Episode 3
Crimson Justice
Continuing to follow leads in the Maple Crossroads, the group visits the shady Watering Hole and the retired elf adventurer at Eagle’s Nest Farm – leading to a confrontation with the outlaw gang, the Crimson Knuckles.
Recap
While visiting the Lazy Pony Stables in the Maple Crossroads, the party spoke with its owner, Simon Hobb, and his half-elf son, Triston, who appears to have been the last person to see the missing elf child, Kymil, alive. Triston claimed that while playing hide and seek around the Stonewall Manor, Kymil disappeared, and he mentioned that they'd seen strange things occur at the manor – particular folk that often entered and exited through the back entrance to the manor's cellar and rumors of the place being haunted. Though Simon waved off any superstition of the supernatural, he did show concern on the matter.
Thanking Simon and Triston for their time, the adventurers turned to leave but found themselves standing before a Domaarian Knight who'd arrived to stable his horse. After a brief exchange, the party left as quickly and as unsuspecting as they could, deciding to visit the Watering Hole tavern next.
After walking through a more shady area of town, the group entered the rough-and-tumble tavern to find a rowdy crowd drinking, fighting, and partying even early in the morning. The lone proprietor behind the bar, an orange-skinned, horned tiefling named Dharros poured drinks and spoke with the adventurers, happy to see newcomers to his tavern. Raz'sik asked where they could potentially pick up work, and Dharros pointed out a contact for the Crimson Knuckles, a tough-looking human wearing a red scarf, like a number of other patrons.
Raz'sik and Anton met with the man while Gemma, Willa, and Sovemil (who Raz communicated with telepathically) stayed at the bar. The Crimson Knuckles contact offered a thieving job and a hit job – the latter on the halfling Lezia Lunarberry, the woman from the market who had her wares stolen. The Knuckles had heard about her reporting it to the guards, and now they wanted to eliminate her. But after Anton critically failed to persuade the man to send Knuckles with them to the halfling, he retracted the job and told them to leave.
Looking to avoid trouble, the party regrouped and left the Watering Hole to warn Lezia about the price on her head. Meeting her back at the market, she thanked them for the warning, packed her things, and decided to head north to her grandmother's farm to hide from any potential assassins.
With more of the day still ahead of them, the party decided to meet with the old elf farmer they'd heard about at Eagle Nest's Farm, who apparently had some similarity to Anton's demeanor. The retired adventurer, a handsome but weathered druid named Eldiun, was happy to see adventurers in town that were willing to confront the Crimson Knuckles gang. Though he was concerned about the missing elves, he'd observed more of the Knuckles' activity, believing them to have taken residence in an abandoned tower a few miles south of the Maple Crossroads.
The group decided to confront them once and for all, particularly Raz'sik who seemed thirsty for bloodshed. Gemma guided them down an old foot trail, which led to the crumbled, old tower. Sneaking their way close to the camp, they were eventually spotted by red-scarfed bandits on the outside, and they launched into combat. All except for Willa went in for the kill; the dragonborn choosing to use her maul non-lethally to knock out one of the men. And as Anton drove his sword through the neck of the final enemy, more voices could be heard from within the tower....