Intermission (Erastus (VIII) 15th-Rova (XI) 24th, 4712 AR)
The strange events in the Market didn't deter most of the patrons, who fled from immediate danger but returned quickly to resume business after any threats were dealt with.
The Andoran faction Pathfinders wanted to persuade Zeeva to write them a letter of introduction to her
brother Aldern Foxglove pursuant to purchasing the Foxglove family townhouse in
Magnimar. Zeeva explained that Aldern is actually deceased and that she holds
the rights to the property (but must consider her sister Sendeli in any
decision regarding its sale). The heroes persuaded Zeeva to convince her sister to sell the property, and earned Andoran
faction Pathfinders 375 gp.
During that conversation, Zeeva told the heroes the story of her family. Foxglove Manor was one of the first homes raised along the Lost Coast, built nearly 80 years ago by a Magnimar merchant prince named Vorel. The building stood vacant for nearly 40 years before Traver Foxglove, Zeeva's and Sendeli's father, decided to move his family into the manor to reclaim his heritage and expunge the sour taint of the house’s reputation. Visitors had found the family and servants that used to live there dead of a mysterious disease, after days when nothing was heard from the manor. Disposal of the bodies was handled with utmost secrecy by the surviving Foxgloves of Magnimar, and they shunned Foxglove Manor for decades to follow.
Traver's wife Cyralie gave birth to his only son Aldern not long after they moved in. For 6 years, it seemed as if whatever was wrong with the manor had corrected itself. Traver’s son and daughters were growing into fine young aristocrats and his fortunes seemed to be booming.
In Traver, the manor's unquiet spirit found unformed clay it could sculpt, and as the years wore on, the spirit's influence over Traver grew. In time, Cyralie became convinced that Traver’s mental decline was caused by the manor itself. In a fit of desperation, she lit the servants’ outbuilding on fire then returned to the manor intending to do the same to it, but Traver, fully in the spirit' s embrace, murdered her before she could light that fire. The shock of watching his wife die freed Traver from the spirit's influence long enough for him to kill himself in despair.
Smoke from the fire was seen as far away as Sandpoint, and when townsfolk arrived to investigate, they found the servants’ outbuilding burnt to the ground and Traver dead by his own hand. His wife’s body was found burnt and dashed against the rocks below. Cowering in a second-floor bedroom, though, the townsfolk discovered the Foxglove children. Zeeva and her siblings spent time in a Magnimar orphanage before they were claimed by Traver’s second cousin and brought to the city of Korvosa to be raised.
Fifteen years passed before Aldern, now a grown man and a successful merchant himself, returned to the Lost Coast. Rich and popular, he secured a townhouse in Magnimar and set into motion his claim to the family manor. As he reestablished old family connections, he also approached the Brothers of the Seven, a secret society that was itself a cover for a cult of murderers known as the Skinsaw Men. Aldern found that the society welcomed him with open arms, and it was primarily through their influence that he was able to reclaim Foxglove Manor with such ease.
But Aldern Foxglove had trouble finding skilled laborers and servants to aid him in restoring his family estate — Foxglove Manor’s reputation as a bad place had had decades to take root in local superstition. Worse, the manor’s cellars were infested with rats — horribly diseased and aggressive rats that kept to themselves as long as no one ventured too far into the basement. The job was enormous, from the need to patch the leaky roof in dozens of places to dealing with the strange and repugnant fungus that grew so tenaciously in the basement.
It was about this time that Aldern, returning from a visit to Sandpoint, happened upon a group of Varisians on the moor not far from Foxglove Manor, trapped by the terrible gale he himself was trying to get home through. Seized by an uncharacteristic fit of charity, Aldern did one of the few selfless things of his life and brought the dozen Varisians home with him, inviting them to stay in his manor until the storm had ended. And in doing so, he brought Iesha into his life.
Iesha was surely the most beautiful woman Aldern had ever met, a goddess with raven-black hair and luscious curves, the voice of an angel and the heart of a lion. Aldern fell wildly and passionately in love with the Varisian woman and proposed marriage to her before dawn broke. Overwhelmed by the man’s handsome looks, social standing, apparent generosity, and wealth, Iesha accepted, and they were married within the week. Alas, as Iesha would soon learn, there was more to Aldern than met the eye.
For Aldern had a mean streak in him, one planted in his soul during his unpleasant upbringing in Korvosa and nurtured by his association with the Brothers of the Seven — in particular by that group’s leader, Justice Ironbriar. Aldern’s passions and lust for Iesha gave way to jealousy and paranoia, and he grew overprotective of his wife’s honor to the extent of locking her in the manor during his business trips to Magnimar. There, Ironbriar continued to work at the man’s soul, grooming him for eventual induction into the Skinsaw Cult.
