Chill Touch tells Beowolf that Hobnails abandoned his parents in the divine prison Narshasa. There, the party can't tell Beowolf's mother from Lahar, a personification of death mimicking her. The Hollin Oracle summons Lahar to the Grimoire, where Kasskar kills him using Word Without Warning. Returning to Narshasa, the party defeats the guardian Katamayan and frees Beowolf's parents.
At the end of Game 19, Kasskar's contacts at the Ha'penny asked him to come back in 24 hours, and they would give him whatever information they'd found about the arson and Beowolf's parents. Now the 24 hours had passed, and Kasskar returned, bringing Ord along.
Ord catches a waitress looking at him, who looks away shyly when he catches her looking. At first, you don't think anything of it, but a minute later you catch her sneaking a look at you again. She's girlish with pale skin that contrasts with her long dark hair.
We know from a previous discussion that Ord has the sensibilities of "a twelve-year-old who's oblivious to advances." So, a little while later, the girl comes up to Ord and introduces herself as Bailey. Bailey says that she sees a lot of foreign men visiting Hollin but she's never seen anyone like Ord. She says he's very well-trimmed and carries himself well. Where is he from? What are his strange clothes? What is his strange accent?
As Ord and Bailey are talking, another young woman comes up next to Bailey. She has dark skin and is dressed in fine business-like clothes, maybe like someone from the financial district. Not shy like Bailey, she openly looks Ord up and down and puts her hand on Ord's shoulder, and says "Bailey, who's your friend?" Bailey says that Ord's name is Ord, and the businesswoman tells Ord that her name is Libby.
As Libby is introducing herself, a third young woman comes up, Tilly. She is voluptuous with long blond hair, and she's wearing an outfit that leaves little to the imagination. She has a riding crop, and she looks Ord up and down as well. She puts her arm around Libby and whispers in Libby's ear, not very quietly, "I think this foreigner would...like to be punished."
But as Ord was distracted by the girls' attention, a garrote went around his neck, and he was attacked by a Hobnail named Hubbard.
He wears a ratty old overcoat in the style of a redcoat's coat. He has a very high collar and a tall top hat. He has sideburns all the way down his face. Hubbard wears Boots of Striding that would work with whatever armor.
Hubbard had the same statistics and powers that the Hobnail attackers at the Whipsaw had in Game 7, and Kasskar and Ord killed him. Although Kasskar generally tried to maintain an anonymous appearance to avoid attention, now he uncharacteristically took Hubbard's high-collared overcoat and tall hat as trophies and donned them.
While Ord and Kasskar were fighting Hubbard at the Ha'penny, Beowolf was approached by a man who introduced himself as Maycott. Maycott asked if they could talk somewhere private.
Maycott says he works for a venerable organization called Chill Touch whose purpose is to...maintain the balance of justice. They've been aware of Kasskar since his parents were murdered and have seen the party's conflict with the Hobnails escalate. Chill Touch knows who burned the Winter Wolf and where Beowolf's parents are, and they can give Beowolf this information if Kasskar and Ord will commit to do some unspecified jobs for Chill Touch in the future. If they agree to this, the party should meet him back here in four hours.
Maycott left so that Beowolf could contact Kasskar and Ord, leaving behind an imp mask.
Kasskar and Ord agreed to talk with Maycott, so the full party met with him.
When they meet Maycott, he says again that to get the information, Kasskar and Ord will have to commit to doing future unspecified jobs for Chill Touch. The jobs will be extremely dangerous, but they'll be just, just as killing Auld was. If they agree, Maycott pulls a piece of paper from his coat pocket, unfolds it, and puts it in front of the characters. You can see that the paper is blank. Then, Maycott pulls a fountain pen and an elaborate dagger out of his other coat pocket, and asks them to sign at the bottom of the blank page in their own blood.
I thought that signing such an open-ended agreement would be a no-go for the characters, particularly Kasskar. But there was no other way to find Beowolf's parents, and Maycott emphatically told them the "just" jobs would be ones they'd embrace, so Kasskar and Ord signed.
