TIE's Trap: Roivas Manor
For a few days after their successful mission at Fierypyre, the heroes of Methosilang just relaxed, and took care of unfinished business. This included the now routine task of selling the treasure they managed to earn during their last journey, and the purchase of new equipment. This time, they also had to settle the accounts of Tsine and Galeron, and do their best to comfort their friends and family, and show them that their loved ones are not dead, but merely elsewhere. Of course, this was easier said than done, and the church in particular had problems with it, ironically enough.
They also had to deal with the losses within their own group. Keth was dead and Galeron was gone, leaving them with noticeable gaps within their abilities. In additions, Sinael had made a decision. While he was happy helping the party so far, he had to admit that he just was not prepared to handle danger at the level that the group was seeing now. After all, he had made a name for himself in the town’s thief’s guild, and he could probably have a very comfortable life just staying here in Methosilang, where the greatest danger he could face were the city guards.
So the group had to find both new allies to assist them in their quest, and then decide what exactly they should do next. The first goal, at least, proved to be fairly easy to complete. The church was still upset at the loss of one of their best priests, and despite Thorrun’s assurances that his former mentor willingly left this world, the church was still suspicious, and decided to have one of their own accompany the group. That cleric was a dwarf worshipper of None named Scythe, who brusquely arrived one day just as the group was meeting to plan their next move. “Now, I know you lot are supposed to be heroes and all,” he began, “but don’t think that I’ll be going soft on you because of that. I want to know what’s really going on, and I’m not going away until I find out what it is.”
Of course, the group, though worried about Dragovigis, Lady Memory, and the other secrets they had, welcomed the healer into the party, hoping that the experience will convince Scythe and the church of the essentially benevolent change Galeron made. Plus, traveling into dangers like they now see on a usual basis without any kind of magical healing was suicide!
The second new recruit was gained through pure luck. Tal had to hire some new staff for his manor now that Tsine couldn’t handle any of the duties, including a new head chef. When an applicant arrived, Tal noticed he looked familiar. Finally, it came to him. “Aren’t you Wong Fe Hong, the traveling adventurer?”
Wong looked embarrassed and nodded, “Well, yes, but I wanted to try something different for a while. I’m also an expert chef, but I never really did it professionally.”
“Well, if you’re interested, we’re looking for powerful warriors like yourself. We’re currently looking for ways to better prepare the country for the upcoming war with Bas, and ultimately we believe the salvation of the world. Would you like to accompany us?”
Wong thought for a moment, and replied, “Can I still be a chef in between missions to save the world?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“I’ll do it!”
Their need for personnel fulfilled, the party’s next objective was finding out how exactly they will help Methosilang prepare for the war, but easily enough, this goal also walked up and knocked on the door. Literally.
Their new guest appeared to be exceedingly plain at first, but Robin recognized him easily enough. “You’re the guardian for TIE, right? I almost didn’t recognize you without your blue skin.”
The nameless figure nodded, and addressed the group, including a confused Scythe and nonchalant Wong. “I was ordered to inform you that TIE, my ruler, has expressed an interest in visiting you again. It wanted to assure you that this time, it had nothing to do with The Lady Memory. TIE personally believes it can provide you with something crucial, though what it is I can not say.”
Remembering the information they got from TIE last time (not to mention the solid block of copper,) they decided to pay it another visit. Scythe, of course, protested when they prepared to leave and wanted to know what was going on.
“We’re going to meet an old friend,” Tal replied. “Don’t worry, only Robin and I remain from the group that first met it.”
“It?” Scythe gasped.
“You’ll understand in time,” Tal simply said, smiling. “You’re not going to back out already are you, after promising that you won’t go away?”
Scythe quickly hushed, and soon the entire group (minus Venym, who was seeking sanctuary in Danae’s guild until they could figure out what to do with her,) had teleported back to the lost continent, and specifically TIE’s mountain home. However, when they arrived, Tie’s room had again changed. This time, it was completely empty, save for a small pillar where a scroll rested. Tal quickly opened it and glanced through it, but noticed most of the writing was magical. With a quick spell, Scythe translated the magical writing into the runes needed to cast various spells of restorations, and Tal continued with the more mundane text in the school. “I’m glad that you decided to take me up on my offer for more information,” the note, apparently from TIE, read. “However, before we can speak, I decided it would be more appropriate if we had a little fun first. I found a slight imbalance in the planes recently, and decided to isolate the problem until it could be corrected. Since you’re here and all, though, I’ll let you take care of this one. Figure out the problem and eliminate it, and we can go from there.”