Then, one night after arriving home late from Magnimar, Aldern found Iesha and one of the carpenters together in the library. Making a wildly inaccurate guess at what was going on, he brained the man with a statuette from a shelf, causing Iesha to fly into a frenzy. When Aldern recovered from his rage, he found he’d strangled his wife to death with her own silk scarf.
In a growing panic, Aldern disposed of the carpenter’s body by throwing it down the nearby well, but he couldn’t bring himself to do the same with Iesha. Instead, he wrapped her corpse in a sheet and hid it in the attic, locking the door and intending to return later to deal with the evidence. He then fled back to the Brothers of the Seven in Magnimar to seek their advice on how to handle this tragic turn of events.
The Brothers of the Seven promised him they’d take care of his problem, asking him to avoid returning home to his manor while they went to work. In the days that followed, Aldern explained to visitors that Iesha was away visiting friends in distant Absalom and that work on restoring his manor had come to a halt while he awaited more funds to pay for the final stages of the restoration. He kept up a brave face in public, but in truth, he was slowly being driven bankrupt, both morally and financially, by the Brothers of the Seven. Every week, they demanded more payments in return for their services, while at the same time providing him with the flayleaf he had become addicted to, drawing him further and further into their control. They never did go to Foxglove Manor to hold up their end of the deal.
That was when Xanesha, the mysterious patron of the Brothers of the Seven, decided to involve Aldern in her plans. Promised that his debt to the Brothers of the Seven would soon be paid in full, he was told that he could finally meet her. He was taken before Xanesha, who informed Aldern that one final task remained before him. It was a simple task, really — return to Foxglove Manor, catch one of the diseased rats that plagued the cellars, and return with it to Xanesha for her to study.
Eager to finally be free of his debt, but nervous about returning to the scene of his crime, Aldern swore off the flayleaf, cleaned himself up, and headed north. He lacked the courage to go directly to Foxglove Manor, though, and instead continued on to Sandpoint, where he attended the Swallowtail Festival. Goblins raided the town during that festival, and Aldern’s life was saved by a group of adventurers. Aldern grew obsessed with one of these strangers, realizing that here might be someone he could use to climb out of his pit of depression. Ever a master of deception, he maintained his facade of being a successful local noble while he nurtured this new obsession.
When he finally returned to Foxglove Manor after his stay in Sandpoint he avoided the upper floors and the sounds of muffled sobbing that he assumed were only in his mind. In reality, Iesha had not remained dead for long. Regardless, Aldern had difficulty finding any rats. The manor's spirit had wakened once again and caused the rats to retreat far underground. When Aldern searched the basement, he heard a strange scratching from under the sagging floor in a central room. Assuming the sounds to be the rats he sought, he dug through the floor and uncovered an ancient stairwell, one that led to a hidden laboratory under the manor. In these caverns, he finally discovered not only the rats he sought, but the source of their affliction: a disturbing patch of fungus that grew along a cave wall. Harvesting both, he unknowingly exposed himself to latent necromantic contagions, and by the time he returned to Magnimar with the samples secured for Xanesha, he had already all but succumbed to a potent form of ghoul fever.
Xanesha recognized the sickness for what it was and encouraged its growth. Her influence lived on in Aldern's undeath. She taught him something called the Sihedron ritual, and once his transformation was complete, sent him back to Foxglove Manor to build an army of ghouls and expand the harvest of "souls of greed" to aid in the reawakening of an ancient wizard-tyrant known as Runelord Karzoug.
When a string of murders struck Sandpoint, victims were left mutilated, and carved into their chests was a familiar seven pointed star - a clue left by a madman calling himself the "Skinsaw Man". The same adventurers that had saved Aldern's life began piecing together clues and soon realized the region may well face a plague of ghouls. After investigating murder scenes, interviewing victims, and running into some unexpected trouble along the way, the search for answers led the adventurers to Foxglove Manor.
Arriving at Foxglove Manor, the adventurers found the rumors about the mansion being haunted were entirely true. Eventually, they confronted the murderer — a ghoulishly transformed Aldern Foxglove — only to discover he’d been working for another group based in Magnimar. Retracing his steps, the adventurers came to the largest city in western Varisia and uncovered and confronted the Brothers of the Seven, finally confronting Xanesha atop a teetering clock tower. A couple of those adventurers, two elves by the names of Shalelu and Tulann, visited Zeeva a couple of months ago to inform her of Aldern's fate. The Tulann Zeena met matches the description of the Tulann the heroes met in Kaer Maga.
By defeating the Aspis Consortium
brutes who threatened Zeeva Foxglove, the Pathfinders succeeded in their initial mission of
bringing that conflict to a close. Upon the revelation that an angry, powerful
spirit haunted the Green Market, the heroes defeated Galdron Greenheart's ghost
on the Ethereal Plane and laid his spirit to rest to ensure Zeeva's problems were truly ended. Doing so earned every Pathfinder 375 gp.
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