Chaos Revealed - Entry 8

Entry 14


In the morning we return to the house and begin our search for Rineheart and his oldest son.

On the steps is Boris. He says he came out here, as the only one who would, to let Tristan know that his father has passed away. Tristan thanks Boris for the information, but no emotion seems to cross his features.

The Dwarf spends some time talking to Boris and finds out the poacher is also a follower of Thor. Boris gives him a holy symbol of the god and promises to leave a war hammer in the chapel. Providing we survive long enough to claim it.

We are passing through the dining room, returning to the library when someone begins tapping at the window. The dwarf admits a human, who claims to be a ranger and a follower of Thor also.

The Paladin is the first to descend the ladder from the library and she calls up that she has encountered two skeletons. The sound of splintering bones floats up through the opening followed by her cheerful “nevermind.”

We proceed down the ladder and enter a dungeon area. To our right is a secret door that opens up into the wine cellar. We ignore the door and proceed down the corridor.

Another door opens up into a large pool. Across the water is a small ledge and a screen with tiny slits. Behind the slits, we can see movement as two creatures appear to be working some sort of pump. We move on.

The next room contains a sloping floor leading to a pool of liquid. The sides appear to be slick, possibly caused by a layer of mold. Under the liquid, gleam several coins and weapons, still appearing to be in outstanding shape. Hermione volunteers to retrieve the items. I help her tie the rope around her waist and anchor myself at the doorway, just beyond the slippery sloping floor. The dwarf adds his weight to the rope as I carefully lower the thief. Without warning, the liquid rises up and grabs Hermione, pulling her into its depths. This was no pool of water, but a large gelatinous cube. I curse myself silently that I did not recognize the signs. Hermione immediately begins fighting to pull herself back up the rope and I tightened my grip and begin pulling, setting my weight and strength against the strength of the cube. It takes several minutes, but we finally manage to wrest the thief free of the cube.

Moving on, we come to a large chamber, with a number of remains scattered around the edges. Fragments of skeletons hang from the rusted chains in the wall. In the center of the room is an area where the stones are shattered. We divide into two groups and work our way around the room. Tristan and the Sorcerer remain at the entrance.

As we pass a group of bones, I see something bright glittering in them. Glancing at the floor and the ceiling above us, I ignore the temptation.

As the two groups pass through the archway at the other end of the room, a rustling sound catches our attention. From out of the shattered rock of the floor come two swarms of ants. They stop at the archway and do not pass through it. Tristan steps into the room and the swarms immediately move toward him.

We play the back and forth game for a few minutes, and then Tristan jumps over the swarm closest to him and sprints to our side of the room. The Sorcerer does the same.

The Paladin thought she saw something moving in the hallway ahead of us and we proceed in that direction. Passing past one of the doors lining hallway, Crystal pauses, saying her detect evil spell has detected something in the room. We look closely at the doors and realize these are holding cells.

Being the person she is, Crystal can not pass the cell by. As cautiously as we can, try to check the cell before opening the door and fail to see anything in the room. Hermione opens the cell and we find ourselves facing a ghoul. The cleric moves further down the hall and hits a trip wire that opens all of the remaining cell doors. Out of several of them comes other undead creatures, as well as two humans. The group splits and engages the creatures, as the two humans appear to be unarmed, we ignore them for now.

After we defeat the undead, Crystal charges one of the humans. The Cleric steps between them, and I grab for Crystal’s shoulder asking her to hold back for a moment. She pauses, but I see the hatred boiling in her eyes. The cleric continues questioning the human, who now demands safe passage for the information he has. We convince Crystal to allow the man to leave and take his chances on getting out of the house. We tell the human we will only guarantee that he will not be attack by any member of the party and he is on his own as far as any other dangers in the area. He agrees. He tells us he is a pirate and his captain has been dealing with 2 undead creatures here. 1 is unknown the other is called Carver (it was he who imprisoned the pirate here). Carver apparently practices a combination of alchemy and necromancy. The second, while he has never dealt with him he believes is a lich. A lich who has not completed all of the rituals and must kill all members of the Duval line to complete his transformation. I glance at Tristan. His father has died and he is now the LAST of the Duval’s. To prevent the evil from fully entering this world he must be protected at all costs.

Before he leaves, the pirate tells us to beware what walks on 4 legs, but has more. I stand by Crystal as the pirate leaves, placing myself between her and him. She gave us her word to not attack, and I trust that, but she is a paladin and he was an evil person – best not to take chances.

