DOT
|
You've recently arrived at Belhaim. Venture Captain Valsin sent you to guard a caravan for a man called Silas Gribb. Upon the caravan's arrival in Belhaim, Gribb is arrested on a warrant for smuggling, and Belhaim's sheriff and his most skilled deputies head out within the hour to escort him and his confiscated caravan south to Cassomir. You can easily convince the authorities of their ignorance about Silas' criminal activities, but you are left stranded in Belhaim, as Silas is obviously unable to pay you for the caravan job. Talia Orem, the young proprietor of the Wise Piper Inn, takes pity on you and offers free room and board for a few days - long enough for the now aimless party to
at least figure out what to do next.
Silas has been arrested earlier in the day. You are seated at a long table, enjoying a free meal of fresh bread with cheese and honey, washed down by watery mead.
"I do not understand. Everything was fine, but you can not see into people. I think we have to get some funds to pay for our trip home. Let me ask around if someone needs some hired hands to solve some problems."
|
|
While you sit at the table and enjoy your meal you hear the other People in the inn talking about their problems.
|
"Well, if it is work we want, it sounds like there is some available. I don't typically care for hunting animals, but the wolf pack they are describing sounds like a decent threat to the surrounding farmers. Might as well talk to this Mr. Abrassus, eh?"
Alex takes a sip of his mead and follows it with a bite of honeyed bread.
Setting down the mug wich was halfway to her mouth Felicitas jumps up and runs outside.
Hans sighs, ruefully pondering on the irony of the Pathfinder Society being caught-up in a smuggling ring, that they knew nothing about... or did they?
Still, despite being temporarily bereft of employment, he enjoys the rest and free meal, listening to the locals' gossip.
"What the heck was THAT?"
Hans rushes outside to see what has happened...
|
|
Outside of the inn you can see a dust plume rising from the place where a tower once stood. The tower was called the Witch Tower. The people are running to the fallen tower, some of them are coming back. "They found dozens of dead kobolds in the ruins!" they are shouting.
"Kobolds? The plot thickens!"
Drawn like a moth to a flame, Hans heads in the direction of the tower ruins...
Hastening so not to loose the others Felicitas joggs with them.
|
|
At the site of the collapsed tower you see only two dead kobolds between the rubble. Two locals putter about aimlessly. One wanders about scratching her head, and the other stands with hands on his hips, chewing on a stalk of grass. These two are Letha Mulle and Varyl Hodd, the least experienced of Sheriff Benhovy's crew. With their boss out of town, they're clearly out of their element.
Someone from the crowd suggests checking to see whether the wizard Hunclay knows anything about what happened, given that his manor shares the hill with the tower. "Ok, you know at his door" Letha says to Varyl. "Why me, it's your turn this week! Last week I had to knock at the undertaker's door!" he answers. The deputies argue for several minutes, over who'll knock on the wizard's door.
The feeling of the crowd, especiall towards the 2 deputys.
Convince them to let us handle the case
"May I offer you a suggestion. With the sheriff gone, the responsibility on the towns safety lays on your shoulders. Doing some errands will limit your possibilys. My comrades and me are expert ... problem solvers. "
Hans nods.
"We have some experience acting as... 'trouble-shooters'; that is to say, we are good at making trouble go away, permanently. If there is something amiss here, I am sure that we will be able to find out what is going on..."
|
|
Alex nods. "That we are, but given your boss took our employer into custody for a crime we were unaware of we are short on funding at the moment. The innkeeper has been kind to let us stay for free... perhaps you can direct some of the town's budget for law enforcement to reimberse her a bit while we help with this... incident."
Alexos smiles, his tatoos making it look almost friendly. He then heads toward the door in question and gives it three firm knocks.
|
|
The deputies look at each other "We are not in the position to make such a decision." Deputy Hodd says.
The crowd moves over to the wizard's house. On the steps in front of the door you see a third kobold corpse. This one is terribly charred. Alex knocks but nobody answers.
In the meantime the town's baroness Lady Devy arrives with her son Arnhole to take charge of the situation. After listening to reports from those gathered at the site, she looks briefly at the obviously overmatched deputies and then scans the crowd, desperate for someone with sense to assist her. "They say they want to help!" Deputy Hodd says and points at the strangers.
"Who are you, if I may ask." Lady Devy asks you.
|
|
Getting no response from the door, Alex carefully avoids the third body as he walks back to the richly dressed woman.
"My greetings to you. I am Alex Virden, and these are my companions Felicitas, Ting, and Hans. We are representatives from the Pathfinder Society, although we are currently between jobs at the moment."
Alex smiles and gestures to each of his companions in turn as he names them.
"We are willing to help you, for the right price anyway. And you can rest assured that once hired we will not stop until the job is done. As I am sure my companions will attest to."
|
|
"Pathfinders you say. I already heard about the Pathfinder Society, but I never had the chance to meet the Society's experts personally. I'm glad you are here, we need your expertise as you can see. Mulle and Hodd here can't handle this without the Sheriff to hold their hands, and I want to know what happened here. You seem to be a capable bunch. If you go in there and look through the rubble - find out what happened and why there are kobolds in my town - I'll pay the lot of you 500 gold pieces. While you're looking around in the ruins, keep an eye out for any signs of our local eccentric Hunclay. It seems somewhat suspicious to me that he's not ansering his door. Let me know what you find."
Well Mylady, we will of course try our very best to clear this... situation. May I ask if your grace could tell us a bit more who this Hunclay is?"
|
Ting keeping his eyes low, he bows and replies
you’s is wroight, a course, m’lady, if’n y’ll pardon me’s Mam
looking for an excuse to be out from under the gaze of so much authority; ting turns to the team and says
I’s’l nose abouts a bit wroight
and he goes to continue his inspection of the sinkhole.
Hans nods in the direction of the sinkhole.
"Shall we take a look at what remains of the tower? If there is a sinkhole, that implies that there is a subterranean space..."
|
|
Noticing the strain in her voice as she refers to Hunclay and hearing her refer to his desire to see the destroyed tower removed, Alexos nods.
"We will, of course, get to the bottom of the situation. Quite literally, given we are dealing with a sinkhole. Has the good Hunclay been known to have odd associations of the sort that might explain the kobolds? I find it hard to believe that any civilized person would have dealings with them directly, but indirect dealings are more likely, eh? And furthermore... why was the place called the Witch Tower? It seems like an odd name to give a structure."