RL will climb down the rope and approach to within 10 ft of Beaumont, give a bow and introduce himself while giving an under his brow look to both Augustin and Grimbald to check hes acting appropriately.. 'Hi, Im Rustling Leaves. Nice to meet you Beaumont. Thats an interesting knife you have, whats so special about it?
Beaumont looks at the long knife as if it's the first time he's seen it.
"I don't remember grabbing this, but it is part of Carrion's treasure. The creature," he pointed with the knife at the dead eye creature, "needed magic to survive, so when this demonic hand was in control of my body, it was feeding Carrion's stash of magic items to it. Not much left now. The creature Carrion meant to summon - a less powerful aberration called a Spectator - was supposed to protect Carrion's lair while the necromancer underwent his transformation into a lich. But this thing was summoned through the portal to the Far Realm instead and killed Carrion. I cannot truly say I was sorry but now he cannot undo my curse. Not that he would have, he did it for his own amusement at my despair. And he wanted to try it out. He needed a certain type of... person.. to enable that curse."
Can you show us where the rest of Carrions treasure is please?
Looking flat and defeated, Beaumont points northward into the darkness.
"The little magic that remains is further north, in the last room up there. The items drained of magic are in the creature's room to the left. They should still be valuable though."
Can you show us where the rest of Carrions treasure is please?
Looking flat and defeated, Beaumont points northward into the darkness.
"The little magic that remains is further north, in the last room up there. The items drained of magic are in the creature's room to the left. They should still be valuable though."
Oh, did I say something wrong? We have had a hard time of it on the surface and anything that could be useful to keep our people save would be useful to our cause. We arent looking for personal gain here.
Vakiel had lowered his sword as Beaumont was talking, but raises it partially again and says “Hold up, what’s this of killing folk?”
"In my youth I was zealous and proud, thought I knew everything, and I had the physical prowess to make me rash. I deliberately killed a man I believed the world would be better off without - in cold blood. But I had been mislead, my rigidity of thought was taken advantage of and I did not question how true the information I had was - and I should have, especially because a man's life was at stake. When I found out I had killed a man who was not a good man, it must be said, but had not committed the heinous crime he was accused of, I was ashamed. To atone I joined the church of Pelor and dedicated myself to service to others."
"While visiting the small village of Harkenwold and giving service to the surrounding homesteads, I heard about a tiefling necromancer called Carrion who caused me concern. I tracked him to his stone mansion, but what I did not know is that Carrion had been finding out about me also, and my past crime fit perfectly for the type of victim he wanted for this experiment."
"And so he used similar magic on my hand that makes a crawling claw but added a curse to it and.. who knows what else? The hand was taken over by an evil spirit and would take over my body and do Carrion's bidding. I was effectively his slave."
"Carrion then turned his attention to his impending lichdom, and he and his acolytes of Orcus prepared the ritual. Before he did so, he wanted a guardian and created a portal that would drop an ooze of some kind into his lair to clean up any bodies of tomb hunters that came here. And he summoned a Spectator from the Far Realm, except, as I have said, that other monster came through the portal instead. Carrion was completely unready for the monster, his prepared spells were all to do with his ritual, and the creature paralysed him then killed him. Oh I rejoiced, but the hand took over and I'm not sure what happened next. The few times I was conscious there were no acolytes, and the tomb was deserted. The oozes I suppose had eaten Carrion's body. I know the hand was tossing magic items to the monster to feed it every few weeks. I know some hobgoblins came down here recently and were killed, the oozes ate up their bodies too."
Beaumont sighs. "I have no idea how long I have been here. Tell me, what year is it?"
"It's 2990 in the human years," replied Esa, watching Beaumont carefully to gauge his reaction.
Beaumont sagged and sat down. "2990? Over a century since I was captured? This hand must have been keeping me alive somehow.."
Oh, did I say something wrong? We have had a hard time of it on the surface and anything that could be useful to keep our people save would be useful to our cause. We arent looking for personal gain here.
Shepherd pipes up. "I'd be happy for a little personal gain. Paying for some labour to get this farm into better shape would be amazing!"
The party look around the last few rooms. The creature's rooms has a lot of items - rings, swords, jewellery, maces, blank scrolls, potion bottles with now useless liquid. All up these items could be sold for $2000gp to a rich merchant. There is also a golden locket containing a painting of a beautiful tiefling woman, as well as a silk handkerchief. Beaumont identifies these as belonging to Carrion.
