When last we looked in on Chiana, Corvus, Aletha and Regnor, they had just finished searching the abandoned iron mines outside of Punjar. After defeating Haledon and his Crimson Hand band of ruffians they discovered various contracts, notes, and journal entries tying the bandits to a mysterious woman calling herself "Cadavra". Cadavra had been paying these bandits to exhume bodies and deliver them to her at an old windmill on a hill overlooking Punjar. It was Latimer who, against the stipulations of the contract, had sold some of the grave-robbing loot inside the city limits, tipping off the Dev'shirs that their family crypt had been pillaged.
After Jym and Mongo had left in search of Mongo's brother, the remaining four companions decided to see this mystery through to its end. After some light shopping to replenish their supplies the group gathered information about the windmill. Certain locals of Punjar spun stories of the place, of how it was supposedly haunted by the old miller's ghost who murdered his entire family before committing suicide by throwing himself under the mill stone. In particular, a young looking rogue described how he and a girlfriend had gone up there in months past to prey on the "old witch" who supposedly had moved in there. They never made it past the rotting fields surrounding the dilapidated structure, as the young man claimed the scarecrows placed throughout the fields came to life and began to attack. The young man ran and made it back to Punjar safely, but he never saw his girlfriend again. He hadn't gone back to look for her.
These stories did not perturb our heroes. They bravely went in search of the witch they suspected was Cadavra. Outside of Punjar they came across the split in the road that would take them up a hill to the windmill in the distance. A murder of crows fought and croaked over a corpse at the side of the road. After the crows were shooed away the corpse was revealed to be that of Latimer's, frozen in a pose of mortal terror. The Coruvs said a quick word of peace for the unfortunate dead rogue and then the party continued up the road toward the windmill.
Surrounding the windmill were fields of grain, rotting and going to seed, hemmed in by an aging wooden fence. Moldy bales of hay dotted the fields, interspersed with ragged scarecrows. Each scarecrow had an asymmetrically lumpy pumpkin for a head carved to look like a scowling face and held a long rusty scythe in one out-stretched hand. The party moved cautiously across the field, staying on a narrow, muddy path. As they passed between a trio of scarecrows, the creatures shuddered to life and began creakily advancing toward the party. Their pumpkin heads were lit from the inside by a ghostly green glow, and their gaze had a weakening fear effect on anyone who held it for too long.
Chiana searched her knowledge of the arcane and decided that these creatures must be a type of homonculi, a magical construct that is employed in warding specific areas or items. Aletha guessed that they might be vulnerable to flame, seeing as how they were obviously constructed of cloth, wood, and hay, so blasted one with her witchfire. She guessed right and witnessed it ignite readily and burn. She moved freely about the difficult terrain of the fields using her many teleportation abilities to stay away from the reaching scythes of the scarecrows as they closed in around them. The other party members had a more difficult time staying out of reach and moving about due to the mud, weeds, and snarls of undergrowth covering the ground. Regnor kept one of the scarecrows busy while Corvus, Chiana, and Aletha fended off the other two. Once the homonculi were destroyed and all wounds were tended they continued on toward the windmill.
As they approached the windmill, Regnor caught sight of movement at the top of the tower. A white haired woman looked down from a small window and when Regnor looked up she launched a bolt of eldritch energy at him before cackling and disappearing from view. Regnor was singed, but not seriously hurt. Aletha recognized the bolt as the work of a warlock, but of which type she could not tell. Rather than enter the windmill via the front door, the group searched the exterior of the building for another way in and found an old grain chute around back. Chiana detected a glyph of fire warding the doors, so disarmed it before opening them. A dirty metal slide disappeared into darkness beyond them. Before heading down the chute, Chiana performed a ritual of Corpse Light to provide light and to warn of any unseen undead.
Regnor was the first one down the slide. He landed on a pile of old and moldy grain that puffed up in clouds and made him cough. He swung his axe about in the darkness only to have it come back covered in cob-webs. Chiana was next down the slide, carrying the green flickering light source. She illuminated the basement which held at its center a massive grind stone with the main wooden shaft disappearing into the ceiling above. The mechanism was currently not operating. Stairs led up to the main floor along with an ancient looking grain lift. The corpse light Chiana carried surrounded ghostly figures locked in combat on the other side of the stone. Chiana and Regnor watched in amazement as the spirits of the old miller and his family played out the last few moments of their lives. Aletha used her fey-step ability to teleport safely down into the basement, while Corvus was not so graceful and ended up tumbling down the slide and landing in a pile at their feet.
Whether it was Corvus's clumsy entrance or something else that caused it, the spirits seemed to notice the party for the first time and turned their murderous gaze on them. The miller and his wife became dark shadows, Corvus identified as wraiths, and phased through the mill-stone to reach out at the party with numbing cold and shadowy hands. Corvus was assaulted by the miller's wife and was drained of much of his life force before he could crawl away and gain his feet. When he did, he retaliated with a rebuking blast of radiant power, but the wraiths' rage must have protected them from its effects. Regnor faced off with the miller's spirit, but his axe did minimal damage to the insubstantial wraith. Chiana and Aletha moved cautiously away from the fight and tried to engage them from range.
Just then a forked bolt of lighting shot out from the wall of a heretofore unremarkable closeted space on the other side of the room. The bolts struck Regnor, Aletha and Corvus. Corvus was knocked unconscious by the shock and lay still on the ground. Chiana spotted the place where the magical bolt came from and noticed small peek holes cut into the wood made to look like simple knot-holes. She approached the door to the closet and found it locked by arcane power. Another cackling laugh came from the other side of the door as a barrage of magic missiles shot out from the peek-holes and struck Regnor. Regnor and Aletha focused on defeating the wraiths while Chiana worked at disabling the arcane lock on the closet. As the wraiths were defeated and the lock was broken, Chiana heard the unmistakable sound of yet another door closing.
Inside was a small room with no obvious exits. After reviving Corvus and resting up, the party searched the small closet, but still could not locate Cadavra's escape route. Chiana was forced to perform a ritual to help them detect the secret door. Once the ritual was complete the outline of a well concealed door in the stone wall became visible. Once detected it was easy enough to open.
The door led to a natural stone passage that winded its way deep underground. The passage opened up onto a large natural cavern with a cold stream running across the middle. Two lesser passages exited the cavern, one on each side of the stream. Chiana's corpse light gave the faint outline of six bodies just under the surface of the water as she approached the stream's edge. Without hesitation Corvus once more called on the Raven Queen to rebuke the undead, this time his radiant blast threw the bodies of four of the creatures out of the stream and onto the other side. The remaining two corpses stood knee deep in the stream and hurled foul necrotic flesh from their own bodies at the party. Corvus was weakened and driven back by the foul stench.
Cadavra showed herself yet again in the far passage. This time she let loose with a massive fireball, blasting and burning all of the party members. Regnor shook off the flames and then leaped the stream in a single bound, landing amidst the zombies and Cadavra on the other side. He slashed at her viciously. She screamed in pain before summoning a dimension door and disappearing inside it. Regnor was left to take out his anger on the zombies shambling to their feet.
Together they mopped up the rest of the undead in the cavern before proceeding down the passage they suspected Cadavra must have gone. The passage doubled back on itself and came to another large chamber with most likely the same stream further on running through it. In the center stood a massive black cauldron with a foul green mist bubbling up from it. Surrounding it was a ring of animated corpses in various stages of decay. Beyond the cauldron guardians they could just make out the form of Cadavra, smiling evilly to herself and beckoning them further into her den.
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