At Pollo's comment, the Gnome's mind went reeling back to his dream of the previous night of the raven breathing fire at him. He shook those thoughts away not wanting to think about it.
"Or lightning," Osveta grumbles.
“I see,” Anghariel responds to Gigon, not really seeing it. “Perhaps it is only your imagination? Especially given, ah, recent events. Unless you have been experimenting with some new elixir?” She gives him a reassuring smile. “If I do notice anything out of the ordinary, I’ll let you know.”
“We did agree to procure that rosemary,” she points out. “But I suppose it will be there for a little while longer, so we might as well go speak to Amora first.”
It's easy enough to get directions to Amora's home as she lives in a shack by an old orchard.
After a short walk you arrive at the outskirts of the orchard which is overgrown. The trees here have taken on whatever sickness is in the area, and are bent and strange. Although you should be in prime apple season, the fruit is foul and looks rotten on the branch. Across the orchard you spot Amora's shack.
"What's gonna jump us this time?" Osveta asks no one in particular as she makes her way to the shack.
Milo looked at the apple trees and remarked, "This doesn't seem right. We should be on our guard — some deranged animal will probably attack us any minute now!"
He moved stealthily through the trees, on the lookout for trouble.
"I'll guess... ahhh... Rabbits. with HUGE teeth and claws." Pollo smirks as they approach the shack.
As they get closer, Pollo veers towards the sickly apple trees. "I wonder, have these plants always been like this? This is so strange." he asks aloud, to no one in particular.
Milo starts creeping into the orchard, but then trips on a root and lands on a bee. He yelps and is back on his feet quickly, but his abysmal failure at being sneaky did yield some information.
There's... a lot of bees around here. Moving in a little more, you look around a tree and see a gigantic beehive in the middle of the orchard. The bees are starting to swarm and it looks like you'd be in for a very bad time if you got too close.
Thankfully with the caution you showed, you manage to avoid an encounter with the bees and go around the orchard towards Amora's shack.
---
Amora's shack is run down but whole and when you arrive and knock at the door she answers quickly enough. It's clear she's been crying.
"Oh my stars... you're looking into Bort's death aren't you? Well I didn't do it! My food has never harmed a soul - oh my reputation is ruined! But sorry do come in. I hope the bees didn't bother you. Can't do a thing about them except use smoke."
Gigon moved closer to one of the trees. Pulling a long metal probe from one of his bandoliers, the Gnome began examining the sickly plant life.
"Do you know of anyone in town who goes by 'H', or has that as the beginning of any of their names?" Osveta asks as they're invited in.
Milo greeted the cook, "Good day Amora! We're just trying to figure out what happened. We'd like to ask you a few questions about the sequence of events yesterday."
He accepted her invitation to enter her home. He commented, "Excuse me for my observation, but the trees in your orchard don't look too healthy to me. Is that a recent development, or have they been that way for some time?"
Eventually, he asked her about the dinner where Bort had died, "I presume that you prepared the porridge yourself? Was there anyone who could have added something to the pot over the course of the dinner?
"Did you notice anything unusual before the fight broke out?"
Amora frowns curiously. "Hrm. Well, there's enough H's around. That miserable sold is always at the Feedmill bullying Phinick I suppose. But please, come in!"
She leads you into the house. "I have biscuits on, and some fresh honey. Have a seat and I'll be happy to treat you."
As she bustles around her hearth she calls over her shoulder. "The trees took on a sickness a few years ago, I moved into the shack after that point as the tender moved to Almas. And yes - I prepared the porridge, which was fine! Half the FEedmill ate it and only Bort died. I didn't notice anything unusual. I made the porridge, Phinick plated it, and Trin served it."
She sets out several fresh biscuits and generously drizzles them with honey before beaming at you expectantly. "Oh I do hope you clear my name."
Osveta takes a biscuit as a sign of good faith, and partially hunger, and takes a bit. Chewing and swallowing she smiles. "And where can we find that miserable old sod?"
Milo studied Amora, trying to figure out if she might have any ulterior motives about offering them the biscuits.
Gigon takes a little bit more to come in and spends some time examining the plant life.
