Episode 83: A Bad Idea for the Ages

Kobayashi watched the figure of King dissipate into a silvery mist on the floor of the cellar of chateau LaFey. As a chill ran up and back down and back up his spine once more, he heard footsteps and a hideous giggling from the top of a long, steep set of stone stairs to his right. Gone were the strange, rubbery tentacles that had dragged both he and the dead boy underground after King's fall from the second floor. Now all that was left was the monk, and the cold, menacing tomb with the open top that bore the name "Abigail".

The monk quickly scurried to the back of the tomb, away from the approaching stranger. Sitting with his back to the cold sarcophagus, he reached into his tunic and retrieved the only weapon he had on him: the empty wine bottle from the church basement. He heard the footsteps draw closer, and as they reached the bottom of the stairs and made their way to the tomb, Kobayashi swung into action, leaping up from his hiding place and hurling the wine bottle straight... 

...through...                                                     

                                ...the Count.

Not his ghost, mind you - but through the living Count de LaFey - alive and a few years younger, if not a little more crazed-looking. For in his arms was a small, desiccated figure that was also completely unaffected by the bottle as it whizzed through and smashed to a thousand pieces at the bottom of the stairs. The Count took no notice of the bottle or the monk, he just kept talking to it, gibbering a bit, and stray gobs of spittle drizzled down and christened it with his madness.

"Yes, my little one, yesssss.... Here we are and here you will be for the rest of Time, haha. No inheritance for you, no lands, no riches, no nothing, you putrid little thing... Just a box, a cold, cold box... One with your name on it, my dear..."

The Count then set in to a fit of maniacal laughter that, had Kobayashi been outfitted with a reel-to-reel tape deck, a microphone, and some electricity, could have provided excellent source material for Danish Gothic metal acts for centuries to come.

Once the Count ceased to cackle, he placed the mummified infant into the sarcophagus and pulled the lid closed. He then clapped his hands in glee, turned on his heel, and strode back upstairs, striding quite safely through the green shattered remnants of the wine bottle.

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Meanwhile, Madmartigan had just successfully gotten a Vidalia onion into a jeroboam (with only minor injuries) when a window opened on the second floor of the chateau, and an ancient and eldritch woman craned her chelonian neck over the railing and hailed Madmartigan with the most dreadful whispering voice as he'd hear again in all the rest of his days.

"You... Madmartigan... Get in here now... Grandma has made you some tea... Come inside and join us... Join usss... JOIN USSS..."

The primative forebrain of Madmartigan (responsible for logic and rational thought) turned to speak to the reptilian hindbrain (overseeing the more basic functions of the mind (namely fucking and fear)). But before the forebrain could whisper "May I have a word, please?" the hindbrain leapt to the attack, sank all of its hundreds of teeth into the forebrain, and then humped its brains out.

Invisible strings tugged at Madmartigan's limbs and drew him inside, past Xoe (who was still packing away the increasingly rare meats at the buffet) and upstairs to a long hallway lined with some seriously sinister carpet. The patterns would have surely hypnotized him, had he not already been under some dark and malevolent spell.

A hand shot out of the nearest doorway, and Madmartigan was pulled into a dark, mahogany-lined bedroom. The musty smell of death assaulted his nostrils, while the heavy scent scent of furniture polish went through his pockets looking for loose change.

"Here you go, my friend..." A cold, parchmenty hand reached out to him and gave him a teacup on a saucer. Grandma, even more wizened and corrupt-looking up close, smile up at him with a dark and foreboding twinkle in her eye. "Hold out your cup, while THEY pour you some of THEIR sweet, sweet tea..." Madmartigan turned to see a yellowed, chipped floral teapot floating through the air towards him. He suddenly felt very, very thirsty...
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Alone at last, Kobayashi found himself wondering exactly what the hells was going on. If that wasn't the Count's ghost, then why did the bottle pass through him? Was he dead? No, he was pretty sure he'd know if he was... He remembered something Takemiya said at the beginning - something about the chateau being out of time, unstuck in time, something about time... was he witnessing the past? The Count was obviously quite mad... could this scene be behind his current undead status?

Kobayashi decided to have a look in the sarcophagus. With some difficulty, he pulled the heavy stone lid inside. What he saw made his blood run cold: a small, mummified infant. It was lying in a copper-lined compartment within the stone edifice. Around it's neck was a silver chain, and on the chain was an amulet in the shape of an eye. The eye itself was a diamond that matched the sparkling brilliance of the one he'd found in King's music box - but deep inside the stone was a black, iridescent iris that glittered with it's own menacing light. Kobayashi stared, both horrified and fascinated, when the lesser of two bad ideas struck him and he removed the tiny brass key from his robes.

Holding the key, Kobayashi carefully hooked the chain with the key and pulled it up and around the mummy's shrunken head. The monk slowly lifted the necklace up and away from the ghastly thing when it suddenly exploded in a puff of ancient linen, rotten flesh and evil stem cells. The ensuing cloud obscured Kobayashi's whole head and upper body, causing him to inhale, and then cough out, old, rotten baby particles. As he went down to one knee, the screeching laughter of an evil child could be heard.

"This could be bad," thought the hacking monk.

As the laughter and fleshcloud died away, Kobayashi figured he better act, and act fast. He quickly casted about the crypt for materials to Detect Harmony. "Hmmm, let me see... Broken music box? check. Diamond the size of a d30? Check. Evil-looking eye pendant? Check. Shards of broken glass? Check."

Kobayashi arranged the odd collection of items and began the ritual chant.

Kobayashi rolled a 1.

The DM did a little dance.