Through the Mists

Session 2: Thirteen Bells

At a glance

Summary

Bruised from the battle in the garden, the party claimed a table at the crowded Coachman’s Rest, ordered crab-apple cider, and allowed themselves a short respite. Across the room sat the pale halfling they had been warned about. During an entire hour, he ordered glass after glass of red wine but not a morsel of food.

Carver bought two more glasses and approached him under the pretense of discussing wine. The halfling stared strangely through the tabaxi, yet accepted both the drink and his company. He claimed to be waiting for a friend. When Carver explained that he had come to Rivalis to visit a deceased relative, the stranger replied, “I’ll go find them.” His body then dissolved into a pallid, ghostly mist. Rage swung at the vanishing apparition, but his weapon passed through empty air.

The pale halfling dissolving into mist as Rage's greataxe passes through him.

The pale stranger reveals his spectral nature. See the image record.

The manifestation stirred an old memory in Ignatius. His monastic studies had told of restless spirits that wandered in such forms. He could not name its precise nature, but he recognized it as some variety of ghost rather than the flesh-and-blood vampire the party had feared. The apparition is cataloged in these notes under its probable creature name: Haunted Visage.

As night deepened, the inn grew ever more crowded. Ignatius learned from Ewing Watergleen that mercenaries gathered at the Coachman’s Rest and that questions for the Baron were better taken to the town constable. More ominously, Ewing remarked that strange events had multiplied since Rivalis’s druids had left—and died.

Sister Elda, the Eternal Order attendant who had summoned the Book of Names, moved gracefully among the patrons and blessed them one by one. Carver asked her about the blue motes above the graves. She called them gravelights and said that only true believers could see them. When pressed on what they must believe, she answered: comfort, freedom, and a life well lived.

The party retired to rooms on the inn’s third floor. At midnight, Rivalis’s bell tolled thirteen times.

By morning, the Mists had withdrawn as they apparently did after every night. Ignatius completed his meditation, gathered his companions, and set out for the constable’s office with warm crusto pies in hand. They found Aldo at his customary corner. He was surprised that they had been able to see the ghost at all. Before paying them a single gold piece for their information, he inspected the reverse of Rage’s coin—an unexplained precaution that left another small question in its wake.

Three crows shadowed the party through the streets. Carver tossed them a piece of pie. One bird seized it before all three departed without so much as a wingbeat’s whisper. They would return before the morning was over.

At Rivalis City Hall, a secretary showed little surprise at the gray-root sample; growths of that size were unusual, she said, but hardly unheard of. The party was soon received by Chief Constable Von Anbach, an older human armored in plate. He accepted Carver’s sample and explained that failure to report gray growth could result in the seizure of one’s property. Rivalis was attempting to contain the rot within the Crystal Gardens, and citizens were expected to pull the evil from their own soil.

Von Anbach judged the party’s first growth to have been caught early: its roots were shallow and the creatures it produced little more than dumb animals. The deeper trouble began after the druids left, though he avoided saying why they had gone or what became of them. Only halflings were currently permitted inside the Crystal Gardens while the town attempted to reclaim them. In exchange for the sample, however, the constable agreed to put in a word with the Growmaster and secure the party an exception.

On the road to the Gardens, a halfling carrying an overflowing basket of vegetables collided with Rage and tried to pick his pocket. Rage caught him and demanded something of value in return. The would-be thief surrendered a clear vial containing dry ash. The silent crows watched from nearby.

The magnificent exterior beds of the Crystal Gardens had gone black. The decorated glass still caught the light beautifully, but the roses beneath it showed none of their promised color. Rage hacked through one of the dead bushes, sending worms writhing from the soil. Carver lifted one by magic and found, disconcertingly, that it was only an ordinary earthworm.

The commotion drew Growmaster Brambledu from a shed behind the Gardens. The elderly halfling charged at Rage in fury over the ruined rosebush, but Ignatius calmed him and turned the conversation toward the gray roots. Brambledu led the party into the rear Autumn Garden, a foul-smelling chamber of sickly yellow and fading gold. He spoke as though the decline had always been present: people forever said the druids had just left, yet everyone continued picking gray growth as they always had. His uncertain sense of time sat uneasily beside Ewing and Von Anbach’s evasions.

According to Brambledu, the corruption was worst around the Spring and Winter Gardens. The oldest growth, in the central Arboretum, remained healthiest. He permitted the party to investigate under one simple condition: they were not to touch anything.

They passed first into a humid, pristine Herboretum where a lone weasel slipped through the lush vegetation. Beyond it lay a smaller chamber illuminated by phosphorescent leaves. Violet fungi carpeted the floor and sang in a cacophony of overlapping voices. Two plants shifted to bar the exit, but Carver’s spectral hand quietly moved them aside.

In the main Arboretum, the illusion of health failed. Patches of gray death scarred the greenery, and something moved among the leaves. Rage began chopping at the rot while Carver opened his senses to magic. Beneath the garden, he perceived a luminous network like a vast nervous system, connecting plant to plant and converging beneath the great trees.

They followed the gray decay toward one of those roots and caught sight of a lurking figure. Rage’s thrown axe bit into it, and the garden erupted. One hulking, bark-covered blight and three smaller blights resembling twig blights surged against the party. The party never learned the creatures’ exact names. The smaller growths swarmed Ignatius while the greater creature hammered at Rage. Carver marked the smaller blights with faerie fire, incinerated one with a flaming orb, and drove a magically guided crossbow bolt through another. Ignatius struggled at first to land a telling blow against the resistant wood, then found his rhythm and dispatched the third with his dagger. Rage stood fast beneath the larger creature’s crushing limbs.

