== Oathday, Neth 14, 4707; The Misgivings, Evening ==

While I was updating my journal, Sabin and the others spent the past half hour investigating the odd basement room in which we found ourselves.

Sabin was convinced this was an arcane workshop at one time, with work tables and rusty tools and paraphernalia scattered across their surfaces.

The northern stained glass window depicted a gaunt man drinking from a vial filled with a shocking green fluid. The southern showed the same man, but with the familiar signs of rot and corruption associated with undead. His arms were uplifted in triumph as his form turned to smoke which was consumed by a seven sided box.

A set of moldy books on necromancy occupied Sabin, but when Rigel touched one she paused and stared out with vacant eyes. It lasted but for a moment, and afterward she described a vision where she was Vorel at his moment of triumph just as he was to consume the potion that would transform him into a lich. But as he drank the potion he doubled over in pain. This vision was quickly replaced with a powerful sense of anger — anger that a loved one could do such a thing to themselves — followed immediately by fear and a sense that she must save their children.

We took the books, which Nolin stored in his pack.

[214] 10 Necromancy books (Nolin)

A second door in the southern wall led to a short hall and another door, which opened onto a flight of stairs leading down and around to the north.

At the base of these stairs was a square room with walls carved from the surrounding rock. The floor was littered with blocks of stone and in the center of the room was a staircase, spiraling far down into the darkness.

Picks and chisels were laying about the rubble; and it looked as if the stairway had been bricked over with stone and mortar in the past, but this had been recently torn apart.

Wafting up from the pit was a terrible stench of death and decay.

We prepared to descend with Sabin, who can see in the dark, leading the way; but as soon as Avia stepped onto the stairs she gasped and began to flail about with her sword and buckler as if she were fighting some unseen foe.

Gashes and bite marks appeared on her skin as we raced to her aid, but we could neither see nor feel anyone (or thing) other than ourselves in the room. Detect Undead revealed nothing.

After a few moments she stopped struggling, and said she saw Aldrin frantically chipping away at the stone on the floor with a pickaxe, all the while repeating, “For you, for you!” He finally broke through the barrier sealing off the stairs when a stream of ghouls filed out from beneath and attacked her.

After a bit of healing we began the descent anew, carefully picking our way down the ancient cracked stone steps as they plunged downward into the darkness and ever growing fetid reek.

At last we reached the bottom, which ended in a large limestone cavern. Sabin estimated that we had come down 80 feet.

The air was damp and water dripped from the ceiling and oozed from the walls, which were covered in blue and black mold that spiraled about in crazy patterns. Bones from various animals and humanoids cluttered the floor, and a sound like a great beast breathing echoed out from the three tunnels that led from the cavern.

The tunnel to the north was narrow, while the one to the northwest was wide and looked well traveled. There were rocks and dirt around the entrance to the southwestern tunnel, which indicated that it was recently opened.

We moved out through the northwest passage into a large natural chamber when a gang of ghouls sprang out from the shadows and attacked. After a short and bitter fight we killed them all, and decided to make sure nothing unpleasant would sneak up from behind.

To this end Nolin volunteered to guard the entrance to the southwest tunnel, and Kane crept into the north tunnel. Unfortunately the northern tunnel was choked with thick matts of mold, which Kane breathed in and was incapacitated for a short time.

We then continued on to the west, winding our way around as the chamber narrowed and bent to the north where it opened into a vast circular grotto.

A side tunnel led due west, but the main chamber was nearly fifty feet across and towered up into the darkness. A wide pathway, or ramp, spiraled down past several cracks and openings before ending in a dark pool of water some fifty feet below.

Large cracks gaped in the wall to the northeast, while a doorway and a dark opening were to the northwest and west.

More bones (fresh and not so) and body parts were strewn about, all of which showed signs of having been gnawed upon, and the stench was horrific.

We took the west tunnel, which led to an oddly shaped chamber with a sloping floor that dropped down to the opening we had seen in the west wall of the circular chamber.

