"Just make sure it doesn't take too long there" Rormar says as he's leaving the room.
He then shouts back behind him from the hallway "and using magic is cheating!"
Rormar takes a leisurely stroll through the city until he reaches Morninghawk's Fine Steel® ().
Rormar takes a cursory look around to see if Sara is around anywhere
"What is it with you mortals and your rules? 'Don't use magic to clean, stop trimming Toorg with your hopeknife, put on pants...' It's ridiculous!"
As you three leave the Ramblehouse you see Cham behind the counter. She is clearly still distraught, but is now pouring over a large book. An easy perception check (dc 5) and you will be able to tell its the ledger for the Ramblehouse. She looks up "OH! you three scared me there for a second. You are all welcome to stay again tonight. I...I insist that you do in fact. I'll have to charge a few gold, but please stay. I'll have a room all set up for you. We can all sleep in 1 room for uh defense."
Rormar notices the ledger that Cham is scouring.
"All good with the books there, Cham? Also, while I have a gut feeling we won't have any problems tonight, I agree that a shared room would be a good idea, makes everything more convenient.....Though" Rormar scrunches his face and looks off to the left of the room, "hope the room isn't too expensive, since you know, monks are not known for their bundles of coin.
"OH! Of course they are all fine. Great even. why? Just ya know checking things out. I'm expecting some losses, after all poor Ro-Rodrick was killed here, that's all nothing else.
"only a few gold in all."
replies Cham.
"hmm, Cham must have a master key to all the rooms, and was also in the Ramblehouse last night, I wonder if she could have had anything to do with Rodrick's death? It's a horrible, horrible thought but one I must consider"
"Say, Cham, you would have been up last night after us... Was there anything unusual that happened after we all went to bed? Any other clues that might lead us to the killer?"
"That's a very good idea Cham, I might even stay here a couple more nights to help out.. If of course you wouldn't mind."
Roosevelt takes Cham behind the counter and quietly talks to her. "Hey-what's up? I've been here for ages and you've never once brought up payment for guests like them. Something going on?"
Rurik as you can tell she is genuinely distraught. But you can't say of she is hiding something or not. Could go either way. Let me.know which text you want to use.
"A woman isn't allowed to be scared in her own inn, After a death in said inn. You and your friends seem plenty strong to defend me." roosevelt you csm tell She is clutching the ledger pretty tightly.
If you want to take a look roll a dc15 diplomacy or intimidate along with what you say of course.
Rormar butts in before Cham answers Rurik. "Yeah! Also, I don't think I heard anyone mention it, but was there anybody that stayed with Rodrick or visited him last night? I have to imagine you would have noticed" he says with an unintended accusatory tone.
Roosevelt stares at Rormar blankly as the dwarf inserts his entire foot into his mouth. "Okay. You don't get to talk anymore."
He turns back to Cham. "Sorry about him. You know how those bigger guys are, brain's too far from the rest of their body to do any good. Not a problem for us shorties though, right? And honestly, I'd say that a death in your own inn is a perfect time to be scared. It's only natural. I'm not feeling the greatest about it myself. Don't beat yourself up about this, Cham. Nobody blames you for what happened."
"Thuggish tall folk all over this town. JUst like the damn halfies that were here a few weeks ago. Trashed a whole set of rooms. I still cant use them. They drew all over the walls with this strange paint, my workers scrub and scrub nothing. Look Foster I trust you. YOU may look at my ledger those two, can either go look at the rooms I mentioned. Or get out for now. They can still stay tonight, but lets just say their deal is over." She hops up onto the counter and sits there ledger in lap, purposefully only looking at Roosevelt the only other place she looks is the ceiling .
She doesn't move to hand the ledger over until Rormar and Rurik leave. Just sits their waiting kicking her little legs on the edge of the counter, maybe begins to hum a gnomish folk song.
