As the two wolves accost them Sarada draws his greatsword and takes a swing, feeling Sarenrae's warmth again after all these years was quite odd and unexpected.
Well... that went about as well as could be expected Kreagor thinks while watching Omast swing from his rope.
Seeing Omast is stuck, Kreagor picks up the flask and heads over to the door in the wall, intent on pulling Omast back up to safety.
Before departing Sarada asks if they can inspect the half-orc's room. The propreitor shakes his head no. "Space is a premium around here. I'm afraid when she didn't come after a few days we gave someone else the room. Nothing sits empty too long around here."
The two young wolves stare down Brolga and move in to attack their head twitching and red eyes bulging to the point where they look like they are going to pop. Both wolves surge towards the half-orc but are clearly unable to focus and come up short on both attempts.
After shrugging she concedes, "If you want to go up to the steeple go right ahead, but if you are just wanting to look at them perhaps you should look at the one out back first. We just found another one today painted on the rock face behind this building."
Kreagor heads inside and makes his way up to the top without much difficulty. Once up top he tries to pull Omast up, but the guard flails about on the rope and makes the process much more difficult than necessary.
A second attempt is even worse and nearly disastrous when Omast's drunken foolery nearly pulls Kreagor off the battlements himself.
His third attempt is successful however, the guard is pulled up on top safely and Kreagor is able to remove the rope. Omast reaches for his flask, "Thanksh."
Seeing the wolves, Brolga smiles to himself. "Hello little friends of Ashava. I'm sorry for this, but you're threatening my new friends." He draws his great axe and swings it down on the left most wolf.
Kreagor hands the flask to Omast with a sigh,
"Omast, I think you may want to pour whats left in the flask out, if not for your own good then at least think of Kurst. He is worried about you and I came here to make sure you were okay"
Its going to be painful getting anything useful out of this one
"Why don't you sit here with me for a bit and take a break, you've been working hard serving the town well this morning and I think you deserve one"
If Omast will sit down on the floor, or a nearby bench/chair, then Kreagor will as well, otherwise Kreagor will remain standing
What is it he thinks he could have done...
"There's a few people thinking that right now, Kurst for one, Jagrin too from the way he has hidden away from everyone upon hearing the news.
Kreagor leans his head back against the wall, looking at the ceiling while sitting across from Omast, legs crossed. He lets out a sigh and continues,
"Honestly, I kinda feel that way too, given that we were all out drinking after Ruby's hope knife ceremony. There were a lot of us close to him when it happened, none of us were able to help either."
Tilting his head back down again, Kreagor looks Omast right in the eyes,
"So what makes you think you could've changed anything about what happened to Rodrik? Doesn't seem like there's anything that could've been done at this point. What could you have worked harder at to keep him alive?"
You identify the marker dye used to create the markings. The marker dye is of alchemical design and meant to be nearly impossible to remove.
Garri's bolt of flame nearly scorches some of the hair off of Sarada's back and comes up way short of the wolf. The wolf immediately retaliates at Sarada, barely able to lunge forward to make it's attack. It nearly falls into him, but does so with its jaws wide open and clamps them shut around his ankle. The wolf tries to trip Sarada, but it is barely able to stand once again after the attack and doesn't even come close.
Immediately the gnoll's injury begins to burn as the saliva from the mouth of the beast penetrates open wound.
Worried about whatever disease the filth biting onto his leg might bring into his body the Gnoll focuses and sings a silent prayer unto The Pitiless Dragonslayer in his head for endurance and continuation as he brings the blade down without mercy.
Currently the path and alleyway are clear with no one nearby, but the group knows that people will likely be along shortly.
Renliat traces a finger along the graffiti. "Not magic, alchemy. I know this dye; I used something similar to mark my potions. It's simply designed to be permanent." He scratches the wall and looks at his fingernail. "Who in town has alchemical supplies?"
With that she walked with Renliat out to the stone and, upon finding it, said, "Well, it doesn't seem that special." A few words and gestures and she could find no magical auras on the rock, "It's certainly not magical in nature, must mean it's simply mundane alchemy." She scratched at it as well but with no luck as she found herself completely stumped.
"I'm glad you have an idea of what it is Ren, I have never seen anything like this before." When he asked about alchemical supplies Lialda's face lit up as she said, "That I can help with, I live with the alchemist and his wife, I think I can persuade him to let us use the facilities for a short while."
Oh boy, he's losing it. At this rate I'll be carrying him back to Kurst
"So Jagrin asked you to keep his sons safe, either in town or when out on patrol. So I have two questions for you. One, why are you getting drunk right now over Rodrik's death, when Kurst still needs your protection from whatever we think killed Rodrik? Two, what is it that you think you could have protected Rodrik from, because we may need to protect Kurst as well so I need to know?"
"The w-w-wolves should not have been in Trunau's walls. Someone m-must have let them in, so that p-person probably poisoned them too. We need to alert the t-t-own militia in case there are m-more."
Before leaving however, Brolga gently shuts the eyes of the two wolf corpses. "Sweet rest little friends. The bright spark will call you soon."
