Characters
Geradd, disreputable swashbuckler
Raoul Carathis, occultist and necromancer
Countess Catarina Redmoore, prioress of an unsettlingly convent
Events
Raoul, Catarina, and Geradd found themselves aboard the Scythe, a ship captained by Francis Marriott, as it headed to the plantation island of Marat. They had been recruited by Belle Silvra to go to Marat and determine why the island's shipment of cane sugar and molasses was late in arriving. The journey was going well; they found Captain Marriott to be a gentleman of the sea and the voyage had been pleasant. That is, until they were awakened one night by shouting coming from topside.
They quickly discovered that the ship was on fire. They gathered their things and Captain Marriott put them into a lifeboat. The last thing he told them is that they should try to row toward the lighthouse whose beacon could be seen in the distance. Geradd put his back into it at the oars, and despite the sudden squall that fell upon them managed to guide their boat to the lighthouse's rocky shore.
After securing the lifeboat, they made their way up the rough path leading to the lighthouse. Attached to the lighthouse tower was an L-shaped building. Looking in the front windows revealed a lit fireplace, a table with chairs, a cabinet of curiosities, and the tall figure of a woman in a frilly dress and a bonnet. Catarina tried knocking at the door and waving at the window to get the woman's attention, but to no avail. Unwilling to stand in the rain any longer, they tried the door and found it to be unlocked.
Now that they were inside, they could examine things more closely--but the more they looked into things, the stranger they seemed. The cabinet of curiosities held a collection of shrunken heads, jars of fetal creations, a red lacquer puzzle box, an obsidian dagger, and a horned skull. What they took to be a spiral staircase leading upward into the lighthouse tower was instead a rail--there didn't appear to be a way to ascend any higher. Raoul deduced that the ornate rug spread across the floor concealed stairs leading down to a lightless basement.
Stranger still was the unmoving female figure. Her "face" was made of painted porcelain and her eyes were of blue glass; the rest of her body was covered with the dusty rose fabric of her dress, gloves, and bonnet. Figuring that this was a large doll, Catarina tried to take off one of its gloves, but it suddenly sprang to life and grabbed her hand. The automaton, who introduced itself as the Widow, was quite helpful in explaining the lay of the land in the lighthouse. She told them that the lighthouse was the home of Doctor Hessalius Reichman, who used the lonely outpost as a place to carry on his experiments. The Widow was one of his creations. She also warned the group that the island was patrolled by violent creatures who were part crab and part man.
A sound coming from the rails leading upward through the lighthouse's tower alerted them to the arrival of Doctor Reichman himself. The rails turned out to be part of a mechanism that raised and lowered a circular platform up and down the tower. Doctor Reichman proved to be an older man with shriveled, crippled legs; his body was encased in a metal exoskeleton that enhanced his mobility. After offering his "guests" a meal of fish chowder and wine, he explained something of his purpose on the island: his wife had fallen ill and was currently in a comatose state. He was conducting experiments in hopes of finding a cure and reviving her.
Being a generous sort, Doctor Reichman took them to the second floor of the tower--which was curiously empty--so that they might bivouac for the evening and wait out the storm. He even offered to let them stay until his next shipment of supplies came by sea, which was about ten days away. The group was, naturally, suspicious of Reichman's offer. They decided to keep a rotating watch. Their skepticism was born of a sound instinct for survival; on Raoul's watch, a paralyzing gas began to pour from the ceiling, but he managed to wake his companions and they all scrambled into the main chamber below.
The Widow reawakened and seemed happy to see Catarina, Geradd, and Raoul again so soon. Catarina tried and failed to pick the lock barring their way into the other wing of the building, but luckily the Widow had a key--which she was happy to use on their behalf. Behind the door was a chamber with a blood-stained operating table, complete with restraints. Further exploration uncovered the doctor's library, where the group found a journal purported to contain the research of one Doctor Moreau. The Widow explained that Doctor Reichman experimented with combining human victims and animals into horrible hybrid creatures. The library also contained a picture of the doctor's wife, Rebecca, which Raoul cut from its frame.
The Widow next showed them the cells where Doctor Reichman incarcerated the products of his latest experiments: vicious, anguished man-dog hybrids. Catarina killed one of the dogmen so that Raoul could reanimate it as a zombie under his control.
While they were contemplating a trip down into the basement in this area, they heard the tell-tale clank of Doctor Reichman's exoskeleton as he approached. When he found that they had not fallen victim to his knock-out gas, he had gone to deal with them directly. Electricity now arced from his metal exoskeleton. Raoul threatened to destroy the painting of Rebecca if he continued to menace them, but the doctor replied, "It's just a fucking painting. Widow? Kill them." Although the Widow had come to enjoy the presence of the interlopers, she was compelled to follow Doctor Reichman's orders. The Widow smashed her iron hand into Raoul, knocking the wind from him.
A bucket of water was thrown over the Widow in hopes of shorting her out, but it only made her exclaim, "I'm wet!" Raoul's zombie attacked Reichman, but could not manage to bite his flesh through the metal exoskeleton. Geradd shot at the doctor, but his shot pinged off the steel operating table. The doctor sent a streak of electricity into Geradd, stunning him. An extremely lucky shot from Catarina managed to find its way through the chaos, taking Reichman down.
Once Reichman was dead, the Widow was no longer bound to follow his orders. With the house cleared of immediate threats, the group could now explore and rest at their leisure. They gathered Reichman's notes and found that Rebecca was being kept alive by eldritch machinery inside a glass coffin. Their examination of Rebecca's body revealed a string of sigils raised on the flesh of her left wrist, which indicated to them that her condition was more akin to a curse than a disease; Reichman had been pursuing a dead end as he researched a way to cure her. They also figured out that he was using the lighthouse's beacon to wreck ships so that he might use any survivors in his fiendish experiments.
They decided to bide their time in the lighthouse until help arrived. They knew that sailors had arrived with a shipment of goods for the doctor when they heard shouts down at the beech. From the lighthouse they could see the sailors engaged in combat with the crabmen that the Widow had warned them about. They rushed to the aid of the sailors. The Widow proved to be an able combatant, smashing the crabmen open with glee.
When the dust settled, the group negotiated a ride with the sailors. They decided they would take the Widow with them, giving her a chance at her own life, and that they would also take Rebecca's body in hopes of finding a cure.