"It's not quite the same." Melodie responds, realising what Zileska is referring to. "Apparently a White Ram told them to do it and promised the nightmares would stop. The nightmares are highly lustful and full on cannibalism apparently." She shudders. "I don't think she was involved in this. It doesn't feel like her. But a similar creature... well, I don't think we should sleep in Yanmass if we can avoid it."
She turns back to the woman she's charmed. "Tell me everything you can about the dreams. I know its hard, but every detail is crucial here. Where are you in the dream? What do you see? Hear?"
The conscious townsfolk provide some disturbingly specific information about their dreams. All the nightmares feature the dreamer being shamelessly propositioned by someone the dreamer knows and loves—such as a spouse, sibling, or friend. In the dream, the two kiss and caress, but the dreamer is overcome with crippling hunger and takes enormous bites from the flesh of the dreamer's would-be lover. Victims awaken fatigued, and several weeks of not getting rest has lead these people to take desperate measures.
"That's when the white ram showed up. It has eyes as black as night, and it spoke to us, telling us the only way to finally stop the nightmares was to find the five of you and kill you."
"This white ram business doesn't sound like ... like her at all," Zhi says looking at Melodie. "But whoever it is already knows about us. That sounds like Merkondus, who seems to have an edge on us in knowing his opponent."
"Sex and cannibalism sounds a little cultic - like Lamashtu," muses Zileska.
Zileska thinks the cannibalistic dreams might be more associated with Urgathoa than Lamashtu, if they are indeed related to religion.
"The only council members who seemed to be affected by the nightmares were the Loyalist ones, I'm thinking that at least someone is wanting Pythareus in charge. Whether Merkondus knows about it or not, is another story."
"You'd have a really hard time convincing me to place a bet on Earl Merkondus being ignorant of who's inflicting the nightmares, Zhi says with a smirk.
"All the more reason to track them down." Melodie concurs. "From what Martella said this sounds like exactly the sort of thing he'd do, create trouble to destabilise the city and then take credit for 'rescuing' it. We'll have to keep a sharp eye out, see if we can get any real evidence for it one way or the other."
The townsfolk don't have much else to offer, and promising to help end their nightmares seems to mollify them for the time being. You continue on your way.
Backhill is a sleepy middle-class residential district east of Hedge Hill but within the city walls. You follow Lady Aumber's directions to Caradinna Farkin's house. This tall but narrow house towers over a weedy yard. The house's shutters are all closed, but a thin trail of smoke issues from its crooked chimney. Thin sheets of metal are nailed to the front door along with a sign reading, "Absolutely NO solicitors or psychic manipulators!"
Zhi looks at the sign on the door and breaks into a fit of giggles.
"Well, my love, it looks like your kind isn't wanted here," she says, throwing Melodie a playful grin. She then steps up and knocks on the door.
There is no response to the knocking.
Getting no response, Zhi looks around casually to see if they have any obvious observers. If not, then she tries the door. If it appears to be locked, then she'll attempt to correct that.
Then she'll open the door.
"Hello? Ms. Farkin? We're friends."
We hope.
"We'd like to ask you some questions."
Not seeing any observers, Zhi quickly picks the lock and opens the door. The interior of the house is in disarray, with maps, notes, and frantic scribbles covering most surfaces. The walls are lined with sheets of lead, and dozens of dreamcatchers hang from the ceiling.
When Zhi calls out, the door to the adjoining room quickly opens and a narrow-faced woman peers out from around the corner. "You broke into my house! Who are you? Do you serve the veiled masters?!?"
"I'm sorry about that, but you didn't answer and we were worried about you and wanted to make sure you were ok," Zhi says. Her eyes wander around the room and take in the crazy.
"We serve the Princess Eutropia," she finally continues.
Introductions follow as she looks closer at the scribbles.
"Are you hiding from the veiled masters? What can you tell us about them?"
"Yes! And your presence here is going to draw them to me!" Farkin shrieks. "If you want to find the truth, check out that new restaurant, Savories. Now leave my house this instant!"
Seeing Farkin distract Zhi away from the papers, Sara tries to surreptitiously pocket them.
The wild-eyed woman doesn't notice Sara's theft.
Melodie performs a psychic manipulation.
Melodie scans Farkin's mind, noting that her intelligence is above average.
After concentrating for a few seconds, she picks up the woman's surface thoughts. "Would these nosy b$&+%es hurry up and leave already? I hope they take the bait and go to that stupid restaurant. The longer they're here, the more of a chance they'll see through me. Good spot there, right between her ribs. Blade to the Tian girl's heart, then I'll move on to the rest of them."
"You, stop!" Melodie cries, "Zhi get away from there! It's not Farkin!"
As Melodie shouts her warning, Farkin snarls and lunges towards Zhi, revealing the poisoned blade she had been concealing behind the doorframe!
Without a second thought, Zhi pulls back just enough to draw her weapons. She then puts them to use.
Before the team leaves the townspeople, Zileska is sure to send them off with a little of Calistria's comfort.
~~~~~~~~~~
When the doppel-Farkin makes its move, Zileska reacts in a snap and puts her hand gently on Sara's shoulder.
"Go get 'em."
Blessed by Calistria's luck, Sara picks up the table and swings it into Farkin, cracking it against her.
