Downtime 1

Having cleared out the dretches (Trash Gremlins) and reported their findings to both the Town Warden and the Lightbringer, the party takes a few days to recuperate and discuss what has happened.

#### Shopping (Raimondo)

Raimondo, shaken by his near-death experience, spends some time in the Market district, eventually finding the smithy of Klara Snowfall.  She is universally regarded as the best smith in town, and the one to see for anything intended to see real combat.  She seems interested in crafting some more advanced splint armor for Raimondo, but is disappointed to discover that he does not yet have the coin to pay for such a project.  Nevertheless Raimondo leaves on friendly terms, having gotten a chance to practice his dwarvish and promising to return when he is ready to buy the new set of armor.  Klara also expresses an interest in working with some more exotic metals, if Raimondo can find the money to pay for them.

#### Dinner (Everyone)

Having set his sights on future earnings working with the Town Warden, Raimondo decides to make sure that his newly formed team is cohesive and working together smoothly.  He organizes a group dinner, taking care to cater to what he understands to be Murry’s unique dietary tastes, and the opportunity seems to allow everyone to get to know each other a bit better.

Murry is glad for the opportunity to share such a fine meal, and talks at great length about the food, both what they are currently eating and other meals that he has enjoyed in his travels.  He seems oblivious to the fact that his “special diet” is a bit off putting to the others, especially as he starts talking about their recent adventures in gory detail while gesticulating with a raw and seemingly partially rotten fish.  Murry is quite impressed with Rosa’s newly revealed magical abilities, as well as the overall martial prowess of the group.

Skosgreat, eager to discuss what he sees as a great victory for the group and for him personally, begins recounting the adventure for the entertainment of the waitstaff.  The eye-rolls of the rest of the party go unnoticed as Skosgreat describes a harrowing battle against hordes of demons, bent on the destruction of the city.  The tale is interrupted as the manager snaps at his waitstaff to get back to work, as other tables have been ignored while they listened, but this brief moment of attention and celebrity rekindles a drive in Skosgreat that he hasn’t felt since his bygone days of athletic glory.

Raimondo, enjoying the newfound camaraderie, begins to regale the group with his own stories, tales of great battles fought and victories won (and lost) in the war.  As he finishes a particularly gruesome tale of soldiers wiped out by magical forces beyond their understanding, an uneasy silence falls over the group.  Netty is the first to break it, asking what war he’s describing, which confuses Raimondo since he cannot imagine any confusion over which war is The War.  The conversation lulls for a bit, as the rest of the party wonder how someone seemingly of an age with them could have fought in a war that ended decades ago, but resumes with the next course of food and drink.

#### Research (Raimondo, Inkwell, and Netty)

The next day, Raimondo heads to the Cathedral to request access to their records to work on a personal project.  He is granted access so long as he is accompanied by someone from the Church, and he spends the remainder of the day working with Inkwell, a Kenku scholar currently visiting Ravenstead on his own research project.  Inkwell shows Raimondo how to use the library systems while happily filling him in on his own research projects (even though Raimondo didn’t really ask).

Raimondo focuses his reading on accounts of travelers, primarily pilgrims, who have traveled through Ostedia, Lamia, and the Ibranate.  He recognizes some of the descriptions from his own travels, but as he tries to trace his path at a certain point his memories blend together into a vague impression of light and color and chaos.  He was traveling through foreign lands, but he spent his time in self-reflection, looking inward rather than outward, trying to find a path forward in the metaphysical sense.  He remembers visiting foreign courts, sleeping in caves, getting lost in bewildering markets and fleeing from fearsome beasts, but none of the snatches of detail that he can remember seem to make sense, and nothing lines up properly in his memory.  He knows that he did not take a long journey by sea, so he must have remained within Lamia, but when he tries to sketch the buildings that he remembers or describe the people he saw, it just comes out in vague generalities.

Inkwell listens with a sympathetic ear, but is not able to point him in any useful direction.  Fearing the reaction of the Church, and feeling a bit like he doesn’t trust his own perceptions or memories at this point, Raimondo doesn’t mention the strange feeling that he got when fighting the dretches or his growing suspicion that his journey may have left its mark on him.  He also does not tell Inkwell about the disorientation he’s feeling, the seeming disconnect between his memories and the amount of time that has passed.

