We left our adventurers mid-battle, which is something I absolutely hate to do, but we’re on a very strict 4-hour time limit when it comes to the Sunday game. Anyway, we return to a heroic fight already in progress.

The group continues to whittle away at the Maven’s minions. Suddenly, the Maven takes more of an interest in the battle and steps into the shadows of the stage. He emerges behind the lines of his toys, unleashing a wave of psychic energy at the group. Once again, Shayla scrambles to bring her healing power to bear, while Dorn, Lazan, Caelissa, and Kevara tear into the toys desperately. Hell Dolls fall left and right, and two other Carrionettes merge like before.

The Maven reaches out with his hands, fingers stretched forward, and lines of energy rip into the party, holding them in place while his toys make wild attacks. Luckily, the toys are damaged enough that their attacks are ineffective, and the party escapes the attack unscathed. Kevara attacks one of the remaining Carrionettes, and it explodes in a shower of body parts. Finally, all of the toys are destroyed, and the group turns to face the Dark Maven.

The Maven crosses his arms, then thrusts his hands toward the floor. The group suddenly finds themselves completely immobilized as the Maven steps through the shadows once more and reappears at the stage. He recognizes that they are a true threat; he may need to escape rather than fight.

“ENOUGH!” Silas howls. “What are you doing here?”

“We came here to investigate, Maven,” Kevara replies. “Your toys attacked us first – we fought to defend ourselves.”

“Investigate? This town is MINE! All who lived here will forever pay for Terina’s death! I know the blacksmith’s boy killed her, and the village did NOTHING!”

“Really, Silas?” Kevara retorts. “The blacksmith’s boy was a part of the Balar Ha’ja? And somehow the entire village was in on this?”

Silas stops dead. His mouth moves wordlessly, his eyes seeking answers in thin air, where none are to be found. “Oh… oh dear. I believe I have made a terrible mistake.”

Silas releases the party, walks to the steps of the stage and sits down. The party remains on their guard, but for now, the battle has ended. “Once when I was young,” he says, “I became a member of the Balar Ha’ja. I was a different man, then. Full of hate; full of rage at the world. But one day, I rebelled against those beliefs, tired of the atrocities we committed, the blood we spilled during our rituals… I could not live that life anymore, so I left. I left it all behind.” Silas sighs heavily, looking away. “Apparently it couldn’t leave me behind.”

Silas shakes his head and stands. “I must atone. I will release the spirits of the villagers, and cleanse the village. Then I will move on to whatever hell I deserve. I implore you; do good works, and avoid the Balar Ha’ja as much as you can.”

The group asks him about the music box, and the key. Silas explains that the glass keys are the way into the Balar Ha’ja strongholds; if they have one, they must take care to never break it, for the keys cannot be repaired without great risk. Kevara and Lazan cast a meaningful glance at Dorn, who shrugs helplessly.

The group decides to take Silas at his word, and leaves him to his task. They return to Whitehall, giving Terina’s scarf to Aria, and informing Kelryn that the danger in Darkhaven has been taken care of. They stay long enough to relate the full story to Kelryn, and then make their way back to Three Hills.

The group arrives in Three Hills late at night. Sagemaster Volrane asked them to report as soon as they arrived in Three Hills, but the group debates about the necessity of waking him against whether or not it would be alright if they wait until the morning. Caelissa suggests that Volrane would prefer to know immediately that the group has returned alive and well, and of the success of their mission. The group considers this for a moment then agrees, turning immediately for Volrane’s home.

They wake the Sagemaster and apologize profusely for waking him. He waves off their apologies, explaining that they have no reason to worry, and he is pleased that they have returned. The group explains that they have put the threat to rest, and tell him about Silas and the Balar Ha’ja. Volrane is clearly troubled about the information regarding the cult, but there is little that they can do at this point.

Volrane stands and states that they should be well-rewarded for their efforts, and exits the room with his seneschal. Returning shortly thereafter, he returns with several gifts: potions of healing; magic armor for Dorn and Lazan; magic weapons for Shayla, Caelissa, and Kevara. They continue to relate more information to Volrane over tea and cookies (the mere mention of which makes Shayla’s eyes light up like a little kid), and the discussion works its way around to the glass key. Kevara hands over the pouch to Volrane, who examines them briefly, then tries to use magic to put it back together. The spell backfires, throwing the Sagemaster against the far wall and knocking the rest of the group to the floor. Everyone is a little shaken, but no one is badly hurt.

Volrane bids them all a good night, and asks that they return on the following day. He has other tasks for them, though they will have to make a choice as to which they will handle.

