The dwarven professor chuckles at mel's words:"Nice try, but you'll ned much more experience to fool the likes of me. I seriously doubt you can find anyone more qualified than me on these kind of subjects especially considered the nature of what you just said..:"
Then he suddenly gets serious:"But I must admit I'm rather intrigued. A boy you say? A tiefling child? And carvings on the body... like ritual carvings? This seems like it could actually be worth a bit of my time. Lead the way folks.. If you want me to tell you about the nature of those bodyly inscriptions I'll need to see them for myslef first!"
Lirotha nods and smiles.
"Of course my dear lovely-professor! We appreciate any insights, and discretion, you can supply here: Please note that the location
of the body is a secret at the moment and will need to remain so. Agreed? Otherwise, we would simply have to bring copies of the writing to
you to examine instead."
Shaking her head sadly, Lirotha attempts to ply the obviously interested dwarf with even further possibilities of a murder investigation.
"Personally, I would love to find out whom may be doing such horrible rituals to poor children, and then making sure they stop. Permanently."
"They were not nice things. And while the boy may have had the blood of fiends... his life was his own to make. " says a rather sad eyed Valrani.
As the group converses with the dwarf, Veccio paces the room, fidgeting with his gloves. He steals furtive glances out of windows and door panels, praying nobody is listening in on the macabre conversation.
The dwarf chuckles again:"Well... if I were so inclined I could deduce whatever there is to know about you by your accent and clothing alone. Luckily for you I don't care, as your lives are more than likely to be an extremely boring subject. Also rest assured I don't care for Laria's little group of smugglers you seem to be involved with. All I care for are knowledge and stimulating topics... That said... bring me to this child so tragically culled before he could live up to his own potential as a mugger and beggar. Those inscriptions you mentioned could actually be worth investigating"
The group will lead the dwarf to the lair and the child unless someone objects.
Rocco snubs his nose at the grumpy old dwarf, but listens on quietly after the professor puts him in his place. He simply follows along as Borhausen comes along to see the tiefling child's body and the strange inscriptions upon it.
Without further discussion the party leads the professor towards Laria's shop and then to the Wasp's Nest. Entering the base the dwarf shows a tiny bit of interest noticing Callistria's statue:"A couple of centuries old by the looks of it..." he murmurs before proceding towards the place where you stored the kid's body.
As he sees it the dwarf gives an appreciative nod and motions for you to step aside while donning a couple of white gloves and taking out some cutting instruments from his bag:"This might take some time... you may watch but try not to disturb please"
It actually takes the dwarf a long time to complete his examination of the child's body. After a couple of hours (of extremely boring hours, as Rocco mentions time and again) the professor seems to be finished and motions for you to come near:"Well... this has been more interesting than expected. Well done, well done. I'm reasonably sure I know what happened to this unfortunate soul but... before I tell you you will need to pay my price. This whole affair turned out to be an entertaining distraction, so being my usual magnanimous self I'm willing to enlighten you for the small fee of 50 gold pieces"
Scowling at the steep price, Lirotha will nod her head.
"Steep! OK duckling, but can you throw in a look at a wall that fell down as a bonus? It just fell down! No reason we can find.
Maybe your smarts can give us something to go on? No skin off you nose there, right?"
About time, Rocco thinks as the dwarf concludes his investigation. When he announces the cost for his informaiotn, Rocco looks down and chuckles, "You can always trust the one with the chips to play his hand, Lirotha."
Valrani nods "Lets just pay the man. As for the wall... well isn't it just old?"
"That's kinda what it looked like to me, but Laria seemed to think it should be sound enough. I dunno. Check it out if you're interested, Professor. If you insist, we might be able to throw a few extra gold pieces your way for it."
Professor Bokar doesn't even look at the collapsed wall just shrugs and answers:"Oh? You don't know? I almost thought your were trying to cause Laria's shop to crash on itself. It's actually pretty obvious. If you care to check around that section of the wall you'll notice some tool marks. It means someone caused the collapse. And since you are clearly oblivious to this little fact it means someone took on himself to sabotage whatever you were doing down here. Also..." the dwarf takes a brief look around...
