The Enigma of Edgar Allan

…with the party’s guides secured, they returned to Kaya’s House of Repose in the Market Ward. With some daylight left, Leo talked Pix into stepping away from his books and sought out one of the other guides advertised on the notice board: Qawasha. Finding the druid at the Raptor’s Foot tavern, Pix purchased a round of drinks while Leo engaged this druidic brother from another mother. Leo was seeking assistance to join him when he and Thaminor return to the Wood of Sharp Teeth to aid Mugralm. Qawasha said he would gladly offer his services at his normal rate, 5gp/day. Leo implored Qawasha to help his fellow druids in a time of need, but Qawasha responded that he needed his wage to raise the funds for his true mission: combating the unnatural scourge of undead that plagues the land. Leo countered that all undead are not necessarily a threat, to which Qawasha took great offense and ended the discussion. Disappointed, Leo and Pix returned to Kaya’s just as Thaminor returned from buying more climate-appropriate clothing.

The next morning, as the party broke their fast at Kaya’s and discussed their plans for the week, Skald rushed into the inn and frantically beseeched them to return to the Tear of Selûne, for there’s been a murder! Leo ate the last of his bacon, and the party sped to the harbor, where the Tear’s crew was armed and pacing the deck. In the forward cabin, they found Captain Amella, a wounded Lars, and the body of Lirith. They not only questioned Lars, but Lirith as well, as Molish‘s prayers to Kelemvor allowed him to speak with the dead and uncover what happened: Jakob had cornered Lirith, demanding she sell Brymu to him. When she refused, Jakob attacked her. As Jakob was fleeing, Lars came upon the scene and Jakob stabbed him too. As Shady went to inform Zindar, the harbormaster of Port Nyanzaru, about the murder in port, Molish asked Lirith one last question: “Do you want to live?” When Lirith’s answer was “Yes,” Molish¹ raised her from the dead and healed Lars’ wounds.

Questions around the dock revealed that Jakob fled towards Malar’s Throat. Pix attempted to locate Jakob, but had no success… they had to start asking around, the oldfashioned way. A man matching Jakob’s description had been seen, heading towards a run-down manor on the upper southern ridge. As the party made their way up, they saw the referenced building, a giant crack seemingly splitting it in two. The windows and doors were boarded and chained, and the property was surrounded by a rusty iron fence.

As they examined the similarly rusted lock, a black cat missing its right eye jumped through the fence and swatted at Leo before running away. Thinking quickly, the druid cast a spell to trap the feline and approached, ready to question why it had attacked him.

The cat spoke first, asking, “What do you think you’re doing, motherfucker?”

“Simple, asking your name and why you attacked us back there,” replied the elf.

“Sameow L. Catson. And excuse me for trying to save your motherfucking lives. No one that goes in that place ever comes out,” replied Sameow.

Leo asked his next question, “We’re looking for a middle-aged human male with shoulder-length dark hair that was seen running towards this place, have you seen him?”

“Yeah, he didn’t fucking listen to me, either. He went in there. Feel free to let me go and join him, motherfuckers,” replied the defiant Sameow.

Leo thanked the cat, and did just that, releasing the cat to continue running away. The druid returned to the party and they picked the lock so they could continue to follow Jakob’s trail. Circling the property, the found a rear second story window that was unboarded and open. Using a rope of climbing, the party ascended and found a once-ornate study (1).

Now, however, most of the books and papers had been scattered across the room, a broken chair laid smashed against a wall and the glass that lined the cabinet doors had been smashed and broken. The bust of a goddess was perched above the doorway. Those of the party that had previously traveled to the Shadowfell recognized it as the Raven Queen, the shadar-kai goddess of tragedy and loss. On the western wall was an oil painting of a couple posed in regal-looking armchairs. The man was handsome, with wild black hair and a thin mustache over his smiling lips. His hand rested on the shoulder of a beautiful woman with long, dark hair, pale skin, and ruby red lips. The painting had been torn, slashed from top to bottom. A plaque below the painting read “E & L“.

Searching the room revealed that most of the books and papers were either historical in nature or business related. Two items of interest, however, were a scrap of paper with a random sequence of numbers written in blood, and a scroll of Dimension Door (4th level). While looking around, the party heard the growing sound of creaking coming from the hallway, as if someone was walking closer. When it stopped, they heard a soft tapping, as of some one gently rapping, rapping at the study door.  Shady opened wide the door; a dark hallway was there and nothing more.

