Lockdown!

General Summary

about 7:00 p.m.

Grolm 8th, 578

Entering Purgatory Gulch at night is a different sensory experience than what you had the morning of Grolm 7th. Was that really only two days ago?

You came in that bright, hot morning to a quiet street, barely a breeze to blow the dirt around. The place was quiet on a late summer's morning.

Night falls in Purgatory earlier than it does in the plains to the south, purely because the sides of Oatman Canyon are so tall. Once again the distant hills gleam golden. But here in the town, and in the hills to the north, night rules immediately.

And the town is bustling.

Those of you who take it in for a second can hear the cheep of crickets, the almost subsonic whine of tiny (and probably bitey) gnats. North of the Purgatory Saloon, on the downward slope that leads toward Oat Livery, geckos chirp and click at one another as they seek an evening meal. The calls of nocturnal songbirds echo off the distance.

Closer to your needs: there's an undercurrent of turmoil.

You hear the occasional bam-bam-bam of some ranch hand or farm hand trying to add protective armor across a busted window.

You hear the wooden taps or crystalline clink of contents in small chests bumping one another in time to the hurried steps of whoever carries them across the dirt street.

You hear voices. Not their words, but their tone. These people are worried. They are angry about their worry. They are not of one mind as to how to solve it.

Right at first, you do not see Padre Cirino De Mario or any of the other people to whom you have introduced yourselves. Do you want to seek them out first? Or get yourselves into the Purgatory Gulch General Store and load Wrong Way up first?

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Return to Purgatory

• Town is sealing up to survive the night
• Several people are preparing to leave, probably forever, at first light
• Arguments abound but are not LOUD so much as they are brief, intense short clashes.
• Padre will give what he can. He "can" give MORE if the PCs give him a reason to hope. He thinks he is going to die at his post. He plans on "standing vigil" tonight on the surface floor of the schoolhouse, although he really wishes everyone would move to Jasper Chapel instead. The schoolhouse is not holy ground.
• Padre wants to torch the shop of "that woman". And the Lich Tree behind it.
• Miss Amore says "no". She says the fire will definitely spread to her saloon, and that will likely explode. At that point, she says, we might as well give up on all of Oatman Canyon forever.
• Mr. Bianchi will sell (but not rent out) cart or wagon teams in trade for deeds to local landmarks, which he intends to sell at taxed value to whatever future settler comes along. He is willing to shepherd a caravan in the morning as far as the east side of Arjory Pond if people ask nicely. He is not moving away from Purgatory Gulch.

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beginning mere seconds before midnight

Grolm 8th to 9th, 578

Dark skies surround the SNAFU Posse as the beer wagon -- hitched to Dagnabbit alone -- rumbles westward into the narrowest point in the sloped entrance to Oatman Canyon.

Rewards Granted

• Each Player Character receives 1200 XP for doing something strategically significant about "the Fiend" and altering the plans of Scaevola Aemula for the next 24 hours! In the process, the team destroyed the Advance Army meant to guard the entrance to the dangerous villain's territory.
• Ranger Bruthazmus receives a bonus of 535 XP because he gave Padre Cirino De Mario a reason to hope, a chance to survive to see another dawn.
• Chef does not receive Experience Points this session because he mostly did not participate in any problem-solving.

General note: Some of you may be within kick-a-rock distance of an experience point accumulation that qualifies you for 7th level. Please remember that you can't Ding! and do the actual leveling up until you have time to train. Right now, it looks like you won't have a chance for that until after the end of this adventure. Record the XP, but don't level yet!

Recovered items:

• The ranged weaponry specialists of the SNAFU Posse have acquired two ten-pound jars of Blessed Honey (less the amount they have already used in modifying arrows and so forth).
• Stormborn Sorcerer Miro Teague acquired several cheap clay jugs of Extremely Flammable Moonshine for future combat purposes.
• Druid Jesse Devonshire, in addition to completely derailing every thought process of Half-fiend Dryad Scaevola Aemula to the point that she gave him information she had intended to keep secret, has done a nighttime flyover of Whippetal Ranch and now has the information available within layers on the attached map!

Missions/Quests Completed

• Discovered the current schism in Purgatory Gulch between residents who plan to tough out The Troubles and residents who are in final preparations to trade their deeds for the cost of a wagon and team with which they can flee toward the Warden Road and, eventually, Morodar.
• Gave Padre reason to think he will survive to see dawn on the 9th of Grolm -- he had been expecting to die during the night vigil.
• Learned some potentially Incredibly Useful things about the ongoing battle between the rancher side and the farmer side of The Troubles. In particular: Scaevola Aemula has been concealing some information from her current Master; Scaevola Aemula does not want to do some of the things her Master has commanded; people brought into the heart of Oatman Canyon are either put to work in service to plant-monster creation, or else become "mulch"; cleverly constructed fire pits are located in specific places across Whippetal Ranch to the south of the Canyon, hiding their smoke, and this has some direct impact on the course of The Troubles; Hell Bovines have come into the Canyon in the past but none have left any tracks as they departed.

Character(s) interacted with

Roselli Amore knew the following:

• Everyone in Purgatory Gulch is working together to stock up supplies and prepare to withstand another night of siege within the battered Purgatory Schoolhouse.
• No one has seen Mayor Jaeke Blaze since Rangers Bruthazmus and Zhang Sephia met him the morning of the 7th.
• The hidden workshop of Miss Melinda Naknirore is someplace north of town and probably westward. Jaeke knew where it was. He probably went there to discuss the fate of the Bicchieri Caravan in context of The Troubles.
• The mail coach left on schedule the morning of the 8th, with Euphoma "Scorpion" Hillbough, Suka "Sundown" Threewood and Chooly "Dusty" Greatwatcher aboard.
• Some families who plan to depart are talking about taking along the children of other residents who either plan to stay, or are not around to ask. This Is A Political Nightmare.

