A job well finished, with a party on the horizon!

Well, it's the 30th and I thought I'd take some time to sit and reflect now that the job is done.
 
Leaving off from before I woke the morning of the 23rd and headed downstairs to have a morning feast. My fellows seemed to already have their favorites picked out, but I hadn't sampled the wares before so I ordered everything they hadn't yet ordered from the menu. However, it seems I was wrong in assuming it a feast. They had picked a single meal without thinking of more. This was a good state of mind though. shortly after realizing that, I sampled most of what I had. Meanwhile, they all finished their meal and Calahan had even chatted up another table for more info on the old man's cabin. I wasn't sad to see the food left though. That bus boy or tavern wench was going to eat well for the rest of the day off of those table scraps!
 
We do a days safe travel and end up at the cabin that evening, a good sign the cheeseman always has a trustworthy route to travel and was hopefully fine. We arrive and the door is welcomingly ajar with a faint glow coming from within. All very good signs of a welcoming home from what I've heard tale of and witnessed so far at the inns...everyone else seemed conserned and cautious. The outside world seems to breed such emotions. You can at least say the positive in all the negative is that such caution has helped them survive the situations that their mutual distrust and paranoia creates...enough of all that philosophy though. Save that for later with a nice pipeweed!
 
All we found though was a house filled with spoiled goods and a few goats inside. They thought it also a bit untidy, but what expert at their craft DOESN'T let the side duties go a little bit. Honestly it just looked like he had a bad batch and was so focused on resupplying and resetting before the festival that he just left the bad batch where it was and just set out for resupply. After the group handled a handful of rats that had gathered in the barn, me and the bard heading to the cellar to see if he had stowed away down there or more rats needed clearing out. He found a list of names the old man, I thought, had been assigning to local wildlife. Nothing lifts your spirits more when you live alone then saying hello to a familiar face while out on the scavange. Assigning names to those wildlife just makes it all the more enjoyable. A self-made tight knit community of your own making. Already had a few wolves assigned. He also found a short sword while I found a few potions, come to find they were for healing. The tiefling gives the place another once over and finds a 2nd cellar it was smaller though and just had a strangley large saddle. A note was found too, but I can't recall where.
 
We all pondered a painting in the main living area and debated following some tracks leading from the house after hearing an eerie howl and worrying for the old man. I figured, with the tales going around, finding the old man now to ensure his safety wasn't a bad idea. But most were exhausted and some where injured more than others from the rats, so we stayed the night and headed off first thing on the old man's trail. We encountered some very odd voices along the way asking our business in the forest. They sounded animal in nature but we never got a look at a body. The group was very honest about what we were doing (I was so proud of how trusting the tiefling still was) and the voices left us on our way. We travel for some more time and finally come upon the old man. It seems the only thing he's found on this supply run was a big ol' pickle!
 
A minotaur and some lacky's were using him as a sacrifice in some ritual we jumped to take out the front line while they got a stab in to him. We got him healed and were starting in on the minotaur himself with some range when all the sudden some wolves standing on their hind legs jumped in to help us finish the job and saved the old man. One of the wolves died but it was revealed after passing that underneath all that fir their just humans. Looked similar to the condition of some of the corpes outside Lisontos actually.
 
After saving him he starts to tell us all about these things called vampires which are apparently those undead bodies in town and something about Posidon enlisting a group of his "Werewolves" as "dragon riders" against this unholy foe. All the dragons are of course gone, but the old man and these others remain to keep up the fight.
 
After all that, some of the group talked his ear off while we headed back to town with news of the cheese man. With tomorrow being the holiday and some fresh coin in my pocket I look forward to seeing how these outsiders party when they put their minds to it!