Nat leaves the Inn and wanders around town. If she can find any other halflings, she asks them if they have any knowledge about the charges her recently former employer was accused of.
The group looking over the town finds it to be a fairly simple settlement. There are just under 400 residents, only 11 of whom are not humans. Natulcien does meet one halfling, but she doesn't know about the warrant on Silas Gribb.
The town's main commodities are pottery and fish. Most folks here work for family businesses or provide services.
It seems most of the residents follow one of three religious paths: Abadarans, Green Faith, and Shelynites.
The town is ruled by the local Baroness, Lady Origena Devy. Her young adult son,and heir, is named Arnholde.
You hear some indistinct rumors about a scholarly wizard named Hunclay, who disappeared recently.
After a few hours of looking around, the group returns to the inn for another meal.
The walls of the inn rattle as though shaken by thunder. Your experienced ears tell you that the sound was more akin to that of a massive landslide. You step outside of the inn to investigate and immediately notices a huge plume of dust rising to the northeast. It isn’t long before a young boy bursts into the tavern out of breath, with the news — the Witch Tower has fallen!
Angus lets out a resounding HUZZAH! over the news of the witch tower having fallen, completely oblivious that this might not be a good thing. Turning, he makes to head back into the tavern and liberate a few morsels of food from his companions plates while they remain outside.
Yasmin is already running towards the plume of dust "What are you waiting for, let's find out what is happening!"
"Wait, which tower has fallen?" Nat asks the boy.
"Yes! It's just rubble!"
"What's rubble?"
"Witch tower!"
"That's what I want to know!"
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Nat sends her thrush into the air to see if he can see this tower.
As Nat sends her thrush skyward, the team is able to follow the dust cloud and gawking citizenry to the pile of rubble where the tower once stood. At the site of the collapsed tower, 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. They are wearing badges, but with the sheriff gone escorting Gibb they must be deputies. They are talking over two kobold corpses found in the rubble.
A crowd begins to gather at the scene. 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. The deputies argue for several minutes, over who’ll knock on the wizard’s door. No one steps up, so a woman who turns out to be the town undertaker (named Calladastina Honas) grumbles in exasperation that she will. She finds a third kobold corpse, this one terribly charred, lying upon the wizard’s doorstep.
When no one comes in to stop him from devouring their food, Angus takes a peek outside and sees the others dashing of towards where the trouble occurred. Grumbling something about blasted kids, Angus pauses to stuff a few more morsels into his mouth and grab a flagon of ale before waddling after them.
Arriving at the scene of the incident, he is pleased to see dead kobolds, and thinks nothing is amiss. ”Clearly the kobolds snuck inta the tower’n started meddling in thing aut not be meddled in. Serves’m right if’n ye ask me.”
Giovanni listens to the rumors floating around and inspects the rubble.
An enormous heap of cracked stone and splintered wood from the tower lies in a low mound here, tumbled partially down the hill to the southeast. The mound of rubble forms a natural ramp that leads up to the now-exposed second floor of the tower above. The former ground-floor entrance is completey destroyed and buried under the heavy stones and timbers.
"MMmm RRrrgurmm Mrrghhh" says Angus motioning toward the ramp with his flagon.
Before the team has a chance to investigate further, a striking middle-aged woman arrives with a young adult man at her side. She immediately begins to take charge of the scene. She listens to reports from the townsfolk, then dispatches her son to gathe rmore information. Her eyes scan the crowd, hoping to find people who appear capable. Failing that, her eyes rest on your group ;-)
She walks over to you and speaks:
"Hello, travelers. I am Baroness Origena Devy. Today’s your lucky day. 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 answering his door. Let me know what you find."
Angus spews ale from his mouth and nose at the sum offered by the Baron. ”500 gold each! That be worth a dip in a cave to check on yer local nutcase. Sign me up, right after I finish ma meal.”
"Ah, I think we perhaps misunderstand each other, stout one. That was 500 gold pieces in total."
She gives the stocky dwarf a hard glare, as though she suspects he was trying to manipulate the terms of the deal.
Yasmin seems eager enough, she might have done it purely for the thrill.
"Let's go guys! Shall we climb up or down? Does anyone have some climbing tools?"
Right before she moves to the rubble she turns to the Baroness
"Don't worry madam, we will figure out what's wrong in no time!"
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Giovanni notices the Baroness as he makes his way from around the site.
Mi'lady, I am Giovanni Cicero BrokenCrown.
I apologize for my tardiness to this discussion,
but I was inspecting the area for further danger.
