"What happened in Morast?" Leon said looking to Son, and then back to Lysa.
"I'm beginning to suspect that Son wasn't even in Morast. I don't suppose there would be a way to prove he was somewhere else exists?"
The creature looks at Leon, then down at the ground. It raises its eyes again and speaks, "Not know More Ast. Sorry, not understand."
"Well I've heard there are forms of magic than can discern whether or not someone is lying. But it's far beyond my capabilities. Maybe we can higher a wizard or convince a powerful cleric?"
"On the flip side of the coin, I have heard of magic that can help people be able to lie through such things. I'd rather not have to rely on magics to discern such things. Besides I am not sure whether they are permissible by the court or not. No, I think it would be best to investigate each area and if someone is lying... we can prove them wrong or catch them in their own words with any evidence we might find."
"What I can't believe is that no one bothered to notice that the poor girl died of bee stings? I very much want to try to find that cave and look through it."
"Do we know that they found the girl at all?"
"I guess I don't actual know if they did, but the women supposedly say that they witnessed her murder. I just assumed that meant that they recovered the body afterwards."
"Obviously they didn't see the murder. Son looks nothing like a bee. Guess we need to go figure out how to expose the lie."
"Perhaps the bodies of the other children are still in the cave? "
"They'd be well into decay at this point. I don't think we would be able to find anything from them now. But there still may be something else we could find in the cave. Whenever you are finished with your questions, we should go." With that Jean walks away from the cage and goes to stand next to the door.
"Anything else you can tell us that might help us clear your name?"
Son looks at Leon, then slowly says, "Me not do murders or burnings. Not hurt children friends."
He nods and pats the arms of the chair in which he is chained.
The road leading to Karb Isle becomes a small, overgrown track a few hundred yards outside of Lepidstadt. You quickly become accustomed to the gray marshland and fetid water that stretches out on both sides of the path.
A few hours outside is Lepidstadt sees you arriving at Karb Isle. In reality, it is not an island at all, but an isthmus that stretches out into the swamp. On the raised land ahead of you, the sad remains of a broken building lie in piles strewn all about the area. The burnt timbers of a large house sag into the undergrowth of nettles and thistles. Nature is taking back this charred ruin, as if trying to erase dark memories. Twelve gravestones line the road as you approach the ruins of Sanctuary.
-----
so close
Jean had been lost in thought but managed to see the hole in the ground. He cocked his head to one side and muttered. "Now that's strange. Why is there a new whole there?"
Upon cursory examination of the hole, it appears to lead down toward a floor made from fitted stones. Someone... or something... has apparently found another way into the cellar of the former asylum.
Jean audibly sighs and grumbles to himself. "And here I thought we'd be done with going down holes and into burned out buildings for a while."
"It's something we're good at by now." Leon says with a grin handing his cousin a length of rope. "Tie this off over there. I'll go down."
"Lysa, can you do that light trick on a rock and toss it down so I can see where I'm gonna end up?"
"Why don't i just summon something down there first? That way if there's something in the hole you don't get eaten?"
"Sounds good to me."
Looking a bit relieved at Sethis's suggestion of summoning a creature, Lysa will go ahead and pick up a small rock and cast light on it.
I'm glad they're going to summon a creature rather than just send Leon down. Who knows what could be down there?
"I will go ahead and throw a stone with light on it down the hole. If something does attack whatever you summon, it could still be useful to see what it is."
Sethis will summon a small fire elemental down the hole.
"Better safe than sorry."
Lysa throws the lighted stone into the hole, which illuminates a few more feet of cellar. From what you can see, it appears to be a large underground chamber that was built as part of the structure formerly housing the asylum. Unfortunately, it looks like the fire reached this part of the building as well.
Sethis summons a small fire elemental which heads down the hole and moves into the chamber beyond, stopping ten feet into the room.
"Well there doesn't appear to be any immediate danger, shall we proceed?"
"Yeah, the sooner we climb in the sooner we get down to the real cause of this."
With that Sethis will unlimber his crossbow
Lysa will go with the group and climb down the rope into the hole.
"Keep your eyes open. Who knows what kind of set-up they had in this place," Firavel says, taking his time to look thoroughly at the surroundings.
Leon takes point on the way down, drawing his hand-axe at the bottom and waiting for the rest to make the climb. Once Firavel is down and starts scanning for danger behind Sethis' pet campfire, Leon falls back next to Lysa and waits for the go-ahead to move forward.
As Firavel begins searching, it becomes clear that something is using the cellar as its lair. Rotting remains are strewn about the large area, and several humanoid bodies are found hanging from the ceiling. The people have obviously been dead for some time, and the odor in the cellar begins to become even stronger as you move deeper.
The inhabitants soon show themselves. Several feral undead leap out of the shadows and begin attacking you. Identified as ghouls, the heroes meet the undead in battle and quickly destroy the monsters.
Deeper in the cellar, a gruesome sight greets you. A moldy and rotting table has been piled high with severed heads. All of them exhibit severe signs of deterioration, and the stench is overwhelming. Looking through the pile, you notice that all of them bear noticeable deformities... all of them except for one. One of the heads appears to be completely normal, if a bit older than the others. Given what you know of this place, this head is likely that of Doctor Braga, the administrator of the Sanctuary.
As the group finishes the search of the cellar, Firavel notices a shelf of vials in the corner of one room. He moves over to investigate, finding one small glass bottle that managed to survive the fire and ghouls intact. A faded label clearly reads "Vorkstag and Grine, Chymickal Bleach".
-----
The ghouls were not an obstacle to your party, and in defeating them, you discover several pieces of treasure and a small pile of coins totaling 90 gp.
"Um is there anything in that?"
Wiping the gore from his axe and pulling his now-customary neck bandanna up over his face to try to block the smell, Leon makes a face.
"Gross. Why are they all deformed?"
"I'm not sure why and I'm not sure I really want to do a close-up examination of them."
Lysa looks over the heads, though she doesn't touch any of them.
Jean grimaced as he closely examined the heads, the situation had closely resembled one particular night in an underground chamber he didn't care to remember. "I don't recall this being a normal hobby for ghouls."
"Beyond cannibalism and poor hygiene, what is a normal hobby for a ghoul?"
"Skulking?"
"I believe that the cannibalism and poor hygiene is likely an explanation as to why no one can really answer the question as to what is a normal hobby for a ghoul. Likely all researchers have been either eaten or driven away by their foul stench."
"An untapped area of undead lore, then." Leon said, grinning behind his bandanna. "Next time we run into ghouls, I'm going to ask them."
Leon carefully looks over the lair, using the point of his sword to move things if he needs to.
Just to confirm what everyone is saying, the activity of piling heads on a table is very uncommon for ghouls. The undead typically eat everything, so keeping any part of the body, much less a trophy is quite unusual.
The various heal checks reveal that the deformities on the heads appear to be completely natural. It is likely that these are the remains of the former patients of the Karb Isle Sanctuary.
"Was Son accused of killing any of these people?"
"Well, Son is accused of being responsible for destruction of the sanctuary, during which all of the patients and the chief administrator were killed. Guessing from the deformities of the heads, it is possible that these were once patients here. Therefore they might be the ones that Son is accused of killing, or at least causing the deaths of. The Barrister did not mention anything about ghouls though."
"Do you think these," kicking one of the ghoul corpses, "will be of any use as a defense?"