The group has managed to defeat the strange and deadly toys, and they stop to rest and examine the caravan wagons. True to Volrane’s word, the wagons are filled with foodstuffs, now rotting and useless. Some other trade goods, trinkets, and a well made carpet are tucked in among the rotted food; the carpet, the only real thing of true value, is now worthless thanks to stains and a stench that can never be removed.

Turning their attention to the village, they see that the majority of homes and buildings within the village proper are destroyed and burned. Two buildings to the northeast are still in reasonable shape, as well as one building on the northwest side of the village. To the far north is a very large building, and the group surmises that this would be the theater that Silas built. The group decides that they need to seek out more information before heading to the theater, and so they head for the building toward the northwest.

Despite the building being standing, it appears to be in very bad condition. Entering the front door, they take stock of their surroundings. At first glance, they are standing in what was once someone’s home, with shattered furniture and torn curtains cluttering the floor. Two staircases are immediately visible; the one on the right leading up, the one on the left leading down. A brief discussion ensues, and the group decides to head down into the cellar first. The stairs are worn and rotted; Kevara, the last one down, breaks through one of the middle steps, catching herself before she falls through. The lower cellar is empty; there is evidence that it was used for food storage and curing, but rats and other wild animals have cleaned everything out. As the group inspects the cellar, they hear singing. Caelissa determines that the song comes from the upper floors, and is obviously female.

Confused, since they have been led to believe that the village is empty, the group heads upstairs to investigate the source of the song. Kevara once again breaks through a step, and escapes unscathed. Hurrying back into the main room, Lazan and Dorn spot a human figure limned in blue light moving up the stairs. The group follows as it disappears from immediate view and the song fades away. Fortunately, the stairs leading up are in much better condition, but by the time the group reaches the upper floor, the figure is gone along with the singing.

The room is a disaster area; a cursory inspection doesn’t reveal anything interesting, but on a more thorough search, Dorn and Lazan manage to find a red silk scarf. The scarf itself is worn and frayed, and as they pick up the ends, the two of them can hear the singing again. Lazan suggests that everyone should touch the scarf, and as the last one touches the fabric, a female human ghost appears in the doorway, blocking the exit. She is young and beautiful (by human standards), with hair hanging to her waist, and wearing a simple homespun dress. Her song is melodic and sinister:

Silas Mauvais built a house and filled it with his toys
Bringing smiles to one and all, to all the girls and boys
He was well known and was well loved, brought joy to one and all
Until that fateful day of death, that marked old Silas’ fall.

No one knows what happened next. There’s no one left to say.
But if you should see Silas Mauvais, you’d better start to pray;
For none will rise, all are dead, here in fair Darkhaven
Doomed in the fall, corpses all, cursed by the Dark Maven.

The song finishes, and the ghost shrieks in horror and pain, exploding in a fountain of blood. At that instant, the group hears a horrifying cackle echo in their ears.

It’s commonly known in the guilds I’ve been in and by many of my friends that I do voices; at the end of Wrath, a visit to the SiB vent channel would have given you a taste of Kermit the Lich King and Hank Hill Fordring making their speeches. These are just two of the repertoire – I also do a decent Sam Elliott, can sing Boris Karloff, and I have a passable Marvin the Martian and Bullwinkle the Moose (along with Dudley Do-Right and Mr. Peabody). You could even hear me talk raid strats with Charles Barkley, Eric Cartman, or mimic the Onyxia Wipe guy. There are two voices I don’t do often, for a couple of reasons. The first is because they really creep people out, and the second is that one of the voices really hurts my throat after a while, and people tend to request it a LOT. These are the Joker voices – Heath Ledger’s, and Mark Hamill’s. That horrifying cackle the group heard? Mark Hamill’s Joker, laughing hysterically. It scared Amber a little bit, and conversation stopped dead for a few minutes while everyone recovered from a minor heart attack.

The group recovers from their brief encounter and begins to head downstairs, satisfied that they will find nothing else in the house. As they reach the middle landing of the staircase, they discover the ghostly image of a young girl’s body, crumpled in a pool of blood an inch deep. The blood is smeared along the wall and running down the staircase, and the group is literally wading through it as they make their way to the door. Once the door opens, however, the vision is dispelled.

The group then crosses the road between the buildings and heads for the nearest building on the opposite side. Eschewing caution for valor, Dorn bull rushes the door, crashing through it and landing in a heap in the middle of the main room. Unfortunately for Dorn, he has landed in the center of a group of dolls, each wearing a pinafore and maniac grin, wielding a butcher knife in each hand. They have the drop on Dorn, and a few attacks later (during the surprise round), Dorn is very badly wounded and in dire need of healing.

