But What About the Children?!

Galia brings Adalia and Furus to IronKey House. Carindrina and Belladonna are up and eating in the kitchen. The rest are woken up and told they should go get breakfast at The Red Pony. When they arrive, Furus recognizes James Glasserune, the Baron’s son. He goes up to talk to him and James asks for a sad song, Furus asks what is wrong, and James admits his father died early this morning. Reluctantly, he asks for help. Someone immediately requests money and he is not thrilled, but explains that it is very important to bury his father ASAP, but that when they went to start performing the rites, the Glasserune sword, the blessed family sword, was missing from the crypts. The party is ready to blow him off, explaining that they really need to find the missing children. He says he hates to say this is more important than the children, but tells them a secret. The family is cursed, and if they are not blessed and buried immediately after death, then they turn into vampires. It hasn’t happened in a long time, but the records of the last time it happened, the family member killed twenty people before they could stop him. Agreeing that vampires are probably a more immediate threat to the town, they say they will go investigate Stoneblood Manor and see what they can find. James tells them to get more information on the girls, the town guards would be the best place to start, he has been trying to help, but he is too distraught to do anything right now. Stopping at the town guards, Carindrina introduces herself and finds a friend in the Captain of the town guard, Kerwyn, after introducing herself as a military soldier. He explains that the girls have been missing several months, Eleanor going missing at Grimmur, the first snowfall festival and Eva went missing at Orastava, the first flower festival. Eleanor was a good girl, well-liked, she liked to help at the stables (behind the red pony, owned by the greenbrushes as well), she as 11. No one saw anything odd. She was about 11. Eva loved gardening, her parents lived by Spruce Singer Park and owned a bakery. She was also well liked. The day she went missing, she left to go garden and was never seen arriving at the garden. They both competed in the children’s talent competition, but neither one was a winner. The guards mention people are keeping kids inside as they are worried about the same thing happening during this festival. The group thanks the guards and leave for Stoneblood Manor. Venus knocks and Blitherby, the butler they were told to speak to answers, she starts by saying they are here to talk about the missing children, he dismisses them, saying, “I don’t talk to reporters.” and trying to close the door. The group blurts out, “No we are here about the vampires!” He is mortified and ushers them quickly into the manor, then locks them in the dining room with him. He evades most of their questions, saying that there are only a handful of times that members of the family have turned to vampires after death and it isn’t enough to make a conclusion. He is HIGHLY offended when someone asks if that means someone in the family slept with a vampire, he indignantly replies, “No one would ever debase themselves by marrying a vampire.” He says to find the sword or to see the Baron’s body, they will have to go to the cemetary to get to the mausoleum. Then says he must go and leaves them to explore the manor. Carindrina tries to watch him leave, while he does head down the hill towards the town, a fog descends and she loses him. They search the rooms. Beginning in Baron’s room, his body is gone, as Blitherby said, but there are traces of arcane magic running from the fireplace to the bed, it looks as though something magical was dragged. Venus finds a small star shaped keyhole in the wall near the fireplace. Using mage hand, she sticks her “claw” into the hole and activates a switch, arcane energy crackles up the mage hand and she realizes she would have been very hurt if she had actually touched it. Looking inside, there are blinding runes in a very old almost druidic language. All that can be made out is “song, old ones, water of the womb”, then a dimensional crack opens near the door. Everyone manages to escape, but barely. The room begins to fill with a wet, heavy mist. Nira recognizes it as similar to her religion’s magic, but a darker, older form. Carindrina sticks her arm into the dissipating mist and is grabbed by wet, strong muscles wrapping around her arm and sucking, possibly with teeth and suckers. She manages to shake her arm free, and is very surprised that there are no visible marks. Searching the Prince’s room next, they find a large stack of books and papers with information about the history of the town and all the missing girls. Carindrina slips them into her pouch. They also search Blitherby’s and see a paper in the fireplace that is currently burning, Carindrina pulls it out of the fire with her crowbar, and can see that much of it is gone, there is about half of a family crest at the top, though she cannot identify which family, and while it looks like there should be writing, nothing can be seen right now. Adalia hears noises in the cellar and goes down. There is an ominous tone coming from behind the stone wall. There are five stones in a spiral or star pattern that are a bit more smoothed than others. After a lot of debating on safety, Carindrina taps them starting from the inside out and the stone grinds against itself revealing a door.