Session Date: 8/25/2023
We did have the rector write a message to the bishop of Drukenford to rehallow and resanctify the henge here.
While distributing alms there are three major locations and several houses. Bastianna will explain to Sarras - while consulting her notes - that they will be going to the Hospital of Ranfrega (houses those with serious and lasting injuries and illnesses), the Alms House of Grimskull (god of trickery and the downtrodden, housing aged people without younger family to care for them, orphans, displaced peoples, drunks and similar people), and the Alms House of Yugomi (houses sailors and foreigners). They will visit in that order.
The alms are mostly things such as old or misbaked bread, items donated to the temple. Those that stay in the alms houses get a stipend of a copper piece a week, about 1/7th of what the next poorest would get. Daily food, cheap beer, a place to sleep. Work is cleaning/maintaining temples, streets, walls. Temple jobs go to the least physically able, civic utility goes to more physically abled.
At the hospital there are 60-80 people who have some sort of illness or issue — there are amputees due to farming accidents (not soldiers, they get pensions), people born with defects, etc. There aren’t many orcs or half-orcs.
At the Alms House of Grimskull there are a little over 100 people. There are about two dozen orcs or half-orcs, a dozen tieflings, a dozen Dragonborn. These are demographics that are overly represented here. Bastianna will read a note that there are two outlying farm crofts looking for assistance with farm labor and the estate of Escasteshire has a place for a worker not permitted to leave the estate by terms of employment. There are also some apprenticeships open. Sarras is taken a bit more aback and deeply discomforted by this place, which Bastianna notices but doesn’t ask.
The final alms house has about 60 people, half of which are tieflings, a third are human or elvish, and half a dozen Dragonborn, the rest genasi. Not all of them speak the language here. They are not offered any jobs - just what’s left of the copper, bread, and clothes. Bastianna recommends talking to the Dragonborn and the humans and elves as they don’t have a lot of people to talk to here, while she spends much time with the tieflings. Sarras notices that four of the tiefling sailors that Bastianna speaks to leave the alms house shortly thereafter.
On the way out, Sarras asks about the tieflings that left. Bastianna is disturbed, then explains that she realizes it’s inappropriate and beyond what she’s supposed to do as they are not supposed to give jobs to foreigners, but those tieflings were her countrymen. She’d asked after errands they could run and people who needed assistance with fishing or similar work on the water — things they don’t normally give to the dispossessed because they take certain skills that most at the Alms House of Grimskull do not have. She hopes that this is not a matter that must be brought to anyone’s attention. Sarras says that she can’t imagine anyone asking and she won’t bring it up, and she recognizes the kindness in it.
As they head back, Bastianna is still watching Sarras uneasily. She isn’t hostile but she is nervous about Sarras’s reactions. On approach to the castle, Sarras also notices there is something over at the henge. None of the figures have any lights and it is the night of the new moon so it is impossible to tell what is going on. Sarras asks Bastianna if there were no planned rituals, and she said never on a new moon. Sarras says she thought so and asks Bastianna to alert her compatriots.
Sarras knows that Bastianna cast a spell on her, which she resisted. She immediately bolts to go to the castle, yelling for the guards to get her knights and sounds he alarm. Everyone wakes up at the guard sounding a horn. The rest of the party rolls out of bed and starts to run toward the sound while Sarras notices that Bastianna has gotten on the horse and cut the leads and is riding back toward town, down hill. Sarras tells us the basics of what is going on and Calthel tells Ships that his plan is to get a horse and have his familiar follow. They get on a large horse as the familiar follows Bastianna, and the two set off after Bastianna on a horse with the familiar tracking.
Sarras sends a few guards after Calthel and Ships while she stays behind to investigate the henge with a few people.
