Osgood,
I am quite surprised to be writing this; in truth, I expected to be quite deceased by now. First and foremost, I need you to execute the emergency protocols until further notice. People will be looking for things. Maybe even looking for me. Hide everything, Osgood, and prepare the upper room for demolition - should I give the word. Also, keep an eye on our families. Tell my father that he needs to stay close to town, and be on alert. I suppose I should explain.
After my last entry, we went to buy some winter gear and begin the ascent to the Marquis' keep. On our shopping trip I found a shop called Ellard's Oddities, of which Ellard was one. Ellard was a strange broken form of a dwarf, and had a mental status that matched his broken and bent body. He informed me that I would need a seal from the Marquis to purchase anything from him, and when I told him I would be back, he called me by my last name. I only realized what had happened once I left the shop, and immediately turned right back around to find the shop empty and abandoned.
Deciding that we really didn't have the time for a thorough investigation, we rode out of town and towards the Marquis' keep. The ride up was cold and desolate. It wasn't long out of Shadowmount when the entire landscape became withered and dead. Not in the way living things go dormant in winter, mind you. No, this was something else entirely. Something dark and wicked had caused this occurrence, and I couldn't help but worry that the cause, and our destination were one and the same.
Around lunchtime we happened across a large stone table, and several large stone stools. We decided to stop there and eat. After taking a long look at the stones, I can tell you that they did not originate from the area, and can't imagine how far these stones have traveled. The other thing I discovered is that this was not always a table. At one time it had been used as an altar where sacrifices were performed. Feydor put together that this looks very similar to the altar in the tainted woods upon which redcaps were made. Before we could get too far down that line of thinking, however, Bajol noticed something that registered as evil to him right on the edge of the clearing. Upon inspection, it proved to be a large crow with yellow eyes. Once we approached the crow took off and headed west. I am not sure what that was, but I feel in addition to the Marquis, and the Puppet King, there are other players on the board. When you have time, I need you to restart the research on the Crow-man that we worked on some time ago. I know you have acquired new books, so please see if you can find any reference. I feel that it is more pressing than we realize.
After this, none of us were all that hungry, so we headed off, hoping to arrive at the keep before sunset. Which we did. JUST before sunset. The keep is utilitarian. Squat, square and ugly. As we passed through 3 portcullis' we were met by the Marquis' armed guards. Tall brutish beings, fully armored with visored helmets. To be fair, I have no idea what foul abomination inhabits those suits of armor, if anything at all. Regardless, we saw at least a dozen of them in the courtyard. While all of this was disturbing, it was nothing compared to what we experienced inside the keep itself.
Upon knocking on the door, we were greeted by the "Doorwarden". A female, short, old, and with a robe and hood exposing only the lowermost portion of her face. She escorted us down dilapidated, and winding passage ways. I should take the time to tell you that, upon first impression, one gets the notion that whomever designed this fortress was, in fact, quite mad. Hallways run out in any direction, with seemingly no regard to a logical structure. The long corridors are often capped with stairs that lead no where, or just ends at a wall. This combined with the age and disuse of the building was unnerving to say the least. The Doorwarden took us to a small holding area to await further instruction when she remembered that she had a device that, when used, changed the appearance of this place to be one of splendor and finery. A few of the party had the willpower to see past the illusion, but the rest of us were treated to quite a sight. Fine tapestries, furniture, gold leafed candelabras as far as we could see. Each new path took us to a finer locale.
Our destination was the grand dining room, to have dinner with the Marquis. As we sat, food floated in on trays. Quite good. Then he entered. At first glance The Marquis Daedaleus is quite unremarkable. Much like his keep he is small and squat, old, and seems to be falling apart. He sat and did not join us for the first few courses. Eventually he sucked down some sort of meat pudding. His speech was slurred, and his behavior odd and guarded. After dinner we brought up the purpose of our visit.
He knew someone would come for Thomas, but he seemed surprised it would be us. He was unaware of Nolan as well, so I am not sure who he was waiting for. Regardless he offered to release Thomas from his current imprisonment (for charges the Marquis could not recall, for what it is worth) if we were to perform 1 of 2 tasks. The first was to assassinate a man named Mario who was the loser in the war of succession that we fought a decade ago. He is apparently threatening to take Merridoc. The second task was to take a box with a very evil item and drop it in the void or give it to the Silent Lady to keep. We tried to get information from him regarding the crows, or the Puppet King, but that just seemed to anger him. It was at that point that I saw a piece of his cheek fall off. Upon closer inspection, it was not real tissue, but a thick layer of makeup covering the bottom third of his face. When I mentioned that his ruse might not be working, he gladly exposed what the makeup was covering.
From the cheekbones up, he looked like any middle aged man. Balding, chubby skin with the beginnings of wrinkles. The bottom half, however, was manufactured out of nightmares, and hellscapes. There was no cheek flesh to speak of. Instead was a row of teeth that shone out of his skull like a demented grin. Behind that was another row of teeth, and where his lips should have been was another circle of teeth. I felt my blood run cold and Frumious attempted to turn this beast. Oddly, he was not a creature who was susceptible to that form of attack. He continued to chat with us, giving over no useful information until he decided it was time to retire and invited us to stay the evening. Considering the Banshee sighting of the night before we decided to take the, quite literal, lesser of two evils.
The Marquis left us and we engaged in a long debate regarding what to do. I suggested that we identify what was in the box that was radiating such intense evil. Bajol opened the box, and was immediately enthralled by it's contents. A mirror. I closed the box, and slapped Bajol awake only to find that Vespacious was on the other side of that mirror and that there is a "Keymaster" here that can help him return. Osgood, this is the day I have feared. I have long assumed that The Necromancer would return, but I never thought we had so little time to prepare. If he does succeed in making it back from wherever, I fear he will come hunting me, and to what end I shudder to consider.
