Hotel of the Dead | A Thora Silentblade tale

The horror show that was the Happy Magic Hotel was the gift that just kept giving. After finding the bodies and the belongings of some of the missing, Thora had hoped they would have some luck with tracking down those behind it but every room they passed through only brought more questions and more horrible scenes. A large barrel was filled with some disgusting pile of flesh that somehow had come to life. In another room, Duanne had found water that seemed to be able to move on its own. Blood was smeared across floors, as if bodies had been dragged and dumped from other locations. All in all, a horrible mess.

The dwarf led the way as they climbed a spiral staircase into a dark room on the floor above them. Spotting nothing in the dark, Thora motioned to the elf to bring the others up. From what they could tell, this seemed like some sort of storage closet or access hallway for the staff. Nothing nefarious in the stairwell room itself and the door opened onto nothing more than a standard hotel hallway running between various guest rooms.

Spreading out, but hoping to keep each other within eyesight as they explored, they moved through the quiet halls of the hotel, searching for any sign of what might have happened to the other guests. The hallways featured strange statues and mounted animal heads, like before, and in one case a sitting area with some chairs and a fireplace, positioned as if it was the most regular thing to have in this mansion of horror.

Standing in a corner of two hallways, the soldier tried to keep an eye on both the wizard and the others who had gone in different directions. With any luck, Thora could jump to their aid if something were to go amiss. When Duanne came rushing forward, babbling about some strange water, the door to Thora’s left suddenly opened, startling the soldier and causing Thora to begin to draw a blade out of its scabbard.

“Oh, hello, what’s going on?” came the voice of the kind-faced older woman standing in her room. “Is something the matter?”

“Just exploring the hotel, ma’am” replied the dwarf, settling the sword back into its sheath. “Sorry to disturb you.”

“Who is it, auntie?” came another voice from another part of the room. The younger man came to the doorway, eyes filled with excitement. “Are you heading down for the meal?”

Thora wasn’t sure what to make of the pair of guests. Hopefully, they weren’t going to be the next victims of the hotel, but right now they had more pressing matters to attend to.

“Perhaps later, lad. Enjoy your evening.”

Something was a little off about those two. And the young one didn’t seem quite all there in the head. Thora had a passing thought of the barrel of flesh they had found on the floor below and suddenly lost all appetite. The dwarf didn’t have any proof, but the imagination was running wild now and Thora had a feeling that eating at this hotel might not be the best idea.

As the elderly woman and her nephew happily wandered off towards the staircase, Thora noticed that Alandal was waving emphatically from the end of the other hallway. It seemed that he and Zearach had discovered something! Rushing down the hallway, quietly, Thora rounded the corner to find the bard and ranger examining another trail of blood, leading out of a wall and towards a door.

Duanne pushed the unlocked door open, revealing an occult shrine of some sort. Candles were positioned around the room, circling around a sigil that had been drawn in blood on the floor. Strange statues leaned in from the corners of the room, seeming to look towards the skeletal throne against the wall. A book of evil spellcraft lay open upon an altar to Thora’s left. The dwarf suppressed a shudder at the sight. The soldier was glad they hadn’t borne witness to whatever nasty business was conducted here.

It was a graveyard smash

Thora couldn’t bear to step into the room. There was something sinister about it that made the dwarf want to run away, but Thora was too well-trained for that. Instead, the soldier made themselves useful. Examining the bloodtrail, Thora followed it to the wall where Alandal had found a sliding panel that revealed some sort of torture room. A table, covered with weapons and bloody implements, stood on the near side of the room, while the far side had some sort of basin or container.

Thora quietly stepped forward, only to hear a mechanical click coming from the tile on the floor. The dwarf tried to leap out of the way, but it was too late! The axe from the nearby statue suddenly swung into motion, arcing downwards and striking into the dwarf’s armour as Thora reflexively protected their head. It hurt, but the soldier would survive! Thora held up a hand, indicating to Alandal to hold back for a moment, as the axe moved back into position, ready to strike again. The dwarf carefully stepped to the side and tried to disable the pressure plate, only to set off the axe again.

The dragonborn bard, watching this unfold, decided to grab a nearby reading chair and place it over the plate. As expected, the axe swung down quickly, but this time digging itself firmly into the chair, unable to reset. With the trap disarmed, the others came to join Thora in the torture room as the dwarf continued to stalk through the room, looking for anything that may help them.

Thora followed the blood trail on the floor as it snaked past the torture table and out through a door to another room. While the others explored the torture chamber, the soldier moved quietly through rooms filled with skeletons. Some of them were chained to the walls, while others lay on tables. Thora treaded carefully and slowly, trying not to raise any attention. The dwarf had heard many a tale of the undead, and based on what Thora could discern, these bones had moved of their own accord not too long ago.

Moving quickly but stepping softly through the dark chamber, Thora attempted to get to the far side, hoping to be unnoticed, but the loud footsteps of the dwarf’s companions put that plan to a halt. The hollow black voids of the skulls seemed to glow with some unearthly light as they came to life, intent on their new prey. Scratching noises came from behind the door that Thora had just closed, and the skeletal remains near Thora began to struggle against their chains, pulling to release themselves from their bindings. A snap echoed through the chamber as one of the skeletons ripped its own arm off in order to free itself. Maybe Thora could just stay REALLY still and they wouldn’t notice?

