17 Kuthona

We thought we had a dilemma. We thought we had a tough decision. We thought we faced great risk should we choose unwisely. And we had no idea that within a day, we’d face a decision that would make this one look as simple as deciding whether to kill a charging goblin or not.

But I get ahead of myself.

The three bodies of the creatures that we’d vaguely identified as something of legend that ought not exist would begin to rot if we simply left them here. In addition, we had no idea if they had regenerative abilities, or would be even more fearsome if raised from the dead. We did not know why they had been here, nor did we know what their absence would mean to whomever knew they were here. And lastly, we had no idea what the town guard would make of this. Would we be viewed as heroes for ridding the city of this scourge, blamed for their appearing in the first place, or simply noted by the guard as a health threat. “We’ll have the usual corpse detail remove them by the end of the day; please make sure they are all the way out to the street, as there will be an extra charge if our men need to walk to the rear of the house to retrieve them.”

In the end, we decided we had to tell the town guard, and seeing what they made of it might tell us more of how they were handling the ongoing murder spree. So Nolin went to the nearest guard station (which happened to be the huge tall one that overlooked most of the city) and returned with a constable. There was a brief investigation — “Did they have weapons? Why did you feel threatened? What are YOU doing here?”

Finally, however, we seemed to win him over and he admitted they were a little unusual looking. We conjectured on whether they were connected with the murders here, and mentioned we’d dealt with some similar murders in Sandpoint. He looked a little interested and we talked a bit about our adventures. Conversationally, he mentioned that the murders here had been going on long before we dealt with them in Sandpoint; cases like this were going back several months. Cases like this? Er, just odd deaths, he meant, and looked as if he’d said too much. They did appear to be strong creatures, he admitted, and asked if we knew why they were here. Also — where was the real owner? We truthfully responded that nobody had seen the true owner in over a month, and that’s what had brought us here (pointedly holding up the key that allowed us to enter without incident.)

Nodding, he concluded his investigation by saying he’d send somebody around to pick up the bodies discreetly; no point in the neighborhood being upset by this. We agreed to leave the bodies in the garden and access to the garden unlocked so that it could be dealt with via the alley.

“One last thing,” he said as we moved to the door. “Where are you staying?”

When we replied we were staying at the inn near Nolin’s parents, he nodded and suggested we should not leave town anytime soon. We agreed, as we pointed out to him we still had a mystery on our hands and wouldn’t be leaving until we had a hand on that.

That left us with our first somewhat positive experience with the law in this town. I think we’d found one person who was still suspicious of us, but at least mildly impressed with what we’d done and how we’d done it.

Kane and Rigel thought they might have some contacts/references in town that could provide more information about the murders and where we might find the sawmill where the payments apparently took place. They took the remainder of the day to go to the Underbridge district and ask about; they returned about 50gp lighter but with little new information. That seemed a bit spendy to me, but both Kane and Rigel assured me (and us) that it was spent buying drinks and purchasing good humor during their “research”. They were confident that if anyone had knowledge of the murders or the sawmill they would contact us. Although they claimed nobody had followed them back, that still didn’t sound terribly safe to me because I rather suspected “contact” might be made with a sharp instrument rather than a brief note. Myself, I slept a little uneasily that night.

Wealday, 18 Kuthona

At least some of the murders in Sandpoint occurred at a sawmill. These payments we were tracing also happened at a sawmill. Coincidence? maybe. In any case, one of the things Kand and Rigel had learned yesterday was that a large number of sawmill were based on the island to the south of the city, and yes, one of them might happen to be named “The 7”. So after a good breakfast, we started off through town. Rigel and Kane thought it possible we might find an interested party following us, due to the previous day’s inquiries, and said they’d drop back a bit to see if we were being followed. As luck would have it, it appears we were. I didn’t learn of this until afterward, but Kane apparently cornered the guy near a shop and said, “Tell your bosses thanks for the escort.” The guy apparently looked startled and said, “Beg your pardon?” but quickly excused himself and disappeared again into the crowd. Nobody else seemed to be following us. Or else they were better at it.

