Act 2 / Episode 2 -- Hunclay's Cave, Part 3 -- Shepherd's Bounty, Shalora's Report, and Hunter's Humour (October 5, 2014)

Having slain the dire wolf that had been preying on the sheep at the Abrassus Ranch and having discovered Hunclay’s secret cave and its hidden treasures, the companions decided that they would perform the grisly and unpleasant task of severing the wolf’s head and then bring it to ol’ Prake Abrassus to claim the bounty, before returning to the cave with their ponies, Speckles and Sparkles, in order to haul back the heavy chests.

As the companions turned on Wolf Hill Road an hour or so later heading toward Abrassus Ranch, Shalora saw the awed and then sad looks on the faces of some of Eudomas Biton’s children, whose hunting lodge was at the junction of Devy and Wolf Hill Roads. Eudomas had a large family to support with very limited means, but the children now knew that their father would not claim the bounty on the wolf -- as a matter of fact, he was still out in the woods searching for the beast. 

Ol’ Prake, usually a dour pessimist, was overjoyed when the heroes turned up an hour or so later at his ranch with the bloody and singed wolf head pierced by a wooden stake carried by Jiri and Iacobus (?). The old man said he would waste no time mounting it in a prominent location overlooking his lands as a warning to other lupine thieves, and as a trophy for the whole community to see. He was endlessly thankful for the companions, and paid them the advertised sum of 800 gold coins -- an astonishingly generous bounty, given that it was paid by a shepherd! -- which constituted most of the savings Prake and his family had accumulated over generations (he explained that the ranch had been in this location for centuries, and that the name of the road leading to it, and hill behind it, had changed as a result of wolf packs migrating into the area in recent years; relocating would be both impractical and likely would not have changed the situation much, anyway). But the bounty was worth every copper he paid out, he said, for his livelihood was now more secure. Shalora immediately provided her full share of the bounty to the Biton children, whose spirits immediately lifted... her gift could support the whole family for a long time to come! Jiri and Akiro both donated 50 gold coins each back to Ol’ Prake, feeling that he needed the money more than they did. Tears welled in his eyes at the companions’ generosity, and he promised to give Akiro a lamb for a pet, wool blankets for the entire party, and meat with which Talia Orem could make a meal, once they returned to the inn in the evening. Iacobus was satisfied that he had fulfilled his end of the agreement and had done a great service to the shepherd, and therefore felt no need to return or redistribute his share of the reward.

The 18th of Gozran was a Fireday -- market day in Belhaim. Like the previous weeks, vendors had set up stalls on the green across from the inn. The most prominent goods for sale included fish and beautiful pottery (Belhaim’s primary industries and exports), but also included, among other things, game meat, seasonal vegetables, wool garments, leather goods, knives and tools, fresh and dried herbs, liquor, cheese, and bread and flour. Quite a few folks -- mostly humans and rainbow-haired gnomes -- had apparently come out of the woods or on river barges to attend the market, but Kroc was not around on this day. The companions had a nice leisurely lunch at the inn before heading back to Hunclay’s Cave.

Once the companions loaded the chests onto the ponies and prepared to make the return journey to Belhaim, Eudomas Biton emerged from the forest and saw the wolf carcasses on the side of the road. The man was crushed -- he felt that as the local hunter, he had the best shot at finding and slaying the dire wolf -- but the pack had eluded him by traveling over rocky highlands where their spoor had been harder to follow. He eventually found it again... but too late... He, too, was astonished by the size of the pack leader -- he had never seen so big a wolf in these parts before. Clearly, the companions’ hunting skills were better than he had expected. The companions pointed out that had Eudomas been alone, the pack probably would have killed him. The man reluctantly admitted to Shalora that the income from the bounty would have made it significantly easier to support his family. His wife had passed away some years earlier, and he had many mouths to feed. When Shalora informed him that she had given her share of the bounty to his children, he showed a mix of gratitude and wounded pride... The father would have wanted to be the one to provide for his family rather than having to rely on the charity of strangers, and the hunter wanted to be the talk of the town. Still, he acknowledged that the heroes had been kind to his family -- Iacobus had payed some of his older children to help him haul out treasure from the ruins of the Witch Tower, and now the party had made their lives significantly easier with this latest, very generous gift. Eudomas told the party he would buy them drinks at the inn that night... in the meantime, he salvaged what he could of the wolf hides (the dire wolf hide was of no value, singed as it was) while the companions traveled back to town.

