We ask Shilelu what happened to her. We go inside the farm house. Shilelu followed the trail of dead bodies to Hambley Farm. We notice the dead Hambley isn’t as decayed as he should be. He died from hemorrhaging. Bono smashes open Hambley’s chest, with a dagger Ness gives him. It seems like a normal death.

Ghouls are stronger, but zombies are more weak. We dig a giant hole and put all the bodies in. We burn them. Nothing else catches on fire.

We go back into the farmhouse. Letty starts freaking out that we don’t know where he husband is, so Nastunye knocks her out.

Everyone goes to sleep. Ness and Nastunye stand guard the second shift, and suddenly there is banging on the door. Ness is on the roof with Stickfoot. The house is being attacked from all around by zombies. Ness hits the one to the right of the front door for -9 damage. Elwood runs outside and gets attacked by 3 zombies and gets paralyzed.

Artie casts animate rope, and a rope climbs up the chimney. Nastunye is about to clumb out. Bono casts channel positive energy. He goes through the window to help Elwood, and kills one.

Ness casts disrupt undead around Elwood, and hits a zombie for -4 damage. Bono gets attacked and hit for -7 damage. He gets paralyzed, but keeps his spiritual weapon.

Shilelu gets hit with bohemian ear spoon and is deafened. The bard loses an ear for -1 Charisma FOREVER.

Zombies descend on Shilelu, she slumps to the ground. Nastunye jumps out of the chimney and crits a zombie!

There are two zombies left. They kill Shilelu! Artie hits a zombie with a natural 20, and kills it with a short sword. Bono channels divinity and kills the last one.

The stench is overpowering. Netty is still passed out, but alive. All the ghouls are wearing burlap sacks – they were probably scarecrows.

Artie looks for his ear. Then he casts blood biography.
“Who are you?” – Hoarim Guffman
“How’d you die?” – The Fever
Nastunye searches the bodies.

Ness takes Shilelu’s stuff – she would have wanted her to have it! A bow, 10 sleep arrows, wand of cure light wounds, +1 studded leather armor, Masterwork short sword, amulet of natural armor, +1 cloak of resistence, 8 platinum.

Ghouls were wearing tattered tunics. Nastunye finds jewelry worth 500gold. We burn all the corpses. The sun rises.

Dearest Venture-Captain Sheila Heidmarch,

I lost my ear! I LOST MY EAR! Creepy dead scarecrows attacked us in a hamlet shithole and tore off my ear! This is going to wreck my music career in Magnimar. I didn’t sign on for this type of damage!

We look inside the farmhouse – there is no sign of life, but there is a body on the ground. There is signs of a struggle.

We go inside. The stench from the dead body is powerful. Ness pokes it with a ranseur. There’s a nail in the chest of the corpse with a rune carved into it and a note for Nastunye. Ness also finds a rusty iron key.

We hear screaming and a wail coming from the barn. Ness, Nastunye, and Bono go to the front door. Elwood goes around the side. We hear creaking from the beams above. We see gore everywhere inside. The body on the ground is Shilelu. We run to Shilelu, and ghouls drop down from the ceiling!

Bono gets clawed for -8 damage. Ness critical fumbles and rips her clothing. Elwood crits and kills one. Ness gets clawed and bit for -11 damage. Bono channels positive energy and kills two. Ness gets hits one for 6 damage. Elwood sees a larger ghoul in the rafters, and sends Monkey after it. Elwood slingshots the ghoul and kills it, and it falls out of the window.

Shilelu is alive, but barely. Bono casts cure light wounds on her for +12 heal.

Monkey is repulsed by the smell of the larger ghoul body. Nastunye searches the ghoul boss. He’s wearing the clothes of a higher class caretaker. There’s an iron key around his neck with a flower crest on it. We recognize Rogors Craesby – he oversaw Floxglove Manor. It is 3 miles to the south. It is a very wealthy house, and over 80 years old. Ness remembers there was tragedy there, but can’t remember what. The locals consider the manor house haunted.

