Session 2-7: Blood Debts

I have not been able to document my thoughts carefully for some time now. I have always had some talent in tracking time and other minute details; the twitch of an eye, irregular movement, odd speech patterns, the way someone wears their weapon or the condition of their clothes. When I finally had a moment to mentally collect myself, I found that two months have passed since the job at Shady Willows. Two months in preparation, research, study and theatrics to carry out the MacMurdaugh Hotel's restoration per the contract I recklessly signed. Though Arcane Bindings is the occasional sanctuary away from what is doubtless the prying eyes of the management, I have not been able to utilize the runic protections of the place as much as I’d wish. Too many visits and it draws suspicion, and I also had no wish to put Isolde in danger.

I had wondered what loopholes and manipulations the pact might use to hasten my damnation, and though I worried my mind would be taken in the way Horick’s has in his acceptance of the MacMudraugh’s version of reality, in truth it was the loss of precious time. Time spent towards their goals, without control of myself for stretches during my days for whatever tasks they required to gather the necessary means to reopen that accursed place. I would become lucid with little memory of my actions often while I worked. My progress is itself slow and exhausting, and worse still, I am no closer to figuring a solution to turn the tables on the partners. In just thirty more days, the hotel must be at least physically operational, and I barely had the permits from the city to begin work. The role I am playing in all this was deeply irritating to me.

The so-called new Blackhearts had ceased taking any jobs collectively these past two months. Shady Willows, on my tip off with the evidence we found in their basement sent to Lt. Freeleaf, was within a day surrounded by armed constabulary demanding to investigate the premises. As it turned out, Dr. Pifnaesh and the other elves behind the demon summoning and vengeance on those that had slaughtered their cult to Seriel and the population of Clamenta would not go quietly. They barricaded Shady Willows and a siege ensued that ended in the deaths of every elven conspirator as they fought to the last, as well as several constables and the loss of one of Lt. Freeleaf’s hands. Feeling guilty for the carnage, even though it was inevitable, I loaned him our ring of regeneration as a small token to at least restore the missing appendage. Since then, my friends and I have taken an indefinite sabbatical from our work at the Mercy Hill Hospital as we faced our own challenges.

TK became isolated and, though it was something he would never admit, lonely due to his transformation into this bat form every full moon. He had a proper system to keep from harming anyone, but this coupled with the further unlocking of the strange device he kept made him wary of harming someone accidentally. Coupled with the research he and his mentor Sifter were taking up meant that his paranoia was beginning to override his usual curiosity. Cojitron, the one with the largest heart of anyone I knew, spent much of their time in contemplation over the memories of their creator while in the shadowy limbo they traversed during their brief period separated from their body. The warning he gave to them about the The Faceless Court and Stryxis disturbed them.

Horick was the only one that seemed oddly content with their situation. He happily took the odd jobs that came his way from the hotel, which seemed to consist mostly of burning the odd structure or destroying seemingly insignificant, small pieces of the city. He completed them efficiently. Efficiency and Horick were not things I would have associated together when I first met the man. Fortunately, nothing that the Night Manager ordered him to do crossed the line into direct harm towards anyone, so he never questioned the assignments, but petty vandalism was beneath these devils. There was an important reason they needed him to do these things, but he could not see why, nor did he care. Job satisfaction and the compensation seemed to make him happy. On the occasion where our paths crossed in these two months, as we were technically co-workers for the MacMurdaugh, he would note my morose demeanor (again, likely with the aid of one of those damnable hotel familiars, same as with my encounter with Imme’ when we rescued the Circus, as only the most observant could ever see through my carefully crafted facade) and tried to encourage me to take on the mission fully and enjoy the work. As I said before, disturbing.

Cojitron contacted us one day to inform us of a letter they received from Jammy, inviting us to her home to have dinner with her family. It was to be a small reunion of Wolves and since Cojitron insisted, we agreed. It was the first time in these two months the four of us were together, which seemed almost inconceivable until I reflected on the past weeks isolation with a clear head. The carriage ride was uneventful, and when we arrived at the quaint cottage, we found Bill’s familiar scooter parked outside. Both, it seemed, found their way here. I wondered if Jammy knew where the others had settled; apart from their former leader, Teal, we in fact did know their whereabouts and discussed letting her know for the future. I paused outside the door. Something was amiss. No sounds emanated from within; Jammy had a sister in addition to their mother, and with the Bills here there should have been voices and patter from whatever preparations for the gathering were being made. I cautioned the others and checked the door. Finding nothing out of place I carefully tried the knob, finding it unlocked, and we made our way to the kitchen.

