The Sheriff, who has been listening quietly to all of this, nods. "My predecessor in this office once told me it's a mistake to theorize before you have all your facts together. You'll start twisting the facts to fit the theory rather than finding a theory that best suits your facts."
She stretches her long legs and paces a moment. "Madam Ebonfeather, I'm not saying that you can't investigate Arhaneem Braeton. I want whomever is behind these crimes to pay, no matter how high or mighty. But I also want you to have a good reason to look into him if you do."
"So you asked me about Braeton, and here's what I know. He's an interesting fellow. He took a small family legacy, and instead of frittering it away partying, he invested the money and worked his ass off. He bought boats, invested in the docks, created a well-organized and trained dock crew. He bought his dock crew uniforms with shiny buttons so that they wouldn't be seen as Chelaxian or Varisian, but as Braeton Dockers. He now has a small fleet ferrying goods all the way from Magnimar to Kaer Maga and Janderhoff, but he's made sure that other ships are welcome here too, figuring that it's good business to have lots of trade here. Although the other docks in town offer cheaper docking and unloading fees, most of the established shippers still prefer to work with Braeton. His workers don't lose cargo, don't break stuff, and they're fast and courteous."
She shakes her head. "Meanwhile the other docks and shipping companies in town seem to change owners every couple of years. They cut corners and what not, and sooner or later it all collapses on them."
Then she turns to Stali and Hikaru. "Look, scared or not, this Zakhar broke and entered the business of an innocent man in order to steal what she could, and break what she couldn't. Maybe she was honest with you and didn't know that people would be murdered, but the Locked Box was attacked with the apparent goal of killing everyone inside. I'm not letting her be anywhere but in a secure and locked cell until we get to the bottom of all this."
"You want to investigate the Shiver trade?" The sheriff grins. "How can I say no to that? But where do propose starting?"
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"That is a good question Stali. Is it possible that it is being made here and shipped out to be sold? Given that its main component is venom from Dream Spiders I'd have thought not. Unless somebody is raising spiders? Is there anybody local who raises strange animals?"
"Perhaps a good place to start would be by talking with Mr Braeton? If Shiver is coming in then it very likely is coming in by ship and through the docks. A good merchant pays very close attention to his competitors and he'd likely at least suspect who may be behind it.
And if he IS indeed behind the trade perhaps his reaction to our questions will reveal something?
Other than that, maybe just ask around town to see if somebody knows anything at all? Unfortunately, its already known that we're working with you and the circus so acting as a potential customer just isn't going to work."
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"Oh I wasn't suggesting putting her anyplace other than a secure locked cell... Just that it wasn't necessary to lock her in a deep dark box somewhere... I don't know what your cells are like... but a cage with bars on the door can be as secure as a solid box...especially if you have good guards. But I will leave all that to you and your expertise and facilities."
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"Oh, don't mind the near-senile prattling of an old grandmother. I'm sure it's nothing based on what you say about them being the hardest-working folks in the community."
Andrietta gives the Sheriff and the others a bit of a doddering nod.
What was it the grandson always said? 'Trust your gut'? I wonder where he ever got off to, anyways.
"So where to next?" She'll defer leadership to someone else at the moment, given her intuition on matters.
The Sheriff snorts. "Near-senile? Oh, I doubt that sincerely. Use those sharp eyes and ears of yours, and see what you can find."
“If you’re going to check out this tribe, let me send a constable with you.” Her eyes light on one of the young men who’d wrestled Zakhar into a holding cell in the back. He’s skinny, with that stretched out look young men get when they’ve gotten some height but haven’t had a chance to fill out yet. Back resting against a wall, he’s pulled out a sandwich. “Irv! Go with them and check it out.”
Irv looks at his sandwich mournfully. “Sheriff, I was just about to finally eat!”
“Eat on the way.” The Sheriff says. “If there’s a whole tribe of these skulks around, I want one of my people to know where.”
Irv sighs, walking with you, eating bits of sandwich and grumbling. “Never let that woman think you’re even starting to have a break after being up half the night.” He wolfs down the sandwich as you all walk down past the river and then into the woods. As you approach the site though, he settles into the job, his demeanor serious. Irv’s actually fairly light on his feet and quiet once he stops eating, and he follows your lead in silence the rest of the way.
Even with the directions that the Rogi gave you, the path through the woods is hard to follow.
It’s barely a deer path, but Andrietta and Stali keep finding the way, pointing out footprints of bare, narrow humanoid feet and occasional broken branches. Before you actually see the tribe's camp, you see more and more signs of activity. There’s scattered junk scattered all through this area: bits of food, scraps of clothing, buttons and broken bottles.
How do you proceed from here? If you decide to scout, I'll need stealth checks.
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Andrietta will keep her eye out as the party moves along, and keep an extra amount of attention on Irv.
She doesn't want the deputy dead. Aside from headache issues, he's part of the team for the moment, and her responsibility extends to him.
"The other alternative is to send Vralk with you and have Vralk come back with messages, right?"
