[IC] Graveyard Shift: Session 1

The sheaf of papers Tronus has found seem to be Vizeron Dribbage's service record with the Order of Saint Durvin. A quick glance through the pages corroborates the service dates the Dwarf and the others have been given so far. The final paper includes Dribbage's discharge orders. Yet Tronus notices that the missing man's departure wasn't the result of a simple dispute: Instead, Dribbage was fully excommunicated from the Church. Tronus realizes that to understand the full story, he'll need to give the papers a thorough read-through.Barvek thumbs through a few pages of the ledger he found in the locked drawer, but none of it makes much sense. There are no dates given, although there do seem to be entries spaced out from one another. A typical entry reads, "I saw three guests there." Another one says, "Two guests invited me to visit their home." None of it makes much sense without some sort of key.

With the book fallen open at his feet, Mengus is startled and can't seem to recall much about the subjects of the books on Dribbage's shelf. It's a frustrating feeling.

While Barvek and Tronus consider what to do with the documents they've found, Nekurr gets the attention of Hildar, Nera, and Mengus. The four of them try to identify the creature in the book -- which is somehow related to whatever made these footprints.

After a bit of back-and-forth discussion, Hildar, Nekurr, Nera, and Mengus can think of a few creatures that have goat hooves but walk on their hindlimbs. As far as the fair races of Terrinoth are concerned, Hildar has heard of certain forest guardians that live in the Aymhelin Forest and are allied with the Elves there. These creatures are sometimes called Fauns, and they have the roughly Human-like torsos with goat-like hindquarters. However, Fauns are exceedingly rare in the Aymhelin, so Hildar can't fathom one being out and about in the Baronies, let alone breaking into a house.

No, it seems more likely that the creature who made the prints (and pictured in the book) must be some sort of dark entity, or at least one created using dark magics. In this realm, Mengus recalls learning in his studies about hybrid creatures created during the Third Darkness. At the time, the forces of the Dragons attacking the fair races performed dark magical experiments to create Human-Dragon hybrids to fight for them. In retaliation, a few wizards of Greyhaven experimented with dark magics to create hybrid creatures of their own. It's not unthinkable that some of those hybrids may have fused Humans with goats or similar creatures.

Nekurr remembers hearing tavern tales of even darker creatures: the demons of the Ynfernael plane. He worries that the perpetrator (and the image) may both be traces of something even more unspeakable than a Human–animal hybrid. Perhaps the visitor was a full-fledged demon.

During the discussion, Nera notices the title of the book that fell to the floor: The Revelations of Saint Durvin. Seeing as how the saint fought in the Third Darkness, the title could lend support to either the hybrid theory or the demon theory.