While Thaminor donned his armor once more and Pix performed a ritual to detect magic, Shady slipped into the shadows of the hallway (2) to investigate. It was mostly dusty and empty, with smashed end tables and chairs filling most of the space. Lining the walls were various oil paintings, similar in style to the one in the study. They were all very talented, but possessed an eerie, otherworldly quality. The paintings included a depiction of an enormous whirlpool in the middle of an ocean, with a sailing vessel trapped in the current; a large, grassy field where the grass transitions from a beautiful, verdant green, to a dry, crisp yellow, and then to a dead, ashy black; and the last painting featured a small island on a sea of calm, dark water, inhabited by some sort of faerie folk that were in the middle of a ritual-like dance.

The party left the study and moved to the door across from it. After it passed Shady’s inspection, Thaminor opened and walked in to a bedroom (8). As with most of what they had seen so far, this room was also in disarray, with the sheets slashed and torn and the once fine desk smashed and broken. One of the desk’s legs had been torn off and the rest looking as if an axe had been taken to it. A thorough search of the room revealed naught but a few unbroken bottles of ink survived. The bathroom (9) to the south was relatively pristine, with a sparkling white marble bathtub. The sink basin, while also white, had a red, watery substance stopped in the sink and something cluttered at the bottom of the basin. Thaminor’s mage hand safely scooped the basin, pulling from the liquid a handful of human teeth.

The next room to the south was likely once the centerpiece of conversation and entertainment in the house, but barely recognizable as a parlor (10) anymore. A large table took up the center of the room, surrounded by a comfortable (if dusty) sofa and chairs. The room was filled with oddities ranging from eclectic to bizarre:

• On an end table next to one of the sofas was a glass dome, inside which was a gold scarab-like beetle, crawling around under the glass.
• On a small table behind the sofa was a silver shaving razor, with a dried red substance across the blade.
• A taxidermied orangutan, its face frozen in a snarl, was in the corner furthest from the doors.
• A plain white performers mask was laying on the table off to the side of the room.
• A painting on the wall was similar in style to the paintings that lined the halls. This one depicted an artist feverishly at work at a canvas, an image of a beautiful girl painted on his own canvas. His subject, however, was a corpse, long since decomposed. He was either so engrossed in his work that he has not noticed he is painting a corpse, or he’s depicting beauty in the face of death.
• Also found in the room were a few scattered books.

When Leo lifted the glass off the beetle in an attempt to capture it, it instantly grew to the size of a mastiff and lunged… only to be pulverized by the druid first–splattering him in its gore. While Leo moved on to inspecting and pocketing the silver razor, Thaminor picked up the performers mask. As soon as the elf lifted the mask, blood began to pour out of the mask’s eyes, staining red streaks as it continuously poured down its cheeks. Disgusted, the fighter tossed the mask to the couch, where the blood stopped flowing… only to start again when Leo picked it up and tried it on for a moment. Curiosity exhausted and the western rooms searched, the party moved across the hall…

The first door opened in the eastern hallway they opened led south to a small bathroom (7). After they checked and opened the door to the north, Leo stepped in to a once pristine and cozy bedroom (3), long since defiled. The sheets had been slashed and torn, and a pool of dried blood stained both the walls and sheets themselves. Feathers from the pillows and linens littered the room, and a door to the right was closed. As Leo entered the room, he became acutely aware of his own heartbeat… only to realize a moment later that it was not his own heartbeat, but some outside entity. The druid looked around briefly and then opened the door to the master bathroom (4). The room was empty save a white marble bathtub and a basin with a large silver mirror on the wall above.

Leo stepped back into the hall, reporting nothing of interest and inviting any others to take a look. Molish entered the bedroom and started to investigate himself. He found an iron safe with both a combination dial and keyhole in one of the night stands, and a loose floorboard on the other side of the room. Prying up the board, Molish lifted out a small iron lockbox. Shady tried the sequence of numbers found in the study on the safe’s combination dial. While that seemed to work, the safe apparently required the key as well. The monk pulled out his picks and deftly went to work… but without success. He had better luck with Molish’s other discovery, popping open the lockbox and pulling forth a small leatherbound journal, embossed with the name “Ed.”

The journal belonged to the head of the house, a wealthy book dealer named Ed. The earliest entry dates to just after his wedding to his “darling wife, Lenore,” wherein he details having bought the house with the intent of raising a family there.

When Lenore became pregnant, the two were overjoyed. They were to have a daughter, named Annabel. Their joy was short lived, however, for while Ed was away on business, Lenore caught “Swamp Fever”, a debilitating illness that is common in Chult. While Lenore survived the Swamp Fever, the illness caused her to miscarry the baby. Lenore, in grief and despair, found herself unable to carry on, and poisoned herself. Ed returned, only to find her corpse. In his sorrow and rage, he blamed his daughter for his wife’s death, cursing that he had ever conceived such a “perverse Imp.”

