== Toilday, Neth 12, 4707; Hambly Farm, Night ==
The night passed with nothing untoward occurring at Ibor Thorn’s place, which was almost disappointing in that it resulted in no new information about the recent murders.
The sheriff had mentioned a scholar camped out at the Old Light who might be able to provide insight in the sihedron rune carved into the victims’ chests. There was also the mad man found wondering near the first murder site, and he was at the Saintly Haven of Respite, an asylum south of town.
We took leave from Prickleback Lane as Ibor left for the lumber mill and made our way to the ancient ruins which the locals called the “Old Light.” There in the midst of the rubble was a small camp, composed of a single tent, a fire ring, various crates containing tools and quite a few provisions. It looked quite comfortable, although I fear our arrival startled the scholar, who was softly snoring within his tent — no doubt recovering from the previous days’ toil… or the bottle of rum that lay empty just outside.
Our mysterious scholar proved to be Quink, the head of the Sages’ Guild, with whom we had an established business relationship. Quink was delighted at having visitors, and assumed we had come to talk about the ancient Thassilonian ruins. He quickly launched into his pet theory about them: conventional wisdom suggested that the Old Light was a beacon that warned away ships from the rocky shore, but Quink was sure it had been a massive flame thrower used to repel invading forces from the sea.
We mentioned the carving of the sihedron rune on the victims’ bodies, but he was unaware of any significance such a desecration would hold. He explained that originally the symbol represented the Seven Virtues, and only during the declining years of the Empire was it subverted to the Seven Sins.
When we mentioned that Aldern Foxglove was missing, Quink said that misfortune appeared to follow that family. Foxglove Manor, on the Lost Coast Road to the south of Sandpoint, was built before the city was founded, and the Foxglove family was wealthy and prominent, and remained so until the “Late Unpleasantness.”
Aldern’s mother was found dead on the rocks beneath the cliff upon which the manor perched, and his father apparently took his own life in an outbuilding nearby. The children, Aldern and his sisters, were found hiding within the house and were taken to Magnimar to be raised. The Manor has been called “The Misgivings” ever since.
Noting that Foxglove Manor and the asylum were in the same general area we left Quink to his research and began our journey south along the Lost Coast Road.
The grey funk that had enveloped Sandpoint over the past few days lifted and our journey south became a pleasant walk through wood, rolling hills and quaint farm-steads. before long a small sign directed us onto a narrow lane that wandered about the foot of a green mound and ended in a meadow beneath the eves of a forest.
Sitting in the meadow was the Saintly Haven of Respite, a large three story building of stone. At first glance the building could have been mistaken for a large manor house for the nearby farm lands, but closer inspection gave lie to the illusion. A few grimy windows peered out from the main floor, but the upper levels were blank walls; and the single heavy, iron bound wooden door made the place feel more like a prison than a hospital.
We knocked and waited. And waited until we knocked again. Presently the door creaked open a few inches and a dirty, pinched face man peered out and demanded to know what we wanted. We explained that we were here to see Graist, the lunatic from the first murder site. The man’s face twisted into a scowl and he replied that the doctor did not wish to be disturbed, and we would do well to be off.
Immediately we became suspicious and my friends fanned out around the building as I informed the unhelpful servant that we were here on official business of Sheriff Hemlock, and they would do well not to obstruct our investigation. He burped and wiped his face with a filthy calloused hand before opening the door and telling us to wait in the office while he fetched the doctor.
Naturally we did not sit passively but explored the first floor, but saw nothing untoward. The doctor appeared and while cleaner than his henchman, was no more polite nor any more helpful. He introduced himself as Erin Habe and said his patient was far too ill for visitors. We persisted and he granted a few of us a brief visit with the invalid.
Sabin, Avia and I followed the doctor up a flight of stairs to a large dim hallway with many narrow doors lining either side, and then across and up another flight to the top level.
There, huddled in the corner of a small room was a pale, gangrenous looking fellow bound in a straight jacket. He was sobbing and his greasy hair stuck out wildly like the straw in a scarecrow.
We could make out snatches of what he was muttering, over and over, “Razors! Teeth! Too many teeth?”
Sabin used a mind reading spell and picked up thoughts of being bound and forced to watch the carving of the bodies. He also picked out a name, the “Skinsaw Man”, as the identity of who or what had done this.
Graist suddenly realized he had visitors, and he quickly gazed first at Sabin and then I with a puzzled expression, but when his glance fell to Avia his eyes practically bulged from their sockets.
