Simmering in Silverton (10/03/2021)

**Alescia - The Historium:**

After consulting with ex-Councilor Grandpa Ondansetron, the decision was made to travel to the Historium to try and learn more about the symbol that was painted in blood in the Desecration of Abbington. After working with a helpful library Gnome, it was discovered that there was a great prophecy that the Blood Magic users seek to fulfill and are actively attempting to spur into motion. Little information was disclosed about the actual prophecy (he didn't gnome as much as we were hoping), but it was enough to get started.

The decision was made to travel back to the scene of the crime and obtain more information. Travel accommodations were bartered for in Alsecia (a "stolen" cart and some swift horses) - collected from shady salesmen in the outer rings. After an attempt to hoodwink our heroes, they prevailed by purchasing the best horses and cart for the job. As they departed the heart of the realm, Leaf discovered that the cart was stolen, marked to be property of the Alescia guard - this is less than ideal. After prying off the evidence encouraged to discard of said evidence, our heroes carried on to Abbington, where they hoped they could find a lead on the blood mages responsible for the so-called desolation... or desecration... pretty sure it's desolation, but whatever.

**Abbington - Room #3:**

Upon their return to Abbington, our heroes found themselves to be greeted by a skeleton crew of locals from surrounding towns working toward cleaning up the desecrated city. With few guards and little to go on, the once proud hamlet appeared to be little more than ghost town. The heroes split up, sending Hadrian, Alluin and Kizzik to explore the records in the Town Hall while the rest of our party explore the elusive Room 3. Arriving at the fated tavern that brought our party of unlikely heroes together, they found a bar maiden at the helm, with little more help to be accounted for.

The party's initial request to visit their "room" from before the events of the desecration were met with resistance; the bar maiden has seen enough for one lifetime and intended to avoid any further excitement. The party decided to order breakfast, which consisted mainly of several roasted, seasoned whole chickens and ale. The bar maiden roused the kitchen staff (one cook) and attempted to make breakfast for their surprising, but welcome contribution to their broken local economy.

In efforts to find clues, the heroes distracted the bar maiden and her loyal cook with tasks while they sent their friend Fen, the halfling sorcerer, to poke around in the fated Room 3. He quietly made his way upstairs to the room in question, where he discovered an old sword in the wardrobe and (more importantly) a loose board by the bed. Here he found a stash including a vial of blood red liquid, robes and a journal with missing pages, but a list of three cities and dates:

* Abbington and the date of its own desecration
* Crossington and a date to take place in 24hours time - a half-day's ride from Abbington
* Silverton (the hometown of our hero Leaf) with a date of 72 hours out, a day and a half from Abbington

Fen attempts to sneak back downstairs but is unable to stealthily return to the party. After several attempts to distract the bar maiden further, (including a weak attempt at Thaumaturgy where Talek did nothing more than throw his own voice at the kitchen to "mimic" the cook) she decides she will allow the party to view Room 3 after all. Talek takes the lead and rushes to prevent Fen from being discovered for his clandestine exploration and shoved him into his backpack. Ultimately, suspicion takes hold and our heroes are forced to intimidate the bar maiden, forsaking their breakfast and abandoning the tavern, knowing they will not likely be welcome back.

After meeting back up with Alluin, Hadrian and Kizzik, the party decides their best move is to try their best to save Crossington - the closest and most populous of the two cities with what appears to be a 24 hour death sentence. Our heroes depart from Abbington with haste and ride through the night, fearing yet another devastating blow to the general peace the realm has known and taken for granted over the years of prosperity brought on by the discovery of realm shards.

**Crossington - Sweet-talking a Mayor:**

After a long, bumpy journey the party arrived in at the gates of Crossington. Aside from Alluin and Xofren, everyone was able to get some semblance of a good night's rest. Ryafyrie spent a significant portion of the ride bonding with Kizzik. Our heroes were greeted at the gates of Crossington by guards as they arrived at dawn, who they convinced to fetch the mayor. Upon meeting with the mayor of Crossington, Julian Pendlegrass, our party was able to convince him of the dire situation his city was in; his options were limited but there was one reasonable action: evacuation. He promised to prepare the town for evacuation with no destination in mind, and the party promised in-turn to explore every avenue afforded to them in order to determine if the cult had any presence in town. Talek tried on many occasions to get a "writ of passage" to allow him to explore alternative tactics that may accelerate the process, but the Mayor and Captain of the Guard weren't convinced they should afford a stranger such free reign, no matter how dire the circumstances.