Sabin led us over to the nearby door, which he opened and passed through. I was right behind him, and Avia and the others behind me.

By the seemingly feeble light of our torches we saw a rickety table with a damp surface and all sorts of detritus scattered about it. Fine china and plates and bowls were filled with rotting flesh. A painting sat upright facing away from us.

Behind the table was a high backed leather chair facing the wall.

And behind the chair protruding out from the wall was a thick mass of mold which formed a humanoid shape. From the moldy figure came the most offensive and foul of the odors that had yet assaulted us, and it was all we could do to keep from gagging — indeed some of our team found themselves gagging and choking and could come no further in to the room.

We then saw a broken seven sided box at the foot of the mold man thing.

The chair then slowly turned towards us, with Aldrin calmly sitting there staring at us. He was no longer human, but he also did not look quite like the regular ghouls we had seen thus far.

He caught sight of Avia and became quite excited. “You’ve come to me! I knew my letters would convince you. Now let us consummate our love.” He gestured to the piles of rotting flesh on the table.

Trask made some sort of pert comment and Aldrin’s good humor vanished as he sprang up and attacked.

Avia struck him hard and he collapsed to his knees and began to cry. He sobbed, “The hurter is gone.” He looked back up at us and seemed about as pathetic a figure as a ghoul could.

We asked him what had happened to him, and he said he had to run errands for the Brothers: they wanted him to collect rats and the fungus to find out about the disease down here in the caverns.

Avia quietly confirmed that poor Aldrin was evil, but that the mold man creature behind him was an evil of a far greater power.

Aldrin sobbed on for a few minutes more, crying piteously for us to “Be kind to poor little Aldrin” when all of a sudden his face went blank and he looked up with a huge grin on his face.

“I am the Skinsaw man!” he proclaimed as he jumped up and put on a mask he had been holding. His face changed and morphed into that of Avia as he laughed and charged at us.

A few moments later and he was the dead Skinsaw man.

We then cautiously searched about the room while staying away from the mold man against the wall. On the table we found quite a few items of a personal nature that Aldrin had collected from Avia, like strands of hair and paper on which she had written. More disturbing were a series of drawings Aldrin had made of Avia, many of which had her posed without clothes.

I could not tell if the sudden flush of red on Avia’s cheeks were from anger or embarrassment, but the worse discovery was yet to come. The painting was a portrait of Iesha, but Aldrin had replaced her face with Avia’s by applying gore, blood and other bodily fluids.

We quickly grabbed the seven sided box from the floor.

[203] Seven sided box [broken]

We searched Aldrin’s body and found a handful of interesting items.

[204] +1 War Razor
[205] Ring of Jumping
[206] +1 Ring of Protection
[207] Stalker’s Mask: Crafted from leathery sections of cured human skin, stitched together in overlapping pieces like scales. This item can make the wearer translucent [+5 to hide]. Once per day it also allows the wearer to assume the shape of anyone within 60 feet. This latter ability improves as the mask feeds off of the wearer’s rage and jealousy.
[208] Cameo broach [painting of Avia on inside]
[209] Small iron key

We then torched the mold man with a flask of oil and a little flame, but even though the was mold burned into a cloud of greasy black smoke, the evil remained.

A handful of us then carefully made our way down the ramp to the pool of water. It was frothy sea water, and very deep. A rocky shelf formed a small island to the northwest, but there was little else to see.

I was quite puzzled about the water. How did the sea water get here? The top of the bluff on which the Misgivings was built was at least 300 feet above the sea below, and we had only come down some 140 to 150 feet (at most) from when we climbed down the stairs to the basement.

We returned to the main cavern, where I carefully retrieved a fine pick that Kane had spotted earlier when he had been engulfed in mold spores.

[210] +1 Heavy pick

Joining up with Nolin we passed through the opening to the southwest and into a long and large chamber that stretched to the west.

All manner of remains lay about, including the bodies of two Varisian nomads and another human. Searching them provided no clues to their identity, but we did find several useful objects.

