Freaks & Facades - Session Seven: What Remains

    Welcome!  To all of our felonious friends and you suspicious strangers too!  

    We bring you back to Freaks & Facades, the story recap of our favorite Freaks' highs and lows adventuring through the indulgent lands of Dementlieu!  

    Tonight, our panicking adventurers embark into the terrible, dreadful Session Seven: What Remains!  

    Our beloved Freaks have been fully introduced to the many faces of the frivolous Campanula nobility: such as the prideful Lord Isaac Montagne, the stable Lord Jacquard and the chaotically delightful Claudine LaFitte.  

    They also saw the terrible power these prideful paragons of wealth could truly wield--through meeting the cold, calculated Baron Montagne, the lord over all of Campanula.  

    Night's Vengeance is still wanted for the Bonmot Family Massacre, framed by the Baron.  And while attempting to attend tea with this terribly powerful noble (after clashing rapiers out of the blue), our group failed to obtain evidence linking the Baron to the crime!  Instead the tea resulted in a terribly enemy knowing their faces.  One that used his power to somehow completely wipe out thei only living conspirators and witnesses to his crimes (the Flying Wolves now forever grounded)!  

    Can our beloved Freaks muster the courage to continue their investigations into this insidious, widespread corruption?  Or will they flee to the civilized comforts of Port-a-Lucine and the indulgences of the upcoming national Primeur wine festival? 

    Let us see how their mettle has been tested!

Warning: this is a horror campaign setting, so please bear that in mind before reading on.  Possible triggers include: mentions of violence, bloodshed and death; dead bodies, poison, ghosts/spirits, spiders/arachnophobia, fire, etc.

