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Having secured a cup, Willow is enjoying some mulled cider when Bertinard approaches. At first she thinks it’s just going to be another friendly word to a group of visitors, but his tone and his first words let her know something’s amiss, and when he mentions that someone’s died, she drains the last of her cider at once even though it’s still rather too hot to do so comfortably.
Bertinard’s expression falls. His eyes close, and for a heartbeat, the joy of the festival seems to dim with him. He murmurs a quiet prayer, then places a trembling hand on the villager’s shoulder before approaching your group.
“Friends,” he begins, his voice steady but heavy with sorrow, “I fear something dreadful has happened.” He glances toward the far edge of the village, where the fields lie beneath the fading sun. “One of our own—Elm, the druid who tends the pumpkin fields—has been found dead.”
He draws a slow breath, meeting each of your eyes in turn. “I would not ask this of guests, but you seem… capable folk. The constable is gathering what few hands we have to investigate. If you have the stomach for grim work—and the kindness to help—we would be in your debt.”
His tone is gentle, almost paternal, and though meant to protect, it carries a faint note of condescension. “If not, no shame in it. You may remain here, help with the little ones. They need steady hearts now more than ever.”
“Not at all,” she protests at the suggestion that investigating would leave Rosehaven in the Pathfinders’ debt. A flurry of questions occurs to her, eyes wide, “Do we know what happened at all? An animal attack, a rabid wolf out of the woods or the like?”
As soon as she asks, it occurs to her that this is what needs looking into, and she tries to get her naïveté in check. “Of course, we’ll help however we can. We’re visitors, so we won’t be missed, and it will free you up to reassure your own and keep spirits up as much as circumstances allow.”
While Willow left her halberd at the inn, she’s still got her bow over her shoulder and her morningstar hanging her from belt, and her hands subconsciously move to make sure she can reach both easily if necessary. The polearm can wait until they confirm whether posting a more ostentatious watch or something will be required. She waits just long enough to catch any word of first impressions of what happened, if Bertinard can offer, and then is off to the fields to see poor Elm for herself.
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Nuwa’s eyes go wide when she hears that some has been found dead.
She nods after hearing Willow's response.
”Sir Bertinard, I agree, of course, we will support you. But in case there is danger waiting for us, I will call for more support.“
Nuwa is addressing the man when a flash of bright light shines in the middle of the air and suddenly something appears right next to the beautiful half-elf.
A rune of fine pure light that looks like a serpentine creature with an elven face appears on Nuwa’s forehead!
The light reveals a large portal which lets you look into a silvery-grey void …
… and out of this void steps a 6 ft large Lillend Azata with a serpentine tail of deep green scales and the body of an elven woman!
The serpentine Azata also bears a glowing rune on its arm that is identical to the rune that appeared on Nuwa’s forehead when the celestial creature appeared.
(Link to Aoa’s picture in serpentine form)
“Wha … what?! Really bad timing Nuwa!!“ she says agitated.
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Nuwa bows to the serpentine elven celestial.
"We are bound to each other and there must be a reason for that Aoa-Sama. So please all mighty Azata accept your fate. I know that I can only siphon a fraction of your power to my side but I am eternally thankful for your guidance and support Aoa-Sama!" Nuwa says with true gratitude.
She then turns to Bertinard with a bow.
"Let us move to the constable immediately." she says to Aoa and the others and start to walk slowly, but the Lillend Azata does not seem to follow immediately.
Gasps ripple through the crowd as Nuwa’s eidolon materializes in a shimmer of otherworldly light. Several villagers stumble back in alarm, clutching one another, while a few children cry out and scatter toward their parents. Some villagers, with children in tow, rush to their homes.
"Yikes!" Bertinard gasps. "Wow. That's quite a sight. I think you frightened some of the townsfolk."
“Not at all,” she protests at the suggestion that investigating would leave Rosehaven in the Pathfinders’ debt. A flurry of questions occurs to her, eyes wide, “Do we know what happened at all? An animal attack, a rabid wolf out of the woods or the like?”
"We do not know. Go with the constable to find out."
