Defense of Brookside

Game Master caster4life

Halak replies confidently without needing to look at the papers.

Ukar scouts find trading post. Ukar send animal to Gornak. Gornak come with Ukar to no-orc lands to take.

Perrin exhales heavily and leans back against the pit wall, rubbing his forehead. "Then Gornak didn't write these letters. And that means Ukar didn't write the ones that you received. Someone else is behind this." He stands up and hoists himself out of the pit, then holds out his hand for the papers. "Thanks, Halak. If you'd like, I'm sure you can take a break with the digging. We can get rid of the karak corpse separately if need be."

With that, Perrin strides quickly back to his home with the deceitful letters gripped in his hand. If he runs into Vors or Hirda on the way he asks them to follow him. Up to you if you want to be a part of this. He opens the door with a bang and steps in, Mel still reading in the chair by the dek. "Sorry for running off like that. But we have a problem."

He holds up the letters they found on Gornak. "Gornak gets letters delivered by animals that say they're from Ukar." Then the new letters he found on Ukar. "Ukar gets letters delivered by animals that say they're from Gornak." He lays both sets on the desk side by side. "The animals are different, but the letters are exactly the same."

"Someone else was writing them."

Vors follows along, seeing Perrin’s agitated state. After the explanation, he asks to see the common translation, and takes a look over the contents. “You’re certain? Or as certain as you can be? This would make them all pawns of another controlling interest. And you’ve just come from Halak to talk about this?”

I’ve been waiting for a good IC reason to read them. Thanks! :)

Mel's eyebrows go up. "Interesting. Let me see." She quickly scans the orcish original.

"It's not just the couriers, it's the contents," she says. "The correspondence that Gornak and Ukar received is basically identical. Here, look at them in chronological order:"

Kn(Religion) check to know roughly which types of spellcasters can use animals as messengers: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (5) + 11 = 16

I'm guessing that's good enough to know it's generally druids who do that sort of thing? GM, if that's not enough or the wrong kind of check, let me know and we can retcon the following.

She looks up from the letters. "Perrin, the other thing to consider is -- who could use animals as messengers? That's a technique favored by druids. And -- as I mentioned when you gave me those potions -- I believe we already know of one druid among the orcs we've faced: Halak."

A spark of anger lights in Mel's eyes. "I strongly suspect Halak tricked both Gornak and Ukar into mounting the assault on Brookside by tricking each of them into thinking they were communicating with the other. If I'm right, then he is ultimately responsible for this whole situation. For the destruction and every death that happened here."

"I could still be wrong, of course. It's happened before. Maybe there's some other orcish druid out there in the shadows playing puppetmaster. But let's start with the one we've seen."

Mel stands abruptly. "Come on! We need to get to the bottom of this. Fast. If Halak believes he's not going to get his warrior's death, he's likely to make a break for it. People could get hurt. Nice job warning him, Doctor."

Hirda spends the time at her home, preparing for Noln and Lem's funeral and for whatever comes after. I should be helping the townsfolk with their needs, but I just have no interest in that at the moment. I'm sure they'll understand.

Perrin nods in confirmation to Vors' questions and brings him the requested translation, but he starts to protest at Mel's conjectures."Wait, that doesn't make sense. If Halak was behind everything, why would he help us in the battle last night? If he wanted to attack that trading post, why not join the other orcs and help them slaughter us? And why all the puppeteering in the first place, when he could just work with Gornak directly?"

Perrin's rambling defense peters out, and he takes a deep breath. "I'm just saying, maybe we should talk to him? Before going in with bows drawn?"

Mel stops abruptly and spins about, arms crossed. "I said 'get to the bottom of this', not 'kick down the door and slaughter him'. I also said I could be wrong. Pay attention, would you? That said -- I would like to have my bow. Just in case it becomes necessary."

So saying, Mel stalks off to the smithy, grabs her bow and arrows, and takes a moment to shrug into the chain shirt she'd worn during the battle before emerging to meet Vors and Perrin again.

Mel, Perrin, and Vors get ready and go to speak to Halak, who is digging more and more slowly. He looks up wearily at you as you come to speak to him again, wondering what you have to say now.

