As the group made their way back to the rope to climb back to the ground floor, Santino, Vrodish and Stein began to hear the sounds of a haunting tune coming from up ahead. “Be careful,” Stein said. “There’s music coming from ahead.”
“Not just music,” Santino said, twitching and clutching his weapon as the sound of buzzing filled his ears. He peered into the room with the dangling rope and his eyes confirmed what he was hearing. “Well, if it isn’t the second most hated thing in the world. My archenemies return. They want more of me. ALVIN! Kill the stirges!”
“What exactly do you expect me to do?” Alvin asked.
Santino had no actual ideas, just a desire to see the creatures dead. “Kill them!”
“How?”
“I don’t know,” Santino whined. “Maybe if we destroy the flute, it’ll kill the ghost, like with the book?”
“Different rules may apply,” Stein cautioned. “What if destroying them is exactly the wrong thing to do?”
“Fine!” Santino barked. “I don’t want to do this. But if we’re going to do this, let’s do this!” He raised his axe and charged in.
“I’ve got your back!” Vrodish shouted, chasing after him.
Stein looked back over his shoulder at the others and rolled his eyes, then followed behind. Immediately upon entering the room, he flung a bomb, exploding an encroaching stirge.
Santino soon found himself unable to move, held by the magic of the song coming from the ghost visible at the top of the rope. Hundreds of pinprick wounds appeared on his arms before his very eyes. “It’s eating me!” he shouted in alarm.
Alvin pulled a scroll from his bag and rushed forward as he read it. “Let no harm touch this man!” he shouted as he finished the spell.
Two stirges tried to strike Santino, but one was repelled by the power of the magical sanctuary and was slain by Natalya, who ran into the room behind Alvin. The other latched on to Santino’s neck.
“Stay very still!” Vrodish said, carefully aiming at the stirge.
“I can’t move, so that’ll be really easy,” Santino said. “Please hurry!”
“Don’t rush me!” Vrodish said, skewering the stirge. “Unless you want an additional new hole in your neck.” He tossed aside the creature’s corpse, leaving only a single chitinous leg dangling from Santino’s mouth.
Natalya threw a vial of holy water at the ghost, but it struck the ceiling next to the hole ineffectually. “Vrodish, we need someone with a magic weapon. Go!”
“On it,” he said, beginning to climb the knotted rope.
Heimish rooted through his pack, finally retrieving something he thought could help. He raised the flute to his lips and began to play. As he did so, his eyes and fingernails began to bleed. But the music began having an effect, the Piper of Illmarsh began to distort and destabilize as Heimish played.
Vrodish reached the top and swung his blade and the ghost disappeared just as his blade touched it. “Wow! This sword is amazing! It didn’t even feel like I hit anything!” Vrodish said.
Santino, now able to move once more, bit the stirge’s leg hanging from his lips and grimaced. “Ugh. Bitter,” he said, spitting it out. “Good job, Brodish.” He turned and looked at Heimish. “You’ve looked better,” he said, gesturing at the preacher’s eyes.
“Speak for yourself,” Heimish said, indicating Santino’s arms with a wry laugh.
“Let’s get you both cleaned up,” Alvin said, pulling a cloth from his bag.
After a few minutes, they found themselves back in Vesorianna’s room. The ghostly woman greeted them. “You’ve done well so far. I can feel the presences weakening. With a little more, we can contain them forever.”
“That’s all well and good, milady,” Santino said. “But fighting ghosts is hard work and I need a nap. But first, I brought you something.” He reached into his coat and produced a small badge. “I think you wanted something like this?”
“My husband’s badge!” the ghost gasped. “Thank you,” she said, carefully taking it from his hand.
“Can you keep us safe while we rest?” Heimish asked.
“I can keep the ghosts from entering to assault you physically,” she said.
“Physically?” Stein muttered under his breath. “That she had to specify is pretty ominous,” he whispered to Natalya, who nodded her agreement.
The party eventually settled in and went to sleep. Aside from Stein, they all tossed and turned, and didn’t wake for ten hours, still feeling groggy. “I hate bad dreams,” Natalya complained.
“I dreamed about the town hall on fire,” Heimish said. “There were burning skulls flying around. People were fleeing and the good sheriff was desperately trying to get people out safely.”
