Rius waits until they get outside before keying the others in, "Thomas is the slain Prince's middle name- whether the mother's involved or no, the two missing children met. He wouldn't need to be a half elf to pass for the prince, what with the missing head there'd be no real way of telling, would there?"
Rius lowers his eyes and begins to sing a song of mourning and praise to Mystra sung prayerfully in the hinterlands at the passing of a child quietly.
Kromdor gives the mayor a soft, hopefully reassuring pat on the shoulder. "Not to worry so much yer mayorship. We'll keep a sharp eye out for him while we're out, and some of these folks here are expert trackers. You've got plenty of others searching as well, so hopefully he'll be back home soon. On the off chance that we find his trail first, I wonder if there's something we could say or do that might help Julius be calm and know we were friends? Is there a song that you like to sing with him or a special greeting the two of you share that we could use so that he'd know we were there to help? Kids often don't trust strangers, and we're a pretty strange looking group at times."
Outside, Lavinia cocks her head at Rius. "The body in the castle was of a half-elven boy, head or no. Could be they snatched this other boy for a stand-in, if they didn't notice the dead one's lineage. If so, they don't have long to use him before all Damara knows the real one's dead."
Scandy concurs. I had thought the mayor's son might have been used as the stand in for the Prince's body...but now I don't know what to think. The assassin was definitely here. And so was the Steward with the Prince. I can't see all the angles yet.
Kromdor listens to the others as they speculate for a bit before speaking up. "Seems to me that if they needed another kid to do something involving the prince, they could have grabbed someone much less conspicuous and left anyone who'd be following the prince's killing none the wiser. It's not like there aren't children of about that age in any town you'd happen to wander to. This one did apparently play with the prince once, so there's some chance that they're using him in particular, but that's not why I'd have done it.
"It seems at least as likely to me that they're grabbing another kid in a way that pursuers, that'd be us, will be sure to notice so that that they can use the fact that we know they've got a potential hostage against us at some point down the road. At least that's why I'd grab a high profile target at this point over one that wouldn't be missed. Don't know anything about what they'd be using the head or the kids for, but I know a thing or two about setting traps for people who might be following me, and playing off expectations."
The halfling scratches her chin at the orc's words. Is the child hostage, or bait? Our prey almost seems to want us to catch them.
When they're ready to pick up the trail, Lavinia does her best to oblige.
Mayor Kirkwall scratches his chin at Kromdor's question. "Well, hm..." He disappears into his own room for a while and comes out with a small plain silver bracelet. "This was his mother's. It's nothing special, but he always liked to hold onto it and knows every little detail. Nobody would really steal it. It's only worth a couple gold. So if you tell him I gave this to you, he should believe you"
The party heads along following the trail again, and the wind pulls up blustery again, but not as bad as last night, and a few hours pass before you start to approach a river, nearly, but not-quite-frozen, with the waters pushing icy slush along. The river itself seems to be cut about four feet into the earth, so that there's a fall before the water; almost as if it used to be a shipping canal. The trail heads dead towards a rickety wooden bridge crossing the river, upon which stands a single halfling-sized humanoid, absolutely covered with furs, shivering in the cold, a primitive spear poking out clenched in one fur-covered fist.
He hasn't seemed to notice you. Yet.
Scandy whispers, "Looks like a trap to me. There have to be others laying in wait."
Kromdor nods. "They're not used to this sort of thing. Wouldn't be shivering like that if they were, so they're doing something that they wouldn't normally. Trap seems more likely than anything else. Want me to go spring it and see what happens? If you lot stand aside where you can't be easily seen I can go be all orcy in their face to see what reaction that gets. I should be able to hold my own until you can get to me if it's something bad."
"Well, without knowing for sure what he's there for we're only really guessing. We should ask, one way or the other."
"You're right" She says to Ruis. "Better to see if your buttered tongue can get us past the dwarf, then sending the towering One-punch. If we can get by diplomatically, then all the better. We'll lie in wait should it be an extortion plot to cross."
Lavinia peers intently at the small, ill-equipped figure by the water. Dwarf? I could make a better spear than that.
"right then, unless anyone has a better plan, hide yourselves and I'll go present myself."
Waiting for the others to set themselves in before moving, Rius watches for a minute, then slowly approaches down the road, taking care not to emerge from near the other's hiding spots.
"Hail, friend!" he calls when the dwarf notices him, or when he is about 20 feet away if the dwarf has not taken notice of him yet.