Session 6 Report - Choking the Chicken

General Summary

The party discovers a flock of very ornery chickens, things get a little hairy. Branch lost an eye and then almost dies by a dire chicken and Shuly gets petrified by the cockatrice. Rin manages to wrangle one back to Kaine and the other two get murdered in retaliation.   In town Talbert visits The Dreaming Dryad and purchases 2 standard potions of healing for 50GP/ea. Annoys the owner of the shop, Bruva the goblin who shoos him out the door then locks it behind him. Talbert and Rin meet up with Inva at the cook site and Inva in the middle of reverie. Inva receives a vision during reverie. Talbert looks through Inva's things and takes back his book and one of Inva's scrolls. Rin stacks things on Inva's head, starting with the sending stone. At the evening feast Rin cooks the chicken, they all drink, dance and have fun. Talbert drunkenly wipes ass with squirrel, thinking it was Inva's paper. The party returns to Noamurua's for the night and takes turns on watch.   Inva spends the night following a lead about a discreet healer needed. He finds Aymon Zylra who tasks him with a few errands. Inva catches Aymon following him and points out he isnt doing a good job. Aymon leaves but continues to follow, this time as a bat. Inva runs the errands and meets a few locals. He is tailed by 3 people who chase him clearly intent on no good. Inva ducks into an alley and loses them. When he returns to Aymon's house he is given the metaphorical stamp of approval and lead to a secret entrance. Finds a natural cave that has been expanded in a cellar with 11 people crowded in it with various ailments. After healing as many as he can Inva is told to come back for a "letter of recommendation" into a secret society. Inva returns to the tavern and sneaks into Talberts' room, digs through his things and reclaims his scroll, then puts a pile of donkey shit in Talberts hand and tried to tickle his nose with a feather, but he wakes up swinging.   They party wakes around 10am and discuss the plans. They decide to check in with The Sunset Beacon and see if they had an answer. Talbert bails out to "get a potion for Inva" and finds a note on the potions he bought the day before. He changes course and looks for a "place of worship". The note reads:

To the one this message reaches, I have been sent a vision from Our Smiling Lady. It is perplexing but I am compelled to send this message out with no clear destination. I am certain she has a purpose in her ways, though it is beyond my understanding. My vision is thus; a large bird with legs longer than a humans, displays bright plumage. The silver feathers catch the light and cast rainbows of color around it, brightening its path. It's proud neck is bent by time and worries as it searches for something with growing urgency. As the bird searches a shadowy form stalks its path, as it approaches the bright colors from the bird illuminate its outlive reveling the outline of a rat. Yellow eyes shine forth from the beast as it closes on its quarry. The shadow rapidly engulfs the bird and vanishes into a single point, leaving an upside-down wooden tankard with silver coin spinning in the spot they had occupied a moment ago. Each rotation of the coin drips a single tear of blood from the face into the soil. Each blood tear sprouts a new shadowy monstrosity each with a jewel at its center, spreading darkness as they step away from the slowing coin until everything is devoured by the dark. All except the coin which stands in a single beam of light, teetering on its edge, blank on both sides. I have had this vision every time I have closed my eyes for the past seven-day. I do not know who this message is meant for, but I can feel the urgency and danger within the meaning. If you need aide our places of worship are plentiful and our reach is vast. _{Eola Sunmantle - Head Priestess of Lady Luck, Our Smiling Lady.}

  Rin gets a message during breakfast from Val telling him they have a buyer for the stone. Rin drags Inva out of the tavern to see Val, since he couldn't convince Inva to hand the rock over. Shuly follows. Val tells the group the buyer wants the transaction go through the shop and is offering 20K for it. Rin sees dollar signs. Shuly pulls Rin aside and explains why that may not be a good thing. Rin purchases a glass eye and a dragon talon from Val. Rin counters the offer with 60K and Val agrees to relay that to the buyer.   Talbert visits the gnome & minotaur and meets with a half orc woman and a non-binary human. They pass along some information to confirm they are from the church and Talbert shares the message with the woman. She shares her insight on the message, relaying that the meaning may be of a conflict between Tymora; Lady Luck, and Beshaba; her sister Lady Doom.   The party reconvenes and follows up at The Sunset Beacon. Delgian received a message from Alinafe Iskandar who says:

This item sounds of interest to us. Have the bearers bring it to me at The Radiant Tower. I will pay well for it. Alinafe.

The party decided to go ahead and bring the evil rock to the church. They split again to work on different tasks.   Rin returns to Val's and buys googles of minute seeing, for 300GP, borrows 6 gold from Talbert. Shuly finds a ship that can offer passage for the party if they put in some work. Inva searches for Isaris and can't find her. Gets the party involved in finding her.   They go to the gnome & minotaur and find that Isaris hasn't been there in awhile but that she is a wanderer, never staying in one place at a time, so she's fine. Rin gets a drink and tries to perform a dance, underperforms and sneaks away, ducking upstairs. There, while looking for Isaris he finds a half elven woman walking to the employee area who was wearing a scarf identical to Isaris'. The party makes a plan to burn the place to the ground as a last resort then works on their first resort. They cause a huge commotion in the bar; Inva and Shuly start a fake fight with each other (only Inva was disguised), putting a bouncer through a wall and putting another to sleep. They then took the fight into the main room before Inva unleashed Twilight Sanctuary and caused a kerfuffle, using thaumaturgy to slam open doors and windows, causing mass panic.   Upstairs Rin gets the elven woman alone under the pretext of a private service. He then is a creeper, and then intimidating her into giving him information on where she got the scarf. She admitted her boyfriend gave it to her and gave his name, Oser Rask . Rin then gets the scarf and bails out the 2nd story window.   Meanwhile Gromp Gromp went back to the last place Shuly had seen Isaris. He knocks on the door and when he doesn't get an answer he askes the neighbor if they have seen Isaris. The neighbor tells Gromp Gromp the owner of the house has been out of town for awhile, one of those shipwright types, and the nephew may have been given a key, and his name is Oser. There was a commotion the other night for a bit then it was quite, he didn't know anything more than that. Gromp Gromp uses Branch as a distraction and breaks in to the house through a window. Inside he finds an oddly quiet bedroom, freshly made bed, and Isaris's shirt in the corner of the main room.   Gromp Gromp trails the guys smell to a bookstore, where he finds the kid working. Gromp Gromp tries to talk casually and get answers but Oser starts to act flighty. Gromp Gromp grapples him and drags him into the back where he interrogates the kid. He gets a lot of no answers to his questions before choking him out and tying him up. Tosses him in a corner and leaves, leaving some gold and a note beside the unconscious body. Gromp Gromp goes to connect with the rest of the party.   When the party hears what Gromp Gromp found they take off running to the store where they find 2 people waiting annoyed at the counter waiting to pay for their books. Gromp Gromp tells them it's "free 99 today" so they take the books and leave. The party locks the front door and goes to the back to find Oser Stabbed in the heart, dead. They look for traces of the murderer but don't find anything. Inva catches one of the folks who got free books and finds out that they didn't notice anyone but heard the door open then close a short time later. On the body they find a tiny vial with the remnants of some liquid. Several small scraps of paper with notes written on it, all of them seem to be mundane shop notes, one of them has the faintest texture change in places, indicating some sort of special ink that needs the right conditions to be read.