Sessions 6 & 7 - More Trouble on the Trails
General Summary
With life seemingly returning to normal in Tribute, the village's unlikely heroes had only a few hours to catch their breath. A letter written from Sophitia inquired about the whereabouts of her father Cedric. Cedric had been sent back to his farmstead by the group the day prior on horseback, and should have had no trouble reaching the farmstead in the given time. Fearing the worst, the group set out once again to the Barrow Farmstead for any sign that something awful had befallen the Barrow family once again. After travelling along the road for some time, they spotted what appeared to be body concealed in the foliage of the trees the pressed up again the country road. Venturing off the path, they discovered a group of three boars chewing at a recently deceased corpse. The boars defended their dinner aggressively, and in their charge they severely wounded Vargan - leaving him unconscious. The struggle was ended brutally with the timely arrival of Buck and Wilhelm. Buck unleashed a torrent of arcane flame that cooked the second boar inside out - while the third fled into protection of the woods. Realizing almost immediately that the body they had found was in fact not Cedric, the group's attention changed to their fallen ally. Fearing for their friend, the group propped Vargan onto the back of their horse and hurried him back to the village for medical attention. Netty once again come the to group's assistance, and tended to Vargan's injuries the best she could at his residence. Ultimately though, it was Father Wilhelm who was able to restore Vargan to full health the next morning - much to Netty's further annoyance and frustration. That morning, Mayor Garfield gathered the Tavern Keeper Urbano Corso, and the Andry brothers on a discreet mission to bring the corpse they found back to the village for a proper burial. The mayor can discreetly canvassed the village - and nobody in the village seemed to be missing other than Cedric. With Vargan leading the way, the party left a dejected Declan looking after the tavern while they escorted Urbano's wagon back to where they found the body. The found the body in even worse shape than before - and after dealing with the remaining boar and recovering the twisted remains of the corpse's head, the group discovered a trail of footprints leading further off the road and deeper into the woods. Following the trail of boot imprints deep into the woods, they soon pursued them to a cliffside with a small cave entrance. As they were about to enter it however, a strange woman appeared to warn them away. Nashobi, a wild looking elderly woman with her snowwhite hair tied back into dreadlocks warned Vargan that the person they are looking for is as good as dead now, and that only death awaited them in the cave. Ignoring her warning, they group went into the darkness of the cave. Following the naturally carved tunnels and makeshift wooden walkways along several snaking paths, the group was surronded quickly b\y a mass of glittering eyes and teeth. It seemed a pack of the rat-like Vermyn has taken the tunnels here as their home - much to the ignorance of the nearby village of Tribute. After bickering amongst themselves about whether to kill the human trespassers or not, the group eventually persuaded the Vermyn to let them leave providing they told nobody of the Vermyn's presence here. The Vermyn agreed, but would not let them deeper in the caves - warning them too that they were chasing death and their friend was as good as dead. Dejected by the inability to pursue Cedric further, the group headed back to Tribute in the evening to regroup and decide what to do next. Only to find a formal letter pinned to Vargan's door asking him to report to Constable of Rystanburg as soon as he had returned to the village. Seizing what little warning they had left, the group stashed their weapons and illegal goods before heading to the Mayor's house to meet the Constable. Constable Vladik was a stern, tall man with a thick mustache and an unusually adorned pistol at his hip. With him was a young female arcanist; a strikingly beautiful woman with snow-white skin and raven dark hair named Sorcha. Vladik and Sorcha had hurried to Tribute as soon as Thadeus had altered them to the bandit activity, and recent signs of combat on the men they brought with suggested they had encountered similar bandit threats themselves over the recent weeks. They expressed their disbelief when they had completed their journey to tribute only to hear the bandits had been dealt with already by a few of the town's more elderly citizens. Suspicious of the claims, and the group's whereabouts that afternoon, Sorcha and Vladik separated the three of them and interrogated them early the next morning. When the stories told by the three men did not add up, and none could explain Declan's sudden disappearance from the village - the Constable ordered Buck to kept confined to his room at the Mayor's house while Vargan and Wilhelm brought the Constable and his men to Vermyn to discover the truth behind Cedric's disappearance.