*starts projector*

• Fleeing from the maliciously austere Montagne Manor; our heroic Freaks' courage has been shaken.  Instead of a simply cruel noble, they encountered a true villain, the Baron Montagne.  Master of hound and man alike; their lives like leashes in his hand.  Who wishes these... Freaks...  out of his domain of power.    
• The Baron of Campanula has made veiled threats to our party.  For their safety, he recommends they leave his village...  Port-a-Lucine is much better and safer for people like them this time of year, what with the wine celebration of Primeur happening in a week.  Many terrible things are happening in the deep, dark forests of Campanula recently...  Not just wolves prowl the night...  
• Everyone feels too known to the Baron.  As if both he and his legion of hunting dogs have, as Fenri once imagined, caught on to their scent...
• Schrödinger is particularly concerned about the Baron's teeth.  He knows human biology--his teeth should not have so easily torn into a raw steak without struggle...
• Fenri learns all that went down during tea with the Baron.  The fact that he seemed to sense her departure from his home (even while disguised) disconcerts her.  
• The thought of simply leaving Campanula does cast a shadow over the party for a few moments, as they drive their wagon through the forests.  Remembering the Baron's dogs (statue and living both) are probably watching them leave the estate.  Should they challenge the Baron or flee?
• Solange has mixed feelings about her position in this.  She feels the call of duty to return to Port-a-Lucine, and her place in the Order at St. Leonburg's Cemetery.  But so many lives lost, dead unburied and left to rot, makes her stomach turn.  
• Pryrrish is also mixed.  The Tome at her side seemed to almost hum or purr while the Baron unveiled his evil side.  And she feels the call of her patron (the Elemental Dark) to stay, but what cost to her own morality might she pay to follow it?
• However, the threats of the Baron inflame the passions of some in the party.  Channa despises the nobility, especially those like the Baron--manipulating lives with wealth and fear!  Her familiar (the elemental Iggy) responds to her impulses by grinding its rocky body against itself as it swims through the earth below.
• Fenri is also determined!  She cannot bear knowing the Baron will get away with massacre after massacre!  That innocent lives are so easily eradicated by such flagrant, tyrannical evil!  Even without the full protection of Pelor, she cannot allow evil to prey from the shadows!
• Schrödinger is in a bit of a mixed mindset, but is more determined to act rather than flee.  But only slightly.  After all, he is the son of powerful nobles himself--they should exert their influence and take risks to things that challenge their ability to fulfill their noblesse oblige...  
• But massacre and murder?  He has qualms...  Ones which he's wondering if his Mother and Father might not have...
• Leaving the Montagne estate finally, the group decides to investigate the mysterious Vallee de Neige--where the Flying Wolves met their end overnight.  It's a place to the east of the village, close to where they have been camping in the area.  
• But they need information about this place.  No one in town has talked about it.  Supposedly it is a cursed place the locals fear.  They head into Campanula to see what they can learn..
• Campanula is on high alert, with the town militia vetting all who wish to enter or leave the town.  In the last few hours a rumor has been spreading: the kerfuffle was stirred up by a new vigilante, like Night's Vengeance.  Supposedly there is an enormous, hulking behemoth that hides in the form of a blonde halfling woman!  The Hateful Halfling!
• Fenri is a criminal! According to the corrupt Magistrate (and the Baron by extension)! 
• Luckily no one died during the riot, thanks to her and Schrödinger's interferences.  But guards are patrolling the town looking for this new beast of revolt! 
• Fenri, disheartened by this new reputation, hugs her new disguise closer to her and agrees to wait outside while the rest of the party goes in.  Betraying her facade of indifference, Channa volunteers to stay with Fenri.  
• They take the wagon to an agreed-upon meeting place to the east of town.  Channa does her best to comfort Fenri, reiterating that she knows the halfling never meant for her actions to provoke such a reaction.  Fenri only wished to tell the truth.  The pair have really started to form a bond, despite Channa's initial reluctance.
• Solange, Pryrrish and Schrödinger slip into town. Guards clomp around in pairs through the streets, and the people hide inside or dash through alleys.  Luckily, the Campanula town post office is still open. Schrödinger wishes to send a letter to his parents. 
• Unfortunately, the postmaster warns Schrödinger that getting a letter to his parents' home of Schwartzsteinburg (far in the the eastern Sleeping Beast mountains of Lamordia) would be quite a lengthy and expensive endeavor from this small town.  He would have better luck sending it via a ship headed up north, from the capitol of Port-a-Lucine.  The letter would have to go south anyway, as there are no safe roads across the Dementlieu-Lamordia border...
• With her supernatural perception, Pryrrish spies through the post office window an elegantly dressed figure walking through town.  Completely unbothered by the tension in the post-riot town.  
