More Questions Than Answers

“This is what we get for trying to do someone a favor,” Nat thought as he blasted a zombie with a Force Missile. “Some pretty girl shows up looking for help to find her missing brother, and the next thing you know…” Now they were in a zombie-infested mansion, with some crazy elf-girl trying to kill them. Nat thought he’d turned the tables on her when he used See Invisibility to spot her, but then she’d somehow spun and tumbled past both Jax and him, leaped over the 2^nd-floor balustrade, and disappeared into the cloud of poisonous smoke obscuring the first floor below. Trusting that Jax could finish off the zombie he’d just zapped, Nat rushed for the stairs, figuring the biggest danger was now downstairs; Shadow followed, hot on his heels. Jax lived up to their trust; his blade cut the zombie down, her mask falling aside to reveal an elegant matron nearly a week dead.

Erin, Tomas, and Girrigz would probably have agreed with that assessment. They were battling a mob of undead nobles in the manor’s dining room. Tomas was standing on the dining room table, but still found himself hemmed in by clutching, rotting fingers. He stepped away from one, and sent an arrow through its skull, but another clawed him viciously in his leg. Griz sliced off that one’s head, then headed towards a closed door at the other end of the room, forgetting that there was still another zombie in the edge of the fog bank; it didn’t forget Griz, and left bleeding claw marks in its back. Erin, still in the fog, lashed out at the half-seen form in front of her, but her blow went wide.

And then the smoke evaporated. Finally, they could see again. Unfortunately, except for the one zombie fighting Erin there was nothing to see. And then a crossbow bolt zipped across the great hall, emitting an ear-splitting scream as it flew, and sank deep into Erin’s back, sending her staggering almost into the arms of the zombie in front of her. The mysterious elf appeared just inside the doorway to the manor’s den, singing another of her mad rhymes:

Ring around the rosie

Blood Veil’s kind of grossie

When you’re dead, I’ll smash your head

And then chop off your toesies

Wren couldn’t see the shooter, but she’d seen (and heard) the bolt fly across the room. She started to rush towards the action, but stopped herself; she needed to stay by the door, and make sure that no one escaped.

Nat had just made it to the landing of the stairway, and could just see the elf inside the den. He let fly with a volley of Magic Missiles that all hit home. Tomas, still on the dining room table, had a straight shot through the room’s double doors – except for the fact that Erin was directly between him and his target. Trusting his aim, he let fly with a pair of arrows. One zipped past her right ear and one zipped past her left, but both found their mark in the mad elf.

Erin abandoned the remaining zombie, risking its attack of opportunity as she charged the elf; unfortunately, fog or no fog, she didn’t seem to be able to hit anything. Jax, who’d followed Nat down the stairs, hit the elf with a set of his own Magic Missiles.

Nearly at the end of her rope, the elf dropped her hand crossbow and threw up her hands. “I know things that you don’t know,” she chanted in a sing-song voice, giving Erin a wink and a grin.

“So educate me,” Nat snapped, coming up behind Erin.

“Educate you? Well, let’s see. 2 plus 2 equals 4. 4 plus 4 equals 8. Are you writing this down? 8 plus …” Her lesson ended with a gasp as an arrow buried itself in her chest. An instant later, another arrow zipped past Nat and Erin and pierced her throat. She slid backwards on the marble floor, her eyes staring unseeing at the ceiling above. “I didn’t want to hear anything more out of her mouth,” Tomas growled from two rooms away.

While this drama had been unfolding in the great hall, Griz had been exploring the back of the house. The door he’d seen had led into a small passage with a set of stairs leading down into a cellar, as well as another door. Deciding the cellar was best left for later, he opened the new door, and found himself in the manor’s kitchen. A pair of what he assumed had been the estate’s servants held large carving knives, and were pantomiming carving up a noble’s corpse on the table in front of them, an apple stuffed into its mouth. They turned as he opened the door, but he dropped the first one with a single swipe of his rapier. The other took two swipes, and Griz berated himself for his sloppy swordwork.

Back in the great hall, Jax finished off the last dining room zombie with a Magic Missile, and everyone looked around for more enemies. Seeing none, they fanned out to search the rest of the house. While Shadow rifled the elf’s body (at least they assumed it was Shadow – he’d cast Vanish on himself as he’d come down the stairs, and now they just saw the elf’s pockets emptying themselves), Erin passed through the den, and into a room that might have once been the lord of the manor’s office; it held dead bodies but none rose to confront her. There was another closed door, and she approached it, but waited for Nat and Jax to join her.