When you try to soothe him he narrows his eyes and gets defensive "Whaddya know 'bout them? What businessh of yoursh ish it?"
The man waves his hand dismissively at his failed attempts of diplomacy. "Jusht lemme be, I'll be fine.. He tries to stand but stumbles and falls down. He leans over the edge and reaches for the rope again. "Imma get back ta cleaning now. Maybe do shomethin usheful."
He's going to get himself killed, maybe I should knock him out and say it was the drink...
Staring helplessly at the drunken fool, Kreagor tries one last time to at least get the man some where safe.
"Omast, I am only making this my business as Kurst has asked me to help find who killed Rodrik, and I could use your help. At the very least come back to the Longhouse since Kurst wants to see you"
"Kurst ain't here right now but we'll sober 'em up and get him cleaned off, thanks for bringing him back. Check back later tonight if you wanna talk to him again."
Kreagor sets off for the Ramblehouse.
The tall militia man scratches his head, "How'd wolves get in here? Huh. Alright, thanks. We'll head over to the boarding house and make sure there aren't any more hanging around. Let use know if you see any more hanging around, we'll warn the others."
With their work done here, they had back to the Ramblehouse.
The entire party arrives at the Ramblehouse at nearly the same time. Sitko is first, leaning against the entrance playing with a shiny new pocketwatch. When she catches sight of Sarada, Garri and Brolga she slips the watch into a pocket and asks, "Took you long enough!" As the others approach she waves them over and adds, "Hey look, looks like it's time to meet up."
"Sorry, we were... delayed." is all Sarada can think of when of when he tries to be laconic.
"D-did you have an eventful m-morning Sitko?" Brolga stutters out by way of greeting.
The Gnoll's brow arches slightly as he hears the Half-Orc speak but he doesn't otherwise say anything.
"Let's catch each other up over lunch." Renliat suggests, ushering them into the Boarding House.
Once everybody is situated Renliat starts. "The white sword graffiti is not magical in nature; it's alchemical. A somewhat common substance used to create permanent marks. We are going to talk to the local alchemist to see if they know anything more. How did the rest of you do?"
"Brinya's apprentice Urnsul was the one working on Rodrick's hopeknife, but she seems to have vanished and no one has seen her or the knife since. Her reasoning was that she didn't feel welcome here, always watched." Sarada adds once he gets him some food.
"Oh, and I got bit by a wolf."
Time for some food I think
"I was unable to get to Jagrin and ask him anything, but after talking with Kurst, he is going to try and get what knowledge he can from his father. Other than that, I need to go back to the Longhouse later to ask one Omast Frum a few questions once he sobers up. What I got out of him though was that he doesn't think Rodrik's death was a suicide and that something from his outings on patrol might be the cause." Kreagor tells the others once eating. Continuing "Also, I can confirm that Rodrik and Brinya were engaged to be married, though few people knew. Rodrik's father did manage to find out some how though and the two had a massive falling out"
Looking at Sarada,
"Small after thought is that, getting bit by a wolf? So how did that happen?"
Lialda nodded and said, "Lunch it is." Hvvita scampered around excitedly at the idea though she stopped when her mistress said with concern, "A wolf bite? In town? Do you want me to take a look at it."
"The wolf opened its mouth, put its mouth around my leg, and then closed its mouth." the Gnoll replies inbetween bites.
Stopping with the fork almost at his face he realizes he didn't quite answer the question the way they were wanting. Offering the morsel on his eating utensil down to the scampering fox he'll then lightly lift his leg up towards the witch, not wanting to be rude he doesn't raise it very high so as not to disrupt the others eating and also incas reThe woman changes her mind in wanting to look at the furry limb. Bite marks clearly show on his robes but his leg otherwise looks fine right now.
"Yes, apparently they had been poisoned and let loose into town."
"Garri and I spoke to Brinya, she was u-understandably distraught. She mentions that R-Rodrick had been obsessed with work lately, and that he had a journal that might say more. I couldn't find it at h-his room; it would be worth looking out for?"
Brolga pauses to think.
"Oh, and the wolves happened. They're with the militia now."
"What's left of them." Sarada corrects.
Who would poison and set wolves loose in town?
"So we still have a few things to look into. Someone should try to find out what the poison in the wolves was and where it can be found or bought, we need to speak to the alchemist, we need to track down the missing journal, look into Urnsul leaving and, talk to Omast again when he is sober."
Mulling all of that over Kreagor realizes they don't really know much more than they did this morning, they just have new leads to follow.
"From the information we have, it looks like the journal would have been hidden in the compartment in Rodrik's desk. Since its not there whoever did this must have known about it, where the journal was and, they wanted it for some reason."
This is becoming quite disturbing
"So do we want to split again to get this done this afternoon, or take a safer approach and go together in case more incidents like the wolves happen?"
"That's a valid concern, I think we should start traveling together in case whoever did this starts getting violent." He frowns. "So what's our next move?"
"You don't consider a murderer violent?" Sarada asks while his lips pull back into a grin.
"Some murderers are only puppet masters." Renliat offers.
"... and?"