Iacobus returned to the inn alone to take stock of the magical items that the party had recovered from both Hunclay’s estate and cave, while Shalora, Akiro and Jiri brought the chests filled with coin and non-magical tomes to Lady Devy. Shalora took the opportunity to provide the baroness with a flighty, rambling update regarding progress on the group’s latest assignment: “Investigations are ongoing... Iacobus is assessing some dangerous books... The mansion is mostly ready but we need to do one more sweep... There were demons and devils inside (still are)... And this huge, ugly scary monster in the cave -- oh my god you should have seen it! -- but Akiro chop-chopped it dead!... But we’ll have the manor sorted out soon...” Jiri could not help but add: “We probably did a lot better than your men would have done.”

Lady Devy and Arnholde seemed worried upon getting confirmation that there were demons and devils in Hunclay Manor, and another horror that defied description in a nearby cave. Arnholde was quick to acknowledge that the constabulary certainly would have been outmatched by such a task, and that Shalora (“and the others, of course”) had once again her exceptional skill and bravery... he reaffirmed his awe and admiration for her. The unsettled baroness thanked the companions for their report, and for their honesty in returning the chest and money from the cave, which would be sent to Hunclay’s cousin in Yanmass... and she hoped that the demons and devils in the manor would be destroyed soon.

A carefree Shalora left Devy Manor with an absent-minded Akiro and thirsty Jiri, leaving behind an alarmed baroness and her son. The trio returned to the inn, sat down for a satisfying supper of mutton stews with Iacobus, and were soon joined by Ol’ Prake and some of his family and neighbours, and also by Eudomas Biton, who ordered the companions drinks throughout the evening. Ol’ Prake brought the companions heavy, warm, good quality sheep’s wool blankets as promised, and he also brought Akiro his promised lamb. The paladin was in heaven. Isadorer and Bophre Malak also came to the inn that evening, bringing two jugs of milk for the companions (but placing them in front of Akiro), Bophre smiling shyly at the confused Tian warrior with star-crossed eyes.

Shalora improvised a song about the party’s battle with the wolf, accompanied by Akiro on the flute. The performance was... uneven... but the audience clapped and cheered politely, glad to be supporting the heroes that had slain the beast. Ol’ Prake interrupted the performance at one point to publicly acknowledge the party’s good deeds, and to invite townsfolk to drop by his ranch to see the unbelievably huge wolf head: “He won’t be bothering my flock no more!” he said to wide applause. “I hope he doesn’t have a big brother who’ll take his place,” he then muttered.

Eudomas looked a little down throughout the evening, but at one point asked Iacobus whether the magus was “together” with Shalora. When the magus denied any romantic involvement with the elf, Eudomas made some crude remarks to the effect that she must be hot in the sack and that he would love to bed her... after all, an elf that followed Shelyn... she must be into free love and all that, right? Would Iacobus mind if he gave it a shot? Iacobus gave Eudomas a cold stare and bluntly stated that he would listen to not another word on the subject... and promptly left the table, annoyed with the noise, crowd, and crass and inane conversations he was having with the local bumpkins.  

Eudomas still managed to share some of his fine humour with Jiri while Akiro and Shalora kept entertaining the locals with their fine music:

“A father has three daughters that are all getting married on the same day. He asks his oldest daughter, ‘Who do you wish to marry?’ She says, “Father, I wish to marry the man with three dragons on his chest.’ He walks over to his second daughter and asks her the same question. She replies, ‘Father, I wish to marry the man with two dragons on his chest.’ He then goes to his youngest daughter and asks her the same thing: ‘Who do you wish to marry?’ She replies, ‘I wish to marry the man with one draggin’ on the floor!”

The hunter slapped the table, and laughed and laughed at his own joke. Jiri rolled his eyes and responded in kind:

"What do you call nuts on the wall?" asked the dwarf. The drunken hunter thought about it for a few moments, but came up blank.

"Walnuts! What do you call nuts on your chest?"

"I got it, I got it -- chestnuts!"

"What do you call nuts on your chin?"

"Uh… ummm… uh…" stammered Eudomas.

"A mouth full of cock!"

The hunter burst out laughing… but was left wondering whether he was deemed to be the one with the mouth full of cock? That would not be so funny.

In the meantime, Iacobus packed up all the magical tomes and items that he had stored in his room, left the stupidity and noise (including the awful musical performances of his companions) of the packed inn, went and fetched Mathezic, and decided that he would get some true rest by having the servant pour him a hot bath before sleeping in the comfort of a powerful (if dead) wizard’s bed, close to all his books, magical items and astronomical instruments. When refreshed in the morning, the magus would memorize the spells he required to review the contents of Hunclay’s spellbooks and start the task of identifying all the arcane items they had come across in the quiet of the manor. 

