A child forgotten

Plot points/Scenes

Cities and villages around Moroqua, Alien, Asmestra and Innsweil ask for help, someone's 12 year old son named Duda, disapeared after going to their grandfathers in Caelora. There where multiple disappearances already in and around Cealora, rumours tell that there might be some necromatic cult or Neo-Stahlists around sacrificing people.
If the party decides to travel to the village, They'll find a village, still half destroyed after the war and the villagers minding their own business, rebuilding their homes, trading goods etc. the village has the following buildings:

• A inn with rather cheap pricing, which is also used as a pub by the locals.
• A carpentry shop that makes furniture and timber to rebuild homes
• A masonry to cut the stones for the homes
• A couple of farms that sell their harvest in front of the ruined city hall
• A ruined city hall, which is pretty weird since that would be the first thing you should repair.

What the party does not know is that, in the still ruined city hall there lies a False hydra, consuming those who enter the village.
The players will need to explore the village and discover secrets to find out what is exactly happening here. This is what they can get to know:
The owner of the inn, Visimar does not know who the kid Duda is, and if the players give one of the wanted posters to show him his face he would return a blank paper of the exact same size, asking why they would give him a blank paper. is this some kind of joke?
the grandparents of Duda are unknown never ever heard of them around the village.
The Masonry has a basement that the owner Amelina tries to hide from the players. If the players sneak into the basement they'll find a small hole in the wall that leads into the dark(when they crawl through it, they'll find out that it ends into the basement of the city hall.) and they need some kind of digging tool, like a pickaxe to make it larger and get through it. but if they take longer than half a day to gain the equipment, the hole will be sealed up and everybody pretends like it was never there. Amelina also no longer is protective of her basement and pretends like she never was.
The carpentry also has a basement, the owner Candac is only protective for their basement if the hole in that of the Masonry one is patched up, since there will be a hole there now. via these holes the false hydra gets his victims out of sight and into his den, which is under the broken city hall.
Every day the players are in the village, more and more villagers will disapear untill they are the last ones. Then the false hydra shall pick off the players one by one. this can lead to a TPK.
to stop a TPK you can send the players messages like told in the False Hydra article, limbs acting on themselves, carving messages into their own flesh, or tiny slip ups when the Hydra is eating, allowing someone to scream close to the city hall things like It sees me! it sees me!  before suddenly acting like nothing happened, with the False Hydra retaking control over him or her.

Plot type

Sidequest