With Frida keen to examine the baker's body and Burlok keen to do
some digging, the team got permission from both the widow and local law
enforcement and got to work. It wasn't particularly enlightening.
However, while the body was being examined, a local noble showed up, in
urgent need of a party of four to six adventurers to help 'rescue' his
brother from an evil cult.
Sure, why not? The cult were
apparently meeting in a mausoleum, and since the one theory we had come
up with for the missing animals that didn't involve stacking was that
they had been eaten by a vampire, this seemed like a reasonable place to
look.
We were joined by a couple of locals as well as the noble -
the road warden who'd first met us, and one of the noble's blaublut
friends. All were very relieved when the dwarves were willing to go
first. As usual, Mormacar offered to be in the rear.
We
descended into the mausoleum, discussing vampires, which didn't seem to
reassure our companions at all. Frida assured them that if they really
thought there were vampires down there, she wouldn't be there. While
checking the desiccated corpses that lined the corridor for embedded
wooden stakes.
Inside the mausoleum we found a complete dearth of
cultists, but did find the noble's older brother lying on a stone
table, a ceiling full of bats, and a mysterious figure lurking behind
the table. On engaging him in conversation he turned out to be quite a
personable vampire, of the family on the purple coat of arms we'd found
earlier. We also found the remains of a rat, a chicken, a goat and a
dog, which confirmed our earlier suspicions.
We had a remarkably
pleasant chat with the vampire, who really seemed quite reasonable
compared to the noble who'd fed his older brother to a vampire, but
ultimately we were forced to get rid of him. He was pretty tough and
not easy to damage, but once Mormacar had thrown a net at him he was at
least reasonably easy to hit. The corpses in the corridor
unsurprisingly animated and attacked, but the road warden and blaublut
held them back. The bats on the ceiling coalesced into a batman, but
the road warden and Frida swiftly dispatched him.
After some
hairy moments (Mormacar nearly died), the zombies were dealt with and
the vampire was finally taken down. Well, maybe. He turned into a
cloud of bats. Gildiril, for reasons that weren't entirely clear, threw
brandy into the batnado. The batnado attacked, adding blood to the
swirl of brandy and bats. Frida found this sufficiently terrifying that
she left immediately.
Eventually everyone else emerged, not
saying much about whether the vampire had actually been defeated or not,
and the group headed back to the village. The noble, whose father had
just died, making him the new ruler of the village, was very pleased to
have his brother out of the way and the vampire (apparently) dealt with.
He promised to get a new chicken for Gertrude, and granted everyone
titles. More importantly, he also provided gold. Frida, concerned that
there might still be a vampire in the mausoleum, suggested that the
noble keep a close eye on his villagers.
Frida healed everyone's
wounds except for Mormacar (she found his wounds just a bit more
difficult than everyone else's for some reason) who was forced to resort
to poultices and drafts. Everyone ate a lot of garlic, and we set out
for the next leg of our journey. One which we were assured would end in
an inn.
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