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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Joshua Randall" data-source="post: 1029865" data-attributes="member: 7737">"Something is seriously wrong with this town." - Brogun the InsightfulAfter returning to the inn of the Bell and Clapper, the Kestrels reflected upon what they had learned from Utrish. The more they thought about it, the more worried they became, until they reached the conclusion that “no one in Bellhold would be left to dream” meant “everyone in Bellhold would be dead.” As heroic adventurers, they could not allow this to happen, and resolved to continue their investigations on the morrow.That night, each of the adventurers had a horrible nightmare.They awoke with dull background headaches and a terrible sense of foreboding. Staggering down to the common room of the inn, the Kestrels stared into each other’s ashen faces. Each silently resolved not to speak of their dreams, so upsetting were the memories.They had waited over an hour for Othic to meet them for breakfast when one of his stableboys burst into the Bell and Clapper. “Help! Help! Othic is dead!”Springing to their feet, the Kestrels rushed out of town to examine this unexpected development. They found Othic’s body inside his own stable, face down in a pool of rapidly congealing blood. The only tracks Kell could locate were those of several horses that had apparently panicked and rushed outside.Gingerly turning over Othic’s body with his foot, Kell suppressed a gag at what he found. The old man had been nearly bitten in half by something with an extremely large and toothy mouth. That in itself was troubling enough. What moved the scene from “typical grisly murder” to “surreal grisly murder” was the fact that Othic had a bit shoved deeply into his mouth and bridle strapped tightly to his face.Kell knelt and examine the tracks more closely. Something was not right here. Instead of several different horses each leaving one set of tracks, there were one or two horses each leaving multiple sets of tracks. Indeed, it looked like Othic had died not so much from the bite (mortal though that wound may have eventually proven) as from being repeatedly trampled.Upon the conveyance of this information, Brogun quickly deduced that Othic’s horses Blaze and Broadsword, whom the adventurers had met the previous day, must be the murderers. Kednor raised an eyebrow at this deduction and made a mental note to make sure Brogun stopped drinking before bedtime.Dubious thought this assertion seemed, Brogun was determined not only to prove its truth, but to exact justice upon the perpetrators of the crime. He marched out of the stable and into the fields, where most of the horses could be seen grazing in a group nearby. Most, that is, save for two that were standing head-to-tail at the far end of the field in the shade of scraggly tree.“There are the culprits!” Brogun pointed. “Kell – approach them and use your skill at handling animals to convince them to come quietly.”Kell began to object, citing the extremely large bite taken out of Othic, but Brogun pointed out that the horses lacked the enormous, toothy maws necessary to inflict such a wound. In that case, wondered Kell, why was the dwarf so sure they were the murderers? Brogun had no answer for that, but his foot to Kell’s backside convinced the latter to approach the horses.Apparently, however, Blaze and Broadsword were not in the mood for company. As Kell approached, the former attempted to dominate his mind and force him to dance, while the latter’s eyes rolled back in its head and its muzzle distorted into an enormous, toothy maw, very much like the one that had bitten Othic. Identical, in fact.Kell fought off the imposition on his will, but had little time to reflect on what was happening before Broadsword tore a medium-sized chunk out of his side; the tearing of a larger chunk only being averted by Kell’s quick reflexes.Brogun and Kednor came clanking across the field as fast as they could, and soon a furious melee was joined, man and dwarf against horse. The equines fought like savages. Broadsword ripped painful bites out of all the combatants while Blaze, frustrated that his mental commands were ineffective, resorted to aiming hoof-kicks at his enemies’ heads. At last, however, the Kestrels were victorious. An examination of over the bloody and broken bodies of the murderous horses once again revealed the scabbed over wounds on each one’s forehead. Kell dug inwards with his sharp poniard, finding that each horse had a three inch long sliver of bluish crystal embedded in its head. Minor divinations revealed no auras upon these slivers, however, so the baffled adventurers shrugged and chalked it up to yet another mystery to be solved at a later date.= = =After burying the horses and Othic, the Kestrels spent the remainder of the day conducting further investigations into the strange happenings in Bellhold. Mayor Waterman was informed of Othic’s death and Utrish’s departure. The politician was aghast at both developments, and admitted that the brave face he had put on for the local voters – er, citizens – was mostly a façade. He strongly urged the Kestrels to undertake whatever searches they thought best.Kell made a quick circumnavigation of the outlying farms, looking for any more animals or people with crystal slivers in their foreheads. However, despite convincing everyone he met to submit to the supposed Bautarian head-grabbing-and-rubbing greeting, Kell did not discover anything out of the ordinary. He did speak to the parents of the missing children and learned that the kids had last been seen playing in the woods near the river.Meanwhile, Brogun and Kednor bullied their way into Lucius Krekket’s mine. The owner was not pleased to see the two, and ungraciously declined their offer to use their dwarven stonecunning to inspect his mine for unsafe passages. And, despite probing and less than polite