After an hour or so of leisurely walking, we did reach the island, which had a bridge on both the north and south sides to connect it to, respectively, the main city and an apparent burg that contained some of the more, er, free-thinking members of the city. I think I heard somebody say the island was named Kiver’s Islet. This island did seem to cater towards wood and lumber. There were a large number of sawmills, as well as woodworking shops, ship construction, and ship repair.

And a sawmill named The 7.

The building appeared to be four stories tall, although there also appeared to be a basement at water level only accessible from the outside. What appeared to be the business entrance was at ground level, with three more stories above it. The group considered briefly how to approach it, but I said, “It’s a business, right? There must be somebody inside.” And indeed we did hear the sound of boards being sawed and lumber being cut. “Well, we are looking for business with this mill, friends. I suggest we go on in and ask. It’s the middle of the week, in the middle of the day, after all!” And before anybody could stop me, I strode onto the porch overlooking the river and approached the double doors that led to the entrance.

“Hello?” I asked, and knocked. “Anybody here?” With no response, I threw open the doors and strode in, the rest of the party hesitantly following.

But the room was empty. There was plenty of machinery around, and tools scattered about, but nobody minding the front door. Odd. Avia detected twelve distinct evil presences, all above us in some fashion. Up we go, then, to the second floor.

There, we were more successful. Although the stairwell seemed to be in a small room with a door, the door was ajar and we saw four men working, who looked up when we entered. This room had holes in the ceiling; evidently work passed vertically between this and the upper level via a system of pulleys and ropes. Noise from above was evident through the holes in the ceilings. I adopted my previous stance, stepping forward confidently and remarking, “Glad to meet you. I’m Perot Threshmore and I’m here regarding an account of one of your customers. Aldrin Foxglove has fallen behind in his payments and wishes to bring his account up to date. Are you the foreman?”

The man seemed calm yet a little surprised. “The foreman’s not here,” he said. “C’mon in, though. Nice to meet you. We can get him.” All the men stopped working as he spoke and looked at us. Avia silently signalled that they were all detecting as evil.

“Foreman’s not here? Are you a supervisor? I want to make sure we get this settled but I’m not sure who the right person to talk to would be. Do you have an accountant, or somebody who handles the money for you?” I asked, basically stalling to give everyone a chance to make it up the stairs and for Avia to refine her evil assessment.

“Foreman’s upstairs. We should go upstairs.” The men had moved slightly but deliberately while we were talking, but now I made no attempt to move to the stairs. “It’s a sizable amount of money; no offense but I want to make sure I’m talking to the right person. Is it the foreman or the accountant who is upstairs?” One impatiently reached down into a pile of lumber and pulled out a war razor hidden there. The others quickly did the same, and the battle was on. One nicked me a bit, as I’d basically given him a free attack owing to my method of entering the room with a purposeful stride and a bit of chatter. I quickly extended my claws and nicked him back but it startled him a lot less than I thought it might. Rigel darted in and out like a hummingbird, but a hummingbird with a stinger. She ended up laying out two of them, Olithar a third, and I the last. We stablilized their wounds, tied them up, and left them lying unconscious in a corner of the room not visible from the stairs.

Avia checked again, and said she detected evil above us, something like eight individual presences. That’s what we would have guessed, from the math, but it was good to have it confirmed. The weapons they’d used seemed quite well made, but we set them aside for now. Rigel snooped around the room looking for, well, anything else but found nothing.

We asked her to carefully sneak up the stairs and scout a bit for us. She reported that there were two doors upstairs, with noise behind one. On the top floor, there seemed to be a mostly open area in which there were two people and some closed doors behind them.

Concentrating, Avia reported the strongest evil presence was on the 4th floor. Since the third floor might represent reinforcements, we grabbed a board and some rope and rigged a bar across the door with noise behind it. Without nails or spikes it wouldn’t lock anybody in the room, but it would slow them down. And we continued upstairs.

