Hangman's Noose (Erastus [VII] 2nd, 4707 AR)

Absalom is an old city and no stranger to murder. Throughout its history, countless men, women, and children have met horrible ends in its darkened alleys, shaded tenements, and abandoned buildings. They choke on their own blood until their bodies surrender up their souls, but they never leave. Absalom’s dead linger. They dance in shadows at the edge of lantern-light. They peer between the cracks of creaking floorboards. Their phantom breath sends shivers down the spines of the living.

No home in Absalom is without its haunts, ghosts, and whispers. The sounds of a weeping child from the attic in the dead of night, the moans of a tortured maid issuing from the basement of a crumbling manor, and the croaking rasp of a strangled man just beyond a bedroom window—all are heard for a moment amid a night’s storm and then swallowed up by thunder or silence. Some dismiss them as fancy or imagination, but we know better. The dead lurk all around us, in air and shadow, between the walls and right at your back. They watch while you sleep, and wait, moaning in the dark, united in their tireless hatred of the living.

The Pathfinder Chronicles

Background

Beldrin’s Bluff was once the shining center of Absalom’s wealthy elite. Resting atop the Precipice District, the district offered patrons of high-end restaurants, gentlemen’s clubs, and ladies’ teahouses a breathtaking view of a glittering sunset on the water and, if the clouds cooperated, a magnificent green flash as the horizon swallowed the sun.

Now the bluff is a smattering of ramshackle manors, open lots of twisted weeds, and broken cobblestones. The district courthouse is a decrepit four-story gothic relic of the bluff’s bygone days. Several years ago, erosion sent two blocks of Beldrin’s Bluff crumbling from their cliff-top perch, sloughing like dead skin from the city’s peak into the crashing tide of Absalom’s harbor below. Residents fled the once-charming district of shops, teahouses, and theaters for fear the entire Precipice Quarter might follow suit. During the chaotic, fearful days following the collapse, many strange events transpired in Beldrin’s Bluff. Fortunes disappeared, murderers slaughtered innocents, and families splintered, all in the grips of anarchy and terror. One of all these wild transpirations was the swift trial of Jarbin Mord and his subsequent execution by hanging.

The Mord Murders, a double homicide of mother and son, shocked the city. The gruesome axe-slayings are still discussed in hushed tones around hearth fires ten years later. The trial that followed ended with the eventual conviction of executioner Jarbin Mord, father and husband of the victims. Jarbin Mord was known around town as a taciturn harbinger of death with a drooping mouth and a lazy eye. Apparently Old Hangman Mord lost his mind and took an axe to his boy and lady-love.

Mord’s trial was peculiar. It is the first and only murder case held in the very building where the victims were killed. Jarbin was the groundskeeper and executioner of the courthouse, and his lovely young wife and six-year-old boy were hewn to pieces in his attic apartment above the courtroom where he stood trial. Every week, on “Noose Wealday,” Mord put on his black wool hood and carried out executions for the court. After his trial, he was hung from the very gallows he once tended.

The case of Jarbin Mord was the last to see the bar in the district courthouse. The doors were locked tight the next day and its windows nailed shut with boards. Ever since, on windless nights, the old courthouse creaks and passersby catch a glimpse of a pale form skulking beyond the boarded windows. Those few neighbors who scoffed bravely at the cliffside collapse and planned to continue residing near the abandoned courthouse moved on in short order after the first few disappearances. The details of the strange events that precipitated their flight remain untold except for two words: “The Croaker.” Ever since his hanging was carried out, those who wander too close to the courthouse can still hear Jarbin Mord rasping through his crushed throat—the sound of breath pushed over bone and rot, a miserable inhuman echo of life.

Five years after the trial, a famed cleric of Sarenrae led a band of adventurers into the moldering courthouse. Seeking glory and hoping to prove they were Absalom’s greatest heroes, they decided to banish the restless soul of Jarbin Mord to the Abyss. The expedition was much talked about among all echelons of Absalom. Scullery maids giggled and swooned over Father Kelgaard’s blond locks and crystal blue eyes; guardsmen cheered on their captain, the imposing Grisdom Twin-Axe; and nobles lauded one of their favored scions, the highborn wizard Sashrala Vortrum. The best and brightest of Absalom marched into Beldrin’s Bluff Courthouse at sundown on the anniversary of Mord’s hanging.

