After slaying a good number of goblins during the Arrow Sunder festival, the adventurers made their way back to the Rusty Dragon inn with its own Ameiko Jin. In thanks for their heroics, she offered them a week of free room & board. She also treated them to drinks on the house as they drank to their heroics and helping to save the city.
Sheriff Hemlock stopped by the next morning, he thanked the heroes and invited them to a meeting later that day at town hall. The town leaders were going to discuss the attack, and he welcomed any insights they might have.
They also met again with Aldern. He gave them a reward of gold for saving his life, and he invited them to join him on a boar hut.
With time before the meeting, the heroes walked around the city and visited stores. All of the city seemed to know of them, and they got lots of appreciation. The local baker ran out of her store and gave the players fresh bread, and one of the armourers in town gave them a hero discount for the day. Tiny Tim tried to negotiate some custom armor for Leon the baby pig, but the armourer suggested clothing instead. A visit to the tailor left Leon looking quite dapper.
The meeting included the mayor, sheriff, and some of the notable citizens:
- Titus Shaaibu -- the owner of the logging company and the local mill
- Ethram and Belvin Vald -- the father/son that own and manage the shipbuilders
- Vulnademus -- the local sage and hedge wizard
The owner of the glassworks, Lonjiku Jin, couldn't attend due to illness.
The sheriff gave a report on the impact of the goblin raid, and what little they knew about it.
The meeting quickly broke down into a squabble between Titus and the sheriff.
Little was achieved, but the sheriff spent more time with the adventurers--- thanking them and asking if he could call on them for future problems.
They were called upon sooner than they expected when the sheriff was knocking on their door in the middle of the night. Father Zantus found something upsetting at the graveyard.
A vault for the body of the former priest, Father Tobyn, had been broken into. The priest had died, with his daughter, when the former church burned down.
The adventurer's and sheriff found a lot of goblin tracks around the vault, and the footprints of a larger humanoid that was with the goblins.
Entering the vault, they found the body of Father Zantus missing. The only thing left in the vault was a discarded cloth.
Disturbing the cloth unleashed a bright flash of light as a large conch shell flew from under the robe and into the air. Strings with small shells on it began to chime in the air, and that caused the graves to stir--- skeletons began to climb out of the earth. A battle broke out. The skeletons were easy to defeat, but more kept coming up from the ground. Grubbyfugs attempted to capture the floating shell, but its chaotic way of floating in the air kept it from its grasp. To end the growing threat, the adventurers blasted it from the sky. They found a painted symbol on the conch of Quitic--- the Queen of Monsters.
As they returned to their inn, they spoke with the sheriff about what had been happening. Grubbyfugs wished to find more clues about the goblin raid. The sheriff commiserated with the wish, and he wondered if the raid was a distraction for the stealing of the body.
The adventurers took a day to rest, and they spent a day at the beach fishing.
The next day brought Aldern and the boar hunt. The entered the mystical Xijaab forest (also known as the Tickwood these days) on horses provided by Aldern. They came upon an odd clearing, it was a large circle with a strawberry patch in the middle. A pack of oversized aggressive boars were consuming a hippo, but they immediately turned to attacked the hunting party as they entered the clearing. The boars were not much of a threat, but it lead to Aldern leading his horse among the strawberries... which turned out to really be a patch of rotten wood over an old well. Aldern and his zebra fell in--- the zebra breaking many of its bones as it pinned Aldern on a broken leg.
Getting Aldern out from the odd well lead to two discoveries: the well was ancient and had an odd marble foundation and a pack of giant ticks had been attracted to the battle by the smell of blood. The ticks were easily defeated, but they decided to head back to Barrowmista before more arrived. They did take a rubbing of some of the markings in the well.
Dinner that night at the Rusty Dragon lead to bigger drama when an irate Lonjiku Jin stormed into the tavern calling for his daughter, Ameiko. After abusing the staff, he recognized the adventurers and berated them for getting involved in the goblin raid. He suggested they should have left it to the city guard. His rant was interrupted when Ameiko entered.
Lonjiku demanded his daughter join him as wanted to move to Harcourt for safety. It turned violent when Lonjiku grabbed Ameiko's hair and tried to drag her outside. Kurdan and Grubbyfugs didn't hesitate to block the angry old man. They intimidated him to release Ameiko, and he fled after being dented in the head with a ladle.
Ameiko joined the group for some drinks, and she shared the tragic story of her family.
Lonjiku is an amazing artisan, but a bitter old man.
The family was broken when Ameiko's younger brother was born as a half-elf. Her mother was never forgiven for the betrayal, and the brother was banished to grow up outside the home. A few years back, Ameiko's mother killed herself, and the funeral grew tense when her brother accused her father of killing their mother.
The final straw, for Lonjiku, was when Ameiko spurned the family business in a hopes of becoming an adventurer, and then became a disgrace in his eyes by running a tavern.
The next morning found the heroes approached by the local historian, Brodert Quink. An expert in the ancient mysterious tyrants of Onitsha, the Shung Clan (also known as the Runelords), his neice (and apprentice) had been exploring local ruins around the time of the goblin raid. They were supposed to return by now, and Brodert worried for her safety. He hired the adventurers to bring her home.
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