... and then moves towards a couple of barrels not far from the collapsed wall. He then kneels and raises with something in his hands: as you approach him you see it's a hammer and chisel.
The professor shrugs:"Hidden nearby... which further proves my theory about you being sabotaged from within. But enough of that: where's my money?"
Lirotha will retrieve the money and pay the dwarf gratefully, but now she knows something will have to change soon. A traitor? As spymaster, she should have seen this coming, but she had been concentrating on helping the city. Bah! Excuses!
"I don't understand. How does bringing down one wall hurt us? Who, other than us would even know about this place and want to bring it down?"
"Sowing discord?" Veccio asks with a shrug, surreptitiously glancing at Meliandri for approval. "Maybe someone thinks they can scare us out." He turns out a jacket pocket, fishing for change.
"Or maybe they know something we do not. Could they have been tunneling in search of something?" asks Valrani.
"All insightful questions you'll need to find the answer on your own I fear. My duty here is at an end but I must thank you as your request proved quite interesting indeed... and here's your answers: that tiefling child was ritually sacrificed. His death fuelled the creation of some fey abominations, thooth fairies according to the writings carved on the body. Anyway, since you found this corpse I have to conclude you dealt with the tooth fairies, they would never have allowed you to take their focus away. Anyway, here's the bottom line for you: there's someone in this city knowlegeable enough to engineer a powerful magical ritual in order to summon murderous fey creatures, and in order to do so this, or these, person didn't shy away from killing a child in cold blood.
Whoever this person is it's bad news for the whole of Kintargo.
Anyway, since I did what I was asked and you paid my fee I see no reason to stay in this dreary place. Feel free to come visit if you have some similar cases..." so saying the dwarf starts to leave the Wasp's Nest.
Closing her eyes and resting her chin on her chest for a moment, Lirotha will sigh heavily and look up at the others gathered around the corpse.
"It tis' as I feared me lovelies. Yon child is just an example of some tortuous person's cruel joke or sadistic pleasure. We need to figure
out a way to track down the murderer or murderers and stop them before something like this, or perhaps worse, happens again. The
authorities will care less I'm sure. Any suggestions of where we go from here? Rocco, could you try that magic you attempted before on
the child? Maybe with the current insight we have on the child you can suss out more information this time?"
"So.. is this the authorities looking for an excuse to crack down, someone who is trying to stir up problems for the authorities, or something with completely their own agenda?"
"Rooco me lovely? You are the observant type. Any way to tell us who used that hammer or the chisel?"
"Indeed there is, Lirotha me ghastly! Step aside." The halfling picks up the tools and calls upon the powers granted to him by his connection to the ethereal through Kurglunn. With a few incanted words, he lays his a hand on each of the tools, searching for any kind of psychic imprint the wielder of the tools might have left behind.
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When Rocco's psychic magic touches the items it only gives back a sensation of malevolence, as if the person who used them last was actually evil and wanted to cause harm. Aside from that Rocco can't discern nothing more. The halfling concludes the items' interaction with the wall was not significant enough to leave a deeper mark on them.
Lirotha smiles sweetly.
"Thanks half-pint! OK. We need to get a handle on this. Could Kurglunn hang around here hiding for a while? Maybe he can see if he can get a glimse of whoever is behind this evil plot to...destroy our base?"
"If we remove the tools it will have a much harder time doing that. But we should keep an eye out for any further digging in this or another area." agrees Valrani.
"I'm not sure how we would go about tracking down someone who would indulge in a ritual like the one that called the tooth fariries. How powerful would you have to be to do something like that?"
Tuggin her hair with frustration, Lirotha agrees with Valrani.
"Moderately powerful, but not TOO powerful. Otherwise they would have much more powerful abilties available to them, and could do so much worse damage taen Tooth Fairies."
"Well I've no interest in mixing with the type of psycho who'd summon those little demons we faced, let alone someone more powerful than them still. I suppose this little get together is about the city, though, so we'll have to be the ones to do something about it. Any ideas where we could start to look?" Rocco looks back down at the tools in his hands and thinks about the malicious entity responsible for the collapse, "Although I guess we'll need to mind business at home before we go too far abroad. Let's ask Laria if anyone around the bar has been acting odd lately. I'll have Kurglunn hang out and keep an eye on things like Lirotha said too."
