Strange Aeons / The Rushton Terror pt. 31 / Eire the 12th, 3592 CE / 6-15-21

The party coordinates their attack on the eldritch monster which has inhabited the upstairs sitting room of Orchid Hill, quickly defeating it before it can do too much damage, psychic or physical. Having cleared the second story, they proceed to the stairs leading up the estate's attic, where Garrok hears an all to familiar voice, the same one as the "Granny" who in his schizophrenic state he has been hallucinating. The voice turns out to belong to Nemira Lowell, the Baron's mother, who he has been keeping out of sight after being infected with some sort of eldritch curse. The sight of the mutated old woman drives Garrok over the edge, and he begins actively hallucinating, imagining that she is not truly there but a figment of his imagination. The others attempt to gain some insight into the missing Baron's destination from the crazed old woman, but her cryptic answers reveal little other than what they already knew: that the Baron had been dealing with some creature from his dreams called the Mad Poet, and that he had sacrificed the minds of his retainers, including Hemlock and Esp, in order to satisfy a dark bargain with the mysterious entity. The party leaves the woman to her fate, though her final words of "I'll see you in your dreams," is more than a little unnerving. Back in the library, Sigvald reveals to them his discovery; there is a hidden hatch under one of the rugs leading to the estate's subterranean levels.