Dear Journal,
Frankly, I’m surprised I’m alive and writing this entry. My friends saved my life, and Juno spared no detail when she was telling me what happened.
It all began early in the morning. I set out to take care of the task The Aeon asked of me, not really fathoming how difficult it would be. It was a gloomy day, but we had sparse sunny ones since Ukko’s passing. The rain held off at first, but the dark clouds finally let loose the downpour they were holding in. The rain began across the distant countryside, reaching us by mid-afternoon.
When I came back to Thornwall, I was so excited to tell my friends that I met up with my old friend Lucienne in the woods. She jumped out of nowhere and saved my life when I was ambushed by bandits. Juno made a face as I dripped water all over the floor of the inn. She asked me where my bracelet and rings were, and I was confused by it for a second. I told her it must have been the bandits, and that Lucienne would have no doubt recovered my stuff and brought it back to her mansion.
Olaf narrowed his eyes and asked what mansion, so I led the group to where Lucienne told me I could find her. It was deep in the woods and off of the main path, and the mansion looked to be ancient. The cobblestone foundation was hardly visible under the patches of ivy that had crawled up the wooden walls. The inside was glowing with lantern light, and it was a welcome sight to get out of the cold rain.
Everyone was immediately put on edge when we came into the foyer of the house. A large statue of a man with a scythe was positioned right in the entrance, and there was a group gathering further down the hall towards the bar.
I had been there earlier in the morning, so I wasn’t worried in the slightest. I led Olaf back towards the bar, and as soon as we both walked in, this other dwarf shot up in his seat from where he had passed out drinking. He warned us not to bite him– citing that his glyph warned him if something suspicious was nearby. Olaf and I laughed it off, assuming he was crazy.
The barmaid asked what we wanted to drink, but Olaf walked over to the barrel of ale on the counter and lifted it up over his head to begin chugging it down. I grabbed a seat at the lone wooden table across from the other dwarf, not really feeling like drinking for once.
Juno walked in behind us, and the other dwarf’s attention was immediately on her. He called her a doctor, and that’s when I began listening to their conversation. Apparently Juno’s real name was Dr. Juniper Graves, but she had long since stopped using it after what happened in Ilvaluna.
The dwarf introduced himself as Yore Goldbeard, which I guess explained the gold trinkets woven in his hair. He was a scholar that recently graduated from one of the colleges in Valnaris, dressed in the golden robes of a chronomage. He was young, but I didn’t doubt his magic was far more refined than my own.
Yore told Juno about a job offer he received in Ilvaluna from the king there. That was an immediate red flag. I got ready to intervene if this frat dwarf was dangerous, but Juno had it handled. She warned him that the king isn’t always a man of his word and to be careful. Yore didn’t seem too concerned, but he thanked her for her insight.
Juno came back over to me, commenting on how I wasn’t really drinking for once. I didn’t really know why I wasn’t. I guess I was caught up in my thoughts about– well, it doesn’t much matter what they were about. She asked me how I knew Lucienne and these vampires, and I had to think back on it. It took me a long time to finally answer that I couldn’t recall. Juno’s eyes narrowed and she shook her head before stepping out into the hall.
Juno went to go see what the vampires in the stone hallway were discussing. It seemed that someone had used a powerful spell to break through the warded glass on the display case then teleported away with the loot. There were initially a pair of magical gauntlets in the case, alongside an old necklace. The owner of the house, Xavi, his wife, Lucienne, and another vampire named Alexander had all gathered around the crime
scene.
Xavi was a tiefling with gray skin and piercing red eyes that seemed like they looked into your very soul. He dressed in nice clothes and golden jewelry, likely a hint at his noble heritage from House Wardancer in the Caldran empire. In spite of his appearance, he was surprisingly friendly. He seemed fascinated by each of us, even though we were all mortal. Matanza followed Juno into the hall, and Xavi looked down at them with gleaming red eyes and a curious expression.
