"Interesting, Mistress Alcor, another murder happening so close to a fetid body of water. Perhaps the stench below masks a tendril of the deeper evil," Gerrard says, thinking about the drawings from Jarme's cell. "Perhaps you would like to investigate the area as you did before," he offers, referring to how she moved the water in the inner bay before.
"I wonder what is in the ship above," he adds, idly..."That would be a great hiding place for someone or something..."
"Constable, who was murdered here? Was it perhaps anyone related to the church of Procan?" Gerrard asks, realizing they hadn't actually asked much about the victim.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Gerrard Feldren - Human Noble in Ghosts of Saltmarsh
Kerric Brightblade - Elven Warrior in "Apocalypse"
Peri looks over the stinking pit before leaning toward Qivys and muttering, "This is why it's so important, when traveling, to hire a local guide. We might have missed the charming sight -- and smell -- of Hemlock Pit, surely one of the hidden gems of this coast. Wouldn't that have been a tragedy?"
"I wonder what is in the ship above," he adds, idly..."That would be a great hiding place for someone or something..."
He answers, "I could scurry up and take a peek, if I still had my ugly shoes. As it is, we'd have to shimmy down the rope from the crane. I can give it a go, if you think it's worth takin' a look?"
"No, no, no, no," objects Jute. "That's Mr. Dory's warehouse. And home, too, I think. He's a city councilor. My boss' boss' boss. You don't want to cross him. I'm sure it's well-guarded. Don't even let them see you surveilling it." You can see workers unloading a large, six-wheeled freight wagon near the warehouse.
"Best not to linger. Not much to see anyway. Did you want to see this morning's murder site? I wasn't there, but I know where it is. Not far at all."
On the way to the pit, Boko seems to rouse herself out of a daze.
"I need to ask you, Constable Jute. Has this town always been this putrid? Infected? Polluted? Have you lived here your whole life, suffering in this way? I cannot imagine why anyone would stay here like this. If it has not always been this way, what changed?"
Once at the pit and crime scene, she asks any nearby small mammals, birds, or lizards what they have noticed out of the ordinary here.
She again turns to Jute. "You keep saying the bodies are mangled. We are not a queasy group. We have seen carnage at times. How, exactly, were the bodies mangled? What did they look like? Anything else odd?"
She listens to the queries and answers about the warehouse and ship. "Has that ship been hanging over Hemlock Pit for a while? Does Mr Dory seem to have plans for it?"
Taking the cue to keep her eyes away from the warehouse, she looks at the water. She casts shape water at a nearby 5 ft section of the water to change it from opaque and muddy to clear, to see if anything is revealed. Whispering to Gerrard, she says, "I could move more, but that would draw attention from across the way. I wish our benefactor would have mentioned Mr. Small Boat over there, as my suspicions have been raised now that we've seen this."
"No me" Qivys responds to Boko. "I got a sensitive stomach." he says trying not to laugh.
Taking Boko's cue, Qivys goes to the edge of the pool of pollution and places his hand on the ground and uses his "Divine Sense" to see if he can sense anything unhallow or evil.
Has this town always been this putrid? Infected? Polluted? Have you lived here your whole life, suffering in this way? I cannot imagine why anyone would stay here like this. If it has not always been this way, what changed?"
"Well, it's my home. It's been like this all of my life, although I guess it's gotten worse in recent years. Once, the Styes was a marvelous port district, they say. An artificial island held up on great oak pilings – huge beams supporting marble buildings, connected by boardwalks. They used to call it 'the Island of Pleasures' – it was a real destination for rich and decadent folk up and down the coast. Time can be cruel, though. Warfare, corruption, famine, natural disaster. Then the alchemists came and fouled the air and water with poisonous concoctions from their experiments. Then the sweat-shops, tanners, millers, dyers, butchers... I guess there's little evidence of our former glory anymore. The city just sinks deeper into the muck..."
Boko ritually casts speak with animals as they near the pit. Once at the pit and crime scene, she asks any nearby small mammals, birds, or lizards what they have noticed out of the ordinary here.
