They've done a decent job of earning some trust, but they haven't quite gotten there yet. So I devised a custom encounter whereby a storm ravaged the town overnight. In the morning, there was repair to be done around town (basically giving them an opportunity to do some community bonding, so to speak). But I threw a wrench into the mix: at one location, they opted to repair a roof of one house that was damaged by the winds/rain. There was a married couple and a 12 yr old child there. They successfully removed the large branch from the roof, but then I had the wife start berating the paladin once she noticed the holy symbol. She got angrier and angrier and when her husband tried to calm her down, she picked up a fireplace "poker" and hit him upside the head, knocking him unconscious, then turned her ire on the group.
One of them grappled her (not wanting a kill a villager and ruin the work they'd done, which was smart on their part. It was one of the "gotchas" I was hoping to catch them with, but c'est la vie) and that's when the other part of the encounter triggered. The whole reason this happened was due to a "rage spirit", basically a minor incorporeal undead thing that I made up.
(The rage spirit is a manifestation of someone who died while violently angry and never got resolution on the thing that made them so angry, so it waits for a suitable host to possess, kind of like a weak ghost. It has few hit points but it's primary thing is that it transfers by touch until it accomplishes whatever its goal was in life. In this case, I had it as a prisoner that died before being able to kill the Pharasmin priest that had been unfaithful with his wife, and thus in undeath, wanted to cause the death of a priest of Pharasma. So when it saw the paladin, it triggered the "rage" and its host attacked.)
When the ranger grappled the woman, the rage spirit "jumped" into him (he spectacularly failed his Will save) and then he attacked one of the party members (again, terribly failed his Will save, which was only DC 12). So, they cast healing magic on the possessed PC to deal damage to the spirit (and in the process, making their save resisting another "jump").
So now there's tension among the party, thanks to that. But then, after some discussion and involving father Grimburrow, the NPC wife (who legitimately doesn't trust religions in the first place but is not violent about it) admits she thinks that her other son was the one that "picked up" the rage spirit. This is because he has been secretly following the party to the prisons and being a young boy (9 years old), dreams of being a heroic adventurer like them. Something likely happened (picked up something, found a thing linked to that old spirit, whatever) and he became the vessel until he came in contact with his mom, who was the unknowing vessel for this spirit but was strangely on edge and angry all the time.
So anyway, not long before the PCs initially showed up to help with the roof, she sends her son to the store for supplies but yells at him to hurry and not disappoint her. (again a manifestation of the rage spirit) Instead of going to the store, he decides he'll make his mom proud and do something heroic and wanders off to the prison (unknowing to his parents).
Later on, after they're talking with her and father Grimburrow, she and her husband come to the realization that their son should be back by now.
The PCs dash off to the prison to find him (the heroes they are). So here's the whole point of this post: how dark should I have this little mini-quest end?
I have in my mind a couple options for the conclusion of this quest:
1. Super Dark Ending: they find the boy face down in the mud, dead with a wooden stick clutched in his hand like a toy sword. Now they have to placate the grieving couple, possibly convince the mother that they're not responsible, and of course attend a funeral for a child.
2. Dynamic Ending: they find the boy bloody but alive, trying to fend off some undead menace. Depending on how quickly they react, the boy may survive or die.
3. Introduction: due to a truly comical (to me, the GM) path through the prison, they have yet to actually meet Vesorianna. So, I thought perhaps they'd find the boy huddling against the western wall of the prison, scared but protected by some undead threat by strange ephemeral bluish arms hugging him. The PCs will have to defeat the undead threat and then they'll get a hint that Vesorianna dwells on that side of the prison, AND bring the boy back.