Artemis asks Letty questions. Her husband is Horrim Guffman – they were farmers in a neighboring farm. Theyr’e young and wanted to start a farm. She was dragged out of bed in the middle of the night, and woke up strung up like a scarecrow.

Bono perceives recognizeable parts of the humans. The barn is an undead Sizzler. The larger ghoul boss is a ghast. They all used to be people.

Nastunye and Ness find a lockbox under the floorboard. It’s filled with sacks of money – each filled with 100 silver. The total is $3,400 silver.

Dearest Venture-Captain Sheila Heidmarch,
I have arrived in Sandpoint. What a hellhole. The only pub in town is one run by a bunch of kids with abandonment issues. It was all I could do to keep their grubby little mittens out of my pockets. Luckily, the locals are so starved for entertainment that I was able to set up shop in the tavern until the Pathfinder team arrived. Can you believe these locals have never heard of “Stacy’s Mum” before?! I mean, it hit the Magnimar charts at no.3 for a week!

The party you mentioned arrived, looking worse for wear, about a day later. There was a gruffy, tree-hugging dwarf named Ellwood that has a rather questionable level of affection for an ape; a drunk named Ness who had seemed to suffer from identity issues and doesn’t know what she wants to be; a wild eyed, fanatic dwarf priest named Bono with a “kick-the-cat” principal to training his acolytes; and the smoldering Ms. Pickpocket and self proclaimed orphan elf mother herself, Nastunye. Now I see why you asked me to keep an eye on them. Subtlety doesn’t seem to be in their vocabulary.

While chatting it up with the tavern locals and picking the odd hair out of my beer, the town’s sheriff gathers the crew for a bit of a chat. I see my opportunity and quickly introduce myself and offer my assistance. Only Bono has heard of “Stacy’s Mom” and I think he was lying to me.

The next morning the party was met by a wild-eyed farmer who claimed to have seen walking, flesh-eating scarecrows! My first reaction was to strike some sense back into the poor sod and send him on his way. But this group of Pathfinders took to the story like ants to sugar. So off we went, looking for spooky scarecrows. Luckily, I had some joke material regarding scarecrows that I practiced on Bono with. I think he like it. I’ll use it in my main act.

Come to find out, the scarecrows were spooky and did in fact move. Worse yet, they bit the druid’s monkey on the shoulder. The ape returned the favor by shredding the thing to pieces. A bit of an overkill, really. Note to self: do not cross the ape.

Once this happened, there was mad talk about burning the farmhouse, burning the fields, burning everything! I had the strike up a few songs to quell the rising bloodlust in this group.

So one of the scarecrows was, in fact, a human missus bound to a wooden post. That’s when I began to consider this to be another one of those bizarre sex cults I keep reading about in Magnimar. I kept my deductions to myself for the time being.

The missus takes off in a panic and the druid “snackles” her! It’s a new word I was forced to invent to describe what I saw! A “snackle” is a snuggling tackle. When the little lady took off over the pasture, the druid gave chase like a cat after a mouse and tackled her, rolling her into a snuggle position, gently caressing her hair to calm her down. It worked, but there was an uncomfortable period of time (at least to me) that the druid continued his soothing snuggle well after the lady had calmed down. I looked up in a little bit of disbelief to see if any of the others were perturbed with this extended length of time “snackling” but none of the other party seemed to register any discomfort.

Another of the scarecrow broke free of his bonds and scampered into the depths of the field. Perhaps fear of being “snackled”? Who can say. Regardless, the party considered moving to the farmhouse to secure a defensive position.

It was along the way that I spotted the large Varisian stone statue. Naturally, my college training kicked in and discoursed a long tale of the historical implications of these giant statues and their socio-economic and pseudo-arcane/religious symbolism they represented at the time of their construction in the Age Before Ages. No one really listened. Meanwhile, the drunkard mumbled something like “Hey, it’s the Stone Warrior.” and everyone nodded like she was a genius! I’m the one who studied in Magnimar, not her!

Pathfinder Skald, Former BackAlley Boys Member,
Artivus Spicklewick

We go back to the Tavern, and we see a bard telling a “Rectum, damn near killed him” joke. Nastunye checks her orphans. One of them has a handful of money and jewels.

