== Fireday, Calistril 28, 4708; Ogrekin Farm Stead; Afternoon ==
Mammy’s demise did nothing to curb the stench wafting off her bloated sack of a body, and so we hastily searched her boudoir for any hidden treasures. We found two desiccated bodies in a pair of coffins, but little more.
To the east a door opened to Mammy’s personal latrine. We gagged at the offensive odors assaulting us from within, but Mammy herself was hardly less foul, and so we were well conditioned to endure the toxic vapors within.
I declined to look for myself, but Rigel reported that there were three pits: two used as expected, and one filled with the corpses and bones of tiny little ogrekin.
Avia detected an evil presence directly beneath the floor, but search as we may, we found no secret access below.
Back into the hall we found a plundered storage room behind west door. The door across the hallway was trapped, and in attempting to disable it a large metal spike crashed through the door, pinning it shut. We decided to save this room for later.
To the north was a bedroom with more humanoid fetishes hanging from the ceiling. A pile of sewage glistened in one corner, and a lumpy mattress filled with twigs and other vegetative matter lay in the center of the floor.
Avia detected an evil presence to the east, and so we returned to the hallway where she used her mighty strength to shove open the door.
It was a dining room fit for the ogrekin. Rotting flesh was draped over the serving platters along with gelatinous lumps of quivering, rancid fat. I believe at this point my brain began to refuse all stimuli coming from my nose, which would come in handy a little later on.
The chairs were adorned with bleached human skulls, and upon the table was laid a cloth of human leather.
Two doors lined the eastern wall, with the one to the south trapped in the same fashion as the one through which we entered.
The northern door opened onto an ogrekin nursery, complete with two young ogrekin children. Toys carved of wood (or bone) were strewn about the place along with the bodies of hapless woodland animals. The walls were smeared with finger paintings done in blood and other disgusting bodily fluids. Low bookshelves were lined with skulls.
We killed the ogrekin larvae and searched the room, finding a jade ring still on the finger of a severed hand.
[258] jade ring
Rigel disabled the trap on the other eastern door of the dining room and we entered the kitchen.
Sabin and Trask immediately ran to the windows and puked.
Gore, blood and body parts (mostly human) were piled in baskets, draped across counter tops, and piled in corners. This grisly fare had been left out for quite some time and the smell was truly horrific.
It was not my first encounter with those who feast on necrotic human flesh, but I wondered at Rigel’s apparent indifference to the carnage. Perhaps she too has some dark story from her past that has hardened her heart to such atrocities. Or maybe she just doesn’t care.
Rigel found a stairway leading down, and we called over to the rest of our team and continued our exploration in the cellar.
A dark, dank and moldy stairway took us down west to a short hall with doors to the north, west and south. The terrible stench from the kitchen was replaced with the smell of damp rotting wood and something else… something vile.
To the north was a large room with a couple of large tables. It was used for skinning the ogrekin captives, and I need not provide details of what lie within.
To the west was a large room filled with household clutter: most of it broken and discarded.
To the south was another ogrekin: this one limping about and chatting to its enormous pet rat — I’m not certain, but I may have heard it softly utter “Mr. Whiskers” in a disturbingly affectionate tone. Needless to say the same fate befell the ogrekin and Mr. Whiskers as befell Mammy.
While large, this room was mostly empty and unexceptional, which made us all wonder why it warranted a guard. Of course that’s when we noticed the large set of double doors in the southwest corner. And these doors opened into a wide hallway that ended in another set of double doors.
And through these double doors was… a swamp, of sorts. Thick masses of slimy vegetation and sickly green mosses covered the walls and grew in thickets upon the floor. A nasty smell, like a compost heap gone bad, wafted in on the steamy air.
We all had bad feelings about this room, and with discretion being the better part of valor, we had Trask launch a fireball into the center of the room.
Something huge, unpleasant, and angry rose up from the heaps of plant matter in the room and shambled over toward the doorway. Another fireball later and a lot of hacking on the thing, and it slumped to the floor and stopped moving.
We heard shouts from the far side of the room, and shoving the dead muck monster out of the way we found four people, three of whom had been slashing at the thing from its back side.
Three of our allies were rangers from Fort Rannick! Jakardros, who was the leader of the Black Arrows, Vale and Kaven were out on patrol when a well organized band of ogres attacked the fort and killed all within. The patrol had been captured and brought here for Mammy and her kin to hold captive (and apparently eat).
The forth was a monk named Derrel. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it was he who broke down the door from their cell, which had been weakened by the fireballs, and led the flanking attack on the swamp creature.
