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Raising an eyebrow at the unexpected retort from the Bhadrim, Ezekiel stroked his goatee for a moment, taking a breath to measure his words.
"While I don't disagree that the Cultist could have been of interest, but the fact that his dwelling has literally been burned to the ground and his body torn to pieces would likely leave little relevant information to be learned, but I'm not opposed to visiting the site if you insist. As to the cultist being a worshiper of Ghlaunder...
"As I was saying, worshipers of Ghlaunder are a mysterious lot, and we can't be sure what his motive was, if any." Ezekiel mused, his face contorting as if he was trying to remember something on the tip of his tongue.
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"Aye, true, but that's not to say there isn't something in the grounds. Too much of a coincidence that a follower of Ghlaunder happens to be in an area beset by mosquitos and other bloodsuckers. We'll question this Ms. Lyons about the cultist and see what she has to say about them. Might give us an idea as to who we are dealing with," Bhadrim glances at Vengis.
"Is that so? Seems someone thought it important we should bring it with us," Bhadrim says. "If you don't mind holding onto it for now, it seems someone has chosen you to carry it."
You take your leave of Galia, and set out to visit Ms. Lyons. As you start to walk away from the gnome's house, you near a loud bark as a shaggy dog with cream-white fur bolts down the town street toward you, scattering the clouds of mosquitoes hovering above the ground. A woman’s voice follows after the dog: “Peaches! Peachy! Get back here!”
A Tian woman in simple traveling clothes sprints into view a few moments later, stopping to stand by the dog. “Sorry about that,” the woman says, as the dog whines for attention. “I didn’t think there was anything out here right now but insects, or I would have kept a closer eye on him. My name’s Haru Kwon. What brings you to Shimmerford? It’s not exactly a popular destination right now.”
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"Sightseeing. We heard Shimmerford has the nicest collection of dolls for tourists." Dob watches the woman for signs of dubious intent He cracks a smile practiced to appear friendly. "Nice to meet you, Miss Haru. I am Dob Frilko and my companions are Sparknozzle, Vengis Mountebank, Bhadrim Thunderhammer, Ezekiel Graystone, and Kamil Durus. We have come to put an end to the problems plaguing your village so that you may all return to dollcraft or whichever other occupations you perform. Perhaps Mr. Peaches knows something of what is causing all this? Or maybe, you?"
"Oh, we're not from here either, actually. I’m a bit of a traveling scholar, though I have a lot of work to do to make a name for myself in that field. I’ve been traveling around the River Kingdoms, recording the local legends and customs. For obvious reasons, Shimmerford was high on my list to visit. I may have gotten more than I bargained for. ”
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Lissi shies away from the dog. Animals don't always have the kindest reactions to her. Whether it's the... thing, in her head, or just not being an animal person, they almost never let her near them.
They sense your weakness, It whispers.
Gods, does It ever sleep?
Always asleep. Always dreaming. Always dreaming of You.
Well, that is about the most horrifying thing It could have said. She starts whispering under her breath, the lullaby her mother sang to her when she found her in her cage in the cultists' lair. And now here are more cultists in her path... At least this one is already dead.
"Turaluralura
Turaluralai..."
She whispers it under her breath over and over.
“I only know what I’ve heard from the townsfolk. It’s a little contradictory, isn’t it? Some people seem to think it’s a hag, others a demon, others a priest of Ghlaunder, and others a ghost. If you’re planning to go looking for it, I’d bring cold iron along—that would help you against demons and hags—and fire to help burn away swarms of insects. And if it turns out the witch is a ghost, run and hide! Your weapons won’t do a thing against spirits, and I doubt you’ll have enough holy water to chase it away.”
Haru gives Dob a strange look, but replies, "My 'burden' as you say, is that I'm looking for a friend of mine, and I don’t care to tell you her name. She sent me a letter a month ago, claiming that she intended to go to Shimmerford to investigate what was going on here. I intended to meet up with her here, but when I arrived, she wasn’t anywhere to be found.”
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Bhadrim glances at Lissi with an arched eyebrow before turning his attention back to the scholar.
"An interesting response, that you don't care to tell us the name of your friend. We could assist in your search, but I'm not inclined to aid someone who isn't willing to help themselves," Bhadrim rumbles. He thinks to himself for a moment.
"However, we are headed to speak with Ms. Lyons, who we gather is something of an expert on the Mosquito Witch. Perhaps she knows something of your... friend," Bhadrim suggests. "Perhaps she might know where your friend is."
Vengis's familiar, unlike any other cat, shows no fear of the dog, Peaches. Instead, it stares at it unflinchingly. One of its eyes bulges much larger than the other.
