Completely winded and teetering on the brink of potential disaster, the party decides that they require more resources before continuing their investigation into the Sandpoint murders. Before leaving the Manor, they focus their attentions on the sobbing woman, who is stopped by a stone door. She begins clawing at the door in a futile attempt to break through the barrier that prevents her passage. Not wanting her to do anything drastic, Fobias and Barnaby bind her hands and feet. A few minutes later, the Manor is but a pinprick in the rearview mirror and the party breathes a little easier.
The trip to the brewing village of Donesale is quick but it is early in the morning when the party arrives. Since they only see lights emitting from The Sleeping Fox, they decide to inquire about healing services there. Fobias, Theo, and Barnaby knock on the door while Krask slips into the shadows to investigate Hackman’s Supply. Illegally.
Kurdu and Pearla Wharton greet the party and offer your typical inn services – warm bed, a spot of dinner, and a hot bath to wipe away the grime of battle. Nobody is interested, however, and the Whartons provide directions to the only establishment in town that might have magical items for purchase, the Wayward Weird. Fobias asks the innkeepers to drop off his broken falchion at the blacksmith for repairs, and they oblige.
Back outside Hackman’s Supply, Krask picks the lock and quietly stealths into the store. Although the room is mostly filled with mundane items, he spots a potential healing potion on one of the upper shelves and stashes it away. Thanks to some heightened senses and nerves of steel, Krask is able to avoid waking the proprietor, but he can’t figure out the tumblers of a small lockbox before deciding that he has overstayed his uninvited welcome. Lucky for him, Theo confirms that the vial was filled with a healing potion, and the rest of the party is marked as an accomplice to petty theft.
Ertal, the owner of the Wayward Weird, is less cordial than Kurdu about being woken up in the middle of the night, but Theo is able to coax him out of the shop with a well-timing jingle of a money sack. The inside of the shop is packed with strange, eclectic, and exotic wares like a preserved basilisk eye, a belt buckle engraved with intricate horse patterns, and a poorly-cultivated juniper bonsai in a ceramic pot. Ertal flutters behind the PCs, anxiously describing the elaborate history of each item in exquisite detail.
Amidst the piles of ‘junk’ (or treasures, depending who you ask), Fobias is drawn to an item that screams familiarity. It is a small, hand-carved wolf figurine, marked with the initials F.T. When asked about it, Ertal describes a group called the Bloodless, and a young girl had given the figurine to Ertal as a gift. Fobias doesn’t ask him to expand further, and quietly purchases the item and Theo buys a wand of cure light wounds.
Their side adventure is over, so the party returns to the basement of Foxglove Manor. Below, they find that the sobbing woman has bashed her skull repeatedly on the door, severely damaging her skull in her efforts to break down the stone door. Sensing the importance of this door, Krask takes some time to pick the lock while the rest of the group restrains the woman so that she doesn’t harm herself further. She is alive but crippled by a massive migraine.
That’s when they hear a voice on the other side of the door. It is a voice that Barnaby knows all too well: the voice of his good friend, Aldern Foxglove. Surprised that Barnaby is nearby, Aldern relays his fears that the Hurter will return soon, a person that doesn’t seem to care much for the wellbeing of others. After the door is opened, Barnaby looks inside the moldy room to see a smashed wooden box, a humanoid-shaped indent in a fungus-laden wall, and a pale, sickly figure sitting in a stained chair. It is Aldern, and he appears to be infected with death itself.
Can the party save Aldern from a terrible fate? Does Fobias know anything about the Bloodless? Do you think that some Tylenol would cure Iesha’s migraine?