Shalelu shakes her head. "It seems like there's something coming, but I don't know if I even would have said it was an attack without Tybus saying it first. It looks like Thistletop's steering things, the way they always do, but more than that I'm not sure. Whatever it is, though, it looks like it will be big - they're really pushing the other tribes, leaning heavily on their 'favored of Lamashtu' reputation to get the rest of the local goblins to sign on for whatever it is." She quirks a half-smile, glancing around at all of you. "Some of that seems to be the result of the 'scary longshanks killers' that protected the town durng the last attack. Apparently it's made the cowardly buggers a bit more wary than they used to be..."
After a short walk, the group (sans Gan, at this point) arrives at the garrison, where the guards offer respectful nods, once they see that you're not bringing news of an attack. They cede you Hemlock's office for your discussions and close the door to give you privacy. "So," Shalelu says, clearly expecting the worst. "Tell me."
"Where do we start? It seems like a lot has happened since last we spoke. One morning we were awakened by Ameiko's woman Bethana - you know her from the Rusty Dragon, I presume - because Ameiko had not started breakfast yet and her bed was not slept in.
"To make a long and gruesome story as short, we found that Tsuto, Ameiko's half-brother, and a small team of goblins had lured her to the Glassworks where they had killed all of the workers, including Master Kaijitu, and taken Ameiko as prisoner when she would not go along with their plans.
"We captured Tsuto and freed Ameiko. She has taken the situation rather hard and would do well to talk to you, I'm sure, but she's strong. I think she will be fine with time.
"Tsuto has been very resistant to revealing any knowledge of what is coming, but he kept a journal that makes it clear that the attack during the festival was only a precursor to a larger attack. He seems convinced that his love, Nualia, will burn the town to the ground behind an army of goblins.
"We've been preparing for an attack from them while we planned to take the fight to them, but we needed your knowledge of the area to carry out the assault."
Lamsfel stops and looks around at the others, giving them a chance to step in.
Tsuto's journal tells quite a tale. Nualia may or may not be the same lass who was thought to have died five years ago, but Tsuto is sure convinced. What's more, they've got some shrine at Thistletop for sacrifices to Lamashtu, and Sandpoint's the offering.
He holds up the journal to Shalelu, open to the page with Nualia depicted as a succubus. He doesn't bat an eye at the lurid drawing, nor expects her to. Journal says she's transforming. Into what, I don't know, nor care, except that it be bad.
Tybus tosses the journal to Shalelu, for her to read if she wants. You know who else he mentions? Your old hobgoblin friend Bruthazmus. They've also got mercenaries, a sellsword, name o' Orik, and a wizard named Lyrie.
It's bloody suicidal, but I was thinking of a sneaky attack on Thistletop. We've got the advantage; they don't know we've got Tsuto and have sealed off the underground tunnels that let the goblins in the first time. However, if they try to just storm the walls -- like what Ripnugget wants to do -- I don't know if we'll hold 'em.
But if we catch them napping, we may be able to do enough damage, maybe even take out their captains, that'll end this before it gets any further. His face is grim as he weighs their options, but listens intently to anyone else's ideas.
Lamsfel nods. "A difficult proposition, to be sure. Any information you can offer us can only help." With a sheepish grin, he adds, "We should probably start with how to find Thistletop..."
Halgor walks over fron his post as his comrades converse with their ally. He extends a hand to shake as he introduces himself.
Well met, Shalelu. I have little to add besides this: I am in favor of any plan that gives me a chance to kill goblins. And if this place is as filled with the little bastards as I have heard, it is probably a wise decision to strike with a small, skilled force instead of a full- scale assault anyway. I do not know bruthazmus, but if he is your sworn foe, you need only describe him to me and I will leave him for you.
Heh. Where are me manners? Halgor, this is Shalelu; Shalelu, Halgor. Another visitor to Sandpoint who has decided to lend his talents and his favor of the gods to the defense of this town.
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Shalelu nods, gripping Halgor's hand and running an assessing gaze over him quickly. "Well met indeed, Halgor. If it is dwarf-killing you want, I'm sure we can oblige you. As for Bruthazmus... he's the only hobgoblin I know in the area, so I think he'll be hard to miss." She turns to Tybus then, continuing, "It sounds like a good plan to me. The tribes need the leadership of the Thistletop goblins to hold their focus - deal with them, and the threat goes entirely. But Tsuto being involved... and Nualia? That seems hard to credit. The poor girl's five years dead. There must be some other-"
She is interrupted by the door opening, and one of the guards stepping in quickly. "Forgive me, sirs and lady," he says in a rush, "but you must come quickly." He turns and leaves again, taking it for granted that you will follow.