• Claudine LaFitte is traipsing through town shopping.  Tailed by a servant holding a wobbling stack of boutique boxes.  
• Schrödinger, fearing catching the lady's attention, does a critically graceful leap to the ceiling and does a split in between the roofing beams.  Claudine's eyes, still frazzled from drinking all night, see no trace of him having ever been inside the post office.  Solange and Pryrrish hide as well out of instinct, but Claudine apparently never took notice of them anyway. 
•  She chows down on a box of macarons (pilfered from House Montagne) and declares they have more shopping to do.  To impress her new Lamordian beau...
• Paler than usual from discomfort, when Claudine leaves Schrödinger gets down.  The postmaster says Claudine is a real card: she moved here from the city this summer, taking over some residence but has her mail delivered to the town office.  
• Leaning against the post office building, the group exits to find a small stand run by an old man--reading a book, unbothered as the guards pass by.  The party sees maps of the local area are for sale.  Being this far north in Dementlieu, they are quite off the broader map of the nation.  Campanula isn't even on the map.
• The old man is selling books as well.  Pretty much all smut.  Romance novels for every taste and pamphlets of "revolutionary" sex moves from the big city.  He's reading a scandalous queer romance while tending shop, it clearly not fabulously written.  He also sells cookies in little bags that his wife makes.  
• The group asks this man all about the Vallee de Neige (the Valley of Snow).  He immediately puts down his book and warns them to stay away.  It's one of the oldest places in Campanula, but everyone who enters it never leaves alive...  Veiled figures float about the pale obelisk in the center...  Some invisible force keeps all living things trapped within!
• Noticing his mood, Solange pries and discovers the man has a personal story of that cursed valley: apparently when he was young he and several other boys attempted to investigate the site.  Defying their parents' warnings; and it led to the death of one of them.  Attempting to touch the obelisk, a boy rushed forward and then froze mid-step.  He was then pulled into the air and twisted by an unseen force!  
• The remaining boys fled and never went back.  One of the boys was traumatized by the sight, and when he got older began to stand vigil outside the valley.  Warning anyone away from entering that accursed place.  Living in solitude.  In perpetual fear...
• Leaving with their map, the group talks about what they've learned.  They decide to be cautious when investigating the valley.  Schrödinger makes a bold statement that he thinks ghosts aren't real, in reference to the floating veiled figures from the story.
• This gives Pryrrish and Solange pause.  But he stands by the principle that in all his research he's never seen a trace of a ghost or other incorporeal horror.
• Solange looks at this man--knowing he is so very very wrong about this.  Maman's familiar static whisper buzzes in her ear...  Since he's a noble, however, she doesn't disagree with him too hard...
• Schrödinger notices that Solange has been more hands-off in interacting with him; ever since he revealed he really is a lord at the Baron's house...
•  Returning to the wagon, Channa and Fenri are told all that occurred in town.  They head over to investigate, despite the danger awaiting them.
• Fenri has thoughts on Schrödinger not believing in the existence of ghosts...  
• Signs point the way to the Vallee de Neige.  Or rather, they explicitly demand anyone headed this way turn back or die!  There are quite a lot of signs as well, on every tree trunk and branch.  Someone has been very eager to warn people away.
• Hoofprints and bootprints in the mud suggest another party--the Flying Wolves--defied these signs and went in anyway.  It was quite dark last night, after all.
• A small hut lies on a hill beside the path into the valley.  Barely a wooden box slapped together with a stove pipe chimney and a grassless paddock attached.  Lots of weird charms and ornaments are hung off this pitiful shack...  
• The front door doesn't budge, despite having no lock.  Something is blocking it from opening.  Schrödinger and Pryrrish go around back to look for a back door--only finding a nearly blind gray pony munching on a hay bale.
• With more force this time, Fenri and the rest pull open the front door, and a dead body slumps forward onto the ground with a thud!   
• Fenri cannot stifle her scream, alerting the party around back!  
• Her and Solange's first instinct, against Schrödinger and his unusual abilities, is to try and hide the body.  They don't know what he'd do with a body if he wasn't watched...  But they decide not to hide it for now; they'll instead keep a watchful eye on their companion.  
• The body is of a very, very old man who lived very, very poorly.  Incredibly gaunt and unkempt while alive, in death he's nearly gray.  He obviously did not die well, but not from old age.
• Under supervision Schrödinger carries the body to a simple bed inside.  
• The hovel is bare wood and a dirt floor.  The ceiling is overwhelmed by the amount of hanging charms and squiggly-line ornaments; Schrödinger has to duck a bit while inside.  There's a table with two overturned stools, a straw-covered wooden bed, a simple iron stove and kettle, and a pile of over a hundred torches (ready to use).  On the table is a cup of half-drunk tea.  Its mate is on the dirty floor, shattered.  