56 gold pieces
[211] Pearl ring
[212] Adamantine long-sword
[213] Hat of disguise

As we were looking over these bodies we heard a loud thump from the west, and a gigantic bat flew in and attacked.

It took some effort, but we killed it and traced its arrival to a small round cavern to the northwest. A small circular opening in the ceiling led up to the surface, and to where I estimated the well was for the servants’ quarters.

We then returned back to the manor’s main hall to see if the odd mold stairway was anything special. Kane pulled the rope hanging from the mouth of the mounted monkey head, and the head shrieked, but nothing else occurred.

[215] Magical monkey head

Just then Trask and Nolin smelled something burning as the old stuffed manticore burst into flames and it whipped its tail about to hit Trask, singing him somewhat. And then it was just a stuffed (and now singed) manticore again.

I decided to experiment and carefully swept away the circular stairway pattern the mold had formed in the center of the hall.

We then decided to investigate the water level of the subterranean pool and using ropes verified that the top of the bluff was indeed 300 feet above sea level.

We then found some additional rope from the attic and returned to the pool where we found that the water level had changed with the tide, indicating a direct linkage of some kind with the sea beyond. How could this be?

Tying a rock to the end of our ropes we dropped it down to 140 feet before it touched bottom. That would put the base of the pool at or just above the level of the sea outside.

On the way back up we checked out the mold man room and found more mold was dripping down from the ceiling, replacing the mold we had burned away and forming another mold man shape.

Back up at the house some of my companions read the books on the Foxglove family while others studied the books on necromancy.

The Foxglove journals revealed a few interesting bits of information:

• Rogers Crazby was the caretaker of the manor while it was deserted
• The Foxgloves have long been associated with a shady organization called “Brothers of the Seven” and the their meetings had been hosted at the manor from time to time
• Vorel original built the house, but his family died and it remained empty for 20 years
• Aldrin’s family moved in until his parents went crazy and killed one another
• Another 40 years and Aldrin returned to a tragic end
• Construction of the manor was funded by the Brothers of the Seven After 100 years ownership of the house and lands would revert to them

Insightful as this information was, we had reached a dead end. Obviously some powerful evil force was still at work in the house, and our work was not yet done here. We needed to return to Sandpoint for extra training and more research before we could finish what we started.

We then experimented with the flocks of undead crows outside and verified that while they were indeed undead, they were not summoned creatures, and that there were more than enough of them to keep us trapped here at the house.

I devised a simple plan for escape that we can try in the morning light.

== Fireday, Neth 15, 4707; Sandpoint, Afternoon ==

Simple plans oft work the best. And so it was with our escape from the Misgivings this morning.

I cast Hide from Undead on all of us, including Nolin’s horse.

Nolin and Rigel then mounted the horse and galloped away, drawing off the undead crows that were unaffected by the Hide from Undead spells.

The rest of us then quickly ran to the northwest, away from the manor and avoiding the birds, until we returned to the road, rejoined with Nolin and Rigel and returned to Sandpoint.

We need to go over our list of recent finds to see what we can sell and how much income this will generate. I think all of us are ready to train, and that will require a large amount of gold.

And while we train we will continue our research on the Foxgloves and the Misgivings.

Wealday, 13 Neth

I note that before retiring for the evening, Olithar cast magic upon Nolin and Rigel which seemed to improve their health somewhat. It was not healing of the usual sort, but somehow seemed to affect their whole body and vitality. He said it was a “restore” of some sort but seemed dismayed that he could do so little, mumbling to himself that if only he were more accomplished he could do so much better and apologizing for that being all he can do.

All that said, it seemed quite remarkable to me. While I still believe that the concept of deities is simply a means by which clerics focus their magical energies, it is clear that their faith in these imaginary entities is strong and is of great aid to them in their working of magic.

Oathday, 14 Neth

We awoke where we expected to, in the room that Sabin had identified as an arcane workshop. Now that he points them out to me I can see the features which mark it as such, although I myself had never been inside one until now. Reading about them is very different from seeing them (much like undead creatures.)