After Rormar and Rurik leave her emotions shift back to what they were at the start of the conversation, a bits of shame, guilt, and worry. "I think I messed up Roosevelt Foster." She pops open the ledger and points to an entry. Roosevelt all you see written is human male. "This guy came in and offered me a large bag of gold to not record a name. More than enough to cover the rooms those orcish thugs destroyed and then some. I made a killing last night without it, but well. I got greedy. I, I think he may have something to do with what happened. Oh!... The one time... All i can tell you is that he was human, reserved his room early in the day and said he would be gone by sunrise. I can't tell you much about him, all those tall folk apart from race look the same, a human looks like every other human, an elf an elf, maybe he blonde hair. I really messed up didn't I." She kinda curls up on the counter. She stays sitting up right but her head is thoroughly buried in her knees. A few sobs could be heard, though she is pretty cried up.
Roosevelt hops up onto the counter and puts his arm around Cham. "Hey, hey-it's not your fault. If I were in your position, I would've taken that offer too. There's no way you could have known something bad would happen. Don't beat yourself up, k sweetie? I'll start asking around town, see if anyone's seen a strange human. It's a small town, new people are rare around here. Someone's bound to have seen somebody. Don't worry-nobody's gonna think poorly of you."
Roosevelt pats Cham on the back and walks over to the door, before turning back. "Hey, gnomie-chin up. You're the closest thing to a fey around here, without you I'm gonna just start talking to the tree all day. And let me tell you, nobody wants to see that-least of all me. It gets weeeeird."
A sigh escapes Ragha's lips as she hears Malthu's comment. "I was, yes. It's why I the adults were scared of me and the children hated me. I had hoped that the human lands would be better, but in Freedom Town my white skin made me a freak and here my tusks make me an orc."
Standing outside the Ramblehouse, Rurik asks Roosevelt when he exits the building, "Hmm, Cham seemed quite suspicious back there. Did she say anything about what happened last night to you after we left?"
"THank you Foster. His room was 203. I'm going back into the kitchen for a bit you and those brutish dwarfs can look over the room. He may have had nothing to with this." she hands you a key and hops off the bar, sighs heavily. She probably would have a few tears streaming down her face if she hadn't already been crying for 1 to 2 hours straight.
Roosevelt heads outside to the dwarves. "We're looking for a human-possibly blonde. Look, I'm sorry about Cham-she's got a major beef with people who're taller than her. Next time we see her, just please try and remember that. I'm going back in to look around this guy's room, feel free to come with me unless you want to go to the smith's."
Should you guys go check out the room of the mystery man, you will find it to be nearly identical to Rodrick's. A bed, a desk, A small bed side table, window, minus the blood of course.
"I don't think it would be a good idea to split up, especially with an unknown killer somewhere out there... What do you think Rormar? Want to help search the room?"
"Gladly. And should we go say something to Cham? I might have been a bit too harsh there, I suppose, but regardless, I'm hardly a head taller. It's not like I'm 6 feet or anything.. Rormar says with a slight shrug off the shoulders, seeking to disregard the potential answer anyway.
"I'll take a look at the desk for anything important. I bet if anything, he left behind a couple of scrap papers that might have some identifying information on them."
As Rormar searches the desk he pulls open one of the drawers and while he feels around the side of the drawer he finds a circular depression. Pushing down on it causes the false bottom of the drawer to pop open. Looking inside he finds a note. DAS NOTE
"Hmm. I wonder who Melira is? You guys ever hear of her? I sure haven't. Maybe we should head over to the smith and ask him about the hopeknife purchase order we found?"
"Agreed. Though we should quickly check over the room before we head over, just in case there's another clue in here. I'll check over the bed for anything on and under the mattress and to see if there's any slits in it, maybe there's a second hidden compartment in there."
Try as you might your searches turn up nothing more.
"Easy for you to say. You're just a half-breed. They call you weak, you show them you're not and that's it. I'm the target of superstition. Some think I should have been sacrificed to the gods as a baby. In addition to all of that, I'm a woman. I need to be five times as strong as an orc man before he considers me his equal. Then he'll fear me, call me a she-demon. He'll kill my in my sleep or worse." Her voice is filled with anger and disgust, "The only reason I survived my first years is because my father could not have his child be killed. It would have hurt his station."
"There is everything wrong with being different. It makes you an easy target."
Ramblehouse group what's the plan are you guys heading over to the Sara's?
