The battle against the Shade Brotherhood
On 12 Moikii 1549, a group of adventurers finds themselves in the Hollow Pumpkin in Calcett. Two thugs try to raid the inn, but the group manages to stop them. They discover they are part of the Shade Brotherhood that resides in the mines of Calcett. They kill the leader Redman Creed and find some interesting coded papers.
Next they go to the inner city, but see the son of the innkeepster, Irvin meeting with a noblewoman, Kassandra Trestin. She wants to fight against SB, and says she is being hit by her husband. She gives them a whistle to give to the guards when they want to give her information.
13 Moikii
The next day after a fun time in the snow, they meet Tilly. Her friend Jeryl has been kidnapped by big men (from SB) and brought to underneath a brothel. A woman had put the head of a snake creature inside his neck and ordered him to kill the lord. The group goes to the brothel, but is captured by the woman and a priest. They interrogate Thorn and Barcheus and warn them not to involve in their affairs anymore, before just letting the party go.
Back at the inn, the group decides to call themselves 'the Hollow Heroes'.
They continue searching the city for clues. They also go to Jeryls house to find out what happened to him, they find an empty plate on which someone recently ate and a broken crossbow with the name Tavon, on of the blacksmiths in city that made this crossbow. The Crossbow seems to bear similarity to those of SB.
14 Moikii
In the morning the Hollow heroes go to the smith Tavon, he is not there, his servant tells he's to a smith in the south and won't be back until the evening. Cloak offends the servant and the group leaves in search of other blacksmiths.
After some search they do not find him and decide to wait till the evening to go back to Tavon.
In the evening they go to Tavon. After some discussion he tells them the translation of the codes: one is a list of hideouts, the other orders to kill the Lord and his wife.
As the Hollow Heroes return to the tavern, they are ambushed by an assassin and members of the Shade Brotherhood, which they eventually manage to defeat. When they finally get back in the tavern, Tilly is crying: Jeryl has been taken captive and is to be killed an hour after sunrise.
They decide to go to the lord to convince him to set Jeryl free. Kassandra first wants to know about what happened, so they tell her the short version. Barcheus convinces the Lord to delay the execution: they have until the ball to prove his innocence and deliver the plotters or he will be executed either way.
15 Moikii
In the morning they go to search for hideouts of the SB. They first go to one of the churches in the city: the church of Helm, but do not find anything there. They then continue to Hera's church. After some side tracks they find a catacomb under the fountain in the garden of the church. After some grave robbing and skeleton fighting, they stumble upon a very large tiger with some sort of metal bracelet around it's paw. They fight and the tiger starts running away, out of the dungeon, onto the street. They kill the tiger and after Barcheus chops off the bracelet, it turns into Cameron Dane. The guards are angry and want to bring them in for questioning. Leo Dane comes in and interrogates about what happened. They tell him about the SB and the cult, but he has never heard of the latter.
He tells how his sister and him were bitten by a weretiger a few years ago and how she went missing a few weeks ago. He then tells he wants to get rid of the curse and tells there is a woman (Chaerieth) in a house in the hills on the road to Purefall who can do a remove curse spell, to help him get rid of his condition. He lets them choose to either help him or face the justice system of Calcett. And thus they set off on a small new journey.
16 Moikii
The party continues to the little house. Along the way they meet a cat that somehow injured by an owl and a bear and disappears into thin air. They come to the house, but nobody is home. They go find Chaerieth by following her tracks, but lose track once inside the forest. They decide to go back, but then Shady sees the cat again, he says he lives in the house, so they follow him. They go down to the basement and find the laboratory, where they stumble upon some oozes. After they were done killing and eating the halfling's soup, Chaerieth comes home. They give her a letter from Leo and tell her about the Lycanthropy. She is very interested and asks all kinds of questions. She gives them the remove curse spell scroll and they travel back to Calcett.
