![[BtS-13-1.png]] As we were asked to we first headed to the garrison to report in and hopefully gain a method for communicating with [[Lady Irorika Galvira|Handler]]. As we arrived there was a single guard on duty and when prompted to let us in to "Report in as requested" he was a little confused. We told him that we are "Group 13" and he seemed to reluctantly go inside to ask about it. A couple minutes later he came out, allowing us in and handing us a scroll case that was left for us. Inside the case was two scrolls, one large empty one and one small one with a note saying "This works the other way". There was also a smaller note on the second one which said "Stop bending my rules" in a hastily written script. We all figure this was from just after the last problem considering none of us had done anything wrong recently so we headed off to look for a tavern. It didn't take us too long to find "The Medium Well", a tavern that definitely isn't the ritziest in town, but definitely no the bottom of the barrel. We paid for some nights, stored our horses and wagon then got to discussing exactly what to send to [[Lady Irorika Galvira|Handler]]. The following is what we settled upon: >[!Linked Letter] Kit: Arrived at Galewald, ambushed on the way here. Leader was blood cult, others didn't seem to know. Single prisoner at Kenebruk > > Want to make illusion at night of a creepy monster, then have a rumour spread that there is some creature stalking the outskirts of the town. I will spread the rumour and point people to different members of the group who saw it. Gets random people talking to us for reasons completely aside from the investigation. > > Badda: Did you eat well? With the message finished we went off to bed, [[Nhox Cropslown|Nhox]], [[Wilborin|Wil]], [[Arkai]], and [[Kitsuki Nagahashi|I]] staying in one room while [[Avrec Rishten|Avrec]], [[Gideon Roi|Gideon]], and [[Badda]] stayed in the second room. [[Avrec Rishten|Avrec]], [[Badda]], and [[Wilborin|Wil]] did spend some time tonight disassembling [[Avrec Rishten|Avrec]]'s gun and have apparently made some good progress on making a new, but slightly different, version of it for the [[Siromar Kingdom|government]]. Sounds like they will go out over the next couple days and try to build a prototype first. --- Arodus 14th, 2430AS I was awoken this morning to [[Badda]] knocking on the door in a small fury. After [[Arkai]] opened the door for them they burst in asking "Who gave me this!" holding up a small vial of a brackish liquid. I had no idea what this was and was very surprised to hear that someone had managed to get through the chair propped up against their door. It was at this point that [[Nhox Cropslown|Nhox]] finally decided to speak up and let [[Badda]] know that it was them who entered their room last night to drop it off as they were heading out. Apparently [[Nhox Cropslown|Nhox]] thought it was a good idea to watch the garrison for a while last night to try and spot some suspicious activity. It's unfortunate as if she had told me I would have come with her, but I guess I can see where she was coming from. [[Badda]] was still a little upset, asking [[Nhox Cropslown|Nhox]] to simply give a gift to them next time as they were going to pour the liquid out in case it was poison. I am glad that the brief scare I had that the cult had already pin pointed us was unfounded. After getting cleaned up I pulled the scroll out from my bag to find a new note left for us. It reads as follows: >[!Linked Letter] > Good to know. Effective as always. As a reminder, your task is to discern the extent of our adversary's presence in Galewald, and what their local goal is. Keep in mind that this paper is limited to the space on it, so please keep messages short (as you have). Seems like a reasonable approach. Good luck. > > I did. Thank you. With the go-ahead for my plan we all split up for the day, ready to group back up at night for me to discuss how it was going to all go down. I went out to grab some meat to grill for lunch, mostly using it as a cover for my purchase of blood. [[Nhox Cropslown|Nhox]] was the only one who took me up on my offer for lunch while the rest of the [[Ex Nihilo|group]] wandered around town to get they lay of the land. With night fast approaching I packed up and headed back to the inn where I explained how everything was going to work. To fully sell everything I was going to need the [[Ex Nihilo|group]] to organically see my illusion, so I asked them to group up into a couple groups and go walk around near some designated locations. I would then go into the forest and prepare, coming out with my false form and slowly approaching the groups independently. The goal here was to scare them alongside a random person or two. [[Gideon Roi|Gideon]] planned to go out to "walk" [[Badda]] as if they had too much energy, and [[Avrec Rishten|Avrec]], [[Arkai]], and [[Nhox Cropslown|Nhox]] all acted as servants for the noble "[[Wilborin|William]]" who were out to do some astrology. I checked behind me as I went out into the forest, carefully preparing the illusion and hiding my tracks. I first made my way towards [[Gideon Roi|Gideon]] and [[Badda]] who were speaking with a woman about something I couldn't quite hear. I slinked out of the shadows, revealing my now monstrous form to both [[Gideon Roi|Gideon]] and [[Badda]] first. I must have done a good job as I could even see the fear in their eyes as I approached. They pointed me out to the woman they were talking to and the following shriek was definitely worth all the planning. With one down I skulked back into to the forest, heading for the next designated spot. The second group were talking with a father and son when I approached, clearly running out of things to talk about. The effect was similar, though definitely not as visceral as the first woman. The man picked up and protected his child before sprinting off, as did the rest of my group. I figured that this was enough, heading back into the forest and rushing for my stuff. I dispersed the illusion, cleaned up, and made a scene as if an animal had been killed here with the rest of the meat and blood. I then headed for the road, walking into town like it was the first time I had done so. The walk through town was entertaining, guards running everywhere on high alert. I had clearly caused the chaos I was looking for by the look of things, I'm glad it all worked as planned. When I arrived back at the inn, the rest of the group still looked a little shaken by the whole experience. I assured them that it was just an illusion and not to worry before heading to bed. I can't wait to see how this goes tomorrow when I actually make effort to spread the news of this event. ![[BtS-13-2.png]] *This is what [[Kitsuki Nagahashi|Kit]] appeared as.