The Dying Of The Light

Our friend, Luther, was not among the hundreds of inquisitors some would love to throw into a torture device. At one point in my life I would have lined them all up in a row, and one by one shut the lid closed with their pleasant screams of torture soothing the painful memory of the loss of my daughter at the hands of overzealous inquisitors! Ironically, Luther's name was not on the long list of fork-tongued judges I would have placed upon an altar of blood. He did not deserve to die wracked by pain, pierced by the destructive phantom iron spikes of the haunted iron maiden. Luther was... reasonable. He was truly a white sheep amongst an otherwise dark flock of misguided lynch-men. And now, we solemnly carry our friend's body back to Ravengro, back to another dark flock of priests who should thank Luther for giving his own life to lift the town up from this bleak miasma of supernatural horrors.

We had returned that day, once again, to the haunted halls of Harrowstone, seeking out the Mosswater Maurader. Thanks to Thythanis' possession of the key ring, we unlocked the captain's office, wherein we spied fractured skulls on a table with a heavy hammer–the telltale sign that the mad dwarf known as the Mosswater Maurader would be near by. Suddenly, a sobbing dwarven spirit rose up wielding a ghostly hammer and waded into melee with us.

But the most frightening moments were just before the death of our friend Luther, when he and Mstislav scouted amongst the numerous grisly tools of torment in the room beyond the portcullis. Hidden from undead, they slowly stepped steadily about the cages, toward hanging chains, past the twisted skeleton upon the stretching rack, around the large wooden tank, and dodging the fire pit in the room's center. The large, bloodstained wicker basket which sat at the head of the rack seemed to stir, rattling a bit of their courage, and shaking a bit of their resolve if not nerves.

To the east stood the grim iron maiden that would soon seal the doom of brother Luther. The lid appeared closed at first, and presented a stern decoration of a tormented woman upon its face. Perhaps, in their fear, they imagined the illusion of Kendra within it, for they ran toward it as though to save someone. And one by one my friends were mauled by the ferocious blood-thirsty haunt. First Luther, then Mstislav, next Zarkendraal, and finally my own earth elemental all took turns bleeding within the maw of the wicked device. Yet, it was brother Luther who could not shake the illusory spikes–for him, they continually inflicted great wracking pain unto the final release of his spirit to Pharasma's Boneyard.

And you, my brother, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Indeed, I would see Luther breathe again! I shall rage against the dying of his light. If not today then one day soon, or on some distant dawn by my own hand. I swear it with my life! For what little meaning... worth... or sense can be judged of a world... that keeps alive all the depraved inquisitors who vaingloriously impose iniquitous judgments upon little girls––and yet sentence to a torturous death (by means of a grisly iron maiden) the sole inquisitor in all of Ustalav who possessed fair-minded and rational good judgment?  

Fortunately, we recovered the Warden's badge of office and returned it properly to Vesorianna, symbolically transferring enough power of office to allow her to banish the haunts from Harrowstone for good. In turn, she also departed for her own journey to rest in the arms of the Gray Lady, Pharasma. We rest now too, comforted in the success of our mission to rid Ravengro of the Haunting of Harrowstone.