Meet 45, Adv 3, 9/21/13

At this point the party has met one of the NPC pivotal people in this point of the campaign - a 6th level druid who is here investigating the murder of his master (a 10th level druid). It points to most likely a similar person who the party is seeking - by the ubiquitous nomenclature of Johan Smith.

We know nothing of this person other than he keeps popping up around here - and always around the penchant for troubling times.

Seeing how fast a one on one between the druid, Festin, and one of our own resulted in a poor turn out for one of our own - we anticipate having Festin as an ally in this matter.

We'll have to see how this continues.

Write up follows:

The party dragged Fist’al to the Hospice where he was immediately placed in a private room and given treatment by Father Gavilerin. He seemed in bad shape from the animal attack but would survive his wounds. From there, Mummus, Marcus, and Geld went and gathered their gear before heading to the Pixie Down Inn with the local constabulary to investigate where this figure came from and what was the origin of his attack/flight.

 

What was learned was the room, number 7 on the 2^nd floor, had been rented to a Johan Smith and someone was inside, rooting through his belongings. They were interrupted and fled out the window where they crawled up the wall and escaped across the rooftops. Johan was furious at this and checked out immediately. He had his bag and a few cases (oversized, from what we were told) and supposedly was going to arrange transportation away. What was left in the room was a handful of dirt, some leaves, a few oversized spiders with their legs torn out, and a few grasshoppers, also with legs seemingly chewed off. The three friends returned to the Hall to meet with Auri and hopefully find Fergus and Flimflam back from their ride.

 

As for the two of them, they gathered up the discarded clothing as well as what Flimflam identified as a druid’s disk (4 leaves painted – 6^th level) and rode off with the bag of Hadesnium to discard it in the closest cave. Once done, they turned and rode back where they met up with the party and we all shared our thoughts and discovery. Flimflam was convinced we had a druid to deal with, one more powerful than himself and identified some of the found items as items used to cast Spider Climb and Jump – which coincided with the druid’s actions following his escape.

 

Meanwhile, Fist’al awoke to find a figure in a cowled robe standing near him. He identified himself as Festin Farmer and all he wanted was to get his stuff back. He didn’t mean to hurt Fist’al this much, but the guy did fly over the wall and attack him – he was only defending himself. At this point he drained some of Fist’al’s strength, but did restore him so he wouldn’t be bedridden for a few days. He commented he’d be back later to had Fist’al talk to the “knight looking pompous douchebag” and get his stuff – especially his disk, back.

 

At quarter after 4, the party was @ the Hospice together where they got the lay-down from Fist’al and watched one of the many youths in town storm out with vitriol and anger. From there the party went to the Brothel, leaving Flimflam behind along with the druid’s gear, to talk and meet with Festin if/when he returns. At the 4 Rings, they did learn that the mysterious fighter, Kadan, had checked in last night and rented 2 girls. Then they went to the stables – and found no sign that Johan Smith had come to get horses or to leave. Same with the gates, no gate guard reported seeing Johan or his description passing through in the last 2 hours.

 

Ok, we assumed he was still in town. So we went to Exotic Transportation and spoke with Eherego, learning that this Johan did come in late a few days ago and had a few large chests with him. No he wasn’t here now. He did remind the party to bring them any strange or exotic animal and he would train it for them to ride – strongly suggesting that Mummus the half-orc would look wonderful on a bear.

 

Lastly they had gone to Pixie Down Inn and looked through the older records, finding that Johan Smith (or at least that name) checked in roughly every other week and always stayed in Room 7 – staying 2 nights each time.

 

This brought us back to Flimflam who along with Fist’al did meet with Festin Farmer, returned the druid’s stuff, and learned that he was here following up on the murder of his master some 8 months plus ago by someone named Johan Smith, working for a Marilee Gerison. The same name as the person involved with the banditry around Shakun.

 

Festin’s master was slain by from what the animals around @ his time of death described, some fire and lightning from a flying dragon-like creature. Festin has been struggling to find Johan, tracking him slowly to this place. He had some skill in masking his appearance as well as from magical sight. Festin did NOT want to be noticed and was very uncomfortable in the city walls. He would contact Flimflam now and again via birds and they would share information that way back and forth.

 

We checked Fist’al out of the Hospice and the group returned to the Hall where we shared information and rested. The next few days passed quickly, with the increase in youth tensions getting higher. It was on Firemonth the 12^th that we were asked to visit the Rescent Homestead – the 1^st Homestead right next to the cemetery. It seemed that there was a strange phenomenon of 800’ of fencing being rusted – and only along the northern boundary of the Homestead.