The Edwardsville Chronicles - session 5

The party is on their way to see Andrew Stonemill, the miller, who is a lycanthrope. He actually is a naturally born one, one of the few who is allowed to live outside the capital. He is a very dangerous man, and is only living free under strict conditions and by the grace of a lord in the capital. If he knows about the were creatures in the Edwardsville bakery, he is in violation of his conditions.

As the party leaves town, their sense of unease grows. They arrive at a large two-floor-structure with a barn next to it, a split rail fence, and a supply of milled and unmilled wood. Lexanna knocks on the door. Meanwhile, Larry sneaks around and Kayleth looks through the window. She sees muddy tracks on the floor, with some half-chopped wood, and she can make out a stairwell that leads up, but she doesn't see anyone inside.

Larry sneaks in and the group follows, finding a small crawl space under the floorboards by the stairs. There is a raging fire in the hearth with coffee that is still warm, that has been made in the last hour or so, and a pantry on the right. Larry decides to make his way upstairs and finds a bedroom with a twin bed, a night stand, a pewter figurine of a wolf on a pendant, clothing, a lantern, a desk with a sewing kit and thread. It smells like wet dog.

At that time, the door downstairs in the kitchen opens and a tall man with wild hair, bushy beard and crazed eyes comes in. He is carrying a spear and a sack with probably a dead animal in it (a dead fawn, as it turns out). He yells at the group to get out of his house. He becomes even angrier when he sees Lexanna. Aggie tries to calm everyone down, but Andrew attacks and kills Lexanna; he then runs off.

The party returns to Edwardsville, and Aggie returns to the temple and heads over to the infirmary. She questions Valerie, the acolyte on duty, about the people who came in the night of the wolf attack a while ago. She looks through her ledger and tells her that a man came in who seemed to be suffering from a psychotic episode. She remembers him, and tells Aggie she figured he was drunk. The man was a human, early adult, with a strong body, and he disappeared in the morning.

The next morning, she heads over to the bar, and nobody has seen Flanders. Aggie goes upstairs and finds scraps of parchment in Flanders' bedroom that have drawings of people being murdered on them. His bed is not slept in and perfectly made, but Flanders is not there. Disturbed, Aggie goes downstairs again. The party heads outside and sees tracks leading away into the woods. They follow it for several miles, and come upon a group of around twenty-five deer running away. The party continues on and comes to a stone outcropping, where they hear voices and snippets of a conversation in common about how strange it is to see all the deer running away. They then hear 'Hey guys, did you hear all those deer?' and turn around to find Flanders standing there.