Blinking a bit as he tries to keep up with the conversation, Khalbar interrupts. "Water-walking undead plans kills at mill? Who is murdered people? Why are they target of walking-dead?"
Kyra nods to Ibor Thorn, feeling more tired than she has in a long time. "I know." She responds, trying to seem more understanding than she feels, but still having it come out a bit curt. She didn't expect to get much from the boy, and the notion that he wouldn't have answers annoyed her.
It occurs to her how outside the realm of normalcy this kind of thing is for these people. The quiet months after the goblin attacks weren't just a lull, they were what was normal here. This boy may not have ever seen so gruesome a scene, may not ever again. It filled Kyra with an odd sort of pity, that one could have such a boring life, and never reach beyond their own perceived limitations. Still, it was not all his fault.
And a single look in his eyes told her that he was not the killer. So if it made him feel better to talk it over, well, that was part of the job, wasn't it? And who knows, perhaps he did see something useful. Forcing a smile, she continued more gently, "Just tell me what you can remember."
Harker sighs and looks Kyra in the eyes as he explains. "Well, I wasn't in the mill when it happened - Harker and Katrine have been having midnight trysts for a few months now and he liked to have his...privacy." Harker looks away for a moment. "I was only the one that found them first..." He seems distracted momentarily, and then forges on. "Despite the fact that Vinder is a protective father, I doubt he's the responsible party, and he ought to be released. Other than that, I'm sorry to say that I don't know anything."
Despite his assurances, it's clear to Kyra that he's holding back some information, likely to try and protect his late friend.
In the inn
Pick shrugs once at Khalbar's questions.
"Hammer got note," he says after a pause, as it occurs to him this might be relevant. "From lord."
After some pressing from the others, Pick grudgingly recites the whole message. He fortunately has a decent memory, he just doesn't like saying that big string of words. But when asked, he coughs that information up.
"Get note. Dead also. Two things, same time. Not chance?"
Kyra doesn't remark on Vinder's innocence, but is inclined to agree, given the circumstances. When he finishes, she looks at him curiously and drops her voice. "Ibor, I'm going to tell you something that I perhaps shouldn't. Their deaths are more than a little similar to a string of murders that occurred in Magnimar almost a year ago. Whoever did this doesn't want it to end here. I know that you want to protect the memory of your friend, but I have no interest in disgracing it. There are far larger things at work here." She pauses, and takes a deep breath, feeling the weight of having an unseen, unknown enemy crushing her chest. "If there's anything else you know, now is the time. You may be saving the lives of others."
Ibor looks to be embarrassed to be caught in his lie, and looks away for a moment. However, Kyra commands respect now, in this town, and so he looks back and opens his mouth to answer. "Well the thing is....Benny, he used to ah...cook the books here and there. A few gold this week, a few gold that week, nothing huge. But he did steal, and, well...you know how ruthless the Scarnettis are."
Khalbar shrugs, yielding to the preponderance of the evidence. "Kyra is somehow involved in this? I wonder what she's gotten herself into now? Where did she go?"
Kyra smiles, wondering if Ibor knows how true his own words are. "They are indeed." She agrees. Still, she had a hard time imagining Titus doing such a thing. It was exceptionally brutal. With a frown, she thanks Ibor for his help, and calls over the guard and demands Ibor's release. "I may have more questions later." She finishes gently, before beginning to walk away. Thinking over what Ibor has been through, and considering that it may well be that Scarnetti is behind it, she pauses. Turning back, she speaks to both of them at once. "For your safety, there will be a guard posted outside your home until the conclusion of the investigation."
Another of Pick's multi-purpose shrugs. Hammer is involved... because she is elder, so that makes it her problem, as he figures it.
"Jail," is his one-word response to the second half of that question. (Draw incorrect assumptions as you please whether that means 'Kyra was carted off to jail', or what.)
Pick gets to his feet and crams the last of his bread into his mouth.
"Pick going to... where dead buried. See if holes in earth, bodies gone," he announces to the others. He does not invite them to come, but then he doesn't stop them either if they wish it.