Griz had finished off the kitchen staff, and made a quick pass through the kitchen and pantry. He, too, found a closed door, but with no backup in sight, didn’t hesitate to pull it open. He found himself looking into what might have been a recital hall, with floor-to-ceiling windows that would have looked out over the grounds (before they were shuttered). On a low dais, a zombie dressed as a blue-winged angel strummed at a large standing harp, even though all of the harp’s strings were broken. Four more costumed corpses sat in chairs, as though listening to the silent performance. As he opened the door, they all turned to face him.

At the same moment, Erin opened her door into the same room. Seeing a room packed with undead, she didn’t waste time with her sword; instead, she Channeled the power of Iomedae, and a wave of holy energy washed through the room. Nat sent a flight of Empowered Magic Missiles over her shoulder, and the harpist and one of his audience dropped to the floor. Between Force Missiles from everyone capable of casting them and Girrigz’s deadly blade, the other zombies didn’t stand a chance.

From what they could tell, they had been in every room in the house except for the cellar. Before going down, everyone was clamoring for healing, so Wren finally left her post by the door, and began calling upon Pharasma to aid her friends. She examined Jax, Griz, and Shadow closely; their faces were covered with hideous tumors and the skin all over the bodies was breaking down. “I don’t know what this is,” she said after checking them closely, “but I’m pretty sure it’s some sort of disease. I think that smoke must have been infected with something.” She cast her one remaining Remove Disease spell on Jax. Even though she had created a handful of Remove Disease scrolls, she decided to let Shadow and Griz take their chances for now.

“Man, you wouldn’t believe all the stuff that elf had!” said Shadow, holding up a fistful of wands. “We should take a few minutes and check this all out.”

“We should check the cellar first,” said Erin. “Ruan might be down there – or worse.”

The group cautiously descended the stairs. The cellar was well stocked with bottles and casks of wine, and enough food to feed, say, a few dozen people for at least 2-3 weeks. In the far corner was a wooden door. It was locked, and Jax’s attempts at picking the lock went for naught, so they resorted to bashing it down. Inside was a small art studio, equipped with a easel, painting supplies, and a small divan. A number of scandalous portraits of a middle-aged woman hung on the walls; Jax recognized her as the zombie he’d killed in the bedroom upstairs.

A terrified looking man crouched in front of them, brandishing a dull paint knife in his trembling hand. Griz was the first one through the door, and at the sight of the wererat the man let out a shriek. “Don’t kill me! Please, don’t hurt me!” It took some doing, but the group was finally able to convince him that they were there to rescue him, not kill him. Tomas recognized him as Ausio Carowyn, the master of Carowyn Manor.

“It was just supposed to be a big party,” he explained to their questions. “With Blood Veil spreading through the city, we knew the best way to stay safe was just to lock ourselves inside. But what’s the fun in that? So we invited all our friends to join us for a weeks-long masquerade ball. Once everyone was here, we dismissed the servants, except for two cooks, and locked the doors and barred the windows. Everyone was just going to wait for the plague to burn itself out.

“But then that elven acrobat we’d hired went crazy and started killing people! I saw her shooting my guests in the back with her crossbow, laughing in the most frightful, shrill way! And some of the guests started killing each other, too! I was terrified, and ran down here and locked myself away. Every time I’ve worked up the courage to sneak out for a little food or wine, I’ve heard that horrible laughter above. Is she dead? Oh my gods! What about my wife – is she alright?”

Wren told him as gently as possible that they had found no survivors in the rest of the house (leaving out the fact that half or more of the guests had been animated zombies). Carowyn broke down, and when he finally regained enough composure, she asked him about the missing musician. “We came here looking for a musician – a Varisian youth with bleached-blond hair – do you recall him?”

“You mean Ruan Mirukova? Yes, most of the entertainers were just hired by an agency for us, but we specifically requested young Mirukova – we thought having him entertain our guests would be a coup for us.”

“Do you know what happened to him?”

“The last I saw him, he was performing with the other musicians in the gallery.”

“What about the elf? What was her name and what was she doing here?”

Carowyn shook his head. “She was just an acrobat the agency hired. I don’t think I ever heard her name.”

Leaving Carowyn in the cellar (the sight of the slaughterhouse his home had become would likely have been too much for him), they searched the house carefully. In the upstairs gallery, they found several corpses in matching costumes that might have been the musicians, but although they found a broken ocarina (Ruan’s chosen instrument) none of the dead musicians matched his description. Carowyn had given them a guest list; counting dead bodies and comparing to the list suggested that all the guests seemed to be accounted for. Examining the bodies of the zombies they confirmed what Wren had already seen: the apparent symptoms of Blood Veil on the dead bodies were magically faked. As they began to use Spellcraft on the elf’s possessions, they found the means: a Wand of Sculpt Corpse, an obscure necromancy spell that allows one to alter the appearance of a dead body. She also had a Wand of Animate Dead, mostly used up. Shadow began to try to piece together what might have happened.