The grandmother will take K'Kei's word about the spell of talking, she's never heard of such a thing...
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Startled that she is being addressed, "Oh um. . a spell. yes I'm sure that exists but I don't think I know it. .sorry."
She'll watch out for any dangers in the woods, stepping carefully, trying to avoid tangling with any bugs. When she inevitably does step through a spider web she'll flail about using karate moves to cut at the web.
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Stali stares, open beaked in surprise as the impulsive crow flys forward.
He then glares at Gallako for a few seconds. That crow better not alert the camp.
With a small sigh, he says "Ten foot space between us, the rest follow about 40 feet behind? We take this slow and be extra watchful!"
"If you are coming ahead with us" he says to Irv, gesturing to himself and General Chak "we will give you the middle position. That will allow you to best see what is happening." ...and allow both of us to come to your aid if there is a problem.
He then suggests a few simple hand signals to indicate numbers, positions, advance, retreat or stop.
Taking the left side, he slowly and quietly advances on the assumed camp location.
Irv doesn’t comment on Vralk’s flightiness, but he does sigh as the excitable familiar flies off to scout on his own. Irv follows Stali and Chak’s leads, stopping when they do, moving forward when they do.
You hear the camp before you reach it. You hear shrieks and tussles and thumps and the sounds of squabbling and hissing. “Dibs on Rogi’s blanket. Mine!”
“Yours?! You already got Zakhar’s spoon!”
“Deserved it! Went on the mission, didn’t I? Unlike you who snorted the shi--” The voice breaks off and screams. “OW!” The scuffling and punching and hissing and spitting continue.
You get sight of the tribe’s shoddy little camp. Junk is strewn everywhere, as are bodies of passed out skulks. There are a few awake and fighting near the fire. Then one of the ones fighting over the blanket pauses, tilting his head and listening. “UP! RUN!”
From the voice, it's the same guy who'd claimed to go on the mission. He drops the blanket and tears out of there, while others stumble and start to look around. “Whaa? Why?”
Gallako, Hikaru and Chak, you may act.
Hikaru, not having been close enough, can't figure out which of the stoned skulks called dibs. He does manage to grapple one in a flying tackle.
"Oomph! Lemme go, bird!"
Gallako and Chak may act!
It's hard to spot the one clutching the spoon in this mess, so Gallako holds his daze until Vralk can point out the blanket-dibser.
Chak may act!
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Whirrr. Click.
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Chak grapples a skulk!
Chak and Hikaru have each grappled skulks. Both grappled skulks flail madly, attempting to escape.
Hikaru's skulk is held fast, but General Chak's is so sweaty from Shiver that she shakes right out of his grip.
Seeing people chase him, the blanket-dibser leaps over logs in his way, trying to lose pursuit.
He leaps very dramatically! Meanwhile, Gallako attempts to daze the blanket-dibbsing spoon-thief that Vralk points out.
The blanket-dibbsing spoon-thief is dazed and stops running!
Sarano Color Sprays a skulk, enveloping it in dazzling rainbow patterns.
It gets caught in the rainbows and is stunned for rounds.
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Stali and Andrietta may act!
Irv, seeing the familiar shriek, "This guy! The one with the spoon but no pie!"*, pulls out manacles and clicks them on the dazed skulk that Stali attempted to grapple.
"Alright," Irv says, securing the now struggling skulk, "why the guy with a spoon?"
()
The group has captured three skulks and found two others shivering in such a dream-heavy stupor that they never woke. The rest of the camp has vanished into the woods.
What do you want to do now?
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Looking to Irv, Stali explains "We know that there were other skulk who went into the Locked Box. If this is one of them, like he claimed just moments ago, we want to question him about it."
Looking to the manacled skulk, Stali asks "What is your name?"
Stali would like to question a few of the other skulks as well, see what they know of the supplier and the shiver. As far as he is concerned, the only one we should forcibly take back to the sheriff is Tiru.
If he were a skilled healer, he would also be looking to help the drug-addled. As it is, he will just stay out of the way of those who are trained to handle such things.
Still clutching the spoon, he shakes his head in denial. "My name is Tam. You must have misheard me, 'cause I want nowhere near that Locked Box. I avoid town -- it's trouble. You people just don't like skulks."
Yes, he's lying through his teeth and doing a fairly good job of it, but he's having trouble meeting Stali's penetrating gaze.
These skulks are really sick and out of it. They've been dosed repeatedly with shiver... unfortunately, coming off of this is going to be hard even if you can beat the addiction.
'Tam' or whomever he is not nearly as sick. If he's been taking Shiver, he's been taking far less of it.
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Drat, he is changing his story. Maybe I can trick him into revealing himself?
With a side-long glance at Irv, Stali focuses on the Skulk and demands "Tom? Are you sure?"
Waving a claw towards some of the comatose skulks, he adds "Go a lot worse on you if we get a different answer when we ask some of these sleepers and get a different answer!"
Alright, let's see if you are the Tiru that Rogi talked about. Should try to correct me in any case.
