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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Old Fezziwig" data-source="post: 934013" data-attributes="member: 59">Of Sound Mind, Session 2, Part 1Note: Fagan's player was absent for this session.The party attempts to get some information out of Tal.  Unfortunately, the grief-stricken laborer is far too out of sorts to be of any help; they'll have to head out to the farm and take a look at things themselves.  The humans and Fagan grab the trading company's horses while Drona borrows a pony for the short ride out to Othic's farm.Once there, they discover the body, face down in a pool of blood, in the barn.  The torso's nearly been ripped in two and a bit has been shoved into the farmer's mouth.  Cursory inspection reveals that no money has been stolen off of the body.  No one can find any sign of a human presence in the barn.  All in all, the scene's gruesome and rather disturbing; the coppery smell of blood fills the party's nostrils.  The party spends a brief moment paying respect to the dead farmer before they discuss what to do with the body."We should probably contact the authorities."  "Bury it in the Name of Torm.""Maybe we should just leave it alone.""No, we definitely should do something.""But what?""We could bury it.  It's not like we aren't in practice.""This isn't exactly a horse.  We can't just leave him in an unmarked grave.""Why not?""We should Rope off the Scene.  This is a Crime Scene and Nothing should be done to interfere with Justice.""We're not roping off the scene."Around this time, Drona notices Lucille preparing to burn the body.  "You can't burn the body.""Why not?""It's not right.""Actually, burning bodies is an acceptable form of honoring the dead in a number of Faerûnian cultures.  The people of Impiltur and Damara often cremate their dead because of the difficulty in burying people in the hard soil.  In fact, an old Netherese epic mentions this in a number of places, although the language is, at times, vague—""Whitman!  Not now!""He says it's acceptable."  She prepares to light the corpse."Lass, when have we ever paid attention to him before?"Eventually, the decision is made to bury the body in ritual fashion, with Lucille in charge.  Before burying Othic, however, the party makes a cursory check of the farmhouse—nothing has been stolen there either, although Othic does have two kegs of mead.  Whitman and Drona make mental notes to come back for the kegs later.Dragging the body out into the pasture for burial, the party discovers that Othic's horses have arranged themselves into two groups.  Two horses graze alone at one end of the field while the rest of the horses are gathered around the other end of the field.  Jasper, suspecting that something is amiss, scans the area for evil and discovers that the isolated pair of horses is evil.  He rushes into battle."Jasper, lad, where are you going?""These Horses are Evil!""Evil?"The initial parts of the battle go fairly well, in that no one is killed, with Drona and Jasper heading into melee, while Whitman and Fagan provided missile cover.  At a number of points, Jasper feels as if something were grabbing at his mind, but he manages to shake off the intruding force.  Eventually, however, he just can't resist and he feels himself lose control of his own body.  To the rest of the party, Jasper looks like he's dancing—jerking himself around like a crazed marionette.  That's when the other horse transforms itself into some sort of wolf-horse hybrid, snapping large, wolfish jaws at Jasper.Drona, horrified, takes a stab at identifying the creatures—"Werehorses!"—and heads back into melee.  A few spells from Lucille and a well-placed bolt from Fagan's crossbow manage to down the non-lupine horse.  The remaining horse whinnies and taunts the party, mentioning the awesome power of the "beasts in the mountains."  Eventually the party gains control of the battle, but not before Lucille runs out of spells and decides to enter melee combat (with her bare hands).  Bad move.  The wolf-horse snaps at her, almost rending her in two and sending her spiralling into unconsciousness.  Fortunately, Drona manages to finish off the horse well before Lucille dies, enabling him to tend to her wounds.The two horses defeated, Drona and Lucille take another look at the wounds on their heads.  Confident that she can perform the necessary surgery to examine the wound, Lucille pulls out her dagger and sets to work.  She ends up mangling the head badly.   Drona manages to keep her from trying again on the other head and, after some careful study, manages to extract a small crystal splinter from the horse's forehead.  The autopsies done, the party burns the bodies of the dead, and rides back into Whiteford for the town meeting.Note: I have no idea how the party got from giving Othic a proper burial to burning the body.</blockquote>

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