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| ''The heroes ride out towards the Foxglove mansion, but obstacles stop them.''
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|
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| == The farm ==
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|
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| We decided to ride out. As it was soon dinnertime we planned to ride to
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| a farm on this side of ???river to spend the night. We didn't want to
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| search through Foxglove manor in the night. We rode out from the asylum.
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| There were dark, rain heavy clouds gathering on the sky and wisps of mist
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| slowly drifting over the fields. The lost coast road went south between
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| the soggy swamp on our right side and a high plateau on the left side.
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|
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| We passed the plateau and followed the edge of the swamp. There was a
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| wet mist drifting in from the swamp limiting our vision of the
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| landscape. Even though it wasn't cold out yet, I had chills. We saw a
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| dark shape coming toward us along the road ahead. It was someone riding
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| a workhorse. Nathaniel hailed the stranger, that seemed reluctant to
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| talk at first, but when we told him we work for the sheriff of Sandpoint
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| he told us that he was on his way there. When he opened up it was hard
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| to stop him. He repeated "They even ate the dogs." over and over again.
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| We told him we would stop the monsters and he should continue on.
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|
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| We thought we had better hurry up and continued on. There was a fog
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| enveloping us. It became increasingly hard to see over the newly harvested
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| fields we passed. Then Nathaniel spotted a small dark shape in the fog.
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| It looked like a girl but then we could hear a song, but the voice was not
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| so young. It was a nursery rhyme but the text was about monsters and
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| scarecrows. When we came closer it turned out to be Madame Mvashti who
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| sang the strange song. She looked smaller than she did when she did the
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| reading. but on the other hand I wasn't sitting on a horse then. She asked
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| Dorothea <br>
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| "Did you take care of him?"<br>
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| "Who? Oh. Yes him. Yes."<br>
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| "There's more trouble ahead." Madame Mvashti warned us. She gave us an
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| item to help us out. It was some magic thing that help out when using magic.
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| Dorothea said she could use it.
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|
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| Soon after we reached where soggy river runs out into the swamp. The road
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| led to a small wooden bridge. There were some shapes vaguely noticeable in
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| the fog. It turned out to be peasants standing guard. <br>
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| "It's dangerous on the other side."<br>
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| "We will take care of it."<br>
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| "We're sent by the sheriff."<br>
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| "Don't you recognize us? Were the heroes of Sandpoint! We are the ones who
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| saved Sandpoint from all goblins from there to Fogscar mountains! We conquered
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| Thistletop. We pacified five goblin tribes and slew their war chiefs!"<br>
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| They didn't seem to know what I was talking about. I think they were a little
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| slow. Looking at the dense fog in front of us we thought that we might be too
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| vulnerable on horseback. We left our horses in the care of Orik with the
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| peasants. I really don't want anything to happen to Creampuff.
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|
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| The sky was even darker and we could only see 20-30 feet in front of us.
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| Following the road we passed a road disappearing into the fog to our right
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| and took the second. It lead to the farm where we had planned to spend the
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| night. There was a very worn down fence and gate. We close it behind us.
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| In the fog in front of us we could vaguely see a shadow in the dense fog.
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| It turned out to be a scarecrow standing at the crossroads between the
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| fields. Continuing on to another crossroads where another scarecrow stood
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| Velicia said they show the way. I said they scare crows from the fields
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| and Dorothea said "No. They are monsters." as it attacked.
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|
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| Most of us were surprised, but Velicia managed to cast a spell. The monstrous
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| scarecrow charged with flaying claws at Honeypot who hit it back. Nathaniel
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| tricked it and I felled it with a throw of my dagger. It turned out to be a
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| farmer that was infected but had not turned into a ghoul. Nathaniel picked
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| him up and carried him as we continued.
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|
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| At the next crossroads there was a new scarecrow. We cautiously approached it
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| when several others appeared in the fog all around us, but the scarecrow was
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| just a scarecrow. There was a big fight against infected monstrous farmers
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| clad as scarecrows. Velicia was clawed unconscious by one and nearly died
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| but after hard fighting we at last stood as victors. There was a total of 15
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| infected farmers including the one we brought.
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|
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| We decide to take a short rest, but before we could three more appeared out
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| of a house just barely visible through the dense fog. They had turned into
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| ghouls and were harder to beat, but the others had been so many more so we
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| managed to fight off these relatively easy. We killed two but the last one
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| retreated and shouted out "Alarm!". We could hear four more leaving the
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| house but lost them in the fog. We hid too and then fought them. As Honeypot
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| killed the last, who was a ghoul leader of some kind, we all finally could take our rest. Some of us took a closer look at the ghouls we just fought and
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| found out that the leader had better clothes than the rest, wearing a livery.
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| He was groundskeeper of Foxglove manor and called Roger Krespie. He also
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| had a key on a sting around his neck. It was decorated with curious flowers
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| and thorns. That was the heraldic shield of Foxglove. He also had an armor
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| that according to the magic users protected especially against undead.
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|
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| Nathaniel pet dog.
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|
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| We entered the farmhouse. My stomach turned as I entered. The peasant living
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| there had been sacrificed and hung on the wall as had been done in the
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| sawmill. The others said he had been carved with a sevenpointed star too.
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| I felt sick. I went on into another room and looked through it. In the
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| bedroom there was a secret compartment in the bed where there was a coin
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| collection of 34,000 silver pieces in neat packages of 100 pieces each.
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|
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| Honeypot left the house to get some air and I took my mind off the awful
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| things by counting the coins. Honeypot soon came back and shouted that
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| there were more farmers put up as scarecrows. It turned out to be two more
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| that had resisted the infection better. They were called Horran and Lettie
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| Guffmin and lived on a farm next doors.
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|
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| Velicia thought we should stay and sleep at the farm. I really didn't like
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| that idea. The thought of sleeping in the midst of blood and body parts made
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| me sick. After some discussion we decided to at least go back to the
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| sanatorium. It was dusk when we gathered all the infected farmers. We found
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| a cart and a wagon in the farm. They were in very bad shape but worked and
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| would probably hold together as far as the sanatorium. There were fifteen
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| infected that was sick but not full ghouls and two who were in a better shape
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| but no one of them could walk themselves. We put the six ghouls and the boss
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| in a heap and burned their bodies. While the fire raged Nathaniel went into
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| the fog all by himself to fetch Orik and horses. When he returned we all left
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| for the sanatorium. I felt so comforted from the warmth of Creampuff in the
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| eerie night. When we arrived at the sanatorium the help from Sandpoint had
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| arrived, but now they were understaffed again. We left the infected in their
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| care and after some discussion continued on to Sandpoint even though the
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| late hour.
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