At dawn the next day, only Grisdom emerged. Blind, his eyes hulled from his face, the guard captain cradled a lantern with Sashrala’s decapitated head stuffed inside, a still-lit candle in her silently screaming mouth. Demands for an account of the night’s events only solicited senseless fragments from the tatters of Grisdom’s mind: “The Hangman… a neck for a neck… hate never forgets… show me the way out, Sashrala! Show me the way!”

No one has crossed the courthouse threshold since. Fear spread from the place like a sickness, until even the most stubborn holdouts to keep their quarters in Beldrin’s Bluff departed or died off. Once Absalom’s most vibrant district, the bluff is now a ghost town. The silence of its streets is broken only by the rasping wind.

Now the tenth anniversary of the Mord hanging approaches, and few have forgotten the case or the horrific events of five years past. Citizens mark their calendars and children at play sing eerie songs.

“Wealday, Wealday, Hangman comes for you,

Ole Broke-Neck Mord, gonna hang you too.”

Introduction

A leaning monument to the district’s pain, this four-story courthouse is a crumbling marvel of cracked plaster and chipped marble. Once a testament to justice wrought in shining white stone, the courthouse is now a crushed dream, its wretched exterior corrupted by a bloated evil festering within.

Rainwater from a recent downpour mixed with mulch oozes from ruptures in the rock like pus bubbling from a wound. The structure of the eastern wing of the upper floor buckled long ago, and now the bell tower tilts perilously, appearing as though it might careen to the ground below at any moment. Two massive pillars frame the heavy oak doors of the court. The pillars’ surfaces run with cracks and fissures like so many burst veins. The doors sag in their archway like the drooping eyes of a madman. The surrounding structures long ago fell in upon themselves in supplication to the creaking courthouse.

A salt wind blows up the precipice and rakes across the tangled weeds of Beldrin’s Bluff. The whole building groans as the wind blows, its tortured lamentation fading to a rasping hiss as the wind ebbs. This croaking murmur never completely fades away. The sun sets in the west, the last slivers of twilight painting the courthouse blood red as darkness creeps closer.

Each of the heroes was either a juror or was related by blood to one of the original twelve jurors present at Mord’s trial. The actual related jurors have already passed away or are no longer in the city, and so the heroes were chosen in their place to sit the jurors’ box on the gruesome anniversary of Jarbin’s death. The story began with a montage of fragmented nightmares before the heroes suddenly awakened in the jurors’ box in the courtroom. One of the other jurors drugged and kidnapped the heroes, bringing them to the courthouse in a drug-induced stupor.

After they saw the exterior of the haunted courthouse in their mind’s eye (given in the red text above), the heroes each experienced one more vision—a different one for each character.

Gryxxa's Vision

The courtroom buzzes with nervous anticipation. Dozens of eyes, from the crowd behind you and the jurors’ box across the aisle, focus on you. The expressions range from contempt to pity, but there is no forgiveness in their faces. The magistrate slams down his gavel repeatedly and snarls for silence. The murmur of the crowd relents as the stocky magistrate draws up to his full height, smoothing a silver beard with one hand as he sets down his gavel and focuses on you with shining green eyes.

“Jarbin Mord. For the brutal and savage slaying of your own wife and six-year-old boy, it is the verdict of this jury, with which I concur wholeheartedly, that you shall hang by your neck until dead. May the gods take mercy on your blackened soul.”

Zemurin's Vision

A clack of wood on wood is followed by a whip crack of rope drawing taut. The crunch of vertebrae echoes off the walls. A man’s booted feet twitch freakishly as his last breath rasps from his ruined throat in a choking death rattle. You suddenly realize the man is you, and you look down in horror at your own twitching legs. The crowd jeers with delight and laughs as you rasp your last.

Jule's Vision

A hulking man is hunched over in this dark dreary corridor of cold flagstone, his back to you. His right hand works feverishly, sawing away at something unseen with a blood-slick shortsword as he gibbers: “Show me the way, Sashrala, you can do it. Use your magic to show me out of here. I love you. I love you so much. Just please show me the way!” With a final wet snap of sinew, blood pools at the man’s feet and he hefts the gory head of a beautiful elven woman. “Thank you, Sashrala. I love you.” The man cries and laughs at once as he kisses her still-working lips and then thrusts her head forward like a lantern. The poor woman’s eyes still blink in disbelief; you get the horrid sense she can still see as her mouth trembles out a vain and silent plea for mercy. Her body lies in a pool of blood flowing freely from her hacked neck. Her right arm is outstretched, her finger pointing toward something beyond the darkness.

