Chapter 2 - House of Horrors (Patreon)

My suspicions were a bit off the mark. Chertog wasn't mad. He was downright livid. When I arrived, he was already pacing back and forth, muttering under his breath. The moment he actually spotted me - well, looks cannot kill, but I definitely felt some sort of 'weak knees' debuff from his furious gaze. He was biting his lip so hard, his silly goatee aimed straight at me. It took a while before we were able to start talking too - for at least a full five minutes, he let loose, berating me and my work ethics. 

Initially, I'd decided to weather the onslaught, but the when he started talking about those "filthy, murdering kobolds you were gallivanting about with", I'd had it.

"ENOUGH, Chertog." My shout took him aback and I sped onwards before he managed to gather himself. "What exactly is it you would've wanted me to ignore? Should I have postponed facing off with Othell when everybody was ready to string up Benneth? Maybe I should've just turned down the Council, when they asked me to help them finally come to peace with the kobolds? Let that bunch of Razortailed Vipers grow nice and fat so they'd be able to multiply and overrun the village in a teeming mass of death?"

Chertog's cheeks were still red from the shouting, but he deflated slightly, "Of course not. Don't act like you haven't had plenty of time to get started, though.  You keep ignoring the task as if it isn't important. I won't have it!" He stomped his foot and shot me a challenging glare.

I took a deep breath, clenched my fists... and forcefully exhaled. In a softer tone, I responded, "You're right. I apologize. I've got plenty of bad excuses to go along with the good ones. I'm ready to get started now, though - if you'll accept my apology, that is?"

He waited long enough that I was starting to squirm. "Yes. I might. But, so help me Braille, if you flake on me one more time, I am through with teaching you."

"I swear in the name of Serune. It'll take my grisly, colorful death to stop me from completing this task. Even that won't stop me from getting straight back to it afterwards!"

"Hmph. That works. Now, get to it already. I've had four dead bodies up and leave since you left for that kobold place and the Council is beginning to doubt my vigilance."

"Let's get going then. Do any new tracks lead to the same broken place in the palisade?" It felt weird that he hadn't just fixed the fence, but I'd finally gotten him to talk and it was probably just a quest thing so I dropped it. 

"Exactly. I've tried to locate the culprit, but the tracks just disappear after a while."

"Mmh. Let's take a look." Making our way through the fence was no problem at all. The boards had been all but destroyed. If there ever was a day for hunting down unknown adversaries in the woods, this was it. The day was cloudy and cold and by the look of the clouds, we were going to see  rain shortly.

Chertog grumbled, forcing his girth through the fence and brushed himself off before waving in a south eastern direction. "It's that way - and that's how much I can help you."

"Alright. I'll take it from here." I just hoped that I'd be able to actually help. Fingers crossed, Darya's - no, Mila's, teachings would give me an edge. Sometimes, it was hard to wrap my head around the fact that the gorgeous half-orc had gone from hating my guts to being my girlfriend, but I looked forward to seeing her soon again. 

Chertog kept looking over my shoulder, enough so that I had to ask him to back off a bit. Even so, the beginning was easy. The drag marks were heavy and the culprit had clearly gone the same way often enough that they'd worked a groove into the soft grass area surrounding the village. When we made it into the near forest, however, the drag marks slowly faded away. The ground was drier and... "Yeah, I see the problem, Chertog. Not only are the tracks less obvious, I'd also bet they're taking different paths to obfuscate which way they're going."

"Obfuscate? It's a damn animal. Not some criminal mastermind."

"Yeah, I'm afraid my bet goes against that. How would they have been able to avoid your keen senses so many times if that were the case?"

"When I sleep, I sleep. I know you bards always jump into a different bed each night, but I sleep. And snore. A lot.”

"Yeah - not buying it, Chertog. This is where the real work starts, though." Having said that, I started scouting the perimeter, moving  in an ever-expanding half-circle in order to not miss anything if they took an abrupt turn. At first the going was relatively easy. The southern side of the village was the less-traveled side and I managed to find a handful of both scuff marks and drag marks that could reasonably have come from our quarry. After a while, however, we stumbled upon a bit of an issue.