• Everything is filthy with dust and disarray--except for all four corners of the hovel.  Both the ceiling and floor corners are impeccably cleaned.  But why?
• The group investigates the hovel and the death of the old man.
• No one knows about all the charms and squiggly, snake-like ornaments hung everywhere.  They all just seem to be general symbols against the evil eye and its creatures--like wolves, spiders, snakes, etc...  Not even the higher educations of Channa and Schrödinger can decipher this cloud of fearful, dusty charms. 
• Outside, due to the stuffy and small nature of the hovel, Pryrrish investigates outside.  She easily spots fancy bootprints and many, many pawprints in the mud; leading to and from the main road.  The old man owned no shoes.  Someone of influence was here.  And probably offered tea by this humble, squalid man out of deference.
• Fenri examines the old man and discovers the cause of death.  Poison.  A violent one as well, such as strychnine.  This man has been dead for well over a day.
• Meaning, no one was around to warn the Flying Wolves or anyone else of the dangers in the Vallee de Neige!  
• There is not much the party can do for now with this man's remains.  (And no one wants to accept Schrödinger's offer of reanimating the body).  So they decide to leave the old man's body in peace for now...  
• Back to the accursed path into the valley... 
• But not before helping themselves to several of the torches in the pile.  It is growing dark, after all; and the old man will not be needing them...
• The overgrown and sign-besotted path crests and falls into a large sunken valley, all covered by a canopy of deep woods.  A small stream runs alongside the covered glade, against the sudden sheer face of a mountain cliff.  
• The rocky grass is covered in thousands of small bones.  Mostly animal.  But some of the shapes and sizes among them give the party pause...
• At the center of the valley glade stands an obelisk of mottled white stone.  Everyone from the hilltop can feel power, radiating from the valley, from the stone itself!  
• A simple shape of a humanoid figure, holding a primitive shield and a bundle of flowers, is carved into the front face of the obelisk.  
• Possibly an early icon of Ezra, Guardian of the Mists?  Maybe earlier than the one in the cave the group woke up in a day ago?!
• A wooden pyre, half-built, sits at the far side of the glade.  The body of the Falconeater lies atop it.  The Flying Wolves were preparing a funeral for her remains.
• More remains have joined the Falconeater's in the valley.  Several bodies of the surviving mercenaries lie on the ground.  Beside the cadavers of their horses, one of which appears to have been caught in a kneeling position while fleeing--trapped dead, forever in this pose, unable to escape.
• Lastly, and most shocking to the party, floating like puppets on strings in the valley are figures!  Draped in layers of gossamer veils, limbs dangling at the will of invisible strings!  Three apparitions!
• Fenri tries to point out the ghosts but Schrödinger thinks not.  They cannot be ghosts; they don't exist! 
• The figures three float about the obelisk, flailing in movement and then stuck mid-air at random intervals.  None seem to notice the group approaching.  Fascinated, but unbelieving, Schrödinger wishes to get a closer look.  
• Our band of beloved Freaks huddles together, inching their day down into the Vallee de Neige.  Their feet crackle on carpet of boney fragments on the ground.  Now they know where this place received its name...
• Closer they creep, trying to get a closer image of the dancing figures in the dim evening light.  Perhaps they are not true ghosts but another form of spirit?  
• Closer.  
• Closer.
• The figures do not react to their approach, still randomly flailing and hovering about...  Unbeknownst to the party, something else has become aware of them...
• Now within the valley proper, the party of Freaks has a better look.  The ghostly figures are not incorporeal at all!  The veils surrounding them are obscuring the figures' rotting, lifeless bodies!  Their skin beneath the silken coverings is withered and leathery.
• Across the withered face of a figure, a tiny purple spider crawls from eye socket to mouth!  The bodies' condition is made terrifyingly apparent:
• Each of these are withered, drained corpses! Filled with thousands of tiny venomous spiders!  Their gossamer veils are spider webs!
• Suddenly, as if some invisible tripwire has been thrown, the spidery husks all turn to face the party!  They suddenly fly through the air, limbs swinging with animation, at them!
• Fenri drastically changes her body with an enlarge person spell!  However, in this new strange realm the magic once again doesn't go right.  Her proportions stretch painfully, on top of her already hulking arms from bull's strength!  She drops her sling-staff from the physical shock of the transformation!
• Why does this land interact so strangely to transmutation effects?  This is not like Greyhawk at all!  
• Is this further proof she is not in that world at all?  
• No wonder her connection to her god feels so strange!
• Calling upon the divine majesty of said Pelor the Dawnfather, Fenri brandishes her holy symbol and turns one of the corpses!  It flails about with undead horror before bursting!  
• Fenri grabs her staff off the ground as it rains thousands of tiny spiders from the burst husk!  The miniscule vermin suddenly begin conglomerating as a venomous swarm.  To crawl over the party and bite every soft place on them!
