Reels and graves Report

General Summary

Mehmen Ashid , Marble, Thomas Marchant and Alok Ravaralei return from the Llangoed Forest to find that Darknook is deeper in paranoia about the ghouls stalking outside the town. As someone who has survived ghoul attacks twice Mehmen is becoming somewhat of a local celebrity and found himself courted by the mayor.   Mayor Abet is keen to enlist Mehmen's aid to remove the ghouls from the outskirts of Darknook and show herself "tough on the undead" in the upcoming mayoral election where her opponent is Bali , "the Town Wizard." Mehmen is able to secure a 20gp per head fee if he and his friends can remove the ghouls from the forest; the bounty coming out of the mayor's own pocket.   After hearing Thomas playing for his room and board at The Triumphant King, Mayor Abet is also keen to commission a campaign jingle from the young Bard. In fact, Thomas' playing left quite an impression on the people of Darknook with the King being filled with patrons all keen to get into the dancing spirit, especially a large and boisterous group of dwarves, who launched into a savage series of Dwarven Reels.   Mehmen, Marble and Alok proceeded to ask around the room for information about the ghouls, questioning Bifford, the town archivist. They also spoke with Maly Lete, a traumatised halfling on a multi-day bender. It seems that some sort of "spider as big as this inn" which she saw whilst deep in the Llangoed has left her shocked to the core. She was not useful in getting to the bottom of the ghoul mystery but Bifford did provide a lead to the Inglenook Farm, the site of the first appearance by the ghouls over a year ago.   The next day, before the group could visit the Inglenooks, Bali came to find Mehmen. Before reaching the apothecary's shop he was accosted by Marble in disguise, who pulled Bali into a hedgerow. With his dignity in tatters Bali was still able to warn Mehmen off any involvement with the ghouls, saying he and his friends were out of their depth. Bali suggested he was the person to take care of the problem and was already working on it.   Undeterred by Bali the party went to the Inglenook Farm where they met their second deeply troubled person in as many days. It turned out the Old Man Inglenook had seen a ghoul devour a piglet over a year ago and had never left the house since. When Thomas attempted empathy by talking about his own farming background, the old man revealed that the ghoul looked like his wife who he had buried years before.   Leaving the farm, with a new Feedbag of Holding created by Marble, the group headed to the cemetery where Mehmen's magic revealed a grave that turned out to be Petunia Inglenook . It had been disturbed in the past and its head stone was unnaturally gouged. The grave gave off the aura of necromantic energy. Before the group had much more time to investigate they were interrupted by a dwarven woman "paying her respects" at a nearby grave. When she left, Marble followed her all the way to Bali's tower where she was seen to leave a note in dwarfish on the door that read "They are working it out...."