Session 2: The Kettle, the Key, and the Crooked Smile

Overview

The party arrived at the workshop of Seren Vell, just inside of Briar Hollow. From the outside, it was immediately evident that the locks had been tampered with and someone had entered the workshop with Seren's knowledge. Once inside, the party investigated the workshop as Seren explained his findings. He pointed to evidence of a larger pattern of intability all across Eryndor with no obvious pattern or cause.

The party found a mysterious package containing a wax seal depicting a crescent shape with a slash through the center. Seren identified this image as one of the symbols used by the Order of the Crooked Smile, a boogeyman urban legend type of group used to scare children. The party found some jet black wax under the tables as well with this symbol imprinted into it.

After some weird, unsettling events with a tea kettle, the package was triggered to reveal a massive construct made from various papers, ink wells, and items inside of Seren's workshop. It formed like a tornado and was shaped like a large, faceless creature. After successfully defeating the construct, the party investigated the package.

The session ended with a knock at the door. Nessa Quill, inkeeper and owner of The Bent Nail Inn, was seeking help from Seren, saying only "there is a dead man in room six...again."

Key Moments

• Arrival at Seren's Workshop
• Finding evidence of tampering from the outside
• Mysterious package with circular emblems depicting a crescent shape with a slash through the center
• Seren's discovery of a larger pattern of instability in reality
• Introduction of the Order of the Crooked Smile, a cult out of pranksters, vandals, and troublemakers
• Order of the Crooked Smile is, according to Seren, more of a boogeyman urban legend used to scare children
• Battle with a construct made from items in the workshop, triggered by the investigation of the package

NPCs Involved

• Seren Vell
• Nessa Quill

Encounters

• A mysterious construct known to the players (not characters) as The Unspooled Thing

Notes

The road to Briar Hollow

When we left off, the party was leaving Thornreach Crossing heading towards Seren Vell's workshop in Briar Hollow. Seren told the party that the journey would take approximately half an hour on foot. Along the way, the party noticed several oddities. Things seemed normal at first as they passed travelers going in the opposite direction, mile markers, signs directing travelers to Briar Hollow and other towns in other directions. The following is a list of odd events and glitches in reality that the party experienced along the road.

1. The party passed a stone marker on the side of the road, half swallowed by weeds, that read "Briar Hollow: 2 miles". Seren stared for a moment before saying, "That should say one." When asked for confirmation, Seren told the party that he replaced the mile markers last spring because the old ones were wrong.
2. Ten minutes laters just passed a bend in the road, the party saw the same stone mile marker. Same moss along the base. Same crack through the left corner. Same text - "Briar Hollow: 2 miles". On this stone, however, some text was scratched into the stone. Scratched beneath the words in fresh, uneven lines were the words: "TURN BACK BEFORE YOU ARRIVE". After confirming the marks were fresh, Seren instructed the party not to touch the stone.
3. A blackbird landed on a wooden post just ahead. It gave a sharp little chirp, launched itself into the air, and landed on the branch of a tree just across the road. Back at the post, the same blackbird was perched, almost as though it teleported back in the time it took the party to turn towards the road. The same bird, same little chirp, same flapping and launching to land on the same tree. Then again...and again. On the fourth iteration, it landed on the post and turned its head a little too far to one side. In a perfect imitation of Seren's voice, the blackbird spoke the words, "I have older maps", before launching into the air to fly away a final time.
4. As the bird disappeared, the party felt, just for a moment, like someone was walking beside them. Not touching, not threatening, just... there, matching your pace. No one was there and the party dismissed it as paranoia.
5. A farmer with a small cart passed the party going in the opposite direction towards Thornreach. A few minutes later, the party found the same cart abandoned on the side of the road, one wheel still spinning. A few minutes later, the same farmer passed, cheerful and a tad confused, with the same cart fully intact.
6. The party noticed that their shadow wasn't behaving the way it should. As the party moved, their shadows seemed to move a half a second too late.
7. The same flock of birds in the same formation flew overhead two or three times.
8. A bird froze in mid air, like reality was paused. A moment later, the bird continued like nothing happened.

