Come one, come all! The circus is about to begin!
Session 1:
After several months of practices and performances for homesteaders and farmers, the Circus of Wayward Wonders was finally ready to perform a large show in a sizable town. Abberton wasn’t what many people would consider a destination for performers, but it’s where the circus must start. The people of Abberton were excited for the circus, and on the night of the circus’s first performance, nearly every resident of the town crowded into the tent to experience the magic of the big top. Many of the town’s most prominent citizens, including the mayor, were among the throng jostling for seats, peering at the three rings that filled the center of the tent, and waiting excitedly for the show to begin.
As the lights went down and the audience settled onto their seats, the circus’s performers took their places backstage, awaiting their cues. Suddenly, several of the performers closest to the curtain that separated the three rings from the rest of the tent left their assignments, gathering in a small crowd to exchange frightened whispers and hushed gasps. Amid the group, his body contorted as if caught forever in the throes of terrible pain, was the corpse of ringmaster Myron “Thunder” Stendhal. Everyone in the circus knew Myron for his amazing, powerful voice that could bring instant silence to the largest crowd, and he knew everything there was to know about putting on a successful performance. But he was dead, and the crowd was still out there expecting a show.
As the other performers stared at the corpse, whispered to each other, and anxiously peered around the curtain, the Professor—a thin and frail veteran of the circus—looked up. “Well, what are you all standing around for?” he asked, his weak voice barely audible in the hushed silence. “Have you seen that crowd? We haven’t ever had the tent packed this full. There’s a show to put on, and we have to find a way to do it. So finish your makeup, get into your costumes, and send in the clowns!”
They cast and crew bucked up and got back to there positions. To act as ringmaster, everyone agreed that Eduard, a male human illusionist who performed under the name Ironholme, was the best choice. With his fancy and sparkling costume, Eduard stepped through the curtain and into the spotlight, welcoming the audience to the Circus of Wayward Wonders to massive applause.
Ironholme’s opening act was a traditional stage magician’s act, with Eduard enacting a blinding array of seemingly instantaneous costume changes. He amazed the crowd and got the audience cheering and enthralled. The build-up included the Great Feral Lynn (really Iolo, male goblin swashbuckler) rescued a maiden fair from marauding clowns by swinging on ropes and chandeliers and Alboras Silvermane (actually Reggie Gnomehands, male gnome barbarian) and his talking badgers.
As the Build-up act got underway, a trio of mean-spirited gamblers began moving through the crowd, loudly offering bets on various calamities. They provoked the crowd, asking questions designed to inspire fear or panic: Would the Great Feral Lynn fall to his death? What were the odds on one of the badgers biting an audience member? Rafe “Big” Dix, a male human rogue, went over to them and intimidated them over their lack of licence fees, getting them to leave.
The noise rattled three vipers that were in the stands for some reason causing them to rear up in fright. Helga hurried over and shooed them away from the audience members with little fuss, but still unnerving some of the audience.
Mordaine the Magician and her escapology act with water tank were the Big Number, which she pulled off with competent skill. As she performed, and they readied the center ring for the Feather-Fall Five, the Kanbali family came to Big, Helga Grunph (female hobgoblin druid) the circus’ herbalist and holistic healer, and Henry (male half-elf cleric of Pharasma)—a dream interpreting seer whose act (“What Dreams May Come”) wasn’t quite ready—and revealed that their safety net had been sabotaged. The family asked the three of them what they should do.
Helga determined that they had been gnawed on by rats, which was unusual as they wouldn’t have gone after the nets instead of food. She concluded they had to have been coerced somehow. Iolo persuaded them they had to perform as, “The Show Must Go On!” They went out to perform in the center ring, but there was another problem: Elizia’s Mr. tickles, a 16 ft. anaconda, was lethargic and wouldn’t eat or drink. Mr. Tickles was center to her act, and so she was reluctant to perform without him and was indeed quite upset over her sick pet.
Helga realized that Mr. Tickles was suffering from goblin pox (causing everyone to look at Iolo who pleaded innocence and getting Helga to redeclare the disease as “orc pox”), a non-lethal disease. Helga managed to suppress the disease and the relieved Elizia went on.
As the Finale was about to begin, Axel’s Amazing Aviary ran into a problem: Axel had never actually performed before and froze with stage fright before going out to his ring. Eduard was able to calm his nerves and got him to perform better than he ever had done in rehearsal.
