The Thing in the Attic, Part 2 (Wednesday, Lamashan (X) 31, 4707 AR)

During the fight Erin panicked, and tried to flee the heroes. When severely injured, he dropped to his knees and begged for mercy. He blamed Caizarlu, saying the necromancer conducted several experiments on his patients.

The heroes defeated Caizarlu's zombies while he hang back to cast offensive spells. The heroes eventually defeated him too.

After the fight, Erin told them his story: Independently wealthy from his years as a doctor in Magnimar, Erin Habe chose to build this Sanatorium in a remote dale south of Sandpoint because of its seclusion. He hoped that here, his wards would find the peace of mind they needed to heal.

Unfortunately for Erin Habe, building the Sanatorium consumed all of his funds - and since his patients were not the type who could pay for his services (nor were they generally the type fortunate enough to have relatives who would pay), Habe soon had to turn to an outside source of funding to keep his Sanatorium up and running.

Habe wanted a silent partner to back his research, someone wealthy who could pay for the Sanatorium's expenses, but who wouldn't meddle in the day-to-day affairs. He believed he'd found his backer in the form of an elderly man who claimed to be a retired businessman eager to put some of his money back into society to better its ills. This man was, unknown to Habe, a smooth-talking necromancer named Caizarlu Zerren. Caizarlu was a member of the Magnimar Sczarni gang known as the Gallowed in his youth, but his dalliances in necromancy eventually went too far even for his fellow criminals, and they run him out of town. In true Sczarni style, as he fled, the necromancer stole a small fortune in gemstones and jewels. The necromancer spent several months drifting from town to town in Western Varisia, when he heard rumors that a man was looking for an investor to help run a Sanatorium. He convinced Erin Habe that he was little more than a kindly retired businessman with a large wallet, and for the past few years, Caizarlu has lived in Habe's basement. Their arrangement had evolved beyond one of landlord and tenant, though - for when one of Habe's patients passed away, Caizarlu was willing to dispose the body. When Erin found out Caizarlu what Caizarlu did with the body, Caizarlu threatened him. Habe admitted that he had recently determined that Grayst had contracted ghoul fever. The pair of deformed orderlies were escaped tiefling slaves from Cheliax whom Erin hired and turned against him when Caizarlu payed them more.

With Erin Habe in tow, the heroes continued their exploration of the Sanatorium: The somewhat sour scent of burning incense abounded - a scent that Habe had found soothed most deviant minds. Erin Habe carried keys to every door in the Sanatorium, save those in the cellar (those were carried by Caizarlu).

Erin's Room. Erin didn't spend much time in this bedroom - often, his obsession with his work saw him slumping off to sleep in a chair elsewhere in the Sanatorium. A small coffer on the headboard contained Erin's meager life savings - the coffer was locked and contained 41 gp.

Workroom. This disused area served as a combination kitchen and sewing room - in the Sanatorium's early days, Erin had planned on allowing his less violent patients a few hours each day to stitch clothing and undertake other tailoring busywork, but his current lack of patients capable of such work has seen this room fall into disuse save by the orderlies twice a day when meals were prepared. Caizarlu had control of the door opening into the stairwell leading down to the basement (and the basement it led to).

Orderlies' Rooms. After escaping slavery in Cheliax and stowing away on a ship bound for Magnimar, they responded to an advertisement for work up along the Lost Coast. The promise of pay, free room and board, and most importantly a remote place to hide out for a few years was too much to resist, and they'd been working in the Sanatorium ever since.

Storage. Dusty tailoring supplies, including bolts of plain cloth and boxes of sewing supplies, vied for space in this cluttered room with food and water stores.

Worker's Entrance. This room contained a few oiled raincoats hanging on pegs - the orderlies used this entrance to come and go from the building when they made their patrols of the grounds.

Guardpost. The door leading into the cellblock was reinforced with iron bands. It was kept locked.

Cellblock. The central part of this room was sometimes used as a common room for the patients, but the two current "guests" generally preferred to spend all their time in their cells. The northwestern cell was occupied by Blind Sedge, an old farmer who had no family and lost his sight to a goblin attack. The southwestern cell was occupied by a man named Wald, a larger-than-life, 97-year-old man whose tenacious grip on life was matched only by his senility. The two men shrieked and hollered when they heard motion in the central room, but since their cell doors were kept locked, they were harmless.

Examination Room. The central feature of this room was a large operating table on which lay a patch of skin harvested form Grayst. A cabinet along the north wall was exceptionally well stocked with all manner of obscure and frightening-looking surgical tools. A secret door was hidden in the western wall of a closet to the southeast.

Pidgit's Cell. The door to this high-security cell was made of iron - and for a good reason, since the cell's sole occupant was a crazed wererat named Pidgit Tergelson. Pidgit had been under Erin's care for as long as the Sanatorium's been operating, and the wererat's condition had only worsened over the years. Erin was researching a possible link between Pidgit's lycanthropy and his mental disorder.

Grayst's Cell. This high-security cell was until recently occupied by Grayst Sevilla.

Caizarlu's Lab. This large room combined the features of a wizard's laboratory and a catacomb - several tables bearing bodies covered by drapes dominated the room, while tools ranging from shovels to dissection instruments sat on shelves against the wall. Bruthien and Tsela confirmed that this was a necromantic laboratory. When the heroes entered there were three bodies on tables, humans who were patients in life, and whose bodies were in good condition. Shalelu located a wand of gentle repose, hidden in a slot in a table leg. The only other item of interest here was a map of the Sandpoint hinterlands that Caizarlu had been using to track what he called "ghoul activity". The necromancer had noted in particular that there had been an increase in ghoul sightings around the southern farmlands and along Foxglove River. One takeaway from his notes was the very strong possibility of what he called a "ghoulish source" having risen to prominence in the region.

Storage. The door to this room was locked, but the room was empty.

Caizarlu's Room. This relatively stark room featured a simple bed, a study table, and a plain wooden chair. Caizarlu's spellbook sat atop the desk - this book contained acid arrow, blindness/deafness, cause fear, chill touch, command undead, displacement, false life, gentle repose, ghoul touch, halt undead, identify, mage armor, magic missile, mirror image, obscuring mist, ray of enfeeblement, stinking cloud and vampiric touch. There were also quite a lot of notes in the spellbook concerning ancient Thassilonian traditions of magic, including a few drawings of the Sihedron rune.