So I tried to get this out before 2021 was out, and did not succeed. Ah well. I've got no good excuse, I just mishandled my time.
Anyhow, it's time for one more trip with the crew of the Moonlight Maiden. BTW, if you're unfamiliar with the Exalted books, the manor house is something that appears in the Hundred Devils Night Parade supplement on DriveThruRPG, listed as "The Forlorn Manor." The book provides the haunted mansion as a setpiece and a character, sets up that there is a mystery surrounding the people who used to live there, and the rest of it (the island, the abandoned town, the backstory, etc.) was all me.
So we pick up with Hǎifēng and Shango yelling, respectively, "You son of a bitch!" and "What did I do?" at each other in the mansion's game room, getting some stuff out of their system as Shango argues that he was out on the balcony and just came in regardless of what Hǎifēng thinks they saw from what was apparently the basement. Shango indicates the door he kicked open, only to find that it's closed and repaired itself in the moments he looked away.
Hǎifēng has trouble believing him[0], and just wants to quit the place, but Shango points out the house probably doesn't want them to leave. Hǎifēng says they can just punch holes in the walls and leave, and on Shango's dare to try it, they shift to their hybrid form and deliver a palm strike that blasts a hole into what appears to be a library in the next room... which then repairs itself moments later.
Elsewhere on the floor, Xương -- who's been hearing the bickering -- hears the scream of rage that follows and shifts into his sharkman form and just starts Juggernauting through the walls of the place in as straight a line as possible towards the sound. He bursts into the room and stops to catch his breath, and they watch as the damage 'resets' behind him. Shango points out that the house is undoing his handiwork, and Xương looks back and remarks that he could do it again. Shango, trying to prove a point, asks Xương if he trapped him out on the balcony a few minutes ago, and Xương obviously says 'no.'
Shango points out, in case it isn't obvious, that the house is fucking with them. Hǎifēng says that Shango is still a prick. They believe him, but he's still a prick.
The group discusses whether or not they're done with this place, if they should just try to destroy it or take off and see if they can find a god to do that for them. Xương argues, though, that Exalted are already what the gods are supposed to use for that sort of smiting, and he's not entirely wrong. As the group talks, they become aware of sounds in the background: people talking, some laughter, game pieces clicking on carved wooden table-boards. Nothing horrifying or traumatic, just a reminder of better days and an indication that the people here were once happy. There's an odd air of melancholy to it.
Hǎifēng points out that a lot of people died in the house, and the house itself might come back.[1] They then proceed to tell everyone about the wooden mask they found and where they got it -- including what they're pretty sure happened in the drawing room -- and what happens when they put it on. Xương says he found a servant's room with the list, and Hǎifēng asks if the signet ring they found might have any significance, and Xương's pretty sure it's a family crest, as he saw the emblem sewn into some of the servant's clothing. Xương then goes into more detail about the list, and the note about everyone losing their left eyes. He suggests they go and find the barn the mask is clearly linked to, if the house will let them leave. They agree and he manages to lead them outside without any issues.
As they reach the main hall and head for the door, they hear the sounds of pleasant conversation along with feeling a sense of longing, like whatever's in the house deeply misses the Dutan family.[2] Xương just kind of shrugs and comments that for him, solving the mystery is entirely 'sunk cost' at this point.
The group goes and checks out the barns, and in one of them Hǎifēng can recognize the board pattern from the vision they saw, and that this is clearly the other side of that wall. The layout of the barn suggests that someone's built a wall to maintain a hidden chamber, and they peel the wall open to reveal a skeleton. There's a lot of damage to the left eye socket suggesting that the individual lost their left eye, and that combined with the single beam of sunlight coming through a hole in the wall behind it, it's clear that the mask was letting Hǎifēng see through the skeleton's right eye.
A closer look at the skull reveals that the eye was surgically removed with a blade in some sort of ritual, as opposed to an animal attack. Markings on the skull resemble runes, though they can't quite grasp the meaning of them. Xương's able to determine with his medical knowledge that the skeleton likely belonged to a man, and that he probably survived losing the eye but died pretty shortly afterwards. There are also signs of other bones in the skeleton, particularly the ribs, having been healed with magic.
Xương suggests they cremate the body and put it to rest, and that might settle what's going on in the house. Hǎifēng points out that what they've seen suggests the family had specific death rituals that would need to be followed. But they don't know those rituals, which means they'd have to go back into the house. Everyone naturally dreads this, but they're willing to do it. This time they're going to stick together, though.
So they hike back up to the house, and as they talk and think it over they realize where they've seen those eye socket runes before -- the designs were stitched into the eyepatch of the necromancer pirate captain way back in the first story. At the very least, they're certain that some sort of necromancy was being performed here, and it was the same style practiced by Seize/Sees the Beyond. They wonder if Parin managed to get off the island and became Seize/Sees the Beyond, or perhaps one of his descendants.
