Session 40 -- Grave Expectations

The day opened with a recap of the party’s situation: people had been vanishing,usually at night, and wraiths and shadow beasts were believed to be responsible for the disappearances. The Inquisitrix Elara Voss had arrived some months earlier, and townsfolk disagreed over whether her arrival caused the trouble or merely coincided with it, but either way she and her acolytes now dominated the island’s religious life. Vegvisir returned to the mainland to tend to the ship, while Jack and Vedica were off following up contacts with the militia and elsewhere; that left Tiv, Ceangal, Dwårfy and Murchad to carry their research forward.​

They decided their next lead should be the town library, which they had heard about but not yet visited. Heading south from the hostel, they passed the cemetery and chapel where they had previously met Paul the gravedigger, and continued toward the village until a sign marked a modest building as the town library.​

Inside the library, they found an old man shelving books, clearly unused to having patrons nowadays; he greeted them with mild surprise and a dry comment about the lack of customers. When Tiv or Murchad mentioned the “Tidal Veil,” though, his demeanor shifted: a dark, worried look crossed his face before he forced a smile and dismissed it as childish legend. Tiv replied breezily that they were writing “fan fiction,” and the librarian, half amused and half anxious, suggested they find safer topics than ancient pagan cults in the current climate. As he did so, he slipped behind them and closed and locked the door. ​

He quietly warned them not to speak too openly about the Tidal Veil with the Inquisitrix active on the island, and then, after a beat, told them there was one surviving book about the order hidden in a “special collection.” He directed them to the back room, to a low shelf of dusty town‑council budget debates; behind those volumes, he said, they would find “History of the Order of the Tidal Veil” -- and then added, pointedly, that they would not have gotten it from him. As Tiv and Murchad slipped into the back to fetch it, he called after them to read quickly, put it back, and get out.​

The book, dating from the 1200s, laid out the story of the Order of the Tidal Veil, active from 1050 to 1179. Founded by Master Cedric, a storm‑tossed cleric who claimed visions from a sea power, the brotherhood had begun as guardians of coastal pilgrims, blending orthodox devotion with elemental tide‑magic. Under Cedric and his consort, Mother Isolde, they delved into the catacombs beneath Mont Saint Michel, using crypts for secret rites.  Over decades, their practices rotted into dark pacts, human sacrifices via watery combat, and the creation of undead legacies tied to St. Alaric’s “wave‑blade” fragments. By the late twelfth century, the church purged the “velvet sect,” banned their symbols, and sealed their depths, though chronicle entries about them abruptly stopped rather than offering closure.​

The party discussed the implications: Cedric’s pursuit of immortality, Isolde’s ritual curse on the order, and the mention of “undead haunts” all seemed to connect the old cult to the current shadow beasts and wraiths. They suspected that the wave‑blade fragments might be the very relic they had come to Mont St. Michel to find, even if no one in town had named it that way. When the librarian’s warnings about the Inquisitrix were added to their earlier, unsettling conversation with her about “good” and “bad” shadows, it became easy to imagine that she might be harnessing remnants of the old cult’s power.​

Before they could settle on a plan for finding the catacombs mentioned in the book, a crash and shouts echoed from outside, loud enough to cut through the library’s quiet. Knowing they had been told not to leave a trail, Tiv and Dwårfy scattered a few random books to conceal their research intent, leaving an innocuous cookbook open on the table so no one could tell which volume had actually been studied. They slipped through the library’s back door into a side street, then cautiously peeked out to see what was happening.​

Up the street, they saw a town guard sprinting toward the source of multiple terrified screams. As he reached an intersection, a shadow beast leapt on him from nowhere; in seconds he was dragged down, his struggles futile, and the creature bounded away back toward the northeast, leaving the guard sprawled, unmoving, in the street. The screams continued from multiple directions, so the party split: Murchad and Tiv headed first for a house where the door had been smashed inward and voices still cried for help, while Ceangal angled toward the cemetery after he recognized Paul the gravedigger’s voice among the shouts.​ Dwårfy headed further up the street to a second house that was also under attack, as evidenced by the shattered door hanging from broken hinges.