As the others charged into the room, the lurching undead swung wildly, clawing at them. Thora’s blades stabbed as quickly as possible, breaking apart any who came near. In the periphery, the dwarf spotted Duanne smashing another skeleton, while across the room Zearach was battling the group behind a door. They were surrounded by these awful kavgar!

As one pile of bones collapsed after another, the heroes were able to fall into formation and push back against the oncoming claws of former hotel residents. Were any of these from the missing folks they were looking for? Hopefully not, as they smashed the spines to pieces and sent the undead back to their rest. As Zearach felled the final one, they could finally take a breath and look around. Why was somebody animating these skeletons? With the tables and the chains on the wall, it seemed like an experiment more than somebody forming an army of the undead. What were they studying here?

Too late for Colom

As Thora opened door after door, they found another collection of belongings gathered from the guests of the Happy Magic Hotel. These seemed to be more valuable ones, perhaps those with more coin stayed on this floor? Rich clothing, piles of gold, fancy cushions… the signs of wealth filled the room. The victims’ families would surely appreciate having these returned, if there had been any way to determine the original owners. Duanne began stuffing his bag, his shell, and any container he could put his hands on. The tortle was so loaded down with riches he was hunched over and no longer able to keep up with the rest of them. One of these days, that wizard’s habit of grabbing everything that wasn’t nailed down was going to come back to haunt them!

While Duanne continued to fill up on loot, Thora decided to continue following the trail of blood on the floor. Whomever the poor soul was that had been dragged through all these rooms had lost a LOT of blood on the way, indicating a particularly messy assassination. The soldier had spent enough time learning how to kill that they knew that you could end someone cleanly, if you so chose. There wouldn’t be this much mess to clean up, or as much evidence. That meant that whomever was doing this was either unskilled, out of control, or was doing so with purpose. The last one was the most frightening option of them all.

After passing through yet another sliding wall, the dwarf found the end of the trail, or the start of it, rather. What seemed like a simple hotel guest room contained an unmade bed soaked in the blood of the previous resident. When the killing had happened, the victim must have been sleeping, or about to. The dwarf leaned down closely, examining the sheets. They were soaked through… the attack had been brutal and the body had been held here in place long enough to thoroughly bloody the mattress and sheets. The dwarf had seen dharg’gorazkhron that made less of a mess in their killings!

Rummaging through the belongings near the bed, Thora found a small statuette in a trunk. It had the look of some sort of goblin tribal figure, perhaps a deity? It wasn’t high quality, perhaps why it had been left behind, but clearly it must have had value to its owner. Perhaps it had been the half-goblin, Colom, whom they had come here to find. The blood stains were still fairly fresh, it could not have been long since the murder. If only they had gotten here sooner!

They go “boom” now?

Reversing their tracks, Thora solemnly walked with the others back along the trail of blood, returning to the strange altar and bloody sigil on the floor. Something had happened in this room, but where would they go from here? Thora was filled with unease even being in the room, and couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. It sounded like even the statues were moaning and crying… perhaps the dwarf was hearing things?

“Does anyone else hear that?” asked Zearach, breaking the silence. The elf was slowly looking around the room, head cocked, his pointed ears listening closely. “I swear I heard someone crying.”

The elf slowly walked across the room, leaning up against the far wall, closing his eyes and pressing an ear to the surface.

“There’s somebody in distress on the other side of this wall. Was there another way around?” asked the elf.

Walking back through the halls, the quartet found their way to a door, directly opposite where Thora and Duanne had encountered the older woman and her younger relative. The sound was clearer from this side, clearly someone sobbing! They rushed in, hoping to save whomever was still there from the fate that other guests had met only to stop in their tracks immediately at the entrance. Hanging there by a noose, slowly dripping, was the upper torso of a man. His entrails hung out, slowly dripping into a receptacle on the floor below him. The dead man still wept, somehow still partially alive through some horrible magic. Upon their entrance, though, the sad eyes suddenly filled with a burning flame and fire burst outwards across the room, erupting from within the chest of the hanged torso. The skin charred as flames licked across the surface of the body and the body tried to reach for them, flaming maw open and glowing eyes focused solely on them now.

Battle instincts took over and the heroes quickly unloaded upon the creature, trying to end it quickly. As Thora’s arrow struck the flaming body, it pierced through, exposing a burning engine at the core of the thing. The dwarf’s eyes went wide as it became obvious the zombie was about to detonate. Time seemed to slow down as the soldier’s stout frame pounded out the doorway and down the hall, trying to cover as much distance as possible. As Thora ran down the hall, the explosion rang out and flame filled the corridor, the dwarf dodging through a doorway just in time to avoid being caught in the blast. What was that thing?

Almost immediately, though, Thora realized the others might have been caught in the explosion. Rushing back to the room the dwarf found his companions exiting from a trap door they had slid down, just in time. The room had been decimated by the blast. For all their careful investigations up until this point, there would be little chance that someone had not heard that sound.

They needed to regroup and think up of a new plan. Distractedly following the others back to their rooms on the second floor, Thora thought about what they had discovered so far. That feeling was rising again inside the dwarf’s chest. A desire for justice, to avenge the innocent. The soldier still had enough common sense to keep the feelings bottled up for now, to use it to push forward. Some might have given in to the rage, some might have fled in terror from this place. However, looking at the steady resolve on the other members of the crew, Thora knew that there would be no running for any of them tonight. The dead would be avenged!