JollyDoc
Explorer
FAMILY VALUES
“Your stepfather?” Rico asked, taken aback.
“It’s a long story,” Shalelu sighed. “One I’d rather not go into right now. I’d heard he was at Fort Rannick, and when I heard that contact had been lost, I didn’t know if I was relieved or terrified. I had to know for myself if he was alive or dead. Now that I do, I don’t know how I feel about that.”
“I see,” the druid replied.
“No, I don’t imagine that you do,” Shalelu said, “but I thank you for respecting my privacy. In any event, if you and the others intend on checking out the house, I’ll stay out here and watch over the Black Arrows. They’re in no shape to fight right now.”
“And I appreciate that,” Wesh said as he came out of the barn, the rest of the company in tow. “Hopefully, we won’t be long, but if there’s trouble, take the rangers and get back to Turtleback Ferry as fast as you can.”
Shalelu nodded. She was a veteran and knew the hard realities of the life they led. She wasted no words on maudlin sentiment.
The giant, decaying farmhouse covered in moss, slumped drunkenly at the edge of the damp forest clearing. Rickety stairs crawled up to a porch covered by a huge eave held aloft by thick pillars of pine. The timbers were decorated with crude carvings of manticores impaling children with their tail spikes, and women being ripped apart by wolves. The carvings looked like a child’s work, but the subject matter grew more gruesome and depraved from one depiction to the next. An unsettlingly large rocking chair of lashed wood and bone swayed erratically in the breeze at the far end of the porch under a vast menagerie of wind chimes composed of decidedly humanoid bones. The house’s windows had all been boarded up with thick timbers, although it was unclear if that was done to keep intruders out or imprison whatever unspeakable things made their home within. Cautiously, the deputies mounted the porch, Dexter taking point. A host of ants marched happily away here and there, many the size of a grown man’s thumb nail. A moth the size of a shovel head clung to the porch ceiling, watching them with alien eyes. The scent of bad meat, urine, sweat and decay wafted now and then from between the cracks in the boarded-up windows, promising worse to those who sought to go inside. When they reached the front door, the rogue motioned the others back while he checked the portal for any unexpected surprises.
“Clear,” he said after a moment, and then reached out and turned the knob.
Almost immediately, the squeal of rusted metal sounded from Dexter’s left. Glancing that way, he saw a hinged rack studded with bone spurs, that had been concealed within the wind chimes, was swinging towards his face. Only his phenomenal reflexes saved him from permanent disfigurement. As it was, the razor-sharp spurs left several deep furrows across his cheek. Immediately on the heels of this, an ominous rumbling came from beneath the floorboards of the porch. From between the slats rose several rusty saw blades, which began shearing rapidly down the length of the stoop. None of the companions had time to react as the blades whirred past, tearing through boots and footwear alike. Once they’d sank beneath the boards once more, six pairs of eyes glared balefully at the rogue.
“Whoops,” Dex shrugged.
A dingy sitting room lay beyond the deadly door. A mangy bearskin rug covered the floor before a tremendous hearth set into the wall, its pained visage still snarled at whatever cruel hunter took its life. A huge couch, haphazardly upholstered in animal hide and human flesh, replete with a collection of talons, monstrous hairy spider’s legs, fox heads, and human hands and feet, sat against another wall.
“So Wesh,” Dex asked, “what do you think of the taxidermy?”
“I’ve had less frightening nightmares,” the wizard replied dryly.
The room held little else of note, and the group proceeded across to a door on the far side. As Skud passed near the ghoulish sofa, however, the floor beneath him creaked dangerously. With a quickness that belied his size, the big half-orc stepped away just as the wood gave way, revealing a dark shoot lined with sharpened stakes.
“What is this place?” Wesh asked.
“Well, it sure ain’t grandma’s,” Dex chuckled.
Beyond the parlor, a dim hallway branched towards the back and front of the house. Several closed doors led off it, and a set of stairs climbed to what must have been an attic. The group made their way slowly towards the rear. Dex pushed open the door at the end of the hall as quietly as possible. He needn’t have bothered. The cloying stink of the room was nearly overwhelming. Buckets of filth were stacked against the walls, and fat, ravenous flies lazily circled their rims. The room itself was dominated by an immense bed, its ratty sheets stained beyond hope. A huge easel sat next to the bed with a palette of various shades of brown and red paint. The source of those morbid pigments…several crushed organs and ragged stumps of flesh…sat in receptacles next to the easel. A set of human-hair brushes jutted from a broken skull by the easel, while a comb made from a human mandible sat on a small oak bedside table nearby, its teeth clotted with thick strands of greasy black hair. The bodies of three horribly deformed men dressed in ragged finery were propped up in huge, open coffins against the far wall, their mouths sewn tightly shut with lengths of hair. The first had a third leg protruding from his hip, and a small, pin head. Three arrows protruded from his chest. The second had an extra nose jutting from his right cheek and a hunched back, his head split by an axe. The last corpse’s deformities were hard to determine exactly, as his body looked to have been trampled and was little more than a bag of broken bones and mashed features. Yet, horrific as all of these things were, they paled in comparison to the creature that sprawled upon the bed. She was an incredibly corpulent monster with stringy hair and bald patches, and she wore a huge, red curtain as a shroud. Her bed creaked out in anguish as she shifted her massive form to regard the intruders to her home.
