That night, Natalya awoke and set out once more for her continuing stakeout of the town monument. And once more, she was disappointed, as the vandal did not show up.
The highlight of the night was when that old dog returned, growling down an alley. As carefully as she could, Natalya crept over to see what the dog was looking at, and spotted only a drunk lying on the ground, muttering – or perhaps snoring – to himself.
As the sun began to rise, Natalya once more disarmed her noise traps and carefully made her way back to the manor. As she entered, she spotted Santino leaving Kendra’s room.
“No accounting for some women’s taste,” she said to herself. But it wasn’t her business, so she put it from her mind.
“Any luck?” Santino asked.
“Nothing. But he’ll show up eventually. Or won’t. It doesn’t really matter. I’ll keep trying for a while. At least I can go for the whole month, if he doesn’t show.” She tried to remain nonchalant, but in truth, the tedium and anticipation were grating on her. She would be grateful for something to happen sooner rather than later.
Heimish walked out of his room, and Natalya turned, heading up to her quarters to put away her trap supplies. “I guess she’s still mad,” the preacher said to Santino.
Santino shrugged. “She’ll be fine. I’m gonna go make breakfast.”
“Doesn’t Stein usually do that?” Heimish asked.
“I don’t smell anything, so he’s either asleep or isn’t back. Hence, I’m making breakfast.”
“Fair enough. What are you making?”
“Not sure. I’ll have to see what’s available in the kitchen. Hopefully, there’s cheese and eggs, because I’m craving omelets.”
“Sounds good. I’ll start setting the table.”
The smell of food eventually pulled Natalya from her quarters, and she joined the others at the table. Before they began eating, Heimish turned to the tiefling. “Miss Natalya, please allow me to apologize for my forgetfulness yesterday. I got absorbed in my research and completely lost track of time. It was rude of me, and I’m sorry.”
Natalya sighed. “Fine. Just don’t do it again and we won’t have a problem.”
They began eating their omelets, and noticed something strange. “So, what do you think?” Santino asked Kendra.
“It’s very… crunchy,” Kendra answered.
“Did you leave in the shells?” Natalya asked, picking up one such fragment with her fork.
“I heard somewhere that they’re good for your bones,” Santino said, looking proud of himself.
“They’re mighty fine,” Heimish said. “But in truth, they need a bit of something. Perhaps tomato, or some spinach.”
“Mushrooms,” Natalya said, thinking that a decent meaty mushroom would distract from the weird texture of the shells.
“I think Stein sometimes grinds things like this with a mortar and pestle,” Kendra said. “At least, I’d do that if you were making a soufflé.”
“Ooh! Soufflé!” Santino said, his mouth full of egg. “I love that stuff, but I’m not sure I know how to make it.”
“Perhaps Stein will know,” Heimish said.
“Right, Stein! Hey, Kendra, do you know where he is?” Santino asked.
“I’m not sure,” the woman answered. “But he sometimes goes out collecting herbs overnight, so it’s not too much of a worry. He’ll probably return this afternoon.”
Needing more distraction from her crunchy if moderately tasty breakfast, Natalya turned to Heimish. “So, what did you find out, anyway?”
“Oh, yes. I learned much about these five infamous prisoners who were held in Harrowstone.” They spent the rest of breakfast listening to Heimish as he filled them in on what he’d learned.
Once they were done and the dishes were put away, Santino piped up. “So, our next course of action is obvious. It’s time for us to go to jail.”
“As long as there are no unnecessary stops on the way,” Natalya said.
“Just try to come back today,” Kendra said. “The diviner sent word that he’d be arriving sometime tomorrow.”
“We can do that,” Natalya answered. “I’m going to want to get some rest before my stakeout tonight.”
“Can we swing by the temple on the way out?” Santino asked.
Natalya eyed him suspiciously. “Why?”
“I want to get some holy water. You might be right on it being useful for a potentially haunted ruin.”
“Especially if that cult that Lorrimor was looking into is still afoot,” Heimish agreed.
Natalya nodded curtly. “That’s fine. As long as we make it quick.”
Santino turned to Kendra. “You should come with us as far as the temple. You need to get out of the house. Moping around here isn’t good for you. You could use some sun.”
Kendra considered it. “You might be right. Fine, Cliffy, I’ll come along.”
As they made their way through town, they passed the inn. Outside, a carriage was stopped, and several men were unloading it, carrying inside various instruments.
One of the men caught Natalya’s eye. It was subtle at first, and she had to look again to be sure, but she caught him doing a very careful scan of his surroundings. And though his face was wearing a smile, it was fake. His eyes told the true story.
His eyes were cold and focused like a hawk. The eyes of a killer, but not a murderer who killed for pleasure or a soldier who killed for duty or country. No. This man was an assassin who killed for money.