“It looks like she started killing people, probably one or two in secret at first and using her Animate Dead to bring them back as zombies under her control. The masks would have helped hide the fact that they were dead. Once she was found out, she went on a killing spree, and had a growing gang of zombies to help her. Everyone would have been locked inside, unable to escape, and with no means to defend themselves. Then, after they were all dead, she went around and made it look like they’d all died of Blood Veil.”

“But why?” Jax asked the question on all their minds. “Why make it look like they had Blood Veil? Why kill them in the first place?”

“Because she was crazy,” Tomas growled. He saw no reason to question her motives when they were obviously beyond reason to begin with.

“That may be, but there also may be more to it than that,” Wren said, shaking her head. “She wanted to tell us something at the end – she said she knew things. What did she know? What was her connection to Rolth, and what part did he play in this? And what happened to Ruan? How did he get out? And were there others?” They looked down at the mysterious elf, still staring blankly at nothing. Whatever secrets she held had died with her.

Among the elf’s possessions they found a Potion of Remove Disease, and Shadow guzzled it down. Griz was confident in his ability to recover on his own. Satisfied they’d found everything there was to be found in the house, they led Ausio Carowyn out of his charnel house. They went straight to Cressida Kroft to report the murders, handing over the guest list of over three dozen of Korvosa’s most prominent citizens. Leaving Carowyn in the Guard’s care, they returned to their home base at Zellara’s.

But they weren’t alone. Wrapped in a set of drapes from the manor they carried the dead body of the mad elf. “We didn’t get answers today,” Wren said grimly, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t get them tomorrow.”

The next morning, Wren spent half an hour casting Lesser Restorations on all the people who had suffered ailments of one sort or another the previous day. It still wasn’t enough to get everyone back to full strength, but it was a start. Then she unwrapped the elf’s body; she was starting to ripen, but not too badly for what Wren had in mind.

“I’m only going to get three questions,” she said as she prepared to cast her spell. She was immediately inundated with suggestions from the rest of the group. Taking it all in, she cast Speak with Dead, then focused her attention on the dead elf.

“There was a musician at the party – a young Varisian with brown hair dyed blonde at the tips: Ruan Mirukova. What happened to him?”

The elf’s lips and jaw didn’t move, but a voice emerged from her mouth, hollow and distant. “He flew away with the birdies.” The elf’s voice had lost its amused sing-song, but her spirit apparently still held onto some of its personality.

Wren looked at the others in confusion. “Was there some exit we missed, someplace where a bird could have flown out?”

Nat shook his head. “Don’t you get it? Birdies – birds – she’s talking about those bird-masked Queen’s Physician guys.”

Wren put that thought on hold for the moment and moved to her next question. “Where is Rolth?”

“I don’t know,” came the sepulchral response.

“You don’t … well that’s totally useless!” Wren huffed in frustration. She was getting desperate for some had information. She decided to go for the big one. “What was the secret you wanted to tell us before you died?”

“What you wanted to know,” was all the elf’s body said before the magic left it.

“What the hell! That’s not an answer!” Wren practically screamed at the corpse. “You said you had something you wanted to tell us!”

“No,” Shadow said, trying to calm Wren, “think about what she actually said. She said she knew things. Things we didn’t know. I think maybe she’d have been willing to answer our questions.”

“Well, what did she know?” Wren said, not at all mollified. “Why wouldn’t she just tell us? I’m not done with you,” she snarled at the dead elf. “Just wait until tomorrow – we’re going to do this again!”

If Wren was intent on continuing to question the dead elf, the others weren’t willing to continue to share their living quarters with a rotting corpse. Wrapping her back up in the drapes, they hauled her back across town to the Gray District, where Wren convinced one of her colleagues to cast Gentle Repose on the body. Satisfied she’d last until tomorrow, they set out on their next mission: to check on the health of the families they’d seen being visited by the Queen’s Physicians yesterday. They returned to the neighborhood and knocked on the door where they’d conducted a ‘customer satisfaction survey’ the previous day. The same woman opened the door, surprised to see them again. “Is there a problem?” she asked worriedly. “Was there something wrong with our answers?”

