Strange Aeons / The Rushton Terror pt. 34 / Eire the 12th through the 13th, 3592 CE / 8-17-21

In the aftermath of the battle with dark forces in the sub-level beneath Orchid Hill, the familial estate of Baron Haver Lowell IV, the Stonebriar survivors and their allies regroup and consider next steps. They are a motley crew who have come to this place for various reasons, all of which seem to center on the Baron himself. Hemlock and Esp are both former employees of the Baron who have him to thank for being interred in Stonebriar Asylum with no memory of their former lives. Gleorn is cousin to their now-dead companion Rorgrim, who seeks to find the whereabouts of another cousin still missing. Sigvald also seeks a missing person, the local priestess of Accuris, Maeve Trelawney. Trakir seeks vengeance for the plot which lead to the deaths of his comrades. And the woman Desh, for reasons of her own, also seems intent on killing members of a local cult of Hastur which has been behind the disappearances and deaths in the otherwise sleepy seaside town of Rushton. And Garrok... well Garrok is beginning to seriously question why he is here at all. After surviving the ordeal in Stonebriar as an orderly, he now finds his mind at its breaking point from the bizarre and eldritch monstrosities that the party continues to encounter. The most recent attack on his sanity came from the realization that what he thought was the voice of his grandmother interjecting into his thoughts turned out to be the deformed old woman living in the attic of Orchid Hill, none other than the Baron's mother, Nemira Lowell, who the party previously assumed to be dead. Despite the fact that the party's mission to Orchid Hill appears unfinished, one mystery at least has just been solved. In the Lowell family crypt, Winter the cleric cries out in despair as she discovers the body of her mentor, Lady Romana. Romana was a member of the Blackguard, the secret police of Carthia, sent to investigate the troubles in Rushton. Now it seems she has become one more victim of the cult. More evidence of evil-doing is found by Hemlock in a storage room; possessions of many of the missing citizens, including the town's magistrate, Phineas Patrick. Further investigation finds a magic sword interred in one of the Lowell crypts, as well as a secret door behind a bas relief of the God of Death himself. They also collect the bizarre device, dubbed "confabulation plates by Sigvald, left behind by the denizen of Leng before she disappeared. Exhausted, injured, and, in Winter's case, cursed by Hastur, the party returns to the surface to regroup and return to Rushton. Desh volunteers to camp out and observe Orchid Hill from a hiding spot in the surrounding trees. Back in town, they deposit the one surviving cultist they captured with Cassandra Wren, the retired Watcher who has provided them some aid with their investigation. Winter takes the body of Lady Romana to the New Chapel, the local temple of Accuris. Though she despises the idea, she agrees that in the morning she will allow the party one opportunity to use the confabulation plates, which allow communication with the dead, before Romana is given last rites and interred. The party returns to the cottage which Winter has lent them and collapses into sleep from exhaustion. They once again find themselves transported to their dream sanctuaries, places of familiarity and comfort, where their respective mentors aid in their training.