Chapter Ten: Bait

Gava the elf takes us out to one of the crime scenes. We find tracks of four people that lead half a mile and abruptly stop in the middle of the path. These four people probably killed the victim. Kriv can tell that the tracks belong to small creatures, like halflings. Kriv to Tenneth: "You say 'this sounds fine' but something about the way you're saying it makes it seem as though you're not actually fine."

Vex tells Tenneth that the sword is definitely a problem that we're going to have to deal with, just not until we have more information. Aruna and Xa'oc notice that the halfling's clothing is from the wild, and in particularly bad shape, practically rags.

Xa'oc lures the halfling out to the crime scene and the end of the trail to see if she gives us any useful information. It takes a really long time because she gets stuck on things and walks really slowly. When we get to the crime scene, the halfling notices the tracks ending, and she walks past the end with nothing happening.

Xa'oc and Kriv get out of sight from the halfling. Vex casts detect thoughts on the halfling and sees memories of pervious attacks. One of the halflings lifts a body with psionics and they walk off. The halfling participated in the attacks. Her memories include the cave in the gray.

With no other options, Vex offers to act as bait so that we can ambush and capture the halflings.

The villagers say that the halflings have not struck in the same place twice. The villagers tell us about a ravine that they wanted to use for scavenging water/animals. The other four of us set up an ambush while Vex pretends to forage, hiding behind rocks. We get attacked by four halflings, Vex is immediately knocked down. Tenneth keeps using defiling magic but Vex doesn't see it because she's unconscious. The leader of the halflings uses psionics to charm Aruna. Another one of the halflings uses psionics to lift up Vex's body and escape with her. The leader of the halflings also paralyzes Tenneth, releasing Aruna. Aruna feeds a healing potion to Vex, Vex teleports away. The halflings withdraw and try to escape. The halfling has a rod with an amber crystal that casts lightning bolt. Vex kills Risi, the red-headed halfling, but Kriv saves her life. The rest of the halflings escape.

Vex searches Risi and takes the wand and can't yet figure out how to make it work. Kriv tells Risi that we have a contract to make her tribe stop preying on the village.

Risi says that the halflings can't leave the thing they found. It's in the cave but she doesn't know what it is or why they need it. She says we're supposed to be there, because it needs the sword. She's surprised we don't care about the pit. She says that the sword belongs in the pit. She says our halfling from the village went into the pit, and they exiled her. She offers us a deal: they will stop killing villagers if Xa'oc comes to see the pit, or if we let her go. We take her back to the village.

Xa'oc feels a need to go to the pit. "The pit needs us." "This One knows." "Mistsong will be stronger and This One will be stronger"

Vex just realized that Ramas, who wanted to buy the sword from Xa'oc, is the one who hired us to visit the village. Using Vex chat, Vex proposes to the others that we jump Xa'oc and take the sword from him, either now or after we rest.

Kriv tries to convince Xa'oc one more time to put the clutch before the sword. Xa'oc: "Mistsong is protecting the clutch. Mistsong is the clutch"  Kriv offers to trade his extremely valuable bone sword for Mistsong just while we rest, without even touching it, and if Xa'oc still wants to go to the pit, we'll go with.

Xa'oc refuses. Xa'oc: "Mistsong does not need you. Mistsong needs me."

We decide to go back to the village, rest up, interrogate Risi, and investigate the cave despite Xa'oc having the sword, planning for him to betray us. We take a long rest, spending a day resting at the village.