Mr Whiskers realizes the only way to lay everyone to rest is to destroy both huecuvas and have consecrate cast on the churchyard. Otherwise they'll rise again as undead tomorrow night.
Shaking his head sadly, Mr. Whiskers says "We will need to consecrate the grounds so you don't rise again."
He then attempts to blind the two monsters.
They're both blinded."Do what you need to do. And do it before we turn."
Satisfied that Einar and Ziva have the executions well in hand, Crummock simply continues to intone the correct prayers.
Einar and Ziva perform the executions, with the 'priests' uttering prayers as they are cut down. As their bodies hit the floor, a shooting star falls at the edge of the town. Searching the area reveals a chest concealed in the bushes, containing the following items:
A scroll of hold person, a scroll of concecrate and a scroll of resist energy (cold) in an engraved scroll case worth 100 gp, a bladed belt, a ring of feather falling, and two fire opals worth 250 gp each, as well as 220 gp and 27 pp.
"You know," Nadya remarks, as she sees the maggots, worms and flesheating beatles in the pot, "I think I've lost my appetite."
"Why would Desna let something like THAT happen, if she's a good goddess?"
She looks a little green as she leads the party to the outskirts of the town to camp.
Nadya is in a rather somber mood tonight and does the minimal of setting up camp.Then she goes to the nearest river to take a bath before returning to hers and Crummock's shared tent and turning in for the night. The party sets up night watches and night passes uneventfully.
The party reaches the small isolated town of Ellsprin innthe late afternoon. Alas, all is not well.
A solitary wooden house sits on the outskirts of a small village, partially surrounded by a small grove of trees and hardy shrubs, far from the other houses in the village. A thin column of smoke rises from the chimney, but there is no other sign of life from within, and the window shutters are pulled closed. Fifteen feet in front of the homestead, a humanoid shape lies facedown—the snow around it is dyed red with blood.
"Don't come any closer!There's a crazy knife-wielding psycho out there who's kidnapped my son and murdered my husband! He's got a nutjob of his friend with him too!"A woman's high pitch scream of fear comes from the house.
Einar, Ziva and Mr Whiskers can see small prints on the ground that end in the middle of the path.
"You know," Nadya remarks, as she sees the maggots, worms and flesheating beatles in the pot, "I think I've lost my appetite.""Why would Desna let something like THAT happen, if she's a good goddess?"
"I don't think you can blame Desna. The gods mostly act through their priests, and it seems these priests lost hope. Still, the goddess provided us with the means to put them to rest." he points out, gesturing towards the scrollcase.
He pours an alchemist fire into the pot to get rid of the pests.
"I am thankful for that!"
Mr. Whiskers does what he can to join Crummock in the prayers.
"Couldn't she have...you know," Nadya wiggles her fingers in a gesture that's supposed to represent magic, "Filled the store so no one would starve?"
"I don't know." Mr. Whiskers admits. "Some can, but usually only a limited number of times a day. Of those who can perform that blessing, few could have fed the crowd we saw in the vision." No need to mention that they may have feared for their own lives, and might have reserved the power to protect themselves. I don't know all the details, there are many possible explanations. They all come down to the priests felt overwhelmed and lost faith.
Mr. Whiskers looks at the fallen body, trying to see if it is really dead. He is careful not to disturb any of the small prints.
"When did this happen?" he asks the frantic woman.
The body is that of a human male, recently deceased It looks like someone had a serious grudge with him, stabbing him many times even after he died. Carved into his back is a single word:
“Monster”
"Just now! I've locked the door so they can't get in! Stay away before they get you too!" The woman yells a reply.
Looking at the body, Mr. Whiskers pauses and then looks up at the woman "What happened? What did he do? Why did they carve the word monster into his hide?"
”Humans are the real monsters! They ill-treated our brother Garen, calling him a beast, chased him out of town! Die, human sympathizers, die!” Comes a voice from the from nowhere. Then a blur swoops out from the empty air, and a small winter quickling appears, lashing with his shortsword at Mr Whiskers, before stepping back."They call our kind bandits and thieves!"
Ziva lashes out as the quickling tumbles out of the way, but is too slow to get him.
”Garen is my son! What have you done to him, you foul things?!” The woman in the house screams.
From the roof off jumps a small, twig like creature that stabs Mr Whiskers with his spear.
Mr Whiskers recognizes the twiggy thing as a Winter Twigjack.
They have the following abilities:
Bramble jump:
A twigjack can travel short distances between brambles, shrubs, or thickets as if via dimension door as part of a move action. The twigjack must begin and end this movement while in an area of at least light undergrowth. The twigjack can travel in this manner up to 60 feet per day. This movement must be used in 10-foot increments and does not provoke attacks of opportunity.