Rounding the corner, Murchad saw a shadow beast dart into the graveyard and another vanish into the broken‑door house farther up the road, even as the nearer house they were passing also erupted with cries for help. Ceangal, turning toward the cemetery, could hear Paul shouting as something hunted him among the tombstones.

The encounter that followed sprawled across a whole block. Inside one home, Dwårfy burst into a scene of horror: a family under attack, one member being drained by a wraith’s ghostly grasp, another mauled by a shadow beast intent on shredding them. In the first house, Murchad and Tiv found a similar tableau with another beast and wraith, while up in the cemetery, a shadow beast cornered Paul among the graves. Tiv and Ceangal, at the street’s bend, could see and hear enough to realize they were in one large, chaotic fight rather than separate skirmishes.​

Tiv acted instantly, invoking divine power to confront the undead. With a single, strong act of turning, she eradicated both wraiths in the house she could see: their forms simply collapsed into nothing, leaving only their chill behind. The shadow beast in that house turned its attention to her but held back for the moment, sizing up this new threat. Ceangal, looking into the cemetery, spotted the beast chasing Paul and unleashed a barrage of magic missiles, battering the thing with arcane force and wounding it badly.​

Dwårfy charged straight at the shadow beast menacing the family he had found, drawing it off its victim with sheer bravado. He traded blows at close range, hammer and off‑hand weapon flailing in the doorway as the beast’s claws tore at his armor; a wraith that had been draining the woman tried to latch onto him as the new, more dangerous foe, but could not find a gap in his defenses. Murchad, coming from the other house, stepped into the fight with his sword, landing two solid hits on a shadow beast and forcing it to focus on him rather than its helpless prey.​

The creatures struck back viciously. One shadow beast raked Tiv with its claws as it lunged past Murchad, leaving her with a painful gouge. Another tore into Dwårfy, nearly getting past his armor before he steadied himself. A third charged Ceangal in the cemetery, its claws finding him at least once and leaving him bleeding before Tiv’s healing and a later potion would patch him up. In the chaos, Dwårfy’s newly acquired ambidexterity came into play: once he remembered it, he fought with both hands without the usual clumsy penalties, landing an extra solid blow when it mattered.​

The tide turned. Tiv reassured the terrified family, telling them they were safe for the moment, and moved on, determined to help the others while they could still be saved. Ceangal, deciding subtlety was overrated, flung another powerful magic‑missile volley that finished off the wounded shadow beast in the cemetery, allowing Paul to stagger clear. Dwårfy’s twin strikes finally brought down the beast pressing him, and Murchad took apart the last wraith with a finishing blow. Tiv’s sling stone and Ceangal’s follow‑up spell then dropped another shadow beast in the second house, and in a final exchange Murchad and Dwårfy dispatched the last surviving foes.​

When the street fell quiet, the party moved quickly to check on survivors. In the first house, Murchad stabilized the woman who had nearly been drained by the wraith, while Tiv attempted first aid and realized there were no obvious wounds beyond frostbite‑like marks at the point of contact; the real injury had been to her life force rather than her flesh. Her son and the others, though shaken, were physically intact, and the whole family thanked the party profusely for saving them.​

Tiv then turned her medical skills on the group itself in a round of battlefield first aid. Not every attempt succeeded, she did manage to patch up Dwårfy and Murchad, bringing their injuries down to manageable levels. Ceangal, who had taken the worst of it, relied on a healing potion to restore more of his strength. With their own wounds partially tended and the surviving family reassured, the group turned back toward the cemetery to check on Paul and seek more information about the catacombs the book had mentioned.​

Meeting Paul in the cemetery, Tiv asked if he was all right; he answered that he was, and thanked them in colorful terms for “saving his tuchus,” an odd bit of Yiddish for a Christian gravedigger in Gaul. Tiv steered the conversation toward catacombs, asking whether he knew of any on the island; Paul confirmed that catacombs lay beneath the main church and had long served as burial places for brothers of the abbey.​

