Hook:
The Pitts built an empire on juice. All that remains are empty halls, bitter memories, and the taste of collapse.
047- 250925 - The Fall of the House of Pitts
Date:
446 PC, Brightwane 58
Players:
Die-Anna
Raven
Dev the Wizard
Odett
Keres
Loot:
scroll of level 3 of fireball [claimed by Dev]
400 Gold [claimed by]
Shiftweave [Die-Anna]
After Actions:
Steve announces the movement of camp: The official announcement of the camp’s relocation inside the city walls had finally been made. What followed was a morning clogged with instructional maps, and speeches- lectures explaining which streets the Banner will claim, which houses you may occupy, and what productivity is expected even after the move into the city.
Die-Anna, on Juicero Pitts Mansion!
Me, Dev, Odett, Keres, and Raven made our way down to the old manor. It was in pretty good condition, still had pomegranates growing in the garden, a nice set of spacious rooms, and oh also the ghost of Juciero Pitts the 4th! He was shifting between ages faster than I could ever hope to do. It seems that after he became man of the house he wound up expanding the Pitts empire into military contracts or something. It seems that he added juice to the rations and had a close working relationship with the goverment and also the tower. We were right to assume that there were attempts at looting after the sealing of the city, but Juciero and his servants were able to beat them off.
We had the ghost of juciero the 4th give us a "tour". It seems that he sent his son, the 5th Juciero, to the tower in order to keep him safe. It seems as if that descion haunted him until his final days.... and until now too I suppose. We explored more of the house, came across the study of Juciero the 3rd and found a bunch of journals, maps, and books! We brought them back I thought Ragnum and the other eggheads might like them. Maybe there's some mention of windsbreath or some other. We also cracked open an old safe we found in the study! It had a scroll of level 3 of fireball, 400 Gold, and a shiftweave.The last thing I'm keeping! It's basically a little item that allows you change between a bunch of outfits. I get to pick between jnco pants, workman outfit, a cute apple outfit (which I will be showing off around camp), and two other outfits I didn't see. Besides my new clothes, It seemed that Juciero was becoming obbessed with joining the purple dragon cult/ Lucid mind order. Maybe those journals might give some insight into what they were all about.
We went up to the attic which was the servants quarters where the ghost of Juciero the 4th was hanging out after ditching the tour. There were about four rooms for the servants, one had a goat charm in it. I remember seeing it a few times when I traveled the county side. It was a good luck charm of sorts, made for hard workers ; which I assume anyone who worked under Juciero would need. That man had no respect for those "below" him, including his own son. We followed the ghost of Juciero the 4th onto the roof where he revealed how he passed... we watched as he reenacted his final leap off the manor into the fountain below..... It was very upsetting for all of us... especially for those who harbor the memories of his father who resented the man so much. The poor man never had a chance with a father like Juciero the 3rd....... before I could dwell on it too much Raven hugged one of the fruit themed gargoyles. Those quickly came to life, and after a long battle where poor Keres got downed by one, we were able to destroy them. After which I felt the house get lighter if that makes sense....
Despite the memories and the ghost, or maybe because of them, I think I'm going to stay. That is if Juciero the 4th would let me stay, it is his house after all. I think it would be good for him to have some nice interactions after centuries of loneliness and before that decades of abuse from his father........... I wonder if ghosts can play cards?
Dev's journal
Brightwane 58
Big news, Soph! We’ve finally been given the go-ahead to break camp and move into the city! The bigwigs spent all morning explaining which houses we will be permitted to occupy, and what the Banner is expecting from us, and really, the whole thing was one big, convoluted mess… but the important part is that I don’t have to spend the next four months in a tent!
Die-Anna wanted to go check out the former home of the juice baron guy she has the memories of, and that seemed like a fun way to spend the rest of the day. If it didn’t get looted too badly, he probably had good stuff. I tagged along with her, Raven, Odett and Keres.
The mansion had seen better days, but it is still quite the spectacle. Juicero Pitts III wanted people to know he was important, and he wanted them to know that juice was his passion. There were fruit and vine designs all over everything – there were even fruit-faced gargoyles on the roof. Definite past tense on the gargoyles – we pulverized them after they attacked us, but I’m getting ahead of myself a little.
The survey team had marked the mansion “safe,” but we’ve seen enough to know that “safe” just means you can poke your head inside the front door without anything trying to bite it off.