“Oh no,” Shadow said cheerfully. “We just wanted to follow up, see how you were all feeling. Is everyone still well?”

“Yes, we’re all fine,” the woman replied, growing even more worried. “Shouldn’t they be? Do you know something we don’t know?”

Shadow did his best to reassure her, then excused himself. When her door was firmly shut, he turned to the others and shrugged.

“Well that was a surprise,” Wren said. “I was sure they’d all be sick.”

“I guess taking that blood doesn’t infect them with Blood Veil after all,” Nat agreed reluctantly. “But if that’s not it, then what is it for?”

The group split up. Some went to report to Ruan’s sister, Deyanira. She tearfully identified the broken ocarina as belonging to her brother, but was relieved to hear that they hadn’t found his body. “Please – keep looking for him,” she begged. The others dispersed through the city, trying to upgrade their equipment. It took longer to find blacksmiths and merchants who were still doing business, and their inventory was much more sparse than normal, but they were able to find most of what they wanted.

The next day dawned with Wren determined to question the dead elf again. But Jax advised a different course. “Let’s think about what she did tell us. She said the ‘birdies’ took Ruan. If we assume she’s talking about the Queen’s Physicians, where might they have taken the kid?”

“Well, they were setting up that hospital a few days ago,” said Shadow. “If he had Blood Veil, they’d probably have taken him there.”

“We don’t have any reason to think he had Blood Veil,” Wren pointed out. “No one else there did.”

“Even so, if the Queen’s Physicians took him, there’s a good chance that’s where they’d have gone. It’s worth at least checking out.”

So they set out for the Hospice of the Blessed Maiden. It was a former warehouse not far away. When they’d been here a few days ago to speak to Dr. Davaulus, it had still been in the process of being transformed into a hospital. Now it appeared to be in full operation. They milled about in the street outside, unwilling to risk the exposure of venturing into a building potentially full of Blood Veil victims. All eyes turned to Erin, the only one of them believed to be immune to the disease. Realizing what was expected, Erin gave a sign, and pushed through the door.

She was met with the stinging scent of alcohol and medicine, an odor typical of hospitals — and morgues. A long wooden desk sat across from the entrance, beyond which a stained leather curtain covered an archway, muffling the moans and coughing issuing from the rooms beyond. The burly nurse they’d met before, Bhrunlida Torthus, sat behind the desk; she had at least three scarves tied across her nose and mouth and wore long leather gloves that reached almost to her elbows. She barely looked up as Erin entered, tapping a sign-up sheet on the desk in front of her. Half a dozen citizens sat in chairs around the shabby entryway, each showing obvious symptoms of Blood Veil.

“Hi – do you remember me?” Erin said in what she hoped was a friendly tone.

“You must vait your turn,” Bhrunlida said gruffly, tapping the sign-up sheet again.

“But I’m just here looking for someone,” Erin said cheerfully. “Don’t mind me – I’ll just take a look around.” Without waiting for permission, she strolled past the desk towards the heavy leather curtain.

“Halten zie! You must vait! Zis ist not allowed. Halt! INTRUDER!”

Erin pushed the curtain open, confident in her ability to handle a nurse if necessary. But she found herself looking into a scene from a nightmare. The warehouse’s vast interior had been converted into one gigantic convalescent ward. The stench of alcohol, sickness, and waste choked her breath, and tight rows of low, stained cots crammed the stone-floored hall. Every bed was filled with a pitiful story — men and women of all walks groaning and wheezing as they were consumed by blood veil, their sufferings multiplied by the echoing chamber. Several bird-masked Queen's Physicians circulated among the cots, tending to the victims.

But Erin’s gaze was quickly pulled away from the dozens of dying people to a much more urgent (for her) issue. Alerted by Bhrunlida’s warning, a pair of heavily armored Gray Maidens hurried towards Erin, drawing their swords. Twenty feet above, a network of metal catwalks spanned the open room. When the building had been a warehouse, the catwalks allowed workers to move heavy loads around by means of a system of pulleys and rails; now, they provided overhead guardposts for several more Gray Maidens who had longbows trained directly on Erin’s heart.

“You’re not allowed back here!” One of the Gray Maidens had reached Erin, and held her sword up menacingly. “Can’t you see there are sick people here? Get out now!”

“But I’m just looking for someone,” Erin gulped trying to sound convicing. “Ruan!” she called loudly, hoping that if the musician was here, he’d respond. But nothing came back but more coughing; if Ruan was one of these poor souls, she realized he might not even be strong enough to respond if he did hear her.