We find other person huddled in the corner of his cell. He refuses to give us his name and Crystal detects no evil on him. We offer to let him come with us, he agrees. As the man has no armor or weapons, the Dwarf gives him one of the two handed swords he carries.

We finally move to the end of the hallway. Another set of the iron bond double doors face us, along with an open steel door to our left. We step through the steel door. Just inside a small hallway we find a pile of armor and weapons, these belong to our friend from the cell. He quickly dons his equipment. The small hall opens into a room with a mirror along one side. A ray of light flashes on the other side and we see what appears to be movement. Working together, we are able to break the three layers of glass and find ourselves in a laboratory. On a table is a body or mismatched body parts part worg, part tiger. I immediately strike at the creature, attempting to severe one of the two heads. From the right a vial flies onto the creature and it begins to awaken. To our right we see someone pull a level then leave through a second steel door. The door clangs shut and we realize it has locked.

The members of the party who followed us in yell that the first door has also locked with Hermione and Gandalf on the other side. Sabin moves back to the first door and begins working with Hermione, on the other side, to pick the lock.

The constructed creature attacks and we are hard pressed for several minutes against it. Two worg heads snapping and six legs with claws slashing at us. Under the fur are bone plates giving the creature a form of natural armor.

We finally are able to dispatch the creature and the cleric moves to try and open the door. It is locked and the mechanism has disengaged. We appear to be trapped. The Dwarf has us stand back a bit and he attacks the door. From outside we hear laughter and a mocking voice call out “That room was designed to keep things in.” I glance at the destroyed construct and realize we may be in trouble.

I move to join Sabin at the other door. Hermione calls out that the double doors are opening. Another failure with the door. I suggest she and Gandalf find a place to hide as Sabin and I continue working on the lock.

The corridor falls silent and we pray our friends will be safe.

(The sorceror cast an invisibility spell and Hermione darted into one of the cells. Carver locates the sorceror despite the spell and attacks him.) We hear him cry out on pain then begin a casting. Eventually the sounds move away from the door)

After several minutes, the door starts to rise, then slams shut again.

(Hermione finally leaves the cell and moves back to the door. She tells us there is a lever on the outside of the second door and she moves to engage it.)

The door opens and we dash out into the hallway. Carver stands at the end of the hallway just inside another corridor leading to the right. As we move to engage the creature, we hear a loud crash from the corridor to the right. Another person immediately engages Carver, along with the Dwarf. Together, they dispatch the undead creature.

The new person introduces himself as Ferdinand Vernase in undercommon. He is wielding a Hammer of Forging and Crystal notes that it radiates evil on occasion. It would appear to be an intelligent weapon.

Ferdinand darts about opening doors and pulling out equipment that he dumps at our feet before vanishing with the human we rescued from the cell. He takes the time to tell us about everything he gives us.

Inside the room he came from, lies a huge skeleton almost dragon like but not. The huge head has been shattered and Gandalf tells us that Ferdinand put it through the door, before bashing the door down. Also in the room is the body of Rinehart, the paladin and his equipment. Crystal is entranced by the plate mail and the sword. Ferdinand tells her it is an intelligent weapon which will bond with one faithful to Arayelle. We also find several potions.

In the items Ferdinand removed from other areas is a periaft of poison. My mind immediately remembers the assassin that may still be stalking us and I claim the item.

I take the time to check the body of Carver and remove 4 daggers, a +2 scalpel with keen (15-20), a ring of alter self (another protection against the assassin as I may be able to disguise my features as a full elf). He is also wearing +2 leather armor. I replace my studded leather with the magical leather.

As a group, we return to the chapel to rest for the night and I pass my studded leather armor to Sabin as it will provide a bit more protect than the regular leather he is wearing.

It is still early in the day and we take the time for our cleric of Athena to perform the proper burial rituals for the Duval family. We then carry the bodies to the cemetery and place them in the family crypt then return to the chapel.

Chaos Revealed - Entry 7

Entry 13


This morning we awaken after a night of dreams and visions. I found myself in a wooded area, surrounded by the call of predators when a twig snapped behind me. I spun around, my weapons ready, to see an elven maid standing before me. It was the Lady Dwycia. I immediately, dropped my blades to a non-threatening position and bowed y head. She smiled at me, “You fight well,” she said. “For your courage and honor, I give to you my Sacred Blessing. Each day at dawn, you may select one of your ranger skills to be enhanced for that day.” She also warns me that Hecate is coming. She then vanished as I awakened.

