A Good Neighbor

A Good Neighbor
Date	10/06/25
Storyteller	Tire
Tier	Trainee
Player Characters	Capri, Claire, Fragile, Mips, Urallo
Rewards	375 gp, 300 xp
Result	Success
Author	JohnnySupernova
Downtime	20 days

The Associates investigate a crazy noisy bizarre town.

Log

The Curious Case of Senia Village From The Untold History of the Shining Rose of the Jongleur Three : A Collection of Short Stories derived from the notes of Sava Ru, rewritten by Olla Ru, Revised by his assistant, Professor Vertigo

Dramatis Personae

Capri - The Man-At-Arms

Claire - Fiery Funeral Director

Fragile - Stalwart Defender

Mips - Kobold Marksman

Urallo - The Shining Rose of the Jongleur Three

The Unforgettable Vertigo (no relation) - Fey Trickster

–

A little over a week’s walk away from Onadbyr, off the beaten path lies a small village known as Senia. Made up of only ten buildings, one would be forgiven for thinking Senia was but a tiny hamlet, one of a million places that would be lost to history, were it not for its place in this chronicle. Something wicked had made its home in the Village of Senia, and only one person could solve the mystery at hand: the Shining Rose of the Jongleur Three.

It was the irony of fate that saw the Associates of the Roundtable in the Village of Senia. An odd posting had appeared on their notice board requesting associate assistance with handling a neighborly dispute, and so, Urallo and the Unforgettable Vertigo set out to the village. Joining him were his best friends, Claire and Mips. As well as the warrior Capri, who Urallo had worked with once before, and Fragile, a person Urallo had not yet gotten to work with.

When Urallo and friends arrived in the village, they were directed to speak with the mayor, an elf man named Daeran. As they made their way through town, Urallo and Vertigo’s keen eyes caught a halfling with a pipe watching them, quite suspiciously so. Daeran, the mayor, greeted them warmly. “Oh, you must be the adventurers from the city.” He said, to the collection of adventurers. “It’s hard to describe what the issue is that we asked you here for. The family down the street have been acting odd, distancing themselves from everyone else. They haven’t left their home in ages and we think they’ve boarded it up. Their child’s been acting odd as well.”

There was an odd air about Daeran, something about him did not sit right with the associates. He gave them a smile. “We hope you can help them integrate with the village again.” Something else that was noticed was that Daeran only seemed to address Urallo and Claire. It is probably this fact that had Daeran noticing the rising flames atop Claire’s head as her annoyance with him grew.

“We wouldn’t request your help if we hadn’t exhausted everything in our powers. We’re just simple people trying to make our way through our simple lives.” Daeran said, pleadingly, with his arms raised in acquiescence.

Urallo gave a shrug, and led the group off. “I don’t think there’s such a thing as a simple person. We all have our foibles and our nuances… We shall talk to this family.” And thus, they were off. – The unnamed family lived in a small house at the beginning of the main road. The house was quiet. With the stillness of air around the building, and the drawing of the curtains, there was an eeriness to the silent building. The ever brave Capri shrugged and said, “Might as well knock, then.” There was no response to his knock. Capri tested the door and found it much heavier than he would have expected. It must have been boarded up. Claire, Mips, and Fragile traveled to the back of the house and found the backdoor. Claire began kicking the backdoor, but again, found no response.

The eagle eyed Mips noticed a small hole underneath the house, seemingly leading into the abyss. He waved the rest of the group over, and pointed to the hole. Urallo and Vertigo looked the hole over.

“It would appear someone from the inside has been digging their way out, and then back in.” Urallo said, with a nod.

Claire eyed the impromptu crawlspace, and then held her hand out to Mips for a good natured hand shake. “Mips, it’s been real. It’s unfortunate you have to die alone in someone’s crawlspace.” She said, with a smile.

Mips took the hand and shook, but, it was more accurate to say he grabbed several fingers, for he was much smaller than Claire. He shook his head. “Mips not going in there.” He said, dryly.

Capri began fiddling with the lock, and easily unlocked the door. The door only opened a fraction before catching on something on the other side, some sort of barricade set up. As the door opened, the associates could hear the sounds of sobbing. Hearing someone in distress, Urallo shouted out “Hello, I am the shining rose of the Jongleur Three, and I’m here to help!”. At this, the sobs quieted, as if to hide their presence. An ominous omen indeed.

“Well, at this point, I reckon we just break the door down.” Fragile suggested. And with a nod, Capri did just that. A good shove from the man sent the barricade tumbling backwards, and allowed entry for the associates.

