5th of Eleasis (Highsun) – Summer 1486
Location: “Nightstone” – Farming Village South of Waterdeep.
Breaking camp at dawn the party covered the last few miles to the gates of Nightstone quickly. Seepage's morning ritual of caressing her whip in what could only be described as a somehow inappropriate manner for an inanimate object left an odd sensation of uneasiness in the air. This feeling was bolstered by the constant ringing of bells that tolled ever-louder as the trio approached the palisade and moat of the village. The drawbridge was down, the portcullis raised, but the town within seemed absent of any life or movement bar the incessant ringing, now able to be discerned as coming from the temple belfry spire just inside the gates. They could just make out the Keep high on a Motte to the south. It appeared to be heavily damaged as if by a siege engine, but none were in sight and it was still flying a purple flag which matched the bunting around the gatehouse.
Not stopping to investigate any further, Pinko ran under the portcullis and to no one in particular called out “Hello!? Anybody home?!” This traditional greeting was responded to by two large untraditional respondents. A pair of Worgs, abandoning their dinner of what may have once been a farm dog, looked up from the far end of the Town Square and bounded towards the casually disposed party. Smacky charged to the fore and bore the brunt of their assault, but the large wolves were dutifully slaughtered. Once they caught their breath Pinko climbed the nearest Gate tower, noting the mechanism for raising the drawbridge was intact and operational. If there had been an attack, no one seems to have tried to stop it. From the top of the tower, he got a good view of the town and took in his surroundings. He saw nothing moving and could hear nothing but the damn temple bells. The most notable feature that piked his interest were the stones. Huge bloody stones. Randomly scattered around the entire area, but concentrated on the Bailey, were numerous rocks embedded deep in the ground, at times almost half-buried. They would have to be at least 500 pounds each and about 3 feet round. A closer inspection of one just inside the gates yielded that these were no natural pebbles and had indeed been worked into this shape by labour and tools.
Image Element Credit: Gabriel Cassata, edited by Zalgariath
Smacky was confused but mostly annoyed. The first thing he wanted to do was to shut those smegging bells up. Kicking in the temple door, unnecessarily as they were unlocked, he surveyed the room. He knew little of organised faith, but Seepage instantly recognised the primary power worshipped here was Tyr, God of Justice. His holy symbol, a set of scales in balance upon a Warhammer, was upon the pulpit. Her disgust palpable, Seepage climbed the steps to the oratory platform and despite the audience of her companions, attempted to defecate upon the sacred wooden relic. Unfortunately, in the act she slipped and a portion of the Warhammer’s handle disappeared below her tail. Escaping the graphic scene and the swearing in a language they were glad not to comprehend, the boys burst into the belfry and discovered the cause of the relentless clanging was two goblins who had tied themselves to the pull ropes and were having a competition as to who could use the counterweights to jump the highest. A dark-skinned woman dressed in robes and vestiges was bound and gagged in the corner.
The Priest's eyes pleaded for release and the goblins so tied up in their game had failed to notice the newcomers. Smacky timed his blow marvellously, turning one swinging snotbag into a lifeless yoyo and grabbing the other by the scruff. The goblin needed little further coercion with Smacky’s huge smiling presence allowing Pinko to conduct the interrogation. They managed to elicit from the terrified creature that a small band of goblins were running riot around town. She was called Beedo, they were here to loot. Her boss, Boss Hark, had recently moved the tribe into what they call “Dripping Caves” just a half-day to the north. Yesterday, a stream of Nightstone residents unwarily entered the caves fleeing “Rocks raining from the sky” and were captured by Hark and his crew. Knowing the town to be now undefended, the gobbos came to play. Meanwhile, Seepage had cleaned herself up and snuck into the room. Feeling the Wood Elf’s line of questioning had faltered she decided on another approach and attempted to remove Beedo’s eyelids with her dagger. Panicking in Smacky's grasp, Beedo flinched in an unfortunate manner and impaled herself on the blades deadly point. Seepage took the eyelids anyway and added them to a plain leather thong she wore around her neck.