Despite the weird vibe, the party made it to Briar Hollow, a small village of less than 200 people, a village with crooked rooftops, mossy stone walls, warm windows, and a thin chimney smoke curling into the sky. As they walked the streets of Briar Hollow toward Seren's wokshop, the whole village seemed to pause. A woman seeping her front steps stopped mid-stroke. A dog watched without barking. A bell rang in the distance once, then stopped before the sound could finish fading. Some people looked up from their work, clearly trying to hide the fact that they were looking, not with open fear but rather a practiced caution. A man repairing his wagon lowered his tools. Two children stopped playing with a hoop, pulling it close between them. An older woman in a green shawl made a small sign over her chest as Seren passed.

"Mara," Seren said.
"Seren," she replied. Her eyes flicked to the party. "Bridge again?"
"Worse."
The woman's mouth tightened. "Then get indoors before the road notices you got off it."

When asked about this exchange, Seren dismissed it as a local superstition. When asked if Briar Hollow was always like this, Seren slowed. "No, he replied, like the question hit something he was trying not to touch. "Not usually, anyway. Not this openly." He gestured vaguely toward the villagers pretending not to stare. "Briar Hollow has always been odd around the edges. People lose things and find them somewhere they swear they never went. Roads take longer on Tuesdays. The old well repeats things it should not know. That sort of thing. But the bridge was different. The bridge was violent. What worries me is that today, the village feels like the bridge did right before it happened. Like everything is holding its breath." When asked for clarification, he said "it means we should get inside before the breath lets go."

Seren's workshop

At the edge of Briar Hollow where the houses thinned and the road became more grass than dirt, the party approached Seren's workshop.

His workshop stood beside a leaning ash tree, built of stone, dark timber, and too many additions made at different points by people with different opinions about architecture. The roof sloped unevenly. One window was circular. Another was bricked over. Wind chimes made of old keys and bent measuring tools hung above the door, though there was no wind to move them. Over the doorway was a small carved wooden sign that read:

S. Vell, Cartographer
Boundaries, Roads, Inheritance Lines,
Missing Acres, Honest Distances

Underneath the sign, someone had scratched the word "LIAR". Seren sighed and rubbed his forehead. “That is either new, or I have been ignoring it very effectively.” Seren stopped upon reaching the door. The metal key was already in the lock. "I did not leave that there." The wind chimes above the door gave one soft, metallic sound as one of the keys turned slowly on its string. The others remained still. When the party asked about the key, Seren replied, "Only I have that key." "Only I should have that key," he said after a long pause.

The workshop smelled of ink, old paper, rain-damp wool, dust, burnt tea, and frusration. There were maps everywhere. Maps rolled into barrels, pined to beams and walls, weighted with stones, layered across tables, and hanging from stings like drying laundy. The workshop exuded "chaos", at least initially. Some investigation revealed that an entire wall was covered in maps and bits of parchment with black pins spread throughout, red threads connecting each pinned location (think murder board). Various roads, bridges, wells, ruins, and crossroads were circled in dark blue ink.

Over and over, in Seren’s cramped handwriting, four words appear in the margins: "Measured twice. Changed anyway." Seren stepped inside. A kettle on the stove began to whistle. "Nobody touch anything yet, especially not the tea," Seren sighed. The party investigated the area and made the following observations.

1. One of the maps at the center of the largest table was curled at the edge as if exposed to heat, though the room was quite cold.
2. That same map showed the Thornreach and Briar Hollow area, but the road was wrong. Rather than running from Thornreach to Briar Hollow, it coiled once around the village like a noose before finally reaching Seren's door. "That is new," said Seren.
3. Drawings of the party members hung on the walls as well. Some of them were identical save for different equipment, some contained a party of 4 or 5, some were individual, none contained all three.
4. The kettle whistled loudly before the stove was lit.
5. Drawings of the bridge at Thornreach overlapping in different position
6. Three maps made by Seren of the same areas on three different days were technically accurate but did not match one another. Most notably, Briar Hollow moved slightly closer to Thornreach each time.
7. A red enamel pin shaped like a tiny flame that Seren found near the Old Well after a strange event three weeks image-caption.
8. A symbol drawn on the back of a map depicting a crooked, crescent shaped smile split down the center, half red/gold and half silver/blue.
9. Crooked smile symbol in black wax underneath the table.
10. An unknown package sitting near the back door.
11. 11. The back window of the workshop was latched, but the latch was slightly bent. The window was closed again from the inside.
12. One partial muddy boot print on the floor near the back door.
13. One desk drawer that was opened, searched, and carefully reclosed

A piece of parchment folded itself into the shape of a bird, hopped across the table, bowed dramatically, and unfolded itself. Inside is written:

Your lock was rude, so we improved it.
Your kettle was boring, so we made it honest.
Your guest list is getting interesting.

