Toaster: Investigate x1 Pandarsenic, Investigate x2 Jim Groovester
The investigation begins tonight.
You start off with this Pandarsenic fellow. After some searching, you find that he owns a small house in the outskirts of town, and a farm - rather typical considering what kind of settlement this is. He recently harvested his crops.
Peeking into the window, you see a note with an address for a jeweler's shop. Interesting.
You decide against exploring this man's background further, and turn your attention to Jim Groovester. His record here state that he lives in - oh my, a large manor, also in the outskirts, with large swathes of farmland nearby.
Looking further in, you find out that he is, in fact, the local landlord's son. Looking into his bedroom, you spot a pair of heavy iron boots dimly lit by moonlight, too big for any reasonably-sized boy to fit in - especially one of his age. Hmm.
You're got a lot to think about. You retire to your room for the night, and risk a short nap.
* * * * *
Dariush: Search IronyOwl
You sneak into IronyOwl's house - or rather, room - at night. Bringing out your trusty eyebrow tweezer, you begin searching his clothes and body for the artifact bracelet.
But no, it isn't there. It's not in the room either; you'd recognise it at first sight. Defeated, you head back into the barn. You'll probably have to rent a room yourself in the morning.
* * * * *
Toaster: Investigate x1 Vector, Investigate x2 Simple
You hurry out of the town square before anyone else so that you'll have ample time to inspect. The rest are still millling about - some arguing with your friends - and you're reasonably certain that they will be for a while. First off is a stop by Vector's little house further into town.
The state of things inside is definitely not one that would indicate a wealthy woman - save for the books, it seems. You see a large shelf inside filled with them, kept neat and tidy, whilst the rest of the room is in disarray, scraps of leather thrown about here and there. You see an old broom in the corner, slightly dusty.
"Simple", you know already, runs and lives in the Flaming Hen at the hub of the town. His quarters are in a downstairs room in the inn - and is incredibly bare. It looks like the room hasn't been used very much - it lacks the kind of clutter that you'd find in a more lived-in abode - and all there is to see is a bed, a closet, mirror and a small desk.
Rumaging through the closet turns out to be an exercise in frustration. Everything seems to have been crammed haphazardly into it - you spot some rags smelling of gin and beer and several socks, none with matching pairs - before everything falls out. Even when you try to put back everything with a little more finesse, you have some difficulty closing it again.
You hear a door softly opening outside. Simple must be coming back again.
You hurry back to your room before anyone sees you. This'll have to do, you suppose.
* * * * *
Dariush: Search, Ritual Vector
You wake up at midnight, ready to go. You're reasonably certain this "Vector" person's the Golem - even though you thought you made it a little burlier than that - and you're willing to risk the Ritual tonight.
You sigh deeply. No regrets. No turning back.
Placing your supplies into the black leather, sequined bag - the silver-plated bronze rod, the box of chalk, a scroll to summon lightning, a list of your commands, a crystal vial, razor and two small pouches of ground sapphires - you get up and leave the dubous comfort of the barn's wet hay.
Vector's house is a small thing, untidy, at the centre of the town. You pick the lock and come in, placing your bag next to the door. First, you must search for the bracelet. Using your eyebrow tweezers, you scour every last inch of the room, but sadly, it isn't here either.
With nothing stopping you from continuing the ritual, you begin the preparations. First, you draw a chalk outline of memorised glyphs around the bed and her sleeping figure, crumbling some of it onto her forehead. It glows softly purple once you close the perimeter, though it reveals nothing about its accuracy. You can only hope it will hold as decribed.
You bring out the razor and the vial, pouring the sapphire dust into it. Placing it between your legs, you slit your wrists, letting enough blood fall into the vial to fill it the rest of the way. The blood needs to be fresh.
You shake it until it becomes a dark purple, much like the chalk, feeling a moment of regret for not bringing bandages for your new wound.
You place the list of commands on her belly and pour mose of the bloody mixture along the inside of the outline. Dipping the rod into the remains of the purple liquid, you charge it with the scoll of lightning - cracking the plating slightly and filling the room with a blue sheen as it crackles softly - you whisper the last remaining words of the ritual as you stab her through the inked parchment with all your might. You see some of her blood, crimson in colour, seep out as you do so.
OHSHI-
Vector's body explodes about the room in a shower of blood and gore, charged by the surge of energy from the ritual. You are knocked back be the sheer force of the magical burst - that kind of shockwave must be detectable for miles. Not good. You wipe yourself off and return to the barn - hopefully, none of the plebs will know.
Of course, it'll be a completely different story with the magical ones.
* * * * *
IronyOwl: Kill Ottofar
Your mind has come to a consensus. Ottofar must die tonight.
The job is simple, the tools minimal. You break down the door to his home, and keeping his mouth shut with one arm, you beat him to a pulp with the other. By the time you leave, the body is little more than a burst sack of skin and bones on the floor.