The Sheriff asks what happened at the Sanitorium. Bono tells him what happened. The Sheriff warns us there are strange reports from the local farms. We meet the bard, Artemis Spicklewick. Bono gives Ness 1 potion of Cure Moderate Wounds. We sleep.

In the morning, Nastunye goes to get her stuff appraised. Bono tries to teach Lil Bro the way to god (and fails). Ness tries to identify what the wand that she found is.

The doors fly open and the Sheriff comes in with Farner Grump. We all go to the kitchen. The Farmer is trembling, “they’re all dead!” He talks about scarecrows eating everyone, even the dogs. He goes into shock. The scarecrows came from Hambley’s place – about 5 hours away. Ness doesn’t know Hambley specifically, but knows there are farms to the East.

We leave the Tavern. Ness checks for tracks and sees there are hurried footprints coming from the south. The road forks again and we see a sign that says “Hambley’s Place.” We notice things are eerily quiet.

We come to the boundary of two farms and we see a scarecrow. We poke the scarecrow. it smells like damp hay, not undead.

Scattered through the fields are scarecrows. Bono sees things in the field – three more scarecrows! The ones to the left and the right appear to be moving, says Elwood. One scarecrow is pulling and fractures the wood. It breaks the posts. Ness casts negate aroma. Elwood and monkey destroy the scarecrow corpse. Nastunye kills the other scarecrow. Ichor comes out instead of blood. They’re semi-dismembered. They’ve been gagged across their faces with wire, and have claw marks all over them. Ness tries to track how they got there, but only sees snapped wheat, and can’t tell where it came from.

We approach the third scarecrow, but it’s only straw. We head to the house. We see another scarecrow jerking. Ness lifts up the bag over the head with the ranseur, and we see a woman in fear and terror. Elwood undoes the gag, and she says “HELP GET ME DOWN!” Ness recognizes her as Letty Guffman.

She runs away, but Elwood stops her. Bono casts cure light wounds. She says her husband is missing. There is another scarecrow in the fields, it breaks off the beam, and looks me in the eye.

The scarecrow jumps down and runs away. We stay on the path to the house. The road forks to a smaller dirt road. Ness perceives an 18 foot high stone head, with a barn attached to it. The locals call it “The Stone Warrior.” Artie’s history class knows it’s from Varisians.

Letty is terrified, asking us to find her husband

Bono & Ness follow Kazarlu down to retrieve the notes from the basement.
Habe says “I think you should allow me to treat Melon.” Melon claims he’s fine. Melon is probably corrupted. Habe is worried that the same thing that happened with Grayst will happen with Melon. He asks us why did we come here in the first place? He wants to know when we’re leaving. Nastunye says we’ll leave as soon as we get the notes.

We go downstairs to get the notes, and it smells bad. Melon examines the Ratman. Kaizarlu gives the notes to Bono, who is excited. Bono tries to read them, but he’s full-on illiterate.
Bono expresses concern about the fact they had all those zombies in the basement. We should prrrrrrrobably do something about the room with the body parts.
Ness: “Why are there so many corpses down here?” He hands us the papers.

Nastunye looks around Habe’s room, and rolls a natural 20. She finds 41 gold.

We thought Habe turned into smoke, but it turns out only Melon saw that and Melon is going crazy so maybe that was just Melon?

Kaizarlu goes back upstairs, and asks Bono to be discreet.
Melon pokes the dead ratman with his finger, deeply. It is still warm. It feels very satisfying.

Ellwood goes into the room of one of the Teiflings. He pulls out a key, unlocks the door, and lets him in. Ellwood sees a bed, checks everything, and sees a locked chest. The Tiefling opens the chest for Ellwood, but there are no ears inside. The Teifling tries to make Ellwood feel guilty. Ellwood gives him a high five.

Ness tries to see if the bodies were murdered, but can’t tell.

Melon smells a delicious steak from a side room. Melon pokes the head of another corpse with his other finger. Ness says, “stop poking dead shit or I will blowgun dart you AGAIN!”

