Against the Cult: Party at the Mill (1.1)

Durren pops up the ladder, does a double-take at seeing the ranger already in the attic, and then slides down the ladder again, runs through the various people and pipes to the stairs and down again to the ground floor.

Sara uses the blade of her rapier to saw the ropes tying the human girl, who relaxes only gradually, as it becomes clear that the ranger does not have murderous intent. Sara's inspection of the young woman is efficient, from long practice of observing wounds, though a bit brusque. The young woman is brown: brown-skinned, brown-haired, brown-eyed, as most people in South Keoland are. She has some bruises on her face and arms and rope burns on her wrists and ankles, but is otherwise unhurt. Sara's pretty sure that she hasn't been beaten, just knocked around as she was being bound. There's no blood and her clothes are rumpled but not torn from being tossed on the floor in the dusty attic.

Quest climbs the creaky ladder, curious to see what caused Durren to run like that, and does a double-take to see Sara already there. When he sees the ranger tending to a young woman, he climbs in and mentally communicates with her. The young woman is very alarmed at his arrival, and even more so when she hears his voice in her mind and shudders with revulsion. He quickly riffles through her surface thoughts and recent memories as she reacts to his mental questions. A name: Shalla. Various people working at the mill, including her husband and her father. At home with her husband. Men bursting into their home and grabbing her. Her husband leaving her. Men stuffing her into a sack and slinging her on an animal. The terrible smell of the sack: rotten turnips. Her calling for help, the men hitting the sack in response. Being removed from the sack at the mill. Her husband, crying. Strange men in the mill. The cold prick of a dagger at her throat. Terror. Being bound in the attic. Calling out to her husband from time to time, assuring him she was alive.

With no hesitation, Xana begins methodically searching the crushed bodies on the second floor. As she finishes searching each one, she rolls the unblinking corpses up against the wall so they are out of her way. The wounded thug in the bedroom watches her dully for a few moments, and then vomits on to the floor boards. They are not in uniform dress, but rather are in the motley dress of thugs or street gangs, with worn leather jerkins, worn leather breeches, and new leather boots. Judging by the size, most of the bodies on the second floor are human, though it's not as easy to tell with the person Ogbar chopped in half. Some have belt pouches, others have pouches on thongs around their necks, and one had a pouch concealed in his new boot (right foot). Each pouch has a collection of a handful of lions (the local copper coin) and a few seals (silver coin), as one would expect a normal villager to have. Interestingly, each person had one shiny eagle (gold coin) as well. She retrieves a dagger from each corpse, along with short bows and clubs. There is a barrel, half full of flour, in which arrows had been stuck, ready for each person in the group to draw a handful at a time. There is nothing noteworthy about any of the gear, though Xana admits that someone more familiar with bows and fletching might get more out of it than she. As she descends the stairs with armloads of weapons, the dragonman Thacogygax speaks to her about the basement and she replies.

The defeated thugs cringe away from the hulking scaled form of Thacogygax as he turns away from the laden gnome and moves past Klak and Ogbar to creep down the stairs. The gibbering is louder down here, as well as the groaning of wood and metal as the mill wheel inexorably turns in the Realstream's current, and its axle drives the machinery down here. There is another door down here, through which light streams, illuminating the many moving parts of the machinery. So at first Thacogygax doesn't see the insane man, hunkered down in the midst of the various dessicated bodies in the shadows. It's the white of his eyes that Thacogygax sees first, and then the spittle frothing at the corners of his mouth as he rocks back and forth, alternately sobbing and cackling.

Durren arrives outside and inspects the snapped and broken remains of the thug who jumped out of the attic window two and half stories above him. Blood is still flowing; it looks like both his legs and some part of his spine are broken. In the distance, from the direction of Hochoch (northwest), Durren sees a mob of villagers approaching the mill with various improvised weapons: chair legs, broom handles, picks, saws, the occasional sword. Their angry murmur reaches his ears a moment later.

Meanwhile, in the basement...

Thacogygax leaves the darkness to the muttering, cackling man rocking back and forth amidst the corpses, and goes through the door into a larger storage room filled with crates and boxes, as well as a row of cots to one side. Sunlight is glinting off of the Realstream River and coming in through a large double-door (like you'd see in a barn) in the east wall. There is a small dock there, with a flat-bottomed barge tied up on it.

The alien lets out a sigh of relief to see no githyanki or their minions revealed in the gem.