The Party continued down to the basement, realizing that the extra creaks in the floorboards were just the wooden steps easing back into place.

The first stop downstairs was a kitchen area where two swarms of diseased rats crawled out of cracks in the walls. In the first round of combat, Chaka tossed a Pinecone Bomb between them. In the second round, he used a spell called Fire Sneeze, which launches a fiery, concussive blast via a sneeze. The targeted swarm rolled a Nat 1 on its Reflex save and got blown EVERYWHERE.

Upon the swarms’ defeat, Ciara looked at the remains in disgust.

Ciara: “That was nasty.”

Jyn: “Humph. Waste of food.”

Ciara: “Okay, you’re nasty.”

After exploring more of the basement, the Party came up to a large iron door. Surprisingly, Jyn, who rolled a 26 on Disable Device, wasn’t able to open it (no, I didn’t fudge the stats; it was a legit failure). They backtracked to the attic and continued exploring.

Rounding the corner in the hall, they heard a baleful shriek from a room at the end.

Jyn: “OUT! OUT! EVERYBODY OUT!”

Chaka: “No, Jyn! What if it’s somebody in trouble?”

Jyn: “…Eh.”

Before checking the room in question, the Party investigated the other two rooms. The first was an observatory. Upon entering, Jyn was suddenly convinced that he was on fire and that the only way to put out the fire was to jump out the window and into the ocean. Thankfully, he succeeded his Will save and stopped in time.

The second room was a Private Study. Apparently, the DM needs to carefully enunciate, or else some unintended things become story canon.

Me: “So, you see a set of decorative scroll cases, and…”

Jyn’s Player: “Tim, it sounded like you said ‘decorative squirrel cases.’”

Me: “…” (scribbles down new notes) “YES…”

Moving on, Chaka suddenly had visions of epic voyages and fantastic adventures, but soon grew mournful because instead of acting on them, the owner of the memories married a harpy of a woman instead. If not for a successful Will save, he would’ve taken 1d6 Wisdom damage.

Jyn took a painting of a bullfight worth 600 gold and found a hidden niche. Inside, he found 20 platinum pieces and a copper key. Ciara searched the “squirrel cases.” She took some maps and naval charts out of curiosity, and also found a Scroll of Lightning Bolt and a Scroll of Keen Weapon (she gave this scroll to Ymir).

Steeling themselves, they found the Beautiful Woman that Jyn danced with. However, instead of a human, she was an undead Revenant, sobbing in front of a mirror. Ciara suggests backing away slowly, but as they do, they hear the Revenant calling out the name of the Nobleman. Ymir offers to talk to her, but the moment the Revenant takes her eyes off her own reflection, she stands and shrieks, claiming she can smell the Nobleman’s fear.

However, the moment she saw the painting of herself that Draco was holding, she curled up and started sobbing again. Not wanting to deal with another outburst, Ciara took the painting from Draco, propped near the Revenant, and closed the door.

Back down to the basement, they used the key Jyn found to open the iron door. On the other side, they found some sort of workshop. Stepping inside, Ymir was hit with visions of one of the Nobleman’s ancestors and his journey in becoming a lich. Ciara shot one of the necrotic paraphernalia, but the bullet bounced right off.

Jyn’s player: “Watch, this whole house is a phylactery.”

Me: “Uuuuuummmm…”

They found a set of stone stairs that led further down. The moment she set foot on the steps, Ciara was assaulted by visions of the Nobleman digging through the floor and into the cavern below. Each time he swung his pickaxe, he muttered the words, “All for you.” Ciara immediately knew he was talking about her. In her vision, the ghouls grabbed the Nobleman and dragged him into the dark. Then, they set their sights on her and reached out. One Will save later, and Ciara broke out of the illusion before they could do any damage.

