Zoom 2023-01-02-2024 21:00

We divvy out Magic items:
*Brokev asks for (and gets) the +3 ROP to give him more of a chance of surviving as a tank. He also asks for first dibs on the chain mail when it is repaired.
*Francis cedes the circlet to Joshua.
*Nobody is crying out for the ring of enhanced flying - Twoo accepts it for now, but isn't particularly happy with the idea of being a flying target, so perhaps we can find a better person to use it in the future.
*RifRaff obviously gets the Shanah mace - until they ask for it back.
Before we have our kip, Joshua casts a clairvoyance and clairaudience into the walled up pub: No sound, and the disturbing sight of a load of burned bodies in the pub.
The next day, we start by investigating the pub - with Joshua and Hamish climbing the walls to get into it, and Hamish doing the main investigation. He see many human-sized humanoids burned to death in a conflagration that seems to have been caused by an enhanced accelerant (there is still a smell of oil). The fire damage is fairly uniform, so not caused by fireballs or the like, and has caused anything remotely flammable to burn. Hamish also discovers a stone slab covering what is probably a trap-door. It is slightly chipped as if someone was trying to break through it, and there are bodies in piles around the stoned-up windows/door, so it does look as if people were trying to escape. 
Assuming that the slab was covering the entrance to the cellar, we look outside for the exit from the cellar, which we find fairly easily. Going down, we find the bodies of 4 Umar-like giants: They have been stripped of all their gear, and appear to have died from combat wounds (mainly piercing) about 5 weeks ago. We surmise that these are attackers who died, and their colleagues respectfully stripped them before throwing them down here with even more respect. 
From the cellar there are steps up to a wooden trap door that is now covered by the stone slab in the pub. This is strange - either the stone shape was cast from within the pub, or something managed to cast a stone shape from the other side over the top of the trap door in the pub. We immediately think of Wild Gargoyles.
During this, Dougal hears a noise coming from somewhere within the Blue Tower - a clunk or jangle or something. Someone clumsy knows we are here.
Investigation concluded, we proceed to cautiously look at the tower. A circumnavigation by Brokev doesn't show any 'non-Wyldwood' auras. We go in through the broken front door: (See maps) There are giant-sized footprints leading from the door to the room on the left. Brokev detects a non-Wyldwood presence behind the closed doors at the end of the corridor. We secure the two rooms on either side (spiking shut the exit door from the Clerk's room where the footprints went.) The Clerk's room appears to have been ransacked, with papers spread everywhere.
The party prepares for combat as Umar impatiently waits to be told he can open the doors at the end of the corridor.