“My goodness, you’re a Sternulan, aren’t you?” Xavi asked, clearly knowing his kenku history. He bowed to the bird, and Matanza made a happy chirp at the recognition. It wouldn’t last, however. Xavi took their hand in his own, and he looked up at them. “Would you allow me a taste? I’ve always savored kenku blood, and I must admit that I have never tasted Sternulan.”
Matanza pulled back and Juno stepped in front of them protectively. I came out to wait in the doorway outside the mansion’s bar. Lucienne stood up from where she was sitting too, maybe not entirely endorsing her husband’s actions. Xavi stood back up and nodded, letting them know he respected their boundaries. Then he went back to speaking with Alexander about the shattered case.
Juno touched the skull pendant around her neck to listen into their thoughts, but she noticed a spirit in the den next to where everyone was standing. She pursued it further into the room, but it vanished into a wall on the opposite side from the hall. Defeated, she came back over to the bar. When she stepped past me, her cheeks flushed pink. I’m… not going to detail why that may have been.
A woman named Liliana had arrived to begin drinking alongside Olaf and Yore at the bar counter, and the two dwarves were repeatedly trying to one up each other in displays of strength. It was amusing to watch. Yore was clearly cheating with the aid of some magic, but Olaf was either too proud to care or too drunk to notice.
Matanza and Shade saw the action as a bit of fun, rather than trying to impress the half-elf that was making bedroom eyes at the dwarves. They began a strange 4-way arm wrestle, which was probably the most awkward thing they could have attempted.
Shade got knocked out first, which didn’t surprise me. He was definitely made for speed and not for strength. Olaf was the next to get tapped out, and he was not happy about it. He grabbed another drink and grumpily made a face at Yore. Yore’s magic was holding its own against Matanza, but the tiny bird was a force to behold.
They may have only been two feet tall, but they flexed and easily knocked Yore’s arm against the table–dispelling the magic he had summoned. Liliana was definitely impressed. She gave the kenku a little wink, but let them know she was much more into dwarves. Yore and Olaf both beamed from the attention she was giving them.
Yore started to explain why he had come to the vampire manor. He told us that there had been strange temporal anomalies happening in the past year, dating them suspiciously close to when I first remember seeing the beacon of light. I may have asked about it, but for some odd reason that I now can place, I couldn’t get Juno out of my mind.
I asked her if I could show her something in private, and she hesitated for a second. Her lips parted and her cheeks were filled with color. She must have already known what I wanted. She tried to say something, but her voice failed. I offered my hand out and she took it, letting me tug her into the foyer away from our company.
We didn’t get very far, and that was for the best. I really didn’t want to do anything stupid while I wasn’t in the right state of mind. A darkness enveloped the room, and a voice whispered through it in abyssal.
“Damn gods, get your soldiers out of my house!”
I dropped Juno’s hand and spun around. A figure floating in the shadows approached us all. It lunged forward and caught Xavi with a knife that gleamed with some unholy energy. Xavi fell to the floor only moments before the tiefling was reduced to a pile of ash.
I backed away when the creature’s eyes turned toward me. I heard another voice yell for me– it wasn’t Juno. It was Alexander. He ran forward, but he wasn’t fast enough. The creature struck me in the abdomen, and just like that– the haze was lifted from my mind. It grabbed me and dragged me away, warping us away from my friends.
Juno filled me in on what happened next, so I may exaggerate or lessen some details, but this is my journal so what’s it matter anyway.
Juno, Alexander, and Lucienne were all standing there when the darkness lifted. Everyone had wide eyes, startled at what had just happened. The commotion pulled the rest of the gang from the bar to see spilled blood and a cremated body on the floor of the foyer. Alexander and Lucienne gathered around the pile of ashes in total stunned silence. What could have done that to their friend and husband.