I again used my insistent self-introduction on the two men we found up there. As Rigel had noted, there appeared to be two doors behind them; the room had some workbenches and they seemed to be working on planes. The room was full of sawdust, sometimes to a foot deep it appeared.

My chatter again allowed everyone to make it up the stairs while one of the men calmly told me to stop, and said I wasn’t allowed up here. It was too dangerous. I should go back downstairs. Avia took up a conveniently flanking position on one of the men as I again asked about the foreman. Or the accountant, whichever could best help me with my question. Meanwhile, Rigel started quietly searching the nearest workbench but almost lost her cookies. Noticing her reaction, several other party members moved closer and also became alarmed.

The workbench appeared to have been used for dissection. Recently. As in, blood still fresh.

But about this same time, the man I wasn’t speaking to pulled out a mask, put it on his face, and repeated that I should leave. “You might get hurt,” he said ominously behind a mask that appeared to be made of skin and body parts and featured a bulbous eye. “Man with a mask!” I yelled as the man opposite me also put on a similarly visceral mask. By this time, everyone was in the room and taking up battle positions.

The men reached down into the deep sawdust and pulled up more war razors hidden there.

Avia, sensing the strongest evil was not these two, quickly moved opposite the door behind which it seemed to be. And noted, much to her frustration, that it had suddenly disappeared.

Meanwhile, Sabin was told to FLEE! by the man I’d been talking to, and with a look of purpose on his face, Sabin ran to the stairs. I attempted to grapple the man and rip the mask off his face, but failed. Rigel, that sneaky damsel, again started darting among the attackers, wounding almost at will. Avia found her frustration to be an excellent focus for her sword, and before anybody else could lay an edge to them, the men were both down.

Olithar healed our wounded and prepared to stabilize our enemies so we might question them. Before he could do so, though, Sabin returned with a very angry look in his face, strode over to the prone figure of the man who had told him to flee, and with a single slice, separated his head from his body. “His condition is stable NOW,” he growled. We were stunned, but, well, that’s Sabin. He doesn’t take kindly to be ordered about.

Avia still wanted to get into the room the evil had escaped from and was dissuaded from simply breaking down the door. Rigel searched the locked door for traps — and found one. She disarmed the poison trap she found, and after a couple of tries unlocked the lock as well.

The room appeared on the one hand to be an office, or maybe a personal room .. but the walls in this place were covered with human faces stretched over forms, looking down into the room. If this was somebody’s office or bedroom, they were one twisted puppy. There appeared to be a trapdoor in the ceiling.

There was a foot locker, and in a flash Rigel had opened it. Inside we found a number of interesting items, ranging from fairly mundane items such as sea charts, etchings, and pamphlets (about a forgotten alchemical school of magic) to more interesting items like a spellbook and another gruesome mask.

[234] painting of a city carved out of a huge ice formation
[235] journal + ledger
[236] a spellbook whose cover bore the drawing of two entwined snakes, one red, one green
[237] an old filigree tome, “Fairy tales of the Eldest”
[238] sea charts
[239] mask – single long strip of dried flesh stretched into a spiral. fills your mind with images of murder and makes you more sensitive to the exact spot(s)
to murder someone, +1 profane damage with a slashing weapon against
living creatures, +2 to perception checks against creatures not immune
to fear, -1 CH, can cast confusion twice per day

Sabin cast detect magic to see if any of these things were magic and had a most curious result. Yes, the spellbook was magic. Yes, the mask was magic. But he also detected an area right near the door that seemed to radiate magic. A blank, magical space in the room. How odd. Sabin issued a swift kick in that spot and was rewarded with a muffled “oof” from the space. And then a voice. “Oh my goodness, thank you so much for rescuing me! Please don’t kick me again! You will undoubtedly receive a rich reward!” The voice identified itself as Justice Ironbrier, one of the thirteen Justices of the city. He related how he’d been tied up, made invisible, and left in the room but had managed to loosen himself. When he heard the noise outside, he didn’t know if it was friend or foe and so had waited silently. But now …

Avia was very suspicious. She’d sensed evil and it had gone away, yet here was this person, invisible, hiding in the room. “Oh wait,” said Ironbrier, “if I strike you it will end the invisible spell, right?” And he reached out and lightly tapped Sabin and suddenly there he was. He did have some rope with him as though he’d been tied, and still had loose bonds on him. Avia tried to read him but did not detect any evil.

