Cast the first stone

Part the Third, The Stoning Festival

The party reached Frugelhofen.
The village has a mix of Brettonian and Imperial settlers and exists on a mix of animal husbandry, fishing and farming; it is self-sustaining, paying taxes or owning allegiance to no authority.

As they approached the village, a group of children went running for their father who came out to greet the party. He directed them to the Mill at the far end of the village as Hector is something of a village headman.

Upon meeting Hector he explained they have a number of visitors already and the only real place left to stay is Widow Le Roux's barn, so he took them to meet her.

The middle-aged widow was something of a 'cougar' and immediately welcomed the new male guests and allowed them to stay in her barn (thought there was room in the house for 1 person...).
Hector explained he was having an open house that evening and it was the local festival of 'Stoning Day' tomorrow.

The party wasted no time asking about burial mounds and they were directed to Reinwald Lutter who had lived here all of his 71 years. Reinwald was cantankerous, rude, senile, half deaf and a little paranoid - a perfect combination for roleplaying!
They eventually learned from Herr Lutter that there was a mound about an hour north from the village, so they decided to investigate.

Upon reaching the mound, the seal stone was found to be cracked and had a gap easily large enough for a man to climb through. Exploring the place Heinfreid was alerted to the fact that there was animal bones and some webbing here so the party backed away while he prepared some oil and a torch. The giant spider was driven from its burrow in blind panic and Drok'Drin, too soon, ran to meet it - it proved to be a mistake!

The Spider ran across the ceiling and dropped onto the Dwarf, biting down hard into his shoulder. His iron constitution ensured the poison did not affect him, but now he had a large spider on top of him and he could not bring his weapon to bear.
Heinfried responded by hacking away at the spider's abdomen and Jurgen did the same while Jules looked for a clear shot with his longbow. All the time the dwarf was being repeatedly bitten by the spider.
Eventually, the spider was badly mauled and it attempted to slink away but Heinfried finished it off. Drok'Drin was in bad shape and had to be carried to safety.

safety. Jurgen examined the tomb and found it to be that of an ancient barbarian warlord, not what they were looking for. So Heinfried and Jules looted it of valuables...

That evening was Hector's open house and the party got to meet some more of the villagers and the guests that were staying there. The Apple Cider and Brandy that Hector is famous for was flowing somewhat freely and people were being mostly sociable to the outsiders.

Shalyir Moonhand and Albi Shultz are 'adventurers' that like to travel around and they found themselves in Frugelhorn and decided to stay and relax for a while.
All was clearly not as it seemed with the well-armed elf and the smooth-talking imperial.

Cecil De Vere Cholmodely was a Brettonian noble that had managed to briefly escape court life (personal friend of the King) to get a holiday. His family had tracked him down and his retainers were on their way, he just needed somewhere to stay and a few crowns to get by until they get here.
Again, there were clearly holes in the story of this 'noble'.
[Note: for those of you in the know, I have changed elements of the background story for Cecil].

As the evening wore on, Heinfreid and Jules got talking to Albi and Shalyir. Shalyir was keen to ask about recent events in Bordelaux and Albi was clearly on the run from something (he related to the outlaw that was Jules). Jules knew about some rivalry between noble families and one noble had murdered another noble and disapeared. There was now a large price on his head.
Jules decided to confront Shalyir about her buisness openly and was lucky not to end up with his guts on the floor in the process. However, upon learning that Jules was a fugitive (as Albi) she decided he did not need killing afterall and something of a respect was garnered through the incident.

Jurgen, meanwhile, had basically sussed out Cecil (by reciting Brettonian poetry that he should have known) and was willing to just let him off the hook with his charade. However, he learnt that Cecil was taking these mountain folk for a ride and conning money out of them. Jurgen decided he would deal with it another time.

It was not long until the Lauterbach brothers were drunk and picked on some Brettonian scum, Jules.

Jules 'spilled' one of their drinks which, after Heinfried's intervention, resulted in a mere fist-fight outside. However, Gottlieb Lauterbach was too drunk and Jules to inept with his fists that nobody was really hurt and hands were shaken and all was well.

The next day was stoning day and some merriment was had playing crockery pinata and eating food. Their was one major event; during the ritual of the stone parade (moving stones from the river bank to a cairn at the village boundary) a Veronique and Alain Gascoigne took part. Veronique is heavily veiled to cover her face and is quite reclusive, Alain is a retired soldier. Veronique leaving the house caused a bit of a stir.

The merriment was cut short late afternoon when young Leopold came running into the village saying he though Armand Le Roux was hurt in the pasture. Hector, Alain and the Characters rushed to the scene to find Armand murdered. A search of the scene revealed Armand's dagger, unshod hoof prints and a skeletal hand with fused finger bones. What had happened?
Alain said that a plan of action needs formulating and the Party volunteered to go to the mine and bring the news to the dwarfs there.
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See you in the next update.