While awaiting the Tribune's justice in two of the barracks that have been set up as brigs, Decius and Timon decide to break their way free of the tent, while Lucretia visits Kai to find out what in the world has happened. Klytus arrives and speaks with Polyphetes in yet another tent, and the cursed head informs them that it desires a body, living or dead. Its thralls set about deciding on what would be an appropriate body, and Sennia, sister to Klytus and Timon is brought up. Polyphetes then recommends Nausicaa, another of the local Imperial soldiers who has spurned him in the past, she would be most physically fit to host the head. They decide Klytus will try to smooth talk her, but as he tries to enter her tent, he triggers an alarm and enrages her. In a fit of rampant man-hate, she grabs her weapon and follows Klytus out into the street.
Decius and Timon finally break free, and along with Klytus and Polyphetes they begin to transport the head, but even more possessed by Laothoe than normal, Timon decides to betray and kill Decius to use his body as the host. They shatter the jar on the poor boy and finish him off. In the confusion, Lucretia springs Kai and they notice that the boys in the neighboring tent have broken free, and start looking for them. Nausicaa catches up with the trio of Laothoe's thralls, and a melee begins behind one of the local businesses. A brief, brutal battle in which Klytus is laid low, but Polyphetes manages to outfight and kill his fellow soldier, lopping her fierce head clean off! Timon decides to take the head from its shattered casing and plant it on the she-brute, and Laothoe comes to life, animated and eyes aglow an even deeper red!
Lucretia catches them up, as does the soldier/engineer Alektryon, but then she is quickly possessed by the head, and brought aboard their nefarious plans to escape Iosyne. Kai, feeling helpless, rushes off to warn his family of Flintcoats and have them abandon the place, fearing an outbreak of possessions that could turn all the other locals! His uncle and father reluctantly agree. As dawn breaks, the possess try to creep out of the village by way of the water duct leading up into the Saltspine north of the village. Laothoe orders Lucretia to stand at the base of the duct and ward off whoever follows them, but she's soon overcome by Alektryon, Thaumatus and Tribune Crathis. The two soldiers pursue the suspects up the covered structure, and eventually Timon is left behind to hold them off...and he poses quite a distraction until he's captured by Alektryon. The Tribune manages to convince the restless Flintcoats to remain in the village, as the immediate threat has been stymied.
Octavius 10, 340 EE.
Eventually, after being detained once more, Timon, Klytus and Lucretia come to their senses, as the effect has either worn off or Laothoe is too far away to influence their thoughts and actions. After the Tribune is able to interview Kai, Praetex, and several others involved, he decides that Timon and his own man Poly were not themselves when they murdered Decius and Nausicaa. But the village, still grieving over the loss of Elfchin, is furious, in particular the chirurgeon Ventor Sylo, whom Decius was apprenticed to. Crathis decides that the PCs should leave Iosyne for a time until all can be explained and the populace cooled down, and orders them to redeem themselves by trying to get more information on or locate the ancient creature which took advantage of them. He equips them all with better weaponry and standard Imperial armor, and assigns Kai's father Ned Flintcoat as a chaperone should they find themselves in such dire straits again. The PCs prepare to depart, with plans to visit the scholars at Nine Idols' Rest, who dwell in an old Huguelid reliquary in the north of the Saltspines, and may have information on their quarry.
PCs: Kai Flintcoat, Klytus Bassa, Lucretia Tertula, Timon Bassa
Experience: 1000 each
Class Unlocked: Aristocrat
NPCs
Alektryon (human male): Slighter in build than his fellow Imperial soldiers, Alektryon is in his early 30s, with greased black hair that he colors with sand from the Flats, green eyes and some notable scarring from bu rns on his left cheek and ear. He wears a gray, tattered duster above his breastplate, covered with pockets and a few bandoliers upon which he carries a number of implements. He wears a gladius at his hip, but otherwise avoids the regular complement of Imperial weaponry.
Crathis Kallimachos (human male): The Tribune is a dour and hawk- faced man who always seems to have a bit of spittle hanging from his stiff lower lip, an aqualine nose and a squared off chin bearing a prominent scar. He’s balding on the crown of his head, but keeps the rest of his hair feathered back in some estimation of the fashionable styles of urban Ekrysia. He bears his pins of rank upon an ornate, daily-polished breastplate, and whenever leaving his tent he is fully armed with hasta, gladius, and several pilum strapped across his back; all of his weapons seem to be of exceptional quality, and kept in the same condition as his armor.
Nausicaa (human female): The only female Imperial attached to Iosyne, Nausicaa is every bit a brute as some of her male counterparts, accenting her uniform with steel bands at her shoulders and forearms, and fond of wearing a pair of silvered brass knuckles which she can brawl with to great effect. A lasso is slung by her hip and a specially inscribed gladius which reads ‘Manhood’s End’ in the Imperial script. Her hair is worn in a thick, knotted braid that hangs past her rear, her head otherwise shaved. She has a sharp chin, piercing brown eyes and angular cheekbones which have been smashed a number of times, but none of these seems to have impacted her raw, natural good looks, which have stirred the longings of not only her fellow soldiery, but many of the local miners.
Ned ‘No-Neck’ Flintcoat (dwarf male): A stocky, blocky-skulled dwarf who lives up to his nickname, Ned’s neck literally seems to sprout out from his shoulders. It’s often difficult to tell, since he always insists on wearing his battered family breastplate and helm on digs, which don’t seem to slow him down in the extreme summer months as they would other miners in the community. Despite his lack of throat, Ned possesses one of the richer singing voices in Iosyne, and if he’s feeling cheerful, he’ll serenade fellow workers with a deep, smooth mix of dwarven and Imperial staples throughout most of a shift, well past the tolerance of many. No-Neck also carries a hybrid pick/battleaxe, and is usually the first to run at trouble if a predator is attacking a dig.
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