Throughout the entire performance, a married pair of drunken brawlers jeered and hollered in their seats. They derided and scoffed at every trick, no matter how successfully they had been performed. Other audience members seated nearby finally asked the drunken couple to be quiet, but this provoked violence. Dix noticed the altercation before any punches were thrown, and went in with Henry, Helga, Iolo, and Reggie to deal with them.
One of the brawlers picked up a chair and tried to brain Dix with it and missed wildly. The other ran at Iolo and kicked him in the head. Dix struck one of the drunks over the head with his sap and scrambled his brains a bit. Henry cast bless on the group as Helga cast tanglefoot on the woman who kicked Iolo and plants and vines came up through the stands and grabbed her.
Reggie struck the male brawler in the family jewels while at full rage and the man dropped. He then turned and struck the woman in the thigh. She responded by grabbing a chair and smashing down on Reggie’s head. Iolo shouted, “What do you do, brush your teeth with a hammer?”—which he thought was an appropriate clever and insulting quip—at the woman then tumbled by her and struck with his rapier, but swung wide.
The drunk woman kept swaying so much that Dix wasn’t able to connect with his sap. Reggie hit the drunk with two powerful punches and knocked her out as she stopped on a wild swing. Helga moved in and started healing wounds.
The Finale went off beautifully, with many oohs and ahs over the Feather-Fall Five flying without a net. The audience gave the circus a standing ovation and left very pleased. The Professor ensured the six responsible for the successful performance received a larger portion of the house receipts than usual, each receiving 5 gp. He also gave them two minor healing potions from his own stores. They then began to investigate Myron’s death.
Dix and Helga took a close look at the dead ringmaster and found that his legs were so swollen that his pant legs couldn’t be rolled up; his trousers had to be cut open. This revealed many snake bites on both his calves. Helga determined that snake venom caused his death; in fact the venom came from the same type of viper as those that had been hiding under the bleachers.
Such vicious and repeated attacks were uncharacteristic of normal vipers. Helga realized the vipers must have been controlled or coerced somehow. Dix noticed that the area immediately around Myron’s body was covered in the tiny prints of countless rats. These numerous rat tracks hid any other footprints that might have been here, including Myron’s own. The rats weren’t present any longer, and their behavior was just as unusual as that of the vipers.
Several witnesses saw Myron prior to the performance both in the circus tent and in the camp behind the tent. It wasn’t unusual for Myron to move about so much before a performance to make sure everything was ready, and he often spent time out of sight to get his costume in order or to speak to a performer in private. Unfortunately, that meant nearly anyone would have had the opportunity to attack him.
Elizia’s skill with serpents made her an obvious suspect, but all of her snakes were accounted for; the vipers that killed Myron didn’t come from her collection. Elizia and Myron had known each other for years and were good friends; the snake‑charmer had no motive to kill him. No one else in the circus had the means to control snakes, and no one could control rats.
The killer therefore seemed to be someone who wasn’t with the Circus of Wayward Wonders. Mistress Dusklight immediately fell under suspicion; perhaps she sent someone from the Celestial Menagerie to kill the ringmaster. Without evidence, however, they couldn’t level a charge to the magistrate in Escadar.
They left the tent and began looking around for any signs of someone entering the circus camp. Helga sent her lavender leshy named Bette toward the woods to look for more clues. She found nothing, so they crossed the stream and headed for the southern woods. They ran over to help deal with a giant snake and viper that attacked some roustabouts by the woods where they had been collecting firewood. After defeating the snakes—Iolo killing the giant snake with a brilliant rapier strike to its heart— they noticed a short path that led further into the woods.
Following the path, Reggie sprung a trap and got hit in the face with a thorny branch covered in snake venom. After being healed again, they proceeded on. They came to a small clearing—no more than a widening in the path through the thick woods—containing a small pile of leaves a few feet in diameter with a thin blanket. Next to the leaves rested a small backpack emblazoned with a green patch. A blue, watery imp like creature was filling the backpack with river stones. Helga identified it as a water mephit, and everyone could see that it looked particularly guilty. Another in the nearby stream popped up and they rushed to attack the party.
