RAVENLOFT: The One That Got Away, Chapter Five

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RAVENLOFT: The One That Got Away, Chapter Five

Post by ewancummins »

OUTSIDE BENN'S HOUSE


The cart rolls to a stop outside Benn's two-story brownstone.
Pairs of gendarmes--maybe ten or twelve all together-- walk slowly about the front of the house and the street and alley-mouths nearby, with their torches raised as they peek into every possible hiding place.

Firelight gleams through a broken window in the front of the house. It doesn't look like the full blaze of a house-fire--just a flash from a lantern or torch.
The front door hangs ajar, creaking in the cold wind that blows south down the street.

Dead leaves skitter down the front steps and cross the pavement before the cart, then go whirling off into the dark of the night.
Last edited by ewancummins on Thu Feb 23, 2017 11:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.

-from Moby Dick (Hermann Melville)
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Re: RAVENLOFT: THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY, CHAPTER FIVE

Post by ewancummins »

NEAR THE GRIM BASTION


ALAIN

A LITTLE PAST SUNDOWN


The Grim Bastion looms up ahead of Alain and his party of torchbearers and bully-boys.
Just being near calls up old memories connected with this place and the Sancerre case that began Alain’s deadliest adventures in this alien Land of Mists: Denys Sancerre hiring him to protect Evangeline Sancerre, the party’s battles against the gang of kidnappers and thieves, a bizarre trip through a magic portal beneath the ruin that rises before Alain, the claustrophobic blackness when the Witch-Queen's spell blinded him.
Voices of Alain’s deceased adventuring companions seem to whisper in the wind blowing through a gap in one of the thick walls. Norzak, Cirdan, Karim, Silas Buckman, even the ill-fated Strange and his gnome friend, Aurelius.

Wat, who has come along with his old friend, coughs and wrinkles his nose at the sight of the ancient, blocky keep surrounded by cratered streets and decayed houses.
"Looks like there's been a fire'', the woodsman says, as he points to streaks of soot on the masonry.


The Falkovnians mutter amongst themselves in their own language.

The trio of Richemuloise thugs Alain recruited from a dockside wine-sink stop and gape at the sight of the ruin.
One says, "I heard it's haunted."

Alain sees no ghosts in the open corridor of the front, nor floating in the arrow slits, nor atop the broken battlements. No fire damage, either, despite the layer of soot on the exterior--and he recalls that the structure appeared to be mainly built of stone and mortar. But he's not been here in about eight years now, and that expedition to the ruin and through the portal to Wolutha’s realm was made in great haste.

The Witch -Queen Wolutha has gone on to whatever lies beyond the grave, destroyed by a hemlock bolt. The other villains, too, dead and defeated. Pierre Renault, Sancerre’s enemy whom Alain's party slew for the second time here at the Bastion, along with the necromancer that raised him from the charnel ground.
And somewhere beyond the portal beneath the Bastion, Gaston Van Diecks, pimp with a bestial secret, joined the others in death. Alain never did learn where the pimp’s corpse went, but with the benefit of hindsight, it seems obvious now that Jonathon Matyr must have moved the lycanthrope's body as part of his plan, tricking Alain and the others into blaming Van Diecks for Jon's murders.
The deception lasted until Jon butchered the girl Alain was hired to protect, Evangeline.

Jon.
The one that got away.

Wat coughs again.
"Alain?”
Last edited by ewancummins on Thu Feb 23, 2017 1:01 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.

-from Moby Dick (Hermann Melville)
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Re: RAVENLOFT: THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY, CHAPTER FIVE

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THOM'S MANSE


With his swordsman Bastian and the security detail on watch, Thom has time to play host to Charlotte, Lorna, and little Sandor.

The baby boy cries incessantly.
Both women show obvious signs of worry at the husbands' unexpected and sudden departure.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.

-from Moby Dick (Hermann Melville)
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Re: RAVENLOFT: The One That Got Away, Chapter Five

Post by VAN »

Sara doesn't want to bother Benn right now so she turns to Raen and Kat and shows them the black soot:

"It has started getting down the strange soot again. I don't like it. Also a man at Thom's house, the good looking one with the tunic and the armor, do you know him? His face is familiar but I don't remember where I saw him."
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Re: RAVENLOFT: The One That Got Away, Chapter Five

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"A good looking man? I missed him I'm afraid. maybe he was this Bastion they were shouting for?"

