Delve #1

Intro:

You enter the upstairs room of the village inn. The fireplace is stacked, and the heat is excessive. Yet the gaunt looking man who meets you is wrapped in his cloak. His face is partially hidden by the upturned collar: what you can see is an aquiline nose and a pair of dark eyes. The sickly eyes of a man driven to the limits by his obsessions.

This is Alois Helbrun, the lawful inheritor of the Hornfell Estate. Your employer.

"Good day to you, gentlemen," he says in a hoarse voice. "As you can see, I am of feeble health. Unfit to face the dangers that are rumored to infest my family’s seat. That is why I require your assistance.

"You are to explore the Estate. Find out just what exactly is going on inside. What are these perils the villagers are so afraid of.

"The payment: twenty gold coins per person, for every day you spend exploring the ruins. Paid when you return and report to me. After that, it is possible that I will send you on more errands, depending on the information you gather.

"I am also willing to pay a bonus for books from the personal collection of Manfried Hornfell. These valuable tomes bear his stamp," and here he shows you a battered, charred book. The first page is adorned with a large mark, depicting an eagle’s talon grabbing a sword by the blade.

"These books must be brought to me. All other objects – valuables, heirlooms, luxuries – are yours to take. I have no interest in them. A fair compensation for the risks you take."

With this, Alois turns back towards the roaring fireplace.

"Off you go now, gentlemen. I… need to rest."

---

In the village, people eye you with suspicion. If asked questions about the Estate, they mostly just shrug and turn away. "We don’t go there. It is a cursed place," some whisper.

"You know, you are not the first adventurer types to fall for the shiny coins of that Helbrun creep. There were others, before you. Adventurer types. They never made it back," a talkative old man says. "Or they just ran off with the money that dupe gave them!" he adds, and bursts out in laughter. "I bet he is not paying anything in advance anymore, is he? Huh? Huh?"

---

The next morning you follow a small road from the village to the Estate’s wrought iron gates. A twenty minute uphill hike, through dense forests.

The Estate is bigger than you imagined. A vast, sprawling complex of ruins. They occupy the top of a ragged cliff, reaching its limits on the east. From the distance the complex seems to balance on the very edge of the rocks, some two hundred feet above the dark waters of Lake Hornsee. Many walls still stand. Towers claw at the cloudy grey sky. Charred roof beams exposed: like the ribs of a dead creature. Blackened by fire and smoke, overgrown with vines and weeds.

Indeed, a haunting scenery.

But what will you find inside?

And so it begins.

With a black building, silhouetted against the overcast sky.

You enter the Estate's grounds. To the north, there is a garden, with hedgerows and topiaries, tall trees, now all reverted to wild and natural growth. Perhaps, something to explore at a later point?

You slowly approach the main building. It's a grandiose, but chaotic structure. Its parts were erected in different styles, in different centuries, and seemingly no Hornfell cared much for the architectural taste of their predecessors.

Some parts of the Estate are two or three storey high, with hanging corridors and bridges criss-crossing the air between them. Most windows on the ground floor are boarded up. The roofs collapsed.

The obvious access point is the main entrance in the middle. The massive door lays shattered on the ground. Through the doorway you glimpse the interior: a spacious hall, with half-collapsed staircase on the central axis.

The paved road that leads to the main entrance then continues to the right. It connects to a taller gateway, set between two parts of the building. It is possible that the gateway was used as an entrance for carriages or coaches, and leads to an inner courtyard.

Everything is eerily silent. There is only the sound of the wind blowing from the direction of the lake.

Elias gestures around him. Blood drips down the man's arm, drawn by the metal cilice bound to his upper arm, pushing inwardly-pointing barbs into his flesh. The man's mad gesturing sends droplets of blood flying everywhere. "Behold: the products of all men's hubris, all our so-called accomplishments, all crumbles to dust. All of this striving for mortal riches and pleasures is meaningless. All that is pure and true can only be attained by casting off this sinful flesh!"

"hmmm... I'd rather like to keep mine if it's all the same to you Brother Elias."

Sarrgul tightens the cinch on his robes before rummaging through his pack, he produces a tome bound in a dark leather with runes etched across it's surface. Whispering a quick incantation a shadow falls over Sarrgul before blending into his cloth leaving it a shade darker than before. Pulling a small sprig of green leaves from a hidden pouch he chants while moving his fingers in an intricate pattern, his quarter staff glows a bright green momentarily before the light subsides to a faint shimmer."The main gate then?"

Albrecht takes a look around at the scenery, then his fellow travelers. Of course he had to end up with the weirdos, he thinks to himself. This expedition is doomed, just like the ones that preceded it and the ones that most likely will follow. The trick is to know when to call it quits, just like with gambling or a love affair gone south. Hit this place, grab as much loot as possible and make a run for it.
"Gimme a moment. Don't wanna die before we even enter."
Albrecht cautiously approaches the main entrance and checks for traps

What is death but another doorway Brother Albrecht?

Into the halls of death we go, to slay the monster blow by blow, or fall us all if we’re to slow.