Aranthor's Vision

A cloaked figure enters a small attic. A voluptuous woman with dark features sits in a rocking chair, swaying as she hums and knits a sweater for a small child. She looks up, alarm on her face, as the figure closes, its back to you as it advances toward her. Slowly the alarm changes to horror as the figure looms over her.

Slowly, the vision faded away as the heroes returned to consciousness, but the sight that greeted them was almost as disturbing. The dying gray light of sunset peeked through slits in the boarded windows, barely illuminating a yawning courtroom replete with pews and a towering bench covered in cobwebs. A shadowed mural on the domed ceiling above depicted Iomedae in her shining plate mail of gilded sunlight, locked in mortal combat with Norgorber, Calistria, and Asmodeus, holding the trifecta of evil at bay with her shining sword. The heroes found themselves in a jurors’ box, and they were not alone. In the other chairs, figures stirred in the darkness, each emerging from troubling dreams into a new nightmare.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury

The heroes were joined in the courtroom by eight jurors, all of whom sat in on the trial of Jarbin Mord ten years ago. The jurors and the heroes did not simply appear here. One among them, pretending to be in the same situation, drugged and kidnapped each one.

Each of the jurors is detailed below.

Halgrak Five-Toes: A massive half-orc smith, Halgrak is odious.

Halgrak is a large half-orc with a broad, strong face and tousled mass of wiry dark hair. His frame is imposing but his shoulders hang dejectedly. He is a curmudgeon to the bone, certain everything will end horribly, and holds no hope of survival. He nay-says every plan of action the heroes hatch and doom-speaks their every undertaking.

Ebin Blithoddle: A failed jester whose ill attempts at jokes only ever invite scorn.

The little gnome attempted to turn every phrase the heroes uttered and tried in vain to make light of the horrible situation everyone awakened to inside the musty old courthouse. His jokes only added to the unsettling atmosphere around them.

Ebin Blithoddle covers his skin with poor-quality white makeup that cakes unseemly on his brow and cheeks. His motley is stretched tight over his hanging paunch. Several of his teeth are broken and he twirls his sap pretty much all the time.

Patrissa Vrakes: A former adventurer and a sorceress of some note. She wears a necklace of fire opals and toys with it incessantly.

Patrissa is still very beautiful despite her overindulgences in life and wears her weight well. She favors bright red lipstick and an abundance of rouge to add to her appeal. She still has a sly smile and a sultry wink. Patrissa wears a figure-hugging gown of red silk that accentuates her considerable curves.

Killian Paltreth: Killian Paltreth is the town drunk and indebted socialite.

Killian is a rosy-cheeked old human man dressed in threadbare finery with a broad handlebar mustache and a frayed top hat. He has a paunch and squints through a crystal monocle. His gray-black eyes affect a jocular inebriated sparkle as he sips his flask.

Malgrim Hurkes: Under normal circumstances, a hobgoblin could never get on the jury, but in the wake of the earthquake, there was no authority in place to object when the lumberjack Malgrim showed up at the trial. It took all of Patrissa’s efforts to convince Sir Rekkart not to kill Malgrim on sight, but by then she and the foppish paladin were flirting with each other half the time.

Malgrim was soon swept aside, “persuaded” to throttle himself with his own chain. Malgrim was the first victim, but before his death he caused the others a great deal of trouble. Hurkes enjoyed lighting up and taking a long drag on his cigar before he answered a question or otherwise taunted someone.

Sir Rekkart Cole: An upright paladin in the service of Iomedae. Cole is as pure-hearted, law abiding and quick-witted as they come. Rekkart is a stalwart ally to the heroes' activities. His memory of the trial is blurry in points and crystal clear in others.

Rekkart is a tall, sturdy human man in his fiftieth winter, with the snow of age gracing his hair. His face is chiseled as if out of marble, and his narrowed eyes stare down an impressive nose with a superior air. He is very useful in the sense that he happily tells the heroes that he and the others were all members of the jury for Mord’s trial.

Madge Blossomheart: A pretty young halfling, ten years ago Madge was selected as a juror. She is still as stunningly beautiful at 30 as she was at 20 and immediately latched on to the most handsome and manly hero, seeking protection. Madge is a thin halfling with an athletic build.

Madge has pouty lips, auburn hair she wears in a topknot, and her sculpted physique draws men’s desire even as her crystal blue eyes and air of innocence makes them want to protect her.