Yore asked what happened, and Alexander quietly lamented the death of his friend. Xavi the Wardancer was a name Juno vaguely recognized from the years spent in Caldra. House Wardancer was renowned across the kingdom for their ruthless tactics in monster hunting. For Xavi to have become a vampire was… odd. His house and family would have likely wanted him dead.
Lucienne shook her head and rubbed her temples, stating she wanted to be alone for a while to grieve. She headed upstairs to her room, and Alexander watched her go. He sighed and pulled a knife from the pile of ashes to offer it out towards Juno.
“Xavi was one of my oldest friends, but he had many enemies,” he said as Juno took the knife from him. She handed it to Slender to identify it for him. He then gave her a sending stone, asking if Juno could contact him if they found anything out about Xavi’s death or my disappearance. Alexander then headed upstairs to his own room.
Slender identified the intricate greenish knife as one of elvish make from several hundred years ago. Yore also identified the dust left behind from the teleportation circle as a obsidian-like substance from another dimension. He swiped a few fingers through the ash in front of the case, then looked up into the room Juno said she saw the spirit.
Juno brought Spectre in to sniff around the room, hoping the hellhound’s senses could track something the rest of them couldn’t. He put his nose to the ground and led them all in a straight line to the wall it looked like the ghost vanished into. He sat down and wagged his fluffy tail before barking at Juno.
Yore and Slender stepped forward to run their hands along the wall for any sign of secret mechanisms, but looked like any other wall. Olaf moved them both aside and charged at it– warpick first. Him and Talon smashed it apart with a boom so noisy that even I could hear it from where the figure had taken me. A woman screamed upstairs, and another ghostly figure appeared to check on what it could be.
By the time the ghost made it to the formerly smashed down wall, Yore had already repaired it with magic. He saw the figure in the corner of his eye and trapped it with another spell before it could escape. It was an ethereal form that looked just like Lucienne. She stammered in embarrassment for spying on them, but admitted she was only doing so because she heard the noise and wanted to investigate.
They, of course, pretended like they didn’t know what she was talking about– gesturing to the perfectly normal looking wall. The ghostly figure shook its head saying that she was losing her mind before slipping away again.
Yore brought the group over to the library, but there was a barrier preventing most of them from entering. He laughed as he bumped into the barrier and pulled out a card from his bag. It let him pass through without any issue, and the vampire on the other side almost seemed impressed. He asked if Yore was the one reading the book in the corner of the room about parasites, but he denied it.
Everyone else on my team was frustrated that only Yore could get into the room, so they began looking for ways around the magical barrier. Olaf swung Talon into it, hurting himself in the process, and Slender tried to talk the elvish vampire on the other side into letting him in. He finally let Juno in due to her credentials as a former royal scientist, and he introduced himself as Dorric Everdream.
Yore recognized him as a former professor at the college in Thelnsol, but Dorric had to leave his position and the city in disgrace after being turned into a vampire. He had apparently been working towards a cure, but had come up short. From what I knew about it being a condition of undeath, I wasn’t sure there was a cure.
As Dorric spoke with Juno, Yore discovered a note to Ukko crumpled up on the floor of the room from someone that signed their name as “LL.” He tucked it away in his bag, not knowing who Ukko was.
That was probably about when I heard Slender’s voice in my mind. It was strange, because it felt like he was right next to me. I actually looked around the cave system I had found myself in to make sure I wasn’t going insane. It must have been his magic that could talk to me.
“Are you okay? Where are you?” His voice sounded worried, so I wished I could have had better news for him.
I groaned and pulled myself over to a flat brick wall of the cave to leave against as I waved my healing light around the hole in my stomach. Things were at least looking up in that stabbing the thing that grabbed me made it release me. Was I okay, however, was another question entirely. I had no idea where I was, just that it was dark, and there were strange hissed whispers echoing down the tunnels around me.