When asked what had changed “recently,” he explained that Inquisitrix Elara Voss had ordered the catacomb entrance sealed a few months after her arrival and that her acolytes now kept watch around it, making it impossible for ordinary townsfolk to approach. Pressed for details, Paul said the entrance lay on the extreme western side of the island, beneath the church complex; he also admitted there were old legends about a cult that had used the catacombs, a clear reference to the Tidal Veil the party had just read about.​

Paul described his own experiences below. As a child and later as a gravedigger, he had been in the catacombs two or three times. He had never witnessed active rites but had seen remnants: ceremonial structures and a man‑made tunnel cut to let sea water flood into the first part of the tunnels. He remembered having to wade through cold, dark water waist‑ or chest‑deep to bury a friar, and he admitted that he had felt, more than seen, the presence of “something” moving in that water beside him. His account matched the book’s talk of watery combat and sea creatures used in sacrifice, but Paul couldn’t say if the cult legends arose from the catacombs or the catacombs’ design had been shaped by those stories.​

While Tiv talked, Murchad and Ceangal noticed the cracked tombstone Paul leaned against: Brother Oleg, 1017–1050, “re‑interred from catacombs 1051.” That date put Oleg’s reburial right at the start of the cult’s known activity, not its end, and they pointed out how odd it was to move someone out of the catacombs at that time rather than into them after the purge. They floated the idea of digging him up to see what made him special -- half joking that the poor monk was already on a “second tour” in death, so why not a third -- but decided to leave the grave alone for now in favor of finding the catacomb entrance itself.​

With the catacombs confirmed and their approximate location known, the party discussed timing. If shadows were less active during the day, entering now might be safer in that sense, even though they had just witnessed a brazen daylight attack. Night would provide more cover from human eyes but would coincide with peak shadow‑beast activity; in the end, they leaned toward moving quickly rather than waiting, especially since acolytes would not be less alert at night.​

They also considered magical options: Ceangal’s locate‑object spell might be able to find “stairs leading down” or a “sacrificial altar” with only a partial description, but that would not help them actually reach the catacombs if they were still bricked off or guarded. A higher‑level “find the path” spell would have been ideal but was not yet available. In the end, they decided to approach the western side of the church, use their invisibility items and stealth, and rely on Dwårfy’s dwarven ability to detect “new construction” in stone to locate the sealed door.​

They brought Vedica along for her lockpicking and scouting talents, leaving Jack’s limited daily invisibility mostly in reserve and Vegvisir back on the mainland. As they moved from the village toward the church’s western flank, they activated their invisibility rings and cloaks; Tiv and Ceangal’s cloaks still allowed them to be seen under the right circumstances, while Vedica, Dwårfy, and Murchad were completely unseen.​

On the broad path between the abbey and the church, they began to see acolytes posted, some simply enjoying the sea air, others more watchful. One acolyte they passed did not notice the invisible party. A little farther on, though, another acolyte stepped out and called to Ceangal, telling him bluntly that pilgrims had no business here and should return to town.​  Ceangal ended up using a sleep spell to quiet him and keep the party moving.

Just a few yards later, Ceangal was again noticed by an acolyte. He tried to play the worried pilgrim, claiming he was concerned because he had seen a recent shadow attack near the cemetery. He urged the acolyte to go help there, insisting that people needed assistance; the acolyte replied that the guards would handle any attack and that Ceangal should lock himself indoors instead. When Ceangal and the others persisted, the man relented and said “show me the way.”​

As Ceangal turned, though, the acolyte drew his sword and tried to stab him in the back, choosing violence over obedience. The blow missed, but it confirmed the party’s suspicion that Elara Voss’s acolytes were no mere neutral clergy; they were ready to kill anyone snooping around the church’s western wall.​

In the brief fight that followed, Tiv stayed invisible, reasoning that loud spells or calls might draw more attention from the nearby sleeping acolyte. Vedica, also invisible at the start, slipped behind the treacherous acolyte and attempted a signature backstab with her glowing rune longsword.  She not only missed but broke invisibility in the process, appearing suddenly at his back with a sword in hand.​