But darker powers had other things in mind for the magus...

Act 2 / Episode 2 -- Hunclay's Cave, Part 2 -- The Secret Cache (October 5, 2014)

The adventurers waded through calf-deep water (Mischief astride Shalora’s shoulders) past a side chamber wherein they found the bubbling source of the spring, squeezing along a narrow, damp, curving passage that eventually opened into a large, high-ceiling and surprisingly warm and dry cavern. 

Peering past Akiro, Jiri could just make out a strange silhouette hugging the wall at the very end of the cavern... the thing shuffled, then launched itself through the air, gliding with preternatual silence at the party. The thing was a horror like none the companions had ever encountered, or could ever have conceived in their worst nightmares. The crab-like abomination had a lamprey mouth, twitching eyes on its sickly green legs, a pair of limp pincers, and several faded red, translucent blisters on its back that held what looked like human brains. It reeked of rotting flesh. 

The horror landed immediately before Akiro at the entrance to the dry cave, but the paladin braced himself with his glaive and managed to strike first, burying the point of his weapon into its gelatinous, putrid flesh. It was a difficult to tell just how much harm he cad caused the thing, which gurgled and then stumbled sluggishly forward, pressing its razor-filled maw onto the Tian man, biting through his armour and deep into his flesh. The young warrior would have screamed in agony, had he been able to. Jiri tried to lure the monster away from Akiro; the thing managed to inflict more wounds on both the dwarf and the paladin before they were finally able to destroy it for good. Fortunately, Shalora was able to channel healing energy that closed the worst of her companions’ wounds as they were inflicted and kept them strong enough to win the battle. 

Not even Iacobus had any clue what the horror might have been, though it was in all probability an undead version of its former self. Never had he heard of a demon, devil, or other outsider that remotely resembled this abomination. What was this Dominion of the Black with which Hunclay was so eager to make contact, and to what end, if this was one of its representatives? 

The heroes found four locked iron chests resting on the east side of the cave, three relatively small, with the fourth twice as large as the others. All four chests radiated feint orange auras (abjuration), with the fourth one also radiating strong green (conjuration), silver (universal) and feint red (evocation) auras coming from within. The entire chamber had a purple aura (transmutation) -- presumably radiated by Hunclay’s “climate control” magic. The silver charm and the ring of keys recovered from Hunclay’s bedchamber opened the smaller chests, while the black key found on Hunclay’s body beneath the rubble of the Witch Tower opened the largest one.

The three small chests contained a total of 11,300 copper coins, 7,200 silver coins, 1,800 gold coins, and 60 platinum coins, all in small cloth pouches of 100 coins each (save for the platinum). Sitting atop an exquisite darkwood case inside the largest chest was an exquisite, narrow-necked gold and green glass vial containing a black dust, with three additional packets containing the same substance, which Iacobus identified as an enhanced Dust of Darkness. The shimmering black dust radiated an aura of feint evocation magic, and according to the magus, its application causes one creature to be coated in a layer of darkness for a short period of time, granting the creature partial concealment in normal light, and total concealment in dim light; it also dispels and counter the outlining effects (but not the blinding effects) of Glitterdust. Its enhanced properties, guessed the companions, might dispel the magical wall of light that kept Maffei prisoner in Hunclay’s cellar?

A scroll contained inside a mithral tube produced the strong silver (universal) aura, and one of five antique tomes inside the darkwood case radiated the strong green (conjuration) aura detected by Iacobus. All five tomes were written in languages unfamiliar to the companions -- the first four apparently in the same language. The fifth tome, with the strong aura of conjuration magic, was a massive, tattered and apparently very old volume, several hundred pages long (but also evidently missing pages, if not entire sections) and bound in black leather. The pages were scribed in cramped handwriting and included complex star charts and maps of strange, distant worlds. It also contained numerous illustrations of eerie monsters, including drawings of the guardian that the companions had just destroyed. Even though they were unable to read a single word of the text, the heroes deduced that this dark tome must be The Secrets of the Dreaming Dark, entries regarding which, in Hunclay’s journal, indicated that the wizard had been desperate to hide the text from Mr. Barlau/Aeteperax. 

