Lambs to the Slaughter
Structure
Exposition
During the Long Bloom, 999 Age of Slumber, Ashton found itself struck by a strange and terrible plague, the primary symptom of which was a rot growing in the lungs. One of the early signs of the disease manifested as simple coughing, causing paranoia and tension to sweep the village, soon quarantined to prevent the unchecked spread of the disease. The quarantine also stranded a merchant caravan and several travelers within Ashton, some of which had come through on the basis of goblin sightings in the area.
Mayor Weathersby, concerned with the rising tensions of the quarantined population and the town healer's lack of remedies to this particular problem, eventually resorted to hiring some of the more capable of the as of yet uninfected seeming people currently in the village, which happened to be Ashni "Zed" Zephyrwalk, Issan, Jun, Lunara Weiss and Eralyn, who would later form the adventuring party the Eleutherai. They conversed with Mad Laurel, the villages lone wood elf inhabitant and local herbalist. Running low on supplies to even ease suffering among the sick, the only untried idea she had left was a dubious healing potion, the recipe for which she'd plucked out of a hag's old book.
Rising Action
Armed with the task of retrieving the necessary ingredients from the Boarswood, the group set out to cure the disease.
Key to the cure was the co-operation of Whisper, a blind druid making her home deep within the Boarswood. There had once been elves native to the area, and Whisper is the last of them, still guarding her grove and the forest itself - rumoured to be a place where the boundary between the Material Plane and the Feywild has worn thin over the years, allowing passage from one plane to the other. Whisper agreed to aid the people of Ashton by providing Emberglow Blossoms, one of three rare ingredients necessary for the cure, in exchange for a promise that the townsfolk would stop the ruthless deforestation of the Boarswood in search of Iron Ash.
The other ingredients recovered were Blood Moss from Uzilda's Hut, as well as an aberration's tongue, recovered from a Specter guarding the strange basement beneath Tyrax's Hideout. The group also uncovered a rotten corpse in a well as the potential source of the plague, opening the question as to how that corpse arose to begin with.
Climax
Upon their return to Ashton, the group's triumph was delayed. Those who'd died to the rot in their lungs had risen again as undead, attacking the unsuspecting villagers. The group fought valiantly against these undead. In the process of this battle they managed to identify the traveling priest Tyrax not only as a fraud, but as a death cleric, staging the entire plague as a blood sacrifice presumably for Bane, though his research note showed he might have found a new master.
Tyrax escaped, but the undead could successfully be dispatched with only minor casualties among the villagers. With Mad Laurel's help, the group managed to produce a cure for the villagers. Ashni "Zed" Zephyrwalk tested the substance on herself first, and following her, young Kira was the first among the sick officially cured of the plague.
Falling Action
Resolution
The group saved her with Whisper's timely aid, and returned the girl to her mother in Ashton; weakened by the attempted ritual sacrifice, but otherwise alive. On Tyrax's body, the Eleutherai found a Void Shard - the first of many that have begun spreading throughout Aeash, but certainly not the last the group would encounter, and eventually learn more about. With a promise to one day return to tell more stories, the group departed Ashton.
Relations
Protagonists
Adversaries
Backdrops
Parent Plot
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