The mercs shake there head.
You cannot seem to read the man.
Asanna's curiousity is piqued as she notices the pair of eyes watching her intently off to the side. Alem takes a more direct approach when noticing the watcher, going so far as to go up and introduce himself. Not sure of the watcher's intent, Asanna uses Alem as a diversion to slip out of sight off to the side and try to sneak up on the person from the opposite side of the wagon.
If she creeps up on the person unawares, she listens for a moment while Alem converses with them, then whispers in the person's ear, "Whatcha doing?"
The man watches the group as Alem walks up to him to try to speak to him, the man just stares at him for a moment. He seems to than switch his view to watch the group again as he watches Asanna as she tries to move he than walks away to his tent.
The halfling thinks for a moment before speaking "Well you know Garavel, he has worked for Almah, a long time now. There is Dashki he is a bit of an odd man but knows the area as well as gnolls. There are two sets of guards, the first set are the personal guards of Almah they are called Fixx, Keldon, Podarn and Vodrave. Second set are mercenaries there are six of them total Trevvis who seems to be the leader, Utarchus, Dullen, Kallien, Brotis, and Yesper(). Last of the important folk are Hadrod and his wife Hadrah, they take care of all the animals." He answers after Gethric asks.
After his response, Drellik asks "What happened to cause that fire, I didn't see any enemies about, and the weather didn't seem bad enough for lightning."
"I am Barakus."Barakus nods to the mercs, expectantly.
Omaz stays on watch listening to any chatter near him as he does so.
The halfling just looks at Drellik oddly before answering "No your caravan has come to join this one. Almah is the one that is funding this expedition. As for the fire I do not know why it started."
One of the men says "I am Utarchus." The second man says "I am, Dullen." The woman nearest Dullen says "I am Brotis." Finally the last member of the group says "I am, Yesper()"
"She is a bit of both, she is what is known as a merchant princess. No it is okay I just thought your question odd."
Asanna does not get anything for a few moment from tapping the tent flap before you hear a guff voice say "No I did not wish to speak with you, why I left, now leave me be."
Alem watches Asanna as she waits outside the tent. Looking around at the rest of the camp, he shakes his head slowly in bewilderment. Seeing people coughing, talking, recovering from the fire, he can't help but wonder what the cause of all of this was. He pulls the card out from his sleeve and examines it for a long moment. What a strange world I have come to. It looks much much the same as the old world, but there are strange things afoot here... Replacing the card, he makes his way toward the tent, following Asanna's lead, and laughs silently to himself. Though perhaps not so out of place. Strangeness is so common in Katapesh!
Approaching the tent, he makes a thoughtful frown as he addresses Asanna. "Not very cooperative, is he? That is not so good, I think, and perhaps...suspicious."
Drellik leaves the halfling to his work and returns to Garavel's wagons to relax until the caravan begins to move again.
"How goes it, Drellik?" Omaz asks him as he returns to the main camp, "Nothing going on out here. I have the feeling I've missed all the action."
"Well, not too bad. The halfling cleric was not much help to be honest. But I did learn that the lady in charge of the other caravan is Garavel's employer - she's leading this expedition, not him. And given all the guards and mercenaries she has around, I don't know...."
Drellik looks at Omaz and continues in a slow voice, "I haven't been around people much these past few years, so I may just be reading the situation incorrectly, but something about this doesn't seem right to me. I'm planning to relax a bit before we get started again... but I'm going to keep my eyes open, if you know what I mean."
"I think that would be wise. The road has enough dangers along it, if we're somehow bringing danger WITH us? Well, we need to know," Omaz nods
After a hour Garavel comes out of Almah's tent gathering the group to speak with them. Once all of you are present he begins to speak "Almah wishes for all of you to find out who or what has caused the fire. The wagon belonged to Almah's personal fortuneteller Eloais, who comes from Varisia. His specialty of divinatory was a deck of cards known as Harrow. The reasons you are to do this is you all were not present when the fire was started. Do any of you have questions for me before you do this?"
"How..."hard" can we ask these questions?" Barakus asks, cracking his knuckles.
Drellik proceeds to the wagon and casts detect magic. He starts looking around the wagon, beginning by circling the outside, then inspecting as much of the interior as possible without going inside.
"Why have we heard this task from you Garavel? Has Almah forbade us to talk to her?"
Omaz listens even as he searches for tracks.
Garavel shakes his head at Barakus, "No need for that, unless you are sure you found the right person, than bring them to me."[/b] He turns to Gethric "She is a busy person, she is currently making an account of everything that was lost due to the fire as well as seeing about getting more supplies if we need such."
Drellik climbs inside the wagon to sift through the wreckage and continue his search.
"No tracks that I can discern," Omaz frowns.
"A wizard's wagon...who knows what kinds of deviltry went on in there." Barakus mumbles.
Drellik leaves the wagon and informs the others about his findings. "Looks like he died from the fire or the smoke, there are no signs of a struggle inside the wagon, and no traces of magic either. I've got another idea..."
He heads back towards the animals looking for Hadrod or Hadrah. When he finds them, he inquires, "Excuse me, with all the excitement I'm sorry I wasn't more help calming the animals. Were you able to save them all, or did you lose any in all the chaos?'
Asanna furrows her brow in deep thought as she ponders this problem. A fire that claimed the life of a fortuneteller. Was it natural or man-made? If the later, was it done to harm the seer or to cover the tracks of some other crime? She taps a finger against her lips as she glances to Garavel, "Did anyone in camp have public issues with the seer?"
After she gets an answer one way or the other, the young tiefling starts to wander about the camp, watching folks before moving up to start brief conversations about the journey so far. She eventually brings up if they saw anything odd around the seer's wagon a little before the fire.