His journal entries thereafter become more erratic and less frequent. At some point, he settled on a course of action to bring back his wife from the dead. He makes mention of going to the”College of the Ligeia” in Thay to learn the arcane arts. Unable to find a concrete answer, he secluded himself away in the house, hoping one of the books he had collected over the years contained an answer. At some point, he eventually found such a tome.

At this point the writing became barely legible and mostly insane gibberish–making references to a “dark sacrifice.” The last clear entry mentions a ritual where he would “sacrifice the Imp”, and with that he would have his Lenore once again.

While Molish read the journal, Leo and Shady moved to the remaining two doors along the south side of the hall. Leo opened the door to a small bedroom (5) that was bare of most furniture. Just a small bed, night stand, and dresser filled the space… however, a large blood splatter was smeared across the wall, suggesting something horrible happened there.

Similar to Leo’s discovery, Shady found a small, sparse bedroom (6) that had been showered with blood, staining the walls and floors. Unlike Leo’s room, here a human sat upright on the bed, dressed in servant’s clothes and staring blankly towards the door. His features were bloated and stiff, and his eyes had gone milky white. A fly crawled across the surface of his left, unblinking eye. As Shady approached, the servant’s mouth started to twitch. What started as whispers only grew in volume and clarity as Shady attempted to question him:

“Put me to sleep, please, put me to sleep–or wake me–or kill me, put me to sleep!”

Thaminor stepped forward, ready to give the the servant his relief, but Molish stepped in, pleading that they wait. Molish argued his case, that the minimal time the party would likely take to solve the mystery of this manor was nothing… but the resolution could bring this man peace. Worst case, they would return and put him to sleep when their mission was complete. Heeding the cleric, the party withdrew from the room and took the servants’ stairs to the ground level…

The servants’ stairs let out in the back corner of the manor. The closest door (18) revealed stairs to the basement, but the party decided that they needed to search the entire first floor before descending. The next door (17) was locked, but Shady easily defeated the mechanism and opened it to admit Thaminor into a ghastly scene: the room had been charred, purposefully set ablaze it seemed. Burnt piles of paper lined the floor, the apparent source of the fire. The room contained the remains of a child’s nursery, a burnt and crumbling crib and several melted or burnt toys indicating that it was supposed to be Annabel’s room. Looking at the burnt scraps of paper, a few bits and pieces survived: they were all written in Ed’s handwriting, and appeared to be letters to Annabel, written before she died, about how much he loved her and would always care for her.

Across the hall, Thaminor and Shady found the kitchen (15). The once bustling room where meals were prepared and cooked now lay cold. Cobwebs and dust lined the space, save for a very small cleaned off area near one of the stoves. Thaminor’s investigation revealed that it had been used recently, within a day or two. When Shady followed up on the dried red puddle near the empty fireplace, he found something very large blocking the chute about four feet up. Pulling the blockage down revealed the decaying corpse of a maid, her throat slit. On her body was a bag of gold and a letter from her family wishing her safe travels home. The mostly empty pantry (16) to the south was lined with shelves collecting more dust and cobwebs than food. A few small stacks of unspoiled grain and dried preservatives in jars were all that remained of the food supply.

Leo went down the hall, and opened the door (14) to the dining room, where a large wooden dining table surrounded by almost a dozen chairs took up a majority of the space. The room was relatively intact, although several plates of rotten and spoiled food made the stench abysmal. Several rats had scavenged the remains of the food and were starving for more. As Leo stepped in, they swarmed the druid! It was the last thing they ever did.

At the end of the hallway, the party found themselves in the once-ornate great and entrance hall to the house, now a chilling scene indeed with the backdrop of thunder and rain from outside. A large ornamental carpet had been pushed to the side of the staircase to make room for a 20-foot wide circle, with arcane runes and symbols inscribed around the inside ring. The material used on the circle maintained a soft, greenish glow, while the runes were in written in some type of black ink. Wisps of shadow trailed off the writing, floating upwards before disappearing. Those in the party trained in the magical arts recognized many of the runes as representing “life” and “death.”

In the center of the circle was a small black object, a little over a foot long, lumpy and misshapen. Upon further inspection, Shady had to fight off the bile that rose in his throat, as he realized he was staring at the burnt corpse of a fetus, skin charred and black. The body, smaller than he would have thought, was curled up on itself, the outline of its form just barely discernable. Coming off the body in a similar manner to the runes were small wisps of shadow, rising up towards the ceiling before fading into nothingness. Once Shady stepped back from the corpse, Leo stepped up and knelt down to pick it up. As soon as his fingers touched it, however, there was a blinding flash and loud boom as the druid was flung across the room to slam into the wall. A greenish, cylindrical wall of energy now rose from glowing circle to the ceiling. Pix knew a wall of force when he saw one, and advised that the party continue to search the floor and not waste their time attempting to get past it.

