A Dark Flight

Into the sky

You have taken an escort job with the West Ceothan Trade Guild. Despite being on one of those newfangled airships, it’s not particularly glamorous. Watch the docks at load-in, spend a few days in the air doing nothing, and watch the docks at load-out. The Cloud Age can barely be called an airship; it’s more of a cargo barge with rotors. But it’s a free, fast trip back home to the kingdom of Fallrest, and that’s not nothing.

Loading and launch was uneventful, to say the least. The dockworker’s union always appreciates the extra protection, of course. The trade guild seems pretty uptight about the cargo; you assume there’s some magical relics or aetherium in there that might be attractive to thieves. But it feels like your only reason for being here is just to check off a requirement on some shipping form.

As final flight preparation is completed and takeoff begins, you stand on the deck and stare off into the reddish sunset. The rotors slowly pick up, creating a stiff breeze that pierces the warm, stagnant summer air. You feel the ship shudder, and suddenly it’s as if you are lighter than air.

Crossing the mountains

On the second morning, the Cloud Age floats low over the verdant Damycian Mountains. From this height, you can see every fold of the mountain, with dirt roads snaking through tight passes, quaint mountain towns, narrow blue lakes shimmering in the sun, watchtowers, and charming vacation villas owned by nobles. It seems so close that you could stoop down and touch it.

While you’re watching, you see a few black dots swoop up from a small mountain cove. As they get closer, you notice each of them seems to be flapping, but you can’t make out much more. From this height, it’s impossible to tell exactly what they are, and your view is limited further as they glide towards the Cloud Age and its bulk obscures them from view.

“Sky pirates!” you hear a member of the crew yell out, and begin ringing a warning bell. A few moments later, most of the crew scramble out onto the deck, weapons in hand. Not long after, several griffons land on the deck, each carrying passengers dressed in leather armor with black bandanas covering most of their faces.

Dark clouds

Both you and the intruders have been so embroiled in combat that you’ve failed to notice a strange change in the weather. What was once a bright, sunny summer day grew gray and overcast, and now ominous storm clouds swirl overhead.

You hear the griffons begin to screech in fear. The pirates look up with a look of concern and dash for their mounts, struggling to maintain balance and control as they take to the air. Just as they escape, rain and hail begin to batter the deck. Lightning crashes against the rotors. The ship shudders roughly and begins to spiral towards the mountains.

The hold

Safely in the hold, you feel the airship list uncontrollably starboard. You can feel the moment the rotors give out; gravity overtakes the upward thrust and for the briefest moment you are floating weightless in midair. And then… your stomach drops.

What feels like an eternity of tense silence breaks all at once. The loud crunch of trees, the dull thud of branches against the hull, the wooden crack as the stern finally makes contact with the crest of a mountain ridge. You lurch forward and roll across the floor. A loud scrape fills your ears as the entire ship slides until it reaches a resting place.

When you awake, you realize you have had a strangely vivid dream. In light of current events it’s almost beatific, though only days ago it would’ve seemed so ordinary you’d have forgotten it by the time you left your bedroll.

You sit in the common room of an inn, warm and dry thanks to the crackling fire in its massive hearth. A bowl of soup and a flat round of bread lie before you; they’re nothing particularly special, but they beat your dry rations by a mile. The fattiness of the hot broth, the smoky sear on the meat and vegetables, the moistness of the bread, the sweetness of the butter against the slight aftertaste of yeast, they feel like you’re at an inn in the capital, not stranded in an overturned flying barge out on some godforsaken mountainside.

A dwarven waitress stops by your table, and pours a mug from a frosty pitcher of fresh milk. It’s creamy and cold and, after the day you’ve had, calming. “You must be tired,” she says, and flashes a smile that feels like home. “They’re going to have your room ready soon, and a warm bath drawn” and nods towards the desk. You glance over, and three members of the inn staff are racing around to prepare for your late night arrival. And as you see the sign on the desk, “The Inn at Whit’s Notch,” you wake.

You carefully work your way down the hillside, following the stream. It’s a bit treacherous, but nothing that a good set of boots and careful footwork can’t handle. As you reach the road that lies at the bottom of the pass, the tree canopy thins and you feel the light, persistent rain coming from the murky gray sky.

From here, one end of the road appears to disappear west around a bend, but fallen trees and rocks from the crash block the way. The other end of the road winds northeast through the pass.

A few feet down the road, you see a sign in the shape of two arrows. One points to Brown’s Fork, 20 miles down the impassable trail to the west. The other points to Whit’s Notch, 2 miles onward.

