The guard shrugs and said with some pleasure.
”Sure – the most directly opposed to the cult are the ones that served under Sir Sylvath. With no formal direction from the Council – with the exception of keeping a watch on these folk and make sure they don’t break the law – it was Sir Sylvath who used this scrap of advice to exert every legal loophole to prevent them from growing in any direction. He would refuse business licenses for them, not forever – but had things held up over a minor issue like not signing the name in the right way – just to prevent them from expanding for another day or so – a general denial of loans, unless the right paper-work as processed, and so on.”
”I mean – Sir Sylvath didn’t prevent them from getting anything if they were entitled to it. but he never let one thing slide with them – if he could help it – whereas, I’ve seen him relax a lot on teeny policy matters with issues other folks did, but with these folks - one mistake meant "too bad" and they'd have to start over. But what else could he do? He couldn’t outright arrest them on “suspicion”, that goes against everything this country is trying to stand for – and he had no formal crime witnessed – so he kept his mouth shut, waited for formal orders from the Council – and other then having them watched at all the time, ready for a slip - he just waited. But with the “layers” they put in between command and operation – he never was able to tie any slip to the bosses – until now.”
...
"Thank you, good sir. And I do not seek to judge your Sir Sylvath for his quick-thinking regarding the cultists. He may have saved the town. I should speak with him later to ask if there were any others who aided him against al-Kazeem and his followers."
Then Sorassa moves along to speak with another of the lieutenants.
Sorassa spies Euwag and walks briskly (well as briskly as any gnome can) toward the goblin.
Drawing him aside she quietly advises, "We cannot do anything to shine poor light on the division, Euwag. The larger community will need to accept our positions and authority and thus, please undertake your duties with utmost care. There's a good goblin", then nods her head and walks off in search of another interviewee.
Finding a new lieutenant, Sorassa smiles, introduces herself and asks her question, "If the cultists were indeed in the business of trading in illegal narcotics and unusual, unspeakable creatures (such as the tiny scorpions), who would be the most likely to purchase such items from them in town? Is there a prominent blackmarketeer in the capital and would he/she be reckless enough to deal with these southerners or stand against them?"
To the cultists, Jerall also questions them, regarding any potential enemies of the cult. "Were there any beyond those such as sylvath that got into the way of the cult? Civilians or guilds, rival business men, that made things difficult to take care of assignments from the leaders?"
1d20+8
1d4 hours
The cultists take a while to consider the question – some of them going back and forth in their questions. Then – eventually – one of them offers a kind of confused, almost apologetic answer – after considering things.
”Aye – we had some trouble with one lad – he were a real “tough customer” – sent in some of his leg-breakers in to try to rough us a bit – said we were stepping on his turf and we’d have to move on.”
”The boss didn’t like that – so there was some nasty problems – he lost a few lads – so did we – things got a little tricky, because with that silver kobold sniffing around – we all knew the heat in this town’d get too hot if we didn’t put a lid on things.”
”So our boss that was – one of the “top men” sent over lads to set up sort of a meeting and hash out terms. They figured to keep things more stable they’d give the other lad his hand in gambling and whores – while our boss that was would keep up the squeeze on most “black market” gear – and they’d go some sort of split on the narco hash, as it were.”
”Not sure percentages there – but I know the lad that sent the muscle in our boss was rich, connected – and had good lads – good enough to put down ours. And he wanted gambling and whores for sure – and a piece of narcotics and was willing to concede the strong-arm protection rackets as well as most of the black market traffic.”
They look at each other, and the one who is apologetic says with an embarrassed shrug.
”Thing is – we’re just like trigger men – you know? The boss is like the guy with the crossbow – points us at someone, and when he “pulls the trigger” – we get the job done, see? But… well – we don’t know who the other boss was – just that whoever it was had loot and good trigger men. Sorry we can’t help more – but at least you know that much – maybe it’ll give you something?”