We were greeted by a weird ghost almost as soon as we went inside. It seemed like it was having trouble placing itself in time – it would go from being an old man, to a child and to a young man without ever settling on a consistent appearance. Die-Anna recognized the younger man as Juicero Pitts IV, the son that the elder Pitts blamed for destroying his juice empire.
I know it seems silly considering that I’m talking about a ghost, but Pitts IV rarely seemed like he was fully present with us. Occasionally he was eerily lucid, but most of the time he seemed like he was swimming in a haze of loneliness and regret. The warp and weft of his soul seemed ragged and threadbare.
Our spectral host told us that the candles on the doorstep was a tradition that the townspeople adopted after the collapse to mark the passing of people who disappeared. I know Ragnum has this theory that the disappearances were caused by some kind of planar magic incident, and it almost makes sense when he explains it. Almost.
Mr. Pitts IV is waiting for something – something he doesn’t really think will come – but he’s keeping his vigil “just in case.” Die-Anna convinced him to give us a tour, and at least through the first rooms we saw she shared some memories that came to her via Juicero Pitts III. After a while, she stopped…but I think the house was still causing her to remember things.
The ghost of Mr. Pitts told us that he feared looters after the collapse, but he and someone named Thomas beat them with sticks to defend his home. Die-Anna noticed some scorch marks on the floor of the parlor. The time immediately after the collapse – the catastrophe that created this pocket dimension – had to be hell.
When we arrived in the dining room, I saw Juicero Pitts IV have a one-sided conversation with himself about pivoting the juice business away from the commercial market, which was played out. He saw a future in partnering with the military to include juice in the soldiers’ rations.
Juicero Pitts IV led us up to the second floor, where he stopped in the nursery that was once his and had last belonged to Juicero Pitts V. The ghost’s aura of regret grew stronger. “Things settled, we maintained order. We did our best in our bubble,” he told us.
The bed didn’t have the suddenly abandoned clothes we’d seen elsewhere, so we realized the youngest Pitts probably didn’t disappear overnight. It wasn’t clear what had happened to him, though.
There is a portrait gallery in the second-floor hallway. Die-Anna saw a painting of Juicero Pitts III and his first wife. She was gorgeous, he was… not. He looked nothing like Die-Anna’s version of him when she wore his face. Die-Anna said the painter had done a terrible job and Pitts did not pay him, but I suspect that Pitts just had a different image of himself than the rest of the world did.
The master bedroom was probably beautiful before age caught up with it, but little remained and none of it was intact. Die-Anna did find a notebook with a clipping of Juicero Pitts III’s obituary inside.
“No one could come into the bubble,” the ghost told us. “That was the problem.”
In the study, we found some assorted journals and maps. I’d hoped that they might shed some light on the period immediately following it, but I think everyone was just too busy surviving to chronicle the details. The earliest journal was from 1322, four years afterwards. We grabbed them for Ragnum. Maybe he can find something useful or interesting in them.
Die-Anna remembered a hidden safe, and Raven had no trouble picking the lock. Inside, she found 400 GP, a spell scroll for Fireball, and a magical clothing outfit that allowed the head of the Pitts family to quickly shift from one outfit to the next. Die-Anna tried it on and decided that she liked an outfit that was probably a fancier version of the uniform in the Pitts juice shops.
The Fireball scroll gives me a weapon of last resort, but I’d like to hang onto it until I feel like I understand it well enough to try adding it to my spellbook.
As we continued through the house, we learned that Juicero Pitts V had been sent to the Tower in hopes that it would be a better life there. The ghost seems like he’s waiting for his son or his son’s descendent to return. If we get another shot to look through the Tower records after Rector-9 moved in, I’d love to see if I could find any mention of the Pitts family.
The ghost led us out onto the rooftop, where we saw a cracked fountain and his bones below. Juicero Pitts IV re-enacted his final moments as a living being and dove off the roof again. And the next thing we knew, the gargoyles were attacking us.
Raven was amazing – she managed to slice the wings completely off of one of the gargoyles. And with their defeat, the house felt “lighter” somehow.
I think we should lay Juicero Pitts IV’s remains to rest. Die-Anna still seems to want to move into her haunted mansion. I’m not sure I’d want to be roommates with a ghost.
Unresolved Threads:
What became of the 5th Juciero who was sent to the tower for safety after the collapse?