Melon freezes like a cat, and sticks his tongue out near his finger, and then licks his finger. Ness blowgun darts him. Melon squeals. The finger tasted delicious. Ness yells “Stop that!” and gets ready to blow dart him again.

Bono comes downstairs and channels positive energy. Ness gets healed for +5HP. Melon licks his other finger. Ness blow darts him, but misses.

Ellwood wants to have a drink with the Tieflings. Nastunye hears the commotion and comes downstairs.

Melon thinks the fresher body tastes better. Melon basically politely asks Ness if he can cut a bit off her and taste it. She says, “NOOOOOPE” and runs upstairs. Melon hits Ness for -5 dmg with his axe. Nastunye follows Ness up the stairs. Bono closes the door behind him, and tells Melon, “Don’t eat anything I wouldn’t eat.” Melon compares the axe blood with the blood on his fingers, like a fine blood sommelier.

We all run up and ask Habe and Kailzarlu. Kaizarlu says, “I’ve never seen it advance to this stage quite so quickly, we need to get him in a cell.”

Bono finds he has a sleep scroll. He thinks we can lure him into the room, and he can use his spell to put him a stone box.

Ellwood gets a glass and puts Ness’ blood in it. Bono gives Ness the scroll.
Ness has the sleep spell scroll, and the cup of blood. “I’m going in!”

Ness says, “Hey buddy!” and puts the cup of blood on the ground, and backs away. Melon senses motive and suspects something is up. But he starts gnawing on the Ratman!

Ness reads the scroll, but It doesn’t work. Bono is repulsed. He casts spiritual weapon. Melon puts the rest of the arm in his back pocket. Melon critical fails and loses his axe.

Ness runs upstairs. Nastunye asks the tieflings to subdue him. They say they will, if we can bring him upstairs. Elwood goes flying down the stairs to shield bash, but misses. Melon thinks this is all really weird, and everyone needs to calm down.

Ness rummages around for spells or something that can knock him out (but not kill him). She finds nothing on the bookcases, and runs to the Habe’s office.

Bono hits Melon for -8 dmg. Mace to the face! He says, “STOP. EATING. PEOPLE.” Melon rolls a natural 20 – pimp slap! Bono is dazed for 4 rounds, and loses -10 dmg.

Ness finds two vials in the office with a rusty liquid. Kaizarlu says, “What’s happening?”

Suddenly the air downstairs materializes into solid shards and does -12dmg to Melon. (Probably Kaizarlu). Nastunye says she’ll lick Melon lick her blood if he goes upstairs.

Ellwood summons a satyr, which charms Melon. The Satyr says, “Hellooooooooooooo…” and Melon critical fails and waves back at him with the dead arm in his pocket. Melon is charmed, but Bono’s spiritual weapon keeps attacking because Bono is still dazed.

The tieflings subdue Melon and bring him upstairs. We lock him in a cell.

Elwood has the satyr cast suggestion on us, to get us all to leave. We all think going to Sandpoint is a great idea, including Habe. Bono resists the suggestion, and thinks poorly of Ellwood.

Adjacent cell half rat guy pidgot makes noise – Ness wants to take the Ratman to me the Necromancer.
Ness looks around doesn’t find any life.
Footsteps, Yo! Ness stealth in the corner.
We hear, “Habe, are you all right?” Bono says they’ll be right down. Elderly man comes up the stairs, wants to talk to him – Kaizarlu is his name. Bono heals Melon. The tieflings follow and escort Habe downstairs. The old man sits at the table.