"Okay, guys, I think we're probably good here. I doubt we're finding much else anyway. Let's head over to Sara's." Rormar states matter of factly as he heads out the door.
"No time to waste!".
Rurik follows Rorrmar out the door.
Through my DM magic as the group of Rormar, Rurik, and Roosevelt(and Toorg of course) approach they catch sight of Malthu and Ragha also entering Morninghawk's fine steel. Also know as Clamor.
For your information it is now about 1PM.
Ragha as you two enter you don't see Sara, but instead see her dwarf wife Agrit(you all know that both Sara and Agrit are town councilors so in addition to owning the only smithy they both hold important posistions .
Agrit sees you two and says "AH! two of our towns finest half-orcs. I hear you two were at the Ramblehouse this morning. Such a tragedy. What can we do for you today? Sara! customers!" she shouts the end of the sentence so it presumably be heard over the hammering you hear.
When the other three walk in. Sara is still not there. "HUN MORE! Been a bit since there were 6?, well does the tree use weapons? No? 5 customers here. So all of you were at the Ramblehouse anything else happening there now?"
"Wow, fantastic timing on catching you two here, I was almost a bit afraid of coming here, because you might have gotten back to the Ramblehouse before we returned." Rormar says animatedly toward Malthu and Ragha.
Turning toward Agrit, Rormar takes on a slightly more somber tone "Unfortunately, or I guess I should say fortunately, nothing happening there at the moment. Just trying to make everything normal again. As well, I'm sorry for getting you excited, since I'm not in the market for anything new at the moment, though I cannot speak for my pals here."
"My you have all been busy. I'll go get Sara. She is probably busy picking up slack from thathat good for nothing apprentice."
She returns from the forge still without Sara, but with some cups of water and a loaf of bread on a tray. She steers you all into a small room.
"Sara will join us in a bit. She is at a point in crafting a sword where she can't stop for some time. I am equally interested in this talk of murder. What currently leads you to believe that there was foul play involved in Rodrick's death?"
After you all pretty much repeat what was just said to catch the two groups up. "Well, show me the knife you found on Rodrick. I'm no expert, but I can tell if it was made here or not"
"This certainly looks like a blade that was made here. It certainly not a knock-off hopeknife. Sara will know more about whether or not this was made here. I was just here to eat a meal with my wife. She runs most of the day to day business. "
"don't worry about it, we will wait for Sara then." Rormar says as he picks up a cup of water. "Special sword she making today? Or just one of your regular fine pieces of steel?"
"We hopefully won't keep you for too long. What's cooking today?"
He turns to the group. "Agrit makes the BEST mincemeat pie. I'd love to have her go into business with me, but she's already turned me down...twice."
Roosevelt also tries to see what's up with Agrit and Sara.
Rormar sits patiently, enjoying his water and bread.
None of you suspect anything odd is afoot in the smithy.
Sara joins you all a few moments later. Assuming you show her both the knife and the receipt she tells you "Yes this was made here. I can't tell you if was recent though. As you know 95% of hopeknives are nearly identical, thanks to my prowess, only wear or special additions tell them apart. Like the engraving i did for Brinya and Rodrik. Who has disappeared. I took her on as an apprentice a few weeks back and she didnt show up yesterday wen i expected her and has not shown up today either. I took pity on the poor girl after she told me her story in broken common, poor girl wouldn't have survived long only speaking a few words of common and mostly orcish. I had her working a new hopeknife for Rodrik."
"Also, why did you have her do the hopeknife for Rodrik, of all people? I feel like he both would expect top quality and would want to keep it quiet."
Rormar quickly checks her face for a reaction.
"Yes I had just taken on Urnsul as an apprentice. I can't tell you much about her personal life. She stayed her for a night and then said she had found lodgings. As for friends she had only been in town for a short time, maybe a week, so I doubt she made any close ones." to Malthu.
"The knife was mostly done, she just had to finish shaping, sharpening and the engraving. She was also a fairly competent smith already, Orc tribes need weapons too. You know looking over this knife i think this might be the one i had her working on. Poor girl probably took it thinking she could fend for herself. How it ended up back with Rodrick I haven't a clue."
"Do you know where Urnsul came from? Why did she come to Trunau?"