Session 14: Catching Up With the New Stevenians
After leaving the First estate, the party heads to the guardhouse to visit Astrafel.Sartorii gifts him the bottomless inkwell! He is very pleased and flabbergasted. This poor man never gets nice things.
The party then regales him with the tale of Fort First, completely overwhelming him. The tale ends with Sartorii requesting lessons in Celestial, in return for helping him with paperwork.
Whenever the party walks into his office, they bring *so so* much. So much chaos.
At least it's interesting, the party says!
"Do you know what interesting brings?" Astrafel asks.
"More paperwork..."
Not much paperwork has come from this party, at least. It's mostly all one guy.
Unach, the Great.
A new warlord who has risen in Numeria, land of wandering barbarian clans, and the land of the starfall.
The starfall, a mountain-sized meteor fell to earth, bearing alien technology that is yet to be understood by the world at large.
Unach is bringing many of the clans under his banner through sheer might, and they are starting to spill into Brevoy.
Astrafel will set up a lesson plan starting tomorrow, if the party wants to stick around.
The party leaves him to his work, and sets off for more group business.
Next up is Naiala
The barber shop is open for business, a muffled scream coming from within. Business as usual!
While Naiala is busy pulling a tooth, the party waits in the lobby. The Sprite digs into some public magazines, which some immaculate soul had scribbled in.
At length the patient walks out, Naiala following shortly with bloody rags in hand.
Clarence pulls out the key frames when asked what brings the party here, and Naiala gestures the party into her parlor.
Within the parlor upstairs is Naiala's living space, a desk and chairs and lamps, a sloped floor following the high ceiling below. Tapestries woven by Naiala herself hang from the walls. The party's map sits centered on Naiala's desk, surrounded by notes.
The Sprite regales Naiala with the sparknotes version of tower-of-ghosts, introducing the four frames they found. Clarence pulls the frames out for Naiala, now shifted into spider form, to examine. She very delicately places the frame around the map.
Over the next ten minutes she slots the map into each frame, writing down the text visible in each. This text, too, is encrypted, though she believes she can break this one without a key.
Rutana pays her 5 silver for this first stage.
She asks for 24 hours, after which point she could have a clue for them.
The party heads out, but Rutana remains behind, asking for a private conversation. Naiala grants it, doctor-patient confidentiality being the name of the game. She guides Rutana down to the operating roo.
"So, what do you know about getting bit by a werewolf?"
"......I am going to assume this is not hypothetical."
"No, it's not."
"Oh dear."
Rutana describes the group they had met on the road, and how she got bit.
Naiala can run a few tests here and there, but they're a little invasive. Rutana agrees immediately, it's better than not knowing.
Naiala asks Rutana to sit down, and pulls out what looks like an ice pick, a long, silver spike with a handle. She lays Rutana's non-dominant hand on the table and pushes the spike into her palm, so blood trickles down the spike.
And the blood sizzles upon the spike.
"Well, I don't think I need to tell you what that means."
Naiala removes the spike and heals Rutana's hand. She then steeples her fingers, prepared to deliver bad news. There *is* a cure, but...
The majority of medicine is based upon a precise application of natural resources. Lycanthropy is an especially stubborn disease, being that it is half curse and half disease. Its only cure is what some would call a very deadly poison.
There are two ways to treat lycanthropy.
One is to take wolfsbane. It is very toxic, and very painful. Guaranteed death without a powerful healer at the bedside to heal through the poison. Even with a healer, it would be the most agonizing six minutes of Rutana's life.
The second way is to find a healer much more powerful than Naiala. There are clerics out there with the ability to break curses, usually men of the cloth. ([Remove Curse](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=250), 4th level spell, requires PC level 7.)
..."I tell you what. I know some people."
Naiala offers to get Rutana in touch with some people who can make manacled chains lined with silver.
These chains can be set up in the tower's basement. It's one strength check every 8 hours while under the full moon. During the winter, two rolls a night. In summer, one roll a night.
For the next few days, Rutana will take penalties to any action that requires her to use both hands.
Rutana picks up some bread and cheese on the way home so she can deliver the bad news.
In the meantime, Sartorii roots around for knowledge about Gregor Cartwright. Unfortunately, there's no one around who knows anything.
Clarence went straight back home.
The Sprite stayed in Naiala's lobby reading all the magazines. Rutana stuffed him in her pocket on the way out.
Back at the tower, there's a shiny new fence!
And inside the tower, Rutana makes everyone sandwiches in the proper sizes for their mouths!
Once everyone has a warm grilled cheese... "Remember when we fought those werewolves?"
Rutana shares all she knows. If she escapes her chains, she could be repelled by a Bad Smell, such as ammonia or cat piss. (All eyes turn to Clarence.)
Rutana plans to move her lab stuff up to her room, and her room stuff down to her lab.
The briny spellbook is stuffed at the bottom of a chest, beneath a bunch of other useless books she had already read.
The party finishes their sandwiches, then heads to bead.
Just on the cusp of dreams, Rutana hears the distant howling of wolves.
Morning comes, and so comes a scratching at the door.
Clarence opens the door, bleary eyed, and enters a staring contest with a wingless drake.