When you agree to assist, the lines of worry on his face ease just slightly. “Thank you,” he murmurs. “Elm was a good man. The gods grant he rests in beauty.”
He turns to summon the constable, his voice low but urgent. Around you, the laughter has faded into uneasy whispers, and the crisp scent of cider now mingles with the cold, earthy breeze rolling in from the fields.
Bertinard leads you through the uneasy crowd to where a woman in a simple leather jerkin waits near the edge of the square. Her auburn hair is pulled into a practical braid, and a constable’s badge gleams faintly on her chest.
“This is Constable Elise Tivareau,” Bertinard says. “She’ll take you to Elm’s farm. Please—be gentle with what you find.”
Elise gives a curt nod. Her voice is steady, but her jaw is set tight. “Follow me. It’s not far.”
The walk is quiet. The sounds of the festival fade behind you, replaced by the creak of cart wheels and the rustle of wind through the crops. The air grows cooler as you near the fields.
After about a mile's walk, Elm’s home soon comes into view—a small, weathered cottage nestled among sprawling pumpkin patches. A thin curl of smoke drifts from the chimney, the only sign of life in the stillness. The garden fence leans under the weight of late-season vines, and tools lie scattered where they were last used.
The place feels peaceful at first glance—until you notice the open door, swaying gently in the breeze.
“There he is,” one of the villagers says in dismay, pointing toward a spot about fifty feet from the cottage.
A middle-aged man’s body lies on the ground about 50 feet away from the front door. His battered corpse is facedown and wrapped in pumpkin vines. The vines wrapping Elm’s body do not cover it entirely; they encircle his arms and legs, and one vine even wraps around his head, holding his jaw open. Underneath the vines, Elm’s clothing is torn and singed in places. Patches of brown fungus are scattered on the ground near his body.
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Willow observes the distance between Nuwa and her summoned … eidolon? with a bit of curiosity, but conjurers and summoners are a breed apart, and right now she has other things on her mind, given the urgency of the sudden turn of events.
She respects the constable’s all too understandable quiet tension, keeping her eyes open for what they might find, although what appears once the group crosses Elm’s farm is absolutely not what she expected.
It's a shocking sight, but Willow has to wrestle down her botanical interests almost immediately, as they rear up insensitively, under the circumstances. Surely the poor devil wouldn't have planted assassin vines without taking the right precautions?! No, just ... pumpkins? That's beyond strange. Some sort of hybrid?
It's distractingly curious, and she has to drag her attention away from the plants to the poor druid tangled in them. A man is dead, Tasarë, she reminds herself.
"I can't make sense of it," she concedes. "I'm not mad, am I? Those are pumpkin vines? But..."
Her voice goes quieter out of respect for the deceased. "He can't have been dead a day, I don't think. Based on the look of things, more than eight hours ago, less than, say, sixteen?"
The apprentice mage falls silent as she starts turning over the question of the weird vines again, waiting for someone more skilled in the healing arts to examine the body before she turns to the plants that have captured her attention.
Aoa sees the commotion that her appearance has caused, but she doesn’t want to create a scene.
She eventually slithers along the ground to follow Nuwa to the constable.
Aoa also observes the scene, but remains silent.
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Vrire, who had been quiet, but felt vindicated when learning that she was right that something was wrong in this town! (Even if this is way different than what she meant) goes to the body and examines it.
Vrire examines the body for a moment, and she shakes her head as she turns him around and closes his eyes. ”Willow is right. Died no more than 16 hours ago, no less than 8. But look here, and here.” she points to different puncture wounds on it, and then to different bruises and even some burnt areas in his body. ”It’s hard to determine which of these causes his death. Maybe all of them. Whatever we’re dealing with, I think it’s easy to rule out an attack by a humanoid. Must be a monster of some kind”
Vrire gets up and starts looking around for any more clues.
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Aurelia had been somewhat silent on the way to the corpse, keeping an eye on her surroundings while everyone else investigated the body... on the news that the man was killed by punctures and burns, she narrowed her eyes, looking over the farm for a hint of movement.