I note that many of the others also seem to be slightly disoriented as they too had dreams and visions. Crystal seems seriously distracted and latter tells us that she was chastised by Athena for her actions in the maze.

We also see a new person kneeling before the altar. By his robes, he appears to be a cleric. This seems to be an odd situation. The previous clerics of Athena that have joined us have all vanished without explanation. I wonder if Arayelle is testing them or possibly us for some reason yet unknown.

As we introduce our selves to out new companion, it becomes apparent that all of our dreams / vision seemed to hold religious significance as we all mention the gods we have chosen to honor during our time here. That is all except for Tristan.

Tristan Duvall, the son of a family that for generations were devoted servants of the Goddess Arayelle, looks at us and frowns slightly. He then tells us that he was given a choice in his dream to follow Athena and he refused. There is anger and resentment in his voice as he speaks. He tells us about his families connection to Athena then curses as he tells us that she has abandoned them and from what he has seen of her servants, he glances at Crystal, she holds no real power.

I understand his feelings, but feel sorrow that he has driven himself this far to disavow his Goddess. This cannot be a good thing for him or our mission.

After a few minutes consultation, we move to the rubble of ash that was once the Servants Quarters. Checking around the outside of the rubble, we find that the floor still appears to be solid, though it can be pried up in many areas to reveal a small crawl space underneath. A search of the area also reveals a small secret holding area with a blacked box. Hermoine opens the box and we find a small cache of jewels and coins along with a pait of gloves of stealth and a vial with a necromantic potion of “last Breath” in it. Hermoine passes the vial to Gandolf and takes the remaining items for herself.

We also find four skeletons among the rubble. As we gather the bones to carry them to the cemetery for burial, they begin glowing and smoldering. The first set, bursts into flame and pulls the ash around into itself creating a body. Crystal points to two of the others as having a strong aura of evil around them, but they have not formed yet, so we attack the first. Our combined efforts quickly dispatch the skeleton and we turn to face the other three. Realizing how ineffective my blades will be against the animated skeletons, crystal passes me her enchanted longsword with the bane enchantment on it. I thank her and take a two handed stance with the weapon as one of the skeletons approaches me.

We divide into groups as we face the three skeletons. Crystal and I quickly dispatch the center one and we move to each face one of the others.

The group’s injuries are light when we dispatch the last skeleton. Instead of trying to move the remains and possibly triggering their re-animation again, we decide to bury them there.

From here, we move to the Guest Quarters.

The door to the Guest Quarters opens easily and we enter cautiously. First, Crystal and I enter and scan the interior. I see a shadow move in the far left corner of the loser level. Crystal moves to the far side of the entry way and quickly checks the dining room and kitchen area, closing doors. I move up to the corner carefully watching for more movement. I finally see two bodies around the corner. The rest of the party moves in behind us and the doors slam shut.

Suddenly, voices fill my ears along with the sound of running feet and the door opening and closely. “There’s a fire. We need help!” the voices call. “The servants quarters are on fire.” Suddenly another voice calls through the bedlam. “Where is my son?” The cacophony of noise dies down and we see a ghostly apparition floating above the stairs. It is a woman, she looks at us and calls again “Where is my son?”

Crystal steps forward and asks her who her son is. She frowns and asks why she is asking foolish questions.

I step forward and call to her “Lady Terissian, we are here to lay the evil that covers this place to rest. We will try to find your son for you.”

She looks at me then glances at Tristan and frowns. “That you keep company with this one proves that you lie.”


Tristan steps forward. “Lady do not judge me by the actions of my uncle.” She points at Tristan. “You will be the first to die.” She begins gesturing calling forth a magic spell. With ease, she unleashes a sleet storm in the room, covering the floor with ice and obscuring our vision.

I feel Sabin move toward his right from behind me and I can only hope he has moved to a guard position next to Tristan.

Crystal calls to the woman. “Lady Terissian, I am a Paladin of a Good God and by my honor we will do what we can to find your son.”

Lady Terissian looks at Crystal studying her. “By my life Lady, we will find your son.”

“We will see.”

I again call to the apparition, “Lady, please let us help you.”

Another apparition appears in the center of the room, in front of Tristan, a rapier posed to plunge through his neck. Sabin moves to interpose himself between the attacker and Tristan. I swallow hard as the blade stops, its point resting on Sabin’s throat.

The sleet storm clears. “Who speaks for your group?”

Crystal steps forward. I look at her and nod. “I will.”

