The Hungry Dead

The party continued their debate about what to do with the supposed “cure” for Blood Veil that they’d purchased at Lavender for most of their hike back across Korvosa. Some wanted to take it to the Temple of Pharasma to be analyzed by their clerics and alchemists. Others wanted to do the same, but at the Bank of Abadar. Nat offered to analyze it himself, but after some questioning from the group, his confidence in the depth of his alchemical knowledge began to wane. Finally they circled back to their original idea: Go to Cressida Kroft and drop the problem in her lap.

Unfortunately, Kroft was having none of it. “Sorry,” she said brusquely after they’d explained the situation, “it’s been made clear to me that anything to do with Blood Veil is outside my jurisdiction. My Guards are to escort the Queen’s Physicians on their rounds, but enforcement of the Queen’s proclamation is solely the purview of the Grey Maidens. I agree with you that if someone is foisting off a phony cure on desperate people, they need to be dealt with immediately – I just can’t be the one to do it. You need to take this to Dr. Davaulus – his Physicians can analyze the stuff. If it’s real, then it’s just the miracle we’ve been praying for, but if it’s not, he can send the Grey Maidens to deal with it. They’re setting up a hospital for the worst cases over in West Dock – they call it the Hospice of the Blessed Maiden. You should be able to find Dr. Davaulus there.”

The party had no trouble locating the address of the Hospice, not far from their own home. The multi-story building looked like it had once been a warehouse, but now it was a hive of activity among the almost-empty streets. Men were carrying disassembled bed frames into the building, and two wagons loaded with matresses, sheets, and crates of who-knows-what stood waiting to be unloaded in the street.

The party followed a pair of workmen through the front door and found themselves in a small entry room. A burly woman in boots and with a black cloth mask tied across her face was directing traffic into a much larger room beyond. When she spotted the party, she held up her hand imperiously. “Ve are not jet open,” she said in a heavily accented voice. “You vill leaf now und come back tomorrow, ja?” A longsword swung from her hip, and she looked like she would not hesitate to use it on any who violated her rules.

“We need to see Dr. Davaulus,” Wren said politely. “It’s extremely important.”

“Nein! Herr Doktor is not zeeing patients. If you are zick, you muzt return to your homes und vait for der Queen’s Physicians to come to you. YOU! Moven zie out of ze way!” That last was directed at Nat, who scurried out of the path of another pair of workmen carrying beds.

“You don’t understand,” Wren persisted, not backing down. “We have found someone who is selling something they claim is a cure for Blood Veil. We think it’s a fake, but hundreds of desperate people are buying it, and exposing others in the process. We need Dr. Davaulus to look into this right away!”

That got the woman’s attention. “Ja, das ist zer noguden! Vait here!” She stepped through the door and called to someone out of sight inside. The conversation was in a language they didn’t understand, but they did catch the name ‘Davaulus’ amongst the jibberish. When the woman returned, she had a slightly less hostile expression. “You vill vait ein moment. My name ist Bhrunlida Torthus, und you vill forgive mein actions. Ve haf many peoples seeking Herr Doktor’s help, and … YOU! I told you to moven zie!” Nat had once again gotten underfoot.

A few minutes later, Dr. Davaulus emerged through the doorway. Amid the bustling chaos, he was an island of serene calm. He smiled when he saw the party. “We have met before, yes? At the Citadel, I believe – you are the colleagues of Field Marshall Kroft who brought the cleric of Abadar. He was a great help to us. How may I assist you today?”

Wren quickly explained the situation, and held up one of the vials of Lavender’s Luxurious Liniment. Dr. Davaulus took it from her and removed the stopper. He poured some on his fingers, sniffed it, then touched it to the tip of his tongue. “You were right to bring this to me – I will have one of our alchemists analyze this immediately. It would be wonderful if it were truly a cure, but if it is, how do you say? Snakeoil? Then we must act quickly. Not only is it cruel to offer false hope to the afflicted, but these lines of sick people you describe would accelerate the spread of the disease. Do you have more? In case one vial is not sufficient for our analysis?”