Peaches notices Nalfeshnee and gives a doggy grin as he leans down to sniff the unusual cat.
Haru responds to Bhadrim with a shrug. "I didn't ask for your help, did I?"
To Vengis she says, "I had a long way to travel, and I just arrived yesterday."
She looks at her dog and says, "Peaches! Leave it! We need to get going. Come!"
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Avoiding the conversation for now, Ezekiel continued to scribble furiously in his notebook, having to dip for additional ink multiple times with his quill. Without realizing it he was mumbling as he wrote, repeating the pertinent details.
"Hags, demons, ghost, cultists, cold iron, fire. Interesting..."
Looking up, Ezekiel finally looked at the young woman with a furrowed brow as he proceeded to ramble another series of questions.
"You seem rather familiar with hags, demons, and ghosts. How are you with cultists, specifically worshipers of Ghlaunder?"
"You seem rather familiar with hags, demons, and ghosts. How are you with cultists, specifically worshipers of Ghlaunder?"
She turns to face you while still backing away with her dog. "No better than anyone else, I imagine. I’d be a little careful suggesting there might be a secret cultist among the villagers here, though, considering what they did to the last one.”
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Bhadrim crosses his arms as he watches Haru depart. Once she is out of earshot, he looks at the others.
"Something about her puts my hackles up," he says finally. "She claims to be looking for her friend, yet immediately gets defensive and refuses to name her friend. It's not like this place is teeming with people to help her, and if kith or kin of mine had gone missing and I knew where they had last been, I'd be kicking down every door and turning over every stone." Bhadrim breathes out heavily between his teeth.
"We'll ask this Ms. Lyons if she has heard of anyone new arriving within the last month that's mysteriously disappeared. There seems to be a lot of things happening in short order, and like I said, I don't believe in coincidences. Shall we get moving?"
You make your way to the home of Ms. Mordha Lyons. It is a small house, and even beyond the issue of the mosquito invasion it shows that she is probably very poor and unable to do much to take care of it.
At your knock, the door is answered by a young Tian man with white hair. As soon as he sees you, he becomes quite annoyed and says, "I have had it with you! Why can you not leave the poor woman alone? Three days of this ... this ... harassment! If there were guards left, I would have you locked up!"
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Lissi watches curiously from the back of the party as the others continue to approach diplomacy with a hacksaw. Wow. And I thought I was abrasive. This is... I mean, this is impressive.
She sort of wishes she had popcorn, at the moment. Still, she's not any more of a face than these guys, so she decides to keep her mouth shut and watch, for the moment.
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Dob, on the other hand, decides to step in before things get too heated. Find your right words. His face matches the seriousness of the Tian man, but replaces rage with compassion. "What my friends should take the time to note, is that we just arrived less than an hour ago via the river boat, so we couldn't be the ones responsible for this 'harassment.' However, since, as you pointed out, the guards have left, we may be the solution to each others' dilemmas. Perhaps, if we can speak to you and Ms, Lyons about this problem and the other problems plaguing your fair town, we can put an end to the harassment and the bloodseekers as well. I assure you, we have no intention of adding to your woes."
Diplomacy
The man looks confused, but calms down a bit as Dob speaks. "No, this is the third day in a row that you six yourselves have been here asking to bother Ms. Lyons. I ... I remember you ... don't I? Wasn't it you?"
Despite his insistence, Dob's words are making him reconsider. "Maybe ... I haven't been sleeping well, perhaps I am confusing you with someone else ..."
He slowly backs into the room, leaving the door open for you. As you come in, you see that the house is just as poorly maintained on the inside as on the outside. You find a frail old woman, wrapped in a blanket, sitting in a wooden rocking chair. Her hands shake so badly she can barely feed herself, and she doesn’t respond at all to your arrival.
"Ms. Lyons isn't well, I'm afraid. She doesn't speak much these days. The years have not been kind to her."
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Bhadrim arches an eyebrow at the man. Clearly he was addled but that didn't mean there was some truth to his words.
"Are you telling us that there are six more people in the area investigating what's going on?" he rumbles, looking around the interior.
"We haven't seen such as yet although we've not been here long. We were coming here to question Ms. Lyons on the Mosquito Witch, as she is apparently the last alive to have seen the creature. Is that true? Do you know anything else that can assist us in getting to the bottom of this mystery? Bhadrim asks. "Also there is a woman looking for a friend, who she refuses to name, who apparently wrote her a letter a month ago from this village. Do you know of anyone who went missing around a month ago?"
"Are you telling us that there are six more people in the area investigating what's going on?" he rumbles, looking around the interior.
"No, I am saying I have seen you six at this door twice already ... " His words don't have quite the force they had before, but he still maintains he has seen you before, despite your having just arrived.