• Fighting their terror, the Freaks struggle to face the two husks that remain!  
• Suddenly, from the dark western corner of the glade, a great stone is moved!  
• And a titanic set of tree-sized, hairy legs emerges! 
• Dragging an impossibly huge spider at their center, thousands of gossamer threads wrapped around its legs and body!  The Fiend of the Vallee de Neige has chosen to emerge!
• The size of the behemoth shocks the party!  This must the mastermind of this terrible trap!  Feeding and breeding on all life that enters its domain!  
• All those threads coming from it; the titanic spider must use them like puppet strings indeed to lift and animate the husks housing its millions of children!  The canopy above is completely crisscrossed in an unfathomable threadcount of its silk!  
• And, behind the rest of the party, Pryrrish recognizes several walls of the terribly sticky threads have descended!  Each one having fallen as they were lured in...  Sealing off any attempt at escape with a sticky, helpless fate!
• Facing off the husks, the voracious nibbling of the tiny spiders and the terribly venomous mandibles of the Fiend; the Freaks decide to abandon the valley!  But how, with those threads threatening to trap them?
• The Fiends' venom, and that of its children, causes the body of tighten!  Too much and they'll be paralyzed and helpless!!
• Having taken several of the torches from the old watchman's house and brandished them to investigate, Solange and Pryrrish each throw their torches!  The silken curtains catch fire easily!
• All the party has to to is let a hole burn out of the curtains big enough to escape!  A few minor burns and a few woozy spider bites are better than dying in this terrible place! 
• Solange is bitten by the Fiend several times and very badly poisoned!  Her body will freeze up if she takes many more!
• Even Schrödinger's boney armor is failing against the thousands of tiny mandibles, as the swarm crawls over his still-living flesh!  
• Channa's spiked chain lashes just out of reach of the floating husks!  And despite being immune to poison her earthen familiar Iggy is getting chomped on badly by the Fiend!
• Pryrrish's blinding shadow blasts help, but the giant spider has keen senses while within its domain!  It has far too big a body to be blasted away in a few shots!
• Fenri's healing magics aren't enough to sustain her companions; especially since she's wary to touch Schrödinger with his condition... 
• Finally, the last of the curtains opens up in a sprawling wreath of flame!  The party flees!
• The Fiend chases them for a bit before stopping!  It shakes off the last of their effects and moves backwards into the dark forest.  Back to its lair to fill the remains of the Flying Wolves with its hungry, hungry children. 
• Back to begin the work of reknitting its wicked web...
• Rushing back to the wagon, the party charges back down the path!  In a last minute flash of insight, the party picks up the old watchman's remains!
• If he was poisoned, the killer may come back to erase the evidence of their crimes.  By preserving the body with Solange's gentle repose magic, they can later use speak with dead on the body!  
• The body could possibly give testimony as to who killed him.  But only once...
• Compelled to look back at that horrible place, Pryrrish notices something in the darkness.  There is a female figure in riding dress and a cloak watching their wagon through a spyglass.  Sitting on horseback, riding sidesaddle.  
• They fade out of sight with the wagon's movement but Pryrrish warns the group of the sight--they have learned by now to trust Pryrrish's eyes.
• Finally back at their last campsite near the river, the party finally stops and breathes!  That creature in the Vallee de Neige is far too powerful.  
• Shocking them in their helplessness, the Freaks decide they have to leave it for now...  Leaving the bodies of the Flying Wolves, possible other testimonials from beyond the grave, to its malevolent instincts.
• Fenri doles out what healing she can, and uses her pouch of herbal remedies to help fight the poisons her companions suffered.  It will be days before her inoculated friends are able to move easily.
• As Fenri makes her healing draughts over the fire, the female figure on horseback approaches.  She appears to have no weapons beneath her gray cloak.  
• In a serious but melodic voice, one oddly familiar, she says she is glad they got out of there.  Seeing what she saw, she was afraid of witnessing their deaths.  
• Pryrrish and Schrödinger both cringe instinctually at having been watched.  Their powers and abilities are quite taboo outside of their companions; and even then appear to be necessary evils rather than accepted.  What will this figure say or do knowing what they both can do? 
• The woman slides down the hill to the riverside camp and removes her hood.
• It is Claudine LaFitte!  Looking more serious and sober than our band of Freaks have ever seen her!  
• She demands a chance to speak with the party, about the experience they had but also a task she wants done.
• Does she wish the party harm?  They are quite vulnerable after their struggle to escape the Vallee de Neige!  
• Is she one of the Baron's agents, to reinforce his insistence they depart his territory?
• What does this sober, serious incarnation of flailing social butterfly Claudine LaFitte have in store for them?  

    Find out next time, my starving readers!

    In Session Eight: A Hard Break!  

Thank you for reading!

Love, 

Aboleth Eye