Tall Tales 2

 

In a town built on rumors and strange occurrences it is a little hard to convince the people that David is suffering from trauma after we just found out that the Andorah family is actually a vampire clan and not even all related. Made some progress at least, as its hard to argue with the fact that if I had a personal attack wendigo I would be walking it around town all day just to show it off.

Speaking of which, it is convenient at least that David did not see who the wendigo actually is due to the fog. That and Lara dresses a lot like Javier when she comes into town so few people have even noticed she has red hair let alone that the rumored “Laugh’s Hound” was her. That being said they’re mighty suspicious of everyone who hides their mouth and eyes right now…which includes Javier and Grimold from the Andorah clan. They’re right about one of those I guess.

Lara herself is back in the woods minding her own business so at least she’s out of the way. I told her to ask me to get stuff from town for her if she needs anything for a little while until people are less alert of masked figures. We should just have Hailey start a plague to make everyone wear masks so it won’t seem strange how many people have bandanna masks.

We’ve started to rebuild the town as best we can as a town effort. Everyone is chipping in at least a little bit of labor. Really bringing that small town spirit together.

John is off to Wallhalla to see if he can find any information about the invaders.

Hailey said she can set up the warning spell but the problem is just about anything will trigger it. Including wild life. She left a bell in your office that rings every time its passed over.

Also for the record, Hailey being a witch was heavily suspected but not currently confirmed. She generally wears a regular dress around town and there are only rumors of seeing her in her more witchy outfit before a job. Then the bitch went and made a big fuss about it so now I’m dealing with that shit too.

Rohaka is up and walking around again, though she’s a little nauseous at times and definitely can’t sustain Alihana again. She should be self sufficient in a week or so.

I’m not sure if your message helped or not, since they go from worrying about the wendigo to worrying about us. Also rumors making its way around town that Alihana is with us. Apparently even the foreigners know a little about her. Though they don’t know specifically about Rohaka’s relationship to her or why no one has seen her since.

As you requested I greeted the people and somehow that turned into what these people refer to as a ‘job’. Specifically I was asked to help with construction of new houses to replace the destroyed ones. Though for the most part I just carried wood around for them. I made three dollars for the day. I do not know if that is adequate or not.

The town is apparently more used to the creatures of the land than others but they’re still on edge after the revelation of so many denizens dwelling in their midst. To be fair, I am still wary of Kathryn as well. They are trying very hard to downplay the presence of a wendigo, and that creature was no ordinary one. Most like that belong to the Shiyo tribe, fully self aware and yet still complacent to kill and eat any others it comes across. Using their awareness to make plans and grow their power intentionally. This laughing wendigo living nearby might one day become equivalent to a shiyo. Insatiable and clever. Not to mention that apparently it knows the ways of the witches who can transform themselves. I have reason to believe a shiyo shaman created this thing to be a hunter of men….eventually. It may be to the town’s interest if we pushed back on her attempt to make us stop worrying about it, I can hunt it down myself even.

I’ll go back into the miasma with these Reclaimers as you request, but keep Rohaka close until we find out what is going on with this town, and its residents in particular.

We’ve sent the acolytes to establish the wayshrines. I made them some wards to keep the miasma at bay at least a little. Though any larger effect would require an active shaman to maintain them.

As for the yharl beast, Halona is out looking for it. More may eventually come but he’s not doing anything else right now anyways. Keeps him busy and sharp.

The village nearest to us is still standing. Though we’re still waiting for a report from those that are a little further away.

Noel is still at Rapidvale working on morale management as requested. It is likely that the initial panic has subsided by seeing her there. Though she’s having difficulty dealing with curiosities about the wendigo. If she lies and says its too far for her to find, it might bring the people’s faith in her and us to question if Lara shows up again. Since they know she can see through the forest and of course she knows exactly where Lara is. Though she is making sure no one goes looking for her, by her account Lara has a lair where she took the bodies of many of the bandits. It is not a place a citizen should ever lay eyes upon.

I have reason to believe those who attacked Rapidvale would have used the iron roads. Simply by nature of their technology combined with the amount of equipment they were moving. Though we are still seeking evidence of such, the nearby village also has no one that saw which way they came from let alone how they got here. I’ve asked them to keep an eye out for the airships of steam and iron as well as those trains of theirs that traverse the iron roads.

