As the Guardians of the Grave descended into the subterranean complex beneath the manor atop Iris Hill, things went from bad to worse. Their initial encounter was with a strange, grotesque undead with flabby, saggy skin. Its raspy voice continually inquired “Have you seen the Yellow Sign?”
It lashed out at the group, bellowing that they were blasphemers for not submitting to the King in Yellow after seeing his Yellow Sign. When the wretch sensed he was near the end of his unlife, he released a blast of necrotic energy before collapsing to the floor. Kiera
and Virgil
felt their life force drain away from them as they received two negative levels each. At the back of their mind, they could still hear his eerie voice asking them over and over,
Have you SEEN the Yellow Sign?
Have YOU seen…the Yellow Sign?
Have you seen…have you seen it? The Yellow Sign?
The Guardians fought their way through a horde of dire rats, led by a rat king, that were living in the fetid well beneath the manor, then quickly killed the last two Kuru cannibals that were rummaging through the ice cellar. They then came upon a set of heavy double doors, beyond which they could hear a quiet voice asking probing questions to which no response was heard.
Bursting though the door, the party found themselves in the Lowl’s family crypt. Laid atop a closed stone sarcophagus was the body of the missing Royal Accuser Omari. Looming over him was a lithe creature, wrapped from head to toe in tight linens in the Qadiran style: turned-up toes on her boots, a hood, and face covering. Something about the woman did not seem to be human, as she had talon-like nails, and something about her shape under the clothing just…seemed wrong. 
Interrupted from her inquisition of the dead Accuser, the creature, Weiralai, turned her attention to the party and snarled. Lei Long
launched himself at her and landed a solid blow, but it seemed to barely phase her. With the wave of her hand, a wall of stone sprung up between the rest of the party and the melee, locking the two in a stone prison. The Leng slaver dropped her face covering and smiled with a sickening grin. A mouth full of too many razor sharp teeth bit down hard on Lei Long’s arm and he felt it go numb as her saliva entered his flesh.
Cut off the their ally, the remaining trio scrambled for a plan to breach the wall. Kiera launched a spell at it to see if it could be blasted through. Her magic missiles streaked out and passed through the stone wall. In an instant she knew that it was just an illusion and conveyed this to the other two. As their minds accepted the truth and shook off the restraints of the illusion, the wall melted away and revealed the tangled melee on the other side. Lei Long continued to punch and kick the woman as her long claws and teeth returned blows of their own. When she raised her hands up to strike down on his friend, Virgil took careful aim at the soft flesh of her underarm.
Take this, you ugly bitch, he thought as he fired off his pistol. Weiralai flinched, but was not debilitated like the attack should have done. Virgil realized that this woman, though humanoid in shape, was not built like others he had hunted and studied. Her anatomy was foreign to him. He continued to pop off shots at her, guessing at where her sensitive spots could be. Some found purchase, others did not.
With a combination of gunfire, fists, and spells, the Leng slaver was finally brought down. With her patented toothy smile, Weiralai left them with a chilling thought, “You WILL be my slaves again…see you soon” before her body cracked and crumbled, disintegrating into a fine black sand.
After dispatching Weiralai, a quick search of the crypt uncovered a large assortment of valuable jewelry, decorative scepters, and a magical longsword that glowed with a purple light. Against the south wall, a seven-foot-high bas-relief sculpture of Pharasma was discovered to be hiding a secret spiral staircase that led further down to another level underground. Royal Accuser Omari had a strange device strapped to an arm: confabulation plates.
Approximately 10 inches on each side, two square, brass-colored metal plates with rubber edges were clamped to Omari’s forearm. Large screws at each corner tighten the plates like a clamp and in the center of the top plate was a fleshy tube that ends in a suction cup ringed with tiny teeth. Next to the base of the tube was a small winding key that powered the device and a toggle switch on the side allowed for the selection of the device’s function. An inspection by Kiera and Aldrich
revealed that plates can be used to communicate with a dead entity or with plants. Virgil appraised the plates and determined that they were quite valuable, so they were safely stowed away until the party could find a proper buyer.
Descending the hidden staircase, the amnesiacs emerged into a hallway that led to two massive rooms. On their left was a large chamber that resembled the courtyard of an ancient, subterranean palace, with columns supporting a 30-foot-high cloister dome. In the middle of the floor, a tile mosaic of the Yellow Sign emitted a thin, yellow vapor that filled the room with a faint odor of chrysanthemums. The vapor rose to the concave dome of the vault, through which an image of the minarets, towers, and spires of a mysterious city silhouetted against a yellow sky could be seen. The image swayed softly
with a slow alternation of light and darkness, to the sound of invisible pipes and strings. At the far end of the chamber, a marble throne sat within a semicircular apse. A floor-to-ceiling band of gilded mosaics decorates the walls, depicting a fantastic urban landscape populated by figures in flowing robes and full-face masks.
On their right, a circular, vaulted chamber, housed a platform of natural bedrock upon which stood a black stone monolith similar to the two in Thrushmoor. The star stelae glowed from within with a pale, yellow light. Dark, dried pools of blood stained the floor surrounding the monument, an indication that multiple sacrifices had taken place. The mystery of where the missing town folk had gone came to a violent and grisly conclusion.