Wren handed over four more vials, but kept half their supply back; no matter what the Queen’s Physicians found, she wanted an independent opinion from her friends at the Temple of Pharasma. Dr. Davaulus excused himself to return to the business of setting up the hospital, and the group left.

They headed south, back to Zeeva Foxglove’s. As they walked, they kept their eyes peeled for the prophet of Groetus, but he was nowhere to be seen. Twice they saw a Queen’s Physician knocking on doors in the company of a squad of Guardsmen and a Grey Maiden, and twice more they saw body collectors trundling carts full of corpses through the streets. When they’d passed the Grey Maiden, Girrigz sidled up to Shadow. “What was that?” he asked, a note of awe in his voice.

“One of the Queen’s personal troops,” Shadow replied. Girrigz said nothing more, but Shadow could see the wheels turning in his head. Perhaps he was revising his estimate of how easily his sewer “army” could conquer Korvosa.

Zeeva’s maid showed them in again. Madame Foxglove was looking far better than the last time they’d seen her, but was still extremely weak. “Did you get some?” she asked eagerly.

“We did,” Wren said, “but we have no reason to believe it’s really a cure.” They’d debated this on the way over, and concluded it could do more harm to give her a false cure than to withhold a real one. “We’re having it tested by the Queen’s Physicians, and are taking some to the Temple of Pharasma.”

Zeeva looked crestfallen. “Shouldn’t you have bought more, just in case it is real?”

“They’re selling out as fast as they can make it,” Erin explained. “Even if it is real, it’s getting into people’s hands as fast as possible already.”

Zeeva seemed resigned to the delay. “Please – promise me you’ll let me know immediately if it does turn out to be the cure. I’ll spend my entire fortune if I have to to get it out to everyone who needs it.”

Giving their word, the made their goodbyes and set off for the Temple of Pharasma. At every intersection they paused and looked all directions, hoping for a glimpse of the crazy preacher. At last Girrigz had had enough. “I thought you people had a plan,” he snorted with exasperation. “So far, all I’ve seen you do is traipse all over town talking to people! When are you going to actually do something?”

“Just as soon as we figure out what it is we need to do,” Erin replied.

“And when will that be?”

There was a long silence. “We’re working on that,” was all Erin could say.

They passed through the gates of the Gray District and took the path to the Temple of Pharasma. When they arrived, what they found was not at all what they’d expected. They’d expected a lot of activity, what with the volume of bodies needing to be interred, but they saw people running around with weapons, and carrying wounded and bloody people into the temple. Wren’s teacher and mentor, Sister Elanaina, seemed to be in charge. When she spotted Wren, she waved her over urgently. “How did you find out so quickly?” she panted. “I was just getting ready to summon you and your friends with a Sending spell.”

“Umm … that’s not why we’re here,” Wren said in confusion. “What’s going on?”

Elanaina ran her hands through her hair. “With the numbers dying every day from Blood Veil, we’ve had to abandon individual burials, and consign all the victims to mass graves. One of the burial parties must have broken into one of the old catacombs – a swarm of ghouls and ghasts poured out. They killed most of the gravediggers, and one of our clerics. The others only just escaped back here.

“We can’t afford to let this go unchecked. When those undead get a whiff of all the corpses in the city, they’ll head straight there, and then we’ll have two plagues on our hands: one of Blood Veil, and one of undeath! Please! Can you and your friends go and see if you can contain this threat?”

No one hesitated. Elanaina gave Wren the location of the burial site, and they set off with all speed. They arrived within minutes. Amid a sea of tombstones, they saw two large open pits, flies buzzing above their contents. A cart heaped with bodies stood between the pits. Scattered across the ground were half a dozen or more fresh bodies, their flesh torn and partially devoured.

Nothing moved among the city of the dead, and no sound could be heard but the buzzing of flies. Expecting the worst, the group slowly began to fan out. Nat was the first to make contact. A ghoul rose up from behind a gravestone, moaning wordlessly. Before Nat could react, another creature appeared from behind another stone and charged at the wizard. Its stench was almost overpowering, and as its claws raked Nat, he felt his muscles threaten to freeze.

Another ghast appeared and charged towards Girrigz. Shadow summoned a Flaming Sphere between its legs, blackening its rotting flesh. Girrigz ran it through with his rapier, and it dropped to the ground.