In the room Beaumont spent most of his time in there are the following magic items and treasure:
6 x semi-precious stones (50gp value ea) (zircons, carnelians, chalcedony, sardonyx)
potion of growth
potion of hill giant strength
2 x potions of greater healing
Carrion's journal
Carrion's Journal, written in infernal and translated for you by Shepherd and Esa, details the research and personal memoirs of Carrion. Much of the book’s content focuses on Carrion’s quest to seek undeath through a ritual of lichdom. The contents of the book are blasphemous to characters with any morality, and there is little by way of actual occult knowledge to be gained from the tattered pages. It is easy to deduce that the last entry of the journal was written approximately one hundred years ago, confirming Beaumont's statement. Based on that information it is safe to assume that Carrion is long gone, even without evidence of a body. It also becomes clear that Beaumont has been suffering under the control of the crawling claw for a lifetime.
DM Note: there is nothing else to explore down here.
Do you want to ask Beaumont any further questions before heading back to the surface?
Are you going to give Shepherd any of the treasure?
What will you do with Beaumont after you get topside?
"So we need a murderer....to remove this curse....through...magic?"
"What do we do in the meantime, are we even sure taking your hand off will help you? Is there anyway we can break this item (he grabs his greatsword)"
"Beaumont. The world has changed over the last 100 years, even more so over the past 100 days. You may benefit from staying with Shepherd until you learn the customs and ways that currently govern our small area. There a lot of competing factions here the majority of which do not have your best interests in mind."
"I will speak with my family regarding this items here. They may have the contacts to shift such valuable items and may be able to provide us a small amount of coin in until they sell, upon which time we can discuss what we would do with the value. I am not sure what cut of the goods they would take, but I see no need for such a large amount of money, particularly gold, to be left in our coin pouches.
"Shepherd, will this help with your farm? Labour and money? Hopefully you should no further issues from here on out."
"Perhaps there is benefit from keeping watch tonight, or the least sharing a meal. We would be keen to know what this land looked like back in your day? We feel the current political climate has been developed over a long period of time." (Augustin hopes someone smarter then him picks up what he putting down: directed conversation to try and identify where they may find the other guardians).
Augustin turns to Beaumont, one last time. "Is there any other pressing issue we should know Beaumont?" Insight check 15 that the recently possessed guy who tried to stab me is legit.
Augustin looks around the group for further ideas or suggestions, but perhaps more noticeably, acceptance and approval of his suggestions.
"No, HE is the murderer which is an.. ingredient, if you will.. for the curse to work."
Her face relaxes and she looks at Augustin with fondness. "I think cutting it off would actually work, but anyone can do it. The spirit of the hand will likely take control when we try so you'd have to hold him down."
"Yes," agrees Beaumont, his voice still hoarse and raspy. "Even now hearing your discussion I can feel the spirit trying to take control, to run. That makes me think the evil spirit knows that cutting the hand off would work. I am willing."
"I will speak with my family regarding this items here. They may have the contacts to shift such valuable items and may be able to provide us a small amount of coin in until they sell, upon which time we can discuss what we would do with the value. I am not sure what cut of the goods they would take, but I see no need for such a large amount of money, particularly gold, to be left in our coin pouches.
"Shepherd, will this help with your farm? Labour and money? Hopefully you should no further issues from here on out."
Shepherd looks surprised at Augustin's generosity.
"I would be willing to have Beaumont stay with me, if his...issue.. can be dealt with. I'll introduce him to the world gently in exchange for his help on the farm. And I would welcome any aid that money can bring. I might even be able to try growing crops."
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
Augustin will move surprisingly quickly to cut off Beaumonts hand. He is hoping to catch Beaumont and the entity off guard. Augustin is unsure of the strength need to complete and action and will pump a 1st level divine smite into. He will immediately follow up with Lay on Hands to restore hitpoints to Beaumont.
Attack: 21 Damage: Unable to parse dice roll. If advantage is needed 19
Augustin's decisive action catches everyone off guard, including Beaumont and the cursed hand. The hand plops off onto the ground with a spray of blood from Beaumont's stump. The scraggly half-elf gasps and moans, clutching at his wrist, trying to stop the blood by squeezing it. Then Augustin steps close and uses lay on hands which staunches the bleeding and heals the wound. Beaumont staggers and leans against the wall for support, gasping.