One of the mephitis breathed acidic water on the party as another cast an acid arrow at Reggie but missed. They clawed at Big, Reggie, and Iolo, but were soon overwhelmed. The party looked through the backpack and found a mass of wet river rocks on top of a highly detailed map of Abberton and its surrounding environment. It was not as fully detailed as a survey map, but it had scribbled notes about different locations all over the map, most notably on the Circus of Wayward Wonders, and the detail on the movements of the circus members was disturbingly accurate. Two locations were in the town were marked as Oldlin’s Orchard and the Hawfton Mill. The backpack also contained a few handfuls of tasty nuts and a holly bush feather token. They then returned to the circus camp.
As they came out of the woods, the sound of pipes, fiddles, and horns echoed across the camp from the meeting fire, where members of the Circus of Wayward Wonders had been waiting for a proclamation that it was safe for them to return to their wagons. Everyone had formed two concentric rings, with the musicians on the inside, and everyone else dancing on the outside. Their energetic prancing seemed out of sorts with the weariness on their faces. “Help us!” the Professor panted, sweat pouring down his frail face as his limbs jerked in time to the lively jig.
Dancing on a dinner plate in the center of the inner ring were to tiny creatures that looked like centaurs with their bottom parts like a massive cricket. They were playing music and Helga recognized them as grigs, a type of faerie. Dix threw Iolo over the first row and then he flipped over the second row to get to the grigs. They were delighted to see the Great Feral Lynn, being big fans of his performance. He asked them to leave, but they insisted everyone was having such a good time. So, he got stern with them and scolded them for their rudeness. They got dejected and flew away complaining that Iolo was no fun. They left behind a potency crystal which Iolo collected. The camp sighed in relief as they sat down to rest.
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I liked it, detailed but not overlong. Looking forward to more.
Session 2 (Part One):
Checking over the camp for further threats, Dix noticed multiple rat tracks throughout the camp. Most of these tracks were near the ringmaster’s wagon, Bardolph the Dancing Bear’s wagon, the edge of the woods, and the Kanbali wagon. They also led to and from the performers’ entrance to the big top. The troupe decided to investigate Bardolph’s wagon as the poor bear was resting there with an injured paw and they wanted to make sure he was okay.
Bardolph was the circus’s bear, and he was something of a beloved mascot ever since his previous owner and caretaker, the Great Fortunato, was robbed and killed in an alleyway in Escadar. Myron couldn’t stand leaving the bear behind in Mistress Dusklight’s clutches, and so he took the bear and the Great Fortunato’s wagon. Bardolph continued to live in Fortunato’s old wagon and still knew all the tricks that made up his act, so he could perform with minimal direction from the circus folk. They considered Bardolph part of the family and akin to a giant pet.
The wagon was large and decorated with faded paintings that depicted Bardolph dancing, balancing on a ball, and menacing the Great Fortunato, who was armed with a whip. There was a large door at the rear of the wagon; it had no lock, and each side of the door boasted a thick and well-chewed length of rope (Bardolph clasped this rope with his mouth to pull the door open and shut).
It looked to Iolo as if the rats had managed to get inside Bardolph’s wagon, so he knocked tentatively at the door. A deep growl answered his knock. Helga said that Bardolph seemed a little scared and rather angry and was deeply concerned. She immediately began backing away while Iolo said that they needed her close to interpret for them. She said she could do that easily enough from twenty feet out. Iolo called out to Bardolph that he was coming in as he suspected the bear had a rat problem. He then opened the door.
Bardolph roared and sprang out to attack the goblin with his massive claws, his tied on top hat wobbling but staying on. Dix moved into a flanking position ready to knock the bear out with a sap as Bardolph swung out and swatted at Iolo. The swashbuckler was too nimble for the bear and scrambled up to the top of the wagon, all the while frantically shouting, “Whoa! Calm down, Bardolph!”
Helga tried to calm Bardolph down, trying to read the bear’s body language and reason with him, but was unable to get through his rage. She then sent her leshy Bette to see if she could scrounge up some honey to help calm Bardolph down. Henry cast admonishing ray to try and subdue the raging bear with a hard slap. Helga tried to see if there were any wounds on the bear but couldn’t see anything.
Eduard cast a color spray, filling the front of the wagon with flashing rainbow colors. Dix was able to close his eyes in time and was unaffected, but Iolo was dazzled by the flashing colors, unable to see clearly for a few seconds. Bardolph was stunned and blinded by the spell. Reggie then moved in, closed the door on the bear, and then fled the wagon.