“Goddammit, ya good-fer-nothins!” Mammy Graul cursed, but seemed to be speaking to someone else besides the deputies. “Cain’t ya git nothin’ right! I’ll skin all yer worthless hides afore I’m done! Benk, Kunkel, Hadge! See if you’s can do what yer brudders ‘parently couldna! Kill’em!”
To the horror of the companions, the three corpses lurched into shambling motion, ripping themselves from their coffins and moving to obey their mother’s command.
As the zombies advanced, Rico and Wesh summoned their magic, pummeling the undead with fire and force. Still, the horrors came on, the pin-headed one swinging its arms like clubs, catching Adso broadside with a clumsy blow. Max leaped to the monk’s defense, his twin swords sliding deftly from their sheaths and biting into the putrefied flesh of the undead. Dexter dove into the room, folding himself into a somersault and then rolling to his feet right beside the sagging bed. Before Mammy could react, the rogue plunged both his rapier and his dagger deep into her fleshy folds. An instant later, Reaper hurled bolts of force at the ogress, slamming her massive bulk against the headboard. Mammy Graul shrieked in pain and outrage. She gurgled a brief spell and vanished in a flash of light. The Reaper cursed, then turned to the hunchbacked zombie and bellowed a command.
Instantly, the corpse paused in its mayhem and turned towards him.
“Destroy that one!” Reaper pointed towards the shambling bag of bones that was the third zombie. Hunchback turned abruptly and slammed his brother against a wall. As the zombie reeled, Dexter leaped upon it and jammed his blades through its sagging flesh again and again until it collapsed in a heap. In the meantime, Max continued his assault on pin head, battering at the corpse until it was barely recognizable as ever having been humanoid.
“Where’d she go?” Wesh asked as the room quieted. Abruptly, his question was answered by a loud scream from the barn.
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Shalelu stared in stunned disbelief as the corpulent half-ogress circled in the air above her, alternately cackling and then screaming profanities, all as blood dripped steadily from several gaping wounds in her doughy gut.
“It’s Mammy Graul herself!” Jakardros shouted. “Beware! She’s a sorceress!”
As if to confirm this, a cloud of roiling red smoke appeared before the four rangers, and from its depths, two baleful yellow eyes gleamed. As the fog cleared, they beheld a giant serpent coiled on the floor, horns and spikes sprouting from its red-scaled hide. Hissing, the viper struck, its needle-like fangs sinking into Shalelu’s arm. The ranger hissed through her teeth as the wound turned instantly red and angry.
Shalelu next found herself shouldered roughly aside as Jakardros moved between her and the serpent. The snake struck again, catching the older man on the thigh. He growled in pain, but as the viper recoiled, he stepped after it, landing a solid punch to its jaw.
“Fa…Jakardros, no!” Shalelu shouted. “You’ll get yourself killed!”
The old ranger ignored her, landing another blow, but suffering a second bite for his effort. Suddenly, Vale rushed past her as well, moving to support Jakardros.
“You’ve got the bow, girl!” the burly man shouted. “Shoot the witch!”
Shalelu’s face reddened, but she nevertheless drew her bowstring taught, and in rapid succession, sent two arrows flying at Mammy Graul. The wizardess shrieked as the missiles punched home.
At that moment, the Sandpoint deputies burst into the barn. Reaper was first, his shambling, hunch-backed servant in tow. When he saw the fiendish serpent harrying the two rangers, he sent a ghostly image of his hand flying towards the beast. As the black hand touched the snake, the creature dissolved once more into red smoke as it was banished back to the Abyss from which Mammy Graul had summoned it. Mammy snarled and began hurling blue bolts of fire at her assailants, but her salvo was returned three-fold as Dexter’s arrows, Rico’s fire, and Wesh’s own bolts were sent back at her. The barrage knocked the morbidly obese wizard out of the air and sent her crashing into one of the stalls, where she lay unmoving. The remaining deputies filed into the barn, Maximillian bringing up the rear, hauling Kaven Windstrike by the scruff of his neck.
“Look who I found making a run for it,” he sneered.