Ibor bows to Kyra as the guard lets him out of the cell. "Thank you, Mayor Arkona. Feel free to drop by anytime." Then, he leaves to go home, accompanied by a guard of Kyra's designation.
When Pick visits the town cemetery (which lies behind the Sandpoint Cathedral), he finds no grave disturbance.
Ok, the story with the tracks from the water - the creature walked along the floor of the river, emerged beside the water-mill. They walked to the side of the mill, climbed the wall, went inside. Then, they came back out and re-entered the river.
Just a set of foot-shaped impressions in the river, leading away from the city, south. That, and a set of stones where the footprints end, tied to lengths of twine that have been severed by something sharp.
The footprints only continue for a hundred or so feet (and traveling this far requires surfacing to breathe multiple times) before they're faded beyond recognition, but there are footprints in both directions.
Rousting Rhanloi, Khalbar goes to the Town Hall to look for Kyra, and see what kind of trouble she's gotten herself into this time.
After leaving the jail, Kyra returns to her office, and spends some time staring at a map of Sandpoint, and trying like hell to remember who everyone is, and where they all live, and what motive they might have had. She wasn't sure about Ibor's suggestion that Scarnetti was behind it - and if he was, she'd need more than motive to get him. He was certainly clever. With a frown, Kyra sits down to write a letter to the Elders that Pick had dealt with in Magnimar, intending to ask them whether any more murders had occurred. 'If it is Scarnetti, is he simply copying them? Or does his reach truly extend so far?' She frowns, but it fades quickly as she looks up to see Rhanloi and Khalbar coming into her office.
"Hail Mayor Hammer," says Khalbar executing a mock bow. "Sounds like you may have trouble? Murderer leaving you notes, eh? Your fan club is rather odd, yes? You need help from old friends?"
Kyra laughs lightly despite the hollow feeling of dread in her stomach. "I never turn down friends. Please, have a seat."
She cocks her head. "I take it that Pick already showed you the note, then." She pauses a moment, and then speaks again. "Humour me a moment: I need to make sure that I have this all straight in my head."
Pacing back and forth she begins to relay the events as she knows them.
"Just before the Goblin Invasion, Sheriff Hemlock went to Magnimar to ask for assistance. Of course, assistance never came, and we never saw him again. When I sent Pick to investigate his disappearance, he (with some assistance from Flibble) uncovered a cult that committed gruesome murders. Evidently our old friend Tsuto was a part of it. They carve a seven-pointed star into their doors, and dead. Working with the Elders, Pick caught two of them." She gestures to the desk. "I was writing them a letter to see if they have had any more occurrence since when you arrived."
She clears her throat. "Whether they have or not, we have. A letter addressed to me arrived, which reads 'You will learn to love me, desire me in time as she did. Give yourself to the pack and it shall all end.' - I had assumed it to come from Tsuto, given his journal highlighted a relationship with Nualia, before you tore her to pieces." She smiles at Khalbar. "But it was signed 'Your Lordship', and that isn't his style."
"Our own murders took place at the Mill - the boy had the same seven-pointed star carved into him, with his throat slit, while a woman was disemboweled with a saw. Poor girl's father was one of those that died during the invasion. Too many died." Rubbing her eyes for a second, she continues. "Ibor Thorn found them this morning. He pointed towards Scarnetti as a possible killer, on account of Benny stealing from him. But that doesn't sit right with me, either." She glances out the window to get a sense of the time. "...I suppose I'll have to tell him what happened before long."
Returning her eyes to Rhanloi and Khalbar she begins to wrap things up. "In the water, Pick found large rocks that had twine tied around them, though we aren't sure why. There was also an axe at the scene, that he said smells of 'more than dead'... Whatever that means." Here the sound of laughter bursts out of her, despite the situation. "He and Flibble seem to think that the attackers were corpses, as if such a thing could even happen. Could you imagine? The dead walking around and attacking people. Ridiculous."
