Before turning onto River Road where the Lumber Mill is located, Hemlock turns around and briefly addresses the group.
"Oh, I almost forgot. I hereby deputize all of you as honorary members of the guard. One of you already is a member, of course." he states, nodding to Edgar.
"I'm doing this so that I can bring you into the crime scene. I've already informed the other guards of this, and I'm sure it will be common knowledge in town by the end of the day. Please act respectfully as you now represent the guard, but I'm sure you already know that."
He answers any questions before heading on to the lumber mill.
-------------------------------------
The Sandpoint Lumber Mill is located on the east side of town on the banks of the Turandarok River. The mill is a well-built wooden structure with very thick walls. The roof is of wooden shingles, and doors are simple timber and unlocked. Around the back of the building is a small pier, as most of the lumber is floated down the river. Small buildings on either side of the Lumber Mill house small workshops: a wainwright to the left and a cooper to the right. A larger grain mill is located a bit further down River Road.
A sizeable crowd has gathered outside by the time you arrive, and groups of nervous-looking town guards stand at the mill’s entrances. They nod silently to you and the Sheriff as you approach and open the main door to the building to let you inside.
"This is not going to be easy. Let's get a look at this crime."
Martim's steps falter when he hears that he has been deputize. He slightly gulps. "This isn't going to look good for the rep. he quietly says.
Speaking up, "I remember people coming into the bar, complaining that the mill was in operation last night. That's somewhat odd, since people need to sleep and the sound of the machine would keep people living nearby up.
"Yes, it seems strange that a lumber mill would be active at night. Seems like the kind of thing that would lead to accidents." That gets Uldar to thinking. "Say, Sheriff. Why would Vinder murder the Galdurian men? And can Ven account for his whereabouts during that time? He's perhaps got a motive for this mill owner (and not a particularly good one), but what about them?"
"Oh. Boinking.", Lia acknowledges expressionless, without a hint of whether that clarified things for her or not.
Not pushing that topic, she instead wonders once more:"But the sawmill has been running at night for months now...that is...kinda usual by now. I often wandered the streets and could hear it if I decided to listen."
Source
"So, they have been working a late shift. That suggests the murder happened at night, while they were working, and the culprit at least had an idea of whom to expect there."
Flutter heads to whoever last held the letter:"Any of you got an idea about this mention of 'pack' in the message?"
At the mention of "boinking", Sheriff Hemlock grows red as a beet and stammers.
"Ahem, well, I hadn't heard that but it would make sense. Now let's continue and get there and ... um yes."
Ro smiles to herself at Hemlock's discomfort. It's amusing because I know what you've been getting up to Mr. Sheriff. I doubt you're such a shrinking violet around a certain someone I can think of.
"Of course the mill runs at night. It's Scarnetti owned. I'm sure old Titus sees keeping all the 'little people' living around around it awake at night a fair price for them to pay to keep his profits up. He'd just see their complaints as an annoying imposition" she remarks sourly.
She mocks Scarnetti's blustery voice. "How dare they! Who do they think they are whining about noise? They could have chosen to live in another part of town!"
Before stepping into the Lumber Mill, the Sheriff briefly turns to you to answer your questions.
"Vinder is currently in a cell at the guardhouse. I'll explain it all after you've taken a look at the crime scene. You'll be able to talk to him afterwards."
He then lets you enter the Lumber Mill, which is a well-built wooden structure with very thick walls. The roof is of wooden shingles, and doors are simple timber and unlocked.
The interior of the Mill looks more like a slaughterhouse than a place where timber is cut into lumber. The interior is coated with sawdust strewn with footprints and splashes of blood. The lingering scent of decay in the air is curious—it smells almost as if an animal had died somewhere in the room and its remains were allowed to ripen.
The barely recognizable remains of a human lie in a pile of logs on the far end of the logsplitter. A pale-faced, obviously upset guard stands at attention nearby. The log splitter itself is powered by a waterwheel and consists of a chute in the floor with rotating saw blades that cut logs as they are fed in. A handaxe is embedded in the floor near the log splitter, as if it had been dropped there.
A second body has been horribly desecrated nearby. The poor man has been affixed to the wall by several hooks normally used to hang machinery. The body is mutilated, the face carved away and lower jaw missing entirely. His bare chest is defaced as well, bearing a strange rune in the shape of a seven-pointed star.
Once you are all inside, Balor Hemlock closes the door behind you to keep out the gawkers.
"We've identified the body by the logsplitter as Katrine Vinder, daughter of Ven. The other victim is her paramour Banny Harker. We were only able to identify him by a faded tattoo of a raven across his lower abdomen, as his face has been rendered unrecognizable."
