Per Gideon's request, you start your door-to-door sweep with Kulena Sprads. She greets you with a smile at first, but her expression becomes more serious when she sees Ramona, Eamon, and Kurvis with you. "Is something the matter?"
After explaining the "disease" that you are trying to diagnose, she nods gravely and allows you to cast your spell. It comes as a relief when her body locks up, confirming her to be an actual humanoid.
"Oh no! I couldn't move! So I'm infected?" she cries worriedly once she can move again.
Gideon takes a shaky breath when Kulena goes stiff, releasing it slowly as he fights to keep back tears. "You might've been...we've seen some false positives with the spell, but if you were, it won't still be there now. Please don't tell anyone else about this, alright? We're trying to go through today and get all the colonists individually; we didn't want to cause a panic with it since it was possible for us to do it without kicking up a fuss."
"O-okay," Kulena says, still shaken by the strange interaction. She clutches Gideon's hands. "Please be safe. I don't want anything to happen to you."
"He'll be back before you know it." Terana puts in, offering Kulena a smile. "I've kept him safe from huge monsters with teeth and tentacles, a little illness isn't going to touch him!"
Gideon smiles broadly and nods, giving Kulena's hands a squeeze. "I will. You have my word. As long as I've got you to come home to, I'll be alright." he assures her.
Tobar nods and taps his forehead with a half-hearted salute. "Don't worry. Just keepin' everyone safe," he manages.
You move on to the next few houses. Both Faedwyr and Helena Trundlebook pass the test, as well as Kalcora Weems. The next house in line is a large one that belongs to Andvara Jeclair and her family.
Andvara is all smiles as she welcomes you into her home, but as you explain why you have come, Terana and Weyve get the sense that something is deeply wrong with the situation. And indeed, their suspicions are proven correct.
Before you even finish trying to sell the "sickness" story, the Jeclair family let out wailing shrieks one by one. The flesh melts down their faces with an undulating, muscular action and then move back across their neck and jaw, revealing their true whorled and faceless visages!
Somehow Tobar is ready to fire even before the creatures have finished changing their faces. He launches a pair of bolts at the one closest to Gideon.
THUNK! THUNK!
Tobar's bolts sink into the creature, which grunts in pain. Two of the things reach out for Gideon, one slamming him in a vital spot. It grabs a hold of the bard and plunges a three-pronged tongue into his neck, draining his blood! The other two stretch out their arms to impossible lengths to try to grab Tobar, but neither hit.
"Gaah! Get your nasty suckers offa me!" Gideon calls, stabbing at the creature with his shiny new rapier.
Paying little heed to the elongated arms, Tobar launches another pair of bolts into the monster that has its tongue stuck in Gideon's neck.
Terana has her axe ready, after the embarrassment of the last encounter. As Tobar sends bolt after bolt into the monsters she steps up and whirls the axe around to strike the creature that has Gideon in its grasp!
As the creature grapples with Gideon, Weyve gives a shout. A wave of darkness blasts towards Gideon, nearly shaking him free of the creature!
Weyve then flings a bolt of light that engulfs the shapeshifters.
Gideon stabs the creature grappling him with his rapier. Weyve shouts a command, allowing the bard to slip out of its grasp, then he engulfs the shapeshifters in blinding light. The wounded one falls, while the others recoil in pain, though without discernible eyes, they seem resilient against the blinding effect.
Terana chops down another of the stalkers with her axe, while Tobar's bolts bring down a third.
Only one remains, and it tries to hit Terana, to no avail.
Terana lands another heavy blow in retaliation, cutting deep into the creatures arm!
Gideon tries to maneuver around to the opposite side of the faceless stalker before stabbing at it.
Terana and Gideon both score a hit, and the faceless stalker falls. However, you can hear shouts of alarm and panicked cries for help coming from all corners of the town, punctuated by more high-pitched inhuman shrieks! Ramona swears colorfully. "I think we kicked the hornets' nest!"
"Get everyone to a safe place!" Terana yells. "Check them if you can. We'll take the fight to them!"
She charges towards the door, axe in hand. Trusting that her friends are close behind.
"No kiddin'! Do what Terana says! We'll draw all we can!" Gideon says, following his comrade out the door, moving as quickly as his legs will carry him. Once he's outside and is heading for the sound of the nearest scream, he yells at the top of his lungs,
Ramona and the priests scatter through the colony to help people. All around, citizens are running in a frenzy. You can see a couple faceless stalkers slipping off into the woods, but of more immediate concern, smoke and crackling flames are rising from the food storage building! Four of the colony's soldiers are engaged in a fight with four faceless stalkers in front of the building. The soldiers appear badly outmatched!
