Book 2: The Skinsaw Murders

October 25, 2013 @ Debbie & Barney’s

Day 23:

Magnimar

The party’s most promising lead was provided by Xanesha’s letter to Aldern Foxglove, which suggested that her agents would meet him at his townhouse in Magnimar, should he forget the Sihedron ritual.

Upon arriving in Magnimar, the party made inquiries as to the location of Aldern’s townhouse. A citizen in the street pointed them to the wealthy Alabaster District, where a guard soon inquired as to the party’s business. When they responded that they were asked to meet with Aldern at his townhouse here in Magnimar, the guard informed them that Aldern had been away for months. His townhouse had been boarded up, but the guard showed the party where it was.

Foxglove Townhouse

The party knocked on the door, but no one answered. They discovered that the key they recovered from the ghast of Rogors Craesby, Aldern Foxglove’s former servant, unlocked the front door, so they were able to enter without arousing much suspicion. However, they were surprised to be greeted by Aldern and Iesha Foxglove, who were supposedly both dead. This strange occurrence was soon explained when the faceless stalkers impersonating the Foxgloves returned to their natural forms and attacked.  Wanga engaged one in a grapple as a third faceless stalker emerged from a side hallway and sliced him with a sword. The rest of the party made short work of the faceless stalkers, with the grappled one escaping Wanga’s grasp, only to be slain. One stalker was left alive for interrogation, and he said that he was sent by Justice Ironbriar, which the party did not believe.

The Foxglove townhouse had been mostly ransacked, but a thorough search revealed a hidden cache in the fireplace mantel on the third floor. It contained number of legal papers pertaining to the townhouse, as well as the deed to Foxglove Manor. The deed indicated that the Foxglove family only financed 2/3 of the manor’s construction 80 years ago; the remainder was financed by a group called the Brothers of the Seven. The deed also bore an unusual clause near the end that indicated that after 100 years, ownership of Foxglove Manor and the lands within a mile “around and below” reverted to the brothers. Oz forged a copy of this deed in which the Brothers of the Seven had no ownership stake.

The hidden cache also contained a ledger containing nearly a dozen entries from over the past 3 months labeled as “Iesha’s Trip to Absalom,” each indicating Foxglove was paying someone referred to as “B-7” 200gp a week for her “trip,” dropping off the payment every Oathday at midnight at a place called “the Seven’s Sawmill.” The party was able to determine its location by asking around town.

Day 24:

The Seven’s Sawmill

The party proceeded to the Seven’s Sawmill, which was located along the shores of Kyver’s Islet. The sawmill was made of wood, with sturdy locked doors. The grinding and creaking sounds of the waterwheels filled the air.

Nymeria was able to pick the lock of the door to the lower level, and inside the undermill was a whole lot of machinery related to the mill’s operation. Several mill workers were busy at work performing maintenance and repairs to the machinery. The party left unnoticed, then went around to the double doors on the other side of the mill on top of the wooden deck overlooking the river.

Nymeria picked this lock as well, and the doors opened up to a loading bay, where an opening in the ceiling into the floor above was filled with a tangle of ropes and slings for lowering timber. The wooden floors were worn smooth with the passage of feet. Two sturdy wagons sat to the south, next to a bank of machinery accessed by four low doors, and in the north, stairs ascended to the next floor. A partially walled-off alcove in the northeast section contained several large mounds of filthy hay, which upon further inspection, appeared to have been used by something large, perhaps an ogre or a giant, as a place to rest. The wagons contained nothing of interest.

The party went upstairs where there was a large storeroom, filled with stacks of timber, firewood, and other finished lumber products waiting for shipment. A network of pullers on tracks covered the ceiling, ripes dangling here and there to aid in the shifting of inventory as needed. Machinery churned along the south wall, while nearby two chutes fitted with winches allowed lumber to be hauled up from the holding pools below. Four openings int he ceiling led to the upper floor; chutes extended through each of these from the log splitters in the room above. Under each opening was a collection bin. Some mill workers approached the party, warned them that the sawmill is a dangerous place, and suggested that they leave. The party left them to their business, and went up another flight of stairs.

On the next level, the floor had a thick carpet of sawdust, penetrated by two large log splitters and saws set up over openings in the floor. Another pair of openings was fitted with winches and ropes to raise and lower uncut lumber from below. Four more mill workers toiled in this room, loading lumber into the log splitters with care and precision. However, they were less tolerant than their brethren of the party’s presence in the Seven’s Sawmill, and after a brief conversation, combat ensued.

The mill workers turned out the be members of the Skinsaw cult, and attacked the party with vigor, attempting to flank, but the close quarters of the sawmill made this difficult to accomplish. However, they also channeled negative energy, which was much more effective, but not devastating. In addition, the workers from downstairs heard the commotion, and came upstairs to join in the fray.

