Characters
Garazi, a young witch
Aria, a strange paladin
Heck, an affable revenant
Panthalassa, a necromancer with a missing arm
Daytona, a dhampir gunslinger fresh from Hell
Genevieve, an alchemist
Rudolpho and Beebo, an organ grinder and his monkey
Events
April 30th, Walpurgis Night, found Garazi trapped within a cage atop a wagon headed toward the village of Vostok. From the talk of the three witchfinders who had taken her captive, she understood that her fate was to burn at the stake as part of some sort of religious ceremony.
However, Garazi was saved by the appearance of six stars shooting across the sky, each falling to Earth. When they hit the ground just north of their position, the wagon was flipped backwards, the trees bent and were stripped of foliage, and she caught a glimpse of the witchfinders being flung against trees. Unfortunately, she was still alone in the cage, which she could not open.
Hours passed. Garazi realized that a man was watching her from the tree line. Once spotted, he approached and crouched down just out of reach of the cage. He was a hulking man clad in rough clothing, his face obscured by the hood of his cloak. He asked her name, but demurred when she asked him to release her. After their brief exchange, a second man, whom Garazi could not see, told the man they needed to move on and find "it" before "they" did.
Garazi summoned her familiar, a finch named Txori, and sent it to tell her sister that she was in trouble. Two groups converged on Garazi's cage shortly after that. One group, comprised of Panthalassa, Daytona, and Genevieve, was on the hunt for Viktoria Frankenstein and Serafina, who had gone missing from Chateau Frankenstein under mysterious circumstances and may have been spotted in Vostok. The second group, comprised of Rudolpho, Heck, and Aria, had heard about the witch burning and had an interest in seeing it stopped. Genevieve looted the witchfinders' bodies and Aria used their keys to set Garazi free. The group decided to travel together to Vostok. Garazi saw the arrival of these six as fortuitous, given the six falling stars they had all observed.
When they arrived in Vostok, they found that the town had been greatly damaged by the blast, with only a few buildings, those at least partially built from stone, still standing. The local church had mostly collapsed; the grounds around it were being used to lay out the dead who had been pulled from the rubble. The blacksmith's forge had been converted to a triage where the smith and a tall, aristocratic-looking woman were providing what aid they could. The tavern keeper and his family had large pots of food boiling to be handed out to the survivors. The village's docks looked unharmed, but many of the fishing boats had become unmoored and now floated out onto the lake as derelicts. Through a veil of fog, they could see that there was an island in the middle of the lake and some kind of ancient stone structure perched atop it.
The stake meant for Garazi's immolation still stood at the center of Vostok.
Daytona approached the blacksmith, who muttered something about the disaster being a stroke of justice for the town's horrid tradition of burning witches alive. Meanwhile, Panthalassa approached a blonde woman in black leather armor who seemed occupied with taking notes on the catastrophe that had befallen Vostok. From the instrument case at her feet, the woman was clearly an entertainer; she assumed that Panthalassa was an admirer who was seeking an autograph. However, over the course of their conversation, it became clear that the woman, who went by the name Nightsong, not only knew the missing folk from Chateau Frankenstein, but also claimed to be Serafina's paramour!
Nightsong was overjoyed to meet Panthalassa, whom she had heard much of from Serafina, but she immediately fell apart when Panthalassa told her that Serafina and company were currently missing. Nightsong blubbered uncontrollably, Panthalassa promised that they would find the residents of the chateau, and the bard eventually had to excuse herself to pull things together.
The village priest was attempting to provide what aid she could to the injured, but a man in ragged robes kept ringing a bell and screaming about the end times being upon them...at least until Aria bestowed a little theological intimidation on him that caused him to flee the scene. The priest was grateful for the intervention and happy to have Genevieve take over the treatment of Vostok's citizens with Garazi's aid. Aria attempted to lend some miraculous healing, but her magic instead caused a dying man to become briefly possessed by a spirit that told her she need to make a "choice" because the "end was coming." Rudolpho's contribution was to hand out coins to the survivors to pay for the town's restoration. He also managed to purchase two rowboats they could use to get themselves to the island at the center of the lake.
What they found on the island were the remains of a very old stone structure of apparent Vlaak design. It was clear that the falling stars had touched down here; all the destruction they had witnessed had stemmed outward from the isle in a circular pattern. Despite the structure having collapsed in on itself, they did locate stone stairs going down into the depths.
A study of the footprints indicated that at least two groups had passed within in recent memory: one set belonged to an average-sized man with a much larger companion, the other set indicated a male, an adult woman, and either a child or a smaller woman. Within the subterranean levels, the discovered Vlaakish art depicting members of that ancient race surrounded by eldritch machinery and another image that showed strange craft descending from the sky. They passed a door with Vlaakish writing that Genevieve was able to translate; beyond the door was something described as a "beacon" and a "sacrament."
As the rest of the group backtracked to a previous chamber, Rudolpho and Beebo unlocked the door to explore inside. What he found were a number of semicircular stone shelves containing Vlaakish skulls that faced a central fire in which a kneeling human skeleton in a gibbet burned. There was no mistaking it: the fire was unnatural, with no visible fuel to keep it burning. From that chamber, Rudolpho and Beebo stole a dagger, a bejeweled cup, an inverted pentagram on a chain, and a wooden wand.
On a deeper level of the structure, the group saw they would pass through a corridor with four burial vaults on each side. To hide their passage, Garazi cast a spell that rendered their movement silent. Unfortunately, that spell also obfuscated the opening of the vaults once they had passed by. Rudolpho noticed that eight blackened Vlaak skeletons armed with war cleavers had emerged and were stalking toward them. The group was able to send them back to the grave without any casualties on their side.
They discovered more provocative Vlaakish art, such as a mural depicting Lucifer being cut in twain by an archangel, a mural showing a pale nobleman seated upon an ornate throne, and a mural of a Vlaak empress being crowned. Another room proved to be an embalming chamber, complete with jars of desiccated organs and the tools needed for organ extraction.
The group did manage to find their way to a chasm with a shattered walkway surrounding it. There was a large stone and steel wheel attached to a mechanism from which a chain descended into the chasm. Aria and Heck worked the wheel in tandem, causing a platform to be hoisted up from the darkness below. Upon the platform was a steel coffin, its lid slightly ajar. Aria removed the lid; inside was the corpse of a woman in her mid thirties, perhaps only dead a week, the top of her head sawn off and her brain removed.
Panthalassa and Daytona recognized the woman immediately: they beheld the corpse of Viktoria Frankenstein.
Strangely, there was a note pinned to the front of her burial gown that read "Better luck next time." The note appeared to be penned in Viktoria's own handwriting.
Unsure of what to do about this unnerving development, they left the body where it was and continued exploring. They discovered a massive iron maiden, but it was locked tight and seemed to require four keys to open. Panthalassa's attempt to pick the locks ended in her thieves' tools dissolving into rust. Later, they did find one key around the neck of a mummified Vlaak in a stone sarcophagus.
They also found a set of stairs leading deeper into the complex...next time we'll find out what they encounter down in the dark.