Tieflings look uncomfortable. They seem to be rethinking the deal.
Melon is festering. Blackness underneath it.
Habe and Ellwood and tieflings and Bono
Ellwood says we’re from the pathfinder society
Kazarlu asks if we’re staying the night
Tieflings are feeling uncomfortable.
Fog seems to be rolling in. It’s getting dark – even though it’s only late afternoon.
Have tells the old man that Grayst is dead, but Not all is lost – one is infected.
“I’m sorry Karl, but there’s been some changes to the administration of your facility.”
Something in the air is creeping me out and making me nervous. explicitly uncomfortable.
Bono – we are concerned with the security of the facility.
We hired your tieflings to help.
He says not to go downstairs because he hasn’t cleaned up.
Bono is saying he’ll go downstairs and check.
Melon stumbles down with vomit and leakage.
Bono tries to go down
there is a banging against the basement door before Karl gets it open. The old man stumbles back.
Tieflings are freaked out by it
Bono turns the key to open the door
sees a stone stairway – turns into natural rock basement carved into rock
We get Karl and Habe and guys into the office
I am shaken.
Melon goes into the office with the guys and greases up
Bono and folks head down the stairs
Karl touches him – you feel a little tired, but snap out of it.
Mildew stentch – also stench of rotting flesh – human shape corpses on tables. split from chest to groin, moving
Melon is helped to sit down
He sees Habe turn into an inky cloud
Melon tries to get out, but critical fumbles and hits himself
Melon is tied to a chair now
Ness kills one, Nass kills one, Bono is totally rocking it with full-room light damage to every one of them – they are dropping

inside the table leg there is a wand
you are all nauseated except ellwood

Ellwood summons a xorn, but it just barfs on everything. Eventually it eats the ratman

Karl tries to sweet talk Nastunye while holding a knife to
Pathfinders would love to learn more about goul fever
something special about this goul fever – it is curable normally but not really now – in his studies

We are still at the Hagfish bar. Nastunye asks the bar to calm down, and not attack the gecko. The bouncer is still freaked out and wants to gather people to attack, but the bar people stop believing him. Bono jumps out of the barrel and buys the bar a round of drinks.

Bono talks to (bribes) the bartender. The Scarnettis knew that Banny was skimming off the top. But they didn’t want to find a new worker, so they considered it the price of business.

Elwood turns back into a dwarf. He tries to convince Ness to go to the asylum. Ness doesn’t want to leave Nastunye behind. Elwood tells Ness that the Scarnettis knew what Banny was doing.

Nastunye leaves with Titus. Elwood tries to be friendly to them. Nastunye asks for a key so she could visit anytime, and Titus gives one to her. Nastunye says she has to walk Elwood home.

We all go back to Tavern McBarface and sleep. We have breakfast in the morning.

Sheriff Hemlock had the last witness at the asylum. We go to the asylum and knock on the front door, but there’s no answer. Nastunye looks through the window. Ness is really annoying and keeps knocking and saying “HELLOOOOOOoooooooooo.” Melon asks for lickers and the Doctor lets him in.

Ness tries to perceive if anything seems off, but it doesn’t. Nastunye asks if we can talk to the witness. The doctor, Erin Habe, asks us to sit. Ness is bored with the talking and starts touching all the books. Melon starts opening doors to find the bathroom. The Doctor leads Melon outside.

While Melon and the Doctor are outside, Bono talks to the Teaflings and asks where the witness is, but they say to ask the master. Ness perceives which doors are the most used, and it’s the back door by the stairs.

Nastunye tries to start opening doors, but the Doctor redirects her away like she’s a patient. Nastunye doesn’t like the Doctor touching her.

Habe takes us upstairs. He gives us the key to the his room, and says the patient’s name is Pidget. Melon hugs the patient. One of the doors is open. Melon still goes in for the hug.

The patient takes an aggressive swipe towards Melon. He is deranged, with tufts of hair sticking out where they shouldn’t. He is half-man and half-rat! A Ratman!

Elwood tells the Ratman to sit down, and it works. Bono closes the door to the cell. Ness gives the Ratman water, and he takes the waterskin.

Nastunye follows the Doctor downstairs. He starts packing up his bugout bag, and going out the door. Nastunye grapples the doctor, but he throws her off. He yells shrilly at the orderlies.

Ness tries to talk to the Ratman. He just looks scared.

Nastunye tells the tieflings she’ll pay them more, because the Doctor treats them like shit. She shows them gold. The tieflings subdue the Doctor.

Elwood says hi to the prisoners on the second floor.

Ness finds Grayst in a straightjacket. He smells bad.

Melon walks into a small room on the first floor and finds a bed.

Bono tries to walk downstairs to the basement. The Tieflings say not to go downstairs – even they won’t go down there.