The magical tome in the darkwood case was

 more tattered than this illustration would suggest

Act 2 / Episode 2 -- Hunclay’s Cave, Part 1 -- Wolves (October 5, 2014)

18 Gozran, 4711

First thing in the morning, the companions follow Devy Road north out of Belhaim, going in search of the wizard Hunclay’s secret cave. Although little traffic passes by road through Belhaim and onward to the northern reaches of the Verduran Forest, and, beyond that, to revolution-torn Galt, the stretch of road nearest the village remained clear and in good condition. A canopy of leaves arched over the road, casting it in gloom save for the occasional patch where sunlight filtered through and touched the ground.

About an hour from the village, Jiri and Shalora caught a glimpse of a body of water beyond the dense woods west of the road.. Jiri also thought he saw something dart between the trees out of sight. Mischief began to growl. Jiri took a few cautious steps to the eaves of the forest, where he spotted tracks off the side of the road -- likely several days old and probably human, shod as they were in clogs -- but also wolf tracks, some old, some fresh. An instant later, a wolf darted east across the road perhaps thirty feet north of the party. The pack began to howl and growl.

The companions fell into a defensive formation, all four standing back to back in the middle of the road, with Mischief hiding between everyone. A few moments later, four wolves lunged at the companions, one emerging from the east, and three from the west. A pair managed to flank and pull down Jiri. Akiro impaled one of the wolves nearest to Jiri with his glaive. Iacobus fended off attacks from the beast that attacked from the east, which seemed intent on making a meal of Mischief.

As Jiri tried to get back to his feet, a fifth wolf -- a monstrous grey-black beast the size of a horse, with two rows of bony dorsal spikes -- broke from cover with a roar and almost bit off the dwarf’s head, just narrowly missing its prey. The party worked effectively to fend off the wolves’ repeated assaults, and soon, three wolves lay dead. The monstrous alpha male and one of its smaller pack mates fled into the woods west of the road, both wounded. There was no doubt in the companions’ minds -- that dire wolf must have been the beast that had been preying on ol’ Prake Abrassus’s sheep, the one with the 800 gold coin bounty on its head.

Following the wolf spoor into the woods, Jiri found the remains of two human women in a small clearing near the pond. Their bones had been scattered about the clearing, most of the flesh having been devoured by wolves and scavengers. Judging from the scraps of clothes remaining... including clogs... the women likely were peasants, or servants... Linus and Saba, the two missing servants from the Hunclay estate, probably? What they were doing out here was a mystery. Had Hunclay murdered them and left them here for dead?

The companions decided that they would look for Hunclay’s cave after tracking down and destroying the wolves, as now that the beasts were wounded, this would be their best opportunity to track down and slay the predators, which they suspected might go to ground in a nearby den. For a skilled tracker like Jiri, following the wounded wolves’ spoor was not difficult... but the creatures had a great deal of fight and cunning left in them, and kept well ahead of their pursuit, winding their way over and under deadfall, up and down wooded hills and gullies, this way and that for several hours... Iacobus remarked sarcastically that he would not be surprised if they ended up going in a circle and coming back to the spot where they first encountered the wolves...

... which is exactly what happened. As the companions scanned the road and surrounding woods, the dire wolf and its wounded pack mate sprung from where they had taken cover after doubling back behind the party... but the heroes handily defeated the tired, bloodied beasts. Akiro’s glaive found its mark once again on the smaller wolf, while Iacobus sent a powerful electrical charge through his falcata that completely charred the alpha male, leaving a horrendous stench of singed wolf flesh and hair in the air.   

The heroes went back to the pond west of the road, and at its north end, followed a spring into a narrow opening that led inside the wall of a rocky, thickly forested hillside. Akiro, as always, led the way in, Iacobus casting a light spell upon the Tian warrior’s hat to dispel the gloom. Past the opening, a wide, low-ceiling and water-filled cavern widened before them…

Shalora's Journal, 17 Gozran, 4711

My strange new friends and I have become a tighter knit group than I have ever known before, even with the youths of my former home. I never thought this would happen, they seemed so odd at first, so foreign to anything I’d seen before.

Akiro, the silent warrior. What causes his muteness, I wonder? He is so brave, so strong, and yet so innocent and fragile. He is like a younger brother who has become a man too soon. I saw it a lot in the city. He is a talented fighter and a noble friend, but still needs to be protected like a rose blossom, lest he be corrupted by the world, crushed before his time.

