Regeris shakes his head sadly. "Even if the disease is gone the damage is likely beyond what we can offer. Let's not tarry. It may became inconvenient to be a healer in a city this sick. The Everbloom watch over them."
Nebbin nods, and gently tugs Kayleigh away from the two bodies.
"I don't think we can save everyone," he says sadly.
Kayleigh allows Nebbin to guide her away from the two fallen men, but her expression says she's not happy about abandoning them to their fates.
"Perhaps we can tell the Pharasmans where to send their wain when we meet with Lady d'Bear."
"...let's go."
The remainder of the walk is colored by the failure in the plaza. Here and there along the journey you see other signs of the sickness working its way through the city population. Every cough or blemish carries the sinister pall. The taint of infection.
Your course carries you over the broad lawn of the museum, site of yesterday's murder, through the broad arches and past the chained and locked double doors, and down to the now familiar University campus. Unlike a day ago, you find the desks manned and are quickly seen by one of the clerks.
When the clerk hears your request for an interview he pulls out a ledger and looks over it for the name Penderghast. Finally he shuts the book and stands, begging your patience while he consults his manager. A moment later the manager himself stands before you.
"I'm sorry masters, but Professor Penderghast has taken a leave of absence. We've not seen him on campus for a week or more. And seeing that he has no classes this term, we really have no reason to expect his return before the start of the next semester."
He casts a questioning eye at the guard cloaks.
"May I ask the nature of your visit? I certainly hope the professor hasn't gotten himself into any trouble..."
Emi is both annoyed and distressed to hear Penderghast hasn't been to his office in some time. It shows when she responds to the clerk.
"Why? Do you have some reason to believe he might have gotten himself into trouble? We will need to see his office. If you don't have a key to it find one. We will also need to visit him at home, so give us his address."
And then a thought strikes Emi, probably a wrong one but very worth checking.
What if Rolth IS Penderghast?
"And other thing. We will need a description of Professor Penderghast, as detailed as you can be about it."
Nebbin, picking up on Emileva's tactic, looms behind her, letting his stature do what it usually does.
What if Rolth killed him too?
The official is taken aback by Emi's tone and Nebbin's hulking manner. He holds his hands up in placation, and stammers as he replies.
"I only meant... if the City Guard has questions for him, he might be in trouble somehow. I mean, with poor professor Kentarion having been murdered, and them being friends... I was just concerned that professor Penderghast might also have been hurt or missing."
He pauses for a moment before responding to Emi's other demands and seems to regain a measure of his confidence in the pause.
"Of course the Guard is welcome to search his office, provided you have a warrant that allows for it."
He rubs his hands nervously on his tunic as the papers are produced. He takes them and glances over them, clearly nonplussed by their immediate production. He blows a low whistle as he looks over the warrant.
"So he is mixed up in the murder..? Never mind, I don't want to know. I can get you the address. I don't know Penderghast well. He's quite above my station and doesn't really mix with the staff. Professor Jeggare was much more personal - Desna guard his soul."
"Penderghast is of middling height and slim. Full head of black hair. No facial hair. No distinguishing features I can recall to make him stand out."
He makes you wait for a moment while he rummages around in his office, then returns holding a key.
"Please return it when you've finished. I'll get that address for you by the time you return."
Regeris takes a moment to calm the man. "Please do not let it be known widely that Penderghast's office was searched by the guard lest people cast aspersions upon his good reputation. He may have come across information that may be of assistance to the case, and such matters are time sensitive. However, we do need a means of contacting him. If you do not have an address, who would?"
---
With that Regeris heads with the group to the office, nodding approvingly at Emi's direct method of getting access.
"Penderghast going missing around the time these killings started is interesting, to say the least," says Regeris before he begins a thorough search of the office.
Kayleigh, as has become her habit, teams up with Nebbin to search another corner of the office. When their paths cross with the inquisitor, she comments, "And again--as always, it seems--we're a step or two behind our quarry. I hope Rolth and his collaborators don't get to Kentarion's body before I can speak with it."
Nebbin helps Kayleigh look, trying not to be in the way.
Tassira stands back and lets the other investigators go over the office.
Back in the professors' offices Kentarion Jeggare's door is closed and locked. You pass by it and stop at the next door, the one labeled 'Randolphus Penderghast, Professor of Anatomy' and slide the key into the lock. There's no one else in the hall to witness you slipping into the dark and quiet office. A thin sliver of light filters between the window curtains, coating the room in a dark orange tint. Regeris pulls back the curtain to spill daylight into an almost empty office.
You find ruined and discarded quills, blank papers, a few reference volumes stacked upon the desk. 'An Index of Bodily Humours and their Properties', 'Afflictions of the Common Man', 'Curiosities of Shoanti Anatomy' and 'Pathology in the Wild Places'. You cannot help but find a fine collection of specimen jars with hunks of organic nastiness floating in viscous yellow syrup. You find a few copper coins, rusted and disused surgical pieces, and a stack of unwashed glassware from a laboratory setup. The pattern of dust on the periphery of the desk tells you the place was used - the common surfaces are clean - but was recently vacated. The outline of a row of volumes that once sat vertically on one side of the desk against the back wall shows where things have been removed that were recently here.