Tablark Hammergrind: A grizzled old dwarf laborer who has held more than a hundred odd jobs in cities all over Golarion, Tablark is pretty sure he’s seen all the world has to show in his 452 winters. He displays stout courage and does his best to take control of the situation. His steely resolve should serve to bolster the heroes: “You don’t fear lads, Old Tablark’s seen more ghosts than these walls ’ave rats. Nothing to quake about. We’ll send this foul spirit a’packin’ or me clan name ain’t Hammergrind!”

Welcome to the Party

All of the kidnapped jurors have their gear. Someone managed to drug and kidnap each of them while they were alone, someone clever enough that there does not appear to be any consistent elements in any of their stories.

Exploring the Courthouse

Mord’s troubled spirit is only one of the courthouses’ resident souls. The twisted spirit of his son, Gabe, lingers as well. Mord’s son is not a typical undead but rather exists now as a haunting presence in the courthouse. The boy is dangerous.

Besides the effects listed below, the heroes occasionally hear the little boy giggling in the darkest corners of the courthouse or hear his footfalls running on the upper floors, but if they rush to investigate no one is there.

Courtroom

Rows of dusty benches, several askew or knocked over, are lined behind a waist-high partition separating spectators from trials. A dusty wooden jurors’ box, rickety from generations of termites and time’s cruel fangs, stands against the south wall. A high bench covered in muslin rests against the east wall. Two thick tables once stood facing the bench, now one has been smashed to kindling. An evidence table rests against the south wall.

This is where the trial of Jarbin Mord took place and where the heroes awakened.

When Zemurin and Aranthor approached the evidence table, a piece of the mural on the ceiling above (the portion with Iomedae’s shining sword upon it) broke free from the ceiling with a groaning crack. The chunk of marble fell onto the evidence table and sent the bloody axe on it spinning end over end across the courtroom, sinking solidly into the wall of the jurors’ box. Zemurin took bludgeoning damage from the falling chunk of marble. Jule and the other jurors between the evidence table and the jurors’ box were clipped by the axe as it flew through the air.

Judge's Chambers

These simple quarters haven’t been used in years. A plain oak desk stands near the back. Several voluminous texts on Absalom law, all gilt-edged and bound in leather, lay scattered about in the room.

When the heroes entered the room, Gabe’s spirit hurled books off the shelves, cackling maliciously. One book in particular, entitled “Punish the Guilty”, fell open on Trabe’s desk to a passage that read: “We, entrusted with justice, must be above reproach. Those who fail to serve justice blindly shall reap what they sow.”

Malgrim's Death

About an hour after everyone woke up in the courtroom, the hobgoblin decided to lead the way into the great hall. The door to the great hall slammed shut behind him.

A harsh staccato whisper built to the rasping croak of a strangled man that echoed through the entire courthouse. Malgrim screamed frantically over the horrid sound. “No! Get away from me! You’re dead! I saw you swing! No!” The jangling of a chain and wet gurgling followed. Then all went silent.

When the door opened afterward, the heroes found Malgrim hanging from the rafters by his own spiked chain, quite dead, his blood pooling on the floor beneath his swinging boots.

Great Hall

Eight enormous marble pillars fill this great hall, holding aloft grand balconies. Years of dust cover the floor, and muslin coverings are draped over the railings of baroque staircases curling like lazy serpents up to the raised landings above. A rusted chandelier above sheds the dim light of a few guttering candles. An impressive grandfather clock more than ten feet tall rests against the center of the western wall, its face decorated with guilty souls suffering Asmodeus’ torments: evisceration, force-feasting of coals, scalding blades tearing them apart, and other less savory punishments. The clock stands between a set of impressive oak doors and a lone oak door of equitable splendor, identical to another set across the hall. The largest set of doors is at the south end of this long hall. They are barred against the night.

This long hall is the main promenade of the courthouse. Four sets of thick oaken doors and a heavy iron door lead out. A small privy is located in the northeast corner of the hall. The large set of wooden doors on the south end of the promenade leads out of the courthouse to windswept Beldrin’s Bluff.

Clues: The dust on the floor of this chamber has been disturbed from the entrance to the courtroom everyone woke up in. Gryxxa noticed that one person dragged several unconscious bodies into the courtroom only a few hours earlier. She also noticed that 11 bodies were dragged in (an important clue that indicates one among the 12 jurors was responsible for bringing the others here).