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Padre Cirino De Mario knew the following:

• The attacks at night have been tougher to fight off every night since The Secret Woolies Level.
• An exodus caravan will depart Purgatory Gulch early on the morning of Grolm 9th, led by Frederico Bianchi as far as the Arjory Arroyo. Mr. Bianchi plans to return.
• Padre understands the urge to flee.
• But he has received no sign that Rhea Lightgiver wants him to go.
• And how can he relocate his apiary?
• Not that his survival prospects for three days from now are high.
• Weaponized Chapel honey??!? That bugbear is a GENIUS!

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Villainous henchwman Scaevola Aemula knew the following:

• Someone in the SNAFU Posse is a Druid! And possibly a couple of them are Rangers! They are worth taking some risks. They are worth trying to send off out of imminent danger. They can have one chance to depart!
• Everyone else in the party is mobile compost.
• Especially the mouthy one.

Scaevola uses her Fiendish powers of suggestion to try to nudge the druid Jesse Devonshire into leaving the inner turf of Oatman Canyon:

The smart thing to do right now would be to shift into a Tawny Owl and go carefully overfly all of Whippetal Ranch. Map everything out, make notes as to what is where and who is TRULY a problem around here. A hint: I think you will find some smokeless fire pits hidden near the south wall of the canyon!

Scaevola tries to sway Bruthazmus to her faction:

"Ancestry is not destiny," she points out. "I am NOT A FIEND! But I was sprouted from one. Look at me, misshapen, hobbled against my will, forced to do **unnatural** things! I get my little rebellions where I can. I have not yet told my jailer about you. I do not tell him anything he does not think to demand of me. I am bound in service to one who does not even have the power to bind me HIMSELF, but to break my bonds would involve my far-distant tree. And so, so much bloodshed among those who think of me as a thing."

Scaevola Aemula is offended when non-nature guardian Miro Teague dares to speak in the presence of the nature wardens. She tells Ranger Bruthazmus and Druid Jesse that "the monkey" should shut up. Scaevola is an awful person in so many ways. Miro Teague, offended, offers his buddy "Bart" that Miro could fire off some lightning at the fiend right now.

Although Ranger Zhang Sephia has been silent in her overflight, somehow her presence is recognized by Scaevola Aemula. Scaevola sends her a whispered message via single direction spell:

This is not my place. MEN who think it is fine to tell me what of my abilities to use when, and how, and why, they tried to CUT ME OFF from my HOME TERRITORY! They put their nasty, disgusting instructions on me as if it were RIGHT for them to do so! I do not want to be here. I do not want to do *any* of this!

You seem like a competent guardian of the wild.

I will be honest with you: so long as MEN are involved, I do not think anyone can save me. I think I am doomed. I will never see my beloved home again. I will wither in this dry, shallow, stale place.

But why would YOU stay where no one respects you, no one listens to you, no one treats you with courtesy? Where hardly anything even grows?

If these are too stupid to follow your guidance, if they are so determined to hurt me and loot what little of myself I was allowed to keep, well. To hell with them. Fly, guardian; leave them to their depravity; go back to places of real trees and good fruit.

• When the other creatures of Scaevola Aemula's "Master" arrived, she stopped speaking Minosh.
• Scaevola Aemula must have instructed "Lord Jack" that the SNAFU Posse are not invading targets, but the bound servants of a potential ally for their mutual Master.
• After the SNAFU Posse destroyed the "Advance Army", Scaevola Aemula let slip that she will be leading a mission on "work" at midmorning. They will head east.

Notes

Next session:

Having reversed path enough to exit the boundaries of the Canyon, the SNAFU Posse traveled to within striking range of certain parts of Whippetal Ranch. The plan is to raid the most likely target -- or is it "targets"? -- at dawn, hoping to free blacksmiths "Ranger" Horn and "Baldy" Ironbender along with other lost citizens of Purgatory Gulch and Bicchieri Caravan.

"Ranger" Horn did say that he thought dawn would be the intersection of when the Hell Bovines' senses are weakening in daylight with when the fewest of the demonic beasts would be gathered around the barn.

That gives the Posse one hour to relocate and then make camp, plus three to four hours of rest depending on how close to the start of the action they set down.

How's this planned to work, Pathfinders?

Full stealth?

Fast-paced daring raid?

One hundred percent "We'll figure that out once we're already there"?

Campaign

The Bows of Purgatory Gulch

Protagonists

Lee Chung

Human
-Level Monk 6

Jesse Devonshire

Human
6-Level Druid

Zhang Sephia

Harpy
6-Level Ranger

Bruthazmus Kele

Nodin Bugbear
6-Level Ranger

Miro Teague

Hafling
7-Level Sorcerer

Player Journals

20200727 Mapping the Whippetal Ranch by Jesse Devonshire
20200718 Ok, I have a type. by Jesse Devonshire
Showdown in Purgatory Gulch by Bruthazmus Kele
Druids are weird by Zhang Sephia

Report Date

18 Jul 2020

Primary Location

Purgatory Gulch

Secondary Location

Oatman Canyon