It was about this time that the Doorwarden returned , and she began to show us to our rooms. On our way down one of the winding nonsensical passages, we heard blood curdling screams coming from down the hall. Frumious and I moved with haste to try and see what was the matter. At which point, the Doorwarden became aggressive and attacked. She puled her hood back to reveal the top portion of her head. Where her eyes and forehead should have been was just a bed of venomous snakes that sprang forth, snapping and hissing, all the while still attached to her . . . face? We got a few good hits in before we heard the sound of doors locking, and she turned into a foggy shadowy version of herself and flew off saying that this keep would be our tomb. We rushed in the direction of the screams only to find a room in which a large, tusked creature was eating two of the townsfolk alive. Feydor made quick work of him, and realizing that there was nothing we could do for the two victims we put them out of their misery, and set the bodies ablaze.
From there we ended up getting lost in the labrynth of the keep. Halls twisted and turned, we encountered dozens of combatants, which thanks to Bajol and Fyn were dispatched with relative ease. While, I won't bore you with the litany of creatures that lost their life, it is safe to say we fought our way through a good portion of the keep. Then we encountered a part of the keep that looked nothing like the rest of the edifice.
It was a long hallway that was decorated with finery that was not illusory in nature. Along one wall was a series of tapestries, and the hall ended in a door on one end, and a spiral staircase on the other. Let me start with a description of the tapestries. It seemed to be the history of the region, and Shadowmount, specifically. However, ever present in all of the hangings was a chilling set of teeth. Very similar to the teeth of the Marquis. Sometimes it was just teeth in the darkness, other times it was in the form of a grinning winged beast, and in one tapestry the cloth had been cut to hide all of the figure save two massive paws. I did not have time to sketch them for binding, but the takeaway, it seems, is that the Marquis has been around for a long, long time.
From here we went to the door at the end of the hall way. That is where we discovered his lab. It was a large room with tanks, vats, shelves, tables, and hanging chains scattered about. There were liquids and powders of all sorts. This was obviously some place he used for experimentation. And sadly, some of his test subjects were still in various forms of decomposition either in these vats, or strewn about the lab. There were wards, and runes, and circles, and etchings all over the walls and floor. Frumious made tracings and I have bound them and sent them to the shelf for removal. There were maps, and a full model of the entire Mark with his notes on them. One, in particular, caught my attention. Where the ruins are in the middle of Shadowmount, he wrote a note that said, box destroyed. I have no clue what that could mean. There were also 3 pedestals. One held his spell book, another his instruction manual for his experiments, and the last held his journal. We grabbed those items, and then saw an enormous crystal orb on one end of the room. After closer inspection, we realized this was a scrying aid. As it was too big to move, and I was concerned about a release of magical energy upon breaking it, we left it as is, and fled the room.
After following the spiral staircase we arrived at what was surely the exit, only to be met by the Doorwarden who promptly sent us into a pit. Kyros and I ended up in a cell in the dungeon, where after 20 minutes or so I heard a knock at the cell door. I opened the peephole in the door to find a strange looking man in a Jester's hat. He was gaunt, and I could not tell his race through the pallid, tight, flesh around his face. His eyes stared out of two hollow sockets, and he spoke with a chilling lightness and airyness. Basically he told me he could let me out and show me the way to breathe fresh air, and feel the sun on my face. All I had to do was turn over one of the three items I took from the Lab. After giving it careful thought, it seemed to me that the instruction manual was the thing to give up, as I would never perform the vile experiments in the book, and a lot of it was written in a cipher that would take some time to decode. I also wagered that the spell book and journal might be of more use to the party in the long run. I asked him if he was going to give the book to his master, and he replied "When he is around". That told me we are dealing with a minioin not of the Marquis, but of someone else.
I gave him the manual, and true to his word he let me out. That is when I got a full look at him. He was short and thin and indistinct. He wore a full Jester's costume but it was old, and faded, with tarnished bells atop his hat. However, the most striking thing about this . . . creature was the way he moved. It was as if every joint in his body was capable of hyper extending well past what anatomy tells us is possible. I thought it reminded me of a puppet, and wondered if his master might be the puppet king. I asked him if he was also going to give me a wicker doll for my travels, and he stated that that would not be a good idea for either of us. And then he disappeared down a hall in the opposite direction of the exit.
I followed his directions and, sure enough, they led me to a place where I could breathe fresh air, and see the sun. It was a sewer grate, and I was still stuck in the keep. I tried to break the grate and mid struggle, I saw 5 men on horseback riding out of the keep. I called out to get there attention, and it turned out to be the rest of the party, as well as Master Shake, who had been the Marquis' guest for the last decade. They broke me out and we expeditiously fled the area.
We arrived back in Shadowmount and took up rooms. While it was only 48 hours since we last slept in this inn, Osgood, it feels like 3 weeks have passed. We are all shaken, tired, and as for myself, feeling a little outmatched.
So, the plan moving forward is to head back home while we decide what our next step is. I could use some time to do some research, and I think it would serve us all to see the faces of our loved ones. Hopefully we will be back home in 3-4 weeks. Until then keep the tower locked and everything off the bookshelf, save this journal. I will use it to communicate which books I need placed on the shelf, and when. If anyone at all arrives in town that you are unfamiliar with, find my father and let him know. You should also tell him that his son has probably drawn the ire of the Marquis so he understands how best to defend the town, and our friends and families lives. Above all, be careful, and keep our work safe.
Until my next entry, be well, and may Omnos guide and protect us all. (Now more than ever)
Take 300 XP
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