Session 1. - Welcome To Palebank Village

General Summary

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13th of Hearthfrost, 1439 A.P.

   

Oorr, Arbor, Angrar, Suljurn and Urith all awakened rested and in one piece, for the most part, after a harrowing night surviving both a shipwreck and a fierce early winter storm.

  After congregating in the common room of the inn, they all quickly realised that they didn't speak Skaldic. Thankfully they all understood Goblinese to some degree or other and stumbled through introductions before exiting looking for the whereabouts of the villagers, and hopefully breakfast. They were drawn to the small crowd forming in the graveyard and as they headed over to investigate they were joined by a curious young kenku who introduced himself as Deadeye. He said he was new to town and tagged along and endlessly peppered them with questions that no-one had answers to.   At the graveyard, they initially thought it was a ceremony for those lost in the storm or the wrecks but once they were closer, they discovered that it was being held for a local named Urgon Wrenchheart. The ceremony was simple, plain and honest and the priest's words conveyed genuine loss over one of the small community.   After the local priest of Aliah finished and the crowd began to disperse, the party were approached by the local constable, Elro Aldataur, who thanked them for attending the ceremony, especially after their own recent misfortunes. When he realised that they hadn't all comprehended what he said, he switched fluently to goblinese and repeated himself. Elro explained that the old gnome had died under extremely strange circumstances and inquired if Oorr and the others would nvestigate the circumstances of his death.   When they agreed, Elro explained that Urgon was a treasure seeker who often travelled north into the Eiselcross to Syren's Vale and points beyond. He was often gone for months at a time but always came back with treasures and stories. After his last trip, the normally jovial and open gnome, became a recluse and complained of always being cold - even at midsummer, As the months passed, he developed icy blue veins on his skin and he looked like his body was slowly (and painfully) turning to ice. The priest tried every spell he could to no avail, even requesting aid from the small Temple of Helos in Balenpost. Whatever curse or disease had infected Urgon seemed beyond the ability of the local priests to heal.   Elro figured that whatever Urgon had come in contact with had been his demise, Part of the risks of the job he supposed. Normally that would have been the end of it, but over the past few weeks, he'd noticed one of the other villagers, a goblin named Tulgi Lutan, who started to display similar symptoms. Elro was concerned that he might have a plague on his hands and asked the party to find out what was going on.   After a brief negotiation over the value of their time, the party agreed and set about finding some answers. They started their search at Urgon's cabin only to discover that it had recently been ransacked (likely that morning during the funeral based on the freshness of the tracks). The friendly guard posted outside hadn't noticed anything and had been there all morning. A thorough search of the cabin revealed a 2 month old sales receipt for some items to a place called Pelc's Curiousities valued at 1000 gold. (The items are listed as a dagger, a scroll case, a jade statuette, a quiver of twenty arrows, a silver ring set with a jasper, and two blue glass vials.)   The party was torn whether to follow the tracks, follow up on the receipt or go and interview Tulgi. After a brief discussion they ultimately decided to visit Tulgi first and then head back into town and follow up on the receipt from Pelc's.   After a short trek to the far edge of town they came to Tulgi's hut. The windows were shuttered smoke was steadily streaming from the chimney. Deadeye guess-timated (correctly) that the tracks from Urgon's hut likely led to Tulgi's. The party banged on the door and a voice from inside bluntly told them to go away. They tried knocking again and received a similar response to their flimsy attempts at persuasion. Impatiently, Oorr decided to pick the lock and opened the door before anyone else could stop him.   They burst into the small cabin and accosted the goblin inside. The cabin was extremely hot. Tulgi was understandably hostile to them breaking into her house and when they wouldn't leave sheset her pet wolves on the party and attacked. After a short, brutal fight the party slaughtered the wolves and Tulgi surrendered before she met a similar fate. While the others started interrogating Tulgi, Urith dragged the wolf carasses outside and dressed them, much to Tulgi's distress.   After several false starts, they eventually managed to gather that she'd broken into Urgon's hut looking for a cure and after not finding anything, had resigned herself to dying in the same manner he did. She also admitted to breaking into Pelc's several months ago after Urgon came back. She and her sister Hulil worked for the Urthgardt family out of Shady Creek and they were always on the lookout for anything interesting that came back down from the Eiselcross. Tulgi kept a dagger for herself but gave the rest to her sister who is camped out with some Urthgardt bandits in Thunder's Echo Cave up the coast. She offered the dagger to the party resignedly as she said she wouldn't be needing it anymore. The party assumed that the dagger was the source of the infection and were extremely loathe to handle it. They took extreme precautions and ultimately Arbor ended up carrying it. They left Tulgi to grieve over her wolves and headed back to town.   They headed to Pelc's Curiousities. The shop seemed closed but the door was slightly ajar when they arrived. They heard muffled noise coming from inside and attempted to enter via stealth but Suljurn opted for a more direct approach and flung open the door. Inside the dimly lit shop were six masked individuals rifling through the shops cabinets and display cases. When the party entered they immediately attacked.   The fight was fairly one sided with only Oorr sustaining any substantial damage. The party easily picked off the bandits even in the confines of the small shop. They managed to take one of the bandits alive and after a brief interrogation it was discovered that the bandits worked for Hulil and she'd sent them to see if there was a cure in the shop.   While Oorr and Urith escorted their prisoner to Elro, the others searched through the shop, but didn't find much of anything after the ransacking and subsequent fight. Arbor did discover the proprietor, Verla Pelc, in her bedroom in the back of the shop. Frozen into a solid block of ice. They assumed because she touched the same dagger Arbor now carried.  

After delivering their prisoner and bringing Elro up to speed, the party regrouped at the inn and made the decision to retire for the night and head to Thunder's Echo Cave in the morning and solve the case once and for all...

Rewards Granted

• 87 XP
• Ancient Aeorian Dagger
• 2 poor quality wolf pelts

Character(s) interacted with

• Elro Aldataur
• Tulgi Lutan
• Urthgardt Bandits

Notes