Session II: Chapter 7, Part I
Chapter 7 is getting rather long, so I'll post Part I tonight, and I'll try to finish it off by tomorrow, if I can....
Chapter 7 - The Mill, Part I
28 Coldeven, Late Evening
“So,” Willow demanded, once things had settled down a bit. “What, exactly, are you doing here? And where is Davok? Is he alright?”
“Davok is fine,” Endora assured her. “We met up with a group of his clansmen on the road just outside Hommlet,” she explained. “They were coming to town to find him. It was so sad. There was an old wise man that traveled with them. He told us that shortly after Davok left to join us, their village fell under attack. The scene he described was frighteningly similar to the experience that Tonan had last night. All these yellow robed cult-freaks arrived in the village while the men were out on a hunting party. Their numbers were overwhelming, and they began the ritualistic slaughter of the women and elders. The children were taken off into the Kron Hills… how awful!”
Tonan pounded his fist into his hand and turned away at the news. Gann, who was still recovering from the after-effects of the spell that felled him, had to sit down on the front stoop of the millhouse to digest this grisly new information. The reaction of everyone was one of grim frustration and anger. Everyone except for Tas, that is. He was busy picking over the bodies of the fallen cultists, looking for anything that the group may have missed on their initial perusal.
Endora continued, “The daughter of one of the hunters hid in the woods and witnessed the whole thing. By the time the men returned, it was too late to do anything but mourn the dead and missing.” The paladin’s voice quivered with emotion. “Many of the men remained in the village to try to put the pieces of their lives back together. Still, a posse was quickly formed, and they left immediately to hunt down the cultists and retrieve the children. Most of them were just trackers, though, and they lacked any real muscle in the group. That’s why they came for Davok.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Tas interjected. “So the mighty half-human hero killing machine went with his tribesmen to storm the cult stronghold in the hills… bla, bla, bla… they can figure out the rest.”
Willow and Endora scowled fiercely at the halfling for his crude remarks, and even Thor growled at him.
Valeria walked over to Tonan and looped her arm through his. “Is that what we’re up against here,” she asked sadly? “Is that what happened to Mandy and Karlun?”
“Whatever may have happened to them,” the ranger replied, forcing his voice to remain steady, “We can’t be everywhere at once. The situation to the west is being handled. Right now, we must concentrate on the here and now, and on the fate of our friends. I’m going to the mill to question Themock again. I should have pressed him for more information this morning.” With that, he pushed gently away from Val and stalked off towards the mill. Nobody argued, and the party followed Tonan across the yard and to the front of the mill.
***
Within fifty feet of the mill, it was obvious to everyone that the massive grinding stone was in use. A large, horizontal water wheel underneath the building was turned by the power of the river. A simple iron pinion arrangement rotated the bull gear, which in turn drove the mighty stone within the mill. Despite careful maintenance and bucket loads of grease, the building still shuddered while the mill was operating.
As the party was lined up along the front of the building, trying to determine whether or not it was safe to enter, Gann strode forward and barged through the door. Tonan stepped in behind him amidst a swirling white cloud of flour dust.
Everything inside the mill appeared to be normal. The burly foreman, Themock, was hard at work loading sacks of flour as it poured out of the chute on the eastern side of the grinding stone. His two assistants were busy piling grain into the feeder. Themock nodded to the men to acknowledge their presence, and he called upon one of his workers to take his position at the flour chute. Tonan barely recognized Karlun’s chief assistant as the man whom he had spoken to earlier in the day. The fellow was covered from head to toe in flour, and his large brown eyes shining out from his powdery white countenance gave him a rather comical appearance.
“They ain’t heeya,” Themock stated plainly, in a deeply accented drawl. “Ain’t seen Mandy nor Karlun in in many a day, now.”
“What do you know of their disappearance,” Tonan asked bluntly, with just a hint of a threat in his voice? “We are expected guests and good friends. They should be here.” The ranger left out any mention of the ambush at the millhouse on purpose.
“They ain’t disappeared, nossuh,” replied Themock, turning away from the uptight ranger. “Said they’d be back befo’ the festival. That put’s ‘em back heeya befo’ tomorruh mo’nin’, by my reckonin’.”
Valeria once again posted herself outside the door as the rest of the party entered the mill. With six armed, and obviously upset adventurers in their midst, the workers halted production and stared fearfully at the group. Seeing the look on his men’s faces, Themock turned back around to face his “guests”. It was then that Gann noticed that something wasn’t quite right. The foreman’s face was no longer covered in powdery flour dust. His skin was coated in a pasty film, as if the flour had mingled with…
“…sweat!” roared Gann as he grabbed Themock by the scruff of the neck and nearly lifted him off the floor. “You’re afraid,” he practically yelled in the man’s face! “What are you hiding? What do you know about the foul evil that is running amok around here?!”
Poor Themock could do little but sputter and quake in the face of the enraged cleric. His eyes kept straying towards the corner of the mill as his mouth repeatedly failed to form the words that he was trying to say. Gann didn’t notice the foreman’s gestures, nor did he see the other two mill workers slowly making their way towards the rear exit.
“Perhaps you need some smiting,” shouted Gann! “You know something more than you’re telling, and my mighty Truncheon of Truth is ready to beat the… uh….. truth right out of you!”
