Session 1 : A walk in the mist

Disappointment from the previous evening hung heavily in Serenity’s mind, alongside a splitting hangover. She forced herself down to breakfast, only to find that in her drunken state she had booked herself into a tavern that seemed to only serve sausages, which was disappointing.

By this point Serenity had already resigned herself to another disappointing day when the barmaid brought over a plate of what looked like boiled leaves to her table in the darkest corner of the tavern. She accepted them, paid and sat quietly eating.

Then some other patrons entered the room, Serenity ignored them. But they were noisy. Serenity glanced across at them, she began to tremble slightly and suddenly felt quite sick. It had been so long since she had seen another Tabaxi, let alone one with white fur like those from Serenity's mountain home. The shock brought back distressing images to Serenity's mind. She took a deep breath, concentrated on meditating and eating and tried to numb out the thoughts. The Tabaxi was staring over at Serenity, clearly incredibly over-excited. Serenity remembered some of the elder monks at the monastery had perfected the art of sitting so still they became almost invisible. She tried to concentrate, in the vain hope of mastering the skill; it did not work. She had often been told to pay more attention to the elders.

The Tabaxi and her huge Half-Orc companion approached. They introduced themselves and appeared to want Serenity to join them on some journey. Serenity felt even more sick, she had a bad feeling about this. Most of the towns in these parts were predominantly human settlements and even another Tabaxi, let alone one a similar colour, would lead to confusion and trouble for Serenity, all she could hope was this Tabaxi would keep a low profile.

The excitable Tabaxi was rambling about magic and an Eldritch blast blazed upwards and destroyed a section of the ceiling. Time to leave, the tavern, the town, perhaps the continent. The sheriff arrived. There was no way anyone would believe Serenity did not know this Tabaxi so she remained silent. Apparently, her new ‘companions’ were criminals according to the sheriff. Serenity's headache started to feel much, much worse.

The Sheriff wanted us to convince some travelling Vistani to leave the area. Apparently, these travelling people had done nothing wrong, but the locals wanted them gone. Serenity made a decision not to intervene as her moral code would not countenance interfering where no law had been broken. She stayed silent. The other Tabaxi, who told anyone that would listen her name was Destiny, did not stay silent, Serenity had never met a Tabaxi so impulsive and talkative; in this she was relieved that she would not be reminded more of her friends. Serenity had no choice but to leave with Destiny in the direction of the Vistani camp. Destiny's large Half-Orc companion Hoskgak came too, he was less talkative; barely having said anything other than demanding sausages for breakfast.

As they passed the Vistani camp Serenity intended to keep walking, but a man called out from near a campfire, he seemed to be offering a bottle of something alcoholic. The road ahead was thick with morning mist and Serenity’s head was pounding. Perhaps some wine and warmth would keep her mind occupied and make this day less disappointing. She accepted a bottle from the old man at the fire, drank and listened to him tell tall tales that seemed to enthral her new companions who had also came to sit by the fire. 

Serenity was unsure how long they sat and listened, but before long she noticed her bottle of wine seemed to be far closer to empty that she was happy with and the sky was beginning to darken.

Suddenly the Vistani were packing up the camp and Serenity held a fresh bottle of wine, she was fairly certain she may have agreed to travel with the Vistani for a while, but why not, she had nowhere else to go at present and they had everything she needed for the time being. Serenity and Hoskgak seemed to be tagging along too.

As they travelled, Serenity drank. The noise of Destiny's loud voice chatting away and the rattle of the wagons were constant. Then the mist started to thicken. Things were hazy now and the wine was nearly gone. Serenity suddenly realised the noise of the wagons was gone too and only Destiny’s voice remained, chatting loudly as before. There was something wrong, Serenity tried to turn back to look for the wagons and the Vistani, but the mist seemed almost to push her back. She followed Destiny's voice and found her and Hoskgak wandering in the mist oblivious to the disappearance of their travelling companions. They travelled on into the mist together. It would seem that Destiny’s wish of Serenity joining her adventure had been granted.

