D&D: Shiny Belles

Yesterday was D&D! Here's last time. On we go!

Our heroes traveled south, recall, and found signs for an establishment called "Shiny Belles." They follow said signs, and discover a little roadside tavern - nothing much, one main building, a stable, and an outbuilding a little ways away. A handsome young man is outside chopping wood, and Aisling immediately comes up and chats with him (Aisling is, as you might remember, a sucker for a pretty face).

The man introduces himself as Stellan, and tells the party that the establishment has beds, dinner, entertainment, and "companionship." Aisling is the only one immediately interested in that bit, but everyone else is on board with the notion of not sleeping outside for a night, so they go in and have a seat. 

A woman emerges from the back of the establishment; she's blonde, slightly plump, a bit older than Stellan. She introduces herself as Blythe (there's a bunch of NPCs this session, buckle up). She has the characters sit down and get comfy, and yells to another man, Connal, to bring drinks. He brings out some table wine, pours them each a glass, and leaves with a kind of grunt. The characters also notice an old, old man snoozing by the fire. 

Blythe talks to them about the place - they can go upstairs and take a room, and some of the doors have names and portraits on them, if they'd like to see the girls on offer. She says that there's a man, as well, and Aisling says she'd love to meet him. She also asks if it would be possible to have a bath, and Blythe says that's absolutely doable - if she'd like an "attendant", that's also doable. She goes and sends out Dane, the male companion, who is slim and black-haired and very pretty, and Aisling is immediately taken with him. He goes to start preparing her bath, and the heroes keep looking about the place.

The go upstairs and each take a room - there are 10 total, four for guests (very small, each with a bed and a table and a basin, but that's about it) and six with names and portraits. Well, six with names, but only four with portraits: Aoibhe, Imogen, Emer, and Shauna all have pictures painted above their names, while Dane and Tanith do not. Zook finds this curious, and is interested to see what Tanith might look like. 

Dara takes the room with the window, but then goes out to the stable. Peeking in, she sees no animals, dust in the corners, no smell of manure - there are no animals that live her regularly. Connal appears behind her and asks if she needs anything, she tells him that she's generally more interested in animals than people ("Not a request we've had before..." "NOT LIKE THAT"). He tells her that they did have a couple of horses at one point, but one of them died after breaking its leg and the other was old and they traded her to a farmer. 

Clara goes to her room to meditate, while Zook and Aisling go downstairs to the main room. Zook finds another man in the room, a buff-looking fellow who introduces himself as Achain. Achain is the security for Shiny Belles, and tells Zook that he used to be a town guard in Cian before he was injured. He also shows great interest in Zook's adventures and is keen to hear the story of the group taking on an owlbear. Zook notes that he refills the old man's mug with wine, and refers to him as Sennin. 

Zook wanders into the kitchen and finds another woman, short-haired and a little older than the others, preparing dinner. She introduces herself as Wren, and Zook asks if he can help. She tells him to grab a knife and start chopping veggies. A moment later, Dane comes in the back door, through the kitchen, and brings Aisling out behind the building where a big tub of hot water, screened off with a curtain, awaits. He draws the curtain for them...

Dara returns to the main room and talks with Sennin a little, but Sennin is barely coherent. She and Zook both note that he seems very drunk, and Zook wonders how that's possible if all he's drinking is this very weak table wine. They might be keeping him drugged, but why?

The characters continue in this fashion until dinner - Aisling comes out of her bath looking freshly, um, scrubbed, and glowing. Clara comes downstairs more centered, I suppose, and everyone sits down to have dinner - stew, bread, table wine, simple fare, but decent and filling. After they've eaten, one of the girls - Emer, the first one they've seen - appears with a lute, stands up on stage, and plays a bit for them. Zook asks Wren if there's perhaps something stronger than table wine, and she brings them a bottle of amber liquor, and Clara and Zook proceed to get very drunk and dance on tables (Clara: "WATCH I'M GONNA DO A TRIPLE BACKFLIP"). Aisling gets up and plays the harp-lute with Emer, and then switches to her drum and everyone kind of parties. 

Dara, meanwhile, asks to use the bath - alone, thanks. Dane reappears and leads her out, but while she's bathing she hears a rustling sound. She peeks out and sees Dane kind of hanging around outside the curtain and asks if he needs anything. He kind of stammers a bit, and at that point Wren appears and yells for him to come in.

Zook notices Wren pour a shot of the liquor into Sennin's glass, and emboldened with liquor, walks around the building to the back door and into the kitchen. He tries to creep up on Wren to put a dagger at her back and demand to know why they're drugging the old man, but trips and drops his dagger. Wren turns and sees the drunk gnome kind of standing there sheepishly, and asks what's going on. He comes clean and asks about the old man, and Wren says that Sennin is Connal's father, and that he's very ill - if he's not given herbs to dull the pain, he screams and wails when he's awake. Zook accepts this, and mentions that he's been looking for word of his father. She asks if his father was a ranger, an adventurer like him, and Zook eagerly confirms. She says she thinks she might have heard something, but she can't quite recall - check with her in the morning. Zook also asks about Tanith, and Wren says that she and Dane are cousins, but they haven't been here long, hence the lack of portrait.

