Chapter 3: The Ghostly Child
After collecting the Eoten's heads, the group left for Ashfield to turn in the bounty with the sheriffs there. They reached the forest's edge the following morning, with a dusting of the year's first snows greeting them. Near the wood, they encountered a group of people in gray and white tattered robes surrounding a pyre upon which was tied a copper Dragonborn. They appeared to be under the effect of hallucinogens and getting ready to sacrifice the dragonborn to the gods. Rasper read the thoughts of one of them and heard strange prayers in ancient sydonian, and their leader seemed unrepentant about their planned murder. Thrain then punched him in the chest with a thunder gauntlet (a new invention he had crafted since their encounter with the Eoten) and killed him, sending the rest of the cultists scrambling. One of them tried to fire a pistol, missed and dropped the weapon before running away (dox collected it, noting the initials "OB" carved into the handle). They freed the unconscious dragonborn and took him with them to ashfield.
On the road, the confused dragonborn named Teram awoke and thanked them for rescuing him. He had been given poisoned tea by the cult and kidnapped so they could sacrifice him in return for a mild winter. The cult followed the "old ways" practiced in ancient Sydonia and early in the days of their settlement in Arlyss. Teram was a simple farmer, but offered one of his wife's pumpkin pies as a gift to them when they made it to ashfield. When they reached town, they settled at the inn and made their way to the sheriff. The sheriff was a hill dwarf named Olin Blackbrook with bright red hair, a mutton chop beard and a rather large arquebus aimed at the door as he slept in a reclined chair. After seeing the Eoten heads, he paid them 300 gold, and threw in an additional 50 for dealing with the cultists and 25 for returning his pistol. He offered them another bounty to discover what happened to a missing local boy in the woods nearby, and offered to join them on the hunt.
The group spent the day visiting the various shops in Ashfield. At the local herbalist, Dox and Rasper purchased halfling's leaf, pipes and a deck of tarot cards. The herbalist named lilly soft-thisle showed Rasper how to use it, and was surprised to find a brand new card displaying an "Aboleth" in the deck. She rushed them out with a worried look. Thrain spent the day at the forge crafting his arcane armor, and only returned in time for dinner (including Teram's promised pumpkin pie). They spent the evening smoking halfling's leaf purchased from Soft-Thisle's Thisles and Things.
The next morning, Olin awoke them earlier than expected, enthusiastically ready for the hunt. After breakfast, they departed for the woods. After several hours, they found the boy's remains that had been rent by both claws and beak. Olin tracked the beast that slew him (likely an owlbear with a possible child) to a nearby cave. The group waited for night time, then attacked the owlbear as it left the cave to hunt. Though they slew it quickly, another owlbear (the other parent) rushed from the cave. Dox was badly wounded, but the beast was slain. Inside the cave, they found a baby owlbear and lured it out when Rasper mimicked its parents' calls. Thrain blasted it with a firebolt, then finished it off with his thunder gauntlet (despite protests from the rest of the group).
Back in town, Olin paid the group 200 gold for their help and asked if he could join them on their journey back south. They accepted, and after a few days the group left Ashfield and returned to Dragonwatch. They spent several days uneventfully (with no new bounties to be had), until one night the ghost of a small child manifested itself before Rasper in the middle of the night. Its name was Eovald, and he had been a worker in a linen factory in the city. When he failed to meet his quota, the boss beat him with a metal pipe and accidentally killed him. His mother had died 3 years before, and he was looking for her. Rasper gathered the group and they decided to try to find the child's body. They visited the barrow boys for information and learned that the factory boss was named Tovald Magnus and he was well connected with the dockworkers' union. After asking around the manufactorium about Eovald and Tovald Magnus, they were attacked by thugs from the union in the street. They killed most of them, but one got away and they managed to interrogate the last one into giving up information about Tovald's whereabouts. They learned he would be at a brothel in the slums the next day and rumours about him hiring duergar mercenaries from the great below, and the group hatched a plan.
Thrain re-engineered his armor for stealth, and Rasper spoke to the ghostly child again that night to better mimic his voice. The next day, they staked out the brothel. When Tovald arrived with his goons, they snuck around the back entrance where fewer guards were on watch. Rasper magically disguised themselves as Eovald, and using their bardic magic enthralled and charmed the guards to allow the rest of the group to sneak past. Once they were in, Rasper convinced the guards to allow them in. They convinced the sex workers inside that Eovald was Magnus' son, and the others were his bodyguards. Free to enter his room, they confronted him (with rasper disguised as the child he killed), causing him to have mild heart complications. After dismissing his escort, they intimidated him into revealing the location of Eovald's body (in the sewers near the factory). They tried to make him turn himself in, but he said the constabulary was in his pocket. With no other choice, Dox conjured a psychic blade and went for the kill. He tried to stop him by using his dockworkers' union signet ring (a magical item) to command him to stop, but the effort was in vain and Dox stabbed him in the throat with a psychic blade. The attack left no wound, and was easily faked as a heart attack. They called for help, and in the chaos they were able to sneak out of the brothel (and steal Magnus' signet ring).
The group then recovered the body, took it outside the city and cremated it like his mother had been. Eovald appeared again, satisfied and able to see his mother. He faded away, finally able to move on to the afterlife.
A few days later, as the group visited the dragon's hoard inn to look for jobs, they encountered a gold dragonborn being beaten in an alley by union thugs. Rasper intimidated them into leaving, but they promised it would not be the end of it before leaving. The dragonborn was named Brom the Thinker, and revealed he was a scientist working on a formula for synthetic machine oil. After the group told him the thugs were with the dockworkers' union, he surmised that they wished him to stop his research since it would break Sydonia's reliance on whale oil from the marble isle (shipments heavily taxed by the union). Rasper told him she knew of a group who may have need of his research, and promised to reach out to them. He returned to his room and lab at the lakeway inn, grateful to the group for saving him.
Back at the dragon's hoard, the party picked up a bounty from the constabulary to investigate a possible serial killer in Dragonwatch. They decided to stop by the constabulary first to gather more information...
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