Tal finished reading it aloud, and then looked up, and was shocked by what he saw. The cave they were in was gone, and they were instead standing outside of what appears to be some elegant manor. It was raining, and so dark that they could barely see more than about fifty feet away from the porch, so they had no idea what was beyond the boundaries of the house. No sooner did Tal and the others arrive, however, than the manor’s front door was thrown open, and a human dressed in formal attire greeted them. “Ah, the masters of the house!” he said. “We were so worried about you, what with the weather and all, especially with you being so late. We’re glad you’re safe. Come in, and warm yourself. I’ll have one of the maids draw a bath.”
The perplexed party entered the manor, and surveyed what they saw. The manor was certainly impressive, but at the same time there was something strange and oveworldly about it, as it didn’t seem to be built in a way that reflected any customs or culture that they heard of. Conversely, the manor’s servants, who were gathered around the front door in a crowd of dozens, were all human, yet didn’t seem to be the slightest bit concerned with the elves, dwarves, half-dragons, and other strange creatures in the party.
Despite their unusual arrival, both Err and Scythe took it in stride fairly quickly. Err began to look for the kitchen and started asking the servants “Me hungry. Make us dinner.” Scythe, meanwhile, was still not used to adventuring again and asked to see one of the bedrooms so he could rest and recover from the headache he got from the apparent dimensional travel.
The others, however, were less willing to accept the situation. “What do you mean the masters of the house?” Tal asked.
“You are the new masters of the house, are you not? We were told you were coming. And if you’re not the masters, what are you doing here?”
Tal and Danae quickly conversed while Robin examined the manor’s decorations and Wong followed Err into the kitchen. Finally, the two decided to just do this the easy way. “Yes, of course we are the masters of the house. Now, I want to know what’s been going on here,” Danae said, getting information the verbal way while Tal and Danae examined the manor itself.
They soon discovered quite a number of strange objects in the house. Paintings of members of a family called Roivas covered the walls, suggesting that they owned the manor. The people generally looked noble in the paintings, but there was something unsettling about them as well, as if each one was disturbed. Tal possibly discovered one reason for this when he found a family tree of the family in the manor’s library. According to it, the family’s history included criminals, mental patients, heretics, scientists of strange and forbidden lore, and even a member who was burned as a witch! Meanwhile, Robin found a strange globe, which gave some clues that the manor truly was from another world. According to the globe, this manor was inside a country called the “United States,” which Robin of course never heard of. He did find it strange, however, that he could even read the globe, since there was no way he knew the language of these people.
Meanwhile, Danae was told about the recent events of the manor just as Tal was doing research on the same subject. Apparently, a few decades ago, the then-current owner of the house, a retired doctor, went mad and killed off all his servants, and was then committed at a local insane asylum until his mercifully quick death. Tal discovered the same doctor’s notes, which consisted mostly of rantings about how all of his servants were really disguised monsters, and some sort of city of demons that resided below the manor and can be accessed from the manor’s basement. This struck Tal as odd, since in his initial investigations of the manor, he didn’t even find a way into the basement! His ruminations were quickly over, when he heard a maid scream, and it was coming from the room he was in!
Fortunately, many of the others heard it as well, and Robin, Danae, and Wong were there to help. Err and Scythe, however, were still absent, with Err wandering around the house in an attempt to get some food while Scythe continued resting. The rest of the party found the maid standing frozen in a state of shock, while a strange line of blood was being pumped from her through the air to a strange creature about five feet away. The creature was built vaguely like a gorilla, but it had massive tusks like an elephant, and razor-sharp claws. None of them knew what it was, but they didn’t really think that was relevant, either. Tal quickly struck the creature with his sword, causing the line to break. As soon as the creature’s attack finished, however, it completely disappeared!
The party tried to figure out what happened, but they soon heard the sounds of heavy footsteps and felt something invisible push past them! The creature was still there, apparently, so except for Tal, who stayed behind to check on the maid and make sure she was okay, the group chased the creature. They followed it up the manor’s stairs to the second floor, and then near the bedrooms, where Scythe finally heard the sounds of combat and awoke to help the group. Danae, however, broke off the chase when she heard Err call out, “Come here guys! Found thing!”
Soon, Robin, Wong, and Scythe had the invisible creature cornered in the bedroom, where Scythe used his magic to purge the area of all invisibility effects, revealing the creature in all of its horrible glory. In fact, as he was preparing to attack it, Robin met the creature’s gaze, and felt some force attacking his very mind and sanity. There was nothing but personified madness behind the creature’s eyes, and though he resisted as best as he could, he nonetheless felt his mind surrendering slightly to the insanity. However, this did nothing but increase his desire to destroy the damned thing, so he, Wong, and Scythe began to wail on the now-invisible thing.
