Trouble in Newsam

After 18 months at war as members of the Cerulean Legion, Yuri, Nocana, Roshani Folkor, and I (Crephi) were camping outside of and enjoying the market in the town of Newsam before our caravans took them all in our separate directions.

Yuri went to visit the leather worker trying to find some hobnails for his boots. While waiting for those to be produced he went to the bridge and did some fishing. He ended up catching a stick, which he kept, assuming that eventually the meaning of it will be made clear.

I walked around the market for a while just taking in the hustle and bustle of regular life, something I've missed during my time at war. Wandering the market for a while I found a couple of guys that had been "gambling" with each other, trading money back and forth playing dice. I joined them and, possibly fudging the dice rolls a little bit, took their money from them.

Nocana wandered the market just enjoying everything going on. He stopped and watched me do some gambling for a bit, then saw Yuri fishing and chatted with him for a bit.

Roshani Folkor traveled around the town looking for any interesting materials and spent some time tinkering. She ended up making an instrumental box that makes some little noises.

Suddenly a fire sprung up from a house north of the market! Rushing to help in any way we could, Yuri was first in the door and searched the house for anyone inside. Finding a human female (Alyson Kincaid) and a half-orc male (Glory Fallhammer) on the second floor, he urged them to get out of the house.

At about this time four small kruthik (insectoid creatures) crawled up out of a fissure that had formed at the base of the chimney, which was causing the house to collapse and catch fire.

I encouraged the inhabitants of the town to organize a bucket brigade to keep the fire from getting more out of control and then ran into the house to put myself between the kruthik and any civilians. Attacking one of them, I easily killed it

Of the people that I told to organize the town to help, one of them took off in an unhelpful, possibly evil, direction. The other two appeared to actually be trying to organize the town.

Tapping his divine power, Nocana bolstered my defenses then, extending his hand to one of the creatures an ominous bell sounded and dealt some damage to it. 

Wielding an arcane device, Roshani began extinguishing the fire and attacking the kruthik with bolts of freezing cold.

Unfortunately the boost provided to me was not quite enough, the remaining three kruthik attacked, and I fell unconscious.

After defeating a few more of the insects, the last one burrowed away and Nocana stabilized me. I'm told I have Yuri to thank for getting me out of the house. With the help of the rest of the town, the fire was brought under control.

Investigating the fire and the fissure in the middle of it, it was determined that the hole was created by the kruthik burrowing into the house, and this was likely also the cause of the fire. Nocana noticed a glowing orb of magic in the hole.

In the marketplace, Yuri spoke with the people that were in the house (Alyson Kincaid & Glory Fallhammer) and led them to the rest of the party.

Giovani, the matriarch of the town, proposed that someone should travel into the hole and see if they can determine the reason all of this happened. The party volunteered and while the town people dug the holes bigger to accommodate us, we took a rest and had a meal.

Eventually we traveled into the tunnel, going deeper, following a trail of magical heat rocks, and fighting kruthik, until finally we came across a large cavern that was host to a large community of kruthik of all different sizes.

Heading back to town, Nocana spoke to Giovani and mentioned what we found (omitting the information about the heat rocks, that is, that it appeared someone led the kruthik to attack Alyson Kincaid's house), she then invited us to her home for supper that evening with Alyson Kincaid and Glory Fallhammer. She also invited Keiland Knowles also.

At the supper, we were informed of Alyson Kincaid's real name and we were told of her family's reputation as basically a crime family in Inez Borin.

Since it seems that Alyson Kincaid's life is under threat, they asked if we could help deliver her to Inez Borin, which we seemed pretty amenable to.

Yuri then received some very disappointing hob nails.

Suddenly two hooded people crashed through the windows of the manor!

Continued in Leaving Newsam