Is there any tavern or the like open at this hour? if there is Edgar will split from the group and in to a tavern. He’ll look for someone from the black hand (that the Baroness talked about) or who looks to be able to contact them. Although he doesn’t have the funding he wanted he will still give it a shot. 

Oryxis would like to look around the crime scene and make a tactical assessment of the positions the attackers attacked from, to determine three things:

1. What sort of access did they have and how many armed guards would one have to pass to get to those positions?

2. Checking from the different positions, how easy would it be to see the Æthling, assuming a full crowd? How concealed would their own positions be?

3. Which way are the easiest escape routes? Which way did they actually turn?

With the clues provided by these questions he hopes to find out, if the guards had to be involved or not, if the assassins were professionals, and if the attack was meant to be lethal.

OOC: I don’t know what you’d like me to roll, so I’ve held the rolls for now.

Fenro looks around the tent to see if there is anyone there who was working earlier in the day that he might talk to about what they saw leading up to the event and if they had seen people leaving that seemed suspicious. If there is no one around he will check out the area where the Aethling had been sitting and where the crossbowmen had appeared to see if there is anything out of the ordinary, or tracks that might suggest where people went.

Perception: 8
Survival: 22

Edgar, there are plenty of taverns open, seemingly the only thing at this hour. You enter one called the Drunken Dwarf. Inside are what look like shopkeepers and merchants. The bartender looks up and gives you a nod but then goes back to serving drinks. Make a charisma or investigation check, depending on how you want to try and find people.

Oryxis, you remember from earlier that in order to enter the tent everyone had to pass a checkpoint of three guards, where they gave up any weapons. You walk around to the different spots you saw the attacker emerge from before and find decent, but not great sight lines. Due to her raised position it was easy to see the Æthling from wherever you sat. You can also see four escape routes, each exit of the tent. The attackers seem to have headed to the nearest one. Make an investigation and an insight check.

Fenro, you take a good look at the dwarven guards in their copper armor and you're quite confident that none of them were there earlier in the day. The guards are the only people around at this hour. You look around for tracks but the hard cobblestones don't give you anything to work with in that regard.

Aramae shakes his head with a smirk as he watches Edgar run off towards a tavern. He follows Edgar into the tavern, makes the standard "welcoming nod" to the barkeep, then looks over to Edgar and casts Message.

'Do as you will but remember, most people here likely already had a long hard day of work so they may not have much patience or tolerance for extensive questions or.... well I am sure you know what else I am concerned about.'

Lyrika also accompanies the Tavern group.  Her music can provide distraction while Edgar looks for criminal contacts. Besides--it's a tavern!  Lyrika plays a few chords on her lyre, and starts to pick out a popular drinking song as she speaks to the barkeeper, "My good sir, what this place needs is a little entertainment! Keeps people drinking!  Draws in more customers!  What sort of deal are you willing to offer for a first-tier bard of extraordinary tavern presence? Whatever deal we strike, it must include free drinks, of course."

Persuasion: 13

The bartender looks a bit curious. "Yer a bit late fer any sort of entertainment tonight, about to close up in an hour. If ye want ta come back tamorrow then we can work summin out."

Edgar sends back “I’m not here to find those who’s say has been long. I’m here to find those who’s day is just beginning. 

Edgar acknowledge the nod and head over to the barkeep, 3 of the regular mr. barkeep. Busy night?” He looks around to see if there are any of the signs of the person with the right connections that he is looking for. 

investigaton: 15

The barkeep looks very confused at you, especially after talking to Lyrika a second ago. "The regular wot? I'm sure ya've never been in my bar before in yer life." 

You see a couple of heavily tattooed dwarves at the back of the bar. One has a black spot tattooed just below his wrist, peaking out from his sleeve.

"Wow, you guys roll up the sidewalks early in this town. Well, ordinarily it's against my principles to offer free samples," Lyrika says, "But just so you know what you might be paying for another night..."

Lyrika sings a popular satyr drinking song. (performance 17 )

The barkeeper taps his fingers in time to the music and looks quite impressed. "Very nice. I look forward to your return. As for closing early, we don't normally but there was an assassination attempt tonight. Folks aren't exactly in the mood for partying." 