This went on for a few minutes, in fact, even though the creature lost consciousness after only a few attacks. They soon discovered that even after doing enough damage to normally kill such a creature, it was still slowly regenerating. Even after chopping it into little pieces, it was slowly putting itself back together again. Finally, Wong and Scythe quit out of boredom, and left to find Err while Robin continued to hack away at the creature in frustration.
Meanwhile, the group converged on what Err found, which turned out to be a very strange doorway into the attic. It appeared to be made of adamantium, and thus it stood out quite a bit from the rest of the manor’s surroundings. It was also locked, a fact that Err was trying to remedy by smacking the door repeatedly. “Um, sir, please don’t do that,” one of the gathered servants said. “We do have the key for that door, but we strongly recommend you don’t go in there,” he reluctantly admitted.
“Why is that?” Scythe asked suspiciously.
“Nothing important, but the floor up in the attic is very weak. It’s hazardous walking around up there,” the servant replied.
Regardless of the warning, the party opened the lock and investigated the attic. Contrary to what the servant said, the floors looked acceptable, but the inhabitants of the room were far more dangerous. Three of them looked like strange, mantis-like creatures, but they were the size of humans and had vaguely human faces. The other two were as large as an ogre, seemed to be made entirely of muscle, and instead of a head, it had three giant eyes where a neck would normally be. All five appeared to be guarding some strange slab of stone, and charged as soon as the party arrived!
The worst thing about this fight was, just like the invisible creature before, as soon as these creatures got close to the party, they met the looks of a few party members and immediately sucked their sanity away! The ones who suffered the worse from this onslaught were Robin (again,) Wong, who really suffered from the sudden loss of insight, and Tal’s familiar Violet, who’s normally alert nature proved a hindrance this time. Nonetheless, the fight went quickly from this point, after Danae cleared away many of the foes with a simple fireball and the party’s many melee fighters finished the job. Remarkably, after Wong killed one of the creatures with one quick neck-snapping punch, he felt his mind partially stabilizing, as if defeating these creatures helped the brain reconcile their existence with the world. Sadly, by this time, the unaffected Danae and Err wiped out most of the enemies, forcing Scythe to use his spells and the restoration spells on the scroll to heal most of the party members. He decided that Tal’s familiar, however, could wait until the current crisis passed, which proved to be distressing for both Tal and his familiar, who began to get very distressed by the loss of sanity, and spent much of her time in a demented daze. And Robin still wasn’t near 100% effective, either.
After killing the monsters, the party examined the stone they were guarding. It looked fairly simple, except for an unfamiliar rune carved onto it. For now, the group decided not to damage it or affect it until they knew what it was, and while it was too heavy for most of the group to even lift, Err hefted it onto his back with almost no effort. As they left the attic, though, a worried servant ran up to the group and cried, “There’s been another attack! One of the servants is having its life sucked out by a monster!”
Err thought long and hard about this situation, or at least as hard as he could, and he came to one logical conclusion. “Me leaving!” he yelled, as he sprinted towards the door of this crazy place!
As the rest of the party went to deal with the threat, Err ended up outside, with a worried servant tailing him and begging him to come back in and put that rock in a safe place. Err didn’t even pretend to listen, though, until he reached the end of the manor’s lawn…and found nothing. Literally. Beyond the house’s property, the ground ended in an abrupt cliff, and beyond that was oblivion!
After spending a few minutes sitting down and crying, Err got up and spent a few more minutes walking around the manor, making sure that there wasn’t another way out. Meanwhile, the rest of the group had caught up to the fight, which was taking place right next to the manor foyer. Once again, it was one of the life-draining monsters, but this time, it ran as soon as the party arrived. The party tracked it as it moved towards one of the walls of the Foyer, and then abruptly vanished, even though Scythe had again removed its invisibility! Following a gut impulse, Scythe enhanced his magical vision to gain the sight of absolute truth, and then examined the “wall” that the creature escaped, and sure enough, there was an open door there, into what looked like the basement!
“So, do we go in?” Danae asked.
A worried Robin shrugged. “I don’t think we should yet. I don’t think we’re prepared. We should go outside, set up camp, and return to this crazy house tomorrow to finish things off.” This was much more cowardly than Robin normally acted, but then, the rest of the group wasn’t seeing the place through his eyes. From his view of things, the entire house was filled with an eerie red light, everything looked tilted about 15 degrees, the paintings were replaced with gory scenes of violent hellscapes, the statues were all turning their heads to watch him, and he was hearing ghostly laughter and footsteps every few seconds!
The group reluctantly agreed, so they grabbed Err when he finished his circumnavigation of the Roivas rock, and Tal set up one of his new magic items: a portable, instantly-assembled, fortress! Though it took up the entire lawn of the manor (and theoretically threatened to tip the rock over,) it was perfect for giving the entire group the rest it needed. Well, everyone rested except for poor Violet, which spent most of the night suffering from horrible nightmares.