Judging by the tone in his voice, Sheriff Hemlock is quite distraught.
"Oh.. Goddess..."
Ro turns around and walks straight back outside looking very green.
Anger smolders in Karmid's eyes, but he immediately turns to the obvious...
"Its smells like an animal in here."
Then begins poking around carefully.
Then begins poking around carefully.
Karmid carefully makes his way over to the closest body, which is that of the flayed man hung on the wall. The seven-pointed star carved into the man's chest looks very similar to the medallion that is hanging around Jiliana's neck.
Closer examination of the rest of the body reveals several additional wounds. Unlike the deeper slashes on the body, these smaller gashes seem to have been made by claws–claws on a five-fingered human hand. The rotten scent that you detected when you first entered the room seems stronger near these gashes.
Grunting Karmid speaks just loud enough to be heard by those nearby.
"Not an animal. Humanoid, but not human. Probably our size...but strong enough to lift this man. The creature had a clawed humanoid hand too. No animal I know has that. The claw marks...smell bad too. Strong and animal-like. This symbol looks familiar too. Right Jiliana?"
He raises this last question with an eyebrow in the woman's direction.
"Werewolf? Or something like that? But I can only speculate. I don't have the experience to say."
He will continue to the next body.
Drasven first casts a magical cantrip to help him locate magical auras.
"We're going to take a while here." he ignores the stench of blood in the room, taking his time to examine the room while avoiding moving the bodies too much.
None of the objects in the room you are examining radiate magic.
The man on the wall probably died from shock and blood loss. The woman was put through the logsplitter and had her body ripped into several non-congruent pieces.
Ro promptly walks around the corner and vomits. Afterward she finds a place to sit down outside and takes several deep breaths. She's not sure if she can go back inside.
To try and clear her head, Ro concentrates on the connection she noticed between the killings and their earlier troubles: the oddly designed star.
Ven couldn't have done this. Everyone knows he can be volatile, but not like this. Not with Katrine dead too. Besides this was meant to be noticed, not a rage killing.
Why? Maybe for people, us, Lia, to see it and get a message. But if it's some random who has a thing for Lia, why the star? How would they know about it? Or, who might know Lia and know about the star?
Lyrie would. Maybe she was deeper into things with Nualia than she told us, lying to slip away when her odds were bad. Could the Lamashtu cult be bigger than we figured, with Nualia's plans only part of the deal? Maybe there's something else they're planning, or at least they're till out there and staying busy.
I wonder if it connects to the activity we came across at Pauper's Graves? It could be a good place for such a group of crazies to hole up. Nobody is ever going to go there without a really good reason, and nobody has that good a reason anymore. They'd never be found by accident
So maybe Lyrie is trying to get her hands on Lia. Could be it's not her. Could be a cult sacrifice, meant to be seen by Lamashtu. But why the message to Lia then? Maybe another contact in town. Also nothing normally recognizable referencing Lamashtu, not her normal symbol. Maybe a cult devoted to Malfeshnekor instead, a demon cult?
Is this a message, an offering, or both?
The barely recognizable remains of a human lie in a pile of logs on the far end of the logsplitter. A pale-faced, obviously upset guard stands at attention nearby. The log splitter itself is powered by a waterwheel and consists of a chute in the floor with rotating saw blades that cut logs as they are fed in. A handaxe is embedded in the floor near the log splitter, as if it had been dropped there.
Drasven first investigates this area being that it's likely the most striking and in his opinion the last action done.
The position of the handaxe might yield a clue.He examines the machine to see how would logs be fed in and if there are any fail safes built into it.
Uldar tries to keep his mind on the puzzle at hand. It's the only way he knows to keep the horror of this scene from affecting his constitution. He briefly thanks Shelyn that he decided against the sliced ham in the inn this morning.
"Vinder seems less and less likely a suspect. Let's say he finds out about the afore-mentioned boinking. Perhaps he's even mad enough to beat Harker. But to cut up his own daughter? If he came to confront Harker, and found his daughter like this, he might have easily killed the man in rage. Couldn't fault him for it. But this... this is sick, twisted. Evil. We're looking for someone else, Sheriff Hemlock. Or something else," he adds with a nod toward Drasven's werewolf-hypothesis. "And they removed his jaw. Hmm." He looks around the room wondering if it's still here.
Uldar pauses a second at the bloody footprints. "Anyone good at identifying tracks?" he asks peering closely at them.
The log splitter is powered by a waterwheel and consists of a chute in the floor with rotating saw blades that cut logs as they are fed in through a hole from the dock outside the building. The body of Katrine lies with the cut wood on the lower floor of the saw mill. The saw does not seem to contain any kind of safety, but it does contain a large switch that engages and disengages the log splitter to the gears driven by the water wheel on the outside of the building.
