Showing you to the door, the priest says to Dob, "Just that you came here asking to speak to Ms. Lyons. It's a bit fuzzy now, as if maybe I only dreamed it, but so vividly I recalled it as real ..." His former anger seems gone now, replaced by confusion. "Thank you for being patient with me."
As you take your leave, he suddenly calls out. "Oh, friend gnome! You dropped this!" He hurries after you, and holds out a very familiar, very creepy doll to Dob.
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The Whitefish and Stag inn is the tallest building in Shimmerford and one of the few with a view over the town gates. As you enter, you see a man stand up behind the bar to greet you. Before he can, however ...
Entering the inn, Kamil bow flourishly and with a booming voice says Greetings! I'm Kamil Durus we are here to resolve all your problems! Lets talk about them all together.
The man is somewhat taken aback, and just blinks at you for a moment, before regaining his wits.
"Er, well, alright then ... welcome to Shimmerford ... Can I get you drinks? Food? Will you be needing rooms? You have the look of monster hunters and adventurers about you."
Looking around, the only other person in the common area at the moment is a haggard human with dark messy hair, stubble sparsely forming a goatee, and gaunt cheeks. He sits in a corner, turning a paper doll over and over in his hands, and muttering to himself.
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Bhadrim scowls at the appearance of yet another stuffed doll but keeps his mouth shut. He follows the group to the Inn.
Bhadrim rolls his eyes at Kamil's theatrics, having no truck with such over the top behaviour. Instead, he scans the room and notices the man turning a paper doll over in his hands. Ignoring everyone else, Bhadrim bustles over to the man and extends his hand in greetings.
"Greetings friend, I am Bhadrim Thunderhammer, a Pathfinder sent here to investigate the goings on here in Shimmer Ford of late. I notice you have a paper doll. We just spoke with Ms. Lyons who mentioned that the Mosquito Witch left behind paper dolls. How about we have a chat about that doll?" Bhadrim says by way of introduction.
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Dob thanks the young man for the "return" of the doll, "hugging" it as they leave. Once they are out of sight of the Lyon place, he tosses the doll on the ground, draws a weapon and hacks it to pieces. "Either we have an invisible stalker, or this damn thing's animated by some spirit. Making sure it's not the second."
Provided that doesn't make us roll initiative, Dob will scatter the pieces, keeping the head looped onto his belt. At the inn, he'll look into the possibility of a secure room.
Bhadrim scowls at the appearance of yet another stuffed doll but keeps his mouth shut.
On inspection, this appears not to be another doll, but the same one as before.
Dob thanks the young man for the "return" of the doll, "hugging" it as they leave. Once they are out of sight of the Lyon place, he tosses the doll on the ground, draws a weapon and hacks it to pieces. "Either we have an invisible stalker, or this damn thing's animated by some spirit. Making sure it's not the second."
Provided that doesn't make us roll initiative, Dob will scatter the pieces, keeping the head looped onto his belt. At the inn, he'll look into the possibility of a secure room.
Dob destroys the body of the doll, scattering the straw around. He keeps the head on his belt, where he can keep an eye on it.
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"Greetings friend, I am Bhadrim Thunderhammer, a Pathfinder sent here to investigate the goings on here in Shimmer Ford of late. I notice you have a paper doll. We just spoke with Ms. Lyons who mentioned that the Mosquito Witch left behind paper dolls. How about we have a chat about that doll?" Bhadrim says by way of introduction.
The man looks up at Bhadrim with slightly unfocused eyes. “The doll - it’s following me. Ha...hah hahaha! Of course its following me. I’m being stalked by a doll!” The man crushes the paper in his hands. “’The iron cave will fall’... what is that supposed to mean? What do you want from me?!”
His last words are loud, not quite a scream. He looks around at the group, and notices the doll's head on Dob's belt. "You have one, too! Don't let it get into your head!"
Vengis looks on with some alarm as the barkeep or innkeeper discusses the doll.
"What do you mean, 'the iron cave will fall'? What is that supposed to mean?" he asks.
"I DON'T KNOW! IT WON'T TELL ME!"
He bats the crumpled paper doll across the table. As it moves, you realize that there are words written on the inside of the folds.
"Him? I think his name's Quintus ... he got here a few days back. Seemed pretty normal at the time, but he's clearly disturbed. Not sure what's got into him. If you leave him alone, he'll just go back to quietly babbling. He hasn't been violent or anything, beyond a few screams."
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Bhadrim indicates to the crushed up paper doll.
"Mind if I take that?" he asks of Quintus. Assuming that the man doesn't care, he picks it up and looks to some of his more magically inclined compatriots and waggles his fingers at it.
"Any of you able to see if there's something... special about this piece of paper?" Bhadrim quickly turns it over in his hands to see if there is anything on it aside from the writing.