"Not your average predator though... no sightings, no traces, if he was attacked over territory or food there would have been signs of it. Can't rule out something intelligent doing this. Hey, Vrire, how likely you think... he was constricted to death by those vines covering him? Something controlling the vines.
She would investigate the vines, if possible, looking for where they originate from and anything odd about them for her more intellectual companions to mull over.
Aurelia had been somewhat silent on the way to the corpse, keeping an eye on her surroundings while everyone else investigated the body... on the news that the man was killed by punctures and burns, she narrowed her eyes, looking over the farm for a hint of movement.
"Not your average predator though... no sightings, no traces, if he was attacked over territory or food there would have been signs of it. Can't rule out something intelligent doing this. Hey, Vrire, how likely you think... he was constricted to death by those vines covering him? Something controlling the vines.
She would investigate the vines, if possible, looking for where they originate from and anything odd about them for her more intellectual companions to mull over.
[dice=perception?]1d20+6
The vines look as though they were torn from whatever held them, leaving only frayed, ragged ends behind. Nearby, you spot patches of strange reddish-brown moss clinging to the ground.
The hinges on Elm’s cabin door squeal softly as the wind nudges it, the door swinging just enough to thump against the frame in a slow, rhythmic knock.
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Upon reaching the body and confirming there is no immediate danger, Mizzie crouches beside it. She touches Elm's eyes in a ritual manner and mutters a brief prayer. "Speed, safety, and surety on your journey to Pharasma's judgment."
Mizzie straightens and turns toward Constable Tivareau. "He will need a proper burial, of course, as soon as it can be arranged. I'm a priestess of Pharasma, as it happens," she adds, tucking her hair behind one ear to reveal a silver earring shaped in the blue spiral of Pharasma's holy symbol, "and I'm happy to perform the ceremony. If he has no specific preference?" She looks toward Elm's body, almost as though she expects it to answer.
Constable Elise watches silently as Mizzie offers her prayer, the weight of the moment settling heavy on her features. When Mizzie rises and speaks, Elise exhales slowly, nodding with quiet gratitude.
“Thank you,” she says softly. “Elm deserved someone to speak for him in that moment.” Her gaze lingers on Mizzie’s holy symbol, respect clear in her eyes. “But you needn’t worry about the burial rites. Bertinard will see to that. I'm sure he already has a handful of townsfolk preparing to help when we return.”
She looks back down at Elm’s body, her expression tightening with grief held carefully in check. “Elm wasn’t one for ceremony, but he was loved. They’ll give him a proper resting place.”
Straightening, she gestures toward the torn vines and strange moss nearby. “For now… I need you and your companions focused on what happened here. Whatever did this—” her voice drops slightly, “—it doesn’t seem natural. And I fear it isn’t done.”
Elise steps aside to give the party room to work, her posture steady but her eyes sharp with worry. She turns to gaze at the cottage where the door swings lightly in the breeze.
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After Vrire and Aurelia’s more perceptive examinations, and with Mizzie moving on to the mournful practicalities of what needs to be done, after a respectful interval, Willow takes the opportunity to indulge her horrified fascination with the excuse of making a start of preparing the body for decent burial, as opposed to the state it’s been left in by … whatever it was.
As carefully and discreetly as she can, Willow starts unwinding the vines from Elm’s body. She’s not entirely sure of either druidic or Shelynite customs, but she doesn’t get the sense that a place like Rosehaven would opt for the most ruthlessly natural methods rather than at least a more slightly formal “laying out.”
She keeps an eye open for the punctures and burns that Vrire pointed out, but especially, since she ends up holding a bunch of them, the ragged ends of the vines that Aurelia noticed were probably torn from something.
Were these really just pumpkins? Before she can really second-guess herself, once Willow's got the worst of the vines away from Elm's body, so that Bertinard and his helpers will have a marginally less skin-crawling sight ahead of them when they arrive, she rises from where she's knelt down and follows the constable's gaze to the cottage.
Constable Elise gestures toward the torn vines and strange moss nearby. “For now… I need you and your companions focused on what happened here. Whatever did this—” her voice drops slightly, “—it doesn’t seem natural. And I fear it isn’t done.”