There are rats and one or two gulls about. None remember anything of the crime here - now a week old - nor have they noticed anything unusual here. They are hungry, in poor health, and beg for food.
"You keep saying the bodies are mangled. We are not a queasy group. We have seen carnage at times. How, exactly, were the bodies mangled? What did they look like? Anything else odd?"
"Just horribly shredded, torn apart, smeared... Honestly, it didn't look like a murder so much as some sort of horrible display or message to create as much fear and terror as possible."
She listens to the queries and answers about the warehouse and ship. "Has that ship been hanging over Hemlock Pit for a while? Does Mr Dory seem to have plans for it?"
Looking up, Boko notes that the suspended ship is nearly 100 feet long. A fat pipe connects the ship to a nearby tower, and a crude bridge is suspended between the crane and the ship’s deck. Steam rises from the hulk, and rivulets of water spill out from between the planks of the hull, raining down to the mud below.
"Dunno" replies Jute. "It's been there for years like that. I think that pipe is fairly new, though."
She casts shape water at a nearby 5 ft section of the water to change it from opaque and muddy to clear, to see if anything is revealed.
Boko strains to clear the liquid. There's very little water in Hemlock Pit – just a toxic soup of semi-liquid chemicals. What little she is able to clear reveals nothing.
Qivys reaches out with his divine senses. There is nothing here affected by the hallow spell, nor are there any celestial, fiend, or undead openly present within sixty feet.
"You'd think our 'employer' woulda mentioned that the murder took place right below a councilor's place. If the purpose was to leave a messy scene, maybe Dory was the intended audience? A message to him, specifically? Were the other murders just as gruesome, and did any of 'em happen near the homes or businesses of other important people? These things usually only happen in the poorer parts of towns."
As the others finish their investigations, Gerrard indicates to Jute that they can continue to the next murder site, encouraging her to answer the questions posed as they walk.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Gerrard Feldren - Human Noble in Ghosts of Saltmarsh
Kerric Brightblade - Elven Warrior in "Apocalypse"
"This city is so tightly packed," replies Jute, happy to get moving. "It's hard to find a place that's not close to somebody important. Most of the murders took place here in the Alchemists' Quarter, or the Low Quarter. And yeah, they were all really gruesome, really gruesome...." (While Mr. Dory's Warehouse is the most unusual building within sight of Jarme's arrest – about 100-125 feet to the north – there are other, closer, nondescript buildings nearby, most of which appear to be industrial in nature.)
Circling around Mr. Dory's enterprise, about ten minutes later you arrive in an alleyway some distance to the north, in a slightly more residential area, dense with stacked, unstable buildings and open sewers, but still punctuated by pipes and chimneys and signs of alchemical industry. The first thing you see is a wide smear of blood, half a human hand, and some other minor grisly leftovers, stepped on and scattered in the filthy alley, surrounded by a tangle of windowless buildings. "Yesterday's murder site," she announced. "I guess the gulls haven't found it yet. They said Mr. Dory ordered the body’s immediate cremation. They probably figured the rats would take care of the rest."
((Does it look like the hand was cut, ie... it has clean edges or is there a lot of tearing of the flesh? I thin Qivys would be able to tell the difference due to his "Soldier background"))
Peri shakes his head in disgust. "These people don't even care enough to pick up all the body parts; I don't know why we should care more than they do. T'be honest, the dead ones might be the lucky ones, if the alternative was to live in this filthy cesspit. But," he says with an unconcerned shrug, "we've looked at the scenes now, so we can at least tell 'em we've been lookin' into things. Now let's go see what our tracker has found out, and then we can check on my shoes." He turns to leave, not bothering to give any more than a cursory once-over of the scene.
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
Gerrard:
Gerrard looks carefully for clues in the surrounding area while Qivys looks at the actual body parts. He tries to see if there is anything unusual to notice concealed nearby, like a murder weapon or a bloody print that might yield a clue…
Perception: 17
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Gerrard Feldren - Human Noble in Ghosts of Saltmarsh
Kerric Brightblade - Elven Warrior in "Apocalypse"
Qivys looks at what's left of the hand. It has a puncture through one knuckle, likely caused by the victim fending off a small-diameter thrusted weapon of some kind, like a fencing foil or a pitchfork. But the hand itself was torn in two– likely by something unnaturally strong.