Ciara: “I am SO done with this place…”

The stairs led to a series of tunnels. One tunnel led to the lair of a Skaveling, where Jyn took to the air for a dogfight with the giant undead bat. Chaka went solo down another tunnel and found a +1 heavy pick and mounds of yellow mold. He investigated the mold by dragging the pick through it. In doing so, the mold released a ton of spores. For the next 6 rounds, Chaka had to roll Fortitude saves. Each time he failed, he took Constitution damage. Obviously, he hadn’t learned his lesson from walking in on the goblin brides.

Chaka’s player: “I guess curiosity killed the cat.”

Me: “No, curiosity choked the Chaka.”

Further in, a trio of ghouls jumped the Party. Draco and Ymir were the only ones unable to spot them in time. Ciara saw one appear behind Draco and one-shot it in the face. Jyn rolled two Nat 20s on the second ghoul, and with the x3 critical on his Seven Branch Sword, he dealt a maximum of 51 damage. The encounter wasn’t entirely clean, though, as the third ghoul bit Chaka with a Nat20. He resisted the onset of Ghoul Fever and the Party finished the fiend off.

A couple of encounters later, the Party came across their old nemeses: goblins. However, these ones had been infected and transformed into Goblin Ghasts. Chaka decided to call them Ghoulblins instead. In the kerfuffle of bullets, ghoulblin bites, and Ymir spamming Magic Missile like it was going out of style, Draco used his Wand of Shocking grasp to empower Jyn’s Seven Branch Sword for a single attack. Jyn then proceeded to crit a nearby ghoulblin with it for a total of 72 damage.

Finally, they came to the last room in the cavern. Inside were a large-backed chair, a table with a bunch of organized junk, and a wall covered with green mold. The chair was sticky with blood and rotten flesh. As for the wall of mold, the center of it was black and in the shape of a human.

However, the table garnered the most attention. A closer inspection of the table’s contents revealed several items, a single letter being the most normal item amongst them. The letter detailed a correspondence between the Nobleman and the mistress of a Secret Society, where the Nobleman was directed to sacrifice individuals for a ritual related to the Seven Pointed Star on Jyn’s amulet and Draco’s chest.

The rest of the table’s items were far more disturbing, especially for Ciara. A portrait of the Beautiful Woman from upstairs stood propped against a jar. However, blood marred the image to create a gruesome caricature of Ciara. The “junk” turned out to be small items that belonged to Ciara: brass casings, a pin hammer, and a screwdriver that went missing days ago. Worst of all, there were two piles of hair. One pile was made of long black strands, while the other seemed to be more like black fur.

Needless to say, Ciara was cursing in her native tongue (though her Player was cursing in English).

The Nobleman appeared from behind the chair, looking identical to the bald, ghoulish figure from the upstairs painting. When he saw Ciara, he became fanatic and charged. Ciara got a quick shot off that brought him back to his senses. He begged the Party to save him before more harm could be done. Jyn suggested tying him up and bringing him to the Revenant upstairs. However, the Nobleman turned crazed again and resumed his attack with new fervor.

Now, to be fully transparent here, I upped the Nobleman’s AC by about 10. I wanted this part of the fight to be tough. I planned on a couple of rounds of “He’s so strong! How are we going to beat him?” And then, I was going to have Draco duck out and fetch the Revenant who, through an interaction with the Nobleman, would drop his AC back to normal and join in as an NPC. It was going to be an awesome story-driven scenario.

However, the dice decided to pull a plot twist on ME.

Chaka rolled a Nat 20 on a Thunderous Stomp spell to trip the Nobleman. Jyn and Ymir, who were close enough to flank him, took advantage of his flat-footed AC. Jyn’s bonus rolls for attacking a flanked and prone enemy dealt a follow up attack of 35 damage, which meant he rolled maximum damage on EVERYTHING. When the Nobleman tried getting back up, Ymir smacked him back down. Ciara rolled a Nat 20 to shoot him, but the critical was not confirmed.