She would have to be wary of him. It was unlikely anyone would have sent him to kill her charge, but she would have wagered everything but her sword that there was far more than a guitar in the case slung over his shoulder.
She didn’t think he’d noticed her noticing him as she’d only glanced for a moment, but she couldn’t be too careful and continued along with the others before he certainly noticed.
The group reached the Temple of Pharasma, where they found several acolytes tending the grounds. Alvin, spotting the group, stood up from his work. “Oh, it’s you folk, again. What brings you out here?”
“We need some water,” Santino said.
“Well, the rivers off that way, somewhere,” Alvin said, waving his hand in the direction of the river that runs through the center of Ravengro.
Santino raised an eyebrow in annoyance. “No, Alvin. We need holy water. In case of ghosts.”
“OH!” Alvin exclaimed. “Why didn’t you say so? Come, follow me.”
As they walked to the temple proper, Santino made conversation. “So, Alvin, you know my sister, don’t you?”
“Your what now?”
“Kendra,” Santino said.
“Hello, Alvin,” Kendra said. “I know him,” she told Santino. “We went to school together.”
“He’s your brother?” Alvin asked Kendra.
“Yes, in a manner of speaking.”
“Her father adopted me,” Santino clarified.
Alvin looked like he was about to say words of consolation to Kendra for being stuck with Santino, but he apparently thought better of it. “Well, we’re in the temple. Wait here a moment while I go get what you need. How many vials can I get you today?”
“I want one,” Santino answered.
“One for me as well,” Heimish added.
Alvin went into a back room and returned with two vials. He handed one to Heimish and the other to Santino, taking their payments. “Hey, what’s this?” Santino asked, indicated a dead worm in the bottom of the vial.
“For later,” Alvin said.
“Ah, cool. Hey, you know, those musicians finally arrived. Since you know Kendra, maybe you two should go together?” Santino suggested.
“That sounds lovely,” Kendra answered.
Alvin nodded. “I can do that.”
Getting impatient, Natalya spoke up. “We should get going, if we’re going to be back in time for the performance,” she said. If Kendra was going to be near the strange musician she had spotted, she couldn’t afford to get a full afternoon’s sleep. So it was imperative that they get going so they could return in time for Natalya to get at least a few hours in.
“Indeed. Lots of work to do,” Heimish agreed.
“It’s probably too dangerous for you to come all the way with us,” Santino said to Kendra. “Will you be fine here?”
“I’ll be fine. Maybe Alvin and I can chat over some tea.”
“We have a fine blend, just purchased from a merchant last week,” Alvin said.
Santino looked like he wanted to stay for tea, but Heimish pushed him along behind Natalya as they left the temple and headed towards the old prison. “They’ll be fine,” Heimish said. “We have work to do.”
To call the prison dilapidated would have been an understatement. It looked like it was near to collapse in many places. In others, the collapse had already occurred. One side of the wall, for instance, had completely crumbled, and was overtaken by a lake. And one side of the large iron main gate appeared to be hanging on only by a single hinge.
Wary about the precarious gate, Heimish, who had been feeling a strange sense of déjà vu as they approached the prison, carefully walked over and smacked it with his cane. Suddenly, he let out a yelp of surprise and pain as pain raced through his body.
“What’s wrong?” Natalya asked, drawing her rapier.
“It’s like I was on fire for a moment there!” Heimish said, gritting his teeth in memory of the pain.
Santino drew something from his pocket. “Here. Have a piece of candy. Focus on the taste until the pain subsides.”
Heimish took the candy and popped it into his mouth. “Thanks. I’ll be fine.”
Santino eyed the gate warily as Natalya sheathed her weapon. “Yeah, I’m not going near that thing,” he said, bounding over and climbing up the vine covered wall. “Wow. This place is a dump,” he called back to the others. “There’s even a rat up here.”
“Shall we go over the wall?” Natalya asked Heimish.
“The gate should be fine. Maybe just don’t hit it.” Heimish was still shaking a bit as he spoke, but he pushed forward and opened the other half of the gate. Natalya followed behind him.
Inside the courtyard were two buildings. The larger stone structure of the prison loomed straight ahead, but off to the left was a smaller building, perhaps an old guardhouse or something of the sort.
“Uh, guys?” Santino called down to the others.
“What is it?” Natalya asked.
“Remember when I said I saw a rat?”
“What of it?”
“I think there’s more than one.”
“How many?” Heimish asked.
Santino didn’t answer, he just jumped down from the wall and rushed to the others. Behind him came a roiling tide of rats spilling off of the wall. “That’s a lot of rats,” Natalya said, hurling a stone at the swarm before drawing her blade.
“Yeah,” Santino agreed, pulling out his umbrella.