The kitchen was dark, for the candles had just been extinguished. There was a fine aroma of cooked stew wafting in the air, for the family had left their meal to hide from the new visitors. With a striking pose, Urallo showed his friends why they called him the Shining Rose of the Jongleur Three, and summoned a bright light to illuminate the house.

With Fragile and Capri watching the crawlspace, Urallo, Mips, and Claire entered the house. They tracked the sounds of muffled sobbing to a bedroom. In a closet, two figures, a man and a woman, were hiding. “Oh no! Please don’t-! Wait… who are you?” The two said to Urallo.

He smiled warmly. “I am Urallo, the Shining Rose of the Jongleur Three, and we are here to help.”

“You’re not like… them?” The man asked, nervously, then breathed a sigh of relief. “The rest of the village has gone crazy. We don’t know what’s happened to them.”

Mips looked the two over with his keen eyes, then nodded. “Mips think they’re honest.” Just then, a young child appeared in the room, not magically, but mundanely, through the door. She was followed by Capri and Fragile. It was clear to everyone that she was the daughter of the two who had been hiding.

“I ran into your friends outside.” The daughter, Gia, said. “And I think we’re all on the same side here. Can you barricade the doors again?” She asked, before nervously looking to the windows.

Fragile looked at her, and said, “I can… but why?”

Gia shook her head and pointed out, vaguely at the rest of the village. “We can’t let them get in here! They’re crazy!”

Claire sighed, and walked out of the room. “I’ll watch the door if it makes you feel better.” She said, with growing irritation.

“Can you explain what the actual danger is here?” Fragile asked.

Gia started pacing nervously, as she told her story. “I don’t know why, but it’s a feeling I’ve been having. It started with the planting season last spring… people started acting weird. I didn’t think much of it at first, but then our food stores began to dwindle. It was like they all expired overnight. And out in the woods, I kept feeling like something was drawing me out there… and the people here kept getting weirder and weirder. They keep asking us over for dinner every night… And then– our neighbors vanished.” And finally, she stopped pacing, and looked to the associates, and said, with a whisper. “I think they ate them and I think we’re next.”

The group looked at her, a moment’s quiet hung in the air. Urallo asked, gently. “When were these neighbors last seen?”

“About two months ago…” Gia said, somberly. “The rest of the village never talk about them. It’s like they never existed.”

“It’s odd they would call us here to help you now, and not back then when a family went missing.” Fragile said, idly pondering the mystery further growing in this town. “Is there anything that sets you apart from the rest of the village? Are you doing anything they aren’t?”

Gia stopped, and thought for a moment. “They don’t help people anymore. Two visitors stopped by earlier in the year, no one would even talk to them. Our family was the only one that helped. They taught me a bit of magic!” She said, with some excitement.

This piqued Claire’s curiosity, for she was a wielder of magic herself. “What sort of magic?”

Gia’s eyes twinkled as she started thinking of her old friends. “The magic of names. A true name can give you power over someone, but if they’re really powerful, you can’t say their name or they’ll know. The people that taught me… they said to never say their names.”

Fragile furrowed her brow and looked to Claire and Urallo. “Does that make any sense to you?”

Urallo shrugged, and Claire said, “A little bit.”

The Unforgettable Vertigo, who was not one for wasted words, gave the group a smile. “The power of names is a common magic amongst the Fey, but one we keep to ourselves.”

Gia then said, “They also gave me this pendant! They told me to keep it safe.” With that, she pulled out an odd charm, depicting a snake eating its own tail. Claire looked the pendant over, and grimaced. It was an odd pendant, a celebration of death, rather than life.

Before Claire could inquire more on the odd nature of the pendant, Gia’s father chimed in. “It’s getting late, perhaps you can stay here tonight, I don’t know if I’d trust any accommodations from anyone else in the village.”

Claire shook her head. “The village might find that odd.”

Urallo nodded. “Then perhaps we should solve the mystery before the sun sets.”

And with that, the group set out to investigate the village.

–

The group trekked out to the snowy woods outside of Senia Village, but found little there. Nothing was amiss, and moreover, nothing was beckoning them. The group then headed back to the village to investigate their next lead, the missing family.

The missing family had made their abode in the stone house across the street from Gia’s family. Finding the door unlocked, our brave adventurers stepped across the hearth to investigate. The home was dusty and abandoned, and moreover, it looked like the family had simply vanished. Nothing was packed away, and dust caked everything. They found a family portrait, it was a group of Nephilim, like Urallo and Fragile. Curiouser and curiouser. It was also clear that they were budding magic users of some sort, though of what manner, it was hard to tell.

Wanting to get to the heart of the matter, the group went back to the beginning, to talk to the man that had summoned them here, the mayor Daeran. It was late in the evening when they knocked on their door. Capri kept a keen ear out, and hear some sort of conversation from inside, a one sided conversation that stopped as soon as the door was knocked upon.