Rhanloi eyes his large friend for a moment, then says, "The dead walking around is not as strange as you might think. In the land of Geb, there are more undead than living. Khalbar and I rescued his wife and child from a place with undead ghouls as slave guards...so no, I would have to say this makes perfect sense. Who and why I do not know, but the seven-pointed star sounds just like the amulet we found, and of Thessalonian magic..." He shakes his head and thinks through what he knows of magic. But none of his spells seem to be of use divining the nature of this murder.
Just a set of foot-shaped impressions in the river, leading away from the city, south. That, and a set of stones where the footprints end, tied to lengths of twine that have been severed by something sharp.
The footprints only continue for a hundred or so feet (and traveling this far requires surfacing to breathe multiple times) before they're faded beyond recognition, but there are footprints in both directions.
Sheriff Peguson knocks lightly on the door to Kyra's office as she's talking with her old friends, a look of clear apprehension evident on his face. "Ma'am?" he says, standing up straight - he was leaning over to look into her door. "I'm afraid I have more bad news."
Kyra looks at Rhanloi with a mixture of bewilderment and disbelief, and starts to reply when she's interrupted by the knock at the door. "Yes, of course, Sheriff." She replies somberly, bracing herself for what may have happened now. "Come in."
After spending more time wasted trudging the muddy riverbanks, Pick winds up... back at Kyra's office, figuring he had better report to Hammer. He comes up the stairs, only to hear the sheriff's voice from up it. Pick slows to a quiet tread, eavesdropping as he comes on up.
The Sheriff enters the room with a small bow and a roguish grin of thanks, but his expression immediately sobers when he remembers the reason that he's here.
"We've uh...found more murders. More of the same, with the star carved into their chest and everything. Some gamblers, all three of them dead. Found in a building outside of town."
He gestures downstairs, "Their bodies are in the cold room at the Cathedral now if you'd like to take a look, but I thought I might come in and tell you about the survivor - their bodyguard lived through the attack."
His face scrunches in consternation, though. "From what I've heard, though, he's no longer in town. Lost it a bit, got sent to Erin Habe's Sanitorium."
"I'd like to see the bodies on our way to interview the survivor, if you don't mind. Perhaps I can discern some meaning from the star symbol." the half-elf says to the room in general, but looking towards Kyra.
"One lives still?" Khalbar asks incredulously, thinking of the attacks he has seen Aria make, and how nothing could survive that. "Him have story to tell, I bet."
Kyra rubs her temples through the Sheriff's story, feeling like the weight on her chest double. "Some bodyguard." she mutters to herself, though it is with surprise and relief that she hears someone survived. "Strange." She looks to Pick. "I wouldn't have thought that whoever did this would be so careless."
She nods to Rhanloi. "Yeah, let's take a look. Could be there's something different with these bodies." Shaking her head, she looks at the letter on her desk. "Three more. Gods, at this rate we won't have a town left in a few weeks."
"Alright. We'll check the bodies. We'll check the site. We'll have to send a small party to question the Bodyguard. And I'll need to get this letter to Magnimar soon - the more we know about how frequently and where this group kills, the better chance we'll have of finding them."
Not caring for examining the dead, Khalbar will choose to go with the group headed to see the still-living bodyguard, if we split up.
After taking a few minutes to finish up the letter to Magnimar, Kyra hands it to the Sheriff. "See to it that this reaches the city officials. I don't care who you send, but make sure it's someone you trust, and make sure it's fast." Nodding to the Sheriff, she turns to the others."Alright. Bodies first, then the living."
With as many people as want to accompany her, Kyra heads out towards the site of the latest murders, wishing with surprise that she had received another letter. It wasn't that she wanted the attention, but rather thought that it might shed some more light on who had committed these crimes.
Pick scurries along, offering only a shrug when Kyra looks inquisitively at him. He eyes Khalbar and Ran-loy curiously as they head for the bodies, wondering where they were for so long, but it is not his nature to ask such questions.
Pick holds up a hand to try and stop people from walking over the likely much-traveled ground, and squints around, seeing if any footprints have been left in an unusual direction.
Finding nothing, he heads to investigate the bodies with the others.
Khal will tag along out of curiosity.