Elise steps aside to give the party room to work, her posture steady but her eyes sharp with worry. She turns to gaze at the cottage where the door swings lightly in the breeze.
"Right," is all the apprentice says, quietly, before, with a glance at Bellisola who looks, of all her fellow Pathfinders on this excursion, even more likely than Willow for bearing with sticking one's face where something monstrous might snap at it, briskly walking over to the cottage, reaching out to catch the door and peering inside.
The Lillend Azata slithers along and follows Nuwa without saying a word.
A careful search of the ground around Elm’s body and the cottage reveals a trail of strange footprints pressed into the soil—human-sized, yet disturbingly skeletal in shape. The prints circle the cottage in an irregular pattern before stopping beneath an open window, as though the creature slipped inside from there.
Near the front door, you find Elm’s bootprints, deep and erratic, marking a desperate flight from the cottage. The tracks lead directly to the spot where his body now lies, the churned earth and drag marks making it clear: he ran for his life, and whatever pursued him overtook him only a few dozen feet from safety.
Entering the cottage...
Elm lived in a small, one-room farmhouse. His home is dirty but uncluttered. The Constable informs you that Elm always felt more comfortable allowing dirt, leaves, and other pieces of nature to creep into his living space than he did living in a tidy room. The house contains a bed, a desk, a table, two chairs, a chest of clothes, a shelf of food and cooking supplies, and a fireplace. Two pieces of paper lie on the desk. The first of these pieces of paper contains a cryptic note , and the second is a map of the area around Rosehaven with X’s marking 10 different locations .
INSPECTING THE PAGES OF NOTES:
INSPECTING THE MAP:
If you beat the DC by 5 or more:
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Willow’s interests in outdoorsy things run more to the horticultural than anything that would help with tracking, so she leaves that to those better suited for it and presses on to examining Elm’s cottage. Predictably, the bookish barbarian quickly makes a beeline for the documents on the writing desk, her eyes skipping over much of the rest of the room.
Again, she's more of a city girl, so she's pretty hopeless with a map of the deep woods, and whatever "whisperwort" is, it's not ringing any bells. A reckless streak inside her is almost ready to decide to try growing some on the spot, as it were, even with the signs that it must be involved in whatever terrible thing has happened here.
What she can tell, based on the weirder bits of her studies, is that the note doesn't represent what the rest of the cottage would suggest would be an unlikely fanciful or poetical side to Elm, but a transcription of the sorts of conversation one might have if one uses magic to speak with plants.
And however the map, er, maps on to the local area, its markings match the tally marks on the transcript. "'Life to soil to life,'" Willow murmurs, thoughtfully. "Well, Miss Whisperwort, whoever you are, you have some explaining to do."
Unless it's a report about whisperwort, by other species? Oh, for a treesinger to consult with!
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Willow nods at Mizzie’s summary. “It might be cyclical, based on the notes from his conversation. Conversations? It doesn’t sound like he was particularly worried about it, but something scared the poor man out of his house, and then…”
She trails off for a bit, and the unspoken provides a spur of inspiration to keep herself from brooding. “So, he was tracking it, more or less - the whisperwort - and something is coming and going out of the darkness, from ‘soil to life,’ whatever that means, exactly. Unfortunately, I can’t imagine the whisperwort will be as forthcoming with us, but I suppose the only thing to do is to check each of the spots he was keeping an eye on. Start with the closest one to here, then the next closest to that, and so on?”
It occurs to her that she should pick up some of the weird moss Aurelia found among the torn vines: it was rather brown compared to the whisperwort which Vrire mentioned is red, but maybe it’s just dried up, or a related species? I’ve had worse evenings out, at least. Hopefully it won’t get as bad as Elm’s day, the apprentice acknowledges to herself, the unnerving situation doing nothing for maintaining mental decorum.
Constable Elise surveys the cottage one last time, her eyes lingering on the torn vines, the scattered tools, and the open front door swaying gently in the breeze. After a long, heavy silence, she exhales and shakes her head.
“That’s everything we’re going to find,” she says quietly. “Whatever did this… it’s long gone by now. There’s no more to learn here tonight.”
The three men that came with you to Elm's farm solemnly places the druid's body onto the small cart.
