Airday, 14th of Moons, 721IA

We all met that evening because Sebastian claimed he had something important to discuss with us. Once we were all settled down Sebastian said that William, the key guy, has come to see him at his office with news. “You remember how he told us there were two original keys, and that one was lost years and years ago? Well, he some how unearthed some information about the second key. Last he could trace it, it was in the possession of a chaotic cult by the name of Crimson Coil that used to operate out of this old abandoned brothel in northern Oldtown, very close to the city walls.”

Eric shook his head, “I don’t see why we should care about this. I see no reason in putting such an item in the hands of a person such as William, not saying that he’s a bad person or anything. We should just let it lay.”

“You see no reason to find this key, and take it out of chaos cult hands?” I asked. And a bit surprised I might add.

“No,” he said plainly. “If it’s been sitting there for god knows how long, why should we disturb it and place it in the hands of William?” By this time Tuur was agreeing with him, and arguing against going for it as well.

“So after seeing all that we have seen these past month about chaos cults, and what they might try to achieve with such a key, after seeing what they do to children. You still think there is no reason to find it?” I asked quite incredulous.

“No, I have heard nothing of children in need…”

“Oh, and you keep a tab on all children in Ptolus,” I retorted and was actually getting irritated. I will not relay the whole high argumentative discussion here. Suffice to say it was heated. Sebastian and I were thinking along the same lines and together managed to get it into Eric and Tuur's minds that it was imperative to get the key: to get it out of any chaos cult hand, and that even though it might have been laying in the same place for a long time the fact the information has just resurfaced doesn’t mean that we are the only ones knowing about it. He kept returning to the fact of returning it to William and deciding right now what we will do with it once found, perhaps giving it to the Golden Cross, or the Malkuth, as if those guys needed another item from us. They’re becoming our personal Dangerous Items Safe Box.

“How do you want us to make a decision with only a grain of the information? What if this key will be crucial in opposing a chaos cult? What if we find out that it truly did belong to William’s family and that it is lawfully his?” We gave him loads of question, but he insisted. The whole thing came to a crush when he proposed a compromise: “So when we find the key, how about I’ll hold on to it till we know what to do with it?”

I'm not sure he even understood the meaning of what he said. Sebastian levelled a cool gaze at him “So you do not trust us to do the right thing?”

This flared up the argument even more till finally we said to both Eric and Tuur: “You decided what you want to do. With or without you, we are going to that brothel tomorrow morning.”

They said they’ll have to “sleep on it” but we just repeated what we said, “Tomorrow we go. Period.”

Waterday, 15th of Moons, 721IA

Both Eric and Tuur met us outside of Sebastian’s office in the morning. They again tried to convince us to their terms, but we persisted and again told them that we will not make half-assed decisions. Then something caused them to change their minds and they joined us, though we could see it was reluctantly. If they didn’t want to I’m not sure why… perhaps their god told them, or they got some guidance or something. Whatever the reason was, they kept it to themselves.

We didn’t talk much on our way there.

The abandoned brothel was certainly impressive. A grand stone house, almost a manor even, with three towers jutting out of it, two of them round, and one of them square, with narrow windows high on the walls. It was sitting on a small hill full of rubble and broken masonry. Only one way to go inside, so we took it.

The inner courtyard was wide and shadowy, what with it still being morning, and rats were running around. There were some stairs going up to a higher platform, and a large doorway into a darkened room. Menon approached it and signaled that she heard voices, then Tuur peeked inside and even though he was wearing his sunglasses claimed that he saw three ratlings inside. Eric seemed to accept it, but the rest of us just looked at him questioningly. Of course, he supplied no answers. I threw our everburning torch inside so we could at least see what’s going on inside and help. Two objects came flying out of the room and exploded near Tuur, Eric and Sebastian

Before we could do anything a look of determination came over Tuur, and suddenly a wave of pitch darkness seemed to emanate from him and cover us all. I heard footsteps going into the room and the darkness receded and entered the room, completely blocking the light from the torch I just threw in. Tuur wasn’t standing by us anymore. We heard a scream and a body fall, then Eric was shooting arrows into the darkness and we heard sword blows. What the hell? I though and knew by looking at Aretha’s, Menon’s and Sebastian’s faces that I was not alone.

The darkness vanished as soon as it appeared and the light of the torch illuminated the room again. From where I was standing I saw a huge figure rush from one side of the room to the other, the screech of metal breaking metal, and the sickening sound of iron breaking bone. Something bad was happening inside that room. Everybody jumped inside that room by the time I could react, and as I moved to the opening I saw a huge ratman holding a very big sword. I could just barely see an eviscerated body lying on the floor behind it. Damn.

I reached deep inside myself and tried to cause the creature to trip, but knew immediately that it did not affect the creature as it lashed a moment later at Eric with its great sword and then biting him. Eric too, fell to the ground, heavily wounded. Menon was shooting arrows, Aretha was shooting her guns, and both Maxim (Aretha’s dog) and Sebastian were lashing at it trying to bring it down. All that just barely registered in my mind. I just saw the great sword swing up and down, and now that Eric was down, it’ll turn on Sebastian and then probably my sister.