Finding a new lieutenant, Sorassa smiles, introduces herself and asks her question, "If the cultists were indeed in the business of trading in illegal narcotics and unusual, unspeakable creatures (such as the tiny scorpions), who would be the most likely to purchase such items from them in town? Is there a prominent blackmarketeer in the capital and would he/she be reckless enough to deal with these southerners or stand against them?"
”Well – yeah – we know that much – we just don’t know who,” the crony "lieutenant" says about his fellow cultists.
”If it helps – we were trying to set up the usual “faith healing” flim-flam artists as distributor fronts. You know – you go in with a headache or something – and they give you the special “Southern Remedy” – and it’s some kind of opiate – or laudanum – or some other drug – and then you feel extra good – and then you come back for more – until you’re addicted – then they jack up the price.”
”They were just getting to the point where distribution looked good – but next thing you know bam – we find two of our boys outside of town on the east side missing their heads! Well – that was enough to let us know something was up – so we doubled our guard and sent out some feelers to see where the heat was coming from – as usual – we had a few guesses – but only the Chief’s knew what was what, as it is. And they’d not tell us much – because they were too afraid of us getting pinched and spilling it. You know how particular Holy Knights are at getting to the bottom of things, right? Better not to know then know too much… Anyway – we made some hits on a whole bunch of types – random stuff, it seemed to me – and we’d never leave a calling card.”
He ponders a moment – as if trying to guess your intent.
”We reckoned that was to cause a general sense of unease – let’s say you got nothing to do with anything – and plan on staying neutral – then you find one of your boys dead? Next thing you know – you don’t know who to trust – so you don’t trust anyone – and no one in this town allies themselves against us. So we did all sorts of things – we attacked some bounty hunters in the field south – we hit a caravan going north from some Casino – we attacked some lads doing a little collection work from some half-orc – we even set fire to one of the houses that some regular folks lived in just to throw a general set of confusion into things – now, everyone’s so damn tense around here, no one trusts nobody, and no one wants to believe anything that a potential friend might say – it’s all everyone for himself – which helped us a lot, as we were the new player, see?”
He shrugs.
”Well – anyhow – hope that helps,” he adds.
"Is there anything else you know about this tough that gave your crew such a run for your money, anything about where he's located, where his guys lay about?"
Sadly they have told you all they know about him.
They were never really picked to plan operations like this - and based on the information you got - it seems as if their prime duty was to specifically just do jobs that they were assigned to do - nothing else.
They were deliberately kept in the dark so that if they were caught, they could not be made to talk - be it with skills or spells - what you don't know - you can't tell.
So no - sadly - they nothing other then what they have told your group already regarding this subject.
|
WHile the others do their questioning () Jerall goes t find sylvath to ask about who the tough may be.
He gives sylvath all the details that he received and asks of the likely identity of this "Tough Customer" and get information on his men businesses and so forth, what sylvath knows and suspects.
Dip:
WHile the others do their questioning () Jerall goes t find sylvath to ask about who the tough may be.
He gives sylvath all the details that he received and asks of the likely identity of this "Tough Customer" and get information on his men businesses and so forth, what sylvath knows and suspects.
Dip: 1d20+7
1d4
In the time there, Sylvath listens politely to your news and considers your words thoughtfully.
”There are two potentials that I can see that could be such an ally to this former cultist with the capital, power and determination to get results. One of these men is a half-orc – alias “Grishnak” – though he has never been convicted of a crime with charges that could stick... The other is a human – a man named Vincent DeVille - a respected businessman with a tremendous amount of wealth and power. He is the owner of a very lucrative casino that has a good selection of "escorts" for entertainment - in short: prostitutes and gambling.”
Sylvath ponders a moment.
”Based on my guess – I would venture this potential ally to be Mister DeVille. He is known to be well-connected to both gambling and the traffic of flesh for pleasure… Furthermore – according to your notes, the prisoner suggests that whoever this “tough customer” is would be someone who is willing to concede the market for illegal goods or smuggled contraband. Such sources of revenue are – according to our observations – the chief source of revenue for this Grishnak fellow.”
