The Shadow Within, Part 2

From The Griffin's Crier
Jump to: navigation, search


About the Saga

The Blackraozrs investigate the brutal murder of one of their own: Calvin Cloudmore, Billet of St. Cuthbert.

Timeframe

Cast of Characters

Notable Quotes

"What other creatures to we know that can walk through shadows and have claws capable of draining the life from someone?" -- Erilar

What Has Come Before

The Blackrazor Gaiseric has been shaken down by members of the Sellsword Guild. He has just awoken in his Shop of the Mundane, badly beat and somewhat shocked to have found he’s been unconscious for nearly 19 hours -- a fact he does not share with his fellow Blackrazors. Read The Shadow Within, Part 1

The Saga

Flocktime 18, CY 591

Murder in the Mudsitters District

Immediately after waking on Flocktime 18, Scrappy checked himself for any of the Sellsword’s promised marks. He found none, but did find too many bruises to count. He immediately ran to the Temple of Pursuit in the Wharf District in hopes of securing magical healing and the aid of his long-time friend, Kalib Ironfist.

Once there, he found that Kalib was not present. Instead, his cohort Ellington was in charge of the temple. After hearing Scrappy’s story, the cleric of Trithereon agreed to heal the rogue’s wounds, and retain a letter for Kalib.

Scrappy then headed to the Blackrazor Guild Hall to find more of allies, all the while plotting how he would regain his lost coin from the Sellswords, and take revenge against both them and their sponsors, the Darksea Guild. Perhaps he should start by burning down one of the Darksea warehouses…

Arriving at the guild hall, he was shocked to find its normal early morning alcoholic haze punctured by a bustle of activity. He entered the guild hall and was immediately drawn aside by Tempest, the guild’s weaponmaster. The man looked relieved to see the rouge, and quickly explained. “This … boy” he said, nodding his head toward an individual wearing simple brown robes, an innocent but worried expression, and a face that couldn’t be older than 16, “says that Calvin Cloudmore … has been murdered.”

The weaponmaster did not seem particularly upset about this, although he and Calvin had once served in the Grindsmen, his time with that North Aeridan mercenary band had come after Cal’s. And besides that, Cal was a Cuthbertian do-gooder, one who’d converted after his time with the Grindsmen. And while Tempest no longer ran with those mercenaries, his change of heart had to do with the color of the coin the Blackrazors paid him, rather than any religious revelation. Indeed, he seemed more bothered that the young Cuthbertian before him was disrupting his normally peaceful morning routine.

Scrappy, however, was concerned. And he wasn’t the only one. At that moment, three other notable Blackrazors walked up to see what the commotion was. The first two were relatively new recruits, but were more senior than most of the redshirts -- elven fighter Baelen; and the halfling sorcerer Fontain. Accompanying them was the elven archer Erilar. Relieved to see a few familiar faces in the guild hall, Scrappy spoke to the Cuthbertian saying “follow us into the office.”

He did so, and moments later the young man was spilling out the gruesome details of the murder before the three Blackrazors (Tempest having stayed outside to whip – figuratively or literally -- any redshirt who tried to get too listen in at the office door).

“It … it’s horrible sirs,” the boy said. “Billet Cloudmore was … well … murdered this morning. Oh it was so horrible …” he said, shaking. “He chest was sliced open and the blood … there was blood everywhere. Everywhere…”

Scrappy let the kid finish, then asked “What was your name again?”

“Ummm … Bollock sir. Acolyte sir. Of the Church of St. Cuthbert sir,” the youngling sputtered.

“I see … where did you say this happened? And when?”

Bollock struggled to control his anxiety, and failed. “In … in his room sir! In the parsonage, next to the orphanage. You know … the Caring Cudgel? Thank Cuthbert that Clara wasn’t there…”

“Clara?” Scrappy asked, a little confused.

“Oh … ah, yes… Clara. Cal’s wife.”

“I see … alright … take us to the parsonage immediately.”