I gathered all my strength and felt as if I was forcing my whole body as a loud ringing note came out of my mouth. I knew where I was directing it, and as the creature was turning on Sebastian to try and strike him down as well, its sword shattered into many pieces. The creature was struck dumb for a heartbeat, not sure what to do, and then lashed at Sebastian with its claws. Whether it hit him or not I’m not sure, but a moment later the creature was crying its death cry. Once we helped Eric back to his feet, we found Tuur body cloven in half lying on the ground amid ratling corpses and that huge monstrosity. Eric was crying as he carried his body outside.

Even though we had our differences, we have been on some adventures together and it was hard to see him like that. I wasn’t crying, but I was sad. We decided that we cannot continue like this and that we should take Tuur and give him a proper burial. I suggested that we should cover Tuur’s body with some sheets from inside, but Eric was either not listening or too deep in his grief. As we stepped across the gate of the brothel something stopped us. Physically.

Something was preventing us from going outside. A trap… a magical trap, actually. Guess we’re stuck here. We’ll have to continue till we find a way to leave and take Tuur for burial. I knelt down beside Tuur where Eric placed him and was about to remove his glasses so as to close his eyes. But Eric stopped me, “Don’t!” he commanded. Commanded!

“Some respect for the dead dammit,” I responded, wrenching my hand free.

“I know why he had them on, he wouldn’t want anyone else to know,” he continued, and blocking all our view he did it himself. Fucking secrets even when the guy is dead, the hell with this was about what was going on in my mind.

It was then that Eric remembered that Tuur would prefer to be cremated, and so after building a small pyre and a short ceremony we burned Tuur’s body. There was nothing else we could do now, but head on in.

The old bedrooms were in a mess, with very explicit painting on the walls. This was definitely a brothel the last time this building was used. As we went deeper into the building I glimpsed a statue around a corner just as Menon opened another door. I felt a wave of revulsion come over her, and immediately turned to see what she was looking at. Eric and Sebastian were standing besides her, swords down, intently looking at something, almost salivating. Menon closed the door quickly and slapped them both across the face, “They’re damn walking corpses, snap out of it!” And a moment later the door opened and a hideous corpse of what I guess was once a whore came out of the room and rushed and grabbed Menon. Sebastian pulled her away and Eric slashed at it. Strange thing is, as fragile as these ex-whores look, one of the managed to grab a hold of Eric and he could not shake her off. I’m not sure what it was that he did, but when he saw that she was strong enough to hold him he grabbed her too and she started screaming. “Hit her with a heal spell,” he shouted to Aretha, “or heal me at least.” Aretha sprang to action, and I’m pretty sure she was aiming for Eric... but her wand touched the creature and at that moment the creature fell.

As Menon went through their room searching for clues or anything of note, I went back to look at the statue I saw before. The statue was man size… but of an extremely obese man, balding and naked. A name popped into my head for some reason, as I remembered seeing a very similar drawing in some book somewhere. The man was Seginal Fesbon, a despicable cleric and mage.

Not at all a nice person.

The statue was standing at the end of a long hallway, and as we looked around the statue we found some scratch marks on the floor to the north of the statue. Should we move the statue?

True to his form, the fat statue of fat Mr. Fesbon did not budge. Didn’t even give us a courtesy grind. Someone said something about a hidden switch that might trigger the state to move so we started going over the walls near the statue with great diligence. Sebastian said he’ll look for something on the other side of the wall (outside that is) and Eric went with him. Not a moment passed and we heard a cry for help from Eric, can’t leave the men alone for a second!

We rushed to the courtyard finding Sebastian and Eric facing some kind of bluish green shadow-misty thing (yhea, great description Mel). Sebastian was standing on a platform some 12 ft. high and as he slashed his sword, it passed right through the shadow-mist and didn’t seem to do a thing. That seemed to make Sebastian realize something and he just stepped back and fell of the ledge, not even bothering to try to land correctly. We could hear the air go out of his lungs as he hit the courtyard from the other side of the courtyard, lucky for him he did not sprain his ankle or anything. The creature hovered in the air for a moment and then vanished back into the well from which it came (Sebastian later told us about the well on the platform that he threw a rock into… causing that thing to come up). I can honestly say that we all breathed a little easier when we realized that we did not have to fight that thing… we had too many fights as it is up to that moment for my taste.

Apparently no one cares for my taste when it comes to fights.

The way out was still barred so we headed up to the second floor. The spiraling stairways lead us up to a hall with many portraits hanging on the walls. I felt the tension from my sister just a heartbeat before she touched my sleeve and whispered to me: “Their eyes are following us.” I saw nothing and said so, but she insisted and later so did Sebastian, and before we could discuss the matter any more my blood turned cold as a deep resonant voice spoke up as if the voice was coming from the walls themselves: “I must feed….”

