Chapter 5.14: The Sightless Citizens of Saal

“Such a waste!”
Oslando stands in front of the desk, hands resting on his hips and shaking his head. A dozen of broken vials surround the table legs and stains in an array of colours have bespattered the floor and table. Only two small flasks remain intact, one full and one empty.
“Luckily, at least one potion seems to be left.”
The half-elf picks up the flask and moves the liquid inside around. The red colour reminds him of the kinds of apple he picked at the market when he was younger. They always looked like the best and healthiest ones. He has seen this exact shade of red many times before. That’s why he, probably like many other adventurers, recognizes what this is.
“A potion of healing”, he elatedly says. “It’s enough for two persons if we drink with some moderation. Keeping in mind of what we have to face here in Abaddon I suggest we take this with us.”
Technically, he is stealing and he knows that’s wrong, but Oanoa’s words linger in his head.
“Sometimes, sadly, you have to accept the things that feel wrong to prevent something far worse”, he told him.
If a potion like this can save their lives at some point, their potential deaths outweigh taking it without asking.
“Always nice to have some of those”, Bruq responds. “Helps me save the goodberries for later.”
The half-elf chuckles.
“I believe these magical concoctions are more potent than your transmuted mistletoe. I don’t know if it beats the taste. It’s been a long time since I drank one.”
Oslando digs deep into his memories, trying to recollect the last time he drank one of these. One ingredient, some type of mushroom, gives a surprisingly tingling sensation on the tongue. The slight fizzle of the substance is rather unique for a consumable drink that isn’t enriched with alcohol. How they discovered what ingredients were necessary to create this elixir is still a mystery to him, but he suspects it was a lot of trial and error.
(Investigation 14)
After that detour down memory lane he puts away the potion of healing and picks up the other vial. It’s empty, but there’s still something very interesting about it. It looks like there’s no cork sealing off the glass, but when Oslando runs his finger over the open end, he most certainly feels it. On further inspection, the glass has a subtle tone of pink within it, which gives him the idea that someone altered it to give it different properties. Turning the flask around to read the label put on it definitely helps.
“Ointment of invisibility”, he reads out loud for the others to hear. “Too bad it’s empty. Judging the size of the potion it had a lot of it in it. Shame.”
While the half-elf monologues, Dargothoth stands at the other side of the room, next to the stairs and right in front of two peculiar paintings. The depiction on the right shows a female demon, dressed in a black gown, hiding her face. The cleric can see she’s crying, because he notices her shoulders shaking and how she wipes away her tears.
“The picture moves.” The sivak speaks without any sign of surprise or awe, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. “Why would Phenilias have such depressing art in his home?”
Oslando and Lyssa walk up to him and stare with their questioning companion at this unusual spectacle. Against their expectations, the woman in black looks up. She seems to be making eye contact with them. She holds up her quivering hand and taps on a ring around her finger. Her weeping intensifies.
“You were his wife?”
Lyssa asks this question carefully, afraid of the pain she might inflict with it. Even though they’re talking to a painting, the composition is so lifelike that it feels like she’s speaking to an actual person. This feeling is confirmed even more when the grieving lady nods.
“Do you know what happened to Phenilias?”
This time, Dargothoth asks the question and his intonation is a lot less cautious. The painted woman nods again and gets up slowly. She needs to push herself up from the armrests of her chair. She shuffles steadily towards her right, to the left side of the frame. When she reaches the edge of her portrait, she continues walking and disappears entirely. Unexpectedly, she reappears again in the painting hanging left from her own one. The other painting is a realistic depiction of the home they’re in right now, but in a totally different state. In contrast with the chaos and havoc in this home, the painting shows where everything stood before, everything neatly ordered and nothing smashed or broken. She picks up a big potion off the table, turns towards the adventurers and points with her other hand to the corner of the room.
“I think I recognize it”, Oslando says as he tries to read the intelligible scribbles on the flask. “Guessing by the size of it, I’d say it’s the invisibility ointment. Mrs. Arkhon, is something hidden there? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
She comes closer to them, until the painting is nothing more than a close-up portrait of her face. Her eye sockets are empty and the contours of her head are very much like a bare skull. She slowly nods her head. She raises her hand in front of her face and taps on the ring again. With small steps she back up, grabs her head with both hands and lifts it off of her neck. She stumbles towards the desk and places her head on it, after which she falls on both knees and disappears from the painting.
“Gruesome”, the half-elf says.
As he keeps inspecting the two pieces of art, Dargothoth turns around and approaches the table. He moves away an opened book to reveal what is hidden below it.
“I have found her head”, he says.