"We shall take him to Bertinard's," the eldest informs the Constable with grief in his eyes.
The walk back to Rosehaven is a quiet one. The last streaks of evening light stretch long across the fields, and Constable Tivareau keeps a steady, watchful pace beside you. Though she says little, the tension in her shoulders speaks volumes.
By the time you reach the village square, the pumpkin-carving festivities have ended. Lanterns set atop porch rails and candles flicker within carved gourds, casting warm but uneasy light across the emptying streets as most villagers drift back to their homes. But not all.
A cluster of townsfolk has gathered near the center of the square, voices raised in sharp, anxious tones. Armeline stands among them, her posture tense but controlled. As she sees you return, she lifts a hand—an acknowledging gesture, part warning, part reassurance—trying to hold the villagers’ anger at bay.
You catch fragments of fearful whispers: “The strangers…” “Elm dead…” “Who else could have—”
Constable Tivareau steps forward, her voice cutting cleanly through the murmurs. “Enough,” she says firmly. “I’ll have answers soon—and, hopefully, proof of their innocence. Until then, no more accusations.”
The crowd quiets, but unease hangs thick in the air.
Without giving space for further protest, Elise turns to you. “Come,” she says. “We need to speak—somewhere more private.”
She escorts you to the Silver Flute Inn, where warmth and lamplight spill gently across the floorboards. When the last of the patrons clear out —some giving you uneasy glares— and the door is closed behind her, the constable’s demeanor softens slightly, though her expression remains grave.
“I don’t believe you’re responsible for what happened to Elm,” she begins. “But I can’t yet rule anyone out—not with the villagers as shaken as they are.” She folds her arms, steady and resolute. “So for tonight, I’m placing you under house arrest here at the inn.”
Before the words can sting, she raises a hand.
“You won’t be mistreated. I’ll cover your rooms—and your meals and drink—for the rest of your stay. My deputies will stand guard outside. It’s a formality… but it will keep the peace.”
She then asks, “The boat that brought you here—what was its name? I’m sending a messenger upriver. Someone aboard can vouch for you. With luck, by morning we’ll have the proof we need to clear your names.”
Outside, the last of the festival lanterns flicker in the cooling air and the pumpkin's carved faces smiling serenely—oblivious to the storm now forming in Rosehaven.
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Aurelia gave a shrug in response, she didn't really like the accusations, so will also *sense motive* on the townsfolk... something didn't sit right with her with how quick everyone turned on them.
And came up nothing...
"The guy's been dead for multiple days, we got here today. I get the suspicion, but it's a little silly to suspect us for a crime which... well... we weren't even here for, and for one we have no connection to. Group of adventurers travel to a small town, head to a farm, kill a farmer? Then join a festival?
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After the solemn walk back into the village, only to be met with sudden hostility and the prospect of overnight confinement, Willow surveys the interior of the Silver Flute with a newly jaundiced eye as she faces the prospect of an uncomfortable night or coming up with a way to extricate herself from another fine mess. Galt. Gods-damned, barbarian Galt. I should have known.
She’s trying to get a handle on her own indignation and choose her words carefully when…
"The guy's been dead for multiple days, we got here today. I get the suspicion, but it's a little silly to suspect us for a crime which... well... we weren't even here for, and for one we have no connection to. Group of adventurers travel to a small town, head to a farm, kill a farmer? Then join a festival?
Willow winces at Aurelia’s bluntness, but her colleague’s sincerity is undeniable.
“Actually,” she corrects, as gently as she can, “it was today, but much earlier, before we would have arrived. Let’s not get ourselves all tangled up and confused.”
“We came in on the D----- this afternoon,” she says, turning with a small, tight smile to the constable.
“We barely had time to arrange our rooms for the evening before the opening ceremonies,” she continues. “If we were involved, why wouldn’t we have slunk off the moment word arrived that Elm had been found? And you were there when we found his note! ‘The darkness … goes and comes and goes’ – whatever’s going on has been for a while, clearly. Let’s not lose any more time, please. Set a deputy after us if you like, just to carry a torch so you can always see where we are, but Elm was looking for something in the fields, before it … found him, instead.”