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Take 10 on sense motive for 10
Turning to Stali
"Do you want me to cast that spell on him? The one that makes it VERY painful to lie? I've got a couple left"
Hoping to use bluff to aid his intimidate
"Vralk, quit laughing!!. I COULD have had a spell like that :-). And I AM tough enough to use it if I had it"
"YES! Er... I mean no... I mean, not Tom but..." The skulk seems to wither under Stali's stare. Then he glances mournfully at the other skulks. "Alright, alright! I'm Tiru, and yeah, I was there!"
His eyes go to the ground again, and he fidgets. Yep, clearly about to lie again.
"You don't have to use that spell on me! I was clearly just the lookout! I don't know nothin' about no murder!"
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"You are the only one who said anything about a murder, Tiru. Please, tell us more about it."
Stali will press him for his side of the story of what happened in the Locked Box. He will also check if Tiru knows what happened to the keys. He is happy to have Irv there as a witness and to take this skulk back to the sheriff.
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Hopefully Sister Esrelda will be able to help them. I doubt the town will care enough to help them. Or maybe we stick around for a couple of weeks to help them through the worst of it?"
The still intimidated Tiru's eyes widen as he suddenly realizes what he said. Then he sighs, all fight gone out of him. "Ona has some sweet deal in the town. A good job. She says she has her own room, with her own things that aren't broken." He lifts his manacled hands and gestures around the shoddy camp.
"I wanted in. I wanted to be out of this camp, this life. No scrabbling for trash. Ona offered me and Rogi and Zakhar a chance to impress her bosses with something BIG. All we had to do was break in, steal stuff, break stuff, secure the place. And then when the others go to the vault she told me that I was the only sober one there. That I notice things like a good lookout."
He looks down at the ground and whispers. "So she gave me a test... and a knife."
"I don't." Tiru sighs. "She and Kymeth come here. They bring the shiver and the jobs. But I bet they're not gonna come round here for a long time once they hear you've been here."
Meanwhile, Irv looks at the shivering addicts. As he kneels down and touches one, he says, "Guys? I think I've seen something like this before. The shivering and the sweats and the stupor... I've seen this before. In town."
Irv looks up at the sky with a frown. "Let's talk about this on the way back. We've got a long walk still."
Irv's words remind Team Tengu that it is getting pretty late in the day. Walking five miles through rough wooded terrain took up most of the afternoon. By the time you get back, it will be well past dark.
Tiru is not very cooperative. He drags his feet, making furtive glances as he walks. It's only the fact that you have him surrounded and cowed that finally has him resigning himself to the long walk into Ilsurian and an uncertain future.
Irv glances at the skulk sidelong before talking to Sarano. "Yeah, I suspect he'll hang, Miss. It's not my decision, though."
As you walk through the woods, he continues. "Every town has its drunk. Ours is a fisherman named Filton Legg. I can't tell you how many times I found him passed out in his boat or on the docks and had to throw him in jail just to get him sobered out. But a few months ago when I found him, Filton wasn't just drunk... he was sick. Sick like those skulks backs there with the sweats and shakes. I thought he had a fever or something, and I brought him to Sister Es. She got him off the booze and nursed him for a month, and then got him a job. Whatever she did must have been pretty good, because I haven't had to bust his a--" He breaks off, looking uncertainly at Sarano and Andrietta. "--his, um, well... Uh, I haven't had to bust him."
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Andrietta's been taking a bit of a back seat, but the most recent discussion makes her go 'hmmm' a bit.
...Looks like the murderer wavered a little, so not a seasoned killer. But desperate enough to kill an unarmed, tied up man...
"Child, your path is a rough one. You never get the nice things, you're always told 'maybe next time', am I right?" The grandmother starts slowly as she considers the situation.
"And you were given a choice, the only choice you ever saw to get something better, all you had to do was this 'one little thing' for Ona, right?
You didn't want to do it, but... she promised you, didn't she? And then, suddenly, you're back to scrambling for things like you've always done, and Ona nowhere to be found, and you being left to take the blame because things went nasty, right?"
"It's not right and it's not fair. You did all this and now you're facing the gallows or the axe when you've never really had a choice that you could see out of it?"
The paladin pauses for a moment.
"How much would you do for a chance to redeem yourself, pull yourself away from all of this mess? No, no, dear, not kill someone, but tell folks what happened and why? Think about it for a moment or two, let me know what you think?"
Andrietta heads over by Irv.
The paladin will suggest trying to bring the others to the Sister for some sort of care and healing.
"It's okay, Irv, you can use human terms for tail-feathers. We're not offended, it's a body part just like anything else, dear. Right, Sara?"
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Hikaru kind of smiles at Irv's distress at mentioning nether body parts in front of the ladies.
To the skulk, he simply says, "Listen to grandmother, she's got a good idea.. you can go far in redeeming yourself if you speak up and speak truth. No guarantees it will lessen your punishment, but if there's a chance of that, this seems to be the only way."