Vrodish froze as he heard this. “I thought only I dreamt about that.” He looked at the others.
“I dreamed about it too,” Santino admitted.
“Me too,” Natalya agreed.
“So did I,” Alvin said.
Stein shrugged. “I dreamed about a talking flytrap. Cute little guy wanted me to feed it rats.”
“We have to go back,” Vrodish said, standing.
“Wait,” Heimish said. “The ghosts have tried to attack us with dreams before. This could be a trick.”
“Yeah,” Santino said. “They’re scared of us and want us to leave.”
“It does make sense,” Stein agreed. “Even if it’s real, we can do more good by stopping the source of the attack than by spending hours running back to help clean up something that has already happened, in all likelihood.”
The guardsman considered their words. “Fair enough,” he said, his jaw clenched. “But we finish this up today and head back.”
“I’d rather not spend another night sleeping here,” Natalya agreed.
The group headed back down the rope and considered which way to go. In the end, they decided to head into the Oubliette, decided at least in part because the portcullis was already open. “You should do the stealth thing,” Santino said to Heimish.
“Good idea, lad,” Heimish said, casting his spell. “Hang back and keep an eye on me.”
The room was another cell block with a pit in the center covered by a grate, but this one wasn’t filled with water like the other room had been. Inside the room was a maniacal looking wraith who held a massive axe in his strangely elongated arms.
It was apparent by the fixation of his wild eyes and the terrifying rictus upon his lips that the ghost, that of the wild murderer known as The Lopper, had spotted Heimish through the power of the spell. “I might need help!” Heimish called back to the others.
Stein quickly through a healing bomb, which went a little wide, but still struck the ghost with its wide burst. Vrodish charged in after the bomb, shouting a battle cry. “I have slain one of your kind before! I will make the sheriff proud!” And then he completely missed with his strike as he stumbled on an uneven tile on the floor.
The Lopper struck at Heimish, his ghostly axe passing through Heimish’s neck. Red mist trailed behind it and flowed into the wraith, healing the injury from the healing bomb. “Ow,” Heimish groaned.
Santino charged, swinging The Lopper’s axe at him. “Get away from my friend!” His swing connected completely, much to Santino’s surprise, since he had become used to feeling only partial resistance when striking ghosts.
Vrodish swung again, missing once more as the wraith recoiled from the strike of Stein’s second healing bomb, which washed over Heimish as well, healing his wounds as Natalya’s thrown holy water flew over his shoulder and splashed upon the ghost and Alvin’s channeled energy burned the ghost. The Lopper retaliated by striking Santino, with similar results to the swing on Heimish.
Heimish cast a healing spell and tried to touch the ghost, who dodged back to avoid the painful attack, as well as Santino’s second strike. Alvin unleashed another wave of energy, healing Santino’s wounds. The dodging also caused Stein to miss with a vial of holy water, scoring only a partial hit with the splashed water.
Vrodish swung again, finally connecting. “I hit him!” the guardsman shouted in triumph. The sound startled the ghost enough to get it to turn its head, so it didn’t notice Santino’s next strike in time to avoid the hit, which struck it squarely in the chest and causing the wraith to dissipate in a puff of mist.
The axe fell from Santino’s hand and fell through the grate before him as he dropped to his knees. In the torchlight, no one noticed as the man’s skin erupted in soft red glowing lines, nor did they notice his eyes glowing yellow or his teeth elongating into fangs.
Santino took a moment and got himself under control as Natalya peered down into the pit. “There’s more than that axe down there,” she said. “Give me a rope.”
Several minutes later, Natalya climbed back out with several valuable items. “I believe that mace is magical,” Heimish said, inspecting one of her prizes. “The magic isn’t as powerful as on that sword.”
Santino grabbed the mace and walked over to Vrodish. He yanked the sword from the guard’s hand and handed him the mace. “Hey! I was just getting used to that one,” Vrodish objected.
“Swords are for people who can hit things,” Santino said. “The mace will be easier to use. Besides, it suits you. It’s ordinary.”
Confident that they had grabbed everything of value, the group set out for the final wing. “I’m almost out of holy water,” Natalya said to Heimish. “Do you have any way for me to attack?”