Kind of hoping to get Vors' input before we proceed.

Good thought.

Sorry, all - kid got pinkeye, lots to attend to. Good times.

Vors nods to Perrin's remarks. "Can't say that I want to face him down one-on-one, but he did fight along side us, if only to avoid Ukar's blade. Come, let's confront him. I'll grab my halberd on the way, and get Kelian to come, too. Lead on, Mel, I'll get him to talk."

Ooh sorry to hear that! Hoping kiddo gets better!

Halak looks at the three of you, wondering what you want. He shrugs and continues shoveling, those he is slowing down considerably as it gets dark.

Thanks - that plus seasonal allergies are a bucket o' fun.

"Hold, Halak. Just a moment. I know Perrin was here with questions a bit ago. We have a few more, just answer them plainly." Vors motions Mel forward to take the lead.

The seconds of silence tick on, until finally Perrin pipes up. "We've noticed you have a bunch of magic for summoning plants and animals. Can you, say, call up something to take a message from one point to another?" Very smooth, Perrin.

Halak nods.

Don't have today but yes think could. He stares at the group.

Me dig more now? He sets back to it, moving his some-thousandth shovelful excruciatingly slowly.

Sorry for the long delay, everyone. I apologize -- life got busy.

Mel had collected her journal at the smithy as well, thinking perhaps they could get Halak to write something, and then compare handwriting with the correspondence. But she was suddenly tired of beating about the bush.

"Ukar had letters on him that were carried by animals -- an otter and a bison. So did Gornak -- but his arrived on a frog and a pony. Except for the beasts that carried them, the letters are identical. Here, see?" She shoves the correspondence at him, and waits a moment while he reads.

"It looks like someone tricked both Ukar and Gornak. They thought they were talking to each other, but they weren't. Both of them were talking to someone else. Someone who could send animal messengers."

She takes a deep breath. "We only know one person who can call on that kind of magic: you. So, Halak -- did you do this? Did you trick your tribe and Ukar's into attacking Brookside?" She glares at him.

Halak looks wearily at Mel, seeming to find her accusations exhausting.

Crazy woman. Why me do? What me get from all these?

He points around to all the dead orcs that he is digging a grave for.

Sense Motive, another thing Mel is great at: 1d20 ⇒ 7

Mel doesn't back down. "Obviously this wasn't the plan," she says. "But if the tribes had won, your tribe stood to gain a lot of wealth and bragging rights. And you, personally, could have turned that success into more prestige. More power."

Thinking for a moment, she adds, "Besides which, even if it wasn't you, somebody set your tribes up for this. Somebody got your tribe killed, and Ukar's, and all of the Brooksiders who died here. They'd all still be alive if it weren't for these letters! Who else could have done this? Who else had the spells to make it happen, and knew the orc tribes well enough to trick them this way? You say you didn't do it; so who tricked you"

Halak responds with anger in kind.

Stupid woman!!! Only see Gornak letters before now. Not know trick. If know trick, no let whole war band die!!

He throws his shovel to the ground and solidifies his fist into solid wood and steps menacingly towards the edge of the pit.

"Fine! So give us a name, a clue! Who else could do it? Who else knows Orcish and has the power to use animals as couriers? Because they're still out there! Someone out there killed all these people -- Brooksiders and orc both -- with lying letters. And if we don't find out who and stop them, they could do it again!"

She takes the birthing bracelets out of her belt pouch and hurls them at his feet. "I don't want to be responsible for any more orphaned children because some sneaky bastard out there decided to set us against each other!"

Err, diplomacy? Intimidate? I've got to roll something high sooner or later, right?

Diplomacy: 1d20 - 1 ⇒ (3) - 1 = 2

Intimidate: 1d20 - 1 ⇒ (5) - 1 = 4

Nope.

Stand down, Halak! Vors thunders. These are answers we need before your blood hits the ground. Who else could do this? Who else did your tribe know that could do something like this?

Diplomacy: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (16) + 10 = 26

I certainly hope Vors is disemboweling that orc right now.

Hirda and what is left of her family spend the evening piling wood for a funeral pyre for Noln and Lemuel. The Rockhills also help out. If Hirda has any specific plans for what she will do next, she keeps them to herself.

