Carrion Hill Pt. Two

We were on our way back to the Mayor when Orias decided to try opening the book again, and succeeded! Huzzah. We then decided it was a bad idea to try and read it in the rain, so we went inside. The book is in some strange language that none of us know. Eorin casts comprehend languages and looks at the first page. He sees the words "Keeper Baskerwhel, Keeper Krove, Keeper Hyve, Keeper Mrshan, Keeper Myre" and they appear to be added more recently than the rest of the text. Eorin then begins bleeding from his eyes, ears, and nose and becomes weaker (takes 1 Con damage). Orias figures out the language the book is written in is not of this world and Eorin closes the book. Eorin ransacks his memory about these keepers.

This is what he knows!

Keeper Baskerwhel: Glem Baskerwhel is a hunchback hermit who lives in the Wrythe, about a day's travel east of Carrion Hill. Well known as the Carrion Hill potion maker and visits the city often and stays with his friend Arlend Hyve who lives at the Elm Way Church (located in Carrion Hill).

Keeper Krove: Waldur Krove is well known as the warden of Krove's Asylum. Full of the crazies too dangerous for regular prison (think Arkham Asylum).

Keeper Hyve: Arlend Hyve is an authority on regional history and lore and dwells in an abandoned church of Aroden (a god who is now dead). He is rumored to dabble in black market poisons and drug trade.

Keeper Mrshan: Sulm Mrshan is a goggle eyed man who recent moved here from Illmarsh. He owns and lives in the house in the Slipper Market that was destroyed this morning.

Keeper Myre: Rupman Myre is a middenstone baron. He owns a large vat house in the Filth along the riverbanks. He's rumored to be involved with necromancy.

Eorin tries once again to look through the book, discovering that the second half is a spellbook. He sees half of a teleport object spell before he starts bleeding from the eyes and decides never again. Eorin heals himself with lesser restoration as Illythan decides to take a crack at it and suffers similar effects as Eorin.

We go back to our carriage and Eorin casts Protection from Evil. We noticed, before going in, that there are other people bothering the Mayor. One of them has the royal seal of Ustalaav. Eorin tries once again to study the book, and figures out he has to use the other books they found to de-code it. The other books mention Sunless Grove and the Keepers of the Oldest. They also mention this book, or rather, what it's a copy of. It's a copy of the Pnakotic Manuscripts. Eorin and Illythan wrack their brains as to if they've heard of the Pnakotic Manuscripts before, and can't think of anything. Orias, on the other hand, recalls that it is a book related to the Old Gods. The kind of Gods that would probably be more comfortable in the dark depths of the sea back when people believe that Aboleths created humans. ((OOC Note: from now on the book will give +4 on all knowledge skills pertaining to conjuration magic or the Gods and magic of the Old Ones. It's also a spell book that we can now use with crazy ass awesome spells. To use without risk of con damage, must learn Aklo.))

Eorin studies the book for 9 hours, and learns the book is written in Aklo. The first page reads "May we, the Keepers of the Oldest, prevail over the scourge of simplistic thought and lesser men" then the 5 signatures. One section of the book is a lengthy discussion of how to use rituals to open key portals in key locations - it's heavily annotated. He deduces that the keepers were hoping to open a portal in the Sunless Grove to contact Spawn of the Dark Tapestry and enhance their knowledge of arcane secrets. A section near the end cautions those who would attempt this ritual: a warning that forcing open such rituals draws forth the spiritual essence of the casters and that any entity contacted by the portal can make "hideous use of this essence by consuming it and growing more powerful in the bargain, such that only the end of such essence can challenge the intruder's rights upon your world."

Orias concluded that to kill the intruder, the easiest method is to kill the casters that summoned it b/c then it won't get stronger. Or we can try to kill it before it can kill those who summoned it and absorb their essences. We think it's already killed three of those that summoned it, and therefore has consumed their essences already. One of the corpses we found earlier had a hunchback, perhaps Keeper Baskerwhel. Armed with this information, we decided to head to the Mayor to let him know what's going on.

There are a bunch of angry villagers asking what he's doing about the monster. A strange traveler with a monkey that was on the boat with us is here for some reason. Tall-ish man with white hair, dark clothing, and the seal of Ustalaav on his mantle is there also. The Mayor looks very pleased to see us and gets all the angry villagers to leave so he can talk to us. The man from Ustalaav remains. We tell the mayor the situation, and all the people we suspect of summoning the monster are. They all live in the southern part of the town, and the Mayor sends the Crows to clear the streets leading there. The Crows have confirmed that the monster is invisible. The Mayor directs us to question one of the Keepers and bring them to the jail (rather than killing them).

We decide to go to the Elm Way Church first, hoping to kill two birds with one stone (not literally). We begin to search the church, finding a few empty rooms before coming across a locked door. Orias picks the lock and we go in, finding a trap door with a ladder leading 20 ft down. We go down the trap door and find a large room with a tunnel leading away. There are tables with alchemical equipment on them. We see someone hunched over a table working on something - he gives a muffled yelp at seeing us (we blame Illythan). He has a strip of leather covering his mouth with runes on it. Orias cast light and we see that the man has a rapier (that in the dark looked bizarrely like a knife) and a crossbow, which he shoots Illythan with. We subdue him and tie him up. Kyle takes some bottles and ammo off his person. We wake him back up, and he seems freaked out about speaking. The runes on the leather are gibberish, but he tries to bite off his own tongue when we remove it. Eorin ties the leather back on and we hand him pen and paper. We learn that he's Hyve. He tells us it's already killed Baskerwhel and Mrshan. He tells us the rest of his friends are in the tunnel that begins in this cavern. We set off through the tunnel, bringing Hyve along with us.

