The Dark Site

Abdonis' Travel jounal is quite long, so if you don't want to read it all on the site you can download a Word-file here:

Day 1:

A few moments ago Brahman and I where summoned by the abbot. It seems we have to escort a thief to the town of Gwyndru. There he will be executed for his deeds against our congregation. Scum like him don’t disserve any better! I wish people would finally convert to the true belief, but alas some poor souls we shall have to guide back to the flock, and if they don’t want to listen to reason we see no alternative but cut off their heads!

There is something strange about this thief. Although I have only left the cloister grounds a few time, I have seen my share of strangers from the countries outside Gwyndru but I can’t say I’ve ever seen a man quite like this thief. He has got a strange look in his eyes, if I didn’t know any better I’d say he was an elf, but I can’t be certain of that for I have never seen one myself. When we return I shall ask the Elders what race he ‘was’. I could ask him myself but he would lie to me anyway, thieves always do.

We just arrived in Gwyndu and were sent along to the place of execution. It seems that our thief will be sacrificed to a beast that lives somewhere under the ruins of an old church. In a few more minutes we will finally be able to get rid of this thief and if we are lucky we might even make it back to the cloister by dusk.

By Cormyr! It does not look good for us! We never should have opened those doors, we should have tied our prisoner to a pillar and left him there.

We entered the catacombs under the church to lead our prisoner to his fate. But we did not know how far we had to take him, it seems we went to far. As soon as we opened a set of massive doors we were attacked by skeletons. We tried to run back to the exit, but the doors were closed, the wind probably blew them shut. We were forced to let the thief try to open the doors. This thief seems to have quite poor thieving skills, he could not open the doors, for once in my life I need the help of a thief and we have one with us who can’t even open a lock.

Brahman and I were able to repel the skeletons by showing them a holy symbol so for the moment we are safe. This leaves us with one more problem: getting out of here, we will have to search an other way out…

The cold hearted bastard! That despicable thief made Brahman and me promise him that we would not sacrifice him to the monster. If we hadn’t been trapped we never would have complied to his terms, but Brahman and I fell into a trap in one of the halls in these catacombs. I made a promise and I intend to keep it, but he can’t expect me to ever forgive or forget the embarrassment he caused me.

The thief finally revealed his name: Blue Moonray. He says he’s a half-elf, I knew there was something strange about him. Meanwhile we have gone deeper into the catacombs, we saw some corpses that where grotesquely disfigured. Still no sign of an exit though.

Something horrible has happened! We stumbled upon a room with a fountain and a mirror, when Blue Moonray looked in the mirror he suddenly stood paralyzed. Brahman immediately realized that there was something evil about that mirror and destroyed it. But it was already too late: an invisible creature had already dealt Blue Moonray a serious blow. Fortunately the destruction of the mirror made it crumble into oblivion after one last agonizing scream.

When we continued down the hall we activated a trap, a rusty gate came crashing down only a few centimeters from our feet! The gate did not block the way to the next door, so we where able to enter. This room contained a strange cauldron supported by several human-like shapes, the cauldron emitted a strange luminescence that did not reach these shapes. One of the shapes held a rune text with the words “Give me the eternal light”. Although we did not know what to do at first I suddenly had an inspiration. If we used a piece of glass from the mirror in the other room we could reflect the light from the cauldron on the shape and give it “the eternal light”. When we reflected the light the gate went up again and the passageway was clear once again.

That spear was almost fatal! When we entered the next room we suddenly heard a scream and moments later a bloody spear came out of a door, where it got stuck. We opened the door and found a kobold hanging on the inside of the door with the spear in his stomach. There where two more of these creatures in the room and they came running towards us. When they reached the center of the room they stepped on a panel, which activated a mechanism in one of the walls making another spear fly towards us. My two companions where able to jump away just in time, but my reaction came to late and the spear hit me in my side! Luckily I could use my healing-spell to heal myself. Meanwhile Brahman and Blue Moonray had eliminated the kobolds.

In the next room we found some very strange things indeed, flames without candles, a peace of parchment containing a cryptic text and a magic book. The parchment was very strange, some thing about Vistani, Hiscosa and some other strange thing I don’t know anything about. But reading it sends shivers down my spine, as if the words themselves scare me. To open a door at the other side of the room we needed to solve a riddle. “What can pass before the sun without casting a shadow?” Alongside the door there where four buttons each portraying one of the four elements. The answer was air. The door is now slowly opening, it will hopefully be the way out.