As the others turned to regard the coward, Adso’s eyes went wide. He saw something he hadn’t noticed when they’d first rescued the rangers. A small tattoo on Kaven’s shoulder. A tattoo of the Sihedron Rune…
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“Care to explain this?” Dexter asked, tapping Kaven’s tattoo with the tip of his dagger. Skud was holding the ranger tightly by both arms, his short tusks inches from Kaven’s ear as he breathed his fetid breath down the man’s neck.
“It…it’s just a tattoo,” Kaven stammered. “It’s no big deal! I just liked the design!”
“I don’t understand what’s going on,” Jakardros interrupted.
“This,” Adso explained as he pulled the Sihedron Rune medallion from under his tunic. “It’s a symbol of the ancient Rune Lords. We’ve spent weeks uncovering why it keeps turning up, especially at scenes of great violence and evil. Now, by coincidence, your friend here just happens to have it tattooed on his body.”
“I’ve known Kaven for years,” Jakardros said. “Granted, when he came to us, it wasn’t exactly of his own free will, but he’s since proven himself in battle time and time again. I can’t believe he’s tied to any of these events.”
“We’ll see,” Reaper said quietly. He turned to Kaven, dark energy gathering around his fist. “We want to know where you got that mark. I’m only going to ask you once.”
“Now just a…!” Jakardros protested, but Shalelu placed a restraining hand on his shoulder.
“I trust these people,” she said softly. “Just wait.”
Fear widened Kaven’s eyes, especially when a low growl began in Skud’s throat.
“Ok, ok!” he shouted. “I’ll tell you! I got it back in Turtleback Ferry at Paradise, a floating barge converted into a gambling and drinking hall. Lady Lucrecia, the owner, offered me the mark since I was one of her best customers. By showing it, I could avoid paying the cover charge, as well as getting additional gambling chits and other…perks.”
“Where’s this ‘Paradise’ located?” Reaper asked, his hand still wreathed in black fire.
“It…it sank about a month ago after a fire broke out,” Kaven replied.
“Convenient,” Reaper sniffed. “And Lucrecia?”
“She died in the fire, presumably,” Kaven said.
“A month ago?” Adso asked. “When did the ogres attack the fort?”
“One month ago,” Jakardros answered quietly.
“Another lucky coincidence,” Reaper said sarcastically. He then turned to Jakardros. “This man remains under suspicion. We’re going back to the house to finish searching. Until we get back, you’ll remain here with Shalelu. Under no circumstances is Kaven allowed to leave.”
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The Graul home was truly a house of horrors. Room after room revealed greater and greater depths of depravity. In a filth-stained privy, they discovered one of the pits filled with the bones of what appeared to be misshapen children. In a dining room that stank of putrefying flesh, they found chairs carved from bone and a tablecloth made from human skin. The centerpiece was a rotting head that served as a gathering place for a host of buzzing, bloated flies. In the kitchen, which smelled of week-old meat, and where thumb-sized cockroaches danced along the wall, a thick butcher’s block sat under three cruel-looking cleavers that hung on a rack above. Bloodstained smocks of thick leather, one that still dripped fresh gore, hung on bone-spur hooks by the door. A crockery platter of severed fingers and toes sat on an old, rickety table next to a dried, sinew basket that overflowed with hacked-off hands and feet, all of which sported stubs of congealed blood where their digits had once been. A family of rats gorged itself on the red stumps.
As they neared the back of the house, they heard a meaty smack followed by degenerate laughter coming from behind a closed door. Quietly, Reaper commanded his zombie minion to open the door. The simple room was strewn with ‘toys,’ some of carved wood or bone, while others appeared to be little more than partial animal carcasses. Old bloodstains marked the walls, some in patterns that resembled crude, child-like paintings that featured images of dismembered horses, a ridiculous, grinning horned devil that tossed children off a cliff, and a big lake with a black reptilian monster that sprouted tentacles from its back. Bookshelves rested on the wall, but instead of tomes, they held skulls of all shapes and sizes. Two male Grauls occupied the room. The first had an oversized mouth filled with sharp teeth, and stunted, useless legs. He dragged himself across the floor on his hands. The second had limbs that seemed almost triple-jointed. The latter Graul held a skull in his hand, and capered wildly about his crippled sibling.
“Yer so stupid, Maulgro!” he laughed. “Mammy ain’t never gonna find you a priest-man ta fix yer laigs! You ain’t never gonna do the skull jig!”
“You shuddup, Lucky Graul,” Maulgro shouted, taking a clumsy strike at Lucky, who danced nimbly out of the way. At that moment, both of the brothers noticed the open door, and the walking corpse standing in the middle of the doorway.
“Brudder Krunkel?” Lucky asked stupidly. “You ain’t s’posed to be outta Mammy’s room. She’s gonna be awful pissed at’choo!”