Valeria was watching the spectacle from the door, and it was plain to her that Themock was trying very hard to say something, but he was too shaken up… both physically and emotionally… to spit it out. “What’s in the corner,” she asked, following the terrified man’s gaze?
Just then, the room went dark. An unnatural, nearly tangible, inky blackness consumed the heroes at the front of the mill. In less than the span of a heartbeat, weapons were drawn and spells were readied. There was a strangled scream, and Themock went limp in Gann’s arms. It was another ambush!
Tas, the light-footed halfing, tumbled out of the range of the darkness spell and into the eastern corner of the mill where the foreman’s attention had been focused. Looking down, the rogue realized that he was standing nearly on top of a cleverly concealed trap door, and he jumped back.
Seconds later, the door cracked open just as Endora stepped into the light. A pale hand reached out from below and grabbed the paladin’s ankle. There was a brief, sickening sound of sizzling flesh before the surprised woman screamed and kicked the trap door shut.
Hearing her friend’s cry of pain, Willow reacted by pulling a bone from a bat’s wing out of her pouch. She had picked it up after the battle with the gnomish wizard had left several of the flying rodents dead on the miller’s lawn. Drawing the power of the air into her body through the bone, the druid sprouted an insubstantial pair of magical wings, and she attempted to soar out of the darkness. She broke out of the range of the spell a split second before realizing that she had misjudged the height of the ceiling. There was nothing she could do but brace herself for the impact. Willow slammed into a crossbeam and spun out of control. She landed hard on top of the grinding stone as her wings dissolved, and the turning gears whisked the injured druid away from her companions.
Valeria was unable to see what was going on from outside the mill and, hearing the cries of the fallen and injured, she was growing concerned. “I’m over here,” she yelled into the darkness. “Use my voice to find your way!”
A much disoriented Tonan stumbled sideways into Thor and, thanks to Val’s direction, they both managed to make their way to the open door. With a clear point of reference, the ranger was able to get his bearings and plan his next action in the chaotic mess that was unfurling around him.
Tyris was startled as Thor’s tail brushed against her back in the magically induced darkness, and she lunged forward. Unexpectedly, she found herself standing side by side with Endora in front of the closed cellar door. She instantly understood that this was where the danger lurked and, without thinking, she reached down and yanked on the latch. She had only managed to pull the door slightly ajar before the ghastly white hands reached out once again and grabbed her by the wrists. The genasi sorceress froze as every muscle in her body suddenly seized. A prisoner in her own body, Tyris stared with terror into the evil eyes of the madman who groped at her from below. The door slammed shut once again.
Gann Tolar managed to lay the rigid body of the unfortunate foreman against the wall, and then he pulled out his mace. Muttering a blessing to He of the Cudgel, Gann raised his weapon and charged towards what he judged to be the sound of battle. Unfortunately, the cleric had lost his sense of direction in the dense blackness, and he ended up slamming into the side of the rotating stone. An insertion tube for one of the wheel’s grease traps snagged the back of Gann’s belt, and the sputtering cleric was dragged ignominiously off of his feet… and around he went.
Meanwhile, Tas had grown tired of the pale-skinned mage repeatedly popping out of his hole to inflict harm upon his party mates. The halfing drew his deadly crossbow and leveled it at the door. The next time it opened, even just an inch, whoever stood below was sure to catch a bolt in the eye!
Angered by her injury, and seeing that Tas was prepared to provide cover fire, Endora grabbed the latch from Tyris and pulled up with all of her might. The door shuddered with the force of her pull, but remained shut! Suddenly, Tonan was at her side. They looked at each other for a second and then, with grim determination, ranger and paladin combined their strength and gave the door a mighty tug.
The pair nearly toppled over backwards as the door flew open with no resistance whatsoever. Tas was ready, though, and he instantly let fly two bolts from his enchanted bow. They flew into the cellar with expert precision… and they bounced harmlessly off the stone wall to the right of the steep staircase.
Thor came charging out of the darkness and prepared to leap into the pit. Before he reached the edge, however, a sharp command issued forth from the cellar. “Detineo,” it said, in the mysterious language of arcane magic. The wolf halted mid-lunge and skidded to a halt at the top of the stairs. He slid into Tyris who toppled over, dazed, but once again in control of her body. Endora reached down and grabbed the fallen sorceress under the arms and dragged her away from the trap door.
A second voice, female this time, spoke yet another word of magic. “Contendo!” And a magic missile shot out of the darkness to pierce Thor’s thick hide. Tonan’s companion moaned in pain, but the wounded animal remained frozen in place, unable to move.
At the same time, Willow had finally come to her senses and she jumped down from the slowly spinning mill stone, and into the light. She turned to aid her companions, when she was unexpectedly assaulted by a flying cleric of St. Cuthbert. Still suspended in the air by his belt, Gann emerged from the darkness with his arms flailing wildly. In his struggle to free himself, he nearly clubbed poor Willow with the mighty Truncheon of Truth, and she was forced to duck out of the way. The druid sat there on the wooden floor, entranced by the disturbing site. She watched as the cleric sailed behind the mill, and back into the inky blackness.
To be continued in Part II....