Sarras and Kerran head up to the henge to investigate what is going on. There are no visible people at the henge anymore, they must have bolted at the sound of the guards. Kerran can see a few fresh paths in the grass that seems to be where people ran off to very recently. They ran off in three directions — each group had more than 2 people but less than 10 people. The guards with them decide it would be better to stick together. All of the guards are familiar with the woods, those running south will hit the circuit road within just a few couple hundred feet while it comes up the hill - if they follow the road they’ll be easy to follow, but if they split off from the road, then who can say. There’s nothing really notable off to the north: just hills. The north trails are not safe to ride horses at night through. Sarras says the goal is to catch who we can as quickly as possible, so the circuit road may be best.
Kerran recommends that he wild shape into a wolf to track them and Sarras says that might not be a bad idea as long as he can keep far enough from the horses not to spook them. He wild shapes into a wolf (away from the party) then starts to dash toward the southeastern path. Three humans and one Dragonborn is what Kerran can tell. They loop back before hitting the road and are looping around the castle. They circled the castle once entirely and basically met up with a group of guards and other people who were coming out from the castle to search and fell in with them. They are people others in the castle recognize.
Kerran tracks back up north to a group of eight: four mounted guards, one person he doesn’t immediately recognize, Schivabelle (the daughter in law), and Azalais the other clerk, and Vicar Bodwin as they are trying to follow tracks. None of the guards are Dragonborn. Kerran, still as a wolf, dashes far ahead of them and stops, standing menacingly. They all draw up and stop. Schivabelle draws her rapier and points it at Wolf Kerran while the figure he doesn’t recognize approaches without fear or hesitation.
Sarras catches up at this point. She basically asks the guards with her to arrest all of the people here, which they hesitate to do so — Sarras is definitely accusing people they consider part of the household that are not what they consider suspects. The person that we don’t recognize continues to approach Wolf Kerran without any fear as the guards with Sarras fan out and Sarras moves to grow closer to Kerran. The stranger walking up to Wolf Kerran flickers yellow and lightning and thunder crackles out from where they vanished - that was the spell thunder step, and they are within 90ft of where we are.
Sarras asks Kerran to point out who’s the baddies, and he points out that Azalais with a paw tap, then is struggling to nose out which humans it is. She makes a gesture as Kerran tries to sus out who they’re looking for. Both of them see beautiful colors in front of their eyes and when those lights finally fade, Azilaeus is no longer there, and one of the guards has their head smashed in and is lying on the ground with their horse gone.
For Ships and Calthel, we can see that Bastianna has ridden like hell for town. We can pursue her at full speed if we wish, but going slower than a gallop means she will definitely stay ahead. Ships keeps things at a full tilt as we pursue, Calthel keeping his vision through the raven in pursuit to help direct. We ride into town in our pursuit. We’re a good 120 ft or so behind Bastianna, though with the raven we are never in any danger to lose her. We don’t see her look back over her shoulder at any point. She appears to be riding down toward the dock. Ships continues on full speed.
In the docks district she swings off her horse and runs into an alley way. Calthel know that she hasn’t come out the other end of the alleyway, but Calthel can’t see inside of the alleyway. Calthel stays looking through his raven as he watches to make sure she doesn’t leave the other side of the alley while Ships tries to sneak up on her (failing to do so). He quips back at her and Calthel ties the horse off at a hitching post as Ships fires a spell back at her for her failed vicious mockery spell. She puts him to sleep with a sleep spell.
After some difficulty, Ships lights some garbage on fire so that Calthel can see in the darkness. She eventually moves in melee and Ships and Calthel knock her out and tie her up and gag her. Ships takes her on the hunting horse back to the castle, with Cal rounding up the cart horse and follows.
Back to Sarras and Kerran.
The guards, at this point, are going to insist that the rest of everyone put up their weapons and go back to the castle with them, including Kerran and Sarras. They’re not fully sure who did what to who for how many jelly beans here. Until they work that out they want everyone back because some of them are definitely suspects for something. Sarras knows that if she were to pull rank it would step on the toes of the Baron, which the Marquis would like to avoid. Sarras goes with it, but slowly, trying to buy Kerran time to figure out who is who — she is also grumpy about the whole ordeal.
