We crammed in an extra session this month under the assumption that with people getting vaccinated and things opening back up again (for good or ill) scheduling around people's plans (including my own) might get difficult over the summer.
This session was mostly focused on wrapping up some consequences of the last session. We took a half step back from where we ended last time to establish the PCs' plans for holing up in an abandoned farmhouse on the edge of the village and get in a long rest. The others suspected Thron the Druid was still dominated, but even he was exhausted and needed a long rest. They were nearly out out spell slots, very injured, and three of them had been up over 24 hours straight.
Alston the bard/wizard took some time before his rest started to
identify the orb they found (and through which the druid was charmed). He learned it was one of the nine legendary
Seeing Stones of Ariadne: The Orb of Minerva and thus that it was not the stone itself that charmed the druid, but whoever was communicating through the stone.
Resting continued as normal, but on the third watch, Rollo the Barbarian decided to stake out the property a little bit. As he was returning to the house, he spotted a rabbit trying to get in the house. Odd. As he approached, it ran away. He had barely gotten inside and closed the door when he heard something clawing softly at the door. He woke up Ottie (the NPC monk/cleric) to give him back up and opened the door. The bunny bounded in but a lucky roll allowed Rollo to grab it by the scruff. It squirmed and squealed. Bringing it to Alston, who can speak to small forest creatures, the gnome discovered that someone had used
Animal Messenger to summon him and him alone to meet in a nearby wooded area. The message was in gnomish. Before he could decide what to do about this, a scuffle in the outer room drew their attention. Their prisoner, the corrupt priest from the temple, had woken up and tried to escape, but Ottie stopped her. This led to a long and mostly useless interrogation of the prisoner and open discussion about killing her (this would happen many times). Deciding that finishing a long rest was the most immediate priority, they went back to sleep - Ottie and Thron taking the final watch.
Thron, however, wildshaped into a cat and took off for the woods and started to make his way around to alert the enemies of where his companions were.
Ottie woke the others and they agreed they had to leave (after another discussion of what to do with the prisoner). Ottie said she'd carry her if no one else wanted to because she was against killing her tied up, defenseless, and without a trial.
Alston led them to the area where the animal message had told him to go, but no one was there. Then they heard a clap of thunder from the road. Thron had used a spell to summon the bad guys. In that same moment, their friend Erilyn Windfellow found them (she was going through the woods to approach the farmhouse stealthily) and said that the constable and his men, along with the prefect's daughter (a fierce warrior) were going house to house looking for the PCs and they had arrested her father for helping them and would have grabbed her too, but she ran. She was frantic.
The party decided to split up. Rollo and Nora (the ranger/sorcerer) would flee for deeper woods beyond the village, bringing the prisoner with them (knocked unconscious again) and Ottie would follow. Alston used his cloak of elvenkind to hide and hopefully wait for those who sent them the message. Not long after his friends left, Alston witnessed a dog leading the constable and the others into where they had been. The dog was following a scent. It was THRON! Soon they took off after the trail of the others, and Alston decided to stay where he was and wait for those who sent him the missive.
He felt like he was waiting a long time, but eventually he made contact with two gnomes (the first other gnomes he had seen since coming to this part of the world). Dorian Fizz and Llywyllyn Poppoff were agents of some unnamed organization of "Little People" (dwarves, halflings, gnomes, some fey) who keep an eye on the destructive plots and behaviors of "Big Folk" and intervene to stop them when necessary. The gnomes clearly did not like Big Folk much and chastised Alston for bringing them to the meeting spot, which then brought the evil cultists. They were hoping to join forces with the gnome, but he had to convince them that #notallbigfolk. Much delayed, the three gnomes took off after the pursuers.
Meanwhile, Rollo, Nora, and Ottie were fleeing with the ranger picking a path and leading the way. As they hurried through an over grown cornfield (abandoned by some of the missing townfolk they were investigating) they spotted their pursuers on the ridge behind them. Rollo grabbed the prisoner from Ottie (since he is strong and fast) and they double-timed it across the field towards another hilly wooded area in the distance. A few crossbow bolts fell just shy of them.
On the other side, the PCs were able to find a place to try to get the drop on their pursuers, dropping the prisoner priestess as bait. A very tough fight ensued. They underestimated Pelopia the prefect's daughter who was doing devastating damage to Rollo - only his rage ability to take half damage from her swords saved him. Nora was tied up, with Thron-Dog keeping her from getting a good target on the soldiers. But eventually, after several saves upon seeing his friends get attacked and suffering what was for him a very confusing punch to the snout from Nora, Thron succeeded to regaining his own will. Angry beyond measure at what he had been forced to do, the druid brought the pain with a new spell he had just gained
CALL LIGHTNING!
Around this time, Alston and his new gnome allies caught up and helped clean up the remaining guards. Rollo made a case for saving Pelopia before she bled out and they saved one of the guards as well, hoping he would be more likely to give up info. Luckily for them, when she awakened, Pelopia had shaken off the domination, though she still had hazy memories of what had happened to her and her father - guessing her missing sister was still the swamp lair, but not knowing how to get there. When the party mentioned the "woman-headed snake," Pelopia lost it for a moment, quavering in fear with the memory of being face to face with such a creature.
The gnome allies disappeared again (not wanting to hang out with big folk). The party realized that those they defeated represented the last real threat in the village and returned to deal with the prefect and find a way to the swamp lair.
Unfortunately, the prefect's weaker will meant breaking the spell on him did not work, so they tied him to a chair and gagged him, though this clearly hurt Pelopia to do. Going to the now abandoned constable's office, they found Erilyn's father imprisoned and freed him, throwing the stabilized guard and the priestess into cells to deal with later.
We ended the session there, with the party now camping out in the prefect's house and trying to figure out next steps.