The axe seems to have bloody fingerprints on it as if someone was holding it with bloody hands, and there is also blood on the axe head. When Drasven gets close to the head of the axe, he notices that the unpleasant rotting smell is particularly strong around the blood at the head of the axe, but not on the blood on the handle. The blood on the head also seems a few shades darker as well. There also seems to be rotten meat and bone fragments on the axe head as well.
The rotten smell on the axe blade is so strong that the dwarf pulls back so as not to get sickened. Someone with a weaker stomach would have lost her breakfast.
"Tracks? Nobody mentioned tracks!"
Moving immediately to the bloody tracks, Karmid checks them for signs.
Even though the floor is covered in sawdust, the town guards have not been very careful about where they've been stepping, so it takes Karmid a good five minutes of grilling the guard stationed inside and Sheriff Hemlock about their movements to exclude their footprints from the crime scene. He finally determines that there were three sets of tracks in the sawmill, two of which entered through the front door. A third set of of tracks must have come in another way. Signs of a fight are found in two different locations, along with the requisite blood spatters. Judging by the pattern of the blood spatter, Katrine was still alive when she was fed into the log splitter. Both fights seem to have been rather short, and there are signs of Harker being dragged over to where he is hanging on the wall. He was also most likely still alive when this happened.
Matrim shivers. ”That’s a gruesome tale, but I know a few others that would make that one a bedtime story.
"This stench, I remember." Drasven exclaims even as he hears Karmid's explanation and holds up a hand to warn off his other companions.
"This is a Ghast's stench and we're likely dealing with one here though there are several things I find suspect. Like the missing jaw. Perhaps our culprit doesn't want the dead talking. I can't recall but the does spells that communicate with the dead works that way?"
"Judging on the blood here, the axe was likely used in an unsuccessful attempt at self defense. However their foe proved far more then they could handle...I seem to recall we had someone here also interested in a cult.......Could he be?" he mentions the latter with some interest.
Lia enters the room, taking it all in. Watching Karmid and Drasven look about, and theorize about what had happened.
Slowly, almost timidly, she wandered over to Katrines remains.
"A Ghast makes sense. They would not have stood by and watched the other die."
She starts looking at the Girl...or what remains of her, her fingers moving softly and Lia's face full of sorrow.
"It was not Ven. But it is good he is locked up. If he knew, he would try and find someone guilty, throwing his life away or murdering someone he suspects to have done this."
When she looks up eventually, her voice is calm: "We should check Pauper's Graves, later. If Undead are involved, we should make sure the dead there are undisturbed."
Thinking the monster must have left the same way it entered, Karmid tries to figure out where that is as the hairs rise on the back of his neck.
"So much mess. It's hard to determine what is what..."
The most likely way that the creature gained entrance to the saw mill was through the hole where the lumber is pushed through from the loading dock next to the Turandarok River.
If he can Karmid, will investigate the loading dock near the river for more tracks/signs.
As a good picture starts to form in his head about what happens, Uldar begins to get very nervous. "Ah, umm, perhaps, we have all the information we need." His voice squeaks a little. "Umm, should we check the graveyard first?" He does not follow anyone over t the loading dock.
Matrim accompanies Karmid onto the docks. "There is nothing to be frightened of. Ghosts never did scare me.
Karmid and Matrim exit the front door of the sawmill and carefully make their way past the crowd outside to the dock at the back of the building.
After a bit of searching, Karmid discovers a set of muddy footprints that lead from one end of the pier to the mill itself and then climb up the side of the building to the open whole where lumber is moved through.
Across the river is an undeveloped marshy area with tall weeds.
A second body has been horribly desecrated nearby. The poor man has been affixed to the wall by several hooks normally used to hang machinery. The body is mutilated, the face carved away and lower jaw missing entirely. His bare chest is defaced as well, bearing a strange rune in the shape of a seven-pointed star.
Continuing his investigation, Drasven examines the next body.
Looking to confirm that their victims were still alive when the foul deeds were done. As he does so, he thinks back to the letter. Why Lia?
Karmid quickly shows the sheriff the muddy prints.
"More proof. Whatever/whomever did this swam across the river. See the muddy prints? Came and left this way. Did your suspect have mud on his boots or wet clothing from the river? That marsh is horrible, and filled with biting insects. I doubt anything alive could have gotten through there without at least half-dozen bug bites or leeches attached to him. I think you can release your prisoner once he's examined carefully for such."
Ro notices Karmid and Matrim down by the water and joins them.
"Find something?"
Benny seems to have died from blood loss and shock, but Drasven is unsure if he was conscious at the moment of death. Those who die from blood loss generally go unconscious long before their heart stops.