“You’re disturbing the patients!” the Gray Maiden said accusingly. Her partner had joined her. “Get out now, or suffer the consequences!”

Discretion being the better part of valor, Erin retreated. She reported what she’d seen to her friends outside. “Why do they need a bunch of Gray Maidens armed to the teeth guarding a hospital?” Shadow mused, but no one had an answer. They made a circuit of the building, looking for another way in. In the back they found what had once been the building’s loading dock, but the broad wooden doors had been boarded shut. They could probably break through, but not without creating quite a racket.

Back in front of the Hospice, her friends urged Erin to make another try. “You just need ask more nicely,” Shadow suggested helpfully. He hadn’t been the one staring down half a dozen heavily armed royal bodyguards, but eventually Erin was shamed into making one more attempt.

As soon as she entered, Bhrunlida was out of her seat, hand on the hilt of a sword Erin hadn’t noticed her wearing before. “Troublemaker!” she said accusingly. “You vill not follow der rules und you make trouble for der zick people und der doctors. You must go now.”

Erin had learned much in her training as a paladin: swordplay, and tactics, and religious doctrine. Now she resorted to the dirtiest trick she knew, one she had learned from her little sister Brigitte many years ago: she began to cry.

“Please,” she wept, willing the tears to come. “I’m just looking for someone. He’s my brother. My little brother, Ruan. We can’t find him, and I’m afraid he might be in here.” The tears became more real as the pain and terror of losing a younger sibling came back to her.

Bhrunlida softened. “Your brother? I too haf a brother – little Wilhelm. I vould be crushed if something happened to him. Let me have a look.” She pulled a folder out of her desk and flipped through page after page. “Nein – ve do not haf anyone listed under that name. But many of our patients come in mit no name. Vat does your brother look like?” Erin described the missing musician, and Bhrunlida ducked her head through the curtain for a brief conversation with one of the Physicians. “Vait ein moment,” Ten minutes later, the Physician emerged and had a short whispered conversation with Bhrunlida, shaking his head. “I’m sorry,” she told Erin with genuine sympathy. “Ve do not haf anyone here matching your brother’s description. But zat is a good thing, no?”

Erin thanked her new friend, and reported to the group. “Well, at least we know he’s not here.”

“Assuming they’re telling the truth,” Tomas said suspiciously. “Or that they’re not holding him somewhere else. And I’m like Shadow – I don’t understand why they need all those guards. This is the last place in Korvosa anyone would want to get in to.”

They let Wren lead them back to the Gray District, where she was determined to wring something useful out of the dead elf, even if she had to kill her again to get it. She cast her spell, and they could almost hear the corpse take a breath.

She started with the necromancer they’d been chasing since the Dead Warrens. “Where would you look for Rolth if you wanted to find him now?”

“I’d just wait for him to return to me at the mansion,” came the ghostly response.

“Where did the ‘birdies’ take Ruan, the musician?”

“I don’t know.”

Wren swore under her breath – another wasted question. She wracked her brain for something she could ask that would force the dead elf to say something useful. Time was running out on her spell, so at last she asked, “Why did they take Ruan and not the others?”

“Because he is Varisian.”

That took them all by surprise. “What does she mean by that?” Tomas asked.

Wren was thinking back to all the bodies she’d seen in Carowyn Manor. “The others – the ones she killed. None of them were obviously Varisian.” Perhaps because she was ethnically Varisian herself, she was more attuned to the differences, after a lifetime of mostly unintended slights from the descendents of Chelish colonists who had settled Korvosa and now ruled Varisia’s original inhabitants. “They were all Chelish, or at least mostly of Chelish blood.”

“Maybe the doctors were trying to save Ruan, to get him out before the bloodbath,” Jax hypothesized, but Tomas shot him down.

“No, Ruan was locked in when the killing started, just like all the others. Carowyn saw him there. For some reason, she killed the others, but spared Ruan, then they took him away later.”

“And she said she’d wait for Rolth to come back to her at the mansion,” Wren said. “That means Rolth had already been there once – probably to collect Ruan. But why?”

“Is it some class war thing?” Jax wondered. “Kill the rich and spare the poor?”

Shadow shook his head. “Blood Veil is killing far more poor people than rich ones. Hell, the Queen has already all but written off all of Old Korvosa. There’s got to be something else. Something we’re missing.”

Perhaps if the elf had been allowed to live, she might have answered some of these questions. But she was dead, and they were learning that the dead don’t give up their secrets easily.

The PCs earned 3,350 XP for clearing Carowyn Manor and are now at 6^th level, with 23,000 XP required for level 7.