The party arrived early in the morning of the third day of their trip to Istust. The train station was empty apart from a halfling whip hired by the Bureau to take them on the final leg of their journey. The halfling, Sal, advised them it would most of the day to make their way though the rain, as it had been pouring for days and the roads had turned to muck. The party piled in and tried to pass the time as they made their way north. The stagecoach slogged through the mud, passing the dark forests as they approached the ocean. Steep cliffs dropped to the churning water of the eastern sea to the right of the road as they continued though the rain.
As dusk began to fall the rain finally subsided, letting the party get a view of Istust as they approached. The town was built in a cut in the rock face, right on the ocean far below the clifftops.
As the carriage approached Raven’s Crest Cemetery it was ambushed by a small group of Istust locals using some sort of steam cannon. They shot a large log in to the carriage, causing it to roll over. Sal was crushed and killed instantly while the party was thrown around roughly. They emerged from the coach and combat began.
Most of the locals fell quickly but one was able to dish out some overpowered magic and retreat back in to the graveyard where he called for reinforcements. The party finished off the group but not before Ned took quite a beating. They explored the graveyard, finding a statue of Sheyln that had been defaced by knocking its head off and drawing an eye on its chest in blood. In front of the statue a magic circle had been drawn in the dirt. The party experimented with the circle, debating the ethics of animal testing before settling on sticking tree branches in it. The branches burned up but not before they were able to disrupt the circle by messing up the lines in the dirt.
The party then looted the locals, finding mostly trash and simple weapons. One man did have a note in his pocket that stated:
Kill anyone that attempts to enter or leave Istust, bring any magic items you find to the manor and any bodies you recover must be taken to the Cannery for processing
Echo decided to follow those instructions and had Groot gather the bodies and bring them with them when the party moved on to Istust proper.
Once they entered town and became aware of this, there was a great debate over what to do with the bodies. In the end, the party settled on dumping them in an alley and moving on. At the first intersection they came to, the party found themselves looking down a street at a group of nearly a dozen of the hostile locals as well as three large bronze constructs. The group was transporting a large wooden cart that contained a small group of people huddled together as well as what looked like a stack of bodies in the back. One of the huddled, a human man, attacked the man guarding the cart and tossed a elf woman out of the cart. She hit the ground running and managed to get out of the crowd without getting grabbed. The man had his head caved in by the guard for this and one of the bronze constructs powered up a stone cone that sat on its shoulder and fired multiple rounds of magic missiles at the woman. She was struck from behind and killed. The locals then gathered her body and placed in back in the cart.
The party used this distraction to sneak past, even with a member coughing loudly as they did.
Following the information they gathered from their briefing they managed to make their way to the Cod’s Tail Inn. The inn’s windows glowed with light, putting it in stark contrast with the houses they passed on their way though town. They decided this sign of life was good and entered the inn. They were greeted by a stocky dwarven woman behind a bar who quickly raised a very large crossbow and trained it on them. She was quickly joined by a slight half-elfin woman from the kitchen entrance behind the bar. The dwarven woman told them to explain themselves, the party showed her their badges in hopes of easing her worries and trigger finger. She softened with that sight and offered them something to eat while they questioned her about the goings on in the town. She introduced herself as Dolgorra Warmriver and her cook was Adia Swiftfoot
As best as she was able to explain it the town had started to change in the past half year or so, with people disappearing in the night and strange goings on at Volévont manor, the towns ruling family that owned most of Istust. Some sort of artifact had been brought back during one of the Lady Volévont’s trips to find interesting art back in the spring and since then things had slowly become as they are now, with the last six weeks rapidly accelerating in severity. The locals that have started to change, with their wide set eyes and larger mouths only came out in the night and hadn’t come as far as the inn while roaming the town in the night. Some people had tried to flee but it’s unknown if any of them had been successful as there was a checkpoint set up at the top of the ramp (something the party found out the hard way). The Fisherman’s Guild had been successful in fortifying their guildhall, holding off all attacks so far and Rollins had been successful in meeting with them a few times. He hadn’t been seen at the inn in a week and his room couldn’t be opened as the door seemed bared in some way. Dolgorra gave them a key to Rollins room and told them they could clear his things if they could get in.
The party went upstairs and wasted no time busting the door off its hinges, finding it was wedged closed from the other side with a chair. The room contained all the info Rollins had gathered as well as a telescope he seemed to use to watch over the town. It also contained a large number of blood spatters, long dried and belonging to at least two creatures by the parties estimation.
Rollins notes confirmed everything Dolgorra had told them and added occurrences of bells ringing out across the town followed by waves of green energy that caused all sorts of strange things to happen: people disappearing, animals from other places dropping from the sky, rooms being completely rearranged, just to name a few. Bodies had been seen being taken to the cannery but Rollins hadn’t investigated what was going on there yet according to his notes.
His most recent notes spoke of wanting to get help from the Fishermen’s Guild, maybe see if they could escape via the ocean.
We left off in that room, deciding what to do next.
Early Frost Warning 