He's starting to get the hint of a hypothesis. Knowing enough about how plants draw water from the soil, he's starting to realize that there's something in the groundwater itself that may be harming the plants. Why this particular orchard is rotted out but the surrounding forest and fields generally look fine is unknown though.
She frowns. "Honestly, nobody knows where he lives when he's not at the stables. However, I'm relatively sure he lives in town and isn't coming in from the surrounding forest. Maybe he's squatting in one of the abandoned homes. I did that before I got this shack - it's not a good life because the elements aren't kept out, but on a nice day it can be pleasant and private."
"Any particular houses stand out as good options?" Osveta asks.
She wrinkles her nose at the sight of the blighted orchard. Thus far, she has found the world in general to be a rather less…wholesome place than her elven home, but something about the unnatural beasts and peculiar plant life of Plaguestone (which, truthfully, is beginning to strike her as the more appropriate name for it) especially creeps her out. Then again, on some level Anghariel feels that she deserves no less than to be exposed to such foulness.
“Don’t worry, we are not suspecting you,” she tells Amora once inside the shack. “Making sense of whatever happened is proving quite difficult, though, so we’re trying to speak to as many of the townsfolk about it as we can.” The elf seems to think nothing of possibly being offered poisoned food in the course of investigating a case of poisoned food, and gratefully accepts a biscuit. “It sounds like this man will be almost as difficult to track down as Phinick. I don’t suppose you have any pointers as to where the goblin could be found, Amora?”
Milo nibbled on a biscuit and listened to Amora talking about the goblin server. "How many abandoned houses are there, roughly?", he asked her. Unlike the others, he hadn't ruled her out as a suspect yet. He suspected that she was telling the truth, but he wanted to keep an open mind.
"I'm not usually one to jump to conclusions..." Pollo says, right before he jumps to a conclusion, "but if your intuition is correct Gigon, and there is something in the water, I could see how that could affect both the plants and the animals around here. What if..." Pollo pauses for dramatic effect.
"What if the reagents that Bort was supplying are being used to cause the blight around here? What if Bort found out what was going on and the person responsible decided to silence him for it?" Pollo ponders this for a moment.
"You know Gigon, there might be a way to test your water hypothesis. Anyone feel like dropping down a well to see what we can find?"
”Not it.”
Amora seems honest. Brash, but honest.
Amora shrugs helplessly. "A... a dozen or so? It's not a big down and some of them are quite ruined. I didn't quite love my life there so try to ignore it. And I've given you my best pointer, if he lives in town, I bet he lives in the abandoned buildings but that's the most I have."
Milo consulted with his friends about what to do next, "It seems we have abandoned houses to search, and rosemary to collect (with the possibility of fighting a bear). Preference?"
"Whichever is closer."
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Pollo rolls his neck, eliciting a few cracking and popping sounds. "Let's go wrestle a bear." he says, flashing a wink towards Osveta.
"You know Gigon, there might be a way to test your water hypothesis. Anyone feel like dropping down a well to see what we can find?"
Looking at Pollo the Gnome responded, "I'll go down, as long as one of you doesn't let the rope go."
Then turning back to the woman, "As to your bee problem, you said that all you would need is some smoke, correct? I might be able to help you with that."
"Hopefully we can bribe it with honey," Osveta chuckles at Pollo. "These are really yummy."
She smiles at Gigon. "What do you have? I try to smoke them out to calm them on my own, but it's hard to keep a good smoke going."
-------
Following Edra's directions, you leave Amora who waves cheerfully, extremely pleased that you're trying to find the real killer. The spot with the rosemary is not too far from Amora's and after a fifteen minute walk, you find the trailhead. Down the trail a ways, and you can an area where the herb grows thickly, its purple flowers almost done for the season. You see the brown fur of a bear through the bushes - it appears to be sleeping.
"It's sleeping, want to go for a sneaky approach?" Osveta whispers to the others.
Looking at Ovesta, "That would be a good idea."
“We may not have to get too close at all,” Anghariel murmurs. “Allow me? I know a spell for just such an occasion.”
Milo eyed the bear warily. He replied to Anghariel, "OK, let's see what ya got."
He watched her try her spell, ready to sneak up to the bush if necessary.
