Bern
After a few agonizing minutes, the rest of the group emerged from the tower entrance. Above, the dark bird-like construct of shadows and rags took flight towards the graveyard. Sensing an opportunity, I remained in hiding, allowing the group to visibly leave the belltower grounds while the construct presumably kept a suspicious eye on them. Instead, I snuck into the bell tower myself.
The first floor was empty aside from an obvious statue, which presumably the others had examined thoroughly. I went straight to the second floor, this one filled with rough furnishings and possessions suitable for children. I quickly scanned the room for anything of note, anything that might be specifically linked to the missing child we were looking for, but nothing stood out. Upwards.
The third floor was filled with creepy creatures, as if a mad taxidermist shepherd had preserved his entire flock of sheep and added human teeth for extra insanity. The center of the room had ropes dangling through a trapdoor in the ceiling, presumably from the bell above, and it also had a live crow preparing to fly away – luckily I got to it in time and put an end to that.
The top floor, literally a belfry with a small but heavy bell, held nothing else of interest besides a murder of crows. They stirred as I climbed into view, and there were far too many to stop from alerting the rag-man, who would shortly be heading back to discover my presence.
With nothing else of interest in the tower, and no kids to rescue, I rode the bell ropes down to the floor below, ringing the bell vigorously.
I was expecting a reaction from the rag-man, and perhaps even from the creatures on the floor below. I was not expecting an earthquake, followed by blazing supernatural flames all around the walls of the abbey.
I made it to the bottom of the tower, past the now-animating animals on the 3rd floor, and peeked out the front door right when the rag-man landed on the roof. I paused there for a few moments, trying to gauge the best chance. Some sort of noise from the north made the creature take flight again, and I darted out the door. A nearby bush offered some cover, and I made another dash to a much larger thicket to the south when the rag-man looked away for a moment.
The magical fire along the walls – some sort of barrier around the whole abbey – faded over the next few minutes as I made my way south, still in hiding. I passed a ghost who seemed to shiver with cold, and later one gestured to me near a thicket to the west of the compound. I ignored both, needing to escape the place. We would have to come back later, because none of us were in any shape for a fight.
The rest of the group made their way back to camp gradually, and filled me in on what happened inside the belltower before I entered. There were three kids there, one of them the daughter of Lady Harrowmoor. They seemed friendly with the rag-man, and he gave them tasks, one of them to collect teeth from the graveyard. Morin was trying to make friends with the kids to lure them away from the rag-man, but the creature woke up and interrupted. Things went smoothly at first, and the rag-man offered to pay for human teeth from the skull room underground, the same one where the monk had been hiding coins. Two reasons to visit that place later and get some sort of reward for our trouble.
But somehow they ended up spilling the beans that we were here for the kids, and the rag-man turned suspicious, taking the kids with him to the graveyard and kicking the group out.
Morin had thought to check whether the rag-man had left the kids behind in the graveyard when it investigated the bell ringing, but no luck; it appears a confrontation would be inevitable.