“I think we’re going to have to fight,” Heimish said, brandishing his cane. “There’s nowhere to run right now.”
“Fight it is,” Natalya said, stabbing into the swarm with her sword and skewering a half dozen rats in a single stroke before dodging back away from the swarm.
“I can get more than that!” Santino said. As he swung his umbrella into the rats, it suddenly caught fire, giving off a faint odor of sulfur. Unfortunately, for his boasting, he managed to miss hitting anything as the rats dispersed from the blow. Heimish fared little better, swinging his cane wildly at the rats and doing little but scatter a few of the rats.
Natalya thrust again, impaling more rats, and Heimish followed up with another attack. Realizing that their prey was more dangerous than they appeared, the rats dispersed, fleeing back to their holes.
Santino put away his umbrella and brushed several rats off of his coat. “No need to thank me,” he said as he stuffed an unconscious rat into his pocket. “Now, let’s check out that house there.”
“It doesn’t look very safe,” Heimish said. “Probably not a good idea to go in there.”
“It’ll be fine,” Santino disagreed.
“The roof looks like a stiff breeze will collapse it,” Natalya said dubiously.
“You two worry too much,” Santino said as he walked over and gave the door a kick. It collapsed inward and the building’s roof creaked ominously. “I’m going in.”
Heimish and Natalya exchanged worried glances. “I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Heimish said. The roof creaked again. “Maybe.”
Several moments later, Santino rushed out. “You know, maybe we shouldn’t bother. It’s already been looted. But it’s still perfectly safe.” Behind him, the building collapsed inward. “Nice try, but I’m not that easy to kill!” he muttered, looking ominously towards the sky.
“Perfectly safe?” Natalya asked, not having quite heard what he’d said.
“Okay, maybe not perfectly. But mostly safe?”
“Right.”
Near the entrance of the prison proper, the group found that the unkempt grasses had been trimmed away next to the building’s foundation. In the area, they found several etchings and smeared blood. “That’s pretty suspicious,” Heimish said.
“Agreed,” Natalya replied.
Santino pulled out some paper and began drawing what he saw. “They’re necromancy of some kind. Maybe the manor has a book that will tell us what precisely these are,” he said.
“If it’s necromancy, then perhaps we should have Father Grimburrow come out and take a look, maybe even consecrate this place,” Heimish suggested. “What with the way Pharasma’s people dislike the undead and all.”
“Sounds good,” Santino said. “You know, I haven’t seen a single patrol. Was it even necessary to go tell Benjan about your adventurer credentials?”
Natalya shrugged. “I was just mentioning them so you’d know we had them in reserve if someone from the law bothered us. It was Heimish who wanted to go tell Sheriff Caellar before we came.”
“It was the right thing to do,” Heimish said. “The Sheriff is a good man, and we should avoid making trouble for him unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
Inside the building, the beams in the foyer sagged visibly under the weight of the stones. It would not take more than a few decades before this section of the building collapsed on its own. The group could understand why the law was so keen to keep people away. The building was a death trap.
And there were just so many different ways to go, with doors in pretty much every direction. “We should split up,” Santino said.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Heimish disagreed. “There is safety in numbers, should we run across any undead or even other vermin.”
“That’s what they’d expect us to think. If we split up, we’ll be doing something they don’t expect, and thus outsmart them.” Santino tapped his head for emphasis.
“We stick together,” Natalya said, her tone brooking no chance of argument.
“Fine,” Santino replied. “But when they get us all, you can’t blame me.”
They made their way deeper into the building. Their first obstacle was when they entered a room and tried to make their way through the door to the left. As they opened the door, there was a ghostly image of many screaming faces, and the door slammed itself shut.
Annoyed, Santino opened the door again, harder this time. And again, the image appeared and the door slammed itself shut. “You won’t beat me!” he shouted, yanking the door again with similar results.
“Holy water?” Heimish asked Natalya.
“Holy water,” Natalya agreed.
Heimish pulled out his vial and unstoppered it. Then, when Santino ripped the door open again, Heimish splashed the contents on the ghostly image.
No sooner had the holy water struck the haunt, then it evaporated in a burst of ashes. Ashes burst out from the rooms remaining doors as well.
“We may want to pick up more of that stuff,” Heimish said.
“That was cool!” Santino shouted. “I want to blow up the next ghost!”
Natalya shrugged. “It’s all yours then.”
The party continued on. They found papers scattered all over a room. “I’d like to look through these,” Heimish said.
“It would take hours to sift through these and find anything useful,” Santino whined.
“Considerably less time to just take them,” Natalya said. “If they’re important, we can sort through them later. Gather what you can carry in your pack of supplies and we’ll worry about it later.”