You remain in your room for the night.
* * * * *
IronyOwl: (Passive) Vengeful Spirits
You shudder as the soul of another vengeful spirit joins the chorus of voices within you.
* * * * *
Arathos: (Passive) Ritual Alert
Looking toward the town tonight, you see a column of magical energy erupt from Vector's house, which fades away as quickly as it came. The resulting shockwave knocks you off balance. Something big has happened there tonight. The villagers, won't have seen the magic, though. They remain as oblivious as ever.
* * * * *
Jim Groovester: (Passive) Ritual Alert
Looking toward the town tonight, you see a column of magical energy erupt from Vector's house, which fades away as quickly as it came. The resulting shockwave knocks you off balance. Something big has happened there tonight. The villagers, won't have seen the magic, though. They remain as oblivious as ever.
After the initial flash fades, your senses are keen enough to spot a man - no, a wizard, from the tell-tale formulaic magic - running away from the house, still radiating magical energy from the falloff of the blast. With some effort, you manage to recognise him as Dariush. What is he up to?
* * * * *
Think0028: (Passive) Ritual/Spirit Alert
Two people have passed away during the night. Their spirits reside in the graveyard, though - whatever took the first two seems not to have come for these.
Looking toward the town, however, you see a column of magical energy erupt from Vector's house, which fades away as quickly as it came. The resulting shockwave knocks you off balance. Something big has happened there tonight. The villagers, won't have seen the magic, though. They remain as oblivious as ever.
* * * * *
Think0028: (Passive) Spirit Alert
A cold wind blows your way, whispering softly. Max's soul seems to have been taken elsewhere...
* * * * *
Ottofar: Die
You wake up at night to see your bedroom door smashed down. In the doorway you see a man - muscular, and of chiseled appearance. He walks toward you with surprising speed, holding your mouth shut with one hand - and beating you with the other. You hear a soft crunch for each hit as he crushes your bones, but you feel no pain anymore - just a deep sense of relief.
You have died.
* * * * *
Vector: Die
You wake up in the middle of the night, to see a scraggly, bearded man in robes poking a bronze rod through a piece of parchment - and your stomach. A few seconds later, everything goes dark as you feel your limbs pull apart from each other.
You have died.
* * * * *
Pandarsenic: Win
That vile merchant’s dead! With him out of the way and the guards disbanded (after all, the person that was supposed to pay them is hanging from a rope now), you’re free to rifle through his possessions in search for your jewels. Once you find them, you’ll leave the town for good. You’ll take on a new name, sell the valuables and live somewhere better.
You wake up in the night, and walk down to the stables – with everyone asleep, this’d be as good as it gets - and go through the bags. Mostly beans - black or brown, leaving faint marks on your hands as you sift through them – but you persevere. You’re sure you saw them; the shine is unmistakeable.
At last, however, you find a pouch buried deep in one of the supply bags. Yuo pull it out and feel the contents. There’s something hard in there. You found it.
You stick the pouch in your pantaloons, and taking the nearest unloaded horse, you gallop off into the night. Come sunrise, you will already be too far for them to do anything about it.
* * * * *
Toaster: Investigate x1 Simple, Investigate x1 Jim Groovester, Investigate x1 Dariush
Your partner is visibly upset at all this, and you’re a little frustrated too. You haven’t managed to kill a single witch for your whole stay here – and from the looks of it, there might be something even worse lurking around. You’ll probably want to take them down, too.
Having your compatriots lead the lynch leads to a number of subtle benefits for you – you get to leave the square before anyone else, with just enough time to look around. This time, you’ll start off in the Flaming Hen. You spotted a few rather interesting things with the innkeep.
His room is still barren. Looking around further gives you little; the only new thing you can spot is a slightly grimy bottle of expensive whiskey under the bed, and some ledgers. Looking through it only enlightens you to the various debts and profits that the establishment has accrued over the years. Little sign of activity beyond managing the inn and bartending. This is either a very dedicated man, or...
Something else. You’ll need to think about that one.
Running over to Jim’s manor, you unlock the door – people always leave keys under their plant pots – and take a look inside his bedroom. Again, you see the heavy, iron-studded boots you saw a few nights prior, too large for the boy to fit in, but too small for the father to. The most peculiar thing, however, was that the room smelled faintly earthy – the kind of smell you’d get around a lumberjack that’d roam the wildernesses often.
You look for Dariush’s tavern as claimed, but looking through the residence records, it seems he was never a citizen in the first place, and does not own a home in town. The ledgers of the Flaming Hen show that he never rented a room, either. Strange.
You shut the door to your room just as the rest of the inhabitants pour in. It’ll be a long night.