“Oh, I don’t think you’ll have to worry about your ‘Mammy’ anymore,” Max said as he entered the room, his blades held before him. Maulgrym’s mouth gaped idiotically as the young noble lopped his head from its shoulders. At this, Lucky began to laugh uproariously.
“Ya big idgit, Maul!” he guffawed. “Ya done gone and lost yer haid! Now ya got gimpy legs anna gimpy haid!”
His laughter ended a moment later as Max shoved the tip of his sword through the half-wit’s throat.
If the main level of the house was a nightmare, then the basement was a little glimpse into Hell. The stairs descended into a dark, recessed corner room that smelled of rot and old blood. Piles of gore-spattered skin lay heaped on the floor. A horrid, rubbery face robbed of its supporting skull and muscle rested on top, its toothless mouth agape and empty eyes revealed only the layer of tan, flayed skin resting beneath. Beyond this torture chamber was a low-ceilinged room that featured a floor of hard-packed earth stained in many places by blood and mold. A lumpy mattress lay heaped against one corner, and what appeared to be several half-finished chairs made of flesh and bone lay against a far wall. Four rats the size of ponies gnawed on these, but when Krunkel shambled into the room ahead of the others, they quickly forgot their scraps and launched themselves at the zombie.
“Not that I have any emotional attachments to that particular meatbag,” Reaper said as he turned to Adso, “but he has proven useful, and it would be a waste to see him become rat food. Do you think you might be of assistance?”
Adso shrugged indifferently and stepped into the room. A whistling sound was his only warning of his mistake, and he ducked a moment before the ogre hook would have decapitated him. The monk dropped into a crouch and spun to face his attacker. A large man stood in the shadows, moving with a pronounced limp as he shuffled forward. His hair grew lopsided from the right side of his head and face rather than atop his brow, and a vestigial twin that grunted and gasped protruded from the back of his neck. As the brute struggled to free his hook from the wall, Adso kicked out with his foot, shattering the Graul’s knee.
Dexter ran into the room and slid to a halt as one of the giant rats turned towards him, snarling. Dex thrust his dagger into the vermin’s eye, sending it squealing into the dark. Behind the rogue came Reaper and Wesh. The wizards began their spells as soon as they saw the burly half-ogre still lumbering towards Adso. From Wesh’s hand came a rippling lance of pure sound, impaling the Graul against the wall. An instant later, Reaper’s spectral hand latched onto his throat, causing the skin to smoke and crisp. Unbelievably, the half-ogre began surging forward again, but as he came, Reaper gestured to Krunkel, and the zombie moved to intercept its kinsman, but a savage swing of the ogre hook sent the hunchback to the grave once more. Unfortunately, the victory was short-lived as Dexter thrust his dagger beneath the half-ogre’s sternum and into his heart. The remaining rats scrambled off into the shadows.
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The last room they visited in the Graul house was perhaps the most disturbing, if solely for its occupant. The damp, steamy chamber reeked of rotting vegetable matter. Pools of mud and stagnant water dotted the mossy floor, and the walls were caked with thick swaths of puffy fungus and mold. As Dexter opened the door, the mass of vegetation in the rooms center began to rise up into a vaguely spherical shape sporting two, long tentacles. A gaping, thorn-filled maw opened in its center. Unknown to the deputies, this unfortunate monstrosity was Muck Graul, who, once upon a time, was one of Mammy’s handsomest boys. However, after he caught and tortured a nymph princess for days on end, she spat a foul curse upon him with her dying breath. Muck began a slow, painful transformation, his flesh showing strange greenish sores and moss growing from his orifices. His limbs grew spongy and insubstantial until he collapsed into a shuddering mass of plant matter. Mammy consigned him to the basement to keep him from ‘mussing up the house.’ Muck grew day after day, nurtured by his brothers even as they ridiculed him for his new hideous appearance. Muck barely remembered his life before, and though he still recognized his family, he knew instinctively when outsiders were present.
Reaper knew none of this tragic tale, and even if he had, he would not have cared. Muck was simply the last in a long line of depravity that needed to be erased from existence. As soon as he saw the abomination, he unleashed a powerful spell, instantly sapping Muck of much of his strength. In the wake of this, Dexter, Skud, Adso and Max rushed in, and like a well-oiled machine, put an end to Muck Graul. In so doing, they also put an end to the Graul line once and for all.
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“We’ll take you back to Turtleback Ferry to reequip yourselves,” Wesh said to Jakardros as they rejoined the rangers, “and we appreciate your offer to accompany us to Fort Rannick, but he is not welcome.”
He nodded towards Kaven.
“I don’t care where he goes, but it will not be with us. You’ll understand our reticence.”
Jakardros nodded solemnly, and Kaven kept his eyes downcast.
“We’ll abide by your wishes,” the leader of the Black Arrows said. “Just so long as we get to kill some ogres!”