“I’m really hurt.” I managed to focus on sending something back so they at least knew I was alive. “I don’t know where I am.” I looked around, but there was nothing indicative of my surroundings except the stone wall I had crawled to. I put a hand against the cool brick, hoping it wasn’t so thick that I was about to suffocate myself in it. I exhaled an uneven breath. “Just stay safe. Don’t trust anyone. I’ll find a way out.” I focused my magic into a collapsing teleport, and a boom shook the house.
Juno recognized it as my thunderstep immediately. I suppose I had recently used it right next to her, so she would know the sound pretty well. The noise sounded like it came from below them, so they all headed down into the cellar. The walls were lined with old oak barrels, and Olaf whacked Talon into the one closest to him, spilling bright red blood all over the floor.
Another vampire came down into the cellar– an orcish one this time. His name was Rozug, and he was a beast of a man in life that no doubt persisted into undeath. He helped Olaf find some ale in the mess of unlabeled barrels. They took turns chugging blood and ale respectively, mourning the losses of their friends. While they drank, Juno noticed a hole in the wall that looked small enough that Matanza could squeeze through.
They hesitantly went into it, ending up in some pitch black tunnels that would have been a problem if not for the new night vision goggles that Slender gave them. They heard some strange mutterings around them, and in the confusion they ran into the wall. They peeped to Juno, requesting backup, so Yore shrunk everyone down small enough that they could fit into the crack.
They made their way deeper into the dark tunnels, coming across a huge aberration picking a body clean with its tentacles and huge teeth. Shade and Olaf attempted to pet it, but as they did, it turned around and roared for backup. Suddenly, a number of gelatinous pinkish creatures with numerous mouths and eyes spilled out from the crevices in the cave walls. Ashen Cabaret was surrounded, but that wasn’t the worst of it.
Rozug saw his chance and swung at Yore, letting them know it was nothing personal, but that he was paid to betray them. Olaf growled that he knew the orc wasn’t trustworthy, but he was cut off from aiding the others by the numerous aberrations.
Rozug charmed Matanza and begged for the paladin’s aid in disposing of Yore. Since Matanza hadn’t known them long, they had no qualms with attacking the chronomage. They charged at the dwarf, but Yore retreated down a tunnel and successful put up a barrier to keep the kenku at bay. Juno and Slender watched them madly slam into the wall like a pigeon crashing into a glass window. Neither of them knew how to help, but Olaf and Shade called for aid as the barrier trapped them with Rozug.
Unsurprisingly, Rozug was a force to be reckoned with. He was muscular and brutal, like most orcs, but the real danger came from the necrotic magic imbued in his bite. He badly injured Shade and took a bite out of Mole that brought them to the floor. Slender casted an invisibility spell on Juno to help her flank Rozug. She ran into position just as Yore brought down the barrier.
Juno and the dwarves managed to finish him off, and Matanza snapped back to themself with a frightened peep and apology to Yore. The remaining aberrations fled into the tunnels, but Mole was lying dead on the floor by the time the team got to them. The necrotic bite didn’t even give them a chance, and none of the others knew how to revive them like I could. They all began to frantically search for me, but that was hopeless. We just barely missed each other.
While they were fighting off Rozug, I was dealing with my own issues. I had thunder stepped into a cage with a blood-covered kenku woman, and I don’t know which of us scared the other more. I apologized profusely– I was surely a terrifying sight to see out of nowhere. She noticed my wound and grabbed some cloth to try to help me stop the bleeding. Though, we weren’t alone for long. The person that charmed me clearly wasn’t going to let me escape and warn my friends about them.
They misty stepped into the room that must have been reserved for vampire cattle, and the kenku hid behind me immediately. I glared at the person from behind my mask as I stood protectively in front of her– the horrible face of the one that attacked and charmed me in the woods, Lucienne. Now I had trapped myself in a cage, like a sitting duck.
“Stay…” My voice quivered, so I steeled my nerves. “Stay away from me. I won’t help you hurt them. I’d rather be trapped down here with that thing than be anywhere near you.” The woman in front of me smiled, exposing sharp teeth. She couldn’t charm me again, and I would never willingly help her steal from my team.