At last, Ignatius drew upon the magic granted by his Guide background and cast entangle, calling grasping vegetation around the alien creature and holding it fast. The party converged, and Rage ended the battle with a final hew of his greataxe.

Death did not leave the creature lying where it fell. The strange network beneath the soil drew its bark-covered remains back into the earth, as if the Gardens themselves were swallowing the evidence. The party salvaged only an organic, soil-like heart. They recognized that the thing was alien to Darkon.

The Crystal Gardens absorbing the defeated blight while Carver reaches for its alien heart.

The Gardens reclaim the creature that grew within them. See the image record.

Outside, Brambledu offered an explanation as troubling as the creature itself: a “nice grower” had donated it to the Crystal Gardens.

Once clear of immediate danger, Carver identified the vial taken from the pickpocket. Its ash was the remains of a Darkon corpse, fashioned into a Darkon Talisman—an object capable of guiding its bearer through the Mists and back to Darkon.

With a ghost’s promise behind them and an alien heart in hand, Ignatius, Rage, and Carver emerged from their first expedition into the Gardens stronger than before. Each reached level 2.

Key events

  1. The pale halfling revealed himself as a wandering ghost—probably a Haunted Visage—and vanished after promising to find Carver’s dead relative.
  2. Sister Elda explained that only “true believers” can see gravelights.
  3. Rivalis’s bell rang thirteen times at midnight.
  4. Three silent crows began following the party.
  5. Von Anbach accepted the gray-root sample and authorized the non-halfling party to enter the Crystal Gardens.
  6. A failed pickpocket surrendered a Darkon Talisman to Rage.
  7. The party met Growmaster Brambledu and explored the decaying Crystal Gardens.
  8. They destroyed an alien bark-covered creature linked to the Gardens by a magical network and recovered its heart.
  9. The party reached level 2.

Decisions and consequences

  • Carver approached the pale halfling diplomatically.
    • The party learned that the stranger was an apparition and heard its promise to seek their dead.
  • The party surrendered the gray-root sample to Von Anbach.
    • The constable arranged special entry into the otherwise halfling-only Crystal Gardens.
  • Rage punished the pickpocket by demanding something valuable.
    • The party acquired a Darkon Talisman made from corpse ash.
  • The party entered the Gardens despite Brambledu’s warning not to touch anything.
    • They discovered the magical network, slew an alien creature, and recovered its heart.

People

  • Sister Elda: Identified the blue grave-motes as gravelights visible only to true believers.
  • Chief Constable Von Anbach: Took the root sample and arranged the party’s access to the Gardens.
  • Growmaster Brambledu: Guided the party inside and revealed that an unknown grower donated the alien creature.
  • Aldo: Paid the party 1 gp for information confirming the pale halfling was a ghost.
  • Unnamed pickpocket: Gave Rage the vial later identified as a Darkon Talisman.

Places

  • Coachman’s Rest: Site of the Haunted Visage encounter and the thirteen midnight chimes.
  • Rivalis City Hall: Office of Chief Constable Von Anbach.
  • Crystal Gardens: The party explored the Autumn Garden, Herboretum, phosphorescent fungal chamber, and main Arboretum.

Clues, lore, and notable items

  • The probable Haunted Visage could appear solid, drink, speak, and dissolve into spectral mist.
  • Aldo was surprised that the party could see the apparition.
  • Sister Elda associated gravelights with belief in comfort, freedom, and a life well lived.
  • The Mists recede in the morning after pressing upon Rivalis at night.
  • Three crows followed the party and flew without sound.
  • Rivalis punishes failure to report gray growth with property seizure.
  • The gray corruption is being contained, with limited success, around the Crystal Gardens.
  • A magical network resembling a nervous system connects the Gardens’ plants.
  • The alien creature’s remains were absorbed into that network after its death.
  • A Darkon Talisman contains the ashes of a Darkon corpse and guides its bearer back to Darkon through the Mists.

Story threads

Rewards, losses, and character changes

  • The party received 1 gp from Aldo.
  • Carver surrendered the gray-root sample to Von Anbach.
  • The party acquired a Darkon Talisman made from corpse ash; Carver carries it as communal party loot.
  • The party recovered an alien organic heart from the bark-covered creature; Carver carries it as communal party loot.
  • Ignatius, Rage, and Carver each reached level 2.

Memorable moments

  • The Haunted Visage promised Carver, “I’ll go find them,” before dissolving into mist.
  • Rage broke Brambledu’s cardinal rule—do not touch anything—before the party had even entered.
  • Violet fungi filled an entire chamber with discordant song.
  • Ignatius struggled against the animated wood before binding the alien creature in place for Rage’s final blow.

Open questions

  • Whom was the Haunted Visage waiting for, and what did it mean by finding Carver’s deceased relative?
  • Why could the party see the apparition when Aldo apparently could not?
  • What makes someone a “true believer,” and what are the gravelights?
  • Why did the bell ring thirteen times at midnight?
  • Why did Aldo inspect the reverse of Rage’s gold coin?
  • Who controls or commands the silent crows?
  • What happened to Rivalis’s druids, and why do townspeople remember their departure so poorly?
  • Why are only halflings normally permitted inside the Crystal Gardens?
  • Who was the “nice grower,” and why was an alien creature donated to the Gardens?
  • What is the magical network beneath the Gardens?
  • Who created the Darkon Talisman, and how did the pickpocket acquire it?

Next session

  • Immediate situation: The party has survived the Arboretum and spoken with Brambledu about the donated creature.
  • Likely goals: Examine the alien heart, decide whether to report back to Von Anbach, and investigate the donor, druids, crows, or deeper corruption.

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