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.