Brahman is severely hurt, his life may be in danger! The room turned out to be some sort of throne room. A skeleton was sitting on the throne, he was probably a king of these lands a long time ago. There was some sort of zombie sitting by his side, and the moment we entered the room he started moving. He started shouting “I will protect you from these killers, sire!” and came forward to attack us. Brahman wanted to confuse the un-dead by threatening the skeleton of his demised king. But the zombie reacted a bit faster and more violent than he had anticipated. He started moving his hands in the air and saying some words in an ancient language. Moments later a ball of light sprung forward in Brahman’s direction. When it hit him he fell to the floor and didn’t move anymore. Meanwhile I had noticed that the zombie had dropt his sword. I picked it up and attacked him with it. A few moments later the creature was ‘dead’ and we could run towards Brahman. He was seriously hurt and I didn’t have the power to use my healing spell yet. So there was only one thing I could do: Pray for him. Blue had already started searching the room and found a passageway to an underground river! Our way out of these catacombs. Finally…

Day 2:

At first the river seemed like a blessing, but that changed rather fast. Now it feels more like a curse… We had put Brahman in the boat and set off into the darkness. Even Blue, with his Elven sight, had trouble seeing trough the darkness. But it didn't take long to get lighter, but that didn't help a whole lot, on the contrary, we couldn't even see two feet in front of us because of a thick mist that was all around. We knew for sure that we had left the underground catacombs, but where we were, we didn't know. And the silence, not one sound was heard. Are there swamps near Cymru? I certainly can't remember ever seeing one on the maps in the cloister, nevertheless we where slowly floating into one. Last night we put up camp o a (relatively) dry piece of land. I spent all night meditating to regain my powers. And it was worth it! This morning I was able to get Brahman out of his coma.

What horrible place is this? There seems to be no end to this swamp. The only sign of life we encountered was a boat with a log deceased man in it. Fortunately for us the man had two short swords and a pot of honey. At least now we have something to eat.

We finally fond people in this God forsaken place. A family of Gypsies who gave us food and let us sit by the fire. They have foretold our future and told us many strange stories I didn't understand. They told us that there is a small village not far from here called Marais D'Tarascon, strange name for a village… I'm hoping that the people there will know how we can get back to Gwyndru. The Gypsies said we could stay here for the night, sleeping by a fire will be a welcome change from the cold of last night.

Day 3:
This place is starting to scare me. The Gypsies who helped us last night have disappeared! No one woke up when they left. But how did they leave? I can't remember seeing a boat last night and certainly not one that could move an entire camp! This is not right… Luckily they didn't take our boat with them, otherwise we would not have made it of this island.

Ah! I can see a light in the distance, the inhabited world can't be far now.

O my God! Now I am certain thing around here are wrong, I constantly feel like someone (or something) is watching me and now there's a total stranger in our boat! He is constantly talking about the six signs, the same thing that was written on the parchement we found in the catacombes. But how can he know about that? But I'm getting ahead of things…
We arrived at the source of the light but we didn't find a village but a hut on high poles. There was no way up, until (seemingly by no one) a rope ladder was lowered. We carefully climbed up the ladder and found a room with a young man sitting in the middle surrounded by lanterns. We tried to talk to him, but he just sat there as if we weren't even there. Then he started muttering about the six signs… Strange… His only possession seemed to be a book written in a language we can't read. But the cover contains the names Marcel and Luc. I think it says something like "From Marcel for Luc" so the strange man must be Luc. And as if things couldn't get any stranger, when we left the man followed us into our boat! I hope we find land fast, I don't trust him one bit.

Land! We found land and Marais D’Tarascon! When we arrived the villagers where assembled in near the church, a funeral was in progress. But the people here have strange customs regarding funerals, they had put chains around the coffin! And that wasn’t the only strange thing about it, when we came closer we heard pounding, coming from inside the coffin! This is not right! Evil thing are going on here, the faster we leave this cursed place the better. After the funeral we started talking to the priest, who confirmed that this was Marais D’Tarascon. When we inquired about the pounding he simply walked away without saying another word. I have decided never to take another assignment outside the cloister again. As we left the church a man came up to us he identified himself as Juge Gremin, the local officer of the law. All he said was: “I’ll be keeping an eye on you three”, so he’s not going to be a great help either.

