Bennevy approaches the attendants of the paralyzed noble woman.
"Beg your pardon," he begins politely, "your mistress was paralyzed by something or someone during the attack on the train. The same thing happened to my lord." He motions to where Rosewood is laying. "Did you see who or whatever did it? I am trying to figure out how it was done, so that we might reverse the effects and be on guard against it in the future. Anything you can recall would be appreciated."
Bennevy gives a nod of thanks, then makes the same inquiry of the dwarf noble woman's retainers.
"Apart from being paralyzed, was anything wrong with her? Did she appear sick or wounded?"
Tomid stands guard over his charge despite being tired.
"Where are the burns located on her?" Bennevy asks.
Bennevy nods his thanks and returns to the others sitting with Lord Rosewood.
"There were two other nobles attacked on the train. Both of them with the same symptons as Rosewood. Look at the back of his neck, see if there are any burn marks."
Tomid complies, carefully examining the neck of his charge.
Yes, there are burn marks!
"So whatever it was, the same thing attacked all three of them. Now we need to figure out why."
What do all of them have in common?
"Beyond social status? I don't know," Bennevy replies.
"they are old, noble and on this train."
"the two scenarios that seem likely are, only one was the target, but they lacked information on the identity or all three are somehow connected.
"but why all the effort to paralyse them?"
I fear this means that other attacks are likely
Kiriko nods
"paralysing makes no sense otherwise"
"All three were paralyzed, but only Rosewood was hit with the suffocation spell," Bennevy replies. "They may have been paralyzed long enough for the target to figure out if the person was the right target. If that is the case, it seems whatever it was intended to kill Rosewood - only it wasn't sure he was the intended target until he could get close enough to him and be able to search or examine him in some way."
" not invisible "
"they were not invisible, Rosewood might be a target of opportunity . But we should assume he was specifically targeted ."
"Have the healers come to look at him yet?" Bennevy asks the others. "If so, were they not able to do anything?"
Tomid protectively maintains his vigil.
"Decidedly strange. An halfling, a dwarf and a old lady ....
It seem that the attacker had no idea of the race, sex or appearance of his target, only information about his station."
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Sid
"Hmm. Nobles usually bring some kind of patent of nobility with them, but a piece of paper with some specific writing seem hard to detect magically. And identify it by normal means seem even harder, if you have to search a whole train.
Maybe if it is made of some kind of high quality paper ..."
Seeing how Sid work as a scribe to live, he has any idea about materials is used for the patents of nobility? There is something special about it or the seal?
"The assailant may have already known the targets were nobles. Perhaps he knew only that a noble on this train would be carrying something of importance, or was planning to do something dangerous to his own plans. Lord Rosewood was invisible, and we were busy fighting off that creature. Once he was paralyzed, the assailant could search him easily. Whatever he found, he must have determined that Rosewood was his target, since he is the only one who the assailant attempted to suffocate," Bennevy whispers to the others.
Bennevy sighs and shakes his head. "Rosewood hasn't been very forthcoming with us about where we are going and what we are doing. It's his business, sure, but now we're in a bad position because we don't know if the mission is important enough to keep going blindly forward, or if we should turn around and head back to the Guild."
He looks around for a healer, and flags him or her down.
"Can anything be done about his paralysis, either by you or one of the other healers?" he asks hopefully in a normal voice level.
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Sid
One of the men on the train replies to Bennevy "Not on the train, but we can remove the paralysis at the gates of healing on the next stop"
In a low voice, trying to be heard only by his companions:
"Ben, the papers are relatively easy to find with magic like locate object, so probably the killer was searching the train that way. He (or it) was finding the nobles, paralyzing them and checking their papers or some other thing to see if they were his actual target. When he found Rosewood he used his deadly attack."[/b+
[b]"That is an awful quantity of resources. The ability to use locate object, paralyze at least 3 nobles and use suffocate on Rosewood ... "
"It would be interesting to ask if the papers of the other nobles where stolen or destroyed. If he was using locate object he had to remove the other papers after checking them, as they would still be detected by the spell, hiding the more distant papers."
Sid look both troubled and excited by the possibility of a large use of magic.
"Does Rosewood still have his papers on him?" Bennevy asks.
Checking for papers:
Bennevy glances at the papers for a few moments, hoping something about the language strikes a familiar chord.
Kiriko keeps an eye out for anything unusual happening.
"It is a private document, I don't think we should read without permission, it unless seem the only option."
Bennevy hands the paper back to Tomid. "Private business, I understand, but we're trying to find out why this thing wanted to kill him, and he's in know condition to offer his own theory," Bennevy whispers in reply. "I saw something in there, but there are too many ears here to risk saying it now."