Meanwhile the hand scuttles away down the corridor, it's claws clicking on the stone, trailing blood after it.
RL's detect magic reveals necromantic magic around Beaumont's hand, and his long knife shows transmutation magic (standard for magic weapons).
RL will climb down the rope and approach to within 10 ft of Beaumont, give a bow and introduce himself while giving an under his brow look to both Augustin and Grimbald to check hes acting appropriately.. 'Hi, Im Rustling Leaves. Nice to meet you Beaumont. Thats an interesting knife you have, whats so special about it?
Beaumont looks at the long knife as if it's the first time he's seen it.
"I don't remember grabbing this, but it is part of Carrion's treasure. The creature," he pointed with the knife at the dead eye creature, "needed magic to survive, so when this demonic hand was in control of my body, it was feeding Carrion's stash of magic items to it. Not much left now. The creature Carrion meant to summon - a less powerful aberration called a Spectator - was supposed to protect Carrion's lair while the necromancer underwent his transformation into a lich. But this thing was summoned through the portal to the Far Realm instead and killed Carrion. I cannot truly say I was sorry but now he cannot undo my curse. Not that he would have, he did it for his own amusement at my despair. And he wanted to try it out. He needed a certain type of... person.. to enable that curse."
"A murderer," whispers Esa. Then louder, "that kind of curse needs someone who has killed another but not in self defence!"
Can you show us where the rest of Carrions treasure is please?
Vakiel had lowered his sword as Beaumont was talking, but raises it partially again and says “Hold up, what’s this of killing folk?”
Vakiel, what's the difference, killing is killing isn't it? Like when we kill to eat or killed the invaders in the attack on Albridge
Looking flat and defeated, Beaumont points northward into the darkness.
"The little magic that remains is further north, in the last room up there. The items drained of magic are in the creature's room to the left. They should still be valuable though."
Oh, did I say something wrong? We have had a hard time of it on the surface and anything that could be useful to keep our people save would be useful to our cause. We arent looking for personal gain here.
"In my youth I was zealous and proud, thought I knew everything, and I had the physical prowess to make me rash. I deliberately killed a man I believed the world would be better off without - in cold blood. But I had been mislead, my rigidity of thought was taken advantage of and I did not question how true the information I had was - and I should have, especially because a man's life was at stake. When I found out I had killed a man who was not a good man, it must be said, but had not committed the heinous crime he was accused of, I was ashamed. To atone I joined the church of Pelor and dedicated myself to service to others."
"While visiting the small village of Harkenwold and giving service to the surrounding homesteads, I heard about a tiefling necromancer called Carrion who caused me concern. I tracked him to his stone mansion, but what I did not know is that Carrion had been finding out about me also, and my past crime fit perfectly for the type of victim he wanted for this experiment."
"And so he used similar magic on my hand that makes a crawling claw but added a curse to it and.. who knows what else? The hand was taken over by an evil spirit and would take over my body and do Carrion's bidding. I was effectively his slave."
"Carrion then turned his attention to his impending lichdom, and he and his acolytes of Orcus prepared the ritual. Before he did so, he wanted a guardian and created a portal that would drop an ooze of some kind into his lair to clean up any bodies of tomb hunters that came here. And he summoned a Spectator from the Far Realm, except, as I have said, that other monster came through the portal instead. Carrion was completely unready for the monster, his prepared spells were all to do with his ritual, and the creature paralysed him then killed him. Oh I rejoiced, but the hand took over and I'm not sure what happened next. The few times I was conscious there were no acolytes, and the tomb was deserted. The oozes I suppose had eaten Carrion's body. I know the hand was tossing magic items to the monster to feed it every few weeks. I know some hobgoblins came down here recently and were killed, the oozes ate up their bodies too."
Beaumont sighs. "I have no idea how long I have been here. Tell me, what year is it?"
"It's 2990 in the human years," replied Esa, watching Beaumont carefully to gauge his reaction.
Beaumont sagged and sat down. "2990? Over a century since I was captured? This hand must have been keeping me alive somehow.."
Shepherd pipes up. "I'd be happy for a little personal gain. Paying for some labour to get this farm into better shape would be amazing!"