Unfortunately, in her eagerness to lay out what she thinks is an unassailable argument, Willow's tone rises hotter than is entirely diplomatic, her Kyonin accent becoming more noticeable, with just that hint of scornful condescension that undermines her case. She is a picture of the glib and haughty elf of stereotype.
Constable Elise listens to Aurelia’s reasoning with her arms folded, jaw tight—but the slightest flicker of doubt softens her stern expression. When Aurelia finishes, Elise glances through the window toward the villagers still lingering along the edge of the square, their nervous chatter rising like distant insects.
“You make a fair point,” she says at last. “A very fair point. Elm’s been dead for over a day, and you only arrived this morning. I’d be a fool not to admit that.”
Her stance eases, and she lowers her arms. “But you’ve seen how rattled the villagers are. Panic makes people jump to conclusions—bad ones. I needed something solid before I let you wander freely.”
She looks Aurelia over for a long moment, then nods decisively. “All right. No house arrest. You’ve given me enough reason to trust you’re not here to harm anyone. But I am asking you to be careful, keep visible, and… don’t give the villagers more reason to panic. Fair?”
Before you can answer, Armeline steps forward. The anxiety etched on her features eases into something more composed as she addresses Elise.
“They’ve shown nothing but honesty,” she says firmly. “And skill. If we want answers to what happened out there, their insight may help.” She turns to your group, her gaze lingering on the map and notes taken from Elm’s home. “There were patterns in Elm’s scribbles we didn’t fully grasp before. I’d like to go over them again—with everyone present. Fresh eyes might see what we missed.”
Inside the warm lamplight of the Silver Flute Inn, you gather around a table scattered with Elm’s notes and rough map sketches. Armeline leans over the parchment, brow furrowed as she aligns Elm’s scribbled notes and distances.
“Hold on…” she murmurs.
With a few careful motions of her finger, a spiral pattern begins to emerge from the scattered markings—uneven, but unmistakable. Her expression shifts from concentration to alarm.
“These weren’t random at all.” She rotates the map for everyone to see, tapping the center of the spiral.
“It all converges here—on Bertinard’s home.”
Constable Elise stiffens behind her, the color draining from her face.
Armeline looks up, voice low and tight.
“Whatever happened to Elm… it’s moving closer. Toward him."
"Pathfinders!" Armeline exclaims.
"You must hurry to Bertinard's home!”
Aoa slithers along with less sense of urgency, but she follows Nuwa without hesitation.
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Vrire didn't need the constable's permission -- she intended to sneak out as soon as she turned around and look into this herself, but the others are much better at speaking than she is, thankfully. Seeing the realization on where they should head to next, she wasted no time in rushing the way there, her bow out.
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Willow joins the others in their rush, pausing only long enough to reclaim her halberd from where she had stored it at the inn. So much for a diplomatic mission. As her hand curls around the haft of her polearm, she can only hope it's close enough to a glaive that Shelyn might see her way to smiling on the elven apprentice as she and her friends hurry to try to save the village's priest.
Constable Tivareau wastes no time. “I’ll rouse whoever’s willing to fight,” she says, already turning toward the door of the tavern. “You four," she barks at the guards that were stationed to watch the inn while you were put under house arrest, "Take the Pathfinders to Bertinard’s home. If Elm’s notes are right, he may already be in danger.”
The urgency in her tone leaves little room for doubt.
You hurry through the dimming farmland, the night settling thick and cool around you. The lanterns of Rosehaven fade behind you, replaced by the sound of wind whispering through the stalks and the distant creak of old irrigation wheels turning in the dark.
As you crest a small rise, Bertinard’s cottage comes into view—warm lamplight spilling through the shutter cracks.
Then you see it.
Something squat and monstrous hunches before the front door: a leering jack-o’-lantern head perched atop a writhing mound of thick, rope-like vines, slamming its tangled mass against the wood with a wet, rhythmic thud. Sinister orange flames flicker inside its jagged grin.
Circling it are two floating pumpkins, each wreathed in twisting trails of fiery embers. They drift like malevolent will-o’-wisps, slamming their burning bodies against the cottage walls, scorching black marks into the wood.
