Session 10: Jabob Alden's Vengeful Ghost

Session #10 – Jacob Alden’s Vengeful Ghost

On the morning of 19 Aers, 530, the Deputies awoke in the shadowed depths of the Haunted Alden Mine. Twig had spent much of the night poring over the fragmentary diary of Alden Jacob, uncovering details of the man’s life. Most significant among them was a description of the original boundary stake between the Jacobs and Porter lands—set before Judge Chapman’s disputed ruling. With this knowledge, the Deputies resolved to take the worn surveyor’s stake from the Altar of Hoar and return it to its rightful place.

Before leaving, they pressed deeper into the mine to search for further clues. The rough tunnels gave way to shattered stone blocks, testifying to some tremendous force that had blasted apart a sealed passage. Beyond lay a worked stone corridor, its low ceiling and carved walls covered with flowing, cryptic script and grotesque images of webs, spiders, and darker things best left unspoken.

The Deputies discovered an underground complex of chambers, fashioned for a grisly purpose: to torture and imprison a single captive. The prisoner had been subjected to a grotesque necromantic rite, locking them in undeath for eternity, before being bound in an iron cage and burned unceasingly by magical flame. But now the chambers stood empty—unoccupied save for the horrific Eternal Dirge, a hellish wail woven from countless screams, echoing ceaselessly through the stone halls. The prisoner was gone.

Satisfied there was nothing more to uncover, the Deputies departed with the stake and made for the Jacob–Porter property line. There, under a bleak sky, they met the Ghost of Alden Jacobs astride a hellish nightmare steed, flanked by three great infernal hounds. The spirit wasted no words—battle was joined at once.

The fiendish hounds prowled straight for Twig, flames seething from their jaws, battering him with fire and fang. The nightmare horse struck with burning hooves, scattering the Deputies. Yet the lawmen did not falter.

• Fourth-Knife took the form of a gray wolf and harried the nightmare’s legs.
• Imaranger loosed arrows, then waded in with blades flashing in both hands.
• Simon turned the restless dead, conjured a spectral weapon, and moved with measured grace between smiting and mending his comrades’ wounds.
• Suffering Succotash flung bolt after arcane bolt, weaving between bursts of flame though he was singed for his efforts.
• Kruk the Vengeful broke wide around the fray, seeking to draw some of the enemy’s fury away from his companions.
• Twig, harried but unbroken, finally passed the stake to Alaric, who vanished in a shimmer of magic to reappear at the proper spot in the earth. With a steady thrust, Alaric drove the boundary marker deep into the ground.

At once, the Ghost of Alden Jacobs wailed and dissolved, his tormented vigil ended. The nightmare steed and its devil-hounds faded to nothing. The land was stilled.

The Deputies, bloodied but unbowed, bound their wounds and returned to the Porter farmhouse. The celestial guardian was gone and the shimmering barrier dispersed. After taking their rest, they escorted Judge Edward Chapman and his bodyguards safely back to Blood Ax without further incident.

Thus concluded Session #10.