The guard leads you not outside, to the attack you all fear, but toward the dungeon. As you approach Tsuto's cell, the guard stammers, "I was bringing him his breakfast, when I found..." He trails off, but the scene speaks for itself.
Tsuto hangs limply from a bedsheet, tied around his neck and looped over a ceiling beam. His face is swollen and blue - it is clear he suffocated rather than breaking his neck - but he wears a ghastly grin, his upturned lips crusted with dried blood. The blood is from what looks like a bite on his arm, where blood has also dried; there is more blood too on the wall, smeared into large letters: BE SEEING YOU.
Shalelu murmurs a quiet but vicious curse in Elven.
"Desna watch over us..." Lamsfel looks at the guard. "Well? What are you waiting for, man? Cut him down!"
Lamsfel moves into the cell once it is unlocked to aid the man, hoisting on the corpses' legs to take the tension off the bedsheet. "Tybus, we'll need you to catch him when he comes free."
Once the disturbing body is laid back on the bed, Lamsfel adds, "It's better than dragging a drowned man aboard, eh? At least this one was dry... We'll need to notify Ameiko and the Cathedral. Ah, Ameiko." He puts his hand over his eyes. "Shalelu, would you accompany me to tell her what's happened? I'll leave it to the rest of you to figure out how to inform Father Zantus."
When Gan sees the sight of Tsuto's lifeless body, he collapses to his knees, defeated. He speaks to his companions without looking at them.
I have failed you. I care not that this coward received the punishment he deserved, but only that it happened before I could glean the truth from him. Forgive me, I thought I had the strength to control him. I only hope that I have not signed the death warrant of Sandpoint.
Gan hangs his head in shame.
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Lamsfel pats the man on the shoulder. "You have failed no one and your efforts were no in vain. If you had not been such a formidable opponent, he would not have killed himself. He feared that you would defeat him, so he took the coward's way out."
With that, Lamsfel leaves to inform Ameiko before the rumor mill beats him to the Rusty Dragon.
Tristan keeps his thoughts to himself, but he is visibly pale, realizing that he is in for far more than he bargained for.
Waving Bethana over, he tells her, "Bethana, we need to speak to the lady. A moment alone, when she has time."
He whispers to Shalelu, "We are here. A few moments should be no harm, don't you think?"
At the Rusty Dragon:
After a moment, Ameiko steps out, wearing a surprsingly domestic-looking apron, drying her hands on a towel. A bit of flour is visible on her nose. "Hello, everyone," she says uncertainly, looking at the assembled group. A white armband (which Gan knows to be the traditional color of mourning in Minkai) marks her left arm, but she seems otherwise more-or-less her usual self. "What can I do for you all?"
The Rusty Dragon:
After a short walk, you return to the Garrison, and the Desnan priest comes face to face with the grisly scene in the cell. None of the guards have moved the corpse from where it sprawls on the low wooden "bed," and Zantus pauses and swallows hard upon seeing the dank enclosure. Seeking something else to stare at while he regains his composure, he turns his eyes to the wall, where Tsuto's message is still written. After a moment's study, Zantus says, "Resurrection magic is potent and rare. If he knew anything about it at all, Tsuto would have known that there is only a short window of time - only a few days, usually no more than a week or two - in which such prayers are effective. Moreover, they require some part of the body that is to be restored in order to work. Only truly legendary spells can supersede those requirements. To me, that suggests two possibilities: first, that Tsuto expected an attack shortly, soon enough to allow the spells to work, and that the attack would include a priest of no small power to raise him once again; or second, that somehow the attack will include a divine servant of astonishing powers." He pauses, clearly uncomfortable with what he is saying, but forces himself to go on. "In either case, given what else we've seen so far, it's likely that his allies include an extremely dangerous and unholy servant of Lamashtu."
Looking at Ameiko, he begins, "Milady, it seems like one of us is constantly bringing you unpleasant news and I'm sorry that it must happen once again. As you know, your brother Tsuto was being held in the garrison for questioning related to... recent events. We fear that these events are a prelude of something to come and are convinced that he knew more about what's coming. We tried to get him to tell us what he knew, but were unsuccessful. We were going to try again today, but I think his devotion to this woman was so strong that he would rather die than give away her plans. Last night, while he was in the jail cell, he took his own life after using his own blood to leave us a taunting message on the wall. It's clear that he feels we will soon be joining him in the afterlife."