Garavel shakes his head at Asanna's question before saying "Though I do have my suspicions."
Both turn to you Hadrod seems very distraught he turns to you "Yes my favorite goat Rombard has gone missing."
Unable to render much by way of direct investigation or review, Gethric assists Asanna in the questioning of the camp followers.
Diplomacy (Aid another):
Drellik pats him on the back, promising to look for the goat as soon as possible. Excusing himself, he goes to find Omaz.
"I wonder if you wouldn't humor me for a few minutes. Our friend, Hadrod, has lost his prize goat. I'm wondering if you could take a look around the area where he last saw it, see if you can find any tracks it might have left?"
Once they are away from others, Drellik continues in a quieter voice:
Almah’s personal guard were all standing guard at her tent when the fire started—none of them saw anything suspicious at the astrologer’s wagon,
but one did catch a glimpse of Dashki trying to hide behind a tree nearby; “It was clear that he was trying to get a look into Almah’s tent. That boy is obsessed with her.” The others nod after this statement.
The mercenaries were enjoying themselves around the feast-fire, finishing off breakfast with a light drink. They weren’t too fond of Eloais and thought of him as a weakling. They also note that Dashki was not with them while Dullen muses that Dashki was probably spying on Almah. They also mad suggestive jokes about how maybe Dashki killed Eloais to get rid of a rival
Zastoran was reading a book by the fire-pit, but the mercenaries were being too loud for him and he’d just stood up to return to his wagon when the fire started. He thought Eloais was a charlatan and that Almah is better off now without his attention, but admits she did seem quite fond of him. He finds Dashki to be unsettling, and his obsession with
Almah somewhat disturbing;“No one with healthy desires skulks around a pretty woman the way he does; who knows what a scoundrel like him is capable of?”
As for being asked questions he states that he does not know who started the fire and if asked if he had done it would protest loudly that it was not him but saying “No! I had nothing to do with the fire! How do we even know the fire was set? That idiot burned a hundred candles in his wagon. Perhaps he just got unlucky. We’re in gnoll country. It was
probably pugwampis.”
At the mention of the goat, Omaz raises a brow and nods, "of course." and follows a bit.
"I'm starting to get the impression that the fire was just a diversion. Nobody saw anything, there wasn't anything odd about the wagon, nobody had it out for the poor man who died. I just find it very convenient that this one animal disappeared during the chaos when we were able to prevent all the others from panicking."
Omaz admits, "It does seem strange. You think someone is giving us a wild goose to chase? Or in this case, a goat? while they do something else? Unfortunately I don't know what we can do besides play it out. What do you suggest?"
Drellik shrugs a bit and looks unsure, "I don't know if that's what happened, but that's the best I've got. Could you help me look around the area where the animals are kept to see if we can find any tracks?"
He goes over to the animals and begins searching the area.
Omaz now keeps a special eye out for any gnoll tracks and, of course, goat tracks as he lends an extra set of eyes
Once they question Dashki and he denies any wrongdoing, blaming it instead on possibly pugwampis, Asanna peers hard at Dashki, disecting him with her eyes. While Gethric is pre-occupied with the nature of the possible suspects in the crime, Asanna looks for any signs of recent struggle or injury to Dashki and any signs of soot or wax upon his person.
As the others leave to pursue their own lines of interrogation, Alem approaches Garavel, drawing the card from his sleeve. "I do not believe this to be an accident. It may be simple coincidence, but I found this card blowing in the wind as we arrived," he says, displaying the card. "Divination was never my specialty, but I know it to be a card that portends destruction at the hands of a malevolent intelligence. Who do you suspect may have done this? You know these folk far better than we."
He nods to Gethrics question before saying “Terrible critters what crawled up from the Darklands below the earth. ‘Jackal rats,’some folks call ’em, on account of their pointed little heads. They worship gnolls as gods and infest their communities like rats. Wherever pugwampis go, bad luck is sure to follow. The gnolls hate pugwampis because of it, and try to kill them all the time. But they always come back. Perhaps their bad luck caused the fortune-man’s candles to start a fire? Yes, pugwampis. I am certain it was pugwampis.”
Garavel looks at Alem before saying "I would not be shocked if it turned out to be Dashki."
Omaz scratches his head where the tracks stop, "odd."
"Well, if nothing else, this is curious. Let's regroup with the others and see if they found anything."
If Omaz agrees, Drellik returns to camp to find the other characters and reveals the details about the missing goat and its trail suddenly ending.
Omaz has no disagreement, though he does look troubled, "So far, this expedition has not shown my skills in their best light."
Drellik pauses before looking at Omaz and smiling, "Don't worry about it, I'm sure we'll all have an opportunity to show our worth."
Gethric similarly fills in the others on what he and Asanna learnt "So... what now?"
"Well, does he know where we can find these pugwampis? We found no tracks to follow, but if Dashki has some idea where they might go, we might still be able to find them?"
Asanna thanks Dashki for his time as she follows Gethric away to meet up with the others. She is rolling over the testimony given so far in the investigation in her head as Drellik and Omaz tell them a strange story about a missing goat. She shakes her head in puzzlement as she taps a finger across her lips, "From what everyone in camp has said it would seem that our man, Dashki, is the guilty party of the fortuneteller's death or at least the one with the most motivation. Curious though, it's as if a big arrow has been painted across the ground toward him and signs hung over his tent that read 'The Murderer Is Here'. Very convenient, almost too convenient. He sounded honest in his denial of the deed though. If these pugwampis' are truly to blame in the incident, it might be best if we hunt one down and question it. What direction were these tracks heading in when you lost them?" She directs the last question toward Drellik and Omaz.