It is also apparent, now that we’ve read about him and seen a portrait of him, that the gaunt man depicted in the artwork here is, in fact, Vorel Foxglove.

There were books on what appeared to be necromancy in the room, and Rigel announced she was going to check them out. When she touched one, however, she had a vision of Vorel drinking a potion and apparently transforming into a lich. At the same time, however, she felt a strong rage at his doing this to his family.

From our point of view, however, her attention simply seemed to leave us for a moment before focus returned to her eyes and she relayed her story. At least this vision didn’t have her killing us or herself like some of these had. I quickly cast detect magic on the books, but they did not seem magic. I am puzzled about how these magical effects can take place without their being any apparent magic about. I’ll bet if Father were here, he’d have an explanation.

Ah, well now, I mustn’t be wishing for things that can’t be. The whole point of my lengthy trip was to improve and expand the scope of my powers. And I can feel that happening, although I wish Father had told me more of the process. “Each in the family has had to feel it for themselves,” he had said. “As your power grows, so must your control.”

We took the 10 necromancy books with us, although most are not in good shape because of mold and rot.

From this point forward, Rigel seemed a little on edge. She was constantly searching doors, locks, even bare areas of the floor searching for traps. That’s not a bad thing I suppose, but it seemed a little obsessive.

We entered the corridor and past another door we found a stairs down to a broken floor. It seems that the floor here had been broken through with pickaxes, revealing a much older stairway that led down. From the shaft came a foul stench like rotting meat.

Olithar announced he was closing the iron door behind us, primarily to prevent the rats from following us should then reenter this area. But unexpectedly, Avia drew her weapon and started thrashing around. More startlingly, red weals began to appear on her flesh even though there was no visible combatant. When she finally sat down, panting, she looked like she’d taken on ten men, with injuries to show for it. She was bleeding and in need of healing; whatever vision she’d had had been very real to her.

Olithar quickly moved to her and healed her a remarkable amount. While he as doing that, she described her experience. “I saw Aldrin Foxglove,” she explained, “and he was clawing at the floor. ‘For you, for you,'” he kept repeating. When he finally broke through, a host of ghouls had streamed from the hole and, in her vision, attacked her.

A bit of history? Or harbinger of things to come? I cast mage armor upon myself (as did Sabin) just to be safe. And the group descended, about 80 feet.

This led to a limestone cavern, dripping with water, and green and dark blue mold. Bones were scattered about. There lay before us three paths, and a rhythmic, pulsing sound emanated from all three. The one to the southwest appeared to be newer. The northwest and northern passages seemed as though they might connect and loop. We advanced slowly into the NW passage.

We had not gone far before we observed a ghoul with his back to a wall. And then we noticed another, and another .. and we flung ourselves into battle. I think there were 5 that we took out, at least initially. All told, I think 8 of them attacked our party. Avia, of course, was out in front taking them down, but my flaming sphere was doing some damage too!

The threat from the ghouls removed, Avia and Sabin followed the corridor a short ways to a large, sunken pool. It was in a cathedral like cavern, at least 30 feet high down to a pool of what smelled like sea water 50 feet below. Rivulets of water emerged from some gaps in the rocks and cascaded down to the pool. What appeared to be a small (6’ wide at most) island appeared to one side of the pool. It looked like it could be reached by a careful jump from shore, if desired. A slippery looking path spiraled down to the water’s edge. The pool appeared to be sloshing slightly, so it probably had access to the sea outside, and was tidal in nature.

There appeared to be two doors about across from where we stood, about halfway down to the water. Both were shut. From our vantage point and all around us, we could see bones and remains strewn about. The ghouls had obviously been here for some time. The stench was strong.

I must admit, about this time, I wasn’t quite sure what I’d signed up for. Working in the town, and helping disperse the goblin menace, now that’s what I had in mind. This area of necromancy and undead left me out of my element. Thank Go — I mean goodness for my flaming sphere. Fire is to undead like … like .. water to a cube of sugar. They practically dissolve in it, as near as I can tell.

