Furnok follows in.
Ali laughs softly, shaking his head, as he follows the others towards the building. He cocks his crossbow as he goes, making sure the weapon is loaded and ready to fire. He shrugs his shoulders at the same time to secure the Glaive more firmly in the leather strap down his back.
Azeri moved out in from of Ali, keeping his eyes and nose sharp, looking for anything out of the ordinary.
Azeris ears begin to twitch and he frowns softly to himself. Something felt wrong about this whole place and this whole stinking plan. "Bar the fact we are in a boneyard!"
Mar'a follows the others into the cemetary, her eye drawn upward as Shivi launches himself from the cathedral roof, circling on the updrafts.
She looks at the walls and he knows her intent, he swoops low over the wall, his superior eyesight noting anything of interest....
As he does this, Mar'a approaches the mausoleum, looking for herself...
The group slowly enters the mausoleum, carefully examining the area for anything sinister. Sound bounces off each wall, making the place echo with the quietest footsteps. A series of squeaks come from the far side, revealing a black rat scurrying from one sepulcher to the next.
Meanwhile, Azeri notices something laying on the floor just off from the door. A dirty cloth that seems to stink from a mile away. He can see plenty of tracks on the dirt, though it is hard to examine them with all the current traffic.
Vandra and Jeaux however are less interested in possible traps or creatures, but instead on the names found inside the mausoleum. Most of the sepulchers are nameless, but they are able to find two sitting side by side.
Here lies Ezakien Tobyn. To love is to place our happiness in the happiness of another.
Here lies Nualia Tobyn.
Furnok examines the area for any possible tracks.
+2 to track humans.
Helgarr observes the whole scene without a word - even though she does not seem uncomfortable, her knuckles are definitely going white at gripping the weapon hard.
Cleo will wait outside then, feeling not particularly skilled at searching for anything but the butter at the dinner table. Since there doesn't seem to be anything dangerous in the small room she'll enjoy the sunshine over the cold walls.
The sheriff thinks for a moment before replying to Vandra. "Ah Ezakien. He was a good man, a priest of Desna before Father Zantus. Just as things were starting to settle down from the Chopper incident, the old church caught fire and killed Ezakien and his daughter. I remember fighting that fire in the middle of the night. It was a very sad day, a day that we have been hoping to forget with the rise of the new cathedral." He turns his gaze to the stone wall, seemingly lost in thought.
Meanwhile, Azeri and Furnok team up to figure out the tracks on the ground. Azeri quickly identifies several barefoot goblin tracks entering and leaving the mausoleum, while Furnok finds boot prints that match both the time and direction of the goblins. Furnok isn't sure exactly what creature left them, only that it would weight somewhere between 150 to 200 pounds. They can both see the prints round the corner and lead to the nearby stone wall.
"That is very sad" Cleo remarks, "Any idea what goblins would want here? Anything out of place, that you'd know about?"
Goblin tracks, and larger tracks as well. They head to the sone wll, I'll check further. Furnok heads to the wall.
Ali laughed a little louder, shaking his head at Marias comment. "He did not mean to mess up your sneaking around, but it is incredibly funny!" He grinned at her, giving her a playful shove, before moving after Azeri towards the wall.
"What do you think big guy? Secret wall? Hidden crack? Magic teleporting stone?"
Mar's walks up to the wall where Shivi sat preening, "Did you notice anything, Shivi?"
Cleo will follow Furnok toward the wall, trying to stay out of the way.
The sheriff shakes his head "I've no idea, Cleo. I can't think of anything that they've taken. It looks like they walked in, and then out again. Nothing makes sense here." He crosses his arms and squints while pondering.
Everyone who follows the tracks will find a ladder laying in the grass. It looks just long enough to reach the top of the wall. Nearby, Ali finds a rock with some dried blood on it.
Huh, so I wonder what they were up to. Furnok tracks out for a bit and then heads back to the tomb to report.
