Session 001

## Plot

We open on Silver waking up in town with his cow Copper. The duo wake up in the house of Maple Finerty. Maple kindly asks if they can give Silver a tour, to which Silver happyily obliges. Maple shows Silver the somewhat empty animal stables, and leads him into town to see the different town areas, all of which are to the west and south of the farmhouse in which Silver and Maple takes residence.

A forest surrounds Regularville, going from some deciduous trees in the west to coniferous trees in the east. There's an east-flowing river which divides the town of Regularville into two halves. The residential area to the south and the commercial area to the north. The residential area is sparse, mainly populated with chalets. The commercial area is dense and buildings all seem to be built facing a central water well. Some residents seem to prefer not to separate their business and residence, and will either live in apartments in the commercial area, or set up shoppe-fronts in their houses.

An exception to this rule, earlier this morning, a young warforged named Oak was working in his bakery on the coast of the river in the residential area, nearby the bridge into the commercial area. Oak was working diligently, being brought fresh produce from Maple, when two half-goblins entered. Bill and Tim Haines entered, an older father and a very young son respectively, and began asking Oak about the honey-pastries for sale. Bill explained that Tim's favorite bakery, run by the Wahlton family, had closed down rather recently, and so Bill was trying to get Tim interested in other options. Bill remarked that Tim's older sister, Rebel, is usually a bit more flexible, but that Tim is rather picky. Tim enjoyed the pastry Oak gave him, but still stated disatisfaction with it, preferring what he was used to. As they were leaving, Oak noticed his cash register as a whole was missing and asked Bill about it. Bill stated dismay about this being a common question that he and his goblinoid friends receive due to the perception that they are thieves, and very firmly said that he had no clue where the cash register went. Someone Oak knows, Halvor Myklebus, interrupts the encounter, and tells Bill that Oak does not mean to stereotype, and that he just does not know much about the world just yet, and thus had no way of knowing of the existing stereotype. Bill gets tense, and seems to wish to say something, but holds back, and walks away with Tim.

We then see Halvor walk away from Oak's bakery, heading into the commercial area. Operating out of an apartment complex, Birdie Wiley and her niece Delilah are running a matchmaking business, with Halvor as potentially their most hopeful customer in a long while. He states that he just needs stability, as he's struggling to raise someone on his own. When asked if he has a kid, he responds with stammering, saying that he, in a sense, adopted. He states that, gender-wise, he's not picky when it comes to dating. During this session together, Birdie asks Delilah for some tea, and Delilah does a bad job, but Birdie makes sure to thank her and make her feel important. After Halvor leaves, Delilah asks Birdie when her dad, Cobb, would be returning. Birdie gets quiet, realizing that Cobb has been gone for most of Delilah's life, and says she doesn't know. Delilah hands Birdie a locket that reads "back soon" in Cobb's handwriting. Birdie looks at it sadly, and sets it back on Delilah's desk. When Birdie looks back up, she sees a short cloaked figure with their hood up sprinting out the door, the locket no longer on the table, Delilah's head buried in a book. Birdie sprints out the door to retrieve the locket before Delilah notices.

We cut back to Silver, who is now being shown around the farming area of town where he is set to live. This area of town is to the north of the river, and a bit far to the east of the commercial area, about 5 minutes' walk away. Maple states that the crops don't yield much profit, but are needed by every restaurant and food shoppe in town. Maple alludes to some crops doing surprisingly well but does not elaborate, as Silver is here to aid with the animals. Maple leads Silver to Jim the butcher, who lives nearby. Silver feels disgust about living close to a butcher, stating that he is a vegan. Jim takes no issue with this, but seems to be grumpy, and offers Silver some animals which are too weak to be turned into meat, offering them as pets. Silver takes all of them, focusing his interest on a very ill goat. As Silver tries to leave, he gets stopped by Jim, who angrily asks where his axe has gone. Silver states that he doesn't know, and after a long while, Jim leaves him alone.