Cautiously and carefully, Pollo takes his shield and flail from their locations on his body and crouches down into a defensive stance. His eyes are fixed on the bear, studying it's breathing patterns as the others work to gather the rosemary. He hardly dare breath himself for fear of waking the ursine creature up. If it does though, he will at least be ready to try to ward it off.
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Osveta realizes she has never petted a bear before, but doesn't bring that fact up or otherwise try to act on it since that didn't seem like I good idea at the moment as she watches Anghariel work her magic.
Maybe some other time.
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I wonder what it would be like to pet a bear... Would a bear make a good pet? Pollo wonders, but keeps his thoughts to himself.
Maybe some other time.
Amora looks at Gigon with wide eyes. "Could you?! I have a special suit to stop getting stung but the smoke I make is... inconsistent. It can help but if you have a bette way to smoke them that would change my life."
Anghariel extends her hand, and the rosemary starts getting pulled towards the elf. Unfortunately, although this is a stealthy way to get the herbs, rosemary is a woody, tough herb. The five pounds the spell allows for isn't enough to break the stems. They need to be cut somehow.
Milo watched as Anghariel struggled with the rosemary with her spell. He told his friends, "It looks like someone needs to cut it by hand. I'm going to sneak up and gather it. Get ready, in case the bear wakes up!"
He crept forward, trying to be a quiet as possible. I don't want to disturb you nap, bear.
Assuming this fails, Milo will use Halfling Luck to re-roll.
Seeing the difficulty in magically obtaining the rosemary, Gigon looked around. Perhaps he could harvest some from around perimeter without disturbing the bear.
"I'm afraid it's not dearie, but I can do my best! I've dealt with the buggers for a while now. I'll make sure you get extra helpings and do whatever I can to help you if this works."
As Gigon gets ready to creep up, Milo is already ahead of him. Creeping on silent little halfling feet, Milo manages to get right up to the beer which is literalyl sleeping inside of the enormous rosemary bush. A few wicks of a knife and Milo manages to harvest a healthy amount of the herb.
You get away and thankfully, the bear is not awakened and nobody is hurt.
---
You start making your way back to the Feedmill to drop off the rosemary. As you head through the market, Gigon notices something... a small figure creeping through the houses. It's Phinick - trying to be very, very quiet.
Taking a knee, the Gnome flew into a frenzy of crafting. Nearly too fast to keep up with, he pulled several different types of herbs and twigs, bound them together with lengths of twine, affixed bits of some sort of stone to the tips and topped if off with some drops of the rain water he had collected the day before.
With the two 'smokesticks' made, the Alchemist stood up and handed them over to Amora. "These will be workable until about this time tomorrow. All you will need to do is get close to the hive in the suit, these two tips together, they will ignite quickly, then toss them at the hive. The smoke will last for only a minute, barring any strong winds, but that should be long enough to incapacitate the bees to remove the hive."
Noticing Phinick, the Gnome reaches up and tugs on the sleeve of Pollo or Osveta and points him out.
As Gigon quietly gets her attention she nods before attempting to sneak over to the goblin.
Seeing Osveta move off, Milo whispered, "What's up?" He looked to see where she seemed to be headed.
"So how big do you think that bear really was?" Pollo asks Osveta, not realizing she is gone. In typical Pollo fashion, he doesn't wait for an answer, and continues to ramble as if the warrior woman were still walking beside him, completely oblivious to her absence.
Unfortunately for Osveta, it's clear that Phinick was avoiding the group and was -very- aware of her before she started sneaking. The moment Osveta starts tring to get out of sight to approach, Phinick lets out a yelp and suddenly tears across the market to escape you!
He does a pretty impressive leap over some carts and bolts northwards.
”Hey! We just want to talk!” Osveta calls out as she gives chase.
Milo ran after the goblin, dodging through the people in the market. "We just want to talk to you, Phinick!"
Quickly reaching for a small bag, like the one he used to incapacitate the drunk the previous night, the Gnome took off after the Goblin as well looking for other possible avenues of pursuit.
"A Ha! Some Fun!" Pollo grins and launches after the slippery goblin.
Pollo tries to vault over the same cars, but the sides of the cart wobble under his weight. He has a momentary worry that it might not hold, but keeps his eyes on the running goblin.