But more ghouls began appearing all around them, some emerging from behind cemetery monuments while others climbed out of the burial pits. Amid the chaos, Wren cast Bless. Tomas fired off an arrow that took down the ghast threatening Nat, and Jax charged forward, placing himself between the wizard and an oncoming ghoul. It managed to slash him with one of its claws, and then a new enemy appeared. It looked like one of the ghasts, but it wore armor, and had a look of evil intelligence in its eyes. This dread ghast charged Jax, and he barely managed to evade its attack.

Its stench was even worse than the other one’s had been, and Nat found himself gagging and retching. He backed away as far as he could, thankful for Jax’s protection, and hammered the newcomer with Magic Missiles.

Erin summoned the power of Iomedae to Smite Evil, and swung at the ghoul in front of her, slicing it in two. Shadow fired off a round of Magic Missiles at one homing in on him, then redirected his Flaming Sphere to intercept it. The missiles hit, but it kept coming, dodging his flames. Girrigz swung at it, but missed. Tomas fired a pair of arrows at the ghoul attacking Jax, but with no better luck.

Jax was also sickened by the dread ghast’s stench, but backed away and fired off a spray of Burning Hands that caught both the dread ghast and the ghoul. The ghoul followed him, snapping at him with slavering jaws, but the dread ghast showed that it was capable of tactics; it circled around behind Jax, flanking him with the ghoul. Fortunately, all of their attacks missed their marks.

The horde of ghouls continued to advance. One bit Erin and another bit Shadow. Wren summoned a Spiritual Weapon that hammered one of the ghouls, but didn’t bring it down. Nat summoned an Orb of Light that flew from his open palm and slammed into the dread ghast’s back, almost sending it to its knees. Erin sliced the head off one ghoul, then raced into position behind the dread ghast. Tomas tried to hit it with arrows, but missed. Jax spun around, and stabbed his blade into the thing’s withered guts; with a final moan, it fell.

Shadow had an undead in his face; rather than retreat, he reached out and grabbed it by the throat, and his Shocking Grasp sent it to the Boneyard for good. His Flaming Sphere took out another. Wren was torn by whether to move to Jax’s aid or head off more attackers; she compromised by moving between the two, and cast a Channel Divinity that took down one ghoul and seared another with holy power. Nat fired a Force Missile at the one still threatening Jax, then Erin stepped forward and finished it off with her sword. Shadow’s Flaming Sphere rolled between the legs of the last ghoul standing, and soon it was the start of a funeral pyre.

With nothing else threatening to eat them, they cautiously moved to the lip of the burial pits. In one, they could see where the ground had collapsed into a deeper, darker space below. “Do we need to go down there?” Nat asked, still urping from the ghast’s stench.

Wren shook her head. “The Temple can send a crew to fill this pit in and seal off the opening. If there were more of these things anywhere near, they’d already be on us by now.”

They returned to the temple, where Sister Elanaina was relieved both to see them alive and to hear they’d dealt with the undead menace. “I still can’t believe you showed up when you did! It must have been the grace of Pharasma!”

“Actually, we were here looking for your help,” Wren said, and explained the situation with the suspect cure from Lavender. Elanaina’s face grew grim as she spoke. “Yes, this must be verified at once. I pray it’s a true cure, but … Our people with alchemy skills have been spending all their time working with our healers to create potions of Remove Disease, but I’ll assign one to analyze this right now. It might take a couple of hours to have the results.”

The group decided to wait. It actually took barely an hour before Elanaina returned, accompanied by a woman wearing a stained leather apron. She shook her head. “As far as I can tell, this concoction is nothing more than river water, sugar, and a little cheap perfume. I can’t imagine it having any healing properties whatsoever.”

Their suspicions confirmed, the stood to leave, but Elanaina stopped them. “You’ve already done so much – could I ask you for just one more favor?” Wren said “Yes” before anyone else had a chance to equivocate.