Everybody stopped in their tracks and we looked at each other and I could see that most were thinking the same thing: “I’d like to get out of here for a moment if you do not mind.” Damn. But, seeing as our only visible way was blocked, we plodded on.

As Menon opened a door that lead into some kind of a dinning room, she swore she saw one of the chairs move back into place. We all heard of invisibility spells (who hasn’t?) and Eric even drank some potion he said will allow him to detect such a spell but he saw nothing. I stayed in the hallway so as not to crowd the room, and suddenly heard a small commotion as Eric swore and some of the party jumped into another room from the dinning room. I asked what’s happening and Aretha supplied this strange answer, I think she was trying not to laugh: “some tiny statues are swarming all over Eric.” Apparently there were some very small statues on the shelves in that room and the moment Eric stepped inside they jumped upon him and tried to hit him with their tinny fists (one was an angel with a sword). I heard some breaking sound and a moment later Eric left the room in disgust. Wondering into it I found the remains of the broken statues, and while obviously they were magical, I could not for the life of me determine what kind of magic they were.There was nothing more to see on that floor so we took the stairs to the third floor. As soon as Sebastian stepped onto the floor he cried for help shouting “rats! Hundreds of them!” Again!?! I could hear their squeaking from downstairs. Aretha rushed by me and up to the boyfriend's help and halfway up the stairs she started to… shift, changing into a ratling of all things! She’s got a quirky sense of humor that one. By the time I reacted, everybody was up on that floor and the top of the stairway was blocked by Eric, covered in hundreds of rats biting at him. I got a glimpse of a larger rat and shot my magic wand at it, hurting it with a little arcane missile, but not killing it. Eric was hurting bad I could see, and from the voices I heard, Sebastian wasn’t doing well either.

When Eric managed to fight his way away from the top of the stairs I finally stepped into the third floor. It was covered with many, many rats, and several bigger (yet dead) rats. I jumped up on the stone handrail of the stairs and watched, there wasn’t much I could do against them, and everything seemed under more control than before… which might explain why I did not see the two large ratmen, each riding on a rat of unusually big size, charging into the room from behind some curtain. One of them charged right at me swinging his sword and slashing at me so fiercely that I practically fell from where I was sitting. I was bleeding profusely and knew there was only one thing I could do: run away. I stumbled down the stairs, and changing to the healing wand, tried unsuccessfully to heal myself. A cold jolt from my sister told me she has just received a harsh blow as well, but it was mingled with a strong determination. I managed to work the wand and as I climbed up the stairs again everything was already over. Two ratmen, several large rats, and many small rats littered the floor, but there was no sign of the giant riding rats, they ran away from whence they came I was told.. Eric was bleeding from many small bites and several big wands, so was Sebastian, but as I handed the wand over to Eric (who could work it in a much easier fashion than me) I asked him to heal my sister first, which he did, and went to her side to see how she was doing. As the healing work continued I peeked carefully behind the curtains from which the big rats came from; the room was empty save several dirty satin cushions and a trail of blood leading to another room. But I saw that only in passing; my eyes were caught by the big gaping hold in the wall. Finally, a way out!

Some went to the door on the other side of the wall to peek inside (there were two giant rants huddled in some corner and stairs going up), and someone else was tying a rope to a secure place so that we could get the hell out of this house. We left the rats in peace (for now) and left the house behind (for at least this day). And as we wearily made our way through Oldtown Sebastian started saying that if we want to continue on with this mission we set upon ourselves, “We will need some more help… now that Tuur is not with us. Several weeks ago I met this guy. I was searching for some boy in the Warrens and got into trouble with some local thugs, when an elf dressed in rags came to my help. He was very effective with his hands and legs, and it didn’t take us long to dissuade the thugs to leave us alone. He has a long name so I’ll just call him Lyn for now, but he helped me later to track down the boy I was searching for because he has been working with these unfortunate kids for some time now, trying to help them find a better way. Anyway he is bit strange, eats very little, and refuses to carry anything of worth… but I think he might be willing to help us.”

We said we’ll meet him later at the Ghostly Minstrel and Sebastian and Menon went out looking for him in the Warrens. Eric wanted to arrange some things for the burial of Tuur. I went home for a bath.

When I reached the Minstrel everybody was there already, speaking to the rag wearing elf. He seemed a nice enough fellow at first glance, something about him made you trust him. I’m not sure what it was, the way he spoke or perhaps the way he held himself: humble yet radiating a strong sense of purpose of strength. Whatever it was, he was, as Sebastian said, a bit strange: he drank and ate nothing, and said he will not carry on him any item of worth, and recognizing Eric as a paladin, asked him to donate his part on his behalf to some local lost kids house. Menon sat there looking at him and mumbled something under her breath about crazy people. But he just responded that material possession hinders more than helps. Menon just laughed. I actually had a nice conversation with him, talking about several elven poets such as Yelishin Ashi-In and Cavannellana.