The young Cuthbertian nodded and then sprinted for the door, nearly knocking himself unconscious in his eagerness to open it. While leaving the office, the Blackrazors were surprised to see Tempest waiting for them with yet another new face. This one was yet another elf wearing battle armor. He bore a regal air that was extremely uncommon – and out of place – for the Blackrazor Guild, and it was clear he was not used to stepping over vomit-soaked piles of saw-dust, and thought little of the bleary eyed guilders who surrounded him. “Greetings,” he said, brushing some dust that may or may not have settled on his breast plate. “I am Lord Elrandir, guild liaison for Field General Tanevier Calywyn. I have been sent to insure that all is in readiness among the guild participating in the upcoming offensive in the Principality.” The look on his face conveyed what he though of the Blackrazor Guild’s current state of chaos.

Scrappy glanced at the others, and before he could speak, the elf Baelen spoke. “Well met Elrandir. Unfortunately, we’re in the middle of a crisis right now. One of our members, a Cuthbertian named Calvin Cloudmore, has gone and gotten himself murdered. We need to investigate the crime before we can talk about any war preparations.”

Elrandir nodded thoughtfully. “I am sure that Lord Tanevir would want me to aid you in the quick resolution of this matter. I will accompany you.”

The others did not protest, and soon they were all following Bollock into the depths of the Mudsitters District, and to the parsonage of Calvin Cloudmore.

The Impossible Wounds

A large crowd had already gathered outside the Cuthbertian parsonage and the nearby Caring Cudgel Orphanage by the time the Blackrazors arrived. The innermost portion of the crowd were sitting in the mud, holding hands and singing a mourning dirge popular with their Saint, while a larger crowd stood in a ring around them, swaying and softly muttering the parts of the hymn they knew.

They worked their way through the mourners, finally arriving at the front door, where a distraught looking man who identified himself as the head steward, Gerlic. “Sirs, thank you, thank you so much for coming on such notice.” He guided them into the parsonage.

“It’s so horrible sirs … the way it happened I mean. Killed in his own bed, still wearing his bed clothes. Did even wake up it appears. Horrible, absolutely horrible.”

“Yes, yes … his murderer gets further away the longer you dither man,” Erilar broke in. “Take us to his room immediately – we want to see the body.”

Gerlic wrong his hands. “Ah, yes, well Sir Elf … the servants are already preparing Cal’s body for possible resurrection. Clearning it and such you know … it … it’s is ritual. And High Priest Iron Soul … he is on his way over as we speak.”

Erilar glowered. “You … moved … the body?”

“Well … yes,” Gerlic said, averting his gaze and trying to find a friendlier face among the other Blackrazors. “We … we needed to begin cleaning the room after all … all that blood you know…”

“Clean the room?” Erilar roared, letting loose with a fury honed by months of fighting giants in his homeland of Geoff. “You have people cleaning the room? You idiot! Send someone to order whoever is in there to stop cleaning, or so help me…” His threat hung in the air.

Gerlic, eying the elf’s deathgrip on his bow, bowed feebly. “Y-y-yes Sir Elf. Immediately Sir Elf.” He turned to a servant cowering in a nearby door frame. “Y-y-you … g-g-go to the second floor and do as Sir Elf demands”. The servant did as he was asked, and scampered as quickly as possible toward Cal’s bedroom.

The head steward lead Blackrazors into the kitchen, though they hardly needed the guide -- a thick trail of coagulating blood led the way for them.

In the kitchen they found the fallen Blackrazor lain out on the kitchen table, an uneven lake of red-black blood covering much of the floor. The growth of the sickening pool had finally stopped as Calvin’s body grew ridged with death. Two servants stood around, him, blood-soaked clothes in hand, buckets filled with stained water near by. One look from the elf was enough to send them running.

Erilar wasted time and stepped close to the body. The Cuthbertians had been correct … though Cal’s nightshirt was soaked with blood, it didn’t bear a single tear. He pulled the shirt back, and was confronted by a gory site – deep cuts had been carved in Cal’s flesh. He didn’t need to look long to know what had caused them – long, razor-sharp talons. No, not razor sharp. Keener even than that. But how, if they were able to do such horrific damage to the cleric’s torso, had they left his nightshirt untouched?

“No one changed him, right? These are the clothes he was found in?” Erilar growled.

Gerlic nodded, looking at though he was barely keeping down whatever meal he’d had last. “He is as we found him sir. Well, aside from the blood we cleaned away.”.