Jiri, the odd dwarf. He is so unlike any of his kind that I have met before. He holds no deep love of the dark places, though he is well at home there. He appreciates fine art instead of crude valuable metals and stones. He seeks to befriend animals, but is an unrelenting killer when backed into a corner. He proclaims his faith in Shelyn, but I can’t tell if it’s only lip service, or if he truly venerates the Eternal Rose. Jiri is a strange, mysterious man who may snap at any moment.

Iacobus is the strangest of all. He seems well-ordered, but flips wildly between brilliant negotiator and historian, and utterly insane and rude. At first I didn’t care for him, and neither did Mischief, but the man has become less awful as we have adventured together. His obsession with material wealth and meagre skills as a wizard make him a dangerous man to travel with, as I never know what he’s going to do next. Sometimes he’s a great help, but sometimes he seems like he doesn’t know he’s a wizard. He seems to respect the strengths of the group, but maybe he sees us all as tools, to be used to further his own gains.

The people of Belhaim have been wonderfully nice to me. The Baroness Devi’s son, Arnholde, gave me a wonderful tour and has been incredibly polite at all of the town’s functions. The priest of Shelyn, Nilos Genser, from the Shrine of the Seven Roses has also been very nice, singing beautiful songs and helping me find a nice garden to visit. The leatherworker, Theon Sensina has been a wonderful help for Mischief, and seems to have formed a budding friendship with my mysterious companion. I even met another elf woman, Emarthine, who seemed nice when talking about her orchard. It’s a really pretty town and hopefully we can help them. Maybe I can even find a home here.

We’ve had some wonderful adventures, though I hope we can spend more time in the wilderness around Belhaim instead of the rocks beneath it. We have been somewhat scatteredly following a few clues about other problems in the town, some kind of wolf-monster, some missing druids, and a few other things, aside from the tower that fell down and the dead wizard’s house. There’s so many problems in a town this small, it’s strange to think that they have just as many problems as the folk in the big cities…

Oh yeah, I almost forgot! Apparently all of the local kobolds (who were quite nice once we helped them with their leadership dispute) worship a dragon named Aspergillimax, who was supposed to have been killed years ago. Isn’t that weird?

Act 2, Episode 1 - The Wizard's Estate, part 3 - Captives in the Cellars (September 3, 2014)

Having defeated the homunculus in the observatory, the companions descended to the manor’s cellars--the last part of Hunclay Manor requiring investigation. At the bottom of the spiraling iron staircase, they wandered into three dark, interconnected rooms cluttered with dozens of stacked crates and chests containing only mundane household supplies. 

With his hat once again aglow from one of Iacobus’s spells, Akiro led the way into the wide passages beyond the first storage cellar, rounding a bend and quickly peering into three smaller storage closets. The easternmost was, to Jiri’s delight, a well-stocked wine cellar with many fine and rare vintages from across the Inner Sea. The middle closet contained a generous cache of sides of beef, pork, mutton, fowl and fish, all frozen thanks to a thick sheet of solid ice that covered its north wall, and which radiated a moderate red aura (evocation magic). The absent-minded Akiro failed to notice that there was a keyhole surround by a “charm-ring” on the door of the westernmost closet. As he pushed the door open, the lock twisted into a screaming mouth, which made a deafening shriek that made the ears of the paladin and of some of his companions bleed and ring, practically bringing them to their knees. Once the shrieking ceased, the lock again became mundane and neither the door nor the closet beyond radiated any further magic. Akiro was momentarily dazed, but quickly recovered as Shalora channeled magical energy to heal her allies. This third closet contained a large supply of components for spellcasting and magical research. 

At the west end of the south corridor, the companions came upon a door made of thick, dark iron etched with arcane symbols. None could decipher the meaning of the symbols... but, after inspecting the door for magical wards and potential traps, the companions were surprised to find neither. Even more surprising was the discovery that the door was not locked. Akiro cautiously led the way through the doorway and into a ten-foot square antechamber in the north wall of which was set an artfully wrought gate of bright metal that opened into a larger chamber beyond. The wall thirty-five feet or so beyond the gate was covered with strange glyphs and runes, including what appeared to be one enormous word scrawled in one-foot-high letters across the north wall. Again, no member of the party was able to decipher the meaning of the glyphs and runes. The silver gate was held fast by a lock of good quality, not warded by arcane enchantments or traps. One of the keys found in the wizard’s bedchamber would open the lock... but the companions hesitated to do so when they heard a sinister guttural voice coming from the chamber beyond, the speaker out of sight.

