Callie’s Journal
Cal has fallen asleep, but aside from him, we’re all feeling pretty great when a vampire calls for Bilbo.
He says he probably needs to help prepare for the ball, puts on an amulet representing Nerull (openly), and heads out.
Oz starts rummaging through Bilbo’s stuff, of course, and notices a holy symbol of Tiamat mounted on the wall. There’s nothing behind it, much to his disappointment. Freki finds some Glowcap mushrooms growing in something like a compost pile. Freki sniffs it and it smells like plant matter, but also slightly like decaying flesh.
Peering out the window, we can see what looks like a bell tower and maybe a churchyard of some kind. It looks like the vampires probably killed whoever was here before and moved in. The churchyard, where Bilbo lives, is mostly falling apart.
Bec looks around to see if Bilbo has any books. He does have a journal, so Bec flips through it. He writes a lot! She does a detect magic ritual for five minutes. The journal is not magical, although it has an illusion magic residue, as though something enchanted with illusion magic touched it a few times. Reading a few entries, Bec finds an incriminating passage: “I do what I can to prevent them from rising as undead, at least,” and we think Bilbo may be killing halflings when he can get away with it. He has also been used as a lure for other halflings. Poor Bilbo, we should help him. :((((
Freki and Oz are suspicious of Bilbo’s motives, but with my religion/vampire lore knowledge, I can assure them that no undead creature would have all these symbols of Nerull.
I’m going to try to sleep. That ale really snuck up on me!
There’s a banging on the door and a non-vampiric voice says, “Meatbags! You have been summoned!”
Bec is like, “Who is it?”
It’s probably a candygram.
Bilbo opens the door from the other side and he’s there with a ghast. The ghast’s tongue is lolling and drooling all over, gross. Bilbo says, “Sorry about that. Don’t mind him. He’s always hungry.”
Freki asks him about why there’s flesh bits in the mushroom soil. The ghast is like “fleeeeeeeesssshhhhh???”
Bilbo sighs and comes inside with his magic carpet so we can talk without this distraction. He reassures us that dinner is “not likely to be you, this time.”
Oz has had it with these motherfucking vampires in this motherfucking town! He’s still very keen to liberate the halfling town. He uses Panache to get Bilbo on our side. Bilbo admits that he is all for this plan, but if we attack Lestache he’ll have no choice (twitch twitch) but to turn against us. He also says it is his fate to serve Nerull. Nerull loves fate, it’s her thing.
Oz starts talking about how we could disguise someone as Bilbo, which makes Bilbo understandably nervous. He starts backing away slowly.
Anyway, there’s no obvious way out of this, so Oz tries to whack Bilbo with the pommel of his sword. But before he can, Bilbo slips his hand into his pocket and disappears. Dammit!
Oz grabs the magic carpet. Freki smells where Bilbo is and attempts to grapple him. Bilbo is surprisingly slippery and wriggles away!
Cal all of a sudden whips the air and catches Bilbo! We can see the whip wrapped around something that we can’t see.