Erilar pulled Cal’s nightshirt back down, concealing the priest’s grievance wounds. There was something … wrong … with them. Beyond the shear brutality of them, there was a sense of … evil. Darkness. Corruption. He could see recognition of this sensation in the eyes of his fellow Blackrazors.

“Alright,” he said quietly. “Let’s see the room.”

The Scene of the Crime

Gerlic’s command had worked. The servants cleaning Cal’s room had fled as quickly as those in the kitchen. The room was as simple as Cal had been. The floor was wood with a bare brown carpet, and simple white drapes covered the wood-shuttered windows. The bed in the center of the room consisted of a solid oak frame holding a straw-filled mattress.

The mattress was clearly sagging under the weight of the blood of it had absorbed, and even now a few sluggish dropped could be heard faintly falling to the floor. The pool of blood here had been greatly diminished by the efforts of the servants, although great reddish smears still marred the floor.

Looking around the room, it quickly became clear that as with Cal’s nightshirt, no damage had been done to the sheets covering the bed. The assailant had some how managed to bypass the fabric, yet still slice the cleric open like a roast pig.

An examination of the room revealed no tracks or talon marks – it was as though Cal’s killer had been a ghost. It was … disturbing.

Gerlic began speaking softly as the Blackrazors examined the room. “Cuthbert be blessed for sparing Clara this sight and for waking those children. That’s what brought her over to the orphanage before the murder you know. The children. They’d woken screaming from a nightmare, and one of the nannies came over to ask Clara to calm them. Clara never could refuse comfort for a crying child, and left to help.”

He sighed. “Yes, thank the Saint for blessings both great and small. At least Cal can know that this was spared his beloved.”

“We’ll want to speak to those children,” Scrappy said, matching the head steward’s quiet tone. Erilar, his anger spent some, nodded his assent and said “Gerlic – did you say that Ironsoul is on his way here?”

Gerlic brightened slightly at the mention of the high priest of his faith. “Yes. He would have been here sooner, but he needed to gather certain divine tools to aid him in Cal’s resurrection.”

At that moment, a runner came up the stairs and bowed to Gerlic. Steward, High Priest Ironsoul has arrived. He is in the kitchen now with Billet Cloudmore.”

Erilar gave the room a final look. “We’re done here.” Then he headed downstairs, his friends quickly following.

An Irretrievable Soul

Scrappy couldn’t help but grimace as they entered the kitchen again, and his discomfort had nothing to do with the corpse on the table. Ironsoul, wearing his plain but well-made brown and grey robes, stood over Cal’s body. A look of consternation was on his old, tired looking face. The lines in his face normally looked as though they’d been etched; tonight they looked as though they’d been carved deeper still by dreadful experience.

And his eyes …. Scrappy’d spent far too much time under those overly attentive eyes, rebuilding walls, painting fences and otherwise serving the church as payment for being raised from the dead. He’d felt those eyes on him, watching every move, intent on punishing the slightest error with a blow from his cudgel. Scrappy willed himself not to look away from the cleric’s gaze … but it was a battle he quickly knew he couldn’t win. He dropped eyes to the floor, and let Erilar take the lead.

“Ah, Erilar of the Blackrazors. Good of you to come in this time of need,” Ironsoul said gruffly. Gaiseric … you are welcome here as well. The Saint knows you spent enough time helping to build this place. As for the rest of you, if you are friends of these, then you are friends of mine.”

The old man backed away from Cal’s body, resting his hand on the handle of his cudgel as he did so. “You, no doubt, are eager for me to contact Billet Calvin’s soul, to summon him here to tell us who committed this murder. I have tried. Indeed, I have tried several times, but while I can feel that his soul wants to communicate … he is some how blocked. And I fear I know why.”

He leaned forward to pull back Calvin’s shirt. “These wounds are not natural. Of course, you knew that by the fact that Billet Calvin’s nightshirt was untouched despite the grevious wounds underneath. But just how unnatural you do not know … though some of you may sense. I summoned Cuthbert’s will to detect the presence of evil on Brother Calvin’s corpse, and I found that his wounds radiate a strong vile presence. So strong, in fact, that I have never seen anything quite like it. I am not sure what could have caused this my friends, but I fear that it is this aura that prevents me from speaking with the good billet.”