“Your stepfather?” Rico asked, taken aback.
“It’s a long story,” Shalelu sighed. “One I’d rather not go into right now. I’d heard he was at Fort Rannick, and when I heard that contact had been lost, I didn’t know if I was relieved or terrified. I had to know for myself if he was alive or dead. Now that I do, I don’t know how I feel about that.”
“I see,” the druid replied.
“No, I don’t imagine that you do,” Shalelu said, “but I thank you for respecting my privacy. In any event, if you and the others intend on checking out the house, I’ll stay out here and watch over the Black Arrows. They’re in no shape to fight right now.”
“And I appreciate that,” Wesh said as he came out of the barn, the rest of the company in tow. “Hopefully, we won’t be long, but if there’s trouble, take the rangers and get back to Turtleback Ferry as fast as you can.”
Shalelu nodded. She was a veteran and knew the hard realities of the life they led. She wasted no words on maudlin sentiment.
The giant, decaying farmhouse covered in moss, slumped drunkenly at the edge of the damp forest clearing. Rickety stairs crawled up to a porch covered by a huge eave held aloft by thick pillars of pine. The timbers were decorated with crude carvings of manticores impaling children with their tail spikes, and women being ripped apart by wolves. The carvings looked like a child’s work, but the subject matter grew more gruesome and depraved from one depiction to the next. An unsettlingly large rocking chair of lashed wood and bone swayed erratically in the breeze at the far end of the porch under a vast menagerie of wind chimes composed of decidedly humanoid bones. The house’s windows had all been boarded up with thick timbers, although it was unclear if that was done to keep intruders out or imprison whatever unspeakable things made their home within. Cautiously, the deputies mounted the porch, Dexter taking point. A host of ants marched happily away here and there, many the size of a grown man’s thumb nail. A moth the size of a shovel head clung to the porch ceiling, watching them with alien eyes. The scent of bad meat, urine, sweat and decay wafted now and then from between the cracks in the boarded-up windows, promising worse to those who sought to go inside. When they reached the front door, the rogue motioned the others back while he checked the portal for any unexpected surprises.
“Clear,” he said after a moment, and then reached out and turned the knob.
Almost immediately, the squeal of rusted metal sounded from Dexter’s left. Glancing that way, he saw a hinged rack studded with bone spurs, that had been concealed within the wind chimes, was swinging towards his face. Only his phenomenal reflexes saved him from permanent disfigurement. As it was, the razor-sharp spurs left several deep furrows across his cheek. Immediately on the heels of this, an ominous rumbling came from beneath the floorboards of the porch. From between the slats rose several rusty saw blades, which began shearing rapidly down the length of the stoop. None of the companions had time to react as the blades whirred past, tearing through boots and footwear alike. Once they’d sank beneath the boards once more, six pairs of eyes glared balefully at the rogue.
“Whoops,” Dex shrugged.
A dingy sitting room lay beyond the deadly door. A mangy bearskin rug covered the floor before a tremendous hearth set into the wall, its pained visage still snarled at whatever cruel hunter took its life. A huge couch, haphazardly upholstered in animal hide and human flesh, replete with a collection of talons, monstrous hairy spider’s legs, fox heads, and human hands and feet, sat against another wall.
“So Wesh,” Dex asked, “what do you think of the taxidermy?”
“I’ve had less frightening nightmares,” the wizard replied dryly.
The room held little else of note, and the group proceeded across to a door on the far side. As Skud passed near the ghoulish sofa, however, the floor beneath him creaked dangerously. With a quickness that belied his size, the big half-orc stepped away just as the wood gave way, revealing a dark shoot lined with sharpened stakes.
“What is this place?” Wesh asked.
“Well, it sure ain’t grandma’s,” Dex chuckled.
Beyond the parlor, a dim hallway branched towards the back and front of the house. Several closed doors led off it, and a set of stairs climbed to what must have been an attic. The group made their way slowly towards the rear. Dex pushed open the door at the end of the hall as quietly as possible. He needn’t have bothered. The cloying stink of the room was nearly overwhelming. Buckets of filth were stacked against the walls, and fat, ravenous flies lazily circled their rims. The room itself was dominated by an immense bed, its ratty sheets stained beyond hope. A huge easel sat next to the bed with a palette of various shades of brown and red paint. The source of those morbid pigments…several crushed organs and ragged stumps of flesh…sat in receptacles next to the easel. A set of human-hair brushes jutted from a broken skull by the easel, while a comb made from a human mandible sat on a small oak bedside table nearby, its teeth clotted with thick strands of greasy black hair. The bodies of three horribly deformed men dressed in ragged finery were propped up in huge, open coffins against the far wall, their mouths sewn tightly shut with lengths of hair. The first had a third leg protruding from his hip, and a small, pin head. Three arrows protruded from his chest. The second had an extra nose jutting from his right cheek and a hunched back, his head split by an axe. The last corpse’s deformities were hard to determine exactly, as his body looked to have been trampled and was little more than a bag of broken bones and mashed features. Yet, horrific as all of these things were, they paled in comparison to the creature that sprawled upon the bed. She was an incredibly corpulent monster with stringy hair and bald patches, and she wore a huge, red curtain as a shroud. Her bed creaked out in anguish as she shifted her massive form to regard the intruders to her home.