Splinter spray:
A twigjack can eject a barrage of splinters and brambles from its body three times per day as a standard action. This effect creates a 15-foot conical burst of jagged splinters, dealing 4d6 points of piercing damage to all creatures in the area. A DC 14 Reflex saving throw halves this damage. The save DC is Constitution-based.
The little quickling steps in again to stab at Ziva, after the twigjack drops Mr Whiskers."Die, verminous human, die!"
Then the quickling tries to tumble away again.
Einar manages to put together a delicious Borscht. The party wonders if he should be doing the cooking from now on...
"You abandoned Garen to go out with that bastard!" The winter quickling points at the mutilated corpse on the ground."That @sshole had it coming!"
"Its not like that! You stole him away from me, you heartless fiends!" The woman in the house screams.
Einar's bite misses, but he manages to claw up the twigjack pretty good, coating his claws with its sticky greenish sap and it falls to the floor.
Mr. Whiskers breathing is shallow, but stable. There doesn't appear to be any bleeding.
Crummock waits for the quickling to appear, and then attempts to stun it with a Sound Burst.
It is stunned by Crummock's sound burst and drops its short sword. Ziva moves up, waits for Vernai to get into position, then she and Vernai simultaneously strike.
Vernai's strike does no damage to it, and Ziva's attack doesn't seem to fully penetrate.
Geist moves up and tries to bite the quickling
Geist bite does some damage but does not seem to fully penetrate.
Then it turns invisible.
Nadya attempts to pepper the creature with arrows...
...but has no luck.
Einar swots empty air!
Einar's glaive strikes into something and the party hears a body hit the floor. After some searching, they manage to locate the invisible body shape and chop of its head, resulting a beheaded winter quickling on the ground.
Crummock searches the invisible body, then calls out to the house.
"We've dealt with the two that were out here; do ye have any idea if'n there be more, or is that it? Ye might also want to come out and deal wit' your dead - fair warnin' - it ain't a pretty sight..."
As Crummock recites prayers, he takes out the scroll of consecrate and reads from it. The magic words upon the scroll vanish, and a fresh breeze smelling of wildflowers blows through the ruined temple. There is a relieved sigh that can be heard on the wind, as if something was finally at peace. The bodies of the huecuvas crumble to ash and are dispersed by the wind.
"My son, Garen is a faun. He was always being ostracized by the village – they tried to hitch him to a plough, calling him a cow, so we moved out here. I met my husband, a woodsman and his two girls here. But I think Garen felt left out…one day he ran away from home, and then next time I saw him he was with those things! They took my son south, please - save him from his kidnappers!" The woman points to the south as she comes out of the house. "Oh no, they killed my husband! He told us to run while he held them off!" She falls onto his body, weeping uncontrollably.
The party follows the directions. Einar and Ziva pick up tracks that lead to an abandoned barn.
Crummock almost completely heals Mr Whiskers , before tossing aside the remains of the Cure wand, which swiftly crumbles to ash.
He then pulls out another wand, and moves to heal Ziva...
...grunting in satisfaction when her wounds fully close over.
Expecting trouble, Crummock cautiously moves forward, Starknife at the ready.
”There are people coming up to the barn. Those are the people who bullied you. You must teach them a lesson so they’ll never dare to hurt you again.” The party hears a voice ahead.
”No, I don’t want to hurt anyone! I just wanted to be left alone!” The party hears another frightened voice.
The party enters an abandoned barn to see a quickling and a faun shaking, holding a dagger in his trembling hands.
Einar lands a heavy blow on the quickling.It attemots to throw its short sword at him, which clangs harmlessly off his breastplate, then falls over.
"Who are you?"The faun asks fearfully. "Are you here to kill me and eat me?" The dagger wavers in his hand.
"Arggghhhh! I knew it! You're gonna eat me!" He drops his dagger makes a mad dash for the exit.
Crummock sighs.
"Einar, stop scaring children."
He then turns to the faun.
"Little one, your mother sent us to find you - she was terrified that you had been harmed by the creatures that killed her husband. Please, come with us to see her."
"But she's happier without me. She can move back to the village and work in the tavern instead of having to live near the woods. The village kept trying to get shavings of my antlers. They said it was a tonic! He seems genuinely shocked that the woman's husband is dead. "Borvald's dead? Mom will be sad. But maybe she's really better off on her own?" He stops running and stands still, still hesitating.
"I dinnae think she is happier without ye - after all, she moved out here because she loved ye. Her first thoughts were of ye - she wanted us to rescue ye from your kidnappers..."
Crummock pauses to let that sink in, before continuing.
"Moreover, with her husband dead, and two little girls to look after, I think she could do with all the help she can get... please, go back to her - she is worried sick!"