They're excited to learn more, and the house feels like it's been waiting for them. They quickly find and start looking through the library, which actually stretches across the first two floors of the house. Many of the books are of subjects relevant to the island -- texts on growing and utilizing peppers, some stuff regarding gods and spirits and blessings upon soil, some business stuff -- but they find a book that's in surprisingly good condition with that family crest on it. It appears to be the sacred text of a god named Phukeef, a powerful field god with a pepper-themed aspect, and it appears that the people of the island were worshippers of this god. The book also contains the death rituals they're looking for, and they learn there are different rituals for the ruling family of the island and one for the common townsfolk.
Xương, snacking on a handful of small chilis he plucked from the overgrown field on his way back to the house, pauses when he finds out that the Dutan family's death ritual involves cremating them and scattering most of the ash over the field to both symbolically and literally nurture the soil. The remainder, a handful, is put in the appropriate chamber in the mausoleum with a personal effect. Then he goes back to munching on the chili peppers, when he finds out that the non-Dutan townspeople underwent a similar ritual, but were instead mulched as fertilizer. He pauses again, shrugs, and keeps eating.
They find a few books about the island's history, including sort of a central 'official' text compiled from servants' journals. Apparently part of the servants' duties involved recording the goings-on, and the head servant would go through these and add to the central book. The Lunars learn that the island's population began as a cult on the mainland to Phukeef, the aforementioned field god. Well, Phukeef drew the unfortunate attention of some Immaculate monks, who destroyed him. His cult, run by a family of Phukeef's god-blooded descendants, fled to the ocean and settled on an isolated island.
In a little under a century, their divine heritage was already starting to noticeably run thin. Also, by this point, the cult had slowly become a secular (or as close as you get in Exalted) family-run plantation, and the island's entire population was organized around farming and selling varieties of peppers not found in other parts of Creation. To shore up the mystical might of the Dutan ruling family, they formed an arrangement with some volcano gods further south in the Cinder Isles. Upon turning 21, any scions of the family who passed a handful of tests would take a pilgrimage south to meet with the volcano gods and come back initiated as a sorcerer. Thanks to these individuals the island was made more suitable for farming, with clean freshwater springs, eternally nurtured soil, and protection from the worst storms the Southwest had to offer.
The last chapter covers up through the year 519 and was written by the same person who compiled the list that Xương found, talks about a curse plaguing the Dutan family. The first sign of the curse appears to be have been in late 518, when Parin, the then-most-recent member of the family to pass the tests went to study with the volcano gods, but upon his return something went horribly wrong and the ship ran aground and wrecked on the side of the island. Parin was believed killed at first, but was miraculously rescued by the ship's doctor (the only other survivor of the wreck). Parin was also horribly scarred and lost his left eye, and the ship's doctor made a mask for him to cover up the damage to his face.
Shortly afterwards, other members of the family started dying in freak accidents, losing their left eye in the process. Parin took up the task of trying to find out what was going on, while still slowly recovering from his injuries. He spent most of his time either studying what was going on to find a cause and a solution, or maintaining the hedge maze (which had been a favorite task of his when he was younger). That last chapter in the 'central' history book leaves off on a note of "The family faces dark times, but we have faith in Parin to solve the mystery, etc."
Something about this story feels really off to Xương, especially since he takes a closer look at the mask and recognizes it (thanks to growing up among the Lintha, who trade and steal all over Creation) as being made of Sijanese coffin wood from the East. Which makes absolutely no sense to have been found in that context.[3] Xương theorizes that the ship's doctor did something unnatural to Parin. Everyone decides to go down into the basement to see if they can find the doctor's effects.
The basement feels... oppressive, somehow. Like the space is smaller than it is. And there's a sensation like the room itself is breathing, with a very faint 'thud' rhythmically vibrating through the floor, like some machine is pounding on the ground a distance away. As they explore, Xương discovers the wine cellar (which appears to be a mix of wine and spirits purchased from the mainland as well as some locally-made pepper-based beverages), cracks open a bottle, and determines that at least some of it is still good.
In the corner they find a cloth bundle and inside are the tools of a typical ship's doctor, along with what are clearly necromancy ritual implements, including some stuff clearly designed to remove an eye. There's also a rotted wooden mask with the stuff that appears to have once been identical to the one that Hǎifēng found, but this one immediately crumbles to dust as if the universe decided that Hǎifēng's is the 'real' one.
A note with the tools says they've been left here in the hopes that someone will find them and understand what's been done. The note's author regrets that Seri got struck down after apparently killing Parin without hearing him out, but they reacted harshly in light of what they thought was a servant gone mad and assaulting a family member.
It was only when they went to check Parin's body and took off his mask that they realized it wasn't him at all. But they know that when he came back to the island, it was definitely Parin, despite his scars. The note's author theorizes that Parin might have already been dead when he got back, and that some entity was puppeting him with the doctor's help, and has been body-jumping as bodies rotted and wore out. But they have yet to find Parin's original body, and they don't know where the entity found more.
