Chapter 2.3: Return to Hochoch

Open to however you want to do it although summary does sound best.

As Jonel is welcomed and congratulated on officially joining the Dungeon Busters organization (various party members tell enthusiastic accounts of how he contributed to the group's welfare in the most recent adventure), the rest of the local Dungeon Busters arrive from all over the town and the surrounding countryside. In addition to Morgran the dwarf, Karliel the human and Thacogygax the vaguely-reptilian humanoid (Aanbo explains that Thacogygax is actually something called a thraakon, but he loses everybody in the attempt to explain the whole interdimensional-war-thing that he himself only half-remembers from past conversations. "Suffice it to say, he's from far away, like a stone that fell from a cliff into a river and was rolled many miles downstream by fierce currents..."), Sara the human ranger, the two paladins Klak and Albertus (arriving deep in a metaphysical debate), Durren the awkwardly-formal fighter, and Kragga the burly wizard hurry up in the next several minutes. To no one's particular surprise, they find that Xana has appeared at some point, making macabre jokes.

As for the others, Ogbar the human returned for his native lands long ago, and the absence of the human, Quest, and the halfling, Joseph, is felt rather keenly as the group of Dungeon Busters of Hochoch assemble to honor the memory of their fallen comrade Reptile. As everyone is still greeting each other (and meeting Jonel for the first time), Olpert Razorsson apologizes that they won't be holding a more public funeral service of pomp and ceremony; the organization is not that well-known or beloved by the populace to justify reserving a temple service, and Reptile's professed beliefs do not correspond to an inside ceremony.

Morgran begins the outdoor service with the traditional dwarven invocation, in his guttural, gravelly voice shattered from decades of yelling over the winds at sea. "Ourr brotherr has rreturrned to his home."

Despite their very different backgrounds, the other dwarves know this ritual. "To his home, to his home..." Klak and Aanbo murmur under their breath automatically. The call and response is simple, and the other Dungeon Busters quickly catch on and join in even though it is in Dwarvish.

"Guide ourr brrother to his rrest."
"To his rest, to his rest..."

"Gods, welcome Reptile as yerr guest."
"As your guest, as your guest..."


"Ourr brotherr has rreturrned to the stone."
"To the stone, to the stone."


With this ancient ritual completed, Morgran prays a blessing of Kord over the assembled heroes. Then the seafaring dwarven priest opens the memorial to the rest of the group. The collected Dungeon Busters share stories of Reptile's valor, his virtue, his occasional kindness, and his socially-awkward charm.

When everyone has finished sharing their stories and memories, Olpert arranges for Sara, Morgran, and Durren to carry the body out of the town and set it out for the elements and scavengers to reclaim, per Reptile's clan tradition.

After asking if any of the DB's have magical knowledge, Jonel says farewell to Olpert shaking his hand as he directs him to Kragga. Jonel makes a brief introduction to him before slipping away as the funeral starts.

During the funeral, Olpert notices that Jonel leaves and sighs. He was hoping the new recruit would stick around to see how they are a family and honor each other in death as well as life. Still, he figures that some people deal with death in different ways.

