November 20th, 1878
Chen got away, but we were quit of the other two, and only one additional bystander casualty. We tried to think about how the townsfolk would react come morning, but we were just too goddamned tired to care…
The party wakes to Marshall Heller asking after Onesimus. He and Holden go out to meet the Marshall and two armed tagalongs. Heller mentions that they believe the mayor was killed in the fire the night before, and had questions, to which Onesimus gave rather elusive answers. Heller eventually leaves, but not before suggesting that the whole of the town isn’t terribly interested in the party continuing to rock the boat.
Holden suggests the party come clean with each other about their motivations, and for the most part, everyone tells their stories.
At one point, Seri shows Ahiga that crushing the totem she gave her allows her to turn into a rat and allows her to speak with Templeton. The conversation isn’t terribly useful to Ahiga.
The party decides that leaving town and attempting to find Father O’Connor is their best bet, and they pack up what they can and head out of town.
On the outskirts of town, they encounter a man, not clothed properly against the cold, sitting in the road and babbling repeatedly, “The Red Lion is coming, The Red Lion is coming…and she’s going to kill us all!”
They came the next morning. Their lawkeeper, and a couple of his helpers. Wondering what had happened at the women’s house, the one that exploded. They spoke for a while with the black man, then told us, rather politely, to leave town.
I was more then willing to leave, but the others had still things to do. We also spent some time talking; they wanted to know the stories of each of us, and I told them what I could.
Then Rat Girl made me take out the small figurine she had made for me earlier, she crushed it between my hands, and suddenly I found myself in the shape of a rat. And I found that I could talk to the Rat Girl’s companion. Not that he was very helpful; he did not seem interested in answering my questions. Or perhaps I was not asking the right questions.
Spending time as a rat was unsettling, but when I turned back to human, I did not feel very different from before. Maybe it is a different kind of magic that they have. Maybe it is a result of all the other strange things that happened.
As it always did with these people, it took us a while to get going. People had things they needed to take care of, but we eventually managed to head out. And there, at the edge of the town, a man was sitting on the ground. He was not dressed for the weather, but he did not seem to notice the cold. He was just sitting there, in the road, mumbling to himself. “The Red Lion is coming! The Red Lion is coming, and she is going to kill us all!”