Who is around
- The party
- Jozef Willet
We drop off Galewind with the City Guard to be returned to the Callopian Isles and then travel to the Vineyard of the elven knight Sir Ricardo Giovani and got info about this village called Perdutaboco where his squire Roby went missing. The squire went there in search of a merchant (Emidio Rumblepott, goblin)-husband (Calogero, goblin?) who in turn went there in search of an antique store called Time Not Forgotten. On the way to the village Khohros teaches Yalana how to drive a cart, and they encounter a massive hostile flower in the road (corpse flower-esque) and pass it by putting the wagon inside Khohros' portable stable.
Once in the village they find 2 spooky shacks, find out none of the villagers have ever heard of the store, and also find the dead horse of the squire. The tavernkeeper firbolg woman's husband disappears overnight and she looks as though she's been crying, but she does not remember him ever existing. In the tavern we also meet a fancy man in dark robes named Jozef Willet. Since he is also looking for the antique store, believing it to contain powerful artefacts, he agrees to help us find it.***
We regroup outside the tavern and discuss our plans.
We want to investigate the tavern and see if we can find any signs of a scuffle around there, as well as around the horse. After that we will look into the two run down houses we found.
Jozef speaks about the antiques store, saying he has heard of a man named Sarlen Falegnam during interviews in his job at the Tosca'lian university (?).
Sarlen Falegnam Powerful wizard and owner of the antique store Time Not Forgotten. Not known by the villagers in Perdutaboco, but mentioned in interviews held by Jozef Willet in Tosca'lia.
This man is supposedly a dealer in artefacts, and quite powerful, so Jozef finds it weird none in the village have heard of him.
Sai investigates the tavern invisibly while Isaac debates the technicalities of sandwiches with Libation. Sai finds scratch marks on the windowsill, like from a needle. Once Sai is back we go round back and Khohros wild shapes into a dog and scent tracks the window, finding it to lead southeast and eventually looping down south, into the forest. Khohros scent marks the trees on the way. We find ourselves going down a fairly steep hill, a lake at the bottom with a cavemouth entering the hill we just descended. We enter the cave, finding it to be very dark. Fang gets out a torch, but withholds it from Isaac to get Isaac to admit a pierogi isn't a sandwich. Khohros guides everyone down the branching tunnels, eventually finding a small room. Khohros finds it to seem unnatural, but the others assume it is naturally formed. There are what look to be some kind of hot springs, but looking closer they are actually empty. There are also small little weird 'pods' almost like mushrooms. They grow on the walls and pillars, almost like spider eggs growing on flower stems. Can't tell if they are plant or animal. The hot springs are essentially like 'stone bowls', some moisture clinging to the inside. It tastes like iron and dirt, with a sooty appearance in the torchlight.
We discover that there are holes in the wall, leading straight through. It could only fit something the size of a large insect, but there is also one wall which is actually just a massive boulder, 40ft tall. Khohros squeezes past it in the form of a tiny snake, with a potion of (presumably) stoneskin from Jozef.
Behind the Boulder
Khohros finds another chamber with the same pods as the last, but these ones contain transparent glowing little creatures, eight legged. Beyond that is a giant chamber with a pillar in the middle, a hole in the side of the pillar about 30ft up. In a chair sits a person in armour, moaning to themselves. There are some stairs leading up, and another 2 chambers with glow coming from them. There is some kind of magic aura holding the person in the chair down. In one of the pod-chambers is Colby, the missing tavernkeep. Khohros ascends the stairs, finding himself in a very messy and dusty building, antiques littered about the place. The door is barred from the inside, and Khohros leaves Wild Shape to exit the house and make his way back to the party from the outside. They all make their way back up to the house, this being the one Isaac and ...Fang? saw last night. Once inside, we descend back down and try to communicate with the moaning squire, failing to do so despite his eyes being open. While we do this, a telepathic prescence communicates with us, asking about it's meal. Sai sasses it, and out of the pillar-hole emerges a hand, the size of a person. And then another. And another. A creature with 8 limbs, a large shiny pod with eyes shining inside it's void, and an emaciated humanoid torso emerges, and the lights from one of the rooms flickers out, a skittering sound filling the walls. Fuck.