Local Heroes, Part 3 (Sunday-Monday, Rova 23rd-24th, 4707 AR)

After they finished their business at the Boneyard, the heroes went downtown to sell off their loot and buy new equipment. A simple walk down Main Street resulted in local baker Alma Avertin charging out to press a fresh-baked loaf of bread into the arms of Bruthien and Tsela, the skinniest, with worried comments that they must be starving. In addition, the combination of Tsela's good looks, fame, and heroic qualities sends ripples through town, and now and then the heroes overhear rumors and whispers about his "availability".

The heroes stopped by Bottled Solutions on their shopping trip. This cluttered shop is filled with shelves upon shelves of bottles, bags, and other alchemical containers, some covered with dust and others so new that the pungent stink of their brewing still fills the air. The shop is run by the half-elf Nisk Tander.

Eventually they ended up at Sandpoint Market. On most days, Sandpoint's marketplace is empty save for the odd group of children who enjoy using the wide-open area to play whistleball or other games. Twice each week, the market fills with vendors. At the start of the week, the farmer's market radically increases the daily selection of goods available at the Grocer's Hall, while all day at the end of the week, merchants from Magnimar, Galduria, Nybor, Wartle, and beyond take part in the Town Market. It's very rare to see any item worth more than a 500 gp base value go on sale at this market, but prices are generally 75% of the regular asking price.

While there the heroes tried to find information about Ezakien Tobyn's daughter. Nualia was a foundling raised by Sandpoint's previous religious leader, a man named Ezakien Tobyn, and her childhood was lonely. Her unearthly beauty caused many of the other children to play cruel jokes on her. The adults in town weren't much better. Rumors that her touch or proximity could cure warts and rashes, that locks of her hair brewed into tea could increase fertility, and that her voice could drive out evil spirits led to a succession of awkward and humiliating requests over the years.

Months before the Sandpoint fire, her father forbade her to leave the church, lectured her nightly, and she was praying to Desna for forgiveness for an unknown transgression. A month before the fire midwives were called to the church. Nualia was seven months pregnant, and that night she miscarried her child. The shock of losing a child was too much. Nualia fell into a coma. She had not awoken before the Sandpoint fire, and she and father Tobyn died as a result of that tragedy.

Urtrigor also gave them more information about the Sandpoint fire. A month after Chopper the murderer was slain, as fate would have it, the people of Sandpoint had a new tragedy to bear, one that almost eclipsed Chopper's rampage. A terrible fire struck Sandpoint. The fire started in the Sandpoint Chapel and spread quickly. As the town rallied to save the church, the inferno expanded, consuming the North Coast Stables, the White Deer Inn, and three homes. In the end, the church burnt to the ground, leaving the town's beloved priest Ezakien Tobyn and his beautiful adopted daughter Nualia dead.

The homes and businesses ravaged by the fire have been reconstructed, and the Sandpoint Chapel has finally been rebuilt as well. With the consecration of this new cathedral, Sandpoint hoped to finally put the dark times of the Late Unpleasantness in the past.

The Boar Hunt

The boar hunt itself takes place in nearby Tickwood. Aldern gladly bought each hero his own mount from Goblin Squash Stables. The sign above this door perpetuates one of the greatest fears of the lowly goblin - being trampled underfoot by a horse. The stables are tended by a retired hunter named Daviren Hosk, whose hatred of goblins is nearly legendary in Sandpoint. In a somewhat grisly display, over the entrance to the stable's covered barn is his collection of goblin ears: preserved and nailed to three different rafters, each bearing the goblin's name burned into the leathery flesh. The bitter ranger's pride and joy is a large glass bottle filled with brine in which he's preserved the body of Chief Whartus of the now extinct (due in large part to Daviren) Bonegrinder Tribe.

Aldern then eagerly led the heroes and his three menservants west over Tanner's Bridge and along the southern banks of the Turandarok River. It's a mile-and-a-half ride to Tickwood Forest, just north of the upthrust limestone escarpment known as the Devil's Platter. Despite its ominous name, Tickwood is actually a relatively safe woodland, one well known to be the home of wild boars, deer, firepelt cougars, and the rare giant ticks for which the wood is named - but no goblin tribes dwell within its boundaries.

The ride to Tickwood took about half an hour. Aldern is a charming conversationalist, well read and with a seemingly endless cache of stories about the high life in Magnimar. He's more interested in the heroes, though, in particular Thurden, who seemed especially good at fighting goblins. His attention is friendly, but almost seems like a desperate attempt to "learn how to be a hero".

Although giant ticks are known in Tickwood, the primary denizens of this long, narrow forest of pines, firs, and redwoods are boars. As a result, the wood is a popular hunting ground among the wealthier residents of Sandpoint.