The palisade

A few miles down the road, you arrive at what you assume is Whit’s Notch. From the outside, all you see is a palisade of sturdy logs with some wooden roofs jutting up here and there. A couple of plumes of smoke drift up lazily from within the walls. A tall wooden gate, shut tightly, juts up right to the edge of the little mountain road.

Behind the enclosure, you see a road wind up the rolling hillside. Through the trees, you can make out a manor house–not particularly large, but bigger than anything inside the town. It could easily be some noble or merchant’s summer home.

If the players had The First Dream

You step into the inn and instantly feel a sense of deja vu. There’s little doubt it’s the inn from your dream. Everything matches up perfectly: the chairs, the table, the fireplace, even the utensils and tableware. But it’s also unnervingly different. A couple of people sit around the tables, dressed in fraying farm clothes. Set before them are bowls of thin gruel, hardtack, and dingy glasses of water. There is no innkeeper or staff, just the dwarf waitress you saw from your dream. But she’s not smiling; she is trying to swap between serving and wiping down tables. There are dark circles under her eyes. She looks up when you walk in the door, and her face sinks at the prospect of one more thing to do.

If the players did not have The First Dream

You step into the inn and you feel a sense of great weariness. A couple of patrons sit around the tables, dressed in fraying farm clothes. Set before them are bowls of thin gruel, hardtack, and dingy glasses of water. There is no staff, just a single dwarf waitress. She’s trying to swap between serving and wiping down tables. There are dark circles under her eyes. She looks up when you walk in the door, and her face sinks at the prospect of one more thing to do.

Once again, you dream a strangely vivid dream. The sun beams down upon you with a pleasant warmth, and it is dry. A slight mountain breeze perfectly offsets the summer heat, and the babbling of a nearby creek is almost meditative. You are walking up a short gravel road, up to a large house on a hill surrounded by forest. Smoke pours from its chimney, and the savory scent of roasting meat fills the air.

As you walk up to the entrance, the massive wooden doors creak open of their own accord, and you are ushered into an entryway filled with paintings, decorative suits of armor, and statues. You walk to the end of the entryway, turn right, and in the room before you lies a massive dining table with a grand feast. And at that point, you awake.

Bartok the blacksmith

On the far side of the town square sits a small blacksmith’s shop. There is a fenced-in area for the forge just to its left, but the forge is cold and the yard around it is nearly empty. Inside the tiny shop, you see shelves filled with various tools–anything from horseshoes to machetes to mattocks. Mostly, it’s things a traveler might need. Some are good quality, while others have

Loud snoring comes from the back room, where a slightly balding, older half-orc is propped up in a chair asleep.

Ruby the shopkeep

On the south end of the town square, not far from the entry gate, sits a small cottage-like shop with the words “General Store” scrawled on a shingle hanging outfront.

Inside, an older lady with unkempt, slightly graying hair is working her way through the half-empty shelves. She picks up some of the staples like flour, vegetables, and bags of dried meat, sniffing it and holding it up to one of the lanterns hanging from the ceiling. Most times, she places the item back on the shelf; other times, she wrinkles her nose in disgust and tosses it in the wheeled cart next to her.

A bell is tied to the front door, and when she hears it ting, she turns around and begins sliding her cart behind the counter.

“Visitors, that’s a new one,” she says with a slight, weary tinge of surprise. “Well, we don’t have much. Haven’t been able to get a shipment in in quite some time. Not that it matters–haven’t really been turning over much stock these days anyway. What can I do for you?”

You make your way up the gravel road that gently climbs the hill beyond Whit’s Notch. It’s not particularly far; maybe a quarter of a mile or so. As the house comes into view, you pass below a sign suspended between two sturdy posts, just high enough that a carriage could clear it. “Idleworth Manor,” it says in thin wrought iron.

Beyond it, you see an off-white cottage. Detailed wood accents run across the bottom quarter of each wall, as well as down each corner and along the eaves. It’s larger than anything in the nearby town, but it would be considered quite modest housing in a city.

The entryway juts out a bit at the front, ending in massive double doors. On either side, there are large arched windows with dark curtains drawn.

The hallway

As you step through the door, you find yourself in a massive, dark hallway with a vaulted ceiling. The walls are made of a similar detailed wood that lined the outside of the walls, carved into inset panels separated by beveled borders that look like vines wrapping around columns.

A fine rug runs about half the length of the hallway, and beyond it, another runs across the width of the hallway, between two archways. A wide staircase rises up to a landing with two closed wooden doors.

To either side of you, decorative suits of armor and paintings line the walls. Heavy navy curtains cover the two windows to either side of the entrance.

Entering the library

You walk into what seems to be the library, decorated in the same ornate wood as the entryway. It is a bit brighter in the daylight, though not by much. The windows are stained glass, letting in only a bit of muted light here and there to dapple the floorboards.