There we foun Jammy’s mother and sister going about their business as if nothing was out of place, but Jammy and the Bills were surrounded by the black moths used by the Faceless Cult for their dark magic. The Bills were held against one of the walls, completely stupefied and unmoving, while Jammy, still retaining some level of consciousness, cowered and whimpered beneath the clouds of moths that surrounded her. At the dining table was a masked woman, clothed in a similar fashion as Ian Becker and the Bishop. In a condescending and mocking tone, she ordered us to bring her the remaining fangs of Stryxis. She knew that we possessed two, Spash another, and the remaining one un-found north of Ghal Pelor in the ruins of Muldrak. With casual cruelty, she threatened the children and with swift brutality used the magic of the moths to reduce Good Bill to viscera in an instant, with naught but his blood remaining to cover the wall where he was being held. The others nearly reached for weapons, but I spoke first, trying to get more information out of her. I surmised that despite her callous and dismissive approach, she desperately needed us to help her retrieve the fangs. She admitted that we were her first choice, but not the only one, and though she reiterated the threat to the others, released Jammy from the moths as assurance for us. She gave us two days to bring the fangs to her, lest she kill the others and seek out the rest of the children.

As I noted earlier, I was good at minute details. But even as I noted her unusual accent, her bearing, her mannerisms, she was exceptionally skilled at hiding almost everything about herself. Though I couldn’t quite place her, I knew for certain that she was someone we knew personally. We would puzzle through it, as that might help defeat her, but first, we needed to keep Jammy from panicking and going into shock over the violent death of Good Bill. Cojitron did their best to calm her down, and eventually she was able to relate to us what had happened. My mind tried to take in what had happened as I gently asked her these uncomfortable questions, but I was shaken to the core at what happened to Good Bill; it would be horrifying enough to his parents to discover their son’s fate, but Paris and Savilla were definitely the type of people to make a pact with the fae on the The Black Road to bring him back in despair. It was a problem that would have to wait.

Through her understandable grief, Jammy told us that the woman came with the moths not too long before we arrived, while they were in the kitchen preparing dinner. Her mother and sister were not affected, but they were immediately swarmed, and it was as if space was divided for them and her family. The woman called herself the Red Madonna, and exchanged very few words with Jammy. The only thing Jammy could recall from the frightening visit was a strange smell coming from her.

We called a carriage to take us to Arcane Bindings, and in the meantime, I penned a letter in Good Bill’s handwriting to his parents to let them know he would be staying the night with Jammy’s family. Time, as usual, was against us. We knew that we had to do something to free the hostages and defeat the Red Madonna, but to do so we needed to discover her identity which might lead to a weakness. Though on reflection of her words, she wasn’t the only Faceless Cult member searching for the fangs. Just as with Becker and the Bishop, other rivals in the cult might be making the attempt now as well. We discussed our options during the ride, and decided that at the least, we could take the fangs under our possession and potentially attempt to destroy them, or at the least use them as leverage.

At the store, empty at this time of evening even though it would be no different even during the day, we knock until Isolde opened for us. Relating what had happened and asking if she could keep Jammy safe within the store’s protective runes, we perused her inventory for any magic that could help in this crisis. Isolde’s generally anti-social nature and discomfort around children aside, we persuaded her to help, which she reluctantly agreed to, offering her scroll collection for our benefit. Cojitron, for all their good-natured spirit, was largely a magic artillery machine. However, magic of a divining kind would be necessary here, and we discovered a scroll of Legend Lore which might do the trick. As they worked to copy the spell into their book to eventually cast to ascertain more info on the Red Madonna, we traveled back to Dayne Reed’s office to collect anything we needed for the mission in addition to the fang, which we kept in a hidden safe there.

The office was in slight disarray due to our general absence the last sixty days; though I stopped in occasionally to do administrative work, Dayne had done little to change his habitual drinking. We found him in his usual state, and noticing our arrival, warily asked if we had taken on another job, having not had any good publicity since the Prospero incident. I lied convincingly that we had gotten one finally today, and that pacified him. He seemed strangely depressed, and I found myself slightly worried about him for a change, in spite of his failings.

As we prepared to leave, we heard a loud bashing against the office door and, rushing to investigate, found to our shock the stitched together corpses of the original Blackhearts attempting to break in. Moving furniture to barricade the entrance, we demanded to know what had happened to them. They responded that they were here for the fang that we possessed. It was apparent that one of the Red Madonna’s rivals had also made their move for these damned teeth. Peeking out the window next to the door, we found all four of them fully armed and moving as they had in life, albeit noticeably reconstructed given the injuries they took at the time of their deaths at the MacMurdaugh. The dwarven brothers Dakar and Kren stood with Devrick Sauer at our door, with the mage Loruna standing a bit behind them. Further away I spotted the towering form of Liam Ravinger and his father Eli watching by a streetlamp. Somehow, they had returned from their exile and had reanimated the lot of them. Missing was Eli’s other son Dieter, which was concerning.

After refusing to turn over the fang, they attempted to force their way in, hurling insults the entire time. There was no love lost between our groups, even in their undeaths. Dayne, at first disturbed by their appearance, sobered up quickly and in a rage, pulled his pistol to defend his office. We fired out the window, landing some shots into their undead bodies, while Cojitron prepared some spells and TK and his bird braced the door. Eventually they broke through and Horick charged through, wading into battle with the three of them. I take advantage of the chaos to sneak out the side window to circle around them, avoiding a lightning bolt cast by Loruna through the break in the door, which ended up damaging the bird and smashing into the wall of the office, almost frying Cojitron in the process. The lightning bolt also had the effect of empowering her comrades, similarly to how Liam used Eli’s lightning machines in our battle with him a few months ago. Cojitron summons a flaming sphere in retaliation and pushes it outside, bombarding their frontline with its scorching heat. Much like Liam, they recoiled at the fire, distracting them enough for Horick to lay into them with his weapon and warlock abilities. He was able to lay out Devrick despite his size, egging on the brothers after his victory.