”If Grishnak indeed does control the sale of black market goods, then for him to allow competition to control a majority interest in those very same goods, while retaining the control of gambling and prostitution makes no sense. After all - Grishnak has little to no interest in prostitution – and only a marginal interest in gambling. Yet if it was DeVillle who did this – then he would retain control of the more powerful aspects of his own syndicate while at the same time he would create friction with his only other competitor. If the cultists decided to monopolize black market goods then it would not affect DeVille – but automatically set cultists in competition with Grishnak. This would potentially eliminate an enemy of DeVille in the form of Grishnak – and leave him with no culpability.”
”As for the method of execution of enemies – this decapitation? The removal of an enemies head is both horrific and brutal – but it does send a clear message of the force and determination of the executioner. It is not simply killing – but a calculated demonstration of brutality; no mere stab in the back – this is a personal assault. A bold move, then –and one that would demonstrate power.”
He lets out a deep sigh.
”Based on this information I shall inform my men to double the watch on DeVille – but his own “trigger men” are no mere thugs. They are far more skilled then usual mercenaries – and much more dangerous because of these skills. The difficulty is we have only circumstantial evidence at best – if we arrested DeVille without proper evidence – he may use the time while in prison to deal with any potential evidence – but he seems far too clever to leave notes of his crimes simply laying about.”
”And again – consider the source of this data. We have our news from a former cult member that is known to have spread chaos for the sake of chaos. This entire story could be fabrication to bring down a decent businessman – though I doubt it – but I need more proof before I can simply act on it.”
He looks up at you.
”Compile a list on your findings unrelated to the bugs. Make a new notation on criminal relations in this nation and – prepare this document and see it delivered to Director Rowan. After that is done I suspect he may have a new case for you – providing he doesn’t already have some already,” Sylvath adds with a somewhat grim smile.
Excellent question - here's the brief answer:
1. You hit the nail on the head - you were supposed to "find the perps" - but they're either all dead, or in custody - re: you've got the arrest done.
Thus: Case is solved!
2. What's next? Well - the thing they normally don't show on the cop show's (because it's a bit dull) is the "wrap-up"/paperwork.
In your case you're literally doing that on the discussion thread via the "Case Files". This serves 2 purposes -
a. It allows you to wrap up the case with "in-game" mechanics, just like the end of a real file.
b. When you need details on specific quests or cases - because you have a fully summarized "wrap-up" of the case on the discussion thread via a "crunch" - it acts as a "favorite" by virtue of its existence.
So, for example - if you were playing this game a month from now - suspected a "bug issue" but couldn't remember how to do deal with - you'd tap the discussion thread fast - glance over the notes (which would be confirmed by the "Director") and then you'd be like "Oh yeah - now I know what to do!" and then you don't have to sort through over 10,000 posts - because you wrote up all the particulars for everyone to see them.
3. You do still have about 38 hours to go - roughly. What will you do?
Basically - whatever you do now is all for the same thing: try to impress the boss. You could do a right-up on what you found and rush back to him as fast as you can.
That will impress the Director with your speed - and you'll be rewarded accordingly.
You could wait a bit to do that and spend some time demonstrating who you are to "the people" - showing them about the S.I.D. and gathering prestige for your organization accordingly - that's another method - and will get you different kudos from the Director.
Or you could do something else altogether.
Remember - there's no "wrong answers" here. Sometimes even Scotland Yard can't solve the case - see Jack the Ripper - but that doesn't mean you don't get credit.
If you think you got things wrapped up - gather the troops, type up your summary of the case - and head back to the Director for your reward.
If you want to do a little bit of hob-nobbing with the locals to boost your rep - do that instead - and it will be noticed.
If you have another idea - like get details on a new potential case (I saw you do that with the Silver Kobold Oracle, or the issues with the potential gangs/syndicates) - that's something I didn't think of - but it will also be appreciated.
Whatever you guys want to do is fine - no pressure. But whatever you do with the time you've got will be appreciated by the boss - providing it is good stuff.
That said - games to you!