Gerrard finds no murder weapons or physical clues, but he does find a lot of confused prints, many of which were undoubtedly Jute's comrades on the city guard, or the gawkers who came afterward. But he also spots unfamiliar, webbed footprints nearly obscured by the other tracks. (Make a Survival check if you want to track them further.)
Careful not to mar the prints, Gerrard calls out to Boko, saying, “Mistress Alcor, please come over and examine these tracks. I am no expert, but perhaps you can help us follow them to see where they lead.”
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Gerrard Feldren - Human Noble in Ghosts of Saltmarsh
Kerric Brightblade - Elven Warrior in "Apocalypse"
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
Boko, looking at the cuts on the hand and trying to determine what might have made the injuries, like an animal, a weapon, what have you (Medicine: 18), turns to regard Gerrard. "I will take a look, if you can assist."
She looks at the tracks with new eyes. Survival with assistance: 18
While she does this, she tries to figure out if anyone is watching them. Perception: 24
Boko is unable to glean any new information about the hand's wounds, nor does she spy anyone watching them, but with Gerrard's help, she is able to sort out a little more about the odd tracks in the blood. Boko concludes that the tracks were made by at least three separate web-footed creatures. There is a faint trail leading away through the maze of muddy, reeking alleys. (You may make another Survival check to follow the trail.)
With an exasperated sigh Peri turns around and joins the group as they begin to follow the webbed footprints. Despite himself he becomes interested in the tracks. Is this yet another aquatic race? Who knew there were so many creatures lurking beneath the waves? Well, a lot of creatures, obviously, but it's surprising how many have feet.
((Can he make a Survival check to see if the prints match either sahuagin or kuo-toa feet?))
Not understanding why everyone is staring at the ground Thwack joins them and looks blankly at the muddied footprints. "Mmmm" and "uh huh" the only noises he makes as he feigns interest. When Peri huffs off and then returns he turns to the halfling and asks "We go meeting now?"
Gerrard:
"Interesting, Mistress Alcor, another murder happening so close to a fetid body of water. Perhaps the stench below masks a tendril of the deeper evil," Gerrard says, thinking about the drawings from Jarme's cell. "Perhaps you would like to investigate the area as you did before," he offers, referring to how she moved the water in the inner bay before.
"I wonder what is in the ship above," he adds, idly..."That would be a great hiding place for someone or something..."
"Constable, who was murdered here? Was it perhaps anyone related to the church of Procan?" Gerrard asks, realizing they hadn't actually asked much about the victim.
Gerrard Feldren - Human Noble in Ghosts of Saltmarsh
Kerric Brightblade - Elven Warrior in "Apocalypse"
Peri:
Peri looks over the stinking pit before leaning toward Qivys and muttering, "This is why it's so important, when traveling, to hire a local guide. We might have missed the charming sight -- and smell -- of Hemlock Pit, surely one of the hidden gems of this coast. Wouldn't that have been a tragedy?"
He answers, "I could scurry up and take a peek, if I still had my ugly shoes. As it is, we'd have to shimmy down the rope from the crane. I can give it a go, if you think it's worth takin' a look?"
"No, no, no, no," objects Jute. "That's Mr. Dory's warehouse. And home, too, I think. He's a city councilor. My boss' boss' boss. You don't want to cross him. I'm sure it's well-guarded. Don't even let them see you surveilling it." You can see workers unloading a large, six-wheeled freight wagon near the warehouse.
"Best not to linger. Not much to see anyway. Did you want to see this morning's murder site? I wasn't there, but I know where it is. Not far at all."
On the way to the pit, Boko seems to rouse herself out of a daze.
"I need to ask you, Constable Jute. Has this town always been this putrid? Infected? Polluted? Have you lived here your whole life, suffering in this way? I cannot imagine why anyone would stay here like this. If it has not always been this way, what changed?"