“You’re hallucinating. I would never have you hurt them,” Lucienne lied to me, like I didn’t remember what all I revealed to her. “Let me get you to safety. We never had time to finish our ritual.” She took a step forward. The kenku woman cowered behind me as I stood there defiant.
“One step closer… One step closer and I’ll kill you.” I ignited my eyes behind the mask of shadows. Smoke began forming in the filters of the gas mask and cascading down to the floor. I raised a hand, and dark flames coiled around my arm. Almost like a test, Lucienne’s smile turned into a smirk, and she came closer. I unleashed hell.
Darkness flooded the room as I hit her with a blight that I pushed myself to my limits to cast. I wanted her to die. My friends needed her to die. I could save this kenku. I could escape. I could…
Lucienne gasped at first, but that pained expression didn’t last. She began to laugh, even as I fueled more energy into the burst. I fell forward slightly. My nose had begun bleeded so badly that I tasted the blood on my lips. It wasn’t strong enough. It didn’t really seem to do anything.
“You really are an idiot to strike me with necrosis,” Lucienne chided. “No. I think it’s time for a little nap. My acquaintance has a bone to pick with you after you stabbed him.” The monster? Was it still here? I spun around to search for it, but Lucienne raised her hand.
“Don’t you da–” I didn’t have time to finish that thought before she snapped her fingers. I fell over, unconscious.
Juno led the way deeper into the tunnels, with the team growing more frantic to find me and save Mole. Olaf carried their body down the path, but Juno held her hand up to slow them down as she spotted another aberration. It wasn’t paying them much mind though. It was too busy investigating the pool of blood on the floor of the cave. Juno approached it and found a piece of fabric caught on a jagged stalagmite– the maroon cotton from my scarf.
She held it out towards the others with a scowl. They all knew what it was, which meant I should have been close by. Slender followed the trail of my blood to a narrow crevice in the cave wall. Faint green light was twinkling at the very end of it, and one of my daggers was laid on the ground in front next to a puddle of inhuman looking blood. Slender narrowed his eyes as he tried to peer into the other room.
“If she had thunderstepped, do you think Jadeth went that way?” He asked the others. Juno picked up my dagger and shrugged.
“Mole doesn’t have much time, so I don’t know what options we have,” Juno sighed.
Slender took a few steps back from the crevice before misty stepping forward through it. It was a long passage, but Shade wiggled his way through behind Slender with his feline flexibility. The room on the other side was decorated like a church, with an altar complete with offerings at the edge of it. The two of them stepped out from behind a wall to see a floating figure in the center of the room between the stone pillars.
It hovered there, body no longer human looking but instead adorned with tentacles and a parasitic mouth on its chest. Shade hissed like a cat when he saw it, and it turned slowly to look over at them.
“Can’t you see that I’m grieving?” its hushed voice whispered in their minds. Its mouth didn’t move as it spoke. “Leave me while I still give you the chance to escape alive.” Shade backed up and looked to Yore at the end of the passage. The dwarf must have heard the voice too, and he waved his staff forward and blasted a fireball into the room with Slender and Shade. It exploded on impact, sending the two of them and the monster scattered in different directions.
Yore tossed a magicanical bird through the opening to get eyes on the creature. It glared at the machine and whipped at it with its tentacles. Slender grabbed Shade and pulled him back towards the opening as the attacks became more and more wild. One of the tentacles smashed into a pillar, but the other struck the little bird out of the air. It skidded across the stone floor with a pitiful screech and shower of sparks.
Slender waited for Shade to clear the tunnels as the monster came closer to him. Yore threw another fireball through, and Slender barely jumped out of the way as it once again exploded behind the creature, scorching its flesh with a sizzling burn. Slender used the time to misty step away and nearly collapsed when he got back to the others.