But when the funeral is done, Olpert goes to send Joseph to fetch Jonel (as the halfling is the fastest Dungeon Buster), but of course Joseph is missing. So Olpert turns to send Sara (whom he figures would be the quickest to find Jonel), but he realizes that he's just sent her off with Reptile's remains. He sighs, and sends Xana; the little gnome has a disquieting way of getting people to do what she wants. When Jonel and Xana rejoin the group and Durren, Morgran, and Sara have returned, Olpert reviews what everyone knows about the situation in the region, and listens carefully as each of the people in the Orlane party and the rescue party sent to retrieve them give their reports.The summary includes:
- Bandit activity has been on the rise recently, particularly from a collection of gangs led by a mysterious mastermind who calls himself Black
- no one agrees on what Black looks or sounds like; his underlings have either never seen him, or they've seen someone they think is Black (but no two accounts are alike)
- Black sent some of his bandits to take control of the mill in Hochoch; that gang was working with a separate den of kobolds
- there is a rogue owlbear who has claimed this area as its territory that is eating livestock and unwary travelers
- between the monsters and the bandits, nearly all contact with Orlane, the breadbasket of the region that supplies the majority of food to both Hochoch and Hookhill, has effectively stopped
- Jonbon the bard came from the east and played upon the sympathy of the Dungeon Busters; as soon as he could, he used magic to convince the party to split up, and then he drugged and kidnapped most of the Jarl family.
- Jonbon was trying to take the Jarls to Orlane
- The Dungeon Busters have observed a bunch of troglodyte activity, including kidnappings. In response to Aanbo's concerns about the man, Olpert reports that Tym has been supplying some of the wood, working with Dino the Sawyer who has been cutting it into lumber for the Dungeon Busters Guild Hall.
- A mysterious cult has taken hold of many in Orlane; the cult members are often identified by a green spiral symbol, either as a worn item or some permanent disfiguration. They abduct people at night and take them to somebody identified as "her" to be indoctrinated. The cultists who are residents of Orlane are working with troglodytes. So far they are acting in secret, acting as if nothing has changed with them during the day, but at some point they may reach a critical mass that they can operate openly.
- The indoctrination seems to be very thorough, to the point where many of the cult members have fought to the death, and reasoning with them has not changed their convictions.
- Some of the Orlane residents are aware that something is wrong in their village, but they don't know who to trust. The party has befriended a few that seem unaffiliated with the cult: the hermit Ramne, a retired adventurer, (Alan Clayborn), and two mysterious elves who are strangers in Orlane.
- The Dungeon Busters have confronted and defeated cult members three times while in Orlane: when they were drugged and fought their way free initially, when they were ambushed and almost framed at the barn, and then when they fought free of the Constable Grover's custody to then beat down the innkeeper and his cultist cronies in the Golden Grain Inn.
- There is a secret meeting chamber under the Golden Grain Inn in Orlane, with hidden underground tunnels leading off of it. The captive cultists seemed very nervous anytime the tunnels were mentioned.
- The village of Orlane includes a temple dedicated to the village's patron goddess of agriculture, Merikka. The Dungeon Busters have not explored the eastern two-thirds of the village at all, which includes the temple.
- Jonbon revealed that Bandit Black was "one of the faithful" (this is what the rescue party was supposed to tell the Orlane group), which strongly suggests two things: Jonbon is a member of the cult, and the cult has been abducting and indoctrinating people for months.
- Brenin Owen's representative Reeve Ansola Behir will arrive in Hochoch in the next few weeks. The Reeve travels to different outlying regions of the Duchy to adjudicate various disputes.
- The dead are rising at night in the Dim Forest to attack the living
- Most recently, a team of bandits was hunting for the Dungeon Busters and ambushed them as they were returning to Hochoch.

Having summarized all that, Olpert asks "Is that complete, or does anyone have something else to add?"

Olpert nods at each of these observations/suggestions.
"Maybe a combination of these different approaches. Bodies can be consecrated to not rise as undead through the application of holy water, which is one of the things that those three took care of with Reptile's body. The problem is that holy water is very expensive to produce - you need a lot of silver. Isn't that right?" He looks to Morgran and Arya for confirmation. "When we get our guild operation up and running, part of the standard deployment procedure is to procure an ongoing source for silver, which is a requirement for fighting lycanthropes as well as undead. But in the meantime, we'll need to go to the temple of Rao for holy water. That's really expensive, so I would recommend that you only look to consecrate bodies that are recognizable. Ones that are long dead - like the ones you ran into on this last trip - are either dead so long that no one lives to remember them or so decayed that they can't be identified. Those ones can just be destroyed. That may sound callous to some of you, and I apologize if so. It's my job to maintain a practical as well as ethical view of our operations."

To Aanbo's comment, Albertus replies: "So far Zahm the smith hasn't done anything harmful, threatening, or even out of the ordinary. He's just been taking odd jobs and mending/making horseshoes. We have no authority to search or interrogate another citizen, and Louis is not convinced that our suspicion is enough to suspend the rights of a freeman in the Duchy. So we've just been checking in on him periodically."

Olpert nods and adds. "It's very important to be careful here. Your report that some people in Orlane are part of a cult and some others are not weakens any case we might have to make an accusation of someone who has done nothing wrong (that any of us have seen, anyway). If we go around proclaiming people as members of an evil cult, we'd better be damn sure they are; it will reflect very poorly on us if we make a false accusation, much less harm an innocent person."
Morgran chimes in: "As fer tha' Jonbon weed, aye, 'e's got a spiral scar like a brand on 'is back. Louis spied it when 'e was bathin'."

To Jonel, Kragga apologizes and explains: "Unfortunately, I can't use my magic to identify the detailed information about magical objects. I know how to do this, but in order to cast the spell, I need to get a rather large pearl. This far from the ocean, such pearls are hard to come by. Until I get a large enough pearl, Larissa is the one you should seek for such identification services."

Olpert then addresses the most pressing concern, from his point of view: "So Myrtha's got the right of it. We need to organize another search party to go back to Orlane and find Joseph. You four are the obvious candidates," he points to Aanbo, Chase, Myrtha, and Theran, "as you're the ones with first-hand knowledge of the village, and you have some friends there. You'll want to rest up, prepare, and take some others along with you - there's more safety in greater numbers. I recommend Arya, Jonel, Manthis, and Rosemary; you've already worked closely with them, and all the others are either helping me here or are engaged in other projects."