“Goddammit, ya good-fer-nothins!” Mammy Graul cursed, but seemed to be speaking to someone else besides the deputies. “Cain’t ya git nothin’ right! I’ll skin all yer worthless hides afore I’m done! Benk, Kunkel, Hadge! See if you’s can do what yer brudders ‘parently couldna! Kill’em!”
To the horror of the companions, the three corpses lurched into shambling motion, ripping themselves from their coffins and moving to obey their mother’s command.
As the zombies advanced, Rico and Wesh summoned their magic, pummeling the undead with fire and force. Still, the horrors came on, the pin-headed one swinging its arms like clubs, catching Adso broadside with a clumsy blow. Max leaped to the monk’s defense, his twin swords sliding deftly from their sheaths and biting into the putrefied flesh of the undead. Dexter dove into the room, folding himself into a somersault and then rolling to his feet right beside the sagging bed. Before Mammy could react, the rogue plunged both his rapier and his dagger deep into her fleshy folds. An instant later, Reaper hurled bolts of force at the ogress, slamming her massive bulk against the headboard. Mammy Graul shrieked in pain and outrage. She gurgled a brief spell and vanished in a flash of light. The Reaper cursed, then turned to the hunchbacked zombie and bellowed a command.
Instantly, the corpse paused in its mayhem and turned towards him.
“Destroy that one!” Reaper pointed towards the shambling bag of bones that was the third zombie. Hunchback turned abruptly and slammed his brother against a wall. As the zombie reeled, Dexter leaped upon it and jammed his blades through its sagging flesh again and again until it collapsed in a heap. In the meantime, Max continued his assault on pin head, battering at the corpse until it was barely recognizable as ever having been humanoid.
“Where’d she go?” Wesh asked as the room quieted. Abruptly, his question was answered by a loud scream from the barn.
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Shalelu stared in stunned disbelief as the corpulent half-ogress circled in the air above her, alternately cackling and then screaming profanities, all as blood dripped steadily from several gaping wounds in her doughy gut.
“It’s Mammy Graul herself!” Jakardros shouted. “Beware! She’s a sorceress!”
As if to confirm this, a cloud of roiling red smoke appeared before the four rangers, and from its depths, two baleful yellow eyes gleamed. As the fog cleared, they beheld a giant serpent coiled on the floor, horns and spikes sprouting from its red-scaled hide. Hissing, the viper struck, its needle-like fangs sinking into Shalelu’s arm. The ranger hissed through her teeth as the wound turned instantly red and angry.
Shalelu next found herself shouldered roughly aside as Jakardros moved between her and the serpent. The snake struck again, catching the older man on the thigh. He growled in pain, but as the viper recoiled, he stepped after it, landing a solid punch to its jaw.
“Fa…Jakardros, no!” Shalelu shouted. “You’ll get yourself killed!”
The old ranger ignored her, landing another blow, but suffering a second bite for his effort. Suddenly, Vale rushed past her as well, moving to support Jakardros.
“You’ve got the bow, girl!” the burly man shouted. “Shoot the witch!”
Shalelu’s face reddened, but she nevertheless drew her bowstring taught, and in rapid succession, sent two arrows flying at Mammy Graul. The wizardess shrieked as the missiles punched home.
At that moment, the Sandpoint deputies burst into the barn. Reaper was first, his shambling, hunch-backed servant in tow. When he saw the fiendish serpent harrying the two rangers, he sent a ghostly image of his hand flying towards the beast. As the black hand touched the snake, the creature dissolved once more into red smoke as it was banished back to the Abyss from which Mammy Graul had summoned it. Mammy snarled and began hurling blue bolts of fire at her assailants, but her salvo was returned three-fold as Dexter’s arrows, Rico’s fire, and Wesh’s own bolts were sent back at her. The barrage knocked the morbidly obese wizard out of the air and sent her crashing into one of the stalls, where she lay unmoving. The remaining deputies filed into the barn, Maximillian bringing up the rear, hauling Kaven Windstrike by the scruff of his neck.
“Look who I found making a run for it,” he sneered.
