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  1. Journals

Session 07

Session
2021-02-13

Session Seven

A Sordid History

The next day—after a night of particularly vivid dreams for Solaris, Nedria, and Beatrice—the group sought out Ulkoria Stonemarrow.

Hers was a name with which Elegy was familiar—she was a fellow member of the Watchful Order of Magists & Protectors, and a highly-ranked one at that. She was, in fact, known to them as an exceptionally skilled dwarven mage with a permanent scowl, an infamously unknown home address, and a disdain for political machinations that ensured she would rise no further than her current position.

She kept an office at the Tower of the Order and was, in fact, there when the group arrived at the Order’s guildhall. Though initially indisposed, the group was immediately granted an audience in her paper-strewn office at the mention of Trollskull Manor. Once Stonemarrow knew of their ownership of the property, of the bones, and of the doll, she explained to them its history.

She had owned it in her youth and had sold it around eighty years prior to go adventuring. The dwarven family she had sold it to sold it in turn when they fell on hard times, and it fell into the hands of a woman known as Arissa Mirthkettle.

Mirthkettle converted the building into an orphanage and ran it as such for several years in the late 1420s, supported in some small way by the charity of those in the area. The orphanage struggled even with these contributions, as the city was in a period of deep instability, and child turnover was high. As time passed, people grew suspicious. How was it that even in this era of upheaval, Mirthkettle always had meat for the stew pot? The truth soon came out: Mirthkettle wasn’t the kindly matron she appeared.

She was, in fact, a hag.

She had been living under their noses for years, supplied a steady stream of tender flesh and twisting the kindly intentions of those around her to feed on that too. Word spread like wildfire, so fast that the Watch scarcely had time to arrive as the mob tore Mirthkettle to shreds for her crimes.

The building was abandoned after that, haunted by its horrible reputation. It remained empty for almost two decades until it was bought, slowly refurbished, and reopened as a tavern. It ran for another ten years, until its owner… was killed? Disappeared? The business went under, but complications regarding the lack of a will meant it stayed empty for almost fifteen years until it was bought by an enterprising couple.

Their ownership was short-lived; difficulties with renovating the property combined with the deep economic recession prior to Dagult Neverember’s appointment as Open Lord led to them selling the property. In the three intervening decades it changed hands again, and again, and again…

Rumours that it was haunted hounded the Manor and with no serious efforts to occupy it, it fell further and further into disrepair.
Its penultimate proprietors, a small halfling clan named the Curlbottoms, bought the property in the early 1480s but migrated to Neverwinter with many others, caught up in Lord Dagult’s dream of rebuilding the city. It was only in 1491 that the absentee owners put the property on the market at a public auction. There were few interested parties and it came down to Volo Geddarm and one other person. The latter was narrowly outbid by Volo, who later informed the group that he’d purchased the property with the intent of researching its “haunted history” for his next book but had (unfortunately, to him) not experienced any paranormal activity during his overnight stays.

Stonemarrow, who had been horrified to hear of what happened in her absence when she visited in the 1430s, lacked the time and resources to regain ownership of the building but had kept tabs on its various owners over the years. At the time of its auction, she had been residing in Waterdeep but had gone to visit family outside the city and missed the opportunity to purchase it. Volo had been reluctant to sell and she hadn’t yet known it had passed into new hands at the time of the party’s visit.


Laid To Rest

Once the Manor’s past was known to all, Stonemarrow gave the doll her own magical examination. Like Karn, she believed it to be harmless.

Its origins were not.

Her theory was that it had been an ordinary doll—perhaps belonging to the first child they had found?—that had been accidentally enchanted. Magic was an unpredictable force, one that responded to the will and emotions of those around it. The weight of the fear and pain suffered by Mirthkettle’s victims—the collective trauma of the children she was supposed to care for—might have warped the magical weave centered on the children's’ earthly remains.

Perhaps it all coalesced in the final child to die, especially if that child in life possessed a spark of magic. The hag’s last victim hadn’t been killed; they’d been left to wither, hidden and forgotten, surrounded by the bones of all who’d come before.

Perhaps, in their final moments of desperation, it passed to the doll.

Stonemarrow’s supposition was that the doll—the last creature comfort of a dying child—had been imbued with the children’s collective trauma in an effort for the Weave to unknot itself when the child passed. It was a record of their pain made manifest, helpless and voiceless, tied to the spot where they’d been abandoned.

As the party pondered this theory, they began to discuss possible courses of action. As Karn had explained, the doll itself was a symptom of a larger magical issue at play. There was no spectre to exorcise except for Lif, and their killer had already faced the mob’s justice. Stonemarrow was also unsure of what might work, as matters such as these fell beyond her realm of experience. Besides, her schedule was so tightly packed that she wouldn’t have time to assist for at least a few weeks.

Drawing on her experiences and the tenants of the Circle of Spores, Nedria suggested the bones be interred and a funeral held. The dead had been avenged, but they had never been honoured. An act of acknowledgement and remembrance might grant them final rest.

Bidding Stonemarrow goodbye, the group returned home to collect the bones and transport them to the City of the Dead.

Along with the bones, they brought the doll and a smattering of other objects they’d found strewn about the manor the first time they’d explored it: an old board game and several dice; an illustrated water-colour book of fairy tales; a jointed doll of a bard, complete with a tiny toy harp; a carved wooden horse; and a lace handkerchief.

The cemetery was an area Nedria knew well, having spent a great deal of time there in her youth and during her sporadic visits to the city of her birth. She led the group through the winding tombs and trees to the Tomb of Small Souls, a single-story mausoleum for orphaned, unknown, or unclaimed children. As the group passed its wrought-iron gates, they entered into a seemingly-infinite demiplane of perpetual twilight, where flower-marked graves stood amidst gently rolling tree-studded hills.

They set about separating the bones as best they could and began to dig. In time, each was put to rest with the tokens they had brought. Though the graves were unmarked, the party did the best they could with the final rites and the funeral ended with Beatrice performing an elegiac lullaby.

As the party watched, wisps of spirits curled through the air from the direction of the mausoleum’s gate, coiled around their ankles, and sank into the ground. Flowers, assisted by Nedria’s magic, sprouted at each grave and as the final silvered traces dissipated, they heard a whispered thank you.

Hearts heavy, the group departed for the The Yawning Portal—the place they’d all met—and finished the long day with stiff drinks and a toast to new beginnings.