Nastunye decides to question the Doctor. He says, “it’s not me, it’s the guy downstairs.” Caizarlu Zarren – a necromancer.

Ness can’t tell if Grayst is rotting – he just seems like he’s crazy. Ness asks him about the murders. He starts to shake and says, “they had it coming! They were greedy!” He’s trying to undo the straightjacket. Ness yells downstairs for help.

Bono runs upstairs. Grayst says, “The Master killed them!” Grayst’s flesh starts to peel back. Bono casts remove disease and it fails.

Elwood runs upstairs and summons a unicorn. The unicorn casts cure moderate wounds. Grayst bangs against the bars, breaking them. Ness takes -8 damage. Ness casts disrupt undead for -6 damage on Grayst.

Bono casts remove disease, but misses. Ness casts Ray of Frost for -4 damage on Grayst.

Nastunye runs upstairs and saps Grayst for -3 damage, but misses a grapple.

Grayst hits Ness for -12 damage. Elwood grapples Grayst, and Ness backs away.
Bono and Elwood pin him, and I tie him up. Melon smells him.

The Doctor talks Grayst down. He says, “Tell us what you know about the murders.”

Ness shows Grayst the 7-pointed star drawing. He takes a breath and sits down. He points at Nastunye, “His Lordship said YOU would visit!” He stares at Nastunye and keeps repeating “The Misgivings, the Misgivings…” Grayst starts smashing his head against the wall. With local knowledge, Ness knows that The Misgivings is a place, but can’t remember where.

The Doctor asks Grayst, “What’s troubling you?” Grayst says, “The Master will come soon, and bring them to The Misgivings.” He says, “The Master is infatuated.” He starts tearing off his own flesh.

Nastunye asks him, “Why are you the only survivor?” He says to Nastunye, “I have so much to tell you, come closer.” He leans forward and starts to convulse.. Melon leans in and whispers, “You can tell me…” Grayst slashes him across the face, for -8 damage. Ness shoots an arrow through Grayst’s head, killing him.

Bono cures wounds on Ness for +17.

We are still in the old weird man’s (Broderick) house. (Side note: Nas is carrying about 100 lbs of gold on her).

We ask Broderick if the Thassilonian magic could have made the Thistletop goblins smarter and more aggressive. He says they are easily manipulated and attracted to power, but they would not be able to use the power themselves.

The Great Catastrophe was a mage war. They rained fire from the sky, and cities were destroyed – gods of great power fighting each other. Sandpoint used to be a vibrant city, but now it’s underwater. The Thassilonians powers were derived from runes.

Sihederon rune – debate over what it means, he believes they stand for paggles.

The lunatic from the barn’s name is is Grayst, and he’s been sent to a sanatorium
At the moment the murders seem to be related to shady dealing. He knows about ancient thassalonian. It doesn’t seem to be a astrology thing happening.

We ask Broderick, why was he following us? He noticed we are heroes and have experienced the appearance of the ruin – word has spread.
what places are ruins?
thistletop – great titan that had fallen.
The Thassalonians knew all forms of magic – not just undead but powers from runes.
They didn’t believe in the divination school.

Nastunye distracts Broderick by bringing the cat behind
Bono detects magic – there is some magic, but nothing in the vicinity
Broderick allows Ness to inscribe some symbols from a book, and borrow a rune wikipedia.

We take Broderick to the Old Light (and bring both bros). It looks like a bunch of worn down stones.
Broderick says he thinks if you consider the height of what it was – you would be able to fire upon any thing. He believes it used to be a tower that had command over the harbor. Wizards spewed fire across the oceans. He says there used to be towers all along, and they all fell into the ocean.

We look at the stones and see grooves and cracks but doesn’t seem like actual runes. The rock looks beaten up and doesn’t look like anything special.
Bono detects magic, and detects a warm glow all around… like sun on your skin. Not directional, but a glow.

Ness rolls 32 perception and is perceiving the rocks really really well. She sees the matrix. As she hears more and more ideas from the old man, she begins to see a distinctive pattern in the rocks. Ness notices certain unnatural patterns in rocks and sihedron rune

Jill gives the old guy the cat back.