That evening, Netty approaches Raimondo to ask about his research, and Raimondo confides in her all of the details that he can remember of his travels, as well as his confusion that he can’t seem to remember it properly.  Netty in turn reveals that she too has been touched by some force she doesn’t understand, a being that appears in her dreams, interrogates her, and tests her abilities.  She knows that this is more than just a dream, and that there is some very real entity out there that wants her as its champion, but she doesn’t know what type of being she is dealing with.  The conversation helps to spur Raimondo’s memories as well, of a being that he met which questioned him as well, but his impression is of a more benevolent force that was helping him to find his way.  He describes this woman, impossibly beautiful atop a lily pad throne, and a small trickster that sought to delay his progress.  Ultimately both Netty and Raimondo agree that the entities they have encountered do not sound similar, but both feel better having shared a story which they had previously kept hidden.

#### Research (Murry)

Having spent a day recuperating from his celebratory meal, Murry sets off to try to find out more about the flesh rose that the dretch seemed to think was such a prized gift.  Based on what the Lightbringer said, everything about that interaction seems wrong, and Murry wants to figure out why.  He starts by asking for the assistance of the church to figure out whether the rose itself is magical in some way, and is directed to the same Kenku scholar that helped Raimondo.  Inkwell, a bit of an expert in magic, is able to confirm that the rose does not have any magical essence of enchantment.

From there, Murry focuses on studying the construction of the rose itself, the flesh that is folded together and the stitching that holds its shape.  He tries to identify the type of flesh used, but comparative anatomy was never his strong suit.  Looking past the gruesome materials, however, Murry finally realizes why the shape seems familiar: it’s a common design, often made by students learning to work with cloth.  He’s never seen or heard of one made of flesh, and the juxtaposition of a children’s project done in raw flesh is even creepier than the rose itself.

Murry now realizes that this rose is important not in and of itself, but for what it says about its creator.  He finds the Town Warden at the Inn and asks whether there are any reports of bodies going missing, grave robbing, etc, that would indicate someone is practicing working with flesh.  Redbeard immediately understands his concern, and reassures him that the city is well aware of the dangers of unregulated necromancers, and that the town gravekeepers know to immediately report anything suspicious to the guard.  They have not had any reports that would indicate a new necromancer is on the rise.

#### Carousing (Skosgreat)

Meanwhile, Skosgreat has been spending his downtime getting to know the city, specifically its wide variety of watering holes.  Originally his plan was to just get the lay of the land, meeting the locals and building contacts, but being Skosgreat he couldn’t help but start talking up his own recent accomplishments.  Pretty soon people are buying him drinks and listening to him recount the now thoroughly embellished defeat of the demon hordes, bent on conquering Ravenstead and perhaps the whole world.  Those listening know that the entire tale is fabricated, but it’s a good story, and it sure beats hearing Angus tell the one about his sister-in-law’s goat for the third time.

#### Lightbringer Update (Everyone)

A few days later, you check in as a group at the cathedral to see if there is any news. Elmar welcomes you and seems quite enthusiastic:

> Yes yes, come in. First I must say thank you, your suggestion of searching the Yard for evil influences has been quite a useful one. Oh, we haven't turned up anything related to the dretches, but we did find a nasty little shop making a trade of crawling claws, and some idiot who had harvested yellow musk fungus after a recent infestation and was inadvertently turning the local rats into mindless zombies. Nothing the guard couldn't handle, but we would never have known if not for our clerics searching. I'm planning to recommend to the Town Warden that clerics be included in regular patrols across the city in order to root out undead and the like.
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> Now, to the dretch problem. Our research hasn't turned up any stories of dretches being sent in on their own ahead of a demonic invasion, so rumors aside [pointed glance at Skosgreat] I think we can count ourselves safe from higher level incursions. But if the dretches aren't being sent here then where are they coming from? My acolytes have been searching the records for any mention of spontaneous demonic infestations, and there are some, but most seemed to happen just after the war when lots of nasty things were just roaming around. There were some accounts that seemed to think that dretches appeared on their own in places of great evil, like maggots on rotting meat, but no real studies have ever backed that up. We will keep looking, but perhaps it's worth searching for places in which evil influences have been concentrated? I don't know, it's all just speculation, but certainly finding and curing places of evil within the city can only be a net positive.
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> Look for places of tremendous negative energy, either those that are haunted by horrific events of the past or those where there is a connection or weak point in the barrier to one of the nastier planes. Perhaps there are some monsters that by their very nature defile a place and cause corruption to spread, Anything that might cause a location itself to become twisted and in turn warp and corrupt things around it. I'm not sure what to look for specifically, but if dretches do appear spontaneously in the material plane there may be some specific location that's drawing them through.
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Raimondo specifically remembers rumors from the war of weapons being used by both sides that could make a place uninhabitable in various ways, although the rumors of such weapons vastly outpaced their use. There are no known sites like this within Ravenstead, but the natural ebb and flow of activity has left plenty of buildings abandoned or vacant over the years.