Adventure: Collateral damage

The idea of the adventure is a small encounter that could be run in any campaign in any setting (provided traveling is by foot or at least by riding animals. Where you are forced to halt if you're sick and there's a bit of magic in the world).

Act I-There and Sick Again

The group was hired to track down someone who is on the run. In the evening the group comes into a small hamlet and decides to make a break there. The food is simple and fine (not as simple as the innkeeper) but too spicy to be delicious. 

Act II-Like dust on the road

The next morning they get so sick they can hardly move. They can’t resume their hunt.

When they manage to get downstairs to speak with the innkeeper, he says: ”oh not again” and leaves. He reappears with an old, friendly crone sometime later. The crone tells the PCs that since a week or so there's a sickness which everyone gets. She has a potion which smells ugly and tastes even worse, but helps. The PCs get better during that day.

The old crone asks the PCs for help. She fears she might get put on the stake for being a witch, which she isn't.

Result of the inquiries: A pair of necromancers poisoned the road.

The necromancer put a trap on the road; some grinded bones and silver to throw off their pursuers. The dust slowly kills anyone, who comes into contact with it, by sickening them. The trap killed the pursuers (some knights) and the necromancer hoped it would kill the villagers as well, as collateral damage. There’s a need for fresh corpses anyway.

Clues

·         There were two other special groups passing through.

1.       Some shiny knights in shiny armor

2.       A "nice and friendly merchant and his lovely daughter" which is actually the cover of a necromancer as daughter and her aide dressed as a merchant (DMinfo: The knights were on the hunt for the necromancer )

·         Silvery dust on the road

·         An old farm, which looks deserted but there's smoke/fire

·         People started getting sick after the nice merchant left the village

·         If they ask about their prey the innkeeper says that the prey did actually come this way and had the same room as the asking character

·         All other travelers stayed for an extra day or two after getting sick. Only the knights and the prey resumed their journey. The potion helped every single one of them.

Act III-Road kill

The old farm is the hideout of the necromancer pair. They are guarded by the reanimated horses and knights in not so shiny armor. When the battle is running against her, she kills her aide and tries to put the blame on him. She is just the apprentice; he forced her into service by a command – A girl has to try everything

By the way: the prey is dead on the road. The group should stumble upon it.