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...
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