Chertog looked up from the ground to see why I'd stopped and then blinked. "Wait. This is..."

"It's a... whatchamacallit? An offshoot from the Jagged Rush. Distributary - that's it. It's also bloody annoying and means extra work."

"Extra work? Whatta ya mean? If they've walked along the stream, we'll never find them."

I shook my head. "Nah. We'll have to assume they are neither invisible nor stupid. Anybody wandering through the stream this close to the village is bound to be caught at some point, unless they're good with explanations."

Chertog snorted. "It'd have to be a solid explanation to get away with carrying around a corpse too.They're heavy too, damn things. I doubt we'll have to search far to find the tracks again."

I grinned at him. It was good to see him regain his sense of  humor. This had been the longest I'd ever gone without hearing any laughter or bad puns from him and it felt all wrong. We waded through the stream and started searching the other bank. My annoyance at having my feet soaking wet was not improved by the light drizzle that started ruining my clothes. Still, I tried to maintain my focus, tracking for all I was worth. Meanwhile, Chertog grew more chatty by the minute.

“I’m not saying it is a necromancer. Could be anything. A warlock who needs fresh material. An enchanter who’s toying with the darker side of things.”

“Kinda trying to focus here.”

“Of course, of course.” We walked for a while, Chertog muttering to himself. His feet snapped a branch, making me jump. “I’m just saying, if it is a necromancer, it’s clearly a loner. Probably a parent too.”

“…I’m not going to ask.”

“…”

“…”

“You know, somebody who just wants to raise a family in peace.”

“Oh, for crying out loud, Chertog.”

“Sorry. I’ll try to be quiet – I know it’s a grave matter.”

Our search continued with the same theme repeated over and over. To his credit, Chertog did try to keep quiet – it seemed like his puns were his natural reaction to the stress of the situation. The drizzle had slowly turned into a downpour and the visibility worsened. I was about to call it a day, when a tiny bit of color drew my attention to a nearby thorny bush. With a grin, I turned towards Chertog. “"Did you know Darya's the one who taught me to track? She taught me the most important parts to tracking are perseverance and alertness. Not exactly my key skills. She did however, mention a third ingredient, that I apparently have in spades - blind frigging luck." I pointed at the bush. Oh, and a tiny bit of skill, apparently. My tracking skill just increased.

"Is that - yeees it is.” He rushed forward to caress the item. “A finger bone. Huh, must be old Mrs. Caracen. Definitely female and either gnomish or halfling. You can-"

"Sorry Chertog, but I really don't want to know. However, it means that we're on the right track and hopefully we can get this over with and get home to dry off." I was starting to sniffle and had a suspicion a 'minor cold' debuff or something would show up any minute now. Things started to speed up though. A couple of minutes later, I spotted a clear scuff mark from a boot - and moments later, A handful of saplings had been trampled - a while back, it looked like. Following that, I started paying more attention to our surroundings - we were clearly following right in the footprints of our despoiler. Sotto voce, I addressed Chertog, "Fun's over. From here on out, we remain silent, understood. Whispers only."

"Okay," his stage whisper did little to lower the noise from him, but at least he was trying. "Are we close?"

"No way to know for sure - but I'd rather be able to surprise our culprit than the other way around." The next ten minutes were a tense affair. Chertog bumbled along behind me, while I tried to look for tracks and remain alert to any noise or movement in the background. After the first five minutes, however, I was able to focus almost exclusively on our surroundings. The signs of passage were clear enough that I felt certain we were on target and the course didn't deviate much. All at once, the forest receded, and I was left looking at something new. "A little help here? What the Pits am I looking at, Chertog?"

Chertog looked as perplexed as I did, but after a short while, I saw his eyes light up. "Rabbit!" he exclaimed with a smile. He patted my shoulder, seeing my lack of understanding. "No way you could know. Radomith Tallhorn. Halfling who used to visit the village once in a while. He was a complete loner though. Never allowed anybody to visit - hell, I wasn't even aware where his place was. He's been dead these past...15 years though, I believe."