As the others turned to regard the coward, Adso’s eyes went wide. He saw something he hadn’t noticed when they’d first rescued the rangers. A small tattoo on Kaven’s shoulder. A tattoo of the Sihedron Rune…
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“Care to explain this?” Dexter asked, tapping Kaven’s tattoo with the tip of his dagger. Skud was holding the ranger tightly by both arms, his short tusks inches from Kaven’s ear as he breathed his fetid breath down the man’s neck.
“It…it’s just a tattoo,” Kaven stammered. “It’s no big deal! I just liked the design!”
“I don’t understand what’s going on,” Jakardros interrupted.
“This,” Adso explained as he pulled the Sihedron Rune medallion from under his tunic. “It’s a symbol of the ancient Rune Lords. We’ve spent weeks uncovering why it keeps turning up, especially at scenes of great violence and evil. Now, by coincidence, your friend here just happens to have it tattooed on his body.”
“I’ve known Kaven for years,” Jakardros said. “Granted, when he came to us, it wasn’t exactly of his own free will, but he’s since proven himself in battle time and time again. I can’t believe he’s tied to any of these events.”
“We’ll see,” Reaper said quietly. He turned to Kaven, dark energy gathering around his fist. “We want to know where you got that mark. I’m only going to ask you once.”
“Now just a…!” Jakardros protested, but Shalelu placed a restraining hand on his shoulder.
“I trust these people,” she said softly. “Just wait.”
Fear widened Kaven’s eyes, especially when a low growl began in Skud’s throat.
“Ok, ok!” he shouted. “I’ll tell you! I got it back in Turtleback Ferry at Paradise, a floating barge converted into a gambling and drinking hall. Lady Lucrecia, the owner, offered me the mark since I was one of her best customers. By showing it, I could avoid paying the cover charge, as well as getting additional gambling chits and other…perks.”
“Where’s this ‘Paradise’ located?” Reaper asked, his hand still wreathed in black fire.
“It…it sank about a month ago after a fire broke out,” Kaven replied.
“Convenient,” Reaper sniffed. “And Lucrecia?”
“She died in the fire, presumably,” Kaven said.
“A month ago?” Adso asked. “When did the ogres attack the fort?”
“One month ago,” Jakardros answered quietly.
“Another lucky coincidence,” Reaper said sarcastically. He then turned to Jakardros. “This man remains under suspicion. We’re going back to the house to finish searching. Until we get back, you’ll remain here with Shalelu. Under no circumstances is Kaven allowed to leave.”
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The Graul home was truly a house of horrors. Room after room revealed greater and greater depths of depravity. In a filth-stained privy, they discovered one of the pits filled with the bones of what appeared to be misshapen children. In a dining room that stank of putrefying flesh, they found chairs carved from bone and a tablecloth made from human skin. The centerpiece was a rotting head that served as a gathering place for a host of buzzing, bloated flies. In the kitchen, which smelled of week-old meat, and where thumb-sized cockroaches danced along the wall, a thick butcher’s block sat under three cruel-looking cleavers that hung on a rack above. Bloodstained smocks of thick leather, one that still dripped fresh gore, hung on bone-spur hooks by the door. A crockery platter of severed fingers and toes sat on an old, rickety table next to a dried, sinew basket that overflowed with hacked-off hands and feet, all of which sported stubs of congealed blood where their digits had once been. A family of rats gorged itself on the red stumps.
As they neared the back of the house, they heard a meaty smack followed by degenerate laughter coming from behind a closed door. Quietly, Reaper commanded his zombie minion to open the door. The simple room was strewn with ‘toys,’ some of carved wood or bone, while others appeared to be little more than partial animal carcasses. Old bloodstains marked the walls, some in patterns that resembled crude, child-like paintings that featured images of dismembered horses, a ridiculous, grinning horned devil that tossed children off a cliff, and a big lake with a black reptilian monster that sprouted tentacles from its back. Bookshelves rested on the wall, but instead of tomes, they held skulls of all shapes and sizes. Two male Grauls occupied the room. The first had an oversized mouth filled with sharp teeth, and stunted, useless legs. He dragged himself across the floor on his hands. The second had limbs that seemed almost triple-jointed. The latter Graul held a skull in his hand, and capered wildly about his crippled sibling.
“Yer so stupid, Maulgro!” he laughed. “Mammy ain’t never gonna find you a priest-man ta fix yer laigs! You ain’t never gonna do the skull jig!”
“You shuddup, Lucky Graul,” Maulgro shouted, taking a clumsy strike at Lucky, who danced nimbly out of the way. At that moment, both of the brothers noticed the open door, and the walking corpse standing in the middle of the doorway.
“Brudder Krunkel?” Lucky asked stupidly. “You ain’t s’posed to be outta Mammy’s room. She’s gonna be awful pissed at’choo!”