“You would come,” he raved, “He saved a space for you! You come to the misgivings and he will end the killings.”
The madman was filled with rage from what look to be unbridled jealousy over the thought of Avia and… the Skinsaw Man. He suddenly dropped to the floor writhing in agony as he screamed, “Me! Me! It should have been me!”
He then burst out of his straight jacket and lunged at Avia, but he was subdued before he could do any harm to us or himself. Doctor Habe confirmed what I had suspected: the man was in the final stages of “Ghoul Fever”. But his condition was curable, and I was puzzled at why Habe would allow anyone to suffer for so long when relief was half a day away in Sandpoint.
Meanwhile the rest of our group had taken up defensive positions outside the asylum (old habits die hard) when an old man came running up the lane, crying out something about scarecrows.
Rigel was able to calm him down and found that his name was Crump, and that he had just been by the Hambly farm where dire things were afoot. “People was dead, but they was still movin’, and eatin’ animals alive like what is unnatural. And some was hung up like scarecrows, and with the full moon tonight they’ll turn and he’ll be back!”
We had heard the commotion from inside, and came running out along with Habe, who knew Crump and said he wasn’t known for his flights of fancy. We could only assume the worse.
We first sent Trask to Sandpoint on horseback with the securely bound Graist in the hopes that Father Zantus would be able to cure him. Then Crump led us south, towards the Hambly farm where unnatural things awaited us.
Crump provided an informative narration about the lands through which we walked. For instance the nearby wood was “Whisper Wood, where gnomes and pixies play and lay traps for mortals foolish enough to go in. But the best land is right up agin them woods, and so that’s where the farms are.”
Fields of corn stretched away to the south, interlaced with paths and roads. According to Crump, scarecrows were set out about the fields, and some had come to life.
We made straight for the farm house and barn, where a scarecrow was perched outside on a post. The thing began to struggle wildly on its perch and sprang down, lurching towards us. Avia confirmed that it was evil, and we quickly dispatched it. It looked vaguely human, but with strongly ghoulish features.
Avia then detected half a dozen evil entities in the barn, and a single strong source of evil from the house. We silently barred the barn doors from the outside, and then rushed into the house from the front and side doors. A very large ghoul awaited within, and cried “Ghouls to me!” as we charged it.
We quickly killed the ghoul and found that it had a leather cord about its neck from which hung an iron key with an engraved symbol upon it: a flower surrounded by thorns. Avia recognized it as the Foxglove family herald.
[198] iron key on a cord with Foxglove family herald
On the floor, beside the ghoul, were the remains of a man with a seven sided star carved into his chest. A note next to the body read, “Take the fever into you, my love. It will be my first gift to you.”
Crump identified the body as having been farmer Hambly.
So was the ghoul with the key hung from its neck Foxglove, or was it his emissary and the key intended to go along with the message? At the time it seemed unclear, but now, as I pen this entry the latter seems far more likely.
Over at the barn there was a great deal of commotion as the ghouls we had trapped within banged against the doors to get out. We opened one of the doors and killed them one by one as they tumbled out.
Oddly enough the barn was built on top of old stone work that looked like the top of a giant helmed head.
We then set about the gruesome task of walking the roads through the fields and checking on each scarecrow. When we encountered ghouls we killed them.
On the way back to the house we found a small boy hiding in the fields, whom we put in the care of Crump, who was ready to head back to his farm now that the ghoul infestation was under control.
We returned to Hambly’s house where a search uncovered a small cash of gold coins in a strong box beneath the floor boards, and a key to the box on Hambly’s body. We kept them to return to his next of kin.
With dusk drawing nigh we set up camp in the farm yard.
I am spending the hours of my watch making this entry, as wolves howl from the nearby wood. It would be a tranquil scene, but for the mayhem and carnage of the past few days.
== Wealday, Neth 13, 4707; The Misgivings, Noon ==
In the morning we returned to the Lost Coast Road, where we met up with Trask who was returning from Sandpoint. We continued south and crossed the Foxglove River through covered bridge, where we turned west.
The way had once been a grand and stately avenue lined with trees on either side, but had been neglected an disused for decades. Weeds grew thick beneath the tangled half dead limbs of the trees, cutting off the view and making it feel stuffy, despite the cool weather.
Following the twisty road some three miles further we came upon the glowering hulk that was Foxglove Manor — it gave off both a sad and sinister air, and we realized why the locals all called it “The Misgivings.”
An irregular low tumble of stone was all that remained of the out-buildings that crouched in a clearing before the house. The drive led past this and up to the house itself: a tall and ungainly thing perched right at the edge of the cliff — as if it too meant to cast itself upon the rocky shore far below.
