October 14th, 2023
Vita, Ignis 4th, 1194 (Continued)
We try to interrogate Rupman, but he only talks to Graynor at first, ignoring everyone else. He begs for help against that monster and says that it’s a spawn of the Dark Tapestry and will become more powerful if it kills him. They performed a ritual to drain its power this morning, which will be restored if it kills the others. Their goal was to control it, but it was too strong. We agree to unbind him and take him to the other scenes to determine if any of the bodies are his accomplices. We need to find out if this beast can track them somehow.
The only other body he can ID is Glem Baskerwhel, who is the other corpse that was found with Marshan. He says that Crove would be at his asylum, and Hyve stays at an abandoned church; neither of these locations have been attacked.
We devise a plan of having the town criers proclaim that an individual has been apprehended and is being kept at a specific location, in an effort to lure it into an ambush. We consult with the mayor about our plan and possible collateral damage and find out that there has been another attack. According to witnesses, it is now invisible. Some townsfolk have begun to riot.
It’s getting really late, so while the town criers are doing their part of our plan, we will be resting at our ambush location. During rest Sigmund uses some magic to read the Pnakotic Manuscripts, which looks to be a working spellbook as well. There are some warnings to summoning a creature, just like Rupman talked about.
Night passes.
Mare, Ignis 5th, 1194
The beast attacked Rupman’s vat warehouse during the night. We head to the abandoned church, which is identified as being dedicated to Eliaz. There is a comprehensive collection of Blackstone history books here and a trap door that leads down to some natural cavern system.
In the cavern we are ambushed by Hyve and he snipes Rupman, then grenades him, nearly killing him. He gives us a really long chase, but we finally capture him after his fungus creatures knock him unconcious. Amongst the fungus there is an intact skeleton with a guard uniform and a magic mithral longsword. The area looks as if Hyve was using it to make, and maybe test, poisons. We drop off Hyve at the nearest guard post and ask about the mithral sword; it belongs to Sgt. Eldreen and is enchanted with aberration bane.
We head over to the asylum; inside we are greeted by patients, strapped in jackets, rolling around the ground and screaming. Orderlies then begin to assault us and we retaliate. In a small room attached to the kitchen is a narrow hole that has faint gurgling and shuffling noises coming from it. The hole smells really bad and Sigmund tosses a lit object down into it; it falls far and lands in water, sinking out of sight.