He’d been investigating the murders, it seems, and had gotten too close for comfort. He’d been captured and hidden away here. “Who captured you?” we asked.

“It was a tall, bulky, muscled man in a brown cloak. Looked something like a half orc, perhaps. I’ve only been here an hour. He was here when you came, but he escaped through that trapdoor.”

After checking for traps, Rigel went up to check out the trapdoor. It led to what appeared to be a roost. Three ravens were in a cage, as well as a quill, some ink, and some paper in a cubby nearby. There was no roof, and a clear view was available for 360 degrees. If someone had escaped this way, they’d flown away somehow.

Kane and Nolin had kept watch over the prisoner, and Nolin quietly confirmed that this did indeed look like one of the thirteen justices, both in face and in dress. Olithar attempted to sense motive on Ironbrier, but he seemed to be telling the truth.

As Rigel and the others came down through the trapdoor, there was a call from outside the room. “Trouble.”

We exited to see the last of nine men entering the room from the stairway. Each was wearing a grotesque mask, and as our party exited the room, Ironbrier being kept firmly within sword’s length of Avia, we may have appeared slightly overmatched.

Then Ironbrier said something strange. He said, looking out at the men, “None of them should leave alive.” And the battle was on. Had he spoken to the men, or to us? At that point, it didn’t matter.

Olithar cast prayer to help us, and I jumped to the front of the group and color sprayed the men. Two of them fell unconscious, but three others were unfortunately unaffected. Sabin and Nolin quickly took two of them down before another ominous, unusual thing happened.

Ironbrier, during the heat of battle, turned to Avia (who had not budged from Ironbrier’s side, convinced he was really evil) and suggested he was impressed by how she carried and conducted herself, and that after this was over, there was an opening on his staff for her. It was, Avia realized, more than a suggestion. He’d attempted to charm her. She drew her sword to his throat and told him if he tried anything like that again she would slit his throat. He paled and apologized, saying he meant no harm.

Meanwhile, around this little drama the battle continued. Nolin took out another one, and Rigel came in from behind another to take him out. Nolin and I each received some minor injuries before, inexplicably, Ironbrier started to cast a spell.

Avia is not unskilled in the ways of magic herself, and from the gestures and mouthings, recognized it as the start of a curse aimed at her. She immediately sliced him well and good with her sword, and Olither moved in to support her. I managed to take out two more of the men with some well-aimed magic missiles, and Rigel found the vital spot of one of the unconscious men, leaving only one standing and one prone.

The one still standing ran off. Sabin tried to chase him, but was unable to catch him. Meanwhile, the battle between Avia and Ironbrier raged. Ironbrier found another war razor in the sawdust and smoothly picked it up. Kane started throwing curses at Ironbrier, and I magic missiled him. While Rigel dispatched the other unconscious man, Avia and Olithar laid Ironbrier low.

Olithar stabilized the near-dead men while we decided what to do. We took away all their masks and stripped Ironbrier. The latter was manacled using Rigel’s master manacles as we discussed what to do next.

His confiscated belongings:

war razor
[240] wand [12] of cure moderate wounds
mithril shirt

We checked the spellbook and it contained all the cantrips and the spells blink, cats’s grace, chill touch, enlarge person, fox’s cunning, grease, haste, lightning bolt, mage armor, scorching ray, shocking grasp, shrink item, spider climb, and web. No ‘make invisible’ there, although of course that could have been a scroll or potion too. Quite possible too that this wasn’t his spellbook. We didn’t see a holy symbol, but his wand was clerical in nature. Ironbrier had clearly attacked us. But he was a Justice. Who in the town would believe us? If we tried to turn him in and he pointed at us and claimed we’d kidnapped him, what would stop the town guard from arresting us, either because they were convinced he was telling the truth or simply from duty?

