It's around noon on the 3rd Corday of Charder. We've left Sysy's compound, with her bound in the cart. Miriel and Goldpetal sit in the cart and try to meditate as it charges along. Nik the ex-slave is also in the cart; he has the scimitar we gave him, but he says he doesn't know how to use it, so Miriel lends him her dagger. Milo also sits in the cart, guarding Sysy. Paks leads the horses and Chuck walks behind the cart.
We've been moving for about half an hour, and we still don't see any signs of pursuit. We look behind us and still can't see anything, so we keep going as fast as we can. We reach the edge of the swamp in about seven hours, with no incident. It's nearly dark when we reach our campsite.
To our surprise, we find Stone at the campsite. We all exclaim happily to see him, except Milo. We ask about his adventures and explain that we've captured Sysy. He goes to the cart to look at her, reaches into the cart, and Milo springs up, startled. Chuck introduces them. Stone asks Nik who he is, and Nik explains. Miriel stops everyone from chatting, saying we should all get back to town right away.
Delonia jumps in and says she doesn't want to go back to town, she wants to interrogate Sysy right away. She heads over to Sysy. Paks suggests going back to the tower at least. We agree and head back to the tower, taking turns sleeping in the cart and walking. We reach the tower, with no incident, at daybreak.
Delonia is getting very nervous at the idea of going back to town, but Paks reassures her. Delonia wants to interrogate Sysy now.
Paks: "Okay, let's do it."
Miriel: "No way, it's too risky."
Delonia: "I can handle her."
Goldpetal: "We should rest first."
Stone: "How long has Sysy has been in the sack?"
Miriel: "Why interrogate her at all?"
Milo: "I agree. We should fetch Grilliam."
Goldpetal: "Why would he come out here?"
Milo: "Why wouldn't he?"
Delonia: "I can't take all this arguing."
She tries to go over to the witch, but Milo throws a dart at her. Stone tries to intercept it, but he fails, and she is hit. Miriel heals her, then asks everyone to stop fighting and listen to Delonia. Delonia says she doesn't want to be involved with Grilliam again, she has always had a good relationship with Sysy, and she wants to resolve the situation. She doesn't want to deliver Sysy to Grilliam any more than she wants to see him. She also thinks we can handle Sysy, and points out that she's already hurt. Milo suggests that we all have our say.
Milo: "we have no reason to trust anything she says. A priest of Hedrada could get a lot of good info out of her. We can't."
Paks: "There's a different issue here - as Delonia says, what are we going to do with Sysy? Kill her now and don't interrogate her..."
Goldpetal: Sounds good to me!
Paks: "...or interrogate her?"
Goldpetal: "Shes a rat thing, she enslaves people, she deserves to die."
Chuck: "I agree that we should interrogate her. I also agree with Goldpetal that we should kill her. It's very important that we find out what's up with her operation first, though."
Stone: "Delonia doesn't want to see Grilliam, but she helped you capture Sysy, and she wants to be there for the interrogation, so we should do it now, then kill her."
Miriel: "Kill who, Delonia or Sysy?"
Stone: "The second one."
Miriel: Okay, for the peace of the party, let's interrogate her, but we need to keep her under control."
Delonia: "I can handle her."
Paks: "Delonia, why don't you cast Charm Person on her first?"
We take Sysy out of the sack, Delonia charms her, and then we take her gag off.
Miriel: "Delonia, what should we ask? You started this!"
Delonia: "I'm just trying to get my obligation over before you return to Southport."
Paks: "Miriel, do the interrogation. Stone, keep guard."
Stone goes up the tower; it's a nice hot clear day.
Miriel: "Tell us about the smuggling operation, who else was at the compound that we didn't see, who is expected at the compound, what is the purpose of the slaves, the smuggling, and the poisons, and what do you know about Virilius's plans?"
Delonia: "And why hasn't anyone come after us."
Sysy says she likes to trade; she's one of the few rat men who actually likes dealing with outsiders. The slaves are for rituals, trade, and labor. She made the deal with Virilius to trade poisons and drugs for slaves, as the slaves were so useful. She suspects that we haven't been pursued because her daughter, who is very ambitious, has probably taken over in her absence and doesn't want her back.
Sysy: "As friend to friend, friends don't really keep each other tied up...oh, and by the way, I just sent a recent shipment of slaves and weapons to Xyler Blackfoot, a clan leader for one of the disease clans. He's just gathered weapons because he's finally in power and he wants to avenge the death of his brother, who was slain in combat 10 years ago, at the battle of Twotrees, and he's going to go collect his weregild from Kraddis Freehold. I think they'll probably attack any day now, even tonight or tomorrow. They'll attack with weapons and diseased slaves (that's what the disease clans use slaves for)."