* * * * *
Dariush: Search Toaster, Ritual Jim Groovester
Rousing yourself from sleep, you prepare your supplies again for your nightly visitations. You’ve thought about it for a while, now. You’re pretty sure who the Golem is.
First off, though, is a trip to Toaster’s house – or rather, room. Sneaking up flights of stairs with your bag full of equipment turns out to be difficult – and noisy – but you eventually get the hang of it. His room turns out to be sparse, and fortunately, Toaster himself has fallen asleep in the armchair by the window.
You take out your tweezers and begin examining the room. No luck, however; the artefact is elsewhere.
Jim Groovester’s house, to the contrary, turns out to be a large, ostentatious manor house. His bedroom is upstairs, and you manage to fight your way up through the mess of fine art and carpeting. The boy is asleep on the floor.
You draw the chalk-marks around the figure, making sure to be a little more careful this time around; you don’t want this one blowing up in your face like the last.
The purple mixture is created anew and poured along the outline, and a freshly scribed list is placed on his belly. You bring out the worn bronze rod, crusted with the old blood, and charge it.
Lifting the rod like a dagger over your head, you bring it down with all the force you have in your body. A little blood splatters on your hand, and you brace yourself.
You are thrown to the floor as his body explodes into pieces and smoke, the air filling with red light and the sharp smell of ozone. This blast had more in it than the constituents of your ritual. This boy was possessed, or rather, bewitched.
You run away as fast as you can, just in case anyone might’ve heard or seen it.
* * * * *
IronyOwl: Kill Urist_McArathos
Yes. It is time and your voices have come to a consensus. Urist must die.
You visit his upstairs room in the inn, walking with a soft thump for every step you take. It’s in the night, though, and will not be noticed by anyone. The room is richly decorated with baubles and goods – things that might have mattered to your former self and the souls in life, but not now. Now, it is just a wretched symbol of that which you wish to eliminate.
He sleeps soundly in his bed. With one stiff blow, you smash his head and part him from the world.
As he perishes, though, the room fills with smoke and an eerie red light. It seems that whoever you killed was not entirely of this world.
* * * * *
Arathos: Die
You are visited by a man, chiseled in appearance and great in physique, in your sleep. Fortunately, you are able to observe your surroundings from within your mind – something that this person likely did not account for.
He takes one look at you, and smashes your face in with one hard fist. Your vision fades.
You have died. You can feel your spirit being tugged away, but not yet. There is still work to do…
* * * * *
Jim Groovester: Die
You wake up in the middle of the night, to see a scraggly, bearded man in robes poking a bronze rod through a piece of parchment - and your stomach. A few seconds later, everything goes dark as you feel your limbs pull apart from each other. Alas, for in this form, you will perish along with your host.
You have died. You can feel your spirit being tugged away, but not yet. There is still work to do…
* * * * *
Think0028: (Passive) Spirit/Ritual Alert
Both of your companions have perished in the night; you can hear their voices in the air, crying out to you. With your link to the spirit world and your connection, you will be able to visit them regardless, and it may be an informative, if rather sad meeting.
In the sky, however, lights up another pillar as before – red, this time - and you spot a robed man rushing out before you are thrown to the ground by the magical shockwave. This is an ill omen indeed.
* * * * *
Vengeful Spirits: Escape
Forced to leave the material world as the body of your host disintegrated around you, you now wander the grey fields of wheat and can do little but observe this black tragedy. With your anger all but spent and none ready to guide your spirit - and those of many others who have perished here - on to the next world, it seems you will remain here, in what is soon to be a ghost town, for eternity.
It is a bleak affair.
* * * * *
Dariush: Ritual Toaster
Your golem has perished at the hands of these plebs, and the culmination of several years of research (and large amounts of material goods) has been lost. You cannot begin to express how significant this loss is to you.
You have a spare scroll of lightning from your prepared rituals. As a parting gift of sorts, you decide to use it on someone special. Him and his ilk are responsible for all of this, you’re sure of it, and you’re determined to make them pay.
When everyone leaves the square to return to their homes during the curfew, you pack up your instruments and walk briskly to the inn. There, in the Inquisitor’s room, you lie in waiting, rod in hand. He will come here eventually, as always – and when he does, you’ll be ready.
It doesn’t take long before he arrives. By then, the night has become dark enough for him to only see your silhouette as you stand before him. With a little concentration, you quietly lock the door behind him.
This is a moment to be savoured.
“Good evening, Inquisitor. I’ve been waiting for you.”
You charge at him with all your might, rod in the air and snarling with pure, unadulterated hatred. The two of you collide against the far wall, and as you push him against the wall with your weight you drive the rod into his chest, twisting and probing for his heart whilst the rod sparks to life before you.
The Inquisitor seems to have recognized your face at last. With only a few seconds to spare before the rod activates, you lean against him and whisper a few choice words into his ear before he, like all the rest, sunders and paints the walls dark red.