Boko ritually casts speak with animals as they near the pit.
Once at the pit and crime scene, she asks any nearby small mammals, birds, or lizards what they have noticed out of the ordinary here.
She again turns to Jute. "You keep saying the bodies are mangled. We are not a queasy group. We have seen carnage at times. How, exactly, were the bodies mangled? What did they look like? Anything else odd?"
She listens to the queries and answers about the warehouse and ship. "Has that ship been hanging over Hemlock Pit for a while? Does Mr Dory seem to have plans for it?"
Taking the cue to keep her eyes away from the warehouse, she looks at the water. She casts shape water at a nearby 5 ft section of the water to change it from opaque and muddy to clear, to see if anything is revealed. Whispering to Gerrard, she says, "I could move more, but that would draw attention from across the way. I wish our benefactor would have mentioned Mr. Small Boat over there, as my suspicions have been raised now that we've seen this."
[Thanks for bearing with me!]
"No me" Qivys responds to Boko. "I got a sensitive stomach." he says trying not to laugh.
Taking Boko's cue, Qivys goes to the edge of the pool of pollution and places his hand on the ground and uses his "Divine Sense" to see if he can sense anything unhallow or evil.
"Well, it's my home. It's been like this all of my life, although I guess it's gotten worse in recent years. Once, the Styes was a marvelous port district, they say. An artificial island held up on great oak pilings – huge beams supporting marble buildings, connected by boardwalks. They used to call it 'the Island of Pleasures' – it was a real destination for rich and decadent folk up and down the coast. Time can be cruel, though. Warfare, corruption, famine, natural disaster. Then the alchemists came and fouled the air and water with poisonous concoctions from their experiments. Then the sweat-shops, tanners, millers, dyers, butchers... I guess there's little evidence of our former glory anymore. The city just sinks deeper into the muck..."
There are rats and one or two gulls about. None remember anything of the crime here - now a week old - nor have they noticed anything unusual here. They are hungry, in poor health, and beg for food.
"Just horribly shredded, torn apart, smeared... Honestly, it didn't look like a murder so much as some sort of horrible display or message to create as much fear and terror as possible."
Looking up, Boko notes that the suspended ship is nearly 100 feet long. A fat pipe connects the ship to a nearby tower, and a crude bridge is suspended between the crane and the ship’s deck. Steam rises from the hulk, and rivulets of water spill out from between the planks of the hull, raining down to the mud below.
"Dunno" replies Jute. "It's been there for years like that. I think that pipe is fairly new, though."
Boko strains to clear the liquid. There's very little water in Hemlock Pit – just a toxic soup of semi-liquid chemicals. What little she is able to clear reveals nothing.
Qivys reaches out with his divine senses. There is nothing here affected by the hallow spell, nor are there any celestial, fiend, or undead openly present within sixty feet.
Peri:
"You'd think our 'employer' woulda mentioned that the murder took place right below a councilor's place. If the purpose was to leave a messy scene, maybe Dory was the intended audience? A message to him, specifically? Were the other murders just as gruesome, and did any of 'em happen near the homes or businesses of other important people? These things usually only happen in the poorer parts of towns."
Gerrard:
As the others finish their investigations, Gerrard indicates to Jute that they can continue to the next murder site, encouraging her to answer the questions posed as they walk.
Gerrard Feldren - Human Noble in Ghosts of Saltmarsh
Kerric Brightblade - Elven Warrior in "Apocalypse"
"This city is so tightly packed," replies Jute, happy to get moving. "It's hard to find a place that's not close to somebody important. Most of the murders took place here in the Alchemists' Quarter, or the Low Quarter. And yeah, they were all really gruesome, really gruesome...." (While Mr. Dory's Warehouse is the most unusual building within sight of Jarme's arrest – about 100-125 feet to the north – there are other, closer, nondescript buildings nearby, most of which appear to be industrial in nature.)