Check beneath the thing you trust least.

The package

Tucked into the corner near the back door was a parcel wrapped in dark oilcloth. The cloth was wet and slick from the rain, but not soaked through. The wrapping looked as if it had been folded with almost ritual precision, each corner tucked cleanly beneath the next. A pale, thin, silver-white and faintly reflective thread, like spider silk caught in moonlight, bound the parcel in a cross pattern. At the center was a smear of broken black wax. While most of the seal was damaged, enough emained to see the mark imprinted in the wax, a single vertical thread cut by a crescent shaped blade. Written across the front in narrow, careful handwriting were the words "SEREN VELL". As the party examined the handwriting, the letters briefly crawled and rearranged themselves, and settled on the words "ORREN PUDDLEWICK" before snapping back to "SEREN VELL".

Inside the package:

• Pages of research copied from Seren's journals and notebookes. The pages include diagrams of Thornreach Crossing drawn from impossible angles: underneath, inside the stone, and once as if viewed from beneath the river. One note read: "The bridge is not the road. The bridge is the lock." Seren did not write this.
• A narrow strip of map showing the underside of Thornreach Crossing. A marked place beneath the central arch is labeled "NAME-POINT". The label had been crossed out and rewritten as "MOUTH", then crossed out again.
• A tiny wooden spool holds several yards of silver-white thread. It moved slightly when touched.
• A folded note written in sharp, elegant handwriting. The note reads:

The note is written in sharp, elegant handwriting.

“A map is only a cage drawn politely.
Cut where the road pretends to be fate.”

On the back, someone else had written "Wrong Lock" in different handwriting.

• A blank paper label at the bottom of the package. When held near the kettle, words slowly appeared:

DELIVERED BY: ORREN PUDDLEWICK
RECEIVED BY: ________
WITNESSED BY: ________

• A black wax seal not fully intact, but enough to see the symbol, a single vertical thread cut diagonally by a crescent-shaped blade. Wax was also smeared underneath a table. The seal looked like it was pressed on after the package arrived.

As the kettle grew louder and more glitchy, the package sprung open. Silver thread shot from out of the kettle. In a tornado of maps and ink wells and pens and pins and wax and various items from around the workshop, a large construct appeared. Rolled initiative.

The Package Post Combat

After the party defeated the construct, the party noticed that the package was no longer neatly folded. The oilcloth was split along one side, the pale thread was charred in places, and the broken black wax seal had softened from the heat. The box itself was still there, too intact. The inside of the package smelled like rainwater, smoke, old paper, and something metallic beneath the tongue.

What the party found:

• The package contained a false bottom contained a hidden strip of blackened vellum, on which the following message was written:

DELIVERED TO THE WRONG DOOR.
OPENED BY THE WRONG HAND.
WITNESSED BY THE RIGHT EYES.

• The seal now looked almost like a crooked smile.
• The blank label now read:

DELIVERED BY: ORREN VALE
RECEIVED BY: SEREN VELL
WITNESSED BY: NIGH OF THE FALLEN FOREST,
FELTEIN FASTBURN, SHINING "SHINY" MOONBEAM
STATUS: ACKNOWLEDGED

• One short piece of black/silver thread that curled towards Nigh like a living root.
• Map fragment showing the underside of Thornreach Crossing, but the central arch was drawn like a mouth.

Final Moments

The kettle gave one final screech and spat out a single silver thread. The thread shot across the room and landed across a map of Thornreach Crossing, one end touched the bridge and the other pointed toward The Bent Nail Inn. "Of course," Seren said. "Because apparently the kettle has opinions now."

Just then there was a knock at the door. Seren opened it to reveal Nessa Quill, the owner and inkeeper at the local inn. She was seeking his help, saying "there's a dead man in room six...again."

Next Steps

The party has decided to accompany Nessa Quill to The Bent Nail Inn in Briar Hollow to help investigate the dead man in room six and potentially gain more information about the increasing frequency and intensity of the anomalies across Eryndor.