Wiping your face off with a scrap of cloth from Toaster’s old shirt, you hoist your leather bag onto your shoulder and leave the town. It doesn’t worry you too much that you have no home to go to; in a few weeks’ time, you’ll have reached another swathe of wilderness, ready to start anew.
In fact, you don’t really need to worry about anything now. You’ve already lost it all.
You have lost.
* * * * *
Toaster: Investigate x3 Think0028 / Die
This entire operation’s been a disaster. You’ve managed to dispose of a grand total of no witches through your entire stay here, and in the process, you’ve had a thief escape from the quarantine and a whole nine innocents die. You know there’s one witch left behind, though – they’re always in threes, and only two have died. That leaves a farmhand, a baker, and an innkeep as suspects.
You only have enough time to investigate one of them before they come back. In the spur of the moment, you decide to investigate Nicholas Baker, the baker – or Think, as he calls himself.
His house is a two-floor building, with the lower co-opted as a bakery. Unlocking the door and walking in, you can still see racks stacked with bread, though they’ve all gone stale and cold now. You’re not very surprised, considering the events of the past three days and nights, but you’d at least have thought he’d keep the place cleaner; a light coating of dust covers the racks and furnishings save for a narrow path upstairs, and the vermin have been ignored completely. Going upstairs, you smell the same earthy scent you found in Jim’s bedroom earlier – you’re not quite sure what to make of it, but this person seems to have been wandering the forests too.
The bedroom is untidy, the bed unmade. The closet hasn’t been used, and you suddenly remember that there was indeed something odd about him – he always wore the same clothes every day. This was probably why. On the nightstand, you notice an intricate bracelet; made of gold and inset silver, it appears to be made by someone with great skill. Picking it up, you sense a light tug immediately – not enough to move you at all, but holding it, you feel compelled to go in that direction.
You put the bracelet back where it was and head back to the inn. Hopefully, there’ll be something to return to come dawn.
Standing in the middle of your room, however, is the large robed figure, barely visible against the dim glow of the waxing moon, facing directly toward you, breathing heavily, a thin rod in hand.
“Good evening, Inquisitor. I’ve been waiting for you.”
You think you recognise him, but only barely. By the soft moonlight, you can't make out any details.
The man begins to smile. With surprising speed, he charges and thrusts the bronze rod deep into your chest - the cold metal makes you shiver as it pierces your lungs. He pins you against the wall, heaving and wheezing heavily - he mumbles some words into your ear, and you can feel the warmth of his rancid breath on the side of your face – as the curious weapon begins sparking and glowing an eerie blue, shining some light on his features at last.
The wizard!
You feel your limbs pull apart from each other, the world fading away.
You have died.
* * * * *
Flandre: Kill Think0028 / Die
You still can’t believe it. Your Nathaniel, who you thought you knew so well, was a witch – a murderer. You feel… dirty, and though you miss him so dearly it feels despicable to have loved someone like him. If only you had known!
Now, there are only five of you left. Your parents and family are missing – they probably fled, leaving you behind – and without your lover, there seems to be nothing left for you in this world. All you want to do is to leave with a clear conscience, and what better way to do so than by putting an end to everything yourself?
One last great act before you disappear into the darkness.
You pick up your father’s axe. Its heft is reassuring, and brings back memories. Few are pleasant, but in the squalid silence of your now-empty home, anything seems better than this. You know where the last witch is, and with this, you’re prepared to do whatever it takes.
The baker’s house was easy to find. The seems almost abandoned, filled with dust and mouldy bread. Upstairs, though, you find the baker resting in the bed, at your mercy. It only takes a single swing to end him. Nothing seems to happen at first, but as you are about to leave, the neck stump begins to smoulder and fill the room with smoke, and an eerie red glow. A faint scream is heard in the air, fading away after only a second – precisely the same thing that happened to the other witches.
It is over, then, and you can leave.
Sitting by the great white tree in the forest, you look up to gaze at the starry night sky, black as ink. The only sound’s the sweep of the calm autumn breeze, and the faint rustling of old leaves. With a strike from the axe’s blade, you rest, admiring the old woods as the darkness closes in.
You have died.
* * * * *
Think0028: Die
Your task, it seems, was to guide these spirits on from this tragic event. Though a sad duty to undertake, it is a necessary one. You can only hope that you will remain to perform it when all is done.
For now, you must rest. It has been a long journey, and the loss of your two sisters has hit you hard. There is little left, now, and you sense that your own time may soon come to an end.
In your sleep, however, a stranger approaches, armed with an axe. You sense a powerful feeling of sadness, of loss – and as he swings his axe at you, you can only hope that he finds peace. You feel the cold blade touch your throat, and all goes dark.
You have died.
* * * * *