The door in the northwestern corner of the room led to a small closet (12) filled with filthy, moldy coats and jackets… but apparently nothing of value. The final door on this floor led to a small, plain bedroom (13). A little messy and dusty, it lacked the horror of the rooms upstairs. When Shady found a small silver bell in the room and picked it up, a slight shake caused a sudden loud ringing noise, painfully intense, to erupt and caused anyone nearby to cringe in pain. Following that unexpected arcane assault, the bell was seemingly a mundane object once more… perfect for the tabaxi. Those rooms scouted, it was time to descend into the basement…

Returning to the basement stairway (18), the party started down, only to discover a four-foot gap after four steps. As soon as a foot touched that fourth step, however, a bladed pendulum swung across the stairway, over the pit! Timing jumps over the pit seemed unnecessarily risky², so Shady scaled the wall to the ceiling, and disabled the pendulum at the pivot. Thaminor sent his rope of climbing across the span of the pit, stopping the momentum of the blade, and simultaneously providing Pix an easy guide for his levitation across. At the bottom of the stairs, a green rune of life glowed on a locked door. When Shady couldn’t pick it and Thaminor couldn’t bash it, Pix told them to stand aside and summoned Bigby’s hand to batter it in… although his aim² left something to be desired, as the party worried that the entire manor would come down on top of them when the arcane fist hit the frame of the door more times than the door itself. Eventually, the gnome’s aim was true, and the door shattered.

Inside, the room was completely dark. Shady could just faintly make out a figure standing near the center of the room. As the party entered the room, candles on the far side illuminated, their glow tinged with black energy. From that light, they could see a small wall extending outward, beyond which was a dirty and disheveled cot, stained with dirt, located next to an open and unoccupied coffin with dirt pouring out of the opening. As the last party member stepped through the doorway, candles around the entire room began to illuminate. They could then see a female figure standing in the far end of the room with her back to the group. Her long dark hair was set in a beautiful braid, and she appeared to be wearing a white dress made to resemble a wedding dress.

As the monk made his way across the room, the tall figure in the center turned around. This pale individual with messy, almost greasy black hair and a thick black mustache was clearly the same from the painting in the study. His sickly frame was gaunt and almost skeletal, his fingers were like bones, and his eyes and teeth had yellowed significantly. He warned the tabaxi to stay away from his wife, “Lenore.” Ignoring him, Shady stepped through the shadows to face Lenore. She had pale white skin, green eyes, and ruby lips… yet part of her face had been eaten away by worms, one of which was currently crawling out of her eye socket. She stared back at Shady with a vacant, almost dream-like quality. Ed whirled around, “Get away from her!”

The necromancer lashed out with tendrils of inky darkness as the party encircled him. Lenore mindlessly came to his aid, only to be returned to death once more. As she fell, the entire manor shuttered, as if heaving a sigh of release. This only enraged Ed further as he continued to lash out with the dark arts… until… he disappeared? Suddenly, Ed was on the other side of the room! This parlor trick did little to prolong his life, however, as the party soon sent him to his own next life as well.

The battle done and the Necromancer slain, the candles began to lose their black-edged flames. As they reverted to normal, a soft glow emerged from Lenore’s body and a spectral form rose from the corpse. The spirit of Lenore hovered there, restored to the beauty that she had in life, and kindly nodded to each of the party.

“Thank you, brave heroes, for releasing me from my husbands spell. You have done well to end his magic; his obsession of bringing me back became his undoing.”

She stared at his crumpled form and smiled sadly to herself.

“We were so young and foolish when we met. But he gave me the world, saw beauty in my work, and gave me such happiness. For me to not return that happiness, to become sick and lose Annabel… I could not live with myself. I did not think my husband would turn to such madness. I apologize.”

She suddenly turned back towards the party, a stern look across her face.

“Do me this one favor, my last request. Bury Annabel and I with my husband. Do not separate our family in death. Madness may have clouded his mind, but I will always love that bookseller named Edgar Allan.”

And with that, her form faded, vanishing into the ether.

As Thaminor looked around the room, he recognized that a freshly-built wall in the southeast corner was likely enclosing a new room. Leo called upon his shapeshifting powers of the earth to validate this theory and bring the wall down. Inside lay Jakob’s body, holding a bottle of Amontillado…


[2] Especially the way some. players. roll.