CW: Severed Limbs, Blood, Bones, Cannibalism, Kidnapping, Torture
Investigating the Cottage: Part I
The group picks up again outside of The Cottage. Having done all the investigating they can from afar,
Cadence Loch takes the initiative to go up and peer into the window to the left of the front door. From what she can tell, it’s a kitchen. There’s a partially opened icebox, a wood stove with a pot on top of it, and some candles placed along the counters. There’s a doorway off into the rest of the cottage, but not anything that Cadence can see from outside.
Meanwhile,
Azriel Presch is watching Eman (See:
Shalis Kerny Laurence Emanuel) do a horrifying rendition of the pulled-off finger “magic trick” where he’s actually pulling his finger bones from their joints and making a horrifying cracking sound. As that is happening, Kharli (see:
Jhertalli) is heading off into the forest to investigate the silence that’s fallen over the trees. When Cadence makes her way back to the group, she finds that Kharli has gone off into the forest to do this investigation. It’s worth noting that upon discussion, Kharli has established a psychic connection to talk with the whole group and let them know that she’s going to investigate the forest. The rest of group go up to the door, and Cadence knocks on it. No one answers the door, and when Cadence tries the doorknob, it’s unlocked and they enter.
Inside they find a living area, with a sofa and chair atop a huge rug that spans most of the room. Off to the left of the door is a table with three chairs, two of which are empty, and the third is piled high with some kind of hide and pelts. There are a lot of things on the table too. Past the table to the left, there’s the doorway into the kitchen Cadence had looked through the window. There are also two rooms with closed doors in the back of the cottage.
Cadence begins with a quick glance at the hides on the chairs but doesn’t find anything particularly interesting about them as she continues on to the kitchen. Upon investigating the icebox, she finds first the leg of an aarakocra, and upon further investigation, she finds that the icebox is full of humanoid limbs.
Meanwhile, Azriel is investigating what’s on the table. He finds a coinpurse with some gold and a letter that is addressed to a “P.R.” and mentions that they’ve been appreciating their deal and have dropped off the package as discussed. There’s a couple of other things on it that have been scratched out and rewritten, but they’re unreadable. It looks like an early draft of a letter. Also on the table is a small box that when opened revealed a severed elf ear.
Swirly Snail Interlude: Part I
Swirly Snail Improv Courtesy of Small Interruptions of Session
See:
Whispers of Redwillow NPCs
Back at The Swirly Snail, Uuowouu and Harlowe and setting up the tavern for the early morning rush. It’s the period of time right before tavern guests are waking up and before the tavern really opens, so they’re getting breakfast set up. They’re having a tender moment where as Harlowe is rushing around doing things around the whole tavern, Uuowouu is spending his time cleaning up at the bar area and keeping a loving eye on her the entire time.
Investigating the Cottage: Part II
As Cadence and Azriel are both finding equally concerning things in the cottage, Eman is spending his time investigating the arcane nature of the icebox. Peering over Cadence as she’s figuring out what’s happening with the contents of the icebox, he’s able to determine that the icebox is a magic item that is continually casting Ray of Frost on the contents in the box to keep them from spoiling. He attempts to lift the icebox and fails, causing it to fall back down onto the floor with a loud thump. When that fails, he takes some of the notably bloody and disgusting ice out of the icebox using Shape Water and just… has that now.
Cadence decides to leave the kitchen as Eman is doing his icebox shenanigans to go investigate the rest of the cottage. She starts in the first room, fighting a pretty neat bedroom that has a couple of things on the dresser. She finds a hand-made bow, some hand-made arrows, and a spell scroll in a language that she doesn’t know. The bow and arrows look familiar to her, and she places them to be an earlier version of Verran’s. She cuts the string in the bow and looks at the spell scroll. Although she doesn’t understand most of it, she is able to pick out a word that probably means “wolves”. As she finds this information, she heads back out of the room to talk to the other two.
Swirly Snail Interlude: Part II
Back at the Swirly Snail, Harlowe and Uuowouu are working together as a perfect team. As the tavern’s business has picked up, they’re both working very hard in order to get all of the orders out as quickly as possible, working in perfect tandem. There’s a few moments of them passing along food and working on plating it all, Harlowe delivering the food and Uuowouu preparing it, as it fades to black.
Investigating the Cottage: Part III
As the group gathers together, they decide to head to the last room to investigate. They enter in and find it’s another bedroom and is a complete mess. There are just clothes everywhere, although virtually everything else is the same as the one before. There’s a hairbrush on the dresser that has hair in it that is easily recognizable as being somewhat wolflike. Peeking out of the top drawer in the dresser is an apron much like that of a butcher. This one is stained with red although otherwise seems perfectly clean.
The trio exits the bedroom and looks around the living area, particularly under the rug. Eman flips the rug up and finds that there’s a cellar door that’s not locked leading down into a basement. As they sneakily head down into the basement, they see two figures. One is a 6’7” human man wearing a butcher’s apron and holding a meat cleaver. The other is what everyone would recognize as a changeling person tied up by their wrists, unconscious. The group will have a surprise round of attack as we go into initiative next session.
Next Session:
Session 6 - The Changeling in the Basement
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