17 Moikii At noon the Hollow Heroes arrive at the guard station, the place is hectic. They give Leo the scroll and he tells them he will not persecute them. They continue their search for answers, first going to the temple of Shinare, but come to the conclusion that this is probably not a secret hideout. They realize they hadn't investigated every part of the catacombs so make their way there. Eventually the guards inside the tomb inform them much of the documents found were taken back to the guardstation. After they find nothing new, the party returns to the guard station to look into the documents with some assistance of Leo. There is a ritual describing a demon summoning, as well as a prophecy. There is also description of various locations of bases of the SB. Some have been taken down by guards already, but there are two locations left: one abandoned building in the outer city where scouts were send two days prior but haven't returned yet and one mine outside the city that hasn't been explored yet. The party decides to go to the abandoned house, and one of the guards leads them there. They find and kill three bandits and capture one. They hear from the captured bandit that someone called Mesty is still upstairs, but he doesn't talk much further. They leave the bandit with the guard and go check upstairs. There they first stumble upon a mimic that engulfs Cloak, but they quickly manage to kill it. They charge the room upstairs from both doors leading to it and discover one of the two people is an unconscious guard and the other one is a scared Mesty, that turned out to be the twin brother of the guy they captured downstairs. They try to get Mesty to talk, but he is too scared. He finally agrees to come to the guardstation without a fuzz. They also bring the guard and the brother who's name is Mick. Mick and Mesty are set in separate hearing chambers and Mesty quickly starts talking how he was innocent and just wanted to make some quick money, persuaded by his brother, but then the womans of the cult made everything worse. He talks how the leader Amneginne is planning ritual to summon demons somewhere in a mine outside of the city (referring to the mine they previously found documents for). Cloak and Shady try to get Mick to talk, but after only taking off his finger nail another guard comes in and takes over the conversation. Shady makes his eyes look bloodsoaked with use of prestidigitation and Mick freaks out, talking and screaming about demons and rituals. The guard tries to calm him, but fails and finally sends Cloak and Shady away. The others tell what Mesty had told and wait for the guard to get answers out of Mick. However, after half and hour the guards tell them they gave Mick a sedative because he was freaking out big time. They decide to go check out the mine that Mesty and the document mentioned and arrive there as dusk sets in. Before going in, they rest at a farm for the night. 18 Moikii The Hollow heroes head to the mine very early and reach the entrance just after sunrise. They travel inside and get welcomed by some very old warning notes about a creature lurking in there: the Umberhulk. Nevertheless, they proceed into the dungeon. Somewhere deep inside they capture and tie down a boy in its teens, that seemed to be keeping watch. They travel onwards, leaving the boy there and get distracted by a treasure, hidden in the tunnels. Eventually they approach a cavernous room, where some of the women are sitting and drinking and chatting. The party kills 5 of them after cleverly distracting them with the light, but one of them escapes. The Hollow Heroes knock out and capture the leader. They venture onward in the tunnels until they finally reach a large open cave where a waterfall and stream flow from outside. The cult is there performing a ritual to summon a demon. They fight off some of the cultists, but Amneginne somehow controls Barcheus (through the snakelike creature that Tilly described) to attack and kill his comrades. They finally manage to kill Amneginne, but at that point the ritual is finished and a large dark and vicious demon appears. It rips the priest apart. Upon seeing both their leaders die, the cultists flee from the cave, leaving the party alone to defeat the monster. They fight it off, and attempt to send it back to the Abyss, but fail in doing so. Meanwhile, Barcheus manages to kill the snake creature in a moment of clarity, breaking him free from the enchantment. The demon finally escapes through a hole near the waterfall and ventures south. The Hollow Heroes are left alone in the cave, wounded and defeated, but all alive. The finally find their way back, and explain their story to Leo. Barcheus tells of the effects of the snake creature and shows the others the remnants of it in his neck. Leo accompanies them to the dungeon, where they find a similar thing in Jeryl's neck and thereby prove his innocence. After his release, the party rests at the Hollow Pumpkin and then go shopping for the ball the next day.Aeons after Fall Out,
when leaf drops,
All will be yearning,
This is the sign.
Mountains low, and mountains max,
He will rise through the cracks.
They seduce and worlds at war.
When moontide comes, all is done.
What once was, will be rerun.
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