Goldpetal: "How large is this disease clan?"
Sysy: "I don't know; maybe a hundred or so in his clan."
Milo: "Do any of the rat men use the standing stones to worship Gormoth?"
Sysy: "I don't know anything about that."
Chuck: "Do you trade with any of the Asuras besides Delonia?"
Sysy: "Only Delonia. We were friends. Hey, why did you attack me?"
Paks: "We heard of a plot against you; we had to save you."
Sysy: "Oh, thanks. Will you take me back now?"
Paks: "No, your daughter is still there."
Miriel: "An attack on Kraddis Freehold is imminent - should we head over there now? How long will it take to get there?"
Milo: "Do rat men clans usually travel and attack at night?"
Sysy: "Of course we love to attack at night 'cause you humans can't see in the dark."
Paks: "We can probably all get there by sunset. I can take a horse and get there more quickly."
Milo: "Sysy, how long have you been trading?"
Sysy: "Oh, years."
Milo: "How many?"
Sysy: "More than 10 years now."
Milo: "What are the names of the people you traded with?"
Sysy: "I don't remember; I'd have to get my ledger."
Stone: "Someone should run to town to get reinforcements for the hold."
Paks: "I can go right away."
Milo: "Will they believe her? She's a mercenary."
Miriel: "Why not? She has corroborating details."
Paks: "Can we get help from Southport to the freehold?"
Miriel: "Let's send Nik to town to fetch help."
Paks: "Chuck, Goldpetal, Miriel, would you please step outside?"
They go out.
Paks: "Can I use the slush fund to hire Delonia to help at the freehold?"
Everyone agrees and they go back in. Milo leaves Stone to watch Sysy. Paks asks Delonia if we can hire her; she says that we're clearly lucky, so she's willing, but that she's not going back to Southport with us afterward.
Goldpetal: "Sysy, were you an independent, or one of a network of traders?"
Sysy: "We red witches have a loose confederation of trading posts, but they're competitive; particularly myself and my daughter Seedar."
Miriel explains the situation to Nik, asking him to go to town to fetch help and offering to write a note to Fox and give him a peacock feather from her spear as a token to identify him as coming from us. She gets her dagger back, as he almost certainly won't need weapons on the way to town. Chuck gives him some money and food. Nik is about to leave when Milo stops him.
Milo: "What should we do with Sysy?"
Goldpetal: "I think we should kill her."
Milo: "I don't think Grilliam would agree."
Chuck: "Stone?"
Stone: "I dunno. But she deserves death."
Milo: "Why don't we send Sysy back to town as well?"
Miriel: "No, Nik shouldn't have to deal with that."
Milo: "One of us can go, too."
Miriel: "Are you volunteering?"
Milo: "Yes."
Miriel: "I think we should take Sysy with us to the freehold and let Nik go by himself. Maybe Delonia can even get Sysy to help us."
Milo: "I don't feel comfortable travelling with the witch."
Goldpetal: "Let's just kill her."
Miriel: "Milo, it'll be okay."
All this talk of killing Sysy has counteracted the Charm Person spell, and Delonia re-gags Sysy as we talk.
Miriel takes Milo aside and tells him that we need harmony in the party. She asks him to stop arguing. He says he's worried about Goldpetal or Chuck killing Sysy. She says she'll do her best to keep this from happening, but we must stop arguing and go. He agrees. When they rejoin the party, she talks to Goldpetal and Chuck. Chuck says he won't kill her, but Goldpetal will only agree to wait as long as he can stand to.
We load Sysy into the cart and prepare to leave, with Paks going on ahead. Before we go, Chuck checks to see if anyone else has been in the tower, but he can't tell for sure, although there are no signs that anyone has been.
In the late afternoon, Paks arrives at freehold. Just before dark, the rest of us approach the freehold; as it comes into view we hear an alarm bell and see farmers heading for the hold. Stone tries to look inconspicuous.
Just as we get through the gates, they are closed and locked. We look out and in the distance to the south we can see a man, being chased by a group of rat men with bows shooting at him. They stop chasing near one of the orchards that surrounds the freehold, at a relatively safe distance, and they continue to shooting. The man runs up the hill towards the freehold; the people inside recognize him, calling him Taryn. They drop a rope to him to pull him up; as soon as he is inside the woman who has been leading them grabs him. He looks terrible.
