Unnatural Acts in Greybank

Present

• Cody Dieback. Human Male Wizard from Highport – Andrew
• Jack "Blocker" Jones. Human Male Temple Fighter of Aquamarina from Porn City – Jamie
• Tom Eade. Human Male Fighter from Porn City – Jeff
• MARMALADING: Esmeralda "Ezme" Abernathy. Human Female Temple Fighter of Soixante Neuf from Scabport – Shane
• MARMALADING: Ardern. Human Female Priestess of Mr Quail from Porn City – Kevin
• MARMALADING: Rock Hammer. Human Male Barbarian from Central Plains – Steven
• Willow. Half-elf Male Caribou Gorn Priest from Porn City - Chris
• Kippy Hunt. Human Male Barbarian of the Central Plains – Ian
• Munch Ease. Human Male Thief from Porn City – Darryl

by Jamie/Jack

Ardern, Ezme and Rock continued to marmalade quietly in the corner.

I sailed the barge up the Porn River. We got word from the Poncho and Cap Inn that a badly-steered barge had passed by a few days ago. 

We reached the township of Bodkin coming on dusk. We stayed at the Bodkins Rest. I talked to the dock workers and heard that the barge had passed through a couple of days earlier. The dockers had noticed a strange fog around the barge. We tried to get a (barge draught) horse from the dockers but there was none for hire. Lois went up to a farm house and managed to buy a couple of horses from a farmer. They were the oddest looking creatures you have ever seen. I am sure that ‘orses were supposed to have 4 legs. I suspect that they had been intended for the knackers yard. Still, somehow they did the job. 

We passed another small village called Pestard. Same story. A barge passed through three days earlier. We decided we needed to press on so we decided to keep the barge going into the late evening.

Late at night we reached Wittenburg and decided to stop there.

The following morning we set off and reach Thrumming Brook. Some dark fellow had gotten off the barge and gone into to town. He returned after a couple of hours. Lois and I went down to the only pub to see if he had visited, the Swillers Ditch Inn. The inn keep hadn’t seen anyone so we went to the general shop. No luck. We went on to the apothecary. Orin at the apothecary lied about not seeing him. He said he worked for the Throaks and was involved in trying to working out what was infecting people. I don’t right know if that were true but he was clearly hiding something. 

We pushed on and a little before dark we pulled in to a place where barges occasionally pull up. We camped for the night. It pissed rain but was otherwise a quiet night. In the morning we headed up river toward Greybank. The river was quite tricky and I had to steer the barge through some shallows. We noticed straight away that there was a Throak barge tied up. Knock me down with a feather, Lois immediately noticed that the Throak crest on the boat was a forgery. We paid off some dockers and they confirmed that the barge had docked two days ago and that the cargo had been transferred onto a cart and headed into town. Some of the group headed into town. Munch said that the Jamiesons and the Shis are the big families in town.

Willow's Cup

The group decided to stay at the Willow’s Cup. Marjorie Till was the owner and she was very friendly. Told us that the horse and cart had been seen heading through town but hadn’t seen it herself. She told us to go to the Unicorn and Vibrator and talk with Mistress Foss. The man with the cart had stopped here and his driver went to the Methuselah temple (Time). The Methuselah temple is run by Horatio Shi. Willow’s Cup was real nice and we didn’t even get food poisoning. I had a great sleep and felt much better the following morning.

We headed down to the Methuselah temple. Horatio was polite but unhelpful. I went outside and I saw tracks and a what looked like a heavy horse but it could have been a sheep. I had a look in the stable and there was a cart and horses but not the ones we were looking for. Munch snuck into the back room to see if there was aught there. There wasn’t. Horatio politely told us to leave. He told us that he had a meeting in 24.16 minutes and he headed off on a cart and buggy. Willow followed as a starling. Horatio went up a side lane and then turned up a drive that had a Shi crest on the gate. He was greeted by a woman, who Willow thought was his wife.

Unicorn & Vibrator

We wandered into town arguing. A variety of not very sensible ideas were discussed. The ability of dogs to see through invisibility was discussed in detail. I wandered down to the docks and asked about the driver. The dock workers were friendly but they couldn’t remember the other driver of the cart. We went back to Mistress Foss’ at the Unicorn and Vibrator to ask about the driver. 

Lois and I went back to the Willow’s Cup and asked Marjorie about whether anyone had recently arrived in town. No one had but she told us that the Shis had had financial problems ten years ago. Then they came into money. They are also quite aloof.

It all adds up. The Shis must be involved in whatever is going on. The following evening we headed towards the Shi estate and sent Willow as an owl, in to have a look. Willow’s owl peaked into the stable. The large black horse from the barge was there. Willow took position in a tree to observe things. 

Willow got lucky

Then Willow got lucky. Two people, the one we were looking for came out (dark man with dreadlocks). The other was Horatio. They walked over to a copse and seven more people including our inn keeper (Marjorie) came out. They had hoods with distorted Methuselah masks. The egg was brought out of a warehouse and then hanged under a tree. They started chanting and the egg started to gradually crack. Willow was running out of time so he flew back. Munch snuck onto the grounds and watched the rest of the ceremony. The egg was clearly being worked on. It didn’t hatch tonight. The cultists had white fungus appearing on their masks.

As the ceremony finished Munch ran back to the group. We made our way back to the inn. The inn run by an unnatural cultist. We decided to wait till morning and then lie to Marjorie to tell her that we had given up and were going back to Porn City. She semi tried to dissuade us from leaving but we highlighted that we thought that the cart and its cargo was probably long gone. To keep up with the ruse, we headed down to the dock and sailed off.

Two hours downstream we docked and hid the barge under some willow trees. We then argued again about what we should do. Munch suggested running away and letting the egg hatch. 

"Not our problem," he said. 

Tom, Cody and I felt that we had to do something before the egg hatched.