Kimber bursts in and flops on his back, a true puppy at heart. Clarence receives the [Mounted Combat](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=463) rules page! Clarence is super excited, the most happy any of the party has seen him since meeting him.
Sweet's Pen, between the tower and cliff:
Now well rested, the party heads to Cartwright Farm, just a tad northeast of the tower.
The fields look bare, as if not fully reaped or properly sown. Slightly overgrown wheat fields, a sizeable pasture with unmilked cows, a farmhouse, and a few sheds comprise Cartwright Farm.
A slightly short, plump man sits on the porch in a rocking chair with pipe.
There is not a single other humanoid soul on this farm aside from Gregor. It is utterly silent save for the creaking of his rocking chair, echoing disconcertingly far.
Sartorii steps forward with a cheery hello!
Gregor stands and flips the cover on his pipe—an embossed heart bearing a stylized L on its cover.
He asks about the fence, which is holding up nicely.
Sartorii asks if anyone else is around. Gregor shakes his head.
Sartorii asks if that has to do with the task they'll be handling today. Gregor nods.
He looks like a man who would be crying, but he had already shed all his tears.
"Word travels fast, even with me alone here. I hear you're good at what you do. I need you to find my wife and sons."
Cartwright Farm had been owned and operated by a single man for as long as anyone can remember.
Rutana asks, how long have they been missing?
Gregor looks up, his eyes going vacant. "About a month."
"Have you ever found something that you think will fix things? That you think will help? Have you ever been delivered something that you would call truly false hope, something that lies in a way that you can't help but believe?"
Gregor takes a breath to steady himself and looks at Rutana.
"If you ask anyone in town, they'll tell you, old Cartwright, well, it's amazing that he runs that farm all by himself. Ain't nobody in the county who can bring in that much wheat by himself. Up until a month ago, I didn't. See, my youngest boy, he was—uh, he *is* adventurous. In a perfect world, he'd be doing the same sorta thing you do. I was never really about it."
"It's a hard life," Sartorii pipes in."
"I know. Trust me, I know. And maybe I was too hard on him from time to time. He brought something home. An old clay vessel of some sort. He said it was magic, and to put it frankly I didn't believe him. By gods I wish I was right."
"What happened?"
"Well at first, all it wanted was answers. You would walk up to the jar, and you would rap on it," Gregor taps on his rocking chair's arm with his knuckles. "And if you heard something rap back, you could ask a question and then it would ask a question in return. And if you answered, then it would give you an answer that it knew. Seems kind of basic, but he used it without my knowledge to win a bit of coin. To find a few old relics that he sold for adventuring gear. Nothing extravagant. My son is many things, but he's never been greedy. But then...it started asking for more."
"Like personal knowledge?"
Gregor nods. "It would ask what was the most valuable animal on the farm. My son would answer, and then it would be gone the next day. My son did not tell us immediately. I did not know what happened, it just vanished. Next, it asked for more and more, and that's when my son came to me. I tried throwing it in the river. It came back. I tried throwing it in the well, burying it, burning it, blowing it the hell up. It came back. And every time it asked a question..."
"Without you answering a question first?"
"Every time it asks a question, I can't help but answer. I. Have. To. And it hurts. It comes to me and it asks, what do you value most? That is the only question it asks anymore. How would you answer that, in reality, if someone asked you that? You would be confused, right? Your feelings would muddy, make you think unobjectively, and you'd be paralyzed. But what it does to you, it rips it out of you. When it asked the first time, and my family watched me pick one of them against my will, it... It hurt. Even more than the compelling force behind it, it hurt. I want rid of it. I want my family back. And if anyone here can help me with it, that's you, because no one in town believes me. The second they vanished, it didn't just take them, it took everything they'd ever been."
"Even the memories of them?"
He nods.
"I believe you."
Gregor visibly relaxes, just a bit, his shoulders drooping a bit.
"Where is this piece of shit jar?" Sartorii asks.
"The vessel's in the barn."
"Is that where it likes to hang out?"
Gregor nods. "That's where my son keeps it, and unless I don't go see it tonight, that's where it'll stay."
"Have you tried doing any research on it?"
Gregor gives a wry laugh. "I'm a farmer, dear. This sort of thing doesn't happen to people like us."
"Does it reach out to you to ask things, get you to come to it?"
"Say tonight I don't go, sit in my room all night, windows closed and door locked, blinds shut. It will slide out from under my bed, out of a drawer in the dresser, and ask its question. Then it will crumble into dust and reappear in the barn. It is linked to me, as it was, I imagine, linked to my son."
"Take as long as you need. I know what it will come for tonight."
Rutana thanks him for the story, knowing it hurt.
Sartorii asks for any defining features.
He used the term vessel, because he did not know how to describe it.
It is a clay cube, about a foot and a half on each side. The only opening is a bit of corner that had broken before they found it. It is pitch black inside; he had tried shining a light inside once, but the light did not pierce.
The Sprite opens up his Pocket Library to see if he knows anything about this cube.
He does not know what it could be, but he knows that artifacts altering someone's knowledge without consent is Chaotic, so it could be something like an Aberration, beyond the natural planes. A demon, or something from the dreamlands or the maelstrom.
The party prepares to make their leave.
Gregor looks wistfully at his pipe. He has a feeling what's going to be taken next.
To be continued...