Did I hear anything when I listened to the door? I assume this is a roll you make.

All was quiet.  As they might recall, the entry to the basement was in a small room where the stairs also continued up into the bell tower.  Nothing had been disturbed since their prior visit, including the presence of the bodies left behind.  Evidently, none of Cannibal's gang even pretended to have religion and none of the honest people in town had been in the rooms behind the main area for worship.

Is the guy we left tied up still there too?

"Doesn't look like anyone's been here since yesterday," Dak whispered.  It wasn't surprising considering how fearful the villagers were of the church and the men in town.  Couldn't everybody just get along?

He waited for someone with better vision than his to take the lead.

"Do we head on up, or should we check the first floor first?" Hewney glanced at Pathwyn for guidance. "Should we bury these bodies?"

Pathwyn wrinkled her nose.  It was beginning to stink of death in this church.

"Let's get up into the tower.  That's why we're here."

"Myrick mentioned they dumped the other thugs' bodies in the ocean.  Digging a proper grave is a lot of work.  Plus, I'm guessing they don't want Cannibal and his men knowing about the deaths.  These two," Pathwyn gestures in the vague direction of the corpses in the church.  "I'm sure our formerly tied-up guard ran to Cannibal and told him all about them already, so we won't be keeping their death a secret no matter what we do.  I'm not against burying them after we take care of Cannibal and Penrhyn.  We'll see how things shake out."

Looking up the stairs to the bell tower, it did not look large enough to comfortably hold more than one person.

In reply to DM (msg # 222):

"I'll take point," Hewney says, He gives the stairs a once over for safety and traps. If it seems sound, he will ascend, though he will crouch when he reaches the top to minimize his profile. His first point of order will be to see if anyone is out and about, followed by checking for where he thinks the boat might be coming from.

---

As always, Alvador paces himself in the middle.

Dak stops at the main level and moved out into the church proper to look around.  It looked cramped in the tower and they didn't need to be holding hands all of the time.

The bell tower was a lot smaller than Pathwyn had expected.  Hewney had the lookout position under control.

"Dak, lets drag these bodies into the basement.  It's cooler down there and they wont rot quite so quickly," she said.

Honestly, she didn't want to look at them (or smell them) while they made their plans.  She grabbed the smaller of the two bodies by the shoulders and pulled it down the stairs.

When that was complete she started discussing her plan with Alvador and Dak.

"I know that neither of you are fond of killing, but I've thought about this a lot, and I think we have to kill Cannibal and Penrhyn to break up the gang and free Farnworth.  It will be the minimum of necessary violence.  Leaderless, we should be able to disperse the others and avoid further bloodshed.  There's no point in capturing Cannibal or Penrhyn, since we can't take them to any sort of authority.  There's no legal authority here in Farnworth, where every townsperson knows their crimes.  Outside of the village, we don't have any real evidence to have them imprisoned.  Worse yet, they could be actual agents of the Baron, in which case *we* would risk getting tossed in a dungeon."

"So first things first.  How to kill Cannibal?  I think the best time and place will be to attack him in his house in the deep of night.  We'll be reasonably sure he'll be there, and we'll be very likely to catch him off guard and unarmored."

"He might have a guard or two outside the house, which we should take down as quickly and quietly as possible.  A sleep spell, arrow shots, a surprise stealth attack, or some combination of all three would do the trick.  We'll also need to deal with his dogs either inside or outside the house.  We'll have the nets for that, with spells and swords if the nets don't work."

"When I was first working on the plan I wanted to go into the house in complete darkness to further put Cannibal at a disadvantage.  At the time we had three people who can see in the dark, but now we'll have another elf, half-elf, and gnome.  Hewney can likely get us in through a locked door.  Otherwise we'll just have to smash open a window or break down a door.  Once inside, six fighting one man blinded by darkness should be a swift victory."

Pathwyn intentionally neglects to mention the possibility of catching (and killing) Cannibal in his sleep.

"The human half of our group can be ready outside with covered lanterns at the ready, surrounding the house in case either Cannibal escapes or reinforcements come from the inn.  If things go wrong inside they can rush in to save the day."

Pathwyn stopped there.  She had more to discuss, but she wanted to hear their thoughts on the plan so far.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:57, Thu 20 May 2021.

"What about Green Cloak?" Dak asked noncommittally.  "He seemed to have some magic.  We need to keep track of him as well."

"I'm hoping we catch sight of him from the bell tower.  Barring that, it's a small place, Farnworth.  We can search the whole village for Penrhyn after Cannibal is out of the picture."

Assuming I can't hear the discussion downstairs, Hewney gets comfortable sitting on the floor so the bell tower, and pops his head up a tiny bit every five minutes or so.

Alvador helps with the housekeeping.

Pathwyn, Alvador, and Dak managed to get the corpses down to the cellar without too much incident.

In reply to DM (msg # 232):

Hewney moves part way down the stairs and hisses to the others.

"I think they have arrived. Not sure, but it looks like them. I'll head back up and see what happens."

He then scurries back up the stairs and peeks out again.

"I'm guessing he means the group from the boat," Dak said, looking for a window that looked back in the direction of the town in case it wasn't.

Alvador asks Chree to leave him and keep out of harm's way. He looks at Pathwyn, awaiting instructions.

That happened sooner than she expected.

"If all goes well they'll make their way here without incident and we can share our plans with them, but we need to be ready to go out there and help them if they get in a pinch," Pathwyn said to Dak and Alvador before hustling up to the tower after Hewney.

Pathwyn squeezed her way up into the tower with Hewney.  Good thing she was small.

"Can you point them out to me?" she asked Hewney.

Pathwyn took a peek for herself.

She also sized up the bell tower.  Could she fire arrows from here?  Was it possible to climb out onto the roof?  Would someplace on the roof make a better platform for archery?

Orienting her in basically the right direction, Hewney stays down while Pathwyn in up, to reduce the chance of being spotted.

Chree flew up toward the top of the bell tower.



Arrows could be fired from the bell tower, although it looked difficult to climb any higher, and recalling the lines of the structure, it seemed within the bell tower might be the best for firing arrows.

Alvador reminds the group. I think the idea is that we make our move when we see the baddies react.

"Hewney, if our new friends get attacked out there we're going to need you and those enchanted daggers of yours with Dak and Alvador attacking Cannibal's gang from behind," she said quietly.

She quickly wound her 12 feet of rope into a ball and tucked the end in.

"I'll take over as lookout.  If you three need to rush out to aid the crew of the Ananke, I'll signal you by rolling this ball of rope down the stairs.  I can help cover you from up here.  OK?"