“As I said, the influx of plague victims has overwhelmed our normal procedures for handling the dead. We’ve ended up dividing responsibilities with the Church of Abadar: they collect the dead and bring them to us, and we inter the bodies. They’ve been hiring people to act as plague carters, and we’ve had reports that some of the less scrupulous one have been dumping their loads in out-of-the-way places rather than carry them all the way south to the Gray District. We fear that any collection of corpses could attract undead, and you’ve just seen what that would mean.

“There’s a place in Old Korvosa called Racker’s Alley, that we’ve heard has become a dumping ground for the dead. Would you check it out? If it is, we’ll send our own people to clean it out, rather than waiting for the Abadarans to clean up their own mess.”

Again, Wren agreed on the party’s behalf, and they left the temple with a new mission. But the sun was already at the horizon, and if they left for Old Korvosa now, they’d arrive after dark. Deciding that one more day couldn’t make that much difference, they returned to Zellara’s for much-needed rest.

First thing the next morning they checked each other for any signs of Blood Veil, then set off for Endrin Isle. Racker’s Alley ran between a run-down shop with ‘Giotorri’s Toys’ painted in chipped gilt paint over the door, and an equally run-down tailor’s shop. The high walls of the surrounding buildings threw this awkwardly bent alley into constant shadow. Although littered with garbage and filth, the refuse wasn’t the most stomach-turning trait of this rundown side way. Heaped against the left-hand wall of the alley rose a pile of more than three dozen plague victims, their faces blistered and flushed, eyes open and staring. The scent of death was overpowered by the reek of rot, suggesting that some of these corpses had been here for days.

The group stood at the mouth of the alley, unwilling to enter. Even at this distance, some of bodies seemed strangely pale compared to most of the victims who succumb to the sickness. “I think you should go check it out,” Nat said to Erin, counting on Iomedae’s blessings to protect her. Everyone else took a small step backwards, and Erin suddenly found herself at the front of the party.

She was no more anxious than anyone else to enter the alley of death, but she didn’t want to show that to the others, so she began to cautiously creep towards the corpses. Nat cast Message on her so he could communicate with her from a very safe distance. As she got closer to the pile, she spotted something that wasn’t obvious from the mouth of the alley. “There’s a hole in the wall back here,” she reported, pointing to the wall of the toy store. “The way the bodies are piled up, you can’t see it from the street.” The hole was large enough for someone to crawl into – or out of – and Erin was nervous.

Hearing this, Shadow went to the toy store and tried the front door. “It’s locked,” he told the others. “No problem,” Jax said confidently, pulling out his lockpicks. Two minutes later, he was cursing under his breath. “Pretty fancy lock for a crummy toy store,” he muttered.

Down in the alley, all of Erin’s attention was focused on the hole in the wall. She barely gave the corpses a second glance as she crept closer. No one seemed to be coming to support her from the street, so she supposed she was going to have to do it all herself. Taking a deep breath she pushed past the dead bodies and poked her head into the hole.

Dozens of glass eyes — crooked and crazed — glared from the heads of malformed and half-carved dolls lining skewed shelves of the toymaker’s workroom. Rat-gnawed stuffed aurochs, disembodied doll limbs, miniature rolling elephants, unseaworthy miniature wooden ships, and blocks illustrated with deformed or poorly painted animals filled bins and racks about the room. A cracked wooden door to the north apparently led to the shop’s front room. Directly across from her, a rickety trap door broke the line of the sawdust-covered floor. But what held her attention lay on the floor just to her left: the drying corpse of an old bald man amid the wood chips, rusty tools, and oily rags of a scored workbench.

“There’s a dead guy in here,” she whispered, and Nat relayed that information to the others. “Did he die from Blood Veil?” Nat asked on behalf of the team. That would require a closer inspection, and Erin wasn’t sure she wanted to make it. Hoping to reassure herself, she cast Detect Evil. Unfortunately, the spell revealed a constant thrum of an evil presence somewhere beneath her, under the trapdoor.

Moving as quietly as possible, she crawled into the room, then examined the body. She didn’t see any obvious symptoms of Blood Veil – just a series of puncture wounds up and down his neck. Gulping, she tried to breathe more quietly. He did have a ring of keys on his belt, and she removed them as quietly as possible, then opened the door and moved into the front room. Using one of the keys, she unlocked the front door and let the others in, grimacing as tiny bells above the door jingled merrily.