The characters go to bed. Dara stares out the window (as an elf, she doesn't really sleep), and sees someone outside walking around. She can't tell who it is - maybe Stellan, but it looks taller than he was? She assumes the form of an owl and flies after the figure, and when she gets close she sees that it is Stellan. She follows him around a bit; he forages for eggs and mushrooms, and Dara eventually goes back to her room.

In the morning, the characters come downstairs for breakfast (which Wren is cooking). Dara gives Clara a draught to help the hangover, and Connal appears for the first time since yesterday and talks with the group. Aisling asks to settle up a bill - they're going to be heading out today. Connal says that since they are adventurers, and to acknowledge their heroism with the owlbear in the village, they don't need to pay for their lodging and services here. The adventurers ask if there's anything they can do to help out, but Connal insists - it's on the house.

They eat their breakfast (eggs, and kind of rubbery, actually) and go upstairs to pack up. But Aisling realizes she's missing a silver bracelet, and Dara is missing a potion of giant strength. They ask the others, Zook can't find his magic hat. Clara is missing her rope and pitons ("That was really good rope, too"). Annoyed, Aisling goes downstairs to find someone and winds up talking to Wren, who says they should go find Achain. Aisling says she'll go with her, and Wren goes out the door and calls "ACHAIN!" Achain comes around the corner and goes upstairs with the group to help them look. He says he can't believe anyone here would steal from guests, but then, Dane and Tanith haven't been here long...

The characters are suspicious, and Dara casts a spell to detect magic. She sees a glow around Achain, but that would mean that he's actively using magic now. Achain goes across the hall and enters Aoibhe's room, and Dara relays this to the adventurers. Zook wonders if it might not be some kind of disguise spell, and Aisling considers how many people they've seen at once and who exactly has been together.

She realizes that there are a lot of people here that they've never seen, but actually, there are other inconsistencies. For example, the stew last night was good - simple, but good and competently prepared, but the eggs this morning were pretty bad. How did the same person prepare them? Also, yesterday Achain was boorish and pushy, but today he's careful and articulate. 

The characters go downstairs and talk to Sennin, who is sobering up. He asks for a drink and they give him water, and Dara gives him a sip of her anti-hangover draught. He borrows her quarterstaff and gets up, and slowly walks outside - no howls of pain, Zook notes.

The characters decide to snoop a bit. They go upstairs and check the "girls'" rooms, and find them empty - including Aoibhe's, though the window is open. Dane and Tanith's rooms don't even have furniture other than a bare bed. They go downstairs to the kitchen, and find it empty. They find a door to the root cellar, and in some bins they find their missing stuff, along with some trinkets and objects clearly taken from other travelers. 

They head back up and find that Sennin is sitting in his chair again. He gives back the staff and says he just had to go to the "ditch". Now that he's a bit more lucid, they ask him some questions and learn that sometimes Achain's limp just...goes away. They used to laugh about how their legs would hurt when the weather turned (his because he's old, Achain's because of the injury), but Achain doesn't sit and talk with him anymore. 

The characters, with a bit of a sinking feeling, decide to check the outbuilding. The only door is locked, and when Clara kicks it, it doesn't budge at all - clearly a magical lock. Aisling climbs on the roof and breaks through, and inside the ramshackle little building finds four bedrolls and a bunch of notes written on the walls in charcoal. But most disturbing, she finds the word "SPAWN?" written on the wall, and beneath it, four names with hash-marks next to them: Gell 2, Fench 3, Lilk 6, Perd 1. 

She tries to open the door from the inside, but it won't move, so the others climb on the roof and get in that way. They look around and realize that whoever has been sleeping here, they're much taller than anyone the characters have met. Dara thinks back to the figure she saw last night...

They get out of the shack and head back into the tavern, and talk to Sennin again. Aisling mentions what he said about Achain, and Sennin says "did I say that?" Aisling immediately becomes suspicious, as does Clara, and she grabs him and tries to pull him up to see what he'll do.

It works - Sennin bursts into a tall, white, blobby figure and slams Aisling and Clara back! Aisling draws her sword and strikes ("We had such a nice evening! Everything was going fine!" "We can feel none of it," the figure snarls). The monster lashes out and smacks the characters around a bit, but it's surrounded and outnumbered, and when Zook pulls out the magic missiles, it tries to flee.

But when it puts a little distance between itself and the heroes, Dara hurls an ice knife and it lodges in the creature's ribs...and then bursts. The monster falls dead, and Zook figures it to be a doppelganger, a malevolent shapeshifter capable of some light mind-reading to aid in infiltration. And there are, perhaps, three more of them around...