When will Blue Moonray leave? There’s nothing keeping him from leaving and I don’t think he’s going to come back to the cloister with us. I still don’t trust him one bit! How he made Brahman and me promise to keep him alive and break our promise to the Abbot, I will never forget or forgive. I’m quite sure that he will be leaving us very soon, with the all of our money! Although he can’t even open a simple lock, I don’t think I’m going to sleep well tonight…

We found an Inn, called the “Full Moon Inn” , the owner says he has never heard of Cymru. How can that be? We couldn’t have drifted that far away. When we told him our story he said he had heard it before, and told us to go visit a man called Deruno, he should be able to tell us more. We have rented 3 rooms, I have a feeling we will be staying here a bit longer.

I what Deruno says is true, then we have entered another world called “Ravenloft”. I don’t know is such a thing can be true, a world where the dark powers rule? I can’t believe it! Does this man really think we are a group of fools?! But he seems so certain of all he is saying…

Deruno says that there are strange things going on in Marais. Apparently one or the other strange disease is killing people, who come back to life a few moments later. That could explain the pounding we heard at the funeral. But that is not the only strange thing going on around here. It seems that someone is killing people and the bodies are seldom found. Strange world… Could it be true?

Deruno sent us to meet an other man called Mordu.

This Mordu is a friendly but slightly insane person. He told us a totally unbelievable story about a gigantic swamp-god/monter. His story was so funny I just couldn’t keep myself from laughing, Mordu didn’t like that at all and trew us out. He told us to come back tomorrow and he would prouve that he was right.

As we left Mordu’s house we noticed something strange, a man was standing near a window at the back of the house. Blue went to take a look and found the Juge, who had just found traces of a new murder (a puddle of blood and a red kooky). He told him that he still didn’t trust us and was still watching us. But he gave us the advice not to go out at night. So we went back to the Inn to sleep and think about all the events of the last few days.

Day 4:

The night passed without any incident for me. However, Brahman woke up in the middle of the night and saw a man standing under his window pointing up at him. Blue told us that nothing happened to him, but how did he know that the owner of the Inn had been walking around… Is he hiding something?

We talked to a few villagers but we didn’t learn a great deal. People here don’t seem to trust us. Actually that’s not so surprising, our arrival was quite mysterious. All we could find out was that the Tarascon family is the one that controls all around the village. We went to the plantation fields and the house of the family but they where deserted. Strange…

Someone has killed Mordu! When we arrived at his house around noon we found his lifeless body hanging from the ceiling. The killer had cut his chest open, a grotesque sight. We immediately informed the Juge of the murder, otherwise we would be the prime suspects. We didn’t have any time to search the house for clues. The only thing we found where three cookies, two more than usually. It seems someone is doing his best to incriminate us, or is he trying to intimidate us?

More revelations. Luc seems to be a Tarascon! Luc is still following us around everywhere we go, he scares me. We also found out that people here don’t exactly like the Tarascon family, the blacksmith trew us out of his forge when he recognized Luc.

We have made a horrifying discovery! We went to the cemetery to find out what had happened to the man that was buried yesterday. Blue Moonray is really the worst thief ever! He can’t even open the simplest lock, so we had to climb over the cemetery wall. Our worst fears became reality, he was not in his tomb anymore. But where is has he gone? A scream! It came from the village, we must hurry, it could be the killer!

What has taken place these past hours is quite incredible. When we arrived at the place where the scream originated we saw a man wearing a black cloak who was looking at the body of a young girl. He had a large knife covered with blood in his hands. The moment he saw us he started running, Blue and Brahman ran after him while I stayed with the woman to see if I could still save her from dying. Unfortunately, I had come to late and the woman had already died. Only seconds later Juge Gremin and the priest arrived at the crime scene, they stayed with the body while I ran after Blue, Brahman and the killer. I saw the three men running towards the cemetery and climbing over the wall. When I came closer to the burial grounds I heard another scream, clearly the voice of Blue Moonray. What I saw when I found Blue Moonray will haunt my dreams for years to come. Two hideous monsters where attacking my two travel companions! Luckily our thief is better with the sword than he is in lock picking, he had already disabled one of the creatures. The other creature fled into the darkness of the night when it saw me coming closer (with Gremin a few meters behind me). They told me that they had lost the murderer. When Gemin inspected the body of the creature, he was shocked to see that it was the a villager who had died several weeks earlier.