Session 3: The Bells of Heathersly Report
General Summary
Disprezzo, the gong farmer vlogare who ran as the Greased Goblin in the Holika Festival, approached Stigala with a strange page of parchment. It was disturbing not only for the "merda santa" (holy shit) that covered it, but also for the unnerving, alien, and evil-looking monster drawn upon it. It came from Hygerd, the holy man who lives as a hermit below the Church of St. Claremont. When Hygerd was approached about the drawing, he raved about a "dragon" and a "herald that would still the ringing" and other madness.
At nearly the same time, Benevolence came to Rowan, recounting her story of returning to her farm near Heathersly and finding many odd things, including the ground that had warmed, crops that had suddenly grown, and strangest of all, the bell tower of the Pentic shrine toppled by the inhabitants! The bailiff of the village, Berwyn, spoke heresy about a sixth god and the people seem generally angry and rebellious. After Ben seemingly lost time until she found herself milking her cow the next morning, she was concerned enough to report her experience to Cercatore Benedicte and Rowan.
Benedicte tasked Rowan and Elric to journey to Heathersly and investigate the alleged heresy and get to the bottom of the strange occurrences. Taking the curious Stig and hungry Smok with them, the Venerati covered the 10 miles to the farming village.
Once in Longshadow Dale, they indeed noticed some strangeness: the warm ground causing a mist to rise up, a loose dog barking obsessively at something unseen, etc. In the village of Heathersly, they found the bell tower indeed brought down in the plaza, and a crowd gathered around a farmer dragging his wife Elspeth. The woman was raving, shouting about the dragon rising and other madness, speaking in Imperial and some other strange language. When a leper named Radley approached, Elric noted that her condition seemed to improve when the leper rang his bell...
Elric and Rowan tried to calm the situation down but he people were not disposed to listen to priests. The voice of the peasantry was Berwyn the bailiff, and he opposed the Venerati in no uncertain terms. The situation nearly came to blows, but Stig and Elric freed Elspeth and the PCs made their way to the only friendly villager they encountered: the cave of the leper Radley.
After a brief strategy session, the party decide to send the Volgare back to town to get information and send the Venerati to a healing woman named Candyce that Radley spoke of, who might have a treatment for Elspeth.
The priests met Candyce and indeed got a calming tea from her, but more importantly gained the information that as a child, Candyce had met the last Keeper of the Shrine. Under the Keepr's tutelage, she had read the Journal of Dame Giselle and learned about how Giselle and the l'Order Fantome (the Ghost Order) "chained the dragon." The current whereabouts of this journal are not known to Candyce. She also knew about a ring of stones in the forest not far from her hut, but the priests decide not to investigate the creepy henge in a dark forest at night for some reason.
Meanwhile in Heathersly, Smok and Stig made their way into the smithy of Araldo, another volgare, and learned that Berwyn's heresy began by hearing the teachings of "the Herald," who ame to town a few months ago. Araldo himself seems fairly convinced in the idea of a sixth god as well, and Stig did not press the issue too far.
Then Smok expressed a desire to find Berwyn, mentioning that the party needed some food. He found the bailiff's longhouse and stole through a second floor window into the bed loft of the family. He found a large knife, and hid under the bed, then knocked over a small bedside table. Berwyn's wife came to investigate the noise and righted the table, overlooking the hidden Smok.
Smok waited a bit, then tipped the table over a second time. This time Berwyn himself came up to check out the noise. As he bent over to right the table, Smok rolled out from under the bed and struck Berwyn straight through the heart with his own knife. As the bailiff collapsed dead, Smok rolled back under the bed. He quickly slipped out the window, just as Berwyn's young daughter came looking for him.
At the rendezvous at the leper's cave, Elric was furious with Smok, literally hanging him off the ground to spend the night suspended as penance. In the morning, which brought a steady rain, the four journeyed back to Candyce and made their way to the stone ring...and found one of the massive menhirs dug up and lying flat on the ground...