"I think we should be checking zee taverns een town, eef we want to pursue zee creator of zose faeries further. I know a lot of zee drinking 'oles een Kintargo, and eet would not be too out of place for me to be zere." Mels smiles, mind drifting to happier times with pleasant company. After a moment, she pulls herself together. "Een zee mean time, 'oo do we 'ave with us zat we would even suspect? Zee crows are probably not a problem...
Maybe eef we 'ad everyone leave, zen kept an eye out, eet would be easier? We would be needing some way to stay een touch with zem, zough."
"Scouting out some bars sounds like a plan I could get behind," Rocco says with a grin and a sly look over at Meliandri. His smile fades, however, when she mentions someone sticking behind to keep watch. He hangs his head and looks over. "I was afraid you might suggest something like that. I could have Kurglunn stick around down here and keep hidden while I'm outside the building. As long as I don't go too far, I can keep some kind of link going with him. That might do the trick."
"Bars?" sighs Valrani.
"Maybe I could peruse the coffee houses?"
Scratching her chin, Lirotha speculates out loud.
"Somebody doing things to children with evil magic rituals...I think we must check with the arcanists in town or their suppliers my pretties.
One of them may have heard of someone specialized in summoning/binding evil Fae."
Rocco nods at Lirotha's suggestion. "That's not a bad idea. Though I really think we should get things here at home sorted before we go chasing down monster-summoning wacko's." He turns to Valrani, "Coffee houses wouldn't be a bad idea either, I guess, though I don't see any real chance for fun at one o' them. At least you can get a proper buzz going on a bar crawl."
"You meet a different sort of person at a coffee house. Maybe the sort that doesn't sink too far into their cups. Perhaps even scholars." notes Valrani.
"Alright, so we clear everyone out, do a bit of asking around, and get ol' No-Body to keep an eye out down here?" Veccio asks, wanting to make certain he's got the plan straight.
Rocco bursts through the door leading to the Rebellion's headquarters, a look of absolute rage on his face. As soon as he enters the room, the others hear him grumbling obscene about the Thrice-Damned House of Thrune and their three HUNDRED times-damned lackeys, the Chelish Citizen's Group. He continues in this state for a few minutes, banging around from room to room, before finally grabbing a cup of wine and sitting forcefully in a chair. Once he's taken a few long draws on the cup's contents, he looks around at the others, until his gaze lands on Meliandri. His expression turns suddenly sad, and he says in a gentle voice. "Alright everyone, listen up. Something's happened." He then delivers the entirety of what he had heard over the past few days about Thrune's new excruciations and the enthusiasm with which the Chelish Citizen's Group had taken up the practice. After giving the full run down, he turns again to the beautiful and talented half-elf whose voice had paved the way to victory for them time and again, and says in a gentle voice, "Mels, I'm sorry, it sounds like they're going after Lucca Avalanti next. They're planning to put her in the doghouse." He goes to take another drink of wine, but finds his cup empty. He puts the cup down and hangs his head.
"Lucca Avalanti? Sorry me lollies, I'm still new to Kintargo...is she a noblewoman?"
In zee dog'ouse? Sounds like something to do to a boyfriend." Meliandri sits down, thinking. "Lucca eez not exactly a noblewoman. She eez...more of a friend of mine. We were at zee protest together, and we got separated. 'Ow did zey find out about 'er, and why bring 'er out now?" She shakes her head, struggling to clear it. "I think we should be finding out where she eez, so zat we can be getting 'er out of zere. I think eet eez zee least I can be doing, after all zee times I slept in 'er bed..."
[ooc]I agree that this is pretty important. Let's see about getting it done.
Rocco looks up and almost smiles at Meliandri's comment, but can't quite manage the cheerfulness. Instead, he mumbles into his empty cup, "I wish it were something so innocent as that, Mels. I really do. And I don't know how they found out about your friend, but I know I don't want any trouble for her, especially from the likes of the Citizens."
