The Edwardsville Chronicles - session 4

Our motley
crew of adventurers meet up again in the morning at the Broken Arrow and
discuss their next course of action. Aggie is interested, despite being told
not to, to go to Two Horn Hill and meet with Parkins, the man in charge of a sacred
burial ground on the site to see if they have been experiencing the same rat/wolf
problem that the town itself has had to deal with. She is reunited with Opi,
the young steward who helped her a few weeks ago, who has seemed to have disappeared
since their last encounter. Opi seems to have physically changed: he is wearing
armour and seems to be more confident. Aggie is pleased to see that he still
has that same sweet tooth, and he’s still not all that bright. Opi explains
that he has spent the last two weeks in the seminary and is not allowed to talk
about it with anyone, for fear of corporal punishment.

Aggie and
Opi meet with Flanders at his shoppe in the market and discuss moving Flanders’
Bakery, ‘Bread Flanders’, into the Broken Arrow, which Flanders agrees is an
ideal situation. They head to the Broken Arrow with all of Flanders’ stock and
then Kayleth, with her new companion Orla, the Grey Wolf, Larry, Flanders,
Aggie (with Opi in tow) decided to head to Two Horn Hill, but not before taking
a look around Edwardsville to see if they can find anything out of the
ordinary.

The group
heads back to the scene of the first rat attack. Flanders goes to his
competition, the Edwardsville Bakery. Aggie goes to the Broadhelm Financial
Institute to talk to Nestor and Larry and Kayleth go to the rather upscale jewelry
store.

Aggie
inquires of Nestor why he has so many rat traps set up outside of his store.
Nestor says that in the last few weeks, his magical alarm has been set off
every night, and he has discovered a number of rats inside his store. He resets
his alarm to ignore the rats, set the traps and hopes that this is going to
take care of the problem. Nestor also quietly explains to Aggie that he seems
to be missing a small sum of money, 75 coppers, that he normally never would
have noticed. Aggie and Nestor do some simple business and she leaves.

Larry and
Kayleth go into the Jeweller’s shop and meet Dwight, a senile Halfling man who
is half-deaf and uses a cone hearing aid. Dwight slips in and out of Common and
Halfling and falls asleep mid-conversation. Dwight says that he hasn’t himself
noticed any Rats or strange things going on in the store, although his cats
have gone missing. Kayleth tries to barter for a magically bracelet and fails
miserably.

Flanders
and Opi go into the Bakery and talk with Norma under the guise of Opi wanting
pies and Flanders contracting them to provide the pastries for the Broken
Arrow. Norma seems to be somewhat suspicious, and unwilling to make any
commitments to Flanders since she claims her husband makes those decisions. Not
long after that, Flanders asks to see the kitchen to make sure it’s up to his
standards. At that point, Phillus, the husband, arrives and says that he’s not
interested in such a large contract at the moment as they aren’t prepared for
that demand just yet but that they should revisit it in the near future.
Phillus asks them not so politely to leave.

After they
leave, Larry and Kayleth enter the bakery. Aggie points out that she has
noticed that one of the corner stones in the alley way is dislodged. Flanders
and Aggie go to investigate, while Opi watches the storefront and Larry and
Kayleth confront Norma and Phillus. Kayleth actually barges into the kitchen
itself, despite being warned not to. Phillus comes after her with a spear and
attacks her, knocking her unconscious and nearly killing her. In the melee,
they notice that none of their weapons seemed to do any damage to the smaller
man. Larry bites him and realises this is not the taste of a human and
retreats. Aggie runs into the room as she sees Phillus throw Kayleth’s unconscious
body into the foyer and demands they leave. At this point Norma has long left,
in hysterics.

As Kayleth
is revived, Flanders removes the corner stone and looks into the building but
can’t see anything.  Aggie decides she’s
going to try to talk to Phillus, while Kayleth says she will check out the
crawlspace. Larry orders Opi back to the Broken Arrow, tasking him with finding
the Were-Hunters, but not before smacking the last slice of pie out of Opi’s
hand. Dejected, Opi complies.

Flanders enters
the bakery again with Aggie and they enter the back of the kitchen. Flanders
samples some of the scones, disappointed at how high the quality is, but they
find no sign of Phillus other than some tracks in the flour, leading to a trap
door. The tracks get smaller and smaller until they are the size of a rat’s paw
prints. Flanders and Aggie deduce that Phillus must be a were-rat.

Kayleth,
meanwhile, finds the stock of flour and yeast, other supplies as well as
several cat corpses which have been stripped of flesh. Aggie calls out to
Phillus that they mean no harm and want to help, but there is no reply. Kayleth
leaves the crawlspace and finds Orla in the alley way who is directing her to
the corner of the alley where she saw the rat run out of the crawlspace and
into the Town. They briefly search for Phillus, but find nothing concrete and
decide to move on.

The group
meet up again. This time they figure out what to do next. Aggie, in her old age
perhaps somewhat confused, argues they must go to Two Horn Hill. The rest of
the group disagree but Aggie insists and they spend the rest of the day
traveling to the site. When they arrive, they are met by a group of well-armed
Soldiers all wearing heraldry of the Faith of the Four and deny them access to
the site. The party manage to smooth talk the guards into letting Aggie meet
with Parkins at the forward camp. The rest remain behind and Aggie goes up
another mile to meet with Parkins who gives them no real information and tells
Aggie she’s not supposed to be here. They are escorted away and they return to
the Broken Arrow.

When they
arrive at the Broken Arrow, they are met by Opi and Lexanna and relay all the
information they have learned that day. Concerned, and somewhat confused,
Lexanna asks the party to come with her to speak to Andrew Stonemill, the local
miller with whom Flanders has a working relationship. She walks over to the
door, picks up her crossbow, loads a bolt in and tells them to watch their
words, no sudden movements and to be ready for anything. They then head out of
the Broken Arrow.