We proceeded to the first door, and found it unlocked. We entered carefully.

The smell in here was especially strong. Initially upon entering we noticed the odd appearance of decor — a table, a large leather chair facing away from us, and a painting. Upon the wall was a large pattern of fungus or mold that almost looked like it had grown over a man. But when looked closely, the table was covered with crystal and maggots; the arms of the chair were sticky and red with blood, and the fungus made several of our party retch uncontrollably.

Before we could get a good look at the painting, we were “greeted” by a likeness of Aldrin Foxglove, sitting in the chair. Turning the chair around and looking right at Avia, it exclaimed “You’ve come to me! Now let’s consummate our hunger!” I merely remarked that he seemed a changed man, when his face seemed to twist in rage, and he rose as if to attack.

Avia struck him full on, and although he was clearly still a ghoul, his face lost its anger and he claimed “the hurter” was gone. “His lordship is at your mercy,” he sobbed.

Olithar cast bless upon us all and asked Aldrin “What are you doing down here?”

“I was doing the errands of the Brothers,” he responded. “They wanted to collect rats and fungus and find out about disease.”

I felt at unease, and threw a color spray such that it got both Aldrin and the evil moss wall. There was no reaction from either.

Avia confirmed that Aldrin was still evil, and that the fungus was very evil. Suddenly, Sabin announced that the fungus was actually his shadow, and made as if to eat it — as if anybody could understand the connection between the two statements. But before anyone could make a move to stop him, he caught himself in mid-reach, and seemed to shake it off.

At the same time Aldrin underwent a change again and he no longer looked so pitiful. If anything, he looked piteous. “you may call me the Skinsaw Man!” he exclaimed. He placed a mask over his face and his visage contorted … and then he looked like Avia.

I cast a flaming sphere on him. He seemed adept at dodging it, however. Avia, probably standing nearest to him, was incensed at seeing him assume her face and lashed out at him viciously. Sabin, too, was wicked with his weapon. Aldrin got a couple of attacks in on Avia that wounded her gravely, but nothing a cleric couldn’t help with. Giving up on the flame, I hit him with a couple of magic missiles and after the beating that he’d already taken from Sabin and Avia, that took the last vestiges of life from him. The Skinsaw Man quickly dissolved to nothing but a pile of rotted flesh and smelly clothes.

Olithar tried burning the “mold man” with oil and while it successfully burned, it did nothing to dispel the evil, according to Avia, other than to disperse it around the room as if it was now borne by the smoke.

The portrait was originally of Aiesha, but Aldrin had grotesquely altered it with blood and other gore to make it look more like Avia. In addition, there was a small collection of Avia-related bits: a used vial, a bit of her hair, a note she’d written. There were speculative drawings he’d made of her … suffice it to say that Avia felt Aldrin had disintegrated far too soon for her wrath to have been fully demonstrated.

From the room, we took a +1 war razor [204], and a stalker’s mask [207] which was made from human skin. Were one to wear it, one would find they could assume the face of a particular target, and make themselves faint and less detectable, making it easier to hide. They also would find it easier to attack the person whose face it was resembling. There was a ring of jumping [205], a +1 ring of protection [206], a cameo brooch with a picture of Avia in it (golden, with a gemstone) [208] and a small iron key [209]. We also picked up the broken, seven sided box [203] which we believe was used during the elder Foxglove’s failed attempt to lichify.

We inspected the pool of water but found nothing of note. The water appeared to be fairly deep. By our rough calculations, the water should not be here (and should not be tidal) as we thought we’d only descended about half the distance to the sea. But we found nothing to explain this apparent discrepancy.

Returning to the stairway by which we’d entered, Kane showed Olithar the pickaxes. Although most were destroyed or rotted, one seemed to still be in good condition. We identified it as a magic, +1 pickaxe. The diggings near the pickaxes apppeared to be recent in the sense of within the last few months, while much of the area down here seemed much older.