“Oh, I don’t think you’ll have to worry about your ‘Mammy’ anymore,” Max said as he entered the room, his blades held before him. Maulgrym’s mouth gaped idiotically as the young noble lopped his head from its shoulders. At this, Lucky began to laugh uproariously.
“Ya big idgit, Maul!” he guffawed. “Ya done gone and lost yer haid! Now ya got gimpy legs anna gimpy haid!”
His laughter ended a moment later as Max shoved the tip of his sword through the half-wit’s throat.
If the main level of the house was a nightmare, then the basement was a little glimpse into Hell. The stairs descended into a dark, recessed corner room that smelled of rot and old blood. Piles of gore-spattered skin lay heaped on the floor. A horrid, rubbery face robbed of its supporting skull and muscle rested on top, its toothless mouth agape and empty eyes revealed only the layer of tan, flayed skin resting beneath. Beyond this torture chamber was a low-ceilinged room that featured a floor of hard-packed earth stained in many places by blood and mold. A lumpy mattress lay heaped against one corner, and what appeared to be several half-finished chairs made of flesh and bone lay against a far wall. Four rats the size of ponies gnawed on these, but when Krunkel shambled into the room ahead of the others, they quickly forgot their scraps and launched themselves at the zombie.
“Not that I have any emotional attachments to that particular meatbag,” Reaper said as he turned to Adso, “but he has proven useful, and it would be a waste to see him become rat food. Do you think you might be of assistance?”
Adso shrugged indifferently and stepped into the room. A whistling sound was his only warning of his mistake, and he ducked a moment before the ogre hook would have decapitated him. The monk dropped into a crouch and spun to face his attacker. A large man stood in the shadows, moving with a pronounced limp as he shuffled forward. His hair grew lopsided from the right side of his head and face rather than atop his brow, and a vestigial twin that grunted and gasped protruded from the back of his neck. As the brute struggled to free his hook from the wall, Adso kicked out with his foot, shattering the Graul’s knee.
Dexter ran into the room and slid to a halt as one of the giant rats turned towards him, snarling. Dex thrust his dagger into the vermin’s eye, sending it squealing into the dark. Behind the rogue came Reaper and Wesh. The wizards began their spells as soon as they saw the burly half-ogre still lumbering towards Adso. From Wesh’s hand came a rippling lance of pure sound, impaling the Graul against the wall. An instant later, Reaper’s spectral hand latched onto his throat, causing the skin to smoke and crisp. Unbelievably, the half-ogre began surging forward again, but as he came, Reaper gestured to Krunkel, and the zombie moved to intercept its kinsman, but a savage swing of the ogre hook sent the hunchback to the grave once more. Unfortunately, the victory was short-lived as Dexter thrust his dagger beneath the half-ogre’s sternum and into his heart. The remaining rats scrambled off into the shadows.
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The last room they visited in the Graul house was perhaps the most disturbing, if solely for its occupant. The damp, steamy chamber reeked of rotting vegetable matter. Pools of mud and stagnant water dotted the mossy floor, and the walls were caked with thick swaths of puffy fungus and mold. As Dexter opened the door, the mass of vegetation in the rooms center began to rise up into a vaguely spherical shape sporting two, long tentacles. A gaping, thorn-filled maw opened in its center. Unknown to the deputies, this unfortunate monstrosity was Muck Graul, who, once upon a time, was one of Mammy’s handsomest boys. However, after he caught and tortured a nymph princess for days on end, she spat a foul curse upon him with her dying breath. Muck began a slow, painful transformation, his flesh showing strange greenish sores and moss growing from his orifices. His limbs grew spongy and insubstantial until he collapsed into a shuddering mass of plant matter. Mammy consigned him to the basement to keep him from ‘mussing up the house.’ Muck grew day after day, nurtured by his brothers even as they ridiculed him for his new hideous appearance. Muck barely remembered his life before, and though he still recognized his family, he knew instinctively when outsiders were present.
Reaper knew none of this tragic tale, and even if he had, he would not have cared. Muck was simply the last in a long line of depravity that needed to be erased from existence. As soon as he saw the abomination, he unleashed a powerful spell, instantly sapping Muck of much of his strength. In the wake of this, Dexter, Skud, Adso and Max rushed in, and like a well-oiled machine, put an end to Muck Graul. In so doing, they also put an end to the Graul line once and for all.
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“We’ll take you back to Turtleback Ferry to reequip yourselves,” Wesh said to Jakardros as they rejoined the rangers, “and we appreciate your offer to accompany us to Fort Rannick, but he is not welcome.”
He nodded towards Kaven.
“I don’t care where he goes, but it will not be with us. You’ll understand our reticence.”
Jakardros nodded solemnly, and Kaven kept his eyes downcast.
“We’ll abide by your wishes,” the leader of the Black Arrows said. “Just so long as we get to kill some ogres!”
