Session 12: Chlamoodia

After achieving their previous goal of defeating the Des Lobos gang and ultimately discovering a sinister plot regarding a silver-tongued villain, the band of adventurers set out on their new quest to locate The Bibble in the town of Strawberry. And so they left Armadillo behind in the hands of Sheriff Gentry and his deputies, including Jasper.

Along their journey, the group came across an overturned wagon surrounded by dead horses. $50 was found in a secret compartment inside, and once the wagon itself had been looted Aggie used fire magic to turn the whole thing into a funeral pyre slash bonfire. The group continued north-east, out of the desert and into a the more grassy area of eastern New Austin.

The following day of travel, the group came across some Des Lobos stragglers staking out the path. There was a small altercation, and while Aggie wished to continue the fight for the sake of the safety of other travellers along the road, Maurice expressed his preference for a quick and easy travel toward Strawberry and the importance of haste in their current scenario. Maurice ultimately intimidated away the Des Lobos members, and they scurried away to a small camp a ways off the path. Aggie, however, was less than satisfied with this outcome, and as soon as the party was far enough away from the bandits, she sent a fireball over her shoulder. Before anyone could stop her, the Des Lobos members were incinerated in a single shot.

The band continued travel as the weather turned to heavy rainfall - which luckily quashed any issues the group had about Aggie's fireball attack potentially starting a wildfire. Their travel was once again halted when across the muddy road lay the corpse of a cow, with other dead cows surrounding the area. The group approached the corpse, needing to move it to continue travel, however as they did so the corpe sprang to life and the group were suddenly engaged into combat with a horde of zombie cows. The group was able to defeat the rotting corpses, albeit with a high gross factor. Completely drenched and covers in dead cow guts, the group sought shelter at the nearby ranch: Macfarlane's Ranch.

The owner, Peggy Macfarlane, was a kind and gentle woman who offered them shelter and food. She also spoke openly about the troubles she had been having lately: that the cows the group had faced on the way through were previously part of her own herd, infected with a kind of sickness after a strange man somehow changed a single cow into the new zombie-like form and then the disease spread. She informed the group that she was lacking in supplies due to the disruption to her livelihood, and also due to the fact that her husband and son had left and had not returned. However, the group was acutely aware of what had happened to the other Macfarlanes, having found their corpses near Armadillo. This fact, however, the group did not disclose immediately. She also said that she did have another herd of cows off in another field, but that she would need horses and more manpower than just herself to retrieve them.

While Peggy was absent, Aggie and Maurice got into an argument over how best to approach the situation. Again, Aggie expressed the desire to help Peggy but Maurice stressed the time pressure the group was under to reach Strawberry. Maurice ended up telling Peggy about her dead family members, although Peggy admitted she already suspected as much and she took the news well.

Aggie and Billy slinked off to go get the wetness and grime off themselves by sharing totally platonic bath funtime, and meanwhile Abe and Maurice discussed their scheduling issues and the plan going forward. Maurice spoke more with Peggy, learning that the man who had cursed her cows was a young man who had run off towards the area known as Pike's Basin. He wore a robe and was likely some kind of magic user, possibly a necromancer.

The group stayed the night in the farmhouse, taking turns to keep watch for danger. Through the watch, it became clear that the zombie cows were heading towards the Pike's Basin area as well, likely the hub of the whatever magic activity was causing all these problems.

In the morning, a consensus was reached that the party would use their horses to go and rescue the stranded herd to help Peggy.

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