“So, Jadeth’s either not in there, or that creepy thing ate her,” he told the others. Shade’s hair was still on end.
“It had a mouth– in its stomach! Those tentacles and its voice, too. Spooky as shit!” The tabaxi patted his fur back down and shook himself loose. “I much preferred upstairs. There was booze and gals, and not to mention, a lot fewer things trying to kill us.”
“We didn’t find Jadeth, though. She’s got to be down here,” Juno said, and she gestured back to my blood. She turned to look down another passage, finding a solid stone wall and a crater in the ground next to it. “Wait, this looks like something exploded here.” She rested a hand on the bricks. “Maybe she went through here?”
“Ah, need to go through a wall? Say no more.” Olaf moved Juno aside and swung Talon around before striking it into the stonework. The rattle loosened part of the cave ceiling that nearly collapsed on top of him. Yore dove forward to get him out of the way, and the two dwarves watched as the wall began to repair itself. “Oi, that’s cheating!” Olaf got ready to strike it again, but Yore held him back.
“One moment– it seems enchanted. Almost like it’s trying to keep something out.” Yore waved his hand and muttered a spell to dispel the magic from the bricks. Together, the two dwarves made quick work of the wall, and Olaf made a quick bow to Juno as her and Yore pressed forward.
The room on the other side was the holding cell for the cattle, and the kenku woman I had encountered was staring at all of them with wide eyes. She backed away slowly from Juno and Yore, but she mimicked my voice to speak.
“Hello?”
“Jadeth–” Juno inhaled sharply. “She was here?” The kenku nodded, probably still terrified from what had just happened to me. She approached Juno slowly, and looked out the hole they made in the cell. “We can get you out of here, okay?”
Matanza came in through the hole, and their appearance immediately seemed to calm the other kenku down. The two of them began hastily communicating about the vampires as Juno popped the lock off the cage. Yore lifted up a sheet to find even more kenku bodies on the floor in the corner of the room, all drained of blood– pale and lifeless. Matanza’s feathered ruffled up angrily when they saw it, and Olaf rested a hand on their shoulder, familiar with the feeling after what we found in the orc village.
The group headed out of the basement and back upstairs with the kenku. Juno asked her what her name was, and she answered with the sound of wind blowing through a forest. Matanza promised to keep her safe, and she peeped in appreciation. Yore and Olaf headed off to Liliana’s room, promising to get more… information. Everyone else sat down in the bar and wished them luck. They didn’t really need it.
Yore snatched a nice bottle of wine, and Olaf lifted another keg over his shoulders. Then the two of them raced over to where she said her room was. She was thrilled to see both of them, citing her desire for a distraction after Xavi’s death. She mentioned Rozug acting strange when she went to see him, and Yore lets her know he was paid to attack them. She wrinkled her nose and shrugged, saying he was one of the more tolerable people around, but overall she seemed eager to leave the conversation at that.
While Yore tells Liliana about the orc’s betrayal, Olaf tries to get the baby boar in the room to let him pet her. Liliana lets him know that the boar’s name is Cake, and Cake doesn’t tend to like new people very much. While Olaf’s not paying attention, Cake goes to bite his hand. He pulls away just before she’s able to, and holds her jaws closed as she attempts it again. Cake flails a few times, but collapses in a sploot with an annoyed huff. Liliana laughs and tells Olaf that he’s funny.
The three of them spend a nice evening together, accidentally discovering Liliana’s secret– she’s not a vampire, but a wereboar. Somehow, it didn’t really interrupt their fun much.
At the end of the night, Liliana offered Cake to Olaf as a memento of their fun together, and he gladly accepted. She also gave Yore the key that she had stolen from Xavi before he was killed, citing it may help their investigation. She admitted it may make her look guilty, but she did steal it prior to him getting killed.
After a night in the room together and many pets, Cake let Olaf pick her up and tuck her under his arm and the two dwarves headed back to the group as morning came.