Mission File 005: Dance Of The Demons

July 21st, 1990: A Storm Knight colleague named Jeffery Watson calls a group of Storm Knights to the White Bengal Inn, in Surabaya. They arrive at the inn and order food and drinks while they wait for their friend. A man named Josiah Winslow arrives and confronts the Storm Knights. He tells them that their friend, Jeffery Watson has gone missing. He informs them that Watson had called on them because Winslow was having a problem with a poltergeist and Watson had hoped that his friends could help. After a short conversation, the heroes decide to go back to the mansion with Winslow to investigate the poltergeist and the disappearance of their friend. The manservant, Stark, slips a note to Anastasia telling her that things are not what they seem. They are introduced to Eva, Josiah’s daughter. Eva is sickly looking, and shortly after she enters the room things start to happen. A decanter of brandy floats into the air, and then crashes into Thorin’s head. After that the whole room is plunged into chaos. Furniture upturns, glass breaks, cigars float around. Eva runs up the stairs crying and everything stops. They are then served dinner and are shown to their rooms. Anastasia is awakened by a slimy sound behind a wall. She investigates and finds a secret tunnel. She ventures into it alone. After entering, the passage slides shut and Anastasia cannot open it. Thorin and Tor-o are alerted by the sound of the passage sliding shut and they gather they others and head to Anastasia’s room. Once there, they can hear Anastasia banging on the passage. Thorin gets it opened, and the group begins to move down the dark passage. They encounter a group of giant leeches. They have to fight their way past, and Thorin almost dies from the encounter. Anastasia is disconnected from her own reality, and is unable to reconnect. When it is over, the heroes are all soaked in the blood that had filled the leeches. They continue down the passage and Tor-o discovers a book lying there. It is Winslow’s journal, and upon reading it, the heroes discover that Winslow had summoned up a demon that he could not control. He offered the demon the lives of his daughter and Jeffery Watson, but he did not accept. He will take Winslow’s soul tomorrow night. The heroes continue down the passage and discover Stark, impaled upon wooden stakes jutting from a closed door. There is a book at his feet, and Tor-o reads it. It is a spell that enables someone to speak with the dead. Having some magical power, Tor-o the boggle learns the spell and then uses it on Stark. They learn that everything in the journal is true. He tells them that Watson’s body is in a coffin in the chamber with him. They find the coffin. It is nailed shut, but there is a hammer on the ground. Anastasia picks up the hammer and starts pulling the nails out. When she is almost done, they hear a scratching sound from inside the coffin. They pause for a second, unsure what to do. Then Anastasia decides to re-nail the coffin. It is too late. A chthon, a creature made up of insects, busts up and out of the coffin. Chris Taine is overcome by the power of fear and runs away screaming. The others, though frightened, stay to fight. Tor-o delivers the killing blow to the beast with a bolt of lightning (a glory deed), and the heroes find the first of three parts to the ritual that will send the demon Azeroth back home. The chthon did not receive its true death and some it recovered and left later. The heroes go through the door that is holding Stark. They emerge in the kitchen and try to wash the blood off themselves at the kitchen sink. They then notice that some sort of green translucent ooze surrounds the house. Eva comes running into the kitchen. She is panicked and feverish. She tells the heroes that she has been hiding their friend Jeffery Watson away in her room, but he needs their help. They quickly rush up to her room where they find him sitting in a chair with his back to them. Tor-o walks over to face him. He touches him to see if he is okay. His body shatters and red goo spills all over the floor. Eva slams and locks the door, trapping everyone but Chris Taine inside the room. She then transforms into a creature made of fungus and pus and attacks the heroes. Chris Taine gets the door open during the struggle. When he enters the room, he finds that they have subdued the creature. Not wanting it to get back up, he aims his Godlight pistol at her and pulls the trigger. The creature transforms back into Eva right before the laser hits and she is killed. The heroes then find the next part of the ritual floating in the puddle that was Jeffery Watson. They go downstairs to confront Winslow and find the third part. He denies everything. Tor-o tries treading what Winslow was reading but is overcome by a madness spell. Winslow sicks a swarm of disembodied hands on the heroes as he pulls a gun and shoots at Thorin. Anastasia and Thorin are both badly hurt in the struggle, but Chris Taine is able to help them recover after they kill Josiah Winslow. Anastasia is able to complete the research and find the third part to the ritual. She also learns that through the course of the evening, the events they have faced have prepared the Storm Knights to be sacrifices to Azeroth. The clocks strike midnight and Azeroth appears to claim the victims that Winslow had prepared to sacrifice in place of his own life. The heroes are prepared for him, and he only gets one attack in on Derrick before the ritual is complete and he is banished.