(I’ve fallen way behind on these – expect a few catch-up posts from the campaign this week)

We return to the group as Rasha returned with the Patriarch’s horse and the unconscious priest, as well as a wild penitent scribe familiar to a few members of the party.

The priest appeared to be comatose, a victim of some strange mesmerism or other magic. Following earlier leads that the Patriarch’s party was travelling to the mountain hunting grounds, the party went there were they convinced the chief ranger (Vetranio Tasie) that they were on an important rescue mission and needed to see what was going on at the one estate on the grounds that was open.

At the estate they established that the servants were there ahead of their masters by several days in order to set up the estate for the last hunt of the season – completely unrelated to the current excitement.

At the ranger’s house, they finally awakened the priest of Barathmon, demon of the vanquished (and pets). Laughing at their confusion, he explained that he had lied to the Patriarch of Durrend, and the daughter (Aniretak Yrneh Durrend) was not up this way, but was in fact in the necropolis, home to O-Me-Sah, eater of the dead. Sixteen years ago the Patriarch of Durrend sold his unborn daughter to O-Me-Sah in exchange for the success he craved in his mercantile endeavours.

Returning to the necropolis in the dark of night (for O-Me-Sah is a creature of the night that will never reveal itself by daylight), they go searching for its home when they encounter the spirit of Jutzuka, an artist long dead. To make a long story short, he offers the location of the O-Me-Sah’s tomb in exchange for help putting himself to rest – his tomb is sealed to him, and thus he is unable to rejoin his mortal remains and pass on to whatever is beyond this world. The party negotiates the location of O-Me-Sah’s home in advance of their help, discover that the tomb in question is decaying rapidly and that there is no sign of O-Me-Sah within it anymore – in fact footprints indicate that Aniretak may have left the necropolis in the company of the beast, heading back towards the noble district of the city (or, to be frank, anywhere in the city since you have to travel past the noble district to get there from the necropolis).

On the hillside of the noble district, they follow Jutzuka’s instructions to find a small hole dug into the hill, the trail of a prior grave robber. In a hit-and-run battle with a foul smelling undead, they end up holing up in the small tunnel leaving two of them to fight the foul monstrosity as the rest escape into the buried dome tomb of Jutzuka. There they find a few ancient artworks, confirmation of Jutzuka’s story, and destroy the magical idols that keep spirits away from the tomb, allowing Jutzuka to finally rest.