It's still happening. People are still having fun. I like to have fun.
We rejoin our intrepid investigators at the flophouse of the Blue Giant Crew. There is some chit-chat, some further inquiry into the nature of the Procyonian menace, and then the Private EyeNTJs head out.
Sheriff Knowles is waiting for them in her patrol car outside. She appears sick, with black veins in her eyes. She tries to pull something on the party, but they pass their saves. I think. My notes for this session are sparse and it happened a while ago. Knowles warns them to stay out of trouble because she's got her hands full with the town's children acting up and people freaking out about the disease spreading. They also meet Knowles' assistant Officer Dimbly, who is much friendlier and of a normal human body temperature. The cops respond to an emergency call about people barricading a street with furniture and drive off.
Uhhh I think after this the Private EyeNTJs go to the police station because they know the cops won't be there. They run into the station's secretary, Charlene, talk to her for a bit, and then pussy out about breaking into the station.
From someone somewhere sometime, maybe Charlene, they hear that a man by the name of Panthera LeSharp came to town looking for his missing wife Cheetah.
So they look around town for Panthera, and make their way down to the docks, where a fisherman - Fisherman Chuck - is showing off his latest catch: a big tuna with a whack interior. The fish looks normal on the outside, but on the inside is a mess of green and black growths that even to the non-fish-expert would not resemble any organs a fish should have. Chuck tells them he's going to cook it up in a fish fry that evening, and that they should come by for it.
Fortuitously, Panthera had been living out his van not too far away, living off the scraps the fishermen gave him. Panthera tells them that his wife went missing on a girls' wine-tasting trip near St. Fiachra's, disappeared right from the AirBnB she was staying at, with only a chillingly cut-off voice message and a couple of cans of St. Fiachra's Finest Ale kicked into a bush for a trail. The Private EyeNTJs ask a few other things I can't remember, and promise to keep an eye out for Cheetah. Panthera tells the party that he believes that St. Fiachra's is full of Georgists, that these Georgists were responsible for his wife's disappearance, and that Georgists were Hitler's real target, that Georgists want to instate a land value tax because they want to grind everyone up into fertilizer to use on their land.
Oh yeah and the party notices that St. Fiachra's Finest Ale has a similar smell to the freaky fish that Chuck pulled up at some point.
Based on the beer-clues, the party decides to check out the town's brewery. They find the place closed due to lack of available personnel, so Shorty tries to sneak in through the rooftop ducts. As fellow gentlemen and business-owners, Walter and Billy are able to distract the brewery's owner Mr. Crabatt from noticing Shorty sneaking around in the ducts, and convince him that they're trustworthy enough to watch the establishment while he goes and runs some errands. They deliberate breaking into the brewery's cash register, but decide against it.
Shorty discovers some barrels in the brewing area containing what appears to be live algae, which shares a smell with the beer and the beer's mash and the freaky fish, etc. Also he finds a journal which suggest Mr. Crabatt has been experimenting with mixing the algae-stuff into the mash, with solid recent success.
The other two do something, but also Shorty goes back to the docks to scope out the fish fry. He pretends to eat the fish & drink some beer, and notices that Panthera has been drinking heavily and seems much more friendly towards the townsfolk, particularly Mr. Crabatt.
Fisherman Chuck takes a shine to Shorty and cautions him to take care, because people with dwarfism were Hitler's most hated enemy, that he only killed other groups of people so that people of dwarfism didn't cotton on and get away, and that far-right-wing sentiments were on the rise in Canada according to the CBC. He also says something about the soul being interpreted as one's psychological identity in St. Fiachra's interpretation of Christianity, but I forget what exactly.
At some point Mr. Crabatt becomes aware that his brewery has been broken in to, but rather than blaming the party blames the town's children. Mr. Crabatt exclaims that exterminating the children of Europe was Hitler's true goal, and that so many adults got caught up in it because people were shorter back then. He rouses up a lynch mob of drunken adults, who leave the fish fry to go chase down some children. The children engage the mob in a fighting retreat as the Private EyeNTJs follow the action in their trusty 1993 Ford Aspire - at one point almost getting their windshield smashed by a rock, but fortunately it flew right through the previous hole that was smashed through their windshield by a rock.
The children retreat into a house, the drunken adults are lured inside after them, and the house is set on fire, with children escaping by jumping out a 2nd-storey window onto a pile of mattresses out back. Some children spot the party, and recognize them as human based on the fact that they were able to touch the hag-stone unharmed.
Tuckered out by a day of adventure the party returns to the Bannock & Boobrie, where its normally-bubbly owner Miss Marble seems to be coming down with something. They pay for the room for another night, and go to bed.
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