Dwårfy then stepped up, still invisible but perfectly placed. He swung his hammer and off‑hand weapon in a flurry, landing two solid blows. The acolyte went down hard with barely time for a shout, and they dragged the body behind a half‑collapsed finger of ruined wall nearby, hidden from casual view and, they hoped, from the eyes of any watchers in the nearby seawall towers.​

Earlier, they had already used a sleep spell on the other acolyte who had accosted them, then dragged him aside by the cliff face to nap for roughly an hour. With one guard asleep and another dead, they could finally turn their full attention to the stone wall that formed the church’s western foundation, looking for any sign of where a door had been sealed.​

Here Dwårfy’s dwarven stone‑sense took over. He paced along the base of the wall, placing his hands on different stretches of masonry, feeling for changes in texture, mortar, and resonance that might betray “new construction” or a hidden seam. Each focused search of a small section took about ten minutes, and with the sleeping acolyte due to wake after roughly seven such intervals, the clock ticked in the background as he made attempt after attempt.​

For several passes, he found nothing, occasionally drifting too far from the main wall before Murchad and Tiv nudged him back on track. At last, after one more careful check, he hit on a patch of stone where the sound and feel were subtly wrong: rubble mortared into place to conceal a doorway rather than support a weight‑bearing wall. Declaring that he had found what they were looking for, he and Murchad began pulling free stones, breaking away loose mortar and revealing the outline of a bricked‑up entrance.​

Behind the rubble was not open space but a stout, locked door. Vedica stepped forward, tools in hand, and in short order picked the lock; the tumblers clicked and the door swung inward, revealing a small antechamber and a staircase descending into darkness. With the sleeping acolyte still unconscious and the dead one hidden, they slipped through and closed the door behind them, beginning their long descent to the catacombs.​

As they went down, they heard the sound of water lapping against stone, and the last light from above vanished. They lit Tiv’s glowing mace and a lantern, knowing that any light might compromise stealth but equally aware they could not safely navigate flooded tunnels blind. At the bottom, they found themselves in ankle‑deep water that deepened quickly, the floor turning into a submerged corridor leading in several directions.​

Wading forward with Dwårfy walking point, they soon reached a junction: to one side, a partially flooded cell block with iron‑barred doors; ahead and to the other side, passages disappearing into the dark. Tiv approached a locked cell door and, peering through, saw that one of the inner gates stood open in the gloom. As she watched, a sharp V‑shaped wake cut across the water from inside an open cell; something unseen surging straight toward the door.​

The unseen thing slammed into the bars and something with tentacles brushed Tiv’s leg as she jumped back, narrowly avoiding being grabbed. Whatever it was, it withdrew into the murk of the cell interior, leaving ripples and the echo of a slap against metal; Tiv described it as tail and tentacles, something squid‑like but very wrong. The party agreed they did not want to open those cells yet and backed away, marking the location in their minds for later exploration if necessary.​

While Tiv watched the barred cells, another threat crept up from behind. As the group debated which way to go, something like the creature they had just glimpsed erupted from the water at their backs, tentacles lashing at Tiv, Murchad and Jack.​

Jack recognized it as something akin to a squid, but larger and more vicious, its tentacles barbed as if with blades. The thing struck three times: only one critical hit landed, but that was enough to carve a burning line along the back of Jack’s calf, as if a bundle of razor wire had whipped across his skin. He felt venom enter the wound but managed, through a successful act of will, to throw off the poison.​

Tiv, now squarely in melee range, swung her mace into the rubbery mass and scored a solid hit, crushing some of its flesh. Vedica, who had been lingering a bit back from the front, loosed an arrow that sank into the creature’s body with impressive force, and Ceangal stepped forward with his sword to hack at it. Between Tiv’s blow, Vedica’s shot and Ceangal’s decisive strike, the warped squid collapsed, its dead weight slumping back into the flooded passage and staining the black water. With the immediate threat eliminated and the caged twin apparently content to lurk behind bars, the party pushed deeper.​

Dwårfy resumed his role as scout, wading ahead along a corridor that gradually opened into a vast, flooded chamber. In the center of the room rose an elevated stone stage, dry above the waterline, with two ornate red velvet chairs set like thrones and a heavy red curtain behind them. Partially submerged cages squatted near the stage, climbable if needed, and rusted weapons and armor lay scattered across the submerged floor.​