questioning, Krekket proved to be neither evil nor dishonest. Frustrated, the dwarves departed.Reuniting in town, the Kestrels next set off for the spot where the missing children had last been seen. Keel had little difficultly locating the children’s tracks, as well as the tracks of some other type of humanoid. It appeared that the children had been taken unawares as they frolicked in youthful innocence, carried up the mountain and towards [cue ominous music] the abandoned mine of Copperdeath.With all signs pointing to a foray into the conveniently located dungeon – that is, the nexus of so many of Bellhold’s problems – the Kestrels set off. Kell discovered yet another set of tracks, this one made a few days ago by about four people wearing hiking boots: probably the aforementioned Heroes of the Bell, the local adventuring troop that was also searching for the missing children. It was resolved to join up with this other group and combine resources, so Kell pursued their spoor. Their tracks led around the back of Steeple Mountain where it joined an old game trail that wound its way upwards.Near the mountain’s peak, the trail ended outside a sealed off entrance into the abandoned mine – where a knotted rope dangling downwards testified to the recent passage of the Heroes of the Bell. Traversing this rope proved surprisingly difficult until Brogun and Kednor agreed to remove their armor, after which time it became remarkably easy.Inside the mineshaft, the air was cold and damp. All around, water glistened on the walls and dripped in the distance. Standing still, the adventurers could hear quiet scrabbling noises as of hundreds of tiny creatures moving across the stones – but as soon as they moved, the noises stopped. The hair rose on the backs of their necks as Brogun invoked a light spell and led the way into the mine.An outer room held only broken mining equipment and puddles of blue-green water. Up ahead, the mining tunnel proceed through an archway with a curious carving of a draconic face upon the lintel. Underneath the archway could be made out a pile of humanoid heads that seemed to move slightly of their own accord. Swallowing loudly,  Brogun stepped up to examine—“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeoooooooooooooooo!”The dwarven priest leaped two feet in the air. Each of the heads opened its decaying mouth and screamed, an ear-splitting wail. Frantically, Brogun swatted at the heads with his axe until he silenced them. Large beetles, their snacking disturbed, scurried across the floor and disappeared in cracks near the walls.Brogun stood, panting, the blood pounding loudly in his ears. He motioned his cowering friends forward (Kednor, shame-faced, promised not to cover his eyes next time) and examined the heads.All but one of them were badly decayed and nearly unrecognizable – clearly not human (or dwarf), but of some indeterminate creature. The last head, however, clearly was human; it was that of a youngish woman with blonde hair, and was only a few days old. One of the Heroes of the Bell? Brogun shivered.Onwards. A room to the left held several pools of water as well as a less pleasant pool of that notorious adventurers’ bane, green slime. A carved message on a rock near the slime bore a note indicating that this particular patch was the final resting place of one of the Heroes of the Bell. The Company of the Red Kestrel burned the slime in belated revenge.They also discovered an old mining office; inside it, a desk held crumbling papers and copper knick-knacks (including a tarnished mirror). All items were pocketed for possible later use.Next, to the right: an abandoned barracks for the miners. Outside this room the Kestrels could smell a horrific stench, as of a charnel-house, while inside it a veritable swarm of beetles crawled and munched on the sack-like mounds of flesh heaped on each bed. The beetles scattered away from Brogun’s light, allowing further examination – not that anyone was anxious to make it – of the de-boned corpses. They appeared to be the deliquescing bodies of troglodytes.Kednor and Brogun exchanged glances: in his diary, Thrommel Redstone had written of being forced to work alongside trogs during his mental enslavement by Copperdeath.“If these are their skins,” wondered Kell, “then what happened to their bones?”Brogun said nothing, but he clenched the haft of his waraxe more tightly.Suspecting undead, the Kestrels were not surprised when a series of side tunnels held six troglodyte zombies. Brogun turned some, and the others fell to axe, hammer, and sword. Further into the mine, a closed door barred the way. From beyond it came a horrible smell, so bad that it left Kell weakened.As the Herbalish scout shakily examined the door, a whispery voice from the other side hissed a warning. “Have you come to slay me as you slew the rest of my warriors? Then open the door and meet your doom!”That was all the inducement Brogun needed to put his shoulder to the door, and the Kestrels began a running pursuit of the green-skinned figure that eluded them through the winding mining tunnels. The adventurers took a few wrong turns before Kell’s sense of direction was able to guide them to the northeast.It was a large chamber, obviously of great importance. Across the eastern wall, a huge carven stone dragon reared up, its eyes a pair of glowing gemstones that stared at the massive copper offering bowl set upon a stone dais in front of it. Several stone benches were arrayed throughout the room facing the idol, as in a temple, except that instead of live worshippers, each bench held an intact troglodyte skeleton.The Kestrels gaped about them, but their reverie was interrupted by the same whispery voice they had pursued. “Come, then. See how you like my Bonetangle!”From a corner to their right, many bones clattered upon the floor, and the shape of something wrong heaved its bulk into view.</blockquote>

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