The tunnel opens into another cavern with water and fungus everywhere. One of the fungus has tentacles and attacks. More fungus appears and attacks us. While we're engaged in combat, something invisible bites Hyde and then appears to beat him to death with tendrils. We then begin to notice a very familiar, awful smell (aka holy crap the monster is here and we can't see it). Orias figures out where it is, only to have it run away really freaking fast. Orias figures out it heading for the docks. We finish killing all the fungus monsters, though Orias is severely injured (some of his flesh rotted away where he was struck by the fungus). At one point during the fight, Eorin cast Death Knell, and it seemed very natural for him in a very strange way. Orias draws the conclusion that Eorin may have a vampire or a lich in his ancestry, but decides to keep that information to himself.

It's become clear that Hyve lied to us when he said his friends were in this tunnel. There's nothing but skulls, fungus, and a very nice longsword. Orias figures out that it's a mithril aberration bane longsword. We promptly give it to Kyle. We find a key on Hyve's body. It has "N" carved into it. It might be a key to one of the other locations. We exit the church. Standing in the rain with a very hideous man holding an umbrella for him, is the nobleman from Ustalaav with two of the crows. He hands Kyle a staff of healing and leaves. The Crows are surprised to see Kyle's new sword. It belonged to Sergeant of theirs who has been missing for several months, and there's a reward if Kyle will stop by the guard station later.

Carrion Hill Pt. One

Reached Melancholy Hill in Ustalav. The crows are acting weird and afraid. No one in the streets. Guards are going through the town calling for the aid of heroes. We answer the call and go to Crown Manor. The doors are opened by two guards who seem excited to see us. Mayor Vanton Heggry tells that Carrion Hill is being attacked by something living in the tunnels underneath the city. It slaughtered the guard that responded to the first attack. They need to know what it is they face and assistance in defeating it. We receive what limited information they have on the creature, which isn’t much, and set out. We investigate the bodies and the first house that was damaged. We guess the creature is probably the size of the ogre.

The damage on the house looks like it originated on the inside of the house, rather than the outside (like something burst out of the house creating a large hole). The living room of the house is covered in a disgusting slime, and there are many body parts (all strangely bloodless) strewn about. The slime makes some of us ill. We rescue some books, and go to the basement. The architecture goes from residential to old stone. We find a crypt! After setting some of the bodies, which had been knocked about, to rights, we go about breaking down the door on the opposite side of the crypt. We find a few humanoids who tell us that they worked for five humans who were doing bad magic downstairs. They’re pretty sure the humans are dead, and are terrified of whatever came up. We placate them and leave them to their cowering.

We go further down the stairs, and the architecture becomes increasingly ancient until it turns into natural cave. It opens up into a cavern, and there’s an eerie glow coming from a different part of the room. The slime trail we’re following continues in that direction. We find an altar surrounded by three trees. There is a trickle coming from under the hill of remains that the alter is on top of that turns into a pool - it’s disgusting and full of sludge. There are four other entrances, three have newly installed iron bars blocking them off. We find two bodies of men in black robes lying in front of the altar - they are bloodless and have circular bites and cuts. One seems worse than the other. It seems like the sludge starts from something that appeared on the hill. There’s nothing to denote specific religious affiliation on the altar or the robes of the bodies. Illythian supposes that it was planar binding of some sort - it’s definitely conjuration magic and cannot be a summoned creature because those disappear quickly. Eorin investigates the trees and discovers they were grown via necromancy. The bark is fossilized and hard as iron.

Kyle and Orias are investigating the bodies when Orias is attacked by one of the corpses making up the hill. We figure out it’s a ghoul and destroy it. We search the room and find some gear and encrypted books. We notice that there once was something on top of the altar that was removed. Kyle finds a large book in the hole the ghoul popped out of. The book has a crystal inset in the front, and interlacing clasps making it very difficult to open. Kyle, Eorin, and Orias struggle with it, trying to get it open to no avail. Illythan takes the book and hits Orias in the face with it, then puts it in his pack. Eorin gets shown a picture of a symbol drawn in blood on the wall of the alley opposite the hole in the house. He identifies it as a symbol of magical portals and the Dark Tapestry - the region between the stars where ancient Gods are said to dwell. Eorin is reminded of a story the Monks once told him about how there are some legends that people don’t record because the very act of writing the information down causes people to go insane.

We return to the surface. It’s still raining, but now there’s a panicked mob running through the city. More houses have been destroyed and people are freaking out and want to leave the city.

We're on a Boat!

Eorin's journal fell into the river, so the more detailed notes were lost, much to his dismay.


We got on a boat - we did random crap on the boat. Eorin found out he hates boats. We also learned that Kyle’s belt does not come off b/c it is cursed. Eorin briefly got banned from all the libraries Korvosa for writing a letter of complaint to a bookseller for selling a book that’s contents were in a different language than the title. He then realised it was a book that increased one’s Wisdom, promptly wrote a letter of apology (with Kyle’s help) and the ban was lifted. Ran into orcs demanding a toll, and Illythan and Zelara did trial by bad opera, which they failed. Then trial by combat. Zelara acquired a dog named Chubby Baby from the orcs for almost beating their fiercest warrior. Found a boat smuggling this stuff that fuels constructs made from undead. We called the Hellknights on them, and moved their boat out of the way (it was blocking the river). Then we saw Tesse, the mythical creature that lives in the river that everyone was looking for, but she left.