Alluin and Xofren were able to rest at the home of the Highlands while the rest of the party interviewed townsfolk and searched for clues. After a day of searching, the party was convinced the evacuation was the best move, with little to go on but what was known about the prophecy, their understanding that realm shards may play a key role and the prospect that if the people were far from the realm shard, it may foil the cultist plan.

**Crossington - Encountering Cultists and angering Graves:**

As the zero hour approached, the last of the populace of Crossington was evacuating; under the suggestion of our heroes they were to occupy the recently desecrated Abbington. With no realm shard, their theories of correlation between the presence of realm shards and enabling rituals such as the one witnessed at the most recent Tournament of Champions was put to the test. While the City guards executed the evacuation by order of the Mayor, the party kept silent watch over the realm shard and the woods surrounding the city. As dusk approached, they were drawn to the shadows of the forest by a cloaked figure.

As the party attempted to track the cloaked figure, the young fighter by name of Leaf Highland chose to rush forward, landing himself in the middle of what appeared to be a cultist ceremony - the ritual they may or may not have been conducting came to a fast stop when one of the cultists quickly slashed his own arm with a dagger and whispered an incantation; Leaf was instantly knocked down and wounded, only to find an empty campground when the rest of the party caught up and aided him.

Upon investigating the campground, a trail of blood was discovered. The party attempted to follow the trail but the trail went cold.

Talek retrieved the blood vial from room three and decided to investigate it, hoping it might point the party in the right direction. After pulling the cork off the vial, the liquid burst forth and formed a spider on Talek’s face. After a gripping battle, the blood spider was defeated.

An irate inquisitor by the name of Graves then appeared, accusing the party of wasting an opportunity, intentionally sabotaging an investigation and implying they may not necessarily be on the right side of the aisle of allegiance. He disappeared to the shadows shortly after his reprimand. The party chose to return to the Mayor and his city guard to check on the progress of the evacuation and to remain in the city center to monitor the realm shard and ensure the cult cannot obtain whatever potential power they may seek from it until morning, taking turns on watch.

**Silverton - Simmering with the Highlands:**

After a night sharing watch of the realm shard, morning brought no further excitement and no further evidence of our cultist activity was observed, so the party decided to depart for Silverton, last on the list. Wondering if they sent the people of Crossington to slaughter, Xofren took the form of a giant eagle, flew to Abbington and caught up with the party down the road to Silverton, the home of Leaf Highland. He brought news that the people of Crossington had evacuated safely and appear in good health, to everyone’s relief. Arriving in Silverton by evening, their first stop, as always, was the single tavern in Silverton to get some nourishment before deciding the best course of action. The party quickly discovered that Silverton is apparently known for their love of soup (there are very few chickens in Silverton...).

**Silverton - Live Bait:**

Our heroes face another great challenge; all evidence pointed to the evacuation saving the people of Crossington, but they were no closer to finding and implicating the menace behind the Desecration of Abbington. They first decide to pay the mayor a visit - who is clearly pretending to be doing important business and not eating a bowl of breakfast soup - offers very little by way of information, though friendly enough. After imploring him for help defending the small town, they find the only “reliable” men (and women) they might round up for any kind of city watch were inexperienced and unreliable, and thus decide to visit the home of the Highlands and regroup instead.

After deliberating with the group, Talek suggested something unconventional and dangerous: using the town of Silverton as live bait to draw out the cultists behind the attack. With the possibility of another dead end should they avoid this risk, the party agrees, under the condition that Leaf be permitted to warn and evacuate his family should things get messy. They begin the task of searching town for clues, asking about and searching the outer limits of town, where they found a recently used but seemingly abandoned campsite similar to the one outside Crossington. As a precaution, Hadrian left one of his Eavesdropper’s Earrings to warn the party should anyone return to the site.

the next day was spent searching for clues but coming up short, the party reconvened in the tavern, enjoying the finest Silverton Soup the tavern has to offer. Everyone seemed to know Leaf, including a creditor named Weller whom the party found was looking to Leaf for payment, and was owed around 250 gold. The creditor was certainly not friendly and threatened Leaf with bodily harm if he did not receive these funds in the near future. Despite efforts by the party to dismiss or intimidate him, this man was not easily shaken, but left with warnings and no further aggression. While there were bigger issues in front of the party, this will not likely be their last encounter with the brutish Silverton Shark.