Kerran does another big wolf sniffy and he is not 100% sure about Schivabelle, but Bodwin is definitely one of the people he smelled at the henge. Given that the other two people were the ones he confirmed on foot, the fact that Schivabelle is also on foot and not on a horse leads to strong circumstantial belief that she is also to blame, but there is no nose proof. Kerran points Bodwin and Schivabelle out to Sarras, confirming them.
The guards take them back to the courtyard. The Baron and his bastard son Hugh and his legitimate son Rowel are in the courtyard talking with the guards as they ride in. He will look and see the dead guard and his eyes will expand a moment in shock, and then narrow and he will demand to know what is going on.
Tyrenic explains that there was an alert at the gate that there were doings at the henge and that Bastianna had run off. He accompanied Dame Sarras and Kerran to the henge along with the other two guards. He explains the trails but no persons and, on pursuit, the castle was circled and Kerran transformed to follow the scent. When they caught up with others, they were with Azalais and a fourth person they did not recognize immediately. There was a misunderstanding and the stranger disappeared with thunder step, Kerran approached Azalais, and then there were lights. When everyone came to, Bernalb was dead and his horse gone as was Azalais. He doesn’t know more than that — they returned, as pursuit seemed problematic. The guards chime in to agree, and the Baron will ask that the scent from the Henge led Kerran back to, and he gestured at the guards and Schivabelle and Bodwin.
Schivabelle says that she was sleepless and she heard some noise from without the castle. She couldn’t see it from the battlements and so she went downstairs to venture out, and she found Bodwin in the chapel. She asked for him to accompany her, seeing as she figured there might be some need for an escort. As they approached the henge they did see some figures. They attempted pursuit and upon coming back around the castle, they encountered the guards with Azalais and the other figure, purporting to be searches. They fell in with the group and then were confronted by the knights — it seems obvious now that Azalais and the stranger were the two that Bodwin and herself had followed. She could not see who this stranger was.
The Baron asks for Bodwin’s side. Bodwin, who is clearly agitated, and speaks with a constricted voice, says he can say no more. He can’t say what he saw.
Kerran and Sarras are suspicious as hell of Schivabelle’s story, but if she’s lying they can’t see any tells. They also know that Bodwin’s entire emotional state is fucking weird as shit. The Baron is definitely furious.
Kerran explains his version of the story, with information of the wolf scent. Kerran ends with asking if Schivabelle would be willing to restate her story under the effects of a truth serum. Schivabelle huffs and turns to the Baron and asks if he would ask this of her. The Baron says of course not, whatever is afoot here — if we have a potion that guarantees that honest answers are given, it is a limited resource and we should see if Azalais or Bastianna can be found, as they are clearly the most deserving recipient.
Sarras then tells her version and confirms Kerran’s story and findings. She explains that she feels that Kerran’s judgement is sound as far as she is aware.
The Baron is incredibly unhappy that his hunt is going to be spoiled. Sarras apologetically confirms that this will likely be the case.
Sarras also explains that Bastianna cast spells toward her and the Baron asks Bodwin what kind of people he’d been hiring and Bodwin, still agitated, said he’s truly not sure. Sarras also points out her concern for Rector Lucius, as Azalais was the last one to be with him. Baron gestures for the steward to go check on the Rector.
About this time, lookouts in the battlements report horses coming up. Calthel and Ships have arrived with an unconscious Bastianna. The Baron orders the guard doubled and the drawbridge is raised while the portcullis is dropped. The Baron has chosen that we will not leave until such a time that answers are found. As far as he is concerned, the other groups are fled, but the hounds may track them. He orders us all back inside.
There is a brief period of time to clean up and get dressed. Everyone in the castle is alerted as to what’s going on. There is one other guard, an elven woman named Juno, is not in the castle. Schivabelle and Bodwin are not under arrest, but they are confined in the castle just like everyone else. The Baron does want to speak to everyone involved, with Bastianna questioned first of all. The Baron will have the steward wake the Rector and prepare spells appropriate for the court, such as zone of truth.
We wake Bastianna and cast zone of truth and the Baron, after some pacing and scowling, beckon to Sarras. He says that it appears that she is ahead of him in the investigation and is interested to have her ask the questions.