Things only got stranger from there. The mist began to clear and a giant gate loomed out of the darkness. Distant howls echoed from the woods that now surrounded the path. They continued on. The gate opened for them and closed after they passed through; strange magic seemed to be everywhere in this place. There was a corpse in the road, it looked torn apart. The howls began again, much nearer this time, they had to move on quickly. There was not much conversation, even Destiny seemed to sense the danger at hand. After a while the forest fell away and wide open fields lay before them, they travelled on until in the distance they saw a large house emerge from the mist and beside it two small figures, children, waving to them.

They claimed their baby brother was inside the house and in danger from a monster. Something did not feel right about their story, but Serenity could not refuse in case there was an ounce of truth to it.

The party searched the ground floor of the house, it was empty and disturbingly the children outside seemed to have disappeared. But the companions decided they would search to make sure the baby was safe.

Serenity’s new companions were more curious than she was comfortable with, looking in chests and drawers they had no business interfering with, they were not here to loot someone’s house. But, as the search progressed, Serenity could see this curiosity did start to help in deciphering what had happened in this strange house. The Half-Orc Hoskgak was bold, leading the way through much of the search. The first floor was where things turned far stranger than Serenity could had imagined. Ghostly figures danced in a ballroom and the tale of the family who lived here deepened. Then the party found a dog, hiding in the room, barely alive, but the only living thing they had found in the house so far. Destiny was able to befriend it and feed it, the poor thing seemed terrified at first, but then began to follow them around the house.

The companions climbed to the second floor. Then the attacked came. An animated suit of armour lurched forward towards us. Hoskgak charged forward to meet it, smashing a dent to the side of it. Serenity leapt into the fray but her strikes glanced off without any damage. A blast from Destiny on the stairs knocked the armour back, but it attacked again; A blow to Serenity's face left her stumbling backwards with blood pouring from her nose. Once more Hoskgak fought back, whilst a wounded Serenity whirled around with a decisive strike to the helmet of the armour, knocking the whole thing lifelessly to the floor. Serenity was shaken, what evil could imbue a suit of armour with life and power like that? She wiped the blood from her face, at least the alcohol numbed the pain – then the pain was gone – much to Serenity’s surprise, Destiny had healed her.

Serenity’s head was spinning, another ghost, at first in a room and then behind a mirror, led to a secret staircase, before ascending the party decided to make sure the floor was clear. As they searched, Serenity heard a sudden noise and spun round and was confronted with Hoskgak violently smashing a broomstick into his own face. At first she was unsure whether Hoskgak was under the power of a strange spell, or whether he had gone too long without his sausages. But then, he staggered back and the broom continued to attack. Serenity and Destiny leapt to his defence, the broom was blasted and shredded and fell to the floor. It was hard to tell whether Hoskgak had taken more physical wounding, or wounding to his pride; either way, he was even less chatty than usual. Feeling the adrenaline from the fight mixed with the alcohol in her veins, Serenity found herself taunting the Half-Orc, mentioning brooms and sweeping for sometime after before she took a deep breath and managed to compose herself. The floor was cleared. The story of this horrible house grew ever more gruesome the higher they went.

After climbing the hidden staircase to the highest floor of the house the party once again found the children who had greeted them in the mist. But now, these children had no memory of them and were clearly ghosts of the past like all the others in this place; their physical bones lying together in the centre of the room where they had starved. The party learned more of the horrible story of the house and found the murdered body of the housemaid near to a secret staircase leading down. The ghost children were frightened and tried to possess us, we managed to resist, but it did not feel they had evil intent. We promised we would do what we could to free them from their limbo. The party took a rest to allow Hoskgak to recover from his dance with the broomstick. 

Serenity’s head began to pound again. Another drink from the flask fixed that and kept her own personal ghosts at bay. They were ready to venture down the new secret staircase.