Team Alfa Twenty-Third Session

Notes

Return to Town

• As the group approaches Mithril Springs they see a crude sign hangs from the nearest tent: QUARANTINE. Doc Redrock is there and tries to shoo them away saying "Go away, dummies! Shoo! Shoo!"
  • He is wearing goggles instead of his normal lenses and is wearing a smock covered in blood. His hands are likewise red with blood.
• Gorra and the Doc talk in detail about the diseases, a dual outbreak of Sight Rot and Cackle Fever.
• Doc has the patients separated into 3 tents. 1 for patients who have only Sight Rot (which includes many gnomes as they are immune to Cackle Fever), 1 for patients who only have Cackle Fever, and 1 for patients with both.
  • The current infection count is cackle fever: 4, sight rot: 6, double-infected: 14.
  • The current death count is 5.
• Doc is being assisted by Catastrophe Janet and Pastor Griff.
  • CJ is clearly very LUCKY. Pastor Griff is regularly infected and cured as each cure is good for 24 hours.
• Gorra and Wolf aid the doc while Sid directs Wolf in questioning the patients. Due to their illness the patients provide very little useful information.
• Thola resummons Owlbert as an octopus and sends her down a well to investigate.
  • Mal sees this and sends one of his minions, Johnny, to stay with Thola to "maybe keep folk from mixing it up" with her and/or keep an eye on her.
• Party decides to prioritize removing The Cackles from double infected patients, as the eye rot - while gruesome - is not fatal and the newly disinfected can be released from quarantine to free up resources.

Day 2

• Gorra comes down with cackle fever shortly after going to the triage tents. Wolf has already spent their allotment of cures, so there is nothing to be done today.
• The rest of the party continues investigating the wells by lowering octo-Owlbert and an unarmored Wolf who casts Detect Poison and Disease.
• The first few wells reveal nothing, but in the 4th one, in the southeast of town/upper left of map, Wolf finds a dead halfling with a slit throat who had been infected with sight rot.
  • The halfling had been dead for at least a week and his body is in a poor state and beyond identification. The only remarkable thing found from searching is poker chips.
• To be thorough, they search the last well and find nothing else.
• While the body is burned Reth organizes a team to fill up barrels with water to be magically purified so no one needs to use the wells until the disease dissipates.
  • This will occupy Wolf and Blasinov's mornings. Gorra could help, but the cackles keep her down.
• Thola and Sid go to the casino with the chips to ask about the well corpse.
  • They meet the owner, Sly Tallfellow. He seems very urbane and well-mannered. When shown a minor illusion image of the corpse he claims not to have seen him before, but Sid and Thola both notice a flicker of recognition. Sly quickly leaves them, instructing one of his minions working the exchange window, Conn, to give them free chips for their service to the town.
  • Thola quickly loses interest in investigation and heads to the tables. The casino does its job well and she loses her free chips as well as an additional 12gp in very little time.
  • Sid shows the illusory halfling corpse to Leonne who also reacts in recognition before quickly being called away by Sly.

Day 3

• An overflow tent is erected.
• Wolf heals Gorra, but she immediately has a relapse and contracts cackle fever again. Wolf heals her yet again and she is finally able to tell the others about the first case of cackle fever in town.
  • A wild ghostwise halfling was seen barking at the moon 9 days ago, a well known drunk and obnoxious person about town. Several people who got into a scuffle with him were the first to come down with the Cackles
• While Wolf and Gorra heal the sick and purifying water, Sid and Thola continue their detective show and investigate the ghostwise halfling. Asking around halfling town they find 2 of the scufflers who survived. One is a river halfling butcher who mostly shrugged off both diseases, the other lost his eyes and is blind. They are unable to provide much additional about the ghostwise besides he is a prospector who lives somewhere in the mountains and frequently causes drunken disturbances when he comes to town.
  • When Thola shows an image of the dead halfling from the well the butcher sadly informs them the corpse is his cousin, Mickus. Mickus was a skooma addict who frequently hung out with Leonne and did "nighttime removals" for Sly.
  • Thola thanks the halflings and gives them the equivalent in gold pieces found on the body
• Thola and Sid meet up with Wolf and Gorra and swap information.
• Wolf goes off with Reth to detect disease around town and round up any more infected.
• Thola, Sid, and Gorra go to talk with Mal at the Gemstone. While waiting for him, they talk with Dan and Johnny who confirm Mickus and Leonne were often together and worked for Sly. They likely purchased their skooma from Gredd Handy in Halfling Village who is also a sometimes employee of Sly.
  • Also present at the bar is Silas Coin who trades scowls and occasional insults with Dan and Sid. He appears to be working for Mal now, as a "longshanks relations specialist," and is more or less under Mal's protection.
  • Mal comes down and the party informs him of what they've been up to and ask him about Sly. Mal goes on a long rant about how treacherous and murderous Sly is
    • (Meta: Mal and Company are the Lawful Evil squad, while Sly seems to represent Faction Neutral Evil.)
• The party meets back up and heals some more at infected tents. As of the end of the day the sickness totals are:
  • Cackle Fever: 17
  • Sight Rot: 21
  • Double Infected: 0
  • Deaths: 9

Experience & Loot

Experience (each)

• Finding the Source (Sight Rot): 300
• Containing Disease: 500

Loot

• 12 gp in poker chips from the casino