Tobar steps out of the building and spots the altercation by the warehouse. "We gotta get that fire out," he says, stating the obvious. Without bothering to close, he fires twice at one of the stalkers engaging the town's militia.
With no regard for his own safety, Gideon runs forward at top speed, trying to reach the nearest of the stalkers and distract their attention so that others can help deal with the fire; on the way he shouts behind him,"Weyve! We'll handle the stalkers, you put out the fire!"
"Weyve! We'll handle the stalkers, you put out the fire!"
Weyve blinks for a moment, then nods and runs towards the burning building.
He mutters an incantation and then a dark cloud appears over the burning section of the building, and water begins to pour down.
Terana meanwhile tjunders over the dry ground towards the stalkers!
Weyve conjures water to start fighting the raging fire. It begins to gutter out, though it still rages across the building's thatched roof.
Gideon and Terana rush in, slashing at the stalkers. The soldiers fight back, concentrating their attacks on the wounded one and brining it down.
One stalker continues to fight the soldiers, but they hold it at bay with their shields. The other two step to flank Terana. One of them slams her with a fist and grabs a hold, sticking its tongues into the gillman's neck. The other slashes her across the belly with its longsword.
The fire does not spread further yet...
Weyve moves closer to the building and continues to call water down onto the roof.
Terana growls as one creature sticks its tongue into her. She attempts to cut that one down to size!
After seeing Terana turn one of the stalkers into sushi, Gideon moves on to the next enemy, shouting encouragement to the four soldiers that are there.
Tobar is taking a bead on one of the shapeshifters attacking Terana when she explodes it into chunks of writhing meat. He hesitates visibly for a moment, then shifts his aim to another foe.
"Terana!" Weyve shouts, and sends a bolt of darkness that covers her, suddenly making it difficult keep a hold of her!
Weyve's liberating command allows Terana to just wriggle free of the faceless stalker's grasp. She hews into it with her axe, chopping it up into mincemeat!
Gideon attacks another stalker, but fails to hit. Tobar's sharpshooting scores two hits on the monstrous creature! Weyve douses another portion of burning roof.
The soldiers attack the stalker Tobar shot, two scoring powerful strikes that cut it down. The last creature shrieks and lashes out desperately at Gideon, but doesn't hit!
The fire doesn't spread further.
Weyve continues to try and douse the fire while watching the battle out of the corner of his eye.
With only one of the stalkers left, Gideon turns his attention to it, maneuvering to let someone else get into a flanking position if possible, trying to bring it down so they can focus on putting out the fire for good.
Terana sidesteps to catch the stalker between her and Gideon, landing two more powerful blows with her axe. She's beginning to appreciate the short-hafted weapon more than before!
BAM! WHISH!
Tobar hits the stalker with one of his bolts, and though Gideon misses, Terana finishes the creature off with two powerful chops of her axe. Weyve is able to extinguish the remaining flames before they can do any more damage. It looks like the building is only mildly scorched. None of the food stored within it was damaged.
The soldiers thank you for helping them defeat the monsters, but with screams continuing to sound across the colony, they quickly hustle off to help others.
On the bodies of the faceless stalkers, you find numerous flasks of alchemist's fire. Each bears the maker's mark of local dwarf alchemist Alba Divenvaar.
"Does that mean Alba's been replaced?" Terana asks as she fastens two of the flasks to her belt. "We need to find her as soon as we can!"
She waits a moment for her companions to claim their two vials and then leads the way towards the nest nearest melee - switching to her glaive as she does so.
”Probably... or Alba’s in cahoots with them,” says Tobar.
"But she seemed so nice..." Terana responds, "I never got any odd feelings from her. I think she must have been replaced!"
"Even though many of them have revealed themselves, we still need to test those people who are still here. It would be a clever ploy to remain at a time when we believe the shapeshifters to have fled."
"Perhaps we should visit Alba next?" Weyve asks.
Riotous voices rise from two groups of colonists that are standing on opposite sides of the street. Harcourt Carrolby leads the first group, accompanied by farmer Faedwyr Trundlebrook and soldiers Antona Sedgewick and Sighra Harleau. Blacksmith Luetin Calewick leads the second group, joined by carpenter Gaege Murani, farmer Saymor Landis, and weaver Eskelda Teredein.
"Surrender, vile shapechangers!" Harcourt shouts, brandishing his longsword. "I'll not let you defile our home any further!"
"Yeah, right! We ain't falling for your tricks no more!" Luetin sneers, hefting his warhammer. "You're the shapechangers! The second we let our guard down, you guys go all prune-faced and try to drink our blood! Put down your weapons or we'll smash your heads in!"
The tension in the air is palpable, and it looks like this altercation could devolve into a fight at any moment.