Borrowing a page from Tallisan's book, you search the chairs and part of the floor for hairs and here you find something of moderate interest. Along with the black strands you expected to find, you also collect a number of longer blond hairs. Very much like the ones that Tallisan found in Kentarion's office. Of course there are many blondes in the city...
The emptied office strengthens Emi's suspicions that Penderghast may in fact be Rolth, especially when the strands of blonde hair show up in the search.
"I don't think Penderghast would have taken everything from his office for just a short time away. He knows something about all this. It's possible he's scared and decided to try disappearing."
She decides there's enough reason to voice her idea.
"He might be working with Rolth, but it's also possible Rolth is using the Penderghast identity himself. Blonde hairs here as well. Maybe it's how he placed the elf to meet Jeggare in order to seduce him. HE sets up as a professor right by Jeggare. She visits him posing as a student or something of the type. She meets Jeggare here, and gets them into the museum so they can steal the book. A long con job"
Regeris nods as he looks over the strand of hair. "We should determine if Penderghast has actually disappeared or if his leave is legitimate. This is disappointing but gives us a better sort of question - your theory remains just a theory, but nonetheless Penderghast is suspect in all of this."
He looks to the group. "Do we have other business here for now or should we see about getting the cipher cracked by that gnome friend of Tassira's?"
"Well, if we could make a quick trip to see the Pharasmans, I'd like to speak with Kentarion's body," Kayleigh replies to Regeris. "I can ask him only two questions, so we need to think this through carefully. My first question, I'm thinking, should be along the lines of: 'Can you tell me the name of whoever killed you?' Depending on the answer to that question, I was thinking the second might be: 'Why would someone--the murder--want the particular volume of local history stolen from the vault?'"
Returning to the administrative office to give back the key is the first order of business, and the clerk behind the counter is ready for you this time. He takes the key and hands you back a slip of paper.
"My manager said to give you this when you returned." The piece of paper is folded and has written on it a street address in the Slope district.
Stringing together your destinations, you need to walk right by Slope and the Gray Districts to get to the bridge that will take you to East Shore and the Theumanexus Library.
You find that it's not a very long walk at all to Penderghast's neighborhood. The address brings you to a two-story rowhouse, one of a score that stands shoulder-to-shoulder along a steep side street that ascends up to the Acadamae. The curtains in the windows of the house are drawn shut. There's a short set of steps from the street to the stoop, and just the single front door entrance in evidence.
Kayleigh looks at the rowhouse and immediately gets a cartoonish vision in her head of Rolth/Penderghast/whomever and the blonde sicko Jo snickering and slipping out a back door while she and Nebbin, in their watch regalia, pound dutifully on the front door. Turning to Emi, she asks, "You want to check around back for another way out and maybe stay hidden and keep watch if you find one?" Although she fears she's likely wasting her breath at this point, she adds, "Maybe have Tassira tag along, since we're up against a necromancer and likely some magic here. If Tassira will give us the warrant, the rest of us can try knocking."
"This doesn't seem like the kind of place Rolth would live in, does it?" Nebbin points out. "It seems far too nice."
Still, he looks around to see if there's any sign of the necromancer here.
"That'd make it the ideal place for someone like him to hide out." Tassira says as she watches the rowhouse.
"Alright, sounds good. You up for coming along Tassira?"
"Probably. You'll need me to identify whether there's necromantic magic afoot anyway."
"Give us a few minutes to see if there's a back door and to find a place to watch from. If there's no back door we'll be back soon."
Emi takes Tassira and makes her way around to the rear.
Tassira tries to be sneaky.
Emphasis on 'tries'.
If nothing else, Emi's bound to go unnoticed.
Looping around the block, Tassira and Emi find a narrow alley that leads along the rear of the rowhouses. Each has a small parcel of yard in the back that's fenced off by a tall wooden fence. The addresses don't appear on this side of the building, so you only really know which is the correct house by counting back from the end. The fence in question has a tall gate in it with a simple latch.
As Emi and Tassira stand at the gate trying to assure themselves that they stand before the correct yard Emi cannot shake the sense she's being observed. Looking around, there's a two-story building at the far end of the alley, perhaps an apartment, with windows that look right down the lane where the two ladies stand. Emi catches the faintest glimpse of a face in one of those upper-story windows, almond eyes and a braid of long blond hair before the face ducks out of the window frame and disappears.
Unaware of what's going on in the back, Nebbin pounds on the door.
"Hello? Is anyone there?" he calls.
There's no response at all to Nebbin's pounding.
Emi doesn't allow her gaze to linger on the window so as to hopefully not give anything away. She spends a few more moments looking around as before, while she tells Tassira "don't look around. Just keep doing what you're doing. We're being watched from another window nearby. Do what I do and then we'll go tell the others."