The party look around the last few rooms. The creature's rooms has a lot of items - rings, swords, jewellery, maces, blank scrolls, potion bottles with now useless liquid. All up these items could be sold for $2000gp to a rich merchant. There is also a golden locket containing a painting of a beautiful tiefling woman, as well as a silk handkerchief. Beaumont identifies these as belonging to Carrion.
In the room Beaumont spent most of his time in there are the following magic items and treasure:
Carrion's Journal, written in infernal and translated for you by Shepherd and Esa, details the research and personal memoirs of Carrion. Much of the book’s content focuses on Carrion’s quest to seek undeath through a ritual of lichdom. The contents of the book are blasphemous to characters with any morality, and there is little by way of actual occult knowledge to be gained from the tattered pages. It is easy to deduce that the last entry of the journal was written approximately one hundred years ago, confirming Beaumont's statement. Based on that information it is safe to assume that Carrion is long gone, even without evidence of a body. It also becomes clear that Beaumont has been suffering under the control of the crawling claw for a lifetime.
DM Note: there is nothing else to explore down here.
Augustin thinks for a moment...
"So we need a murderer....to remove this curse....through...magic?"
"What do we do in the meantime, are we even sure taking your hand off will help you? Is there anyway we can break this item (he grabs his greatsword)"
"Beaumont. The world has changed over the last 100 years, even more so over the past 100 days. You may benefit from staying with Shepherd until you learn the customs and ways that currently govern our small area. There a lot of competing factions here the majority of which do not have your best interests in mind."
"I will speak with my family regarding this items here. They may have the contacts to shift such valuable items and may be able to provide us a small amount of coin in until they sell, upon which time we can discuss what we would do with the value. I am not sure what cut of the goods they would take, but I see no need for such a large amount of money, particularly gold, to be left in our coin pouches.
"Shepherd, will this help with your farm? Labour and money? Hopefully you should no further issues from here on out."
"Perhaps there is benefit from keeping watch tonight, or the least sharing a meal. We would be keen to know what this land looked like back in your day? We feel the current political climate has been developed over a long period of time." (Augustin hopes someone smarter then him picks up what he putting down: directed conversation to try and identify where they may find the other guardians).
Augustin turns to Beaumont, one last time. "Is there any other pressing issue we should know Beaumont?" Insight check 15 that the recently possessed guy who tried to stab me is legit.
Augustin looks around the group for further ideas or suggestions, but perhaps more noticeably, acceptance and approval of his suggestions.
Esa looks annoyed.
"No, HE is the murderer which is an.. ingredient, if you will.. for the curse to work."
Her face relaxes and she looks at Augustin with fondness. "I think cutting it off would actually work, but anyone can do it. The spirit of the hand will likely take control when we try so you'd have to hold him down."
"Yes," agrees Beaumont, his voice still hoarse and raspy. "Even now hearing your discussion I can feel the spirit trying to take control, to run. That makes me think the evil spirit knows that cutting the hand off would work. I am willing."
Shepherd looks surprised at Augustin's generosity.
"I would be willing to have Beaumont stay with me, if his...issue.. can be dealt with. I'll introduce him to the world gently in exchange for his help on the farm. And I would welcome any aid that money can bring. I might even be able to try growing crops."
Augustin will move surprisingly quickly to cut off Beaumonts hand. He is hoping to catch Beaumont and the entity off guard. Augustin is unsure of the strength need to complete and action and will pump a 1st level divine smite into. He will immediately follow up with Lay on Hands to restore hitpoints to Beaumont.
Attack: 21 Damage: Unable to parse dice roll. If advantage is needed 19
Damage didnt register:
12 Smite 12
Augustin's decisive action catches everyone off guard, including Beaumont and the cursed hand. The hand plops off onto the ground with a spray of blood from Beaumont's stump. The scraggly half-elf gasps and moans, clutching at his wrist, trying to stop the blood by squeezing it. Then Augustin steps close and uses lay on hands which staunches the bleeding and heals the wound. Beaumont staggers and leans against the wall for support, gasping.
Meanwhile the hand scuttles away down the corridor, it's claws clicking on the stone, trailing blood after it.
Grimbald throws his net to catch the hand. 14
Augustin uses all 25 points of Lay on hands and continues to wait with Beaumont as the others try and deal with the hand.
"Better then you started" He smiles and tries to help patch the wound. Medicine 19
Grimbald's net neatly catches the hand before it gets too far. It frantically looks to wiggle out from under it.