Bardolph emitted a sad moan, which Helga interpreted as sad and confused. Helga entered the wagon, finding Bardolph lying on his mass of blankets and as gentle as ever. Helga couldn’t truly understand the bear, but she got the impression he thought he was attacking a hated enemy. Bette came back with some honey and a few bees using her flowers for pollen collection, so Helga gave the honeycomb to Bardolph as a treat to help him feel better.
A magical owlbear claw was hanging from a dreamcatcher in the wagon. Why the Great Fortunato didn’t have it with him when travelling the alleyways of Escadar was unknown. Other than that, they found nothing out of the ordinary.
They then checked out Myron the ringmaster’s wagon next, to see if the rats had done any damage there. It was parked near the pond, right in front of the meeting fire. A colorful banner on each side of the wagon advertised the Circus of Wayward Wonders in large capital letters, surrounded by images that depicted some of the most famous acts in the show (including the Glittering Ironholme, the Feather-Fall Five, Elizia and Mister Tickles, the Great Feral Lynn, and Mordaine the Magician). Three steps affixed to the wagon’s rear led up to a locked red door with a golden knob.
They checked Myron’s body and couldn’t find the key on him, so Dix pulled out his lock picks and unlocked the door. He opened the door and a spray of pollen. At this point, everything pointed to a druid, so they all looked at Helga. She identified the pollen as dreampod pollen, a dangerous hallucinogen. Dix, Reggie, and Iolo were severely affected by the spores, causing to become highly confused and aggressive towards each other and the rest of the troupe. Dix tried to attack Reggie but missed so badly he hit the side of the wagon, tearing his sap and causing the lead balls to fall out.
Iolo smacked Reggie up the side of the head with his fist, then kicked Dix in the shin. As Dix was hit, he came to his senses and was able to avoid Iolo’s last swing. Reggie struck out to hit Henry in his stomach before attacking Iolo. He was unable to connect with the goblin and they came to their senses immediately after. Helga used mending to repair Dix’s sap before they went into Myron’s wagon. Helga carefully removed the dream pollen pods as Henry healed up the troupe.
The interior of the wagon was lit with an everburning torch engraved with the phrase “See what you want to see,” that emitted a golden hue. Myron’s wagon was filled with many personal belongings gathered from his travels. There was no indication that Myron was expecting any kind of violence. Among Myron’s mementos were a lesser bravo’s brew in a crystal vial, a bearskin hat marked with a golden leaf, and a cape once worn by the skilled animal trainer named the Great Fortunato.
They moved on to the Kanbali wagon, and as they did so the rustling of leaves could be heard as hundreds of red eyed rats scurried about the foliage. The rats surrounded a halfling woman wearing a headdress in the shape of a rat’s head, its open mouth framing her face. “Isn’t this a pretty sight,” she cackled, twisting her grip on a gnarled staff. “I had hoped to murder more of you while the whole town was watching. That would have frightened them away from here for good! But a bigger slaughter might be even better; the foolish farmers and poisoners of Abberton will discover your rat-chewed corpses. No one will know how it happened, but everyone will whisper that nature is taking its revenge. And it is, through me! I’ll wager most of the town will be gone in a week, and the rest will fall easily. Then, perhaps, the land can heal from the cancer known as Abberton.”
Helga argued that she was making something of a point; as the rest of the party stared at her in incredulity, she said not so much about the murder part. Iolo suggested they might be able to come to an agreement, to which the halfling sneered in response. Dix points out that the halfling was putting the world out of balance with her murder. Helga then agreed with Dix. The halfling dismissed Helga as a “wishy-washy hobgoblin,” and told them she had been active in the town, and this was just her latest move to remove Abberton from existence. She then signalled with her staff to send her rats to attack.
A giant rat jumped forward and bit Helga’s arm, but she was barely hurt. The halfling druid cast entangle on the group, causing to foliage to rise and begin grasping at the legs of the circus folk. Iolo leapt skillfully over the grasping vines and drew his rapier while wrapping his dueling cloak as he approached the halfling. Dix struggled against the vines and moved to attack the giant rat, and Eduard fled the entangled area and cast telekinetic projectile to hurl a rock at the halfling, striking her in her arm.