We hear the Scarnettis like to gamble by the Hagfish. We head there to try to find them.
The owner of the Hagfish recognizes Nas – is happy to see her.
" The Heroes of Sandpoint are always welcome at the Hagfish!"

Nora is an eel that hangs in the aquarium
Melon smells stuff
Elwood rolls badly, and doesn’t really get a sense of things other than there is some fear spreading among the people regarding the murders.
Everyone is sure the current murders are unrelated.

Bono is looking for a boat. We find a small table with dwarves that Bono worked with before
The dwarves aren’t concerned really with human murders.

Ness asks people about the murders, but scares them away.

Everyone spends 2 silver on drinks. Except for Nastunye.

Nas rolls well on diplomacy, and talks her way into playing cards
“Damn shame what happened to Banny – his trick was every log he would tally it down and embezzle bits.”
What about those other three murders? The three men who were killed in the barn?
“Those bastards got what was coming to them – they stole savings from my grandmother – they should have been arrested long ago!
They were con artists – would find rich and weak people and convince them of investments – greed caught up to them.” They were scum – everyone in the town knew someone who was scammed by them.

Nas asked about the Scarnettis.
Titus is the head of the Scarnetti family, and he likes to hang out at The Feedmans Bag
fat mans feedbag = where scummy gang people hang. The Sheriff has no jurisdiction there.
Titus has been hanging there lately. He likes to hang with criminal types.

Titus is a spoiled rich kid – hangs around dangerous types but is honestly a coward
He would not have the balls to commit murders, but someone who would be willing to would hang out at The Feedbag.
And maybe Titus would reward somebody who would?

Nastunye disguises herself and goes into the Hagfish.
Ellwood turns into a beetle
Bono and little bro are jumping on the roof, Bono hurts himself
Ness is stealthing

Nas is a bad hottie – dirty she looks like she hasn’t bathed but hasn’t lone ranger. but still attractive and diplomatic. Nastunye buys a drink and Titus comes over.
Bono is trying the crate and barrel maneuver – gets tipped over by drunken guy, but convinces him he’s crazy and gets into position
A seaman is hitting on Melon – intensely interested – strolls down the beach with him.

Ness perceives Titus talking to Nastunye.
Titus says “i know who you are, do you know who I am”
Nas is a little put off
“may I sit down” “I’m not the boss of you” “I’m kind of a big deal around here”
talks about his assets
Nas asked, why aren’t you surprized to see me here?
he says " you must be here looking for me"

Suddenly, the front door of the bar comes crashes open – a large man comes out and asked “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” – Ness recognizes Gresel Tenuar, the bouncer.

Ness rolls between the legs of the huge man. He swings a table leg at her and misses.
Ness runs away, but gets hit. She tells the giant gecko to bite him, and it does 6 dmg.

-
nas tries to suck up to Titus but rolls diplomacy 1
-

The bouncer Gressel, comes back in screaming from the gecko bite.

Melon tells the seaman he has no wiener. He tells him it will never work, and gives him 1 silver. Harlon the seaman smacks him and turns away

Titus has drawn a longsword and is standing at the door
trying to be a hero

Titus has invited Nas to go home with him cause he thinks she is frightened – Ness is watching from the back window and wants to stealth and follow.

Starting at the lumbermill, hanging with the sheriff.

Ibor Thorn and vin vendor (dad) are in jail. He is not faking, he’s actually upset and visibly shaken. There is still blood on him – dried. Jill uses diplomacy with him. He came in and saw them -

Lumbermill is owned by Scarnetti family (who are shady). Dubious. Melon offers him kibble. Bono asked if he feared for his life – he starts and thinks, wow, maybe I should! Bono can tell he is actively hiding something / holding something back. Ibor cracks and says, “I knew it was a bad idea.” He reveals that Banny had been skimming money from the profits. Ness knows the Scarnettis are ruthless, and hold loyalty above all else.

families – one dead at glassworks, one shipping, one lumber, one mayor. lumber is scarnettis, we know they hold loyalty really high and are vengeful but we don’t know that they are associated with the dark arts

The blood on him seems normal. He tells Nas that he didn’t recognize that smell – Just that it was rotting flesh. He saw smears on the handle of blood that looked like someone small. He thinks the girl got a hit on whatever attacked her.

