Tales from the Emerald Pentacle Issue Seven

Come, O reader, whilst I tell a tale of fear and dread. For it was in the month of Laeolis, when the blue moon was high, that fear and madness not only stalked the streets of the Crystal City; but also struck at the party of adventurers themselves. Once again we return to Cymril, capital of the Seven Kingdoms on fabled Talislanta, for an adventure involving the junior members of Halesowen Boardgamers.



Having had to pay for board and upkeep for the last few weeks, Stoopod decided that he could no longer keep funding the rest of the party (especially Throtal, his fellow Thrall). Thermite the insane Arimite had rejoined the party, and Jenny was still suffering the curse of ‘Malador’s Maddening Itch’, causing her to lose concentration at inappropriate moments. Seeing an advert offering a reward they decided to investigate further: -



Using the skills of true investigators, they didn’t actually follow up many clues. They did find out that there had been a series of mysterious killings around the Vardune Gate area of the city. A young Cymrilian had been found dead off Viridian’s Way, his throat ripped out; a male Gnomekin was found broken in half nearby; a male Cymrilian was found dead in bed, his chest ripped open, a female Arim was found dead with her throat slit, and finally a Thrall mercenary was found with his head ripped off, his shattered Greatsword next to him.

Something seemed familiar about the area, it took some time but Stoopod and Throtal finally realised that they were near to the house of Tizun Thane. Locals knew very little, there was a rumour that a Beastman had escaped from a sideshow; others thought it was the work of a demon summoned by a vengeful Farad wizard. One thing was plain; all of the locals were terrified.

They headed for Thane’s house, as Stoopod had told them about the Shadowcat that he and Grave had encountered last time. In the stables they found a dead Equs, apparently starved to death, entering into the house they found it pretty much as they had left it following the fight with the Jhangarans. Stoopod led the way to the room where the Shadowcat had been, only to find it deserted. A worktable held a scroll, a large bound book, a small bottle of liquid and an iron bound chest. Jenny took the scroll (Dispel Magic, a spell she can’t use); Grave looked in the book, to find it was a spell book of Enchantment spells, K’kree found the bottle contained an invisible liquid that didn’t seem to do anything; Stoopod opened the chest to find a scything blade nearly took his hand off; the chest contained 95 silver pieces.

Suddenly, for no apparent reason, Throtal pulled out a dagger and plunged it into Stoopod’s side, sorely wounding him. Stoopod retaliated, along with K’kree and Thermite; but at the last minute realised that Throtal may not have been acting under his own volition. However, Thermite took a lot more persuading, even though Throtal and Stoopod resolved their differences. Throtal did agree to pay over 50% of his income to Stoopod as wergild for an indefinite period of time.

Moving on, they found a tall domed chamber with an open skylight; on a plinth was a 12’ tall black ebon statue, posed as if doing a ritual dance. K’kree flew up to the skylight to find that it looked out over the city, Stoopod found that the statue’s lips were stained red. A lot of discussion centered on blocking up the skylight in case the statue came alive in the moonlight; however they wasted so much time that night fell; moonlight flooded the chamber and nothing happened. Thermite also climbed the statue, found that the red stain was, in fact, blood, then fell off and hurt himself.

Entering another room, they found three mirrors. One returned a normal reflection, and one returned a ‘true’ (i.e.: non-reversed reflection.) The third mirror was cracked diagonally from top to bottom and had a man trapped in it. He was (silently) pleading for help, holding up his left hand sporting an ornate gold ring with a green zigzag line on it, with his right had pointing up. He was silently pleading with them; fortunately Jenny had lip reading skill and was able to establish a communication with him. Stoopod, Grave and Thermite, after some effort, succeeded in breaking one of the mirrors. Thermite tried to break the other one, but was unable to. Jenny finally realised that the man was indicating up, out of the room. They headed upwards for the tower room, but found nothing. Then, Mr Quiz remembered that the last time they were here, he had picked up a Kasmiran puzzle-box., and dug it out of his pack. He couldn’t work out the code, but Jenny managed to do so, inside were two rings; a gold one with a green zigzag line and a bright blue (adamantine?) one that she sold to Stoopod.

The returned to the mirror room, Jenny put on the ring and pulled the man out of the mirror by putting her hand on it. He was very grateful and introduced himself as Tizun Thane. He was trapped in the mirror when someone broke it; he does not know whom. He does not know what the statue is; he was studying it. Thermite pulled a dagger on him; Thane activated an Amulet of Warding and advised Thermite that, although he was very grateful for his rescue, not to attempt such a thing again.

Aftermath:
Seeing that two of his mirrors were broken; Thane was disconsolate. The mirrors were Malderon’s Mirrors, worth 50, 000 gold lumens each.