“Here to gloat over me some more, wizard? And without your usual greeting? You’ll play that game one time too often, and on that day I’ll enjoy supping on your entrails.” 

Shalora called out friendly greetings to the unseen creature, asking it its name. The creature seemed surprised to hear a voice other than Hunclay’s... and was intrigued. “Now why would the wizard send down underlings... Unless... he is dead... his spell broken?” replied the creature, which did not give its name. It cooed that it had been a long time since it had heard a woman’s voice, that she sounded very kind... and would she be kind enough to open the silver gate? As the creature made its request, the companions heard a metallic object clanging loudly on the stone floor not far away, along with the sound of something clawing and then crawling on stone. Shalora again asked the creature to identify itself, but it merely suggested that the companions would find out soon enough if they opened the gate. Jiri detected both strong evil and chaos coming from the creature’s general direction... which suggested that it probably was not the accuser devil referenced in Hunclay’s transmuted bedside to-do list... but likely was no less dangerous (to everyone's astonishment, evil also radiated from Iacobus's pack… from Ye Booke of Enhanced Fiendish Servitude, which was perhaps not so surprising after all). After some hesitation, the companions decided to leave this chamber and to return later, after having explored the remainder of the cellars. Perhaps they might find clues elsewhere as to the identity of the mysterious creature imprisoned in the chamber.

The party backtracked past the three storage closets and the main storage cellars until they came upon the wizard’s clockwork lab. Six stone slabs sat on the floor of that chamber. Heaped upon each one were metal tools, gears, springs, and other parts for the construction of mechanical creations. Without hesitation, Mischief found the secret door with the damaged hinges alluded to in Hunclay’s transmuted bedside to-do list, and led the party down very narrow, winding passages that opened onto another wing of the cellars.

The iron gate to the first chamber they found in this wing was ajar. The room beyond was bare, except for a conjuration circle of silvery metal inlaid in the stone floor and a small, rickety table just outside the circle upon which rested a journal. At the heart of the arcane circle, a childlike blasphemy little more than two feet tall conjoining the features of a plump human infant with  a six inch worm-like tongue and a gigantic gore-fattened fly. With its back initially turned to the companions, it begged them in a buzzing, pitiful, childlike whine to release it -- all they needed to do was break the circle that contained it. The creature claimed that it was a mere innocent child that had been tortured and turned into its horrific form for the sick pleasures of devils in Hell, and it assured them that if released, it would harm no one and could be redeemed. 

Chirit the accuser devil

The creature claimed that Hunclay had summoned it and sought to strike a bargain with it so that it would teach him the secrets to magically and permanently disguising a book so that its contents would look like something else. The abomination claimed that it had never agreed on the terms of a bargain with Hunclay, and never admitted to him that it did not possess the information he sought. Then, one day, the wizard left the chamber abruptly and never returned, and the infant-fly-thing had remained imprisoned in the conjuration circle since then. 

Jiri determined that the creature had a profoundly evil yet also order-oriented aura -- this  was the accuser devil that Hunclay had alluded to in his to-do list. Iacobus remembered having once read that devils were immune to fire and poison, and highly resistant to acid, cold, and any weapons not made of silver or good-aligned. Akiro retrieved the journal that lay on the nearby table, wherein Iacobus found entries naming the accuser devil Chirit, and confirming that Hunclay had indeed summoned for the purposes it claimed to have been summoned for... but that the fiend had been obstinate against the wizard’s requests for information. Hunclay left Chirit bound alone in the chamber so that it could ponder the wisdom of its actions. He intended to come back and interrogate it further, but evidently died before he could do so.

Other entries in the journal revealed the following:

. That Hunclay had faced persecution in Rahadoum for research he conducted into the Dark Tapestry, and fled the country to Taldor some seven years ago;

. That Hunclay purchased land and built his manor in Belhaim in order to be closer to one of his most knowledgeable correspondents on matters pertaining to the Dark Tapestry, a mysterious “Mr. Barlau;”

. Mr. Barlau had been quite persistent in his efforts to acquire rare tomes from Hunclay on the subject of the Dark Tapestry, but Hunclay had repeatedly refused Barlau’s offers;

. Hunclay had recently observed some unusual body traveling across the night sky, which he deemed was on a collision course with Golarion and estimated that it would make landfall somewhere in southeast Isger, probably close to Dustpawn, by mid-Sarenith of this year (and that he would make arrangements to travel there); 