The group dispatches the dolls, greatly discomforted by the eerie nature of this place and the enemies they are finding within it. A search of the room reveals a chest. Caelissa investigates, and finds no traps on the box. Opening it, dust explodes forth from the chest, causing everyone to cough and sputter harmlessly. Moving on, Lazan finds an unusual scroll tied with a ribbon and sealed with black wax. The seal is a skull with a dagger through it – Kevara recognizes it from somewhere, but she is unsure where she had run across the symbol before.

Naturally, the group discusses opening the scroll.

Dorn: I’ll open it.
Lazan: Kevara, what do you think?
Kevara: I don’t regard anything involving a skull motif and the color black with much optimism. On the other hand, it could be an important clue.
Lazan: Fine, fine…Dorn, you’re so eager, just don’t tear the damn thing.
Caelissa: Well, the worst thing that happens is we have to kill more things!
Kevara: No, the worst thing that can happen is that we DIE.

Everyone leaves the room save for Dorn, who breaks the seal. The group hears a scream in that same voice they heard before, and they all group together to examine it. Shayla recognizes the script as Elvish, but the words aren’t making any sense. She says that the syllables are strange and guttural. Dorn thinks that perhaps the words are meant to disguise the true speech the scroll was written in, so Shayla begins to pronounce the words phonetically. Dorn and Kevara immediately recognize the words as Draconic, and between the three of them, they are able to decipher the scroll.

It says, “The sacrifice has been made. The Maven will be made to understand-we are forever. We do not forgive. We do not forget. The price has been paid, and He will reawaken in time. Hail the Balar Ha’ja.” Kevara remembers something that her mentor once taught her, that the Balar Ha’ja was an apocalypse cult, dedicated to the destruction of the gods.

Leaving the house, the group sees bloody footprints leading toward the rear of the remaining building they have not investigated. Following them, the group finds that the prints end at a rosebush up against the wall. Lazan grabs the lower stems of the rosebush intending to pull it out, but instead the vines lash out, wrapping him up and burying thorns into his flesh. The group hears a slurping sound, and the bush is getting visibly healthier, blooming fresh roses dewed with Lazan’s blood. Lazan shifts into a crocodile form and pulls away, however not before taking a stab from Dorn intended for the rosebush itself. Kevara breathes fire on the bush, burning it to cinders. The ground beneath the bush, no longer supported by the roots, collapses into the empty space below.

Dorn uses a sunrod to light up the newly discovered passage, finding an empty room save for a skeleton. The form is slight and small, most likely female, and a dagger sticks out from the breastbone. Everyone enters the small room, likely a cellar dug out after the building was built, and goes to investigate the skeleton. Dorn removes the dagger from the bones; the blade is rusted and pitted, and the hilt appears to be made from ebony, carved into the shape of a skeleton with crossed arms, fingers pointed outward.

The group hears a whisper behind them, and they all turn to see the ghost of the young girl they saw before. The spirit gazes sorrowfully at the skeleton, shakes her head sadly, and disappears.

Our intrepid adventurers, currently in the town of Three Hills, are summoned to the home of one Sagemaster Volrane, known throughout the realms to be knowledgeable, wise in the ways of magic, and a valued advisor to lords and kings alike. Volrane is a retired wizard who keeps an active interest in the world as a whole, and often hires adventurers for investigations or other tasks that have taken his notice.

Volrane informs the group that many caravans from the town haven’t arrived at their destinations, and unfortunately the local lord’s armies are tied up elsewhere. The local constabulary doesn’t have the kind of manpower to deal with the situation, and so he is willing to fund an independent expedition out of his own coffers. He offers the group 500 gold just to make the trip; any information they can bring back will result in a greater reward, and if they are fortunate enough to eliminate the source of the interruptions, Sagemaster promises an even greater reward. The group agrees, and the Sagemaster informs them that the source of the caravan hijackings appears to be occurring around a small village called Darkhaven.

Volrane indicates that some strange fate befell the town of Darkhaven, and only the current residents of Whitehall may have information of what occurred there. Whitehall is a small farming community, located a day’s walk from Darkhaven proper, and Volrane believes the group would be best served by going there first. The group makes the trek to Whitehall, fortunately uneventful, and finds the local inn upon their arrival. A few questions and a promise to return for drinks later convinces the innkeep to direct them to the village elder for more information.