As things wound down during their supper, the mayor's secretary burst into the Tavern and swiftly approached our heroes, eyes filled with terror.

”It’s HAPPENING! It’s BEGUN! The realm shard is gone and some of the townsfolk have been kidnapped! Leaf… your sister…”

The party sprang into action, and at that very moment Hadrian heard a number of figures speaking strange incantations back at the campsite where his magical earring had been hidden. First out the door and the rest of the party close in step, Leaf Highland courageously ventured forth to save his sister.

**Silverton - Cultists and the true hero of the story, Kizzik:**

Making haste through the forest towards the campsite, the party came up upon a grizzly scene. Four cultists were performing what looked like some kind of bloody ritual with their kidnapped townsfolk and stolen realm shard. Though they had the element of surprise, the prospect of losing his sister was too much for Leaf who burst through the tree line and rushed heroically towards the cultists, weapons drawn. He met the cultists first in battle, swinging sword and axe. The party then followed his lead and engaged these cultists, Alluin and Fen throwing magical attacks, Hadrian and Talek both heavily armored engaging some cultists head on, and Ryafyrie playing glorious songs and trying to encourage brave Kizzik toward battle (who refused). Surprising everyone, Xofren turned into a bear and engaged one of the four cultists alone in a flurry of furry paws.

The battle was a bloody one. The cultists continued to draw their own blood and launched it as spikes at the party, nearly killing Hadrian. Leaf somehow managed to remain relatively unscathed in the midst of the fight. The battle was beginning to turn in the party's favor with 3 of the cultists dispatched, but the final cultist seemed to be much more powerful and had been casting incantations throughout the battle, undisrupted by the chaos. Upon finishing his chanting, the bodies of the downed cultists melted away before the eyes of the party. This bloody goo from each cultists formed into some kind of slimy monster, and the battle pressed on.

The party heroically battled these blood beasts after dispatching the final chanting cultists but their weapons didn't seem to be very effective, often passing through the blood beasts while their heads moved to different sections and reformed (gross). Alluin and Fen, still throwing spells from behind the tree lines, observed that fire seemed to burn away the blood beasts more than anything else.

While all this transpired, Riafyrie through magical song finally inspired Kizzik to be the hero that he always knew he could be. He raced to the front lines to help Talek and Hadrian, engaged a blood beast, and was immediately sucked into it's bloody, oozing body. In a panic, Talek reached a gauntleted fist into the belly of the beast and using all his might yanked the brave goblin out. Covered in ooze and blood, Kizzik was not deterred in the slightest thanks to the magical pep talk he had received. He pulled his bow from his back, lit an arrow on fire, and dispatched the final blood beast on the battle field in a blaze of glory.

The battle ended, the party untied the captives and retrieved the realm shard. Alluin, Hadrian, and Talek, no strangers to the art of interrogation, began tying up the final cultist, minds set on getting some answers. Their biggest concern though was how to do this safely. With blood as a weapon, the cultists didn't seem to need much other than themselves to do great harm. They wiped down all blood from themselves and the new captive. All agreed that his hands should be bound tight as their magic did appear to require a Somatic component. Ryafyrie briefly mentioned removing the hands altogether, but that seemed a bit grizzly.

The party began to interrogate their prisoner, who responded by spitting blood in their faces and cackling like a madman, until Talek mentioned "The Prophecy". Suddenly serious, the cultist began to speak of untold power in an attempt to lure the Tiefling to his side.

Just as it seemed that the party would finally uncover some form of motive for the horrific events that had come to pass, a thunderous crack rang out from the treeline, and a hole tore through the center of the cultist's head. Inquisitor Graves strode out from the treeline, a wisp of smoke still spilling from the gun in his hand.

Graves thanked the party for their efforts, and admitted that he had been wrong to suspect that they were involved and would vouch for them when the time came. He then apprehended the naked and bound corpse and disappeared into the darkness.