The next day, the group refreshed, healed Robin and Violet’s minds a bit, and ventured into the manor again. They entered, however, to find almost the entire manor staff waiting for them. This time, they were not enthusiastic to meet the party, nor were they, apparently, breathing! In one voice, they said in a monotone, “You abandoned us last night, and the creatures murdered us. But they gave us a chance to get our revenge in the name of our new lord, Ulyaoth!” Again as one, they charged.
However, the party had more important things to do now. Wong reached the door first, but stopped short when he found an invisible barrier where the door should be. Tal was ready for this, however, and quickly fired a green ray of disintegration at the wall, shattering it instantly. He, along with Err, Robin, Danae, and Scythe, ran into the basement, while Wong waited behind to deal with the undead servants, which fortunately didn’t apparently have the same mind-draining ability that the other creatures had.
Meanwhile, the group descended into the basement, where they found a second runic stone, and apparently both the second life-sucking monster and the nearly fully-healed first one that Robin had chopped to bits! Also in the room was a pair of strange, tiny, bug creatures. They seemed oblivious to the group so far, however.
The group charged down the stairs to confront the beasts, but when they got too close, the two bug creatures suddenly noticed the group, and started emitting high-pitched chirping noises to express their awareness. Unafraid, Err and Robin led the group to the basement, and were rewarded when the two bugs released strange pulses of energy, which seemingly caused both Err and Robin to completely vanish! Fortunately, this also apparently killed the bugs, which used up all their energy in the attack.
This just left three party members to deal with the creatures. Fortunately, it appeared that the one that Robin and the others wounded last night suddenly stopped regenerating as soon as Err vanished, so Danae, Tal, and Scythe focused their attacks on him, killing him quickly now that he was no longer able to heal from his wounds.
Meanwhile, Err and Robin found themselves at the end of a series of floating islands. They seemed to be connected by a series of teleportation circles, with a final exit circle at the end of the chain, but since both Err and Robin could fly, it was irrelevant. However, as they flew towards the exit, a number of zombies on the islands noticed them and futilely started walking towards them. Robin shot a few of them out of habit, and except for each one having a strange habit of screaming out the word “Ulyaoth” and exploding shortly before dying, there was nothing unusual about them. However, Robin found that he regained more of his sanity with each one he killed, so he eagerly finished off the entire group. Meanwhile, Err noticed that in addition to the teleportation circles, the islands contained a number of brightly-glowing shafts of light. Finding a blue one pretty and shiny, he flew over to touch it, and immediately found his intelligence had returned. “Ah, a most remarkable development!” the formerly-titled Err said, being grateful to use actual grammar again.
The two eventually flew into the teleportation circle, and out of the strange pocket dimension and back into the basement of the manor, where the rest of the party was finishing off the second life-creature. As soon as he arrived, Err noticed that the first one was killed, and then realized the stone he was carrying had also just crumbled to dust. Eager to give deductive reasoning another try, he realized that the two were related, and it was the stone who was granting the creatures their endless life force. He was about to reveal this to the party, but before he could, Danae fired a ray at the second lifethief, which struck it dead instantly anyway, making its relation to the stone pointless.
After the second monster was dead, its stone also crumbled, revealing a small well in the basement. The party examined the hole, and discovered a ladder leading further downward. Tal and Danae looked at each other with shock and dread. After noticing the curious glances of the others, Danae explained, “Apparently, one of the old owners of the manor thought there was an ancient, evil city under the house. They thought he was crazy, but now I have my doubts. And since we’re still here, I bet that whatever the imbalance is, we can find it there.”
OOC Notes: This adventure introduced Wong, the new character of Sinael’s player, and Scythe, who was a bit more complicated. Keth’s player was absent this game, but one of my players had a friend who was interested in joining, so he made Scythe. However, he only showed up for the first game, but Keth’s player arrived the next game, and we decided that for now, if he was willing to accept it, he could play Scythe until we reached a better point to introduce a new character. Besides, we still needed a cleric in the group!
As for the adventure itself, it was ripped off most thoroughly from the video game Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, for the Gamecube. It’s a typical survival horror game, but it had an innovative feature that caused you to lose sanity every time you saw a monster, and get some back every time you killed one. For this game, I used a template based on these monsters, many of the game’s monsters themselves, the setting for three of the game’s chapters, and even the main plot points for two of those chapters! Of course, translating all those monsters and rules into D&D format took as much time as a regular adventure write-up would take, but I did it for fun months before, so I could relax a bit for this game.