“You have two days to find my son and return him to me. He,” she points at Tristan, “will remain here.”

I glance at Tristan and Sabin. Sabin looks at me and I see his hand moving slightly. My thief training helps as I can barely make out the signs he is making. He wishes to stay as a guard in case things go bad.

“If you fail, he will die.”

Two more figures appear on the landing behind her. Both well armed and armored.
I again look at Sabin. His green eyes are hard as I catch the almost imperceptible nod. I speak under my breath to Crystal. “Ask if one of our party can remain with Tristan.” She pauses and looks at me as if I am crazy. “Sabin will stay behind as a guard.” She relays the request.

“They will share the same fate.” The male apparition standing before Sabin says.

I glance at Sabin. Again, the barely perceptible nod. “Agreed,” I say.

“Lady, where is the last place you knew your son to be?” Crystal asks.

“He and Larissa use to meet at the gazebo.”

The doors open and we leave Tristan and Sabin behind as we exit the building. Two strangers are waiting for us as we exit and Crystal immediately readies her crossbow and challenges them.

What ensues is an argument between the two as the cleric as he later identifies himself, is insulted by her actions. Finally the cleric of Athena that joined us earlier is able to calm the situation and points out that Aldran is a cleric of Dineik, the God of Healing and a member of Ra’s court as is Arayelle. Aldran introduces his companion a wizard he has been traveling with. Once tempers have calmed, I explain what has been going on so far. The cleric seems upset that he never heard anyone ask Sabin if he wanted to stay behind, I don’t clarify. He also takes umbrage with the fact the diaries and spellbooks are with Sabin, saying there is information in them we could probably use in this situation. At this, I finally lose my temper slightly and remind him that we have been working here for three days and he and his companion have only just arrived. I then explain what we do know from the books, that Mykl was stealing from the family, that he was to be disinherited as Wilhem and Larissa would be the sole heirs to both estates. At this the wizard say that doesn’t seem to be enough to constitute the murder of both families. I also point out the he had gain control of an item of great magic and evil, something I had mentioned earlier – so power could also be part of the motive. Based on the actions he has taken, I would suspect him of working blood magic here.

Aldran apologizes for any offense and offers to assist us. We agree.

Checking the gazebo, we find a loose plank. Under the plank we find a puzzle box which we all try to open without success, until our new wizard casts knock on it. Inside are a potion and a note. The note is love poem written in common, elven and sylvan. It is a masterpiece with all three translations holding the same rhyming scansion and beat.

Crystal read the note in common and a figure approaches us. “That is not for you.”

“Wilhem Terissian?” I ask politely and he looks at me.

“We are here to destroy to evil that has surrounded this pace for the past thirty years.”

“And your mother wants to see you,” Aldran says.

“I will not leave this place till I find my fiancé.”

“Let us help you. Where did you see her last?”

“Mykl Duvall .. he .. stabbed me in the side with a dagger .. he chased her that way,” he pointed toward the cliff.

I promise to assist him in his search. He tells us we can follow him if we desire.

Hermoine locates a well worn path down the cliff to a dock. Crystal suggests we link ourselves together with the rope she is carrying. The dwarf takes the lead, I place myself in the middle and Crystal takes the anchor position in the back.

The Dwarf’s weight causes part of the path to collapse under him and he and Hermoine fall. I yell at the others to keep the rope taut and brace myself to keep the others from sliding off. The weight of the Dwarf and the inexperience of the others almost cost us severely, but we manage to pull the party back up. Using the rope as protection, we then all leap the pit and continue on.

Reaching the bottom of the cliff, we find a dock and a path leading to a see-cave. The Dwarf and I move to inspect an overturned row boat while the others wait by the dock. At the same time we see a shape moving in the water toward us. I call out a warning, then the Paladin warns that a second creature in the water near the docks.

In front of us, a scrag, water-troll, emerges from the ocean. He is beyond the reach of our melee weapons, but we are not beyond it’s reach. The dwarf is hit, then leaps off the dock into the water to fight with the scrag, I take several hits as I begin an attack with my long bow. Suddenly the Dwarf falls, and I continue my attacks, hoping to get an opportunity to pull him from the water before he drowns.

The rest of the party faces a second scrag. Our new wizard approaches me and touches my shoulder. I feel my limbs limber slightly as he casts Cat’s Grace on me.