Now he'd said it, the picture made more sense. What had at first glance looked like an overgrown hillock filled with holes and items suddenly stood out as an actual building. A house tunneled into the hill and allowed to fall into disrepair for a good number of years. The discoloration at one place was a partially collapsed window, a pile of rocks was a collapsed chimney and... that was certainly a door. A wide open door, hanging on by a single hinge and with obvious drag marks leading right into the place.

I pulled him back into the forest. "I really, really don't like this, It's as obvious a trap as I've ever seen."

Chertog looked as nervous as I felt. Still, he looked straight at the door, resolution carved in his features and cracked his knuckles. "Bah - be that as it may - we're still going in. Necromancer, beast or grave robber, I'm not allowing anybody to keep preying on MY gravewyard. Are you with me or not?"

I looked into his eyes and swallowed hard. "We'll take care of them!"

"Good. Because this place gives me the creeps. Any tips on how we should handle this?" He'd unwrapped a small hand axe that he was handling nervously.

"Yeah. But first - how are you in combat?" 

"I... wouldn't know."

"Alright. I move in first. If anything moves, I stun it and you help me bash it until it stops moving. If I tell you not to attack, you don't attack. If I tell you to run, you run. How does that sound?"

"Sounds fine to me. Straightforward. Promise me you'll take care though."

"Way ahead of you."

"Heh - hope so. That way I'll have time to run away."

I threw him a rude gesture, equipped my violin and moved forward, as silently as possible. As I moved closer to the door, I could see that the place was huge. Not like the hobbit homes you'd imagine - small quaint places. More like somebody'd thought, "hell, if I'm going to live as a hermit, I might as well make my own huge frigging palace." Entering the front door on tiptoes, the word 'palace' disappeared straight away, however. The place was a dump. Had been even before the owner passed away, even. The walls were simple earthen walls and only liberal use of stout timber planks had kept the place from collapsing. The entry hall had held a large number of crates, but the moisture had long since reduced the remains to unidentifiable lumps. There were two exits from the hall, left and right. 

I was turning towards Chertog to ask for advice, when a clattering sound from the left side froze us both. Our eyes met and Chertog nodded. Heart in my throat, I tiptoed through the door and into the corridor beyond. It was getting hard to see - hints of light must be entering the place somewhere, but I still praised the vision buff from my half-elven ancestry. It would've been almost pitch black otherwise  Halfway through the hallway, a strangled noise from behind caused me to spin around - to see that Chertog was gone!  A choked sound escaped my throat. When had he disappeared? Trying to calm myself, I moved back to the entry hall. Nothing. I peered into the opposite hallway. Still nothing to be seen. Torn, I looked left and right, unsure how to continue. I supposed I'd better - a blood-curdling scream interrupted my panicked thoughts. The sound was filled with pain and horror - and it was clearly Chertog. Now, I threw caution to the wind and ran in the direction of the sound. Rubble, rot and the occasional collapsed piece of furniture flew by in a haze while I sprinted from one dark room to another. 

I was making my way through another hallway as I noticed the dark fading. I slowed down and braced for the worst as I moved into yet another chamber - only to be met with laughter. Not kind laughter, however. Deep, rumbling, villainous laughter. My eyes flew over the dark room which was lit only by a handful of candles. The far end held only two things: a decrepit, old chair, covered by a rotting animal pelt and occupied by a humanoid skeleton – and Chertog, lying prone next to the chair. No enemies to be seen though. Throwing caution to the wind, I moved to approach Chertog, but was interrupted by the same voice. “Halt, half-elf.” I skidded to a stumbling halt and watched in horror as the skeleton’s skull slowly rose to look at me.

“Ahahah. Another fool comes bumbling into my trap. This one is still awake, however.” The rumbling voice ground to a halt before it continued, musing, “perhaps it can be used. Tell me, half-breed. Would you save the lives of you and your rotund friend?”

How weird. The jaws of the skull did not move. My thoughts felt disjointed at the surreal discussion, but I summoned the presence of mind to answer, “of course I would. But why attack us? Why do you haunt Grant’s Crossing?”

