07 - The Frog, the Witch and the Bal

When we arrive near Foreman's office, we notice a carriage.
Foreman is talking to an half-elf, who's dressed finely in black (but medieval) suit, using an expensive cane. Along that person is standing with two armed bodyguards (who are dressed in simple black).
Foreman seems nervous while talking to that person.
The group decides to listen from a distance before deciding what to do.
[Perception check - Pass✔] The half-elf talks with a calm and sinister voice.
"I'm not one to play games or to make request twice."
He asks to send a team to dig inside and get loot from the Giants' Graveyard.
From what we see, the half-elf seems to be a young man, but limping on his cane, as he is leaving in the carriage along his bodyguards.
Once they're a bit further away, we're walking up to Foreman, looking mad.
We learn that this man was Mr. Laughton.
We're giving gems and the Crook of Conversation to Foreman, in order to appease Mr. Laughton off Foreman.

From that, the party leaves and take a bit of downtime before checking with Raina the next morning.
Willum is trying to understand why Nesvalyn knows Celestial by catching him offguard.
Nesvalyn asks about Raina's deal with Reylynn and Persy, but apparently there is nothing new (aside the rabbits).
Back at the safe house, Nesvalyn and Persy spends the night to lockpick the safe from The Lab (Warehouse).
[Lockpick - Fail❌] The duo didn't manage to open the safe.

After resting, the party decides to go to see Raina to get more information after the expedition in the Giants' Graveyard. Upon arriving, we meet Raina outside, taking her breakfast.
Graath and Persy go feed the frog inside.
Willum presents the axe, to which Raina reacts to the hole being creepy. Willum proposes it as a payment for the deal Persy and Reylynn took. Raina accepts it.
Reylynn gives the Elementalist Tongue item, and it ends the deal of the rabbits for both Reylynn and Persy. When we tried to know more about the deal and the help given, she stays vague about the help given, which pisses off some party members.
Upon gathering as Graath and Persy don't find the frog, Graath mentions the frog in Jonni's office.
Raina mentions that the species of the frog is the Flower's Faure.
She also reveals that she had to do a deal with previous owner to live here, which happens to be Jonni.
Upon that, she proposes a request: Bring the frog from Jonni's office.
When Graath mentions giving blood to the frog, Raina's face turns dark, as the frog turns out to be an 🍑hole, with Graath counterarguing he's the best kind.
With the tension from before, Raina dismiss us with anger.
Reylynn goes back to see Raina while the party looks for intel from the Bal, where Reylynn notices that Raina got excited by the axe.

[Investigation check] Nesvalyn and Persy learns that the Bal happens in the Bal Court (it's an old warehouse reconverted as a Bal court.). The event is the talk of the town, as it's a Collars event with wealthy people. We also learn that the event is Invite only.
Usually, the Collars' events end with a drunk walk within town, ending up destroying and tagging places.
Graath learns from a pub owner they want many kegs as possible in 3 days.
Persy finds that the list keeper is someone by the name of Grana. Lord Wringer makes the list, but if we grease Grana pawn, we can secure our way in.
Willum and Graath sees someone from the Temple, asking for help:

In the past few days, since Father Thatch has been gone, the most devoted patrons has been dying.
They died the same way, as they were untouched and peaceful, as they were sleeping.

Graath and Willum reveals that Hosta is living undercover at the Temple.

Upon discussing, one way we have to go in is related to the delivery of the kegs (while hiding in the keg).
We decide to postpone a bit our planning for the Bal to head to the Temple, investigating about this rumor.

Hosta is running the Temple while Father Thatch is away. When we arrived, some faithful mentioned she is in the undergrowth, doing the rituals.
We decide to join her the undergrowth, to check the corpses.
Upon meeting with Hosta and being pleased to see her alive (and doing classic in party banters), we decide to have a look on the recently deceased.
It appears that it was his time to go from the first one (old man - dwarf). The other one who died was an elderly woman.
[Detect magic] No magic present on the corpses.
[Medicine check] It really looks like someone who died peacefully in their sleep.

When we asked where both of them died, the woman was found in her bed, and the man was found in his living room. They were both congregation members.
Hosta mentions it may be rumors with the current climate, and just a coincidence.
[Insight check - Pass ✔] Graath and Willum notices that Hosta seems dismissive.
When Willum confronts her, she reply with a simple "There's nothing to tell", which seems really hesitative.
[Religion check - Pass ✔] Persy notices that the corpses have a traditional funeral rite, but it's done by Hosta who's not a cleric.
From that, Persy relays the information on a paper to Willum. Unsure on how to go with that and the party noticing that she is dismissive, Nesvalyn starts to reassure her and encourages her to share her problem, as to help us to help her. Willum follows up with the fact we brought her from the dead, and that she can trust us.
[Persuasion check - Pass ✔] She starts to cry. "You shouldn't have brought me back."
The party starts to recomfort her.
"The candle didn't bring me back on my own, and I had to take a deal. I had to become a Dusk Sister."
[History + Religion check - Pass✔] It's supposed to be a legend, but according to that said legend, Dusk Sisters are marked to be Valkyries and to help the passing of the dead. They're the alive entities part of the process.
The party comforted Hosta about her new role, and insisted that it's not her fault if these elderly died.

Upon that, Graath mentions that he'll accept to take the blame about her situation, which Hosta confirms. From that, the party decides to leave, and to resume their planning for the Collars' Bal.

After a long discussion (with arguing the approach, how-to and eventually poison or rig up the place), the idea of infiltrating the Collars' HQ while the Bal is happening could be an opportunity (as most of the gang will be there).
However, it wouldn't solve much our problem, and we wouldn't know what to do with the people we would save.
We agreed to follow this plan:

• Nesvalyn and Willum are going as guests and gathering intel
• Graath, Persy and Reylynn are going stealthy through the backdoor and drug the lieutenants, so we can take them.

As we acknowledged this plan, our next move was to get Nesvalyn and Willum on the list for the Bal. We started looking for Grana who holds the list.