Interested to hear what Hirda does next.

Halak stands, eyeing Mel fiercely for a few heartbeats. Then his shoulders fall and he steps back. He picks up the pair of bracelets and stares at them for a few moments. After a long silence, he looks up at you all If me know, me would tell you. Kill bastard coward.

Added a regional map of the Southern Bishopric of Helm to our main documents, which I've moved to keep up top. I provided this map earlier in the discussion but didn't keep it in an easy place to see it.

"Well, we can agree on that at least," Mel says tartly. She takes back the letters and retrieves the birthing bracelets from the ground.

"I don't know about you two, but I'm done here," she says, and strides off into the dark, still flushed from the heated encounter with Halak.

"That's zero for two, Mel," she mutters to herself dispiritedly. "Some scholar you are. Who the helvetti else could it have been?"

Perrin winces at Mel's angry departure, then turns to Vors. "Maybe we could follow the tracks of Ukar's people back to their last camp? If whoever did this wasn't one of the attackers, they might have tried to send a message there that we could intercept."

Vors grunts at Perrin's suggestion. "Halak, would Ukar have left anyone behind at his last camp? Or any other surprises for us?"

Halak shrugs. Maybe leave one, two guards. Maybe not. Maybe traps. He then thinks about your questions for a moment. Where animals come from? he asks.

That seems to be the question, Halak. If the animals that Ukar received aren’t from your tribe, and the animals you received aren’t from Ukar, then there’s another player in the midst.

Vors shifts his grip on the halberd, now weighing in his mind whether he might need Halak’s help in pursuing this matter further, but also knowing that justice requires him to battle the orc, as promised to the town.

Halak shakes his head at Vors. Not mean where letters come from. Where animals come from?

Btw, given the copies that have been made, it is fair for anyone to read the letters.

Perrin pauses at this. "Huh. You said you know magic like this - so you don't think they could call the animals up out of nowhere like you did with those spiders? They'd actually have to find the animals themselves?" He starts pacing back and forth along the edge of the grave. "That might be helpful. I'm not sure where you'd find a bison around here, but an otter would have to be somewhere near the river, right?"

Halak shrugs. Never used spell before. But letters talk like need animal.

He points to the following passage in one of the letters.

"My sobriety if this response meets you slowly. The frog was the only thing at hand."

Mel makes her way back to the smithy where her things are stored, and sits down on the floor. She spreads out the letters in front of her, and copies translations of them into her journal while her magically enhanced understanding persists.

With that done, she just stares at them, one after another, studying them -- taking not merely the words on the sheets, but the sheets themselves as objects of study.

"Well, paska," Mel mutters. "I owe an apology to that orc. Before Vors skewers him. I should have thought to check the palaeography earlier."

Rolling onto her back, Mel stares up at the soot-blackened ceiling of the smithy. "And now I have no idea where to look next," she tells it. "Someone somewhere went to a fair bit of trouble to trick two tribes of orcs into assaulting Brookside. Why? What did they hope to gain?"

She stands up and paces back and forth, hands behind her back, speaking aloud. "Maybe someone wanted Brookside destroyed for some reason? But ... why? What ... no, NO, Mel, you've forgotten something. Brookside wasn't the target."

She goes back and looks at her transcribed letters. She runs her finger through the first letter to Gornak, stopping at the second sentence of the second paragraph: One of my scouts found a rich trading post with many goods and few arms in human lands.

Turning to the matching letter to Ukar, she checks it. One of my scouts found a rich trading post with many goods and few arms in human lands.

"A rich trading post with many goods and few arms. That doesn't sound like Brookside. It's a farming village, not a trading post. So maybe the target was Rush Junction, and Brookside was just in the way? But ... if the two tribes met up before getting to Rush Junction, the ruse would have been uncovered. If Ukar thought Gornak started things, and Gornak thought Ukar started things, surely they would have been confused and then compared notes. So maybe Brookside really was the target, but the mastermind dangled Rush Junction to them because Brookside wasn't a sufficently tempting target?"