Could it be he was under some compulsion to attack us or work with the Brothers? But what about the evil Avia had sensed earlier? Was it possible that both were true — he’d been under a spell but was nevertheless evil? Could you be evil and be a Justice? I suppose if one were lawful it might still be a decent fit 🙁

He was likely not one of the doppelgangers, as they changed form when attacked and he had not. And now, having stabilized him and made him helpless, was dispatching him even an option? Did our morals compel us to turn him over to the authorities even it might result in our becoming outlaws?

How much time did we have before the man who escaped returned with reinforcements? Or worse, the city guard? If this Justice was corrupt, might others be too? If he was a victim of evil magic, might others be too?

We had no sure way of detecting his true intentions and we no longer believed his words. Sabin pointed out that if we wanted to wait just fifteen minutes, he could learn a spell which would detect the man’s thoughts. That might help us decide how to proceed. I tended to think the man might be bewitched, and so cast detect magic on his form. I detected two spells .. the strongest being an enchantment spell of some sort, and the second being an abjuration spell. If Olithar cast dispel magic, it would remove the enchantment. But I could not tell what spells he was specifically under; only their schools.

An enchantment spell could be a charm. And an abjuration spell could be thwarting our attempts to divine his intentions. While we discussed, Sabin studied. Finally, we concluded we would try to detect his thoughts and see if they aligned with whatever story he had.

Olithar cast dispel magic upon him. Sabin cast detect thoughts. And Kane first channelled energy to the group and then specifically healed Ironbrier.

I was able to tell the enchantment spell was gone, leaving only abjuration.

He shook his head as if to clear it. He looked at us, and looked aghast. He’d been charmed, he said, by Areesha. She had made him do horrible things, and … and … he could no longer show his face in this town. While he might be able to convince a court he was compelled to do these things against his will, his reputation would be shot. He would have to leave town. He suggested a deal: release him, give him 12 hours to put his affairs in order, and he would tell us everything he knew of Aleesha, including her defenses and where she currently was. She was behind the murders, though he didn’t say why. She was the one who had captured him while he was investigating, and then turned him into her tool. He’d cast a non-divination spell to stop her from finding him but it hadn’t worked.

And I know that spells like that could last as long as 24 hours, but spells from the same school could also be used to misdirect alignment. So again, he could be telling the truth .. or not. We could tell for sure in 24 hours but we’d be foolish to sit here that long.

Sabin quietly told us his thoughts matched his words. So now what?

We told Ironbrier we’d have to consider his situation, and retired to the other side of the room to have a good but quiet think.

The group was divided. We needed more information. Could one of the men that attacked us provide it? A few of us went downstairs to revive one of the men on the second floor and interrogate him, but he wouldn’t crack. He tried to make me FLEE! but failed, and began ranting on how we might win this battle but we’d lose the war, and then we’d be sorry we picked the wrong side, and … it got boring fast.

And so now, as I’d mentioned at the beginning, we sit with perhaps the most critical decision for our little party to be made. If we choose poorly, we may find ourselves doing the right thing but on the wrong side of the law. But are we doomed to that fate regardless? Should we just leave the carnage and the corpse of Ironbrier for the guard to find? Ironbrier presents a dilemma unlike any we’d faced before: release him, leave him, or kill him? There are some among us who cannot abide killing a helpless person, which he now is.

I think most of us are convinced he was indeed the evil entity that Avia had sensed, but is he now telling the truth with the enchantment removed? Was it a charm that he is now free from? Or was it some other magic that he had cast upon himself as protection or some sort of misdirection? Even with my admittedly limited knowledge of the schools of magic, I cannot think of an enchantment spell that could be used in any other way than to compel or control somebody so his story does have a hollow ring of truth to it.

Would we save an evil person to destroy a greater evil? Would evil betray us if we chose this option and thus destroy any hope of warding off the greater evil? Does evil imply not trustworthy? This decision could have a profound impact upon our future.