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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 3608576" data-attributes="member: 11760">Chapter 5 The Abbey in the WoodsIt is the 4th day of Rain, in the 721st year of the Imperial Age. It has been 111 years since the abbess of Maidensbridge Abbey went mad and murdered her fellow Sisters of the New Dawn and 10 days since Emmerson Grant and Ebuferpaly Potentloins agreed to lift the curse on the haunted abbey.It is raining in Maidensbridge when the young man rides into town atop a shaggy pony, his hooded cloak plastered to his body. He rides to the chapel and calls, but receives no answer over the sound of the pounding rain.He urges the miserable pony away from the shelter of overhanging trees back toward the center of town. Dismounting into a mud puddle outside The Cat & The Fiddle, he yells something, but the sound is lost in the rain.He forces the door open -- it has swollen shut with the damp -- and squelches inside, pulling back his hood. Beneath it, his black hair is stuck to his skin, and he wipes water and hair from his face."Lothian bless and keep you all. Innkeeper, could someone see to my pony and bring my saddlebags inside? I could use a warm room and some hot food. And if someone could find me Emmerson Grant, I would be most grateful."Hearing his name, Emmerson swallows his food quickly and stands up, sliding his chair back from the table."Lothian keep you," he says. "I am Emmerson Grant. How may I be of service?"From where he sits next to Emmerson's vacated chair, Bufer glances from his partner's back to the sodden man in the doorway, and thoughtfully chews his goulash. Subtly, so as not to be noticed, he slips the page of Draconic letters he's been studying, written in the hand of one Katadid Leach, off the table and into his lap.The rain-bedraggled young man flashes a smile at Emmerson, and then gestures towards the door, where a miserable Ella is leading the man's pony through the rain and mud to the stables."Those saddlebags contain packages for you. I'm half-drowned, my friend, could I trouble you to get them?""No trouble at all." Emmerson gives him the mug of hot cider he had just ordered. "Put some fire in you while I go fetch them. I leave you in the company of my friend Ebuferpaly Potentloins."Emmerson hurries out the door.Inside, the young man sits down across from Bufer with a squelch, and his wooden ankh-crucifix swings forward, knocking against the table as the acolyte adjusts his chair, gratefully wrapping his fingers around the warm clay mug."Ah, much better."After a moment, a muddy and soaking Ella and Emmerson return. The barmaid shoots the acolyte a dirty look before heading up the stairs to dry off and change her clothes.The acolyte nods at the oilskin-wrapped objects Emmerson drops on the table before sitting down."His Excellency, Bishop Jurgen Lehmann, sent me along to go over these records for you before you visit the abbey. I suggested that tomorrow, Godsday, would be an auspicious day for such a mission, and he agreed, sending me out into the rain and wind to deliver these books to you post-haste.""Tomorrow?" Emmerson's eyes open slightly in surprise. "Certainly."Godsday, the fifth of Rain, is a holiday set aside to revere all gods, and the holiest in many religions. Although not the holiest of days in Lothianism, it's still an auspicious day, when many believe the gods pay extra attention to the affairs of their mortal worshippers."May I?" Emmerson gestures toward the packages. The acolyte noisily sips the cider and nods.Emmerson and Bufer untie and unwrap the packages, which turn out to be books and scrolls discussing the history of the barony, a sketch of the abbey in its heyday and one volume of a multivolume series about the orders of monks and nuns of the Church of Lothian.Emmerson unrolls a scroll that appears to be the log of a paladin who previously explored the abbey after its fall. His other hand holds the sketch of the abbey as he scans the log of Artos Nachtmann.Seeing what Emmerson is reading, the acolyte leans forward, wiping the cider from his lips with the back of his hand."Yes, Nachtmann's journey into the abbey in IA 670 was well-documented, since he had learned from previous failed attempts. After each sortie, he left to camp outside the abbey and left his journal in a waterproof scroll tube hung on a tree limb. When he finally disappeared, we at least had the details of what he had seen and heard -- or thought he did -- and what appears to be his descent into madness."The acolyte leans back in his chair, looking for the staff of The Cat & The Fiddle, radiating a great deal of pleasure that he's not going into the abbey himself.Emmerson pauses on an entry marked "IA 670, Toil 7.""I have found the abbey easily with the directions from the innkeeper and his wife. The main building is in good repair despite the weather and lack of care, although black ivy threatens to choke it, covering much of the building save the doors and windows. Outlying buildings, such as the chapel and work sheds, have not fared as well, and are almost a complete shambles. The chapel in particular is in poor shape, with the roof having caved in, taking