Pick finds no tracks to or from the bodies (which are interred in the temporary cairn outside of Sandpoint's Cathedral). The three bodies of the gamblers are pretty much how you'd expect them. Throats slit, wrists with signs of having been bound, and the seven-pointed star carved cruelly into their chests. Their faces have been relaxed into calmer positions but they must have died very painfully. Their bodies radiate extremely faint transmutation magic, the purpose of which Flibble is unable to tell.
There isn't much to be gleaned from their corpses, so obviously the next step is to get on the road and head out to Habe's Sanitorium. Kyra can easily procure horses for everybody except for Flibidnick, and she does so while the others mill around. With saddled horses, they all hop up and ride. Habe's Sanitorium is about a three-hour ride away into the Sandpoint Hinterlands, a mildly uphill ride that's surroundings grow more and more rural. It's a fairly uneventful ride, though (with only one friendly farmer forcing a stop to greet Kyra and shake her hand).
Habe's Sanitorium is reached soon enough. It's a three-story building with a stout stone roof and limestone walls, but wooden doors and windowframes. The windows are narrow and definitely difficult to see through - they are quite dirty as well. A veranda reaches around the front of the building to the right (should you be facing the front door).
The party is ungreeted as they dismount, and Kyra knocks on the front door, loudly and strongly. There are a few moments of silence. Muffled from inside the building, you can hear a "Wait a minute! Coming!"
The party stands outside, waiting, for about three more minutes. Then, the door opens. A crack, enough for a head to peer out. The head is that of a male human with a headscarf wrapped around his head, of Varisian descent and wearing a black robe. Behind him looms a large muscular humanoid figure with thin horns curling out of its head.
"What do you want?" snaps the black-robed man.
Rhanloi also uses his arcane talent to cast detect magic as they are waiting, concentrating ont he building and beyond. When the door opens, he tries to identify the man with the horns based on his years of study - what manner of creature is it?
"Do not speak this way to Hammer unless you want trouble," growls Khalbar from horseback, his hand slipping down to the handle of his axe. "She is Mayor of Sandpoint, show respect."
"It's alright, Khalbar." Kyra says, holding up a hand. 'No sense in killing the man before he gives us information.' She thinks to herself, noting with disgust the horned man inside. "You must be Habe." She says dryly. "I'm Kyra. Have some questions for the man that was brought in."
The little man's head darts back and forth between all of the members of the collected party at his door. He doesn't open the door all of the way yet, and when his gaze refocuses on Kyra, he sniffs and says "I don't know what you're talking about. What man?"
He tries to look down his nose at Kyra, which is...difficult, as she happens to be taller than he is.
Kyra's jaw clenches. "Bodyguard. Survived an attack that left 3 others dead." She pauses to take a breath, and narrows her eyes. "He'd have only come in a day or so ago. Certainly you can't have so many in there that you'd forget the most recent arrival."
Pick stares silently at the man who is so disrespectful of Hammer. Will the big one cut his face off yet? Will Hammer crush his throat? Hmm.
When neither of these actions are immediately forthcoming, Pick takes a few steps backward from the group, keeping an eye and an ear on the building's exterior. If this impertinent man is merely buying time for their witness to escape out the back... Pick will hear.
Rhanloi watches the exchange, but silently prepares a spell in case things go sideways...
He's definitely lying to you, Kyra, but pauses for a second, looking you and Khalbar in the eye before remanding it. "Ah yes. That one."
He's silent for a moment before he remembers that you probably expect more than that. He sniffs again and says, "What about him? Your information about him is similar to the information that I know, but he hasn't been coherent since he came in."
Behind him, the tiefling glowers with orange eyes.
As far as Pick can see, there isn't anyone escaping the building. There doesn't even seem to be a back door, and all of the windows are securely barred.
"You might need that axe after all, Khalbar." Kyra mutters. She looks at man for a second, studying him. "Perhaps we can make sense of his ramblings, given that we've seen the aftermath, and have been investigating these murders."
If the man gives even the slightest hesitation, Kyra will announce, "I don't have time for you, people are dead. We're coming inside. Now." and basically shove open the door with all her might.