Daeran opened the door, and warmly asked “How fortuitous. How can I help you?”

“Are you eating people?” Urallo asked bluntly.

Daeran looked shocked. “Eating people? Unless you consider animals to be people.”

Claire looked to Urallo, with a raised eyebrow. “Wait. Do you?”

Urallo glowered at the man. “Of course I do. I speak to animals, you see”

Claire nodded. “Well, my Vegan friend and I would like to speak with you. May we come in?”

Daeran paused for a moment, and looked back inside, then said, quietly. “Yes. You may. Please… come in.”

And so, Capri, Urallo, Claire, and Vertigo entered the abode of the Mayor, with Mips and Fragile standing guard outside.

Urallo, finding his patience had grown thin at this point came out and asked. “What is going on in this village?”

Daeran shrugged. “There’s nothing going on in the village. We just need you to get them to integrate again.”

“Define integration.” Claire said, coldly, at odds with the flames rising from her hair.

Daeran shrugged again, villainously. “They’re driven by paranoia, they need to come out from their boarded up windows!”

“Who were you talking to?” Claire asked.

“I wasn’t talking to anyone.” Daeran shrugged, a third time.

Urallo had spent this time looking around the house, and found nothing untoward, and turned back to the mayor and asked: “What happened to the other family?”

Daeran stopped, taken aback by this question. “They left. A few months ago. They packed their things and went off. We don’t know where.”

Urallo stared at him. “They didn’t pack their things.”

Daeran stared back. “I assure you… they did. They wouldn’t have left without them.”

Urallo shook his head. This was going nowhere, and he could feel the rising anger in his good friend Claire, for the temperature of the Mayor’s house had risen several degrees in not so many minutes. “Where is your nearest animal?”

Daeran looked confused by this, and thought. “Ah, the neighbors have a cat… I think?”

Urallo nodded, and walked out of the house. “I’ll be back…” He said, with an unspoken request for his friends to watch the mayor. He stomped through the snow, and knocked on the nearest house. A pair of halfling women, it appeared they were sisters, opened the door and greeted him.

“Oh, we weren’t expecting any visitors!” The first halfling said, happily.

Urallo nodded, and gave the duo as best of a smile as he could muster, given the circumstances. “Yes, hello, I am the Shining Rose of the Jongleur Three. May I speak to your cat?” The two halflings looked at each other, then back at Urallo. A moment later, they both asked, in unison, “What?”

Urallo sighed. “The mayor said you have a cat. May I speak to them, please?” The two halflings shrugged, and after several minutes of wrangling of cats, they appeared in the doorway, with their cat, a black cat who looked quite friendly.

Urallo channeled some magic into himself. “Hello, my name is Urallo, the shining rose of the Jongleur Three. I would like to speak with you, my friend.” He said to the cat, in the language of felines.

The cat blinked at him a few times, with curiosity, and said. “Wait, you speak my way?”

Urallo nodded with a smile. “Oh, yes. Might I have your name?”

“This is all very strange. Uhm. Hello? The ladies call me whiskers.”

“Hello, Whiskers, what’s the strangest thing that’s been happening here, and please, don’t say me.”

“Well, besides you… there’s the big hole in the sky.”

“Ah, besides that.”

“Well… there were two foreigners that stopped by here and then left a few months ago…”

“Ah, besides them.”

“Well… there was–”

Urallo cut off the cat, gently. “Ah, sorry, time is of the essence. Do you know what happened to the missing family?”

“Ah, as to that, I could not say. They stopped appearing after a while. I couldn’t see them, but I kept smelling them– even after they stopped appearing the village?”

“Oh? Where did you smell them? At their house?”

“No, at the Mayor’s.”

“When did you last smell them?”

The cat, were he not being held by two halfling women, would have shrugged. “Two weeks ago, I think?” Urallo nodded, as the mystery in the village began to clear before him. “Have you smelled anything else odd besides that?”

Whiskers took a moment to think, then nodded. “Something truly vile from the Mayor’s house… It comes and goes, I’m not sure what it is, but it smells… scary.”

Urallo gave Whiskers a gentle smile, and then bowed to him. “I thank you kindly, Whiskers, I believe you have helped me greatly.” He said, finally thankful to speak with someone in this village that could speak plainly and truthfully.

Urallo stomped back through the snow and into the Mayor’s house. “Let’s go over the facts.” He began, to the Mayor, and his assembled friends. “The cat says he smells something rotten from here. Moreover, the cat also smelled the missing family here two weeks ago. Well after they’ve disappeared from town.”