Miriel: (To a townsperson) "When did you last see him?"
(townsperson): "In the fields today."
Miriel: "Is there a healer in the hold?"
(townsperson): "I guess that's you."
Taryn: "They ambushed us. I was nicked by an arrow. They're members of the disease tribe."
Miriel goes over to heal him. Worried about disease, she specifically requests in her invocation that Madriel heal any disease as she heals his wounds. She heals him repeatedly, until she is exhausted.
Myrs thanks Paks for the warning. Taryn says he's glad we're here to help out.
Miriel goes to take a nap. Milo goes out to the orchard to try to sneak up on and kill the archers. There is a lookout on the tower with the telescope. The rest of us begin to prepare for the fight. Myrs goes off to meditate to learn some new spells for the fight we're expecting. She memorizes Web, Sleep, and Ventriloquism.
An hour after Milo left, he comes back. He asks for a wench bringing a drink. He's told to get his own drink, so he does. His clothes are very grungy. He tells us that he went south to where the archers were. When he got into the forest, he immediately came under fire. At this, he pulls several arrows that were shot into trees from under his cloak and gives them to Paks. He says he found a group of five rat men archers, who had clearly been there for a while, as they had constructed a blind. It took a long time for him to get close, and then he couldn't understand what they were saying. He killed three of them, then followed the other two for a while around through the trees around the hold. He heard but didn't see another set of five archers further around the hold. He says he could take more guards and harry them, but he's very sneaky, and the rat men still found him, so he doesn't think anyone else will be able to sneak up on them. He says there are no archers left to the south of the hold right now, and that after he rests, he'll go out alone again to try to kill some others.
Miriel realizes after looking at the potions from Sysy are antitoxins. Paks recognizes that the stones we found are thunderstones; they will explode and cause deafness.
We begin preparing for the siege. Paks takes over the planning, as she is the one with the most campaign experience. Some men take wagons outside the walls and tilt them for cover to dig trenches. In the middle of the evening, we see some archers shooting at us from blinds in the woods. About an hour after this, a herald from the rat men appears at the gates. We hear noises in the woods. Stone looks into the woods and sees a large rat man force come up from the south. We can't see what they're doing, but we can see a large camp. Stone gets the impression of as many as a hundred rat men.
The herald looks different from all the other rat men that we have seen. He's wearing a dirty, torn cloak, and he's gray and twisted. He has two banners: one is the white flag of truce, the other is the banner of the disease clan of Chern.
Herald: "Heathen persons! You owe us your lives for the death of the brother of the rat man! Because Chern is merciful, because Chern is good, we will be merciful, and you can serve us if you lay down your weapons and come out. Otherwise, we will gnaw your bones."
Paks: "We won't be laying down our weapons."
Herald: "You can have an hour to think about it."
Paks: "Okay, we'll let you know in an hour."
The herald goes away.
Milo prepares to go out into the woods to scout and hunt rat men. He asks for a healing potion, which Paks gives him, as well as the 20 darts the blacksmith made for him while he rested. He then heads out, after offering a prayer to Madriel.
The evening passes. We hear the rat men felling trees in the wood. At midnight, Miriel wakes and heals Paks, Taryn, and Delonia, then goes back to rest. After another hour, Milo comes back. He's in bad shape, his armor punctured with arrows. He says he tried to get around one of the rat men encampments and they noticed him and cut him off. He had to drink the healing potion. For the past five hours, he's been trying to get back to us. He says he's out of commission now and he needs sleep.
After a couple more hours, Miriel wakes and looks for Milo to heal, but she can't find him. Just then, there is a terrible disturbance in the barn. The animals are making loud noises; clearly very upset. Goldpetal looks around from on top of the tower, but can't see anything outside the walls. Stone and Chuck run over to the barn to see what's happening. As they open the doors to the barn, they see creatures that look somewhat ghoul-like, but they're not like the ghouls we saw before. They're medium-height, emaciated, and they have very sharp teeth. They're eating the animals live. It's a huge bloody mess. Stone yells "Alfred" (one of the sheep) and charges in. Chuck yells "battle stations" to the tower before running in.
Chuck readies his bow and shoots at the nearest ghoul, but he hits a sheep instead. Stone moves in and attacks one, battering it brutally. The ghouls swarm towards Stone and Chuck, though a few are still distracted by the sheep. One attacks Stone but misses. The next one claws him. The third misses, tripping over a sheep. Two attack Chuck and both bite him. Myrs runs over to see what's up. She looks in and sees the sunken-eyed ghouls.