As we went to explore the last passage from the stairway and found more remains, some of which appeared to be human. Holding our noses, we did find among the bones a pearl ring [211], an adamantine long sword [212] and a hat of disguise [213]. While deciding how to best split these up we heard a thump from further down the passage, and upon investigating discovered that a large bat had apparently descended down an opening in the ceiling. It too seemed to be possessed of some sort of undeadness because it proved difficult to dispatch. But Avia’s and Sabin’s weapons, and my magic missiles again proved persuasive. Eight on one is overwhelming odds and we did succeed at making it a corpse again. Kane did find himself immobilized at one point, but the effect was temporary.

Thinking of the terrain above us, we concluded that the opening thru which it had descended must be the old well. But since the well went no deeper than this, that implies that at one time there was water here, and it was not the sea water we’d found in the pool but fresh water. What had driven the water away? Yet another puzzle.

We returned to the main hall to investigate the moldy stairway that seemed to be located over the stairway we’d just discovered. While we didn’t find any apparent connection, both Nolin and I smelled something burning. And faster than you could say “another fatal illusion” I was battling a manticore. Although it was very real to me, and I took damage from its tail, an instant later it was again a fake manticore before me. Olithar healed me, and discussion turned to what else we could do here.

The house was still full of mold and evil things, but it seemed beyond us to cure its condition. We still had two party members suffering from the effect of spore-exploding paintings, and they would probably be served best by getting them back to town. But there was the problem of the ever-vigilant undead swarms of crows sitting outside, which seemed intent on extending our stay. And it seemed there were still a few mysteries to solve here as well.

We went outside to inspect the cliff. None of us felt particularly competent at judging heights, but felt it was about 300 feet. We then tied together our ropes and went back down to the pool, dropping it over the side weighted with a rock, and we could tell that the bottom of the pool roughly was at sea level. This still didn’t explain why the water would rise so high, but there is obviously still magic in place here and that must be part of it.

On the way back, we stopped by briefly in Aldrin’s room and found that the mold was beginning to reform the “mold man” lump. That was disconcerting but, apparently, harmless to us.

We returned to the Foxglove family journals trying to understand better if there was something more we could do here by studying the history of the place. We learned:

• Rogers Craysbee was the caretaker of the manor during the times it was deserted — he may be of use in determining what’s been happening.

• The manor is about 80 years old and has always been in the Foxglove family. Local people started calling it The Misgivings because of the way it made them feel. There were reports of a huge batwinged devil.

• It was originally built by Vorel, who lived in it over 20 years. It was empty for about that long again before Aldrin’s parents moved in. It went empty again when they killed themselves about 40 years ago and now Aldrin had returned to a bad end.

• Mention was made of the Brothers of the Seven. Their meetings had been hosted at the house from time to time, and perhaps most oddly, the construction of the house had been funded by the Brothers, and after 100 years of ownership, the house and lands would revert to them.

It was decided that we would stay one more night and then try to get past the crows and return to Sandpoint.

Fireday, 15 Neth

Naught happened overnight, and so it was that in the morning, Olithar cast hide from undead upon all of us plus Nolin’s horse. Nolin and Rigel, being still affected by the strange disease, took the horse and left knowing they’d get to Sandpoint faster. A couple of flocks of crows noted them, but they could not fly faster than a galloping horse and soon fell behind. We, on the other hand, ran away to the northwest and none of the remaining flocks saw us. Reaching the road, we too turned to Sandpoint.

Which is where we are now. If ever one needed proof of evil in the world, The Misgivings is the place to obtain it. Things undead, disease, and harmful apparitions underscore that. Had Father told me of these things, I think I’d have … well, no, I wouldn’t have. I’d have dreaded them and perhaps not been so eager to “seek adventure” but I would have still ventured forth. I would still have made my way to Sandpoint and still have met up with those I now mostly consider my friends.

At least, that’s what I’d like to think, and we’ll never know different now.