Awkwardly stitched stuffed animals, poorly equipped toy soldiers, and dolls exhibiting myriad accidental deformities stared blankly out of the filth-smeared front window of the toy store’s showroom. Several heavy-looking kites dangled purple and crimson tails from the ceiling above, and a dollhouse recreating Castle Korvosa’s intimidating towers dominated one of the room’s side tables. “Whatever else he was, poor Giotorri wasn’t a very good toymaker,” Tomas concluded, looking at the sad display of poor workmanship.

The group filed into the workroom, and Wren knelt to examine the body. Tomas spotted something under another workbench – a heavy wooden chest locked with a large padlock. “Give me those keys,” he said, and Erin tossed them to him. He quickly found the right key and the lock snapped open. Tomas raised the lid.

Inside were a collection of horrible "toys": a bright blue rubber ball studded with razor blades; a rocking horse whose seat was covered with broken glass; a jump rope  with a hangman’s noose at each end; a stuffed bear with dagger-like claws; doll's heads whose mouths were studded with what look like human teeth. The bear had bright blue fur, the dolls unnaturally blue eyes. As Tomas stared at the horrifying collection, he found it profoundly disturbing; it seemed to stir some memory that his conscious mind didn’t wish to acknowledge. “I guess Giotorri wasn’t just a bad toymaker,” Shadow said looking over Tomas’s shoulder. “He was a bad toymaker.”

Wren rose from her examination of Giotorri’s body. Despite the puncture wounds to the jugular and carotid, there was no blood around the body – or in it, for that matter. “It looks like he’s completely drained of blood,” she concluded. Wren and Erin exchanged meaningful looks. “Vampires,” they said as one, and all eyes went to the trapdoor.

“What do we know about vampires?” Nat asked in a very small voice. Wren proceeded to rattle off what she could remember. “Let’s see. They can’t stand exposure to direct sunlight, and usually sleep during the day. They recoil from mirrors and holy symbols. And they’re really hard to kill. Unless you drive a stake through their heart, cut off their heads, and anoint them with holy water, they’ll keep coming back.”

No one was anxious to be the first down the trapdoor. Nat cast Detect Magic, and sure enough, there was a glow from below. “Good!” Jax said, looking for the silver lining. “Magical loot for us!”

“No,” Nat whined. “Magic to be used against us.”

Finally Erin pulled open the trapdoor. Below was a dirt-floored crawlspace, less than four feet deep. It appeared to be the size of the room they were in, but it was hard to tell; it was crammed with stacks of lumber, paint cans, old tools, and dusty bolts of cloth that made the tiny space into a veritable maze. Tomas had been collecting scraps of wood from the worktables and sharpening them into makeshift stakes, and he handed those out. Erin gingerly lowered herself down into the crawlspace, and ducked her head to duck-walk into the room; Tomas followed. “Oh wait!” Erin called, remembering an important piece of lore she’d left out. “They’re more vulnerable to silver weapons.” She pulled out a vial of Silversheen and liberally coated Girrigz’s rapier with it. Shadow pulled out the odd silver dagger they’d gotten from Verik.

Erin moved slowly through the crawlspace, hearing others dropping down behind her. Wren dropped in a coin with Light cast on it, and Nat cast a Light spell of his own, but all the junk piled around the room sill limited her line of sight. But when she reached the center of the space, she could see behind some of the piles of lumber – and saw a pair of simple but solid coffins. She started a bit as she felt a wave of holy energy wash over her; from above, Wren had cast a Bless. Silently she pointed out the coffins to her comrades, then quietly moved around to reach to opposite side of the coffin; as she moved, she spotted a third coffin to the north. She and Shadow took up positions on one side of the coffin, while Jax moved in on the other side. Girrigz and Tomas positioned themselves in the center of the cramped space, while Nat was half in/half out of the trapdoor. Hand trembling, Erin reached out to open the coffin’s lid.

The PCs earned 1,033 XP, putting them at 13,593 with 15,000 needed for level 6. Start getting your 6^th level characters ready. Roger will be back-up on-call next week, but hopes to be there in person.