Once they sign, Maycott thanks them, and says:
The Winter Wolf was burned by a man named Bering, a Hobnail who was transported to Hilde for his crimes and has now returned from transportation. The party knows that return from transportation is considered the most heinous crime in Hollin, like betraying your liege lord is in feudal society, and is punishable by death. If you want to hunt down Bering, he is working from the Intractable, a prison hulk on the riverside in Braddock.
In revenge for the party killing Auld in the divine prison Narshasa, Bering dumped Beowolf's parents Carric and Pale Moon into Narshasa alive.
The party decided to skip any revenge on Bering and to rescue Beowolf's parents from Narshasa. They retraced the path they'd found in Game 12, through Heath Prison, Dera'a prison, and the first part of Narshasa, arriving at the point where the Witches' Chorus had turned them back before. But now they continued past that point.
They encounter a few more torture exhibits, and many tombs with large stones rolled in front of them. Ultimately they come to a tall cliffside in the shape of a semicircle. In the cliff wall, there are a series of maybe fifty rusty old cell doors. Some cells have prisoners inside - some get up to look at you as you walk by but others don't bother; they all have a look of hopelessness and defeat. Other cells you can't see inside because they have billowing black smoke pouring out of them and going up the cliffside.
After going past some of the cells, you come to an ancient, withered warrior standing guard near two adjacent cells. His armor is worn down - he has ringmail armor that's about 80% missing with just a few links left around his shoulders and his helmet is gone on one side. But, he stands proudly with his weapon in hand - a notched old hatchet.
Inside one of the two adjacent cells, you're surprised to see Beowolf's stepmother Pale Moon sitting on the ground, leaning dejectedly against the cell door. She sees the party, and turns her head to get a better look. Rubbing her eyes in disbelief, she slowly stands up and says "Beowolf? Are you trapped in here also?"
When Beowolf responds, you hear a voice from the other cell, saying, "No Beowolf, I'm Pale Moon. Open the cell door, and we can find your father and escape this place."
At this point, the old warrior puts out a hand in warning and says, "Good sirs, I am Katamayan, and I guard this place for eternity. One of these prisoners is Lahar, a personification of death. Lahar is subtle and lies with cunning. I advise you not to talk with him, and of course, I will not allow you to free any of the prisoners."
The party ignored Katamayan temporarily, focusing on distinguishing Pale Moon from Lahar. They asked each apparent Pale Moon questions that only the real Pale Moon would know, but both Pale Moons seemed to know everything, and they couldn't distinguish the real Pale Moon. Since it was unacceptable to leave Pale Moon there, they discussed releasing both or one at random, but Katamayan told them that releasing Lahar would unleash a Black-Death-like wave of death on Hollin.
I didn't have a built-in solution to this puzzle in mind, and we discussed different possibilities. We quickly came on using Word Without Warning, which seemed to be the only tool the party had that might stand against a "personification of death." But they still had to distinguish Lahar from Pale Moon, and we struck on the idea of summoning Lahar at the Hollin Oracle, making him materialize there. The players decided to do this despite the clear danger.
They returned to the Oracle and talked there with the adepts Aliester and Mari, who'd helped them send Haas to Hereward in Game 10. As before, Aliester and Mari were sympathetic to the party, and agreed to help despite the danger to themselves and Hollin.
Aliester and Mari researched Lahar in the Oracle's Grimoire, finding the information they'd need to summon him. They performed a ritual similar to the one they performed in Game 10, and Lahar appeared on the rim of the Oracle's summoning pit. The party now saw Lahar in his true form - a blackened corpse covered with burning pitch that produced billowing black smoke. He had these stats.
We briefly discussed how Word Without Warning was actually used. Our original description said it was "used as a sneak attack," which Kasskar could perform if he could get Combat Advantage on Lahar by flanking him. We decided that given Combat Advantage, Kasskar wouldn't need to roll to make the spell succeed.
We rolled initiative, and Keith rolled a natural 20! Coming first in the round, Kasskar stepped up and spoke the Word, killing Death. The moment is recorded in Keith's notes:
Flush with victory, the party returned to Narshasa and confronted Katamayan. Katamayan had these stats and could summon Chain Devils as allies. The party defeated him, freed Pale Moon, and took Beowolf's parents to the surface.