The grounds were on a narrow, high headland that jutted east into a crescent shaped bay that had cut back into the mainland. Thorny brambles choked the hanful of trees barely clinging to life, and the wind came in from the sea in a raging shriek, cold and bitter.
We searched the site of the service buildings first, but found nothing but scorched stone and bits of charred wood. A well sat at one end, and sickly looking ravens hopped about the place, staring at us with their beady black eyes, and occasionally objecting to our presence with croaking caws of reproach.
The house. That forlorn structure, crooked, sagging and neglected waited for us. And I mean just that: it felt as if the thing were alive and waiting for us, but whether with malice, benign intent, or total indifference I could not say.
We walked about it, peering into windows and trying to get a feel for the layout within. But the windows were clouded with grime and most were blocked by heavy curtains. On the east side the house crept to within inches of a precipitous drop of some 300 feet.
Looking at one another we realized we had nothing left to do but enter the house. Rigel did her usual checks for traps at the front doors and used the key to unlock them. The wooden floor stretched away from us into the gloom.
As we walked into the grand hallway Nolin said the place reeked strongly of burning wood, but nobody else noticed it, and a few moments later Nolin reported that the smell had gone. We all heard the creaking as the wind hammered on the house. And we all could smell the dank smell of mouldering wood and plaster.
The wide hallway ran the entire length of the house and a massive, rotting stuffed manticore faced the entrance. Large stone fireplaces lined this part of the hall, and heavy blue curtains covered the windows and gave the place a dusky feel. The lintels over the doors boasted freezes of gargoyles and angels, and a circular staircase wound tightly up and out of sight in the southern wall.
Avia said the place was evil. Not any particular part of the house, but the house itself, as if evil had soaked into the walls, floors and ceiling.
I wandered further in and past the stairway I found a door which opened into a drawing room. I pulled aside the curtain to let in some light when just for a moment I saw the likeness of a beautiful woman, face forlorn, reflected in the glass.
Back out in the middle section of the hall an antique monkey head was mounted on the wall, and a bell pull ran out from its gaping mouth. The floor was covered with a tattered rug, which barely concealed a large patch of mold. I pulled away the rug and revealed a large swirling pattern of blue, green and black mold growing in the floor boards.
Concentrating on the swirling pattern I realized that it depicted a spiral stair case leading down, with skulls and bones littering the steps. I quickly stepped back from the moldy image and warned my companions of what I saw.
I then opened the door in the southern wall to what looked like a closet and found regular stairs leading up. To the north a similar door opened to stairs leading down.
The eastern end of the hall bowed out like the prow of a ship. A large mahogany table with high back chairs filled this end, and another pair of fireplaces to the north and south lined the room. A great chandelier covered in dust and draped with cobwebs hung over the table.
The real interest of the hall, however, was the bank of stained glass windows in the eastern wall. Each depicted a stylized monster pouring out like smoke from a seven sided box with spiky runes. Looking closer we realized that the runes were necromantic and that the monsters were being pulled into the box, with snarling faces.
One window depicted a gnarled and tangled tree with a face.
The next an immense hooked beak bird with blue and gold plumage.
The next a winged centaur like creature with a lion’s body and a woman’s torso.
The last window showed a blue squid like creature with evil red eyes.
As we gazed at the windows my companions all heard the sound of sobbing coming from upstairs, but I heard nothing.
I found it odd that these intricate stained glass windows had been placed in the eastern wall: the wall that overlooked the bay and must provide an amazing view. And yet the Foxgloves chose to block out the view in favor of… well, some rather tacky glassware.
There are stairs to explore, both up and down, and more doors on this level to open; but we’ve taken a moment to think about what it is we came here for, and I have taken this opportunity to enter the morning’s events and review my entries from the past few days.
Postscript, or things we know and things we suspect:
- We suspect Aldrin Foxglove of being behind the murders in Sandpoint and the ghoul fever outbreak in the farmlands to the west of here. The key to the manor taken from the ghoul along with the accompanying note makes it seem obvious that either Foxglove is responsible, or someone wants us to think he is.
- Our presence is expected here at Foxglove Manor, and we should expect a trap.
- Recall the words of the lunatic Graist spoken to Avia: “You come to the MISGIVINGS and he will end the killings.”
- Also recall the name Sabin pulled from Graist’s mind: Skinsaw Man.
- If this is how Foxglove Manor was built, then they were odd people when they arrived here some 80 years ago.