Recalling the book’s description of “human offerings killed in watery combat to feed unnatural creatures,” they recognized this as the cult’s sacrificial arena. Jack kept one eye on the water, scanning the litter of corroded arms for any blade or mail that had resisted rust -- potentially magical -- but nothing immediately obvious gleamed back. No telltale swish of tentacles or splashes suggested more lurking monsters in this particular pool, and they climbed up onto the stage, grateful for dry stone underfoot.​

On firm ground again, Dwårfy could not resist a bit of theatricality. He strode to the curtain, brandished his hammer, and with a flourish yanked the curtain aside, as if revealing performers to an invisible audience. Behind it lay another wall and door rather than a grand hall, but the gesture still set the tone: however long the cult had been dead, this was still its stage.​

After Dwårfy’s theatrical sweep of the curtain on the sacrificial stage, the party found that the “backstage” was no grand gallery but a cramped stone antechamber with a single heavy door set opposite them. Vedica checked it carefully and declared it free of traps, but the ancient lock defeated her tools; in the end, Murchad simply broke it open with brute force, splintering wood and iron alike.​

Beyond lay a small, stark room dominated by a great circular medallion of brass set into the floor, glowing faintly and flanked by two looming statues of naga coiled against the walls. Examining it, Vedica announced that this was definitely a trap of some kind, a magical device that might also respond to a physical “key”; in its center was a recessed shape surrounded by intricate designs, with a narrow hole boring down where none of them could see the bottom. Tiv, looking closer, realized that the recess was exactly the size and outline of the sword pommel she wore on a chain around her neck—the relic they had been carrying since before leaving Skellig Michael.

The group debated their options: ignore the medallion and risk triggering the trap from one of the three locked doors on the north wall, or trust that whoever built the device had also provided a way to safely disable it. Vedica argued that any craftsman who made such a trap would want a reliable means to pass it themselves, and that the recess almost certainly existed to accept the pommel and turn like a key. Tiv finally stepped forward, removed the pommel from her neck, and pressed it into the waiting slot; it fit perfectly, and when she twisted, the medallion rotated by an eighth of a circle with a muted mechanical click. No lightning flared, no statues moved, and nothing else happened. Vedica, reassessing the aura of the room, quietly told them they had just prevented “a lot of somethings” from going off.​

With the medallion disarmed, the party turned to the three stout doors along the north side of the chamber, each with stairs hinted beyond. Listening and checking for traps, Vedica found nothing but old wood, iron and silence, then set to work on the locks. The center door resisted all her efforts until Murchad forced it open with shoulder and boot, but she successfully picked the locks on the left‑ and right‑hand doors, leaving all three standing ajar. Each revealed a stone staircase leading away from the medallion room into the unknown.​

Unsure which path might bring them closer to the relic hinted at in the Tidal Veil’s history, they weighed the options and looked for subtle clues. Dwårfy examined the stone treads, using his dwarven sense for worked stone and wear; his inspection showed that the middle staircase was more worn than the other two, as if centuries of feet had favored that route over the flanking ways. Taking this as an omen, the party chose the central stairs and descended, lamps and Tiv’s glowing mace throwing short circles of light ahead of them.​

At the top, a corridor turned and stretched eastward. As they advanced, Dwårfy spotted shallow chisel work on the wall and called the others over; carved there in archaic Latin was an inscription that Murchad managed to puzzle out: “The relic shines in the north guarded by stones.” The wording sharpened their focus. Whatever they sought was ahead, to the north, and protected by stone guardians of some kind, so they pressed on, following the passage until it ended in yet another heavy door. Vedica checked it for traps, found none, and the group opened it into a broader, low‑ceilinged hall lined with niches and stone slabs: the main burial crypts of the catacombs.​