"But then if that's the case, it just brings us straight back to the problem of who would want Brookside destroyed. It's a small place, not especially wealthy, and anyway even if it had been successfully destroyed the loot would just have wound up with Ukar and Gornak, not the puppet master. In fact, the same would have happened if they sacked Rush Junction. ARGH."

Plopping down on the floor again, Mel pulls out her journal once more and leafs to a new page. She titles the page Possible Motives and lists the following:

Gain loot (she then crosses this out)
Destroy Brookside
Destroy Rush Junction

Eyes gazing abstractedly into the distance, she the feathered end of her quill pen against her nose a few times, and then mutters "Flip it around, Mel. Maybe the target was ..." She adds a few lines:

Destroy Ukar
Destroy Gornak

"Could have been a rival who wanted them dead for some reason, and thought Brookside would be the weapon to do it with. Get them killed, absorb their tribes, win! Kusipää," she mutters. "I hate thinking like this. Anyway, the scribe evidently wasn't used to writing in Orcish, which suggests it wasn't an orc. Why would a non-orc care enough about a couple dinky orc chieftains to spend so much time and effort getting them killed?"

A few more taps of the pen on her nose, and Mel pales a bit. She adds a new line:

Provoke Bishopric of Helm into starting a war with the orcs

She stares quietly at that one for a while. "Y'know, Mel," she says conversationally to herself, "You were wrong about there being some big threat in the southern desert pushing the orcs up here. You were wrong about Halak playing puppet master. Your track record on dire extrapolations is pretty damn awful. Keep it up!"

But she stares at it some more, thinking about all the larger players who might want a war with the orcs. Religious zealots looking for a just and holy crusade to prove their deity's righteousness. Secular authorities seeking a "common enemy" to distract the people from domestic scandals. Other powers seeking advantage. "Maybe Iustia wants the Bishopric, and figures it will be easier to conquer after they've spent a few years pouring soldiers away on a pointless war with the orcs," she murmurs. "Even if the Bishopric wins, they'll be worn out and the ranks depleted. And if they lose, well, Iustia can step in, 'save the day' and be hailed as heroes for their noble defense of humanity against the vile orc horde. Lyhytnäköinen paskiaiset."

Wearily, Mel packs away her journal and papers, blows out the candle, and lies down with her head on her backpack. "Sweet Ostara," she prays unhappily. "Why did you curse me with such a good imagination?"

She lies awake in the darkness, her tired mind cycling through an endless loop of Brooksiders dying, of orcs dying. Finally she falls asleep, and dreams of the Bishropric and the orcs and Iustia all dancing a terrible lurching death waltz to the tune of a shadowy conductor leading an orchestra of madness.

Vors looks over to the remaining Brooksiders, and waves them back into town. "This is between him 'n me. It's getting dark - go see to your families. One way or another, this'll be done tonight. Dr. Alders will see to it with me."

- - - - -

Vors turns to Halak. "So, what'll it be? If you fight now, is this the good death you wanted? I won't kill you without honor - and that fire is going to burn for a good long while. I can still throw you on it in the morning, but now's just as good for me if you are ready. Or, if there was someone else pulling strings that caused the death of your clan, what would you give to get back at them?"

This calls for a diplomacy check. To save time, I'll roll it for you.

Vors' Diplomacy: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (18) + 10 = 28

Halak sighs as he looks up at Vors, years of hostility and race-hatred softening slightly in his eyes. One good fight like another. Me kill coward.

Just outside the palisade, a wisp of smoke steadily becomes a plume, thankfully drifting away from the center of town. Hirda stands before the pyre consuming her beloved husband and son. Her daughter-in-law and grandson stand with her, along with the other Brooksidean dwarves. A few other villagers drift in to pay their respects.

May ye both stand proud in the halls o' yer ancestors. 'Tis not the endin' I was espectin', or woulda liked, but yer deaths were not in vain. The town is safe, thanks t' yer actions. I wish I was there with ya, but the gods have other plans fer me yet.

Hirda says a few more words of farewell, then sits silently as the fire dies down.

I'll assume that we've wrapped up the previous evening, and it's now morning.