Helga struggled out of the entangling area and cast tanglefoot, causing a vine covered in sticky sap to appear from thin air, flicking from her hand and lashing itself to the halfling, reducing her movement ability. Dix commented that this might be the worst druid duel ever. Henry stabbed at rats as the rats swarmed over Henry and Helga.
The giant rat jumped forward and bit Dix as Reggie got overwhelmed by the vines, holding him in place. Reggie drew upon his silver dragon instinct and cast ray of frost on the giant rat, killing it and turning into frozen shattered bits. He then broke free of the entangling vines. The halfling cast fear on Eduard, but it only unnerved him slightly. She then moved as far as she could from the troupe with her legs entangled in the magical vine.
Iolo tried to use a bon mot to ruffle the halfling, failing miserably to do so, but did manage to intimidate her as he approached. Eduard kept using telekinetic projectile at the halfling, smacking her in the hip. Helga cast another tangelfoot, but missed as Henry got out of the swarm and hit the halfling with a divine lance straight to the chest. She responded by sending the swarm after Henry, biting him severely.
Reggie began slamming the swarm of rats with his hook hammer. On his second swing he overcompensated with his weapon and pulled himself across the battlefield. Eduard struck with a telekinetic projectile and hit the halfling in the temple, killing the druid. Helga gave Henry a goodberry which he immediately ate. Henry then fled the rat swarm as they ran at Eduard and Reggie to began biting them. Reggie slammed the rats with his hook-hammer and the rats finally dispersed and fled.
Session 2 (Part Two):
They searched the halfling’s body and found Myron’s key and a magic sickle (which Helga took). They bound their wounds and then discussed what they should do next. They were concerned that the druid might have left more surprises behind, so they patrolled the final area near the circus camp that they hadn’t checked out: a large number of boulders to the southeast.
Helga noticed that one of the boulders looked startlingly like the crumbled statue of a cow. They became concerned that some creature might be near that could turn its victims to stone. She then noticed that there was something moving around the rocks. She sent Bette to have a look, provoking a lizard-like rooster to come out and attack with a loud, “Puh-caw!!”
Helga recognized it as a cockatrice, a bird-like creature whose beak slowly petrifies its prey. She ordered her leshy to retreat as Iolo stumbled toward the bird awkwardly, clumsily flailing as he bounced about until he pulled off a magnificent tumble into position next to the creature. Dix moved into a flank with Iolo and managed to get in a glancing blow against the cockatrice’s wing.
Henry threw his dagger at it as Reggie raged then ran in to attack the beast; both attacks missed wide. Dix got pecked by the cockatrice and began to calcify, his flesh slowly turning to stone. Eduard hit the creature with a large rock, magically enhanced by the telekinetic projectile and caused a magical resonance: the cockatrice became incorporeal for a few seconds.
Henry moved over and healed Dix while Helga slashed at the cockatrice with her magical sickle but passed through the creature without doing harm. The combatants waited for the cockatrice to become corporeal and then struck as one group. The creature collapsed in a heap dead.
Having secured the campsite, they were able to return to their fellows and told them it was safe to go to bed. Relieved, the saddened group said their goodnights and turned in. Henry cast a group heal on the troupe that had defended the circus, healing most of the damage they had suffered. Dix slowly shed more and more of the calcified skin as he settled for the night.
On the morning after the confrontation with the druid, Mayor Jae Abber came to the circus wagons and asks for Dix, Helga, Eduard, Henry, Iolo, and Reggie by name. He clearly believed them to be in charge of the circus; they talked to Mayor Abber outside the big top tent. The mayor took off his hat and held it before him with both hands. “Thank you so much for agreeing to see me. My name is Jae Abber, and I’m the mayor of this town.
“I saw your show last night, and it was spectacular! But then, this morning, I learned that you and your people were attacked by someone from Abberton, or perhaps from the Hermitage of Blessed Lightning? Our little town, it’s been terrorized for weeks, since long before you showed up. I’m so sorry that you got caught up in this.
“I can’t see how anyone from our town would be involved in such villainy, but I can’t believe anyone at the hermitage would do so, either. The hermits are kind, humble, and pious folk, devoted to Gozreh. Their master is a man named Harlock Hamdeel. He’s a fine person, loves animals and nature and such. Honestly, it’s impossible to imagine him countenancing anything like what happened last night.