Silver heads back to his room in the barn, his animal companions alongside him, and leads them into separate pens. He then attempts to get the goat to vomit, sticking his hand down the goat's throat. At this point, he sees a shadowy figure sprint past his open door and thinks nothing of it until Birdie charges into the room and asks which way that figure went. Silver points her in the right direction as the goat begins to vomit, and Birdie sprints away. Only afterwards does Silver notice a janitor in the back of the room who introduces himself as Dale and offer to help with the cleaning of the vomit. Only at this point does Dale notice his bucket has gone missing.

Dale heads into town and hears noise coming from a street in the residential area. He stumbles across a very bewildered looking Bertha who appears to have dropped a jar of honey she was offering to Oak. Dale attempts to put the shattered pieces back together, noticing that the jar is missing its lid. Bertha tells him that a cloaked figure sprinted near her and that that had caused her to drop the jar. After Dale leaves, Bertha takes a nap, and wakes up to hear a very judgemental half-elf customer walk into the shop. The customer is named Avery, and seems to almost interrogate Bertha before leaving, at which point Bertha talks to her queen bee.

Bells chime throughout town, which indicates to most people that a town meeting is being called around the well. Silver sees some barn-goers head into town and follows their lead, not yet understanding the customs of this town. In the town's center, Maple is standing atop a well to make two announcements. First, that there is a thief loose, and second, that Bill's children, Tim and Rebel, are missing. Maple posits that perhaps the thief stole both the items that have been going missing, and the children. Birdie asks if it's possible that Bill's children are the thieves. Maple answers in the form of another question, pushing that there must be something those items have in common beyond value, since some of the missing items are definitely not expensive. Silver exclaims that they're all metal items, to which Maple replies that there are several blacksmiths in town that could have been robbed from, so it doesn't make much sense for a thief to steal from all of these different places and increase the risk of being caught. Maple then recommends forming a search party, and appoints Dale, who knows almost everybody in town, to run it. Dale chooses to compose a party of 5, having Bertha, Birdie, Oak, and Silver join him after seeing their antics throughout the day.

The party asks Bill where he lives to look for clues about the whereabouts of his kids. He gives them the address to his house and says that if the kids are found, they should be taken to their mother's house, for which he gives them another address. they head to his house. Immediately they notice a few things wrong. There are several evenly spaced stab holes in the couch cushions, there is a large hole in the ceiling, there is a filthy, soil covered sigil burned into the floor beneath the hole in the ceiling, and the sigil is just in front of the entrance to the basement. The party attempts to head upstairs, and hears some mechanical shuffling. They go upstairs to see, darting away from them at nigh impossible speeds, a baseball-sized creature.

The party then heads over to Miss Haines' house, where Bill has been in worried conversation with his ex-wife. Silver and Copper hide in the bushes outside the house as the party gathers some information from Miss. The party asks Miss about her kids, to which she says that Rebel is a really talented artificer, taking after both her parents. Miss explains that Bill and her divorced amicably and still raise their kids together, but that they now live separately and the kids travel between their two residences as desired. Miss also says that there are workshops in both her and Bill's basements that have become the children's playroom.

Silver sees through the window that, as the party is interrogating Miss, Bill leaves out the back door, returning after a few moments and sitting in a different room. Thinking that he might be avoiding interrogation, Silver heads inside and communicates this information discreetly to the party. Birdie and Silver head into the room that Bill is in, and ask him about what his house's interior usually looks like. He states that there is not usually anything special about it and that it looks rather similar to his ex-wife's house. The duo take this to mean that the markings, damages, and small moving creature must be unordinary.

During this conversation, they learn that he is in extreme distress over the kids being missing, saying that the divorce happened recently and that he did not expect things to get this difficult so quickly as a single father. Birdie takes this as an opportunity to hand him her business card, and asks if he might be interested in finding a new partner. As he places the card in his wallet, Birdie notices that he already has one of her cards, and thus concludes that he has considered showing up to her business for some time now. Bill says as much and Birdie asks him about who he's be interested in. He says he just needs a man who is good with kids.

The party reconvenes outside Miss Haines' house, and realizes they might want to check the basement of Bill's house and head over immediately.