Had i known we were going to be walking at least ᴏɴᴇ ʜᴜɴᴅʀᴇᴅ ᴀɴᴅ sɪxᴛʏ ᴠᴇʀsᴛăs to get to whitford, i would have either stolen a varda or a horse. I confess to being tired and cranky by the time we reached the far-flung corner of springdale. I may attempt to convene the familia elders to forge at least one waystone in a central location of the region.
But i digress. It took us five dăți, not my estimated two, but our company arrived somewhat fatigued and otherwise unharmed. Thankfully squire matthew was directly on hand both to welcome us, and to calmly point out the greendead (which he had alluded to in his letter) that were immediately surrounding us. Ardos and the pride, members of the oef, and other adventurers such as myself set up a perimeter and kept the greendead at bay while sir mathis and aunt cyn received the squire's most updated report on the situation.
By this time (whether due to our painfully long trek or otherwise) there were only three candidates for the mayorship remaining (i learned from aunt cyn later as i was otherwise occupied) - the three frontrunners squire matthew had written of. Squire matthew intended us to be fresh sets of eyes on the most recent crime scenes. In addition the squire had explained that the greendead had been appearing around whitford for several months, as some form of intelligent spore «possessed» the bodies of the dead and reanimated them; given the increasing number of murders in whitford since the election was announced, the greendead have proliferated more quickly.
Whomever made the suggestion to move quickly from house to house was very wise, as the greendead came on us in pairs of waves wherever we went. They would first shamble loosely one by one up to our closed ranks, engaging in combat with one or two of us and trying to separate us from our group. Like the mimics at lightlock mine (perhaps the very same creatures), even when they were knocked unconscious they would still get up a few more times after a pause of some seconds, their bodies only truly dissipating after the third or fourth «kill.» Then once we had dispatched them all and cleared the field as we moved ahead, a pack of them at much faster speeds would rush us all at once.
At the first crime scene we were met with grisly details early on; there were streaks of blood on the ground and porch around the bashed-in door, and (although i did not deign to enter the abode) aunt cyn and sir mathis found the body of the late tenant, dead from what appeared to be heavy claw wounds. One of our cohorts set up a wall of force on one egress of the porch to allow us to concentrate our defences against the greendead on the other egress, while the knights investigated further. A letter was found inside written by the victim about valdr, one of his opponents, claiming his only advantage was that he was rich. Aside from the signs of struggle and the remains of the injured corpse, a fragment of rope was also found nearby, almost overly incongruous, with a silver fingerprint on it. Nearby lay a piece of leather armour, owner unidentifiable.
The wall of force was dispelled to return the mystical energy to its caster and we banded our way across the settlement to the second crime scene, led by squire matthew. Already at this point the relentless greendead were taking their toll on us and i know that while assisting in the defence of the second house i was knocked out several times, one time of which i was infected with some of the greendeads' spores as i woke up with green spots on my dermis and dizziness in my head. Still since there seemed to be no obvious side effects, we all rotated shifts of defence and healing/refitting while aunt cyn and the knights investigated the second body, who appeared to have hung herself. A similar strand of rope with another fingerprint was found, along with another piece of armour and a silver circlet. There was also a discarded journal entry by the victim, who apparently had been having an affair with valdr and was about to go public with it.
The third abode that squire matthew led us to was at the far end of a field in which greendead were already quite numerous, and when we got there and were hurriedly rushed inside the destroyed front wall, squire matthew laid down another wall of force to seal us away from the greendead. Which would have been a good strategy, save that pebbles (one of bregsmourn's barbarian adventurers and a member of ardos' pride) has either severe claustrophobia or a severe phobia of celestial magics. Not having been warned that the wall of force was about to be placed, she quite naturally panicked and began to transition into berserker mode. Though sir mathis managed to dispel the wall of force she had already begun attacking squire matthew and had to be ushered to the treeline by another of our companions, nyio (another barbarian/pride member).
The house itself yielded few clues, as there was no third body in the house. Another silver circlet was found outside, and more leather armour and clothes inside, but seemingly there was no note or journal entry that was designed to frame valdr - for so most of us had determined, some of the «evidence» had to have been planted. Pebbles however is a gifted tracker and, once calmed down, immediately saw the signs of footprints leaving the area of the house into the nearby woods. We followed the tracks and eventually found a bandit encampment, who seemingly wanted to be left alone in exchange for not attacking us. Since sir mathis was reasonably sure they had taken items from the house, however, we would not leave them be, and ended up in a fight.
The bandits were mostly easily subdued, save for one with an unreasonably powerful swing who nearly killed me before lord lukas incapacitated him. Four bandits dead and three unconscious, i assisted in the revival of the survivors after they were bound and held at swordpoint, including the woman who led the band. Under interrogation by sir mathis she indicated she had killed the third victim, taken a stockpile of weapons and some gold from the third house, and also found a note but, deeming it worthless, left it at the treeline. Sir mathis had the authority to find them guilty and sentence them to a single death, and the three survivors were thus killed to resurrect elsewhere. I collected some of the swords at the direction of the knights, managing to fit them into my primary scabbard while i simply held çerhêni unsheathed.
The path we took to retrieve the note, however, led us to see a caravan that had been attacked on the side of the road, not far from a fourth victim's house. Aunt cyn was distraught to see that one of the victims at the caravan was a mere child and became quite angry and determined - i think she would have swung at and killed greendead with her bare hands if i hadn't continued to insist on defending her. One major difference between these murders and the previous three was that the method of execution seemed to be different; in fact at the house itself there was an club, such as what high orcs or high ogres might favour. Was it a murder weapon or a gift? A journal entry or some other writing indicated the late owner of this house was well acquainated with a band of ogres that lived in the community deep in the woods, so aunt cyn determined we would need to speak with them and let them know their friend was dead.
