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Al
Flash Beetle (-0, A bit waspy, Sickened 1)
Kvothe (-8)
Pruana
BumBum
Didymus (-9)
The flash beetle bites at a couple wasps and manages to figure out how doors work.
"Clever...girl..." one of the semi-conscious thugs mutters.
The bug sees a rather angry looking dwarf, with an even angrier looking goat beside it.
"What the hell is going on out there?"
Pruana moves past the bug, and takes quick stock of the situation.
"Ow!" she says, getting stung by a wasp as she moves through the buzzing cloud.
She runs up to Kvothe and gives him what for.
The goat makes a charge at Didymus.
He tries to butt Didymus again.
"Who are you and why are wrecking up my place!?" the dwarf asks incredulously.
The wasp swarm, rapidly losing mass but still enraged, decides to stick with stinging the hell out of the unconscious humans.
"We're the Wayward Wonders!" Didy says proudly.
"The mayor sent us to clean out you hooligans! You've been super mean to the nice townsfolk! Plus you were rather rude when we tried to give you free pork. Not cool, man, not cool."
Al smirks and waggles her finger distractingly at Pru.
"No, you silly bug! You let her run right past you! Come on... Come on... there you go. Who's a good bug? You're a good bug!"
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Al
Flash Beetle (-0, A bit waspy, Sickened 1)
Kvothe (-8)
Pruana (-18, Frightened 1, Stunned 1)
Goat (-0)
BumBum
Didymus (-9)
One of Didy's arrows hits Pru.
Pru seems a bit shaken by BumBum's cruel song.
Al's spell seem to have stunned Pru, who freeze in place, barely reacting when the beetle chomps on her ankle.
Al sneers a bit at the rude dwarf with no appreciate for personal space. She again beckons She of Twinkling Twerking, who seems to keep getting distracted and lets her foe slip away.
Then she'll try again to befuddle her mind.
Didy wobbles on his feet after a series of punish blows from the dwarf and her ornery goat. Ow. Little help? he coughs and wipes away some crimson from his lip.
He waits until his own pet arrives to distract the dwarf, then quickly applies some bandaging and a salve to his wounds.
In the same motion he pulls the bandage taught with his teeth as he stretches out his arm and he pulls back his bow string, quickly loosing a pair of arrows at the dwarf's knee.
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Backing away from the mellee, Kvothe begins strumming his lute...
Train rolls in at ten am
Kill the lamb for the lions, find some water for the elephants
Monkey on his shoulder, is a monkey on his back
Could I bum a cigarette, I done smoked my last pack
Throw up the big tent, throw down some sawdust
We don't open till the 'morin, step right up
Didy throws his bow back over his shoulder and starts to bandage Kvothe's wounds while watching Pru closely.
"I think you what's really going on here in town. Has anyone over at the Hermitage put you up tp anything?"
After the melee ends, Al calls Ms. Flashybottom over and rewards her with some nibbles on what remains of Pontypool's care package and some gentle petting on her head.
"What a good bug you are! Yes, you are! Such a good girl!"
Then she looks up pointedly at Pru while she continues talking to the beetle, "What's that? You don't like the bread? You thought the dwarf was much tastier? Well I don't know about that. The nice dwarf is going to help us, and we don't chew on people that help us, now do we?"
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"The Hermitage? Why would those weirdos put me up to anything?
"Look, I don't know what happened to the sheriff, but it wasn't us. I don't know if he died, or ran off, or what.
"Only thing I can tell you is, around the time the Sheriff disappeared, some of my men saw a halfling creeping around the village. I thought she might be a thief, honing in on our turf, so I sent some boys out to track her down. They got as close as the old Lindell barn outside town, but couldn't get in. Said there was some freaky plant out there, moved around like an animal. Said they saw something else, some 'fire demons' inside the barn.
"I didn't believe them, at first, but they were more scared of whatever they saw there than they were of me, so I backed off."
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The pub is much as you left it. There's a smoky smell in the air, but the chimney wasn't blocked long enough to make the room uninhabitable.
A pair of humans are here, working quietly. They both look up curiously when Bum-Bum enters, but say nothing.
There are two doors here, both on the north wall.
While Bumbum explores inside, Didy will keep a close eye on Pru and her goat and continue questioning her, "This lady halfling, did she happen to wear a creepy hood made from a dire rat?"
"What can you tell us about the Lindell barn? Has it been abandoned for a while?"
"Do you know anything else about the strange things going on around town lately? Like the millers going missing? or the boars running wild at the orchard? or the rumors of something lurking in the graveyard?"
"Have you had any recent contact with any other" he winces a bit as he uses her word, "carnies?"
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Pru shrugs.
"Ah, I don't know, they said all kinds of crazy S#!%. I kinda stopped listening when they said 'walking plant'. But never give an order you know will be refused, you know. They seemed pretty adamant they wouldn't go back, so I didn't push it." she rubs the back of her neck ruefully.
"Nah, I think the Lindell's still use the place. Probably shouldn't, things older than Aroden, and in about as good a shape. Jano's tight as a Magnamarian, won't fix that place till it comes down around his ears."
"Ah, I don't know about all of that. Things are odd lately, though. Lots of people might blame you folk for that, you know. Outsiders." She snorts and spits. "Not me, though. Started 'afore you came around. People been whispering, saying the lands gone bad. Soils gone sour, streams gone dry." She shrugs.
"Other carnies? No. Couple of my boys were trying to run some numbers but, if I recall correctly, you chased 'em off. That, and you guys beating the tar out of us here, that's the only interactions I've had with itinerant folk lately" She says this without any real rancor--just stating a fact.
