Bern
I woke up late, with quite a headache. No idea exactly what happened… except there was a waning moon, just a sliver less than full. Pappy’s curse must have taken over. The rest of the group had taken their gear and left, presumably when they saw my empty bedroll and couldn’t find me. No blood or signs of struggle, so I must have managed to get far enough away before the curse took over.
Luckily, I could track them.
The trail led to an old abbey, down some stairs, and into a basement filled with purple demons fighting stone cherubs. I found them right away, trying to leave by the same staircase I was entering. Pisha and Morin gave me the details; they had followed clues about Lady Harrowmore’s daughter to this abbey, found ghostly monks, and followed directions form one to poke a pool of darkness with an ornate scepter. Somehow, no one thought this might be a bad idea, so they went ahead and did that. This started some kind of fight between the ghost knights and the demon cherubs. We left the two to fight it out, choosing to explore the rest of the abbey in the hopes of finding something to make sense of it all.
The room above had three notable features; a large altar, a mosaic covered in vines, and an organ. After checking two doors to the south for activity and hearing nothing besides faint sounds of chanting prayers, we uncovered the mosaic. It depicted St Clewd slaying a red unicorn. Hidden within a loose tile of the mosaic was a key, which I pocketed.
We checked the organ next, but found little of note. It was in bad shape, but might still function. We did not risk trying to play it; that seemed likely to attract unwanted attention.
The doors to the south led outdoors. The western door simply led outside; the eastern door led to a small, garden-like space with a well and a ghostly monk pacing around it. The monk’s ghost was friendly enough; he promised to share a secret if we recovered his body from the well and buried it in the cemetery. We agreed, cleared the brambles from the well, and discovered the monk’s body.
The body wasn’t in the well, but on the surface nearby. The scene suggested he might have been attacked by surprise. The monk was clearly in the middle of sneaking a smoke when he died.
We picked up the body and carried it to the cemetery, planning to bury him quickly if possible or if not, wait out the night and bury him in the morning. Hanging around a haunted cemetery after dark seemed unwise.
As it turned out, hanging around a cemetery was a bad idea even in broad daylight.
The cemetery itself was surrounded by walls, with a small enclosed gatehouse. We got into the gatehouse without incident, but we were attacked by four animated stone gargoyles from inside the graveyard almost instantly. It took them a minute to break down the door, so we had some time to reposition. Sanfire and I were the front line, where only two could fit through the door to get to us.
I fought mine, exchanging blows until it fell, my azure serpent blade slicing through their stone bodies like flesh. Then Sanfire managed to land a solid strike and yelled in dismay that his blade just bounced off. The others were doing no better; I was the only one with an enchanted blade and these gargoyles could ignore ordinary steel.
Relying on the others to keep their numbers distracted, I went after the one on Sanfire with a shield bash as well as sword strikes. The shield was the one Oscar had passed on to me, bent and twisted but imbued with magic as well. The second gargoyle staggered back with wounds, but Sanfire took blows in return, and I heard the others behind me calling for a retreat. I was loathe to flee before striking down at least one more, when I had already wounded it, but the rest were in poor shape. We fled, and found a place to catch our breath and plan out next move.