After some much needed healing we led the rescued up and out front, where Shalelu and our bear friend were standing guard. There, much to out surprise, Jakardros broke down in tears. It seems he and she are related, and there was a great deal of emotion at their meeting.
The rest of us returned to the house to explore the second floor, and Derrel accompanied us to search for his stoeln gear. There was a hallway at the top of the stairs with a door on either side.
The east door opened onto an attic storage space with tables, flasks, beakers and bric-a-brac. Derrel found his gear stashed on a shelf, and we found a few items worth keeping.
[259] 5 flasks of acid (one used later)
[260] 3 sets of masterwork thieves tools
Behind the west door was a large bedroom with seven, filthy beds lining the walls. Based on the lack of sanitation and the abundance of smells we assumed more ogrekin slept here.
A cedar chest in one corner held a sack of coins, which when Rigel lifted it out she was hit by a nasty razor that had been dipped in spider venom.
23 gp
110 sp
121 cp
Back outside we caught the end of a heated discussion between Jakardros and Shalelu, with him huffing, “You can be just like your mother.”
Leaving them to work out their family issues we approached the barn, with Derrel once again joining us. The doors were unlocked and within we found… well the inside of a barn suffering from neglect.
Catwalks ran along the upper half of the north and south walls, beneath which were dog kennels (no doubt for the ill fated Rukus and his equally ill fated hounds), while piles of hay rotted in the corners. A wall ran across the width of the barn about two thirds the way in, with a large set of double doors barred by large timbers.
Three ogrekin were lounging within, and Trask managed to confuse them momentarily by asking why they didn’t come in when they heard Mammy calling. Dumb-struck they replied, “When we hears Mammy callin’ like that we knows to stay away.”
I discovered that a hold person spell was wonderfully effective on ogrekin, and shared this information with the rest of the team. Soon there were three fewer of Mammy’s brood left to bother the world.
We unbarred the double doors, but they were blocked shut from the other side. Taking to the catwalks we quickly made our way to the smaller doors above, and entered the back section of the barn.
There, in the dim dusty light from the gaps between the boards that clad the barn walls, we beheld a giant spider web. Its sickly opalescent threads as thick as twine were woven into a great twisting funnel that led down into the shadows below.
We could make out the forms of men hanging by manacles in a large rusted cage in the southwest corner, and a similar cage, empty, on the opposite side.
I actually like spiders, and find their industry and skill at weaving the most amazing patterns out of delicate strands of self spun silk a marvel. But this was something else; this was an unnatural corruption of nature and altogether repulsive.
Our first concern was rescuing the men in the cage, and as we made our way along the catwalks, the guardian of this silken fortress sprang forth and attacked.
It was a great wicked thing, with wicked malice peering out from its multiple sets of eyes clustered upon its grotesque head. Great fangs hung down from beneath a set of pincher like mandibles, and its jointed legs hideously clicked and popped as it clambered about the web, dragging its oversize filthy grey bag of an abdomen behind.
The battle was sharp and intense, and Derrel was poisoned with a jab from the spider’s fangs, but in the end we triumphed and then thing dropped to the ground with its legs curled up beneath it.
We rushed over to aid the men in the cage only to find that they were long dead.
Rigel and I climbed down the spider’s funnel and verified that the beast was truly dead. While down there we found a chest that contained a number of useful and valuable items.
[261] An agate studded gold ring
[262] Silver necklace of emeralds
[263] +2 DEX leather gloves
[264] Sack of coins: 210 gp, 452 sp, 108 cp
[265] Ruby inlaid red dragon scale cloak clasp
[266] +1 Shocking Elvish long-bow (this was returned to Jakardros)
We are preparing to return to Turtleback Ferry, where we need to obtain an anti-venom for the spider’s poison coursing through Rigel and Derrel’s veins.
We must also think of what to do about the ogre invasion of Fort Rannick. While were hired by the Mayor of Magnimar to find out what happened to the Black Arrows, which we certainly have done, should we do something about the ogres?
Jakardros said these ogres appear to have been well organized, which is unusual for ogres. I dislike how soon the ogre invasion took place after the disappearance of Lucretia, proprietress of the now burned and sunk Paradise, and her association with the sihedron.
I can think of one beautiful and powerful woman also associated with the sihedron symbol from our very recent past. This woman turned out to be no woman at all, but a lamia matriarch. And as a follower of Pharasma I know well their origin, shape, and penchant for chaotic schemes of ruination and destruction.
I think this is no coincidence.
But we have one more task before we return to town: we are to set flame to this blasphemous farm stead.
