Session 5 - Redcaps and Ruins

Session Date: November 20 2019

Continuing their travel towards Waterdeep and Redcap, the party has a few uneventful days of travel before they come upon a fork in the road, where they need to choose to head towards Waterdeep or towards Redcap. They choose the latter, given that they've decided to take Casey there and find a home for her, if they can.

Arriving in Redcap, they notice a strong sulfurous smell, and see that all the surrounding fields have been harvested for the season already. They go ahead and find their way to the inn in town "the Red Roof Inn".

In the Inn, the party finds a gnome with a red cap behind the desk, and a woman crying at a table alone in the corner. Ivan goes over to talk to the woman while the others greet the gnome at the desk.

Teddy and Dae book some rooms for everyone, and talk to the innkeeper a bit, trying to find any sign of Casey's family, or anyone that she might know. They're told that the swans haven't lived here for several years, and that there's now an orphanage set up in town taking care of some of the town's children -- apparently many of the towns men and some of the women have all gone missing recently, leaving several orphaned children.

Ivan learns much the same from the crying woman, who introduces herself as Betty... she talks about all the missing people, including her husband, and mentions that a ruin was discovered recently and the only man that's come back so far is not able to talk anymore, seems totally catatonic, and that he's in one of the rooms upstairs in here in the Inn.

Heading upstairs to their rooms, the party finds a guard outside one of the rooms, presumably that of the man that Betty spoke of. The group asks if they can speak to the man, and the guard lets them in.

The guard, Greg, says that people have been out in the swamps looking for redcap mushrooms and only George here came back, and he's been like this ever since. The group tries to talk to him but he's completely unresponsive. Teddy tries using Message to talk to him telepathically and George responds only with screaming, and "The eyes, the eyes". Ivan does a bit of light surgery and finds some small stones developing within George's skin.

Casey and Topknot head out into the town, in search of anyone that might know Casey's parents. Topknot visits the orphanage and talks to a human woman named Samantha, who tells him that the town is kind of taking it in turn to watch after the kids, and that this is really just a temporary orphanage they built in a house that has been abandoned for a few years. (Evidence points to this having been the Swans' house)

Before the rest of the group leaves the inn, someone comes in and lets them know that that townspeople have pooled their resources, seeing a group of adventurers in town, and can offer the group 1500gp to investigate the nearby ruin, and figure out what has happened to the missing townspeople. Teddy lights up at this and agrees on behalf of the party.

Meanwhile, Topknot and Casey also visit a bait store called Redcap Bait and Tackle, and Topknot nearly fails to endure a fairly aggressive sales pitch for some mushroom picking gear, and ultimately threatens to harm the proprietor if he says anything else about mushrooms. Asking about Casey, he learns essentially the same information once again - the Swan family moved out years ago, nobody really knows them very well, and they were only here briefly before moving up to Neverwinter. He says the Cleric at the chuch can tell the group about the ruins perhaps. The group catches up with Topknot at this point, and Teddy excitedly runs into the shop and buys a mushroom hunting kit, much to Topknot's annoyance.

The group heads to the church, and Topknot and Teddy both fall into sneaky-stealy mode. Dae and Jakob enter the church and talk to the Cleric. The cleric, a priest of Bahamut, mostly decries the men who went to the ruins as sinful and lost, and is generally not particularly helpful.

Teddy and Topknot both sneak around and steal what they can, getting some candles, an Inflatible Bahamut Decoration, and some holy water, as well as a silver flask with an etching of Bahamut on it.

Leaving the church, Topknot sends Bob out to scout the ruins, and then the party heads back to the inn for a rest, planning on heading to the swamp and ruins in the morning. During the night, some commotion is heard, and the party finds that George has turned completely to stone. They resolve to figure out what's happened to him at the ruins and go back to sleep.

Bob returns, before the morning light and describes a path to the north of the swamp leading into an area like a garden with pillars and some ruins, and he says all the statues there look to be "brand new". He also saw some crazy bugs, but thinks they won't be an issue in the daytime. Before heading to the ruins, the party drops Casey off at the orphanage, promising to come right back for her. On the way through the swamp, Teddy stops briefly to pick up a bunch of truffles that he finds quite easily, and figures he'll look for more on the way back out.

The party then proceeds to the ruin, and find the garden that Bob spoke of. Moving forward as stealthily as they can, it becomes clear that these statues are actually the missing townspeople and whatever happened to them is also what turned George to stone. Ivan informs the party that he thinks this has been done by a Medusa and tells them what he knows to try to avoid this happening to them -- generally not to look at the creature's eyes.

Teddy hears a terrifying whisper asking "who comes to my garden" (I forget exactly) and then a Medusa appears out of the ruins and a fight erupts. The party does their best to fight it without looking directly at it, and while a few things don't go as well as planned, they do end up defeating the creature in the end, though not without taking some serious damage from the snakes on her head.

-- Session ends here --