Navigating this warren of tombs, they discovered another stair and descended again, eventually reaching a barred gate like a stone‑framed portcullis blocking the northern end of the complex. Beyond the iron bars, their lantern light revealed a more refined chamber and, within it, an imposing stone sarcophagus on a raised platform. Behind it, large statues of the archangels stood in alcoves.  Vedica worked the lock on the grate while Dwårfy and Murchad stood ready; the mechanism yielded, the portcullis lifted, and the party stepped into what was clearly a place of special honor.​

In the center of the chamber lay a stone sarcophagus; along the north wall stood three large statues that resembled archangels, one clearly akin to St. Michael, sword in hand. Tiv cast a detection spell and felt the entire room thrumming with protective magic: the sarcophagus, the statues, the very air in the chamber all radiated a warding presence.​

The sarcophagus at the far end bore an inscription naming its occupant as St. Alaric, confirming that they had reached the resting place of the saint whose “wave‑blade” fragments the Tidal Veil had once guarded. Vedica examined the coffin for traps and reported none, but added that the entire chamber felt layered with some sort of protective magic rather than mechanical malice, exactly what one would expect around a powerful relic. Tiv confirmed a strong aura of enchantment and sanctity suffusing the room. With that, and with no levers or sigils left to manipulate, the party gathered around the coffin, braced themselves for whatever wards might answer their touch, and set their hands to the lid.

The group discussed options. Tiv considered performing a full ceremony to consult St. Michael over the course of an hour, but time and their limited light argued against it. In the end, Murchad took the direct approach and levered the sarcophagus lid open. Inside lay a desiccated human corpse, quasi‑mummified by the sealed environment, its withered hands folded across its chest. Beneath those hands rested the broken tip of a sword blade about a foot and a half long, clearly once part of a larger weapon.​

His rune sword had been faintly glowing since they entered the flooded arena above, but the presence of the blade fragment seemed to resonate with that glow, suggesting some connection. When Murchad lifted the fragment from the corpse’s chest, however, events took a turn: a spectral hand emerged from the remains, seizing his wrist in an icy grip. As he watched, the metal fragment dissolved into ethereal nothingness, vanishing from his grasp as if never truly there. At the same moment, stone ground on stone as the three statues behind him began to move.​

Tiv, acting on instinct, turned her power against the undead presence that had manifested from the corpse. The spectral figure recoiled in terror at her display of faith and retreated toward the statues, unwilling to stand in her radiance, effectively neutralized so long as they did not attack it. That left the three living statues as the primary threat, heavy stone bodies stepping down from their alcoves to defend the tomb.​

Vedica, maintaining distance, shifted to her bow and shot one of the statues, chipping its surface and proving that mundane weapons could at least damage them. Jack then chose a more spectacular tactic: he raised the horn of blasting and unleashed its full sonic force into the chamber. The cone of destructive sound hammered all three statues, sending stone chips flying and shaking the chamber, injuring each guardian at once.​

Ceangal contemplated more involved magic, such as a carefully angled lightning bolt that would ricochet off the stone walls within the statue’s alcove, hitting them multiple times like a deadly, bouncing rubber ball. Given the chamber’s geometry, such a bolt could potentially cross and recross the room several times before dissipating, though with the risk that a miscalculated angle might send it back toward the doorway and into the party. The group began positioning themselves as the statues advanced, preparing to exploit every advantage the environment gave them while Tiv kept the specter at bay.​

The rest of the party made fairly quick work of the statues, destroying them all to piles of rubble before they could even step out of their alcoves. The turned haunt dove into the third rubble pile to get away from the party. The party began healing while Vedica was directed to check for secret passages or compartments. It could not be that the relic they came for turned out to be a ruse! 

She checked the corpse, the sarcophagus, and then the rubble piles. When she got to the third one, the haunt attacked her, doing tremendous damage. Vedica backed off, and the rest of the party killed the haunt. Several teammates passed her healing potions while Tiv laid on hands to cure light wounds.

The session ended there, with the party deep under the church, standing in the warded heart of the Tidal Veil’s domain: the broken blade gone, the spectral guardian vanquished, and three broken stone archangels laying in rubble in as Murchad, Dwårfy, Jack, Tiv, Vedica and Ceangal braced for the hardest battle of the delve, which was surely still to come.