Albrecht goes through the standard motions, checks for tripwires or pressure plates, but he is constantly distracted by his companions' existential banter... The entrance seems clear, though, and no traps or other nasty surprises go off when one of you crosses the threshold.

You are met by a spacious hall. The roof has collapsed, and several heavy, charred beams descend diagonally (their upper parts are still attached to the edges of the tall walls, but their broken sections touch the floor). There is much debris and fallen bricks on the ground, but under them you see that the floor is covered with marble slabs, in a black and white checkerboard pattern.

The hall is quite tall, taking up almost two storeys of the building. To the left, a small balcony protrudes from the wall, at the level of the second floor.

Opposite the entrance, there is a wide staircase, leading to the second floor. The steps are covered with a thick, rotting crimson carpet. The banisters are crumbling.

In the corners of the hall, on the two sides of the staircase, there are two marble statues, depicting athletic nude male bodies. They wear helmets, and turn their faces towards the staircase (and each other). The statues are huge: their heads reach up to the top of the stairs.

On the right hand wall, in the middle, there is an open entrance to a neighbouring room. From what you can see, it too must be a big hall. The passage is framed by an exquisitely carved stone portal. A vile stench emanates from this direction. Elias, acolyte of the flesh, easily recognizes it as the smell of rotting meat...

In the far left corner, next to the base of the statue, there is a door. It is currently closed.

Sarrgul chants softly, his right hand closed tightly into a fist while he circles his left around it. Opening his hand, several feet away a spectral luminescent hand appears, reaching out slowly the hand moves to the door before settling on the pull. Are you prepared Brothers, to see what awaits us in this crumbling ruin?

"We are like worms burrowing into this carcass to pick it clean from inside" Elias cackles, "But what carrion feeders are already in residence, grown fat and ravenous?" He holds aloft the holy instrument of his purification: three, spiked iron orbs chained to a rough metal rod - the flail's handle is also spiked so the wielder bleeds. Dark blood drips onto Elias' upturned face as he murmurs, "My blood protects me from the wicked. By my blood I am sanctified."

Albrecht does his best to not pay much attention to the ramblings of Elias and Sarrgul's flair for the grandiose. Funny how Jingles the Jester is the person he feels he can mostly relate to. Still, with Sarrgul's magical hand of light reaching for the door, he immediately assumes his position next to it, out of sight and out of light. Safe from whatever might lie inside, while also prepared to strike at it from the darkness.

Sarrgul motions with is hand and the spectral hand moves to the handle pulling to see if it will open.

You all hold your breaths as the eerie disembodied hand reaches the handle and pulls. The door isn't locked, and opens to a crack.

Albrecht, who stands ready nearby, hears a click, and notices, peering at the crack, that a rope is attached to the bottom part of the door. It lays on the floor, still somewhat loose, but further movement of the door would stretch it.

"Hold it! Don't move that door any further!"
Albrecht moves into position, using whatever he can as a wedge to make sure the door remains steady while holding out a hand to signal the others should wait and keep their distance. He then prepares his tools as he examines the trap, looking for the best way to disable it.

Albrecht examines the contraption. It's a simple mechanism: the rope stretches when the door is pulled, and triggers something.

Cutting the rope would certainly disable it, and this is exactly what Albrecht does.

The door is now safe to open - but what other dangers lies ahead?

Albrecht sees that a corridor after the door. It has no windows, and its low ceiling is intact, making the place dim. There are two closed doors on the left wall, and a single open doorway on the right wall.

In the middle of the corridor, a crossbow is propped up. The cut rope connects to it.

Despite the dimness, Albrecht notices that there is a dark, smeared trace on the floor, approx. 2' wide. It starts somewhere from the farther end of the corridor, than stops at the first closed left-side door. Something was dragged there.

The corridor goes for about 60', then ends in a T-junction, with passages leading to the left and the right.

Once Albrecht has the door wedged open, the hand dissipates like mist on a sunny morning.

Good catch Brother Albrecht, caution is our ally. Ancient traps lie in wait, unsprung and thirsting for blood.

Albrecht cuts the rope and slowly steps into the room, motioning with his hand to the others that it's now safe to approach. As Sarrgul comes closer, he shows the trace of smeared blood on the floor to the occultist.
"I don't know about traps, but something was certainly thirsting for blood here."
As the rest of the group enter the corridor, Albrecht heads towards the middle, looking to remove the crossbow and carry it as his own weapon moving forward.

The trap was fashioned out of a standard light crossbow, which Albrecht now takes possession of. The weapon is worn, but in working condition. There are five notches cut into the wooden stock. Obviously, there is just a single bolt.

A small bell was also attached to the crossbow, to make some extra alarm noise when the trap goes off: Albrecht mutes and removes it.

The smears indeed look like blood. The traces are dry and blackened, not fresh, but probably not more than a day old either.

Whomever was kind enough to leave the cross bow is still near, the bell can only be heard from so far away. Perhaps we lay our own trap Brothers.

"We ring the bell, and fall upon whomever comes. But who is the intruder here, we or they?" Elias cackles.