He affixed a cold gaze on Daeran, the mayor of this strange village. “You say they packed their things and left… but there’s one problem… just one more thing, mayor.” He stopped, raised an eyebrow at the mayor, and lifted a finger to point to him. “How could they have packed their things and left, if their things are still in the building?”

Daeran looked at Urallo coldly. “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for all of this. Again, adventurer, nothing untoward is happening here.”

The Unforgettable Vertigo stepped forward, with a frown. “Urallo, I do believe he’s lying.” Urallo nodded, for Vertigo was exceptional at reading people.

Claire stepped forward, with a rope in hand. “Okay. You have two choices, either come with us to Onadbyr, or burn.” Daeran shook his head at both these options, and booked it for the door. With Vertigo’s incredible speed, and Capri’s incredible physical prowess, they caught the mayor and tied him up.

“Help! HELP! I’m being abducted!” The Mayor shouted.

Capri shook his head. “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you. Seriously.” He said, sternly, as he finished tying the ropes.

Urallo sighed. “Just tell the truth.”

Daeran began smashing his head against the floor of his home. A hollow banging rang out, signifying a floor below. “I… SAID… HELP!!” The mayor shouted again, and angled his face, as if to shout into the floor.

Following that, the group inside the home heard a loud crashing from outside. It looked like help had arrived for the Mayor.

Urallo, Claire, Capri, and Vertigo ran out of the house and found Fragile and Mips had already charged ahead to the crashing noise. When the four of them rejoined their friends, they found a massive creature, with snow white antlers and a monstrous skull atop its head.

Fragile braced her shield and drew the ire of the great beast. The monster was happy to charge into Fragile’s shield, smashing past it and into the stalwart defender. A lesser knight may have been toppled by the powerful blow from the angry monster, but Fragile stayed standing, albeit on shaky legs. Capri and Vertigo charged into the monster. Capri’s skilled gladius made quick and calculating cuts into the monster’s hide, while Vertigo assailed him with winged blades.

Mips darted along the snowy battlefield. He moved from vantage point to vantage point, each time stopping to take a calculated aim at the beast. His bullets easily tore into the beast’s hide, each one drawing more blood than the last.

Claire, for her part, assailed the beast with a rain of fire. It was as if she threw the element itself at the beast, and with her mastery of the flame, the inferno never once leapt from the monster to her friends.

Urallo channeled healing magic into Fragile to keep her into the fight, which she used to keep the Monster’s attention affixed on her. The beast grew tired of these antics, and channeled magic into its mighty roar. It was so loud the group as a whole were left shaken, but not deterred.

Capri knew what he had to do, and dived for the giant monster. He wrestled it to the ground, and locked one of its arms in a tight grip, restraining it on the ground. The rest of the group assailed it while it was down, and it was Mips that dealt the final blow with a well aimed shot to the head of the beast.

With the beast felled, the group returned to find the bound Mayor. The mayor, unable to see who had entered, but able to see that someone had entered, happily laughed. “Did you like the sacrifice I brought– wait” He stopped, and looked in horror at Urallo and Claire. “You lived?”

Claire nodded. “Yes. We killed it.”

Daeran looked on in horror. “You fools… You don’t know what you’ve done…”

Claire sighed, channeled some magic into her hand, and immolated Daeran, killing him instantly.

Urallo looked on with horror at Claire, and then said quietly. “I think you may have been hanging around Aruwyn too much…”

As the group reconvened outside, Gia found the group. “I heard the commotion… I don’t know what you did… but you did it.” “There’s a big monster corpse around the house.” Capri said, bluntly.

“That… What the hell is that thing?” Gia asked, in horror, as she looked at the body.

“Trophy now.” Mips said, happily, as he dragged the Antlers and skull away from the body.

“Ah, let me carry that for you, Mips.” Vertigo offered, as she hefted the antlers up and off the ground.

Gia watched the associates finish their work on cleaning up the damage left in their wake, and said. “I don’t know what to do now… If this thing was controlling the mayor, was it controlling everyone else?”

Urallo shook his head. “I believe they worked in tandem, the Mayor was not in its thrall.”

Fragile nodded. “Either the mayor hated magic users… or that monster wanted to eat them.”

Claire returned from her journey of burning down the mayor’s house, for it was quite an evil place indeed. “Perhaps you should come back to the city with us.” She offered to Gia.

Gia nodded, and looked back to her home. “We’ll pack what we can… and we’ll travel with you, if you don’t mind.”

Urallo looked to Vertigo, who looked back to him. “Well, Vertigo, you know what we say in time’s like these?”

Vertigo smiled. “All’s well that ends well!”

And so we close the chapter on the Village of Senia, a truly crazy noisy bizarre town.