He gently drew the shirt back down. “I’m also afraid it will also prevent me from raising him back into the land of the living. His soul is blocked … I can not say how, but I know this to be true. And it worries me greatly.”

"So you have any idea what might have done this?" Erilar asked, the menace in his voice barely subdued.

Ironsoul shook his head. "I have lived many a long year. I have seen terrible monsters beyond number. And no, I have never seen anything quite like this." He looked back to Cal's body. "I will return to the church and continue to investigate this assault by more fully drawing upon the divine will of the Saint. I ask you to continue your own investigations, and to keep me informed of your discoveries, as I will mine." After muttering a final blessing in Cal's direction, the old man left. As soon as he did so, followers moved into the room and began preparing Calvin's body for transport.

The Orphanage

The Blackrazors found it suspicious that Calvin's wife Clara was called away just before murder, and so decided to head to the Cuthbertian orphanage next door. Upon their arrival they found Clara comforting a young child -- a boy of perhaps four years of age. She handed the child over to a co-worker as the Blackrazors entered. "Ah, you must be Erilar. And Scrappy! Calvin has told me much about you," she said, nodding to the elf. Erilar quickly conducted the introductions, and then said "This will be … difficult for you", the elf said, forcing his tone to be conciliatory. "But we need to know why you were called away from the house."

Clara ordered the child taken from the room, and then explained that she had been woken by the orphanage's steward after two children awoke screaming from nightmares. They were inconsolable, and were disturbing the other children. Clara came and was able to calm them through a combination of a kind words and a weak sedative potion. "They both said they saw a man -- a shadow man -- moving around in their rooms, even walking through their walls. I dismissed it as a nightmare but now…"

The Blackrazors looked at one another knowingly, and then Erilar said "We need to talk to those kids."

The first of the children -- the four-year-old that Clara had been comforting -- refused to speak, but an older child, a seven-year-old girl was able to tell her story. "I was dreaming of this man … this man who was wrapped in shadows, who had claws like shadows, and he was drawing closer, and closer, and he felt … he fell so very cold. And then I screamed and woke up … but I didn't really wake up because that man was in my room! And then I saw him walk right into the wall. That's when I started screaming again… You, you don't think that monster was real do you? Do you?"

Erilar didn't reply.

The Vampire Hypothesis

The Blackrazors took the backdoor out of the orphanage to avoid the mourning crowd gathered outside the parsonage. "I think I know what did this," he said. The others looked on attentively. "What other creatures to we know that can walk through shadows and have claws capable of draining the life from someone?"

"Vampires." Scrappy said.

"Vampires." Erilar agreed. "Not everything fits, but much of it does. The vampires in Geoff demonstrated powers different from those attributed to them from human folklore. Maybe that's what we're dealing with here. We should have someone from the Church of Pelor come here and look over the rooms. And Calvin's body."

A short fight involved over the wisdom of inviting Pelorites into the den of stubbornness that's is the Church of St. Cuthbert, and eventually the Blackrazors agreed to go to see the Pelorites.

Later that morning they arrived at the church, and were quickly able arrange a meeting with the high priest, Gabison. Like most in his order, Gabison had more than a little experience fighting undead, and he readily agreed with Erilar's theory. "Yes, I'm afraid that the folklore surrounding vampires is more often wrong than right. There are certain shared weaknesses, like an aversion to daylight, but only a few clans are capable of shapeshifting into children of the night. Indeed, the clans are often distinguished by their powers -- some are able to walk through shadows, others can become incorporeal, and still others are capable of a strange kind of teleportation. The only thing that doesn't match is the vileness of the wounds -- that's nothing I've ever heard of before."

Satisfied by the interview, the Blackrazors retreated to the guild hall to mull over what they'd learned … and what they should do next. They decided to wait to see if Ironsoul turned up anything in his investigation of Calvin's corpse.

Experience

Not available.

Retrieved from "http://wiki.griffcrier.com/index.php?title=The_Shadow_Within,_Part_2&oldid=6180"