Missing Persons

### Kismet's Summary:

So this alcoholic named Dimitri recruited Chewy (or was it Crunchy…) and me from the tavern to go check out the situation with people going missing from Ironvale.  Apparently there was a reward for finding out what’s happened to them, with a bonus if people are found alive. We got a wagon from the Guild to carry any people we would find.

Things were mostly uneventful along the way, other than bandits trying to steal the wagon, Crunchy trying to claw a tied up bandit to death, and Dimitri trying to murder a 12 year-old and then taking a dump on a storefront because they didn’t carry vodka.  The Guild’s finest, right here.

When we got to Ironvale, the town was a disaster.  Fire everywhere, dead guards left and right, and four dark ones waltzing off each carrying a child.  Torghud Blueaxe had apparently brought orphans to town to do “community service” work there. To the town where people had been going missing.  For weeks. *Orphans*.  He had a good heart, but that Dwarf is possibly not the best decision maker in the world.

Torghud was still there in town, and had been pretty badly injured fighting off the dark ones.  He and the guards had even managed to capture one. Kunchen went nuts when he saw the captured dark one, started trying to kill it with his bare hands.  Crunchy had mentioned before that his family was dead; his rage here makes me think that maybe they were killed by dark ones. The captured one broke loose and paralyzed him with some sort of noxious cloud, but Dimitri and I finished it off before it did any real harm.

At this point Lennart found us and Kunchen bailed.  He said he didn’t feel like splitting the reward 4 ways, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it had something to do with him not feeling so great after that dark one paralyzed him.

A shockingly helpful / friendly goblin (Gadget) was willing to help us find where the dark ones were taking people.  On the way we encountered two things that others might be interested in looking into at a later date.

1.) The three of us killed a giant snail with an iridescent magical shell.  We hid the shell to come back and retrieve later; we might be willing to pay a share of the price we fetch for it to anyone who helps us bring it back to town.  You’re not going to find the location marked on any map, however, only the three of us know where it is hidden.

2.) There’s an ogre village that would be interested in setting up trade with us; they *really* like vodka.  Could be a nice source of income.  We marked it on the map.

When we tracked down where the dark ones were taking people we found an old journal hidden in a cave.  Really, really old, it was barely even legible as common and I’m surprised it didn’t crumble when we touched it.  I brought the journal back with me in case anyone wants to see it for themselves, but the short version is that it is the log of some long dead soldier fighting the dark ones.  Here are the key points:

-Dark ones can infect people and turn them into more dark ones, but it takes a few days.

-Dark ones can raise the dead as zombies; burn the bodies to prevent this.

-Do NOT try to mind read a dark ones.  It will result in “explosions of devastating force.”

I think it seems pretty likely that the dark ones attacking us now are the remains of the civilization that got wiped out before we settled here.

We found dozens of people infected by the dark ones nearby.  Roi Bloodraven had found the cave before us and was waiting for assistance to go in.  Lennart wants to study the infected to see if he can perhaps save some of them, but most were too far gone and had to be put down.  Even one of the children that was taken… If Roi hadn’t done it, the girl would have been one more monster attacking us, but that’s small comfort.  I don’t know how Roi could be so nonchalant.

We also found some sort of weird blue stone/orb in the cave.  Dimitri zoned out when he touched it, started talking to no one, and then when he suddenly came back around he was frantic that we had to leave NOW.  We booked it out of there with the orb, and brought back the wagon loaded with the 20 or so infected people that Lennart thinks he can save.  Gods willing, he can help them.

After all that, I think I need a drink almost as much as Dimitri.  Good thing there’s still some vodka left.