Myrs: "Oh my god, they're dead eaters!"
She knows that they're humans who have been twisted beyond all recognition by disease. They like the taste of flesh, especially human flesh. They burrow underground and leap out to attack from below.
Myrs calls for the alarm bell, which Goldpetal rings, then she casts a web into the center of the group. Stone manages not to get entangled. Three of the dead eaters also escape, five are entangled, five are free (two were out of range). Miriel hears a call for her and runs out into the courtyard. Suddenly, a fire breaks out in the corner of the barn. There was apparently grease on the floor and the straw, and the web is very flammable, so even though the straw was dampened earlier, the fire begins to spread quickly.
Chuck switches to his swords and swings at the nearest dead eater, but misses. A group of freeholders runs over to the door of the barn. Stone starts punching the nearest dead eater, smashing its head in and killing it. One of the dead eaters breaks free of the web. The free one near the door tries to run away from the fire and runs into the web, then attacks Stone but misses him and falls prone, getting stuck in the web. Another one near the door attacks Chuck, clawing and biting him. Chuck passes out bleeding on the ground. The other attacks Taryn, biting him. Another tries to run out the door, but is stuck in the web. Goldpetal is scanning the perimeter of the hold to see if anyone else is attacking during this distraction. Myrs shouts "fire!" and calls for barrels of water. Miriel runs over to heal Chuck. Taryn attacks two of the dead eaters and kills one.
Some of the freeholders drag Chuck back from the door, while others attack the dead eater at the door with a spear. Stone moves towards the door. The fallen dead eater stands up. Most of the entangled ones are still stuck. The unentangled dead eater leaps towards Stone and attacks, hitting him with both claws and teeth. He's not looking good. The dead eaters at the door again attempt to escape, attacking Llewyn and clawing her. The second attacks her too, but misses. Paks swings at the one closest to her but misses. Llewyn attacks the unentangled one with her lasso and gets it, but can't pull it down. Goldpetal continues to watch. Taryn attacks the unwounded dead eater and hits it hard. Miriel heals Chuck; he stops bleeding and wakes up. The web starts burning in earnest, and some of the dead eaters are now on fire.
Goldpetal comes down the stairs. Chuck gets up. He tries to shoot his bow, but he is still too weak and misses. Two freeholders go to the window and start pouring water in on the fire, splashing one of the dead eaters. Another attacks one of the wounded ghouls, but misses. Two more go to the other window. Stone tries to escape the web but fails. One of the dead eaters slashes at him but misses. He punches it, smashing its head in and killing it. Paks swings at the injured ghoul in front of her, but misses. One of the ghouls attacks Llewyn and misses. Another attacks her and claws her. One of the dead eaters on fire tries to run towards Stone, but can't get free. None of the others can break free. Llewyn hits with both swords and kills one.
Goldpetal sends three of the watch down to fight the fire. Taryn grabs Stone and tries to pull him out, pulling him partway through the door. Miriel goes to Stone and heals him. Brand brings out a barrel of water from the smithy and starts toward the barn. Chuck runs to help Brand with the barrel, as do some of the freeholders. One freeholder stabs through the window with his spear at a dead eater, but misses. Two try to stab another through the door and hit it, killing it. Stone tries to escape the barn again, but he is still too weak. One of the dead eaters tries to jump out the window, is impaled on a spear, and dies. The others try to break free of the web. One manages to do so. Paks grabs Stone and helps Taryn pull him out of the barn and the web. Llewyn checks out the stable to see if anyone is coming through there. Goldpetal sees some movement in the orchards. Taryn starts directing the firefighting effort, yelling that it's grease burning. Miriel heals Stone again. The freeholders run to the gate to grab shovels. One of the dead eaters dies in the fire.
Brand and the others continue to bring the water over, nearly reaching the window with the water barrel. The freeholders get out of the way of the window. Stone runs to the well. None of the dead eaters can break free. Paks grabs her bow and shoots one of the dead eaters, killing it. Llewyn grabs a horse blanket from the stable and checks out the stable, which is fine. Myrs and Taryn tell the freeholders to shoot the dead eaters, get a bucket chain organized, and get back to their posts. Taryn shoots another dead eater, killing it. Miriel goes back to the main hall to sleep. The freeholders with the shovels start shovelling dirt in on the fire.
The freeholders shoot the last dead eater and throw more water and earth
on the smouldering hay and grease fire, putting it out.