An inspection of the Skinsaw cultists’ holy symbols showed that these were worshipers of Norgorber, the “Gray Master,” also known as the god of secrets, the Reaper of Reputations, Blackfingers, and Father Skinsaw. The followers of Norgorber are not assassins, but fanatical murderers, killing not for wealth, but for the sick joy of it. They hold that their murders serve a greater cause, their leaders receiving visions of victims that they believe to be divine messages from Father Skinsaw. With each murder, society is shaped–deeds the victim might have accomplished go unrealized and the lives of those who knew the dead shift and change in subtle ways. over the course of years, or even centuries, murders can shape nations and write the future’s history. And when the Final Blooding occurs, then shall Father Skinsaw reveal to his flock the purpose of this shaping of society by death.

The party’s melee fighters decimated the Skinsaw cultists fairly handily. A timely casting of the grease spell caused one cultist to fall into the log splitter, where he was mangled, yet deposited, somehow alive, into a collection bin on the floor below, where Mackintosh finished him off. One cultist fled upstairs, with the party in hot pursuit.

Upstairs was a workshop with a thick layer of sawdust covering the floor, mounded nearly a foot deep in places. Workbenches sat here and there in the room, their surfaces cluttered with saws, hand drills, planers, and other woodworking tools. There were also some more cultists, led by a robed elf with a sword on his belt, and a short bow in his hands. As the party entered the room, the elf channeled negative energy, more strongly than his cultists. The party continued battling the cultists, with Wanga released his large ankylosaurus, Tini. The elf shot Tini with his bow, but Tini shook off the unconsciousness-producing effect of the poisoned arrow. As the battle raged on, it became clear that this furious elf was in fact Justice Ironbriar, vindicating the words of the previous night’s faceless stalker as truth. However, the party got the idea that he might be under some sort of compulsion effect, and not fully in control of his own mind.

As the battle turned against Justice Ironbriar, he went invisible, but the party’s keen senses tracked him to a small storeroom. Lisanji and Nymeria chased him into the room. Ironbriar, sensing he was caught, attacked feebly, breaking his invisibility, and was impaled by Nymeria for his efforts. Lisanji whiffed on an attack, and Ironbriar then put on his reaper’s mask, confusing Lisanji. Nymeria weakened him further, and prepared to get away from Lisanji, who looked like she might attack. Oz then blasted Ironbriar with elemental energy, slaying him outright. On his person was a wand of cure moderate wounds (12 charges), a mithral chain shirt, a +1 buckler, a +1 short sword, a masterwork short bow with 9 poisoned arrows, the reaper’s mask, and the key to his office.

The walls of Ironbriar’s office bore macabre decorations–human faces stretched flat over wooden frames by stripes of leather or black twine. Each face grimaced in a slightly different expression of pain, looking down on a cramped room that contained a desk, a high-backed rocking chair, and a low-slung cot heaped with scratchy-looking blankets. A ladder in the southeast corner of the room led up to a trap door in the ceiling.

A thorough search of Ironbriar’s office revealed a footlocker containing books of a historical nature, sea charts, etchings of vast rock formations and dolmens accompanied by maps, several pamphlets discussing a forgotten school of magic known as the Alchymuc, and a fine painting depicting a city carved from a vast frozen waterfall with towering ice cathedrals and domes. Near the bottom were several books.

The first book was a wizards spellbook emblazoned with two entwined snakes, one red, one green containing the following spells: blink, cat’s grace, chill touch, enlarge person, fox’s cunning, grease, haste, lightning bolt, mage armor, magic missile, scorching ray, shocking grasp, shrink item, spider climb, and web.

The second book was an old an beautifully filigreed tome containing numerous hand-drawn illustrations and titled The Serpynts tane: Fairy Tales of the Eldest.

Finally, a slim volume near the bottom of the chest served as a journal or a ledger of sorts, but was written in a cipher of Draconic, Elven, and Infernal characters. Oz, being able to read all three languages, was able to make a bit of sense of this, but a complete analysis would take several days of study. The gist of the journal seems to implicate Ironbriar as the mastermind of the Skinsaw murders, and makes reference to him visiting Xanesha at a site in northern Magnimar known as the Shadow Clock.

Up the ladder past the trap door was a rookery, in which a timber cabinet sat against the northern wall, its doors made of iron mesh. Inside perched three strangely silent ravens. A table nearby held a tall narrow bucket of bird feed, a quill, and a vial of ink, as well as several thin parchments weighted down by a polished rock. Wanga shapeshifted into a bird to communicate with the ravens. They indicated that they would like some corn (CORN!) and also that they would like to be released so they can fly to “the snake lady tower”