway: on the one hand, they found themselves free of the webs, but at a very painful price. Sawyer, finally seeing an opening, stepped up to engage them, while Marie circled around behind the flames to get behind one of them, just outside the reach of the web. The final dire corby was farther back in the room, and he saw the burning webbing spreading his way. He fought his way towards the back of the room, and through the smoke and webs the party saw him disappear through a pair of double doors.

With more of the party able to engage, the dire corbies didn’t last long. As the fire burned itself out and the smoke began to clear, the party took a look around. They were in the castle’s dining hall. The room reeked of rotten food, bird droppings, and burned feathers. A long dining table sat in the middle of the room, heaped with partially eaten animal carcasses and several thick eggshells (the dire corbies were apparently disturbingly fond of eating their own eggs). A large number of doors led out of the room, along with some additional hallways.

By this time, it was getting late. Their “reconnoitering” had gone on much longer than they had planned, and outside the sun was surely setting. Zhustin and Nicki pointed out that they were about out of spells, and that it would be a good idea to get some rest soon. But where? Try to get back out of the castle? Find somewhere safe to rest inside? So far, they hadn’t found anywhere that would meet any reasonable definition of “safe”.

Bella began opening doors (after all, what could go wrong?). One led to a privy (ironically, far cleaner than the dining room). Another led to a short curved hallway with two more doors. These opened into what had apparently been servants’ quarters, with ruined bunk beds. In one, filaments of white, fibrous mold grew all along the walls and across the bunk beds, giving the room a foul, musty stink. On the floor, thicker mounds of fungus grew in nauseating colors. They realized the mounds of mold were roughly corpse-shaped, many with severed limbs; all were missing their heads. They closed the door to that room tightly.

The next door Bella tried was jammed, and she called Sawyer over to help. He leaned his shoulder into the door, but it still wouldn’t open; however, from inside, they heard the sound of a child, sobbing. Shinjiro loaned his assistance, and together he and Sawyer forced the door open. Inside was some sort of storeroom. It had probably once been very well organized, with rows of shelves, but the shelves had toppled, leaving a tangle of fallen crates, broken barrels, and unrecognizable debris. The crying was more audible now, and seemed to be coming from the far end of the room.

 

Attic Whisperer

As they picked their way forward, a horrifying figure rose from the debris. It was the skeletal body of a child, clutching a crude rag doll but with the skull of a wolf. An unnerving chorus of childlike whimpers, songs, and sobs seemed to surround it, dampening the fighters’ resolve. Nonetheless, both gritted their teeth and tried to fight the undead child. Sawyer managed to hit, despite his lower level, but Shinjiro was so disturbed that all of his blows were ineffective. The creature’s wolf skull snapped its jaws at Shinjiro; as they connected, he felt his breath being sucked from his lungs, and found himself severely Fatigued. It then turned and snapped at Sawyer, who suffered the same fate.

The small storeroom didn’t offer much opportunity for the rest of the party to help out. Bella fired her bow from the back of the room, and Nicki cast one last Disrupt Undead. Marie got into position to be able to Channel. Shinjiro continued to miss the creature, but Sawyer got in some more strikes, and finally the thing fell. Beneath his body, they found a tragic tableau: the skeleton of a child, trapped in the rubble. He must have been one of the residents of the castle when it was assaulted, and he had fled into this storeroom to hide, but as he clambered into the room, his panic brought a stack of old braziers and firewood down onto him. The child was buried under the falling logs and died a horrible, lonely death while listening to the murders of Brinewall’s residents all around him. The child had apparently tried to distract himself from the sounds of battle outside by scribbling drawings on the wall with charcoal. These depicted crude images of men with black masks throwing small stars, frightening bird-headed men, and giant creatures with sharp tusks wielding huge axes – images made all the more frightening by their childlike quality.

The party still hadn’t found a place to rest. Sandoval went down one of the corridors, and opened yet another door. This led into a round tower room. Its furniture — couches, drawing tables, and empty bookshelves — lay in disarray, with the exception of one writing desk and chair in the center of the room, its surface heaped with pages of parchment and paper. Sandoval looked at the papers, but they were all written in Tien, so he called in Shinjiro. He determined that the papers were the script of a play about a family of bickering humans who had been turned into crows. Or maybe it was a family of crows who had been turned into humans. The script made little sense, but this was obviously Kikonu’s study. Two flights of stairs in the tower led up and down. Not a very defensible position.

Bella opened yet another door. This room appeared to have been a bedroom for some of the dire corbies. Several nests of branches had been built in the corners of the room, which was relatively free of droppings. Deciding this might be the best they were going to find, the party all gathered in the room, closing the door behind them. Would they be able to pass the night undiscovered and unmolested?

The PCs gained 886 XP for the night, putting  them at 6341 XP with 9000 required for 4^th level. We’ll be at Leo’s next week.