“But that doesn’t mean the town and the hermitage always agree. Abberton has had some challenges lately. There’s been little rain, and the fields are dry. The heat has withered plants, and then we got a cold snap that froze what survived. The wind has pulled what’s left of the topsoil into dust storms. Many of our wells have dried up, and the streams... I’ve never seen them so low. Some have vanished completely. Now, it’s nature, and it goes in cycles, I know. Many of us figure we just need to be patient. The rains’ll come back. But some of the hermits have blamed us... for what, I don’t know. It’s like they think we’ve done something wrong. But we’re just farmers!
“Over the last month, things have gotten really bad. Hemmema got attacked by a wild boar in the street. Abberton’s miller, Seirah Hawfton, and her family have gone missing. No one would blame them if they left town, but maybe they were driven off. Normally, I’d go to the sheriff with this; she’s always kept us safe, but no one’s seen her, either! And I... I... I heard how you protected innocent people here last night, and I thought, maybe, maybe you could do for us, what you did for them? If you could, I’d gladly speak to Harlock about the woman who attacked you last night, perhaps even get you admission to the hermitage so you could talk to him and see for yourself they’re harmless.”
The party were quite startled that Mayor Abber knew so much, especially about what had happened just the night before. When they asked the Mayor how he knew, he said he heard it on the streets this morning from practically everyone. Helga said that they would have to discuss with their company whether they could be spared. He thanked them for considering it and told them to come and tell him if they accepted the job. He then left, leaving the circus people quite confused.
They called a meeting of all the company to discuss the new leadership of the circus and how the town knew so much about the events of the previous evening. When they asked the Professor if he wanted the leadership, he stated that he wanted to concentrate on the sideshow. He admitted that last night, after the battle with the halfling, the Professor sent the members of his Sideshow of Everyday Marvels out into Abberton to gather information and spread the word about the heroes’ heroic defense of the circus. Getting information and promoting the circus was fine by him, but running the show? No thank you.
Helga proposed that they form an autonomous collective, with leadership selected by a bimonthly vote with weekly dues going to the overall financing. After a lot of eye-rolling, it was decided that the Professor would remain in charge of the sideshow, Eduard would be the new Ringmaster and run the actual performances, Dix would be in charge of security, the roustabouts, and the circus’s finances, with Henry and Helga making sure all the company’s needs were met (food, water, shelter, medical care).
After the meeting, the Sideshow of Everyday Marvels reported to the party about some strange activities around Abberton. Oldlin’s Orchard: Hesper and Meitas, the Unjoined Twins, confirmed that Hemmema, a polite grandmother who had recently sold her farm and moved into town, was attacked by a wild boar in the street. The twins provided their report together, alternating sentences as they talked. “She ran, of course. Who wouldn’t! And she’s unhurt, thank goodness. As for the boar, it’s been spotted in an orchard on the east side of town, and it’s not alone. Apparently there’s a whole brood of smaller boars that are just as nasty and ill-tempered as their mother!”
Tahala, the Tattooed Woman, investigated the mill that morning and found the region infested with wasps. She noted that their behavior seemed unusual, and she suspected outside influence. There was no evidence of the miller or her family, although everything about the mill seemed to be in working order from a distance. She found it very unlikely the owner simply abandoned the mill.
Gidarron the Bearded Man learned that there was a small crime gang in Abberton called the Muggers, although they didn’t call themselves by that name for the reasons that someone might suspect. Rather, they hung out at a roadhouse outside of town called the Mad Mug. According to town rumors, the Muggers drank all day and caused trouble at night. The sheriff had been trying to break up the gang for some time, and the Muggers might have gotten brave or reckless enough to do something about the sheriff.
Cubby the Dog-Faced Dog (an Awakened beagle) learned that, although the hermitage itself was isolated and remote, there was a church here in Abberton. He thought there might be a connection, but when he went to look, he saw that the church was dedicated to Abadar, not Gozreh. Nevertheless, he nosed around the church’s back fence and detected something different and unpleasant: the scent of rotting flesh. Cubby believed something unnatural lurked in the church’s graveyard.
They decided to look into these events for their own security as well as general goodwill and went into Abberton and informed the mayor. He was incredibly grateful and thanked them profusely. They asked the name of the Sheriff they were looking for, and he told them her name was Ralhain. They thanked him and went off to begin their investiga