Oryxis turns to the large firbolg friend he had made during the course of the day, the only one of the group who decided to come along to the crimescene with him.

"What did you figure out? I can't quite put my finger on it, but something seems odd... There's no way the assassins got in here without passing the guards. They set up in the middle of the crowd, but don't have good sight lines to their target. And when they leave, they take the nearest exit.

Seeing how they were fighting, I'm sure they didn't use weapons for the first time, and the state of their swords says as much... But they don't strike me as professional killers. They would have tried to get closer, or they'd have chosen a different method of attack. The flight would have been planned, rather than just running for the nearest exit- though maybe our presence is to blame there. Worst of all though, the fact they got past the guards leaves some unpleasant possibilities- either they are students of the arcane, and were able to manipulate their way past, or they bribed or extorted the guards.

Taken to their logical conclusions, that leads me to the following questions:

If they were students of the arcane, why didn't we see that in the fight? The possibility of another party being involved that got the killers in, but didn't partake in the assassination attempt is a possibility. With Count Jezek, we know of someone capable enough to manipulate the minds of others, and he could have likely done the same to the guards. If that were true though, why does the Æthling defend him? And also, what would we be able to do against a practicioner of such skill, whether they are Jezek or not? Even if we caught them, they'd easily be able to sway us or their guards, I think.

The other possibility is no less pleasant. If whoever is behind this coordinated attack has managed to bribe the guards, or extort them in a way to let someone inside with weapons, we can't trust any authorities, and the letter we hold is downright dangerous, because it identifies us to the conspirators. But if they actually had the resources to bribe guards and get their killers in place, why settle for mediocre sellswords, instead of a crew of professionals? The simplest answer I have for that is, the attack was meant to fail. But then that would immediately paint this whole mission, and the new Baron in a wholly different light."

After the leonin had finished his train of thought, he looked at the firbolg: "What do you think? Are we onto something or have I gone off the deep end?"

“Now that I think back in it, there was something strange that happened. During the first song of the competition a number of the guards left their posts. It makes me wonder if anybody recognised the dead assassins. I agree. It may be a stretch, but if you think about the events that have just occurred, not just here but around the kingdom, who benefited the most? The surviving member of the royal family. Until we rule out that possibility, we can’t be blinded by titles and rewards.”

"Do you want to search for something else here, or should we join the others and see what they found out?" Oryxis suddenly felt like he wanted to be together with the others. If they were right, then the five of them were possibly in danger.

“I think we head back. I am actually interested in talking to the guards, particularly whoever was in charge of today’s duty. However, that can probably wait until morning.”

“Yes we heard about that. Word on the street is that the black hand is responsible.” He will mention the black hand a little louder then necessary, looking around for reactions. “I don’t really buy it though. My gut is telling me it was the job of a jealous suitor. What do you guys think?” He turn to Ara and Lyrika. 

The bartender laughs, loudly. "I knew you cat people weren't from around here but you really aren't from around here. The Black Hand are more into smuggling than killing. And the Æthling has been married for 40 years, I think any suitors got over it a long time ago." The tattooed dwarf looks up at the laughter but heads back to his conversation pretty quickly, seemingly not playing attention to anything but the extra noise.

Aramae casts Message to Edgar again.

'Edgar, you know I love your boldness but casually throwing out the name of a shady group is making me uneasy'

He begins speaking out loud.

"I really don't know what to think. Whoever they were, they were quite the ambitious group to attempt such a feat. Can you imagine the turmoil if they actually succeeded?"

The bartender pauses to think for a moment. "Aye, it wouldn't be good. Though I guess we would still have the Baron for however long she's still alive, not too much longer at her age. They'd need to figure out who's next in the line of succession I guess, guess that's the problem with the Æthling having no children yet." You get the sense that these people don't know the true extent of things yet.

“Haha if that was true about marriage I have been wasting a lot of nights in my life.” He laugh with the barkeep. 

To Ara he sends back. “Well, my boldness payed off, see those dwarves at the end of the bar? They know something. How do we approach them??”