. After many years of secrecy, Barlau had finally extended an offer for Hunclay to meet him at a specified location in the Dragonfen... Hunclay was nervous about this meeting, and summoned a schir demon, hoping to make of it a bodyguard, but it was too difficult to control, so he kept it locked up in a pit chamber in case it might be of use in future research;

. The schir demon’s true name was Cthepaltangoulgi, and that speaking its true name correctly in Abyssal when passing the gates into its prison chamber would be essential to neutralizing him: speaking his true name once would briefly paralyze him, speaking it a second time would cause him wracking pain for a full hour, and speaking it a third time would paralyze him for a little bit longer than the first time;

. Hunclay had also magically imprisoned a shae from the Plane of Shadow named Maffei, who had mocked his theories regarding a connection between the Plane of Shadow and the Dark Tapestry;

. When Hunclay met Mr. Barlau a few weeks ago, he was shocked to discover that “Mr. Barlau” was in fact a green dragon named Aeteperax, and the dragon demanded that Hunclay sell him his rarest astronomical tomes -- and under pressure, Hunclay agreed that he would do so on the condition that Aeteperax do the wizard a favour by causing an accident that would result in the collapse of the old tower that partially blocked Hunclay’s view of the eastern sky (a task that Aeteperax would delegate to his kobold minions);

. Hunclay began to fear that the dragon could not be trusted, so hid his most highly prized tomes in a “secret location,” where he had also summoned a representative of the Dominion of the Black using one of the rituals found in the tome Secrets of the Dreaming Dark. To the wizard’s dismay, the creature tried to kill him, but Hunclay managed to slay it first... and thereafter “still found a use for the thing.”

. Hunclay thought he should “dismiss” the manor servants soon because they knew more than they should... but at least he would still have Lodo (his homunculus), and that would be “enough for now.”

The companions debated what to do about Chirit... should they destroy the devil, or set it free and give it the benefit of the doubt that it would keep its word and find redemption? Jiri and Iacobus leaned toward the former option, while Shalora leaned toward the latter. They also considered simply leaving it bound forever in this secret section of the cellars, never to be found. The companions postponed their final decision,  and went on to locate the last captive -- the shae named Maffei, who was held in a special cell behind a magical wall of blinding light. 

The walls of the shae’s prison chamber were covered with arcane symbols. In the northern part of the chamber, a wooden table sat against the eastern wall, with what the companions eventually confirmed were the extra-planar captive’s outlandish scimitar, short sword, and blue and silver plate-like armour that was more like leather in consistency. A bright light shone forth from an opening in the south wall, beyond which was the shae’s cell.    

Jiri sensed no aura coming from the shae, whether evil, law or chaos-oriented. When the companions asked her who she was and why the wizard had imprisoned her, she in turn questioned whether the companions were minions of the “petty human”? If not, she pleaded that they release her from her “unjust and outrageous imprisonment,” promising that the heroes would be rewarded if they did so. She confirmed that her name was Maffei and that the wizard had summoned her from the Plane of Shadow, and that he sought her help to prove his theory that there was a connection between the Plane of Shadow and the Dark Tapestry. She had been imprisoned for mocking him, and she had diminished considerably in strength as a result of being directly exposed to Hunclay’s wall of light. 

With eyes closed, Jiri walked through the blinding light and stepped out of it before the bars of Maffei’s cell. Within the cell, he saw a blurry and amorphous being clad in elegant white clothing that provided form and contrast to the shadowy woman’s body, with only pinpricks of greenish light visible from the wispy darkness that was her face. She was slender and stood approximately 6’ tall, though her fluid form made such estimates temporary and inexact. Perhaps more so than his companions, Jiri felt that he could trust the shae and argued that she should be released -- compared to the other captives, she had been much more cooperative, did not radiate evil, and likely was innocent of any wrongdoing that would warrant her ongoing imprisonment. If they did release her, Maffei pledged that she would aid the companions to the extent that she could in a task of their choosing. She also explained that no matter how Jiri tried to shield her from the light, she risked complete destruction if she came into contact with it even one more time. She went on in bitter tones to explain that Hunclay had bragged that he had some enhanced magical dust that could be tossed into the light to extinguish the wall, but that he had hidden his supply in a secret location where no one else could find it. If the heroes failed to retrieve this magical dust, then Jiri judged that he should be able to break down the cell’s north wall with a pickaxe, time and effort. 