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Vandra sat down outside of the tomb, watching the others investigating for clues as to the vandals' identities. He looked over at his mother with an inquisitive glance. "Mom, do you think this might have anything to do with them?" he asked her, looking behind him at the stones of the crypt. "I mean, we haven't found anything about them in the years since the attack, and now, on the first day of our stay here, there's a suicidal goblin attack and a mysterious break-in of a crypt belonging to a priest? It just seems like a weird coincidence to me."
Jeaux shrugged her shoulders, not really knowing one way or another. She bent down to the ground to spell out, "I'm not really sure. We never really found out the name of the cult that attacked, nor who they worshiped or followed." She looked around at their busy companions and shrugged again. "If we stay with them for much longer, it might be a good idea to explain things in greater detail and see if they might have any insights."
The sheriff shakes his head "I've no idea, Cleo. I can't think of anything that they've taken. It looks like they walked in, and then out again. Nothing makes sense here." He crosses his arms and squints while pondering.
"Goblins are usually not very smart - I wouldn't be surprised if they had come looking for something obvious, and yet did not find it" - Helgarr comments.
Ali walks over to the rock and crouches down beside it, frowning down at the rock but not touching it. He begins to closely examine the area around it for more clues.
Picking up the ladder and laying it up against the wall, Azeri climbs to the top and peaks over, staring around.
Sheriff Hemlock's eyes open wide as he comes up with an idea. "I wonder if..." he begins, walking over to the Tobyn sepulchers. "That's certainly possible, Helgarr. Though I would like to see if they tried to take any keepsakes that were left in the sepulcher. Cleo, would you please get Father Zantus? I think it would be best if he oversaw this."
As Ali examines the area around the bloodied rock, he finds several barefoot goblin tracks and what looks to be a full body imprint near the rock. Ali guesses that a goblin fell down and smashed his head on the rock, leaving blood. Whether the goblin survived or not is unknown, but there's no body remaining.
When Azeri climbs to the top of the wall and peaks over, he finds a single goblin corpse laying on the other side. Nothing else seems out of the ordinary, however.
When Cleo and Father Zantus return, Sheriff Hemlock goes over to the sepulcher of Ezakien Tobyn. With a sigh, the sheriff says "Sorry friend. I won't take long, I promise." and with great strength slides the stone top to Nualia's sepulcher. Not much in the way of dust escapes from the sepulcher. Inside lays nothing but a corpse of rotting flesh, but anyone who looks at it gets the feeling that something is not right...
When Furnok arrives back he fills the others in on what he saw. Tracks and a ladder leading up to the stone wall. The little bastiches climbed over but I don't know if they did anything else here.
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Vandra looked up at all the activities going around, feeling rather useless with no applicable skills to use. He nodded in respect to the good Father, and listened to their conversation. Making a decision, he stood up and walked over. "Tell me, are there any ancient ruins nearby? Or have there been any recent cult activities?" he asked the locals with him.
Cleo shrugs, not having any idea about the local area. The sepulcher is probably too high off the ground for her to see inside clearly so she'll hang back once again. The creepy feeling across her neck keeps getting worse, like a tick burrowing its head deeper and deeper under her skin.
The digging feeling keeps getting worse, anxiety and dread following, until the she rubs the back of her neck, and lo and behold, it was a tick.
Huh, well maybe everything will be out, Cleo thinks.
Ali stands up slowly, stretching and frowning. He shook his head, before walking back to the others. "Found a rock covered in blood, and Goblin footprints surrounding it. I'd say someone fell and hurt themselves!" He shrugged before glancing around, before catching sight of Azeri.
"Anything you found Big Man?"
Azeri slides down off the ladder and shrugs, moving back to the others and ruffling Ali's head. "Not much short ass. Well... another dead Goblin but that is about all. We can look it over after this!"
As Hemlock worked on raising the sepulcher, Father Zantus addressed Vandra. "Cults? Not that I know of my dear son, but then again it's not something I would likely find out about. As for ruins, there are plenty. Mostly in Magnimar, but you can find some right here in Sandpoint, or further to the north along the shore. There's also that old dam to the east near the Chelish border. It still works to this day.
Suddenly the Father goes silent while looking at the body. "Err... well if ... no it can't be. No that's not magic, that's a corpse."