the primary ceiling braces with it, giving it a folded-in appearance."The next entry is a day later."I have completed my investigations of the outlying ruins, and confirmed that there is nothing to them save the ivy. Not even birds or small animals have made nests there. Whatever is wrong with this place has kept them away as well. But the time has come for me to face up to my sense of unease and investigate the main abbey tomorrow."Emmerson skips ahead two days."I have been unable to find any evidence of it, but I feel convinced when I explore the abbey that there are rooms and hallways not ruined by time, inhabited by something other than memories. I can all but hear the soft footfalls of the nuns walking and quietly working. This must be my imagination, I know, but the notion has taken a hold of me, and I cannot shake it."Four days later:"I woke again last night to find my campfire had gone out. The whispering that fills my dreams was helpful for once, I suppose. As I was relighting the fire -- there are great worgs in these woods, and it would not do to let them come up on me unannounced at night -- I felt convinced there was a woman in one of the abbey's windows, watching me, but when I looked up, the afterglow of the sparks from my flint and tinder blinded me, and I could see nothing."Emmerson frowns. There have been no worgs in the Tulgey Wood in his lifetime, but he remembers the stories his father used to tell late at night.Nachtmann's journal for IA 670, Toil 21: "Every waking moment is filled with the damned whispers. I pray that Lothian will drown out their voices, but I cannot pray loudly enough for him to hear me. At night, when I am able to sleep, I wake up sobbing like a child, but unable to remember what has driven me to despair. At the same time, I am filled with a dread of the Tulgey Wood and am afraid to leave my camp. Even by daylight, I feel the eyes upon me."The final journal entry is marked IA 670, Harvest 12, in a crazed hand, unlike the neat penmanship of the first entries: "She's right, I know. All I try to accomplish, all any of us try to accomplish, is as meaningless as the games of children in the face of a coming plague. When I close my eyes, I can feel them, moving beneath the surface, like maggots beneath the skin of a fruit that's rotten to the core. It would be a blessing for me to return to Maidensbridge and put them all to the sword before they can see the horror that is to come. But I know now that I am a coward, and am just as afraid to return there as I am to stay. I know I would beg for the High Priest to lie to me, to tell me that everything will be fine. I wonder if they have always known. Their Empire, their religion, it's all whistling past the graveyard. Night is falling for us all and lighting a lamp against it does nothing but point us out to the things that wait in the dark for us. I will not bother with a light this night -- they know where to find me.""These notes will serve us well, brother," Emmerson says. "Tell me, what do you think of the abbey? Do you think Nachtmann really went insane from what was inside?"Ella now at his elbow, the acolyte orders a bowl of onion soup and black bread. He carefully considers before answering Emmerson."If it had only been Nachtmann, I would have had my doubts. But there have been other disappearances over the years, including some that appeared to have been suicides or murder-suicides by exorcists and explorers. Even if Nachtmann disappeared for a reason not related to the abbey -- perhaps a bear or a worg -- his journal certainly paints a frightening portrait of his mental state."Emmerson mulls over what the acolyte has said. He looks at the oddly silent Bufer holding a sheaf of papers."We're going to need help," Emmerson says, and stands. "Emus told me how to contact him should we require his assistance, and it certainly looks like we do. Please, enjoy your food. I shall return shortly."Cold rain blows in a moment before Emmerson shuts the door behind him, squelching off into the rain."Tell me the truth, son," Bufer says quietly to the acolyte, once he's certain Emmerson is out of earshot. "Does his Excellency actually believe we can succeed where these men failed? Or are me and the beanpole hiking off a cliff, here?"The acolyte takes the book on nuns and monks and begins flipping through the pages carefully as he answers."For 111 years, everyone who has attempted to lift the curse has vanished, died or gone mad. Some have done more than one," the acolyte says. He finds the page he's looking for and tucks a purple silk ribbon between two pages to mark his place and then closes the book. "But truthfully, most who have gone have gone alone, or nearly so. If you were to go in force, it might be that you could succeed where the other have failed."As for what his Excellency seeks, I imagine if you and the dwarf cleric were to die or vanish, it would make his life less complicated. But if you were to succeed, it would increase the glory of Lothian and his standing in the church."His Excellency does not take gambles that he feels he can lose. No one plays Three-Dragon Ante with him twice."</blockquote>

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