“less interested” is an understatement for Shen. He’d probably eat the villagers if you left him unsupervised for long enough. I’ve  been haggling with Kathryn for the bodies of the bandits. I always wondered why they didn’t all go to us by default. Knowing that a wendigo lives nearby explains this well, but the quantity of bodies they kept from us implies that either there is more than one or that creature has a dangerously voracious appetite.

The revelation of our existence has people on the fence. It is known that vampires live in the city, and they aren’t even terribly popular there. A few people in town already knew about at least one of us though it was a whispered rumor. Now everyone saw Sun Ai dressed in blades and kicking people’s heads off – quite literally. That one is the particular crux of the issue. Shen was already just weird, and Salvatore had some girls he managed to seduce for feeding. I’m considered a little bit weird by many. Sun Ai was the town’s ‘innocent happy energetic girl’. A lot of the oddities of Shen’s presence was offset knowing he was supposedly somehow related to Sun Ai and she seemed to like him just fine. For the rest of us, the shattered facade is sort of an ‘I knew it’ but a lot of people really trusted Sun Ai to be a normal person.

For the most part our presence is deflected by the ongoing back and forth rumors about the wendigo. Weirdly, they confirmed our existence but they’re more interested in the rumors surrounding Lara and Hailey. I’ve been casually reminding people that deer bleed just the same as people and there are plenty of those in this neck of the woods to sort of deflect the question. Which is true, Shen hunts bears and moose because he finds humans weak and unworthy of the challenge. Maaaybe Salvatore seduced a couple of women but they were into it!

In terms of our town reputation, might help to get some hunting trophies to hang around the place. Just as a “we eat these” type of announcement.Though I suppose it depends what role we want to play. Hailey and Lara are getting most of the attention as of late.

We’ve taken to rebuilding the house bit by bit, we got the outer layer repaired so it should be dark inside once more. The rest of the house is mostly for show so it’s really more of a warehouse at the moment while Shen keeps rebuilding the rooms but at least the walls are back in place.

I’ve asked Amber’s shop to look at the sword though after banging it around a lot they also haven’t quite figured out how to make it do anything. Though they have noticed it is remarkably durable. To the point that Sicily suggested using it as a foundational support pillar for something large since as far as she can tell, it cannot break. They did not tell me they were about to shoot it to test that, fortunately they were correct or I would have eaten that girl.

Wait why do I have to get a job? I already maintain the house and keep that idiot Shen out of trouble for you. I’m more of a…tell people what to do person yeah? I’m not cut out for labor! My vampiric strength does not mean I am any less a lady.

Enjoy your trip to the city, it’ll be a bit of a trip.

Grimold and Shen have been going into the miasma for awhile now, so they’ll be alright. Though we’ll see how the natives handle them being around. They tend not to like city folk, let alone the epitome of representation of the old world’s power. Vampires like us, even if we’re a little broke compared to our brethren.

By default if you aren’t specific about something, whoever is standing around managing the counter gets to pick. Which is usually me.

Kathryn knows about the artifact now, but she hasn’t told many others beyond the mayor I imagine. So the vault might remain necessary while Noel is in town. She can see through anything short of stone and detect objects of oddities. She’ll see it immediately if we take it out of the vault while she is in town. As for finding potential candidates, we know it works best with people that at least have a solid understanding of their surroundings but also are not smart enough to see something wrong with any evidence presented to them. Van Tien has mixed results in this. If people believe anything we tell them we can get the desired effect easily but they might believe a bunch of other stupid things that suddenly become real. If they’re smart enough not to let their first impressions become rooted beliefs, then we have to sort of ‘convince them’ of what we want to affect.

Nathan and I have taken to helping Lenard fix his chair. We refrain from giving him a shirt because they catch on fire due to the energy emanating from his gut that powers his own chair. Though he’s back up and moving now at least and we built the framework for a backup.

If we had to I suppose we could make some larger rifles for dealing with their armor. Though few people can wield them comfortably it would be alright to have them around. Lenard is actually the most effective against them, if it wasn’t for his decision to protect townspeople that whole fight might have gone our way before the wendigo appeared. Unfortunately, we cannot replicate the energy source that his body possesses. Though in the meantime maybe mount some sort of small cannon onto the roof of the shop?

Also are you going to implement mandatory sensitivity training for the whole town?