It isn't until Hemlock butts in that any of it makes any sense. "Father, if Ezakien died 5 years ago... why is the body still rotting?"
Utter silence persisted in the mausoleum for a few moments, before Father Zantus merely whispered in shock. "Because that's not Ezakien."
Corpse snatchen! The green nasties probably took the remains. What about his daughter?
"But why would the goblins care about hiding a body? Plus goblins are my size, wouldn't they have a hard time opening that?"
Gotta point there, perhaps they have some other creature heping them. Sheriff, what other beings like goblins are about the area?
The sheriff scratches his chin, searching for answers. "Hmm... Ogres and Giants, well to the north anyways... A few bugbears live in the forests a few days east of here... Had a family of refugees come in several months ago talking about werewolves... There's a tribe of hobgoblins in the marshes... Can't think of much else."
It's actually Father Zantus who answers Furnok's previous question. "There wouldn't be anything in his daughter's sepulcher. The fire burned to hot to find anything..."
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Vandra looked at the sheriff and priest. "Then it would have to have been a magical fire or something similar. A normal fire would have left some kind of remains, even if it's just teeth and a few bone shards," he told them, taking a look at the empty tomb. "Are you completely sure that she was in the church at the time of the fire?"
Cleo wondered why this young boy knew so much about remains after fires, what tragic events prepare you for that. "Um... shouldn't the more important question be, who is this?" pointing to whatever is in the coffin.
Vandra's backstory includes a rampaging cult of murderers who end up burning an entire village to the ground, so I feel like his knowledge in this case is just.
Sheriff Hemlock starts pacing along with Maria. "Yes, definitely taking strength... although a large collection of goblins could probably life it together. Between Furnok mentioning tracks of a larger creature that wears boots, and an interrogated goblin calling the leader a longshanks. Hmm. In the few years that I've been doing this, never have I met someone who would be willing to let in an invasion of goblins. It just seems so... impossible." Then he's back to attention when Cleo asks her question. "Yes, we'll need a proper investigation for this. Any of you skilled in figuring out how this person died?"
Father Zantus responds to Vandra. "I actually knew the two back before the late unpleasantness began. Ezakien was a friend of mine, and his daughter was one of the most devout followers of Desna that I had ever met. She rarely ever left the church back then, as to her it was much like the monastery of blue stones. As for remains, well I'm uncertain of that. The fire was so powerful that evening that it threatened half of Sandpoint. Several other places burnt with it, and a few of the buildings you can still see the scorch marks. It was no minor flame to be sure."
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Maria continues her pacing, alright, so either she left no remains when she died or she lived and left, which would mean she felt either sad or guilty about her father, if the fire is as bad as the father says, and the most intense would leave some evidence like bone shards if Vandra knows what he's talking about, is it possible you couldn't tell the remains apart? Or maybe the floor collapsed into the lower sections and her body never found?
Ali moves towards the corpse and stands over it, staring down at the body and frowning. "We could just take a closer look. I mean a missing head or a slashed open throat is a good indication of death, right?" He crouched beside the body, pulling his kunai from his belt and frowning.
"Smells like hell..."
Mar'a walks back from the wall, "An interesting idea, Maria." she says, "If she lives...why would she ally with the goblins? Why return here?
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Vandra and Jeaux nodded to each other when the father described the fire. "Definitely not a normal fire then. Unless they used some kind of chemical to increase the intensity of the flames, I think it had to have been magical in nature, which means purposely set," he said, sitting back down to think about the past events, both his own and Sandpoint's.
The thought of someone in town helping these green things come in makes her shiver a bit. the person doesn't look familiar? So it's an out of towner? Maybe one of the innkeepers would recognize them. I could go get Ameiko. hoping to get away from the dead body for a bit.
If there was a larger critter leading the goblins, then probably a bugbear or hobgoblin since they can bully the gobboes around. Certainly they would need to be goaded into attacking Sandpoint. So if we can get a good lead from the tracks, we might find their lair and see just what is going on. I'm up for an expidition.