Mel stands at the back of the crowd, where she watches the fires in silence. As the crowd disperses, she goes to Hirda, sits beside her, and puts an arm around the old dwarf's shoulder.

There didn't seem to be much to say.

Yes it seems we kind of got stuck in limbo with the conversation with Halak. I'll assume it's the next day.

The Brooksiders continue their mourning and rites for the dead. They begin grumbling at the fact that Halak is still breathing. Several come up to Vors and Perrin.

That filthy orc should be dead by now! What are we waiting for?

Yes, my apologies for my delay - we had a rough one yesterday. I think that I'm metagaming Vors' knowledge on this one, and I don't know that he would have come around to the same conclusions as Mel on his own.

Vors, dressed in the dragonscale armor and carrying his gleaming halberd, leads Halak to the smoldering pile of orc corpses the next morning. They're both well rested now, and after making a show of cutting Halak's bonds before the rest of the town, he turns to the people.

Diplomacy: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (10) + 10 = 20

"Yes, it is time for this. He should be dead, by any rights. However, there's some new information that we've gained over the past night, and it seems that Halak here might have been an unwitting foe against our town. It doesn't mean that what he and his warband did was right, but I want you to hear what we've learned since the fight. Mel? Perrin? Can you share your insights?"

The good people of Brookside grumble somewhat more quietly at Vors' words, reluctantly ready to listen now. Somewhere in the back, you hear a voice pipe up. This had better be one hell of an explanation.

At that, Perrin steps up alongside Vors, takes a deep breath, and begins. "So there are these letters." He explains about the messages they found on the first and second orc leaders and the suspicious similarities in the text. He grows more animated as he relates the conclusion they had reached: "Both of the tribes thought they were getting messages from the other, but someone else had to be writing them. Whoever that was manipulated the orcs into attacking our town... and Halak will help us find them." He turns to Mel, uncertain about what else needs to be said. "Anything to add?"

Is the battalion from Astin still here?

Those from Astin are still here. They were paying their respects and helping with the funerals. They have loaded the body of their comrade onto a horse and were preparing to leave before this impromptu town meeting.

Mel nods at Perrin's summary. "That's right. Someone tricked the orcs into attacking us. They're still responsible for their actions -- but we need to figure out who set them up. If we don't, they could just do it again. I, for one, do NOT want to lose any more people to some shadowy puppet master!"

"The messages were written by hand, and carried by animals. That's druid magic, so I suspected Halak did it. But we confronted him about it last night, and I'm convinced I was wrong. He was duped just like the others. Afterwards, I spent more time looking at them, and noticed something -- the letters are written in Orcish, but the handwriting doesn't look like the scribe was used to writing in that language. I don't think these were written by an orc."

"That means that Brookside has an enemy somewhere in the civilized lands. I don't know who or where -- but whoever it is got all those orcs killed just as surely as our own losses, which makes them Halak's enemy too. If Halak can help us identify that person and stop them from ever trying this ever again, I'll be content to let him go back to the desert and stay there. Even if I'm not happy about it."

The crowd's grumbles turn into confused anger. Lily Nolton steps forward.

We don't like the idea of lettin' this orc go free. Can't you deal with whoever it is without him?

I don't like it either, Lily, but hear me out. Whoever did this is probably going to send another message, looking to hear about our destruction. If that message comes by animal again, it's going to look for an orc to drop it with, if what I understand from Mel about the magic is correct. It won't hand it over to me, or the good Doctor, or our fletcher. But it could hand it over to Halak, and that might give us a chance to track it back to it's source.

Diplomacy: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (8) + 10 = 18

Probably not as smooth of a delivery. Or Halak growled wrong in the background.

Mel sighs. "That's something I don't understand. The two orc chieftans were Ukar and Gornak. They both thought the other was the one who made contact and set up the raid. But wouldn't they both immediately discover that they'd been tricked as soon as they met in person? And surely whoever set them would know that. So ... I don't think another message is going to come. Why would they send another message? Unless it's to gloat, or something equally vile."

Perrin was onto something about where to look, weren't you Perrin?

The halfling crosses her arms and looks slightly skeptically at the four of you. What's the plan now? Seems you're trying to make up your own minds still.

I have no idea where to go from here.