And then, in the most insane probability I’ve ever encountered, Jyn rolled THREE NAT 20s! By our rule set, that is an INSTANT kill with no chance of death saving throws. He drove his sword through the Nobleman’s chest and ENDED him.

I was left speechless. Terribly, utterly speechless.

While I was still recovering from the shock, the Party looted the Nobleman’s body and found a key on his body. Jyn decided to check and see if one of the keys worked on the Revenant’s room, perhaps to make sure she was locked in. As he raised the key to the lock, the door swung open. However, instead of the Revenant, it was the apparition of the Beautiful Woman. She thanked the Party for freeing her and her husband, the Nobleman. “I wish I could say the same for the other poor souls here,” she said before fading away.

Needless to say, the Party was fully prepared to book it back to town and be done with this place. However, it was already almost evening, and the town was half a day’s journey away. Chaka suggested, “Let’s just stay here.” After cursing him out, Ciara proposed moving an hour’s distance away before setting up camp, to which the others agreed. To help take the edge off, Ymir offered Ciara some alcohol, which she accepted.

However, I was not done with the encounters yet. I mentioned last session that a couple of sickly crows loitered by a destroyed outbuilding. When the Party passed by the ruins, the entire area was covered by thousands of the creatures. The crows took to the air and attacked as four Carrion Storms.

Me: “Sorry, guys. You’re not out of the woods yet!”

Ciara’s Player: “What do you mean?! We’re not even IN the woods yet!”

Ciara wasted no time and used her newly acquired Scroll of Lightning Bolt to chain fry two of the swarms. Unfortunately, the swarm trait of taking half damage from Area of Effect spells kept the damage minimal.

Chaka cast a spell called Flurry of Snowballs at another swarm. However, due to meeting the Reflex dodge roll and the swarm trait, he only dealt 3 damage to the thing. A second attempt yielded 7 damage. It wasn’t until later in the fight, when he had run out of Flurry of Snowballs uses, that he brought out his heavy flail. As he put it, “I’ll flail with the flail!” He quickly discovered that using a bludgeoning weapon dealt full damage to swarms, not half.

At this point, Ciara was absolutely furious. Taking the alcohol from Ymir, she tried to set the manor on fire. Unfortunately, the building did not burn. Instead, Ciara was suddenly hit with the urge to jump off the cliff. She made a Will save, stopped in time, and left, utterly fed up with the place.

They eventually made it back to town, where Anais had brought the Healer back in record time. The Healer is able to cleanse Ymir of her Ghoul Fever and Draco of the Phage he was afflicted with. She was able to tell that Draco’s affliction was necrotic in nature and offered to help purge the source for a fee of 800 gold.

Chaka, who noticed that Draco had a 20 in Charisma, convinced him to try and haggle with the Healer. However, he failed to consider two things.

1: Draco has a -3 to Diplomacy checks due to the Stigmatized feat. Thankfully, he rolled a dirty 20 even with that demerit.

2: Draco has a -2 Intelligence modifier. Coupled with a 6 roll, and he didn’t fully understand what was being asked. Taking what little Jyn taught him about money conversion, the conversation went like this…

Draco: “Instead of 800 gold, how about we give you 8 platinum?” (basically, the exact same amount)

Healer: “Uh…yes, that works, too?”

Draco: *gives Chaka a thumbs up*

Jyn merely shook his head and paid the Healer the 8 platinum.

They next day, the Party returned to the manor with the Healer in tow. Ciara spotted two of the sickly crows again, shot one, and scared the other off. Back in the caverns, the Healer is able to identify the source of the manor’s necrotic magic as the mold in the room the Party defeated the Nobleman. However, it seemed to be backlash from a failed lich conversion ritual. A few combustibles later, and Ciara finally realized her dream of burning the manor down.

All and all, the Party earned 4000 XP for the session. While that was all well and good, the Party still had one last item to deal with: the letter from the Secret Society that ordered the Nobleman’s undead attack on the town.