The walls between the windows are inlaid with shelves, and they are mostly neat and tidy. Here and there, books are missing or poorly replaced. The floor and the large central desk are another story–books are scattered everywhere.

In one corner of the room, there is a red plush couch and seat, with an empty wooden stand sitting nearby, the type that might be used to hold a stringed instrument.

Searching the books

You get the impression this is a dilettante’s library. There is a little bit of everything, including classic literature, history, math, the arcane, religion, and science. Much of it is introductory material–abridged versions of great works, primers on broad areas of study, etc.

Based on subjects you are familiar with, though, you can tell some of it goes quite deep. It’s surely more detail than one person could process, and you can only imagine that it’s kept for the benefit of the guests. Whether it’s there for their entertainment or to impress them, that’s hard to say.

A grand feast

You enter the dining hall to the sights–and smells–of a grand feast. A large, slightly gamey-smelling roasted bird sits on the massive table, not yet carved and piping hot. Roasted root vegetables spill across the platter around it. Nearby, there is a basket of crusty rolls giving off a yeasty aroma, absolutely glistening with butter. A bowl of wild figs and persimmons adds a bit of color to the arrangement. Large wine and liquor bottles sit to one side, and near them, a set of crystal flutes and tumblers.

It is as if someone prepared for your arrival, and yet, there is no signs of life anywhere.

Beyond the table, you see the entry into the kitchen beyond a half-door gate. A bar counter is also set into the wall, and across it you can see the cabinets, stone oven, and fireplace in the kitchen.

You step through the archway in the back of the dining room into a small kitchen.

On the left end of the room, there is a set of wooden double-doors. Sunlight streams through the small inset windows.

On one side of the kitchen, there is a fine stone countertop, littered with pots and utensils as if it has been recently used. Further down, it connects to the bar in the dining room, allowing the staff to pass things in and out.

On the other side, there is a stone oven and fire pit. Wrought iron poles provide places to suspend pots or spits above the heat. Both are cold now, covered with a layer of old ash.

On the far end of the kitchen, several large wooden cabinets line the wall. The wall juts out between two of them, just wide enough for a small wooden door.

You open the door on the left side of the landing to see what you assume is the master bedroom. Before you lies a large four-post bed with a fine canopy stretched above it. It is neatly made.

To your right, a large upholstered chair with ottoman sits in the corner. To your left, there is a fine vanity with a massive mirror and two large closets built into the wall.

The near master bedroom closet

You slide open the nearest closet and find it mostly barren. Small boxes sit with their lids propped open and hangers sit empty along the wrought iron bar, almost as if most things were removed to make more room for the pile of assorted knick-knacks that remain.

A fine red cloak hangs in the closet along with a set of leather bracers. Two large bottles sit propped up in one corner, along with an exquisite wooden cittern.

The far master bedroom closet

You open the closet door, and the stench intensifies. Clothes and shoes are parted as if to provide some empty space in the closet. In the floor below that space, a body in fine clothing is crumpled up, as if he collapsed just perfectly between the other clothing and the door.

His face is captured in a horrifying grimace–eyes wide and mouth wide open. There are no obvious signs of trauma on the body.

You open the door on the right side of the landing. You notice some scratches along the threshold and door frame that seems to be in a regular pattern, but you can’t identify it just from a glance.

On the far wall, a narrow window with the curtains pulled down provides just enough light that you don’t need a torch to see. Three beds, unmade and just big enough for two people, line the left wall. A vanity sits at the back wall, near a couple of closet.

As you survey the scene from the entryway, two odd and contradictory sensations come over you. The first is a slight sense of calm, compared to the tension and wrongness you felt in Whit’s Notch and elsewhere in the manor.

The second is a putrid smell hitting your nostrils. Scanning the room, you eventually spot the source. Two bodies–mostly skeletons at this point, really–lie between the beds.

Down the stairs

You open the door to a narrow wooden stairway that makes its way down a flagstone stairwell. You can’t see anything beyond the dark, cramped landing about five feet below you.

Into the basement

Another flight of stairs leads from the landing into a larger room, with a shiny wooden floor and flagstone lining the walls. A wine rack is inset in the wall as you exit the stairs, and beyond that a shelf of preserved food in jars and some sacks of flour and sugar. There appear to be wall sconces here and there, but the torches are cold and dark.

It is a cellar intended for preservation, but you notice a chill as you leave the stairwell. Faintly, you realize you can see your breath.

As your eyes adjust to the light, you notice that the far end of this otherwise tiny room is a wreck. Crates, bags, barrels, and a work table are all shoved off to one side. A massive sigil is scrawled on the floor, with a large metallic amulet laid in the center.