Circling around Mr. Dory's enterprise, about ten minutes later you arrive in an alleyway some distance to the north, in a slightly more residential area, dense with stacked, unstable buildings and open sewers, but still punctuated by pipes and chimneys and signs of alchemical industry. The first thing you see is a wide smear of blood, half a human hand, and some other minor grisly leftovers, stepped on and scattered in the filthy alley, surrounded by a tangle of windowless buildings. "Yesterday's murder site," she announced. "I guess the gulls haven't found it yet. They said Mr. Dory ordered the body’s immediate cremation. They probably figured the rats would take care of the rest."
((Does it look like the hand was cut, ie... it has clean edges or is there a lot of tearing of the flesh? I thin Qivys would be able to tell the difference due to his "Soldier background"))
Peri:
Peri shakes his head in disgust. "These people don't even care enough to pick up all the body parts; I don't know why we should care more than they do. T'be honest, the dead ones might be the lucky ones, if the alternative was to live in this filthy cesspit. But," he says with an unconcerned shrug, "we've looked at the scenes now, so we can at least tell 'em we've been lookin' into things. Now let's go see what our tracker has found out, and then we can check on my shoes." He turns to leave, not bothering to give any more than a cursory once-over of the scene.
Gerrard:
Gerrard looks carefully for clues in the surrounding area while Qivys looks at the actual body parts. He tries to see if there is anything unusual to notice concealed nearby, like a murder weapon or a bloody print that might yield a clue…
Perception: 17
Gerrard Feldren - Human Noble in Ghosts of Saltmarsh
Kerric Brightblade - Elven Warrior in "Apocalypse"
Qivys looks at what's left of the hand. It has a puncture through one knuckle, likely caused by the victim fending off a small-diameter thrusted weapon of some kind, like a fencing foil or a pitchfork. But the hand itself was torn in two– likely by something unnaturally strong.
Gerrard finds no murder weapons or physical clues, but he does find a lot of confused prints, many of which were undoubtedly Jute's comrades on the city guard, or the gawkers who came afterward. But he also spots unfamiliar, webbed footprints nearly obscured by the other tracks. (Make a Survival check if you want to track them further.)
Gerrard:
Careful not to mar the prints, Gerrard calls out to Boko, saying, “Mistress Alcor, please come over and examine these tracks. I am no expert, but perhaps you can help us follow them to see where they lead.”
Gerrard Feldren - Human Noble in Ghosts of Saltmarsh
Kerric Brightblade - Elven Warrior in "Apocalypse"
Boko, looking at the cuts on the hand and trying to determine what might have made the injuries, like an animal, a weapon, what have you (Medicine: 18), turns to regard Gerrard. "I will take a look, if you can assist."
She looks at the tracks with new eyes. Survival with assistance: 18
While she does this, she tries to figure out if anyone is watching them. Perception: 24
Gerrard:
”But of course,” says Gerrard, assisting Boko the best he can by carefully pointing out the webbed tracks he found.
Gerrard Feldren - Human Noble in Ghosts of Saltmarsh
Kerric Brightblade - Elven Warrior in "Apocalypse"
Boko is unable to glean any new information about the hand's wounds, nor does she spy anyone watching them, but with Gerrard's help, she is able to sort out a little more about the odd tracks in the blood. Boko concludes that the tracks were made by at least three separate web-footed creatures. There is a faint trail leading away through the maze of muddy, reeking alleys. (You may make another Survival check to follow the trail.)
Peri:
With an exasperated sigh Peri turns around and joins the group as they begin to follow the webbed footprints. Despite himself he becomes interested in the tracks. Is this yet another aquatic race? Who knew there were so many creatures lurking beneath the waves? Well, a lot of creatures, obviously, but it's surprising how many have feet.
((Can he make a Survival check to see if the prints match either sahuagin or kuo-toa feet?))
Thwack
Not understanding why everyone is staring at the ground Thwack joins them and looks blankly at the muddied footprints. "Mmmm" and "uh huh" the only noises he makes as he feigns interest. When Peri huffs off and then returns he turns to the halfling and asks "We go meeting now?"
Qivys unslings his shield and battle axe while following along.