The new Cleric jumps into the water and starts to move toward us, I only hope he is coming to assist the Dwarf. It has been too long, I have risk a full attack from the scrag and make up my mind to attempt and pull the Dwarf from the water. As I get ready to however, the troll makes a sudden dive, grabs the Dwarf and begins swimming away. I see the cleric make and attempt to attack, but the water interferes. I drop my bow and all of my gear, except for my armor and swords and go after them.

The other group finally dispatches the second scrag and I see Crystal disappear under the water. I continue toward the Scrag, which is out distancing me. Suddenly I see thrashing coming from the area and I realize the Dwarf has regained consciousness. Bless her Crystal reached them and did a laying of hands. The Dwarf manages to free himself from the Troll for a moment, before the creature grabs him again. I thrust at the Scrag with my longsword, but misjudge because of the water.

Finally the creature moves off and we are able to get out of the water. I move around to retrieve my gear and see the body the cleric discovered when he pulled the boat into the water. It is a young woman, probably Larissa. I remind the others that we need to retrieve Wilhem as well as he fell against the Troll the Dwarf and I were fighting.

Wilhem rises from the water and Aldran directs him to the body. While Wilhem spends time with Larissa, Crystal and I pull the downed Troll from the water and burned the body. Once the path is clear, Wilhem carries Larissa’s body back to the gazebo and we follow at a slower pace.

In the gazebo, Wilhem refuses to leave the body until he knows where her spirit is. Crystal hands him the poem and suggests he read it. There is no reaction through the first two stanzas. As he completes reading the poem in Sylvan, a ghostly figure appears. They embrace as best they can.

Wilhem then carries Larissa’s body to the chapel, and then occupancies us to the Guest House. He tells his mother that Tristan is blameless. He also asks that she allow us to continue with our mission here. She agrees. Wilhem requests that we make sure their bodies are returned to Raspa and buried there. We agree.

He then throws down his rapier, a dagger and his ring of jumping. “This are for you,” he says.

Lady Terissian speaks again and gestures at Tristan. “If you are the heir of Duvall, follow me.” He does. Crystal and I follow at a respectful distance.

She leads us to a room with a chest and opens it. Inside are 5 platinum trade bars, a cloak and a pair of gauntlets.

The cloak is identified as a cloak of resistance and we give it to Aldran. The gauntlets are gauntlets of swimming and climbing, I suggest those go to Crystal to help compensate for her poor swimming abilities.

Tristan gives the dagger to Sabin and the rapier and ring to Hermoine.

We bid the spirits of the Terissian’s farewell and go to the chapel to rest for the night. We have now found all the members of the Duvall family with the exceptions of Rhinehart and Mykl. Alesandra told us we would find Rhinehart below the basement, so tomorrow we will return to the library and the stairwell we found there.

If Lord Rhinehart was as highly ranked a Paladin as I believe him to be, I am concerned he will sense Tristan anger toward Arayelle and this will cloud how he reacts toward his grandson and our party.

I glance around before falling sleep, as usual the sorcerer is near me, the others are settling down also. Our cleric is still in prayer near the altar. Thinking wistfully of the scents and sounds of the forest trails I drift off.

A scream wakes me and a sit upright to see our cleric backing quickly away from the windows. He is saying something about their being flaming skeletons outside. My swords are in my hands as I look for the others. Our sorcerer is still snoring quietly and I elbow him in the side as I get up.

As we shake the sleep off, several fireballs strike the windows. One breaks through and starts a fire on one of the pews. The cleric quickly casts a create water spell and extinguishes the flames.

The rest of us move to the doors of the chapel. These appear to be the same skeletons we fought at the burned out servants quarters.

The dwarf charges the one to our right and Crystal takes the one to left.

Crystal quickly destroys the one she attacks and I hear the dwarf hacking away on his. I move to assist Crystal as she moves to the second skeleton on her side. To my left I see a flash of light and another creature appears next to the dwarf. It appears to be some type of devil. As Crystal does not need help with the second skeleton, I turn and engage the devil with my bow. I apparently struck it a damaging blow as it has turned toward me.

As I released the arrow, I heard the sorcerer yell that he had summoned the devil. Wonderful, I think. Crystal is not going to like this.

The Dwarf finishes with his skeleton and engages the devil also as Crystal runs past me her sword ready. The devil never had a chance. I hear the splintering of bone and realize another of our party has dispatched the fourth skeleton.

After the skeletons are gone, the Dwarf grabs the bones and dumps them over the cliff. Hopefully, they don’t come back again. We return to the chapel and finish our rest for the night.