We convince the Sheriff to let Ibor go.

Elwood asks why we have the dad in custody – he went ballistic when he found out his daughter died. Ness gives him her flask and and he smashes her hand and drops the flask. He’s wearing his work clothes from the general store. He knew Latrine was sneaking out.

He is mad at us and telling us it is our fault. Nas intimdates him back and says “we’re the only ones that can help you” and he starts to weep and confesses everything to us about he feels responsible cause he should have done more. We remember that his daughter hit on Bono or something and so is a little sketch. We win him over and he tells us how much he hated Banny.

We didn’t get anything good from those guys, but Sheriff takes us 1 floor down in the garrison. We’re in a holding area with 3 dead bodies that were found at the barn. It’s been a couple of days, he pulls the sheet off it and the same rune is carved on the chest of the first body. Ness perceives a note on one of the bodies.

we hand the note to the sheriff he knows the guys the note is addressed to, they are scammers. Sheirff says crazy blood covered guy lunged at them – he was near the barn where they were killed. He’s at the sanatorium 1 day ride south.

The bodies are naturally rotting, but they do have the same smell as the lumbermill. They have claw marks and runes on them.

We get the Sheriff to release both prisoners.

“I am chaotic neutral so I can do whatever I want” -Jill

We go to the orphanage, but Ness doesn’t care so she goes to the Inn. We donate 1,000 gold. The matron is beside herself. You notice off in the corner a child away from everyone else. He is taking in the breath of the situation and understanding the futility and sadness of being an orphan. There is a wisdom to the kid. Bono goes to the mistress and asks what the kids story is…

Brodrick – well he’s special. His family died 5 years ago in one of the fires – far as we know he comes from a line of craftsmen. He’s a smart child. Bono sees something of himself in the child – he sees a little Bono who just needs a chance. Who is also a dwarf. Little Bro is 11. I offer little bro a monkey ride and he takes it.

We go back to the Inn, and ask Ameiko about the killings. They tried to scam her too… no wonder that they are dead. They were never willing to put in hard work. Everyone in town hated the dudes. Ness asked Ameiko how they tried to scam her. They offered her “an amazing investment opportunity” about 4-5 weeks ago. But everyone in town knew about them, so they started travelling further out.

Ameiko says they recently were cheating the scarnetti folks. the youngest scarnetti – they were cheating courinn who is the youngest Scarnetti.

We head to the docks. Ness notices there’s a guy following us she dips into stealth and gets behind him. Melon rolls for seamen. We stop and pretend we’re lost. Ness recognizes him as Broder Quink, an academic historian. Ness whispers “Broder” in draconic in his ear, just to fuck with him.

He says he’s been studying this area for a long time – he is a thassalonian scholar. He doesn’t know what the symbol is. he has studied the genology of the local area. the lighthouse is a great engine of war – it used to destroy armies
I have spent my life studying – that is not a simple cove, but a bay they used to trap full navies and burn them with this – (he’s ranting a bit).

We almost scare him away, but then we follow him home and get him talking. Ness demands that he teach her Thassilonian. The old light was not a lighthouse – it is an engine of war and was powered by incredible mages (was his belief) that spewed fire at naval threats. It was called the “Old Light.”

Ness shows him the symbol on her necklace. He says the local churches thought this symbol – the carved symbol – we think that these represent the 7 orders of magic. , but not divination because thassilonians didn’t think divination was a thing. This is evidence the Thassilonians believed in magic, and people are still hiding the secret of their downfall and what they are actually capable of. Their downfall was like a 1500 years ago.

Bono shows him the books he copied down. he says, “This is dark magic – whatever you can do get away from it. he says all that we’ll get is pain. pain will follow you. This is going to harm you. We don’t need to inherit this.”

It’s clear Broder has been alone for a long time. The sihedron rune represented the seven virtues of humanity, or the seven orders of magic. Or the seven sins. Paggles.