The note explains that everybody knows that there's something terribly wrong, that shortly after "Parin's" death some sensation settled in over the house and the family. They don't know what happened or what it means, but they've left the doctor's stuff behind in the hopes that someone else figures out what happened.
It seems pretty obvious to the Lunars that the skeleton must be Parin's original body, probably kept around on the off-chance the intruders needed it for some reason. Who knows what they could need it for, but that's magic for you. As the group found references to "Parin" having spent most of his time 'recovering' while working on the hedge maze out back, they decide to go out and take a look.
On the way out, Xương grabs a crate of wine from the wine cellar, figuring that worst-case scenario it vanishes once they get it outside. But it doesn't turn to dust as soon as it's out the front door, so he sets it next to the step and the group goes around back.
The hedge maze is overgrown, and someone practically has to hack through it even if they weren't just trying to get to the center as quickly as possible. But they do, feeling that thumping beneath them and they get the distinct sensation of walking across the back of a living, breathing, sleeping creature. The thumping increases in speed as they approach the center, where hey find a dead, spindly thing that looks less like a tree and more like roots growing upward from the ground. It twitches in time with the thumping.
For lack of any better ideas, Xương just grabs the tree-thing and yanks, and the ground opens up beneath them. Xương digs his claws into the more stable ground to keep from sliding in, while Hǎifēng does a dramatic backflip and grabs some of the shrubbery, and Shango... well, Shango has wings, so he just flies above it.
In the gaping hole that's just opened up beneath them, they see that 'tree' connected to what can only be described as a giant heart made of dead meat, sinew, and dry bone. It slowly but steadily throbs, revealing itself as the source of the Jurassic Park-like thuds they've been feeling. And then it start to throb faster, as if waking.
Xương dives straight at it, yelling "Put Parin to rest, I'll deal with this thing!" as he starts to tear at the heart. Moments later, zombies burst out of it and swarm over him. Shango pulls out that powerbow he took from the monk back in Phong's Promise and begins peppering the heart and the zombies with arrows while Hǎifēng shifts into animal form and flees to the barn where Parin's skeleton still resided. They find an intact canvas to wrap up the bones with a quick "I'm sorry" before hauling them to the conveniently-nearby crematory.
We proceed to cut back and forth between shots of Xương fighting zombies and striking at the heart, Shango putting arrows into undead meat, and Hǎifēng quickly doing the ritual they found in the books inside. At one point it looks like Xương's been overtaken by the zombies, until he dramatically bursts out to send them all flying, like the Hulk.
Hǎifēng finishes the ritual, and fortunately as Parin is all bones much of the cremation can skip ahead to the 'grind and smash the bones into dust' portion. (Fortunately, the final rites matter more than the ability to carbonize dead flesh.) They grab a handful of the ashes and go to put it in the mausoleum chamber for Parin, worried about the lack of a personal effect -- just to find that someone had actually gone ahead and put in a pair of Parin's treasured pruning shears and a note explaining the lack of ashes.[4] They take the rest of the ashes (or, really, bone dust at this point), wrap them up in a little bundle, and take on bird form to fly over the field and release them.
Xương and Shango can see the 'ash' drifting down over the field, and as it lands among the plants the zombies dissolve into some sort of disgusting goo and the heart stops beating and does the same. The house begins to flicker and Xương clears out of the hole in the ground as centuries of dirt and crud having blown into it begin to reassert themselves.
The house vanishes into motes of light drifting away on the breeze, revealing to the group that the house itself was the ghost and has now been put to rest. The group can feel the house's relief as it passes on to who-even-knows-what. Xương remembers the wine and rushes around the foundation to check on it, to find that it's intact -- a parting gift, apparently.
And then we leave off on the group gathering up a couple barrels of peppers and giving the remnants of the town itself a once-over on the way back to their boat (the smugglers having left a while ago), all the while talking about how they might reach out to the Silver Pact about turning the island into a Lunar base or a haven for some beastfolk or both.
And that's our fourth story, The Slain Scion, wrapped up! See you next time!
[0]-- Incidentally, while there are mechanics on how the house tries to turn people against each other, so far the characters have actually been able to resist the influence with their Resolve stats and Willpower points. This is just Zac and Bryan leaning into the intended tone, and I applaud them for it here.
[1]-- I danced around it some in the session, talking about the 'presence in the house' and such, but rather than spend energy maintaining the pretense as I type, I'm just going to point out that the house itself is the ghost.
[2]-- I really wish I'd thought to do this at the time, but if I had I'd have actually had the house make a social roll to try and imprint some of that feeling onto the characters. It wouldn't have had any real effect, but it seems in retrospect that it would have been a nice way to balance out the house's attempts to turn the group against each other in the previous session.
[3]-- To put it in real world terms, imagine finding a mask carved in Madagascar, made from a California redwood.
[4]-- I hope I don't have to explain what the note says.
No comments:
Post a Comment