She looks around at the soot and shivers.

"Whatever is causing this must be nearby. I'll look around to see if I can gain any information about what happened here, and I'll collect some more samples for the alchemist while I'm at it."

She looks closely at the situation, letting Ben take the lead but searching for any signs, and scooping up some stones and a sample of the small insect life in the vicinity and slipping them into pouches.
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Re: RAVENLOFT: The One That Got Away, Chapter Five

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BENN'S HOUSE


THE PARTY has had just enough time to get off the cart and join the gendarmes in the street when a sharp cry erupts from within the brownstone.

A moment later, a gendarme staggers out, something bundled in his cloak, held in both arms.
He looks ill.

Whatever it is he's carrying seems to be small.
It might be about a foot long.
Lumpy.

The gendarmes searching the street all stop, lift their lights, draw in a bit closer to the steps at the front of the house.

Anyone looking closely as the man steps into the light of his fellows' upraised torches sees dark red splotches on the green cloth of the wrapped cloak.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.

-from Moby Dick (Hermann Melville)
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Re: RAVENLOFT: The One That Got Away, Chapter Five

Post by Adam »

Bennedict leaps from the back of the carriage as it skids to a halt, not waiting before moving quickly to the doors. At the sound of the cry from the street, however, he turns back towards the guard. His jaw grimly set, he walks slowly in that direction.

He looks the man in the eye, brooking no argument. "Show me," he growls.
"Of course," Benn mutters, "It would be a damned shame if we ever knew what the hell was actually going on."
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Re: RAVENLOFT: The One That Got Away, Chapter Five

Post by ewancummins »

BENN

Adam wrote:Bennedict leaps from the back of the carriage as it skids to a halt, not waiting before moving quickly to the doors. At the sound of the cry from the street, however, he turns back towards the guard. His jaw grimly set, he walks slowly in that direction.

He looks the man in the eye, brooking no argument. "Show me," he growls.

The pale-faced gendarme stares at Benn.
"Found...the...nn...nursery..."

And then he fumbles with the wrapped cloak, moving a fold aside to reveal...
VIEW CONTENT:
a red and white lump of flesh with a little hair clinging to one end...














It takes a moment for Benn's blurred, shaking vision to resolve into recognition.
Hornsby's face, splashed with blood and twisted in death-agonies, stares up at Benn.


Whatever it was that separated the man's head from his body, it made no clean cut like a headsman's sword, but tore and mangled the flesh of his neck like a wild beast.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.

-from Moby Dick (Hermann Melville)
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Re: RAVENLOFT: The One That Got Away, Chapter Five

Post by alhoon »

Raen gasps and turns pale at the ghastly sight, and whispers a ward against evil in Darkonese.
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Re: RAVENLOFT: The One That Got Away, Chapter Five

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If he possessed the physical strength, the sudden tightening of Bennedict's grip on his walking stick would have broken it in half. As it is, his knuckles turn white and pop audibly in the street. He, however, forces himself to remain composed. "Cover that," he finally says, "And find somewhere safe to store it."

He turns and moves to the door, heading toward the nursery but taking note of anything out of place along the way.
"Of course," Benn mutters, "It would be a damned shame if we ever knew what the hell was actually going on."
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Re: RAVENLOFT: The One That Got Away, Chapter Five

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Kat runs her head away from the object, but she displays less shock than one might expect. She has seen corpses before.

She continues her examination of the ara in respectful silence
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Re: RAVENLOFT: The One That Got Away, Chapter Five

Post by ewancummins »

SEARCHING THE HOUSE AND VICINITY
----------------

THE NURSERY
BENN finds the door to the nursery hanging in a splintered wreck.

His children, his babies, aren't here.
Nor is their maid.
Nor is the rest of Hornsby's corpse.

Benn finds blood on the floorboards and carpet, a tangled mess of broken and toppled furniture, a few smashed and ripped toys, and not much else.
What prints and tracks he can make out all look hopelessly muddled to him, almost as if someone or something obscured the signs. Something animal, and big, mixed in with human foot and handprints.

As he looks around, with a gendarme's borrowed lantern (he doesn't even recall taking it) he feels a draught. Cold. When did it get so cold? It's hardly the end of summer...
There, by the far wall, the window that opens over the alley stands open with its shutters thrown wide and the curtain flapping in the breeze.
Hurrying over, Benn finds no blood on the sill.
Leaning out into the alley, he sees no obvious signs of recent passage. Lights from torches shine at both ends. He can hear men talking.
Benn continues his search, moving with mounting urgency as each room proves empty of his children and the nurse.

