BB Day Trip: Sight Seeing

Diplomatic action

Myska's Menagerie can't catch a break.  After their rocky start in Billowbluff, a pair of kidnappings and a hostage letter point to the party being the reason for the trouble as they came to town.

In the morning during goodberry breakfast dispersal, My Tengral informed the party that the townsfolk might have a problem considering they formed an angry mob half way up the mesa slope. Astrid went out to greet the group, lowering to the ground and attempting a simulated welcoming wave with her dancing lights. The mob roused in fear and backed off. A runner in the village could be seen bringing the mayor up out of town to the group. Jafi's spying let the party know that the Mayor was cross (as always) but taking charge of the group to come speak to the adventurers.
  Astrid took the moment to get on her white and lilac steed by the time the cane and peg legged man arrived to the airship in a huff and a puff and a fury. The mayor's distemper was met by Astrid's haughty righteousness to form another clash. The mayor made many accusations of party bringing trouble to his town. After a handful of unhelpful comments back and forth, it came to light that two citizens of Billowbluff had been kidnapped. The ransom letter was given over which read:
We have arrive for the leader of the outsiders. Present her at this watering hole north east at midnight or the taken will sacrificed on this altar of Void.
Astrid strong-armed the mayor into setting aside the day of any worker capable of fixing the balloon if he expected the party to aid in the situation. The mayor made not note of the actions, of refusing to save the sheriff and a child without first taking advantage of the situation, and he made sure to drop Astrid's full name Astrid Sjöberg.
  Once the moment had ended, the group discussed what all this could mean. Astrid could easily understand how the note would refer to here. The group then attempted to find clues in the letter. Astrid picked up a weird idiosyncrasy in the script. The letters were smooth and confident but the Ws were as if they had been Vs and later corrected in editing. Crush picked up a lot of odd phrasing such as “have arrive”, the 'this's instead of 'the's, and “will sacrificed'. As far as Crush was concerned, the writers were not fluent in the language they were using. That combined with the corrections probably meant they also never used the Common script.
  Millie attempted to analyze the religious or occult significance of “altar of the Void” but without further details, he couldn't nail it down, especially with possible translation issues. It could be any number of darker gods or even another elder evil such as That Which Desires.
  With the day before them, Myska's Menagerie decided to use the time to scout out what possible watering hole would be reference. Crush took flight and identified a small gorge in the mesa Northeast about 12 miles away. It would take a handful of hours, but they could go check it out, return for the afternoon, then head out to the gorge in the night.
  Arriving, the companions found the waterhole well used by animals but vacant on-or-because-of their approach. Magically searching the area, the party found it almost surrounded by small abjurations auras assumed to be alarms. Astrid dispelled one as a point. The party searched the area and notably found not trace of any passage. Crush assumed it to be magically ensure (Pass without Trace) considering the abjurations put up.
  Astrid would lead a jaunt 5-10minutes out and around the area looking for anything familiar to her. It was then that she realized the feeling that she had had yesterday on leaving the cave had been that very thing. Crush calculated out that due to the Northeast and Southeast directions, they were likely just as far away from yesterday's cave (6 hours) as it was from Billowbluff.
  The companions found no nearby caves the assailants could easily use to hid for the moment. On getting ready to leave, Astrid deliberate waved through an abjured area multiple times as a sort of notice of recognition. They then made their return to the Billowbluff in the early to mid afternoon.
  Upon returning, they found many of repair workers fervent and of ill temper. Astrid contemplated the practicality of trying to help get the airship finished tonight. She could show up in town but given the situation it probably wouldn't be worth it. Any work she did tonight would be the difference of it being complete at 10 versus 11 am tomorrow. Either way, they would be about 75% complete tonight. She let it be.
  Some of the workers were fearful, others upset. Millie attempted to lift the spirits of the eight men by passing out 10gp to each of them. Some were hesitant seeing it as hush money while others shot daring eyes at the companions in a “Better not tell anyone else” manner. Millie tried to keep it light hearted with a jovial smile. This sparked a question from one of them. “You'll Get Merrygild back right?”
“AW F^(&” Millie realized and bleated harshly. That was the “kid” the old mayor had mentioned. As a non-laborer only here because of his grandmother's saloon, that is how the mayor would see the young lad.
Millie sent a Sending spell to Merrygild: “Hi Merrygild, its Millie. Calm. Are you ok? do you know where you're at?”
  In response, Millie had returned to him: “Ah, oh, hi. Is this because of that book or is this another hallucination? I don't feel so good. It's dark and cold.”
  Upon remembering that Millie didn't need to spend his resources on the magical messages, Chupta was quick to use his tome again. He had had Merrygild sign it after all. With a similar start to Millie, Chupta wrote, “ Don't be nervous, remember when you signed my book?” Not giving time for a response, Chupta began asking for information on the gnomish lad's state, position, and surroundings. Merrygild told him that it was dark and he couldn't see but he also couldn't feel anything on his face. After the brief exchange, Chupta let Merrygild know that he wanted updates on anything in terms of changes to his situation whenever Chupta magically checked in. These check-in's would end up being sporadic but did occur a few times through the late afternoon and evening.
  Myska's Menagerie then held another brainstorming session attempting to piece together more possible solutions to what was going on. Astrid supposed that the ransomers didn't know that the towns folk couldn't simply “turn her over”. She also wondered why they hadn't taken her directly when they had taken the captives. A temporary answer to that was it was easier to take the villagers. Attacking the airship directly could have been more difficult.
  Chupta then pointed out two more details that shifted attention. “They don't use our group name, they assume our leader.” Maybe they knew the ransomer? Group consensus agreed that Virtuosa would have spoken to them directly and her skill with the common tongue was better than the ransom note. Maybe it was one of her underlings taking charge thinking Virtuosa had gone soft? Maybe Virtuosa suffered a mutiny?
  The companions continued to kick around other ideas as the evening wore on. Astrid took the long evening to slowly enchant each party member with the new protective ward that Myska had blessed her with. During Chupta's check-in's on Merrygild, Chupta learned that not much had changed in the gnome's position. However, he did learn that Merrygild had been beaten when he had tried speaking when he had initially awoke. There was no noise of the Shrieking Flats or any wind felt. It was just cold and empty.