“I have just the thing,” Heimish said, enchanting her rapier. “That should be good for a couple minutes.”
“Thanks,” the adventurer said as the group began making their way down the hallway to the Reaper’s Hold.
But they didn’t even reach the portcullis before events starting kicking off. “ARGH!” Stein shouted, grasping his head as a headache ripped through his skull.
Several ethereal skulls flew into the hallway through the walls and a hammer swung through, striking Stein. After the ghostly hammer connected, a translucent phantom of a skull fragment flew off from his head and a hand reached through the wall and snatched it.
“The axe was really good against the Lopper!” Santino said. “Use the hammer!” he told the deputy.
“But I just got the mace!” Vrodish complained as he drew the hammer. He swung and immediately found himself compelled to attack the closest living creature – Stein.
Stein narrowly avoided getting hit as he retreated back to Heimish. “The siphon,” he said with a grimace.
“Right,” Heimish said, rooting through the butler’s pack. “We’ll get a drink after this, okay?”
As that happened, Natalya tumbled through the hallway, cutting down one of the ghostly skulls as she past. Inside the room, she found a strange ghostly dwarf, desperately trying to fit the skull fragment taken from Stein into the ghostly skull floating next to him. As she entered the room, the ghost gave up and swung through the wall again, hitting Alvin and harvesting another ghostly fragment.
Alvin reacted by channeling energy, destroying a skull and freeing Santino to join Natalya in the room to face the dwarf. Heimish rushed in and Vrodish swung at him, stopping his charge as Heimish narrowly avoided the hit.
Vrodish got himself under control and gaped at Heimish, mortified. “Sorry,” he said.
“Not your fault,” Heimish said. “Just watch out for that last skull.”
“I’ve got that one,” Stein grunted, managing to get his headache under control through force of will and throwing another healing bomb, destroying the final skull.
As the last skull faded, so too did the dwarf, and with the end of the Mosswater Marauder, the final powerful ghost was gone and the mission complete.
Inspecting the room, the group found a hidden cache of weapons and armor, likely meant for the guards but unfound by the rioting prisoners. It was high quality, valuable stuff. So the group divvied it up to those who could use it, and decided to sell the rest and split the proceeds. Vrodish was sure that the sheriff would be interested in at least a couple of the suits of armor, if nothing else.
As the rest bagged up the loot, Stein and Santino took a look into the prison chamber. The room was like the others, lined with cells, but had a number of torture implements scattered throughout. Most notable was an iron maiden standing at the far side of the room.
“HELP ME!” came the cry of a woman from the vicinity of the iron maiden.
Santino and Stein both turned to look, and saw Kendra trapped within the slowly closing doors. “KENDRA!” they both shouted as they took off running to save her. But Santino was faster and reached the device more than ten feet ahead of the butler.
He reached out to grab Kendra, but grasped only air as the doors slammed shut on him. The spikes themselves had long rusted off, but ghostly replacements pierced into his flesh, causing Santino to cry out in pain.
Heimish, alerted by the shouting, hurried into the room and activated the haunt siphon he was still carrying, draining out the power of the haunt and allowing the doors of the iron maiden to open once more.
Santino stood there, a pitiful look on his face. “Ow,” he said. “They made me into cheese.”
“I’ve got you, lad,” Heimish said, healing the man’s wounds.
“We should get out of here,” Natalya said, unnerved by the constant supernatural activity. “Let’s go see Vesorianna so we can get out of here.”
The group headed back to the ghost’s chamber. “You’ve done it!” she exclaimed upon seeing them. “I just completed the ritual. They’ve been sealed forever. Thank you.”
Santino nodded. “You’re welcome, fair lady. Is there anything else we can do for you?”
“No, you have all done enough. I do wish I knew what happened to my husband’s spirit, though. Thank you, again. All of you.” And then she faded away, off to her eternal rest.
“We did good, lad,” Heimish said, patting Santino on the shoulder. “Come now, we should get back to town and see that everything is okay there.”
“Agreed,” Vrodish said. “I’m still worried about the dream.”
“I’m sure it was nothing,” Santino said reassuringly.
But he was wrong. Hours later, just before the town appeared over the horizon, they spotted smoke. Something was burning, or perhaps had already burned.
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