The house has been ransacked, but nothing seems to be missing, at least nothing big and obvious, apart from the inhabitants.

Benn has run through the rooms twice, searching for clues and finding nothing new on the second run, when he hears dogs barking.


------------------------------
OUTSIDE
KAT

KAT searches the area around the house, at first finding nothing more than dirt, grass, stray pebbles, and some of the black soot-snow that melts at a touch.
But as she makes her way round into the back garden, she notices a muddy handprint on the outside of the kitchen window. Getting closer, she confirms that’s mud. Not blood. Definitely ion the outside pane.
Shining a light at the print, she can see it appears to have been made by a bare hand, fingers splayed. Probably a man, or else a woman with largish hands .It’s a bit smudged.
The garden itself doesn’t show any footprints. But she does find some sunken and torn patches of grass that suggest a large animal might have passed this way. She’s not exactly a master woodsman, though, and cannot be certain what sort of animal, or even if that guess was correct.
Kat has enough time to go back around front and tell the others of what she found in the back, when she hears dogs barking down the street to the south.
The gendarmes show little reaction to the noise, though two do glance in that direction.

----------------------------------------

OUT FRONT
SARA, RAEN, DORGIO
The gendarmes ask for help from Benn’s friends. They want to sweep the whole neighborhood, moving out from the house.
One of the guards-- whom Dorgio recognizes as Captain Thibault (a little less slim than in past years, and now sporting a fashionable and well-trimmed mustache)-- declares that bloodhounds have been sent for.
“We’ll find them, if they aren’t in the house someplace hidden, somewhere we missed.”
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.

-from Moby Dick (Hermann Melville)
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Re: RAVENLOFT: The One That Got Away, Chapter Five

Post by alhoon »

Out Front:
Before the head of the good man that was serving him a peaceful dinner a couple of days before is covered, Raen heaves to the side and empties his stomach. He tries to say something but another wave of nausea drops him on his knees and he braces himself with a hand on a nearby wall. The world is spinning for the mage and he seems about to collapse on his own vomit, but after a couple more heaves he manages to get hold of himself. Fainting now will not help, and there are children in danger.

He manages to stand and wipes his mouth, then takes a gulp from his waterskin to clear the taste. Finally he addresses the captain "captain, I'll help in anyway I can."
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Re: RAVENLOFT: The One That Got Away, Chapter Five

Post by ewancummins »

alhoon wrote:Out Front:
Before the head of the good man that was serving him a peaceful dinner a couple of days before is covered, Raen heaves to the side and empties his stomach. He tries to say something but another wave of nausea drops him on his knees and he braces himself with a hand on a nearby wall. The world is spinning for the mage and he seems about to collapse on his own vomit, but after a couple more heaves he manages to get hold of himself. Fainting now will not help, and there are children in danger.

He manages to stand and wipes his mouth, then takes a gulp from his waterskin to clear the taste. Finally he addresses the captain "captain, I'll help in anyway I can."

Captain Thibault steps back and jerks his green cloak away from the splatter of vomit the mage pours from his mouth to the pavement.

After listening to Raen's promise of help, the guard officer says,
"Yes. Of course. You're the foreign sorcerer, Raen. You helped stop the swamp-witch, Jenny Greenteeth. Good work, that."

He looks at the puddle of puke.

" Given your profession, you must have seen...I think I understand. You recognize this one, is that it? Was he one of the household staff, then?"

Now that Raen has stopped retching , he has a chance to study this man who has evidently been studying him.
Thibault is certainly not what one would call fat, but looks like a man in middle age who was formerly active and now going soft, a lean frame and a pot belly with the beginnings of a double chin.
His curled wig and his impeccably groomed mustache give him a gentlemanly air, along with the higher quality of his clothing and sword, as compared with the gear of his men.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.

-from Moby Dick (Hermann Melville)
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Re: RAVENLOFT: The One That Got Away, Chapter Five

Post by kintire »

Kat returns and reports her findings to whichever of her companions is standing furthest from Captain Thibault.

"I think they came in through the kitchen window. I can't tell whether they left that way as well. A man, and some sort of animal, big dog perhaps. Odd, though. Very few traces..."
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