"We haven't seen such as yet although we've not been here long. We were coming here to question Ms. Lyons on the Mosquito Witch, as she is apparently the last alive to have seen the creature. Is that true? "
At your mention of the Mosquito Witch, the woman's eyes focus, and she stares at each of you in turn, and seems to make a decision. “It was all just a joke to them,” the old woman says, her voice pinched thin with bitterness. “They pretended to care, a little, when they were all scared that they would be next. Not much, even then.”
“It was up on Witchtop Hill. Up to the north, a little left of the three boulders and past the bend in the stream. We thought it was a dead animal at first, lying on the ground. It was when we got close that it sprung up, tall as a full-grown man. Came after us on its thin little legs. Didn’t matter how fast we ran, it was right behind us. I thought my heart would burst with the running. It was only when we got to town that we dared to look back. But we didn’t find it. Just sharp footprints in the mud, and smears of sicklysweet blood.
“And them, with their masks and their dolls and their festivals. They didn’t know what it was like. To have it in their dreams at night, to wake up with its little paper dolls by the bed. If they’d seen it, they’d never have dared. They don’t know what it’s like to see its eyes in every filthy little bug, for the whining of those insects to be like screaming in my ears.” Mordha clams her mouth shut, before speaking again, in a trembling tone. “It took something from me. And I don’t remember it. I don’t remember it. No one will ever remember it.”
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Lissi shudders hard at the old woman's words. They took something from me. Lissi stares at the ashy, Bleached skin on her small, thin hands. Yes, she knows what that is like.
North. Left of the three boulders. Past the bend in the stream. She repeats it multiple times in her head to try and commit it to memory. "We must go to Witchtop. Maybe we will see something, maybe not. But it feels important. It doesn't need to be our next stop necessarily, but it should be high on our list."
She turns to Ms. Lyons. "I am sorry it took from you. I had something important taken from me too."
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Bhadrim flicks his eyes over to Ms. Lyons as she speaks. As she speaks more and more, his hand tightens around the haft of his clan dagger. When she lapses back into silence, and after Lissi has spoken, Bhadrim nods.
"Aye, Witchtop Hill is now our first port of call," he states. "We need to see if this... thing is still in the area."
Turning his attention back to the man, he narrows his eyes at him before speaking.
"I swear to Torag that I have not been to this house before now, and that I have never met you or Ms. Lyons before this moment," he intones.
Bhadrim indicates to any of the magically-inclined in the group to join him in a corner. Assuming that they do, he lowers his voice.
"Clearly Ms. Lyons is out of it, and I reckon something is up with the young man too. Can any of you do, you know," Bhadrim waggles his fingers in what he thinks an approximation of spellcasting, "Try to see if there is any mumbo-jumbo around them, or have some way of warning us in case anyone tries something like that?"
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Bhadrim looks at Kamil and shrugs.
"Where do you suggest we look? A lot of the townsfolk seem to have fled, and as I see it, we have two clear sites of interest. I personally see little value in just hanging around, trying to find someone who might have some information for us when we have two leads to follow up on."
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Staying out of the interrogation as Ezekiel was terrible with words and even worse in expressing them to strangers in such a way that didn't sound overly verbose or confusing, he instead kept taking furious notes in his notebook, his ink never running out as his quill moved back and forth furiously.
"Interesting that the poor chap feels like he's already met us twice before. Could be intoxication due to over exposure to certain fungi or ingestion of specific plants. Regardless, I agree that more investigation in the town is warranted before wandering off to Witchtop Hill half baked."
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Lissi shrugs. "I'd say the inn, then. We need rooms anyway--we're not solving this mystery in a day, I'm sure. And we can try to gather information from the locals there. Inns and taverns are good resource hubs. It's not all going to be factual, but even the most absurd rumor can be useful information."
She looks around. "Also we should maybe stop whispering in a corner of a strange woman's house and take the conversation outside. Unless anyone can think of any more questions for them."
---
"Who are the Bells?"
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Why wanting to go out of town without talking to all the town residents? Galia gave us a map of the village with all the inhabitants still living here.
I agree that Witchtop Hill is a good place for the investigation, but I would prefer finishing poking around in town first.
We can also split the party, some going to investigate Witchtop Hill and the rest continuing in town.
For myself, I will continue our investigations here.
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Dob turns to the young man before they leave. Hopeful of having established something of a rapport, he speaks "Thank you for assenting, my friend. I believe we shall shortly take our leave, hopefully not to bother you or Ms. Lyons again. Before we leave, however, I was wondering if you could share with me what you remember of the prior visits your memories speak of us making. What did we do, what did we ask, and what was the response? If for no other reason, to keep us from making the efforts you recall as harassment."