Things that go bump in the night

Week 5 (07/04/2016): Things that go bump in the night
GM: Declan

Players:
 * Naeris / Liam A
 * Divona / Aaron
 * Nell / Sam S
 * Barna / Jessica
 * Malfurion / Jordan

Report from Naeris (Liam)
I had been in The Granite Citadel for nearly a week when I got word of several disappearances from around Vervignon, particularly The Scratchings. A perfect opportunity for me to test my metal and prove myself as a recruit. Four people responded to my summons, two martial types, an elf and a halfling, a halfling farmer with a monstrous pig, and another elf, this one a druid. After awkward introductions, I don’t think they were very experienced, we set off for The Scratchings to ask the local militiaman for all information he had on the disappearances. Barely a man, he hardly could have known how to wield a sword. Apophus scared the boy half to death. We read the reports and pinned them on a map, there was a pattern emerging.

The location of the disappearances gave the impression the culprit was moving north-east, towards Mount Beej. I briefly entertained the idea that it were the elven lord turned dragon, Sindar, what a glorious test that would have proven. We followed the path stopping to speak with the relatives of the missing people, there seemed to be little in common between the victims, some were boy children, others were elderly women. Eventually we arrived in a semi-large town, the reports had stopped and we had to uncover fresh information. We found a person, they claimed to run a logging business and that their lumberjack who conveniently lived with them, had vanished a couple of days back but the person seemed to care little about it. We requested to search the house for clues and they begrudgingly obliged.

We found our first real pieces of evidence in the house, the vanished man’s room showed signs of a struggle, and there was a large inhuman footprint outside the bedroom window. At this point we knew people were disappearing at night, being taken by someone or something, taken from their homes with the intruder entering through the window, the intruder was large, too large to be human, and possibly slightly clumsy as the footprint looked like they had slipped. With this new information we continued to the next town. As soon as we arrived we asked the townsfolk if anyone had gone missing recently, no one had, we had finally caught up. We decided to set watches over the night, posting ourselves in different positions around the town.

It was the middle of the night, at least 2pm when we heard a shout, or more accurately a cry, from Brent, a guardsman we coopted into taking watch with us. We all ran to his location, Devona, Nell, and Barna were the first to arrive. Brent was staring into the window of a house in shock mumbling about something going inside, Barna took to calming the man while Devona and Nell entered the house. Malfurion and I arrived some moments later to hear the alarmed cry of an owl. The two of us ran into the building to see Devona keeping a surprised but suspiciously unafraid man at spear's length at the base of a flight of stairs, hearing the shouts of people upstairs I sprinted passed the man to the second floor, straight into the colossal form of a mutated man. I met the monster with my sword. The owl cry had been a shout of warning from Nell as she was struck by the creature, recovering from her injury she joined me in battle with the thing. I drew it's blood many times, and avoided most of its strikes, Nell however was less fortunate. The woman got herself cornered and the monster tore her in half. Her hips were torn from her torso. I traded a couple more blows with the beast, everything happened so fast, the thrill of combat never gets old.

The rest of my party joined me upstairs and I made a strategic withdrawal to attend my wounds, but on my out of the way I must have brushed against the suspicious man, and he ensorcelled me. I was overcome with the urge to strike my companions and defend the man while my companions were being bludgeoned with the corpse of the druid. I stuck and wounded Barna several times before I his blade met my flesh and I was brought back into control. I immediately surrendered and he realised what had occurred. The creature was slain by the two skirmishers and the man fleeing. Divona chased down the man and he was captured. We borrowed a donkey and cart from the town for the return trip as we decided to bring the monsters body with us for study. The man was handed over to Meira who pried information out of him, I know not what happened to the body. It was revealed that the man was the creatures handler and they were kidnapping people to create an army of mind controlled people. He was working for a powerful wizard based on the island between the FHSS and the mainland. This certainly requires further investigation.