Emi looks around some more for a back exit to the house, then goes back to the front after a couple of minutes. When she gets to the others she lets them know.
"Keep looking at me. A blonde female elf is watching this house from nearby. She doesn't want to be seen. It looks like we've been expected, if not right now then soon at least. I think we should wait to enter this house. We'll leave the way we came, then circle back to the building she's in from another direction."
"Should we go in?" Nebbin asks.
He tries the door. If it's not open, he puts his shoulder to it and forces it.
Tassira nods in understanding.
Then she looks in puzzlement at Nebbin. "...Nebbin, we're being watched. Weren't you listening?"
Kayleigh puts a hand on Nebbin's shoulder, even though she's eager to confront Rolth, Penderghast, or even just a few of their evil servants. "Let's give Emi and Tassira a little more time to report back."
When the two ladies do make their report, the priestess loses her cool. "Sounds like this might be yet another trap! Let's go after Blondie instead!" With a vengeful fire in her eyes that none of you has seen since the attack on the Temple of Aroden and Crayden's kidnapping, Kayleigh growls, "I'm tired of being a pigeon following Rolth's trail of breadcrumbs; I want to be a hawk--the hunter!"
Nebbin nods.
"But if she's already watching us, how do we sneak up on her?"
Coming to a quick consensus, the group hurries past the other end of the rowhouses and around the corner of the building where Emi spotted the spy. It's an apartment building and the main entrance is not locked. There's a stairway to the immediate right as you enter that ascends to the second floor. Listening as you enter, you hear the muffled sounds of family life coming through the paper-thin walls from multiple directions. Somewhere off to your left someone is coughing up their lungs, and knowing what you know already of the disease sweeping the city, you can't suppress a shiver of dread at the sound. Besides the stairs the hallway stretches into the gloom with doors periodically on either side.
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At the top of the stairs you're brought to a halt. The second story of this building is being renovated, or was being renovated since it doesn't really look like any work has been done in awhile. The flats up here have no doors at all in their frames. The sidings in the rooms and the hallway are half-completed so above the waistline you can look straight through the beams into the rooms themselves.
In front of one of the middle windows, right about where the observer sat, you find an overturned bucket setup like a seat. The ground around the bucket is littered with debris that looks like wood shavings. The half-finished paneling makes for hiding options in every direction, so you cannot tell with a glance whether there's anyone here or not. But at the end of the hall a ladder has been setup directly under an opening in the ceiling.
Kayleigh looks around, both skeptical and worried: This is a fine place for an ambush. Knowing that physical perception isn't one of her fortes, the priestess takes a moment to think the matter through. Then she casts detect magic and begins scanning the areas of half-finished paneling, hoping that Rolth's blonde carries something enchanted that will give away her position.
The only items registering enchantments within the spell's range are the items you brought with you.
Regeris curses. "This has to be Rolth's accomplice. Proceed normally. I'll be a bit ahead."
Muttering a spell, Regeris suddenly blinks out of sight.
Listening attentively, he begins to creep ahead of the party.
[ooc]Casting invisibility and scouting ahead.[/oc]
Nebbin proceeds cautiously toward the ladder, looking for some sign of the blonde.
"She can't have gotten away again, can she?"
Kayleigh mouths the words, "No magic" to Emi and Tassira as Regeris and Nebbin creep forward to investigate. Kayleigh follows Nebbin at a distance, planning to scan up through the hole in the ceiling next.
Regeris advances unseen through the abandoned construction site changing the angles and revealing the potential hides one-by-one. Unless your quarry is using a similar enchantment, she's already flown this coop.
The opening in the ceiling leads to what looks like an unfinished attic. Diffuse morning light reveals naked joists, the undersides of roof boards. Drifting motes of dust stirring in the space above betray someone's recent passage. The only sounds are those made by your group as you prowl across the floor.
"Darn it!" Nebbin curses. "She must have realized we were coming!"
He pauses to think a minute.
"I guess we should still look and see if she left any clues and then still go to Pendergast's apartment?"
"Uh-huh," Kayleigh replies, sounding somewhat distracted. "It looks like Regeris is already outside, on his way over there," she adds, walking over to the ladder and scanning for magic up through the hole. Shaking the ladder a bit to make sure it's secure, the priestess comments, "The ladder doesn't look real sturdy...."
Emi stays at the rear while they look around, sometimes even walking backward to make sure nobody maneuvers around behind them. She keeps an eye out for signs of someone in the room, such as footprints in dust, but isn't hopeful she'll see much considering the others are moving ahead of her. Since Regeris is invisible she figures the advantage lies with him going up the ladder first so she continues to watch and wait.
"He's already outside? But he should have waited for us!" Nebbin protests.
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"He's already outside? But he should have waited for us!" Nebbin protests.
Kayleigh prepares to grab Nebbin's arm just in case the big guy isn't selling her deception.