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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 1257361" data-attributes="member: 1210">The TownsfolkThe town is dark as our tired heroes descend the mountain towards it.  Sure, it’s late; but there’s nobody around.  Even the Bell & Clapper is shut up tight.“I’m scared,” Federico whines.The party pokes around for a few minutes, not finding anything.  Nobody up, nothing- and then, coming down the street, a glimpse of movement in the dark.  A man, accompanied by the dead.  Three skeletons surround him; he wears the raiment of a pries of Bleak, the Black Sun unholy symbol proudly displayed at his breast.  “You there!” he calls.  “What’s going on here?  Throw down your weapons!” Brother He motions for the children to hide, hoping to get them out of the way of possible combat.  He doesn’t speak Strogassian, and there seems likely to be trouble; it’s the only thing for him to do.  Sandy, meanwhile, cautiously answers the Bleakist, starting to back away.  “We don’t know what’s going on.  There were some kind of nightmares and-““Throw down your weapons now!”Brother He starts moving back towards Sandy and the evil cleric.“We don’t mean you any harm-“The man snarls and makes a gesture with one hand.  The skeletons advance.  So does the human; and in a few moments Brother He is unconscious and bleeding and our heroes have cast down their weapons.  The man confiscates several of them, then snaps, “Now then!  I am a tax collector!  Let’s get things straight- defy the me and you defy the Empire, and when you defy the Empire you die.”  He turns to Sandy.  “How much money do you have?”Reluctantly, Sandy mumbles, “About sixty gold.”“Give me thirty-five.”No less reluctantly, Sandy forks it over.“And you’re lucky you’re getting off that easy!  Attacking a tax collector is a capital offense!” “We didn’t really attack you,” Sandy mumbles, but is ignored.The Bleakist casts cure light wounds on Brother He, whose eyes crack open.  His head throbs from the mace blow that took him down- and now his adversary has brought him around!  Confused, he stands up as the man says something to him in a warning tone.  If only I spoke their tongue! Brother He thinks.“He doesn’t speak Strogassian,” Sandy informs the cleric, and translates into halfling: “He’s a tax collector.”“Oh,” Brother He says.  It all makes sense now.  No wonder he has skeleton guards!  He needs something to guard him in a dangerous job like that!  And of course, Brother He firmly believes in doing his civic duty.  He gladly hands over most of his coin.  Now that the group is on a little better footing with the tax collector, he eases up on them a little.  Though he declines to return the confiscated weapons, he also declines to carry out any summary executions.  He demands to know what they know about the situation, and they tell him the skeleton of their tale. “Well, this is a pretty penny,” the tax collector sneers.  “Well, I did some investigation before I ran across you and found that the townsfolk are all in their buildings, locked away- but immobile.  But if you mess with one of them, they’ll all start reacting to you.  I lost my fourth skeleton that way.  So the whole town is under some sort of spell from something going on in the mountain, huh?  And you are adventurers who’ve been checking it out?”“That’s about right,” Sandy confirms.”Well then, I’ll tell you what.  I’m out collecting taxes and I have quotas to meet.  If I can’t tax the townsfolk here I have to tax somebody else...”  He trails off meaningfully.  “That means either you, or your little gathering of the clans.”  Apparently he doesn’t believe in leaving things to implication.  Wouldn’t want any misunderstandings, I guess.  “So either you resolve this issue, or I’ll be filling my quota elsewhere.  And to make sure you don’t try to do anything foolish, I’ll leave a skeleton to keep an eye on you.”Our heroes have little choice but to agree.  The tax collector leaves to see to his own needs, whatever those may be; but he won’t be far (we’re reasonably sure).  The party decides that they have to rest.  The townsfolk don’t seem to be dangerous at this point.  But it’s well past midnight and our heroes have had a long, hard day of mountain climbing, goblin-battling, and strange mental pressure.  Not to mention the humiliation of being mugged by a damn tax collector.  So our heroes find a comfortable spot on a lawn on the edge of the plaza and lay down to sleep.  They drift off, trusting the undead skeleton to serve as a guard, and sink into exhausted slumber.  But the sound of fighting wakes them less than a handful of hours later.  Tired eyes creak open-There are lots of glassy-eyed townsfolk coming. The skeleton has already slain several, but there are more, pulling it down, overwhelming it...“Get up!” screams Trinia.  “Get up!!!”Scrambling out of their sleep, the halfling clan (and allies) stumble to their feet and start to retreat.  There are so many people coming...!  It looks like the whole town is coming out...Suddenly, all of them speak at once.”YOU CANNOT RESIST ME.  SUBMIT YOURSELVES... OR DIE.”“Back to the mountain!” Brother He shouts in halfling.  He doesn’t care what the villagers just said.  It’s time to go.Fortunately for our heroes, the villagers seem to be slow, moving with a stiff, staggering gait that doesn’t have much speed in it.  Unfortunately, the party is extremely tired* and the villagers don’t look to be tiring at all.  The party also has the disadvantage of being short-legged and naturally slower than the majority of the villagers.  Still, they open a certain amount of distance as they clamber back up Steeple Mountain towards the dragon’s mine entrance. As they approach, the children become more and more hesitant.  “I don’t want to go back in there,” Tala says in a quavering voice.  Sandy, gasping for breath, only gestures back at the mob of hundreds following the party.  Grimly our heroes try to put cover between themselves and the mob, but the voices in their heads are acting up in full effect.Then Caleb gives a great howl and a lance of mental anguish washes over our heroes, and the boy explodes into psionic violence.*They were on the edge of suffering from the fatigued condition.  (If I recall correctly, they were officially fatigued after re-ascending the mountain to the dragon’s corpse.)  Nobody looked up the penalties until much later in the session- we thought it was a penalty to rolls, not to ability scores.  Had we looked it up earlier, Federico would have been out the whole time, as his natural strength is a 1.Next Time: Beginning the update sequence written by Thelonious' player!  The town’s pursuit continues!  Will our heroes survive?  Who will fall before the onrushing horde?  I’ll post an update tomorrow or even late tonight!</blockquote>

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