The first room appears to be the jakes. A surprisingly clean latrine and a basin filled with water can be found here.
The second door opens to a bedroom.
"Hey, that's our room!" the woman here says when she realizes you've opened the door.
Didy smiles proudly at the mention of their success in breaking up the gambling, then quickly grabs at his wagging tail, eyeing Pru suspiciously to see if she noticed. He quickly changes the subject, "Sounds to me like druids up to no good."
Al will hurry to the mayor's office to retrieve Abber (or some other authority) to come arrest Pru and her gang.
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"Hi Lenky and Beina! I is BumBum. This your tavern? Pru sure made it sound like it was her tavern. You's can have it back now, no needs to thank us. You could tells me about Pru's plan for the Sheriff if you want's. Maybe you get different sign now, huh? No more Mad Muggers. I know's, a pickle! Seeing it make everyone thirtsy. Let's see here the Pretty Pickle Pub, Briney Lenky's Pickle Palace, The Gherkin Grotto,..."
BumBum will wander back to the group, making up more names as he goes.
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Before the posse arrives, the group can frisk the gang, although the earnings are meager. Pruana wears a set of chain mail but has no weapons, and the ruffians have daggers but no armor. All told, you put together 19 silver, 49 coppers, a chunk of geode worth 5 silver.
The reward from the mayor is a little more substantial.
"Oh, wow," he says, seeing the laid out ruffians and subdued Pruana. "Well, these folks have been causing trouble for quite a while. Sheriff Ralhain never really had the manpower to take them on alone."
He rummages around in his pockets.
"We don't have much, but here, with my thanks." He hands the group a small pouch with 10 gold pieces, a silver holy symbol of Erastil worth 2 gold.
"Thank you. I heard you killed that old boar that's been scaring everyone, too. I'll go and speak to Harlock at the Hermitage, and try to arrange it so you can visit the hermitage. He's an old friend, so it shouldn't be too much trouble."
Didy gives an aww shucks at the mayor's praise and waggles his finger at the muggers as their hauled away.
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Goldenlaws Church is the only place of worship in Abberton. The property consists of the temple itself, which acts as both house of worship and bank for the local population, and a sprawling, slightly unkempt graveyard out back. The graveyard is surrounded by an ivy-covered steel fence that is almost completely blocks the view of anyone outside from the graveyard inside. A pair of rusty gates do stand slightly open on the west side of the property.
The church can be accessed via a wide porch on the eastern side, leading to a sturdy looking wooden door with an ornate religious scenes carved into it.
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Goldenlaws was a fine building, once, but its starting to show its age--the porch needs a few boards replaced, and the entire thing could use a coat of paint.
A pair of well-crafted stained glass windows on the front of the building present a lovely view to the street outside. The one to the north depicts Abadar, Master of the First Vault. The window to the south is emblazoned with dozens of golden keys. Both are broken in a few places, with yellow and red glass splints scattered on the porch beneath. The door contains several maginificent scenes carved into a beautifully lacquered oak door, but the frame around the brass-and-wood door is splintered in a few places, and bears obvious claw marks.
Didy gets very serious very quickly, and drops low to the ground, sniffing the area.
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The door is closed, the claw marks are only on the frame around the door.
The interior of the church is dimly lit by the red rays of the setting sun through the windows on the north and south side.
The nave is filled with long wooden pews marred by long claw marks. Comfortable cushions of gold velvet have been shredded, their feather stuffing spilling out upon the benches and the wood floor. Leather-bound books have been yanked from the small wooden shelves built into the back of each pew and torn apart, their illuminated pages mixing with the accumulated mess that covers the ground.
A chancel at the west end of the nave contains an altar in front of a magnificent mural of Abadar and other gods defeating the monstrous Rovagug. The altar has the appearance of a desk, although its cloth-of-gold covering, abacus, scales, and ledgers are ripped and knocked over.
In the northwest corner of the sanctuary, an overturned stone font leans against a stone door.
BumBum can see two creatures here ()--the first a misshapen but powerfully built demonic-looking creature, and the other a tiny, winged creature with dark green scales, bat-like wing, red eyes and curved horns. The larger creature appears to be defacing the mural behind the alter, while the smaller creature sits atop the altar, looking through ledgers and papers and tossing them careless aside, singing all the while in a tiny, cracked voice.
townsfolk all hung up on hooks
This place is boring,
I'm almost snoring
Let's go and flay us a cook!"."
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Didymus is pretty sure the larger creature is an Alu-demon--the offspring of a mortal and a succubus. They are known for their ability to draw those they grab into a pocket plane, accessible only by them, where they torment their victims at their leisure.
He has no idea what the smaller demon is.
Kvothe is pretty sure the larger creature is an Abrikandilu, or Wrecker Demon, creatures famed for finding joy in destroying the works of mortals. They are famous for their mutilating bites, which cause unslightly wounds that distort the features of their victims.
He is pretty sure the smaller creature is a Quasit--one of the weakest of demon-kind, they are capable of changing their form, or even disappearing from view, at will.
”Great Aroden’s ghost! That’s an Alu-demon! The professor told me a story about them once! They’re what you get when a succubus and a mortal have a baby! They can suck you into their own private dimension and torment you! We gotta be careful!” Didy whispers as he draws his bow.
[smaller]"What? No, that's definitely an Alu-Demon. See all those twisty horns? That's classic Alu-Demon. Huh, unless we're both right... Either way, we should be extra careful. I don't think we want to let the big guy get close if we can avoid it."