In the interest of trying to make the talk go smoothly, i suggested that we offer them the swords i had been carrying as a gift (to which sir mathis agreeing said, «the best way to keep talks peaceful is to willingly arm the other party»). When we reached the encampment, sir mathis, lord lukas, and aunt cyn went first, followed by myself holding the swords across my forearms. But in short order (almost unabashedly) the ogres admitted to killing not only their friend but also the caravan, including the child (aunt cyn turned around and hissed «we are not giving them those swords»), in exchange for a payment of a great deal of gold from a cloaked anonymon. They said they felt bad but it was so much gold that they could not turn it down. In lieu of being tried and executed for the crimes of murder, sir mathis convinced them to go to a nearby fort where their late friend was trying to get them assimilated into civilised society, where they would have to do community service to make up for their atrocities but at least still live peaceably.
Having received the gold they had been given, as well as what additional information about their benefactor they could provide, we proceeded to the home of angol devourx, one of the candidates, a golem from foundry. The ogres had said their benefactor had a large body; the fingerprints we had found were made of silver. It seemed like this angol was trying to pin the crimes on valdr in order to secure his victory in the mayoral election. When we reached the place where squire matthew said the house was, however··· it was gone. completely. All that remained were dirt and ashes, which were glanced through as inconsequential until someone happened to find a piece of paper that appeared to be a map.
The document had been torn up so ardos and others went digging through the clay for the remaining pieces while collette attempted to piece what they found together. She came very close to completing it with about half the pieces available but then got stumped, and i offered to assist, which she accepted. Examining the shapes of the tears in the parchment i was able to get another large chunk done, and when i decreed we only need two more pieces, the other adventurers fell back into the dirt in earnest until they found them. The completed map, which i gave to aunt cyn for safekeeping, denoted that on the road leading from this house in a broad circle until it headed east, there was a drop point at the north curve of the circle.
Still unsure what we were uncovering but determined to resolve the mystery, we adventurers and squire matthew followed the road around but spread out to search for whatever it was that had been «dropped». Lord lukas was the one who finally stumbled upon the box, after i had suggested we were too far east of the drop point, but ferox felt certain we were still going the right way (and thankfully he was right). Within the box (which richard lockpicked open for us) was what appeared to be a blank piece of paper, but sir mathis must have seen something we all could not for he pointed out small regular markings on the top and left of the parchment. He told us it was a heat based ink, and with assistance from squire matthew (and a candle the squire had in his parcel), they managed to uncover nearly all of the hidden message, sans two small holes where they accidentally held it too close to the candle flame.
The missive read : ᴠᴇʀʏ ɢᴏᴏᴅ ᴄᴏɴᴛɪɴᴜᴇ ᴀs «ᴀɴɢᴏʟ» ᴡᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴛʜᴇᴍ ʜᴀᴛɪɴɢ ғᴏᴜɴᴅʀʏ ʙᴇғᴏʀᴇ ʟᴏɴɢ
Taking this vital information back to the first victim's house where we could dissemble on his porch, collette set up one circle of power at one porch egress to keep the still roaming greendead out. Aunt cyn set up another circle of power at the other egress, and then asked for volunteers to maintain it while she walked through the investigation with the nights. Intrigued, i volunteered, and she took the circle down and then handed me a powerful ring of hers, which she explained held the power to build a circle of power a few times each dată regardless of the wearer's natural skill. As i can read magic but have no spellwork of my own, this was amazing and i was more than willing to seal myself in the circle, which was built right against the point of entry to prevent greendead from getting to us all. So, i got to cast celestial power of the ninth degree!
During the ensuing review of evidence, between chatting with arai as he sat down against the house just outside my circle, i listened to aunt cyn present their findings, robert producing the evidence as requested, ardos checking the durability of the various circlets and other metal objects we had reclaimed, and lord lukas and sir mathis encouraging aunt cyn to reason out what was happening. The final missive was obviously the most damning and it soon became clear that the candidate angol was actually an agent of the kingdom of allacar - whether he was a willing traitor, subjugated by magic, or actually an imposter pretending to be the real angol - purposing to cause dissent in whitford and perhaps help allacar claim it before dragonreach could establish its supremacy. Since his house was gone and we did not know where «angol» was, squire matthew assured us that when he showed up on the election day he would take the golem into custody.
So saying, we dispelled the circles of power and returned to the woods, for squire matthew had asked one other thing of us - to investigate rumours of elemental strife on the outskirts of whitford. Following tremors in the earth and the sounds of heavy combat, we located a cave where a greater stone elemental and several lessers were fighting mist beings that were emerging from a thick curtain of mist at the back of the cavern. The greater stone elemental was able to reason with us and gladly accepted our help for his mission, which was to dispel the node of mist energy from which the creatures were coming; the lesser elementals, however, could not tell the difference between friend and foe if they were not of stone, so we had to fend them off as well.
As we got closer the mist fiends began to attack us in earnest, and one by one we fell unconscious and vanished··· i found myself back at the first house again, having been displaced by the mist powers, along with the greater stone man and sir mathis and arai who had preceded me. Other adventurers from our group rifted in one or two at a time, but eventually the rest of the group including ardos walked back the long way. Ardos had been the one to finally make it to the back of the cavern and destroy the node. Grateful, the greater stone elemental left to return to his own plane, and we took some time to disperse the gold and treasures we had recovered amongst all of us, including squire matthew for his assistance. We partook of a late dinner and have been having some time to ourselves, it being too late to depart back for the nearest waystone any longer. It sounds like we'll be marching in the morning. Hurrah, another five dăți on my feet!
Maybe I can find another bearscorpion to ride.
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