Hanging is too good for them

(Scroll for tl;dr)

In Jeremy’s magic shop, Smiley noticed that his pet rat Mousey, was going berserk. Jeremy had been telling them about the Grove of Rebirth and that the druid there could bring people back from the dead. Smiley pulled the rodent from his pocket and Mousey escaped his grip.  He ran for the door behind the counter and started scratching it.  Mousey could sense the presence of gold.  Smiley went into the back room finding only a table, chair and heavy iron door.  Mousey ran towards the iron door and scratched at it so much that its claws were bleeding.  Jeremy was angry and drawing his longsword demanded Smiley return to the shop, which he did.

The party noticed that Aubrey had put on a new hat and was now claiming to be a wizard.  They let him tag along as they had lacked a skilled magic user.  However, some in the party felt they still lacked a skilled magic user.  Leaving the shop they returned to Feathergale Spire, picked up some fresh Hippogriffs and set off for Red Larch.  They spotted some trolls below on route but ignored them.

They found that the villagers had built a crude palisade wall around the town and were building gallows in the crossroads.  The Adventurers flew over and landed in front of the gallows.  Skonn had leapt from his mount and floated down using the featherfall cloak but took longer to land that the rest of the group.

The Adventurers set off to the smithy to collect the silvered weapons that had been made for them.  Approaching the shop they saw a man up a ladder painting something above the door.  As they got closer they saw the man was painting “Garys” and recognised him as Gary Daley the Bandit Captain who they had defeated and arrested a few days ago.  Gary explained that as the town was without a blacksmith, he had been offered the opportunity to serve the town in return for a small salary and his freedom.  He also mentioned that the smithy had two forges which was strange for a smithy of a small town.  The party agreed to give Gary the hat of his dead bandit friend in return for allowing them to search the smithy.

Inside they noticed that one of the forges was cold and had more coal than the other.  Digging into it they found the weapons they had given to the blacksmith to silver but they were unchanged.  With the weapons were some other silvered weapons, a letter, four small bags of sand and some heavy gauntlets.  The letter was to the blacksmith, Tantaur from someone called Marlos asking for him to keep an eye on Larrakh and report back.  It was signed off with the insignia of the Black Earth cult.  Aubrey identified the dust and gauntlets as magical but couldn’t discern anything further.  When they left the smithy, Skonn cruelly pushed the ladder from under Gary, who fell to the floor.  Whilst Gary lay dazed on the floor Skonn took back the hat they’d given to him earlier. 

The party went to Constable Harburk's shop and persuaded him to let them speak to Tantaur.  Without Constable Harburk watching the interrogation, Baphomet and Arnogall drew their weapons and threatened to kill Tantaur.  He revealed what he knew about the cult and their plans to take over Red Larch using the Believers a front for the cult.  He had lied that he could silver their weapons in four days and had instead given Harburk some other silvered weapons that he had stashed away.  He also identified the sand as Dust of Disappearance and the gauntlets as Claws of the Umber Hulk.  When asked about the werewolf he said that he suspected one of the Believers was a werewolf but that was all he knew.  He suggested that they go to the All Faiths Shrine and ask the priests there what they knew. Tantaur seemed angry yet sure that the Black Earth cult would rescue him.  He vowed revenge on the party.  

The priests were not much help and seemed more interested in collecting offerings for their church than giving information. They did suggest that a moonstone may cause a werewolf to turn into its hybrid form.  Jarlier, Aubrey and Smiley made offerings to their chosen gods.  Sorin showed the moonstone to some other villages and the prisoners but none of them turned into a beast. 

As the sun sunk towards the horizon, the murders were led out to the gallows.  A crowd had gathered and The Adventurers, fearing the Black Earth cult would strike, took up positions around the crossroads.  Smiley hid under the gallows and Arnogall took to the sky on a Hippogriff.  Baphomet used his glamoured armoured to disguise himself as one of the guards.

The charges were read and nooses placed around the murders’ necks.  The lever was pulled and the trapdoors opened.  A brown robed monk in the crowd cast a spell and caused the ground under the trapdoors to rise so that the murders could stand and support themselves.  Aubrey quickly cast magic missiles at the monk but the monk reacted faster, raising a magical shield that made him immune to the missiles.  The monk reached into his robes and rolled two fist sized rocks towards the gallows where the rocks melted into the ground.  

The villages started to run for cover as some of the party fought the monk whilst Baphomet and Smiley began executing the prisoners.  Tantaur and Melikho were killed.  Sorin used his Hippogriff to grab the monk and drop him from a height.  Skonn struck the fatal blow to the monk, Baphomet and Smiley continued to mercilessly execute the bound prisoners, the ground began to tremble and the full moon began to rise...

tl;dr Smiley angered Jeremy by going into the back room of the magic shop; party returned to Red Larch; pissed off Gary the town’s new blacksmith; discovered the old blacksmith had tricked the party and was a member of the Black Earth cult; the hangings were interrupted by a monk who was killed by the party.