26: Sister Catrina

Bezahltag 19^th Sigmarzeit

After celebrating killing the slug daemon, you woke up with sore heads. Balden and Dietrich weren’t around so you guessed they had gone on on a wizards’ date or something.

After Frau Koester’s gruel you went up to the Hangman hoping that Rotter might give you some work. Rotter told you that the Seaweed Man had been killed on the Doodkanaal, and when you told him that it was really a daemonic slug, and you had done it, he laughed didn’t believe you.

When you asked him for work he explained that he had lots of work but most of it involved moving things about by boat and since Kristoff had left you weren’t able to sail his boat. And Berta’s cart wasn’t the same as a boat.

But Max noticed some out-of-place young lady was looking at you, and he noticed that under her cape she had light green robes. And she approached you and asked if you were the ones who had spoken to Sister Catrina. So Max paid for a private booth and bought everyone a brandy.

She introduced herself as Sister Marit of the Verdant Heart and said that strange things had happened since you had been at the temple. And the temple pool had been assailed by tiny daemons, patients had been carried off, and Catrina had gone missing.

She said that she had only been in the Verdant Heart for a few weeks, but its beliefs were a bit strange and she had been told that some of the nuns had gone missing in the past. You said you would try to help and Berta asked her if she could get hold of a nun’s habit for her. Marit said she would sneak one out of the laundry room so you arranged to meet her at Frau Koester’s in an hour.

And she turned up with the robes, and so Berta put them on, and you made your way to the Temple of Shallya. Marit led Berta to Catrina’s cell, and she wrenched the door open with her new crowbar. And then Heinrich and Max joined them.

You had a look through the desk but didn’t find anything of interest, except you noticed that someone had scratched three circles in a triangle shape into the desktop. And looking round the room, Berta noticed that one of the wooden panels at the back of Catrina’s cot could swing open. And behind it you found a secret passage.

You convinced Marit to come with you thinking she might come in handy, and you all followed the natural fissure through the rock for about a hundred yards. And then the route began to open up a bit and you could see light ahead.

So Berta took off her Shallyan robes to make her less conspicuous and crept forward to take a look. She saw a large cavern which had ten beds along the sides with sick patients in them. And the patients were being attended to by what looked a bit like four Verdant Heart nuns but they were hunched and diseased and ragged.

And beyond this infirmary you could see that there was another cavern with a green light emanating from it. And you could hear what sounded like the buzzing of flies. Then Berta brought Marit forward to see if she recognised any of the hunched nuns, but she didn’t, but she explained she had only been in the order for a few weeks.

You wondered what to do next, and it didn’t feel right to simply attack them, because they were sort of Shallyans. You had a bit of a discussion with Marit who told you the fundamental strictures of her religion, and you wondered exactly what constituted the ‘Fly Lord’ especially as you could hear flies buzzing.

In the end, Marit said a blessing of protection and stepped forward and greeted her sisters and asked what they were doing. And immediately they became hostile. They backed away hissing and baring their teeth and clawed hands. One of them retreated to the next chamber but one charged at Max. He managed to dodge the attack and tried to hit her with the handle of his pistol.

Then Heinrich shot his bow at her, hitting her, and Berta tried to shovel her, but she was very determined and clawed at Berta and raked her with her filthy claws. So Max shot her with his pistol, killing her, and the other two nuns ran for it. Marit saw to Berta’s wounds and checked on the people in their beds and she said she had never seen such diseased and infirm people.

Then you followed the nuns into the next chamber and saw some strange circle had been created in the middle of the cavern, made from blood, bones, and organs. And the nuns were standing in the circle as if for protection. Within that circle three other circles had been created out of similar viscera, and at its centre was Catrina. You decided this needed magical expertise and bemoaned the fact that neither of the wizards were there to help you. Berta was alright with the grim circle, probably from dealing with rotting corpses in her business, but Max and Heinrich were too frightened to approach.

Catrina demanded to know why you had defiled the home of the goddess of love and mercy. And Max told her she had forgotten what real love and mercy was. And she replied by parting her robes. And you saw that her body was like a nest of foetid creatures, and the creatures, ten of them, rushed from her body towards you. They were like green, diseased babies, and they started crawling, but learned to walk, and then to run, in an instant.

Max was quick enough to level his blunderbuss at the onrushing plague babies, and blasted most of them with a single shot. Three of them remained and one ran at Berta and scrambled up her body clawing her flesh, and the other two went for Max. And with all the flies swirling about you had trouble defending yourselves. Meanwhile Catrina had grabbed one of the nuns and cut her throat and was draining the blood into the circle, which was glowing with increasing green light.

Berta managed to shovel the baby off of her and it fell to the floor dead. And Heinrich got over his fears and shot one of the ones that was attacking Max killing it. And Max tried to get rid of the last one, but it was digging its claws into him.

And Berta had the idea to disrupt the circle that had been focusing Catrina’s power. And he broached the circle and shovelled some of the viscera away, and that seemed to drain it. Max got clawed so badly he fell to the ground and all he could do was call to Marit for help, while Heinrich drew his sword and dispatched the last baby.

And Catrina was left in the middle of the circle with a dead nun at her feet and all the power she had summoned dissipating. And Berta walked into the circle and shovelled her in the head, killing her.

And so that was that. The two other corrupted nuns fled. Marit arrived and saw to Max’s wounds, and he felt better, but she shook her head and told you that it looked like the wound was infected. You asked if there was a place to treat him in the temple, and Marit said she would do what she could.