Finding the Spark (Pathfinder 1E Quest)

Season of Rushing Waters

In the end you decide to hide until sun-up, reasoning that it's better to have the priest outside the walls with all five of you than to have Cob in there with all the humans. So you wait in a hollow, not quite swampy, though certainly not dry enough for either you or Mina to rest soundly, surrounded as you are by the calls of Warty's diminutive kin and enough insects that you can practically feel your scalp itch from the approach of what you are certain is a flesh-stripping swarm of something, no matter what your companions say. You wait and wait...


The priest does not come, though you are in sight of the house. By the high light mark you are about ready to start tracing your way back among the sparse trees towards the town in search of the missing priest when something odd occurs, shuffling over the rise to your left. Gorok dives off to check and returns in a state you have never seen the cold blooded warrior show, confusion.

"Small humans approach," he hisses.

"Like children?" Mina asks, now equally bewildered.

"No, very very small," he motions about two feet off the ground. "Small packs on back, packs on stick, lead by one with large face hair."

Since both of them had been speaking duergar it makes sense for him not to have used the word 'beard' which the dwarf-folk reserve for themselves alone. Of those others who grow hair in roughly the same place a simple descriptor without the connections of ancestral honor will do, but Gorok continues. "That one looked and sounded like spirit of place stepped too lightly. Others had hair on head but not on chin, hair on feet."

"Wait, halflings?" Mina asks, "They are not usually that small."

No matter what they are usually you see them with your own eyes soon, one wild faced manikin dressed in colorful patches leading a procession of eight equally small though far more bedraggled folk with hairy feet. One by one they jump down a... rabbit hole, that you begin to suspect had not been dug by any rodent. A moment later you hear the familiar buzzing of too many wings, a trio of stirges flies overhead, though they miss your hollow under the show of the trees. The creatures buzz in confusion overhead and then depart eastwards towards the main road and then southeast.

Mina Spellcraft: 1d20+9 = 17 (Success)

"That enchantment..." Mina muses, "the one that made the halflings even smaller, it can't have lasted long. They either have to come out or this is some kind of pre-built hiding place, but what they are doing here I have no idea."

Pepper Knowledge (Local): 1d20+4 = 22 (Success)

"Halfling slaves are common in Cheliax, they have been since before the Thrice Damned House took over," the cat which had been taking in the harsh light with uncommon satisfaction says, barely opening an eye. "Where there are slaves there are those who would free them, often former slaves themselves. I think they are called something flowery, the Bluebell Consortium, the Beebalm Organization... no, no the Bellflower Network."

"How in Desna's name do you know that?" Mina asks her familiar, who chooses not to answer with a distinctly feline disinterest.

"So would they be interested in Click? He is pretty small," you offer a reasonable argument if you do say so yourself, though for some your friend does not seem to think so.

"I can go check, see what's down the tunnels," Cob offers, game for some adventure now that he has been denied sneaking about Longacre.

"If hairy footed ones smaller than goblin they will be even less happy to see goblin than those bigger than goblin," Gorok interjects, but Cob is not so lightly defeated. He points out that he can sneak and not be seen as he had done the previous night with the old man, never mind the part where he tried to hit him with a rock.

Before you can quite decide what to do you spot the old man leaving the house and, looking a lot more spry than you would have thought to look at him, head towards the barn, a moment later a figure with their head wrapped in cloth, sensibly shading their eyes, follows him.

"That's the priest!" Mina says.

How did he get in the house without any of you noticing him? The question hangs uncertain in the air.

What do you do?

[] Head to the barn, that seems like the place to be

[] Wait until the priest leaves the barn, then Mina can hand the priest the baby

[] Sneak up to the barn, see what's going on

[] Write in

OOC: For once poor Gorok's survival worked.