Tristain will help drag the bodies to someplace and proceed to a safe spot for food and regret and head bonking.
Heinrich awakens with a groan. "Being dead and being unconscious are starting to blur together. I'm thinking I'm getting one of those magical stones that means you no longer have to sleep.." He stands and stretches, then helps to drag the bodies away. "Any idea why these fools attacked us?"
Al helps drag the bodies to the church or the detective agency, whatever the party decides, but he doesn't leave them hidden or laying in the street. "We need more information, maybe that count is the one we should be talking to?"
Tristain follows along.
"Yeah Al, let's go there. I'm sure they have a body drop off spot. Probably happens all the time."
You think a few people may have spotted you as you carry the bodies, but none bother to interrupt you. The church itself is as vacant as ever, the priestess still missing, but Hasok cries out in alarm as you arrive.
"What happened?" he asks.
Tristain isn’t so much carrying the bodies as he watching others carry them. His noodle arms are useful for pointing out dangers that others might stumble upon as they walk.
”Hasok? Oh...these guys attacked us in town! We were just walking along, minding our own business and they attacked us? We’re fine...I mean, I have a bump on my head, but I’m mostly fine.”
Tristan points to the welt on his noggin where he was brained.
”Do you recognize these guys? The dead bodies, not Kyffin, Al, Tenebrynn, and Grumpy.”
"Grumpy? Am I grumpy?" Heinrich mutters to Al.
The half-elf shakes his head.
"They don't look familiar to me," he says. "Sorry."
"Grumpy? Am I grumpy?" Heinrich mutters to Al
"Yes, but you could work on your 'Harrumph', it needs to start deep, like a good belch or clearing phlegm."
When the strange painter provides no useful information, Albert starts hauling the bodies to the detective agency. "Right, I think they do have a body drop at the detective agency, let's drop the bodies there."
Before they depart for the detective agency, Albert wipes dirt on the party's wounds.
"Have you seen the priest either? We haven't been able to locate her, and I thought surely we would at the fortress." he inquires of Hasok.
He lines up the bodies respectfully. More respectfully than they deserved in life, but he figures they've paid for those crimes now.
"So now what? It seems there is no authority now with the fortress emptied and all the good folks gone. And we've many unanswered questions." he shrugs. "Back to the detectives I guess? Maybe they learned something useful they can share with us."
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"Why don't we just dump the bodies in the cemetary for now, then come bury them after dinner and sleep? They'll keep for the night, right?" Tristain complains, having nearly died in the last day and tired of burning bodies for the day.
Will go to the detective agency after losing the bodies and give a full report.
"Yeah sure, cemetery is fine too." Kyffin goes with the flow on where to dump the bodies. He then walks with the others to the detectives.
Hasok shakes her head.
"She hasn't returned yet," he says. "I'm starting to wonder if she ever will, or if something's happened to her. Other people have disappeared, according to rumors, so maybe ..."
You arrive back at the detectives agency, where Cesadia greets you, wrinkling her nose a bit at the smell of smoke and pork on you, as well as the grime you're covered with.
"What happened?" she exclaims.
”Hi Cresidia,” Tristian unaccustomedly barges into the Agency to take a seat. He sits for a moment, then gets up to bonk the back of his head against the wall as he tries to explain what happened at the Fort.
”So...angry lady at the front door...*bonk**bonk**bonk*...we scaled the back wall...*bonk**bonk**bonk*...juju zombies & jelly blobs...*bonk**bonk**bonk*...skum, then more skum...*bonk**bonk**bonk*...mirror creatures!...*bonk**bonk**bonk*...ghost in the wall...*bonk**bonk**bonk*...death!...*bonk**bonk**bonk*...and so we came back here and were jumped by some goons,” Tris eventually explains.
Cesadia looks alarmed.
"That's insane. I knew something was wrong, but I never thought ... it sounds like these skum invaded through the aqueduct and killed all the guards. And turned them into undead, somehow. And I suppose we must assume the real constable is dead too, though there's a chance she went with Lowls..." she says.
"But if you were attacked afterward, there must still be more going on here. I feel certain Lowls' disappearance factors into all this, but can't say how. I suspect you're going to have to go to Iris Hill for more answers, but after what you found at Fort Hailcourse, I fear you may be in for more of the same there..."