From inside, you hear Bertinard’s startled voice—
“HELP! HELP! Shelyn preserve us!”
The creatures pound harder, the cottage door already splintering at the hinges.
Whatever Elm feared… it has found its way here.
Mizzie:
Nuwa:
Aoa:
Aurelia:
Willow:
Bellisola:
Vrire:
Flaming Pumpkin (Red):
Flaming Pumpkin (Yellow):
Jack o' Lantern:
Aoa moves forward with her sepentine body and then pulls the string of her bow to shoot at the lantern creature.
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As Mizzie hurries toward the cottage, she weaves her hands in a spell gesture. "Assassin soul, I summon thee!"
A ghostly-white humanoid appears next to the giant pumpkin-headed creature, clad in light armor with a grim expression on its face. The figure looks around as though assessing the situation, seeing the jack-o-lantern and the house being attacked. Then the figure strikes with a gleaming dagger held in one hand-- a weapon that seems to be much more real than the person holding it.
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Sola runs to the fence.
"The cavalry is here! Hold on!"
"Right behind you!" Willow calls, following along as best she can just in case there are any surprises, so Bellisola can't get cut off from the rest all on his own (notwithstanding Mizzie's spell), even if she would prefer to engage at range herself.
Between her native skittishness and the precautions some of her past experiences have encouraged her to take, and her far from robust build, Willow can't hope to quite keep up with the trained fighter, but she at least makes sure to advance along a line that keeps the others' sight-lines open to lay down fire.
Nuwa, Bellisola, and Willow burst into motion, boots thundering across the packed earth as they charge toward Bertinard’s besieged cottage.
Aoa the lillend azata strides forward and looses a single, perfectly placed arrow. It arcs gracefully through the night and thunks straight into the jack-o’-lantern creature’s carved face, punching through the pumpkin head and leaving the shaft jutting out both sides in a grimly absurd parody of a festival decoration.
Before the creature can recover, Mizzie raises a hand and summons a phantasmal dagger of pure force. With a swift gesture, she sends it slicing through the thick, rope-like vines supporting the creature’s head. The tangle snaps apart, and the jack-o’-lantern collapses in a wet heap as it slumps motionless to the ground. The flame within its pumpkin head sparks and crackles.
The momentary victory is short-lived.
With a crackle of heat and a shrill, angry whine, the floating flaming pumpkins veer away from the cottage, their fiery grins twisting toward the newcomers. Embers trail behind them as they drift into position, fury blazing bright as they fix their burning gaze on the Pathfinders.
Mizzie:
Nuwa:
Aoa:
Aurelia:
Willow:
Bellisola:
Vrire:
Flaming Pumpkin (Red):
Flaming Pumpkin (Yellow):
Jack o' Lantern: destroyed.
Vrire runs 30ft closer, still far from the gates and tries to determine what the pumpkins are before attacking with her longbow.
You recall that these tiny floating, fiery gourds are varients of posessed undead creatures known as "beheaded". Not only are they immune to fire and polymorph effects, but they can also "belch" fire up to 30 ft. at a single target.
Vrire's arrow slices through the flaming pumpkin burning with red flames. It bursts apart, leaving scattered remains of charred pumpkin flesh on the ground.
Mizzie:
Nuwa:
Aoa:
Aurelia:
Willow:
Bellisola:
Vrire:
Flaming Pumpkin (Red): destroyed.
Flaming Pumpkin (Yellow):
Jack o' Lantern: destroyed.
The last floating pumpkin drifts back from the cottage , flames pulsing brighter within its jagged grin. It lets out a sharp, mocking cackle—and with a violent hiss, vomits a spray of burning seeds, a blazing orb of fire screaming through the air straight toward Bellisola...
The flaming mass of seeds miss its target, and smoulder for a few moments behind the garden gate.
Mizzie:
Nuwa:
Aoa:
Aurelia:
Willow:
Bellisola:
Vrire:
Flaming Pumpkin (Red): destroyed.
Flaming Pumpkin (Yellow):
Jack o' Lantern: destroyed.