* --- Arodus 15th, 2430AS Bright and early I headed to the market to... alert people of the situation. This went well, sending people to different members of the group as well as the random citizens I scared last night. The rest of the [[Ex Nihilo|group]] simply went around and did their own things, apparently managing to successfully craft a prototype of a cheaper version of [[Avrec Rishten|Avrec]]'s pistol. They seem pretty convinced we will be able to get a fair amount of gold for that prototype and blueprint, I sure hope they are correct. Later into the day I decided to poke around to see how the rumour was doing, just to make sure there wasn't a hitch in the plan. Just as expected, it had spread like wildfire, with almost nobody talking about anything but it. The guard had apparently found the bloody footprints I had left, and they have claimed that they will be patrolling the woods in hopes of catching it. In fact, I spoke to some of the guards and they asked me to help if I was willing! I lightly brushed them off by telling them I would contact them if I had any information, then headed off to bed. Collecting everything I had heard, it seems as if the tails and horns weren't really caught out in the darkness. This made it a little less clear that the monster was a demon of some sort, so I think I will have to go around tomorrow and sprinkle in a cult element to the rumour. If that goes well enough I'm sure I'll be able to get the cult talking in no time. --- Arodus 16th, 2430AS In our rooms this morning I explained what my plan was for the day, just telling the group to go around and do whatever they wanted for the day. [[Badda]] offered to give me a crash course in some occultism topics, some of which I was already familiar with but much that was going to be very useful. With that done I ate then went on my way. I went around town, sprinkling in a bit of that "cult" factor and piling onto the fear. All was going quite well and at around noon I ended up speaking to a bunch of religious students while walking around the temple district. One of them mentioned that the entire situation sounds like something they had read in a book and they asked me to come in to speak with their teacher. Of course I accepted, believing I might have finally found part of the cult. I walked into the temple and was guided to a very old woman barely able to stand. She introduced herself as "Madame Heldise" and after being introduced by the students she prompted them to leave as if she did not want the students to hear what we were about to discuss. As we walked circles around the temple she made her interest in cults clear, masquerading as if she only wanted to learn more about them. Of course I did the same, though I could somewhat tell we were on complete opposite sides from the get-go. She claims that the guard had already approached her for input, however she would like to hear what I know as well as what my source ([[Badda]]) knows as well. She offered to meat us in the church late at night for a discussion which I gladly accepted. I walked around town, searching for [[Badda]] but first running into [[Avrec Rishten|Avrec]] who had apparently been digging around the town records for a bit. He had found a book with wanted criminals, finding the person we had captured and some other members of that group alongside their addresses. He also found a wanted poster of [[Vanathor Aunor]] from ten years ago, but the information on it was very sparse. All that it stated was that he is wanted for "Crimes too numerous and heinous to list", something I'm not surprised about. It's interesting that this flyer is from that long ago as to my knowledge [[Gideon Roi|Gideon]]'s [[Obenwald (Destroyed)|town]] was destroyed eight years ago. Nonetheless, it does not seem that he has an official permanent residence in this town, not that I really expected him to. With a bit more wandering around town we were able to find the rest of the group and have a short discussion about what we are going to do tonight. Considering [[Badda]] and [[Gideon Roi|Gideon]] are a well established pair at this point, we decided that they would both come along with me to the meeting, [[Gideon Roi|Gideon]] acting as [[Badda]]'s body guard. [[Avrec Rishten|Avrec]] was to follow us in while invisible, then hide somewhere within earshot in order to send messages to the rest of the party. [[Wilborin|Wil]] and [[Nhox Cropslown|Nhox]] would then come in for some late night praying just for some further safety. As we arrived Madame Heldise stood up and said hello to us all before requesting that we all sit down for our talk. It seems that she really is a frail old woman, or that she is just exceptionally good at hiding any secret power that she might have. She wondered why we seemed so interested in the cults, with all of us simply stating that we wished to learn more. During [[Badda]]'s explanation they mentioned that Pharasma is most certainly not the only god of death, something which seemed to interest the woman. [[Badda]] went on to speak about Norgorber the evil god of death, Rovagug the beast god of the apocalypse, Urgathog the god of decay, Zon-Kuthon the god of destruction, and a variety of other outer gods that collectively rule over death. This breadth of knowledge only further intrigued Madame Heldise, further confirming to me that she most certainly isn't as faithful to Pharasma as he would first appear. Madame Heldise went on to claim that she has a theory as to why the creature may have come, but refused to say things aloud in the temple. She offered to give a mental message to [[Badda]] which they accepted, holding hands to converse. A couple of minutes later they finally released hands, clearly having come to an understanding. With that done she said that she would keep in touch, but that it's time to fall asleep. [[Badda]] agreed and off we went back to the Medium Well we all went after slowly filtering out of the temple. When we returned [[Badda]] was eager to go to sleep, however we were able to get a few words out of them before they passed out. Madame Heldise is most certainly a member of the cult of blood and has asked [[Badda]] to join. In the not too distant future some letters will be left for them at the inn with more information, a perfect setup for us. With the plan being a raging success I headed back to my room, pulling out the two way letter and writing for [[Lady Irorika Galvira|Handler]] to see in the morning: >[!Linked Letter] > Head priestess of the temple is compromised and in contact with Badda. Do they have permission to join the cult? ![[BtS-13-3.png]] *Art by [[Moonkit]] ([[Badda]]'s player).* >[!Recap Note] >Our group has a Pathfinder addiction, and we needed two hits this week.