"Sigh. Right, Iris Hill. Likely a nest of vipers there too." Kyffin frowns.
"We need some supplies, the church lies empty, and there is no authority to appeal to. We're going to go back and take the wands of healing we found there, and pay whatever authority wishes to claim a fee from us when all this is over. And we're going to get a good nights rest. Then we'll go up to Iris Hill and face whatever horrors are in store for us there."
Kyffin looks to the others to back him up in his plan, such as it is. Mostly he wants a nice ale, a hot supper, and a good sleep without skum, goons, undead, or other nasties jumping out at them at every turn.
Cesadia nods.
"This news about Fort Hailcourse puts Trilliss' disappearance in a darker light," she says of the missing priestess. "It's hard not to think something must have happened to her. Maybe there'll be clues at Iris Hill. In which case, I'm sure she and the church wouldn't mind using its wands to find the truth. I suppose Winter would be the current voice of authority for the church here, and I'm sure she would agree."
"Right then, off to Iris Hill in the morning." Albert is ready to head back to the inn with the party when they're finished here.
Tristain looks like he doesn’t know that he’ll be ready to go in the morning. He’d like a day or two or three before going to take on the likely horrors of Iris Hill. He will grumpily agree to go get food and dinner and *discuss* going tomorrow, but also feels like they need to sell gear and maybe see if anyone in town might want to help them.
"I agree, let's see what this hamlet can provide us by way of magics shall we?"
Kyffin, before going shopping, stops back at the church. He negotiates the key from the crazy painter, and lets himself in. He scoops up the two wands of curing, locks up, and returns the key.
As for shopping, Kyffin looks for a magical scimitar if he can find it (+1, 2,315gp).
Albert thinks about the strangeness at the fort and heartily agrees that the party should take a day to get outfitted properly before approaching the estate.
Heinrich looks over the treasures, idly picking at them. He's still slightly in shock from his death and rebirth, and seems to be even more distant than usual. The revelations of his drunken past haunt him: what else does he not know about himself?
"Is this Iris Hill a place or a person?" He asks, looking up at the name.
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Kyffin, with a little more cash in his pocket, picks up a few other items as well, assuming they are available.
- Alchemy Fire x2 (40gp)
- Javelins (1gp) x3 (6#)
- Long Composite (+4) Bow (500gp) (3#)
- 20 Arrows (Cold Iron w/ Silver blanch) (14gp)(3#)
- 20 Arrows (Cold Iron w/ Ghost Salt) (402gp)(3#)
He’ll then give away his old crossbow and quiver of bolts to any young adventurers in need, along with his old scimitar (or trade them in for pub cash).
Scimitar 2,315 + Misc purchases above 957gp = 3,272gp spent - 3,255 gained = 17gp out of pocket.
Tristain counts his coins, unsure what to do with so much wealth. Not that he has the ioun stone circling his head, he doesn’t know that he needs much more.
”So maybe we take some time to review the papers from the Fort? Then head over to Iris Hill on the morrow’s morrow? And where is the priest? Shouldn’t we find her?”
"Unless I missed something, we have no leads on the clergy, unless you know something I don't." Kyffin looks inquiringly.
"I think we head to Iris Hill now, or perhaps delay a couple hours to check the documents for more information if you really think it'll help. I don't think we need to spend a whole day on it though." He's eager to get going, to find answers to himself, and he doesn't think they'll be in some notes on who ordered what toilet paper for the keep - which is all he expects out of the documentation.
After shopping in the morning, Albert goes looking for the priest and asks around town while telling people of the adventures at the fort and the cleansing ability of Erastil.
At the talk of finding the priest, Tenebrynn sighs as she deftly rolls a coin back and forth across her knuckles, "Lots of people went missing. Could have been crazy thorn witch down at the lake, could have been skum and not-warden at the fort, could have been the yellow-king cultists that struck us on the road." She shrugs, then adds a second coin to the routine.
"And we all used to work for this Lowls person, who sounds dreadful and awful. I don't know that we'll like what we find up at Iris Hill. I mean, we should still go, but..." she lets the rest of the thought hang in the air unspoken.
People still haven't seen hide nor hair of the priestess for some time, though several suggest ominously you check with Hasok: "He's probably responsible for all those strange images on the wall, so it wouldn't be a shock if he did something to her too!"
