“The skin hast been cleanly removed, as if by surgery or magics…’twas much suffering, methinks.”
Inspector H. Drept was an orphan raised in the Shalebridge Cradle, where he befriended a young girl named Lauryl. While playing hide-and-seek with her in the attic of the asylum area, the Hag appeared, found Lauryl, and killed her while Drept watched unseen, paralysed with fear. Despite Drept’s account and the lack of a body, the murder was blamed on a patient.
After this encounter, Drept became obsessed with finding the ‘Gray Lady’. When he became old enough he joined the Hammerites and from his correspondence it can be deduced that he became something of a specialist on the Undead within the order.
Drept’s desk in St. Edgar’s Church has a plaque hanging on the wall above it, as a memorial for Lauryl that reads, “Lauryl there shalt be a reckoning”.
Her fate and his inability to prevent it haunted Drept long into his adult life, but he was far too frightened, both by his traumatic childhood experience and the fearsome reputation the building subsequently gained, to ever dare go back to the Cradle himself.
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