1.3 - In Search of Sanity - Never-Ending Nightmare

Grim stabs into the corrupted flesh of the Tatterman once more with the slivered blade of Red Destiny. "You are pathetic. Its our faces you will see when fear overtakes you, fiend."

The magical blade strikes the Tatterman in the arm, severing it at the elbow. The creature howls in agony (Tatterman: -5hp).

"Time to go back to the nightmare you came from!

As Elias moves to strike the aberration, he feels the cold of the silver blade in his bones, sinking it where a human heart would be.

As the Tatterman’s skin turns slickly yellow, the rotten scraps of clothes he wears come alive and spin around the nightmare as if trying to restrain the creature. Elias drops the knife as darkness spreads from the wound, scarabs crawling out of it.

The Tatterman turns to the paladin and tries to brutally claw him to death, letting a deafening screech out as his body turns into a jaundiced mist upon contact.

In a dream-like scene, the abomination twists into a whirlpool of fresh, tatters and mist, collapsing into the darkness released from the wound of his black heart.

Razhel slumps to her knees, then into a pile of the floor, as the terrible thing is destroyed and yanked out of their reality. "Is it truly gone?"

Grim lowers Red Destiny and assesses the situation. "Everyone still with us?" He asks and narrows his eyes to peer into the distance, where Axon has fled. "Let's lick our wounds and search the area, Zandalus' nest and his corpse. Then we can begin backtracking our way back through this house of crazies."

Axon feels the fear drain out of him just as swiftly as it overcame him. He stops in his tracks and looks back to the others as they finish the Tatterman off. He takes a couple slow steps towards them, finding his legs allowing him to do so, then hurries his pace, approaching. "Is it over? I-I don't know what came over me. Suddenly the only thing I could do was get away as quickly as possible."

After several long, quiet moments it seems clear that it is, indeed, over. The Tatterman has been destroyed - or at least diminished and returned to whence he came, and should no longer be a threat here, or on the material plane, again.

The curse driving the destruction of, and terror within, Briarstone Asylum is gone.

Zandalus himself, having been consumed by The Tatterman, is gone along with the creature itself. Laying near where Zandalus fell, and also in a pile of viscous, yellow sludge and tattered robes, you do however find the remains of their corporal belongings.

Treasure:
Oil of Magic Weapon
Potion of Bear's Endurance
Potion of Cure Moderate Wounds
Potion of Invisibility
+1 Light Mace
+1 War Razor
Ring of Protection +1

'It is over friend. Do not worry. I think we all felt fear from this thing. Hopefully with it gone our troubles will be eased. We should return to the others, and see what has become of the mist...and the cultists. They may be lost when they learn their leader is dead.'

Searching the room itself yields some other interesting finds.

The hundreds of sketches laying about and tacked to the walls are disturbing, but professionally done. If collected, they could probably fetch a high price.

Searching Zandalus's mattresses you find eight pouches, each containing 50 gold coins, and some other loose magical items.

Finally, of significant interest is the book itself, as previously described in notes and clues about the asylum: The Chain of Nights. The ancient tome has a deep, red leather cover with an embossed brain on the cover. Among the book’s numerous elaborate medical sketches of the brain, depictions of pressure points and chakras, meditative mantras, and methods of achieving lucid dreaming are spells and arcane rituals devoted to breaching the boundaries of dreams.

Treasure:
400gp
Wand of Command (38 charges)
Elixir of Truth
Scroll of Summon Monster III
The Chain of Nights (more details in a dedicated entry in our treasure thread)

Having defeated the threat of the Tatterman and ended the curse of the mists brought about by Zandalus's Oneirogens, the cultists have all but lost any direction they previously had, instead falling under sway of Doctor Elbourne.

The heroes are not only welcomed through camp, but receive resounding thanks from all as it becomes clear their fortunes have turned around, with them soon being able to leave this island once and for all.

You thread your way back through the halls to meet with Winter and her group of survivors at the enclave. To your surprise, they are already preparing to leave - while word of your deeds had not yet reached them, the mists had dispersed enough they were able to guess at your success. Running low on food and other resources, Winter has mobilized them to make an effort to leave.

Hearing the details from you only helps cement their conviction.

The road in front of the asylum, now clear and apparently safe, leads to a dock where a single boat remains. It takes several hours, but everyone is able to get ferried from here to the nearby town of Thrushmoor.

While waiting, Iosef and Axon continue to peruse the library in the asylum. As they delve deeper into the lost histories of the island, they read strange and unsettling stories that all seem to point back to an old threat called the Briarstone Witch, which had once plagued these lands and seemed to be connected to the strange standing obelisk on the island, which oddly was also the focus of some of Zandalus's bizarre charcoal drawings.

Once safely back in Thrushmoor, you quickly discover the general population to have a particular aversion to you - they know you to be agents or employees of various regard of Count Lowls, and he has not been known to be a kind governor.

With Winter and Grim's direction, you meet with the leader of the Sleepless Agency, who immediately recognizes the man in the hat and moves to hug him. She had worried of his demise when he disappeared many days ago. You discover Grim had been working for years as a spy within Lowls's court, feeding reports back to the Sleepless Agency.

With this information, you are able to learn from his observations that Lowls had been deeply ensconced in the Occult. He had been turned away and ridiculed from many respectable, scholastic venues and turned his attention several years ago to esoteric studies that pulled him deeper into their mysteries and further from his duties as governor. This had led to the Crown of Ustalav hiring the Sleepless Agency to investigate.

Things went from worrying to bad, then bad to worse when about a week and a half ago the Count all but disappeared, along with several of those under his employ. What happened thereafter is anyone's guess. Tracking down the missing Count is your next best clue to finding the truth, but that is a tale unsung.