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The party considers Mel's request carefully but no one can't find a reason not to try saving their companion's friend. After a brief while the whole Silver ravens are mobilized and it doesn't take them long to find out the place where the Chelish Citizen Group Thugs are holding Lucca. It's the southern part of Aria's Park, not distant from the opera house Barzillai thrune made his central headquarters!
Thankfully the excruciation is happening in a secluded spot, in the southwestern part of the park. This means that in case a violent confrontation erupts it will take some times for the dottari partols to notice it and intervene.
Armed with this knowledge at dusk you approach the site of the doghousing excruciation. You know the poor victim has suffered for half a day already but moving in plain daylight seemed too risky.
Getting near the place you see 4 of the Citizen's thugs with 2 huge mastiffs guarding the access to a bridge leading to a lilly pond in the middle of which sits some sort of makeshift doghouse and you think you can make out a female figure covered in rags sitting inside it and shivering.
"They are expecting trouble. Let's hope this isn't a trap my pretties. Val? You are the animal expert, can we do anything about the dogs? Rocco? Can you get your special friend to sneak up behind them somehow and distract them? Remember, we need to take them all out quickly...no survivors if we can help it."
"Take them out quickly?" Veccio mutters, his hand on the basket hilt of his rapier.
"Yeah, I can have K run around back and try to give them a scare. I can throw some magic in there too to see if I can run 'em off. If we can do that much, maybe K can get Lucca out of the doghouse and we can get outta here without attracting too much unfriendly attention. I could use a distraction though. Mels, you think you could handle that?"
"No, I do not think zat we should be killing zem quickly." Meliandri stares into the darkness at the doghouse. "Eef she were to disappear while zee guards were distracted, zat would be more mysterious." She turns back to the party. "Does anyone 'ave a knife? I can probably move zee guards, you can deal with zee dogs, and we can be moving on our way, but eet would be more spectacular eef we left be'ind a symbol, like a carving!"
Without waiting for a response, she rubs some dirt into her clothes, tears her blouse at the elbow, and scratches her face with her nails to leave behind red lines. Grinning through her tears, she tosses her coinpurse to Veccio and leaves the party, appearing a bit down the road with her blouse unbottoned just a touch farther than is acceptable in polite society. She stumbles toward the guards, sobbing and clutching her arm. "Help! Please help me!" When they react, she staggers closer, launching into a tirade at them.
"I was heading back home from an early afternoon at the taverns (mother said to be home early, with rumors of thuggery in the streets and the riot at that protest), and I took a shortcut through an alley a couple blocks over, when I was viciously and cruelly assaulted by a gang of halfling thugs." Before they can laugh, she raises her voice. "Can you imagine, those slips thinking to rob a loyal servant of the Thrunes?! I tried to fight them off, but they made off with my coinpurse! Please, if you could track them down and bring them to justice, I would be so grateful, and so would my father!" She points toward an alley in the direction opposite the party, gesturing wildly.
Shaking her head, Lirotha smirks at the others in the group left behind with her.
"She does realize they've seen her face now...right? But I admit, I'm starting to really like her 'gumption' my pretties..."
With a smile now, Lirotha turns to watch what unfolds...
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Two of the thugs move quickly towards Meliandri they seem irritated at first but their expressions change after she mentions the halflings:"Halflings you say? Attacking a loyal citizen of our great nation in the middle of the town, not far from our lord mayor's abode! The indignity! Rest assured milady me and Karl shall deal swift justice to the miscreants. You should go back home and thank the Prince of Darkness who undoubtedly protected you! Now go and let us men deal with the treacherous slips. For touching you we will cut out the hands of at least ten of them!"
They start movinge toeards the point Meliandri indicated. The others and their dogs keep guarding the access to the doghouse though.
Waiting until the others have left the area, Lirotha slaps her hand against her forehead softly.
"Ten halflings! Bejeebus! That's not going to go well...but it seems to have worked in our favor for now. Let's move."
Pulling out two smoke sticks and a tindertwig, Lirotha lights both quickly and tosses them between the dogs and their handlers in the hope of confusing them all!
"Now!"