User blog:PeteGoz/The Dredges Episode 2

On questioning by Dorvid and Pectinus, Verla Christie was unable to shed any light on the murder itself. On the morning in question, she arose before her husband to prepare breakfast and ready the forge. On hearing a horrible gurgling noise from the house, she rushed back in to find her husband dead. Distraught, she stumbled into the street barefoot and still in her bed clothes, crying for help. Hope being Hope she was mostly ignored, until the Marshall arrived still in the grip of his previous night’s cups. Taking her back inside, he immediately decided that she had gone mad and killed her husband. She was then arrested, somewhat gleefully, by the deputies.

She begged the two clerics to look after Elwood when the inevitable happened to her. Probing her further on recent events, our adventurers discovered that Verla had recently been the recipient of some unwanted advances from Maurice Hagen, the stablemaster. When Verla rebutted his advances he got very angry, though at the time she thought little of it. Nor did she tell her husband. Our intrepid sleuths sought out the stables and after a chat with an enterprising and now slightly wealthier stable hand, discovered where Maurice Hagen bedded down, and also that he was not currently home.

On hearing movement upstairs Clyde bravely brought this to the attention of the halfling clerics and sent them up first, where the party came face-to-innards with a couple of undead husks; jelly-like boneless human bodies. Dorvid blew one apart with divine light, whilst Pectinus charged in (literally) then smashed his way out with holy fire. Meanwhile, DeFago had a flashback to WIdwinter presents of old and Clyde covered the rear. A thorough search of the loft area uncovered what appeared to be paraphernalia relating to some unknown cult [Alabaster mask, expensive looking black hooded robe, candle, censer, incense, sack, tinderbox]. DeFago also uncovered tracks, suggesting Hagen had headed into the woods at speed.

What now? With the corpses and cultist gear, our heroes can potentially prove Verla’s innocence, but as DeFago pointed out through adept use of imaginary back daggers, they don’t know who to trust, who is a cultist, who isn’t. Or do they follow Maurice Hagen in the hope of bringing him to justice before he can alert his fellow cultists? And where are those skeletons that the husks were missing…..