He pauses before looking at the young woman, "It may be inappropriate of me to say, but the sentence that he carried out on himself was probably deserved - though it looked like a very difficult way to die - and he's saved us the trouble of going through a trial. Ironically, he may have also given us exactly what we needed to find out more of Nualia's," nodding to Shalelu, "or whoever the woman behind this insanity is, her plans. I don't know if Father Zantus is powerful enough, but I know that some clergy are able to ask questions of the recently deceased. If the good Father is capable, would you allow us to do so?"
After she hears the answer, the beautiful young Minkaian drops her eyes to the floor. Unlike the moment where she confronted her father's death, Ameiko does not start crying; instead, she shakes her head slowly. "That... doesn't sound like Tsuto. He always had a reason for everything. I just can't believe he'd..." She trails off, and there is a long pause. Shalelu bends to offer Ameiko a backwards hug around the chair, but when the elf speaks, she is not comforting.
"Ameiko," Shalelu says with some urgency, "Lamsfel's right. If we are to get information and find out what is behind this, we need to get it quickly so we can move on it. We need an answer."
Sandru looks as though he is about to say something, but Ameiko replies quietly, "Do what you need to. Find out who took my brother from me, and why. And when you know..." she trails off, then looks up to sweep her gaze around the room at all of you, a fire seeming to appear in them. "...kill them for me."
The two of you find some canvas to wrap the body, and carry it up the stairs without the usual ceremony this act might deserve. A few curious glances and whispered murmurs from the townsfolk nearby follow you as you cross the Cathedral square and return to the church, where Zantus orders his acolytes to begin making a pyre in the graveyard out back, while he himself removes the clothes from the body and begins washing it, offering a quiet litany of prayer in a sing-song tone as he does so.
When Zantus begins preparing the corpse, Tybus remains quiet. He can't decide between showing a basic respect for the dead and remaining alert in case the corpse lurches to life. He settles into an uncomfortable mode of nodding to the prayers and readying words of arcane power in case they're needed. His hand stays near his cutlass's hilt.
Lamsfel nods and turns toward the door to leave.
Tristan rises clumsily, suppressing a bitter smile (his appreciation of Ameiko steadily grows) and shambles after Lamsfel.
Ameiko's mandate in hand, Lamsfel, Tristan, Gan and Halgor make their way to the Cathedral, where they are surprised to discover a funeral pyre already burning, and Father Zantus (watched over by a vigilant, if slightly uncomfortable-looking, Tybus) preparing Tsuto's body for the flames.
As they hustle down the road, Lamsfel tells Gan, "My knowledge of this magic is very limited - I had a friend, a cleric of Erastil, that used it once while I was watching. I don't know how much we can learn or if the stubborn spirit of Tsuto will frustrate us once more. I'm relying on your better knowledge of magic and assume we will ask the questions that you were trying to ask of him while he was still alive."
"Father Zantus! We have one bit of business left before we consign Tsuto to the flames." If those around are limited to the party or members of the Cathedral staff, he continues. If there are others that might be more bothered by the suggestion, he will move over to speak to the cleric quietly and privately.
"Ameiko has given us leave to use clerical magic to query the body. Our questioning of the living Tsuto was for naught, but I hope that his earthly remains might be more forthcoming with the information we seek. Are you able to help us in such an endeavor?"
I will speak with him again if it is my lot, but I cannot claim that the Faceless One grants me knowledge of the beyond, nor anything that the gods themselves grant. My power is that of this realm--anything celestial, or Abyssal in Tsuto's case, may best be left to Halgor.
Tybus looks a little lost as Lamsfel and Gan talk about questioning the body. What information do ye mean? Shalelu's here, and she knows where Thistletop be. The attack seems to not be for another few days. Dead men don't say much, unless they be undead, and Zantus and me be making sure that don't happen. I say let this body burn and see what we can do about having his girlfriend join him.
Lamsfel smiles and holds up his hand to his friend. "Oh, we will let him burn, here and wherever he's headed, but sometimes the body 'remembers' things even after the spirt has gone. Or so claimed an old friend of mine."
Zantus frowns. "I know the prayers of which you speak," he replies slowly, "but I am not sure I would be willing to speak them. Death is our last journey, and I am deeply uncomfortable with the idea of interrupting it, particularly in that manner." He shakes his head, looking down at the floor. "Fortunately for me, though, I don't have to face that choice - such magic is beyond my abilities." He still looks troubled, though.