Return of the Devs: Deadmoor
Deadmoor: The Voice in the Stones
Cysero summons the Hero with an invasion of talking squirrels. They fill Battleon with the same request for help, and eventually bring the Hero to Deadmoor, where a shy young ghost hides behind the weaponsmith. Her name is Mallora. She wants to rest, but something that happened at the end of her short life still holds her here.
Mallora lost her parents while she was young and grew up alone, tending the town’s horses. When sickness began killing Deadmoor’s people, they demanded answers from Mayor Proditione. Rather than steady them, he offered a scapegoat: the strange child whose parents had died of illness. He declared her cursed and urged the town to drive her away. The crowd pursued Mallora to a cliff, where she could run no farther, and stoned her to death. Cysero’s account leaves no doubt about her innocence; fear and cruelty killed her, not a curse she had brought upon the town.
Her screams became trapped in the stones that killed her, taking her voice with them. Cysero believes that recovering the stones could let them return it and free her. He has spent about a year visiting her, understanding much of her story through pantomime and checking details with spells that look into the past. In an optional conversation, he explains why he has left the fighting to the Hero: his magic serves making, experimenting, and finding ways around problems. Even his great hammer is first a tool for his creations.
The Hero promises to keep searching until Mallora can rest. Elsewhere in Deadmoor, another listener wants the stones for a different purpose. The Queen of All Monsters tells her servant Chamat that their power could become a weapon of fear. He promises to obtain it for her. What begins as an effort to help one silenced child is about to become a race against the Queen’s hunter.
Deadmoor: Three Screaming Stones
The first stone belongs to the Nightmare haunting Deadmoor’s stables. Finding the ghostly horse is easier than making it surrender its prize: Cysero says an ordinary attack will never dislodge the stone without the right preparation. The Hero gathers ectoplasm from the wraiths, a mutated spider’s finger from a Toxic Souleater, and water from the town well. Cysero completes his unpleasant weapon ritual, and the prepared Hero defeats the Nightmare to recover the first Screaming Stone.
Outside the barn, Chamat attacks, but the Hero defends against him. He introduces himself as a hunter serving the Queen of All Monsters. His assignment is to obtain the stones, he says, rather than kill the Hero; he demands the first one in exchange for letting them live. The Hero refuses to be intimidated. Chamat leaves the contest open, reminding his opponent that two stones are still waiting to be found.
The next stone lies in the graveyard, guarded by Geist: the soul of Mayor Proditione, twisted by guilt and hatred. Cysero explains that the stone binds him to the wrong he committed, while his scattered bones tie him to the place. The Hero collects his remains and the shreds of humanity found within Deadmoor’s monsters. Cysero bundles the bones for burial in consecrated ground. With those bonds broken, Geist can finally yield the second stone, though his dangerous spirit must still be fought for it.
The last stone was held by the town’s final caretaker. At the far end of Deadmoor, the Hero searches the house and surrounding clues, collecting the caretaker’s notes as well as the third stone. Chamat has not taken either remaining prize. With all three Screaming Stones recovered, the Hero returns to Cysero and Mallora, expecting at last to end the ghost’s silence.
Deadmoor: A Voice of Her Own
At the cliff, Cysero tells the Hero to smash the stones. Their destruction gives Mallora her voice, but also releases a century of anger: she becomes a banshee. When the Hero demands an explanation, Cysero insists he warned that this would happen. The Hero remembers a promise to free her, not a warning that she would lose control. Their argument is interrupted by Chamat, who thanks the Hero for doing the work he needed.
Chamat declares that the Queen has freed Mallora and demands that she serve her by spreading fear. He has mistaken the release of her power for control over it. Mallora turns that power against him instead. Chamat is destroyed; the horrified Hero describes his face melting away. Cysero and the Hero have been sheltered inside a magical bubble, but the hunter’s fate shows why they cannot simply ignore the banshee now that his scheme has failed.
Cysero tells the Hero that defeating Mallora in combat should exhaust her rage and let her regain control. Before sending the Hero against her, he supplies enchanted earplugs to protect against her death wail. They offer no protection from her physical blows. The Hero fights the banshee, and afterward Mallora can speak as herself again. Helping her requires more than returning the stolen screams: the anger bound up with them must also be released.
Mallora apologizes for losing control, and the misunderstanding finally becomes clear: Cysero had warned her, then forgotten to tell the Hero. Whole again and freed from her anger, she says she can let the world go. She chooses to stay a little longer instead. Deadmoor is still full of angry spirits, and she wants to help them as the Hero helped her. She thanks Cysero for taking the time to understand her and offers the Hero help against the Queen. Her story closes with a choice of her own, rather than another command imposed on her.