He bows as he is speaking.
Giovanni smiles widely.
Having finished his meal, Angus responds to Yasmin, "Tower fell lass, ain't much up. If'n ye want to check that rubble first, should be easy enough'n then we can head down. Now, Baron Tightpurse, anything we aught ta know about this tower a'fore we investigate?"
Phil, Nat's little thrush, flies around the rubble, looking for any sign of survivors.
Phil looks over the broken stones, and sees no sign of the living. He does notice the corpses of two kobolds, as the earlier reports indicated.
Lady devy looks at Yasmin, Cicero, and Angus. She has an especially well-practiced sneer for Angus. Probably something he's used to getting from nobs and the like.
Speaking to Yasman and Cicero she says:
"The history of the tower is quite complicated. It's been around since this area was ruled by the Cantelclure family ages ago, but it's been abandoned for nearly as long. When that crazed wizard Hunclay moved in a few years ago he started after me to have it knocked down. Claimed it blocked his view of the stars. Only recently my fool husband went poking around in there. He never came out. I've kind of felt like it's his tomb, you see. So please, take your time and learn what you can abou twhat happended. I really would be grateful, perhaps more so than this dwarf is at the prospect of a nice reward."
Yasmin seems eager to be of, history is nice, but we live now!
Phil the thrush lands on Giovanni's shoulder and whispers to him, "Nátulcien is waiting for the Nob to clear out. She'll join as soon as it's safe."
Giovanni notices that the clearest path into the tower is actually to scale the pile of rubble to reach what used to be the second floor. Someone will ned to climb up and hold the rope if they wish to aid the rest.
Yasmin wanders over to one of the kobold corpses and investigates it.
[ooc[She's still here if you have any other last-minute questions.[/ooc]
Darian makes the climb up the pile of rubble with a great degree of skill. Only a few loose stones fall as he gingerly ascends. He then knots the rope at several intervals, then lowers it for his companions.
Yasmin can tell that this kobold was almost certainly killed by falling rubble, given the nature of his injuries.
Yasmin eagerly follows Darian, using the rope.
At the top she looks around curiously
"What do you know, are you surprised when I tell you that kobold died from a boulder to the head? Weird that nobody seems concerned that there are kobolds here" she says to Darian
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Darian peers about the tower where he stands.
"I am concerned about the presence of kobolds also, Yasmin, but thought it best not to address such concerns in front of the townsfolk, or the noble lady. I would say that there might be a dangerous infestation of the creatures here."
He readies his rapier in his hand, prepared to attack any menace that shows itself.
Angus carefully follows the others up the rubble and down the rope into the tower, grumbling about shoddy workmanship and various ways DWARVEN craftsmanship would have made this tower so much better.
Open to the sky above, this exposed upper floor contains only some smashed furniture and a sprinkling of rubble. A trap door is set in the floor against the northwest wall, but a stout timber has fallen across it.
The timber weighs about 100 pounds. Angus looks at the thing as if it were a twig as tosses it aside easily.
The trap door proves quite asfe and opens easily. There is however, no light below. You can see only a small patch of floor in the room below with the fading sunlight that streams through the open trap door.
At the sight of the fallen timber preventing the door from opening, Angus sizes it up and checks to see if it has become a load bearing strut keeping the tower from collapsing further. Satisfied that it is not, Angus crouches low under the beam and sets his shoulders beneath it. Taking a few deep breaths, he drives up with his powerful legs, hoisting the timber and slowly working it away from the door. Satisfied that the job is done, he drops it with a shrug, then winces as he pulls a few long slivers from his shoulder.
Angus take a look around, and can see that most of the ground floor below has collapsed under the rubble. There is an iron trap door directly below the one he's looking through. Shattered wooden furniture lies scattered around the corpses of two small, green-scaled creatures.
Nàtulcien sneaks around the other side of the rubble from the nob, and climbs slowly and carefully up to where Angus is standing.
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"Light will be needed indeed, Giovanni, since we all don't have they eyes of a dwarf."
Darian makes sure that the party is all here before moving the rope to aid in climbing down the trapdoor.
"It does look like more of the kobolds down there too. I wonder if there are more down below? Which of us should go first, Angus?"
"If'n ye want me ta go first, I will, but I ain't too keen on spotting traps a'fore I trigger'm" responds Angus ans he makes for the door.
Nátulcien climbs up next to Angus and peers into the darkness. "My eyes are no better than yours, I'm afraid, swordsman, but I'll follow the dwarf."