Trash Gremlins

## Recap

### Introduction

Having answered the call from Town Warden Jannick Redbeard to assist the town of Ravenstead with special problems, you were given rooms at the local inn and told to settle in and the Warden would let you know when your services are needed.

A few days later a young tiefling girl in rather worn town livery shows up. Reciting a message that she seems to have carefully memorized, she tells you that the Town Warden has requested your help. You meet with him at the Giant Elk Tavern, where he tends to conduct business. He tells you of reports from the Yard that some sort of animal or animals have been rooting around the garbage at night, making a mess and making noise. He admits that his guards could probably deal with it, but that these sorts of issues in the Yard are never really a priority, and that anyway it will be a good first test of your abilities. He offers a reward of 50gp if the party can resolve the issue successfully.

### Alley/Shop

You arrive to find rather large trash pile built up in a dead-end alley between two buildings. On one side is a shop whose sign says Exotic Goods in Common and A Taste of Home in Sylvan. Investigating the trash pile, you find a giant rat, which you dispose of without difficulty. Murry takes the remains of the rat and eats them, much to everyone's disgust. Inside the shop, Raimondo speaks with the shopkeeper Petros, who eventually (after confirming that you're not guards and not reporting to the guards) tells you that he's also been having a problem with something making a mess of his stock room in the back. He offers 50gp if you can solve the problem. The party investigates and finds two openings in the wall, one leading to the alleyway, and one leading up to the apartments above. Whispered voices could be heard from the second hole.

### Apartment

The party heads upstairs, making your way past a swarm of spiders in the stairwell that Petros failed to warn you about. Investigating the various apartments, you find a dretch trapped in a small closet, offering a pretty flower in exchange for help getting out. Keeping the dretch where it is, you investigate the adjacent room, finding Petros' apartment. You simultaneously smash the closet door and open the next one, which turns out to be the bathroom. Being released, the dretch offers a flower made of flesh as thanks, then lets rip a fetid cloud and tries to escape. Enough of the party overcomes the cloud's debilitating effects to take down the dretch before it can get away. You then continue investigating rooms, finding a magical stink bomb set up in the bathroom (a bag of poop on top of a glyph of warding), another dretch harassing a drunken orc for food, and two dretches arguing over who gets to eat a cat that they found. You eliminate all the dretches, leave the orc to his drunken misery, and as you're debating whether to continue exploring or take a rest, an armed human appears demanding that the rent be paid. He seems unconvinced by your arguments that you don't live there, but upon discovering three more dretches asleep in one of the apartments he beats a hasty retreat and leaves you to it.

You eliminate these three dretches, who were in a stupor from having eaten too much, but not before one of them knocks Raimondo unconscious. Skosgreat takes a defensive position over Raimondo while Rosa takes out the remaining dretch, and Murry's quick dodging allows him to stabilize Raimondo before he suffers permanent injury. After searching the room and finding some forgotten loot the party decides to call it a night and recuperate a bit. Leaving, you spot the same rent collector eyeing you from across the street, but he doesn't interfere. You report to Petros what you found, and he urges you to return the next day to finish the job while he goes to stay with a friend until the building is safe. You return the next morning to check the two remaining apartments, finding in one a long-abandoned card game in one with snakes hiding in the woodwork, and two sleeping stirges hanging from the ceiling in the other. After killing the snakes and leaving the stirges alone, you declare the apartment cleared of dretches and return to Redbeard to report the infestation.

### Debrief/Follow-up

This early in the morning Redbeard is in his office at the Town Hall. A dwarven woman at the front desk stops you, but once she confirms your purpose she sends you into the Town Warden's office. Redbeard is surprised to learn that the problem was more than just animals, and seems quite bothered by the presence of demons in the city. He pays your 50gp and asks you to continue pursuing the question of where the dretches came from. He suggests speaking to the Lightbringer, the head of the Divinist congregation in Ravenstead, for more insight into dretches and demons in general. You Lightbringer Elmar Flintdigger in the Cathedral, along with Emilia Ringel and a young water genasi acolyte who is off to the side cleaning. The Lightbringer welcomes you and offers to put his acolytes to work researching the problem, while flagging two specific behaviors that he finds unusual: dretches normally aren't seen without some higher demon commanding them, and in his experiences dretches are not capable of speech (or at least not capable of speaking Common). This research will take some time, but he promises to update the party as soon as he finds anything.

The party returns to the apartment building that night to see whether any further dretches have appeared or if any other clues can be found, but you find nothing more. Petros is in his shop, although seemingly afraid to go upstairs, but after the party confirms that the building is clear and seemingly safe he pays you the 50gp promised. He also sells Skosgreat a bottle of Gorgon's Kiss, a minotaur moonshine that is illegal because it has a tendency to occasionally petrify those who drink it.