The village elder, Kelryn, is remarkably reluctant to give them any information. It’s obvious that he knows something, but he keeps brushing off the group with vague statements about how they’re better off just not knowing, and leaving Darkhaven well enough alone.

This was actually the start of a skill challenge. For those of you unfamiliar with the new 4th edition and how skill challenges work, essentially the group has to use a series of skills available to them in order to beat the challenge. Depending on the challenge at hand, it could be any combination of skills, but most likely diplomatic skills for bargaining or information gathering, active skills for disarming traps in the middle of combat, or trying to close a demonic portal while fighting off a horde of monsters… that sort of thing. The catch is that you have to have a certain number of successes before you get a certain number of failures, or you lose the challenge.

The group tries to convince the village elder to reveal what he knows so that they can avoid any more missing caravans. Dorn, being impatient, tries to intimidate the old man (which results in an automatic failure, and earns more than a few verbal lashings from the group as a whole). Fortunately, after a little sweet-talking (and guilt-tripping) by the rest of the group, Kelryn is willing to cut them a break, and he begins to reveal some information.

“Darkhaven was once a peaceful place. I grew up there, and lived there until I was a young man. Life was simple, and the village thrived despite being off the beaten path. One day, an actor named Silas Mauvais moved into the village, and decided to build a theater. His idea was that the theater would serve three purposes; a place for him to hold shows, an attraction to bring visitors to the village, and as entertainment for the people of Darkhaven. With the village’s permission, Silas built his theater.

Time passed, and Silas met a local woman and fell in love. They married, and in time, decided to have a child. Silas’ wife, unfortunately, died in childbirth, leaving Silas with a beautiful baby girl that he adored and cherished. Silas named his daughter Terina, and she grew to be a beautiful young lady. When she was in her late teens, Silas was asked by the village council to visit a nearby city for supplies, and he agreed. He said goodbye to Terina, and promised to return as soon as he could.

A week later, Silas returned to the village and his home to discover his daughter dead. Angrily, he sought answers from the village council, and no one knew how she had died or who had done the deed. In his anger, Silas locked himself in his theater and would not come out. Soon after, the eldest children of the village turned up missing, and many witnesses saw Silas capturing them and returning to his theater. Night after night, horrific screams kept the villagers awake. They tried to break into the theater, but dark magic and ghastly creatures prevented their entrance. Many people died.

I left the village in order to try to get help from the king’s army, but by the time I returned to Darkhaven, unfortunately alone, the village was abandoned. The few people that were left were hiding in terror or completely mad. I left Darkhaven and took up residence here in Whitehall. I have lived here ever since.”

Kelryn pauses to collect himself, and then continues. “No one is really sure what happened, but we do know that Venn, the blacksmith’s son, was greatly taken by Terina. I believe that perhaps he paid a call to her when her father was away and perhaps she rebuffed him. That is my best guess, and it seems logical enough, for when Silas returned to Darkhaven, Terina was dead and Venn was gone from the village. At any rate, I do not believe that Silas is still causing trouble – he was in his late sixties when he went mad, and that was more than fifty years ago. If there is anything else you wish to know, you should speak with Aria, our village baker; she is Silas’ niece.”

The group sought out Aria at her local shop. Aria turned out to be a kindly, middle-aged woman eager to provide them with information, as well as rations for the road. She wasn’t able to provide much more information than the elder, but she was able to tell the group that when Terina’s body was found, Terina’s blood was literally everywhere in the house. Silas blamed the villagers and the village council that no one noticed that she was dead until Silas discovered her, and no one had any leads.

The group stayed in Whitehall that night, and decided they would head to Darkhaven the following day. Even from a distance, it was easy enough to see that there was a dark cloud surrounding Darkhaven. Another uneventful trip to the village brought them to Darkhaven’s gates where they found the remains of the two missing caravans. Near the caravans, the ground is dead and sandy, and the remains of the merchants are near the wagons. The corpses appear mummified, perhaps even drained, though there are dark dried pools around the corpses where they have bled out. Kevara searches around and takes a closer look at the bodies, but is unable to find any magical residues. Investigation of the corpses further indicate that the merchants’ throats and wrists were cut, and some even appeared to have been strangled with a heavy rope. Despite the dessication of the bodies, the eyes are intact and appear to be vacant and staring. These merchants have been dead for weeks, but the bodies have not rotted in any way.

As the group investigates, they are attacked by strange wooden toys with razor claws. They dispatch these strange abominations with relative ease, but as each dies, a blue light escapes from the body and a tortured voice screams its horror to the sky.