"Oh, and some ale," he says to the barkeep as an aside.
The paper is crumpled and smudged from the man's hands, but unfolding it you can make out the words The iron cave will fall scrawled in an unsteady hand.
The innkeeper shrugs at Kamil and says, "The mosquitoes and bloodsuckers have driven most folks away and the only tourists we have left are the occasional adventurers like yourselves, coming to see if they can figure out what's happening. Hopefully one of you will, and we can get our town back."
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Ezekiel writes down "The iron cave" followed by several question marks, circling it a few times for emphasis as he wracks his brain, trying to think of any time he might have heard of the name "the iron cave" in any of the various books he's read over the year, particularly in regards to the surrounding area.
"Barkeep, are there any mines in the area?" Bhadrim asks. He had been a miner in his youth, and the connection seemed simple.
"Mines? No, can't say I've ever heard of one. The forest's a big place, though."
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Bhadrim grumbles as he stashes the paper doll in a belt pouch.
"You said earlier that the only people were occasional adventurers like us. We met a woman earlier who was looking for a friend who had come to Shimmerford around a month ago. She sent a letter to this woman who has come to look for her. Ring any bells?" Bhadrim asks the barkeep.
"Also, what do you know of Witchtop Hill, and this Ghlaunder cultist who was lynched?"
"Well, there's been a few adventurers. A half-elf woman came through a few days back. Had a fancy set of golden armor. Last I saw she headed northeast into the woods. Then there was a man dressed in white, he went east yesterday. Haven't seen either of them since."
"Witchtop Hill, that's where Mordha Lyons and those other kids say the Mosquito Witch attacked them all those years back. I don't go up there myself."
"That cultist, that was a bad one. Hermit he was, working his mischief out there. Strung him up and burned his place down, we did. Whatever he started didn't end with him, sadly. We're better off without him, though."
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Lissi sips a mug of some weak beverage--she's never had much stomach for alcohol--and tries to wrack her brain for more pertinent questions. She really thought maybe the dwarf had something with the question about the mine. She needs to learn to think outside the box if she's going to--
I will eat your thoughts, It whispers. They will taste like new paper, and sand in an hour glass. I will smother them in your dreams and eat those too.
Lissi squeezes her eyes closed with an almost imperceptible whimper, rocking gently as she waits for the episode to pass.
Do you know any person in town that has recieved a paper doll?
"Can't say that I have."
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Bhadrim scratches his beard as the barkeep mentions the few people who have passed through recently. Without much details to go on, it could be them or it might not be. He nods, taking a mental note if they run into the woman from earlier.
"Any recent gossip about Witchtop Hill? Perhaps before all of...," Bhadrim waves his hand around. "This."
As the barkeep describes what happened with the cultist, Bhadrim says nothing. Once the barkeep finishes, Bhadrim nods.
"I won't judge you. Won't even say I wouldn't do the same. But nothing, no change after you strung him up? Did it get worse?"
The innkeeper shrugs and apologizes, but he has nothing to add on the topic of Witchtop Hill or the Ghlaunder cultist.
The cat stares at Ezekiel with its one bulging eye.
You take your leave of the inn and set out to find Witchtop Hill. Ms. Lyons' directions weren't the best, but you are nonetheless able to identify the place once you get out there.
Witchtop Hill is a dimly lit grove of uncanny, bare-branched trees, with thousands of Mosquito Witch dolls nailed to the bark. A patina of grime suggests they have been there for a long time, but the dolls should not have survived in such pristine conditions if exposed to the elements.
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For the first time since arriving, Ezekiel broke his eye line from his notebook and took in the disturbing sight of Witchtop Hill. Each and every tree having a doll nailed to it was beyond his original assumption of what the visage would be here, and it took a few moments for Ezekiel to compose himself once again.
"Obviously someone with an agenda. But there has to be a pattern or a purposes here..."
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Dob pulls out his longbow and knocks an arrow. He moves to the highest point on the hill he can find, slings the bow, and climbs the highest tree he can find there, looking around to see the area and see if anything leaps out. He finds a sturdy branch to get a good 360 view.
Athletics +7 Perception +6/Scouting Lore +5
Dob takes to a tree to get a better view. He notices something on the ground a bit away, and when he points it out to the others, you find that it is a sword suitable for a small humanoid, such as a gnome or halfling.
Other than that, he sees nothing out of the ordinary from his vantage.
Kamil detects no magical auras in the area.
Bhadrim looks in the direction Dob points, and near the small sword he finds small humanoid tracks that approach the tree and then flee northeast into the woods. He points them out, and Ezekiel realizes that he has seen pictures like this before - they are a type of fey creature known as a "mitflit", or sometimes a "mite". The tracks go a short distance into the woods before being obscured (likely by the creature intentionally hiding its tracks).