S1: Witches Get Stitches

Participants
Lur Shell Crusher

Aurora Evelyn Lucia

Gerdo Stoneseer

George the Potato Farmer

Goober

Summary
A group of five hired hands were brought in by Pirjo Sankari, an elusive merchant, to investigate some sinister activity occurring in the Maul. She detailed that several children of well-off families had been going missing in a district where she had some investments that she didn’t want affected by the trouble.

Feeling unsure of where to start, the mercenaries decided to get down to some groundwork to gather information about the kidnappings. With his smaller stature Goober suggested himself to be dressed up as a child to be used as bait. The other four waited and watched from a distance while Goober wandered down a suspicious looking alleyway with some unusual claw marks on the walls. Suddenly, he was somehow grabbed and taken by surprise in spite of it being impossible for him to be taken by surprise. A scuffle ensued, ending with Goober slashing at his assailant, causing them to flee with a shrill squeal. Seeing their companion in trouble, the other four were quick to pursue, finding Goober relatively unscathed in a musty old house.

Unable to get a good look at his assailant, Goober noticed that his knife covered in a foul green acidic fluid, which was also noticed forming a trail on the stairs leading upstairs. Lur charged up the stairs before being blindsided by a set of sharp claws which dug into his carapace. After some shouting and slashing around blindly, the crab warrior’s eyes adjusted to the dark and he found himself alone. Some skittering could be heard from above the ceiling and it was quickly apparent that the attacker had fled to somewhere else in the house. Aurora and Lur continued exploring the upstairs rooms, finding tattered children's clothing littered across the floor of the bedroom. Meanwhile, George, Goober and Gerdo stayed on the main floor, trying to find something of value. After examining a dissonantly clean book on a dusty bookshelf, Gerdo managed to find a hidden passageway leading underground. Journeying slightly deeper, they noticed some strange glowing runes on the bottom of the wall which made the three of them uneasy enough to call back the rest of the group before proceeding.

Once regrouped, the five of them journeyed into the depths of the caves beneath the house where they were attacked by some skeleton warriors summoned up from the bones in the depths of the cave. Once they were dispatched, Gerdo pulled out his trusty bottle of booze and used it to determine that their quest’s end would be found at the end of the tunnel.

Inching forward they could hear more skittering just ahead, prompting them to get into battle formations. A gut wrenching scream could be heard as they were horrified to see a terrifyingly disfigured spider creature with the head of a human woman crawling along the ceiling directly towards them. A grueling battle ensued in which the heroes were brought dangerously close to death by the creature's vile clawing attacks, spells and corrosive blood. In the end the adventurers prevailed thanks to Aurora's heroic acrobatics and flame slashes, Goober's leaping sneak attack, Lur's full body toss, George's phalanx-work and Gerdo's ineffective attempts at healing (which earned him the ire of Lur when he caused his carapace to fall off during a particularly poor attempt at healing him).

Searching the now cleared dungeon, the party managed to find some surviving children and Gerdo found an emerald broach, which he decided to throw away as he had no use for material possessions. Aurora noticed him doing this with distaste and sneakily pocketed the broach for herself. Gerdo remained curious about the creature's intentions and used his powers to communicate with her spirit. Subsequent interrogation yielded that the creature had been eating the local children, as they were what was sustaining her. George decided that everything that was going on was a little too fucked up compared to potato farming and decided to head back to his farm, leaving his spoils to the rest of the party. Goober also pocketed some poison from the creature.

With everything sorted in the dungeon, the party managed to drag the corpse and the survivors back to Pirjo with considerable effort, which was made all the more difficult by Aurora attempting to manage everyone else’s efforts instead of assisting. After paying them their dues, Pirjo revealed that she believed that the creature was a Witch and decided to ransom the children back to their families, telling them that they did a good job and promising them more work in the future!

Spoils

 * Gold [in the form of pearls]
 * Vial of witch poison
 * Emerald broach