Maffei the shae

In the meantime, the companions resolved to destroy the schir demon. On their way back to his holding chamber, they first checked in again on Chirit the accuser devil... only to find that he had disappeared from the conjuration circle! A deep worry began to set in the pits of the companions‘ stomachs, until Iacobus noticed that the circle was undisturbed. Casting a spell to detect magic, he observed the outline of the fiend’s familiar form in the shimmering rainbow hues indicative of illusion magic -- Chirit had turned himself invisible, as “Zorg” the imp had in the dungeons beneath the Witch Tower. Chirit begged again to be released, making the case that the goddess Shelyn would have mercy on a poor soul that had done no harm to anyone and sought redemption--surely, annihilation or eternal imprisonment would be frowned upon by the goddess, when he might yet have beauty to contribute to the world? Seeing Chirit’s words potentially swaying Shalora and Akiro, Jiri argued that a devil could not be trusted, could not be redeemed, was evil to the core, and was too dangerous to be left alive. Chirit promised that it would return to Hell if the heroes set it free. The companions remained undecided, but for the time being, they resolved to leave the devil in its magic circle and to lock the gate to the chamber.

At last, they returned to Cthepaltangoulgi’s chamber. The companions did their best to pronounce the fiend’s name in different ways from behind the safety of the silver gate. They did not know if they had pronounced the demon’s name correctly, but heard no cries or sounds when they pronounced his name, nor any replies when they attempted to communicate with him... but Jiri sensed that the strong aura of evil it radiated remained in the chamber just around a corner and out of their sight. The heroes took a deep breath, unlocked the gate, and went in...

A goat-headed humanoid with long, deadly curled horns, covered in a mangy gray hide that only partially covered its gaunt but muscular frame awaited them near the lip of a pit ten feet in diameter. The fiend ran its slimy tongue along the multi-pronged point of its halberd, then charged the party; Iacobus had explained to his allies upon discovering that the demon was a schir that this particular type of fiend constantly gnaws at the end of its halberd, which infuses the blades with a frightening disease from its saliva. 

The battle was short but fierce. Iacobus, Jiri and Shalora kept calling out different variations on the demon’s name, to no avail. It thrust its halberd once into Jiri and once into Iacobus, opening festering wounds into the dwarf and the magus. Shalora caught Jiri in her arms as he was about to fall unconscious, promptly reanimating him with a surge of healing energy. The spite demon bellowed as Akiro smote it with righteous wrath. The fiend recognized him then as a champion of purity, and turned its attention toward him -- but successive strikes from the paladin, Jiri and Iacobus (whose initial attempt to electrify it using a shocking grasp spell failed due to the demon’s immunity to electricity) destroyed Cthepaltangoulgi... whose form and weapon dissolved into the stone of the pit chamber.

Cthepaltangoulgi the schir demon charges

Shalora treated Jiri and Iacobus’s wounds, and the party then left the manor with the intention of interrogating Mathezic to determine if he knew anything about Hunclay’s secret cave. As they exited the manor, they found Sheriff Benhovy and four of his deputies awaiting them. “We heard about a disturbance coming from the estate,” explained the sheriff, looking up at the broken glass of the observatory, and then down at the crumpled forms of the dead homunculus and the charred kobold that lay nearby. Shalora assured Sheriff Benhovy that the party had a bit of an altercation with the wizard’s homunculus (she probably mispronounced the word), and that even though everything was under control, the companions still had work to in the estate and the constabulary therefore should refrain from touching the homunculus or entering the manor... and the companions would need to question Mathezic further. It did not take much to convince the normally haughty and belligerent lawman to cooperate. On the way down, the companions walked past Calladastina Honas, the undertaker at the nearby cemetery. “So, what was all the commotion about?” she asked in her despondent tone. “Did you find demons in there? Mark my words, I always knew he had dealings with demons...”

The remains of Lodo, Hunclay's homunculus

Back at the garrison, Mathezic was having a nap in a cell, door open. The sheriff’s plan was to have him transferred to the House of Abadar for longer term care. The fearful servitor broke under the pressure of Jiri’s intense probing and soon admitted that he had held some information back from the party, that he knew about Hunclay’s secret cave... He had been afraid to tell them about it, in case he should be punished for his unfaithfulness by a wizard’s spell, or one of the frightening monsters in his master’s service. Mathezic claimed that he and the other two human servants had helped Hunclay bring a heavy chest to a hidden cave by the edge of a pond just off Devy Road but a few miles north of town, but he did not know what it contained. He provided the party with directions.

Mathezic

The companions decided to return to the comfort of the Inn of the Wise Piper in order to rest and recover their strength before setting out to find Hunclay’s cave on the morrow...