2023-02-03

* They all go to the inn after meeting with Bely in the town hall.
* Darwin heads upstairs to the rooms. Darwin opens the door to his inn room and finds the passed out mayor in there hiding inside a tipped over wine barrel.
* Keebler follows in soon after. Bean leaps off his shoulder in the room. Bean is sniffing the unconscious mayor. Keebler peaks around Darvin’s shoulder and is like oh looking at the mayor. Darvin uses lesser restoration on the mayor to wake him up. Bean grabbed a little string lacing up the mayors tunic. As he sits upright his head hits the top of the barrel.
* Downstairs, Riswynn is looking for clues and anything of value. Fenxis walks into the kitchen as Riswynnn turns away from the little door that Squeak is pawing at. Fenxis is watching Riswynn carefully as she snoops around gracefully not moving anything out of place. Fenxis and Riswynn hear a loud swear come from upstairs.
* The mayor is mumbling about the bears and tries to hide further into the barrel.
	+ Darwin: “Mr. Mayor? There are no bears here. We’re here to protect you.”
	+ Mayor: “What happened to my head? Everything is fuzzy.”
	+ Keebler: “What are you doing up here?”
	+ Mayor: “Everyone went crazy. There was an election. There were these cats and Jacob ran off and there was no way for people to get to me. I snuck out at night and tried leaving for my own safety. There were just too many cats.”
	+ Keebler: “Jacob was your assistant at the door?”
	+ Mayor: “Yes. There were devils or hags and dragons. The fowler caught me with two bears and they were walking like men, bear-folk.”
	+ Keebler: “These bears came from the woods?”
	+ Mayor: “Yeah they chased me back here and luckily they wouldn’t come into town. I looked for the safest place to hide.”
	+ Mayor tries swatting at Bean and he hisses at him a bit.
	+ Mayor: “The cats have taken everyone, oh no! They have taken you too.” The mayor will look for another place to hole up from the cats.
	+ Keebler: “I’m interested in the bears, can you describe where you saw them?”
	+ Mayor: “I was running in the woods and I was hugging the road going east. A couple dozen yards off on the northern side. About a quarter mile out of town I broke into a clearing and then heard something and froze. I thought maybe bandits, but it was Martin and he looked glassy eyed. I was happy to see someone without a cat. And he was shambling towards me making weird noises. Then two bears walked out with glassy stares in their eyes and I turned back running to town.”
	+ Mayor pulls his knees into his chest and start rocking slowly.
* Downstairs, there is nothing notable about the tavern or kitchen.
	+ Fenxis looks around the tavern. Investigation check. As Fenxis goes to glide there is a loud swear upstairs and Cloud freaks out and causes her to trip a little bit and bangs her shin on a corner of the island in the kitchen. It hurts unreasonably much, no damage but her leg freezes up and she’s limping around. Punching sacks of barley in frustration. Cloud sprints upstairs and zooms through Keebler’s legs and Cloud dives to the mayor.
	+ Darwin rolls 14 and manages to grab Cloud before he gets to the mayor. Bean looks up at Cloud and then starts hissing at the mayor. Then Cupcake starts bathing its paw on Keebler’s shoulder.
	+ Keebler slight of hang check 9. Keeblers manages to get a hand up and it used to Cupcake going after his elf ears at this point. Cupcake jumps down and starts hissing at the mayor as well. Bean resisted having his collar on last time Darvin tried to put it back on. Darwin asked him why and the feedback comes through fuzzy. Insight check 22. Darwin being soulful and he’s a problem solver he pieces together as the communication ebbs, the collar was shielding Bean from the hive mind and by taken it off the first time if drastically decreased effectiveness. The last bit that he is able to piece together is that part of the effects of the hive mind is that all the cats are connected and prevents them from telepathy. Darwin lost the ability to communicate with Bean. Darvin “Why can’t you talk to me anymore?” But Bean doesn’t respond.
	+ Back in the kitchen, Riswynn opens the door to the pantry, 7x7 little room. Rows of shelves. Smaller 2 feet by 2 feet door. And the shelves are lined with meats and cheeses a dozen mice in there. And they all freeze and blinking as the light hits their eyes. Squeak gets a big mouse and jumps back in Riswynn’s bag with he mouse.
	+ Riswynn goes to open the little door in the pantry and jackpot finds the milk and cream. Fenxis and Riswynn head upstairs. (The giant spider is hitched up outside tied up outside.) Keebler is looking around and goes to the window to peak out. A lot of cats in the town but not many people. He sees the town is quieter than usual and about a half dozen people walking aimlessly without a care in the world with doe eyes with their cats. Playing with their cats with blades of grass. One stops at the building corner and the cats rubs its chin on the building then it’s human does the same.
	+ Keebler thinks we should head to the woods to look for the bears and Darvin says “we should get a cat for the mayor while we’re out.”
	+ Keebler “the cats are nice and all but maybe secondary to the other animals”
	+ Darvin “can you say any animals are superior to cats?” Keebler “let’s find a cat for Martin too.”
	+ Darvin says yes let’s find two cats. We all give milk out for our cats and then put the rest away and head out to the woods to search for the fowler and the bears. The woods are dead still and we’re entering from the eastern side of town. We see a little sparrow darting out of the woods flying for its life. It flies over the town and as it does a cat leaps off of the roof to try to grab it and barely misses. Then you see an arrow take the sparrow down and it falls in town.
	+ Keebler picks up by the arrow and investigates the sparrow but didn’t notice anything wrong with it.
	+ A man runs around the corner and says he’s doing his best to stop the air attacks from local animals. “We take turns with the bows on the roofs. The animals are acting strange. A rabid one attacked a girl a few days back. Took a while to catch on but the cats have shown us the way. Gracie, what did you do to yourself? Let’s get you bandaged up. You might say Gracie has me. Do any of you have medicine for Gracie.”
	+ Darvin uses cure wounds on Gracie. Light glows on the cat and it starts licking its paw like nothing happened. The man sighs in relief and rubbing his cat. “Thank you. May all your days be filled with milk.” He starts walking off with the cat and bow.
	+ Darvin: “Now that we know he has a cat we can continue to look for cats for the mayor and Martin.” The human turns and says “The mayor already has a cat.” Keebler says we are talking about the old mayor.  Man: “Keep your secrets.” Now they head back to the woods.
	+ Keebler leads the group and works on tracking. He picks up some signs and they come to a clearing and shambles out this crazy looking man and two bears look up and start roaring and running towards us. To be continued…