With a slight shrug, the Tiefling then turned her attention to the bound Priest, cutting her gag with a deft motion. The terrified woman thanked the trio for saving her and said she was Hyral Mystrum, priest of Tyr, this was her temple. The Order of the Gauntlet would be happy to see a group of adventurers here to help save the town. Seepage’s features flickered almost imperceptibly. The room seemed to darken and grow cold. For Pinko and Smacky time slowed while Seeps was seen to stare into the distance, nod, smile, and this time with a surgeon’s skill slice Hyral’s eyelids off in two delicate motions of her wrist. Her companions gazed at Seeps in shock. This confused Cockseepage as she thought she had very clearly explained her intentions and life goals not 12 hours before around the campfire... The Priest clawed her face and screamed, breaking the tension and colour returned to the world. Pinko dashed forward and cast Healing Word on Hyral who though physically recovered was now wailing in terror and anger.
"Now, tell us what in the Abyss is going on here?" Seeps requested as she added the eyelids to her necklace. "Cloud Giants!" Hyral bleated. "Cloud Giants in their nimbus castles floated overhead yesterday morning and pelted the town with rocks for hours. The villagers mostly fled, escorted by the guards to the safety of the caves, but I couldn’t abandon my Temple. Tyr would protect me." She didn’t see the giants land or leave, but as the sun set, she felt safe enough to leave the temple, just as a horde of goblins poured into town and captured her. She was no fighter; she begged the party in the name of The Order to find the townsfolk and bring them home safely. This time Cockseepage knocked her out cold with a crack of her tail.
Wanting no more part in this, Pinko and Smacky headed out to the next building along, which turned out to be the Nightstone Tavern. There was a dead goblin in the middle of the floor, and one of the Cloud Giant boulders had crashed through the roof, taking out half of the common room. While Smacky checked out the kitchen for a snack (and found some great loot on a Goblin there… not dead, well at least not until Smacky’s Great Axe split her in two), Pinko investigated upstairs and came upon an attractive young woman in black robes in one of the guest rooms. Something about her calm manner told him that her story of being a travelling monk trapped in town by the attack was a ruse, and when Smacky joined the scene she quickly divulged she was in fact a Zhentarim spy, sent to Nightstone to take it over as a place of strength for the Black Network to gain a foothold in the area.
In the meantime, Seepage had been slowly dragging the unconscious form of Hyral towards an attractive looking hole in the middle of the Town Square. Disappointingly, it turned out to only be 5 foot deep, looking like the removal of something quite large recently had created it. Saddened but forever the optimist, she made a somewhat clumsy but otherwise successful attempt to remove the Priest’s face before shoving the body into the hole and kicking a few clods of earth on top. Trying hard to hide her giggles as she snuck up the Inn’s stairs behind Smacky wearing the ex-priest’s face as a mask, the combination of her barely contained sniggers and the shoddy job she’d done around the edges of her first facemask failed to trick or amuse her companions… but set off waves of appreciation in Kella Darkhope, the Zhent spy!
Kella instantly recognised the Tiefling as possessing that certain something the Zhent’s look for in an operative... a flagrant disregard for the rules of polite society. As the mask slid to the floor Smacky stomped on it to stop it from looking at him funny. Addressing herself more now to the newcomer than the group, Kella filled the adventurers in with her organisations plan to oust the Nanders, the ruling family of Nightstone, and take over the town. The Cloud Giant attack had proven both fortuitous and disastrous. It meant the town guards had fled and her allies could now easily gain control, the goblins were nothing more than a nuisance, but without the villagers around to return to theirs labour and repair the damage… her superiors would not be impressed. She turned to her desk and wrote a note which she attached to the winged snake charm wrapped around her arm. The jewellery sprung to life at her touch and shot off out the window. “I have sent a note to my friends that the town is right for the picking” she proclaimed. "Will you join us? We need those townsfolk to" she paused, "protect them from any future attacks. The Network is very generous to those who aid us. Track the townsfolk down and bring them back (mostly) unharmed and you shall be rewarded. The party retired to the Common Room to decide.
Smacky jumped the bar in search of a beer while Seeps licked whatever it was on her fingers off one by one. All this excitement before 10am. Pinko sighed, filled his pipe with some foul-smelling weeds and contemplated their next move. It had been a busy morning, and not a single Mushroom spotted.
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