Strange Aeons / The Rushton Terror pt. 35 / Eire the 13th, 3592 CE / 8-31-21

The party awakes from their training sojourn in the Dreamlands to a disturbance coming from outside the small cottage lent for their use by the Temple of Accuris. Winter waits for them within the cottage, indicating that they should observe what is happening outside. Upon stepping out of the cottage, Hemlock, Esp, Trakir, and Gleorn see roils of black smoke rising into sky, coming from the direction of Orchid Hill. The party hurriedly prepares to investigate, but finds that not everyone will be joining them. Garrok, shaken from his experiences up to this point, cannot bring himself to return once more to the sight of so many horrors. And Sigvald remains trapped in dreaming, unable for the moment to wake. Winter also will not be accompanying the party this time, but tells them that Cassandra Wren, the retired Watcher, has gone ahead and will meet them at the gates of Orchid Hill. When they reach the top of the hill, they see that Cassandra is indeed there, but there is no sign of their companion Desh, who the previous evening had volunteered to stay and keep watch on the estate, no the bodies of the foes they previously slew. Cassandra points out that it was probably Baron Lowell's obsession with privacy that saved the rest of the town from disaster, as the party observes the giant hedge surrounding the estate is blackened and smoldering but holding strong as a fire break. Making their way carefully through still smoking guardhouse, they see that every building on the estate's grounds has been burned down, and much of the rubble is still too hot to sift through, though Cassandra does note that it appears the bodies of the party's fallen opponents were all dragged into the guesthouse before it was set ablaze. Esp searches for any signs of psychic significance, and detects a powerful presence under the grounds of Orchid Hill, where the party knows a sub-level exists. They consider entering the basement though the estate's well, but decide ultimately to come back later when things have cooled off. Returning to town, the party decides to return to the New Chapel of Accuris, where they hope to use the so-called confabulation plates on the corpse of Lady Romana. Winter has gone against her principles as a cleric of Accuris and offered them one opportunity to speak with her lover's corpse before it is interred permanently, in the hopes that doing so will shed some light on the circumstances of her murder. Unfortunately, despite the harrowing experience of communicating with the corpse through the bizarre, eldritch device, little new details are revealed. Lady Roman traveled to Fort Hailstorm unaware that it had been occupied by enemy forces, and was caught unawares by the creature posing as the missing constable, Bryn Kessel. The only new clue the corpse is able to provide is in regards to the message Lady Romana received from Magistrate Padgett, now presumed deceased, which stated that the Baron had become obsesses with researching some dark elder creature. Just before the machine cuts off, unusable until the next day, they catch one syllable of the unknowable horror's name:"Dor-"