Virgil held up a hand to halt the group at the base of the stairs and silently motioned that he was going to scout out the courtyard. Sneaking toward the massive chamber, he heard the sound of a feminine voice speaking in low, hushed tones, but could not make out any words. He took another step forward to try to eavesdrop and caught sight of two flying creatures, 15 feet off the ground in the center of the room. The sound of Melisenn’s voice was quickly replaced with a loud explosion that erupted from his feet. Virgil had stepped on an invisible sigil laid as a trap to destroy anyone who tried to interrupt Melisenn’s ritual. Virgil flattened himself against the wall and covered his ears in a split second, saving himself from being deafened by the explosive cacophony.
Melisenn whipped her head to the chamber entrance and scowled. The group of meddlesome amnesiacs that had been receiving reports about had finally made their way to her sanctuary, and she was prepared for them. Having been studying the group in the days since they had first attacked her undead guards at Fort Hailcourse, she had been learning their tactics, noting which spells they preferred. After they had killed the two nobles in the guest house, she knew it was only a matter of time until they had found their way down to the Unspeakable One’s throne room. She started the day with a plethora of defensive spells and waited until they approached. When the statue of Pharasma was opened above, her sentry, a sabrewing that had emerged from the mists of Carcosa, quickly and silently returned to her so she could make her final preparations.
A student of rune magic, Melisenn littered the room with half a dozen hidden runic traps that contained her most powerful debilitating spells; spells to blind or deafen, curse, and paralyze any of her enemies who tried to step foot inside the courtyard. Hearing the explosion at the entrance, she knew it was time. Yelling down at the tiefling who had tried to use a simple parlor trick to hid from her, Melisenn raged,
If you think your condition means you’re important, you’re wrong. You are nothing! You are an ember floating from some putrid bonfire that will also wink out in the cold death of the universe. We are all worthless before the Unspeakable One! Even if he has marked you, I am the one who will open this world to him—not Lowls, and not you. You will not take my place—you will die! The King in Yellow is coming!
The sabrewing, master hunters that are unable to be thwarted by invisibility, dove with lightning speed at Virgil and raked him with his razor sharp wings. Melisenn called upon Hastur to grant her another ally to destroy these foes and her god answered her call. A creature of pure force materialized behind Virgil at the entrance of the stairs, right where the rest of the party had been waiting. In seconds, the party was being assaulted by Melisenn and her two allies. Virgil stepped further into the courtyard to get a better angle on the cleric of Hastur…and stepped on another deadly rune. He felt a cold, necromantic energy flow through his body that sapped him of his energy; he had been cursed.
Kiera stepped past the glowing yellow spiritual ally and into the hallway, knowing that it could not be harmed by any of her magic. She could see that the two other foes were both in the air and knew that this would be an aerial combat. She turned to Lei Long and bathed him with arcane energy that would allow him to take to the air as well.
Lei Long soared above the group and barreled into Melisenn with his knees. He heard a crack as his hit found purchase between two of her ribs. Melisenn grunted, but showed not other sign of pain. She floated away from Lei Long to put distance between herself and then threw a spell at him. Lei Long’s vision began to dim and the world almost went black. For a brief moment his heart began to race and the beginnings of panic set in, but then he a distant memory from a lesson at the monastery return to him. He could hear his sensai’s voice, Sight does not create reality, what is real is real whether you see it or not. Your eyes are but one means of experiencing it. Sight is but one way to the truth. Lei Long accepted that having access to his sight would not be necessary to vanquish his foe and he relaxed his muscles and let the spell wash over him. With his mind prepared for the spell, he withstood its effect and the spell washed over him harmlessly; his eyes returned to normal.
Lei Long smiled and said under his breath, “Sight is but one way to the truth…” and then rushed Melisenn, unleashing a flurry of punches and kicks at her torso. No longer facing an enemy with foreign anatomy, each one found a sensitive spot and Lei Long heard the familiar sound of bones cracking. Melisenn coughed up a mouthful of blood as her body soaked in the blows. Her own vision began to blur and darken, but not from the effects of any spell.
Kiera and Aldrich, standing back in the hallway to avoid any additional traps laid about the cavernous courtyard, levels a duo of elemental might at the shadowy sabrewing. A lightning bolt arced through its body, causing it to stiffen up just as the fireball exploded in its face. Unable to shield itself from the arcane magic, the creature screeched as it plummeted to the floor. Melisenn, who had linked her life to it as a means of bolstering both their defenses, screamed in agony as her body was wracked with energy as well. As her body crashed to the floor alongside her sabrewing, the glowing spiritual ally that was about to unleash another attack, dimmed and vanished in a blink.
The Guardians of the Grave, now also the Defenders of Thrushmoor, breathed in a collective sigh as the battle concluded. Wounded and dripping with sweat, sapped of both their physical and mental energy, the group took a minute to bask in their victory. They had taken down an evil priestess of Hastur and thwarted her attempts at constructing a bridge to their world. Had they failed, they knew that it would not have been long before the King in Yellow, the Unspeakable One, could have emerged from his world and rained destruction down upon theirs.