As TK and Dayne continued to fire outside to help Horick while he fought the remaining Blackhearts, distracting Loruna from casting more powerful magic, I made my way to the street hidden. I reached the corner of the building but found that Liam was missing from Eli’s side. Looking up, I found that Liam had made his way to the roof of the office, preparing to smash his way in. Eli watched the battle intently, and I noticed that he somehow had received another one of those infernal books that he used to control his constructs. The cult member that recruited him must have provided him with another one after we destroyed the previous copy.

I use my magic to take Dieter’s form, and attempt to persuade Liam to stop his rampage, asking why he was helping his father attack us. Confused, he claimed that “I” had abandoned them, saying that they were too far gone and giving up on him and their father. I realize that his confusion was being caused by Eli and his book, as he even now was writing in it to alter his memories. I desperately try to counteract this to keep him from breaking through the roof and into our building.

The battle continued to rage as Cojitron’s sphere and fire spells pushed the Blackhearts back, and eventually Dakar was brought down by their combined efforts. His nerve breaking from the flames erupting around him, his brother Kern fled down the street, with Loruna following behind. TK, Cojitron and Dayne went outside through the broken door, with the latter complaining loudly about the property damage. Horick began to chase after the fleeing Blackhearts, but seeing this, I yelled at Horick to stop Eli and take the book from him. The momentary distraction was enough for Liam to turn his attention to the attacking Horick and to go to his father’s aid. Eli pulled a rare gnomish pistol from his coat and fired at my friends. In the meantime, TK was able to use his crossbow to knock out Loruna, though Kern had gotten further away. In a rage, Liam crashed into the midst of the battle as Horick had knocked Eli over with his weapon and severed the hand holding the book.

Liam tore a light from the street and attacked viciously with it, badly wounding Horick. I raced over and narrowly avoided getting smashed into the street, scooping the book and flipping it open. It was incomprehensible to me, but fortunately TK was close by and, while Cojitron and Horick barely distracted Liam from us, he managed to find the section of the book that altered his memories and he wrote in one of the pages for the poor brute to fall asleep. Liam dropped his makeshift weapon and crumpled to the ground.

The immediate danger over, Horick stood ready to kill Eli, but I warded him off for now, wanting to question him. Eli at first claimed as Liam did that his son Dieter had abandoned them after failing to “redeem” his family, but admitted on further interrogation that his oldest son had in fact been kidnapped by one of the Faceless Cult’s members, who demanded that they find and bring him the other fangs within three days. It seemed that these hypocrites, who couldn’t even truly erase themselves completely of their true personalities, pulled from the same cowardly playbook. To this end, he was given another book, and he overwrote Liam’s memories once again to make him believe Dieter had left them so he wouldn’t attempt a foolish rescue. He proceeded to sneak back into his former cemetery and collected the bodies of the Blackhearts to reconstitute them to aid in his mission.

Eli proposed a truce after we revealed that we also had someone close to us taken as a hostage to force our hand, to work together to rescue our loved ones and punish the Faceless. The others were incredulous at the idea, understandably, and my sympathy for Dieter aside, I saw in his desperation that he was genuine about wanting to do anything he could to rescue his son, even ally with us as long as it was convenient. I pondered this. They would never expect us to work together, which might give us the element of surprise we’d need against them. I convinced the others that, with some caveats, working together might be beneficial for now. Eli required more corpses to restore the Blackhearts after the thrashing we gave them, and though the thought was disgusting, desperation was our common thread tonight.

TK and Cojitron studied the book carefully while we spoke, and discovered that, despite Eli’s attempts to persuade us otherwise, Liam and Dieter could in fact have their shattered minds totally restored given careful work with the tome. Some small hope for the unfortunate brothers existed, at least. In the meantime, they confidently wrote into the book to see my friends and me as companions to be trusted, which could be locked in for at least a couple days, preventing Eli from taking control back immediately should he decide after all to betray us. With the book he can recall his flesh golems as well, meaning Kern would not terrorize Ghal Pelor’s streets for long. Remembering the final dose of memory altering formula we found at the Ravinger Estate, we injected Liam with it, ensuring the command would stay for an extended period of time, long enough hopefully to rescue everyone including his brother.

Giving Dayne Eli’s pistol and remarking that the price of that piece would cover the broken door and then some, he wandered back into his office, reminding us to bring back whatever treasure we could from this mission, whatever that meant. After binding Eli’s wounds and dangling the possibility he could have his hand restored with our ring should he keep to his word, we begrudgingly made our way back to the cemetery, formulating a plan to contact the Rylander section of the city port for a ship to take us to the area where the final fang supposedly lay.

To the hells or whatever horror the afterlife had become with Stryxis and the Partners alike.

The end for now,

~Bayour S.