Outisde on the dock, Sheriff Hemlock examines the clues Karmid has shown him and nods.
"Yes, I agree with you. I'm assuming you'll want to talk to him before I release him? I have both him and Benny's partner, Iborn Thorn. Ibor was the one who found the bodies this morning. I also have the bodies of the three Galdurian confidence men in cold storage in case you want to look at the bodies."
Karmid sighs.
"Yes we should view all the evidence, unless Ro thinks otherwise."
"Huh? Why would I think otherwise?"
Edgar is no stranger to dead bodies, though the circumstances around these are certainly unsettling. "I am glad for your keen eyes, friend."
Karmid shrugs at the compliment.
"I've seen worse with a rabid bear attack. That was a mess. THIS...is an organized mess. A little easier I think. For me at least."
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Sheriff Hemlock escorts you back to the Garrison and leads you first to the "cold room" in the building's basement. Three bodies have been placed on wooden tables in the middle of the room and covered in sheets.
"These are the bodies of the Galdurian grifters. They've been preserved from decay thanks to a blessing from Father Zantus. Two days ago, a patrol of my guards along the Lost Coast Road were attacked by a crazed man near an abandoned barn south of town along the banks of Cougar Creek. The man was obviously sick and insane, his flesh fevered, eyes wild, mouth frothing, and clothes caked with blood. The guards subdued him, but when they checked inside the barn they discovered the mutilated bodies of three men. Although all three bodies were far too disfigured to identify, one of them carried a piece of parchment."
He takes out a small book, opens it, and pulls out a piece of parchment, and hands it to one of you.
Matrim takes the paper and starts to read. muttering, "Deal, Capital, Property.. he stops before he gets to the next line, "Okay, it looks like there was gold involved, and to get this gold they needed to go to Bradley's Barn on Cougar Creek last night. thinking for a moment he remarks, I just hope its the animals and not the elderly ladies that the creek is referring too. he hands the note off to the next party member who wants to look at it.
Drasven accepts the parchment and taking out the previous letter addressed to Lia, begins to compare the handwriting.
At the same time, he takes a sniff.
The handwriting in both letters does indeed seem to be the same. Drasven does not detect any unusual smell on it, however.
Karmid 's face shows the strain of his thinking.
"There is an obvious pattern and a singular mind behind all of this. The question is whom could it be? Lordship? Is that figurative or literal? We can rule out most people...but a ghast? You can't hide that in town. The smell alone...he must be hiding in the wilderness or in a hide-y hole close by somewhere. The graveyard would be a good place to look."
He looks at Ro.
"I suggest we split up. Half of us check out the graveyard outside of town, the other half go to the sanitarium to talk to the witness. We just can't afford to wait and let someone else get killed tonight. I can lead the graveyard group, if you can take the rest to the sanitarium. Sheriff? I suggest we warn Sandpoint that another killer may be on the loose...and double the nightly patrols. Since an undead is suspected, see if the church can provide any clerical support to the patrols. Even a few vials of holy water can make a big difference assuming it's true."
"Perhaps there might even be two minds at work here, Karmid. Someone who can walk about in public, and someone who cannot? Based on these letters, it may be that the former is mad, but otherwise looks and acts normal. This is all speculation, but we should keep our options open." Uldar nods at the Shoanti's idea. "I'd be willing to go to either, but perhaps my talents are of better service at the sanitarium."
Ro goes in the cold room, and this time she stays. It helps some that the people are strangers. She might not have moved in the same social circles as Katrine and Banny, but they were anything but strangers. She doesn't examine the bodies though, leaving that to someone who can make some useful sense from doing so.
Ro looks at the note. As far as she can tell Drasven seems to be right about both being written by the same person. The new timeline does mess with her ideas from earlier some. Lyrie couldn't be personally responsible for the killings from a couple of days ago. At that time she was definitely at Thistletop. However the earlier letter makes no mention of Lia, and she's still the only person Ro can think of who connects the star symbol directly to Lia. And of course Lyrie would be unlikely to be acting alone.
"That star keeps showing up wherever something bad is happening. Karmid, you said that tutor of yours might be able to help figure out what it is? I think it's time t talk to him. We should also talk to Ibor. After that I'd say Paupers Graves should be our next stop. Those tracks are only going to get harder to follow as time passes."
"The sanatorium can wait until tomorrow morning. Considering how dangerous this thing is, and it does seem like a thing rather than a person, I'd say we're better off staying together. Especially since it seems to have an interest in Lia."
"If a ghast is responsible, my thinking is leaning in the direction Uldar suggested. A ghast couldn't move about easily, so a partnership with another person makes sense."