That seemed to agitate the skeleton. It barked, “You think I am the aggressor? I merely wanted to rest in peace. No. I am the victim here. Forced back into this wretched unlife by means of the curse.”

Oh. My initial panic receded. This smelled like a quest opportunity if ever I’d heard one. “A curse? Please do continue. I swear, I will do what I can to help you."

The deep voiced turned more conversational. "You may not know this, but short folk in Grant's Crossing have always been subject to terrible treatment. Mockery and beatings have constantly been our companions and that is but the beginning of the mistreatment we have suffered. Persecution, blackmail and even murder have taken place - all targeting us short folk. I am not the person who has been treated worst - but I was the first to be murdered over nothing more than my stature."

As he continued to describe the ghastly treatment he'd received from the villagers, I couldn't help but think that his way of speaking seemed familiar. Also, the behavior of the skeleton seemed really weird - it sort of just... bobbed up and down. I frowned and focused on his speech. Apparently I'd missed a snatch, because he was getting really worked up,

"They think they can keep us down! But they're clearly not counting on Radomith Tallheart. This is your quest, then: you must enter the cursed village and pronounce to all and sundry that the reckoning has come. Anybody who mistreats a short person, be they gnome, halfling or dwarf, will face the wrath of the curse."

Wait - that wasn't right. Chertog had called him... something else. A terrible suspicion sank upon me. As the voice raved on, I silently took a step forward and to the side. The skull stayed still and I worked up the nerve to sneak even closer. My suspicion was slowly being confirmed as I stood right in front of the chair and could tell that the voice did not originate from the skeleton - but from behind the chair.

The voice droned on, "...if you manage to convince ten villagers of the danger of the curse...

I took a step forward and stared down at the small figure hidden at the back of the chair with a speaking tube in his hand. His other hand held on to a handful of wire that went into the ceiling and back down to the skeleton

"...before that, however, I shall not be able to..." his voice faded out into nothingness as he spotted me. "Erm. Pay no attention to the man behind the chair?"

"Gillem. You rotten bastard! What in the Pits are you up to?" My hands were itching to close themselves around his neck but I was distracted by the gales of laughter coming from the other side of the chair. 

Chertog stood up and dusted himself off - a task made harder by him having to point at me and roar with laughter at the same time. "Braille be praised. The look on your face when you saw the skeleton. That was perfect! Did you pee yourself? I was betting Gillem you'd pee yourself."

"Chertog? I know you have a terrible sense of humor, but... why? This isn't okay!"

He took his time, wiping tears from his eyes and chuckling under his breath. Then he walked over to face me. "Not okay, Arcangelo? Like telling your teacher you are going to help him numerous times and then blowing him off to go ogle a blonde elf in the tavern? Do you want to know how long it took Sourpuss to find the Bonechewer that actually dug up the bodies? Twenty. Minutes."

I wanted to tell him off, but the good arguments against him failed to appear.  "How about you, Gillem? We're pals, man."

His wicked grin almost met his ears. "Oh yes. Of course we are. Us against the world. Remember that, next time you try to blackmail me for a meal, or make another tall-guy joke, yeah? I do believe we're even now, though." He paused for effect. "Chertog, did you notice how fast he ran after you disappeared? You'd barely thrown yourself to the ground when he entered. That was almost touching, wouldn't you say?"

Chertog guffawed. "Yeah, he's a right hero. Now, let's get back to the village. My clothes are wet from the rain and I need some food and spirits in me." He slapped my back. "Arcangelo, you're buying."

I stared from one of them to the other, fuming... and spat out a string of curses under my breath. I adressed them, "Forget about that. I'm still mad with you two! Gillem's buying!"

"Me? But it was Chertog's idea!"

Chertog guffawed. "Of course it was. It takes a mastermind to come up with something on this level. Speaking of which. Did you guys hear about the Master Chronicler who fell dead from a heart attack?"

We both groaned. 

"Yeah, it was a stroke of genius. Huh? Huh?"

"...I hate you guys."

[You have failed the quest: Darn Kids

Chertog gave up on you and solved the issue himself. Because you did come through eventually, there are no negative repercussions.]