After gathering what they could, they continued searching, coming to a room with a safe imbedded in the wall. They searched the office for the safe’s key, but found nothing. “I’ll try to open it,” Santino said. He brandished his umbrella and gave the safe a good hard whack. Then another, and another. “It’s not working!” he whimpered.
“You’re trying to break thick iron with a piece of wood,” Natalya said. “Of course it isn’t working. I had a little practice picking locks when I was younger, though I admit I wasn’t very good at it. But maybe we can get some thieves tools and I can try to open it.”
“Maybe the apothecary or Mister Stein will have an alchemical solution?” Heimish suggested.
“Sounds good. So we’ll note this for later.”
“But I want it now!” Santino howled.
“Nothing we can do about it now,” Heimish said. “Maybe we’ll find something nice further on. Come on.”
The trio made their way upstairs and found themselves in a large mess hall. One of the walls had completely collapsed away into the abutting lake. “Think they still have anything in the pantry?” Santino asked.
“More rats, probably,” Natalya answered.
“Oh, yeah!” Santino looked in his coat pocket. The rat he’d stuck in there was still unconscious. “Good. He’s still napping.”
“Do you hear that?” Heimish asked.
“Hear what?” Santino asked. “OH! I think I do. It’s a buzzing of some kind, right?”
“I don’t like this,” Natalya said, drawing her rapier.
“What’s that?” Santino asked, pointing at a shadow rising outside the building.
It was a massive bug, a mosquito at least as large as a rat. “Stirge!” Heimish said, readying his cane.
“Eww!” Santino said, throwing the first thing he could think of at the giant insect. The unconscious rat went sailing harmlessly past the dodging stirge, landing in the lake below with a splash as two more stirges rose from below.
“What was the point of that?” Natalya asked, dumbfounded.
“I panicked,” Santino said. “Don’t worry, I’ll get him!” He rushed forward to the stirge closest to Natalya and tried to bite it. It was probably for the best that he missed.
Natalya decided not to comment on it. The stirge dove at her, so she deflected it with her blade and countered with a piercing thrust that separated the insect from its wings as it crashed to the floor with a wet crunch.
The other two stirges latched onto Santino’s back. “GETTHEMOFFME!” Santino shrieked. He then had a brilliant idea. At least, brilliant in his mind. With the creatures stuck to his back, they wouldn’t be able to dodge the floor.
So he dropped to the ground and began rolling, desperately trying to squish the creatures. Somehow, this wasn’t as effective as he’d hoped, and they began biting him with their massive proboscises.
Heimish and Natalya did what they could, but it was difficult with the creatures moving constantly as Santino flailed around. Eventually though, the man managed to squish the creatures, sending his blood – which had begun filling the creatures’ abdomens – splattering all over the ground.
“Ow…” Santino groaned as he got up.
“We’d better get those out,” Heimish said, eyeing the snapped proboscises sticking out of Santino’s back. He carefully plucked them out and administered some healing magic to mend the damage to Santino’s flesh, though not to his clothing nor to his pride.
“So, what room next?” Santino asked. He tried stepping forward but found himself a bit woozy from blood loss. Heimish caught him before he fell, giving Natalya a worried look.
“I think we’re done for the day,” Natalya said.
“Don’t be silly,” Santino insisted. “I can do this all day!”
“She’s right,” Heimish said. “Besides, we need to get back early so you can go see your musicians.”
“Oh yeah!” Santino said. “Back we go, then!”
Outside, much to their surprise, the trio ran into Stein, who was pouring something near the strange runes they’d found.
“YOU!” Santino shouted. “You still owe me tea!”
Stein looked over, then chuckled darkly. “I was wondering who was making all that noise up in the building. Thought I was hearing things. That happens sometimes out here.”
“What are you doing out here?” Heimish asked.
“Had some questions that needed answering. So I was doing research. What happened to him?”
“We had a run in with some stirges. He squished them with his back after they bit him.”
“Ah, yes. Well, let us hope he doesn’t pick up filth fever from the bites.”
“Oh, heavens,” Heimish said. “Santino, have a seat on this stone here. I’m going to do something to help with the sickness.”
Santino sat down and Heimish stood over him. The preacher then pulled out a small knife, and drew it across his hand. Tears welled up in his eyes and he let them fall on Santino’s face.
Santino licked up the tears. “Mmm. Salty.”
“Your tears cure disease?” Natalya asked.
“Gift of birth,” Heimish answered. “Healing is in my blood.” Natalya found herself a bit jealous. Her blood had given her nothing but hardship.
“So, what will you do now?” Stein asked.
“Heading back to town for the day. We’ll be coming back tomorrow, maybe the day after at latest,” Heimish answered. “Would you like to come with us?”
“Sounds good. There are dangers here which could impede my investigation.”
“I want a waffle. No. Make that TWO waffles,” Santino said as the party began heading back towards town.
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