Most seem relatively uninterested in Erastil -- they're clearly devotees of Pharasma. As you wander the town, though, a teenage girl approaches you, carrying a wrapped bundle. It turns out that she is the younger sister of the man you freed from Fort Hailstone; in thanks, she offers you the bundle.
"It was our father's, but please, you should take it! You saved Sholn!"
While they do their shopping, Kyffin peruses the papers, but can't find anything more than they had previously. With mysteries still lingering, you decide to make your way to Iris Hill. A 10-foot-tall hedge surrounds the estate, hiding what's inside, though though you can see the sturdy timber-frame construction of several buildings rising above it. The manor, with two large chimneys and circular dormer windows, is clearly the tallest building among the others on the estate.
Breaking the thick hedge that surrounds the estate, a squat building sports a pair of heavy wooden doors bearing a small sliding hatch, apparently the only point of access to the hedge-enclosed grounds of the estate. Its exterior double door is closed, and bears no knocker or bell.
”No priest anywhere, huh?” Tristain bonks his head in frustration. ”I sure would like to know that their is a priest around before we go fighting more battles.” A priest doesn’t just usually go evaporating into nothing. They have got to be around here.”[/b]
Tristain shrugs and agrees that following up on Hasok’s lead might be a good one. When the party is ready, he will take them there to speak with Hasok.
”Hey Hasok, where is the priestess? No one has seen her in forever.”
* * *
Tristain waits to see how others want to approach Iris Hill.
Hasok scratches his head, curious at your return.
"She hasn't come back [url=https://paizo.com/campaigns/MotteditorsStrangeAeonsPBP/gameplay&page=60#2966]since yesterday," he says. "If I see her, I'll tell her you're looking for her, but I'm not hopeful..."
"Well..." begins Kyffin slowly when they reach the hedge and eventual door, "I bet you anything the residents here are as corrupt as the keep. But we can't know that until they attack, so I think we've got to go in all polite like."
If no one objects, he'll go up to the doors and rap on them with his buckler.
Heinrich sloshes as he walks, following the others out to Iris Hill. "People go missing here a lot. Doesn't anyone go looking for them before the mysterious party of drunks and head-bangers show up?"
Tenebrynn grabs Kyffin's wrist as he reaches up to knock on the door. "Wait." She then looks back to the others, then up and down the length of the hedge, then back to Kyffin. "Maybe I could take a quick peek before we announce ourselves?" She then flips the cowl of her new cloak up, the fabric swallowing her bright, riotous hair from view, then bounds up to the top of the hedge without making a sound.
Albert is thankful for the shield and hopeful that the priestess will be at Iris Hill.
As Tenny looks over the hedge, Albert stay in view of the front gates and watches for the doors to open or a sliding of the hatch.
Tristain waits to see what the plan of action is.
”I can make someone invisible for a short time if needed,” Tristain offers. ”Dunno what we’ll expect here. Maybe more crying doors and zombiejujus? Or worse?”
The panel opens up and you see someone look through.
"Go away," he growls in a gravely voice, slamming the panel closed again.
Tenebrynn watches quietly from her perch atop the hedge as the panel in the door closes, waiting to see if the figure on the other side of the door walks back across the yard or not. As she waits, she imagines herself bounding from the far side of the hedge up to the largest building's roof and wonders briefly why she keeps gravitating toward looking for points of entry on the upper floors of all these buildings. She shrugs to herself in silence, seeing the practical wisdom in the approach and not dwelling on how she ever garnered such insights to begin with.
Tristain seems confused by the response to the knock. He knocks again.
”Don’t you recognize us? We’re Lowl’s men. Get Lowls, he knows us.”
Heinrich stands behind the bonking knocking man, looking somewhat uncomfortable. He feels like this place is maybe familiar, but also not familiar at all. He fingers the magic dagger at his belt, wondering if he was always so bloodthirsty.
Kyffin is about to pound on the door again when Tristain speaks. He nods in agreement and waits to hear what the person on the other side of the slit has to say.
Tenebrynn, you don't see any motion in the courtyard, which appears eerily shrouded in a thin mist that lingers over the grass. All the buildings appear dark and quiet.
"Lowls ain't here. You should be not here too, if you don't want any trouble," the voice responds.