Zhi draws her blades and stabs the woman, and Sara breaks a table over her head. She staggers but doesn't fall. Her deception foiled, the woman stabs Zhi with the poisoned blade, channeling negative energy through the strike. She gen grasps a holy symbol under her shirt and an illusory duplicate of herself appears.
Melodie finishes her spell, but the woman resists being paralyzed.
CRACK! Zileska lashes out with her whip to snag the shortsword from the woman.
Twisting away from the poisoned blade, Zhi still manages to stab at the woman with her rapier.
The switch to violence caught Maria by surprise but Melodie's call got her moving. Once more drawing her sap (figuring that this was someone worth interrogating before turning over to the town guards) she moved in and aimed for the woman's head, adjusting the angle of her strike once she saw through the illusion.
Zileska's whip cracks through the mirror image, destroying it. Maria tries to get into a flanking position, but the false Farkin is standing in the doorway, preventing the tiefling from getting behind her. She swings he sap to no avail. Zhi, however, scores another critical hit, leaving the impostor badly injured.
A little anxious, Sara accidentally bites her lip, filling her mouth with blood. She spits the blood into the woman's face before slapping her across the face.
Though rude, the slap is ultimately just a slap.
The woman snarls as she is blinded. She takes the time to wipe the blood clear so she can see again. "No! I won't let your masters claim me!" she shouts.
Sara spits in her eyes again, angry now. "You look better this way, b%~*$," she grunts, stepping on the woman's foot with her magic heel.
With little more she can do Melodie steps up behind her wife and implants a sliver of power into Zhi to end the fight quickly.
Maria kept swinging with her sap - she wanted this woman alive for questioning.
Sara blinds the woman again before jabbing her heel through her foot. As she screams in pain and wipes at her eyes again, Maria takes advantage of her blindness by smacking her on the head with her sap. The pain is amplified by Melodie's voice, and the woman crumples to the floor, unconscious.
The illusion cloaking her wavers and fades, revealing her true form as a half-orc. She wears an unholy symbol of Norgorber, along with some other gear.
Searching the home, it doesn't take you long to find the body of the real Carradina Farkin, stuffed into a trunk. It seems like she's been dead for a few days.
Zhi wastes no time in binding up the assassin. She shakes her head in disgust at finding the body of the real Ms. Farkin.
"So, are you ready to find out what she was doing here?" she asks Melodie.
"I bet it's like those villagers: no real reason but for a goat talking to them."
She examines the papers she picked up earlier.
"I don't think so," Zhi says. "This gal was a pro. She was hired for this."
The once-resurrectionist gestures at the dead body. "Then why stick around longer than it took to kill Farkin? Why impersonate her? A pro does her work, then gets gone and stays gone."
The papers are full of rambling theories and rants. It will take some effort to make sense of them.
"She wanted us to check out that restaurant, didn't she?" Zhi says. "Maybe she was trying to send us on a wild goose chase. Distract us."
"This body's been here several days, Zhi. Why would someone stay here longer than an hour. I expect you're right, that the restaurant was a false lead, but it doesn't answer the question as to why stay." Her eyes squint at the ramblings, and she repeatedly loses her place. "Maria, I can't make heads or tails of this, would you fare any better?"
"If it was Merkondus, then he's known we were coming for a while now. Maybe he set this up to feed us false information," Zhi says, although she doesn't sound completely convinced of her own logic. She looks at the unconscious assassin.
"I don't know. Let's wake her up and find out. Zileska?"
"I think its more than that." Melodie says slowly. "I think Farkin got too close, found out something she shouldn't have. So then the killer has two objectives - kill her and muddy the waters, stop anyone following up. She thought the restaurant was nothing - a wild goose chase, but that's the second time we've heard about it today. I saw we look, later. For now, lets see what she can tell us."
With the woman awake Melodie stands in front of her, having implanted a trick in herself, just in case. "Answer our questions honestly and you may leave this building alive. Who are you working for and why did you kill Miss Farkin?"
Her voice is hard and cold, almost sending a chill down the spine. Melodie clearly means business.
Zileska crouches and picks up the unholy symbol of Norgorber.
"Cultic activity all right," she says. "Thievery, assassination and sabotage."
She stands and brushes off her knees, then tucks away the unholy symbol to be destroyed later.
"All right, let's wake her up."
The half-orc winces as she stammers her reply. "My name is Inga Narrowknife. I'm a drifter, traveling from town to town. I have a... particular set of skills, and sometimes people hire me to do their dirty work. But this was different. I was walking through the streets when a large dog with black eyes used magic on me. It told me to come here and kill the woman who lived here, and I had no choice but to do it. But then I read all her notes about 'veiled masters' and the protections her house has against them. That dog must have served the masters! I don't want them to take control of me again. This is the only place safe from them."
"Where did you see the dog?" Melodi presses on ruthlessly. "Why did it want Farkin dead? What have you learned from her notes? Who are these veiled masters? And why did you want us to investigate the restaurant?"
"I can't remember where I saw it exactly. My memories are a little hazy. I don't know why it wanted me to kill her. I don't know who the masters are. I only know that she believed she was safe from the masters here. All these psychic defenses keep them at bay. I told you to go to that restaurant cause it was the first place I could think of. I didn't want yo sticking around long enough to find out who I really was."
"How long have you been a cultist of Norgorber?" chimes in Zileska.